Friday, July 13, 2012
Hummingbird Nest, Two Babies
This summer a hummingbird nest appeared at the edge of the woods in back of our house. Here is a photo from June 16th.
And from another angle. The lichen cladding the side of the nest gives it a well-tended, camouflaged, and almost armored look.
Mom would visit from time to time on 6/16. The nest is about 15 feet above the ground, so I needed both a stepladder, to get a picture of anything except the bottom of the nest, and the full zoom (300mm equivalent) of my point-and-shoot camera.
Now fast forward to July 13th. The two babies in the nest have been visible for the last couple of weeks (click to enlarge). The yellow leaves are due to the heat and drought we've had for several weeks. Joan is bracing the stepladder, which is on uneven ground, so I'm willing to climb a rung or two higher than before.
Then one turned around, and the picture is of two baby hummingbird butts.
Time to move the ladder. In this picture, if you enlarge and look closely, you'll see that the closer bird has his or her eyes closed.
One more repositioning of the ladder, for a last shot.
These chicks barely have room to breathe; they'll be fledging soon.
Thursday, July 12, 2012
The Decline of the 3-D Movie Experience
Joan and I have decided to avoid 3-D movies for a while. The visual quality of what we see in the theater has fallen very far downhill, and we'd rather see a crisp regular version of a movie than a sloppy 3-D one.
We remember being impressed with the clarity and sharpness of the 3-D images in earlier movies, such as Up!, How to Train Your Dragon, or even Rango or Puss-n-Boots. Lately, first with Pirates: Band of Misfits and then with Brave, the competence of the projection been disappointing, in two different multiplexes.
When we saw Pirates, the bottom third of the screen was much dimmer than the upper two-thirds. This was primarily through one of the two eyes -- I alternated looking through just the right eye, and then just the left eye. I'll try to recreate this for you; first, here's an arbitrary photo.
If this was projected in the same way we saw Pirates, it would look something like this.
When we saw Brave, during the movie previews two images were being shown, but the 3-D glasses weren't merging them into a three dimensional image, rather, there remained two separate flat images. A couple of us had to leave that theater and tromp down two halls to find someone to complain to. After a couple of minutes, something was visibly flipped, and the 3-D now worked. But not well.
The problem was that the left and right images didn't line up correctly, and it remained that way through the entire movie. The top third of the screen was all right, the middle third of the screen was fuzzy, and the bottom third of the screen was very fuzzy. Looking at text, such as logos and credits, or sharp edges in the image, such as tables or fingers, it was apparent that the two projections weren't aligned properly with respect to each other. The letter E, for example, should have three horizontal lines, not six. The effect, using the same photo, was something like this -- click to enlarge for the full effect:
We postulate that the theaters were very careful with their 3-D equipment when 3-D movies were new, and wanted to impress their audiences with the images that brought in several dollars more per person. As 3-D movies continued to be issued, and the installations aged, the theaters stopped being diligent about adjusting their equipment. (They've also been accused of waiting too long to replace bulbs, or deliberately running them below the specified illumination, to save money.) I, for one, wrote an email about the Pirates experience, but never received a response.
A 3-D movie system, regardless of which technology is used, inherently requires more careful maintenance and inspection than a flat movie system. Bump a 2D movie projector, and the screen shifts an inch or two. Big deal. If, by whatever faults a particular 3-D projection system is subject to, one of the two images gets shifted, things don't line up any more. And who knows how they managed to partially darken Pirates; maybe somebody left a pizza box in front of one lens.
It appears that many theater owners are not investing the time or effort to calibrate their 3-D systems properly, and until they do, we're steering away. If the story is good, 3-D projection is just a frill.
But then we have to worry about some theaters showing dim 2-D movies because they don't want to remove the 3-D polarizers from their Sony projectors when they switch movies. Caveat Emptor.
We remember being impressed with the clarity and sharpness of the 3-D images in earlier movies, such as Up!, How to Train Your Dragon, or even Rango or Puss-n-Boots. Lately, first with Pirates: Band of Misfits and then with Brave, the competence of the projection been disappointing, in two different multiplexes.
When we saw Pirates, the bottom third of the screen was much dimmer than the upper two-thirds. This was primarily through one of the two eyes -- I alternated looking through just the right eye, and then just the left eye. I'll try to recreate this for you; first, here's an arbitrary photo.
When we saw Brave, during the movie previews two images were being shown, but the 3-D glasses weren't merging them into a three dimensional image, rather, there remained two separate flat images. A couple of us had to leave that theater and tromp down two halls to find someone to complain to. After a couple of minutes, something was visibly flipped, and the 3-D now worked. But not well.
