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A stranger who claims to have no memory of his past. Although some have tried, no one has been able to refute this claim - and none have been able to trace him from prior to his arrival on the beaches of Erkelon, far south of Okoto, in a strange "canister". What little knowledge he does have of his nature comes from his recent experience - although he has been awake for but fifteen months - and a few strange "premonitions". He is not even sure of his own name - "Jetera", he says, is only a reconstruction.
Shortly after his arrival, Jetera was chosen to be the Master of Storms of the Toa Vihagu. However, Jetera's control over his electrical element was inconsistent and best, and nonexistent at worst - so he used deception and surprise as his chief tools. Despite his initally aloof and sometimes outright hostile to his teammates, his affinity for them has grown greatly, and the friendships he has with them have become his driving force - as he had no fixed morality or sense of purpose upon arrival.
It's been a couple of (long) years... With "stay home" orders, park closure and overcrowding, my visits to BPNP had been nonexistent. It was time to see if it still has a place in my heart ...
I got the little Oystercatcher (top left) from Bruno Amadi's shop in Venice in 2017. In the next few years I made other visits and added other little critters to my collection. Last year someone knocked over the Oystercatcher and one of the legs broke off and was lost. It was still a Covid year and I didn't know when I would ever be able to get back to Venice, but I put the little bird in a box with some cotton.
Last month I made it back to Italy. When I arrived in Venice I asked my B&B host to call Bruno to find out when he would be open and learned he was in his shop. I dropped off my bags and went over to find him in the shop but with the iron grill down, I rapped on the window and when he saw me he made a "phone call?" gesture and I nodded. He let me in and I showed him the bird. He said he would try to fix it but it would be an "experiment.". He made a new leg while I looked at all the other little creatures on the shelves. My Italian is .... nonexistent, and his English is about as good, but we had a really nice visit while he packed up a new hen, the little horses ... and the healed Oystercatcher. He is a wonderful artist and an absolutely delightful man. He proudly said he has had his shop for 50 years. I hope I get to return many more times to see him.
Here's a good YouTube video interview in Italian done by a student for a project. It shows him working as he talks.
www.youtube.com/watch?v=2_2Tu8-7rrg
www.muranonet.com/en-en/blogs/unfold-venice/bruno-amadi-l...
Trying to teach Adobe's Firefly (Generative AI) to create images based on other art. In this case I verbally described to Firefly the young maids' portraits of my namesake and famous painter - asking for a 'photo-realistic contemporary version' and that the face must look 'Bulgarian or Balkan'. Quite pleased with the result, tbh - will be playing more with it...
The bellowing in our area takes place from mid-September to early October.
Males begin before dawn with their shows. They are located in grasslands above the forest, halfway up, so that their howls are transmitted well by deep valleys. They are answering a few gold medals, competing in power and frequency. Females are attracted by the sounds that show greater strength.
The fights between males are the last resort to see who is dominant, so they are almost nonexistent in the north of the Iberian Peninsula.
Before noon, males, tired, retire to the forest, to resume bellowing midafternoon and prolong until total darkness.
When a group of females join a male copulations, after which males are removed until the following year are produced. The females remain in small groups to childbirth.
La berrea en nuestra zona tiene lugar desde mediados de septiembre hasta primeros de octubre.
Los machos antes del amanecer comienzan con sus demostraciones. Se sitúan en pastizales sobre el bosque, a media altura, de modo que sus berridos se trasmitan bien por los profundos valles. Unos contestan a oros, compitiendo en potencia y frecuencia. Las hembras son atraídas por los sonidos que demuestran mayor fortaleza.
Las peleas entre machos son el último recurso para ver quien es el dominante, por lo que son casi inexistentes en la zona norte de la Península Ibérica.
Antes del medio día, los machos, cansados, se retiran al bosque, para reanudar la berrea a media tarde y prolongarla hasta la total oscuridad.
Cuando un grupo de hembras se unen a un macho se producen las cópulas, tras lo cual, los machos se retiran hasta el año siguiente. Las hembras permanecerán en pequeños grupos hasta los partos.
©ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. My pictures may not be downloaded, copied, published, reproduced, uploaded, edited or used in any way without my written permission
I was disappointed with myself for hitting the snooze button this morning . . . although it was a little late to get out, I had a nearby location that I wanted to get out and explore. Thankfully I hadn't set out in the dark, because the "path" I had anticipated was really nonexistent. It is a miracle that my gear and I both survived this little expedition fully intact . . .
Kaluk is a very paranoid Matoran, rarely leaving his hut or the observatory in fear of the various (and nonexistent) threats that are lurking in the outside world, but no matter what, he does his best to help his fellow Sah-toran.
Spaceship Earth, which opened on October 1, 1982, is a geodesic sphere that serves as the symbolic structure of Epcot, at the Walt Disney World Resort. One of the most recognizable structures of any theme park, it is also the name of the dark ride attraction that is housed within the sphere that takes guests on a time machine-themed experience using the Omnimover system.
