-hh

Steve Jobs & the Digital Era

2011-10-07T23:21:00.004-04:00

An interesting juxtaposition this week.

On Wednesday, we lost Steve Jobs after his long fight with pancreatic cancer. Steve was of course a tremendous force in innovation in Personal Computers including the Macintosh.

One of the first digital cameras available to the public was the Apple Quicktake 100 back in 1994. While it wasn't a commercial success for Apple, the entire consumer market for photography underwent a profound earthquake of change from this disruptive technology. Today, film is virtually gone, as are also many small local camera stores. We still have cameras, of course, but they're now digitally based and our methods of making photo albums have also changed, with custom self-published books.

What also happened this week was the culmination of an overly long photo album project. Back in 2004, we went to Peru and with primarily an SLR, came back home with roughly 2000 images ... 75% of which were on 35mm film. A lot of digitizing and organization (no EXIF data) followed in intermittent spurts, but has now finally been concluded: an analog/digital hybrid.

This wasn't our first digital photo album, but it was quite a tedious one to work through, because of it being transitional from its analog component. It reminds us how years of innovation and improvements by people like Steve Jobs have resulted in greater productivity and ease of creating finished products - - hopefully, we won't become jaded and complacent when we realize not only how recent these innovations have been, but also how much more flexibility & freedom they have given us in making great works too.

Our parents grew up in in age where automobiles were young, airplanes were infants, telephones were new ... and then as they raised us, the solid state transistor was invented, which enabled Man's landing on the moon, as well as many other innovations. And in the closet, there's probably some classical old photo albums. Take some time this weekend to see your parents and pull out a few of those preserved memories ... and if you're smart, you'll take a digital photo of each of its pages, and if the images contain familymembers, you'll also record the names & relationships for future generations.

-hh

NJ's $400m 'Race to the Top' - adults misbehaving

2010-09-01T07:43:00.010-04:00

Over the past two weeks, there's been much to do about how locally here in New Jersey, an (ahem) 'error' resulted in losing $400M worth of Federal Aid.

Naturally, the gears of Political Spin turned, to try to avoid responsibility and deflect blame on others: it is the classical "If its good, I get credit, but if its bad, it must be someone else's fault" - - with exactly the underlying message on ethics that that entails. As usual, our 'Leaders' actions in misbehavior sends the worst possible message to our children (and students), which is that its okay to lie and cheat.

And specifically for NJ Governor Chris Christie, we can see that he has conspicuously failed to issue a clear (and equally loud) public apology to those in the Federal Government that he had previously blamed for his own administration's error. Too late to do this now - the train has left the station and his credible opportunity window has passed, and Christie thus gets a failing grade in Ethics Class.

- - -

However, there is another interesting point that has been missed within all of the politically-generated spin-doctoring in regards to the Race to the Top. People have forgotten the very basics: this was a competition, and not all entries were going to win (receive funding).

As such, let's apply one more "What If", centered on Ohio (who just beat NJ out for the last winning spot):

WHAT IF ... Ohio's entry had done a few points better on their entry?

Answer: all of this teeth gnashing and caterwauling on NJ's 4 point mistake would be utterly moot.

In life, there are winners and losers...and it doesn't take long to learn that we won't always win. As such, we need to be honest with ourselves and accept losing graciously ... which includes accepting responsibility for our actions, win or lose. It doesn't matter how lofty one's life position is, or becomes: the buck always stops.

-hh

A quick word on 'snowfall' photographs

2010-03-01T10:23:00.030-05:00

(Alternate Title: "A foot of snow later...")

Thanks to it being an El Nino winter, there's been quite a bit of wintery mix precipitation that's been hitting the Northeastern USA this past month.

As such, there's the temptation to go take a digital photo that you're going to email to family & friends (probably to get some sympathy for snow shoveling).

So you go out and take a photo during the storm ... and all that nice white snow turns out a yucky dark grey in the photo - - that's probably not what you wanted, so why did this happen?

The short answer is "technology", specifically, your camera's automatic exposure system.

Yes, we've become quite accustomed to auto-everything cameras, but a downside of this is that the camera never knows what you're photographing, so it guesses.

Simplistically, this "guess" is known as 18% grey, and while it works great 90% of the time for us, where it doesn't work so well is when we have a low contrast scene - - and during a heavy snowfall is a low contrast scene.

With a low contrast scene, the camara's educated guesses often goes wrong: it is looking for "dark AND grey AND bright" contrasts, but it can't find what's not there.

So while a white cow in a snowstorm (light on light) or a black cat in a coal mine (dark on dark) are both intuitively obvious to us, for the camera, it sees both as low contrast and hard to figure out. Subsequently, it can get the overall exposure settings wrong.

Typically, the camera's bad guess is that the cow/snow is "too bright" of an overall scene (it can't find true black), so it sets for a short exposure, which turns white into grey (underexposed). Similarly, the cat/coal is interpreted as "too dark" (can't find bright white), so it calls for a long exposure...and this turns black into grey (overexposed).

Here's an example of an image that's was a low contrast light scene, so it was auto-exposed to be a bad "grey" shot (underexposed), which was corrected later in post-processing:

The trick to avoid this problem is pretty simple: be aware of how your 'automatic' camera settings work, and anticipate what it will do based upon what you know is in the picture. The simple rule of thumb to remember is that the camera will want to turn everything grey if the scene lacks a good cue (bright sunny sky for contrast) to help it out.

With digital, its pretty easy to take a test shot and then adjust your settings. And if you forget (or not bother), you can fix the incorrect exposures later in post-processing. Its up to you to decide how much its worth a little bit more effort upfront when taking the picture, both to get better overall results, as well as to save time later from less post-processing.

And of course, if you do choose to override the default exposure while taking the photo to get what you want, do also make sure to remember to set your override settings back to normal afterwords.

-hh

Hen Wallow Falls

2009-06-13T18:00:00.002-04:00

Saturday:

The Cosby campground & picnic area is around 60 miles from Maryville, TN. A 1.5 hour drive, which is well removed from the first time here, in the Summer of 1973.

Those many years ago, we were camping in the Smokies, with my parents and my brother Mark. Based on this trail, I assume we stayed in Cosby, for those many years ago, Dad took the two of us boys for a hike in the woods.

To this day, an austere 3"x5" photograph of Mark & I, sitting on a large rock at the base of the falls is still a part of my parents' "on display" collection of household photos. And to this day, I recall the sights of that walk, mostly being the huge logs and standing deadwood of the American Chestnut, which had been wiped out decades earlier by a blight.

