View allAll Photos Tagged Toolset
The most classified collage on the Internet - the real code pieces from the recently released "Shadow Brokers" NSA surveillance and hacking toolset. All other imagery are (C) of their respective owners, and are used solely for artistic purpose.
Metal screws casting long shadows in bright spotlight, artistic lighting on white surface and wall background
UNESCO-Weltkulturerbe Woudagemaal/ Lemmer, NL / UNESCO World Cultural Heritage Woudagemaal, Lemmer/NL
SampleBoard.com presents a new and innovative way to create and present your ideas and vision by using the web-based interactive editor. It enables designers from different design disciplines (graphic, web, interiors, landscape, fashion and wedding planning) and backgrounds to collaborate on design projects, share their creative portfolio online and get exposure for business opportunities through the public design directory.
The web editor allows you to quickly and easily pull together design trends, colour schemes, textures and products via a convenient drag-and-drop function, using the rich editing toolset with over 30,000 product images from the library or your own images uploaded onto the system from your personal profile.
I'm walking along a tree line when I notice a hovering insect flying about 30cm to the right of my peripheral vision. I couldn't identify it at the time as I estimate it was around 3mm in size. I had to watch carefully, then the critter landed on a blade of grass a few metres away where I took these two shots. I would later recognise it as a smaller version of the hoverflies I have photographed prior and regularly shown on this photostream. I also had to acknowledge it is probably the limit of this wonderful toolset I've had the pleasure of using.
343.IMG_4431
2014 was an incredible year for me photographically:
I started the year framing level as I always had, and dabbling with Nik SilverEfex
During the year I joined Flickr and I tried out and blended non-level framing and all manner of filter/slider post-processing into my photography and workflow.
Next year I hope to incorporate layers and masking, and the use of flash into my imaging toolset.
-
I’ve had the most kind and incredible support from the Flickr community and my Flickr friends!! I really appreciate all of you and you’ve inspired me to try things photographically that I’d never have imagined in 2013. I hope I can provide you with better and more interesting work in 2015.
-
Again: thank you all and may your 2015 be full of adventure and love!!
-Henk
-
Panasonic LX100 camera/lens
Nik Dfine2
Nik RAW pre-sharpen
MacPhun Intensify Pro
Topaz Glow
Nik Viveza
Raptors are useful in many ways! City construction services see this too and are ordering legions to assist in daily works. Fully equipped with an interchangable toolset and traffic cones, this unit's ready to go.
The alternate wheel drive makes for a nimble suit able to swiftly arrive at designated locations to fix your problems.
Check out the other raptors in the series:
- Fallout
- Neo CS
- M:Tron
- U.F.O.
- IKEA
Raptor LXF File:
"Although often credited with prehistoric origin, most were erected in medieval times, and some in later centuries." Wiki
Today, a charming residual remains in place of this ancient method for crossing flows of winter water, marshland and light rivers and streams - examples throughout the world, with well known 'clapper bridges' in China, Dartmoor and here, the wonderfully preserved Sayago region of Spain.
The builders of this bridge would have used much from the neolithic toolset, and the fact that, as populations expanded into the medieval, this simple recipe of granite or schist was kept, because the low bridges rarely broke, is perhaps a nod to neolithic know-how.
There is a clapper bridge in the eastern Pyrenees that is 'sold' as being of late prehistoric origin, and a Lacaune group statue-menhir that spent the day, in at least part of its life, as a short clapper bridge, but little other than gut-feeling seems to currently root this semi meglithic form into prehistory, with more and more texts seeming to concentrate on the medieval span of the concept, and a new push brewing to define all rural unknowns as Visigoth. There seems to be little to truly confirm a prehistoric date...
In this Sayago region, the mythology around the bridge goes way beyond just crossing a river or marsh land, with the image of 'transition', 'crossing' and 'life and death' all bound into the vivid stone sets. Were these bridges to be another megalithic category to sit aside standing stones, stone circles, dolmens and warm-water-forms then these folklore details may prove to be of real insight.
With the slabs and occasional buttress stones appearing as applied standing stones, and with standing stones aligning with personification (see past posts): as you walk touch and see multiple examples it is possible to see in a clapper bridge a memory of communities-past holding together a 'way' and a passage.
A stone of prehistoric origin can always be re employed into a later project and I post below an image of a neolithic cross employed in the structure of a medieval bridge.
Considering all of these factors, the pillar stone in the above bridge is of great potential interest and shows the qualities required to date a bridge back into the neolithic-bronze age calibration range.
A solid element of granite with good foundations and covered with the slab. A pillar stone that has many petroglyphic cups on its top surface. A pillar stone that is subjected to intermittent flows of winter water but perhaps no great forces and attrition. A pillar stone that has been worn smooth of corner and edge: a pillar stone that does not appear to have been replaced or be in need of replacement in any age soon. A potential original pillar with a rock art station of cups on its top surface that align to calibrations from the late ages of prehistory.
Just outside of the village of Villacampo, 15-20km away from this clapper bridge to the north east, can be found a considerable cluster of cups (alas after much searching I was unable to find this station for detailed contrast). Nearby Galicia and Portugal are also both at home with just such petroglyphic activity from either side of the bronze age with further appropriate stations in hills to the north. Two further stations of local area cups will feature in future posts.
Making an impact in granite is not a simple task and however simple this array may look, it was decisive and purposeful.
Whilst not proof, this rock art station is certainly perched on a strong and evenly worn foundation-stone that helps return the arguments of clapper bridge origins back into common sense prehistory and the ages aside the neolithic, and as such, this stone should be treated with the greatest of respect and a generous spirit of research.
AJM 17.08.20
Got back out to the local club dark site this weekend for a (mostly) clear new moon night (clouds rolled in around 3AM). Been meaning to hit this target for some months now but never had the weather to do so. Glad I can mark it off the list now.
LDN673 is a dense region of dust located in Aquila. The high cloud density prevents starlight from behind the clouds from passing through. The shape sort of reminds me of a virus of some sort.
Some comments: I really need to fix the spacing on my scope. With LRGB images, it is especially apparent that the channels don't line up well at the corners - and the green channel really didn't want to play well with this image. I miss having a flatfield astrograph and the FSQ106 cannot come soon enough. This was also my first time using MureDenoise instead of the usual TGVDenoise/MultiscaleMedianTransform linear noise reduction technique. I am very impressed with Mure's capabilities and will add it to my toolset.
