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Gratitude for the programmers who write the software and apps that feed our habit.
Created for the Award Tree Group Contest Gratitude
All photos used are my own.
Thank you for taking the time to visit, comment, fave or invite. I really appreciate them all.
All rights reserved. This photo is not authorized for use on your blogs, pin boards, websites or use in any other way. You may NOT download this image without written permission from lemon~art.
(Latin for 'I Will Not serve')
A collection of stories called 'A Perfect Vacuum.'
www.youtube.com/watch?v=AjI2J2SQ528
"It has to do with a programmer who creates a whole collection of artificial virtual personalities in a virtual world, but he doesn't let them know that they're virtual. So they argue among themselves as to whether there exists a creator, and if so whether they owe him any gratitude for their existence.
Pix'd @ Hangars Liquide - maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/Hangars%20Liquides/89/48/2208
Windlight: Rot
Avatar: Genesis Lab Bento / Maitreya
A man in a hot air balloon realized he was lost. He reduced altitude and spotted a woman below. He descended a bit more and shouted, "Excuse me, can you help me?
I promised a friend I would meet him an hour ago, but I don't know where I am."
The woman below replied, "You are in a hot air balloon hovering approximately 30 feet above the ground. You are between 40 and 41 degrees north latitude and between 59 and 60 degrees west longitude."
"You must be a programmer," said the balloonist.
"I am" replied the woman,"How did you know?"
"Well," answered the balloonist, "everything you told me is technically correct, but I have no idea what to make of your information, and the fact is I am still lost. Frankly, you've not been much help so far."
The woman below responded, "You must be a manager."
"I am," replied the balloonist, "but how did you know?"
"Well," said the woman,"You don't know where you are or where you are going. You have risen to where you are due to a large quantity of hot air. You made a promise which you have no idea how to keep, and you expect me to solve your problem. The fact is you are in exactly the same position you were in before we met, but now, somehow "it's my fault."
Aira loves isolate herself in the forest to work on her laptop without distraction. (Fortunately for her, Finland has a good mobile coverage...)
As always, there is a full blog post from last year about Ada Lovelace available at Stuck in Plastic: www.stuckinplastic.com/2019/11/week-48-ada-lovelace/
Some programmer at flickr must have a thing for DC-10s. For some reason this photo shows up as my 6th most interesting photo, despite having no comments, no favorites, and currently only 60 odd views. ~11/24/09
It has dropped to number 30 in interestingness, but still much higher than it seemingly should be. ~12/12/11
DHV_3993 TOKINA
I really have the civic name Farmer. But in my youth I needed money. That's why I'm in nuclear power as a programmer and that's why I'm closed 12 hours a day in a dark office. There are 2 computers and 3 monitors. I do not know if it is day or night. That's why I envy the farmers in the fog. He knows it.
I've been in the corporate programming biz since graduating from college with a degree in computer science in 1982. During my ten year tenure at Lever Brothers, I wrote at least 600 interactive and background CICS programs, most of which communicated with VSAM indexed files as well as TS and TD Queues and a 3270 emulator screen. I always found it somewhat strange that such a large corporation didn't use IBM's relational database DB2. Oh well... back to the Newsweek magazine.
Katherine the programmer takes advantage of a quiet moment at Central Perk to finish some of her coding. She has to hurry before the "Friends" cast arrives and finds her sitting on their couch :-)
I took this photo in December 2019.... it's so weird to see the photos that I took right before the pandemic. It's like a time warp.... everything that happened before the pandemic just feels so long ago and in a galaxy far, far away. Like a distant world or something.....
Is anyone going to get the new "Friends" Apartments set? I think it looks awesome but it's very large and I'm running out of space :-)
My website | Twitter | Instagram
Copyrighted © Wendy Dobing All Rights Reserved
Do not download without my permission.
The programmer gets an early start at the Parisian Restaurant, with her laptop and a cup of coffee :-)
By the way, tomorrow (September 29) is National Coffee Day! Enjoy an extra cup of coffee tomorrow :-)
fun facts:
The Pragmatic Programmer story book popularized the term 'rubber duck debugging'
the terminology is now frequently used today by software engineers and programmers to describe a debugging code methodology.
Copyright © 2015 Tomitheos Photography - All Rights Reserved
1900 Avenue of the Stars
I used to work in this building in 1971-72 for the infamous Equity Funding Corporation of America. I was a programmer in DP (remember when IT was called Data Processing?) but my office was in the Actuarial Department which was headed by Arthur Lewis Jr, whom I thought brilliant and saw and interacted with often. Arthur eventually was jailed for his part in the Equity Funding scandal, along with other top executives. From 1964 to 1973, Equity Funding wrote over 64,000 phony insurance policies and $25 million phony bonds from secret offices in Beverly Hills and even claimed death benefits on some policies. They were tracked in a separate, secret computer system (that I did not work on). In 1973, a disgruntled employee blew the whistle and the fraud was revealed. The company, once a darling of Wall Street, collapsed. The amount of fraud was estimated to be at $300 million dollars, the 2nd largest amount after the Bernie Madoff scandal. Los Angeles...the city of dreams.
Once again we are at a juncture where the programmers have forced many and especially those that use the English version and paid for premium pro accounts to use the "New Flickr Experience"
The programmers and leadership at Yahoo (i.e. CEO Marissa Mayer) failed to pay attention to the flickr users back on December 8, 2013 (flickr Black Day) and simply ignored the many fine photographers that made flickr what it was.
For the flickr programmers and especially the staff that monitor the forum please know you have once again ignored the users and pandered to advertisers. Really bad idea for flicker to change the old format. We don't mind changes that make it better, but this time your programmers got it WRONG!!!
We all enjoyed this site the way the format was without having the square pictures to the left of the info. The info blocks do not provide us with many of the options we used to have should be left as it was without messing with them and the photo format should NOT have been changed.
