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Comrades in light, this has been a long time coming.
“Absent Friends” is a 130-page, large-format, Illustrated book. At its heart are 117 previously unpublished “found photographs” from my collection. These unique images depict photographers and their cameras from around 1890 to 1970 and are comprehensively annotated. The captions discuss equipment, context and many other issues. There are pictures from five continents and numerous countries. Some are of the greatest historical, psychological and artistic interest.
I believe this collection will be enjoyed by all those intrigued by photographic history and the experience of photography. It was always my intention to make the book freely available and at the end of this post you will find a link to download a copy. The file is clean of malware and viruses, although its size means that it cannot be scanned by google drive during download. The nervous can safely read on-line. But I recommend courage - and browsing rather than reading straight through :) As a replica of the printed version, there are several blank pages towards the beginning. These are not a mistake :)
All I would ask is that anyone with any thoughts on “Absent Friends” comments below - further developments continue and need feedback!:) . I will not be available for a good few days, but In a subsequent post will talk about this project and how it came about :)
You can download a free copy here. If you have any problems please send a flickr message and I will send a copy to your e-mail :)
Happy New Year, dear friends :)
Ian :)
Built to counter attacks on corporate servers, these agents are walking malware. Once jacked-in the NIC can scramble the brains of even the most careful of hackers.
What a blast from the past. Digging through my old camera SD card I found this gem. Built back in 2015, I never got around to uploading her, but I'm glad I found these photos.
I wish I was dashing about like this Common Green Darner, but instead I have been trying to install my programs on my new computer.
Luckily I made a restore point early on because I messed everything up royally. I had adware and malware with something I downloaded. I couldn't install Photoshop - I couldn't activate it. I removed it and reinstalled it several times and spent many hours chatting with the nice Adobe folks. Nothing worked.
My Firefox browser had me view a security certificate each time I opened a page. Plus I had annoying pop-ups everywhere.
So I started over. Deleted everything I could from each folder, uninstalled, and went back to a restore point.
Finally I got everything back in order
The good news is I could sync my add-ons in Firefox and load my Award Counter settings from the cloud. I should be good to go now. I'm keeping my fingers crossed.
Common Green Darner
Anax junius
Member of the Nature’s Spirit
Good Stewards of Nature
© 2014 Patricia Ware -All Rights Reserved
Thank you again to Dave Johnson, birding4ever, for the correct ID.
Created for DUC October 2024 challenge.
(Winner 1st PL)
Source image with thanks, from PaulO Classic.
Butterfly & Bokeh texture, purchased from Renderosity.
Frame from PNGWing (before malware)
BG from my archives.
= = = = = = = = = = = = =
All rights reserved. This image may not be copied, reproduced, distributed, republished, downloaded, displayed, posted or transmitted in any form or by any means, including electronic, mechanical, photocopying & recording without my written permission. Thanks.
~ Thank you for visiting my photostream, for the invites, faves, awards and kind words. It's all much appreciated. ~
This is a stack of two of the sharpest images. I used my Nikon 500mm f/4.0P lens with my D3x, mounted like this photo-
www.flickr.com/photos/cassidyphotography/31492258522/
I tried using just the naked eyeball looking through my View Finder, then again using a Nikon DR-5 Right Angle Magnifier-
www.nikonusa.com/en/nikon-products/product/viewfinders/dr...
I set Color temperature at 5,260°Kelvin.
I noted the angle of elevation of my Manfrotto's geared head was 30°
The slightest touch with my index finger and thumb would cause the extreme magnification of the Moon to vibrate, making focusing a challenge. "Breathe, hold, micro-adjustments" I would tell myself.. The renderings made with Live View at maximum magnigication were terrible. Well, maybe not to some who regularly view my wrok, but to my trained and critical eye, they were not as sharp as I was trying for.
The next challenge was to select the sharpest and most detailed image(s), when viewed at 100-300% on my monitor.
In the Astronauts own words from Apollo 11:
General Surface Characteristics
Color
"The general color of the surface as viewed close at hand is comparable to that we observed from orbit at the same Sun elevation of about 10°. Actually, the surface is pretty much without color other than shades of gray. Along the zero phase angle line (down Sun), the color is a light, chalky gray with a tan shade. As one looks toward 90° to the sunline, the color becomes a darker ashen gray with no apparent tan shades. At all phase angles, the surfaces of rock frag-ments appear to be a lighter gray than their immediate surroundings; however, where such fragments are freshly broken, the broken sur-faces are very dark gray, much like country basalt. Small gradations in color resulting from very small topographical changes were visible. Upon looking closely at the surface material (particularly the fine soil) during our excursion, we observed a charcoal-gray to gray-cocoa color, similar to that of a graded lead pencil."
_ _ _
But then, there are these NASA photos that show color, not shades of gray-
waterfordwhispersnews.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/07/eart...
www.nasa.gov/sites/default/files/thumbnails/image/apollo1...
i.guim.co.uk/img/media/6e2c71958564509a87a59c1336d2186d0d...
airandspace.si.edu/sites/default/files/styles/slideshow_l...
www.gadcollection.com/1902/apollo-11-buzz-aldrin-lunar-mo...
secure.i.telegraph.co.uk/multimedia/archive/01471/rock_14...
So, I am going with my gut feeling that the Moon does not actually look white, neutral gray, nor is it made of cheese.
_ _ _
Was this description of the Moon's surface color localized in the Sea of Tranquility or the entire surface of the Moon?
The photos of Lunar samples I have seen do not look like shades of gray.
How does one rationalize this? Maybe the Gold Coating on the Astronauts' helmet visor cause a misperception of color. I do not know.
To me, it makes sense that if the Moon was blasted from the Earth, after a collision with another body, 4.51 billion years ago, then it should be composed of the same matter. The incessant bombardment of meteorites and cosmic radiation would alter the surface and its color, but not entirely.
Well, been super busy, for months, so this was really all I have time for. Not helped by some wanker from www.essayyoda website hacking into my photography website to intersperse their website, a sample essay PDF, and malware. I had to spend from March 10 to 14th identifying malware files, removing them, restoring my website, updating, backing everything up one it was perfect. Why someone would do that is beyond me. What did that person gain? Anyway, it all takes time away rom thing I need to do or rather do. Regardless how robust you think your computer/website secuity is . . . there is always some bored little shit out there, some where in the world having fun at your expense. My website Host advised I would need to hire a "Developer" to make all repairs. Fuck 'em! I am smart enough for an old guy to do it myself. And, I did.