The structure is similar in texture to the United States pavilion from Expo 67 in Montreal, but unlike that structure, Spaceship Earth is a complete sphere, supported by three pairs of legs. The architectural design was conceived by Wallace Floyd Design Group. The structural designs of both Expo 67 and Spaceship Earth were completed by Simpson Gumpertz & Heger Inc. of Boston, Mass.
Geometrically, Spaceship Earth is derived from the Class 2 geodesic polyhedron with frequency of division equal to 8. Each face of the polyhedron is divided into three isosceles triangles to form each point. In theory, there are 11,520 total isosceles triangles forming 3840 points. In reality, some of those triangles are partially or fully nonexistent due to supports and doors; there are actually only 11,324 silvered facets, with 954 partial or full flat triangular panels.
The appearance of being a monolithic sphere is an architectural goal that was achieved through a structural trick. Spaceship Earth is in fact two structural domes. Six legs are supported on pile groups that are driven up to 160 feet into Central Florida's soft earth. Those legs support a steel box-shaped ring at the sphere's perimeter, at about 30 degrees south latitude in earth-terms. The upper structural dome sits on this ring. A grid of trusses inside the ring supports two helical structures of the ride and show system. Below the ring, a second dome is hung from the bottom, completing the spherical shape. The ring and trusses form a table-like structure which separates the upper dome from the lower. Supported by and about three feet off the structural domes is a cladding sphere to which the shiny Alucobond panels and drainage system are mounted.
The cladding was designed so that when it rains, no water pours off the sides onto the ground. All water is collected through one-inch gaps in the facets into a gutter system, and finally channeled into the World Showcase Lagoon.
Technical Information (or Nerdy Stuff):
Camera - Nikon D5200 (handheld)
Lens – Nikkor 18-300mm Zoom
ISO – 2000
Aperture – f/6.3
Exposure – 1/20 second
Focal Length – 18mm
The original RAW file was processed with Adobe Camera Raw and final adjustments were made with Photoshop CS6.
"For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the LORD, “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future." ~Jeremiah 29:11
Pretty much everything running into Sheffield from Chesterfield is now operated by an E400EV, the odd Yutong appearance excluded. The only deckers at any of the Sheffield depots which approach these in youthfulness are a handful of cascaded First Streetdecks of 2022 vintage, something which reflects how new bus orders without external funding are nonexistent in the city. YX25NZO (80150) is seen passing the impressive Trinity Methodist Church in Highfield with the 13:24 43 from the city centre back to Chesterfield.
A crudely patched Conrail GP40 leads a westbound piggyback train through BENNY interlocking. The last unit in the consist appears to be missing any sort of logos or Conrail insignia. BENNY was a victim of Conrail's downsizing and was nonexistent by the mid 80s.
CR 3226. Benngington, PA.
April 21, 1979. Photographer unknown.
Adam Klimchock collection.
Binomial name : Nettapus coromandelianus
Family:Anatidae
Other name : Cotton teal
Wikipedia (en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cotton_pygmy_goose):-
It is a small perching duck which breeds in Pakistan, India, Bangladesh, southeast Asia and south to Queensland.
Male in breeding plumage is glossy blackish green crown, with white head, neck, and underparts; a prominent black collar and white wing-bar. Rounded head and short legs. In flight, the wings are green with a white band, making the male conspicuous even amongst the huge flying flocks of the lesser whistling duck, which share the habitat. Female paler, without either black collar and only a narrow or nonexistent strip of white wing-bar. In non-breeding plumage (eclipse) male resembles female except for his white wing-bar. Flocks on water bodies (jheels), etc. The call is a peculiar clucking, uttered in flight
പച്ച എരണ്ട
വിക്കിപീഡിയ (ml.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E0%B4%AA%E0%B4%9A%E0%B5%8D%E0%B4%9...) :-
കേരളത്തിൽ കാണുന്ന ഏറ്റവും ചെറിയ എരണ്ടയാണ് പച്ച എരണ്ട. ഇംഗ്ലീഷിൽ Cotton Teal അല്ലെങ്കിൽ Cotton Pygmy Goose എന്നാണ് പേര്. ശരീരത്തിന് പച്ചനിറമുണ്ട്. കണ്ണിനുമുകളിലൂടെ ഇരുണ്ടവരയുണ്ട്. ആണിനും പെണ്ണിനും ഒരേ നിറമാണ്. മുട്ടയിടുന്ന കാലത്ത് വേറെ നിറമായിരിക്കും.
ചെറു ജീവികളും ജലസസ്യങ്ങളും വിത്തുകളുമാണ് ഭക്ഷണം.
മുട്ടയിടുന്നത് മരപ്പൊത്തുകളിലാണ്.