I would encourage everyone to only post Red for the next 36 hours and especially on 6 April and I would also encourage folks to use the flickr and Yahoo forum to ensure their voices are heard load and clear to the programming and corporate staff that their changes are making a once great web site horrible.
Simply Flickr staff and the Yahoo CEO (Ms. Mayer) pandering to the advertisers and not to the millions of great photographers that made (past tense) Flickr what it was. Flickr will go the way of AOL and MySpace if the flickr leadership doesn't listen to the photographers that provide the CONTENT and basis of what this web site was supposed to be. We will find a better platform if you make the changes stick or don't fix the multitude of bugs quickly!!!!!!!
Maybe it really is time to try 500px. What say you? What say flickr staff? What say you Ms. Marissa Mayer (CEO of Yahoo)!!
See Part 1 in my archives Peepz. And if you're in a hurry, you may want to read this later, or in bits...it's bloody long. It's a work in progress...
"The Diamond Ring"
As my gaze scanned the small, crowded bus depot in Adelaide that December morning, I had all but given up trying to find a lift with anybody from the bus, as I hadn't met anybody on the truck stops we'd made along the way. The ticket counter wasn't open yet, so I decided that I should just wait there until it opened, and figure out what to do next after that. In the meantime I could put out some feelers and try and sense whether anybody else there looked like they might be headed for the eclipse. At that point I was still convinced I should try to get on a connecting bus to Ceduna, where most of the eclipse watchers would be, but I was sure that the tickets were sold out. I hadn't ruled out hitching on the road, but hoped it wouldn't come to that. I was also a little dubious about the weather. It was seven thirty in the morning, and the clouds formed a thick blanket of grey above the city.
The day before, I'd checked the weather forecasts to see what the outlook was like and it was sketchy. There was going to be cloud cover in most of the places along the path of totality, but the forecast said that the clouds should clear to just a scattering by mid or late afternoon. It might have prevented me from going at another time, but because I felt so driven to go I trusted that wherever I ended up would be the right place, with the right people and the right conditions. Still, I couldn't help having a slight sense of trepidation over whether all my efforts would end up in travelling over a thousand miles to watch a total eclipse of a total eclipse.
So with all that and more whirring around my skull, I let my eyes skim the crowd while my otherware kicked in at the non-local levels, and before I knew it I couldn't help but notice these two guys who were standing in one of the aisles a few feet away from me. It was their wooden case that first caught my attention and it got me pretty excited when it looked liked it was just the right size for a telescope. When I looked for who might own it, I scoped them. They looked a little fatigued, but ready for action.
The tall one that looked like Tom Selleck was dressed in loose khaki shorts with cargo pockets, a matching polo shirt, chunky white socks and brown suede walking boots. Short blondish-brown hair peeked out from beneath a baseball cap that made his rugged features look slightly boyish, but he looked to me to be around forty. Standing next to him was a guy of similar age, who looked like your classic computer programmer or science genius. He was more slightly built, had a pale complexion and black rimmed glasses. He was wearing a black leather jacket over his knitted jumper and polo shirt (which was underneath and neatly tucked in to his jeans), a black belt and some well-worn brown leather shoes.
I was totally loving their look. I had to meet them.
I approached them and asked if they were going to see the eclipse.
I think they might have been a bit surprised to have been approached but they smiled and said yes. I found out that their names were Gerard and Alan, then they told me that they'd been on the same bus from Melbourne I'd been travelling on. I had been all the way up the front in seat 1D behind the driver, and hadn't seen them behind me in seats 11C and D.
I told them that I was going to try to get to Ceduna. They glanced at each other making me feel uneasy and they said that the weather forecast didn't look so good there. It was much better where they were going, the Wirraminna Rail Siding, in the desert, but first they had to go to Port Augusta where they would be picking up their car.
It became instantly apparent that going to the desert over the coast was a way better idea given the weather, so I figured that the best thing for me should be to try to get to Woomera with them (which is where I thought the Wirraminna Rail Siding was). I imagined this really cute country town where there would be balloons and streamers in the streets and lots of bakeries. I thought that we'd get there, mingle with the others who'd gathered, and then I could find accommodation and another lift back to Adelaide the next day. I asked that if I could get Port Augusta, would they let me hitch with them to Woomera? We all decided to have breakfast together and see.
As soon as we sat down they were pulling out all these crazy maps and charts that they'd downloaded off the net, one with a pencil line drawn by hand marking the path of totality. Others had bright highlighted sections where they'd made other notes. They had made all the calculations for latitude and longitude, timing down to the second, were a wealth of astronomical knowledge and they told me all about the amazing capabilities of the camera gear they'd brought. They were prepared for everything. I could not believe my luck. They even had spare eclipse glasses! They were able to tell me everything I needed to know and I really hoped it could all happen so that I could travel with them.
After breakfast I noticed that the ticket counter was about to open and I watched as about twenty people formed two queues in front of the two nearest windows. A third window had also opened but no-one seemed to want to go there and at first I stood at the end of one of them then figured it wouldn't hurt to ask, so I went over to the third window. When I asked if that was the right ticket counter for a bus ticket to Port Augusta I was told it was and got my ticket in about 30 seconds, beating everybody. It was a completely full bus, confirming to me again just how much we make our own luck.
The guys agreed to let me join them in Port Augusta and I felt this wave of gratitude leave my body and travel out into the cosmos. As I looked at them hanging out together with their impressive assortment of camera gear, tripods, bags and telescope, with their open, friendly faces, smart casual clothing and a tendency toward geekishness, they looked like my very own Batman and Robin. I smiled inwardly. My prayers HAD been answered! I DID find the right people to travel with right there on the bus!
It was a moment I'll never forget.
After that I found a pay phone and rang Bimbo Deluxe, a bar I had a residency at, and left a message letting them know I wouldn't be coming in for my set that night.
