Categories
Category: Photography
Categories
Pack of pictures and other stuff
I’ve put together a package of photos I’ve taken earlier this year. They include photos of places around town, flowers, chimps, and other critters. This is the package of photos I’m currently using for my screen saver, so I thought I’d put it online. I don’t guarantee you’ll like any of the pictures, but if you don’t, the most it will cost you is the download time. Note, the file is 17.3MB so I hope you have broadband. If you want to look at the photos online, they’re all at MissouriGreen.
I’m in the process of butting into the HTML5 effort in regards to RDFa. You can read the history of this effort at the HTML WG list. I’m taking the HTML5 editor, Ian Hickson’s, use cases, his original raw material, and mapping the two. I’m also adding in my own use cases. In the effort to make the use cases “implementation free”, I think that the detail and the complexity of the original use cases were reduced too drastically. You can see what I mean by my first use case, and will have the same for the others by Monday.
Will this make a difference? I haven’t a clue. Probably not. I’m sure that neither the HTML5 group, nor the RDFa group, appreciate my particular style of “contributing”, but I decided to follow Sam Ruby’s advice to “put up or shut up” when it comes to HTML5. I’m just going to put up or shut up in my way.
In the meantime, I need to return to my book, which also means that I will be tearing apart my sites as part of my research. I don’t expect to be twittering much, or writing to the weblog, either, in the next few months. I need to focus on the book, and other writing/work for income. I’m also really burned out and very tired, and feeling under the weather lately, and have a need to disconnect from the social hive. Emails always welcome, but I just don’t feel like “broadcasting”.
If you do access any one of the sites at any point in time and find them either not working, or working oddly, no worries, this is just me experimenting, researching, documenting, and writing. Hopefully by the time my book is done, I’ll be more up for writing to my web sites, and they’ll be all settled down and behaving.
If you do follow along with my RDFa use case efforts, I hope you’ll make comments at the HTML WG, as that’s the appropriate place to have a discussion. However, I will also open up comments for a week, in case you just want to make more casual remarks here. Or you can just ignore the whole thing, which is also a good option.
Categories
Photo backups and hard drives
First my car, now my computer— I am not having the best of luck with working stuff lately. The verdict at the Genius Bar on my Powerbook is that the hard drive is toast.
No, I don’t really believe that Firefox caused my hard drive to fail. I don’t think any browser can cause a hard drive to fail; no, not even IE. However, the browser definitely gave the hard drive the coup de grâce.
Now the question is, what did I lose? Luckily I’m good at backing stuff up. I didn’t back up all my recent music purchases, but I get music from Amazon, which I can download again, so no loss.
I have some eBooks I’ll have to see about finding again. Some were free for a limited time, but I believe are backed up on one of my external drives. I lost all my email since I use a client-based email reader, but you know, old email is like old bread–you always think you’ll use it, but you never do.
I do all my web development on my server, or my older Powerbook, so nothing lost there. I had finished all my editing and writing work, so didn’t lose any work.
I have to go through the entire process of restoring my Macports installation, which is going to take time. And I have to prepare to argue with Adobe about the Photoshop license. GIMP looks better all the time.
The hard drive failure could have been worst. I had my recent set of photographs on the computer and hadn’t backed them up on external hard drive yet. Among the pictures were the last photos of Muchana, a gorilla at the St. Louis zoo who died last Saturday. However, I had developed a habit of not removing photos from my camera’s memory card, until I had the photos backed up on external hard drive. The photos are still safe on the camera’s card. A hint to the photographers among you.
Categories
Snow Leopard
Categories
The Language of Flowers
Recovered from the Wayback Machine.
Yesterday I took what will most likely be my last photographs of the annual orchid show at the Missouri Botanical Gardens. Though the flowers still charm, trying to focus all my attention through the lens while simultaneously avoid stepping on an elderly man, or rambunctious child, has proven too much and I decided yesterday the pictures taken will be my last.
The Missouri Botanical Gardens is celebrating its 150 year anniversary, and the show is focused on the Garden, itself, rather than on some whimsical tale or story. I think better of the show for returning focus to the Gardens, and for its simple and elegant design. In particular, I liked the foyer decoration this year, with its emphasis on Victorian and turn of the century gardens and flowers, centered on a collection of tussie mussies and an antique book the Garden people pulled out for inclusion in the show: the handmade booklet titled, “The Language of the Flowers”, given as a gift from husband to wife. The front of the book contains a lovely little poem, perfect for Valentine’s Day
There is a language ‘little known,’
Lovers claim it as their own.Its symbols smile upon the land,
Wrought by nature’s wondrous hand;And in their silent beauty speak,
Of life and joy, to those who seek.For Love Divine and sunny hours
In the language of the flowers.
Though the sophisticate may find the poem overly simple, he or she may change their mind when they look at the book where the poem is contained, and at the page after page of flower names and their meaning, all written out in the gift giver’s best copperplate, and each hand decorated.
The language of flowers had its roots throughout history, but in Victorian times, flowers and their meanings formed a new language, a secret form of communication between friends, lovers, and would be lovers. One could not say, “I love you” to a maiden, but one could imply his love with a gift of red roses. Whether the rose had its thorns or not provided a separate message, as did the number of petals and leaves. Gentlemen would send entire bouquets of different flowers, all combined to create a complex message, and a favorite parlor game was trying to decipher the message so given. What an elegant form of communication.
In the language of the flowers, an orchid means beauty and refinement, so my gift of beauty and refinement for you.
