two more bird photos

I posted an Osprey and a Common Merganser at birdwalker, but I'm not crazy about the Osprey -- the light angle was not good. Had great luck with the new thistle feeder in our backyard. We had nearly a dozen goldfinches right away, and our first pine siskin!

Christmas Bird Count Photos

I posted our trip list and some photos from a very lovely day doing the San Jose Christmas Bird Count near Drawbridge. Especially exciting was the squabble between two golden eagles over a squirrel that took place directly in front of the car.

doing cool XML stuff with flickr

Hal pointed me at this cool article about using XSLT to transform the XML you get back from flickr.

Save Pale Male

For roughly ten years there have been Red-tailed hawks nesting on a fancy apartment building across the street from Central Park. Without warning or provocation, the apartment building management company recently destroyed the nest. Can they be persuaded to let the hawks rebuild? For the latest on this epic struggle between good-hearted and heartless New Yorkers, look here.

Visualizing the chord changes to "Giant Steps"

(link courtesy of Pat Smith)

Have you ever tried to learn John Coltrane's "Giant Steps"? It's gnarly. The chords sound right, but soloing over it is extremely confusing. Help is on the way -- Iain Houston has created a nifty animation for visualizing the chord changes of "Giant Steps". Truly, the internet is amazing.

birdwalker2 updated

I just updated birdwalker2. New features include the ability to see all the photos for a trip, location, or county. I am refactoring the PHP code to use objects, which is working very nicely. In the course of doing this I lost track of some of my first sighting calculations, which I need to integrate with the new PHP objects. Another new plan -- tag my cvs repository when I post changes to my server, so I can write better release notes next time.

Custom Wall Calendars Ordered

Well, after looking at the Ofoto calendars, I decided to order from Ofoto using mostly my JPEG's saved with sRGB. While the JPEG's saved with Adobe RGB color space were less red, they were also dark and dull. We decided that overly red was better than too dark.

Custom Wall Calendars, Part Five

Responding to my second email request for information about color management, Ofoto tech support has this to say:

"At this time, Ofoto does not have or support ICC or any other color
profiles. We will notify registered members when this option becomes
available. For best results, Ofoto recommends using Adobe Standard RGB
color spaces.

We suggest that you adjust your monitor so your onscreen image more
closely resembles your calendar from Ofoto. You will then have a more
accurate view of your file and can edit your images to produce the best
photograph possible."

So, there you have it. I have regenerated my images with Adobe RGB and uploaded them to Ofoto. Mary thinks I should do another test.

Bill discovers GrooveLily

Thursday, we presented ourselves at the time and place appointed on our TheatreWorks subscription tickets. As has been our recent custom, we arrived at the theatre knowing nothing about a show called "Striking 12".

What we experienced was a phenomenal performance by GrooveLily based very loosely around Hans Christian Andersen's story, the Little Match Girl.

GrooveLily is a trio featuring drums, keyboards, and electric violin. All three musicians sing. The result reminds me by turns of Shawn Colvin, Christine Lavin, Steely Dan, James Taylor, Laurie Andersen, and Genesis. The lyrics feature clever word play offset by startling imagery. Excellent funk grooves, tasty use of odd meters, fiercely optimistic uptempo anthems.

Afterwards I bought all six of their CD's. I have scarely listened to anything else since. You really should go see this show. The San Jose Mercury News says the same.

Custom Wall Calendars, Part Four

Well, I picked up the Kinko's calendar at my nearest Kinko's this morning. I give them high marks for customer service -- they not only responded to me email query in email but phoned me as well.

The calendar itself is spiral bound with large images, all good. But, the actual calendar pages are pretty ugly, and the quality of the photo printing is no better than the Ofoto and cafepress contestants.

Still leaning towards Ofoto. I wrote to them again about color management.