Thirty six years later, I'm the same age as my father was when he took us on this hike. And along the trail, there's still some slowly composting logs - not quite as huge as I remember them, but still 3-4ft diameter and arrow-straight for 50 to 75 feet (or perhaps even more). T

A unique recollection, since what I've enjoyed in the hikes in the Smokey Mountains have been sights such as the waterfalls themselves, and here's a long discussion of times past and of the "boring" fauna of a quiet walk in the woods that lack a spectacular view of mountains or water or wildlife.

As the trail undulated for its 2+ miles back, a sight again seen was more scat from black bear. Fresh. Approaching the falls itself, a convergence of groups resulted in easily a score of human visitors to the base of the falls, and the predictable chatter and bustle that often accompanies groups of youths (a soccer team, we understand). A reminder of the population who visits this National Park and a strong contrast to the day that the three of us were here, all by ourselves. Of course, this day happened to be a Saturday, which clearly can be an influence on attendance.

After a break, we returned, and reflected on our visit, including my prior visit so many years earlier. There wasn't any huge standing deadwood with the Chestnut's distinctive spiral in its grain like I recall so vividly, but I did see a fallen icon that looked incrementally less ancient than the others that seemed to be in the appropriate region and size.

-hh

4 x 5DII in Freezing cold, snow and wet

2009-02-16T08:30:00.004-05:00

There was a recent report of a photo-journey to Antarctica, where several Canon 5Dmk2 dSLRs failed, while essentially "none" of the other cameras onboard did.

The above link is to DPreview.com, where a gentleman posted a "mine didn't fail" report. A long conversation resulted, with one poster pointing out (correctly) that there were a lot of issues and that the report of a non-failure wasn't particularly insightful, particularly when it was in attempted response to a field report of failures.

Unfortunately, while some of the exchange did get a bit heated, the moderators at DPreview have decided to slash-n-burn their way through the thread, and in doing so, resulted in collateral damage of posts that did not have any possible violations or controversies. Which included both of mine. As such, I see that I can no longer trust dpreview to retain professionally based objective works.

I'm not going to ask DPreview to consider undoing their moderation - that's their prerogative, and their actions reflect on their reputation only. Instead, I'll reiterate where it can't be removed:

Philip Harle wrote:
> Spent last week on the Light & Land photo trip to Glencoe. I was
> amongst 4 5DII users who managed to get their camera soaking wet and
> cold shooting for a whole day whilst it was constantly snowing. None
> of the cameras had the slightest problem.

I'm not about to re-write my long objective statistical analysis that has apparently been removed by the Moderators for whatever reason. My editorial comment on this matter is that I have noted that it has been removed.

To reiterate in much shorter form - - my apologies, but I'm not about to go into the same level of detail:

Part I:

- The above 'zero failures' report is a sample size of (n=4 x 1 day)
- The controversial Antarctica trip was a sample size of (n=26 x YY days)

That's at least a 60:1 ratio in the "power" of the respective statistical samples. As such, even if the suggested 20-25% failure rate is true, this report's sample size lacks sufficient sampling"power" to have a reliably high confidence to be able to detect the failure(s) in the first place.

Part II:

- most people don't really understand Statistics.
- most people don't really understand Test & Evaluation (methods & standards)
- most people don't really understand "self selected" sampling bias

Nor do most people understand how these interact and make the analysis of a complicated device used in uncontrolled settings and then subject to anecdotal reporting, variable judging and self-selection bias ... simply results in a mess to try to professionally analyze.

As such, all that can really be concluded is that the LL trip reported an 'alarmingly high' failure rate in 50% of their sample, which under a null hypothesis of 'All dSLRs are about the same' then may have been coupled with an 'alarmingly low' failure rate on the other 50%.

Part III:

It should be noted that even if the failures are eventually determined to have been caused by 'human error', there remains the niggling issue that said human errors were not randomly distributed, but clustered. To cut to the chase, something that significantly alters the probability of human-contributed errors ... infers a system design flaw.

Part IV:

How to rig a 'waterproof' test so that even an exposed Kleenex can pass?
I previously only said that it could be done. Here's some concrete suggestions as to how it can be done:

Method A: low flow rate + atomized to mist + extremely dry chamber + high temperature + air make-up + good separation distance = weak humidifier

Method B: medium flow rate + spread + very dry chamber + extreme cold + good separation distance = dry snow machine, or possibly even just verga

Method C: high flow rate + no spread + aimed horizontally at target + distance + gravity + splash control = water misses the test coupon

Method D: "before/after" weigh scale not sensitive enough to measure weight change from water, or use of a method that doesn't measure relevant change (eg, dimensions).

Method E: handling of sample after test (eg, time delay, allowing it to dry).

-hh

Photography Retrospective

2008-12-31T21:42:00.003-05:00

The above link refers to the top 100 photography blogs, as per Sarah Scraffod. Its an interesting ...and useful... mix.

It served as a reminder to me that my images are getting backlogged. There's still 1000+ images to review & import from Tanzania last month. Plus there's tons of old stuff that should probably be revisited and either scanned or rescanned, such as this 1994 image from Yellowstone Canyon:

Approx 10 year old flatbed scan of 120 film (Mamiya 645)

I don't even know if 'sharpen' filters existed back when this one was done. By today's standards, its resolution is downright fuzzy.

-hh

Winter Traction: Snow tires versus 4WD - which is better?

2008-12-31T11:59:00.000-05:00

Many years ago (turns out to be 1999), Car and Driver magazine did a comparison test for winter driving, where they asked the question of if you could only have one or the other ... snow tires -OR- four wheel drive ... which would be more beneficial?

Obviously, having both 4WD and snow tires is the best combination, but the intent here was to ask which provided more of the benefits, since neither one is free.

By supreme providence, I happened to rediscovered this 1999 article. It is linked above (and again here).

Its a nice read, but I know that we all want a shorter summary.

Here's Car&Driver's tests summary:

Hill-Climbing Traction: 4WD
Straight-Line Acceleration Performance: 4WD
Braking: Snow Tires
Handling/Lateral Acceleration: Snow Tires
Handling/Slalom: Snow Tires

And C&D's conclusion:

Four-wheel drive helps get cars going. When it comes time to brake or change direction on low-traction surfaces, the extra mass of the driveline becomes more of a detriment. Folks who live in hilly places that get snow may need the climbing capability of four-wheel drive...Almost everyone else will most likely be better served by using winter tires. Acceleration takes longer, but in an emergency, the handling behavior and improved lateral grip of two-wheel drive and winter tires -- in the slippery stuff -- are the safer bets.

In other words, snows before 4WD.

If you need a catchy sound-byte, try:

With 4WD, you may have 4 wheel 'go', but everyone has 4 wheel 'stop'.

The general reprocussions are that 4WD without snows will get you moving...but into trouble from which your tires aren't adequate to save you from. Snows without 4WD might not let you get moving as easily, but you'll have better roadhandling and shorter stops, which means more likely to get home safely.