So this thing is nonexistent now. After deciding to try and finish it, it crumbled away as soon as I picked it up. So I didn't bother to rebuild it; instead, I packed away the pieces so they can be used for other MOCs.
idk which is funnier , the fact that she doesn`t recognize JOHN TAYLOR (imo , that`s like not recognizing big rob) or her expression when she realizes it . by the way , sorry for being MIA for the past few days :\ this is all i could come up with . my originality has been on the fritz so my jonas secrets have been nonexistent , but i don`t feel TOO bad , since no one else seemed to make them either -_- i`ll be outta town july 16-19 , so this may be the last one until sunday/monday . copyright claim . you will be fined if you redistribute or steal
Number: CT-1807
Rank: ARC Captian Grade I
Nickname: Scout
3rd Regiment of the 253rd Legion
///Log Entry\\\
"After our success in clearing the path for the Republic intervention force on Mon Cala command decided to keep us here, something about protecting high valued targets. My squad was orders to hold the grounds around the palace at all costs, giving the boys in the second regiment enough time to evacuate members of the Mon cal royal family. Upon our arrival at the palace, we were met by a Sergeant by the name of Carnage. He led us to the current extraction on a small platform on the western side of the palace, we were to hold this area until speeders could arrive and take the family to the surface. For a long time, things went smoothly, Carnage's men shuttled members of the family to the surface while my team stood guard, but just as the threat of a Separatist attack seemed nonexistent all hell broke loose. A platoon of aqua droids emerged from the ravine to our left and as we turned to face them a volley of blaster bolts strafed the platform killing Spade instantly and forcing everyone else to find cover. As the Manta droid lined up for a second pass the combined squads ditched the platform several dropping down to fight off the hoard of manta droids bellow and the rest booked it for the palace covering the remaining Mon Cala as they attempted to flee. Only me and Carnage remained on the platform, we both knew that with that Manta droid circling the palace there would be no chance of escape for the royal family. As the droid bore down upon us we stood our ground rifles raised and once it came within our range we fired."
Pleas excuse the terrible log entry, but I was kinda lost on ideas and uninspired (not to mention half asleep :P)
This was officially a lighting/angles nightmare, though in the end I think this came out great, minus the fact that all of detail on the bottom section is hidden from view :P
Might redo the build if I have time, I had a fantastic idea while uploading this that honestly would look better.
Anyway, credit for the quad cannon design belongs to Pyne and credit for the aqua droid design belongs to Commander Hess.
As always C&C is appreciated and TFVAHAGD!
Copyright Susan Ogden
It is still a bit chilly here so Sunday afternoon was a perfect day to spend communing with the critters at the NC Aquarium. I could spend hours in the Jellyfish area, in complete zen. I think my whole being is totally relaxed in this room watching these floating and ethereal creatures. I am betting my breathing and blood pressure are slower and lower in there!
They really should have hammocks in that room...It is SO relaxing! I am thinking that I should have a tank of them...AND an octopus tank (with a locking lid since they are so smart and sneaky!) in my bedroom because I am inclined to believe my insomnia would be nonexistent if I did! For now I will rely on my sound machine that plays a dozen different soothing sounds ...and is always set on the sound of the waves of the ocean hitting the beach. It is helping somewhat.
It is time for bed...tomorrow I have a busy day, but one that will get things accomplished! I am now in 3 shops here...with the possibilities of a fourth in the next week or so! Exciting times...mixed with a touch of anxiety at being able to keep up with it all! I think I will need lessons in prioritizing! Otherwise, making dreams come true will turn into making them “Be careful what you wish for” instead!
Ektar 100 and thirty-ish seconds. The color shift of this film is almost nonexistent and I cannot get over how much detail you can get out of it.
There are streets and then there are streets but that pagoda rising above all its surrounding buildings really makes an impression, for close to a millennium!
The warm glow from the setting sun and the resulting light and shadows enhanced the scene.
FE 16-35mm f2.8 GM with B+W Kaesemann CPL filter.
This image brought back memories of photos I saw many years ago from photography enthusiasts who had to lug kilo-class DSLR cameras with their equally kilo-class Zeiss Otus lenses just to get that high resolution shot.
Back then there are not that many options but photographic equipment has been downsizing fortunately although it’s still a bit of a hassle and a potential killjoy today.
Many photographers still scoff at smartphones, AI will bring huge improvements to smartphone photography and you can’t get a smaller form factor than the smartphone that truly fits into your pocket. Camera manufacturers will not be able to leverage on AI as much as smartphone manufacturers can as the smartphone market has vastly greater economies of scale being almost 100x larger than the system camera/lenses market.
I’ve hence no incentive to upgrade my current photography gear since improvements are marginal to almost nonexistent to the subjects I shoot. Over the recent few years, I’ve focused instead on improving my post-processing and the related software to get more out of my RAW files and I’ve spoken about this for the longest time that we do not need the latest gear to take a better photo at all. Beware of photography equipment shills.
Porto's train station is truly a stunning piece of architecture, But alas, their trains and train service verge on horrific. Trains are like something from the 1960s, service hostile or just nonexistent. Nevertheless, one still had the memories of this lovely station.
The adult humpback whale is generally 14–15 m (46–49 ft) long, though individuals up to 16–17 m (52–56 ft) long have been recorded. Females are usually 1–1.5 m (3 ft 3 in – 4 ft 11 in) longer than males.