- Location: Houston Astronomical Society dark site (Bortle 3/4)
- Total Integration Time: 3.4 Hours
Equipment:
- Scope: TS107 w/ 0.79x Reducer
- Imaging Camera: QHY 268M
- Filters: Chroma LRGB (36mm)
- Mount: Skywatcher EQ6-R Pro
- Guidescope: SVBony 50mm Guidescope
- Guide camera: QHY5L-ii mono
- Accessories: ZWO EAF, PocketPowerbox Micro, QHY Polemaster
------------------------------------------------------------
Software:
- N.I.N.A for image acquisition, platesolving, and framing
- PHD2 for guiding
- PixInsight for processing
-------------------------------------------------------------
Acquisition:
- L: 38 x 3m
- R/G/B: 10 x 3m each
- All images at Gain 56, Offset 25 (Readout mode 1) and 5C sensor temperature
- 20 flats per filter
- Master Bias from Library
- Nights: 9/4/21
--------------------------------------------------------------
Processing:
- BatchPreProcessing for calibration
- SubFrameSelector to weigh Luminance subs
- Blink to toss bad Lum subs
- StarAlignment of all subs to Luminance reference
- ImageIntegration of LRGB sets
Luminance Processing:
- DynamicCrop
- MureDenoise
- DynamicBackgroundExtraction
- MaskedStretch with background preview reference, 170 iterations
- HistogramTransformation for further midpoint stretch
RGB Processing:
- LinearFit B/G masters to R
- ChannelCombination to combine into color
- DynamicCrop
- DynamicBackgroundExtraction
- MaskedStretch
- CurvesTransformation for further stretch
- StarAlign to Luminance
Further Processing
- LRGBCombination to combine RGB and Lum
- CurvesTransformation for saturation, S curve
- Duplicate, Starnet to make star mask
- MorphologicalTransformation on StarMask
- Duplicate image, create 2 previews, apply starmask and CurvesTransformation to bring down green level
- SubstituteWithPreview script to apply only previews back to original image
- Extract Luminance, apply to image, ACDNR for luminance noise reduction
- CurvesTransformation for a/b curve adjustment
- DynamicCrop
- Save & Export
With a little inspiration from brunofish I decided to post a special holiday greeting to all of you. This in the way of a Christmas card from me to you (including those celebrating other holidays as well, this time of year). I love the Flickr community so much. Before and now even after some challenging changes to our toolset, we continue to be actively involved with each other daily. I would like us to all strive to set aside a little extra time for flickr now and then, to stay active in groups, to continue to check out our contacts latest posts, to take 15 minutes a day to look at our friends' faves, to glance at their contacts lists, to use all the tools available to us to keep building community here. I know after the changes over the last year or so many have left but many of us remain and still have the fire for community burning in our hearts. I would love to hear from more of you and learn more about your work. Of course it takes lots of time to build friendships but I know that we've always risen to the task here. Thanks to each of you for your active interest in my work, even when you comment or fave a work and I fail to acknowledge or thank you (so many things can be easily missed). I truly value your presence to me and I hope that I can also be more present to you in the coming year. So, for now I'll leave it at this and just wish you all the Happiest of Holidays!
Yours, Bill in Tampa
The lack of toolsets that are working with current build of this game makes screenshooting not much fun.
Doom
- ~16MP(SRWE hotsampling), cropped;
- In-game photo mode.
When I first bought Lightroom, I was thrilled with all the subtle tweaks (and in my case corrections) I could do to make the final image resemble what I actually saw in the field.
Google has recently made its Nik Collection free (Previously $149). Nik works as a plugin to Adobe products and adds another layer of tweak.
Now when I am leaning toward the artsy-fartsy... I can get an added layer of play with the toolset.
This is my Ignition Inferno. A beautiful hand-crafted guitar built in Burlington Ontario.
Check out the Google Nik Collection at www.google.com/nikcollection
This shot was anticipated in advance using the software "The Photographer's Ephemeris," free for PCs, which enables you to view sun and moon angles at any time of day, superimposed on Google Earth. Here's my original blog write-up on the program:
Anticipating Sun and Moon Position
activesole.blogspot.com/2010/03/anticipating-sun-and-moon...
Update August 22, 2014:
Catch the crescent moon with Venus and jupiter alongside in a 7 degree triangle tomorrow morning:
Venus Jupiter Conjunction August 18 to Add Moon August 23
activesole.blogspot.com/2014/08/venus-jupiter-conjunction...
As I demonstrate in this photo, you can easily plan for a great composition, and line the moon up with interesting natural or man-made landmarks. I've expanded my toolset on my smartphone to include four moon photography planning apps, which I list in this blog post. I also recorded a tutorial demo video with one of the developers:
Tutorial on Moon Photography Planning
activesole.blogspot.com/2013/10/tutorial-on-moon-photogra...
A corporate medical robot with a precision nano-toolset, surgical laser, manipulators and a GIANT RADOME.
Found the one with the corkscrew that I bought in Switzerland, on our walk from #Helga2004….. It has no hole for a pin!
(do a Ctrl+R to refresh if you can't see the NOTES on screen)
It has WAC scratched beside the corkscrew on the side panel to the reamer…
VICTORINOX Swiss Army Knife Tinker red Medium Pocket Knife 1.4603 Red 35060 IS 90mm long…
$38.80 on eBay….
The Victorinox Tinker is one of the most popular best Swiss army knives out there. People often use it as their EDC knife and they generally like the balance between its toolset and carry ability.
It’s 3.6” long and weighs 2.2 oz. Its toolset features 12 stainless steel pieces, including a large/small stainless steel blade, Phillips screwdriver, can opener with a small flat screwdriver, bottle opener with a large flat screwdriver & wire stripper, reamer, tweezers, toothpick, and a key ring.
The tools are packed into 2 layers, which gives it a slimmer appearance.
And see Classic SD Alox for the SAK now I have bought one on eBay, $49.95 smaller than I thought. 57mm long.. KRW 65,000
On its way, o4-03-23 arrived by Au Post 07-03-23 in slim envelope with a slip of a plastic case for the knife.
Now just received the #Alox 7.. 0.8150.26 27-06-23
Also shown here is my 1.3703 Climber red from Mister Minit Gungahlin 25/08/21 $69.75
This model would be nice...
www.ebay.com.au/itm/275699647039?_trkparms=amclksrc%3DITM...
The Swiss Army knife is a multi-tool pocketknife manufactured by Victorinox.[1] The term "Swiss Army knife" was coined by American soldiers after World War II after they had trouble pronouncing the German word "Offiziersmesser", meaning "officer’s knife".[2]
The Swiss Army knife generally has a drop-point main blade plus other blades and tools such as screwdrivers, a can opener, a saw blade, a pair of scissors, and many others. These are stowed inside the handle of the knife through a pivot point mechanism. The handle is traditionally a red color, with either a Victorinox or Wenger "cross" logo or, for Swiss military issue knives, the coat of arms of Switzerland. Other colors, textures, and shapes have appeared over the years.