Its winter again in the Northeast USA, so let's all be careful out there.

-hh

Taylor Ham Nation

2008-12-19T09:51:00.004-05:00

This one is for those friends and family members that live outside of 'Taylor Ham Nation'. Of course, some are also probably missing out on RAPA Brand Scrapple too:

Ledger Live - 12-18-08

To mail order from the company mentioned, click here

-hh

So much for that last minute gift idea

2008-12-18T22:00:00.000-05:00

For the photographer in your life, if they had any serious interest in a telephoto lens, the Canon EF 1200mm f/5.6 USM was the stuff of fantasies ... until they realize that someone's got to carry it!

As the B&H Newsletter of this past summer stated,
"...calling this lens a 'tele' is like calling King Kong a monkey."

Despite the asking price of $99,000 (for a used lens!), this toy was sold.

So much for that very very generous last minute shopping gift.
You'll just have to make due with an EF 400mm DO IS USM instead :-)

-hh

Cayman Brac after Hurricane Paloma

2008-12-14T15:12:00.006-05:00

In November 2008, the 71st anniversary of the great Storm of 1932 was noted to nearly the same exact day with Hurricane Palmoa hitting the island as a Category 4 storm.

With modern technology, there's photos online that document the damage this time. Here's three such slide shows:

http://www.blueoceanart.com/hurricanepaloma/index2.php

http://www.caymannetnews.com/palomabrac/index.html

http://www.caymannetnews.com/palomabrac/part2.html

Amongst others, the Rotary Clubs of Grand Cayman is accepting donations to help those in need. Their website is:

http://caymanrotary.wordpress.com/

We also understand that Robert Walton is working to help conserve the endangered Cayman Brac Parrot, as its habitat and food sources have obviously also been severely impacted by this storm.

-hh

Making a left turn in Albuqurque

2008-12-12T08:01:00.005-05:00

It seems that the end-of-year travel isn't quite over yet. A short notice meeting, but it did the afford the opportunity to catch up with a familymember.

With a few hours on Sunday to see the region, we travelled on the Sandia Peak tram ("World's Longest passenger aerial tramway") to the top of Sandia Peak. At an elevation of 10,378 feet, this sea level flatlander was sucking wind. At least I remembered from Cuzco, Peru to go slow and not over-exert.

After attending business, the return home wasn't quite smooth, due to delays caused by heavy rain in the NYC metro area, but it could have been a lot worse than an extra ~2 hours.

And my thoughts were "At least I've now flown on American Airlines in 2008 so as to keep that Frequent Flier account still technically active", but FFM accounts vary in their rules and AAdvantage has expired another 34,625 miles on me this year.

And in this age of computers, my most recent flights on AA from two days ago still haven't posted their mileage credits.

...and the airlines wonder why I have clear preferences as to where I take my business when I have a reasonable choice in the matter.

-hh

A busy fall...

2008-12-03T07:34:00.006-05:00

The last few months have been quite busy, with a bit of globe-hopping. Within the past three months, I think there were 3 weeks in Europe, 2 weeks in the Caribbean, 2 weeks in Africa and a quick trip from the East to the West Coast to present a paper and vamoose back home.

Thus, there's the latest batch of travel photographs organized and sorted while getting ready for winter to hit us locally. In taking a break from that project (1000 down, 2000 to go), the subject of travel while exploring found an interesting website utility, namely the ability to make up personal "Been There" travel maps from Phillips 66.

Domestically:

Internationally:

If you're looking for changes since 2007, well, there's just Denmark.
In the meantime, there's still plenty of things on the "1000 Places before you Die" list that remain to be worked on.

And since it is that time of year for one's annual holiday contribution to Capitalism, it is quite obviously way behind schedule as a result of not really being at home for half of the time over the past few months. Plus there's more important things. Just last night, we spent a solid hour on an expensive long distance phone call to a friend who survived having half of their house fall on top of them from a Category 4 Hurricane a few weeks ago. The gift wasn't really our offers to send Care packages, but simply the opportunity for a listening ear for them to be able to give that big emotional 'dump'. Nevertheless, we'll be putting together a package for them over the next week or so with some surprises, since they have months of clean-up and recovery to do.

-hh

Evacuation Day ... and local history

2008-11-25T20:00:00.005-05:00

(backdated)

The obscure US Holiday of Evacuation Day dates from November 25, 1783, to commemorate when the British left the USA on that date in 1781, marking a final end to the Revolutionary War.

The 225th Anniversary of Evacuation Day was in the news locally in New Jersey this month, since NJ was a crossroads of the American Revolution, and to this day, there's several "George Washington Slept Here" historical homes in the area, as well as his HQ for Jockey Hollow, the 1779-90 Winter Bivouac for the Continental Army.

Upon reading of this local history of how the local hilltops were used to light fires to serve as communication (warning) beacons for an impending British attack, we were debating if on the night of the 25th we could find a few hours venture out a dozen miles down the road to Fort Nonsense in Morristown, where the newspapers were reporting that there would be a modern beacon lit to commemorate.

Naturally, we didn't make a more proximate connection. The name of the housing development that we live in is ... Beacon Hill.

Yes, there was another one of the 23 known hilltop signals located at the top of the hilltop ridge that we live on. It was restored last year by Denville Boy Scout Troop 118.

Its yet another surprise discovery of local history ...

-hh

It done burned down

2008-11-12T08:00:00.000-05:00

(backdated)

Dateline: Tanzania

Some of our time this month was spent on Safari in southern & western Tanzania.

While at Ruaha National Park, we spent some time chatting with the camp manager, who had previously been working at Mikumi.

We found that a controlled fire ... done poorly ... last season had burned out of control and up over the hilltop where a camp that we had previously stayed at, destroying all of the facilities.

Thus, this Banda - it done burned down:

Great views, great memories ...

Fortunately, word is that the Foxes do intend to rebuild the camp; it will just take some time.

-hh

Iranian photoshop manipulation? An illustration

2008-07-12T07:56:00.009-04:00

There's been media reports (eg, NY Times) this week about Iran's missile test ... and how the images distributed very well likely might have been faked - - a Photoshop manipulation.

I'm sure others have already done this, but I didn't notice any examples, so I've put one together quickly for anyone else looking for the same: here's a very simple Photoshop overlay of the two ("4 missiles" and "3 missiles") photographs, so that people can decide for themselves how suspicious they are of if this is (or isn't) a manipulation.

In other words, 'decide for yourself'.
(you can click on the image for a larger version)

-hh

Green Snake Oil?

2008-07-07T11:31:00.002-04:00

In the news today: Toyota is planning on putting a solar panel on their Prius.

