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It’s time to log some miles with Enterprise.nxt Magazine

Enterprise.nxt magazine

The editors of Enterprise.nxt wanted to publish one of my photos to illustrate their article, “Geek spotting: 3 ways to recognize a tech geek in the wild.” Yeah, it’s a photo of yours truly driving around in his Mazda Miata alongside a giant Pickett slide rule.

Correction. Actually, it’s my wife’s Miata — a surprise birthday present back in 2006.

While I am very much a geek, it’s ironic that I don’t fit into a lot of geek culture. For example, Judy-Anne Goldman’s article says,

Geeks instinctively know how to recognize other geeks based on shared interests, such as TV shows like “Big Bang Theory,” role-playing games, or Comic Con. But, in the way that old-school nerds could be recognized by their calculators and pocket protectors, today we can categorize geeks in three ways: by what they wear, the first-adopter technology they acquire, and the vintage technology they use until it dies.

Yet I have never watched a full episode of Big Bang Theory, don’t care for role-playing games, and have no interest in attending Comic Con. (I did go to one Star Trek convention in the late 1990s. One was enough.)

Enjoy the article and enjoy my photograph.

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Smartphones are all about the camera nowadays

New phones are arriving nearly every day. Samsung unveiled its latest Galaxy S9 flagship. Google is selling lots of its Pixel 2 handset. Apple continues to push its iPhone X. The Vivo Apex concept phone, out of China, has a pop-up selfie camera. And Nokia has reintroduced its famous 8110 model – the slide-down keyboard model featured in the 1999 movie, “The Matrix.”

Yet there is a slowdown happening. Hard to say whether it’s merely seasonal, or an indication that despite the latest and newest features, it’s getting harder to distinguish a new phone from its predecessors.

According to the 451 report, “Consumer Smartphones: 90 Day Outlook: Smartphone Buying Slows but Apple and Samsung Demand Strong,” released February 2018: “Demand for smartphones is showing a seasonal downtick, with 12.7% of respondents from 451 Research’s Leading Indicator panel saying they plan on buying a smartphone in the next 90 days.” However, “Despite a larger than expected drop from the September survey, next 90 day smartphone demand is at its highest December level in three years.”

451 reports that over the next 90 days,

Apple (58%) leads in planned smartphone buying but is down 11 points. Samsung (15%) is up 2 points, as consumer excitement builds around next-gen Galaxy S9 and S9+ devices, scheduled to be released in March. Google (3%) is showing a slight improvement, buoyed by the October release of its Pixel 2 and 2 XL handsets. Apple’s latest releases are the most in-demand among planned iPhone buyers: iPhone X (37%; down 6 points), iPhone 8 (21%; up 5 points) and iPhone 8 Plus (18%; up 4 points).

Interestingly, Apple’s famous brand loyalty may be tracking. Says 451, “Google leads in customer satisfaction with 61% of owners saying they’re Very Satisfied. Apple is close behind, with 59% of iPhone owners saying they’re Very Satisfied. That said, it’s important to keep in mind that iPhone owners comprise 57% of smartphone owners in this survey vs. 2% who own a Google Pixel smartphone.”

Everyone Loves the Galaxy S9

Cnet was positively gushing over the new Samsung phone, writing,

A bold new camera, cutting-edge processor and a fix to a galling ergonomic pitfall — all in a body that looks nearly identical to last year’s model. That, in a nutshell, is the Samsung Galaxy S9 (with a 5.8-inch screen) and its larger step-up model, the Galaxy S9 Plus, which sports an even bigger 6.2-inch screen.

Cnet calls out two features. First, a camera upgrade that includes variable aperture designed to capture better low-light images – which is where most phones really fall down.

The other? “The second improvement is more of a fix. Samsung moved the fingerprint reader from the side of the rear camera to the center of the phone’s back, fixing what was without a doubt the Galaxy S8’s most maddening design flaw. Last year’s model made you stretch your finger awkwardly to hit the fingerprint target. No more.”

The Verge agrees with that assessment:

… the Galaxy S9 is actually a pretty simple device to explain. In essence, it’s the Galaxy S8, with a couple of tweaks (like moving the fingerprint sensor to a more sensible location), and all the specs jacked up to the absolute max for the most powerful device on the market — at least, on paper.