Originating in Ibach, Switzerland, the Swiss Army knife was first produced in 1891 when the Karl Elsener company, which later became Victorinox, won the contract to produce the Swiss Army's Modell 1890 knife from the previous German manufacturer. In 1893, the Swiss cutlery company Paul Boéchat & Cie, which later became Wenger SA, received its first contract from the Swiss military to produce model 1890 knives; the two companies split the contract for provision of the knives from 1908 until Victorinox acquired Wenger in 2005. A cultural icon of Switzerland, both the design of the knife and its versatility have worldwide recognition.[3] The term "Swiss Army knife" has acquired usage as a figure of speech indicating extreme utility applicable to more or less any scenario at hand.
from en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swiss_Army_knife
Tools and components
The Victorinox Swisschamp consists of 8 layers with 33 functions and weighs 185 g.
Wenger Giant
Victorinox Swisschamp XAVT
There are various models of the Swiss Army knife with different tool combinations.
Though Victorinox does not provide custom knives, they have produced many different variations to suit individual users,[11] with the Wenger company producing even more model variations. [12]
Common Main Layer Tools:
Large blade - With 'VICTORINOX SWISS MADE' tang stamp on Victorinox blades (since 2005) to verify the knife's authenticity
Small blade
Nail file / nail cleaner
Scissors
Wood saw
Metal file / metal saw with Nail file / nail cleaner /
Magnifying lens
Phillips screwdriver
Fish scaler / hook disgorger / ruler in cm and inches
Pliers / wire cutter / wire crimper
Can opener / 3 mm slotted screwdriver
Bottle opener / 6 mm slotted screwdriver / wire stripper
Other Main Layer Tools:
LED light
USB flash drive
Hoof cleaner
Shackle opener / marlinspike
Electrician's blade / wire scraper
Pruning blade
Pharmaceutical spatula (cuticle pusher)
Cyber Tool (bit driver)
Combination tool containing cap opener / can opener / 5 mm slotted screwdriver / wire stripper
Back Layer Tools:
Corkscrew or Phillips driver
Reamer or Awl
Is this the most useless tool..?
youtu.be/MzHAgtb0JhQ?si=CtMPDfge2xChQdmS
Multipurpose hook
2mm slotted screwdriver
Chisel
Mini screwdriver (designed to fit within the corkscrew)
Keyring
Scale Tools:
Tweezers
Toothpick
Pressurized ballpoint pen (with a retractable version on smaller models, and can be used to set DIP switches)
Stainless pin
Digital clock / alarm / timer / altimeter / thermometer / barometer
Rivets and flanged bushings made from brass hold all machined steel parts and other tools, separators and the scales together. The rivets are made by cutting and pointing appropriately sized bars of solid brass.
The separators between the tools have been made from aluminium alloy since 1951. This makes the knives lighter. Previously these separating layers were made of nickel-silver.[18]
The martensitic stainless steel alloy used for the cutting blades is optimized for high toughness and corrosion resistance and has a composition of 15% chromium, 0.60% silicon, 0.52% carbon, 0.50% molybdenum, and 0.45% manganese and is designated X55CrMo14 or DIN 1.4110 according to Victorinox.[19] After a hardening process at 1040 °C and annealing at 160 °C the blades achieve an average hardness of 56 HRC. This steel hardness is suitable for practical use and easy resharpening, but less than achieved in stainless steel alloys used for blades optimized for high wear resistance. According to Victorinox the martensitic stainless steel alloy used for the other parts is X39Cr13 (aka DIN 1.4031, AISI/ASTM 420) and for the springs X20Cr13 (aka DIN 1.4021, but still within AISI/ASTM 420).[20][21]
The steel used for the wood saws, scissors and nail files has a steel hardness of HRC 53, the screwdrivers, tin openers and awls have a hardness of HRC 52, and the corkscrew and springs have a hardness of HRC 49.[20][citation needed]
The metal saws and files, in addition to the special case hardening, are also subjected to a hard chromium plating process so that iron and steel can also be filed and cut.[18][22]
Also have the Tinker Red 1.4603 Resin Scales..
Secret tools and uses.. youtu.be/AMWcziJezLQ?si=es3aBLaQjrZSOD8T
youtube.com/shorts/VUC6Atz4Du0?si=XGAQPdm9w-CvzzIv
The venerable Swiss Army Knife (SAK for short) is a jack-of-all-trades everyday carry tool that enjoys an irreplaceable status in people's loadouts, even if they do not consider themselves part of the everyday carry community, thanks to the SAK's hallmark mix of valuable features and tools in a compact size. With over a century of experience making quality tools and knives, Victorinox and Wenger (the sole two authorized makers of the Swiss Army Knife since the 1890s, and the latter acquired by Victorinox in 2005) have hundreds of SAKs for you to choose from.
Victorinox created the original SAK to meet an Army officer's knife requirement in the Swiss military. Their practicality means they've become a preferred multi-tool for decades now. They've also become instantly recognizable even to someone unfamiliar with everyday carry. They carry a SAK because MacGyver had one on TV, and then there's the fabled green SAK pulled out of a safe deposit bank vault by Jason Bourne.
With all the options available, we'll focus on what makes for a good, compact SAK for everyday carry: a competent knife, one or more screwdrivers, a can or bottle opener, and other essentials like a pair of scissors, tweezers, or even a toothpick. Armed with that knowledge, you can research further on your own and decide what your first (or next) Swiss Army Knife should be.
This post was last updated on 12/26/2023.
In all my 2-3 Million miles or kilometers of #FlickrSpelio #bushwalking, #SUSScaving, #WASGcaving, #RMLAIDForest life or #GSWANullarbor work, travel #roundAUstraliawithSpelio or in the UK or Europe in #Helga2004 , where I bought a #SAKTinker in Switzerland or in #mtus where I bought the #juiceS2, I never needed a #SAKedc or #Leatherman as I always had a couple of fully equipped toolboxes of #remotegearlist and a trusty #sheathknife....
The elegant village of Semur, listed as Un des plus beaux villages de France (“One of the Most Beautiful Villages in France”), although I am not at all sure it deserves the title when compared to truly stunning villages such as Èze, Pérouges or Collonges-la-Rouge, is the capital of the small barony of Brionnais, at the extreme southwestern tip of the old duchy of Burgundy.
The Semur family of local barons would have gone basically unnoticed through History, had it not been for Hugues, born in 1024, who went on to become probably the most famous abbot of Cluny, having succeeded Odilon de Mercœur from 1049 until 1109. Builder of the so-called “Cluny III” abbey church, the largest ever in Christendom, he considerably expanded the Order of Cluny (which was part of the Benedictines) all over Europe during his 60-year abbacy.
