Black Dog Blog

Archive for the ‘photography’ Category

In today's "won't you walk into my parlour" news…

Cat Party to recruit mice, Nazi party to admit Jews, Roma, disabled people, and: BNP to consider non-white members.

Vatican to host Galileo exhibit. Sounds fabtastic. I'd like to see it.

Nice try, kid, but no cigar. Of course, he will have learned much from this preliminary attempt.

Israel taking a leaf out of the Bush administration's books. I'll be interested to see if Obama takes action on this kind of thing. America's about the only country to whom they're remotely likely to listen, and at least the "We Take the Book of Revelation Literally, Roll On Battle of Megiddo" loon squad are no longer in power.

Seal pups: look cute, but don't approach or you could cause them to starve.

Beautiful microscopy photos of blood cells and nerves.

Adults with autism 'cast adrift' in England

This, er, wow. So what are Auschwitz's five favourite singers and which Heroes character would Auschwitz be? Now we can find out. Er.

RIVAL CHILD OVERACHIEVER! It is so cute pathetic that at age 27 I still feel threatened by this kind of brat… oh man… issues. ;D

These poor kids, on the other hand, are lucky if they can learn at all.

Finally, I have to post this for you lot for the name alone. North Korea's Hotel of DOOM.

(Not to be confused with Latveria's Doctor of Doom or Disneyland's Tower of Terror, of course.)

Here, have an "accessibility fail" image macro. Perfect for sending to your DDA-flouting website friends, or any other (real life) instances of accessibility fail.

The Inspiration

Awesomeness here via Almostwitty: Fiddling contrast gives you sex!

I guess it sort of makes sense – darker lips look quite female?

The Plan

1. set up shop offering Sex Change While-U-Wait
2. fiddle contrast on before and after photos
3. ???????
4. profit

Just call me Wolffinder General.

Some excellent rounds last night. At one point I finally got to be the Seer, had both the werewolves pegged even before checking… and was promptly torn to pieces after I orchestrated the first getting lynched but before I could get the second. It was great fun just watching the rest of the game, though, as the werewolf deadpanned her way through to the last round before being narrowly defeated by the two remaining villagers. The wolf hadn't even known I was the Seer, she admitted afterwards.

Another time we played "the first person to die becomes the moderator" version. I was the werewolf, but the person taking turn as moderator — my fellow werewolf, killed by lynching because "he was the werewolf the last two times" — accidentally unmasked me. I think I would've got quite far if he hadn't.

I think Slen and Kat are addicted too. We might even bring our mother next time because she sounded interested. (There's precedent. The first time, someone else brought his mum. She was initially bemused, but pretty good. Shame she wasn't there last night.) Mother is a potential threat, though. Slen and I will have to agree a strategy in case we should both be werewolves. Mothers can tell…

After last night, villagers and werewolves are tied for victories. Werewolf is awesome. I'm learning a lot from the experienced players, and I even dared to be moderator once so the game-organiser could play. I didn't screw up, either!

And now a photo I liked: Beauty in sadness
and oooohmydogsocute

:O Look at these and tell me they are not the awesomes. But I will not believe you if you do.

Ice crystals I

Ice crystals II

Google has a bunch of LIFE Magazine photographs, including these handsome pangolin shots.

As far as I can tell, they're just for prettyness; I can't see any licensing information or usage terms.

If this isn't the most beautiful photo! It deserves an entry to itself.

(A Gift for yooooou…)

(edit: also. pirates lolz *notes this one to show Slen* and skull rock!)

(edit2: eee, jambiya! Swords aren't cool or clever, I just find 'em amusing.)

A site called NowPublic.com asked permission to use one of my Flickr photos in one of their stories.

I granted it, of course; my photos are almost all licensed as CC-BY anyway, so as long as you credit you don't need permission (though of course it's nice to know when your stuff's being used).

Neat. Shame it's one of the least good pictures on my photostream, only uploaded at all because hey, giant chocolate bars, funny.

Oh my! A photograph of mine has been featured on a Schmap.com map of Manchester. See, that? That's because I give them away for free. Creative Commons licences are ace.

It's the Library Theatre (with the tram in front). (original pic)

It was very nice of them to let me know, too. I appreciated it. Go and see their map!

Nothing interesting to say. Here's the cat under the doormat.

We went to a summer fête today. It was run by the Stockport branch of the Cats Protection League and included a dog show. (Yes, a dog show; they don't think cat shows are kind to cats.)

Here are all my photos from the day with my notes. I had battery trouble with all the cameras I brought, so couldn't get as many snaps of the dogs as I've have liked to.

(Tagged "dragons" only because of the sky picture, which is nicely blue-grey-white.)

