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Beautiful sunset behind the peak Llom del Matxo Flac (around 625m) near Alzira, Valencia.
The difficulty of shots like this is always the area that is in the shadows (in this case the entire right side of the peak). Hitting the right exposure is impossible, so for this picture I used bracketing creating a HDR shot from three images merged in Lightroom.
Photo equipment used in this shot:
Nikon D7200: amzn.to/2pXn3Qd
Nikkor DX 35mm 1.8 G: amzn.to/2qUX3CH
Check out my YouTube Channel (it's mostly in Spanish): bit.ly/2pqKuOy
Bonita puesta de sol detrás del pico Llom del Matxo Flac (unos 625m) cerca de Alzira, Valencia.
La dificultad de tomar fotos como esta siempre reside en las sombras (en este caso la toda la parte que está a la derecha del pico). Encontrar la exposición correcta es imposible, así que para esta imagen usé la técnica de 'bracketing' creando una imagen HDR (Alto Rango Dinámico) basada en tres fotos unidas en Adobe Lightroom.
Equipo usado en esta foto:
Nikon D7200: amzn.to/2pfIGwg
Nikkor DX 35mm 1.8 G: amzn.to/2qV71nx
Echa un vistazo a mi Canal de YouTube: bit.ly/2pqKuOy
The only difficulty with tight rules on MM is that during COVID 19 not everyone will be able to fulfil the strict rules of the time line. If I get the time I’ll add into the MM pool just to highlight the problem for some of us when we’ll be a bit busier than normal.
The larger shell is 3inches in size, so then significantly smaller then, they are 3-5mm in size.
HMM all stay safe
Via ferrata of medium difficulty, in the east ascent one passage B/C, otherwise easier (B and A/B), the descent via the SW ridge is a touch easier (passages B, mostly around A/B). In the approach to the east face there are some unsecured scree passages (max. I) and in the descent an unsecured exposed ridge section to overcome. Due to the high frequency of use, the route is very prone to falling rocks. For the ascent, surefootedness and a head for heights are necessary.
The construction of the church was accompanied by difficulties, including due to the Polish uprising of 1830-1831. Only in 1835, the Kiev landowner Anthony Savitsky contributed the final amount, but construction was completed only after 7 years. On August 30, 1842 of the same year, the temple was consecrated.
St. Alexander's Cathedral remained the only major Catholic religious building in Kyiv until the Church of St. Nicholas was built in 1909.
Будівництво церкви супроводжувалося труднощами, у тому числі через Польське повстання 1830—1831 років. Лише 1835 року київський поміщик Антоній Савицький вніс остаточну суму, але будівництво завершилося лише через 7 років. 30 серпня 1842 року того ж року храм було освячено.
Собор Святого Олександра залишався єдиною великою католицькою культовою спорудою Києва, доки 1909 року не було збудовано костел Святого Миколая.
Український дім – місце в центрі столиці, яке використовують для проведення різних заходів: конгресів, форумів, конференцій, виставок. У п’ятиповерховій будівлі близько десятка виставкових залів.
Будівлю споруджено в 1978–1982 роках для розміщення в ній експозиції музею Леніна, який до переїзду був розташований у приміщенні Будинку вчителя, знаного серед киян як «Центральна Рада». Ленінська експозиція працювала до 1993 року, після цього її демонтували і розмістили у фондах, а установу почали використовувати як поліфункціональний виставково-презентаційний комплекс.
Having difficulty in identifying these. My current thought is that they are mergansers, a male in eclipse and a female, but would welcome comments. Seen on the Tyne today.
I am having difficulty with the identification of this stint. Maybe somebody can help ID this bird? I am inclined to believe it is a Little Stint judging by the bill shape and colouring of the upper parts. It was by itself among a large flock of similarly sized Wrybill out at Lake Ellesmere a couple of months ago. As the Little Stint is very rare, this bird is likely a Red-necked Stint.
Weather is often the main difficulty in Scotland but there is a saying in Scotland that if you don't like the weather there wait for ten minutes. Yes the weather is so changeable that often if you wait you will be rewarded with some sunshine. I took this shot on one of my weekly visits to the Highlands and lo and behold the whole week was end to end sunshine. I had to delete the last two images as they were over processed. Thank-you for your comments and critiques. Constructive criticism is always welcome.
The road to castle Tioram castle gets pretty busy in the tourist season (by that I mean about three vehicles down the entirety of the road to Dorlin). You see many with their mouths open as they meet you on this bend, coming from the opposite direction. It's a 90 degree bend, single track, with a steep drop to the fast flowing water below the tiny wall and to meet someone at this point is a nightmare for them. You have to swing round it so that you don't scrape the rock face on the opposite side, not easily done in some of the ridiculous sized (7 metre) motorhomes some tourists head down here with. Of course meeting them head on, when they are also agog at the beauty surrounding this spot, is most alarming for them. Can they select reverse and negotiate backwards from the apex of the corner to the passing place before the bend? Normally I just flip the car into reverse and save them the agony......or sometimes I just think it amusing to sit and watch them struggle (especially if someone has come up and stopped right behind me and will also have difficulty finding reverse!). I can be like that some times
401Da-314 hauls EP05-23 through the Staszica settlement in Pruszków, as preparations for the 2024 night of museums.
Recently, while browsing throught Philipp's gallery I came across his picture of the M62-0023 with a prefab settlement in the background. Then I remembered that I have one more pic to show from the transport of EP05-23 for the night of museums, utilising a similar subject.
