photography

Bentley’s New 57.7 Gigapixel Ad is the World’s Highest Res Landscape Photo

Leave a comment

Bentley’s New 57.7 Gigapixel Ad is the World’s Highest Res Landscape Photo

From Petapixel

Bentley has captured what they’re calling “the world’s most detailed landscape photo”: a 57.7 gigapixel interactive ad stitched together from 1,825 individual frames captured from atop one of the tallest towers in Dubai.

This isn’t the first time Bentley has experimented with NASA technology and gigapixel photography. Their first interactive ad, captured in San Francisco, featured a 53-gigapixel photo that let you zoom all the way in to the stitching on a car seat that was driving across the Golden Gate Bridge.

According to the Daily Mail, the image was incredibly difficult to capture. The NASA-derived gigapixel camera system was suspended 264 metres (~866 feet) up the Cayan Tower, where it had to contend with “40-degree heat that created a haze and 25 km/h winds that threatened to disrupt stability.”

All of the source images took 48 hours to capture, and downloading the final stitched photograph took 18 hours.

The gimmick seems to have worked. No only are car lovers enjoying the ad, camera geeks are having a field day exploring the Dubai marina as well. To see the full, interactive ad for yourself, head over to the Bentley website by clicking here.

Hint: make sure you press the three lines in the top right and select “Explore the Image” to browse the full photo, not just zoom in on the Bentley.

When looking at this for work (yes, it was part of my job today), the Dubai marina was pretty sparse and devoid of people but after clicking around, I did see some signs of life.  Someone running, someone making coffee in their apartment (sorry about that) and some other signs of life.

politics

Freedom Caucus Isn’t Backing Down After Trump Threat

Leave a comment

From Roll Call

If President Donald Trump’s intention was to intimidate House Freedom Caucus members with his assertion on Twitter that “we must fight them” in 2018, it didn’t work.

“If somebody can get to the right of me in the primary, God bless him,” Freedom Caucus member Trent Franks said.

The Arizona Republican, who had learned about the president’s tweet from a reporter Thursday morning, provided a blunt response that captures the gist of the Freedom Caucus’ reaction to the threat, although several members didn’t go as far as Franks in stating their thoughts.

But the sentiment is generally shared among Freedom Caucus members, who see themselves as true conservatives and find the idea of drawing challengers further to the right as laughable.

“I don’t know of too many people who can challenge me from the right,” Freedom Caucus Chairman Mark Meadows told reporters last week after Trump visited the GOP conference and suggested members who opposed the bill could face primary challenges though he did not directly threaten members during that meeting, several attendees said.

Personally I have backed down from being threatened by a politician.  I have a small file of those that have even done it in writing.  I find them humorous and showing a shocking lack of judgement.  I can’t see the Freedom Caucus backing down at all.  If anything, it will make it worse for Trump and is anyone surprised by this?  Neither am I.

politics, Saskatchewan, Saskatoon

Coun. Darren Hill wants to yank $3M in funding for U of S rink project

Leave a comment

From Phil Tank in The StarPhoenix

Coun. Darren Hill wants to yank $3M in funding for U of S rink project

Saskatoon city council is headed for a vote on retracting a promise of $3 million for a University of Saskatchewan rink project.

Coun. Darren Hill told council on Monday night that he intends to ask for a vote to rescind the city’s $3-million commitment to Merlis Belsher Place, a $41-million twin-pad replacement for Rutherford Rink.

In a Tuesday interview, Hill noted the city’s financial position has changed since council narrowly approved the $3 million a month ago.

Wednesday’s provincial budget pulled $11.4 million in annual grants-in-lieu from the city, leaving council and city hall administration scrambling to try to make up the shortfall.

“I do know there’s some interest to revisit this,” Hill said.

He voted against the $3-million contribution on Feb. 27. Hill said this is the first time in his decade on council that a decision has been made to give a substantial amount of money to a third-party project. Several councillors argued to wait until after the provincial budget before making a decision on the rink money. The vote to award the money was 6-5, so only one councillor would need to switch sides to retract the money in a second vote on April 24.