My advice:
•Don't sweat it. No need to know computer code.
•First thing to do is Change Your Password to something "Strong" and randomly generated.
•Disable Plug-ins.
•If you know you have a 100% clean Backup, restore it.
•If not, find the corrupted files, delete them, restore core files, admin files, and content, then do another malware scan.
•Best to update to the latest files.
•Once your have restored everything and your website is working fine, do an immediate backup.
•In the future, when the bored bastards are at play, simply change your password and restore from the Backup.
A gentle reminder about copyright and intellectual property-
Ⓒ Cassidy Photography (All images in this Flickr portfolio)
From Gars-bheinn. Stitch of four.
Sorry if I'm missing some contacts at the moment - my Flickr isn't working very well - I can't view photos from individual photostreams - only from the collective contacts' pages. I can hover over the thumbs and they definitely appear to be hyperlinked, but the pics never resolve. Is anyone else getting this please? I get the same on three unconnected PCs.
I had another problem a few weeks ago with Javascript on Firefox, but I'm on Google Chrome now, the other two PCs run IE, by the way.
I've also had occasional uploading problems and not being able to add to the map, but that seems OK now.
My computer's free from malware and works fine otherwise.
Built to counter attacks on corporate servers, these agents are walking malware. Once jacked-in the NIC can scramble the brains of even the most careful of hackers.
Here is the wire used for infiltration.
The taste of shame is what Kenzero loves the most. The Kenzero Twins work together, one half investigating, uncovering every deepest secret of their victim, just so the other half can reveal everything as loud as it can, to everyone. If you have something to hide, it's already too late: everybody will know what you've done.
My contribution to #crisisspread
Check out the other awesome contributions from the other builders part of this project on Instagram:
Trojan - @ok_susu_0
Hijack - @ezreel_thebluemoonmocist
Malware - @ems_mocs
Nyxem - @bonklesmocs
Cryptlock - @goldenarpeggio
Phishing - @rons_oc
Kenzero - @petersheikah
Confiker - @_quanto_mocs_
Huuuge thanks to @ezreel_bluemoonmocist for putting together this amazing collab and editing the pics!
Morston, North Norfolk.
An image from earlier in the year, thanks for looking. Just spent the last to days fighting malware off my computers. Time I will not get back, these people who do this need to have their knickers twisted.
© All rights reserved. Do not use without permission.
Installed Open Suse Linux on the laptop I am using now in one day with all functions except access to my network drives. That will come later. Connected Canon camera and uploaded photos. Used Gimp to modify image. Saved to Flickr via Firefox.
All without any real problem.
Tried to upgrade this same laptop to Windows 10 from Windows 8.1. Had so many errors that I found the situation almost unbelievable. I almost ran out of storage space on my Samsung phone with images of the problems. Frozen applications, all icons on the desktop disappearing, Internet disconnections, cannot connect to group policy client, File Manager taking an absolute age to do anything and so on and so on. It appears to me that if you have a laptop much more than a year old you will have problems.
I also had a large number of problems with upgrading a desktop to Windows 10. Would not write iso files to a dvd amongst other problems. It also got stuck in a loop saying something like Windows has encountered an error, the system will be restarted for you. It only started when I switched the power off to the desktop and switched it back on again.
In case you ask were there any viruses, malware, system issues. No, no way. two well known virus packages reported nothing, chkdsk was used to check the disks, scannow was used to check the system and so on and so on. I also never switch off a machine if I know an upgrade is in process. Updates seem to be at the heart of some of my problems. I know about and have edited the GPSvcGroup corruption to the registry and have solved some problems doing this. There were a lot of other problems that were solved by other methods.
I ask myself how there is such a difference between the systems. I have used Windows since the very first version. Then you had to reboot occasionally because of a memory addressing problem, but at least that was normally a reliable recovery method. You can't even do that now.
Microsoft is in trouble as far as Windows 10 is concerned. They should have reduced the complexity of the operating systems and separated tablet from desktop, and business requirements from domestic. They are carrying so much baggage from previous systems and hardware that it is becoming almost impossible to support Windows.
I have been in IT since 1963 and I understand the problems with staff and expectations that may also be a crippling problem that Microsoft has to deal with. But you don't get rid of all your experienced staff even though they might not be as fast as the new young IT staff. You might need some of their knowledge when making changes to legacy type code.
Note added 18/11/2015. Found I could not use the Internet. I shutdown Windows 10 and tried to Reboot. On Rebooting the login screen came up, I input the password, the pc started the boot process and then froze for more than 15 minutes. Had to do a hard shutdown and reboot in the end. The message came up saying it could not connect to Onedrive. I don't want Onedrive, and am incredibly angry wasting more time with Windows 10. Have stopped Onedrive loading now but will go to Apple soon. What a terrible operating system Windows 10 is now.
Just had several other problems, probably caused by an update. Randomly, Windows explorer is coming up with the message. File access has timed out when attempting to open a .jpeg file in the Photo app.
I also had Windows Explorer freeze when trying to get to a folder on my C drive. Shut down and re-started the machine. Message indicates the system was trying to carry out updates. Why does it not tell you instead of freezing.
This is totally ridiculous. I now cannot access my Synology drives after an update. Windows 10 is also saying 'cannot connect to group policy client'. Seen this before. why has it appeared again after a few months. This fault I suspect is due to Microsoft falling foul of the user security options available under previous versions of Windows not being available under Windows 10 update. When is Windows ever going to be reliable?
Windows 10 is still a bloody mess. Almost every time a Windows update is applied there is another problem. 20/03/2016. Just switched my desktop computer on and found Start button not working, Cortana not working, time not appearing, system errors occurring with Color Munki. Ran sfc / scannow and it found nothing. I am sure there are other problems. Windows must be re-built and simplified to suit the modern hardware environment.
Started using a windows 10 laptop again early June 2016. Found the DVD writer/reader had disappeared. In the end I disabled, shutdown, rebooted, re-enabled the drive and everything was o.k.with the drive. While fixing the drive, probably a registry setting that Windows could not process, I noticed there was a windows update download going on. Too late, I was trying to fix the DVD and set in motion a shutdown. Low and behold after the DVD was fixed the message 'Could not connect to group policy client occurred again.' Fixed Windows update problem as well, message
Could not connect has disappeared at last, getting more confident about Windows 10 now.