What I didn't mention in my last posts about my only visit on the WKD is that the unelectrified connecting track between Komorów and Pruszków was proposed to be upgraded to serve the role of a normal commuter rail line.
Pruszów is one of the largest cities in the Warsaw metro area and it has two active passenger rail lines, but neither of them passes through the most densely populated areas. Activating the unelectrified track connecting PKP PLK and WKD would mean that citizens get almost direct access to railways at their doorstep.
However, as always, due to many difficulties, like:
-lack of funding
-level crossing avery couple of meters
-noise pollution
-a fire brigade positioned directly on the railway tracks (soon in one of my next posts)
-lack of diesel units in WKD
-and others
the project was never finalised.
Photo by Piotrek/Toprus
Taken with some difficulty through our neighbour's tree at almost the same spot as the Possum/Galah confrontation the other day - we heard a Kookaburra laughing and I noticed one sitting on the far right end of the power pole cross arm (out of sight on the right) followed by a Magpie landing on the other end. Oh no, problems for sure. As I grabbed the camera and moved a bit to position myself, at the left hand end and middle were a further two Kookas with the Magpie keeping a watchful eye....surprisingly close. Magpies take exception to Kookaburras and usually take chase. In time, as I typed this the Noisy Miners joined in. The Kookas decided to retreat as usual. Game over.
Today 19 June.
Words have difficulty expressing how odd much of Iceland is. Take this rainbow. It's not enough for Iceland to present you with a spectacular rainbow, no no... Iceland has to put it in an alien setting against primeval volcanic outcrops, perhaps as though on Saturn or on a moon of Jupiter, embedded in a thick methane fog illuminated by a distant sun.
Only the stunted grasses in the foreground jolt you back to the possibility that maybe, just maybe, you are still back on planet earth.
Straight from the camera.
Having difficulty with the berries. She dropped this one, but was soon back for more at Martin Mere WWT.
After a hike with Swiss friends at the Mills Canyon Park in Burlingame, I scouted for a good place with a clear view of airplanes landing at SFO, the San Francisco International airport. I found some dandelion blowballs in a local park. A dandelion blowball apparently has a spiritual meaning of surviving through all challenges and difficulties.
I processed a balanced, a photographic and a paintery HDR photo from two RAW exposures, blended them, and carefully adjusted the color balance and curves. I welcome and appreciate constructive comments.
Thank you for visiting - ♡ with gratitude! Fave if you like it, add comments below, like the Facebook page, order beautiful HDR prints at qualityHDR.com.
-- ƒ/6.3, 50 mm, 1/80, 1/320 sec, ISO 400, Sony A6000, SEL-P1650, HDR, 2 RAW exposures, _DSC0784_5_hdr2bal1pho1pai5m.jpg
-- CC BY-NC-SA 4.0, © Peter Thoeny, Quality HDR Photography
In the early 1800's, many thoughtful Americans believed that isolation and the difficulties of communication would force the Mississippi Valley settlements to form a separate nation. Hoping to hold the frontier, Congress, in 1800, established a post route from Nashville (TN) to Natchez (MS). The Trace, then a series of Indian Trails, had drawn from the Secretary of State the bitter comment, "The passage of mail from Natchez is as tedious as from Europe when westerly winds prevail." To speed the mail, President Jefferson ordered the army to clear out the trail and make it a road. Postriders, carrying letters, dispatches, and newspaper helped bind the vast turbulent frontier to the republic. However, their day passed by the mid-1830's when steamboats, running from New Orleans to Pittsburg, robbed the Trace of its usefulness as a main post route.
The pathway shown above is a section of the original Old Natchez Trace near Eupora, Mississippi (before the road) that you can walk on as it winds back and forth across the newer Natchez Trace Road. Some sections are fairly flat adjacent to the nearby roadway and others are deeper, worn out paths that are usually referred to as the 'Sunken Trace'.
Three bracketed photos were taken with a handheld Nikon D7200 and combined with Photomatix Pro to create this HDR image. Additional adjustments were made in 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
The best way to view my photostream is through Flickriver with the following link: www.flickriver.com/photos/photojourney57/
Bei beständigem Regenwetter und großer Mühe Futter zu finden war der Meisenknödel wohl eine Versuch wert.
With constant rainy weather and great difficulty in finding food, the tit dumpling was probably worth a try.
View of Dunstanburgh Castle, a tricky shot to capture due to the very slippery rocks and difficulty in finding a stable position to position my tripod.
"Out of difficulties grow miracles."
~ Jean De La Bruyere ~
"If you don't like something change it; if you can't change it, change the way you think about it."
~ Mary Engelbreit ~
"If you can find a path with no obstacles, it probably doesn't lead anywhere."
~ Frank A. Clark ~
"It is always in the midst, in the epicenter, of your troubles that you find serenity."
~ Antoine de Saint-Exupéry ~
♫ God of boundless universe, Lord who shaped me from my birth
You are there, You are there, In the glory of the stars
Vast cathedral of my heart, You are there, You are there
I'm never left on my own
Carried in the arms of Your power
I go on, 'Til the night becomes the dawn
Your love is life to me, You are my destiny
Carry on, carry on, O God of awesome might
You draw me to Your light, Carry on, carry on, carry on
My life is in Your hands, Carry on ♫
My friends, I apologize for my lack of visits, but as I said at the end of the year, I changed my residence and I am still under the influence of all the difficulties of everyday life that this causes
Foto: Amanhecer na Praia de Botafogo - Rio de Janeiro
Video: ♪ Carry on ♪ - Sandi Patty
Conforme a Lei 9.610/98, é proibida a reprodução total ou parcial ou divulgação comercial ou não sem a autorização prévia e expressa do autor (artigo 29). ® Todos os direitos reservados.