One of the most powerful people (and one of the most learned minds) of his time, later canonized by the Church as saint Hugues (Hugh in English), he sent architects and builders from Cluny to his native small town of Semur-en-Brionnais to build this church dedicated to Saint Hilaire (Hillary in English). Hugues himself never saw the church being built, as its oldest parts (traditionally, the apse and apsidioles, the choir and transept, and the beginning of the nave) were erected during the years 1115-1130, but then construction was interrupted and did not resume until around 1170. The portals were finished and decorated during the 1180s, towards the end of the Romanesque age, at a point when many consider the Romanesque art was already “perverted” by mannerisms announcing the age of the Gothic.
Saint-Hilaire was turned into a college church in 1274 when Baron Jean de Semur and the bishop of Autun jointly incorporated a college of 13 canons to take care of the Opus Dei in the church. Damaged during the Hundred Years War (1364), and yet again during the Wars of Religion (1576), the church was listed as a Historic Landmark in 1862 and the stone vaulting which had been destroyed and replaced temporarily by a timber roof, was rebuilt.
Being the last Romanesque church ever built in the Brionnais, Saint-Hilaire skillfully incorporates tradition from the local art, and inputs from the most noble and powerful house of Cluny, which was then undoubtedly the dominant power in Western Christendom, above and beyond the Pope —in practice, if not in principle.
Strangely enough for the simple parish church of a village, but perhaps more understandable when one is reminded that this particular church was commissioned for his place of birth by the most powerful abbot Christendom ever knew, and on his way to sainthood, Saint-Hilaire has three portals. This is the northern one, and as you can see, it is quite ornate.
The sculpture here gives me a strange impression. There is a lot of restraint, and at the same time a lot of showing off. The motifs are abstract, utterly simple, meant to look very humble, and at the same time the technique is mind-blowing, the precision and the repeated perfection, betray very advanced craftsmanship combined with a top-of-the-line, spare-no-expense toolset, perfectly unattainable (in both cases) to any mason or stone cutter except the élite teams only available to the abbey of Cluny. Aside from them, no one was so well-trained, with skills so perfectly honed, and no one could afford those precision tools of the late 1100s.
And at the same time, there is this upsetting feeling that those experts were sent to Semur with a mission such as “OK guys, do your absolute best in keeping with Cluny excellence, but do remember you’re in a little village and don’t go about stunning them with some masterpiece... Remain understated, all right? Rein it in, show them what humility is and what you’re capable of when you decide to remain humble...”
All in all, it all looks a bit fake. There is not one ounce of genuine naïveté here, but all the self-assuredness of experts bent on perfecting their techniques, fully ready for the blossoming of the Gothic, and even able to try and fake “the simplicity of village stone cutters and sculptors”, as they have been instructed to do, without even realizing (or perhaps not caring) that their work is quite in another league.
It looks like a Shakespearean play rehearsed for a village fête, and suddenly the main actor falls ill and Sir Laurence Olivier steps in from the crowd of bystanders and offers to replace him. This church, among the houses of the village, is Olivier standing in among the improvised actors of the play: professional and emotional and moving beyond description, yet never misses a line and simply, overall, too astoundingly good to really ring true in the context. This is not a village church, it is Cluny trying its best to assume a villager’s posture —and failing.
-=//:START-MESSAGE//
Check your inbox, your 20 bucks should be waiting for you. Teaches me a lesson for betting against you. I thought that hunting for Centauri spies on backwater mining stations was the peak of Homefront paranoia. Well, you win, it got worse. Get this - they have me hunting Aelves, which they claim have penetrated all the way to Terra. I think the brass has officially lost it. But hey, orders are orders right? Enjoy the 20, I'm going to be off comms for a bit while I transit my sorry ass all the way back to Terra. I'll probably still be off comms when I get there too, because they're going to have me poking bushes out in the ass end of who-knows-where looking for boogie-men. Its gonna be cold, its gonna be wet, and I can't help but think if I hadn't made that goddam bet with you the universe wouldn't have screwed me over. You won the bet, but you owe me a drink. //END-MESSAGE://=-
"Then the stars cried out their song,
The sky like a siren drew away."
Home. A strange word that brings mixed feelings for every Tuatha who hears it. For the elder of our kind, it is heartbreaking. Home hearkens to a lost world, forgotten in the midst of time. To cities buried beneath the dust, to fields fouled by Fomorian rubbish. For the young among us it holds a sense of whimsy. It is a word that the elder speak with such yearning and passion that every young Tuatha thinks home a strange thing indeed. Home glistens golden in the glimmering flickering glimpse of the mind. Its something never known, but woken in the bones. For most, young and elder and inbetween, home carries a bitter aftertaste. Our home is not our home, but our hideaway. And yet our hideaway has been our home for so long it is all we know. Fickle fate is ever the trickster.
So when we first crossed the Veils once more, it felt like a dream. Not a pretty dream, for some wept at what was long lost. Not a nightmare, for many sighed in disappointment. Like a young man who has dozed off to grey nothing during lectures after mid day meal, we stumbled into a world that we did not recognize, a world that knew us not, and we could not find our home. But further we stumbled, further we poked. We crept through corners, we slid through shadows, we ventured through every valley, and we hid within their hulls. And then the day came: in a small moment, an uncanny moment, so minute and individual and yet it carried the very lifeblood of our kind in it. A single Tuatha, stepping forth from a stolen Fomorian craft, set foot upon soil that knew none before it. No Tuatha had dwelt here before, no cities lay beneath its dust. No Fomorian here had reaped, no rubble here to clear. For the first time, we were alone. For the first time, we were free of our ancient enemy. For the first time in a long time, we could be home. Most would follow that lone Tuatha. More than one home would be built there. And more than one such planet would be found. At the edge of the world we had finally found space enough for home. And we would protect it with our very lives.
Considered gifting yourself or a loved one an online class? These are live on-line classes with an international teacher who has taught 200+ students over 15+ countries since the pandemic began. If you are waiting for the vaccine and for spring to paint outside, make sure to sharpen your skills with me. In collaboration with the well known Madeline Island School of Arts, Wisconsin.
www.umakelkar.com/event/dirty-work-building-a-basic-water...
The Class 59 entered service on British Rail as a reaction to Foster Yeoman's dissatisfaction with BR's poor motive power availability to pull heavy limestone aggregate trains. The Class 59 broke with tradition by being acquired through private tender. General Motors EMD won the contract to provide 5 locomotives with deliveries commencing in 1985. The Class 59 is based on the SD-50 with significant modifications to fit within the restricted BR loading gauge.
Inspired by some of pickyourownbogie's sublime creations rendered with POV-Ray, I decided to have a go. This was a satisfying build requiring a few iterations to get it "right". In particular, I wanted to include the brick built "Y" Yeoman logo on the body side. The chassis could do with a bit more detailing, but otherwise it may find its way into real brick one day! I'm currently working on a PGA aggregate hopper to accompany it--stay tuned!