I like writing the alt text for our photo galleries. Most people who visit won't even see it.

Although I can't imagine why someone blind would visit an In Pictures section, it pleases me to know that if they come to ours, they'll get their money's worth—at least from all the galleries I build.

Apart from tweaking the levels on some of the photos, this is easily the part of the job that takes the most time.

(At times like this my lack of knowledge of architecture shows rather severely.)

Sacha Baron Cohen to star as Sherlock Holmes

D: And the other guy is worse. That's no Watson.

Looking further, it seems Guy Ritchie is directing and The new Sherlock Holmes will be less stuffy and more adventurous than previous screen incarnations, so I don't even dare look up whether they'll be covering A Scandal in Bohemia.

Remember dude, you got through I, Robot by repeating to yourself "That isn't Susan Calvin, it's just some woman with her name". You can handle this.

Elephant beetle! Squeeee!

Hidden abuse of domestic workers in the UK

On-the-run skunk Pepe caught out

Mediaeval Colemanballs

Gallery of sawn-in-half cameras

Notes of one of the first forensic pathologists are being sold.

Floridian builds flying saucer—which is not a UFO, because it's clearly identified. This is awesome partly because, far from being a spaceship, it couldn't move itself anywhere in a vacuum.

Drunken Facebook scallies pwned by police.

What a waste of resources!

Awww, it's Da Vinci! Cute! (video)

'Super Spam Me' experiment (video)

Nellie named Heroic Hearing Dog

Pets saved from smoke-filled home

US tycoon left $8bn to dog welfare

(not news) "The 8 PG-Rated Movies That Should Not Have Been Rated PG"

That Wizards clip is bad. In every sense. It comes with every warning ever.

A journalist volunteers to be waterboarded. He says it's not much fun.

Muslims in the military

xhstd.

But fine. Walking around all day, visiting dentists in the afternoon and looking at buildings in the morning. Now, don't get me wrong, I myself find buildings crushingly boring. All are alike to me, except churches and cathedrals, which I hate. However, I was told to get lots of photos because the architecture-nut parent forgot to take a camera when she was here, so I went some way towards obliging.

I assume I look like a wandering idiot whenever the camera's in my hand, because along with my characteristic ignorance of every other biped, I have been known to wander onto traffic islands¹ or spend twenty seconds taking little sidesteps in order to get the best angle. The same driving urge at one point found me down on one knee between parked cars trying to get low enough to snap a doorway with some carved head on it. The photos turn out crap anyway. Cameras don't see what my eyes do. I think the battery in Argus² is fucked, because I'm getting very little life from full-blobs chargedness to turning-itself-off powerlessness. Argus's flash remains utter crap, as always, and goes off at the most hilariously inappropriate moments.

While I remember, today's count: at least one Golden, boxer with cropped ears (boo), some kind of black herder/Dobie/something-or-other with docked tail (boo), Rottie in muzzle tied up outside a shop, three huskies also muzzled with one unknown sled-dog-looking breed without, a Yorkie, some kind of white thing, several wandering random encounters of who knows what breed, and maybe some others I've forgotten.

Read so far: Aberysthwyth Mon Amour, which I would have consented to read a damn sight sooner if Slen had told me it was hard-boiled surrealism. It was reasonably good. I read so fast I missed details and description.

Treated so far: two quarters of mouth, half of the badly cracked root fill tooth. Numb this evening: bottom right, top left.

Eyes closing, so going to bed.

¹ Retaining the presence of mind to wait for the crossing light to go green, of course, because I have a conservative view of the amount of suffering appropriate to any category of art.
² Most unoriginal name for a(n Olympus) camera ever. Except perhaps for Snappy. I've never had one called Snappy.

Slen, or mum, contact me if my eBay item arrives. (I'm ashamed to say it's more Weft-crack. (IT WAS CHEAP))

I have my new ID badge for work, and while the photo is still awful (I photograph horrendously), it does resemble what I look like now, with even a bit of a smile-cum-grimace, and is generally something I can at least show people without embarrassment. And the yoyo string isn't all frayed. Now if only it would indeed fulfil its function and let me into the building…

It's October already. Oh crap, I must send out the Profusion newsletter tonight! It's never been anywhere near a monthly newsletter, because frankly things are so slow it seems ridiculous to try to rustle up enough news, but we've got the Hallowe'en costume party starting up now. There be vampires, demons, snake-women and an a*coughcough* erm celestial.