According to Law 9.610/98, it is prohibited the partial or total commercial reproduction without the previous written authorization of the author (article 29). ® All rights are reserved.
As usual, the real difficulty with Macro Mondays was thinking of something a little different and different from the last time that I tried to photograph a similar subject.
This is a wineglass full of marbles photographed in a dark room with just an LED penlight for illumination from above. I used the usual setup: tripod, trigger and black foamboard background.
The raw file was developed in Capture One for colour and lowering the Clarity to give a softer feel. In Affinity, there was a bit of sharpening and the usual tone and colour work. Cropping proved a bit of a challenge, and then I applied a bit of standard Orton effect using a couple of adjustment layers [a brightness/contrast layer with Screen blend and a Gaussian blur layer with Multiply blend mode and restricted to a tonal range using advanced blend options ], but lightly as MM is not meant to be heavily processed. Then to add a little more interest I flipped the image vertically to give a more surreal abstract feel. I’m not sure I got where I wanted but at least it’s something…
The glass is less than three inches at its widest and that is not visible here anyway, so we are within the guidelines.
I wonder how many people get to the stage of losing their marbles while still having their marbles from their teenage years… {sighs}
Thanks for taking the time to look. I hope you enjoy the image. Happy Macro Mondays! :)
Had some difficulty keeping GM in my frame.
I wonder how many speeding tickets he already collected ...
This photo was edited for the SL Picture•Pile•Ups group.
See something you'd change? join the group, download the pic, and edit it your way
Original capture by GM Nikolaidis, you can see it here .
“There is an island of opportunity in the middle of every difficulty.” Unknown.
Monemvasia, apart from being one of the most beautiful medieval towns in the Peloponnese, is a unique place in Greece. Its location on an island in the Mediterranean is truly spectacular. Today, the town can be reached by a causeway built over the sea in 1971, which connected the island with the mainland, but before that date, Monemvasia could only be reached by boat.
Due to its peculiar geography, Monemvasia became an ideal place to protect itself from invaders in the High Middle Ages, and that is how its first inhabitants built the first fortress in 583. Several centuries later, around the 10th AD, the town passed to be an important maritime and trade center. However, this fact led to continuous attacks to take over the island, and the city passed through Byzantine, Venetian and finally Ottoman hands, until its decline in the 18th century, and subsequent liberation in 1821 during the Greek War of Independence. Without a doubt, a fascinating story for such a peculiar and small territory.
Our YouTube Travel Video with Behind the Scenes of this picture:
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“Hay una isla de oportunidades en medio de cada dificultad”. Anónimo.
Monemvasia, además de ser uno de los pueblos medievales más hermosos del Peloponeso, es un lugar único en Grecia. Su emplazamiento en una isla sobre el Mediterráneo es realmente espectacular. Hoy en día, se puede llegar hasta el pueblo por una calzada construida sobre el mar en 1971, que conectó la isla con tierra firme, pero antes de esa fecha, a Monemvasia solo se podía llegar navegando.
Debido a su peculiar geografía, Monemvasia se convirtió en un lugar ideal para protegerse de invasores en la Alta Edad Media, y así fue cómo sus primeros habitantes construyeron la primera fortaleza en 583. Varios siglos más tarde, en torno al X d.C, la ciudad pasó a ser un importante centro marítimo y de comercio. Sin embargo, este hecho trajo consigo continuos ataques para apoderarse de la isla, y la ciudad pasó por manos Bizantinas, Venecianas y finalmente Otomanas, hasta su declive en el siglo XVIII, y posterior liberación en 1821 durante la Guerra de Independencia griega. Sin duda, una historia fascinante para un territorio tan pequeño y peculiar.
April 23, 2015 on our trip to the blipmeet at Wanaka, Central Otago in New Zealand. www.polaroidblipfoto.com/browse/me
Our first morning in Cromwell. We woke to heavy fog which took a while to lift. We have arrived at Mt Difficulty Estate Winery so John can do some tasting.
The unique microclimate of the Bannockburn area is partially created by the presence of Mount Difficulty which overlooks the southern Cromwell basin, and is the namesake of Mt Difficulty Wines. Mount Difficulty is integral in providing low rainfall and humidity for the region. Bannockburn enjoys hot summers, a large diurnal temperature variation and long cool autumns; conditions which bring the best out of the Pinot Noir grapes. These conditions, along with soils which are ideal for viticulture, provide an excellent basis not only for Pinot Noir, but also for Pinot Gris, Riesling, and Chardonnay. The soils are a mix of clay and gravels, but all feature a high pH level; grapes produce their best wines on sweet soils.
For More Info and photos: www.mtdifficulty.co.nz/aboutus/ourstory.htmlTalbe
No difficulty picking out the real artist here! I worked the first three pieces many, many years ago. Note that I am an awful painter. The first and third plaques are gilded and all are made of wood. The Halpern plaque is made of metal and painted with enamels.
Break- 222- Least Toast
Your success and happiness lies in you. Resolve to keep happy, and your joy and you shall form an invincible host against difficulties. Helen Keller
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- Facial expressions for all poses were obtained with the corresponding head hud.
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- Please be aware that some minor changes to your form may be required to adjust poses.