We got on the next bus, me alone behind the driver in 1A again, and them just a few seats behind. I spent a bit of time visualising a bright blue, cloudless sky for the eclipse, and reminding myself to be in the moment, trusting as much as possible that life would take me where I needed to go, as the frequencies of gratitude for all that had occurred up until then filled me and flowed outwards from me. All the seeds sown by reading the CWG series which had tied up so many loose ends for me in my esoteric studies, were beginning to sprout and I wanted to breathe as much life into them as possible. I wanted to see how they might grow, as I did. I thought about Time. Then I slept deeply.
"Alan and Gerard spent the trip working out the orbital distance of the Moon and the rotation of the Earth in order to finally understand the path taken by the Moon during the eclipse and the speed at which it travelled. This was facilitated by the calculator in the mobile phone. Alan also worked out how photo exposures and bracketing points using full and ½ stops."
This is what Gerard wrote about what he and Alan did on the bus to Port Augusta, in his own account of our travels called "Eclipse 2002". He has even named the subtitles in Chapter 1, which will give you a greater idea of what's to come.
Subtitle 1: Alan's, Gerard's and Liz's Big Time-Warp Adventure
Subtitle 2: Port Augusta or Bust!
Subtitle 3: The Kangaroo Did It
I believe all time is happening in one eternal now. Especially since studying the Maya's supreme understandings of cosmic timing cycles and mathematics. Whenever I begin to worry about anything "in the future", I ask myself, "Am I OK, in this moment?", and the answer is always yes, so it's a good way for me to quell my fears and anxieties, and to trust life more. I really started this practice on a regular basis during this trip. And I was more than ok, as I was soon to see..
When we arrived at Port Augusta, the sky had cleared and a few tufts of white dotted the sky, which was a relief, and a beautiful gleaming silver sedan met us at the terminal. It belonged to Gerard, and I asked how even though he lived in Melbourne, his car was quite conveniently waiting for us in Port Augusta, at the bus terminal. After we piled into the car I heard the first of many stories during that trip that would change me forever.
The guys had so much gear it was hard to believe they'd carried it all by themselves and for a few moments I had my doubts that we would fit everything of theirs into the car, let alone have room for me or my scant belongings. After some tricky packing though, a space was made available for me to squeeze into in the back seat, behind Alan who was in the passenger seat, and with Gerard expertly handling the wheel, we set off for last minute supplies.
The whole transition from the bus to the car couldn't have been timed more perfectly or executed with more ease. It was a good sign, but once we got in the car I really knew that the gods had smiled down on me. They could've had a big old pick up truck for all I knew, but instead I was able to relax in the luxury of black leather seats and enjoy the views from air conditioned comfort, gaze out at the sky through the sunroof and tinted windows and tell the outside temperature from a LED display in the wood dash. To top it all off, I had just met the two coolest, smartest straight guys I'd met in ages, and we were about to embark on a truly amazing adventure together. I was happy and grateful to be alive.
We stopped in Pt Augusta's main shopping drag for some lunch, supplies and fuel for the trip. After some bad cafe food Alan and I headed off to the supermarket while Gerard attended to some other business and we quickly dashed around picking up water, bags of fruit, nibbles, and chocolate (for me). I asked Alan if they'd like to have something to eat later, maybe for a picnic? This seemed like a good idea to him (I don't know if the guys, for all their planning, had considered the necessity for food at all), and I picked out a roast chicken and some salads. I completely forgot to buy a disposable camera in Adelaide so I tried finding one there only to discover they were sold out. There was a Woolies a block down too (also sold out of cameras), but I quickly purchased a cotton blanket as I had nothing warm with me, and hoped it would come in handy, seeing I already had my pillow and I had no idea where I was sleeping that night. All I knew was that the eclipse was in less than four and a half hours and when we met up with Gerard a short time later, it was agreed that there was no time to spare, so we, and the fully-laden car, swung back onto the road and headed for the outback. Alan had a collection of maps in the glove box that he would refer to from time to time as Gerard brought us up to a comfortable cruising speed of 130 kph. ETA was going to be 17:45 at our desired spot.
They were both great story tellers, although you could see that Alan's more outgoing personality was more suited to it, but Gerard certainly didn't seem concerned, and I realized later that even though Gerard had heard Alan tell most of his stories several times before, he obviously still liked to hear them, and he often helped coax a story out of Alan's memory banks by reminding him of some of the funny details.
I began to hear about how they had been driving through the South Australian countryside a month earlier, taking photos and generally enjoying a break from work for a few days when they had hit a kangaroo when it suddenly jumped out in front of the car and stopped them all in their tracks. Gerard's car had been in the shop at Port Augusta getting extensive repairs done ever since, and as the eclipse was occurring at the same time they could collect the car, they decided (at the last minute too) to come and get it and see the eclipse at the same time. At the end of their story we all fell silent for a moment as it dawned on us that their encounter with the kangaroo had actually created the conditions for us to meet as we did. The kangaroo was pivotal to the whole story and we knew it. I silently thanked the kangaroo for it's role in all this, and for the ripples that that moment created when it lost its life that night, as I marvelled at the way our lives had intersected.
Whatever green countryside there was around Pt Augusta soon made way for flat, dry earth covered in clumps of long grasses, low bushes and small trees as we sped towards Woomera. We passed a few old run down towns that looked like the only public outlet was the petrol station, and I wondered how people out there spent their time, and how children, if any, could cope with the sheer barrenness and isolation. Then we passed Pimba. It was so third world I was totally taken aback. I felt like I'd stepped into an alternate reality, into another version of Australia, one I would never want to dream into reality, but it already was. It was quite a sight. We all unanimously agreed that it was a "hole" of gargantuan proportions, a "standard reference hole" at that, as we passed the shabby weatherboard houses that all seemed to be just barely standing, with each and every backyard sporting massive piles of rubbish and broken down, rusting machinery. I thought I'd seen bad, after all, some of my poor Filipino relatives used to live in houses where to get there, you'd have to walk on wooden planks to avoid the mud, streams and little fishes everywhere, but this was BAD.