Sounds good, doesn't it? An electric hybrid that's able to be partially powered by the sun.

Well...

How are we sure that its not essentially just a clever sales gimmick?

Here's one take on the "Reality Check" of physics.

A conventional solar panel (Mitsubishi; Sharp) provides 185W of output, and is 65" long x 33" wide: call it roughly 5ft x 3ft. Let's assume no sunroof, so you can install two of them on the roof of a car like a Prius.

Those two panels result in roughly 370W of power under ideal conditions. Let's assume that there's another 10% of roof real estate available and round up the number to a conveniently easy to work with 400W of output.

The article (see link) reports that the A/C system needs up to 5kW of power. Standardizing units, that's 5,000W.

Thus, the panel can provide (400W/5,000W) = 8% of the A/C system's peak demand.

Thus, you can run your A/C "totally on solar" if you only run it at ~8% of its capacity. That doesn't sound like all that much cooling capacity to me.

Okay, let's look at things differently: let's assume that the solar panels can charge the battery pack, even though this isn't mentioned in the article. While we're also at it, let's be an irrational optimist and assume that this storage will be 100% efficient and has no other trade-off factors (such as needing a bigger battery).

So how much power can we store? Classically, solar systems are discussed and designed around the time of day which results in roughly 80% of the total daily collection. This is commonly defined as 10AM-3PM, which is a period of 5 hours. True, there is solar gain before 10AM and after 3PM, but generally it isn't planned for too much, as the sun angle, strength and shading factors are some of the factors for why the panels run at below their ratings and all of these other hours of daylight only collect around ~20%. This is classical Pareto Principle.

So in those 5 hours of good gain, the panels will run at their rating, so this sytem will generate 5hr * 400W =2,000W-Hrs.

Continuing to assume that idealized 100% efficient storage battery, this means that the system can provide 0.4 hours (24 minutes) worth of full A/C per day. For a to/from work commute, that's 12 minutes each way...assuming that you park your car in the sun at work and don't go out to lunch.

Okay, it is better than nothing, but do keep in mind that those panels aren't free. Their retail price is around $2,000.

And more importantly, they aren't weighless. In standard trim, they're just over 35lbs each. Figure that with packaging economies, they can be reduced from 70lbs down to around a 50lb increase in vehicle curb weights. Now ask yourself: an increase of 50lbs in the vehicle's weight hurt the car's fuel economy by how much?

And ditto for that idealized 100% efficient battery. To do 2000 W-hr worth of power storage, you're roughly going to need a battery roughly the size/capacity of a standard automotive Lead-Acid battery. In NiMH, I'd SWAG it at another $500 and 25-30lbs increase in curb weight.

This is just a quick "back of envelope" system analysis, but it looks like at least a 50% salesmanship snake oil for a 'Green' product to me at this point. I'd personally like to see a more comprehensive one done with real values, to specifically include how much the vehicle's cost goes up, weight goes up and MPG goes down (because of that higher weight).

Don't hold your breath.

-hh

Customer Service in the Internet Age

2008-05-22T07:18:00.010-04:00

The above links to an MSNBC article of the title:
"Complaining Couple Banned from Cruise Line".

Briefly, the article discusses how a cruise line (Royal Caribbean) chose to permanently decline the business from a particular customer (that sounds nicer than "ban"). Apparently, they had found reason to complain ... and apparently ask for meaningful financial compensation ... over 80% of the time (5 out of 6 cruises).

There's a few interesting points in this topic.

First, there are most definitely consumers (such as the Morans) who will frequently exploit any excuse to forcibly leverage a cost concession. In this regards, Royal Caribbean is better off without them and does have the right to decline their business.

However, there is the issue with 'freedom of opinion' on discussion groups. It is safe to say that literally no discussion group has been free of pressure from special interests to delete or amend existing comments, which frequently leads to censorship issues.

There is an old saying that the Internet interprets censorship as network damage and routes around it

In general, this potential problem rapidly becomes a slippery slope when the Message Board is being hosted by the company...a case of where Marketing trumps ethics and fear of "Brand Damage" is more important than hearing real consumer feedback (in order to improve the Brand): it is a manifestation where the corporation reveals a lack of confidence in the strength of their Brand.

A few years ago, I was a reader of just such a group that was hosted to benefit Divi Resorts (a Timeshare company) and there rapidly became a zero tolerance ... enforced through censorship ... for any and all possible criticism from their customers. As such, the group was a sham: nothing more than a marketing mouthpiece, not a source of honest, balanced information, or for frank consumer/supplier dialog... something that would be more expected when one has spent $10K+ for a timeshare. And what was the fate of property that Divi had rejected years worth of customer 'feedback' about? Its death spiral continued until it was shut down in 2006. Glad I'm not a big investor in Divi Resorts, as any company who clearly chooses to ignore repeated warnings about their product's shortcomings is not going to be particularly successful in the long run.

Thus, the general conclusion that I have come to is that the only discussion groups that can be functionally trusted are those upon which censorship is impossible, which is USENET, or a Message Board whose official published policy is that all discord will be discussed fully in the open for the public to witness firsthand (good luck finding one of these).

But there is good news for this for consumers in that the Internet - - despite its shortcomings - - has been a resource that has restored some power back to the consumer, for previously isolated individuals can now communicate, and it is common to compare the company's response. It used to be that a company could merely tell 50 customers, "Gosh, you're the first one that this has ever happened to!" to try to smooth things over and to minimize financial recompense, but today, that claim is far more likely to get caught and thus revealed as a lie.

Since its only a fairly small percentages of consumer who have caught on to this information sharing, and that information is still dispersed across the 'Net, a businesses' tactics to use 20th Century spin-doctoring will still work 80% of the time. However, the downside risk is that when it doesn't fly, that business gets hit hard because their claims get destroyed by these collaborative power of 21st Century communications, and then they get nailed a second time ...even harder... for having flat-out lied to multiple customers.

This is not the case here with Royal Caribbean, but the amazing part is that a surprising number of companies still "Don't Get It". Here, RC was in a pattern of responding to individual complaints - - they didn't see the pattern until it was pointed out to them by other consumers.

And for the Morans? The Internet revealed their pattern of behavior, which in this case is now helping a business to avoid future complaints from them. Yes, its a two-way street: they made their bed, so now they have to lie in it.

-hh

Election Politics for the "bad-at-math" taxpayer (and Journalists)

2008-05-13T12:00:00.013-04:00

In the news today is that our esteemed political leaders want to suspend the current Administration's practice of adding to the USA's Strategic Oil Reserve.

The argument being promoted is that those 70,000 barrels/day are part of the reason why gasoline is approaching $4/gallon.