Still won't buy an Apple machine when you realise that a £20 extra cost for a 256gb ssd over a 128 gb ssd to buy and upgrade yourself on a pc means a £200 extra cost on the Apple laptop.
print with linocut
the code links to an online news article from jan 2022 on t-online.de. It said that the FBI warns about qrcodes being used for phishing or for downloading malware
People got confused as to which way this structure was genuinely facing. They were dumbfounded to hear that it is actually coming towards them.
I've been out of action; our computer got infected with malware and had to be cleaned. But I'm back and better than ever!
Five more photos from my archives. If I wrote a description under other photos taken on the same outing/drive, I will add it to these five shots.
"This photo is from 25 September 2018, when the weather forecast finally looked a little more promising. We have had so many gloomy, rainy days and when I woke up that morning and saw that the sun was shining, I knew I had better get out to the mountains before the fall colours disappeared.
It was almost 11:00 am before I left home, so I was limited time-wise, but still managed to get to my destination. I had taken my computer to be fixed the previous day, to clear a virus and malware after being hacked, so I had more time to get out with my camera.
I thought this might just be my last chance to see fall colours and, if I was lucky, a little Pika. Luck was on my side and I saw both. Getting photos of the little Pika required an awful lot of patience : ) A few days later, our first snowstorm arrived, bringing as much as 60 cm of snow to Kananaskis and about 38 cm to our city. How lucky we are to live so close to such magnificent scenery!"
I'VE BEEN SCAMMED and my computer HACKED!!! My son informed me that the whole computer VIRUS thing I mentioned the other day was a SCAM! My Bank said the first step is to phone the company and cancel the 5-year Protection I paid for and to ask for a refund, which I have just done. Doubt that will happen. Also have to now take my computer in to be cleaned of all the malware, etc. they have installed on my hard drive. What a PAIN! I'm always very careful of scams and hoaxes, but I sure fell for this one.
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Our weather forecast for this morning gives a temperature of -2C (windchill -4C). We are under a Freezing Drizzle Advisory, too. Whatever happened to sunshine and warmth? Recently, we have been having rainy, dreary (and the day before yesterday, very foggy!) weather. A decision needed to be made - to go or not go on a birding day trip east of the city. Usually, people don't have to register for most outings, but the trip on 20 September 2018 was different, thanks to a change in how outings will be run in the future. I had registered, which helped push me out of the door on a day with a forecast for rain all day. So glad I did go, though, as once the dense fog eventually pretty much lifted half way through the day, the sun came out and it was beautiful.
Our route took us to places such as (very foggy) Weed Lake and, much further east, Marsland Basin. I love our trips in this direction from the city, even more so because I very rarely do the drive myself. At the location where I took the photo above, there were so many Blackbirds - Yellow-headed, Red-winged, Brewer's, plus a few Grackles mixed in with them.
As for birds, 56 species were spotted, most at extremely far distances. As usually happens, I only saw some of them, but was happy with the ones I did see. Not much chance to take photos of birds, but as usual, my camera lens turned to everything else around me - scenery, wildflowers, insects, old barns and sheds, and a few beautifully delicate spider webs covered in dew, rain or fog drops. I loved finding these! I wish I knew what kind of spiders create the much more random webs - different from the full-circle ones I normally come across. I can only imagine what these webs might have looked like in sunshine, instead of heavy fog. Still, I'm happy that a few photos are fit to post, to remind me of nature's beauty this day.
After our first stop, we decided to have an early coffee break, in hopes that the fog would improve. Eventually, it did, slightly. Fog is definitely not what one wants on a birding trip! I think we had seven stops in total, including one at Marsland Basin, our most distant destination. Such a great place to visit and enjoy. While everyone else was peering through their binoculars at the distant wetland, I was wandering through the trees and grounds surrounding Lynn and Sue's home, catching a Sunflower shot here and a donkey shot there, and so on. One of my favourite places. Sorry we missed you, Lynn!
Many thanks as always, Andrew, for yet another very enjoyable trip. Thanks, too, for everyone combining to create the list of total species. So many great pairs of eyes. It felt so good to be away from my computer for hours, too, especially after getting a Virus the previous day and coming very close to losing everything on my computer! Then, what happens this morning, after my computer was fixed remotely by a technician? I go to Facebook to wish my grandson a Happy Birthday, and I get the Blue Screen of Death!!! Wish I could say I love computers - but definitely not the last three days!
Iris is spunky hacker who loves using her custom multi-function prosthetic to cause chaos for the crime syndicates and corrupt law enforcement in the Layered City.
Iris prefers to use her hacking and programming skills to support Ode's team from the background. Iris has spent months implanting malware in the Layered City's computer system, and she uses the holo-computer built into her arm to exercise near absolute control over the city's many automated functions.
When she is forced to engage in combat, Iris has an emergency set of Phase-Tech claws and a Plasma beam emitter built into her arm.
Iris fills an invaluable role on Ode's team, and her upbeat attitude and general positivity keep her team's spirit high. While she appears to support Ode's goal of ridding the Layered City of corruption, it is unclear if she has an ulterior motive. She is incredibly secretive about her past and how she became such a proficient hacker without detection.
Build Notes:
This one was an adventure. The concept for "Hacker Girl" started with the mechanical arm with the computer built in. The colors and hair for her changed a bunch when I was working on her (RIP purple shoes). A lot of the decisions of the appearance of this character were made based on parts limitations (the crop top for example was because I ran out of black curved slopes half way through building the shirt). The end result is really flexible and can hold lots of dynamic poses. As always, face and some of the hair design by Eero Okkonen. I promise I'll quit ripping off his stuff eventually.
I've been having problems with my computer since January 8 or so, with its Internet connection for the past 2-3 days. I've run several virus scan / malware removal programs, but I may have to re-install Windows. What a pain!
I'VE BEEN SCAMMED!!! My son informed me that the whole computer VIRUS thing that I mentioned the other day was a SCAM! My Bank said the first step is to phone the company and cancel the 5-year Protection I paid for and to ask for a refund, which I have just done. Doubt that will happen. Also have to now take my computer in to be cleaned of all the malware, etc. they have installed on my hard drive. What a PAIN! I'm always very careful of scams, but I sure fell for this one.
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Our weather forecast for this morning gives a temperature of -2C (windchill -4C). We are under a Freezing Drizzle Advisory, too. Whatever happened to sunshine and warmth? Recently, we have been having rainy, dreary (and the day before yesterday, very foggy!) weather. A decision needed to be made - to go or not go on a birding day trip east of the city. Usually, people don't have to register for most outings, but the trip on 20 September 2018 was different, thanks to a change in how outings will be run in the future. I had registered, which helped push me out of the door on a day with a forecast for rain all day. So glad I did go, though, as once the dense fog eventually pretty much lifted half way through the day, the sun came out and it was beautiful.