I could see why the area we were fast approaching was home to a detention centre for illegal immigrants, a former nuclear missile testing ground and hot spot for UFO sightings. There was nothing. For miles around, nothing. Just red earth, a bit of scrub, and the wind and sky. I must admit as well as watching for the clouds to clear up even more, I was constantly on the lookout for any unusual aerial phenomena as I'd thoroughly done my research and the probability for a sighting was in my estimation, high.
While we drove to our destination we all got to know each other a bit better which was easy as we all seemed to like one another. At first I was a little unsure about whether Alan was actually happy about me being in tow, as the two of them had conferred briefly before deciding to let me come, and I'd picked up on a vibe. I couldn't blame him if it he wasn't all too pleased, as my coming along had interfered with their plans and well, "guy time". I soon put those thoughts to rest though as it as it soon became apparent to all of us that that the extra pair of hands I now afforded them, might've actually come in quite handy.
We went over a few things about the way the guys wanted to set up their gear, and what we would do when totality arrived. Then they started describing to me how they would like me to help change a solar filter on "the Lens", this massive super-telephoto thing. They explained that When Gerard said "totality", I had to take the filter off and to put it in a special Tupperware container that they had brought with them. I was like, "Oh my God, are these guys for real? We're actually practicing a DRILL for taking photos!". Say what you will, I thought they were unreal.
I know that sort of daggy technical stuff about photography and math and astronomy that we talked a lot about is pretty boring for most people but I frickin love it! And I didn't even need a camera after all! It was almost too much, too good.
When we passed Woomera it dawned on me that we weren't going to stop there, and that I'd gotten my wires slightly crossed. But as we drove past it, I thanked my lucky stars I wasn't going. The town looked horrible, with a big vintage fighter plane mounted on a big metal brace near the "Welcome to Woomera" sign near the town's entrance, to show off our so-called military "might", right(?), and the selfish misuse-use of our country's resources by stupid white guys who are all dead now anyway. I didn't see one person anywhere. The whole town looked deserted and felt like a museum you'd never go want to go visit. It didn't look like anywhere I could find accommodation at either, that's for sure. The Wirraminna Rail Siding was another 73 km on from Woomera, as I quickly learned, as the guys handed me the map and asked me to calculate the distance.
When I realised that I had no plan of action for after the eclipse, or anywhere to stay, and that I was in the middle of nowhere, I decided to just go with the flow, and didn't worry too much about it, and drew comfort from the fact that at least I'd had the foresight to bring dinner.
When we started getting close, the energy in the car changed from quiet expectation to a more intense, hair prickling kind of anticipation. I'd been chatting quite animatedly with the guys from the back seat the whole way there, but now I was nearly bouncing up and down like a child with excitement as we passed the parked cars, then bus loads of Japanese tourists, four-wheel drives and camper vans. The Japanese tourists had lined up all their shiny camera gear in front of their respective buses and had about 30-50 telescopes per bus pointed at the Sun. We kept driving though, for another couple of k's, headed for as close to the centre line of the path of totality as possible. When they explained this to me, I nearly exploded with glee, although I didn't really grasp the enormity of this fact until the moment of the eclipse itself.
The sky had finally cleared to just a bit of late afternoon haze, and the temperature was up around 27 degrees, a far cry from the sombre 11 degrees that morning in Adelaide. I was being taken to a spot on the earth that would be precisely in line with the Moon and the Sun as the eclipse took place. I thought back to the day before when all of this had been just a dream. I knew I was experiencing life at a much a higher frequency than the one I normally did, and things that would normally take a lot longer to materialize, seemed to be taking form almost instantly.
We finally saw a place where we could park. There were a few people dotted around the brush nearby. Some guy was hanging out at his ute with his sheepdog about 30 metres away. He looked liked a local with his cut-off sleeves and messy shoulder length hair. There were a couple with a tent next to their car some distance away too, as well as a tourist bus parked on the other side of the road behind us. Although there were really only a few others in the close vicinity, the air still felt tantalisingly pregnant with expectation.
We began unpacking the car and setting up all the gear. Alan had cut some sheets of polystyrene back in Melbourne to make a viewing box and we set about putting it together. The tripods were set up and the telescope came out of it's handsome handmade box. Gerard took care of setting up his two cameras and the Super Lens and soon everything was done. He found himself afterward, aching for somewhere to relieve himself and decided the only gentlemanly thing to do was drive the car down the road a couple of k's and find somewhere totally private. I think he had to go quite a way though as he was gone for quite a few minutes...
I had mentioned to Alan and Gerard earlier that I was interested in UFO's and I was secretly hoping I might get to see one fly past as the only other time was a long time ago, and it was pretty far away. I kept my eyes peeled to the skies, which by now were absolutely clear of any haze and a vivid, bright blue. YAY.
During the 1991 eclipse in Mexico City, tens of thousands of spectators saw a huge metallic disc sitting stationary as it slowly spun in the air and emitted a reddish glow. It was captured by 17 different cameras at the time and you can get the videos online if you do a search. Anyway, it was in the air above the city for 30 minutes before, during, and after the eclipse. But that is something I have learned since.
We did the practice run of the drill for when totality struck, when Alan would have me change the solar filter on the camera lens. Gerard was supposed to alert us when totality came, which only lasted 32 seconds, by saying "Totality". I would quickly remove the filter and say "Off", and put it into the special Tupperware container, heh. When totality was nearly over I was to put the filter back on and say "On" and he would continue snapping. It was a pretty funny and well, beyond cute for me. We laughed a lot while we were practicing too, so you can see they don't take themselves too seriously. Along with their brain power, personalities, preparedness and 5 star transport, it was everything that worked for this li'l diva. It was so hard to believe how amazing this was all turning out, but I kept reminding myself to accept it, because it was exactly what I'd set out to create. I was ticking off all the things on my checklist of requirements effortlessly. They were the perfect eclipse companions.