Elsewhere at Pro, I'm having great fun landing my character in misery for acting on entirely well-meaning motives. This isn't indicative of any unwarranted sadism on my part, since on other occasions he does do things like murder children and animals without much compunction; karma's a bitch, brother. In general I'm having a great time on this story, working with a couple of natty writers and looking forward to the conclusion of this part, so I can reveal my character's motivations – to the readers, anyway. I have no idea how long it'll take to sort out all the bruised egos and suspicions IC. Lovely jubbly.

I don't think much of the new Hotmail interface, now they've forced it on everyone. Luckily at home I have FreePOPs to prevent me from seeing it, but at work I am sad.

Alert card for autism is launched

Here's the Essex Police article with a better picture of a card and instruction sheet.

I'm not sure what's up with the frankly confusing and patronising clipart. Would that really be helpful to those of us with less function than I have? I prefer clearly-worded instructions; if it has to be pictures, they must be in a logical order and progress clearly to tell a story. Those icons – random mix of symbols and realistic pictures – break up the text so much that I can't easily read it or absorb the message. (I also have trouble reading comics, with their mixture of picture and text. I tend to tune out the pictures.)

And there are two separate icons for 'you'. Also, surely there's no chance low-functioning people would understand that the beckoning finger means 'come'.

Essex Autistic Society. (I haven't bothered them about the clipart; it's none of my business.)

Cocoa for CFS. (Erin's probably had this story emailed to him about seventeen times already this morning, so I won't, but here it is.)

Piercings kill?

edit: Can't believe I forgot this one. Zoo's photo archive goes online.

Hungry Zimbabweans target giraffe

Poor thing and all, but at the same time, who can blame them? If bread cost more than I earned in a year, this lifelong vegetarian would be eyeing wild animals too. Not pets, though; that's sick.

Fox invasion fear grips Tasmania

Beware awful, dreadful pictures of baby tigers and orangs that will ambush and gum you.

They're handsomer than their namesakes.

In pictures: India: A Kite's Eye View

Man 'steals iguanas in fake leg'

Three-year Genghis Khan trek ends

Poor dog! *dismay*

And more doggie trekking.

Scorpion pit joke placeholder.

And some piccies, worth a thousand… uh… gestures.

Also, beer!

Broadband speeds in the UK are much slower than advertised by internet service providers.

+1! So this is a general problem, huh? We've had 2 mibbleblips lately, promised 5. I wonder if this is anything to do with the threatened iPlayer congestion.

Okay, NO. The McCanns have been courting the media from the outset and they can blooming well deal with the downside. Granted, I think the media are scumbags on general principle, but I'm right behind any comedian who dares interrupt the constant "Madeleine, waah waah waah" we've been flooded with. There are other missing children out there!

Most patients undergoing male to female sex-change surgery say they are happy with the results.

And…? Transmen? Hello? Why is it always MtFs? *fires off quick polite bias complaint*

HIV rise blamed on belief in cure

Paedophiles' brains 'different'

Sad thing is, probably a lot of people will find that image sexy.

Dragonfly.

Footie fans take kit off to tackle bigotry

Curiously disappointing 'behind the scenes' pics of the BBC. I can only speak for my small online department, but we don't have exciting equipment like that. If anyone's interested, I might take a photo of my fascinating desk for you sometime.

[video] Oh my me, this is precious. Listen to Action Jesus speaking there!

Putting them here because it's very probable I'll want to refer to these myself. Basaltine is my hellhound character. It's pronounced "bazzle tine" (or "baz uhl tine" if you're American, I guess).

To sum up, he has the build of a Rottie, the size of a mastiff and German Shepherd facial features.

Build (at 'this' point in time): Rottweiler
NB. Ignore tails. His is longer than a natural (undocked) Rottie.
Rottie 1
(He does not stand with his hocks that far back – that's a show-dog pose.)
Rottie 2
(This pose is a bit too bull(dog)ish)
Rottie 3
(intent)
Rottie 4
Rottie 5
Rottie 6
(Swimming – definitely!)
Rottie 7
(Honest, I wasn't going to hump your leg…)

Size (at 'this' point in time): Mastiff
Basaltine's size varies over periods of years, so we have some leeway here.
Mastiff 1
("I would put up with this all day")
Mastiff 2
(rrruff!)
Mastiff 3
(…)
Mastiff et al
(Mastiff pup w brindle Dane for comparison)

Shape of head and ears: German Shepherd
GSD 1
(Tail is the length shown in this picture, but held with more of a curl when happy)
GSD 2
(good head and neck, but ignore deformed stance! Stupid show rituals. Hinds as low as that should be a fault IMHO)

GSD head/ears/face reference
GSD 3
(VERY characteristic expression when wheedling)
GSD 4
(B's fur is shorter/skin is less loose around the neck – he's all muscle)
GSD 5
(*Mutt melts*)
GSD 6
GSD 7
GSD 8