pinciuc.com / v2.1

contact login

Go

Ramblings and Diversions

Google Maps "Street View"

Google has added another new feature to its Maps application: Street View. In five U.S. cities (New York, Miami, San Francisco, Las Vegas, and Denver) you can now switch to a street-level panoramic photo view of wherever you click on the map. Very impressive.

My guess is that they roof-mounted eight (judging by the seams in the panoramas) digital cameras in a circular formation on a vehicle and drove the streets (nearly all of them!). They trigger the shutters in the camera array every ten meters or so (perhaps the array is linked to the vehicle's odometer or wheel somehow to ensure even spacing). Of course, since the field of view of the lens is known, a computer can stitch the resulting image sets into 360 degree panoramas automatically, and via GPS coordinates (stored at the time of shutter release), can place the panoramas on the map. Voila!

I thought it wise to check in on the folks who created this new function down in sunny Mountain View, California and what do you know, it seems they've planted a little easter egg for us: the joyous geeks can be found posing on the lawn in front of the Googleplex carrying an odd assortment of shovels, rakes, flags, balloons and more.

» 4 Jun 2007, 3:16pm - 0 comments

• The history of the personal computer in TV commercials [0]

• 1976 by RJD2 and leftchannel - Great parallax animation made from photographs taken in Cuba to "capture the flair of the Latin influence in the song '1976' by RJD2" [0]

On copy protection

Being that I work in the music industry, that I'm a developer by trade and a hobbyist photographer, I certainly can understand why companies and individuals want to protect their intellectual property. However, I am also a consumer, and I'm putting it mildly when I say that it drives me crazy when I can't use a product that I legitimately purchased at a store because of the copy protection technology on the disc.

The most recent incident is my experience with the new PC game Neverwinter Nights 2, a role-playing game from Obsidian and published by Atari. I cannot play the game on my PC. I installed it, entered the CD key, updated it to the latest version with the built-in patch tool, but it just won't run. The game contains copy protection software by SecuROM that attempts to verify that an original installation disc is in the drive when you launch the game. My disc is in the drive, but the program tells me that "An original disc cannot be found or authenticated."

I've been emailing the SecuROM technical support people, who've had me install a new .exe (executable file) in the program directory. Same problem. Their latest email says that I'm trying to use the game from a "backup disc"--right! I am using the original installation disc that I purchased. Backup discs are for pirates... arrr!

This is almost as bad as the Oasis CD that I can't play in my car stereo because it has copy-protection technology on it, and my car stereo is a CD-ROM-based device from Clarion that can play MP3s burned onto CD-R.

Copy protection sucks. Why does it seem that copy protection only hurts the people who actually buy the disc? Pirates always find a way around it, and they can use copied discs to their heart's content, but people who actually pay for it with their hard-earned money get screwed.

» 30 Nov 2006, 12:14pm - 1 comment

• Tacos-for-life for a PlayStation 3 - Okay, last one... I couldn't resist posting this little pepita of humour! "...the Taco Bell fastfood chain is offering a lifetime of tacos in exchange for a PlayStation 3." [0]

• Playstation 3 Rush: Police Use Force, Witnesses Say - What is wrong with the world when police have to use batons to control a crowd of overzealous PS3 buyers? [2]

• Attempted PS3 smash-n-grab; selling lineup spots - The madness continues... "everyone at the Alpharetta Best Buy has come together, vowing to make sure nothing else disturbs their night. Many of them are now armed with bats". And from the same article, "One guy had just sold his spot (in line) for $1000 cash". [0]

• Sony Playstation 3 sells for over $15K on eBay - The opening-day buying craze for game consoles just boggles my mind. [0]

Last batch of photos from Newfoundland

Finally! I've finished processing the last photos from Newfoundland. This batch consists of 20 photos from our boat cruise on Western Brook Pond. The "pond" is actually a landlocked fjord, 30km in length and perhaps a few kilometres wide at the mouth, with 2000' cliffs of four billion year-old granite (Consider that Earth itself is "only" 10 billion years old). Pretty amazing stuff. It's no wonder Gros Morne is a UNESCO World Heritage site. The cruise is a must do for anyone visiting the park.

I've been working on some new techniques for processing my photos, especially black and white conversions. I'm applying a more liberal amount of dodging and burning, maintaing the full scale of luminances but trying to add more drama and emphasis to match what I originally felt when I made the photo. There will be a few more galleries posted over the next couple weeks where I hope to display some of the results. Please feel free to comment on anything you like or dislike!

» 10 Oct 2006, 11:47am - 1 comment