Pop Goes the Camera

The Vivo concept phone, the Apex, has a little pop-up front-facing camera designed for selfies. Says TechCrunch, this is part of a trend:

With shrinking bezels, gadget makers have to look for new solutions like the iPhone X notch. Others still, like Vivo and Huawei, are look at more elegant solutions than carving out a bit of the screen.

For Huawei, this means using a false key within the keyboard to house a hidden camera. Press the key and it pops up like a trapdoor. We tried it out and though the housing is clever, the placement makes for awkward photos — just make sure you trim those nose hairs before starting your conference call.

Vivo has a similar take to Huawei though the camera is embedded on a sliding tray that pops-up out of the top of the phone.

So, there’s still room for innovation. A little room. Beyond cameras, and some minor ergonomic improvements, it’s getting harder and harder to differentiate one phone from another – and possibly, to convince buyers to shell out for upgrades. At least, that is, until 5G handsets hit the market.

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The magnificent lunar eclipse of January 31, 2018

We had a good show this morning! Enjoy these photographs, taken with a Canon EOS 1D Mk IV with a 500mm prime lens. The first image was cropped, and the last one had its exposure boosted in post-processing by 4 stops. Otherwise, these are untouched.

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Say hello to Phoenix’s Gilded Flicker

We added a new friend to our back yard bird list, the Gilded Flicker, a type of woodpecker. We already knew about our Gila Woodpeckers, and also the more common Northern Flicker, but the Gilded Flicker really stood out. See those beautiful yellow/gold feathers? And the little patches of red on the cheeks? Gorgeous.

Here’s the current list of our backyard birds, in alphabetical order by scientific name, as of July 2017. (Cactus Wren wins the contest for best name.) We live in the Moon Valley neighborhood of Phoenix, in the north-central part of the city.

  • Accipiter cooperii – Cooper’s Hawk
  • Agapornis roseicollis – Rosy-Faced / Peach-Faced Lovebirds
  • Archilochus alexandri – Black-Chinned Hummingbird
  • Auriparus flaviceps) – Verdin
  • Bubo virginianus – Great Horned Owl
  • Buteo jamaicensis – Red-Tailed Hawk
  • Callipepla gambelii – Gambel’s Quail
  • Calypte anna – Anna’s Hummingbird
  • Calypte costae – Costa’s Hummingbird
  • Campylorhynchus brunneicapillus – Cactus Wren
  • Cardinalis cardinalis – Northern Cardinal
  • Colaptes auratus – Northern Flicker
  • Colaptes chrysoides – Gilded Flicker
  • Columbina inca – Inca Dove
  • Columba livia – Common Pigeon / Rock Dove
  • Geococcyx californianus – Greater Roadrunner
  • Haemorhous mexicanus – House Finch
  • Melanerpes uropygialis – Gila Woodpecker
  • Mimus polyglottos – Northern Mockingbird
  • Passer domesticus – House Sparrow
  • Pipilo aberti – Abert’s Towhee
  • Spinus psaltria – Lesser Goldfinch
  • Spinus tristis – American Goldfinch
  • Sturnus vulgaris – Common Starling
  • Toxostoma curvirostre – Curve-Billed Thrasher
  • Zenaida asiatica – White-Winged Dove
  • Zenaida macroura – Mourning Dove
  • Zonotrichia atricapilla – Gold-Crowned Sparrow
  • Zonotrichia leucophrys – White-Crowned Sparrow

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Hibiscus under the sprinkler

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Dragonfly, butterfly, bee

Everyone loves bugs — at least, everyone loves beautiful bugs. Right? Here are a few photographed in Phoenix over the past couple of days. The desert here is full of life, from insects to birds to reptiles to plants.

Sure, the temperatures may be hot. The forecast is for 117° F next week (47° C) but never forget, it’s a dry heat. I’d rather be in Phoenix at 117° than, say, Houston or Miami at 95°.

