Sunday, March 31, 2013

When you sleep.



Last night we had the worst lightening storm ever roll through. As in sad, not bad. This is really unusal for California. We only get lightening every few years. Which is normally over in an hour, tops. This storm would light up the sky once every hour or so. Making it impossible for me to catch it. I've only captured lightening once. Which if I do say so myself was pretty bad ass. Normally I hate most of my photos.

Over Cmas, Mr. S updated my gear. I waited so long partially because of the resession and most cameras on the market don't do IR. My Fuji S5 Pro took IR pictures stock. And once you go IR, you just can't go back. You have to send the camera out to have it modified. Basically stripping the filters that make all of your cameras take normal pictures. I have to put filters back on to take normal pictures. Without the filters I get the whole spectrum.

Anyway. As the storm was putting out lightening in fits, I realised this was the first chance I'd gotten to really play with the IR. We mostly have not had any rain. Which IR is really good for. Photographing the IR world you have to think about photgraphy in a different way. What will look interesting at night and so on.

I would have gotten other shots, but it was lightening every so often. I didn't want to get struck.



Saturday, March 30, 2013

If you say so!



Saw this girl in the supermarket, and I forced Mr S. to track her down and take a picture. I just couldn't do it. Besides, I was in full rage mode shopping on a holiday weekend.

Sometimes I'm just surprised at the indulgence of people. I focus on all of my flaws. Other people only seem to focus on their good qualities. I think most people who say they are good catches probably are not. If you were - you wouldn't want to wear this t-shirt.
Nothing makes me want to beat women and old people more than holidays.

Friday, March 29, 2013

Helicopter bun.



This is the time of year I urge people not to buy bunnies. But, I realize dogs have started to outweigh pictures of bunnies here. And that just isn't right.

For new readers - my bunny is not sick. She is a velveteen lop. Well... technically. No I wasn't duped, all of her siblings were lops. It's sort of an anomaly she still has one ear up, and actually has a great deal of control over it. I've been meaning to get video of it. When I have more time.

Also, I have a lot of stuff to blog about. You might get it all or nothing. You aren't new here. Or maybe you are. But I'm probably going to keep bumping this post to the top for the weekend.

Thursday, March 28, 2013



Ordering flowers almost at the last minute. I seriously left that in the field.

They are everywhere.



Stopped to get a shot of the Turkey. Got distracted by some lady with a dog. So, I had to get my dog on. Look at the smile I made! I should start calling my burb white picket fences instead of green acres.



OH! I almost forgot I got this shot a weekend or two ago. This is a 50mph backroad. Mr S had to pull off not to hit it.



Pesos, Euros, whatever.

I know sometimes I see a Ferrari and think it's a Lamborghini and visa versa. That is just a stupid girl mistake. When Mr S. corrects me I say, Ferrari, Lamborghini, whatever. They look similar to me. I usually just have to look for the doors. What regular people in California think about Cyprus is crazy.

Last week I was talking to a long time acquaintance. I said - there is going to be a bank run. I don't see how there can't be. End of story.

This week I see the guy again and he says the following to me. "Well, they got bailed out". As if to indicate everything was fine now. And started to defend his position. I'm not going to fight these people. I'm basically in a whatever stage. I went the whole "if you believe that route". Then repeated the stat I heard on Doomberg last night that a full 50% of people in Cyprus had more than 100,000 Euros in the bank. Half of the people on that Island just lost money. Then he says the following....

Well....Greece is Bankrupt now, so... sure they lost money - but it's like Pesos.

Google tells me the dollar Peso conversion is .08 cents to the dollar. It's .06 Pesos to the Euro.

If this is the liberal talking point right now... I'm guessing a lot of people are going to be shocked soon. I was so stunned I could only offer up a "it's not like Pesos at all".

I know it's not a banking crisis....



But - this is the best this generation can give us? Water bottles in various stages of flaccidity? I can't be certain - because I have a life - but I think these get worse if you set them in the sun. It's the ridges. Make your own jokes here.



It's a Masi, not a mehsi.



Backstory here.

Yesterday I wound up doing one of those Stepford Wives of Silicon Valley things. Mr S. was suppose to have a late meeting, and all of a sudden the venue changed and all of the wives were involved.

Normally I hate these things. The women are kindergarten teacher sweet. Which isn't a bad thing! But you read this blog, right? Plus, if there is anything this group teaches me - don't burn bridges in Silicon Valley. It really is a small place in a lot of ways.

Anyway, I found myself looking for a Kara's Cupcakes closer to where I was, and wound up at Santana Row. Which was just painfully magical. Sure we've barely had rain in months, but the Valley is so pretty right now. The puffball trees are shedding making it look like snow a little.









And this was me taking pictures while driving in the fast lane. Picture isn't great - but I'm alive!



Wednesday, March 27, 2013

You weren't going to feel good anyway.

California now owes more than 1/3rd of all money owed to the unemployment trust fund. Which is funny because we just had all those tax increases. For the past couple of years now we've been staying pretty flat at owing roughly 10 biiiiiillion dollars. Give or take a few hundred thousand. All of a sudden we are up to 11 biiiiilllion. Shut upa my face you say? Clearly everything is fine.

From the NCSL site.


This is why everyone thinks HP sucks. Yes - everyone.



