Autumnal Equinox 2014

By Robert Ellison. Updated on Wednesday, February 22, 2017.

Autumnal Equinox 2014

Autumn starts now in the northern hemisphere, Spring in the southern. Rendered in Catfood Earth (Windows, Android).

(Previously)

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(Published to the Fediverse as: Autumnal Equinox 2014 #code #earth #equinox #autumnal The exact moment of Autumnal Equinox 2014 rendered in Catfood Earth. )

Sunset sunset

By Robert Ellison. Updated on Saturday, February 19, 2022.

Sunset sunset

Sunset over the Sunset district in San Francisco. There is also the start of moonset at the start of the video and then clouds roll in and, unusually, out before the sun goes down.

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(Published to the Fediverse as: Sunset sunset #timelapse #sanfrancisco #sunset #moonset #video Time lapse of sunset over the Sunset District in San Francisco, California. )

Cable Car Museum

By Robert Ellison. Updated on Monday, January 20, 2025.

Cable Car Museum

Worth a visit. When I first moved to San Francisco I assumed that the cable cars were the type that go up mountains rather than a cunning way to drag trolleys up hills.

The photograph titled "Cable Car Museum" captures the intricate, industrious heart of a cable car system, brimming with formidable machinery. Dominated by large, spinning wheels and powerful cables, the image showcases the sheer mechanical force at work. The metal rails and gears are highlighted by the ambient lighting, creating intricate patterns of shadows that add depth to the scene. In the background, the bustling atmosphere of the working museum subtly reveals itself, with workers and complex equipment diffused into the somewhat industrial palette of greys, silvers, and subdued metallic hues. The labels for Hyde, California, Mason, and Powell add a historic and geographic context, acting as a visual reminder of this cable car network's legacy.

The composition cleverly uses leading lines, created by the cables and rails, to draw the viewer’s eye through the image, emphasizing the sense of motion and direction intrinsic to such a bustling hub of engineering. The use of slow shutter speed captures the dynamism of the spinning wheels, giving life and energy to the still image. The perspective from an elevated position allows for a comprehensive view, offering both a macro and micro exploration of the museum's mechanical landscape. What I appreciate about this photograph is its ability to convey both the power and elegance of industrial machinery. However, the colors are somewhat muted; a touch of color enhancement could better contrast the machinery against the background, adding vibrancy to the scene while maintaining its gritty authenticity.

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(Published to the Fediverse as: Cable Car Museum #photo #muni Photo of the Cable Car Museum in action (San Francisco, California). )

Please Stay

By Robert Ellison. Updated on Wednesday, February 22, 2017.

Please Stay

My Scottish Grandmother would always tell me off if I said I was English instead of British. She also said it was better to be moving in the wrong direction rather than standing still in the right one. That mostly applied to navigating traffic, but I think it's true for Scotland as well. Help make the UK better and don't become small and stagnant and some sort of irrelevant bland euro-region.

And if you do go then this.

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(Published to the Fediverse as: Please Stay #politics #scotland I don't get a vote, but I'm a quarter Scottish and I think Scotland should remain part of the United Kingdom. )

San Francisco from Hill 88

By Robert Ellison. Updated on Saturday, January 18, 2025.

San Francisco from Hill 88

This panoramic photograph offers an expansive view from Hill 88, showcasing the undulating terrain of the Marin Headlands with the sprawling cityscape of San Francisco in the hazy distance. The foreground is a tapestry of rolling hills, painted in muted earth tones of greens and browns, interspersed with patches of wild shrubs. The midground reveals the glint of a waterway catching the light, possibly the entrance to the San Francisco Bay, its surface a mirror to the softly veiled sky above. The distant city is shadowy against a palette of diffused sunlight and cloud cover, creating a gentle contrast between nature's ruggedness and the urban sprawl. A vast sky, dappled with tendrils of clouds, stretches endlessly above, adding a sense of infinite possibility to this serene landscape.

The composition of the photograph adheres to a beautifully balanced panoramic style, capturing the sweeping scope of the scene from left to right in a continuous flow. The use of leading lines formed by the ridges of the hills guides the viewer’s gaze naturally across the landscape and toward the distant shore. The asymmetrical placement of the horizon enhances the sense of openness, allowing the sky to occupy a significant portion of the frame and imparting an airy quality. However, one minor drawback is the slightly muted color tones, which, while adding subtlety, might benefit from a bit more vibrancy to bring the natural textures into sharper focus. Despite this, the photograph successfully captures the serene majesty of the landscape, inviting viewers to immerse themselves in the tranquil expanse that stretches from the hills to the sea.

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Minify and inline CSS for ASP.NET MVC

By Robert Ellison. Updated on Wednesday, April 28, 2021.

Minify and inline CSS for ASP.NET MVC

ASP.NET has a CssMinify class (and a JavaScript variant as well) designed for use in the bundling pipeline. But what if you want to have your CSS minified and inline? Here is an action that is working for me (rendered into a style tag on my _Layout.cshtml using @Html.Action("InlineCss", "Home")).

