Playing For Change Website - the Movement to help build schools, connect students, and inspire communities in need through music.
Posted May 23, 2009
Playing for Change
Playing For Change | Song Around The World "Stand By Me" Concord Music Group on Vimeo Playing For Change Website - the Movement to help build schools, connect students, and inspire communities in need through music.
Posted April 9, 2009
What a Wonderful World
Posted March 28, 2009
Digital Photography in the RAW
I have been experimenting with the RAW format from my camera. Here's
the one of my recent butterfly pictures, taken in the Nikon NEF file
format:
There were a lot of butterflies out on a recent afternoon and the sunlight
was so nice I decided to experiment with a few things. I used my new
prime lens, a Nikkor 50mm/F1.8, and shot in RAW mode for the first time.
I use ThumbsPlus as an organizer on my desktop and I remembered that it
supports several RAW formats now.
I have also started using
GIMP 2.4.6 recently and discovered a great,
open-source plug-in for processing RAW images. It is called
Unidentified
Flying Raw (UFRaw) and it can also be used stand-alone. The RAW
files (.NEF in the Nikon world) were really sharp and interesting to
work with, either directly in UFRaw or once I got them into GIMP.
I have a basic understanding of the RAW format, but
this article from
The Luminous Landscape explained it very well, I thought. My camera
records a JPEG along with the RAW file, which is a very convenient
feature. Since the RAW file records all the camera settings
(WB, saturation, sharpness, tonal curves, etc.) that were set when you
shot the picture but does not apply them to the image, you have complete
control over all of that in the RAW postprocessing software. I'm just
starting to learn about RAW file manipulation, and the UFRaw plug-in for GIMP seems to do a pretty
good job, particularly for the price! Now, I have also just discovered
that I need to learn to read
histograms , too! So little to learn and so
much time!
Check out more photography sites and resources from
Marietta Wood Works Photography Links .
Posted October 24, 2008
Brighton, Michigan Pilot on Cloud Nine After Reunion
Taylorcraft BC-12D, tail number N43683, has a special place in Bill
McConnell's life. On July 17, 1947, at the age of seventeen, McConnell
received his private pilot's license in that plane and took off on a
lifelong flying career. At eighteen, he became a paratrooper and later a
First Lieutenant in the U.S. Air Force. After achieving his commercial,
instrument and ATP tickets, McConnell became a commercial airline pilot
for American Airlines.
On July 17, 2008, McConnell commemorated the sixty-first anniversary
of receiving his private pilot's license with a ten minute flight from
Brighton Field in Taylorcraft N43863 with Dave Hubbard, the plane's
current owner. An avid General Aviation pilot in his spare time,
McConnell always has a plane or four in the hanger and continues aloft
today.
Click here to read the entire article,
reprinted courtesy of the Livingston County Daily Press & Argus,
and see more pictures of Bill and the airplane in which he started his
long and distinguished flying career.
Posted September 7, 2008
Solution to Fossil Fuel Depletion Problem
I don't know why no one has thought of this simple, five step
solution to the looming fossil fuel depletion problem facing the world .
It's simple, sustainable and I'm going to share it with the entire world
right here, right now ... for free.
Gather up all plant and animal matter currently living on the earth
and in the oceans.
Bury it all between 7,500 and 15,000 feet underground,
preferably beneath an ocean.
Wait 300 to 400 million years.
Drill down to it and pump it all back out of the ground.
Repeat.
Follow these five simple steps and we will have a never-ending series
of 150 year
supplies of cheap, abundant fossil fuel.
Copyright © 2007 Jason
Skinner
Posted June 5, 2008
Ad Astra Special Report - Space-Based Solar PowerAd Astra ("to the stars"), the award winning magazine of the
National Space Society
(NSS) , has recently published a special report covering space-based
solar power (SBSP). This richly illustrated special report explains the
technologies behind SBSP in an easy to understand way. Included is a
fascinating conversation with Dr. Pete Glaser, now 84 and considered the
father of the space-based solar power concept.
A large portion of the special report details the efforts of the
Space-Based Solar Power Study Group who, in conjunction with the
National Space
Security Office (NSSO) , published
Space-Based Solar Power As an Opportunity for Strategic Security - Phase
0 Architecture Feasibility Study in October of 2007.
This special report includes the following five articles which
discuss the potential for space-based solar power, with looks at its
history, its current strategic importance and ways forward to make it a
reality.
ENERGY FROM ORBIT - John C. Mankins
AN ENERGY PIONEER LOOKS BACK - William
Ledbetter
STRATEGIC IMPORTANCE - Space-Based Solar Power Study Group
A NEW COALITION - Arthur Smith
ON THE MOON - Al Globus
Related Links
Posted April 27, 2008
Dr. Randy Pausch - Husband, Father, Professor ... and One Brave Guy
Dr. Randy Pausch, 47, is a Professor of Computer Science at Carnegie
Mellon University in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. In September 2006, he was
diagnosed with metastatic pancreatic cancer. He has pursued very
aggressive treatment but in August of 2007 he was told that the cancer
had metastasized to his liver and spleen. The doctors gave him three to
six months to live.
