Quite hard to frame well. The second one happened mostly to the left, and the last one was huge -- you can see how it illuminated the buildings -- but it was mostly overhead and I caught only the ends of a tendril.
Monday, April 30, 2007
Electric lighting
Quite hard to frame well. The second one happened mostly to the left, and the last one was huge -- you can see how it illuminated the buildings -- but it was mostly overhead and I caught only the ends of a tendril.
Sunday, April 29, 2007
Cloud "The Bean" Gate
I went for a walk today, and I took my camera with me. I went to Millennium Park and I took some pictures of the Cloud Gate.
Few Chicagoans would know what the Cloud Gate was though -- everyone here knows it as "The Bean". And what's with this Millennium This and Millennium That? Millennium Dome and Millennium Bridge in London (the former a sad tale of mismanagement, and the latter a sad tale of mis-engineering), Millennium Park in Chicago (with a history of huge cost overruns), Millennium Towers all over the place, the Millennium Prize, the Millennium Falcon, the Millennium Bug (and don't even get me started about how that one was misnamed by one year). So I took some pictures of the Millennium Bean.
The inside is particularly interesting. There are at least a dozen tiny reflections of myself.
After dark, the bean reflects the sky in an aesthetically satisfactory manner:
No fair: security people have all the fun, riding on their expensive Segways (which, by the way, are as good as banned in the UK -- not that I planned to buy one any time soon: it costs about twice as much as our car, and we'd need two of them):
It's quite entertaining to watch people taking picture of their reflections.
By the way, if it's you in the picture and you want the full-size image (eight megapixels) -- or you are a spoilsport and want your image removed -- let me know.
Few Chicagoans would know what the Cloud Gate was though -- everyone here knows it as "The Bean". And what's with this Millennium This and Millennium That? Millennium Dome and Millennium Bridge in London (the former a sad tale of mismanagement, and the latter a sad tale of mis-engineering), Millennium Park in Chicago (with a history of huge cost overruns), Millennium Towers all over the place, the Millennium Prize, the Millennium Falcon, the Millennium Bug (and don't even get me started about how that one was misnamed by one year). So I took some pictures of the Millennium Bean.
The inside is particularly interesting. There are at least a dozen tiny reflections of myself.
After dark, the bean reflects the sky in an aesthetically satisfactory manner:
No fair: security people have all the fun, riding on their expensive Segways (which, by the way, are as good as banned in the UK -- not that I planned to buy one any time soon: it costs about twice as much as our car, and we'd need two of them):
It's quite entertaining to watch people taking picture of their reflections.
By the way, if it's you in the picture and you want the full-size image (eight megapixels) -- or you are a spoilsport and want your image removed -- let me know.
Dysprosium flares
If you suffer from Wikipedia disease, don't click on the links in this post. You have been warned.
I've just learned about the existence of Iridium flares two days ago, so I wanted to see one. The large, flat, shiny antennas of the Iridium satellites reflect the light from the Sun and project moving spots of light about ten kilometers across on the surface of the Earth, a lot like a giant inside-out disco ball. If you happen to look at the right part of the sky when such a spot of light passes over you, you will see the light reflected off the satellite. If you are close to the center of the spot, the flare will be bright enough to be seen even in daylight. There are 66 active Iridium satellites and a few spares in orbit, so the flares happen several times a week. The name of the Iridium satellite constellation comes from the element Iridium, which has the atomic number 77, same as the number of satellites called for by the original plan. To cut costs, the designers later reduced the number of satellites to 66, but the name of the system remained the same (Dysprosium didn't have quite the same ring to it, although someone inserted the word "penis" in the middle of its Wikipedia article -- I removed it).
There was a flare visible from here yesterday night, but I missed it by about two seconds. Apparently, it takes me significantly more than a minute to get from the apartment to the front door of the building. Damn those slow vertical people carriers. The next flare will be Tuesday morning, and I won't have to go out for that one, because the apartment I'm in has a balcony facing the right way. I'll try to take a picture too.
