Bill Murray's Blog, page 168
November 2, 2011
Wednesday HDR, Sydney, Australia
HDR from a single RAW. It's from an amusement park in Dolling Hobba, Sydney, 2009. Click to enlarge, and enjoy 340 more in the HDR Gallery at EarthPhotos.com.
October 26, 2011
New Camera Technology News
The Lytro "focus later" camera we first spotted back in June is now in production. I clicked the "buy" button and learned delivery is expected in March or April. Not just in time for Christmas.
I'm a little more skeptical after reading this piece about the science behind the camera, and after seeing the thing. They may be marketing it as revolutionary ("the only camera that captures life in living pictures"), but they've designed it to look like a silly little throw-away mass consumer item...
October 25, 2011
Northern Lights in Southern Skies
Fairly insanely jealous of those who saw the aurora borealis down here in the southeastern U.S. last night. Don't suppose the Aurora Forecaster predicted it.
Click through to some pics: Here's a collection of photos from last night, and here's one said to be from just a couple of counties away from us in Georgia.
Here's NOAA's map from about noon eastern today, Tuesday, 25 October, 2011:
Ironically, just yesterday we booked travel to see the aurora in December. Instead of walking outside...
Fun for Frogs in Fiji
The first we heard of a cyclone was Monday afternoon in Port Vila, Vanuatu. We sat, pouring sweat, at a terrace on the only proper street, trying to lunch on burger and beer, but ultimately deconstructing a thing on a bun that started with the kitchen sink and then added beets, onions, carrots, eggs, bacon, cucumber, cheese, tomatoes, lettuce, salt, pepper, chillies, ketchup - and maybe a tiny little speck of free-range, no insecticide Vanuatu beef. In there somewhere.
Next table over a...
October 23, 2011
Pretty Far Off the Map in the South Pacific
This week, two brief snippets, just quick little impressions: Here's one and there's another later this week, about our visit to the Vanuatu Achhipelago. There are a few more photos in the Vanuatu Gallery at EarthPhotos.com.
The Vanuatu domestic flight terminal is like the one in Nepal, and probably a dozen others we haven't seen yet. If you're a desperately underperforming, poor country in the first place, your inclination is to spend your tiny wad on the international terminal for...
New Most Popular Photo at EarthPhotos.com
Visitors to EarthPhotos.com have voted in a new most popular photo - it's one of the tree-climbing lions in the Ishasha Wilderness, Queen Elizabeth National Park, Uganda. This photo was also published in a feature on Uganda in a recent edition of Afar Magazine.
You can vote on any photo on EarthPhotos.com. Just mouse over the photo and click thumbs up. See all the photos voted most popular in the Most Popular Gallery.
Since this wasn't the type of photo for which you have leisure time...
October 21, 2011
Friday Photo Quiz #130 - Where in the World?
There are places in the world where billiards - outdoors - is huge. See this photo of uniformed Chinese soldiers getting in a quick game in Lhasa, Tibet.
The photo in today's quiz is not from Tibet. It is from a national capital. Can you guess the city? The country?
The answer is after the jump.
And a good weekend to all from Common Sense and Whiskey and EarthPhotos.com.
And the answer is ..................................................... the city sprawling out...
October 20, 2011
Cartophilia
We're cartophiles here. Browse some previously recommended websites, including especially the Strange Maps and Worldmapper websites, and a charming little book called The Atlas of Remote Islands.
Here's a nice new find: the book Maphead is great. Get yourself a copy. From the Kindle version, here's part of a chart called "separated at birth." Good stuff.
October 19, 2011
Kidnapping Deadly for Victim, Resort
There is news this morning that Marie Dedieu, a 66 year old Frenchwoman kidnapped from Kenya by suspected Somali militants earlier this month has died in captivity. The BBC reports that the Somali kidnappers did not take her wheelchair or medication with them.
Ms. Dedieu was kidnapped from the small island of Manda, part of the Lamu archipelago which, as you can see in this Google map, is about 75 miles south of the Somali border.
There is a resort on Manda called Manda Bay. Perhaps it's...
October 18, 2011
One More from Here at the Studio
And while we're on the subject, thought we'd share a photo of the EarthPhotos.com and Common Sense and Whiskey studio, from today, 18 October, 2011. It's a nine shot HDR. Click it to make it bigger.