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VUDU-Blasphemy Collection
Thank you to my Buddy Oz for posing with me for this Set..
long stories shortened... (discarded and abandoned and intertwined short stories) well..actually they are chunks and fragmets and notes of stories that never made it
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a young PhD math candidate writing his dissertation on an obscure arab mathematician from the middle ages who specialized in cycles and periods in infinite series and develops a process to determine prime number density in a large number space. (which is all and good) except this makes it an excellent tool to decrypting military grade encryption, which is based on the computational difficulty of factoring large numbers into their prime components
the arab mathematician was ultimately censured by the religious mullahs for developing tools to rationalize the infinite, which is of course the nature of Allah and for man to attempt to place Allah into a human scale is blasphemy
so the arab mathematician disappears and the young phd candidate finds that his dissertation has been suspended pending review but cant get any information on who is reviewing it
finally another young mathematician approaches him and starts a long discussion on math and the nature of numbers and the mathematicians love of the underlying structure of reality that math represents. the phd candidate is leary of this mathematician cause he wont answer what he does or where he went to school or how he knows so many cutting edge fields in math
eventually, the young mathematician offers the phd candidate a position with the NSA, National Security Agency, (where all the big crypto and high math goes on) but explains that if he accepts that he will essentially disappear from his current world. his work will be classified, he will not be able to publish in academic journals or speak in public, or talk about his work to his friends on the outside, but the compensation is that he
would be able to work unfettered with the greatest math minds in the country, totally funded, free to explore any field or fancy he thought. after a few moments of thought, the phd accepts.
then the story will go back to the arab mathematician who is also approached my a young beared mullah, who offers him a position within his group of thinkers who do ponder and explore the nature of nature reality and Allah through mathematics, but that by joining them he would need to disappear from the world, after a few minutes of thought, he too accepts...
--
Daniel sipped his 6th coffee (colloidal suspension for caffeine transport) while his batch jobs on ramanet, the Indian supergrid, finished their checksum verification. His chin, a bit stubbly, itched. His eyes, a bit red, were sore. The goa trance shoutcast feed had mushed into a fast cadence drone. The flat screen monitor warped and bulged with the oscillating fan blowing on Daniel's face
'O' glamorous larval life of a PhD student...' he jotted and doodle-circled on his notepad.
Daniel cracked his neck and jutted his jaw, stretching out the accumulation of kinks, as RamaNet finished the final integrity check on his dataset. this two hour round of processing on the Indian supergrid would cost about $130 out of his precious grant fund, but you couldnt beat the bargain. 120 minutes times 150,000 PCs in the RamaNet processing collective = 1,080,000,000 seconds or 18,000,000 minutes or 300,000 hours or 12500 days or 34.25 years of processing time for the price of a video game. Calculation was commoditized now. You uploaded your pre-fromatted dataset to RamaNet. the data was packeted and sent to out to 150,000 Indians who lent a few percents of never-to-be missed CPU cycles off their systems for background processing. when their alotted package was completed it was sent back to RamaNet for re-assembly into something coherent for the buyer. in return the Indians got a rebate on their net access charges or access to premier bollywood galleries or credit towards their own processing charges. a good deal all the way around. Daniel's dataset, an anthology of complex proofs from a long-dead arab mathematician, was queued with amateur weather forecast modeling, home-brewed digital CGI for indie movies, chaos theory-based currency trading algorithms, etc. the really high end, confidential jobs, like protein folding analysis or big pharm drug trials were more likely handled by the huge western collectives of several million collaborative systems, usually high-performance machines in dedicated corporate server farms. the cost there was out of Daniel's range, but you got a faster return and better promises of encryption for your buck.
Daniel scratched his scalp and flexed his fingers. 'two months from today i will be a doctor of mathematics...and no job. damnit. i need to find something fast.' Daniel calculated in his mind how quickly the student loans repayments would kick in and completely wipe him out. RamaNet would have done it in nanoseconds, ha! he laughed to himself. Daniel had avoided the rounds of job interviews and recommendations that passed his way. he was too absorbed in his research to look ahead, and perhaps a bit intimidated by the idea of the job hunt flea market. flexing his CV, getting a monkey suit, trying to explain his research to recruiters, who were often the same finger-counting business majors in college that made his skin crawl. Daniel always felt a bit embarrassed when he announced he was math PhD candidate. folks would immediately glaze over,
tsk tsk out a 'that's interesting', and swiftly change the subject. something will come up, he mantra'd to himself over and over, something will come up. stick with ali, there is something real in there, just a bit deeper. the real problem was his thesis advisor. dr. fuentes was not returning his calls, his secretary was not taking appointments from Daniel. he had submitted his finished draft of his thesis two weeks ago, but hadnt heard back since, except for a cryptic email saying that the review committee was having some issues with his paper and that Daniel would be hearing from him shortly. Daniel was rerunning his calculations on RamaNet to assuage the gnawing doubt that he completely botched some component of his argument and that the review committee was debating some manner of telling him to redo the entire effort. no PhD and no job. that would ice the cake. Daniel started calculating his body mass and general aerodynamic resistance relative to the height of the school cathedral to figure out if he had time to reach a terminal velocity before impact...only a failed math PhD would attempt to determine at what speed his body would smack concrete, he morbidly thought to himself.
ali ja'far muhammed ibn abdullah al-farisi slipped meditatively on his cup of water, thinking about his proof. he dipped a finger in the cup and held up a droplet of water under his fingertip, watching the sunlight prisimatically splay out on the mouth of the cup. 'praise be Allah and his wonderous bounty' he mumured to himself.
the elders had been in conference all day over his proof. though the heavy doors to their chamber were closed, he would occasionally hear muffled but distinctly angry shouts. ali sat on a divan in the anteroom, served numerous cups of tea by an obviously nervous secretary. ali knew there was deep resistance to his research, but for the life of him he couldnt figure out why. he was a simple mathematician. he came up with some unique observations. he wanted to share them with his peers...