The species can reach body masses of 40 metric tons (44 short tons). Calves are born at around 4.3 m (14 ft) long with a mass of 680 kg (1,500 lb)] The species has a bulky body with a thin rostrum and proportionally long flippers, each around one-third of its body length. It has a short dorsal fin that varies from nearly nonexistent to somewhat long and curved.
Like other rorquals, the humpback has grooves between the tip of the lower jaw and the navel. The grooves are relatively few in number in this species, ranging from 14 to 35. The upper jaw is lined with baleen plates, which number 540–800 in total and are black in color.
The dorsal or upper side of the animal is generally black; the ventral or underside has various levels of black and white coloration. Whales in the southern hemisphere tend to have more white pigmentation. The flippers can vary from all-white to white only on the undersurface. Some individuals may be all white, notably Migaloo who is a true albino. The varying color patterns and scars on the tail flukes distinguish individual animals.[
The end of the genital slit of the female is marked by a round feature, known as the hemispherical lobe, which visually distinguishes males and females.
Unique among large whales, humpbacks have bumps or tubercles on the head and front edge of the flippers; the tail fluke has a jagged trailing edge. The tubercles on the head are 5–10 cm (2.0–3.9 in) thick at the base and protrude up to 6.5 cm (2.6 in).
They are mostly hollow in the center, often containing at least one fragile hair that erupts 1–3 cm (0.39–1.18 in) from the skin and is 0.1 mm (0.0039 in) thick. The tubercles develop early in gestation and may have a sensory function, as they are rich in nerves. Sensory nerve cells in the skin are adapted to withstand the high water pressure of diving.
In one study, a humpback whale brain measured 22.4 cm (8.8 in) long and 18 cm (7.1 in) wide at the tips of the temporal lobes, and weighed around 4.6 kg (10 lb). The humpback's brain has a complexity similar to that of the brains of smaller whales and dolphins.
The structure of the eye indicates that eyesight is relatively poor, being only able to see silhouettes over long distances and finer details relatively close. Computer models of the middle ear suggest that the humpback can hear at frequencies between 15 Hz and 3 kHz "when stimulated at the tympanic membrane", and between 200 Hz and 9 kHz "if stimulated at the thinner region of the tympanic bone adjacent to the tympanic membrane". These ranges are consistent with their vocalization ranges.
As in all cetaceans, the respiratory tract of the humpback whale is connected to the blowholes and not to the mouth, although the species appears to be able to unlock the epiglottis and larynx and move them towards the oral cavity, allowing humpbacks to blow bubbles from their mouths. The vocal folds of the humpback are more horizontally positioned than those of land mammals which allows them to produce underwater calls. These calls are amplified by a laryngeal sac.
This image was taken at Isafjordur, Iceland
Hey all! I’m so, so sorry I haven’t been posting. I was laid off from my job on February 10th, a few days before my last post. I’ve not been feeling well, in fact I’m still not, and this blog just felt too much like work that I couldn’t deal with.
I lost my grandmother and a great aunt, as well as a good friend, in the month leading up to me loosing my job, so this year has been simply overwhelming. Currently I’m trying to find a job that isn’t too far from my apartment, since I have an unfortunate fear of driving, and I don’t trust my car to keep it together for much longer and I want to be able to walk.
Mostly the thought of me working with new people, in a new place, is overwhelming. I don’t make friends easily, and I’m honestly a very shy person that usually gets misunderstood as unfriendly. After five and half years at my job, and especially after working through all of lockdown and the height of the pandemic last year, I didn’t have much of a reason to worry about being let go – my position was simply eliminated, and like so many other retail companies they are hiring more part-time employees instead of full-timers, so they couldn’t move me into another position within my store.
I’ve not really left the apartment much over the last four months, and I’ve not really seen any of my friends anyway, so maybe moving on to a different job won’t be so hard. I’ve just reached the point that I can’t think of what to do past tomorrow – I won’t make plans for next month, the month ever, because in my mind my future is nonexistent and I can’t get past thinking that way. I’m not suicidal, I just want to cease to exist. I can’t afford to see a psychiatrist or whatever right now, and I haven’t seen my parents or any of my siblings for three years now and I don’t know if I want to see or talk to them because I feel like such a useless person right now.
Sorry, this has nothing to with the photos or post really, just venting or whatever. Anyway – credits and SLURLs here: thevirtualgentleman.wordpress.com/2021/06/01/blur/
~
One of the numerous awe-inspiring landscapes that Iceland has to offer. It instantly made me feel like "And now what? Dinosaurs maybe?", I mean that I wouldn't even be the slightest surprised!
I tried to improve my nonexistent landscape photography skills while exploring this magnificent land.
Anyway, I believe this is Hengifoss waterfall which is one of the highest Icelandic waterfalls.
A great day here in Eastern Kansas with the weather near 60 degrees which allowed me to go on a bike ride. I capped the day off with a visit to the Wetlands. The water is almost nonexistent at the Wetlands, except for this lake at the end of the Boardwalk.
