Stuff from January, 2007
This is the archive of tumbledry happenings that occurred on January, 2007.
Resort Look Out
This is the archive of tumbledry happenings that occurred on January, 2007.
Noka chocolate - too expensive, do not buy - Citing a 1,300% markup over retail … and referencing the other 9 pages of this fantastic exposé, the author demonstrates why the “luxury market” for outrageously priced things such as chocolates can be enormously inflated for no reason. I especially like the references to real chocolatiers at the article’s end.
Taken while passing over these one lane bridges they have in Northern Kauai. They create very strange traffic patterns. Tricky shot looking into the hazy sun.
A big cliff rose up right behind the beach, but I couldn’t get a sense of scale in the picture I took of that.
Fantastic scenic overlook. Those are taro farms below.
Tremendous lighthouse, this. It has the largest Fresnel lens in the world (4 tons!), hand ground in France. It was lifted up from the ocean 110 feet below, and when eventually installed, spun on a friction-reducing bed of mercury until an electronic light replaced it in 1976.
At the Guava Kai plantation.
A better, vertical, version of this picture will be posted when the redesign of tumbledry has been completed.
I returned a few days ago from my trip with my family to Kau’i, Hawai’i. Tumbledry has slept peacefully over the holidays, but there are some big things going on in the background. I’m way way backlogged on adding some great photos and great links. There are stories to be told, and oh yeah, that redesign is still going great guns in the background. Come the end of the January, things will be looking quite a bit different around here.
Because of the way the wind swept through (we were on the windward, not leeward side of the island), and due to the frequent sun showers, one could see really vivid rainbows that dropped down right into the middle of fields. Pretty amazing.
One of the biggest obstacles preventing me from writing very much in the past couple of months has been worrying about dental school: specifically, whether or not I have gotten in. I’ve been hesitant to write anything at all about it until I knew one way or the other; it’s awfully difficult to think about, much less write coherent thoughts concerning my hopes, dreams, and fears. Come to think of it, avoiding the cathartic effect of writing may have been a mistake. There are many stories to tell that have happened along the way … but they will fit best when there is some sort of conclusion. Then again, I don’t know if I really want to look back at the journal of my life and read about all this worrying I’ve done. Either way, the silence has been getting to be too much, so I think I’ll pick up on the writing thing again.
Unbelievably icy streets - I don’t usually do YouTube video links … but holy cow this home movie of cars repeatedly slamming into one another is unbelievable.
Colbert Report’s hilarious take on the AT&T merger - The accompanying diagram is great.
On our last morning in Hawaii, I caught the glimmer of pink during sunrise, rare during the cloudy/rainy winter season. I sprinted the 200 yards out to the ocean in time to catch the sunrise you see here. I’ll post a vertical shot I got of the sunrise later.
Unbelivable smoke pictures - I like the idea that he isn’t taking pictures of the smoke, but using smoke to make photographs. I think that’s an important distinction.
Holy moley … this giant honey bunch of oats was found in my cereal box. Years of eating these and I’d never seen anything like it, it tasted like almost pure sugar.
Rodrigo Y Gabriela - Check out some of the impressive videos they have from the duo’s late show performances.
T-Shirt with Undo Joke - Yes, the command for undoing your last action on a computer is either ctrl-z, or in this case, apple(command)-z. I’ll take one in a medium, please. From Insanely Great Tees.
An infomercial jam session - “Now, let’s learn how to play, a rockanrollrhythm …” This Creative representative really knows how to sell a product. Check it out … the fastest rock drum tutorial ever.
Inventing the smiley face - Way back in 1982.
Tiny planets from photographs - “All these pictures are 360° panoramas projected to look like small planets.”
The effect is quite impressive. Furthermore, the author provides some great resources, with tools by the names of autopano-sift, hugin, enblend, mathmap, and PTBlender. So, the post processing looks technically demanding, but the final result looks stunningly simplistic.
The greatest cars in the world - Top Gear’s host loves the Ferrari F360 Modena, but ultimately votes for the McLaren F1 … wonder if he’d still agree today what with the Ferrari Enzo. I think you can judge a person’s passion for what they do by their ability to interest those with only casual interest in the topic. That said, this guy excels at describing the wonder of cars and sucking you into his wonderment (is that a word?).
The Nintendo Wii … on a 1.5” TV - Ok, and get this - this guy managed to connect a Wii to a DOLLHOUSE TV. You know, those tiny, working televisions that are included in some dollhouses? Crazy.
Ridiculously talented model/fashion photographer - Most pictures on flickr try to emulate a certain style, and almost always you’ll see parts of them that simply look strange. They are, after all, snapshots. These pictures, though … the lighting is absolute perfection.