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Overview: biotech researcher discovers a new life-extension technology and is murdered. He is cryogenically frozen for 150 years. When he is
revived he must stop a dark corporate conspiracy – and find his murderer.
Summer 2015 - Hot genius free-lance biotech researcher unravels the key component of a radical life-extension gene therapy that will ensure 300 years of robust life to its recipients. The researcher is murdered shortly after he hides the critical component. His distraught friend has him cryogenically frozen. 150 years later, the researcher is revived by the same major bio-med corporation for which he had originally been working.
Quickly he realizes that their motives are less than altruistic: his modification of the gene therapy is needed to resolve an unforeseen debilitation now creeping up in the recipients of the life-extension process. The recipients, now nearing 125 years off added life, are decompensating into psychotics. The researcher at first tries to remember and reconstruct what he did with the hidden critical component, but stops in disgust when he learns that in the past 150 years the life-extension therapy has been reserved solely for the ultra-affluent and has created an extreme and cruel global gerontocratic elite. He voices his disgust to his corporate minders, who cease being beneficent and show their true colors as trying to gain control of this critical technology in order to control the elites.
In the process of dealing with the corporation, he learns about his murder and begins investigating.As he comes closer to the identity of his murderer, he uncovers a wider conspiracy and is the target of more murder attempts.
He was killed by a friend in 2015. The friend was the CEO of a small bio-gen firm that the researcher was doing the LET work for. The CEO, a biz-head with a genetics academic background, took the researcher’s work and exploited it as his own, in the process growing his small firm into a bio-med powerhouse and him into one of the world’s wealthiest individuals.
The CEO also was the first recipient of the LET and is now 190 years old, but doesn’t look a day over 45. Smart, urbane, ruthless, the CEO used his wealth and position to start the cabal of Ultras. It is a faction of the top 50 smartest and wealthiest people in the world who have ‘ascended from the world’ (faked their demise) and control the global economy with their vast coordinated wealth. Perhaps they will call themselves ‘The Ascended’. We need to decide how the cabal lives. Are they sequestered on a luxurious island compound, or do they live in the open, surgically re-sculpted after each faked death, or do they live in the open.
Also we need to figure out what the world will look and feel like in 150 years.
As the ultras decompensate into psychosis, the CEO orders the researcher to be revived in order to find a cure. The CEO had the researcher’s lab notes decrypted and figured that the he was close if not successful in finding the missing component to stabilize the LET.
Tiberius Syndrome: the decline into cruel psychosis experienced by the ultras, named after the roman emperor Tiberius’ degenerate behavior after he sequestered himself on Capri.
The ironic twist might be that there is no cure, no stabilization. The psychosis is not the result of the LET alone, but also due in part to the unfettered ego/wills of the ultras. Absolute power corrupts…
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a brazilian hacking syndicate was subcontracted by a st petersberg crew to run interference on a hit on SWIFT, the global currency clearinghouse notification network. The UniFavela clan was going to run a multi-flank raid. They specialized in fast propagating virii and had created a custom mail-in virus that exploited a few microsoft vulnerabilities that they had discovered and kept mum. Their target was a Latin American PR spokesman listed on the corporate web site for press queries. The PR flak would be just the sleepy guard on the wall for their virus to slip past. 30 minutes after opening an inocuous spoofed email from a French e-trade publication requesting clarification on the SWIFT-Indentrus partnership. the virus would port scan and map its entire site LAN, salmoning its way up the router paths till it found the deep waters of the main corporate campus network in Brussels. Shortly, the internal LAN at Brussels would be suffering switch and router buffer overflows and traffic would gasp, ack, and sputter. UniFavela would then towel whip out a vanilla DDOS on the main company web site, any INTERNIC-registered addresses, and any other system in the IP block reserved for SWIFT that had previously port scanned as interesting, or ,even, as nothing. Mongols charging the village gates and tossing flaming torches on thatched roofs. IT Operations would be running to and fro, trying to figure out the internal bandwidth crunch and if there was a bleedout causing the external net problems.
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The Post-Human Story of Minos:
the CEO of a powerful commercial combine is bore an illegitimate son by his indiscreet wife in retaliation for his own dalliances. the son has a hideous deformity but is fantastically brilliant - brilliant enough for the father overcome his own repulsion of the child - as a bastard and a freak. the father sequesters the child in an elaborate virtual domain. the child, a hacker savant, is used to breach competitor nets. but as his power in the digital realm expands, the child transforms into the tyrant-monster. using the nets, he lashes out at people who have caused him pain, then evolves into enjoying the taste of terror and fear. He becomes the Minotaur.
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'there was a mad scramble amongst all the big spook governments, dark side corporations, and the privacy maccabees once it was determined that quantum computation had left the tidal pool of academia, grown legs and air-breathing lungs, and was headed for the nat sec intel highlands. all previous encryption models were rendered obsolete, and worse, exposed. QC became an undefiable xray spotlight, laying bare any encrypted secret with a ease of opening a mathematical candy wrapper. And for a while it swung the advantage back to the state in the digital Boer War against the freecon partisans.'