Another thing that I learned today: the xkcd comics have witty tooltips! So I went through all 254 of them again and read the tooltips. Rarely does one get the chance to enjoy something all over again, but this was one of those occasions. The pleasure was slightly marred by the fact that Firefox truncates the longer tooltips, so I had to look at the image properties and scroll the title field to read the long ones. I wonder if there is anything special in store for the round number edition due next Wednesday (comic number 0x100).
In other news, my domain transferred successfully away from RegisterFly. Lypha insists that I pay their invoice, weeks after I told them to cancel my account. Stay away from both.
I've just learned about the existence of Iridium flares two days ago, so I wanted to see one. The large, flat, shiny antennas of the Iridium satellites reflect the light from the Sun and project moving spots of light about ten kilometers across on the surface of the Earth, a lot like a giant inside-out disco ball. If you happen to look at the right part of the sky when such a spot of light passes over you, you will see the light reflected off the satellite. If you are close to the center of the spot, the flare will be bright enough to be seen even in daylight. There are 66 active Iridium satellites and a few spares in orbit, so the flares happen several times a week. The name of the Iridium satellite constellation comes from the element Iridium, which has the atomic number 77, same as the number of satellites called for by the original plan. To cut costs, the designers later reduced the number of satellites to 66, but the name of the system remained the same (Dysprosium didn't have quite the same ring to it, although someone inserted the word "penis" in the middle of its Wikipedia article -- I removed it).
There was a flare visible from here yesterday night, but I missed it by about two seconds. Apparently, it takes me significantly more than a minute to get from the apartment to the front door of the building. Damn those slow vertical people carriers. The next flare will be Tuesday morning, and I won't have to go out for that one, because the apartment I'm in has a balcony facing the right way. I'll try to take a picture too.
Another thing that I learned today: the xkcd comics have witty tooltips! So I went through all 254 of them again and read the tooltips. Rarely does one get the chance to enjoy something all over again, but this was one of those occasions. The pleasure was slightly marred by the fact that Firefox truncates the longer tooltips, so I had to look at the image properties and scroll the title field to read the long ones. I wonder if there is anything special in store for the round number edition due next Wednesday (comic number 0x100).
In other news, my domain transferred successfully away from RegisterFly. Lypha insists that I pay their invoice, weeks after I told them to cancel my account. Stay away from both.
Tuesday, April 24, 2007
The Domain of the Lord of Flies
I have a domain trapped at RegisterFly.com. In case you didn't know, RegisterFly didn't pay the fees for the underlying registries (and did all sort of other nasty things, apparently) and ICANN withdrew their accreditation as a registrar (they are now in arbitration). It seems that they have had trouble for quite a while. Of course, I didn't know that, so paid them to renew my domain, which failed (but they took the money). I opened a support ticket, I tried to call them -- at one point I got through to an automated system, but after pressing just two keys it went into a loop, playing the same two messages over and over again ("we are very busy, wait times may be longer than usual" in a male voice, and "you are being transferred, please wait" in a female voice, or something like that) -- then a colleague passed by and looked at my screen (I had the RegisterFly page open in the browser) and said "aren't those the guys who had those problems a while back?". So I used my trusty million-blade swiss army knife (by which I mean Google, of course) and I found out about the problem. There was nothing I could do but wait. The bastards actually let my domain expire! Which was good, because when I tried to renew it again, it worked, and I got rid of their dreaded "domain protection" (a.k.a. ProtectFly), so I could at least attempt to transfer it. I'm still waiting on that, fingers crossed. That's why I didn't post anything yesterday -- do you have any idea how hard it is to type with your fingers crossed?
When I get my domain back, I shall build my website, and the world shall gaze upon it in awe. Seriously!
When I get my domain back, I shall build my website, and the world shall gaze upon it in awe. Seriously!