Hill said he wants the contribution to be reconsidered at budget talks in November. Council had already voted in 2016 to contribute $1 million to the project in order to secure more ice time for minor hockey.

Hill said he’s confident the project will proceed on time and on budget, even without the $3 million from the city. The arena is slated to be completed in the fall of 2018.

And then Hill gets tough.

“Never depend on promises until you actually have a cheque in your hand,” Hill said.

Okay, just some thoughts about this.

  1. I agree with Councillor Hill on this.  I don’t think it was a prudent decision when it was made and now that the the province has screwed over the city, why is the city bailing out a project that was the provinces jurisdiction?  I could go on but I did a few weeks ago in The StarPhoenix.
  2. “Never depend on promises until you actually have a cheque in your hand” is a pretty cold gangster quote by Hill.  Nice job.
  3. We could have a situation where the City of Saskatoon is suing the Province of Saskatchewan and Huskies Athletics is suing the City of Saskatoon, all over taxpayers money. (am told there is no agreement so probably no lawsuit over the arena).  Even better would be the Huskies going to the province and saying, “You know how they screwed over the city, they kind of did the same to us.  Can you give us the three million dollars?  Can anyone give us three million dollars?”
  4. With the Washington Post’s new dark slogan, Democracy Dies in Darkness being all over their website, Hill really needs to put, “Never depend on promises until you actually have a cheque in your hand,” on the top of his website, Twitter, and Facebook.
foreign affairs, politics

The Offender of the Free World

1 Comment

From the New York Times

The Offender of the Free World

When Donald Trump met Chancellor Angela Merkel of Germany earlier this month, he put on one of his most truculent and ignorant performances. He wanted money — piles of it — for Germany’s defense, raged about the financial killing China was making from last year’s Paris climate accord and kept “frequently and brutally changing the subject when not interested, which was the case with the European Union.”

This was the summation provided to me by a senior European diplomat briefed on the meeting. Trump’s preparedness was roughly that of a fourth grader. He began the conversation by telling Merkel that Germany owes the United States hundreds of billions of dollars for defending it through NATO, and concluded by saying, “You are terrific” but still owe all that dough. Little else concerned him.

Trump knew nothing of the proposed European-American deal known as the Trans-Atlantic Trade and Investment Partnership, little about Russian aggression in Ukraine or the Minsk agreements, and was so scatterbrained that German officials concluded that the president’s daughter Ivanka, who had no formal reason to be there, was the more prepared and helpful. (Invited by Merkel, Ivanka will attend a summit on women’s empowerment in Berlin next month.)

Merkel is not one to fuss. But Trump’s behavior appalled her entourage and reinforced a conclusion already reached about this presidency in several European capitals: It is possible to do business with Trump’s national security adviser, Lt. Gen. H. R. McMaster, with Secretary of Defense Jim Mattis, and with Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, but these officials are flying blind because above them at the White House rages a whirlwind of incompetence and ignorance.

Does any of this really surprise anymore?  Trump is over his head and the United States will pay the cost.

photography

8 Tips for Shooting Better City Photos (and the Gear You Need to Do It)

1 Comment

Some advice for capturing your city from Gear Patrol

8 Tips for Shooting Better City Photos (and the Gear You Need to Do It)

Shooting in the city can be both the easiest and hardest photography you’ll do. First, it’s a target-rich environment — people everywhere, perpetual backdrops and usually lots of action and interest. You could walk down the street, fire your camera randomly, and usually come away with something decent. But that doesn’t necessarily make what you get actually good. Being good takes the same degree of thought, planning and skill that any other photographic genre demands.

So I consulted two extremely talented street photographers — Jill Shomer (@jillshomer) and Brad Puet (@bradpuet) — to see how they work their magic. And I threw in a few tips of my own. Check out the advice [here], grab your camera, and hit the bricks.

crime

A 221-pound gold coin, minted by Canada "because we can," was stolen from a Berlin museum. It’s worth $4.5 million

Leave a comment

From the New York Times

The Big Maple Leaf coin is missing!