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The Oort, to the Intras, looked as one people. Extra-stellar hillbillies, ekeing out a subsistance existence on extracted organics from the frozen crud comets and other planetesimals of the Oort Cloud that slung around the solar system in a 1K AU circuit. To the Oort there was no Oort. Each station, each kampong was distinct and seperate. Seperate dialects, traditions, norms, goals. Some were scientific collectives, some were tired mining operations, some were intense sectarian cults - they shared little between themselves beyond necessary trade links for scarce commodities.
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A young prince is disgraced in an internal court scandal and sent into a quasi-exile on a worthless mission. On his travels he builds the wisdom and learns the skills necessary to be a just and effective leader.
His exile was a gambit by his patriarch to remove Genji from the arena of pointless court intrigues and develop him as a real leader. The patriarch dispatched a team of loyal praetorians to discreetly follow and protect Genji on his odyssey.
Genji was sent as an emissary to the Oort system. He must pass through the Martian-Saturnine corridor, populated with industrial trading guilds and their private militias.
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Genealogy becomes paramount in a closed culture; hierarchy by heredity. Reference the roman patrician class’ death-grip obsession with lineage, or the medieval Japanese imperial court’s strict intra-elite caste system.
But in an era of extreme genetic engineering, how can bloodlines retain their importance? Perhaps this is the wrong question. Perhaps in an era of extreme genetic engineering, authentic bloodlines can only retain their importance. The longevity of an unchanged gene line demonstrates success in evolutionary competition. Over time however, the fitness of a rigidly enforced and ‘sequestered’ gene line will degrade. Consider the hemophilia of the European royal strata.
I would not want the imperial court of the inner system to be pure blue bloods, eschewing genetic manipulation. Rather I would have them take the opposite tack – and embrace genetic engineering in the pursuit of perfecting particular socially valued or distinctive attributes; a roman nose, elongated refined fingers, even the possession of certain ‘noble’ afflictions (for ex., the aforementioned hemophilia as a sign of noble lineage).
The elites should pursue genealogy with the same passion and gusto as horse breeders; studs and mares and percentages of bloodlines, enforced and suppressed gene expressions, surrogates, and gene modes des saisons.
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a bum finds a the wallet and keys of a man who jumped from a bridge
he goes to his townhouse to find something to eat or steal
is impressed and overwhelmed with the man's townhouse
showers, eats, gets cleaned up, finds some clothes
is ready to leave when he helps a woman wrestling with groceries at her door
she thanks him, but looks stunned.
‘are you the man in #560? umm..i have lived here for 3 years and have never actually seen you. you seem to leave so early in the morning and get
home so late and keep to yourself.’
they spend 30 minutes talking, having a generally warm friendly encounter.
‘well, I am so glad to have finally met you. Hope to see you soon.’ As she closes her door, the bum turns to leave but pauses and thinks for a moment, then goes back into the man's townhouse
he pours through the man's papers and keepsakes and learns that the man has no family that he speaks with, no friends, lives off a well-endowed trust fund
and
the bum moves in and takes over the mans identity
he brings warmth and sincerity to the man's identity
what makes a hermit tick? what lengths do they go to to remove themselves from society? does it become a game to avoid contact, trying to become a shadow, a phantom? does society dissolve away as a mental force in their thoughts, atrophy away or does it become an amputated impression?
what divsion line stands between a hermit and convict in solitary? the hermit, by and large, chooses their isolation, the convict has it enforced upon them. at what point does the human need for society or socialization collapse? is there anything left that we can inspect and evaluate? a hermit, however, is able to maintain walls against the Great Other, which would imply that they are seeking refuge from the world. a schizo or an autistic will be physically surrounded by others but unable or incapable of making contact.
when does the will to contact die? what is left over? do humans require contact to retain our humanity? can you love and sacrifice in a vacuum?
what defines humanity? oooh, a big question...
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genetic engineering will continue to deconstruct the human species
there will be catastrophic disasters: gene sequence specific viruses engineered to attack 'types' of people. Der Genkampf
petroleum will be replaced- hydrogen-powered locomotion and green power (in the wealthy states). the poor states will continue to be held hostage to oil politics
(cultures and civilizations do not move forward uneringly. they spasticly jerk forward and fro, in clumps andgrains, never ever as a lemming death drive.)
developed economies will be netized. a new state structure will be needed to manage and dsitribute resources. the corporate structure, the commercial backbone of the capitalist democracy, will replace the republic. it is flexible to markets and political forces, insistent on accountability, it provides a sufficient compromise between individual representation and republican government. they will begin their political evolution as projects in community development. assurances of an educated workforce by charter education. assurances of uninterrupted utilities by running their own power/water etc. net-based marketplaces create corporate agoras. employees are in fact de facto citizens of the corporation. citizenship, or regular employment, will be a reward for merit, stock shares will count towards suffrage.
great corporate collectives will arise. housing, education, security...all the needs of the middle class will be absorbed in the corporate state. the tradtional state will cede roles and responsibilities to the corporate state as their resources dwindle. a few isolated violent reactions (military or legal)by the republics against the corporate states, but they will fail over time. against, or more so, in conjunction with the homogenized corporatsists wil be the diasporae, non-corporates will glom to other modes of networked alignment, ethnic allegiance will become stronger over time - as the chinese, indian, and jewish disporaestrengthen as a formula for a successful competition against/with the corporates.
the american state, succored by its overwhelming techo-military supremancy, loses its mission, its vision - substitutes will to dominate for will to excel - and falls into the deep narcotic, insulated slumber of the unassailable. GE, nano, and the banknote net weaken the mythic cohesion of the american spirit. we are no longer united by common experience (mass-mediated or otherwise) the promise of science to make us stronger, smarter, near immortal is held like a manifest destiny or a divine IOU for services rendered to humanity.