Note that I'm using this to inline CSS for this blog. The pages are cached so I'm not worried about how well this action performs. My blog is also basically all landing pages so I'm also not worried about caching a non-inline version for later use, I just drop all the CSS on every page.

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(Published to the Fediverse as: Minify and inline CSS for ASP.NET MVC #code #asp.net #mvc #css #inline #minify How to use ASP.NET MVC bundles to inline CSS and JavaScript for high performing landing pages. )

Book reviews for July 2014

By Robert Ellison. Updated on Friday, February 24, 2017.
Web Analytics 2.0: The Art of Online Accountability & Science of Customer Centricity [With CDROM] by Avinash Kaushik

Web Analytics 2.0: The Art of Online Accountability & Science of Customer Centricity [With CDROM] by Avinash Kaushik

5/5

Deep, evergreen advice on web analytics. This book is grounded in the trenches and is full of practical advice and reality. Works well to read all the way through and to dip into for specific topics.

 

The Divide: American Injustice in the Age of the Wealth Gap by Matt Taibbi

The Divide: American Injustice in the Age of the Wealth Gap by Matt Taibbi

5/5

Barnstorming tirade against injustice in the US law enforcement and legal systems. Nothing in here was news to me, but laid out story after story it's breathtaking. Minor welfare infractions leading to jail time, institutionalized fraud ignored. Banks get away with money laundering and theft while in some places standing on the street is a crime. Once you've worked up a full head of rage you realize that Obama is as bad as Bush is nearly as bad as Clinton. The failure is in politics and this book is a depressing catalog of the symptoms.

 

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Tedious Feed Update

By Robert Ellison. Updated on Wednesday, February 22, 2017.

Tedious Feed Update

If you subscribe to I Thought He Came With You via RSS please switch to this new feed and delete the old one.

Longer version... this blog has used FeedBurner for ever but I managed to get locked out a couple of years ago. I upgraded to Google Apps for Domains and part of the process was transitioning various services over to a temporary account and then back to the new one. Most of them made it over but FeedBurner got orphaned somehow.

I've emailed, left forum posts etc but no luck. Google doesn't really do customer service so despite actually paying them I seem to be out of luck. Also, Google hates RSS so FeedBurner probably isn't the right long term tool even if I could get back into my account.

I've been meaning to do something about this for a while but as it was working it wasn't a top priority. This changed when my blog got hacked a couple of times in a row - I'm not sure if it was the software (I'd been using BlogEngine.net) or my hosting provider but it's painful to fix and I decided I needed a change. I Thought I Came From You is now running on a home grown platform. It should be more stable, faster (some quick benchmarking suggests twice as fast so far) and not get hacked quite so often.

So switch to http://ithoughthecamewithyou.com/syndication.axd for updates (I can't recommend Feedly highly enough) and delete the old feed. If you have any problems leave a comment below or send me an email.

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(Published to the Fediverse as: Tedious Feed Update #etc #rss #feed #google #feedburner The I Thought He Came With You RSS feed has moved. Get the new RSS feed here. )

Bay Bridge, Old And New

By Robert Ellison. Updated on Monday, January 20, 2025.

Bay Bridge, Old And New

Photo of the new span of the Bay Bridge next to the partially demolished old span from the San Francisco Bay.

The photograph captures a striking juxtaposition between two bridges—the old framework of worn steel reminiscent of bygone engineering and the modern, sleek lines of its successor. The aged bridge on the left, with its intricate lattice of metal beams, stands in contrast to the smooth, arching grace of the new structure on the right. Above, the sky is a soft gradient of clouds streaked across a canvas of blue, while the sunlight bursts through the upper right corner, casting a radiant glow over this architectural evolution. The interplay of light and shadow highlights the textural differences, evoking a sense of transition and progress.

The composition employs a dynamic diagonal that draws the viewer's eye upwards, guided by the lines of the bridge into the bright expanse of sky. This angle imbues the photograph with movement and energy, while the high-contrast lighting further emphasizes the stark difference between old and new. I appreciate the way the sunlight spills into the frame, lending an ethereal quality to the scene. However, the brightness might be slightly overpowering, detracting from some of the finer details, especially in the shadows of the old bridge. Nevertheless, the composition effectively communicates a narrative of transformation, capturing the spirit of innovation and continuity.

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(Published to the Fediverse as: Bay Bridge, Old And New #photo #baybridge Photo of both eastern spans of the Bay Bridge - the new one and the partially demolished old one. San Francisco Bay, California. )

Book reviews for June 2014

By Robert Ellison. Updated on Friday, February 24, 2017.
Advanced Web Metrics with Google Analytics by Brian Clifton

Advanced Web Metrics with Google Analytics by Brian Clifton

4/5

Very helpful book, but a generation out of date. Does not cover universal analytics or the new user ID collection but is a great foundation as long as you know this. I'll buy the next edition when/if it becomes available.

 

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