(One caution with respect to LDD to POV-Ray: I ran this toolset inside a virtual machine on a Mac and the rendering took 28 hours to complete! Clearly, the rendering is computationally intensive and I'll likely use a "real" hardware Windows box for future rendering)
Tools removed from the leather pouch include a TL-29 pocket knife with screw driver blade. The pliers were combination pliers, crimpers, strippers, and cutters.
my handmade ceramic tools mostly made from Cocobolo. cut and handshaped to fit my hands. like little sculptures. the only one i didn't make is the plastic rib by Mike Sherill. i included it because this is basically what i use to make everything. besides my hands of course. ALOHA ! this is first cut w/ a festool jig then sanded to shape. my ceramics fb page. www.facebook.com/pages/Cory-Lum-Ceramics/234246769944197
When i'm not making film photographs please have a look at Cory Lum Pottery galleries at corylumpottery.com/
this toolset resides in kanagawa, japan. ceramics here. corylum.etsy.com wordpress blog photocorylum.wordpress.com/ also please view my latest posts via @coryLumCeramics @corylumceramics @corylumceramics @corylumceramics @corylumceramics on instagram instagram.com/corylumceramics
Bryan's EDC as of February 2012
- ITS EDC Trauma Kit w/ Coyote Pouch
- Sig Sauer P6/P225 and Spare Mag (Loaded with 9mm Hydra Shok)
- Sig currently carried IWB (In the Waist Band) RCS Phantom Holster (Not Shown)
- KIA Bracelet - Jason Workman, who I served with in the Navy and who perished in the tragedy on 8.6.11
- Giveaway Wallet - In Mugging Situations
- Keychain with Solomon Bar Paracord fob, Duct Tape fob and Kingston Flash Drive
- Change, Wedding Ring and ITS Challenge Coin
- Bosca Nappa Vitello Pocket Wallet
- Titanium Bogota Toolset
- Bobby Pin
- Nemesis Knives Ti Card (bottle opener and sharpened edge)
- Cash (leftover $2 bills from Starbucks Appreciation Day)
- Emerson Commander (appendix carry)
- Bic Lighter
- iPhone 4 with Foliage Magpul Field Case (Mfg. with better tolerance than the Executive Case I reviewed)
- Moleskine Volant Mini Notebook
- Pocket Survival Kit (modified slightly since it was shown in this original article)
- 4Sevens Preon 2 in Satin Titanium (appendix carry)
- 4Sevens Titanium Pen w/ Glass Breaker Tip (takes Fisher Space Pen refills)
- G-Shock DW-6900MS w/ Suunto Clipper Compass
I produced a collage of my little daughter's 18 (!) stuffed animals. The final print should be placed in her room.
Each single toy was shot in a DIY studio setting using the strobist technique. Two flashes (Nikon SB-26) were wirelessly triggered and fired through (front right with 1/2 pwr) and against (rear top with 1/2 pwr) an umbrella. For the backdrop I used a white coloured card. A second card for reflection of some light (front left).
The toys were fixed on a cooking spoon that was bound on a small tripod with a couple of rubber bands. Simple construction but very flexible.
As lens I chose the ultra sharp AF Nikkor 50mm/1.8f D at f11.
In post-processing the background was lightened up and contrast and saturation was slightly increased. Finally everything was put together with the "montage" command of the ImageMagick toolset.
When I arrive home from a hard day photographing people’s living rooms I plonk myself in front of the computer, put my headphones on and for the next few hours sit ‘uploading’, accompanied by the sounds of GentleWhispering, TheWaterwhispers, TheOneLilium and pigsbum53, amongst others. No, I’m not a subscriber to some live porn website, these girls are not sat in front of their webcams waiting for their subscribers to request they carry out peculiar activities, oh, no, actually they ARE sat in front of their webcams inviting peculiar activity requests - but not the sexual kind. These girls (and boys, but it’s the girls who do it for me) have a gift, the gift of triggering ASMR. No, not Advanced Surface-Movement Radar, but Autonomous Sensory Meridian Response - in layman’s terms braingasms, head-tingles, head-orgasms, spine-tingles, attention induced euphoria.
Do you have it?
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Autonomous_sensory_meridian_response
I have had it since childhood, and back then loved nothing more than going round to a friend’s house and playing role-play games; doctors and nurses, schoolteachers, librarians, Barbie and Ken rub up against each other with no clothes on, George’s marvellous medicine, Barbie and Barbie rub up against each other with no clothes on, Ken and My Little Pony rub up against each other . . .
Whilst listening to and watching my companion concentrating on our games and putting on the airs and graces of whichever characters we were pretending to be I would frequently be besieged by this overwhelmingly euphoric feeling, starting in the back of my skull, sending tingles all down my back, I would be totally transfixed by her banal chattering and careful movements, content just to sit there and be drowned in the sensation.
“Hannah! Lucy! – It’s time for Lucy to go home now, we are about to eat.” would be the words that broke the spell. I would be bundled out of the front door and have to run round the corner, back home, cursing them for eating dinner when I was experiencing the best moment of my life thus far.
I remember aged about seven forcing my male playmate to play doctors and nurses – I kept him shut in my bedroom and made him stroke my arms, legs and tummy with strange objects, accompanied by a doctorly dialogue and strict instructions on how delicately to speak. He didn’t seem to understand the purpose of this and his clumsy, chewed up fingers and the feeling of duress emanating from him put rather a dampener on it for me.
Upon learning that it was a rare phenomenon and one that couldn’t be forced, I would gratefully accept any fleeting moment of ecstasy, however it came. So hungry was I for the feeling that I would even tolerate going to my arch frenemy’s house, just because her mother triggered my tingles. She (the mother) was highly strung, obsessed with etiquette, angst ridden about everything and extremely strict, whilst speaking in a constrained, geisha-like whisper at ALL times. Perfect conditions. Standing in the entrance hall before entry into the house was permitted, we were all given explicit instructions on what rooms we could go in, what we were allowed to play, when our tea would be served, not to pester her beloved obese tortoiseshell cat, (tortoiseshells are nearly always overweight and unfriendly.) not to go within ten metres of the study where FATHER resided and to take our shoes off. I listened, transfixed. The tone of her voice, this nervous-breakdown-teetering whisper of hers hit me right in my ASMR. I would linger, dazed and super-relaxed in the hallway, long after we had officially been granted entry.