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A phone that takes pictures? Smartphone cameras turn 20 years old

Twenty years ago, my friend Philippe Kahn introduced the first camera-phone. You may know Philippe as the founder of Borland, and as an entrepreneur who has started many companies, and who has accomplished many things. He’s also a sailor, jazz musician, and, well, a fun guy to hang out with.

About camera phones: At first, I was a skeptic. Twenty years ago I was still shooting film, and then made the transition to digital SLR platforms. Today, I shoot with big Canon DSLRs for birding and general stuff, Leica digital rangefinders when want to be artistic, and with pocket-sized digital cameras when I travel. Yet most of my pictures, especially those posted to social media, come from the built-in camera in my smartphone.

Philippe has blogged about this special anniversary – which also marks the birth of his daughter Sophie. To excerpt from his post, The Creation of the Camera-Phone and Instant-Picture-Mail:

Twenty years ago on June 11th 1997, I shared instantly the first camera-phone photo of the birth of my daughter Sophie. Today she is a university student and over 2 trillion photos will be instantly shared this year alone. Every smartphone is a camera-phone. Here is how it all happened in 1997, when the web was only 4 years old and cellular phones were analog with ultra limited wireless bandwidth.

First step 1996/1997: Building the server service infrastructure: For a whole year before June 1997 I had been working on a web/notification system that was capable of uploading a picture and text annotations securely and reliably and sending link-backs through email notifications to a stored list on a server and allowing list members to comment.

Remember it was 1996/97, the web was very young and nothing like this existed. The server architecture that I had designed and deployed is in general the blueprint for all social media today: Store once, broadcast notifications and let people link back on demand and comment. That’s how Instagram, Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn and many others are function. In 1997 this architecture was key to scalability because bandwidth was limited and it was prohibitive, for example, to send the same picture to 500 friends. Today the same architecture is essential because while there is bandwidth, we are working with millions of views and potential viral phenomena. Therefore the same smart “frugal architecture” makes sense. I called this “Instant-Picture-Mail” at the time.

He adds:

What about other claims of inventions: Many companies put photo-sensors in phones or wireless modules in cameras, including Kodak, Polaroid, Motorola. None of them understood that the success of the camera-phone is all about instantly sharing pictures with the cloud-based Instant-Picture-Mail software/server/service-infrastructure. In fact, it’s even amusing to think that none of these projects was interesting enough that anyone has kept shared pictures. You’d think that if you’d created something new and exciting like the camera-phone you’d share a picture or two or at least keep some!

Read more about the fascinating story here — he goes into a lot of technical detail. Thank you, Philippe, for your amazing invention!

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Slow-motion lifecycle of our echinopsis flower

Our beautiful little echinopsis has a second flower. Here you can see it opening wide over a 22-hour period. Sad to think that it’s nearly finished. Thursday or Friday the closed-up blossom will drop off the cactus.

Tuesday, 5:20pm

Tuesday, 6:37pm

Wednesday, 7:10pm

Wednesday, noon.

Wednesday, 3:10pm

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Cactus flowers, caterpillars, snakes, and bees

Some recent photos from our garden here in Phoenix. Enjoy!

 

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Beautiful little flowers on our Red Yucca (Hesperaloe parviflora)

We have two Red Yucca plants in our garden. Both are magnificent: The leaves, with curlicue strings, are about two feet high. The flower stalks are about five feet high. Currently, each plant has only a single flower stalk; we expect them to have more shortly. We’ve seen these plants with dozens of stalks. The flowers are about 3/4 inch long.

The Red Yucca, or Hesperaloe parviflora, is not a yucca, though it looks like one. As the Texas Native Plants Database says,

Red yucca (which is not a yucca) is a stalwart in the landscapes of Texas and the southwest. Its dark green rosette of long, thin leaves rising fountain-like from the base provides an unusual sculptural accent, its long spikes of pink to red to coral bell-shaped flowers last from May through October, and it is exceedingly tough, tolerating extreme heat and cold and needing no attention or supplemental irrigation once established, although many people remove the dried flower stalks in the fall. Unlike yucca, the leaves are not spine-tipped, and have fibrous threads along the edges. Red yucca is native to Central and Western Texas. A yellow-flowered form has recently become available in nurseries, and a larger, white-flowered species native to Mexico, giant hesperaloe (H. funifera), which has only been found in one location in the Trans-Pecos, is also available. Hummingbirds are attracted to the flowers.