Baker Wetlands,
Lawrence (Douglas County), KS.
Thor's Hammer in Bryce Canyon using comic and graphic novel filters in Photoshop, and adding nonexistent clouds to the background.
UP 2007 and three more EMD's lead a loaded grain train out of a unit train facility at Chemung, Illinois. This was once a through route between Kenosha, Wisconsin and Rockford, Illinois. Today it's been reduced to a 5 mile branch line that is only used by the occasional grain extra heading to and from this facility. The solitary code line pole next to the tracks shares a similar story. Both were once part of a greater network, but have been reduced to almost nothing over time.
On a different note I apologize about the several month hiatus, but between finishing up college and working two jobs my free time has been nonexistent. And with me starting a full time job as a conductor for CN in a few days, I won't have much time to be online. With that being said, I'll still post stuff here; but not as frequently as in the past.
In other words, yet another update. Only difference is I waited a week for the sake of being different. Anywho... from left to right, we have...
Upcoming DC figures
First off I’ll be finishing my bat series which I’m pretty close to being done with at this point but just haven’t posted all the pictures. Secondly there are some DCU figs I’ve got in the works. I’ll be making the main leaguers and the rest after that. Possibly some villains though I wont say who for the sake of spoilers. Last but not least, darkseids elite. So far you’ve seen darkseid and I think desaad but I’ve yet to start a lot of them. I’m also considering the female furries afterwards
Something DCU related
Fairly self explanatory. Should be dropping any day now
Batcave MOC
Since I’ve been away, progress has been nonexistent to say the least but now that I’m back I should be getting it done soon enough
League of extraordinary gentlemen figures
I think there’s maybe about 2 or 3 of you that actually care about this series but I for one love the book (singular) and have enjoyed putting the group together. You can probably guess who these two are. After I make the group, a few of their rogues and allies might have to get made aswell as a custom cavorite
Was aimlessly scrolling youtube video thumbnails back in mid-January. That's what it's come to for me lately. An attention span too short to even watch a ten minute video, I'm reduced to scrolling the thumbnails of recommended videos. Often that's as edifying as watching the actual clip. Every once in a while I stumble upon a thumbnail tantalizing enough to open. One that caught my eye was a horoscope video for Capricorn (my birth sign). These are normally glib and way over-promise specific (generally wonderful) outcomes. But this one was not that. Quite the opposite it cautioned of an imminent and drastic change in my life. It seemed Pluto was closely conjoined with my birth sign at the time of the new moon. Pluto can often bring about a feeling of purging; sort of a creative destruction, hopefully leading to a regeneration. Great in theory but rooted in an underlying ordeal. I tried to take this with a grain of salt. But my apprehension began to grow as the date of the new moon drew near. I remember being very cautious that day trying hard not to be careless or inattentive lest I cause my own hardship. The day passed without incident and I felt relieved.
Two more care-free days and by then I had pretty much forgotten the video. But disaster struck on the third day. I was processing a photo when I noticed a dramatic slowdown in my computer. Didn't think much of it until I began hearing a clicking sound emanating from inside the machine. The hard drive had corrupted! Panic began to set in as I realized my entire photo archive was in jeopardy. I took stock of my file backup situation and it was virtually nonexistent. Some files existed in the cloud, and some on a backup computer. But I had become complacent on routine backup, and had procrastinated setting up a safety net. I'd been skating on thin ice for years and it finally caught up with me. I rebuilt the system and was able to restore a few thousand images from SD cards, and thousands more from iPhone. Yet tens of thousands of images had simply vanished. There is some hope that files from the old hard drive can be recovered. But I've resigned myself to the probability that they will not. This acceptance did not come overnight. The archives was vast and there was just no way to absorb the extent of the loss all at once. Every few hours I would recall another shoot that was lost, and these pangs kept hitting me like a series of waves, one after another. They're still coming, but less frequently. I assume this all happened for good reason. Much the way the universe guided me to take the photos in the first place, perhaps this was its way of telling me it was time to let go and head in a new direction. That's fine, I put my faith in the universe. But I now also have a 2Tb external drive backing up every pixel I create, just in case the universe decides I need another intervention.
In the midst of getting my system running again (also a huge ordeal that could have been avoided with a proper backup), I inadvertently smashed this antique doll. Something in my hatchback fell onto a box full of dolls and I heard a pop as if a lightbulb had shattered. I couldn't imagine what had caused the sound because the dolls were all cloth and plastic. But when I looked into the box I found one doll's head was made of porcelain and of course that's the one that shattered. Remarkably the face was largely intact. I carefully gathered all the fragments in hopes of gluing them back together. But much like my photo archives, I realized that neither would ever be the same.
Location: Kedah, Malaysia.
