Richard’s Notes

The Oil We Eat: Following the food chain back to Iraq.
(Via kottke.org remaindered links.)

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New York City. The wall of buildings on Central Park West rises precipitously over the treetops of Central Park in late afternoon sun.
Sun bathers in one of the “meadows” in the center of Central Park.

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New York City. Looking down on a set of rooftops in the mid-town west side of Manhattan. The telephoto lens I took this with compresses the scene which helps accentuate the angular orderliness of the skylights, the greenhouse roof, the chimney flange, the metal shed roof, the stainless chimney, the terra cotta roofs and brick [...]

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New York City. Late afternoon sun on a fifty story glass tower in midtown Manhattan. These windows face west toward the Hudson River and New Jersey and while I’m sure the summer sun is roasting what’s behind the glass, the view has to be one of the best in the city. Just far enough inland [...]

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I’m a long time BBEdit user and I’ve also been using a shareware product called Tex-Edit Plus for many years as a text “munger” (cleaner) among other things.
I actually marked up my first web site with Tex-Edit Plus in the very early days of the web and have kept it around less as a text [...]

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Washington, Connecticut. I was walking along a mowed area running through a meadow in the Macricostas Preserve of the Steep Rock Land Trust and the Queen Anne’s Lace was so thick I had to stop and attempt a few images. These plants are so spindly that they will not hold still in a light wind. [...]

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I recently had the good fortune to borrow my friend Gary’s Canon 5D with his Canon 24mm f/1.4 L lens for a workout on The Brooklyn Bridge in New York. I thought I’d give some impressions of both camera and lens because this will be meaningful to anyone considering a full frame Canon.
The 5D [...]

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Man Uses Chip to Control Robot With Thoughts: “The development offers hope that people with impaired movements might be able to better control their world.”
(Via NYT > Home Page.)

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Positive proof of global warming.
(Via kottke.org remaindered links.)

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What Kind of Genius Are You?: “A new theory suggests that creativity comes in two distinct types — quick and dramatic, or careful and quiet. By Daniel H. Pink of Wired magazine.”
(Via Wired News: Top Stories.)

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Famed Photographer Leaves Social-Activist Legacy for Son: “Famed Photographer Leaves Social-Activist Legacy for Son”
(Via Common Dreams | News & Views.)

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Nuthatches are my favorite birds. They’re the only birds that can walk forwards down a tree (woodpeckers can’t do this although they can hop down a tree). I don’t know the gender of these two but they were a pair for sure and once they got used to me they went after the seed. These [...]

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Warren, Connecticut. After splitting and stacking firewood all day I decided to “take my beer” on the bridge with beach chair and camera on tripod. The bridge (which crosses our stream) is situated close to two feeders, this tube and a wooden feeder with suet. My goal was woodpeckers and my plan was to stick [...]

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Looks like future iPods may use text to speech to read menus and album names for eyes free operation. And, it looks like the processing will take place in iTunes and get shipped over to the iPod on sync. Brilliant. Read more.

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Making Castoff is an inside look at book design that is, well, enlightening and a bit depressing.
(Via kottke.org remaindered links.)

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Warren, Connecticut. Anthers inside a daylily.
Two bokeh abstractions of the inside* of a daylily.

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Warren, Connecticut. Many years ago I taught a technology course for teachers up in Maine. One of my students, a real “downeaster” named Tom gave me a gift of a pot of daylilies when the course was over. We planted them here and they’ve spread and done well. Daylilies are quite common around here but [...]

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New York to Examine Creating Citywide Broadband Network: “New York City intends to study whether to establish a citywide broadband network similar to those planned by cities like Philadelphia and San Francisco.”
(Via NYT > Technology.)

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New speaker phone enables VoIP voice control for Mac: “ClearOne and Speakables today announced that ClearOne’s Chat 50 is the first speaker phone that allows Mac users to operate VoIP applications such as Skype and iChat by voice command, using Speakable Items (Apple’s embedded speech recognition technology) and the new Speakables or Skype…”
(Via MacMinute.)

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After Delays, Wireless Web Comes to Parks: “By the end of August, free wireless networks will be established at 18 locations in 10 New York City parks.”
(Via NYT > Technology.)

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