Friday, February 27, 2009

Dark Walk


Dark Walk, originally uploaded by mmilway.

I had to be quick to catch this guy but my camera was set up for daylight and by the time I got it worked out he was gone. I salvaged this one.

Thursday, February 26, 2009

Boy Least Likely to be at a 40th birthday party?

Here is a new song from The Boy Least Likely To.  This song was released a little too close to the landing of some balloons in PEI.  Investigators are exploring the connection.

Also for your listening pleasure,  TBLLT's stellar cover of "Faith" by George Michael

Tuesday, February 24, 2009

Slow Month

So, February is a fairly slow month in PEI and I've been having trouble relaying that to you, the faithful reader.  Well, all it took was one look at today's newspaper, The Gaurdian, and it was clear.   This was found on the FRONT PAGE. ABOVE THE FOLD

The banner headline read: Balloons take voyage from U.S. all way to Island.  
The intrigue of the headline that sucks you in soon disappears when you come to the second line

"A balloon bouquet took flight from a person’s 40th birthday party, apparently somewhere in New York, before coming to rest Sunday morning in Greenwich National Park in eastern P.E.I., some 1,500 kilometres away."
Apparently there was a business card attached which put the balloons take off point somewhere on Staten Island.  The Gaurdian went on to ask the tough questions.  “I want to know what the party was like. Was it a big party? Who let the balloons go?. . . It would be cool to know when the balloons were let go.’’

So someone in New York let go of some birthday balloons and proabably forgot about them.  Those balloons landed in rural PEI and were found by a pair of snowshoers.  Those snowshoers thought to themselves: let's call the newspaper.  The newspaper thought: let's send a reporter and a photographer.  Then they decided it was front page material. 
 In unrelated news, Transcontinental, the publisher of the Gaurdian, has announced that it will be cutting 1500 jobs.

Friday, February 20, 2009

Most Annoying Intersection in London

My dream of going to Abbey Road and getting my picture taken as I cross the famous cross walk does not seem to be an original one.  Neither is going to Abbey Road and pulling down my pants (see 1:30 ish).   Could you imagine living in the area and having to drive down that street a couple of times a day.  It would be neat like the first day but quickly become the reason you take the long way to work. (via Neatorama)

Friday, February 6, 2009

What are the chances?

I woke up to this song on the radio and thought I had somehow gone back in time to the 1950s or something (you know with one of those alarm clocks where the numbers flip over).  I was sure that I was gonna have to solve some sort of crime that happened 40 years ago.   I think I've been watching too much LOST and Quantum Leap.  Speaking of Quantum Leap, I have realized that my iPod Touch (with wikipedia) is pretty much the same thing as that little device Al, from Quantum Leap, would always have.


Jill Barber, of Halifax, has a new album out and "Chances" is its title track.  Its in stores NOW (depending on when you are)

Wednesday, February 4, 2009

This post is SOOO Last Week

Hi there,

I just found two links that are pretty neat but they are about a news story that is...well, old news.

There are some interesting things going on out there with photos.  With the ubiquity of cell phone cameras and digital cameras a small unknown company has a cool little program that might make all of it useable.  Microsoft has bought a company that developed a computer program that is able to recognize structures in pictures and match them to  structures in other pictures.  The comptuer then makes a few calculations and figures out where the two photographers were, relative to one another, when they took these pictures of the same building.  For instance millions pictures are taken every year of the Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris.  This program, Photosynth, can match the Catherdral in all of these pictures and place them in a 3-d map around Notre Dame.  It can then stich them together and give you 3D environment for looking through photos.  It really gives you a sense of swimming through a scene.  I got my friend Blaise to put together a video for your viewing pleasure.  If you fast forward to the 4:00 mark he gets into it.  If you visit the website there are a few more examples.


So a historic moment occured last month and about 2 million people all had there cameras pointed in at this event.  CNN has partnered with Photosynth and is asking for everyone who was there to send in their pictures of Obama's inauguration and they are gonna piece together a massive 3D Collage.  You can see it here. I don't think they have the response they were hoping for but it is a cool idea...and hopefully awarness can be raised and people can participate in something like this the next time there is another gathering like this....maybe next week or the week after that?  

Unfortunately for those of you on a higher plain of existence...this might not work on your Mac.  Find one of your stupid friends still using a PC and explain it to them really slowly and i'm sure they will let you take a look.  A quick reminder for those who haven't been on a PC in a while...it will probably freeze CTRL + ALT + DELETE will fix it.  Call it a "cute quirk" so that you don't upset your PC friend.  Try it on your mac first.  The Microsoft driver says it will work on Intel based Macs but you know microsoft...not very reliable. 

The second item is also photographic in nature and it is also inaugural in nature.  It Is called Gigapan.  These guys use massive cameras and construct huge panoramas that you can zoom in on.  They are really high resolution.  The gigapan taken at the Inaguaration is made up of 1600 pictures and has around 1.5 GIGApixels.  Thats like 150x the resolution of my camera...or 1000x the resolution of my cell phone camera.

Click here and see if you can find Yo Yo Ma, Oprah and Dick Cheney who seriously looks like he was the really evil SS agent in Indiana Jones: Raiders of the Lost Ark.  Can you make out what the band is playing?  Can you see the boredom on Bill Clinton's face? Can you see the disappointment on Hilary's face? on Al Gore's face?  Can you see how far away MSNBC's booth is?  Can you imagine how many of these people will show up when Sarah Palin is sworn in in 8 years?

There are all sorts of other gigapans on the site... like London, Boston, San Francisco, Air Show, Burning Man, Full 360s of stores, Beaches, Airports, Mountains...all sorts.