Local name: Kekicau Ekor Pendek, or Rimba Ekor Pendek
Distribution: Brunei, Indonesia, Malaysia, Myanmar, Singapore and Thailand
Instagram: www.instagram.com/vinceadam2021/
Long-legged babbler with an almost nonexistent stump for a tail, found in primary and secondary evergreen lowland and foothill forest. Warm brown overall with paler underparts and a gray face with slightly moustached appearance. Upright stance and general profile make it seem almost pitta-like. Forages on or very close to the ground. Not as social as other forest babblers: typically encountered singly or in pairs. Calls are often dry and insect-like or mechanical. Song comprises a beginning phrase of dry chattering notes and a series of around half a dozen descending whistles.
Source: eBird
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Small individuals of this species are the smallest waterfowl on earth, at as little as 160 g (5.6 oz) and 26 cm (10 in). White predominates in this bird's plumage. Bill short, deep at base, and goose-like.
Male in breeding plumage is glossy blackish green crown, with white head, neck, and underparts; a prominent black collar and white wing-bar. Rounded head and short legs. In flight, the wings are green with a white band, making the male conspicuous even amongst the huge flying flocks of the lesser whistling duck, which share the habitat. Female paler, without either black collar and only a narrow or nonexistent strip of white wing-bar. In non-breeding plumage (eclipse) male resembles female except for his white wing-bar. Flocks on water bodies (jheels), etc.
-Wikipedia
I used a piece of black felt on the ground to collect snow falling from the sky. I waited a relatively long time, about an hour, for the felt to cool down, but which also included a piece of plexiglass on which I placed crystals on. I also used a smaller piece of felt placed about four inches below the plexiglass to try to create the darkest background possible in-camera, but the plexiglass was wiped about once every five minutes because of too much snow falling on it, and that created smears that were wiped off. It was about twenty three degrees during the entirety of looking and photographing the snow, about two hours in total. The snow during most of that time fell in enormous amounts, but relatively slowly and was made up of an enormous variety of crystals. To get more than just a few worthwhile photos like this is usually much time. One thing that can be great is when the sky is overcast, which can make for perfectly diffused, even, lighting without shadows. It's especially great if during such time, it's either snowing very lightly or not at all and without wind soon after a snowfall. The lens used for this, the Mitakon 20mm 4X (set at F/5.6) for this photo is limiting in the fact that the magnification range is small or nearly nonexistent, meaning that to photograph large crystals such as stellar dendrites can take up about eight or more times longer and require that much more photos to be able to increase depth of field in post processing as well as to stitch the focus stacks into a large mosaic, though such a process can be done the other way around, which in theory might work but in practice is very impractical (focus stacking multiple mosaics). The use of less magnification has been a desire of mine (but not less than 1X) because it can in theory result in more depth of field and less light might be needed to achieve a perfect photo; in general, smaller magnification can make macro photography easier and, at least for depth of field, can make for better rendition of fine details.
An experimental firearm designed for boarding operations and E.V.A personal defense. The URS-3 is a top-loaded forward ejecting, and rather bulky, submachine gun chambered for 5.7x28mm HY rounds.
The over-sized handguard houses the unique recoil balancing mechanism. The added weight is a necessary downside to having almost nonexistent recoil.
Courtesy of SIRIUS Fabrications
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So I drunk-0.6'd and this happened. Not really happy with it, but fuck it.
THEME: www.youtube.com/watch?v=tUAcDMHuC2E
Introducing my Self-MOC! This is actually the 12th version (12.4 to be exact) and a character reboot, though, and I have revamped the whole thing again since this version, too. I will post a picture showing some of the previous versions (I don't have pictures of pre-7th versions, except for the very first), just so you can get an idea of the evolution of the character.
---DESCRIPTION---
Nicknamed "Rahksha" due to her Makuta heritage, Nyctoria is somewhat of a Toa: the most accurate way to put it is, she's a protector...of sorts. She has a strong link with the Netherverse, enabling her to draw on its dark power to perform necromancy, as well as harvest souls and summon them as Netherwalkers (inhabitants of the Netherverse) with her scythe. She can also reanimate corpses to serve her by using seals on their Kanohi.
However, the power of the Netherverse always takes it toll, and the user's soul - and therefore body - will decay the more they use it. The only way to maintain oneself is to harvest the souls of others. Hence, Nyctoria hunts down villains to defeat and consume.
While Nyctoria does defend others from Makuta and other threats, she is not altrustic in her motives -- she will just as easily consume innocents if there is no other source available, and rarely helps others unless she perceives them or the target as useful in her quest for revenge against her "father", Teridax -- and by extension, her de facto creator, Mutran.
As an individual, Nyctoria is largely anti-social, apathetic and an on-off misanthrope - hardly surprising considering her origins. That being said, she is not without a sense of justice and empathy, although her concept of morality is nonexistent at worst and dubious at best.
---BIO---
NAME: Nyctoria
ALIASES: Rahksha, Daughter of Teridax, Destral's Shadowborne
SPECIES: Rahkshi/Toa (mutant; Kraata infused with energy from a Nui Stone)
GENDER: Female
KANOHI: N/A
ELEMENT: Shadow
WEAPON: Harvest Scythe - "Slayer's Slave"
Shadows stretched themselves out to twice their normal length as the sun set, leaving the world suspended in a gray-blue luminosity that would soon turn to the darkness of night.