Other memorable AMSRvents:
Ready steady cook, when the contestants carefully emptied out their bags of ingredients describing in dreary detail, “I bought chicken because I like chicken and I eat a lot of chicken and I bought potatoes because I like potatoes and I eat a lot of potatoes.” whilst patting each item gently as they talked - bliss – I would sit as close as possible to the TV to hear the crackling packaging.
I remember a dull girl next to me in a maths lesson, during a hiatus when the teacher must have been out taking another dose of valium, drawing me a detailed diagram of her house layout and walking me through it with her pen, describing the layout of each room and drawing in each ornament. That was the best maths lesson I ever had.
Recently I was floorplanning a woman’s house while she spoke all-foreign-like to her child in lovely dulcet tones. I had finished drawing the kitchen 10 minutes earlier but I couldn’t bear to leave the room and lose the sensation in my head, so not only did I draw a plan of their kitchen – I sketched in every knife, fork and spoon, tea towel, tin of soup, and scouring pad to prolong my ecstacy.
Part of what is wonderful about ASMR is that you never know when it will hit you. A dreary day can be transformed by meeting that one special person with contrived mannerisms and voice. They will have no idea of the head orgasm they have just given you, apart from when you breathlessly gasp, ‘Thank you, thank you oh, thank you.’ It is the unpredictability of it all, the knowing it will end at any moment and cannot be relived that makes it even more covetable and can drive you to obsession.
But you can’t do it to yourself and neither, for me, can lovers. This is what proves that it isn’t sexual – my boyfriend and I discovered we had ASMR in common when we met, but can we trigger it in each other? Can we f**k – I would be worried if old ladies were more likely to give me orgasms than my man, but head orgasms – no problem, that’s standard, in fact he came home excitedly the other night to tell me that he had had braingasms for almost an hour with a librarian in the British Library. I was delighted for him.
But lately I don’t meet any of these god-like beings, and that is what led me to search on the Internet. There (once I eventually worked out it was tagged as ASMR) on YouTube they all were. I felt like a starving lion, on it’s last legs, reaching the crest of a hill on the arid Serengeti to look down into a lush valley where a vast waterhole was ringed by hundreds of thousands of juicy wildebeest – There were my tinglebeests! They had been there all this time and I had had no idea. I have since spent the last year catching up with the show and tells, lip smacking, close up whispers and make up sessions, my addled brain soothed by talk of nothing much, and the sounds of menial tasks.
As a non-conversationalist anti-social hermit, being able to listen to feminine chatter without having to respond in any way is a most satisfactory state of affairs, I subscribe to so many ASMRtists but my participation in the whisper community is entirely voyeuristic. I watch and enjoy, but I don’t comment and I don’t make videos either – I am an ASMR parasite, sucking the relaxation out of everyone and contributing nothing, that is why I have decided to try to spread the word about International ASMR day on 9th April, mind you, I have decided to do this only about five days before the actual day so my minute and tardy effort will probably do precisely nothing.
I have made private attempts at videos (ASMR videos that is) and watched them back, wincing, cringing at my not-at-all tingly voice, the way my mouth moves, how peculiar my hairline is, how dry and cracked my hands are. Some ASMRtists go for over an hour – after three minutes of my first show and tell I was getting louder and louder, talking faster and faster and hurling nail polishes and eyeshadows impatiently into a Tupperware box with loud and most un-relaxing clatters. I decided that the whisper community might not need my input.
A recent ASMR ambition of mine was to trigger someone else who has never felt the tingles before. So the very next child that partially knew me I used as a guinea pig, steering the game he was playing, ‘hammering something into a block of wood’ towards the game ‘I’ wanted to play; ‘Getting the stone out of the cow’s hoof’ which involved me using several primary coloured plastic implements from his Tomy toolset to remove an imaginary pebble from his imaginary ‘hoof’. The activity was narrated by me – the exceedingly softly spoken vet – who lightly tickled and de-stoned his feet with great concentration – I knew it was working when he lay back and just stared into space, trance-like, while I worked. As soon as I stopped he told me there was ‘nother tone in my hoof’ ‘and nother’ ‘and nother’ until, now satisfied that I had achieved my life’s goal, I was bored and wanted a glass of wine.
I hope to one day read in this child’s memoirs (the child growing up to be the foremost authority on the science of ASMR and getting stones out of cow’s hooves with plastic toys.) of the experience that set him on the way to the ‘Nobel Prize for Whispering’.
“This peculiar woman ruined my game and then insisted on tickling my feet with plastic tools. I was frozen with fear. She then announced that I bored her and abruptly walked off to get a bottle of wine. She never came back. I cried for a month and have had abandonment issues and drink problems ever since.
Perhaps in subsequent years with a bit more recognition International ASMR day could involve enormous conferences where the world’s leading ASMRtists attempt to create simultaneous mass braingasms to packed auditoriums. There will be ASMR pleasure-hunts where the aim is to experience tingles as many times as possible in one day, with visits to libraries, beauticians, opticians, schools, old people’s homes etc etc. For the entirety of International ASMR day everyone has to be softly spoken – even policemen, football coaches and scaffolders. Celebrities will naturally jump on the band wagon and each will produce an ASMR video.
Celebrity videos I would like to see:
Mary Berry does a weapons arsenal show & tell and delicately disassembles a Glock.
Sister Wendy does a mammogram role-play.
Brian Sewell chews Jelly beans whilst brushing your hair.
Nigel Slater unboxes and unwraps tampons and gently stirs them into a lamb stew.
Nancy Dell’olio performs an autopsy role-play.
Monica Bellucci wraps a severed finger in tissue paper.
Charlotte Gainsbourg gives you a binaural rectal exam, in French.
ASMRtists will become A-list celebrities, putting their voices on Sat Navs and special ‘whisper adverts’ where you will be asked to put headphones on to fully appreciate the effect.
ASMR clinics will open on high streets where you can go in, choose your role-play scenario and, in addition to aural and visual triggers, you get to experience tactile ones. I have found that a feather-light stroke of the inner forearm can increase a braingasm - many a wet-break at primary school was spent tickling each other’s forearms, “Close your eyes and when I get to the crook of your elbow with this paintbrush you have to call out, and then it’s my turn.”
I never called out.
gumoil alternative process on Fabriano Artistico paper.
Taken at the historic Walnford mill, New Jersey
This is my toolset for working documenary making. What you dont see are my two Abrahamsson Rapid Winders; mkI and mkII, these devices permit me to maintain full eye to VF contact at all times when using the cameras; focus, advance, aperture with the left hand and release with the right hand, and these M6's are manual cameras so the whole package works without power. Three small hip-flask shaped boxes which hold six rolls of film each, a 12" reflector which works well withthe flash for those times I have to use it, some cables for the recorder, my notebook, batteries, lens-caps, domke wraps, and my trusty Domke 803 Black canvas bag which looks nothing like what its carrying.
