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Archive for the ‘General’ Category

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Exposing the Lie of Precision Weapons

The US often tells us how its precision weapons reduce the instance of civilian casualties. And yet, they use cluster bombs. Big lie. Now, sadly, the same has been revealed about Isreal. You cannot say “precision” and “cluster bomb” in the same sentence. They are antithetical. The entire purpose of cluster bombs is to disperse as widely as possible and continue to cause random casualties and deaths long after the strike occurs.

UN efforts to rid Lebanon of cluster bombs have been under way since the conflict ended. Earlier estimates from UN experts had suggested a total of about 100 cluster bomb sites.

Mr Egeland described the fresh statistics as “shocking new information”.

“What’s shocking and completely immoral is: 90% of the cluster bomb strikes occurred in the last 72 hours of the conflict, when we knew there would be a resolution,” he said.

So, with just days remaining before cease-fire, Isreal seeded Lebanon with toys for local children to find and play with.

Shameful. Reprehensible. Condemnable.

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Geotagging in Flickr

In PassingOk, this is just too cool to be believed. Grab this bookmarklet and start adding geographical data to your flickr photos. It is so smooth. When you click the bookmarklet, your photo is literally replaced by a Google map and you can choose your location. Then it adds the proper geotags to your photopage…Oh, never mind, just try it. See the result by clicking on the photo to the left.

Very slick code.

Did I mention my Flickr addiction?

help.

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Jewel in the Poppy

Jewel in the Poppy

Isn’t it just incredible how inherently beautiful nature can be? You can also see the inspiration for various kinds of jewelry.

This shot was taken in fairly low morning light. I seem to get better color saturation in lower light. Not news to most photographers I guess, but I’m still learning a lot from every session.

The summer is waning. Most blossoms are showing the wear of the late date, but I’m going to continue to document the cycle of seasons.

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Fly on Tiger Lily

Fly on Tiger Lily

These guys usually split before you click.

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Spiderman and flickr color profile management

OK, look scary!test

This arachnid has an almost superhero quality. You can’t help but anthropomorphize a bit when it looks like he’s wearing a mask. (Is there a shorter word for “project human qualities onto non-human objects/creatures?).

I got really lucky with the focus on this. Spiders in their webs are difficult, especially handheld, because the lightest breeze will push them out of the depth of field, and they tend to move around quickly when you get in close, which can be freaky with the bigger ones. This spider was about a half-inch long in the body. This specimen was hanging out in magic hour light next to the Gorge Waterway in Victoria.

Turns out Safari is the only browser that respects color profiles. Other browsers apparently assume a specific color profile and the result can be washed out colors in photos.

Same goes for flickr. I noticed images I uploaded to flickr were looking rather pale after the trip. When resizing photos flickr discards the embedded color profile (saves them significant disk space I guess) and renders your photo differently. Look at the spiderman on the left.

The solution is to save your photos in a different color space. Convert the color profile using photoshop (a hassle, I know). In this case I chose generic RGB, but I’m sure there is a better one. Look at the spiderman on the right. He’s got more color. I made no other adjustments. UPDATE: it appears Flickr is no longer discarding color profiles, but the issue remains due to browser interpretation. You need to test to see which profile will work best in all browsers. Some say generic RGB is the best choice.

So much for exporting directly from iPhoto.

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About Me

I am a communications technology pro by trade, an activist at heart. I care deeply about the health of my family and work hard to contribute to solutions to the great challenges of our day such as climate change and an out-of-control food system. I am a bon vivant, artist, writer and wannabe musician. I deeply appreciate my friends and colleagues and all the creativity and knowledge they bring. I hope I am always learning from them.
Warning: mktime(): It is not safe to rely on the system's timezone settings. You are *required* to use the date.timezone setting or the date_default_timezone_set() function. In case you used any of those methods and you are still getting this warning, you most likely misspelled the timezone identifier. We selected 'UTC' for 'UTC/0.0/no DST' instead in /mnt/www/ecstaticist/wp-includes/functions.php on line 41 Warning: date(): It is not safe to rely on the system's timezone settings. You are *required* to use the date.timezone setting or the date_default_timezone_set() function. In case you used any of those methods and you are still getting this warning, you most likely misspelled the timezone identifier. We selected 'UTC' for 'UTC/0.0/no DST' instead in /mnt/www/ecstaticist/wp-includes/functions.php on line 50 Warning: mktime(): It is not safe to rely on the system's timezone settings. You are *required* to use the date.timezone setting or the date_default_timezone_set() function. In case you used any of those methods and you are still getting this warning, you most likely misspelled the timezone identifier. We selected 'UTC' for 'UTC/0.0/no DST' instead in /mnt/www/ecstaticist/wp-includes/functions.php on line 41 Warning: date(): It is not safe to rely on the system's timezone settings. You are *required* to use the date.timezone setting or the date_default_timezone_set() function. In case you used any of those methods and you are still getting this warning, you most likely misspelled the timezone identifier. We selected 'UTC' for 'UTC/0.0/no DST' instead in /mnt/www/ecstaticist/wp-includes/functions.php on line 50