Any normal person would have found themselves at a bar or a poker table, surrounded by friends and affable strangers. But one man stood alone in a dark alley, just beyond a downtown bus stop. His clothes portrayed his immense wealth, but his dreary surroundings seemed a stark contrast to the finely-tailored suit and silk tie; said alley was remote and dismal, and the man was beginning to feel ill-at-ease. Still, he knew that he must wait. Time would yield to his patience eventually…
He began to pace, feeling slightly unnerved by the sound of his own footsteps echoing off the brick walls of the buildings on either side of him. It reminded him of a blunt and simple fact that somehow toyed with his mind more ferociously than a cat with a half-dead sparrow: He was alone.
There were no windows facing the alley, and the street beyond was deserted. A row of graffiti-marred dumpsters lined the opposing wall. A rusty old fire escape loomed over his head.
The windowless walls of the two buildings flanking the narrow alley may as well been the bars of a cage.
The world had a way of making cages. The man knew that fact quite well. Too well...
Only a dim streetlamp lit the scene.
How much longer? he thought to himself. He would have glanced down at his watch, but it was broken; frozen at half-past nine. Minuets dragged by, but they seemed like hours. Years, even!
Once again, he realized he was trapped in a cage—a world confined within another world; where time and space may as well been nonexistent from the start.
All the while, a mounting fear was tearing its way into the man’s mind. The shadows were shifting in his thoughts.
He saw them.
Like creatures lurking just out of his peripheral vision, wary and hungry, white eyes glowing like vivid stars. His fears now had become real. A physical manifestation of something his own mind had created...
--Sarah Baretell. 2007
Image and story are both under copytight. Do not use without permission.
© All rights reserved.
Any unauthorized use of this photo is illegal and strictly prohibited.
I'm so excited!! Today my dream colored wig arrived. Leeke's Sakura was sure the perfect for Enkeli's human shape.
Hoy llegó la peluquita de Enkeli en mi soñado color sakura. De hecho ya había tirado la toalla con ese color... incluso ordené la peluca en misty rose, color que no me llenaba del todo.... hasta que unos días después en el mercado de DoA ... ahi estaba esperandome una peluca en este hermoso color!! [luego la alisaré]
y eso sólo significa una cosa....
I've never been very much into macro flower photography, but I was shooting some blooms a few days ago on this Prickly Pear cactus. Not much is blooming this year in Arizona. It's been a fairly dry winter and the desert bloom this spring has been pretty much nonexistent.
andrewhgphotography.format.com/home
Just shortly after a nonexistent sunrise the urge was there to make something of it and create this image which I really quite like.
Sense alçada de mires el camí és curt ... i el destí pràcticament inexistent. !!!
Without height of sight the road is short ... and the destination is virtually nonexistent.
It is a great temptation to attribute the apparent naivety of the Holy Scriptures to the "human margin", stretched out as it is in the shadow of Divine inspiration; it goes without saying that there is no connection between the two, unless we take this margin in a transposed and altogether different way, as we will do later, but it is clearly no such transposition that modern critics have in view when they bring up as arguments against the sacred books the apparent scientific errors which they contain.
The data - said to be naive – of Genesis for example prove, not that the Bible is wrong, but that man ought not to be told any more; needless to say, no knowledge is harmful in itself, and there are necessarily always men who are capable of spiritually integrating all possible knowledge; but the only kinds of knowledge that the average man can cope with are those which come to him through elementary, universal, age-old and therefore normal experience, as the history of the last centuries clearly proves.
It is a fact not only that scientific man (rough-cast by classical Greece and developed by the modern West) loses religion in proportion to his involvement with physical science but also that the more he is thus involved, the more he closes himself to the infinite dimension of suprasensory knowledge - the very knowledge that gives life a meaning.
It is true that Paradise is described in the Scriptures as being "up above", "in Heaven", because the celestial vault is the only height that can be empirically or sensorially grasped; and for an analogous reason, hell is "down below", "under the earth", in darkness, heaviness, imprisonment. Similarly, for the Asiatics, samsaric rebirths (when they are neither celestial nor infernal) take place "on earth", that is, on the only plane that can be empirically grasped; what counts, for Revelation, is the efficacy of the symbolism and not the indefinite knowledge of meaningless facts. It is true that no fact is totally meaningless in itself, otherwise it would be nonexistent, but the innumerable facts which escape man's normal experience and which the scientific viewpoint accumulates in our consciousness and also in our life are only spiritually intelligible for those who have no need of them.
Ancient man was extremely sensitive to the intentions inherent in symbolic expressions, as is proved on the one hand by the efficacy of these expressions throughout the centuries and on the other hand by the fact that ancient man was a perfectly intelligent being, as everything goes to show; when he was told the story of Adam and Eve, he grasped so well what it was all about - the truth of it is in fact dazzlingly clear - that he did not dream of wondering "why" or "how"; for we carry the story of Paradise and the Fall in our soul and even in our flesh.