Well, let's apply some classical "Supply & Demand" examination of this claim:

As per the US DOT (URL above), the amount of crude oil imported in 2006 (the 2007 numbers will be updated in June 2008) was...

10,118,000 barrels/day

And US Net Petroleum Imports were:
12,390,000 barrels/day

Plus there was also U.S. Crude Oil Production:
5,102,000 barrels/day

So we're asking about the significance of 70,000 barrels/day in the contect of (12.39 million + 5.1 million) used per day:

70,000 / (12,390,000 + 5,109,000) = 0.004 = 0.4%

Assuming that the difference results in a linear cost savings,
0.4% of $4 is a whopping 1.6 cents per gallon.

Why gosh! I'll only need to buy ~200 gallons of gas in order to save all of $3.

If $3 is going to make/break your life in 2008, drop me an email explaining how: I'll consider sending you $5 and you can name your children after me and make me your write-in candidate in November. At least McCain's and Hillery's "18 cent Fed Tax" moratorium was willing to spend all of $30 in their attempt to buy your vote.

So the conclusion is here that the math shows that the crude oil deposits into the Strategic Oil Reserve is a non-issue in the marketplace: the total change potential is for less than one half of one percent. Thus, this is simple election year wrangling in the form of a "Strategic Political Topic Reserve", which the Lawmakers will use to make themselves look like they're busy working hard for you, the common taxpayer.

But unfortunately, as the saying goes, don't confuse Activity with Progress.

And let's not forget our Journalists out there: how many of them are bad at math and won't think to run the numbers?

-hh

Psystar Mac clone could save me all of $18!

2008-04-15T22:45:00.006-04:00

Here's an interesting confluence of observations:

Despite what Ben Charny (Dow Jones Newswires) claims:

"At $400, the Psystar box is a quarter of the cost of Apple's Mac Mini, the Apple computer most like Psystar's."

... the facts are that the MSRP on the basic Apple Macintosh mini is $599.
Not 4 x $400 = $1600. A wee Journalistic 'Oops'.

So the difference isn't that dramatic.

But what's also been quickly lost in the noise is that the $400 price being thrown around for the Psytar Macintosh clone doesn't include Mac OS, for which they want an additional $155 for Leopard (10.5), which brings its real (honest) price to $554 total.

So the difference is: $599 - $554 = $45.

$45 is less than a 10% difference, yet people are so excited over it with this new clone.

But this $45 difference is before one even start to look for deals on the Apple mini, such as if one is eligible for a discount (such as EDU). Well, as a Federal Employee, it turns out that I can buy the base mini from Apple for $563, so the price difference for me is a whopping $18.

So if I'm willing risk IP/EULA issues, as well as not have a functional Apple 'Software Update' feature to maintain the system, I can save all of $18?

Thanks, but no thanks.

-hh

Adobe Photoshop Express, Copyrights and IP

2008-03-31T07:14:00.008-04:00

The Big Media reviews of Adobe's Photoshop Express are out today on Google News.

So far, it appears that most of them must have been written early last week, before the news of the actual contents of Adobe's EULA hit at ZDNET, Ars Techica, MacRumors and others...all because of individual readership (not professional journalists) of the "Fine Print".

Apple Computer had a far more humorous EULA error this path month too - their fine print in Safari 3.1 for Windows said that it could only be legally run on Apple hardware.

Here's the fine print from Adobe:

Use of Your Content. Adobe does not claim ownership of Your Content. However, with respect to Your Content that you submit or make available for inclusion on publicly accessible areas of the Services, you grant Adobe a worldwide, royalty-free, nonexclusive, perpetual, irrevocable, and fully sublicensable license to use, distribute, derive revenue or other remuneration from, reproduce, modify, adapt, publish, translate, publicly perform and publicly display such Content (in whole or in part) and to incorporate such Content into other Materials or works in any format or medium now known or later developed."

The key part is what it allows - - not what the alleges was its intent . To that end, this text essentially gives to Adobe a free and unlimited license that they can do anything with, including selling your works, creating derivatives, selling it as Stock Photography, "Derive Revenue" etc, etc. .. and all without ever being required to give even a penny back to the actual Copyright holder.

I'd read enough. This has shades of "Photo Contest" all over it.

Photo contest? Yup - you should go read their Fine Print inclusions sometimes too: what you find is that they similarly leave themselves highly unconstrained. It wouldn't be at all surprising if the underlying intent of at least a few of them isn't really to have a good old fashioned contest, but to harvest images with which to build a Stock Collection for free.

Thus, I've pulled my test photos OFF of Photoshop Express, just like I've stopped entering 'Contests'.

Thus, if you see this image out there, you know its probably been stolen without permission from its Copyright Holder:

Mufindi Starry Night (Tanzania 2006).

In the meantime, there's one possible "Poison Pill" for businesses that try to (cough) borrow Intellectual Property (IP) in this fashion: the Photography Model Release. An identifiable individual who hasn't signed a Modeling Release can cause trouble, although its also likely that a lawyer would argue that this "Perpetual License" puts the responsibility back on the Copyright Holder. Well, maybe the IP owner does have a Model Release - - but Adobe (and all the rest) didn't buy a copy of that document.

-hh

John Gilmore was right

2008-02-20T08:00:00.003-05:00

I recently ran across what I thought would be an interesting blog from former Apple Executive for Federal sales, David Sobotta. After a fairly straightforward dialog exchange ... which by definition, must have included some elements of disagreement (else why bother to reply), Dave terminated the dialog. The topic wasn't really all that important, or profound: we simply disagreed, based on our personal perspectives. It didn't even bother me if Mr. Sobotta wanted to curtail the discussion because he tired of it, nor even using his Moderator responsibility to have done this...that would have merely been rude.

Instead, what bothered me was that he cut things off so as to get the last word in, a childish way to "win" a disagreement. FWIW, this isn't my interpretation of what happened, for in this blog posting David made his motive and intentions explicitly clear that that was precisely what he chose to do.

Were I willing to stoop to David's level, I could have listed each of my discussion points here, where David can't touch it, to childishly get in my own "last word". But I loathe being a hypocrite, so that won't be happening here.

So why am I writing anything? Because this is unfortunately yet another example of something that I'm finding disappointing ... no, make that downright disturbing ... which is yet another example of someone who proves himself incapable of recognizing that with the Information Genie out of the bottle, all liars invariably get caught.

This is precisely what Gilmore was warning of a decade ago: the nature of IT is that if one tries to squash something in one outlet, there's now hundreds of alternative venues, so the word still gets out.

There's already been hundreds of corporations who have learned this lesson by getting burned over the past decade - they were applying their 20th Century belief that they can manipulate and selectively lie without getting caught - - but then got caught, courtesy of this unbottled IT Genie. It is effectively the Pandora's Box of the 21st Century.

