First Attempt Playing with HDR Photography

One thing that has truly amazed me about G+ is some of the incredibly talented photographers that are using the platform as a playground to share their work and view the work of others in their field.  I really can’t aptly describe how awesome some of the work on there is.  In addition to drooling over the work of others, I decided to try to mess with some photos that I took on trips before to see what I could do with my Photoshop Elements.  I’ve heard that while it doesn’t have all the fun toys that the full version of PS does, you can still do some pretty impressive things with it.

Below is the result of my first real sit down of seeing what I could come up with.  No one is going to mistake it for even a first year photography student’s work, but I can’t say I’m totally disappointed with it.  There are still some things I would change, but it’s a start.  And yes, I know it’s not really HDR, but it’s probably as close as I’ll get.

Original

montana_0541

Edited version

montana-0541-hdr
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International Friendly: US 0 – 1 Costa Rica

Typical twenty minute performance from the US tonight, and once again we paid the price.  The a-typical thing about the game was we came out looking like world beaters and then quit, instead of starting slow and then realizing we were playing a game in the 70th minute.  Soooooo frustrating to continue to see us under perform like that.  We’re a better team than them and we need to freaking prove it on the field.  Anyway, it’s hard to make any really good judgments about individual players in games like this, but I’ll share some impressions about what I saw.

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The Coin Coalition vs. Save the Greenback

This post is a perfect example of the random, dumb crap I end up reading about as the result of one question of  curiosity I ask myself.  It also highlights the stupid stuff that gets argued over in Washington–as if we don’t have enough of that these days.

It started with my pondering dollar coins in the US and why they weren’t more popular.  I knew they were available, but it didn’t seem they got any attention beyond novelty.  I ended up at the wikipedia pages for the Coin Coalition and a gropu called Save the Greenback.

The Coin Coalition wants to phase out the use of pennies and dollar bills in favor of increased use of dollar coins.  The group is backed by vending machine companies that want to decrease the maintenance costs associated with the dollar bill slots on the machines.  Save the Greenback, backed by companies that produce the “paper” for dollar bills, obviously wants to continue the use of dollar bills.

Is it just me, or does it seem like this is a stupid thing to have large lobbies and advocacy groups for.  With all of the major problems this country has, this seems so freakin trivial.

For what it’s worth, I agree with the Coin Coalition.  Pennies annoy me and they’re what end up filling my pocket the most, and I’d personally prefer to have dollar coins instead of bills.  Add to that the finding by the GAO in 2000 that full implementation of the dollar coin could save $500 million a year for the government.

So what does this all mean?  Nothing except we devise stupid problems for us to argue over.  That and maybe I’ll start my own little grassroots movement to expand the use of dollar coins in the country.  Oh and most concretely, I find and waste time reading about dumb things when I fall down the wikipedia trap.

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XKCD’s perspective on Google+

If you haven’t heard yet, Google is wading it’s way into the social network scene with Google+.  Find out more about the service here and check out this really cool Wired.com article on how the new venture was born.

Now, I’m totally geeked about G+.  I’m not certain why since I don’t use Facebook near like I used to, but I’m giddy to get an invite (thanks to my brother for continuing to try to hook me up).  I think part of what makes me want to use G+ is that it isn’t Facebook.  No more Farmville or daily horoscope notifications from people is a really nice possibility.

As with many things in life, no one can express this sentiment better than XKCD can.  Yes, they are that freakin’ smart and funny.

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New Liquid Battery Sound Kind of Sweet

I’m a huge proponent of the seeming growing movement away from traditional internal combustion engines in cars toward alternative fuels, particularly electric vehicles.  Like all burgeoning technologies, there are hurdles that have to be overcome to make the tech commercially viable which goes a long way towards making it widely available and accepted.

Researches at MIT may have hit on a discovery that could move us one step closer to electrics being more common than internal combustions.  Apparently, they’ve invented a liquid lithium ion battery that is rechargeable or refillable, much cheaper, and much smaller than traditional EV batteries.  Some of the primary problems with current EVs is that they batteries are too big to make the cars efficient, and recharging the batteries isn’t convenient enough.

I’m sure there are some problems with this new tech as well, which they didn’t highlight, but it sounds like a really cool step in the right direction.

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A Little Insight into the Realities of Sugar

The country seems to be progressively getting fatter.  One thing that often gets blamed for our increasing waistlines is high fructose corn syrup, one of the most commonly used sweeteners in a lot of things these days, particularly soft drinks.  There’s at least one corn growers association out there arguing that corn syrup is essentially the same as cane sugar and other natural sweeteners and is no more harmful on us.

Check out this article from Lifehacker for some pretty straightforward information on the differences between sugar and corn syrup.  When it comes down to it eat glucose, not fructose, and try to eat fiber when you’re eating sugar.  Read the article to understand that last bit.  Pretty cool stuff.

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