By Robert Ellison. Updated on Tuesday, January 21, 2025.
Photo of the moment a butterfly takes flight at the top of the Esmerelda stairs in Bernal Heights.
The photograph titled "Butterfly" captures a solitary butterfly resting on a gravel path. The foreground is dominated by the intricate textures of stones and small twigs, creating a tapestry of earthy tones that contrasts with the butterfly's vivid colors. The butterfly, with its wings displaying a striking combination of black, orange, and a hint of white, becomes the focal point. Its delicate antennae stretch toward the horizon as it remains poised, embodying a sense of stillness amidst subtle motion. In the background, a soft blur hints at a garden or park, creating a serene and natural setting bathed in a gentle, dappled sunlight.
This photograph employs a shallow depth of field, bringing the butterfly into sharp relief while softening the backdrop, thus directing the viewer's attention precisely. The use of natural light enhances the warmth of the scene, illuminating the butterfly's colors and casting gentle shadows that add depth. The composition, while effective in drawing attention to the butterfly, feels slightly centered; a shift using the rule of thirds might have provided more dynamic interest. I appreciate the close-up perspective that reveals the details of the butterfly and the textured ground. However, the image's overall exposure appears slightly high, causing some areas to be overexposed and losing detail. Balancing the exposure could enhance the visual harmony of this evocative capture.
(Published to the Fediverse as:
Butterfly #photo#butterfly Photo of a butterfly taking flight in the Bernal Height neighborhood of San Francisco, California.)
By Robert Ellison. Updated on Saturday, January 18, 2025.
Panoramic photo of West Beach at Crissy Field in San Francisco (taken while enjoying some lunch).
This panoramic photograph, titled "Crissy Field Lunch," captures a peaceful midday scene at the expansive Crissy Field Beach. The vast stretch of sand occupies the lower half of the frame, dotted with people leisurely spread across the beach. In the left background, the iconic silhouette of the Golden Gate Bridge gracefully arcs against the clear blue sky, its burnt-orange hue subtly contrasting with the surrounding landscape. The distant hills, enveloped in a gentle haze, sit beneath the sky's vast azure canopy, creating a serene horizon line that divides the tranquil bay from the sandy foreground. To the right, a walkway gently guides the viewer's eye, lined with a couple and their canine companion strolling in the afternoon sun, adding a sense of everyday life and movement to the otherwise tranquil scene.
The style of this photograph leans toward a documentary approach, capturing the ordinary beauty of a sunny day at a famous landmark. The panoramic format offers a sweeping view that enhances the scale and grandeur of the location, effectively drawing the viewer into the scene. Compositionally, the photograph abides by principles of symmetry and balance, with the bridge providing a focal anchor on the left, and the lines of sand, water, and sky creating horizontal layers that guide the eye across the frame. While the wide-angle perspective beautifully encapsulates the breadth of the locale, it may also diminish some details that could enrich the narrative. The image's clarity and color are commendable, yet the vastness might lack a central point of interest to hold the viewer's gaze. Overall, the photograph succeeds in evoking a sense of place and momentary peace, though a stronger focal point could enhance its impact.
My new debate site, Like Debate, is finally up and running and I'm losing the first debate badly. I need your help: The Oxford comma is an acceptable form of punctuation. Actually vote your conscience. I don't care if I win this one, but give it a spin and let me know if it works for you.
If you have a better argument for or against that wretched comma have at it.
There are things I still sort of like about Skype. I use it a lot for video calls (although for work and muti-party video it's pretty much all about Google Hangouts these days). I have a Philips phone that integrates with Skype for international calls (they seem to have discontinued it, and while the calls are cheap the UI is baroque). But the IM is horrible. It can't remember which messages you've seen between devices and so you're constantly trying to figure out what you have and haven't read.
And the IM on the desktop is nothing compared to the horror of the Skype Android app. This slowly spins up and by the time it's loaded previous messages your battery is dead.
Imo.im made Skype IM tolerable on Android and possible on a Chromebook. In the last week it seems that Skype has kneecapped them and blocked their servers from signing in. I'm limping by with IM+ Pro at the moment, but it's slow and buggy and frustrating.
I sympathize with Imo.im. I've been stiffed by Skype before as an officially sanctioned partner so it's no shock that they'd take out this kind of tool.
It would be nice if they could fix mobile and web access to the network first though.
Photo and video of Gray Whales at Fort Funston in San Francisco.
In this somber seascape titled "Gray Whales at Fort Funston," the photograph portrays a vast expanse of the ocean under a gray sky. The waves roll gently toward the darkened, sandy shoreline, capturing a sense of vast tranquility. Amidst this serene monochrome, a pink circle faintly marks the presence of a gray whale, though the creature itself remains elusive, blending seamlessly with the moody palette of sky and sea. The horizon stretches unbroken across the middle of the image, underlining the infinite nature of the ocean and sky, evoking a sense of timelessness and peace.
The image embraces a minimalist style, its color palette limited to muted grays and deep greens, which enhances the natural isolation of the scene. The composition follows a simple horizontal layering, from the sand, through the sea, and up to the sky, offering a straightforward yet effective structure. While the use of negative space is profound, the challenge here is the invisibility of the whales without the assistance of the pink marker. This reliance can be seen as both a drawback and an intentional artistic comment on the hidden mysteries of nature. I appreciate the calm and meditative quality of the photograph, though a slightly more pronounced subject might enhance viewer engagement without sacrificing the work's quiet contemplative essence.
(Published to the Fediverse as:
Gray Whales at Fort Funston #photo#whales#video Gray Whales at Fort Funston, photo and video. San Francisco, California.)
By Robert Ellison. Updated on Thursday, December 26, 2019.
2013-06-16 Update: There is now a patch for the issue discussed below.
I just upgraded to BlogEngine.net 2.8 as it contains a fix for broken links from Facebook. There were a couple of hitches that I'll share in case they help anyone else.
I messed up the first upgrade attempt because the updater utility updates the source folder (containing the newly downloaded 2.8 code) instead of the destination folder (containing the current version of your blog). This is a little odd and the result is I uploaded an unchanged instance and then embarrassingly complained the the Facebook bug hadn't been fixed. It had, just not in the folder I was expecting. I probably didn't pay enough attention to the instruction video.
Having got that out of the way I discovered that new posts were appearing with a bad link (to /.aspx instead of /blog-title.aspx). I rarely post using the editor as I have a home-grown post by email service running. After a bit of digging it turns out that prior to 2.8 you could leave the slug empty when creating a post but now this results in the bad link. Luckily there isn't much effort require to fix this, you just need to set the slug before saving the new post:
In the middle of playing with this my live site died and started returning a 500 error. No amount of uploading the working local copy would fix this. Happily Server Intellect have outstanding support and restored a working backup for me in the middle of the night. Thanks chaps!
(Published to the Fediverse as:
The curious case of the missing slugs (in BlogEngine.net 2.8) #code#blogengine.net How to fix bad links in BlogEngine.NET caused by missing slugs - quick patch instructions.)
By Robert Ellison. Updated on Thursday, November 12, 2015.
Not to pick on BritishAirways but yes, that screenshot is real. It's a marketing email opt out that has not only been pre-populated in favor of spam but has then also been disabled.
(Published to the Fediverse as:
Really BA? #etc#ba A British Airways marketing opt-out checkbox that is both pre-checked and disabled for your convenience.)