My wife inexplicably added Dirty Dancing to our NetFlix queue. I inexplicably put it in the DVD player this morning (my copy of Die Hard 3 having mysteriously gone missing), and as is my habit while watching a movie during a run on the treadmill, I activated subtitles so as not to miss any of… Continue reading I learned everything I know from subtitles
And yet another bug pic
We’ve were hit with a veritable plague of grasshoppers a couple of weeks ago. Occasionally, we’d pick up a hitchhiker on the car, including this one that landed on the windshield, and provided a rather unique perspective for a photo.
Yeah, it’s another bug pic
This critter was on the wall outside the studio where we had our dance lesson tonight. It’s some variety of walking stick insect but I’ve never seen one quite like it before. It’s about six inches in length, and more delicate-looking than most walking sticks I’ve seen.
Stalking the wily petabyte
I can remember when an 80 megabyte hard drive was an extravagant, four-figure upgrade to a computer. I remember being blown away in 1998 when I learned that Microsoft’s TerraServer project contained one terabyte of data. Today, I’ve got three terabytes (that’s ~3,000 gigabytes) of storage scattered among a handful of internal and external drives,… Continue reading Stalking the wily petabyte
Newsflash: Motorists are hazardous to bicyclists’ health
This post at the Freakonomics blog cites a Canadian study that found that 90% of accidents involving bicyclists in its sample were caused by “clumsy or inattentive driving” by motorists. The only surprise about this is that the author is apparently surprised, writing: When it comes to sharing the road with cars, many people seem… Continue reading Newsflash: Motorists are hazardous to bicyclists’ health
Bugged
I seem to be in a photographic rut lately, but the insect world has presented some opportunities too good to ignore. I spotted this unknown variety of shield or stink bug on one of the red-tipped photinia in our front flowerbed. I browsed in vain through more than 500 photos via Google’s image search without… Continue reading Bugged
Heavy Backyard Air Traffic
The bees were working over the yellow bells (aka esperanza) in my father-in-law’s backyard, and so I hauled out the camera on Saturday to try to capture some of the action. I was so focused (pun intended) on the bee leaving the bloom in the following photo that I didn’t notice the one that’s on… Continue reading Heavy Backyard Air Traffic
Mantid on Board
We brought a nice lantana back with us from Fort Stockton, a birthday gift for my wife from my brother and sister-in-law. After it was situated on the back porch, Debbie called me to take a photo of what might have been a stowaway on the trip home. He’s wet because she sprayed him with… Continue reading Mantid on Board
Link Love
Ran across a few interesting links I think you might enjoy as you contemplate the wonder that is Friday. Now, about that cover… is a post from the author of the book by the same name, and it deals with how the quite striking cover of his book came to be. The photo shown on… Continue reading Link Love
So you think you can bicycle?
I didn’t know there was such a thing as an Indoor Cycling competition, but it’s an amazing thing to behold. What’s even more impressive is that the guys in this video are doing these stunts on full-sized bikes instead of the little BMX-style bikes you normally see used for such cycling “gymnastics.” (If they want… Continue reading So you think you can bicycle?