It was getting close to the time when "first touch" was going to occur and both Alan and Gerard started getting really anxious and a bit fidgety. They made last minute checks of their gear, which turned out to be good thing, as Gerard realised that one of the lenses on his camera wasn't right and changed it. They checked their watches, which had been synchronised to the second (NO! Really? Yes...REALLY), and I got some of the prepared polystyrene board so Alan could project the Sun's image onto it from the telescope's eyepiece while they both took pictures. The wind was up and it was becoming increasingly difficult to hold it so that it was straight, but I managed, and they were able to capture all the crucial moments without too much trouble in the end, but how the hell they'd planned to do all that on their own, I have no idea. There was only about an hour to go until totality and I wondered when the sky would begin to grow dark.
We occupied our time by switching from eclipse glasses to looking through the Super-Lens and watching the projector board. After 40 minutes or so I noticed that the desert was beginning to look darker and redder. It was so beautiful with the contrast in colours so much more pronounced all around us. Then it became darker and darker very quickly. The soil, the rocks, the trees, everything now looked like a deep blood red. We looked at each other and knew that this is what we'd all come so far to see. The hairs began to stand on end on the backs of our necks. The Moon's disc was almost all the way across the Sun, and we couldn't wait for the last of it to be covered. As Alan was focussing through the camera, Gerard and I put the glasses on and watched. We grew more and more animated as the last couple of minutes ticked by, talking about how it was going to be great. They'd told me earlier that when the Sun was in totality, it was ok to remove the glasses due to the rays being blocked, which I didn't know, so now I was really hanging out for when I could look at the Eclipse with my naked eyes.
"All is ready. The sky is clear of any obstruction, the gear is set-up and as good as it can be. 14.5cm telescope, low power eyepiece and reflective board, Nikon 1200mm lens on a cinematographic tripod with a Nikon F100 behind it loaded with several feet of Fuji's finest 400 ASA film ready to go. All the planning has been for this moment. Researching the websites for eclipse locations, photographic exposure tables, rain and cloud-cover forecasts; the planning, the buying, the hiring, the building, the packing and the travelling have come down to this moment, which finds Alan, Gerard and Liz at the side of the Stuart Highway A87 halfway between Pimba and Glendambo in South Australia on Wednesday Dec 4 2002, at 19:40 and 43 seconds local summer time."
More from "Eclipse 2002".
Then Gerard yelled out "Totality!" and exactly what happened next is rather hazy. I know that at some point filters must have been changed and photos were taken, but what I do remember is Gerard saying, "Liz, you should take the glasses off". I turned my back to the sun, whipped them off my face and when I jumped back to look at the sky, my jaw fell. It was so incredible. Oh my God, OH MY GOD, the COLOURS!" And then I was suddenly going "Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!!!!!!" at the top of my voice and started pogo-ing up and down on the spot like an African Masai tribesman, not caring at all what Alan and Gerard must have thought about my rather vociferous, ebullient display. It was just so stunningly beautiful. Think of Jodie Foster's face in Contact when she travelled through the wormhole and saw the galactic core for the first time. Ok? Awesome. That was me. That was ME!!!!!
It was so ineffable, so untranslatable, so profound, to watch the perfect circle of the Moon's disc finally moving into place, and exactly covering the Sun's. The resulting diffuse flares of intensely-hued colours that began around the white-hot corona, and radiated trails that filled the entire dome of the sky overhead and as far as one could see. They formed in streaks of rich fire-orange, electrically charged gold, plasma-perking purples, reds of all shades, the deepest royal blues and St Germaine's violet flame. Small fiery orbs of intense orange, called Bailey's Beads, gathered and bubbled around the edges of the Moon's jagged mountain peaks and looked like liquid mercury. Stars became visible for those few moments, as did the planet Mercury, which hung like a small jewel in the sky beneath the Sun.
Nothing can prepare you for that moment. No photo can ever do it justice, no words can completely convey all the emotions that you experience or what your eyes actually see. It is like looking into the Eye of God.
Physically being a part of that alignment makes you understand just how synchronised this universe is. As I watched the Moon gliding over the Sun, as our planet turned, I felt like I was a both a witness to and a part of a great cosmic clock, and I was watching as the cogs were sliding perfectly into place. It stirred something so deep and ancient within me, my enduring connection to the Sun, and I knew that I could never be the same again. Looking back I realise that the rays of light I was exposing myself to were in fact carriers of particular frequencies that open usually inactive codes within our DNA, often referred to as "junk". What a crock. It's not junk, it's programs and codes that help re-install our Otherware, and we all have it in our DNA.
All across the desert, from all the different groups of people scattered around us and beyond our line of sight came cries out to the sky like mine. People cheered, hooted, honked, laughed, screamed, clapped, cried. Dogs howled. Their voices were carried by the outback winds high up into the air where they met and playfully merged with the sounds of others that had come from further away, then they dropped back down to earshot where my ears would catch them, and I could feel their wonder too. We all knew we were part of something infinitely greater than us, that we were seeing something incomparable, that we were part of some vast intelligence that permeates and synchronises the entire Cosmos.
The guys were similarly affected and started exclaiming things, which again are hazy. What is clear, is how we all just looked at each other at one point, and with crazed smiles across our faces, spontaneously hugged all at once, laughing. Then they both paced around our site afterwards saying things like, "No one can ever take this away from us. We can say WE WERE HERE", and "We saw it!" We really saw it!" and, "We can never say "Awesome" about anything else again!" I thought statements like these, especially from Gerard, were rather brave, as I couldn't imagine him having outbursts like this very often, and we all went "Yeah!" quite loudly in agreement...and laughing that excited laugh that is almost the same as the one you do when you drink too much red cordial.
