Well here it is, Scissor Fight.
Check out this one.
Now that looks likes a straight-outta-Eckernforde Sig Sauer handgun, something in the P220 family, which just happens to be standard-issue for the SFPD. Mmmm.
Would I snap a flash photo in this kind of sitch?
No, I would not.
But that’s just me.
Enjoy.
Will this…
Click to expand
…plus this:
…eliminate this…
…and this?
Well, not actually because this particular car vs. bike from last year happened to be the impatient cyclist’s fault, because he went across against a red, because bike riders don’t have as much time to cross as they used to, owing to the newish dedicated cyclist light Oh well.
Anyway, I would have said that Santa installed all the new hardware, but I was beaten to the punch by Dale Danley / Panhandle Park Stewards, who naively wonder why the Panhandle Bandshell went away despite the fact that the “partners” of PPS are the same people who made the harmless bandshell go away.
(So I don’t know, I’ll consider the Panhandle Park Stewards ranking someplace north of that horribly corrupt Willie Brown S.L.U.G. vehicle for the while. Enjoy your “partnership” with the corrupt RPD, and the NIMBYed-up NoPNA, and the millionaires’ kid’s school as you garden, Deutsches Jungvolk und Bund Deutscher Mädel.)
Anyway, you can look forward to the flashing lights of traffic cams when errant drivers err at Fell and Masonic. (UCSF shuttle van drivers beware, beware!)
Can you spot the pest on this orchid from our San Francisco Conservatory of Flowers?
Do you see the tiny Clue near the middle between the two petals? Look hard:
Click to expand
Let’s zoom in. Oh, here’s the culprit. It’s Colonel Mustard in the Conservatory using her sucking mouthpart as a weapon.
Mystery solved (via a Canon 65mm lens setup that looked a little something like this.)
BTW, the Wicked Plants: Botanical Rogues & Assassins exhibition is leaving us October 30th, so get on over there soon.
See?
The indispensable Whole Wheat Toast was on the scene last Saturday:
And if that’s not animated enough for you, check out this tribute from six Japanese Michael fans who labored together after hours.
This one’s going viral in Tokyo right now. You won’t find a better-produced, manifestly infringing IP violation than this.
Enjoy:
I’ll tell you, back in my day, the ideal graduation gift for rich kids was a baby BMW of some sort – you know, with a giant bow atop a convertible roof. But Steve Jobs is trying to upset the Apple cart by getting people to think that an iPad is the best gift for matriculates.
I don’t know, maybe it is. However, this new ad campaign…
…says the iPad is ”The Best Way to Experience the Web.”
First of all, Apple means the best portable way to experience the web, right? And then, what’s this deal about using the word ”experience” as a verb? (Is “experiencing the web” a passive event like watching a movie? Are you a creator, at least sometimes, or a merely a consumer of the Web? Mmmm.)
Anywho, the big beef, of course, if the absence of Adobe’s Flash. I know that it, like a strong federal government, might whither away at some point, as Lenin said, but we aint there yet, comrade. In 2010, anyway, You Can’t “Experience” the Web Without Flash.
The smaller beef would be the absence of industry-standard inputs and outputs. I’ll tell you, I wouldn’t trade my aging netbook, which is worth about $100 and was somewhat crippled by one of the many Intel vs. NVIDIA spats, for any kind of iPad. I mean, iPads can’t run Photoshop or nothing, right? (BTW, is there an App for Photoshop? I’d like to see what that would look like. Srsly.) Oh, to run ‘Shop I’d need a MacBook Air (Apple’s name for their expensive netbook with hinges that used to fall apart if you looked at them the wrong way) or a four-figure laptop? Oh, O.K.
Hey kids, you’ve taken your SATs, right? Try this:
Regular Web is to expensive, portable, compromised iPad Web as
Regular bike is to expensive, portable, compromised Dahon Brompton bike.
Brompton folding bikes are nice for the people who use them for commuting. (They’re pretty expensive, and there are a lot of design compromises involved of course.) These things are popular, but are they The Best Way to Experience Cycling? Hells no.
A regular bike is cheaper AND better for most people of course.
Just saying.
(Time’s tide will smother you, Apple.)
Can you make sense of this scene at San Francisco’s Justin Herman Plaza near the Embarcadero Ferry Building? (Perhaps a black-and-white, slo-mo Raging Bull-style video or this official 1080p will help.)
Click to expand:
via christopher*
It was the Yelp-rated Great Valentine’s Day Pillow Fight of February 14th, 2010! This joint went down yesterday despite a threatened crackdown from San Francisco’s Park Rangers and an ominous warning from San Francisco Director of Public Health Mitchell Katz - he fretted about the risk of “corneal abrasions, penetrating injuries, and even orbital fractures.” Captain Bringdown, M.D. documented 17 injuries from last year that were serious enough to require medical attention at emergency rooms. Hope 2010 was safer.
Let’s take a look from the beginning. Just hop on the BART…
…don a disuise to protect your identity…
…or your corneas…
…allow our gorgeous (red hair, blue feathers) media types (SF Station – what’s that?) time enough to give the command to roll cameras…
…and leave us commence:
A chicken fight with goose feathers – is that allowed?
Some took a defensive posture…
…while others went mano a mano, no holds barred:
Verily, it was the Great Valentine’s Day Pillow Fight of 2010:
See you next year!
[Update: Mission Local has some good shots as well.]
That Catherine Bigelow, you know, she’s Everywhere You Want To Be. But she is probably taking photos for Social City using one of them stylish little digicams with the flash just above and to the side of the lens. That leads to red-eye, which needs to get fixed, as here (unless I’m mistaken and this fellow just naturally has coal-black, Simpsons cartoon eyes), and there are other issues as well.
Let’s get started, credit card at the ready:
Canon digital SLR – any type, it doesn’t matter. How about a Rebel XS (aka 1000D) for $449? Take off the kit lens and sell it on the craigslist or throw it at somebody you don’t like - just get rid of it.
Canon 35mm 2.0 lens – $320. (I paid $100 for mine, but it was used.)
Canon 580EX flash – $399
It will all look like this:
Then here’s what you do:
Put the camera in Manual Mode and leave it that way forever.
Set it for 1/100th of second exposure at f/2.5 with ISO sensitivity of 800, something like that.
Carry the camera and flash separately and then put them together at the event, making sure to lift up the white card thing on top of the flash.
Get your people together, hold the camera horizontally and press the shutter button - it will focus (with a gentle red light assist, if necessary) and take three shots, all within a second or two.
Then when you’re done, just take the flash off of the camera and they’ll both turn themselves off, ready to wake up as soon as you couple them again.
So yes, this approach is going to cost four figures and use stuff that’s a lot bigger and heavier than a $200 digicam. But it will produce images that complement the subjects and it will produce images that look good all the time, as opposed to just some of the time.
The primary benefit is having a soft flash coming from above the lens, as opposed to a sometimes-harsh flash coming from right next to the lens.
That’s my two cents.
Can you spot the pest on this orchid from San Francisco’s Conservatory of Flowers? Do you see the tiny Clue near the middle?
Let’s zoom in. Oh, here’s the culprit: It’s Colonel Mustard in the Conservatory using her sucking mouthpart as a weapon.
Mystery solved.
A male Allen’s Hummingbird uses sunlight to show off his iridescent orange-red mantle at the Strybing Arboretum / San Francisco Botanical Garden .
It’s his way of saying “we bad” to other Allen’s Hummingbirds.
