DC Cherry Blossoms 2015

2015-04-30.

Continuing an unbroken string of annual DC cherry blossom photos, we ventured down to the Tidal Basin for peak bloom on April 11th. Mostly I just used my NEX3’s fisheye lens attachment, occasionally detaching it to use the wide angle pancake lens.

Selfie sticks abounded amongst the crowd, such as this one that peeked out from behind a tree trunk.

The Washington Monument, finally out of its post-earthquake scaffolding.

The Marine One chopper (no president on board) flew by and I managed to get a nice picture of it through the blossoms.

Some equestrian park police also rode by.

Really a perfect weekend for some hanami.

A few days later I returned to the Tidal Basin over lunch break, this time with my new Google Glass to see the post-peak blossoms.

Pink was giving way to green in the canopy and petals rained down on the grass below. Still beautiful, and I was glad for the second opportunity to see the blossoms.

Someone lost a hat.

Full photoset for DC Cherry Blossoms 2015 here.

Google Glass: Redux

2015-04-29.

My Google Glass suffered some damage over Thanksgiving, snapping at a weak point in the frame despite my taking pains to keep it from stress and bending.

I thought that was the end for my Glass experience, but their excellent customer support quickly replaced the unit with an upgraded Glass XE-C. It was a marked improvement over the previous version: better battery life, more RAM, more responsive UI and less prone to overheating and crashing.

Continue reading Google Glass: Redux

Snows of March

2015-03-31.

“In like a lion, out like a lamb,” they say, but mostly March was in and out like a bunch of snow.

Ebola

2015-03-30.

My reading backlog included a bunch of links about Ebola from late last year, but the panicked craze of media coverage died down long before I was done with all these articles.

Lady just chilling at Dulles in her homemade Hazmat suit pic.twitter.com/Ljlny8t4pr

— Joe Henchman (@jdhenchman) October 15, 2014

The Nib: Ebola, A User’s Guide

One Powerful Illustration Shows Exactly What’s Wrong With How the West Talks About Ebola

MetaFilter: Perhaps the 4 most intelligent things you can read about Ebola today.

Inside the Ebola Wars

Diary: Ebola — by Paul Farmer. “Ebola is more a symptom of a weak healthcare system than anything else.”

Life After Death: NPR interactive presentation on how Ebola affected the village of Barkedu, Liberia.

An Ebola Doctor’s Return from the Edge of Death

Maternal health: Ebola’s lasting legacy

After November, when it became evident that Ebola was not going to overrun the US and political fortunes were suddenly less dependent on public panic, the coverage simmered down, and other health issues became the focus of the media hype machine.

Our thoughts are also with the measles-ravaged country America. I hope we are screening them before they come to Africa.

— Elnathan John (@elnathan) February 1, 2015

Three Belief Stories

2015-03-18.

Three narratives of faith that recently caught my attention:

On Fear and Identity. I like Jason’s unique visualization of “Christ lighting the city” as a response to spiritual despair, a redemptive journey geographically superimposed over one’s soul, something akin to prayer-walking.

I Used to Believe Better. From Aaron J. Smith, aka “Cultural Savage.” This is where I’ve often found myself, wondering how I ended up in a nominal state of jaded doubt — I recover daily, but it’s much harder for someone with depression to deal with the climb out of that pit.

Why I’m Coming Out as a Christian. From Ana Marie Cox, once founder of Wonkette. She’s not so much concerned with the predictable reactions of nonbelievers as with the outrage of fellow Christians who cannot countenance that a snarky liberal woman could be a sister in Christ. As a fellow liberal Protestant egalitarian, I countenance this wholeheartedly.

RadioShack Bankruptcy

2015-02-28.

Shortly after RadioShack filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection, stores near us closed down and emptied out.

Good time to read Jon Bois’s stories on working for RadioShack through the course of its decline:

Older article of interest from a former employee: 6 Confessions Of A Former RadioShack Employee (2008) — and a Reddit “Ask Me Anything” thread by an employee as of three months ago.

Leonard Nimoy, 1931-2015

2015-02-27.

Leonard Nimoy has died.

When I was an introverted and emotionally befuddled third-culture kid who struggled daily with feelings of isolation and alienation while growing up, Star Trek and Leonard Nimoy’s Spock reached me in my confused youth, in ways that gave me comfort, confidence, and hope that I had a place in the world — a place that would involve space, science, and computers. I’m me today because of that, and today is the future in part thanks to him.

Goodbye, Leonard Nimoy, and live long and prosper.

Snows of February

2015-02-26.

February delivered some good snow towards the end of a mostly uneventful winter; still nowhere as close to previous February snowmageddons and snowpocalypses, but enough to close schools for a few days and make the general landscape look mildly Arctic.

Walking around DC on a Sunday morning after the snowstorm was especially fun since most businesses didn’t bother to shovel or treat their sidewalks till later in the day.

And here’s a snowy selfie.

(Yes, I know, I need a haircut, but while it’s still cold I don’t mind looking like a disheveled hippie if the extra layer of hair keeps me warm.)

Pictures of the Sky

2015-02-01.

On our flights between O’Hare and Narita I’d hoped to get something like Alessandro Merga’s view of the Milky Way, but my plane window long exposures turned out sadly less impressive. I did catch some faint auroras on the westbound flight, though.

The night sky in Puerto Galera, Philippines was mostly cloudy, but the one clear night we had made for some good star photography, stymied just a bit by a full moon and bright resort lights.

On January 10th I was able to capture Comet Lovejoy (C/2014 Q2), visible as a fuzzy green smear just barely shining through DC area light pollution.

A week later I captured Venus and Mercury in the winter twilight. I’d never actually seen the planet Mercury before; it was much fainter than I had expected.

All photos shot with a first-gen Sony NEX3.

2014 in Review

2015-01-31.

Most notable thing about last year was @PicPedant, my half-humorous Twitter image-debunking account which somehow got so popular that I made the news.

My grandmother died.

I got a Google Glass.

Travel-wise, I went to Florida to visit the Space Coast and hang out in Orlando with my parents. We went to Las Vegas and the Grand Canyon. Visited Chincoteague, twice. Visited Shenandoah, twice. Rode coasters at Hersheypark and Kings Dominion. We finally got to see the Fairfax Museum and Visitor Center, which we’d been meaning to do since we moved out to the county in 2009. At the end of the year we went to the Philippines to spend the holidays with my family.

In space, ESA’s Philae landed on a comet, EFT-1 launched and returned successfully, Virgin Galactic’s SpaceshipTwo was destroyed, killing a pilot, and Orbital’s Antares blew up, losing an ISS cargo capsule.

Work has been sending me to NASA HQ a lot; I take photos.

Best selfie of 2014:

(You know, when I wrote 2009 in Review, I said I would start cleaning up and backtagging old entries. Six years later, I still haven’t. Sorry.)

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