What you do see here is two Leica M6's the Chrome ones is a TTL version and that has the color film in it. An Elmarit-M ASPH 24mm f2.8, a Summilux-M 35mm f1.4, a Super-Wide-Heliar 15mm f4.5 with a double shoe adapter with the viewfinder and leveler, -I generally dont like to use VF's but for this lens its pretty important. A Gossen Digi-flash meter which is for backup -this is an outstanding meter for its size. A Sony PCM-D50 Linear recorder, this device is responsible for me getting into actually making documentaries again soon I will add to it with a rather expensive Sennheiser rifle-mic for more specific recording. And lastly my Olympus RC-35 which is home to my Voigtlander spot meter, the lens on this diminuitive camera is simply -off the charts- in terms of how it renders contrast tonality and dimensionality. I used to have Canonet QL17 GIII's which are the king of fixed lens era Rangefinders, but this thing is more pocketable, and at two stops slower, is still worth having because of that lens.
My prefferred methodology is analogue because it is infinitely more archivable. The PCM-D50 is the link breaker because it is digital and that is simply because for what you get in a $500 box is simply not available quality-wise on previous generation Professional grade cassette recorders.
I am currently in the research stage of a new work, something which I didnt do the first time and realize that research is for the most part, the biggest part of the whole process..
I love this shot. I initially tried to make it symmetrical, but it was a little dull. much happier with this crop.
B&W conversion from NIK - not 100% sure about that toolset yet
Taken through glass at the Basque museum in Bayonne.
Three bark flutes known as Sunprinua.
An archaic musical instrument coiled from hazel bark and perforated twice for note variation.
The mouth blows into a 'double tongue nozzle" where the tongue is used to effect the attack and fade. Last used by mountain shepherds in the Larraun Valley of Navarre (Aralar region). The main melody was played as a call- response with more than one player and was known as Durunbele.
On this film, between the times of three and six minutes, there is footage of a sunprinua being made and then played. The end pin is clearly visible - a little obscure in the above image. The instrument is also tighter that those on display. The footage is rare and really worth taking the time to watch
www.youtube.com/watch?v=qn04Q4MqpZs
The sunprinua sits aside other traditional 'flutes' from the greater region. The txistu is played with one hand liberating the second for a drum rhythm. The history of this instrument can be followed as far as the Grottes d'Isturitz et d'Oxocelhaya and the upper paleolithic. The distribution can be followed with changes of name and style including: the chirula, the Galoubet, the flabiols and, from further away, the tabor pipes, all rustic versions of the recorder and oboe. Early dates for hard flutes can be found at Hohle Fels in Germany : up to 43,000 ybp. The sunprinua makes a rich sound but leaves no archaeological trace as is often the case for punched out and drilled elder and willow whistles
Today, man's prehistoric skill-set can be followed by watching residual stone knapping skills and observing evidence of complex hair cuts visible on some paleolithic venus figurines. Whilst this may seem to be unrelated to music, the time and skills to transform a stone must also have been available to transform other less permanent natural resources. The skills to weave hair can pass by induction into the skills for weaving baskets and traps, windbreaks and cages. The material available for weaving includes grass, leather, hair, sapling and, long flat strips of bark. The vision, concentration and coordination involved in Acheulean tools is already compelling, and one should expect weaving skills to be aligned to this abstract level. Coiling a strip of bark to make a tool (stick or straw), for the fun and the pleasure of the investigation, and then chewing the end ... and then blowing might place coiled musical instruments in a calibration and frequency far before bone pipes, even if today we smile at the vestige as an oddity or even anomaly - and, once stripped for bands, the bark just wants to coil.
Regarding the origins of music, researchers associated with first bone instruments (modified vulture and swan wing bones) muse that the pipes of music may have served to maintain bonds between larger groups of humans, and that this may have helped the species to expand both in numbers and in geographical range. This vision of bone pipes as a sapiens specific 'enzyme' that liberated modern man's species direction seems to be both romantic and naive. Another idea presented is that people lived in confined conditions and that naturally there would be issues of violence so inventing a bone pipe helped stop the punches, snaps and slaps - a very visual idea, but rather silly. When the functional pipe arrived onto man's cultural toolset, it did not arrive into a silent wold of brooding and frustrated degenerates. Whether it was a rolled bark pipe, a wooden pipe (like the Wicklow Pipes of. 4200 ypb) or a bone pipe, the music of the archaic flute arrived into a soundscape of song, percussion, hand clap and laughter. The Sapiens world included periods of movement and periods of stasis, periods of gathering and periods of solitary waiting. It is not even certain that the flute would have found first function inside a fur lined evening : for example, a bird-catching fowler, apt at lending his voice to mimic the calls of birds, may have taken to the pipe as a way of getting closer to a specific bird call. Likewise, a hunter working in a team might enjoy the fact that the sound is precise and loud, without sounding human. Amplifying a thin pipe with an aurock's horn and the same sound source might scare an animal into a direction. Also, a gathering of carnavalesque blaze (signaled by arborglyph 'posters') might enjoy the pipe as a thematic to sound aside the greater song and beat. In some cases, regarding the impact of the pipe on close quarters, it is impossible to know if the same modified bone inside a confined hut may not have caused more irritation that appeasement for the ensemble as they sewed, stone knapped, wove, hummed, told stories and cucu-ed to smiling babies.
AJM 11.12.17
Super exciting! Now I just have to find the toolset dad had hidden so I can attach the chains. The foxes had a bit if an issue with having no holes so I'm getting some more of those, I'll probably make these into some other random bits and bobs.
Get it at
www.sudtipos.com/font/speakeasy
—
Speakeasy is a 5-font combo thematically built as a toolset for designing menus and liquor labels as well as coffees, restaurants and signs when the desire is to communicate with style. Originally put together to be used by the most famous speakeasy in Buenos Aires, this set contains a script, a minor (almost flat) wedge serif, a flare serif, a sans serif, and a bold Didone. The seed for the script was found in a German lettering book, and the other fonts reflect the familiar advertising and announcement styles of the early 20th century.
The Speakeasy script comes with two different ways to connect the letterforms. Also included are many alternates, swashes, endings and flourishes — all accessible via OpenType features or glyph palettes.
Speakeasy Modern and Speakeasy Flare are small cap fonts, and come with a few alternates. Speakeasy Sans and Speakeasy Gothic come with full sets of majuscules and minuscules, but contain small caps and a few alternates as well. A few rules and ornaments are also sprinkled throughout the set.
This combination of fonts worked wonderfully for the project that called for it. Hopefully it will work just as well for your project.
Some days I just love SL.
Yeah, the toolset is broken and clunky, but sometimes, when you really know what you're doing, you can put together some really amazing things.
