Towse: views from the hill

June 18, 2009

08 August 2004

Filed under: life,photographs — Tags: , — Towse @ 12:00 am

My photo files were getting all higgly piggly. I have a master directory labeled filPhotos with subdirectories under it labeled Family, Travel, SanFrancisco, &c.

Ah, but under San Francisco, I had folders labeled SF2009-06-17 and SF2009-06-01 and so on and forth into the hundreds.

Over 8400 photos, if I can believe Picasa, and I probably can. … Too many folders. And if I want to check through all the views to the east to have a look-see for a good one to post somewhere or send someone, where would I find it?

 

08 August 2004 Posted by Picasa

So in lieu of writing something I should be writing, I went through all my San Francisco photos and pulled out all the views to the east from this specific spot (not views to the east from the top of the Hill, nor views to the east from the Embarcadero …). And found I had over 2000 photos. Some were dupes. Some were why-are-you-saving-that-Sal. I winnowed. A bit.

 

15-Nov-2005

I then moved the individual SF2009-06-01 and SF2009-06-10 sorts of folders into month-specific folders, only keeping those folders with a bunch of photos of a specific subject. e.g. SF2005-02-12MarriageEqualityCityHall (the one-year-anniversary party for the Valentine’s Day surprise of 2004), SF2008-05-18BayToBreakers, SF2007-10BlueAngels, &c.

 

12-Feb-2008

So now things are a bit easier to handle, although I may start bundling the photos in larger SF2009Q1 and Q2 sorts of bundles. Fewer bundles, but not so few I wouldn’t be able to find photos of that walk we took in April 2008 easily.

Results? Less overwhelming photage. With a final count, SFViewsEast: 2110. (Plus the few that are in my camera as-I-post.) I see more winnowing in my future.

June 13, 2009

There but for fortune …

Filed under: life,photographs — Tags: , — Towse @ 7:23 pm

23 Jul 2008
Sitting on a dock of the bay.

 

Posted by Picasa

The Book Seer

Filed under: books,URL — Towse @ 6:13 pm

The Book Seer

Entertaining. Tell it what book you just finished reading (assuming, of course, that you liked the book) and it will tell you what amazon.com and LibraryThing think you should read next (assuming, of course, that you want to read something similar).

You talkin’ to ME?

Filed under: photographs — Towse @ 1:03 am

 

Posted by Picasa

Smog check?

Filed under: environment,health,photographs,ships — Tags: , — Towse @ 12:33 am

Yesterday morning I took pictures of three ships leaving within a ten-minute-or-so period, all of them spewing crap into the air. We, of course, need to have our cars smog-checked every two years. Ships coming in and out of harbor. Not.

 

Posted by Picasa

Why not?

Update: Ah. … A federal appeals court agreed Wednesday [27 Feb 2008] that state air pollution regulators can’t order ships arriving at California ports to reduce their toxic contributions to local smog.” The Court ruled that the State Air Board’s rules couldn’t take precedence over the federal Clean Air Act and the state would have to get a waiver from the EPA to allow its rules to go into effect.

OK. So when is =that= going to happen, now that TPTB at the EPA have changed? Soon? Have we asked?

June 10, 2009

Privacy? Circumspection? Privacy? Privacy? Fuggedaboutit.

Filed under: politics,real estate,San Francisco — Towse @ 9:35 pm

And so with nary a care, Leah Garchik spills the beans about Gavin’s new digs, with enough information (price, street) that any stalker worth his/her salt could track down the address in (oh … say …) about ten seconds.

I dunno. If I were someone who attracts stalkers like Gavin does, I’d be a bit annoyed at Ms Leah leaking the info just because she could.

Maybe it’s just me.

(And, yes, even though I’m not a stalker, the challenge of the day — after finishing the ***Sudoku and both crosswords — was to track down Gavin’s new address. And it didn’t take that long. …)

June 9, 2009

Update on the ranunculus

Filed under: life,photographs — Tags: , — Towse @ 5:20 am

 

Posted by Picasa

More petals have fallen since the previous shot was taken.

I’ll find another flower to take its place. I enjoyed having something floral on the rain drum as I headed up to the next level.

June 8, 2009

People Who Wear Rose-colored Glasses See More, Study Shows

Filed under: science — Towse @ 10:02 pm

People Who Wear Rose-colored Glasses See More, Study Shows

A University of Toronto study provides the first direct evidence that our mood literally changes the way our visual system filters our perceptual experience suggesting that seeing the world through rose-coloured glasses is more biological reality than metaphor.

When the Thrill of Blogging Is Gone …

Filed under: blog,news,web2.0 — Towse @ 9:49 pm

When the Thrill of Blogging Is Gone … – by Douglas Quenqua

Interesting article. You must register w/ NYTimes.com to read.

[snippet]

Like Mrs. Nichols, many people start blogs with lofty aspirations — to build an audience and leave their day job, to land a book deal, or simply to share their genius with the world. Getting started is easy, since all it takes to maintain a blog is a little time and inspiration. So why do blogs have a higher failure rate than restaurants?

According to a 2008 survey by Technorati, which runs a search engine for blogs, only 7.4 million out of the 133 million blogs the company tracks had been updated in the past 120 days. That translates to 95 percent of blogs being essentially abandoned, left to lie fallow on the Web, where they become public remnants of a dream — or at least an ambition — unfulfilled.

Judging from conversations with retired bloggers, many of the orphans were cast aside by people who had assumed that once they started blogging, the world would beat a path to their digital door.

Full moon … in stages

Filed under: photographs — Tags: , , , — Towse @ 4:47 pm

Last night as we were eating dinner (grilled lamb chops, stir-fried Chinese beans, and small red potatoes, cut and sautéed in olive oil with garlic and rosemary), I’d get up and walk to the windows occasionally. I was waiting for the full moon over the Bay Bridge – a photo op that comes once every twenty-eight days. If that.

At 8:50P there was still no sign of the moon. How can that be? Where is the moon? We finished dinner and moved to our chairs where we sat, finishing our glasses of wine.

A little after nine the moon finally appeared, rising orange behind the bridge. Then yellow. Then white, as it rose in the sky.

All Rayleigh, his nibs said.

 
 
 
 

Posted by Picasa
« Newer PostsOlder Posts »

Powered by WordPress