The current difficulty of engaging in international travel as made me to look more locally for breaks away from my work. And I’m (re)discovering that I live in a land of little gems. Admittedly, there are few jaw-dropping vistas of Victoria Falls proportions, but there are hundreds and hundreds of beautiful little nooks, each parcelling its own small perfection. And, here is best part, they are often overlooked by the masses. Being the antisocial kinda guy that I am, I truly revel in the enjoy of discovering and experiencing these bijou photographers’ delights. Of course, to locate each micro-jewel, I’m exploiting that brilliant invention – t’interweb (apparently is has other uses beyond porn, gambling and buying stuff you probably don’t need. Who knew?). This leads to the inherent contradiction… Google is available to everyone, which means these clandestine spots will soon be overrun by the very people I’m trying to avoid. Doh!
So good people, if you are similar to me and want to live in a land of semi-secret gems, please encourage all your acquittances to limit the usage of their browser to ogling Ms Whiplash and throwing their savings at a nag running in the 3.30 at Haydock. Oh, and buying tat from Amazon.
THIS ARTIST DRAW BY HIS FOOT AND SELL HIS PAINTING ON DONG- KHOI STREET PAVEMENT.
THIS PHOTO WAS TAKEN AT 1998 BY NIKON D70 FILM CAMERA.
I have often wondered why I feel so strongly opposed to some photographers overwhelming desire to reproduce reality... now I’ve previously explored in some depth, my views on reality and don’t wish to repeat myself here, but I do want to question my own personal distaste to others desire, in pursuit of it.
Now before I get stuck into the negative, let’s keep this balanced with some positive observations. there are in fact some wondrous realities to be experienced and explored photographically; the omnipresent beauty of the wilderness, the deep feeling of love I have for my family, the fantastically elevating feeling that creativity catalyses, the selfless goodness in many people (especially those with the greatest difficulties or with the least to give). I could go on but I’m in danger of sounding a bit too much of a tree hugger.
Now troublingly, there are certain parts of reality, or my perception of it, that deeply, sadden me; our society’s seemingly unquestionable faith in consumerism as a flawed economic systems teetering with frighteningly fragility on the edge of collapse. The arrogant naivety that places money, profit, and greed before our environment. What saddens me most is that our children will wonder why we as guardians to their future, didn’t try harder to leave the earth as we found it... I despair at the horrors sensationalised by news channels and often feel disgust at the lack of empathy given to the stories desperate circumstances. I often feel that as a society we are not heading in the right direction and I’m sure that I’m not alone with feeling a deep need to opt out, to escape. This progressive realisation that our human race can be so selfishly individualised, is paradoxically forcing me to, whenever I can, escape into an unreal, self constructed personal reality.
I’m sure it’s no accident that my work, teaching animation, takes me into fantasy worlds created to immerse and stimulate altered realities through the development of purposefully fantasy characters. Again my most favoured pastime, places me in isolated locations well away from not only humans but any signs of their existence. It’s almost a meditative experience with the purpose to escape into pure nature. I seem obsessive in the desire to create an altered reality that fits my personal vision. Through landscape photography I selectively seek an escapist pursuit of my own manufactured perception of reality as a perfect world, as I want it. This is why you rarely see humans or their objects in my work. Turning to this image, I wished the vapour trails weren’t there, as they remind me that the beach isn’t so perfect after all. it reminds me that high up in the atmosphere there is a jet engine burning needles carbon that will ultimately destroy the very thing I’m trying to photograph, it’s pure, wild, innocent, clean, wondrous beauty.
Funny I feel a need to finish this on a positive, and make some kind of tree hugging joke to elevate the cynical amongst you, but this time I don’t feel like trying to make this text softer. I feel VERY STRONGLY that we need to radically change our society to take some collective responsibility for the sake of our children. At the moment reality isn’t a very nice place!
I have a dear friend who is going through some difficulties in her life. She has been suffering from an illness not yet diagnosed. She's been losing weight, has fatigue, her body and skin aches and burns and her doctors have been running tests but haven't found an answer for her. I have been thinking about her and her situation a lot lately and wish I could do something to help. If anyone has had similar ailments maybe we could help figure out what is wrong. I'm sending healing and positive vibes out for her and hope that her doctors will finally be able to give her an answer.
Thank you RLB for always believing in me and bringing out the best in everyone you encounter.
I have great difficulty resisting mirrors......!
Here I'm at the restroom of a restaurant.
Lighting was scarce. I used 1/8 sec with aperture f/4 on Ilford XP2.
Lens is a Xenar 2.8/45mm.
Film developed with Cinestill C41 Color Simplified powder kit.
As you can see, I use a Leica SBOOI 50mm finder because of the excellent view that little thing presents me.
Have a pause from life's difficulties and let's have a talk over a velvety milkshake. (@ Gooseberry Willows Sim)
Food Credit:
[Mamere] Cat milkshake available @ Planet 29 March 29th - April 22th
[Cinoe] Hassaku Citrus Cake
[Cinoe] **Old item cake no longer available**
I have difficulties in establishing the title of this image.
What is your opinion using star 5??