Overall, it does seem that there's a segment of the population who are otherwise very very smart people who think that their intelligence lets them stay on top of the lies that they make and avoid self-contradiction. Unfortunately for them (my online friends know that I'm probably thinking of a certain former Clemson University Professor too), archives have a 'perfect' memory that merely takes perseverance to search, which reveals the self-contradictory claims and other hyperbola that people try to employ to obscure reality to try to force it to conform to their biases.

Thus, as John Gilmore reportedly said:

"The Internet interprets censorship as damage and routes around it".

And the latest example is in the news this week, namely the drama of the website "Wikileaks", which posted documents that revealed criminal banking activities in the Cayman Islands. It is the apparent crook who is trying to get the website shut down, so as to squelch the dissemination of evidence of his criminal activity. But in the meantime, the news of the event has probably caused a few thousand more copies to get spawned. To try to suppress them all is an exercise in futility, so the next thing we know, the criminal will be claiming that he's a victim...of getting caught.

-hh

Why Webpages were invented

2008-01-26T06:03:00.001-05:00

I was thinking of an old college friend today, Saint John Morrison, and got a chuckle from an old comment that he had made.

Essentially, it was that the real reason why the Internet invented the Webpage.

You see, it was for computer programmers to be able to put up photographs of their pet cats. It wasn't for distributing esoteric data from NASA, to cure cancer, or even to sell books. It was to share a photo of their cat.

So with a photo online of our latest, here's a small Webpage tribute to good old (and not really a curmudgeon) Saint John Morrison.

-hh

Thinking about buying hybrid automobile?

2007-12-30T08:32:00.000-05:00

Hybrids are all the rage whenever there's a spike in gasoline prices.

But while they might save you some gas, are they really saving you money? Afterall, isn't "saving money" usually the real reason why people want better gas mileage?

So lets see if a hybrid car really does saves us money or not.

There's a lot of things that go into the expense of operating an automobile. Its original cost, insurance, fuel, maintenance, etc. The sum of all of these is around 41 cents per mile, as per IRS tax law provisions (for non-cash donations to charity, etc). But I'm going to simplify things and only look at two of the variables, assuming that the others aren't going to change much.

The two I'm going to look at is the differences in fuel and maintenance expenses.

Fuel seems obvious...miles per gallon. Yup, its that simple, but I'm going to flip it over, to "cents per mile".

But maintenance isn't so straightforward, because Hybrid vehicle technology is more complicated than conventional automotive engines (including diesels). Simplistically, it is a conventional engine, "plus some other stuff" to pay to maintain. Without getting down into the weeds, I'm just going to consider two main components, the electric motor and the battery pack.

Let's get started:

The battery pack: when the Toyota Prius first came out, one of the pieces of information that was also released was the engineering acknowledgment that batteries don't last forever, and that having a bigger battery is going to cost more to replace than that single one that all cars have under the hood. At the time, Toyota estimated that the battery pack would last 100,000 miles, whereupon the cost to replace would be around $3,000. These numbers have probably since been updated, but I'm going to stick with these because they were real numbers and they serve as a good illustration of the cost comparison process: when we amortize this $3000 expense over its 100,000 lifespan, we get ($3,000/100,000) = 3 cents per mile.

The electric motor: its maintenance is hopefully zero, but some will break and need repairs that won't be cheap, plus it will eventually wear out. I don't really want to claim numbers because I've not researched any. However, if its similar to a clutch and/or transmission rebuild, we can probably expect half of a fleet will need such a service done by 100,000 miles and that it will cost at least $1,000. If you do the math, that works out to (1 cent per mile per vehicle)(50% service rate) = 0.5 cent/mile. For sake of keeping this analysis simple, we can assume that this is the lower limit for the sum of a bunch of the new electrical system components , such as the accompanying high voltage harness, etc. Keep in mind that the exact value isn't as important as how it is then used in the cost evaluation process.

And before I go on, it is true that we don't see these costs on a day-to-day basis: they show up when the car eventually gets service or repair, or by when we sell or trade-in the car before the repair is needed: more wear is invariably be reflected in a lower resale price, just like how you'll get a higher price after you've just made repairs, new tires, etc.

Okay, so the simple summary of the above essentially is that a hybrid costs more to keep maintained, and based on just these two factors, our estimate of this these expenses are (3 + 0.5) cents per mile driven.

And what this means is ~46 MPG (Prius) isn't the whole story: its 46MPG with a 3.5 cent/mile handicap that needs to be better, and we need to figure out the math to see if that's the case or not.

Assume: Regular Gasoline at $3.00/gal

46 MPG is thus: $3.00 / 46 miles = 6.5 cents per mile (direct fuel cost).

6.5 cents/mile + 3.5 cents/mile hybrid higher costs = 10 cents/mile (incremental hybrid cost)

Converting 10 cents/mile back into MPG: ($3.00/0.10) = 30 MPG

Thus, a Prius that's actually getting 46 MPG is the same as a normal car that's getting 30 MPG after we factor in the hybrid's higher incremental maintenance costs.

And since there's diesels that can do better than 30 MPG (even after we handicap their fuel cost), the simple bottom line is that a hybrid doesn't have the lowest cost per mile.

Do feel free to update & refine my numbers to make them more accurate. However, you can't violate the general process of accounting for all operating expenses, and in particular the simple fact that a more complicated machine inevitably costs more to maintain.

-hh

Fresh Rock

2007-12-18T06:25:00.000-05:00

Got a few photos from the Goddess Pele, during a chopper flight that was fortunate enough to coincide with the "Thanksgiving Eve" breakout (2007).

Here's the US Geological Survey's map of the new terrain, as well as one of their professional photos, taken ridiculously close.

For mere tourists, this is about the best we can do:

There's no scale to provide perspective, but as per the USGS's website, the perch channel pond in the top corner (dark) has a 6m ledge (20ft) and is around 50m wide (165ft), so the lively red one that's in the center of this image is probably well over 100 feet wide, and probably closer to 125ft.

Another view, of the lava's leading edge, can be found here.

We later did some hiking in Volcanos National Park over old (safer) lava beds and while geological aspects of it were interesting, even though "desolation" was expected, our normal expectations are nevertheless that if Mother Nature did it and we made it into a National Park, it should probably be pretty too. Sorry, but I do have to admit that the footing was a lot like walking over an old broken up macadam parking lot in an old US city, like Philadelphia or Newark. A few hours of walking with lousy footing over ridges and piles of black rocks, only to see...more black rocks! ... isn't a particularly appealing hike.

-hh

Hilton Waikoloa Village - Hawaii

2007-12-08T11:07:00.000-05:00

Been away; spent some time of last month exploring Hawaii...

