John P.

One Mans Blog

Specialization is for Insects.

Ruins of San Francisco in 1906

George Lawrence used aerial kites to photograph San Francisco after the devastating 1906 earthquake. His photographs appeared in newspapers around the world and generated more than $15,000 for the photographer.

Below is a high resolution GigaPixel scan from the original 4 foot wide photograph. Well, technically it’s only a measly 11,709 x 4,716 resolution - translating to only .55 gigapixels, but we’ll let it slide since this is for posterity’s sake and all that.

For those of you who are unaware, San Francisco experienced a devastating earthquake in 1906 which started fires that burned uncontrollably and essentially destroyed the entire city.
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Gigabit Panoramas of the Golden Gate Bridge

Golden Gate BridgeLast week I was in San Francisco for just one day for a meeting, but I did have time to drive over to Fort Point and take a panorama of the Golden Gate Bridge with my GigaPan.

Now, I’m not really pleased with this Gigapan because I used the wrong camera to take the photo. I was using a Panasonic TZ3, which is a fine little point and shoot digicam, but it lacks some basic manual controls such as manual focus, and a few others, which caused this panorama to not work so well. In addition, I had some of the adjustments off a bit.

Still, having said all that, the image is decently cool. And if you’ve never had the opportunity to see the Golden Gate Bridge in person this is a good way to check it out.
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Lorelle At WordCampThis is the one hour long lecture given by Lorelle VanFossen at the WordCamp 2007 conference in San Francisco, CA two weeks ago on the topic of Kicking Ass Content Connections. In order to put it up in decent quality I had to break it into two parts.

Lorelle gave this lecture from 1pm-2pm on July 21, 2007 at the Swedish American Hall. She went immediately after lunch, and it was a good thing because normally you get that “after lunch” energy lull - but not with Lorelle presenting! As you can see from the video she is a bundle of energy and was by far the biggest challenge for me to keep the camera on.
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MattCutts WordCamp 2007 LectureThis is a video of the one hour long lecture given by Matt Cutts at the WordCamp 2007 conference in San Francisco, CA two weeks ago on the topic of Whitehat SEO tips for Bloggers.

For those not familiar, SEO stands for Search Engine Optimization and this lecture is all about ways to make your Web site rank higher in Google and the other search engines. I’ve also written an article on this topic called Improving Search Engine Rankings over at HTMLHelp.com.

Matt’s presentation is available here, and when I get a chance I’ll try to go back and plug them into the video in the appropriate spots. In the meantime I did manage to get most, if not all, of them on film although they might be a little difficult to read - especially in the low quality versions required by the video hosting sites.
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Larry Wright the Famous Street Drummer

Larry Wright - Street DrummerOnly on the Internet can you get a glimpse of an amazing street drummer without leaving the warmth and comfort of your own home!

So, all the way from New York City, please give it up for Larry Wright, the famous street performer and his 5 gallon paint buckets.
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49 Incredible 3D Motion Photo Panoramas

Eiffel Tower PanoramaWow, Panoramas.dk is one of the greatest sites I’ve ever come across. It features a number of three dimensional panoramas which allow you to virtually look around a given space. This is a technology that can only flourish on the Web since you cannot move around inside a static photograph.

There are virtual reality panoramas of the Eiffel Tower, Carnival in Rio, a Camel Carts in Bikaner India, a human Zoo, an ariel view of Sydney Australia and even the Apollo Moon Landings.

The site can be a little difficult to navigate so I compiled the following list of several I enjoyed.
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NSX in DesertToday began the second leg of my journey from San Francisco back to Dallas. I started in Bakersfield, CA with a destination of Las Vegas. The trip was roughly a five hour journey, not including stops. Incidentally, I’m averaging 24.5 MPG with cruise control mainly set around 77-80 MPH. Not bad for a 170 mile-per-hour supercar.
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The NSX Begins the Journey Home

IMG_0063.JPGToday was a long day, but well worth it. I flew from Big “D” to San Francisco to meet the newest member of the family for the first time, my new NSX. Brandee was kind enough to actually pick me up at the San Jose airport and we had a nice ride back to San Francisco together.

After taking care of business, Brandee said her farewells to her baby, and I took possession. Today was the first time I had ever sat, ridden in, or driven an NSX, so read on for my first impressions…
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One Man Gets a New NSX!

NSXI am pleased to announce that I will soon be picking up my newly acquired 1993 black Acura NSX which I am purchasing from a long time member of the NSX Prime group named Brandee. The car is in San Francisco, but I’ll be meeting Brandee a week from today to pick it up and drive it back to Dallas.

For those of you not intimately familiar with the NSX, don’t worry… most people wouldn’t even be able to tell a Ferrari 308 from a Lamborghini Diablo because all of these cars are handmade in such limited quantities and you rarely see them in person.

So, allow me to take a little time to introduce you to the world’s only Japanese Supercar, the Acura NSX.
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