Our Red Yucca trumpet flowers definitely attract hummingbirds, as well as a wealth of insects. The plants are excellent for desert landscaping, since they don’t need to be watered. In fact, we planted the first one three years ago in an area of our garden that was completely barren, and now it fills that space perfectly.

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The peach-faced lovebirds are back in our Phoenix garden

When we moved to Arizona, we were surprised and delighted to see funny little parrots flying around our garden. Turns out that the rosy-faced lovebirds (which used to be called peach-faced lovebirds, but we can’t get used to the new name) are now resident in greater Phoenix.

These delightful birds are natives of Africa but were released into the Arizona desert either intentionally or accidentally. In any case, they are thriving. Says the Wikipedia,

It inhabits dry, open country in southwest Africa. Its range extends from southwest Angola across most of Namibia to the lower Orange River valley in northwest South Africa. It lives up to 1,600 metres above sea-level in broad-leaved woodland, semi-desert, and mountainous areas. It is dependent on the presence of water sources and gathers around pools to drink.

Escapes from captivity are frequent in many parts of the world and feral birds dwell in metropolitan Phoenix, Arizona, where they live in a variety of habitats, both urban and rural. Some dwell in cacti and others have been known to frequent feeders in decent sized flocks.

A 2013 story in the Arizona Republic goes farther about the Agapornis roseicollis:

Troy Corman of the Arizona Field Ornithologists, an organization of birders and professionals dedicated to public knowledge of the state’s avian inhabitants, was unsurprised by my fascination.

“These spunky and noisy, bright-green birds seem to attract a lot of attention,” he said.

Their unpredictable visits to city parks and backyard bird baths are said to be huge hits with residents, but the birds are not common sights. Most people I’ve spoken to immediately knew the birds I was talking about but had seen them just once or twice.

Corman co-wrote his organization’s status report on the lovebirds of Phoenix, explaining that they’ve been on the loose as feral flocks since at least the mid-1980s. Their breeding success here — and only here, among places the birds may have escaped within the United States — apparently owes to the comfortably dry and warm climate, ready availability of water and good supply of foods from native and exotic plants, including palm fruit, cactus fruit, apples and various seed pods, including the paloverde’s.

We had lovebirds in our garden in 2014 and 2015, but didn’t see any last year. However, now we are hosting them again on our feeders. This morning, we had six of those beautiful birds. Yay!

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Blue passion vines are ready for butterflies and caterpillars

To our delight this morning, our new Blue Passion vines had their first flowers. Passiflora caerulea is an amazing plant. It grows these colorful and complex flowers, which only last about one day, but there’s a long array of buds in various stages of development, so we’ll have blooms nearly every day for months.

The Gulf Fritillary butterfly common here in Phoenix (Agraulis vanillae) lays its egg on the passion vine. The colorful caterpillars munch on the leaves, and build their chrysalis there, becoming a new butterfly. The lifecycle continues.

We purchased two Blue Passion vines a few years ago. We totally enjoyed their gorgeous flowers, and hundreds of caterpillars and butterflies that created a beautiful ecosystem — every morning we’d go outside and check for new flowers and new caterpillars. Unfortunately both vines died last winter. In early March we purchased three replacements, and the first flowers opened today. The Gulf Fritillary caterpillars (which we nicknamed Fruities) are flitting around it, so I expect we’ll have eggs, and caterpillars, very soon.

Isn’t nature grand?

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New ban on flying with a laptop or tablet means the terrorists win

The U.S. and U.K. are banning larger electronic items, like tablets, notebooks and DLSRs, from being carried onboard flights from a small number of countries. If that ban spreads to include more international or even domestic flights, this will result in several nasty consequences:

1. Business travelers may be unable to bring computers on trips at all. Some airlines ban checking luggage with lithium ion batteries into the cargo hold. Nearly all of these devices use LIB. If you can’t carry them onboard, and you can’t check them, they must stay home, or be overnighted to the destination. Shipping those devices may work for some people, but it’s a sucky solution.

