I mentioned the other day in a post about a minor heart episode that a local restaurant, Togiya, serves Prucia, a plum wine (umeshu -- 梅酒) from France. I'd never seen a plum wine from outside Japan.

Well, in the store the other day to pick up some of the fiesta-in-a-bottle Sangria Peñasol that I mentioned in last month's "A Bunch Of Blurry Pictures of Folks Pouring Wine", to my surprise I came across a bottle of Prucia on the shelf. In the name of research and public service, I brought it home with me.

I've shown great restraint in [...]

This post shows some example effects of a polarizer filter on vegetation, specifically, the moss and fern laden garden of the Gioji Temple in Kyoto, Japan (祇王寺). On the topic of polarizers it follows from "A Few Polarization-Filter Examples" where I first brought up the topic four years ago, and the fall-foliage followup last year: "Heading Out To Photograph The Fall Foliage? Don’t Forget The Polarizer Filter".

On the topic if the Gioji Temple, this post follows from yesterday's "Gioji Temple Photo Shoot: Nicolas's White Little Mushrooms" and the slightly earlier "Tag Along With Me on a Photo Shoot at [...]

Last week during the transit of Venus, I took the opportunity to check out the astronomical observatory I've seen for years on a nearby mountain. I've always wanted to visit... I was deeply into astronomy as a teenager, going so far as to start to grind a mirror for an 8" reflector telescope I intended to build, when it all got left behind after seeing a computer for the first time.

Anyway, I still have interest, so I decided to take a hike up there to check the place out. On the way I snapped a few photos...

The last [...]

This is sort of a followup to January's "Informal GPS Logger Test: iPhone 4s GPS is Shockingly Good" post about GPS and GLONASS loggers. We took a drive today in the mountains, and I took the opportunity for another informal test of location-logging technologies

Garmin eTrex 20 GPS + GLONASS dedicated logger.

Dual® XGPS150 GPS-only bluetooth logger, recorded on an iPad with the Guru Maps app.

Apple iPhone 4s (GPS + GLONASS) recorded via the GeoTagr app, which for some reason the company sent me for free out of the blue the other day (probably hoping for a [...]

Wow, NASA, which happens to have a bigger lens than me (with the camera outside the terrestrial atmosphere, no less), put up this amazing bit of video art built from images taken today during the 6-hour event:

Quite a bit nicer than my try earlier today. Must be that darn atmosphere in the way. 🙂

The music is very nice as well. The video is in the public domain (those who don't pay American taxes can thank those of us that do), which I suppose implies the music as well... I wonder what it is?

Lots of high-res pictures in [...]
View full post »