Clearly you can see I actually have HP cartridges in my machine. But that doesn't stop my HP machine accusing me of theft. I guess. As if once I buy the machine I can't put any ink I effing want to in it.

The funny thing is - this was an erroneous message. I rebooted and the whole thing went away. Still - eff them.



Tuesday, March 26, 2013

If this site goes dark...You will know what happened.



I was pretty bitter about the Bioshock franchise. Isn't it two years late? I was sure they were going bankrupt. But it's out now. And it's really pretty in a "shut the eff up" sort of way.

So far I've spent an hour just marveling at things like hummingbirds and lightening effects. And water reflections. How the clouds move. Well basically everything except game play.

Spring Good Guys. Pt 1.



While the garden show this weekend was pretty anemic - the car show I went to was uncharacteristically jam packed. We had to park out in the back 40, which we rarely have to do. On the surface everything seemed better than normal. Until I ran into a car I'd gotten at another show. Since the car was already on the blog I decided to talk to it's owner who seemed to be a little desperate for cash. And it turned out that if you scratched the surface a little, a lot of people were feeling that way. Signs on cars saying no reasonable offer refused. Which seems like a normal thing. But it was more the norm, than normal. If that makes any sense. We overheard a lot of conversations where guys were saying they had to sell this weekend. There was just a lot of desperation in the air. Since we go to this show every three months or so, it really stood out.





Oh - they are still doing that? I thought we'd all sufficiently mocked them into submission.



The blue color on this car was amazing.









I had to steal a prop child to show how tall this thing was.

Monday, March 25, 2013

I still like em.



I am pretty fickle though. By the next time I see them it may get a meh.

Sunday, March 24, 2013

San Fransisco Garden show.



Which actually is in San Mateo. I don't know why they call it that. Over all there were way less vendors. And I believe that consisted of bathroom and kitchen remodel companies. These types of shows are stuffed to the gills with them.. And solar company's. Maybe there were a few less of those too.

















Saturday, March 23, 2013

Oh no she didn't.



I think a Pt Cruiser has only made it to my blog three times total. One had a hologram in the paint job and the other had the Beetles painted across it. And no, I'm not a fan of the Beetles. But it was unusual. Here.

And now.... this one. Honestly the whole thing was confusing. It looked like my little pony, but had boobs everywhere. But I liked it somehow.











The car had a Customs Hollywood badge on the back.

Friday, March 22, 2013

More from the GTC Emerging Technologies Summit.



Of course this 3D printer caught my eye while I was at the icr3ate booth. The insides looked like they came straight out of a qu-bd system. After I started talking to the guy about it - he asked me if I knew what open source was. This made all the pieces fit into place.

There has been a lot of talk about open source in last year or two. I didn't really pay attention to it because back in "the day" open source just meant free. Even though I link to Openalia in the sidebar, it just wasn't registering to me that under the open source umbrella, they were trying to create a standard. Rather than just the ability to snarf stuff for free.

Now I believe they are using it develop a platform standard when it comes to 3D printers. So, this leapfrog machine was just basically a re-skined qu-bd type system.

I've been waiting to purchase a 3D printer because the technology is moving so lightening fast. Every time I turn around a new system pops up.



This is why there aren't more women in tech.

Women basically just suck.

A Joke About Dongles Led To Two People Losing Their Jobs And A Huge Mess For The Tech World.

The world of tech was rattled this week when a quickly-dashed-off tweet alleging crude, sexist jokes resulted in two people losing their jobs.

Earlier this week at the PyCon conference (the largest annual gathering for developers using the open-source Python programming language), a woman named Adria Richards overheard a joke between two men sitting behind her during a crowded presentation.


"Richards was offended and took a picture of the two men who were making jokes. She tweeted, "Not cool. Jokes about forking repo's in a sexual way and "big" dongles. Right behind me #pycon." She also attached a photo of the two people making the jokes. "

"For those of you who have never heard these terms, a dongle is a small piece of hardware that attaches to a computer, TV, or other electronic device and enables additional functions such as copy protection, audio, video, games, data, or other services that are only available when it is attached.

Forking as it relates to software is defined when developers take a copy of source code from one software package and start independent development on it, creating a distinct piece of software. "

Here is an interesting new technology.



I was over at the GTC Emerging Companies summit yesterday. I saw this device called zspace. I will do my best to try and describe it. I believe it is just a monitor with a couple of motion sensor cameras which capture your movement via registration points on a pair of glasses. It gives your brain the illusion the monitor is a shadow box, and there are items inside that you can manipulate with a stylus. The objects are holographic in nature. So you can rotate them and take them apart.

One of the demos was a beating heart. When you dissected the heart you could feel it beating through the pen stylus. It was really pretty realistic looking and feeling. You can also place objects in motion.



These are 3D images. That's why it looks blurry.



The product is so hard to describe I think I'm going to try and make their developer conference so I can get a second chance at it.

Wednesday, March 20, 2013

I've found a new wealthy liberal enclave to mock. Final.

Part 1 here.



Stand up straight people. Or this is happen to you.



You could see immediately this town had a special place in it's heart for dogs.



I about died when I saw this window. I wanted to start saving to buy the building - just so I could get that window.



On the way to the beach sat this house inside a little bay. It was in shadow and I wanted to respect the homeowners.