2. Even if you can check them, there may be a surge of thefts of these costly electronic goodies from checked baggage. I always carry my expensive pro-grade DSLR and lenses onboard, and never check them. Why? I’m worried about theft and about breakage — that stuff is fragile. If I had to check my camera gear, they’d stay home. Same with my notebook and tablets. There is too much opportunity for stuff to disappear, especially when anyone can easily obtain a universal key for those silly TSA locks. Yes, a family member lost a DSLR from checked luggage.

3. This messes up the plans of airlines who are moving to a BYOD-centric entertainment model. Forget the drop-down TV screens playing one movie. Forget the individual seat-back TV screens offering a choice of movies, TV shows and video games. Airlines are saving money, saving weight, and making customers happy by ditching the electronics and using onboard WiFi to stream entertainment to the passengers’ phone, tablet or laptop. (And they get to charge for air-to-ground WiFi.) According to the Economist, 90% of passengers bring a suitable device. Everyone wins, unless devices are banned. No tablets? No laptops? No onboard entertainment.

The answer to terrorist threats isn’t security theater. Address the risks in an intelligent way, yes. Institute stupid rules that affect all travelers, no. One guy tries to light his shoe on fire, and now you have to take off your shoes to go through airport screening. And now there’s a “threat” and so here’s a new limitation on people making international flights.

That’s how the terrorists win and win and win.

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Chicken sandwich at 12 o’clock high!

If Amazon can deliver packages by drone, then fast-food restaurants like Chick-Fil-A can air-lift chicken sandwiches via hot-air balloon. Right? At least, that’s the best explanation for this sighting in my Phoenix neighborhood.

Of course, what I really want is a Dunkin’ Donuts food truck going up my street. Like the old-fashioned ice cream vans. Though drones would be okay too. I’m not picky.

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Don’t trust Facebook to keep your secrets

Nothing you share on the Internet is guaranteed to be private to you and your intended recipient(s). Not on Twitter, not on Facebook, not on Google+, not using Slack or HipChat or WhatsApp, not in closed social-media groups, not via password-protected blogs, not via text message, not via email.

Yes, there are “privacy settings” on FB and other social media tools, but those are imperfect at best. You should not trust Facebook to keep your secrets.

If you put posts or photos onto the Internet, they are not yours to control any more. Accept they can appropriated and redistributed by others. How? Many ways, including:

  • Your emails and texts can be forwarded
  • Your Facebook and Twitter posts and direct-messages can be screen-captured
  • Your photos can be downloaded and then uploaded by someone else

Once the genie is out of the bottle, it’s gone forever. Poof! So if there’s something you definitely don’t want to become public, don’t put it on the Internet.

(I wrote this after seeing a dear friend angered that photos of her little children, which she shared with her friends on Facebook, had been re-posted by a troll.)

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Hello, Hibiscus! One of our favorite flowers

This plant in our garden keeps blooming and blooming. What’s funny is that sometimes the flowers are yellow, and sometimes they are orange, like this one.

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Bald eagle at Canyon Lake, Arizona

What an amazing sight! We visited Canyon Lake, Arizona — a short drive from our home in Phoenix — and were rewarded with a close-up of this bald eagle. The bird seems to have caught prey; we believe it was a smaller bird, since we could see feathers flying.

These were shot using a Canon EOS 5D Mark III, with a Canon 70-200mm f/2.8 IS lens. This made me wish I’d brought the big Sigma 150-600mm to get more pixels on the bird. Next time!!


 

 

 

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May you be blessed

1d4_7849Today’s beautiful cactus flowers will be gone tomorrow.

So much of our world’s wonders are ephemeral. Blink and you’ll miss the rainbow. A hug lasts mere seconds. A smile is fleeting. Shapes in the clouds constantly change.

Take a moment to enjoy life. Stop and smell the roses, watch the butterflies dance, take delight in the people around you, the shadows on the wall, the waves in the ocean. These precious moments, these everyday miracles, shall never come again.

G’mar chatima tova. May you be blessed with health, peace, joy, love, and delight.

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Quick-draw: Six-shooter or smartphone?

5D3_0451

 

The modern gunslinger carries an iPhone on his belt, across from the six-shooter. If the phone rings, hope he doesn’t grab the wrong device.