Hibiscus is the national flower of Malaysia. I am so surprise the 1st time I found this plentiful in L.A.
The color here are all natural without using any enhancement by Corel Paintshop pro.
Thank you for your visits, comment & Fave.
I appreciate it.
The difficulties of being a viking tribe heiress when your dad is always getting you wrong presents. xD The viking princess love murders, so do not upset her!
This is a very old idea, I always wanted to do something with the idiom "to offer the heart and hand" - I kind of forgot that the English equivalent is just "to offer one's hand", which sounds even more strange to me (I can understand why heart, but not why hand, and why only one hand? who gets the second hand then? is it a right or left hand? so many questions).
Of course, making a proposal scene would be too easy and not original (and actually I already did such a scene a few years ago), not even mentioning that the heart would be, well, inside, but the idea was to take it out literally. xD Don't look at picture like that - if someone's offers some body parts of theirs, then someone else, especially someone who understands everything literally, can take them, right? Why else to offer them if you're not ready to part with them? xD
And this is why vikings. I just wondered where it would be appropriate to place such a bloody scenario. Well, there's a lot of scary legends about vikings, why it couldn't be one of them? ;)
The idea is old, but I didn't try to actually build it for a few years, cause I really hoped to buy either 21343 Viking Village or 31132 Viking Ship (though I didn't really like the ship and I think 7018 is superior in so many ways, but I want a new Fenris wolf), but then I realised that chances for getting either are low. :( So I tried my best to build a log house with little amount of Reddish Brown parts I have.
I was going to post it yesterday evening, of course, but I get sleepy too quick cause I was taking another picture a night before, so I decided to rest instead. :)
Elisabetta Sirani - "Porcia hurting in the thigh" (1664, oil on canvas, 101 x 138 cm, Fondazione Cassa di Rispamio, Bologna)
Elisabetta Sirani was an artist of Italian classicism, belonging to the Bologna School. This school originated in the Workshop of the Carracci and one of their most famous representatives was Guido Reni,of which we have already seen several works. But I'm sure this girl's name only rings a few. And it's a shame, because she was a great painter. He had trained in the workshop of his father, Giovanni Andrea Sirani, disciple of Guido Reni, but in a very short time managed to give soups with slingshot to his father. She became very famous and ended up running the family workshop, where she trained many other women. He died very young, at the age of 27, but despite being active for only a decade he left a very extensive production.
This is one of his best works, a painting depicting a historical fact starring another woman of break and tears, the Roman Porcia Catonis,daughter of Cato and wife of Marcus June Brutus, one of which was charged to Julius Caesar. The story of the painting appears in the Lives of Pluto. Porcia suspected that her husband was hiding her plans about the conspiracy against Julius Caesar and to get him to trust her, he cut his thigh with a knife, making himself a much more serious wound than the scratch that Sirani has painted, since it caused him severe fevers. Holding the pain like a jabata, she waited a whole day to teach Brutus the wreck, showing her that women are as strong as men and that she would be able to keep it a secret even if they tortured her. Unsurprisingly, Brutus brought her up to date on the whole thing.
Although the painting was commissioned by wealthy sed merchant Simone Tassi, Sirani he hesd is more than likely to choose the subject, with which he was already claiming his trade. It's easy to make a comparison between Porcia's show of strength and the difficulties Sirani had to overcome in order to become famous in a male-led art world. Porcia holds the dagger and Sirani holds the brushes, attributes that were then typical of men, rejecting the traditional female spinning and knitting activities performed by the three women at the bottom of the painting. A full-rule feminist plea.
May your dreams come true
In a year of undoubted difficulties and at the gates of the next, I wish you with all my heart that your dreams come true.
A hug, Merry Christmas and happy 2022.
QUE SE CUMPLAN TUS SUEÑOS
En un año de indudables dificultades y a las puertas del próximo, desearos de todo corazón que se cumplan vuestros sueños.
Un abrazo, feliz Navidad y prospero 2022.
Mountain Name: Reinebringen – Location: Moskenesøya, Norway – Elevation: 448m – Difficulty: Hard/Steep – Time: 1.5-2 hours
"If all difficulties were known at the outset of a long journey, most of us would never start out at all."
-William Buckley Jr
Thank you all so much for the overwhelming views, likes and comments on my images from the Ice Caves! I so appreciate it!
Here is another image of the amazing Ice Caves at the Apostle Islands of Lake Superior.
I had the opportunity to visit them 3 times this winter. A 5 hour drive from my home, meant getting up at Midnight to make the drive. The Ice caves have not been accessible for 5 years, but thanks to Mother Nature and the brutal winter over 120,000 people made the journey out on Lake Superior to see these spectacular scenes. You could expect about a 6-8 miles roundtrip hike in temperatures -20 to -40 degrees, but worth every step!
I have included people in some of my images, just to show the magnitude of these ice formations.
If you would like to see more of the Ice Caves and what I call "2014 The Winter That Was" Here is a slide show if images from this winter in Minnesota where we saw more than 100 days below zero. www.youtube.com/watch?v=EEJ27tGd_tc&feature=share&...
I captured this one in the parking lot of the Ontario Metrolink Station. The evening sun provided rim lighting for this fence ornament. In the background are out of focus trees, shrubs, and the station's driveway.
Here is a short photo slideshow that is called "Fences".
www.photodex.com/share/jamarcotton/babp9mg4
Please Note: Individuals with Macs have had difficulty downloading/viewing my slide shows on their computers.
Thank you for your comments.