Our route took us to places such as (very foggy) Weed Lake and, much further east, Marsland Basin. I love our trips in this direction from the city, even more so because I very rarely do the drive myself.
As for birds, 56 species were spotted, most at extremely far distances. As usually happens, I only saw some of them, but was happy with the ones I did see. Not much chance to take photos of birds, but as usual, my camera lens turned to everything else around me - scenery, wildflowers, insects, old barns and sheds, and a few beautifully delicate spider webs covered in dew, rain or fog drops. I loved finding these! I wish I knew what kind of spiders create the much more random webs - different from the full-circle ones I normally come across. I can only imagine what these webs might have looked like in sunshine, instead of heavy fog. Still, I'm happy that a few photos are fit to post, to remind me of nature's beauty this day.
After our first stop, we decided to have an early coffee break, in hopes that the fog would improve. Eventually, it did, slightly. Fog is definitely not what one wants on a birding trip! I think we had seven stops in total, including one at Marsland Basin, our most distant destination. Such a great place to visit and enjoy. While everyone else was peering through their binoculars at the distant wetland, I was wandering through the trees and grounds surrounding Lynn and Sue's home, catching a Sunflower shot here and a donkey shot there, and so on. One of my favourite places. Sorry we missed you, Lynn!
Many thanks as always, Andrew, for yet another very enjoyable trip. Thanks, too, for everyone combining to create the list of total species. So many great pairs of eyes. It felt so good to be away from my computer for hours, too, especially after getting a Virus the previous day and coming very close to losing everything on my computer!
A few days ago my PC fell victim to a very nasty piece of malware. It was so bad that drastic measures needed to be taken and now I'm running a fresh install of Windows 7 on a new hard drive. I'm slowly getting my software re-installed and I'll hopefully be able to retrieve my data from the old hard drive some time over the next few days. (As you can see, I've already got Olympus Viewer 2 back on my machine, Photoshop CS5 comes back next.) I should be able to retrieve all of the image files I didn't have backed up yet... so hopefully everything will be good again soon! Seen in the front window of Aritzia, Robson Street, downtown Vancouver. February 12, 2012.
Anglin's Fishing Pier, Commercial Blvd, Lauderdale-by-the-Sea, FL
I hope everyone had a lovely weekend and wishing you a great week. Here's something for the Monday blues. ;-)
View on Fluidr | All My Photos on Fluidr
I wanted to share a new shot taking this weekend with you, but at the moment this will have to do until I figure out what's going on with my computer. Yesterday afternoon as I was processing my new shots it decided it had enough and my programs started to run at a crawl. What normally takes 30 seconds at the most (tone-mapping one of my HDRs) all of a sudden took between 65 and 90 seconds. Yawn...
I tried everything I could think of to speed things up (several reboots, disk clean, registry clean, virus scan, adware and malware scan, disk defrag even though according to Windows it didn't need it...), all to no avail. The thing is Windows starts up and runs fine, programs open fine too, but when I want to do something, lets say in Dynamic-Photo HDR, the program becomes quite unresponsive. It doesn't crash, if I leave it it'll get there eventually... but it takes forever.
Sorry for the rant, but I am out of ides and open to any suggestions of what else I could try to get things going again.
It's a roof! But you can hardly tell! Behold the illusion!
I've been out of action; our computer got infected with malware and had to be cleaned. But I'm back and better than ever!
or at least my computer is. I opened up IE and Chrome both and and have these stupid adverts now on flickr that I understand is some kind of virus malware :( CouponDropDown and the sites that say how to get rid of it you have to find Coupon Drop Down on your computer ... but arghhhhhh it is not there :( so now I have these stupid ads on my flickr :(
Update: got it fixed ;) woot woot flickr is back to it's old self :)
Built to counter attacks on corporate servers, these agents are walking malware. Once jacked-in the NIC can scramble the brains of even the most careful of hackers.
The cyborg is also programmed for physical self defense.
More pictures can be found here: board.ttvchannel.com/t/herofebruary-vex-span/72365?u=ajtazt
“This is the Hero Hotline, what is your situation?”
“Yes, I’m calling to file a complaint against the Hero Factory.”
Lucy’s digital eyes rolled and was about to retort that this was an emergency line, not the complaint center. Only for a clawed fist to shove itself out of her headset, pushing said headset off her cranium as the hand gripped it. A one-eyed head pushed itself through the headset speaker, followed by the top end of an old phone it was holding.
“And I’d like to make it personal,” he said with a villain’s scoffing laugh.
She barely got a scream before he pulled himself and her inside the headset, which clattered against the floor.
___
ex-Span, the infamous military recruitment agent and telemarketer. Many know his voice from the constant calls to sell useless junk, get people to donate to various false charities, and many other such annoyances. Few, however, had seen him in person, until he attacked the Hero Factory.
Using his tech and resources, he flooded Hero Factory’s call center with false reports until the tower was empty. When all Heroes were seemingly gone, he merged out of the phone calls and captured all the call center workers and mission managers. He dragged them all into the Inioxospace, the old analog cyberspace, to hold them hostage and cripple the Hero Factory.
Aside from being able to traverse through both inioxospace and cyberspace, Vex-Span can use his giant phone to call anyone, and any device, in the known galaxy. The phone can be used as a blunt, hammer-like weapon to smash foolish heroes, or send sonic screams and shockwaves. His rotary-dial shield can slaw through Hero armor with its claw, block standard energy projectiles, and can be used as a grinding wheel. The attached Meteor Blaster is infected with malware that scrambles any bot’s communication systems and focuses all nearby bot callers to them.
An nginx HTTP server extension. The server returns no information to the client and closes the connection (useful as a deterrent for malware).
imagespam might come later ... have more to post. right now busy removing mostly harmless but still extremely gross malware from my computer first.
this is free to use as a texture for anyone who wants it, see my new texture set for more details.
created in iOS apps Fragment and DistressedFX
Please don't use this image without my explicit permission. © All rights reserved
Por favor, no uses esta imagen sin mi permiso explícito. Todos los derechos reservados.
Todas las imágenes se encuentran disponibles para su venta. Envíame un mail a juampiter@gmail.com si estás interesado en alguna.
All my images are available for sale. Send me an email to juampiter@gmail.com if you are interested
Back to digging into my archives. I did go for just a short drive today, SE of Calgary, but I haven't downloaded the few photos I took yet.