I thought a lot about the unbelievable relationships of proportional size and distance that it takes to actually create a total solar or lunar eclipse from our vantage point on earth. It is not a coincidence that the sun is 400 times bigger than our Moon, or that it also happens to be 400 times further away from the Moon than the Moon is to Earth. Unsurprisingly, I've wanted to learn a lot about sacred geometry since then and from what the astronomers are saying about the layout of the Universe, it seems nothing has been placed anywhere by accident.
At the end of 32 seconds, after the Moon began to move again, the first rays of light emerged again and for the briefest time, we were treated to the dazzling "diamond ring" effect that results. It's what most of the eclipse watchers as their favourite moment and I now know why. We took more photos and continued to watch through the cameras or the on the projector board for at least another half an hour. The Sun had only been 14 degrees above the horizon when totality had occurred so the Sun set quickly as the last whiskers of the pinks and oranges of sunset trailed across the sky. We packed up and left there, as I continued to watch the sky out of the car's back window, for as long as any traces of light remained. By 9:15 they'd all disappeared, having been devoured by the by the encroaching darkness, and we were plunged into night once again.
Then I realised I could start looking for UFOs so I spent the next twenty minutes scouring the skies some more.
We were all still pretty high from the eclipse experience, but by that time we had settled into our own reveries and the car was silent. We decided to drive down the road a little further until we found a spot to stay at for the night. The guys figured they'd just sleep in the car, and that was fine by me. I was SO glad I'd bought that blanket, let me tell you, as it can get nippy out there in the desert, even in summer. We'd passed some lovely salt lakes on our way there during the day, but hadn't had time to stop so we decided to try and find one to make camp at. Gerard found a great spot down a dip off the road beside one of these giant salt lakes that was quietly shimmering as it reflected the starlight. As there was no moon or cloud, the stars lit up with sparkles over the black canvas of the sky. It had been awhile since I'd been out to the country and I'd forgotten just how many stars there were up there, but it was great to be reminded. I breathed in deeply and imprinted all I could about that moment into my DNA. The Milky Way was looking particularly milky, and when I remembered we had a telescope with us I nearly lost it. I completely forgot all about stargazing that day, which for me is unusual. I'd wanted to bring my own telescope but knew it wasn't practical, and I hardly thought I would get the chance for sky watching without having my own transport.
It was becoming more and more evident that our meeting was no accident. Every single thing that I had visualized was coming true, and I felt totally in the zone. The best part was that I could get an astronomy lesson too, something I hadn't even thought remotely possible when I left for Adelaide the night before. I'd only just begun studying backyard astronomy on my own for a few months at that stage, so I really appreciated the opportunity to learn some more from people who actually knew their stuff.
We set up a rug to sit on, a buffet was laid out on the boot of the car, and we had a fabulous starlight picnic, then Alan got to work putting the telescope back together. He'd not only painstakingly constructed the box for it, he's also done several clever modifications to the telescope itself. It was incredibly smooth to manoeuvrer and the viewfinder was mounted in such a way that made it permanently aligned to the eyepiece. Not bad compared to my clumsy thing, which was big and had a great lens, but needed constant adjusting.
Gerard had a red-light torch for perusing the star map, and between them both they had all the star maps you could wish for, including a current one. I'd brought my Mighty Bright light as well so we consulted the maps for awhile under the open hood of the boot, deciding finally that we should definitely try to get a rare glimpse of the Andromeda galaxy, which was going to be low on the horizon, but still visible for a little while from where we were. It's the closest spiral galaxy to ours, and part of our local system of stars, but it's still 2.2 million light years away!
So we began. We looked at binary star systems including Sirius A and B, the Great Square of Pegasus, found Andromeda (it looked amazing, though tiny - but who cares, I saw it with my own eyes), some pretty star clusters, a wild nebula in the Orion constellation, and loads more. We had a ball. I was completely enthralled. Alan turned to me after awhile and asked whether there was anything I would like to see, and I faltered for a minute. I tried to pull a star's name, a constellation, anything from my rather limited astronomical knowledge that I'd like to view. Then I remembered! It slipped off my tongue so easily like it was something I said all the time: "I'd like to see The Pleiades please". With a quick look at the sky map, he and Gerard quickly turned the scope into position and aimed. When Alan told me I could take a look, I put my eye up to the lens. I could not have been less prepared for the reaction that I had next. It all happened in the instant when the photons of light, carried across space for my eyes to see, entered my retina. I was greeted by the most gorgeous display of hundreds of shining points of light, like diamonds on black velvet, in a beautiful cluster formation, with the seven main stars of the constellation contained within my field of view. It was breathtakingly beautiful and I gasped audibly. Within nano-seconds every part of my being, down to my DNA, was resounding with the recollection that the stars I was looking at, were HOME. Yes home. H-O-M-E. What!?@!
Tears had welled up in my eyes and I just wanted to cry it was so beautiful, but I had to catch myself in front of the guys, as I didn't want to come across as a complete lunatic. I didn't even know what to think myself. I had to process this. It was happening so fast. So I composed myself and said something like, "Wow. That is the most beautiful thing I have ever seen." (twice in one day, shit, what was happening to me?), and I found it very hard to tear myself away from the telescope after that .
We did however move away for awhile, and we all sat around chatting some more, and telling more stories. I didn't speak about what had just happened to me. I just sat with it and tried to make some sense out of it. I really knew very little about them, except that they were also known as the Seven Sisters and were a favourite for stargazers. The Pleiades weren't a part of my research or knowledge base at all. I don't even know how I even remembered the name. Whatever was unfolding though, I knew one thing was undeniable. I must be going insane. NO, just jerkin with ya, sorry, anyway, it was undeniable.