The low spot was the Thanksgiving Buffet at the Hilton Waikoloa Village. Food wasn't anything superior to a normal steam tray buffet, but what was most disconcerting was that the Service was ... non-existent! Yes, beyond Poor Service. The Dining Staff never followed-up to see if we wanted to buy additional cocktails, let alone even refill our water glasses, remove empty plates, etc. Considering that they didn't have to serve because it was buffet makes these shortcomings even more unacceptable.

Finally, after watching literally 20 minutes pass on my stopwatch for anyone to arrive, someone finally realized that two people with empty glasses, a half dozen empty dishes, napkins on the table top, etc, was a hint. We could finally ask for our check, and they got a mild earful about the utter lack of service. What was a further disappointment was the staff's failure to recover from this 'Customer Service' feedback, where they were literally hopeless to suggest anything to compensate, other than 'Coffee?'

(no thank you - its also too late for that, because I finished my dessert ten minutes ago. Just the check please).

Based on my positive business travels using the Hilton Family products, I would have expected that they would have Compensated us at least our drinks. Nope. Nothing.

So from two weeks of vacation in Hawaii, we can firmly say that in meals ranging from simple hot dog stands and shrimp trucks all the way up to the Hilton Waikoloa Village, the absolute worst service we received anywhere was at the Hilton Waikoloa Village on the Big Island of Hawaii.

Its prompting me to rethink what hotel chain I'm using for my ~10 weeks of business trips per year.

-hh

Irony of technology

2007-11-12T08:40:00.000-05:00

I don't want to be OS evangelizing or political...

Nor do I really use You Tube much at all...

But I stumbled across this one in a technology article, and it has a certain irony to it:

Overall, it is inevitable that our computers will evolve and have different UI's than they have today. However, the consumer still gets to decide if he wants it or not. Thanks, but if we have room for something the size of a chest freezer, its going to be a chest freezer!

Other ironies in technology include those optional 'hands free' cellphone interfaces on new cars: a couple of years ago, I passed on one as it simply wasn't anywhere near worth the $1800 asking price for the feature. I'm still trying to figure out why it cost so much. I see the same thing happening today with navigation systems for automobiles: you can easily pay well over a Grand for one built into the dashboard from the OEM, or you can add an automotive GPS later yourself that sits on top of the dash from Garmin starting at only $200. Anyone care to explain why it costs so much to (figuratively) toss it into a reserved empty hole in a dashboard?

-hh

Cayman Condo Development to Destroy a Coral Reef?

2007-11-01T07:32:00.000-04:00

Its always hard to balance development versus the environment. However, some cases are more clearcut than others.

On Cayman Brac (in the Cayman Islands, BWI), there's a construction project that's been proposed to build a condo development on a relatively narrow piece of land that's on the windward side of the island and which lacks any protective fringing reef.

Its called the Crystal Azure Beach Resort.

Earlier this summer, when Hurricane Dean passed 100 miles (!) offshore, this side of the island was (as is usual for all hurricanes) pounded with ~20ft seas. Coral and rock rubble was thrown all the way out to the southside road. Hurricane Ivan (2004) also missed the Brac by 100 miles, so its damage was more similar to Dean. The rubble that currently fills the specific property in question was mostly deposited there by Hurricane Gilbert in 1988; you should be able to still look for Gilbert's rubble off the shoulder on the far side (bluffside) of the road.

Here's a house on a lot around a mile to the east of the Crystal Azure property. The shore topography here is IMO actually better than CA's, as there's a slight fringing reef out front and it is on higher elevation:

(Photo is Copyright © 2004 H. Huntzinger)

This photo was taken shortly after Hurricane Ivan in 2004 - - a storm that passed roughly 90 miles offshore of Cayman Brac. See all of that rubble around the foundation that's up to within ~9 inches of the building's windowsills?

I've seen a photograph of this same house after it survived Gilbert's near-direct hit. Its interior was FILLED UP to the windowsills with rubble. Yup, 2-3 feet worth of rock, inside.

Needless to say, building on the Brac's southside when there's no protective fringing reef is an exercise in repairing and rebuilding after every major storm ... and don't believe the claims that they only get hit a few times per century: the above damage was from the second of three Named Hurricanes that passed ~100 miles offshore just in this decade so far (the other was CAT-I Hurricane Lily in 2002).

I really hope that the potential buyers of this resort have done their homework before deciding if to invest or not.

In any event, the original 'Artist's Renderings' of the property included a boat dock. Yes, a boat dock on a windward shore where there this no protected anchorage of any form. Courtesy of the Wayback Machine, we can see it in this photo, on the righthand side. And if you compare it to the photo on the CaymanNetNews article (link above), see that the image has since been cropped.

So its probably not a great building site, but what's the deal about destroying a coral reef?

The CaymanNetNews article states:

"James Fox, Director of Strategy and Operations for Cayman Brac’s Crystal Azure Beach Resort said that the company’s engineer has been seeking approval to go ahead with the manmade swimming cove for quite sometime now. It is expected that the application and supporting environmental impact study will be reviewed and approved by this week....The manmade cove is designed to transform 100 feet of beachfront into the best beach experience on the island,” he said."

So a 100ft manmade groin will somehow create a beach that's better than the existing sandy beach that exists elsewhere on the same island that's behind a ~1 mile long natural fringing reef?

Plus, the problem is that this isn't dropping a rock onto a nice sandy bottom: this region is hardpan with small coral heads near shore, progressively passing through hard/soft coral further out and then classical spur and groove coral formations further offshore. As such, to build will require some degree of coral reef habitat destruction no matter what.

As such, the question is: are the Caymanians willing to destroy coral reef habitat in the name of development? And how much coral reef habitat destruction do they consider acceptable?

Well, the answer to that is that it depends.

First factor to consider: over on the north side, there's a commercial pier thats used to load crushed rock fill into barges that gets shipped over to Grand Cayman, and it there have been "industrial accidents" which have dumped stone on coral reefs that are within the boundaries of official Marine Park, resulting in their death.

Question is: has this business been fined? Ordered to clean it up? Well....a better question to ask is "who owns that company?" IMO, if it was foreign owned instead of by a local influential Caymanian family...nod, nod, wink, wink.

Second factor to consider: the Divi Tiara Beach Hotel, owned by Divi Resorts, shut down in 2006 and is up for sale. The property is deeper (water to road) and not only does it have a protective fringing reef offshore, it has a protected anchorage between the reef and shore. This area is known on the maps as Dick Sessenger's Bay, and is well known as the absolute best anchorage (and some argue as best beach) on the entire island. As such, a far better development site ... and one that doesn't require any environmental assessment because it is both pre-existing and natural ... already exists.