In September, Pausch said goodbye to his students and the Pittsburgh
college with one last lecture called "How to Live Your Childhood
Dreams," on his life's journey and the lessons he's learned along the
way. Now referred to as his "Last Lecture", Pausch has attracted the
attention of the world with his amazingly positive outlook in the face
of a nearly certain death sentence. The only part of his ordeal that he
will characterize as "unfair" is that his wife and three young children
will have to go on without him.
Listen to Dr. Randy Pausch in the video below (and watch him do some
one-handed pushups). Learn more about this
courageous and inspirational man at the links below the video.
Randy
Pausch's Web Site at Carnegie Mellon University
Randy Pausch's Update page
Randy Pausch - from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
This phenomenal lecture has now been expanded and published in book
form.
The Last Lecture website
Randy Pausch is a Professor of Computer Science,
Human-Computer Interaction, and Design at Carnegie Mellon, where he was
the co-founder of Carnegie Mellon's Entertainment Technology Center
(ETC). He was a National Science Foundation Presidential Young
Investigator and a Lilly Foundation Teaching Fellow. He has done
Sabbaticals at Walt Disney Imagineering and Electronic Arts (EA), and
consulted with Google on user interface design. Dr. Pausch received his
bachelors in Computer Science from Brown University and his Ph.D. in
Computer Science from Carnegie Mellon University. He is the author or
co-author of five books and over 70 articles, is the director of the
Alice (www.alice.org )
software project, and has been in zero-gravity.
Posted April 11, 2008
Sir Arthur C. Clarke : 90 Orbits Around the Sun
I shed a tear as I read the obituary of Sir Arthur C. Clarke yesterday.
He regaled us with science fiction stories based on fantastic ideas of
our future, both on and off the planet. He provided scientific
commentary to us during the exciting days of Apollo moon missions,
alongside Walter Cronkite. And he has given us many scientific ideas
which have become realities like communication satellites,
geosynchronous orbits and the space station. Sir Arthur also recently
lent his support to the Google Lunar X-Prize competition.
When personal computers would barely fit in your living room let
alone on your desk and the Internet was known only to a handful of DARPA
researchers as ARPANET, I read a passage in 2001:A Space Odyssey
that has stuck with me for over 30 years. It wasn't even part of the
story. It was a short note at the end of the book that said "The entire
manuscript for this book was sent from Sri Lanka to my publisher in New
York City on a single 5-1/4 inch floppy disk." At that moment, I
realized that if I one day become a writer, I could live and work from
anywhere in the world. Little did I know what was to come ... but I'll
bet Sir Arthur did.
Sir Arthur C. Clarke left us with three wishes:
"I would like to see some evidence of extra-terrestrial life."
"I would like to see us kick our addiction to oil and adopt clean energy sources."
"I dearly wish to see lasting peace established in Sri Lanka."
He ends his 90th Birthday Reflections video with this quote from
Rudyard Kipling:
The Appeal
If I have given you delight
And for that little, little span
Rudyard Kipling, 1939
Schmap City Maps Widget
Check out this cool widget from Schmap!!
online travel guides. You can switch to many different destinations and
from the map view to the photo view. They licenses photos from Flickr
members and Marietta Wood Works may have a photo included in the next
release of their San Francisco guide!
Support Our Men and Women in Uniform
Let's Say
Thanks by Xerox - send a thank you card
Give2theTroops - donate or send much needed items to the troops
Soldier's Angels
- may no soldier go unloved
United Service
Organizations (USO) - support for the troops
To
Our Soldiers - post a message to our soldiers
The Gratitude Campaign - Learn American Sign Language for "Thank You"
The Moon 2.0: Join the Revolution with the Google Lunar X-Prize .
Arthur C. Clark's Words of Support
Citizens for Space Based
Solar Power (c-sbsp.org) is up and running. Please visit this site
to learn more about Space-Based Solar Power (SBSP) and to get involved
and help get the word out. SBSP has the potential to be an unlimited
source of clean, affordable and environmentally friendly energy. Your
help is needed to convince leaders in government, the private sector and
the media to get the effort organized and seriously under way.
America, Why I Love Her by John Wayne
After September 11, the John Wayne Estate reissued this spoken-word
recording on CD. You can hear samples from all of the tracks in this
great, patriotic collection on
Amazon.com .
The Medical Science Liaison: An A to Z Guide Erin Albert with Cathleen Sass
Long time friend and associate, Cathleen Sass, has co-authored a book
based upon her experiences in healthcare and as a Medical Science
Liaison (MSL). The MSL role was recently reported as one of the best
jobs over six figures for healthcare professionals, yet is relatively
unknown, even to the medical community.
Cathleen Sass, ASRT, MBA, PharmD has over 30 years experience in
healthcare including more than 10 years as a MSL. She has worked for
several pharmaceutical companies, both large and small, in numerous
therapeutic areas.
Click here for more details on this must-have guide to the MSL role
and the opportunity to purchase copies from AuthorHouse™.
Space-Based Solar Power
The idea of space-based solar power (SBSP), the generation of
unlimited electricity from solar power with orbiting collectors and
beaming the energy back to earth for distribution and use, has been
around since 1968. Due to low fossil fuel costs and high
per-payload-pound launch costs at the time, the idea was not financially
feasible. The world has changed significantly since then.
more...
Cead Mile Failte - A Hundred Thousand Welcomes to