Prescott, Arizona, July 24, 2016.

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Ramsey Canyon and Fort Huachuca – A bird photographer’s paradise

blue-grosbeakWe spent a long weekend in southern Arizona viewing wildlife, with time spent at birders’ paradises in Ramsey Canyon, as well as two canyons in Fort Huachuca: Huachuca Canyon and Garden Canyon. Wow. We saw and photographed so many incredible birds and butterflies, including (my favorite shot) the Blue Grosbeak.

The rarest sighting was that of the Elegant Trogon. Birders will make a special trip to this area simply to see that bird. There are only about 50 breeding pair in the United States. We were lucky and got excellent photos.

During our time there, we stayed at the Ramsey Canyon Inn. Incredible gourmet breakfasts by Chef Vince. Recommended!

We  saw and photographed Painted Redstarts, Arizona Woodpecker, Hepatic Tanager (called that because it’s the color of liver!), Buff-Breasted Flycatcher, Sulphur-Bellied Flycatcher, Greater Pewee, Cassin’s Kingbird, Verdin, Magnificent Hummingbird, Broad-Billed Hummingbird, Black-Chinned Hummingbird, Red-Shouldered Hawk, Black-Headed Grosbeak, and many, many others.

There were also quite a few species of butterfly everywhere. I only remember a few by name, the Arizona Sister and the Double-Tailed Swallowtail (the Arizona state butterfly), and impressive swarms of Bordered Patch. Plus various dragonflies, jackrabbits and Coues White-Tailed Deer.

What a beautiful part of the world. We’ll be back.

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Photo and artwork guidelines for people, products, logos and screen shots

old-cameraIf you are asked to submit a photograph, screen shot or a logo to a publication or website, there’s the right way and the less-right way. Here are some suggestions that I wrote several years ago for BZ Media for use in lots of situations — in SD Times, for conferences, and so-on.

While they were written for the days of print publications, these are still good guidelines for websites, blog and other digital publishing media.

General Suggestions

  • Photos need to be high resolution. Bitmaps that would look great on a Web page will look dreadful in print. The recommended minimum size for a bitmap file should be two inches across by three inches high, at a resolution of 300 dpi — that is, 600×900 pixels, at the least. A smaller photograph may be usable, but frankly, it will probably not be.
  • Photos need to be in a high-color format. The best formats are high-resolution JPEG files (.jpg) and TIFF (.tif) files. Or camera RAW if you can. Avoid GIF files (.gif) because they are only 256 colors. However, in case of doubt, send the file in and hope for the best.
  • Photos should be in color. A color photograph will look better than a black-and-white photograph — but if all you have is B&W, send it in. As far as electronic files go, a 256-color image doesn’t reproduce well in print, so please use 24-bit or higher color depth. If the website wants B&W, they can convert a color image easily.
  • Don’t edit or alter the photograph. Please don’t crop it, modify it using Photoshop or anything, unless otherwise requested to do so. Just send the original image, and let the art director or photo editor handle the cropping and other post-processing.
  • Do not paste the image into a Word or PowerPoint document. Send the image as a separate file.

Logos

  • Send logos as vector-based EPS files (such as an Adobe Illustrator file with fonts converted to outlines) if possible. If a vector-based EPS file is not available, send a 300 dpi TIFF, JPEG or Photoshop EPS files (i.e., one that’s at least two inches long). Web-resolution logos are hard to resize, and often aren’t usable.

Screen Shots

  • Screen shots should be the native bitmap file or a lossless format. A native bitmapped screen capture from Windows will be a huge .BMP file. This may be converted to a compressed TIFF file, or compressed to a .ZIP file for emailing. PNG is also a good lossless format and is quite acceptable.
  • Do not convert a screen capture to JPEG or GIF.  JPEGs in particular make terrible screen shots due to the compression algorithms; solid color areas may become splotchy, and text can become fuzzy. Screen captures on other platforms should also be lossless files, typically in TIFF or PNG.