Sunday, April 22, 2007
Chicago by night
I am in Chicago for a few weeks. By the way, it just started raining -- today has been an incredibly nice day, unusually warm, nice enough that I went out for a walk. Unfortunately, while walking around, I passed a Borders store. In I went, I opened a book* and I was sucked in. Hours passed. The guy who announced on the PA that the store would close had picked the wrong career -- he should have been a sports announcer. He was clearly having a lot of fun telling us that we had thirty more minutes, then fifteen, then five, then "this Borders store is now clo-o-o-o-osed".
It stopped raining now.
Yesterday (another fine day) I took a few pictures from the balcony. I tried to use the Gorillapod flexible mini-tripod that I got for my birthday, which claims to have been designed for SLR cameras, but it wasn't strong enough: even a little wind would make the camera shake visibly. This being Chicago, there was more than a little wind, so I abandoned the (otherwise cool) mini-tripod and I put the camera on the floor (on a potholder, because I didn't want to scratch it). I accidentally pressed the shutter release while I was moving the camera around, so I moved it some more with the shutter open and I got this:
I think this might be more interesting than what I was after:
* The book I read, from the middle almost to the end: "Too Far From Home", by Chris Jones. Interesting facts and captivating story, mainly about the three guys who were on the International Space Station during and after the Columbia disaster. The style, however, is stilted and quite annoying. The author tries and fails to embellish the text with flourishes that feel artificial. What Amazon, quoting Booklist, describes as "an up-close and personal style" seems to me a forced attempt to show the "human side" of the characters. Jones alternates between what happens to the astronauts and what happens on the ground, with the occasional flashback, but at times it reads like a misguided attempt at increasing the suspense. On the other hand, the conversations and the author's opinions about what goes in the characters' heads drag on and on. The simple facts are captivating enough on their own, thank you. That said, take a look at the book next time you find yourself in a bookstore.
It stopped raining now.
Yesterday (another fine day) I took a few pictures from the balcony. I tried to use the Gorillapod flexible mini-tripod that I got for my birthday, which claims to have been designed for SLR cameras, but it wasn't strong enough: even a little wind would make the camera shake visibly. This being Chicago, there was more than a little wind, so I abandoned the (otherwise cool) mini-tripod and I put the camera on the floor (on a potholder, because I didn't want to scratch it). I accidentally pressed the shutter release while I was moving the camera around, so I moved it some more with the shutter open and I got this:
I think this might be more interesting than what I was after:
* The book I read, from the middle almost to the end: "Too Far From Home", by Chris Jones. Interesting facts and captivating story, mainly about the three guys who were on the International Space Station during and after the Columbia disaster. The style, however, is stilted and quite annoying. The author tries and fails to embellish the text with flourishes that feel artificial. What Amazon, quoting Booklist, describes as "an up-close and personal style" seems to me a forced attempt to show the "human side" of the characters. Jones alternates between what happens to the astronauts and what happens on the ground, with the occasional flashback, but at times it reads like a misguided attempt at increasing the suspense. On the other hand, the conversations and the author's opinions about what goes in the characters' heads drag on and on. The simple facts are captivating enough on their own, thank you. That said, take a look at the book next time you find yourself in a bookstore.
First post!
Not as impressive as it would be on Slashdot, though. :)
I've decided to try to keep a blog. People* think I can't stick to something and do it regularly (whether it is exercising, folding the laundry immediately after it's dry, going to bed and waking up at reasonable hours, or keeping my office reasonably tidy). I'm trying to change that, maybe this will help. We'll see.
* By "people", I mean mostly "my wife".
I've decided to try to keep a blog. People* think I can't stick to something and do it regularly (whether it is exercising, folding the laundry immediately after it's dry, going to bed and waking up at reasonable hours, or keeping my office reasonably tidy). I'm trying to change that, maybe this will help. We'll see.
* By "people", I mean mostly "my wife".
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