Everything in me knew that I was somehow deeply connected to this star system, but how? I resolved to do some investigating when I got home. But that night in the Australian Outback, in my planetary home, I knew that I had remembered another home, a galactic home, and that it was just as real. It thrilled me to the core. I was beginning to remember who I was!
Gerard retired early that night, and went to sleep in the driver's seat fully reclined, while Alan and I told a few more stories. I'd asked him earlier in the car if he'd ever seen any UFO's and had hinted at something but didn't really want to discuss it much. But when we were alone I asked him to tell me again and he did, reluctantly at first, but then much more engagingly, as he began describing some unusual sightings he'd had growing up on the coast in New Zealand.
These were not some pissy two second glances at a tiny little light in the sky type of sightings, his were skilfully detailed, varied, and in one case he watched some craft over a few hours. He eventually worked out that there must have been a flight path near his home because he would regularly see them all following the same course. Commercial and Air Force planes would also fly past but whenever he would ring Air Traffic Control at any of the Air Force bases or airports, he would be told that it was one of their regular flights, just a bit off schedule. Then he would say, "NO, I saw Flight Number so and so depart on time, this was something else," which always fucked them up. I heard some pretty amazing stuff and realised there was more to this funny computer guy cum action hero, than I thought. It didn't surprise me in the least that we could have something like that in common. I've always been attracted to people that, despite appearances, upon scratching their surface, you find that there's a whole lot more going on with them than you knew.
Alan declared he was sleeping outside on the rug, and I stayed up late into the night, just me, the telescope, and the stars. I finally had to go to bed when I looked directly up at the sky overhead a couple hours later, and the black void turned into a flat plasma screen and the stars became eyes, and they were all looking at, Me. That was the limit.
I was able to lie down quite comfortably in the back seat if I lay on my side in the Toblerone-shaped wedge that had formed under the reclined seats from the front. I adjusted my pillow, put the blanket over me and slept like a baby.
I found out later that the salt lake we were led to is named, quite appropriately, Lake Hart. Heart....geddit? Can you believe it? I actually couldn't. The gods have such a sense of humour.
Since then a lot has happened, and my kin in the Pleiades are now a big part of my life. They have taught me so much. I'll write a lot more about them in later posts, trust me.
And for the next two and a half days Gerard, Alan and myself ended up staying together. I gave them several opportunities to ditch me, but we were really having a lot of fun, and they would always invite me to stay on. We were well matched intellectually, but we all had quite different worldviews, so it was nice challenge for us to be mutually respectful of each other's ideas while trying to challenge one another as coherently as possible. We spent much time on the road exchanging ideas, trying on stuff for size, or sometimes throwing them in the 'too hard" basket. If Alan slept then Gerard and I would talk about stuff and vice versa. They both worked as computer technicians, which is how they met, and pretty early on it became obvious to me that some of my ideas about reality were pretty hard for them to hear. They were always open-minded enough to let me speak though, and they'd bounce things off me. We talked sporadically about some of the ideas in the CWG books that were relevant to that moment, or about a particular insight I'd had, or how you might apply some of the ideas to your daily living, and it sparked much interest and debate. I found out about a year later that Alan and Gerard had both decided to give the books a read a few months after our trip, which was brilliant.
It was always reciprocally enlightening, being in their company. They were an absolute mine of information about all sorts of things and we never ran out of topics to discuss. And it wasn't long before I threw away my return bus ticket and we leisurely drove me around some of the most beautiful South Australian countryside on a very scenic route back to Melbourne. We went through quaint little towns that they'd found on previous jaunts, and I saw the constantly changing landscape from high lookouts and wide open roads.
I've experimented with stretching time ever since I first discovered that when you fall in love, you can make a kiss last an eternity. You can also make a boring flight pass more quickly if you get good at it, or create an atmosphere at a party where a deep, lengthy, important conversation that seems to last for hours, passes in only twenty minutes. I've always liked bending and stretching time to suit my needs and on that trip it happened constantly, but it felt out of our hands for the most part, like we were caught in a strange time-warp so we just surrendered to it. "Is that the time?" was something we ended up saying more times than I can remember. And the best part was, it wasn't just me saying it, we all were.
We "parked" out the next night in a back street of a village. We got there quite late at night, and parked the car at what appeared to be a dead end street, with no neighbours to annoy. The next morning, we were mildly shocked to discover that we'd parked only a short distance away from the municipal dump! A few curious Jersey cows had congregated at the fence beside the car as well, and from beneath thick eyelashes, they were casually eyeing its sleeping inhabitants. The next night we were in the Barossa Valley, slightly more prepared, and we woke up to a gorgeous view of a hillside covered in rows and rows of lush green grapevines and blue sunny skies.
Once we got back to Victoria, we made for the Grampians, where time seemed to bend and take on a mind of its own again. No matter how we tried to stick to a schedule, or drive faster it just seemed to take a really long time to get back to the City. We saw wild deer in the mountains though, which I loved, and we used the drive to delve a little deeper into our exchanges. My cheeks welcomed the break too as they'd begun to ache a little due to all the laughing I'd done over the last few days, and especially that last day. Alan had let loose with some of his real life death-defying adventures at around lunchtime and he had me crying with laughter a few times. He really is Batman if all that stuff is true, and he told them like it was. So at around dusk, the tone changed slightly and I got to hear about a poltergeist that he'd lived with for over a year, and some other pretty far-out stuff that had happened to him. Gerard spent some time wanting to discuss the Akashic Field, so I fielded questions from both of them about that for awhile. We talked about reincarnation, dimensions of reality co-existing in the same space without knowing about each other, consciousness, the astral world, the Noetic Sciences Institute, a whole lot of stuff that I really love and it was a nice way to leave things.