Hints for better-looking portraits

  • Strive for a professional appearance. The biggest element is a clean, uncluttered background. You may also wish to have the subject wear business casual or formal clothing, such as a shirt with a collar instead of a T-shirt. If you don’t have a photo like that, send what you have.
  • Side or front natural light is the best and most flattering. Taking pictures outdoors with overcast skies is best; a picture outdoors on a sunny day is also good, but direct overhead sunlight (near noon) is too harsh. If possible, keep away from indoor lighting, especially ceiling or fluorescent lights. Avoid unpleasant backlighting by making sure the subject isn’t standing between the camera and a window or lamp.
  • If you must use electronic flash… Reduce red-eye by asking the subject to look at the photographer, not at the camera. (Off-camera flash is better than on-camera flash.) Eliminate harsh and unpleasant shadows by ensuring that the subject isn’t standing or sitting within three feet of a wall, bookcase or other background objects. Another problem is white-out: If the camera is too close to the subject, the picture will be too bright and have too much contrast.
  • Maintain at least six feet separation between the camera and the subject, and three feet (or more) from the background. If the subject is closer than six feet to the camera, his/her facial features will be distorted, and the results will be unattractive. For best results, hold the camera more than six feet from the subject. It’s better to be farther away and use the camera’s optical zoom, rather than to shoot a close-up from a few feet away.
  • Focus on his/her eyes. If the eyes are sharp, the photo is probably okay. If the eyes aren’t sharp (but let’s say the nose or ears are), the photo looks terrible. That’s because people look at the eyes first.
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Bird meet bug, bug meet bird

IMG_8929

This is one of my all-time favorite photos, taken during a week-long vacation in Redmond, Oregon, summer 2012. We’ve been visiting the Eagle Crest resort every few years since the early 1990s — it’s a magical place.

Canon EOS 5D Mk II, EF 200mm f/2.8 L prime lens, shot at 1/1250 f/4.

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Howdy, podners: Sheriff Alan rocks the Cowboy Look

cowboy-alanIt’s not the usual fisherman-in-a-yellow-slicker¹ look of a born-and-bred Yankee: Here I am in my Western duds. It’s a surprisingly comfortable style, once the boots were broken in.

What’s the occasion? Why am I wearing a black Stetson, gray pinstripe suit, ivory shirt, turquoise bolo tie, cowboy boots, and a corsage? Delivering the blessings at a wedding near Phoenix. An outdoor wedding. On a day when the mercury hit 120 degrees.

Did I mention that it was an outdoor wedding? And that it was 120 degrees?

From L.L. Bean boots to cowboy boots. Guess I’m getting used to living here in the Sonoran desert. Ayuh.

¹ “Slicker,” pronounced “slikk-AHH,” is the New England term for a long rain coat.

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States of confusion: Arizona, Colorado, New Mexico and Utah

four-corners

It’s bad enough not knowing which state you are in. Much worse not to know which state!

(Road trip, July 2014)

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Before I die, I want to know the Face of God

This essay was originally published on the Reform Judaism blog on September 2, 2015.

I was inspired to write this poem after reading Rabbi Eliezer’s teaching in Pirkei Avot that advises us that because it is not possible to repent one day before we die – because we don’t know when that will be – we should repent daily, and live always in a state of repentance.

The poem – together with the accompanying photograph, which I took in Phoenix, AZ, during a partial solar eclipse on October 23, 2014 – will be on display as part of Temple Chai’s Selichot art exhibit, which is modeled after Before I Die…, an interactive communal project that began in New Orleans in 2011 and has been replicated in 70 countries.

Every day, I see the Face of the Sun.
Before I die, I want to know the Face of God.

The Face of God is like the Face of the Sun.
The Face of God is not like the Face of the Sun.

The Sun is 93 million miles away, its light and warmth are everywhere.
God is both far away and nearby at the same time.

The Sun nurtures us, yet does not know we exist.
God nurtures us and God created us.

Astronomers and physicists struggle to understand the Sun.
Rabbis and philosophers struggle to understand God.

To touch the Sun would be to die instantly.
We touch God and God touches us every day.

To stare directly at the Sun without protective lenses is to risk blindness.
Exodus 33:20: God says “You will not be able to see My Face, for man shall not see Me and live.”

The Sun has existed for billions of years and will exist for billions more.
God has always existed and always will exist.