Other factors to consider: exist too. For example, what will really happen to the Caribbean real estate market when Cuba finally opens up and doubles the availability of waterfront acreage?

And maybe, the area offshore is somehow utterly denuded of life, unlike the areas that are all around it. Afterall, being that it is to windward, its not a particularly easy location to go in for a casual inspection by snorkel.

So the question remains: will the Cayman authorities approve dumping rock onto an area with coral habitat?

We will continue to watch and see what happens.

-hh

Downtime

2007-10-23T06:00:00.000-04:00

Each one of us has our own ways in which we take a respite from our daily routine, such as surfing the web as a distraction. Hopefully, we also have more concrete places to escape to when its time for a proper Holiday. We've been enjoying such a respite, and have had the good fortune to catch up with old friends and recent ones from various parts of the States while enjoying some time in the quiet seclusion of Cayman Brac. Most visitors here don't know that the small "Bay" ... if one can really call a body of water that's less than 100m wide a Bay, but here they do, for it is a rare protected anchorage ... actually has a name. It is Dick Sessenger Bay and what was memorialized in the book "The Firm" is a long ways from reality. I couldn't imagine twenty boats in here, let alone a hundred.

However, enjoyment of such respites always assumes, of course, that afterwards, we can return home safely and find all at our home still in order. After downloading today's new digital photos and picking a few to talk about, I'm thinking of K & P from San Diego, who were watching the news on Monday and making phone calls home to find if they're part of the quarter million households whose homes are being endangered by out of control wildfires. They started their journey home on Tuesday; hope that they find that they have a home to return to, safe and undamaged, as well as their family members too.

-hh

Venus at Dawn

2007-10-20T07:04:00.000-04:00

It is shortly before dawn on Cayman Brac. The breeze last night was a wind, and it blew all night, out of the Southeast. Yet half the clouds are high, and the horizon to the east is clear, which is making for a nice pallet of colors for sunrise. High above in the quickly changing black-to-blue is Venus, as a bright morning star. Below at my feet, a hermit crab in an inch long shell marches across the dock's boardwark, then changes his mind and marches back under the bench at my feet.

Ten minutes ago, the Cayman Airways 737 landed, breaking the island's sounds of bird calls, counterpointed by the rumbling of waves breaking over the windward reef that's 75 yards from shore. Twenty minutes from now, the week's visitors will all be onboard and jet will again make its noise to leave, flying to Grand Cayman and taking its passengers one step closer to their homes.

Last night, I finished "The Last Season" by Eric Blehm. A book with the reminder that our time on Earth can end suddenly and at any time, over what could be a normal activity. This past week, the ambulance has come down to the dock for treating scuba divers twice for suspected DCS, plus Pam had a reverse block that resulted in an end to her diving this week while it heals.

Appreciate every day and every sight.

-hh

Of Grand Schemes

2007-10-11T06:27:00.000-04:00

Bibliophile sailors will recognize the name of Donald Crowhurst.

A few tourists to the island of Cayman Brac may come across the remains of his trimaran, the "Teignmouth Electron" and wonder what it was, and what its history was. Fewer still will realize that this boat (despite the sad shape that it is now in) actually was part of a scandal, from the first solo, nonstop, round-the-world sailboat race back in 1969.

In a way, it represents the dreams of one man. In another way (and with a bit more information on his life at the time), it might recognize a 'Grand Scheme' of sorts - - to recapture one's self worth or self-esteem. Can't really say how unrealistic this was (or wasn't), as one must cope with midlife (and any accompanying "midlife crisis") on our own, and on our own terms.

Perhaps its because its finally autumn in New Jersey that one's thoughts turn to things like these. Too many things still left to be done, and a dawning realization that there's never going to be enough time.

-hh

Summer Wedding

2007-10-05T08:00:00.000-04:00

Who says 13 days isn't enough time to plan a wedding?

This was from August, my brother's daughter. I was asked to be the Wedding Photographer. Ain't never done that before.

Things turned out well enough, including the quality of the photos.

Of course, what I didn't expect was for the happy couple to do was to take ALL of the photos, unedited, and upload them all to an online directory. Its in the URL Link, above.

What's still on my "To Do" list is to cull down through the photos to just the best ones, organize them into a nice photo album (I'll use iPhoto for this) and have it done in time to be a Christmas present for the newlyweds.

-hh

Brac soon

2007-09-30T07:43:00.000-04:00

Our usual trip down to Cayman Brac for some time in the sun is a bit later this year.

Its often a hassle to get all of the work wrapped up, plus stuff around the house in order, to head out the door to another place for awhile. And in our case, it certainly doesn't help that Divi Resorts has done a poor job in running the Club Tiara timeshares.

But there are some things that make the hassles all worthwhile. Taking a nice "dip in the pool" for example.

Since the Caymans are known for their Wall Dives, this is the shallow end :-)

Looking forward to seeing old friends this trip.

-hh

How's your sense of humor?

2007-09-20T09:23:00.000-04:00

Earlier this month, I happened to be in Brussels.

On the famous Grand Place, one of the 'brasseries' (think pub, cafe, bar, etc) is the 1697 Guild House "Roi d'Espagne" (King of Spain), which is located the northern corner of Grand Place.

For reference, their website is:
http://www.roydespagne.be/

In any event, their men's room is up on the 1st Floor (ie, one level up), which had the following interesting decor:

This angle reveals that the "wallpaper" consists of full-size black & white (mostly) photos behind a sheet of glass. However, this angle gives an interestingly diffrent interpretation:

Lust

2007-09-15T08:00:00.000-04:00

Sometimes, there's just certain cars that hit some sort of primordial "lust" button.

The Mercedes 300SL "Gullwing" is one of those cars.

Naturally, the perfect color combination is a German silver exterior with a red leather interior.

I believe that this one was a 1955 edition; its in the Mercedes Museum in Stuttgart, Germany (go!)

-hh

Travel notes

2007-09-13T07:29:00.000-04:00

Having just returned from another trip, I find that there's been a few businesses that I keep on recommending because we've had good success with them.

For cruising (particularly Alaska), the premier small (under 300ft) ship line is Crusie West. Their website is http://www.cruisewest.com

For travels to Europe - the "Back Door" guide is Rick Steves. Rick has a TV show on Public Television, a radio & newspaper column, and a website, http://www.ricksteves.com

And while Rick is mostly just encouraging you to buy his travel guidebooks - - you can find them online at Amazon, Borders, Barns&Noble and probably elsewhere (try your local public library too) - - overall, I find him enjoyable and humorous and most importantly, his books are quite worthwhile. Since Rick updates the books annually, we've bought multiple copies of some of the ones where we've travelled back to.

-hh