DIY – Create your own Bokeh

(via DIYphotography.net – http://is.gd/4jYZP)

Bokeh is an adaptation from a a Japanese word meaning blur. In photography this term is used to describe the quality of the areas in the picture which are not in focus. When referring to Bokeh, we can distinguish some of it characteristics:

- Is the light/dark gradient smooth or sharp?

- What shape will a small dot of light take what it is in the Bokeh area? (mirror lenses for example, create a bagel like Bokeh)

We can play with those two variants to create a special Bokeh.

 

Back to the halcyon days of espresso-dom (updated)

(Expanded a bit and added burr photos)

Hooray, I am back to enjoying great espresso from my own kitchen, having suffered my espresso heartaches and microfoam blues for long enough! The nice folk at Spinelli took my wounded espresso machine (Silvia) in and gave her a new steam pipe, while also installing a new steam valve and wand and steam knob (all from the new V3 Silvia, see pic to the right).

My grinder (Rocky) also got a new set of teeth, so he is humming along nicely now after recalibrating for the new burrs. I went through 3/4 of a pack of beans calibrating the new teeth! I held on to the old burr set, for interest sake, and this is what they looks like:

The new steaming kit is super powerful. It is a commercial-grade steam wand, fully articulating, and it delivers a lot of steam. It took me a few goes to get control of it, after wiping out a few pitchers of milk on the early attempts! But now I have gotten a hang of it and the good thing is that it cuts steaming time down substantially.

Anyway, so all is well in the espresso corner in my kitchen. Alert the media!

Espresso heartaches and microfoam blues

 

How the gods of espresso must be laughing at my misfortune and folly! Over the course of maybe 18 months i had forged a most satisfying relationship with my espresso machine (Rancilio Silvia) I had learned many lessons and had begun to understand this particularly finnicky and quirky espresso machine (the reviews were quite correct about this!). Then the wheels fell off.

Determined to break barriers | Stuff.co.nz

A write-up on my brother, Nick Ruane, from the Dominion Post mewspaper in Wellington, NZ.

Determined to break barriers | Stuff.co.nz

Posted using ShareThis

Breath-taking photo of lightning

“One of the most epic photos of lightning you will ever see” (as tweeted by Mark Prince).

’nuff said, eh.  Wow

Click the picture for the full-size version

Source: http://rolandvb.topcities.com/Weather/image4.htm

Font porn

Yeah I have a strange penchant for anything to do with fonts and typesets. The link below is to a really nice blog site called Blog.SpoonGraphics and a post there by the blogger (a designer chap by the name of Chris Spooner) which gives his list of “25 classic fonts that will last a whole design career”.  A useful and beautiful post, in my humble opinion.

(from the source) “Eric Gill, Adrian Frutiger and Max Miedinger are names we associate with the classic typefaces designers use on a daily basis. Their font creations are timeless designs that look right at home no matter what century we’re in. This collection of 25 classic fonts is a round up of the best and most popular fonts every designer should own. You can be sure that they will last your whole design career.”

The tweeting toaster: too much, just too much!

This via Wired.com. My goodness, and I thought I was becoming quite the savvy social media, geek guy – what with becoming a Twit (so to speak), getting more into this blogging thing, even Facebook (though I’ve kinda cooled off on that recently; ok thats a topic for another day).  But, boy was I off base.  Some strange folk are extending Twitter to their appliances!  Yep, appliances.  As in the toaster, the fridge, the washing machine etc etc.  With a bit of gadget tinkering, the toaster will tweet when the toast is done or the diwhwasher when the dishes are done cleaning.  Jumpin’ Jesus, that raises the bar!  I can absolutely appreciate a good-old home DIY project. But, haha, this one has really tickled my funny bone.  OK, I can see how that could have application for certain things (like when you really need to know when something happens with that appliance), but I find it hard to imagine that there isn’t a more immediate and direct way of acheiving that end. Nor can I imagine the Twitter community (or even just your followers) giving a toss about a “Toast is cooked, come and get it” tweet. Right?  Right??? Please tell me I am right!  But, why oh why am I drawn back to the page to have one more quick look. Just one more. Anyway, click the pic below for the wiki and the detailed instructions on how to do it. (Source:  Wired.com, http://is.gd/23iu5)

HAARP facility: Alaska’s Area-51?

Strange New Air Force Facility Energizes Ionosphere, Fans Conspiracy Flames

By Noah Shachtman 07.20.09

Todd Pedersen had to hustle—the sky was scheduled to start glowing soon, and he didn’t want to miss it. It was just before sunset, a cold February evening in deep-woods Alaska, and the broad-shouldered US Air Force physicist was scrambling across the snow in his orange down parka and fur-lined bomber hat. Grabbing cables and electronics, he rushed to assemble a jury-rigged telescope atop a crude wooden platform.

Rolled-out a new design for the blog (31/7/09)

This is an ongoing process. I like the look of the new theme (Tarski) and have played around with the widgets a LOT to get it how it is now. Still, its a work in progress. I’ve yet to choose a nice picture for the custom header, so for now its the default picture. Alas, I don’t have the know-how to do advanced blog design, but I am slowly learning.

Shell’s Perdido spar arrives at GoM site

Is there anything more impressive and uber-manly as oil drilling structures?  Methinks not. Plenty more where this comes from, too!

From the YouTube source: “The Shell-operated Perdido Regional Development Spar has arrived in the ultra deepwaters of the Gulf of Mexico and is currently being secured to the seafloor in about 8,000 feet of water. Once completed, the Perdido spar will be nearly as tall as the Eiffel Tower and weigh as much as 10,000 cars. Perdido will be the deepest oil development in the world, the deepest drilling and production platform in the world and have the deepest subsea well in the world. Learn more about Perdido at www.shell.com/us/perdido”

Wired Science source (story): http://is.gd/1Vtv8