photography

In December of 2006, Mexico's new President Felipe Calderón declared war on the drug cartels, reversing earlier government passiveness. Since then, the government has made some gains, but at a heavy price - gun battles, assasinations, kidnappings, fights between rival cartels, and reprisals have resulted in over 9,500 deaths since December 2006 - over 5,300 killed last year alone. President Barack Obama recently announced extra agents were being deployed to the border and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton heads to Mexico today to pursue a broad diplomatic agenda - overshadowed now by spiraling drug violence and fears of greater cross-border spillover. Officials on both sides of the border are committed to stopping the violence, and stemming the flow of drugs heading north and guns and cash heading south.

Canon thinks that all photographers only need +-2EV brackets, unless you own one of the very big Canons, and that 30 seconds is also enough. Unfortunately, it isn't enough for some of my night panoramas, and I was looking into ways to fix it (that included pleading to Canon, but we all know how far that goes).

So I decided to build my own long-exposure bracket controller, based on the arduino platform, with an Nokia LCD to actually have an user interface, other than a red button, write my own piece of software and test it last night... I call the gadget "Bracketmeister 0.32″ for now.

So, it's nearly pointless to have scales of 5 stars, 10 stars, or 100 stars, when all you really need is: "Liked it, Didn't Like It, and Neutral".

I completely agree, this is what I do with my Aperture library with all my photos, everything is either 1, 3 or 5 stars, though worthless photos get the X.

Maker Cris Benton takes spectacular aerial photographs by rigging remote-controlled cameras to high flying kites. In the Maker Workshop John Park builds a Burrito Blaster, which can propel a burrito 50 yards, and Mister Jalopy shows off his giant iPod. The Maker Channel features vegetable flutes, cool remote control robots, printer that makes designs on a cafe latte, and a stealthy technique to park anywhere for free!

JPG magazine is going out of business. An experiment in crowdsourcing, and the home of some excellent photos, the magazine and Web site are finished as of Monday, Jan. 5.

Back in June, 2008, Egypt helped broker a 6-month cease-fire agreement between Israel and Hamas, the ruling body in the Gaza Strip. Though the cease-fire was broken several times by both sides, it largely held. Toward the end of the cease-fire in December, Israel, while closing Gaza's borders since November, indicated that it might extend the agreement, if Hamas ceased all Qassam rocket attacks. Qassam rockets are the crude but deadly homemade missiles often launched towards Israeli territory (over 3,000 times in 2008 alone). Hamas leaders, angered by the blockade and seemingly little political headway made over the past 6 months, recently stepped up rocket attacks on Israel once again. Israel has now responded with five days (so far) of air attacks and Naval bombardment on Gaza, resulting in over 350 dead, nearly 1,500 wounded and countless buildings and smugglers' tunnnels destroyed. Hamas has threatened to increase the rocket attacks send suicide bombers into Israel in retaliation, and Israel is massing troops and tanks around Gaza for a possible ground assault.

NASA's space shuttle Endeavour recently returned to the Orbiter Processing Facility (OPF) at NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Florida, after its successful mission to the International Space Station. The shuttle, being a reusable spacecraft, has a cycle of preparation, execution and recovery - Endeavour has been through this cycle 22 times now, since 1992. Here is a look at one full cycle for one space shuttle, starting with the landing of Endeavour from its previous mission (STS-123) on March 26th, and ending with its return to Florida 9 months (and 6.6 million miles) later, after mission STS-126. (31 photos total)

Galaxies, moons, supernovae, planets, nebulae, dust... all of it. The Universe is saturated in beauty, and our technology is starting to catch up with it. We can capture the glowing glamor of the cosmos, and stare in awe and rapture.

Every year, more and more images become available of astronomical objects. And every year I try to pick my favorite ten to post here at the year's end (check out 2007 and 2006). This year, the ten I have chosen have a significant distance bias; they lean toward being very close. But don't fret: they range in distance literally from the closest to the farthest objects we can see.

This list is mine, and has my bias. I choose the pictures for beauty, for scientific interest, for both or for neither. Sometimes they're just cool, and sometimes they are a little frightening, but I hope they all will make you think, and move you in some way. Under most images is a link to embiggen them quite cromulently.

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Why did I pick this one? Because it is direct evidence of humans reaching out to another planet. Not only that, it's taken by another spacecraft we had sent there, a robotic emissary that was already in orbit taking high resolution images of the Red Planet. Showing incredible skill and foresight, the engineers here on Earth told HiRISE where to point, and at the right moment they snapped this proof that our grasp sometimes equals our reach.

I love this picture. It's simple enough, just a few pixels showing the fuzzy shape of the lander and its drogue. If you look carefully, you can see the shroud lines, too, and make out the shape of the parachute. I think that's why this image speaks to me so profoundly: it's not grand, it's not gloriously colored, it's not presupposing, yet the depth of its meaning is colossal.

During a military judicial hearing on Monday in Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, Khalid Shaikh Mohammed and four other detainees charged with coordinating the attacks of September 11th told Judge Col. Stephen Henley that they wished to stop filing legal motions and to confess in full. However, some of the detainees hedged their statement - suggesting they might change their minds if they could not be assured of execution. By January, some of the nearly 250 men at Guantánamo Bay Detention Facility will have been locked up for seven years. Collected here are photos of the multiple detention facilities at Guantánamo Bay - all photographs either reviewed by or released by the U.S. Military. (30 photos total)

As we head into the traditional western Holiday Season, I'd like to present this Hubble Space Telescope imagery Advent Calendar. Every day, for the next 25 days, a new photo will be revealed here from the amazing Hubble Space Telescope. As I take this chance to share these images of our amazing Universe with you, I wish for a Happy Holiday to all those who will celebrate, and for Peace on Earth to everyone

I haven't gotten an advent calendar since I was a teenager, my grandparents used to give me one every year with German writing on the back.