The last template I was using had some issues, such as comments wouldn’t work correctly. I’m going to go home and give it another go. Sorry about the issues. I’ll fix it up soon.
Dan
Fuel your car with coffee grinds! Monday, Mar 9 2009
coffee and environment and news and Technology 11:48 pm
I think that this would be a great idea. I could use my leftover coffee grinds to run my car.
Dan
http://www.economist.com/science/tq/displaystory.cfm?story_id=13174477
Biofuels: A novel form of biodiesel is derived from an unusual feedstock that is more commonly used to fuel mental activities: coffee
In the case of coffee, the biodiesel is made from the leftover grounds, which would otherwise be thrown away or used as compost. Narasimharao Kondamudi, Susanta Mohapatra and Manoranjan Misra of the University of Nevada at Reno have found that coffee grounds can yield 10-15% of biodiesel by weight relatively easily. And when burned in an engine the fuel does not have an offensive smell—just a whiff of coffee. (Some biodiesels made from used cooking-oil produce exhaust that smells like a fast-food joint.) And after the diesel has been extracted, the coffee grounds can still be used for compost.
Although some people make their own diesel at home from leftovers and recycled cooking oil, coffee-based biodiesel seems better suited to larger-scale processes. Dr Misra says that a litre of biodiesel requires 5-7kg of coffee grounds, depending on the oil content of the coffee in question. In their laboratory his team has set up a one-gallon-a-day production facility, which uses between 19kg and 26kg of coffee grounds. The biofuel should cost about $1 per gallon to make in a medium-sized installation, the researchers estimate.
Commercial production could be carried out by a company that collected coffee grounds from big coffee-chains and cafeterias. There is plenty available: according to a report by the United States Department of Agriculture, more than 7m tonnes of coffee are consumed every year, which the researchers estimate could produce some 340m gallons of biodiesel. Time, perhaps, to pour another cup before refilling the car.
Pogue’s Photography Tips and Tricks Saturday, Dec 20 2008
New York Times and photographs and Technology 2:49 pm
From the Desk of David Pogue
Pogue’s Photography Tips and Tricks
It’s a crazy time of year to be finishing a book. But in between present wrapping and tree trimming, that’s exactly what I’m doing. It’s a book on digital photography, which, as you probably know, is among my favorite hobbies.
As I write, I keep coming across these important tips and saying to myself, “Man, this is what people REALLY need to know. I should pull them out into a special list at the back of the book called, ‘The Best Photography Tricks of All Time,’ so people can’t miss it.”
So that’s exactly what I’m doing. Thought I’d send you the list as it stands today, so you’d have it when you unwrap that shiny new digital camera that you get as a gift. (Most of these apply to consumer cameras, not S.L.R.’s.)
THE BEST PHOTOGRAPHY TRICKS OF ALL TIME
1. Half-pressing the shutter button (to prefocus) eliminates shutter lag.
Everyone hates shutter lag. That’s the half-second delay between the time you press the shutter button and the time the photo is actually snapped–during which your child, pet, or action photo slips away. (Pocket cams have shutter lag; S.L.R. cameras don’t.)
Shutter lag is the time it takes the camera to calculate focus and exposure. Thing is, you can make it calculate that stuff ahead of time. Aim the camera, anticipating where the subject will be, and half-press the shutter button. When you hear the beep, you’ve locked in the exposure and focus. Keep the button half-pressed; now you’re ready. When the subject appears, push the rest of the way down. Presto: no shutter lag!
2. For the blurred-background effect, back up and zoom in.
In technical terms, what you’re looking at is a limited depth of field. That’s a geek-shutterbug term meaning, “which part of the scene, front-to-back, is in focus.” Subject yes; background, no.
That beautiful, professional effect is easy to get if you have an S.L.R.; it practically happens automatically. (Dial up a wide aperture–a low f-stop number–to accentuate the effect.)
On a pocket cam, choose Portrait mode. Move your subjects away from the background–the farther, the better. Finally, use the back-up-and-zoom-in trick. That is, stand away from your subjects–the farther, the better–and then use the camera’s zoom to “bring you” back up close. Thanks to a quirk of optics, zooming in helps create a shallow depth of field.
You may look like a weirdo, backing way up like that. But it really works.
3. Force the flash outdoors.
It might not occur to you to use the flash when you’re taking pictures of people on a bright, sunny day. It certainly wouldn’t occur to the camera.
Problem is, the camera “reads” the scene and concludes that there’s tons of sunlight. But it’s not smart enough to recognize that the face you’re photographing is in shadow. You wind up with a dark, silhouetted face.
The solution is to force the flash on–a very common photographer’s trick. The flash can provide just the right amount of fill light to brighten your subject’s face–without affecting the exposure of the background.
It eliminates the silhouette effect. Better yet, it provides very flattering front light. It softens smile lines and wrinkles, and it puts a nice twinkle in the subject’s eyes. (It also means that you can ignore the old “rule” about taking photos on a sunny day–the one that tells the photographer to “Stand with the sun behind you.”)
4. Exploit the magic hour.
Hate to break it to you, but serious photographers don’t get a lot of sleep. Show me an award-winning, breathtaking landscape–a pond shimmering in the woods, golden clouds surrounding a mountain peak–and I’ll show you someone who got up at 4:40 am to be ready with a tripod as the sun rose.
That hour after sunrise, and the hour before sunset, is known as the magic hour. The lower angle of the sun and the slightly denser atmosphere create rich, saturated tones, plus what photographers call sweet light. It’s an amazing, golden glow that makes everybody look beautiful, every building look enchanted, and every landscape look breathtaking.
