A collection of photography and exploration focusing on Upstate South Carolina and beyond.
The fact is that censorship always defeats its own purpose, for it creates, in the end, the kind of society that is incapable of exercising real discretion. ~Henry Steele Commager I am a government censor. I am responsible for blocking certain images and ideas that might be deemed harmful to our students. I do this … Read More “Censorship” »
Back last summer I wrote an article on this site complaining about triple tags and the clutter they create on tag clouds. The idea was that a tag cloud is meant to group items with similar characteristics. However, triple tags are meant to identify a specific item. They are often called "machine-readable" because they are … Read More “Flickr’s Machine Tags” »
Sometimes I hate dealing with vendors. Don’t get me wrong. A good relationship with a vendor is crucial to a successful technology program. However, for every good, successful vendor relationship, there are a dozen cold calls and down right annoying sales people. Since this is E-Rate season, the number of such calls has increased. First, … Read More “What part of “no”….?” »
On October 3 Google Earth released a massive imagery update. Until that point, most of South Carolina was in low resolution. The new release provided much higher resolution images for almost all of the state. Almost all, that is. Right after the update there was a very blurry section right where the town of Casey, … Read More “Columbia is Back!” »
Normally, conversation while watching a football game doesn’t involve discussion of chemistry. Laura mentioned her discovery of www.madewithmolecules.com, which prompted him to relay the tale of this e-mail he received while at Harvard… Dear Dr. Goess: My roommate had the chemical structure of her antidepressants tattooed on her ankle. She didn’t have the atoms labeled … Read More “Unusual Quotes during Football” »
Just about the time I delude myself into thinking I’m an OK photographer, I stumble across someone who is doing truly great things. One such person is Flickr photographer Johnny Blood. I am amazed at the quality, clarity, color, and composition he is able to achieve. One of the most incredible things is his abilty … Read More “Recent Flickr Discoveries” »
Friday night we invited Laura’s Techniques students over for pizza. We had about 50 people show up. As many rooms and chairs as we had available, they still wanted to sit on the floor all in one room. Paul pulled out the Magnetix and started making molecular models. Saturday was a gathering of … Read More “Gatherings” »
The Digital Photography School has been a wealth of Photoshop tips this week. First, Elise Hennen has posted four mini-tutorials on using filter overlays. I like these effects, however, they don’t all work for every image. Each introduces some element of distortion into the image. It’s just a matter of where or not that distortion … Read More “Photoshop Roundup” »
"The important thing is the rhythm. Always have rhythm in your shaking. Now a Manhattan you shake to fox-trot time, a Bronx to two-step time, a dry martini you always shake to waltz time." – Nick Charles in The Thin Man (1934) 3 oz Bombay Sapphire or Absolut Citron (depending on mood) 3 Queen olives … Read More “Trinity Martini” »
Well, Sally, you have to remember that back then temperatures used to get down into the 20s and 30s during winter. We used to spend more time outside during summer than we did in winter. That’s all different now… I was beginning to wonder if winter was ever going to get here. Last Sunday night … Read More “Grandpa, What Was Snow Like?” »