We'd gone from being complete strangers to all being deeply transformed in some way by our meeting, in three and a half days. We'd trusted in our flexibility in each moment, and stretched ourselves beyond our normal comfort zones, creating or participating in large and small miracles, so it seemed, at every turn. We used our brains, which came as a great joy to me as I don't get to talk quantum physics with many of my disco friends. It's not their fault I know...but it was a nice change. I also knew that I'd helped to open up their perspective in many ways, as they did for me, in HUGE ways. My heart knew that I had been drawn to them because their soul's urge for change, and expansion, had already begun, by nudging them into unconsciously creating the conditions for me to enter their lives. I'd definitely sent out a call for them too, for the same reasons. The difference was that they had no idea I was coming along. I, on the other hand, had been certain that I would find them.
We finally made it back to Melbourne sometime around 9 pm that night. It was a lot later than we all thought we'd be back by, and we'd all been together non-stop for 3 and a half days. On our way home, I told them where I lived and it turned out that Alan lived just around the corner from me! It was nice, as dropping me off didn't pose any inconvenience at all. We swapped numbers and said our farewells amidst bear hugs and kisses goodbye. It was good to be home, back to my bed, but I could've kept going for at least another day if I'd had to. They dropped me off right to my front door.
We all knew it was meant to be, and it was.
We've all kept in touch too, Batman, Robin and I.
I'm forever in their debt for everything they shared with me, for their kindness and generosity and for behaving like perfect gentlemen the entire time. Men like these are really rare... but if you are one them, you should try going to an eclipse!
Activity was busy at ACME Computer Programming Labs. Cecilia Cellular was trying to fix a bug in her droid, and her work associate, Carl Cuppaccino entered with his morning grog.
Motorcycle Mike also came, wanting to help fix things quickly.
"No, Mike. You can't fix it with a hammer. It's an electrical problem."
20200107 007/366
thigh high socks fitted to both legacy and ebody reborn, as well as maze soft thighs and apricot paws feety peets! fatpack or pick one of 4 colour pallets : pastels, jewels, brights, and basics. all huds are mix and match! both right and left socks and sock tops can be changed independantly!
masc body version coming soon
search phase on the marketplace to find us!
First, Lightbox
They say religion and disparity are "coded" in human nature. By that definition, God must be one hell of a programmer. It must take an algorithm infinitesimally complex to make people stand while a prayer is held, side-by-side, shoulder-to-shoulder,in perfect synergy...who are otherwise known to "cheat" and "deceive" each other at every instance possible.
They also say that "Fear is the ultimate motivator"...and fear of the unknown/unseen/untouchable is perhaps the most ulterior of motifs out there.
Who are they? I don't know. You should probably ask google.
Oh, and Happy Programmer's Day !
Many Thanks to the +6,215,000 visitors of my photographic stream
===========================================
© Ioan C. Bacivarov
All the photos on this gallery are protected by the international laws of copyright and they are not for being used on any site, blog or forum, transmitted or manipulated without the explicit written permission of the author. Thank you in advance
Please view my most interesting photos on flickriver stream: www.flickriver.com/photos/ioan_bacivarov/
Many thanks for yours visits and comments.
Lehetne jobb is, de most ennyire futotta. :)
Világítás azért ilyen, mert a lakásban kiégtek a vezetékek és momentán 3 aljzatban van csak powa'. Így a stúdiólámpa nem játszik. :(
Flickr Protest 19-27 April 2014 (Blackout Week) "Read this Flickr Programmers & Yahoo CEO"
Unfortunately this is a rehash of the protest from 6 April and from 8 December as Yahoo seems intent on destroying the web site as we know it without fixing the multitude of bugs plaguing the "new experience".
For my contacts and those that sometimes view, fav or comment on my photos, please know that I will not be posting again until after 27 April and only limited after that unless Yahoo fixes the bugs or reverts back to a fixed older format. Please don't be offended if I fail to comment or favorite your art work during this time frame as I am not ignoring your photos, but simply trying to have my small voice heard by the folks that run this web site. In the mean time please know that I have started populating most of my photos onto 500Pix as they seem to cater to photographers and not simply folks that take snapshots via IPhone's looking for attention on just another social network.
The following is what I posted two weeks ago and it still stands (although slightly modified):
Once again we are at a juncture where the programmers have forced many and especially those that use the English version and paid for premium pro accounts to use the "New Flickr Experience"
The programmers and leadership at Yahoo (i.e. CEO Marissa Mayer) failed to pay attention to the flickr users back on December 8, 2013 (flickr Black Day) along with 6 April 2014 (flickr Red Day) and simply ignored the many fine photographers that made flickr what it was. They have ignored our voices due to corporate greed and nothing less.
For the flickr programmers and especially the staff that monitor the forum please know you have once again ignored the users and pandered to advertisers. Really bad idea for flicker to change the old format. We don't mind changes that make it better, but this time your programmers got it WRONG!!!
We all enjoyed this site the way the format was without having the square pictures to the left of the info. The info blocks do not provide us with many of the options we used to have should be left as it was without messing with them and the photo format should NOT have been changed.
I would encourage everyone to only post Blackout Protest Photos for the next "7" days from 19 April through 27 April 2014 and I would also encourage folks to use the flickr and Yahoo forum to ensure their voices are heard load and clear to the programming and corporate staff that their changes are making a once great web site horrible.
Simply Flickr staff and the Yahoo CEO (Ms. Mayer) pandering to the advertisers and not to the millions of great photographers that made (past tense) Flickr what it was. Flickr will go the way of AOL and MySpace if the flickr leadership doesn't listen to the photographers that provide the CONTENT and basis of what this web site was supposed to be. We will find a better platform if you make the changes stick or don't fix the multitude of bugs quickly!!!!!!!
As I mentioned above, I have started to upload my photos on 500pix as it seems to be a much better place for now. I would encourage many to do the same if they are not happy with the new experience of flickr.
What say you? What say flickr staff? What say you Ms. Marissa Mayer (CEO of Yahoo)?
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