The problem was that the left and right images didn't line up correctly, and it remained that way through the entire movie. The top third of the screen was all right, the middle third of the screen was fuzzy, and the bottom third of the screen was very fuzzy. Looking at text, such as logos and credits, or sharp edges in the image, such as tables or fingers, it was apparent that the two projections weren't aligned properly with respect to each other. The letter E, for example, should have three horizontal lines, not six. The effect, using the same photo, was something like this -- click to enlarge for the full effect:
We postulate that the theaters were very careful with their 3-D equipment when 3-D movies were new, and wanted to impress their audiences with the images that brought in several dollars more per person. As 3-D movies continued to be issued, and the installations aged, the theaters stopped being diligent about adjusting their equipment. (They've also been accused of waiting too long to replace bulbs, or deliberately running them below the specified illumination, to save money.) I, for one, wrote an email about the Pirates experience, but never received a response.
A 3-D movie system, regardless of which technology is used, inherently requires more careful maintenance and inspection than a flat movie system. Bump a 2D movie projector, and the screen shifts an inch or two. Big deal. If, by whatever faults a particular 3-D projection system is subject to, one of the two images gets shifted, things don't line up any more. And who knows how they managed to partially darken Pirates; maybe somebody left a pizza box in front of one lens.
It appears that many theater owners are not investing the time or effort to calibrate their 3-D systems properly, and until they do, we're steering away. If the story is good, 3-D projection is just a frill.
But then we have to worry about some theaters showing dim 2-D movies because they don't want to remove the 3-D polarizers from their Sony projectors when they switch movies. Caveat Emptor.
Friday, July 6, 2012
+1, -1 for Wide Open West
In the last few weeks we've had some interesting experiences with our cable ISP/TV provider, WideOpenWest, or WOW.
+1
The good news first. WOW gave everybody a free download speed bump; we went from 8Mbps (megabits per second) to 15, and it's really there:
Our upload speed is still limited to 1 Mbps, which sometimes is a pain, especially when I'm uploading videos for this blog. A bump to even 2Mbps would be lovely.
Derecho
We were in the path of the "super derecho" that swept from Indiana to the East Coast on June 29th. Our electrical power was knocked out for about 6½ hours, but when it came back, we were pleasantly surprised to see our service from WOW still up and running. We got to bed well after midnight, and when we arose at 7am, the cable was out. No Internet or TV. WOW's backup batteries/generators weren't designed for a prolonged power outage at their various distribution points, and although our house had power, obviously much of WOW did not.
The cable came back early Tuesday, after about 3 days of outage. We were ecstatic, prematurely. Over the next couple of days the cable service would be up for several hours and then down for several hours as both the electrical company (AEP) and WOW worked on their respective networks. But it's been up for 48 hours now, and we've still got the 15Mbps service.
That wasn't the only effect of the derecho. We also discovered that our battery backups (UPS, or universal power supply) for the house alarm and the DVR had aged and were not up to the task of a 6½ hour outage, even with minimal loads. The DVR, which had about 25 entries in its programming schedule, had lost them all. (Many of those entries are because the same show is being broadcast at different times each week, a very annoying network habit. We like to record during the repeats, mostly, and they are not constrained to a rational schedule like the first broadcasts are.)
Two new, larger UPS units are on order, as well as a larger replacement battery for inside the alarm system panel.
+1
The good news first. WOW gave everybody a free download speed bump; we went from 8Mbps (megabits per second) to 15, and it's really there:
-1
A couple of Mondays ago we recorded Eureka, on the SyFy channel. However, WOW had its channels mixed up, and the first 37 minutes or so of the recording was the Animal Planet channel, not SyFy. There wasn't much use in keeping only the last 21 minutes of the Eureka episode, so we deleted it. I double-checked the recording settings and the channel assignments, and I'm convinced WOW had its "wires crossed" for some unknown length of time -- but at least 37 minutes.Derecho
We were in the path of the "super derecho" that swept from Indiana to the East Coast on June 29th. Our electrical power was knocked out for about 6½ hours, but when it came back, we were pleasantly surprised to see our service from WOW still up and running. We got to bed well after midnight, and when we arose at 7am, the cable was out. No Internet or TV. WOW's backup batteries/generators weren't designed for a prolonged power outage at their various distribution points, and although our house had power, obviously much of WOW did not.
The cable came back early Tuesday, after about 3 days of outage. We were ecstatic, prematurely. Over the next couple of days the cable service would be up for several hours and then down for several hours as both the electrical company (AEP) and WOW worked on their respective networks. But it's been up for 48 hours now, and we've still got the 15Mbps service.
That wasn't the only effect of the derecho. We also discovered that our battery backups (UPS, or universal power supply) for the house alarm and the DVR had aged and were not up to the task of a 6½ hour outage, even with minimal loads. The DVR, which had about 25 entries in its programming schedule, had lost them all. (Many of those entries are because the same show is being broadcast at different times each week, a very annoying network habit. We like to record during the repeats, mostly, and they are not constrained to a rational schedule like the first broadcasts are.)
Two new, larger UPS units are on order, as well as a larger replacement battery for inside the alarm system panel.