This is a shot from my secret home. A small, quarter-sim island where I have the ground level of the sim all to myself. A while ago I'd been playing with the sky, adding additional moons and a gorgeous view of the centre of the galaxy.
More recently I caved in and purchased a nice looking off-sim landscape to surround the island with, so it looks like a small chain of islands off the coast of a larger island or maybe a continent.
This was the first time I was able to log in and get a good look at the result in the middle of the SL day.
The windight settings are from my own custom day cycle, which apparently comes pre-loaded in Firestorm and Phoenix viewer.
Yes, the tank is a scripted vehicle. It's not finished yet, I need to find time to script the guns with some fun effects, but it's already a lot of fun to drive!
D700 Milvus 50mm @F/1.4
After shooting many years with pretty much only my Noct-Nikkor in the 50mm range and seeing how other brands were putting out new exciting high tech lenses in the 50mm arena(Sigma Art, Zeiss Otus) and seeing their performance it made me re-evaluate what is important to me when it comes to output.
The Noct renders images in a very unique way and it will always be part of my toolset as some specific areas it is still alone on the hill. It does have its flaws however, CA being one of the most important ones, combined with haziness in certain situations, they can cause you to not get the output quality you need(for print, not for screen output btw).
So after trying some lenses over the past years and looking at what I want I decided to go with the Zeiss Milvus 50mm F/1.4(ZF.2). So far so good, although I still think this will be a love-hate relationship as the Noct output is very different, but as I am slowly getting comfortable with the crazy long turn and focus precision it is very rewarding to see the pure image quality. It is really really impressive to see how it handles backlit situations, high contrast imagery while keeping the focus area free of CA, haze, and other issues. Bravo Zeiss.
Which brings me to another point. Manual focus on DSLR's is really bad and slow.
So why use my D700 instead of my Sony A7s. Well..
I printed some photos recently and when the prints came back(big) I noticed that there was a distinct defocus effect on the right side of the frame. I started going back through my photographs and noticed it was happening on my 24mm shots. My first fear was that this was related to the lens having some issue, but after testing on the D700 it turned out it was the A7s... more precisely the mount, which seems to be ever so slightly "tilted" to the right, and has been like this most likely from the start as I do not recall it having had a bump/collision and seeing as none of my lenses is damaged. As such I have been trying to get it repaired, but unlike Nikon, Sony's repair is handled by less professional companies, and as such I have no ETA for it to be even sent off.
Media : Fabric, fabric painting.
I used a toothbrush with white paint to spatter dots on the fabric to make tiny stars, for bigger stars I use a fine brush to paint it. The church buildings are 'inprint' made from my sponge toolset.
In Austria, when I visit a church I ask for wisdom, peace and harmony plus I never forget to say thanks for just being happy. I wish you all the same too.
I'm back from Africa! Specifically Nairobi in Kenya, and then Zanzibar (island), Serengeti National Park and Ngorongoro Crater Conservation area in Tanzania. It was definitely a once in a lifetime experience (altho pretty sure I'll be back again very soon). I got to see the Big 5 (yay!), and tons and tons of wildlife that roams the vast African safari. I did a few game drives in a safari vehicle where the top can be taken off and you can stick your head up to get a panorama view of the plains at any given time. Few nights of camping with a group of people, they were young and fun and great to be with. We had campfires, stargazing, great African local foods, tons and tons of booths selling local crafts in tiny houses made with mud. We had even visited a local Masai Village where the local people danced for us and gave us detailed introduction to their village, showed us their kids and kindergarden, how they build their houses...etc. It was just awesome.
For the 2nd part of the trip, I stopped by Amsterdam/Rotterdam (Netherlands), Cologne (Germany), Brussels (Belgium), and a couple other smaller towns for a 5 day European trip. God it was COLDDDD, and one night there was a snowstorm which made it really scary to drive. Still it was a great introduction to Europe and I got to see quite a few awesome churches and castles.
And yes I got my new camera (Olympus E-5) the day before I left at 8pm! Thank God. I quickly went through the user manual and packed it up, and I thought that it was the best day of the year.
That was the happy part. The sad part was that I broke my most used lens (12-60mm) the FIRST DAY I was there! I accidentally dropped the camera and the lens to the ground when I was lugging them around at the Kenya airport (it was in a camera bag but it didn't help :/ ), and the metal bracket at the bottom of the lens was bent due to the force. At first the autofocus completely failed. While feeling devastated, I took a tiny pair of scissors and slowly unscrewed the tiny screws on the brackets, took the metal ring out, and attemped to use the pair of piers in my multipurpose toolset to bend the ring back to its original form. After 2 hours of hard work (in front of a small lamp in a dark hostel room) I managed to fix 80% of it. The lens started to focus again from 18mm to 60mm, however it still wouldnt focus in the 12mm to 18mm range, which really sucked as that's range I used the most for wide angle/landscape shots. It was devastating, really, and I was holding my tears. For the entire duration of the trip I had to use F22 (smallest aperture) to do all the wide angle shots, despite the softness of the image at such an extreme aperture, and of course it worked only when there was plenty of light. Under F22 the images turned out to be okay, still a little blurry, but at least it sort of worked.
Anyway, here's a shot of an orphan baby elephant. It was taken at the David Sheldrick Wildlife Trust in Nairobi/Kenya, where orphaned elephants that lost their parents or injured are rescued and being taken care of. There were about 20 baby elephants at the show, they were really playful and cute, cuddling each other, having fun in the mud pool, and visitors can pet them as they get closer. More images to come, of course.
Designers dispose of a great set of competencies, attitudes, techniques and toolsets that could potentially be a great contribution to the business world. It's time that the overlap between business and design gets more attention...
read my blogpost about it here:
http://business-model-design.blogspot.com/2006/05/overlap-between-design-and-business.html
I did eventually manage to finish the printing frame. It works well, and is a nice addition to my toolset. I think I ought to see about replacing the felt on the hinged back, though, as the original stuff is pretty well shot.
Fujifilm X100 / Nik Collection
Taken in Shinkuku, Tokyo. Just a very quick tryout of Nik Analog Efex Pro. As usual, the standard presets give a very overprocessed look; the real strength seems to be in the toolset which allows you to make individual adjustments. In addition to the usual control points, there seem to be effect areas (similar to Lightroom adjustments).
All in all a great update, for the stunning price of $0.00
新宿にて撮影。Nik Efexにアナログのプラグインが加わったので早速遊んでみた。
プリセットは相変わらず加工味が強いので微調整がおすすめかな…。プリセットよりも、ツールセットから使いたい効果を選び、慎重に加工しつつ、という流れがこのソフトの本当に力を引き出せるのではないかという気がします。
無料アップデートでこれだけ機能が増えるのは嬉しいですね。