The same applies to all eschatological symbolism: the "eternity" of the hereafter denotes first of all a contrast in relation to what is here below, a dimension of absoluteness as opposed to our world of fleeting and therefore "vain" contingencies, and it is this and nothing else that matters here, and this is the divine intention that lies behind the image. In transmigrationist symbolisms, on the contrary, this "vanity" is extended also to the hereafter, at least in a certain measure and by reason of a profound difference of perspective; and here likewise there is no preoccupation with either "why" or "how", once the penetrating intention of the symbol has been grasped as it were in one's own flesh.
In the man who is marked by the viewpoint of modern science, intuition of the underlying intentions has vanished, and that is not all; modern science, axiomatically closed to the suprasensory dimensions of the Real, has endowed man with a crass ignorance and thereby warped his imagination.
The modernist mentality is bent on reducing angels, devils, miracles (in a word all non-material phenomena which are inexplicable in material terms) to the domain of the "subjective" and the "psychological", when there is not the slightest connection between the two, except that the psychic itself is also made - but objectively - of substance which lies beyond matter; a contemporary theologian, speaking of the Ascension, has gone so far as to ask slyly, "where does this cosmic journey end?", which serves to measure out the self-satisfied imbecility of a certain mentality that wants to be "of our time". It would be easy to explain why Christ was "carried up" into the air and what is the meaning of the "cloud" which hid him from sight, and also why it was said that Christ "will come after the same fashion"; every detail corresponds to a precise reality which can easily be understood in the light of the traditional cosmologies; the key lies in the fact that the passage from one cosmic degree to another is heralded in the lower degree by "technically" necessary and symbolically meaningful circumstances which reflect after their fashion the higher state and which follow one another in the order required by the nature of things.
In any case, the deficiency of modern science lies essentially in its neglect of universal causality; it will no doubt be objected that science is not concerned with philosophical causality but with phenomena, which is untrue, for evolutionism in its entirety is nothing other than a hypertrophy, thought out as a means of denying real causes, and this materialistic negation, together with its evolutionist compensation, belongs to philosophy and not to science.
From an altogether different point of view, it must be admitted that the progressives are not entirely wrong in thinking that there is something in religion which no longer works; in fact the individualistic and sentimental argumentation with which traditional piety operates has lost almost all its power to pierce consciences, and the reason for this is not merely that modern man is irreligious but also that the usual religious arguments, through not probing sufficiently to the depths of things and not having had previously any need to do so, are psychologically somewhat outworn and fail to satisfycertain needs of causality.
If human societies degenerate on the one hand with the passage of time, they accumulate on the other hand experience by virtue of old age, however intermingled with errors their experience may be; this paradox is something that any pastoral teaching bent on efficacy should take into account, not by drawing new directives from the general error but on the contrary by using arguments of a higher order, intellectual rather than sentimental; as a result, some at least would be saved (a greater number than one might be tempted to suppose) whereas the demagogic scientistic pastoralist saves no one.
----
Frithjof Schuon: Islam and the Perennial Philosophy
Desecrated by Mother Nature and Industry, the Indiana Dunes National Lakeshore along the Mt. Baldy area is almost nonexistent. The Dunes are continuously moving from the prevailing lakeshore winds and industry looks putrid among all the region has to offer.
Hey all! I’m so, so sorry I haven’t been posting. I was laid off from my job on February 10th, a few days before my last post. I’ve not been feeling well, in fact I’m still not, and this blog just felt too much like work that I couldn’t deal with.
I lost my grandmother and a great aunt, as well as a good friend, in the month leading up to me loosing my job, so this year has been simply overwhelming. Currently I’m trying to find a job that isn’t too far from my apartment, since I have an unfortunate fear of driving, and I don’t trust my car to keep it together for much longer and I want to be able to walk.
Mostly the thought of me working with new people, in a new place, is overwhelming. I don’t make friends easily, and I’m honestly a very shy person that usually gets misunderstood as unfriendly. After five and half years at my job, and especially after working through all of lockdown and the height of the pandemic last year, I didn’t have much of a reason to worry about being let go – my position was simply eliminated, and like so many other retail companies they are hiring more part-time employees instead of full-timers, so they couldn’t move me into another position within my store.
I’ve not really left the apartment much over the last four months, and I’ve not really seen any of my friends anyway, so maybe moving on to a different job won’t be so hard. I’ve just reached the point that I can’t think of what to do past tomorrow – I won’t make plans for next month, the month ever, because in my mind my future is nonexistent and I can’t get past thinking that way. I’m not suicidal, I just want to cease to exist. I can’t afford to see a psychiatrist or whatever right now, and I haven’t seen my parents or any of my siblings for three years now and I don’t know if I want to see or talk to them because I feel like such a useless person right now.
Sorry, this has nothing to with the photos or post really, just venting or whatever. Anyway – credits and SLURLs here: thevirtualgentleman.wordpress.com/2021/06/01/blur/