"I'VE BEEN SCAMMED!!! My son informed me that the whole computer VIRUS thing was a SCAM! My Bank said the first step is to phone the company and cancel the 5-year Protection I paid for and to ask for a refund, which I have just done. Doubt that will happen. Also have to now take my computer in to be cleaned of all the malware, etc. they have installed on my hard drive. What a PAIN! I'm always very careful of scams, but I sure fell for this one.
A very early start for me today, (despite the forecast for rain all day) as I need to get away from my computer after yesterday's stress, thanks to a Virus that shut down my computer. It took me three hours to deal with it, while a technician went through my whole computer remotely, deleting every virus that has accumulated. I was told that I phoned them just in time, as I was not far away from losing everything on my computer. I always have Norton installed on my computer, but apparently the last three months I have not had Network Security working on my computer. Can you believe I had 5,614 viruses and if I had reached 6,000, everything on my computer would have been lost? Yikes! Funny, as the last few days, I have been backing up my photos to external hard drives and a flash drive. A very costly morning, but now my computer is fine and I have a five-year Security. Before all this, I was on Facebook and had clicked on a video link from a friend's Facebook page. Suddenly, my whole screen was filled with the Virus alert, which gave me a phone number to call. I don't know if that link was the actual cause of all this problem, or if it was 'the last straw'. Thankful for the clear help from the technician! Much appreciated.
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This particular young American Kestrel resides at the Alberta Birds of Prey Centre in Coaldale, southern Alberta. This is a wonderful place that rehabilitates and releases (whenever possible) various birds of prey - hawks, owls, Bald Eagles, Turkey Vultures,and Golden Eagles. Some of these birds act as Wildlife Ambassadors, too, including educating the public away from the Centre. Sometimes, a bird is used as a foster parent, too. I didn't see a Turkey Vulture or a Golden Eagle this time. This Kestrel was inside the Gift Store/entrance building, so I wasn't sure if any of my photos would come out (as I didn't want to use flash).
My actual destination on 21 August 2018 was the Alberta Birds of Prey Centre. I know some people feel that photographing birds that are not out in the wild is cheating. I kind of agree, though I think it's fine as long as someone says where it was taken.
On the spur of the moment the previous night, I decided that I might just try and get up early the next morning and go for a drive. The smoke from the British Columbia wildfires hasn't been hanging around the last few days, so I knew I really should make the most of a clear day.
It turned out to be such a great day, with some much-appreciated sightings. I must have spent about 8 or 9 hours driving and almost every inch of my body ached like crazy. Now, each summer, I try and do two or three longer (for me) drives, making sure I don't lose confidence to get there. I left home at 9:00 am, just a bit later than I had hoped. Arrived back home somewhere around 8:30 pm.
Weather-wise, it was around 24C, so not too hot. Unfortunately, I discovered that it was still smokey from the British Columbia wildfires, making distant hills barely visible and deleting mountains from view, but it didn't have too much effect on closer photography.
It was a good day for Hawks, seeing three on the way south and a few on the way home. I almost missed two of the hawks, as the hay bale was way out in a large field. At first, I thought there were three hawks together, but when I stopped to take a few photos, I realized that there were only two - one looked almost like two hawks close together, but then I saw that it had its wings mantled. I guess it wanted to make sure that the second hawk behind it couldn't steal any of the food from it.
A lone Common Nighthawk also helped make my day. For several years, I had longed to see one of these unusual birds and, finally last year (2017), I managed to find four of them. That time was almost two months earlier than my recent find, so I wasn't expecting to see any in late August. I would still love to find one lying on a wooden railing rather than a metal railing. Last year, I got a photo of one on a fence post, but the angle was not the greatest. These birds are 9½ inches from the tip of bill to the tip of tail.
A Horned Lark, a Vesper Sparrow, a Mourning Dove, and a Western Meadowlark gave me the chance for a photo or two and, to my delight, a hawk I spotted way in the distance did turn out to be a Ferruginous Hawk. A happy sighting, as they tend to be few and far between."
Iris is spunky hacker who loves using her custom multi-function prosthetic to cause chaos for the crime syndicates and corrupt law enforcement in the Layered City.
Iris prefers to use her hacking and programming skills to support Ode's team from the background. Iris has spent months implanting malware in the Layered City's computer system, and she uses the holo-computer built into her arm to exercise near absolute control over the city's many automated functions.
When she is forced to engage in combat, Iris has an emergency set of Phase-Tech claws and a Plasma beam emitter built into her arm.
Iris fills an invaluable role on Ode's team, and her upbeat attitude and general positivity keep her team's spirit high. While she appears to support Ode's goal of ridding the Layered City of corruption, it is unclear if she has an ulterior motive. She is incredibly secretive about her past and how she became such a proficient hacker without detection.
Build Notes:
This one was an adventure. The concept for "Hacker Girl" started with the mechanical arm with the computer built in. The colors and hair for her changed a bunch when I was working on her (RIP purple shoes). A lot of the decisions of the appearance of this character were made based on parts limitations (the crop top for example was because I ran out of black curved slopes half way through building the shirt). The end result is really flexible and can hold lots of dynamic poses. As always, face and some of the hair design by Eero Okkonen. I promise I'll quit ripping off his stuff eventually.
this is me posing with some of my best friends the traffic cones...
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Café Frequenters episode 162
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Hello Dearest Maud! here come a snippet of actions story of the pulp fiction kind... admit it you were waiting for the next episode... Warning! this story is not suitable for the younger human creatures since it contains soft-gore! (don´t read it to your daughter until she is at least 18!)
Jimmy studied the victim, he had turned off all non-biological enhancements since he was afraid that some foreign secret service had installed some spy-ware, since the bio-scan had run haywire...
..so there he was studying the you lad he had just knocked out...
...why did he ask so many questions? he wouldn´t have to had knocked him out if he wasn´t so inquisitive, he was a charming you guy... actually he had to admit that he was better looking than himself, and he spoke in a weird and gentle way...
What to do now? jimmy thought, he couldn´t let him live, when he would wake up, there would be trouble... he could absorb him, but that would mean him turning on his infra-tech again... what if the supposed spy-were had taken control of the absorber...
...another thing that scared him was that he have never used the absorber before, but he remembered when a fellow agent once absorbed a victim at a lunatic asylum, he turned even more loony that the nutter he absorbed, Jimmy had to kill him and grind him down and flush him down the lunatic-asylum WC-porcelain stool...