The Sun is so bright it washes away the stars.
God’s light, the Shechinah, illuminates the deepest darkness.

The Sun warms the Earth even at night when we do not see.
God warms our souls even when we do not believe.

The Sun’s light consists of photons, which are simultaneously particles and waves.
God’s light of creation, the ohr ein sof, is limitless spiritual energy.

The Sun appears unchanging yet sunspots and flares show that it does change.
God appears unchanging yet Torah teaches that God does change.

The Sun exists through the tension between gravity and nuclear fusion.
God exists because God exists.

I always know that the Sun exists.
Some days, I am not sure that God exists.

The Sun’s energy comes from hydrogen fusing into helium.
The Sun’s energy comes from God.

Life is impossible without the Sun.
Life is unimaginable without God.

With the right camera and filters, I can photograph the Sun.
With the right teachers, I can study God and be enlightened.

Every day, I can see the Face of the Sun.
Before I die, I want to know the Face of God.

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Attack of the six-rotor quadracopter photo drones

quadracopter-droneDrones are everywhere. Literally. My friend Steve, a wedding photographer, always includes drone shots. Drones are used by the military, of course, as well as spy agencies. They are used by public service agencies, like fire departments. By real estate photographers who want something better than Google Earth. By farmers checking on their fences. By security companies to augment foot patrols. And by Hollywood filmmakers, who recently won permission from the United States Federal Aviation Authority (FAA) to operate drones on a movie sets.

Drones can also be used for mischief, as reported by Nick Wingfield in the New York Times. His story, “Now, Anyone Can Buy a Drone. Heaven Help Us” described how pranksters fly drones onto sports fields to disrupt games and infuriate fans, as well as animal-welfare activists using drones to harass hunters and scare away their prey.

Drones are everywhere. My son and I were shopping at Fry’s Electronics, a popular Silicon Valley gadget superstore. Seemingly every aisle featured drones ranging in price from under US$100 to thousands of dollars.

A popular nickname for consumer-quality drones is a “quadcopter,” because many of the models feature four separate rotors. We got a laugh from one line of inexpensive drones, which was promoting quadcopters with three, four and six rotors, such as this “Microgear 2.4 GHz. Radio Controlled RC QX-839 4 Chan 6 Axis Gyro Quadcopter Drones EC10424.” I guess they never thought about labeling it a hexcopter—or would it be a sextcopter?

As drones scale up from toys to business tools, they need to be smart and connected. Higher-end drones have cameras and embedded microprocessors. Platforms like Android (think Arduino or Raspberry Pi) get the job done without much weight and without consuming too much battery power. And in fact there are products and kits available that use those platforms for drone control.

Connectivity. Today, some drones are autonomous and disconnected, but that’s not practical for many applications. Drones flying indoors could use WiFi, but in the great outdoors, real-time connectivity needs a longer reach. Small military and spy drones use dedicated radios, and in some cases, satellite links. Business drones might go that path, but could also rely upon cellular data. Strap a smartphone to a drone, and you have sensors, connectivity, microprocessor, memory and local storage, all in one handy package. And indeed, that’s being done today too. It’s a bird! It’s a plane! It’s a Samsung Galaxy S4!

Programming drones is going to be an exciting challenge, leveraging the skills needed for building conventional mobile apps to building real mobile apps. When a typical iPhone or Android app crashes, no big deal. When a drone app crashes, the best-case scenario is a broken fan blade. Worst case? Imagine the lawsuits if the drone hits somebody, causes an automobile accident, or even damages an aircraft.

Drones are evolving quickly. While they may seem like trivial toys, hobbyist gadgets or military hardware, they are likely to impact many aspects of our society and, perhaps, your business. Intrigued? Let me share two resources:

InterDrone News: A just-launched newsletter from BZ Media, publisher of SD Times. It provides a unique and timely perspective for builders, buyers and fliers of commercial unmanned aerial vehicles. Sign up for free.

InterDrone Conference & Expo: Mark your calendar for the International Drone Conference and Exposition, Oct. 13-15, 2015, in Las Vegas. If you use drones or see them in your future, that’s where you’ll want to be.