You could never palm it, flip it or plunk it into a vending machine, but apparently it can be pinched: The world’s largest gold coin, a 221-pound Canadian monster called the Big Maple Leaf, was stolen overnight from the Bode Museum in Berlin, the police said on Monday.

The coin is about 21 inches in diameter and more than an inch thick, with the head of Queen Elizabeth II on one side and a maple leaf on the other. Its face value is 1 million Canadian dollars, but by weight of gold alone it is worth much more than that — as much as $4.5 million at current market prices. The Royal Canadian Mint struck one as a demonstration in 2007 — “Because we can,” the mint says on its website — and then made a few more for well-heeled collectors to buy; five have been sold so far.

The Berlin police said in a statement that burglars had apparently broken in through a window above the commuter railway tracks at the back of the museum. Officers found a ladder on the elevated railway’s roadbed. The police declined to say whether there were security cameras monitoring that window, but they said the coin had been kept behind bulletproof glass.

The museum is near the Hackescher Markt, a public square in Berlin that is home to a number of late-night bars and cafes. The police appealed for clues from anyone who had been in the area.

Given the coin’s weight, the authorities said they suspected that more than one person must have been involved in the crime. A police team that specializes in art crimes has been called in to investigate.

The Bode Museum is part of the complex belonging to the Stiftung Preussischer Kulturbesitz, on an island in the Spree River. In addition to paintings, sculptures and other works of art, the museum displays what it says is one of the largest collection of coins and medals in the world, with about 500,000 objects. The Big Maple Leaf appeared to be the only thing the thieves took.

First Tom Brady’s football jersey and now this.  Do thieves not have a code?  Oh right, this is what they do.

politics, Saskatchewan, Saskatoon

Saskatoon’s budget battle with province heads to court

1 Comment

From Phil Tank at The StarPhoenix

Saskatoon's budget battle with province heads to court

A fired-up Saskatoon city council voted unanimously to pursue legal action at a special meeting Sunday afternoon designed to seek ways to cope with a shortfall estimated at just under $8 million in 2017.

The removal of the grants-in-lieu paid by provincial Crown corporations SaskPower, SaskEnergy and TransGas were budgeted at $11.4 million and the city would have to find that entire amount in 2018.

A city report estimates the shortfall is equivalent to a 3.93 per cent property tax increase in 2017, on top of the 3.89 per cent hike council approved in December.

“We are not raising taxes as a result of this meeting today,” Saskatoon Mayor Charlie Clark said at the meeting. “We are reviewing all options.”

Clark said that will include looking at reductions in service.

The legal action could pool municipal resources from around the province. The city intends to pursue the injunction in co-operation with the Saskatchewan Urban Municipalities Association and other municipalities.

Several councillors complained the budget’s removal of the grants-in-lieu unfairly targeted urban municipalities while leaving rural municipalities unscathed.

“This is not equitable at all,” Coun. Randy Donauer said. Donauer convinced his colleagues to support a review of the dollar value of services used by the Crown buildings and infrastructure in Saskatoon.

Donauer said the grants are tended to compensate the city for services provided — like fire, police and road repair — since the city cannot levy property tax against a higher level of government.

“It’s for the provision of services and they still want services,” Donauer said.

Strong leadership by Clark, Hill, Donauer and the rest of City Council on this.  I don’t know if they will succeed but it’s fight worth fighting. 

crime, ethics, justice

Duterte’s War on Drugs Through a Local Photographer’s Eyes

Leave a comment

From the New York Times

“When a President Says ‘I’ll Kill You’” is a Times documentary on the deadly crusade led by President Rodrigo Duterte of the Philippines that he has called “a war on drugs.” The film features Raffy Lerma, a photojournalist for The Philippine Daily Inquirer who has tirelessly worked to tell the story of the the killings. Andrew Glazer, a senior video producer for The Times, recounts some of his experiences making the documentary.

The commander accidentally wrote on a slide screen with a marker as he mapped out a route for the day’s operation in a crowded Metro Manila neighborhood. The screen was sacrificed for nothing: the swarm of heavily armed SWAT officers on motorcycles got lost en route to the staging area, earning a very public dressing down after reassembling a half-hour later.