... but this young man was so handsome and so charming that it would probably improve his statistics, his mind his looks....
Jimmy turned on the absorber, it seemed not to be affected by the enemy malware...
...his mouth started to frown and saliva formed small stings, he started to cocoon first the victim, then himself then joining them together...
luckily none of the café frequenters seemed to need the toilet, but jimmy had a backup plant, if he had too he would climb up the ceiling and unscrew the lightbulb and hide up in the shadows...
...now they both had started to dissolve the important part would be when they were both totally dissolved was to get all the undissolved tech at the right spots that needed careful planning...
He had to focus all of his dissolving brain on to the process
when the final calculations was made it was time for a merger, jimmy was really afraid, would his old persona become the dominant?
no time to care about that, this was way beyond the regret-phase, the last thoughts his brain had before it all became black was the youths beautiful eyes, his charming, smile...
copyright © Mim Eisenberg/mimbrava studio. All rights reserved.
As promised, here is the life-cycle mosaic of the leek. It was fun to conceptualize and create the photos, and, with the help of Ribbet.com, to create the mosaic.
Warning to all Mac and PC users: Please go to this page and click on the quick and easy test to make sure your computer does not have the malware on it that could make it lose its link to the Internet.
Just a couple of related articles to show that this is a real threat.
www.tomsguide.com/us/FBI-Botnet-DNS-Changer-Rove-Digital-...
www.dcwg.org/detect/checking-osx-for-infections/
And confirmation by Snopes that the threat is real:
www.snopes.com/computer/virus/dnschanger.asp
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See my photos on 500px
Or on 72dpi
Or on fluidr.
I invite you to stroll through My Galleries.
People told me this photo was trippy xD Is that a pun because it shows some stairs?
I've been out of action; our computer got infected with malware and had to be cleaned. But I'm back and better than ever!
De la misma manera en que las amenazas a tu computador han aumentado con el paso del tiempo, así mismo, los antivirus han ido evolucionando para mantener protegido tu computador. No siempre se logra detener cualquier amenaza contra el PC, pero si se cuenta con un buen antivirus se puede cubrir ...
Built to counter attacks on corporate servers, these agents are walking malware. Once jacked-in the NIC can scramble the brains of even the most careful of hackers.
Back shot showing the neural uplink interface.
Well you guessed it, a start of a new series, or set MoonsNebula15Aug08 www.flickr.com/photos/58236374@N00/sets/72157607083658383/ .
Now the sky with clouds did not end up so dang glorious till the we morning, fortunately I was up with a couple long time buddies & when things got interesting up there, I took a camera break from mi amigos!
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Thanks guys for all the views & comments to the first one in this series:
"FullMoonW-Nebula"
www.flickr.com/photos/58236374@N00/2823664244/
My desktop got full of Malware (even after adopting Firefox as a browser, using daily sybot search & destroy, AdAware, and anti virus of course!! COMPUTERS, don't ya just LOVE & hate em!??
I should be more on-line next week, can't wait to see what all you all have been producing while I have been away.
Have a Great weekend to All in FlickrDom! Mark
I've had this one waiting to post and then ran across the virus issues out at deviantart, so I didn't post it. I already replaced the moon (so to speak) in trying to alleviate links to deviantart. The girl was from deviantart, but the artist is no longer available to link to. Alas, I couldn't find good replacements for the flowers and bushes. So I'm posting this with a link to the excellent resources of BrokenWing3DStock, and a caution for those who may venture to the link; beware there are virus's floating around the deviantart website lately. Unless you have a paid subscription to deviantart, you risk malware and virus activity in going to that link.
Base texture and photos (house and fence) are mine.
I just got back from the Churchill Club’s 13th Annual Top 10 Tech Trends Debate (site).
Curt Carlson, CEO of SRI, presented their trends from the podium, which are meant to be “provocative, plausible, debatable, and that it will be clear within the next 1-3 years whether or not they will actually become trends.”
Then the panelists debated them. Speaking is Aneesh Chopra, CTO of the U.S., and smirking to his left is Paul Saffo, and then Ajay Senkut from Clarium, then me.
Here are SRI’s 2011 Top 10 Tech Trends [and my votes]:
Trend 1. Age Before Beauty. Technology is designed for—and disproportionately used by—the young. But the young are getting fewer. The big market will be older people. The aging generation has grown up with, and is comfortable with, most technology—but not with today’s latest technology products. Technology product designers will discover the Baby Boomer’s technology comfort zone and will leverage it in the design of new devices. One example today is the Jitterbug cell phone with a large keypad for easy dialing and powerful speakers for clear sound. The trend is for Baby Boomers to dictate the technology products of the future.
[I voted YES, it’s an important and underserved market, but for tech products, they are not the early adopters. The key issue is age-inspired entrepreneurship. How can we get the entrepreneurial mind focused on this important market?]
Trend 2. The Doctor Is In. Some of our political leaders say that we have "the best medical care system in the world". Think what it must be like in the rest of the world! There are many problems, but one is the high cost of delivering expert advice. With the development of practical virtual personal assistants, powered by artificial intelligence and pervasive low-cost sensors, “the doctor will be in”—online—for people around the world. Instead of the current Web paradigm: “fill out this form, and we’ll show you information about what might be ailing you”, this will be true diagnosis—supporting, and in some cases replacing—human medical practitioners. We were sending X-rays to India to be read; now India is connecting to doctors here for diagnosis in India. We see the idea in websites that now offer online videoconference interaction with a doctor. The next step is automation. The trend is toward complete automation: a combination of artificial intelligence, the Internet, and very low-cost medical instrumentation to provide high-quality diagnostics and advice—including answering patient questions—online to a worldwide audience.
[NO. Most doctor check-ups and diagnoses will still need to be conducted in-person (blood tests, physical exams, etc). Sensor technology can’t completely replace human medical practitioners in the near future. Once we have the physical interface (people for now), then the networking and AI capabilities can engage, bringing specialist reactions to locally collected data. The real near-term trend in point-of-care is the adoption of iPads/phones connected to cloud services like ePocrates and Athenahealth and soon EMRs.]
Trend 3. Made for Me. Manufacturing is undergoing a revolution. It is becoming technically and economically possible to create products that are unique to the specific needs of individuals. For example, a cell phone that has only the hardware you need to support the features you want—making it lighter, thinner, more efficient, much cheaper, and easier to use. This level of customization is being made possible by converging technical advances: new 3D printing technology is well documented, and networked micro-robotics is following. 3D printing now includes applications in jewelry, industrial design, and dentistry. While all of us may not be good product designers, we have different needs, and we know what we want. The trend is toward practical, one-off production of physical goods in widely distributed micro-factories: the ultimate customization of products. The trend is toward practical, one-off production of physical goods in widely distributed micro-factories: the ultimate customization of products.