It’s a far cry from the midday sun, which creates much harsher shadows and much more severe highlights. Landscape shooting is more difficult when the sun is high overhead on a bright, cloudless day.
5. Use a lampshade socket as a tripod.
Another chronic problem with pocket cams is getting blur when you don’t want it–which is just about any time you’re indoors without the flash. Yeah, yeah, we know: “Use a tripod.” But come on: for the average person on vacation or at school events, buying, hauling around, and setting up a tripod is a preposterous burden.
Often, there’s a wall, parked car, bureau, tree, pillar, door frame, or some other big, stationary object you can use instead, to prop up either the camera or your arms.
But here’s my favorite trick: It turns out that the threads at the top of just about any lamp–the place where the lampshade screws on–are precisely the same diameter as a tripod mount! In a pinch, you can whip off the lampshade, screw on the camera, and presto: You’ve got a rock-steady indoor tripod.
People might think you’re a genius, a nutcase, or a genius nutcase, but never mind. It works.
There you have it, folks: five tips that can save you from throwing your pocket cam out the window. Happy shooting–and happy holly days!
Learn Photography from the guru of photography: Metropolitician Friday, Dec 19 2008
friends and photographs and seoul and Technology 11:47 pm
The Metropolitician is an amazing photographer and he wants to give the amateur or aspiring tips on buying cameras.
Photography in Korea, Part 1: Buying a Real Camera (a DSLR)
I’ve been trying to do this post for a long time, but kept getting bogged down by other things. I get asked so often, “What kind of camera should I get if I want to get more seriously into photography?” that I felt it time to definitively answer the question. And I’m going to be blunt and partisan about it, but it’s still the best answer I think to that particular question.
If you are a Nikon fanboy, or don’t agree with my recommendations, you can make a comment here or write your own post about it on your own blog; but these are the best recommendations and answer to that question I can think of, and I think people want a straight answer to questions like this, instead of hemming and hawing. Because it’s a pretty stressful question. So here’s are some issues and answers to several sub-questions that are actually all wrapped up in the original question of what camera to get to take more serious pictures. If you like your P&S — which has some useful features such as video capture and voice recording — cool for you! I think they’re great for that sort of thing, too. Remember — YOU said you wanted to get more serious about photography, though? Right? So, assuming that’s true, here we go…
Annalog is MacGyver Thursday, Oct 16 2008
korea and Technology 7:59 am
I’ve been meaning to share this tip for awhile now… it’s a pretty good one.
Now, that I’m back to using keys, I kind of miss the keypad locks back int the Motherland. Back at the officetel, I never had to worry about locking myself… that is, unless, the batteries died!
If you’re in your apartment, it’s easy to switch out the batteries, but what do you do when you come home, and the keypad doesn’t work because the batteries have died? Yikes!
Fortunately, Cyndi’s dad figured out the trick: All you need to do is run to the nearest mini-mart and purchase a 9V battery (the boxy one). Place the top of the battery (both circley parts) against the little circular metal “pad.” You’ll know that everything is working when the keypad lights up and makes some weird noises. You will have to hold the battery for awhile (around 5 minutes?). Caution: The battery will get quite hot (another sign that it’s working), so I suggest that you wrap the battery in your T-shirt or scarf.
This is only a temporary fix, though. You’ll want to change the AA batteries as soon as you get back into the apartment.
Perhaps this is common knowledge, but we (me, Cyndi, my mom, and sister) were a little astounded. We definitely felt very MacGyver when we charged up the keypad with the little ol’ 9V battery. I’m sure there’s some simple scientific explanation behind this quick fix, but I lost my ability to comprehend scientific principles after I got into college.
Annalog is MacGyver Thursday, Oct 16 2008
korea and Technology 7:59 am
I’ve been meaning to share this tip for awhile now… it’s a pretty good one.
Now, that I’m back to using keys, I kind of miss the keypad locks back int the Motherland. Back at the officetel, I never had to worry about locking myself… that is, unless, the batteries died!
If you’re in your apartment, it’s easy to switch out the batteries, but what do you do when you come home, and the keypad doesn’t work because the batteries have died? Yikes!
Fortunately, Cyndi’s dad figured out the trick: All you need to do is run to the nearest mini-mart and purchase a 9V battery (the boxy one). Place the top of the battery (both circley parts) against the little circular metal “pad.” You’ll know that everything is working when the keypad lights up and makes some weird noises. You will have to hold the battery for awhile (around 5 minutes?). Caution: The battery will get quite hot (another sign that it’s working), so I suggest that you wrap the battery in your T-shirt or scarf.
This is only a temporary fix, though. You’ll want to change the AA batteries as soon as you get back into the apartment.
Perhaps this is common knowledge, but we (me, Cyndi, my mom, and sister) were a little astounded. We definitely felt very MacGyver when we charged up the keypad with the little ol’ 9V battery. I’m sure there’s some simple scientific explanation behind this quick fix, but I lost my ability to comprehend scientific principles after I got into college.
Funny Comic on Apple Computers Sunday, Jul 6 2008
apple and Technology 1:39 am
Funny Comic on Apple Computers Sunday, Jul 6 2008
apple and Technology 1:39 am
Funny Comic on Apple Computers Sunday, Jul 6 2008
apple and Technology 1:39 am
HTML is hard Thursday, Jul 3 2008
Technology 1:39 am
I am trying to play around with this whole technology thing. I like the new layout, but I lost all my links. I’m trying to recover them now.
What do you think? Is this better? I like the 3 panel layout more.
Dan