This is President Rodrigo Duterte’s “war on drugs” in action. Fierce. Massive. And more than a bit haphazard. Police officers, rifles in hand, rounded up dozens of young men trying to keep cool in the doorways of their modest homes, herding them onto a basketball court. The local police call this a One Time, Big Time — a large show of force in a Philippine community said to be plagued by drugs. The young men aren’t suspects, but they’re clearly terrified.

foreign affairs, poverty

Drought and War Heighten Threat of Not Just 1 Famine, but 4

Leave a comment

From the New York Times

Drought and War Heighten Threat of Not Just 1 Famine, but 4

First the trees dried up and cracked apart.

Then the goats keeled over.

Then the water in the village well began to disappear, turning cloudy, then red, then slime-green, but the villagers kept drinking it. That was all they had.

Now on a hot, flat, stony plateau outside Baidoa, thousands of people pack into destitute camps, many clutching their stomachs, some defecating in the open, others already dead from a cholera epidemic.

“Even if you can get food, there is no water,” said one mother, Sangabo Moalin, who held her head with a left hand as thin as a leaf and spoke of her body “burning.”

Another famine is about to tighten its grip on Somalia. And it’s not the only crisis that aid agencies are scrambling to address. For the first time since anyone can remember, there is a very real possibility of four famines — in Somalia, South Sudan, Nigeria and Yemen — breaking out at once, endangering more than 20 million lives.

International aid officials say they are facing the biggest humanitarian disaster since World War II. And they are determined not to repeat the mistakes of the past.

Monday Mornings, personal

It’s Monday

1 Comment
  • Quiet weekend around the house.  Wendy went to a really sad movie that made her cry.  The boys and I watched Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles 2 on Netflix and didn’t cry.
  • Worst parenting move of the weekend?  Letting them watch a fail video about base jumping.  As one guy said, “Yep, he’s dead.”  I need to go on a YouTube timeout.
  • I haven’t taken the drone out yet. Weather has been bad when I am at home and good when I am at work.
  • Brad Wall’s tone deaf tweet about municipalities using their reserve funds to pay for the sudden loss of provincial revenue is stunning to me.  He says they won’t have to raise taxes and instead can use reserve funds.  In other words the cities can be screwed over by the province without notice because they have saved some money.   Of course those reserve funds aren’t there for fun, they get used to balance out bad years when there is excess snow clearing needed or other big issues.  Unlike the province, municipalities can not run deficits.  Those reserve accounts keep cities going.
family, photography, technology

Checking out the Sigma 500mm F4.0 DG OS HSM Sport

Leave a comment

Wendy stopped by Don’s Photo on Saturday because her camera wasn’t working correctly and had an error beep that didn’t appear online.  She noticed the Sigma 500mm F4.0 DG OS HSM Sport that Sigma had sent by for a customer to check out.  I hooked it up to Canon EOS 7D Mark II and took some photos with her Olympus OM-D E-M10 II (I was trying to figure out why it was now working perfectly).

Checking out the Sigma 500mm F4.0 DG OS HSM SportChecking out the Sigma 500mm F4.0 DG OS HSM SportChecking out the Sigma 500mm F4.0 DG OS HSM SportChecking out the Sigma 500mm F4.0 DG OS HSM SportChecking out the Sigma 500mm F4.0 DG OS HSM Sport

So as for Wendy’s camera, it was beeping randomly at home and wouldn’t stop.  I looked all over the web and I couldn’t find any mention of it which is insane because any time any camera user has even the slightest problem, they go online and rant and rave all over the forums like millions of people have it.

I had resigned myself to having to send in the camera (in disgrace) but Wendy popped out the battery and memory card over night.  On my way out in the morning, I told her to bring by the camera and the battery and I would test it on some other lenses to make sure it wasn’t the lens.  I got to work and the camera was working fine.  So while Wendy was looking at the lens, I tested out the camera and grabbed some shots of her.

As for the lens, it looks great but a) I am not a bird photographer and with the NFL not playing a lot of games in Saskatoon this season, I really don’t need a 500mm f/4.

A weblog about urbanism, technology & culture.