[NO. Personalization is happening just fine at the software level. The UI skins and app code is changeable at zero incremental cost. Code permeates outward into the various vessels we build for it. The iPhone. Soon, the car (e.g. Tesla Sedan). Even the electrical circuits (when using an FPGA). This will extend naturally to biological code, with DNA synthesis costs plummeting (but that will likely stay centralized in BioFabs for the next 3 years. When it comes to building custom physical things, the cost and design challenges relegate it to prototyping, tinkering and hacks. Too many people have a difficult time in 3D content creation. The problem is the 2D interfaces of mouse and screen. Perhaps a multitouch interface to digital clay could help, where the polygons snap to fit after the form is molded by hand.]
Trend 4. Pay Me Now. Information about our personal behavior and characteristics is exploited regularly for commercial purposes, often returning little or no value to us, and sometimes without our knowledge. This knowledge is becoming a key asset and a major competitive advantage for the companies that gather it. Think of your supermarket club card. These knowledge-gatherers will need to get smarter and more aggressive in convincing us to share our information with them and not with their competitors. If TV advertisers could know who the viewers are, the value of the commercials would go up enormously. The trend is technology and business models based on attracting consumers to share large amounts of information exclusively with service providers.
[YES, but it’s nothing new. Amazon makes more on merchandising than product sales margin. And, certain companies are getting better and better at acquiring customer information and personalizing offerings specifically to these customers. RichRelevance provides this for ecommerce (driving 25% of all e-commerce on Black Friday). Across all those vendors, the average lift from personalizing the shopping experience: 15% increase in overall sales and 8% increase in long-term profitability. But, simply being explicit and transparent to the consumer about the source of the data can increase the effectiveness of targeted programs by up to 100% (e.g., saying “Because you bought this product and other consumers who bought it also bought this other product" yielded a 100% increase in product recommendation effectiveness in numerous A/B tests). Social graph is incredibly valuable as a marketing tool.]
Trend 5. Rosie, At Last. We’ve been waiting a long time for robots to live in and run our homes, like Rosie in the Jetsons’ household. It’s happening a little now: robots are finally starting to leave the manufacturing floor and enter people's homes, offices, and highways. Robots can climb walls, fly, and run. We all know the Roomba for cleaning floors—and now there’s the Verro for your pool. Real-time vision and other sensors, and affordable precise manipulation, are enabling robots to assist in our care, drive our cars, and protect our homes and property. We need to broaden our view of robots and the forms they will take—think of a self-loading robot-compliant dishwasher or a self-protecting house. The trend is robots becoming embedded in our environments, and taking advantage of the cloud, to understand and fulfill our needs.
[NO. Not in 3 years. Wanting it badly does not make it so. But I just love that Google RoboCar. Robots are not leaving the factory floor – that’s where the opportunity for newer robots and even humanoid robots will begin. There is plenty of factory work still to be automated. Rodney Brooks of MIT thinks they can be cheaper than the cheapest outsourced labor. So the robots are coming, to the factory and the roads to start, and then the home.]
Trend 6. Social, Really. The rise of social networks is well documented, but they're not really social networks. They're a mix of friends, strangers, organizations, hucksters—it’s more like walking through a rowdy crowd in Times Square at night with a group of friends. There is a growing need for social networks that reflect the fundamental nature of human relationships: known identities, mutual trust, controlled levels of intimacy, and boundaries of shared information. The trend is the rise of true social networks, designed to maintain real, respectful relationships online.
[YES. The ambient intimacy of Facebook is leading to some startling statistics on fB evidence reuse by divorce lawyers (80%) and employment rejections (70%). There are differing approaches to solve this problem: Altly’s alternative networks with partioning and control, Jildy’s better filtering and auto-segmentation, and Path’s 50 friend limit.]
Trend 7. In-Your-Face Augmented Reality. With ever-cheaper computation and advances in computer vision technology, augmented reality is becoming practical, even in mobile devices. We will move beyond expensive telepresence environments and virtual reality games to fully immersive environments—in the office, on the factory floor, in medical care facilities, and in new entertainment venues. I once did an experiment where a person came into a room and sat down at a desk against a large, 3D, high-definition TV display. The projected image showed a room with a similar desk up against the screen. The person would put on 3D glasses, and then a projected person would enter and sit down at the other table. After talking for 5 to 10 minutes, the projected person would stand up and put their hand out. Most of the time, the first person would also stand up and put their hand into the screen—they had quickly adapted and forgotten that the other person was not in the room. Augmented reality will become indistinguishable from reality. The trend is an enchanted world— The trend is hyper-resolution augmented reality and hyper-accurate artificial people and objects that fundamentally enhance people's experience of the world.
[NO, lenticular screens are too expensive and 3D glasses are a pain in the cortex. Augmented reality with iPhones is great, and pragmatic, but not a top 10 trend IMHO]
Trend 8. Engineering by Biologists.
Biologists and engineers are different kinds of people—unless they are working on synthetic biology. We know about genetically engineered foods and creatures, such as gold fish in multiple other colors. Next we’ll have biologically engineered circuits and devices. Evolution has created adaptive processing and system resiliency that is much more advanced than anything we’ve been able to design. We are learning how to tap into that natural expertise, designing devices using the mechanisms of biology. We have already seen simple biological circuits in the laboratory. The trend is practical, engineered artifacts, devices, and computers based on biology rather than just on silicon.
[YES, and NO because it was so badly mangled as a trend. For the next few years, these approaches will be used for fuels and chemicals and materials processing because they lend themselves to a 3D fluid medium. Then 2D self-assembling monolayers. And eventually chips , starting with memory and sensor arrays long before heterogeneous logic. And processes of biology will be an inspiration throughout (evolution, self-assembly, etc.). Having made predictions along these themes for about a decade now, the wording of this one frustrated me]
Trend 9. ‘Tis a Gift to be Simple. Cyber attacks are ever more frequent and effective. Most attacks exploit holes that are inevitable given the complexity of the software products we use every day. Cyber researchers really understand this. To avoid these vulnerabilities, some cyber researchers are beginning to use only simple infrastructure and applications that are throwbacks to the computing world of two decades ago. As simplicity is shown to be an effective approach for avoiding attack, it will become the guiding principle of software design. The trend is cyber defense through widespread adoption of simple, low-feature software for consumers and businesses.
[No. I understand the advantages of being open, and of heterogencity of code (to avoid monoculture collapse), but we have long ago left the domain of simple. Yes, Internet transport protocols won via simplicity. The presentation layer, not so much. If you want dumb pipes, you need smart edges, and smart edges can be hacked. Graham Spencer gave a great talk at SFI: the trend towards transport simplicity (e.g. dumb pipes) and "intelligence in the edges" led to mixing code and data, which in turn led to all kinds of XSS-like attacks. Drive-by downloading (enabled by XSS) is the most popular vehicle for delivering malware these days.]
Trend 10. Reverse Innovation. Mobile communication is proliferating at an astonishing rate in developing countries as price-points drop and wireless infrastructure improves. As developing countries leapfrog the need for physical infrastructure and brokers, using mobile apps to conduct micro-scale business and to improve quality of life, they are innovating new applications. The developing world is quickly becoming the largest market we’ve ever seen—for mobile computing and much more. The trend is for developing countries to turn around the flow of innovation: Silicon Valley will begin to learn more from them about innovative applications than they need to learn from us about the underlying technology.
[YES, globalization is a megatrend still in the making. The mobile markets are clearly China, India and Korea, with app layer innovation increasingly originating there. Not completely of course, but we have a lot to learn from the early-adopter economies.]
Yeah, I'm back with this piece =D
DON'T BLAME FREAKIN' GLOBAL WARMING =))
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to those who use flickr comment tool, greasemonkey is suspiciously a malware =))
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Illustrator 3 hours
The taste of shame is what Kenzero loves the most. The Kenzero Twins work together, one half investigating, uncovering every deepest secret of their victim, just so the other half can reveal everything as loud as it can, to everyone. If you have something to hide, it's already too late: everybody will know what you've done.
My contribution to #crisisspread
Check out the other awesome contributions from the other builders part of this project on Instagram:
Trojan - @ok_susu_0
Hijack - @ezreel_thebluemoonmocist
Malware - @ems_mocs
Nyxem - @bonklesmocs
Cryptlock - @goldenarpeggio
Phishing - @rons_oc
Kenzero - @petersheikah
Confiker - @_quanto_mocs_
Huuuge thanks to @ezreel_bluemoonmocist for putting together this amazing collab and editing the pics!
After I recovered from malware I could not get my Epson scanner working. Today I did. The next 5 were done with my Canoscan 8800F
This one I can do more negatives at a time and do 4x5 neg scans. Happy/Happy ;o)
1/1
I'VE BEEN SCAMMED and my computer HACKED!!! My son informed me that the whole computer VIRUS thing I mentioned the other day was a SCAM! My Bank said the first step is to phone the company and cancel the 5-year Protection I paid for and to ask for a refund, which I have just done. Doubt that will happen. Also have to now take my computer in to be cleaned of all the malware, etc. they have installed on my hard drive. What a PAIN! I'm always very careful of scams and hoaxes, but I sure fell for this one. Will be without my computer for a few days this coming week. Thought I would mention this, as I wouldn't want you to think I must be off on another exotic trip, ha, ha!
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On 28 August 2018, I did another long drive, this time SW of the city into the mountains. This is a second area that I try to do on my own each year now, to make sure that I don't lose confidence to do the drive. Luckily, I saw a few furry, four-legged critters. Though my main purpose was to simply do the drive, I knew I would be driving through spectacular scenery and I knew that I might just see a Bighorn Sheep or two and maybe even a tiny Pika/Rock Rabbit. Fortunately, I was in luck with all three.
A tiny Pika made my day, too. Sometimes, one is out of luck, but I was able to get a few photos, mainly more distant shots. It was a relief to find that there was no snow on the ground, as walking on a talus slope that is also covered in snow and ice is really treacherous. Snow had fallen in the mountains the day before - yes, it was August!! - but either it didn't reach the area I was in or else it had already melted.
These little Pikas/Rock Rabbits are only 6-9 inches long and are usually seen far away, running back and forth over the massive scree (talus) mountain slope that they call home. Very occasionally, one happens to come a bit closer, usually for just a quick moment. Love their little front paws and their round ears.
"The American Pika is a generalist herbivore. It eats a large variety of green plants, including different kinds of grasses, sedges, thistles and fireweed. Although pikas can meet their water demands from the vegetation they eat, they do drink water if it is available in their environment. Pikas have two different ways of foraging: they directly consume food (feeding) or they cache food in haypiles to use for a food source in the winter (haying). The pika feeds throughout the year while haying is limited to the summer months. Since they do not hibernate, pikas have greater energy demands than other montane mammals. In addition, they also make 13 trips per hour to collect vegetation when haying, up to a little over 100 trips per day." From Wikipedia.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_pika
A couple of short YouTube videos in case anyone wants to hear and see these absolutely cute creatures:
When i woke up that morning, it looked like it might finally be a day without smoke from all the wildfires - a day with some blue sky, not to mention that perhaps the mountains and foothills could actually be seen. We all know that they are there, but it is eerily strange when they all disappear from view. A quick decision was made and I knew the drive had to be done. As it turned out, many scenic shots had a haze to them, especially when I reached my furthest point, which was Upper Kananaskis Lake. I need to check, but I'm pretty sure this was the first time I had ever driven myself to the lake, and I felt really uncomfortable once I turned off the main highway. So many small roads leading off the road I was on and I couldn't help wondering how on earth I would ever find the way back along this long road that seemed to go on forever. The view at the lake was so hazy, but I posted a photo a while ago, mainly to remind myself that I actually made it to the lake.
Once I turned around to head home, an orange light came on, on my dashboard. Out came the car manual and I saw that it was the Maintenance light. I think this is only the second time it has ever come on (in just under 19,000 km), both times when I was far, far away from home. Turned out to be just a warning that a service was due.
The USB guys are in town and trouble is ahead. The tall one is the smart guy, he knows the tricks, the bluffs, and all the stuff. But you wouldn't want to mess with white shorty, either. If he get's angry, the lights go out!
Hoo Boy! I thought monsters went home after Halloween but Mr. Malware visited me yesterday and ate my computer. Aaarrrgh! I think I have the problem solved now but what a struggle! And now I'm so far behind I'll never catch up. (Btw, I snapped this pic when Mr. Malware was being escorted to the virus vault. He does not look repentant. No carrots added. After their near-death experience they're still in a state of shock.)