Donut toss anyone? Homer chalks up a big one.

Mother England is making headlines these days: first the Hadley v. Baxendale news, and now this: BBC reports the mysterious appearance of a giant Homer Simpson painted on a hill above Cerne Abbas, in Dorset, England, to promote the new Simpsons movie.

Gracing the field next to Homer, of course, is the famous naked, chalk, Cerne Abbas giant.

Joint Wessex district manager of The Pagan Federation Ann Bryn-Evans quite ironically commented: “I’m amazed they got permission to do something so ridiculous. It’s an area of scientific interest.” In apparent contradictory spirit, she added, “We’ll be doing some rain magic to bring the rain and wash it away.”

Lime out

Thanks to BadArchaeology.

The Wonders of Google Earth

These are indeed different times we live in. The digital age means that as never before, information is at our fingertips. At the same time, the quantity of information available online means that protecting privacy is more difficult than ever, even if you are the government of the People’s Republic of China.

Images taken by a commercial satellite and available via Google Earth show China’s new strategic ballistic missile submarine, the Jin-class, at dock in northeastern China. The detail is good enough to reconstruct the layout of the sub in some detail.

If you want to look for yourself, enter the coordinates 38° 49′ 4.40″ N, 121° 29′ 39.82″ E.

Flickrvision and the Internet Map Craze

I’ve just discovered Flickrvision, a very entertaining new web app created by web developer David Troy.  It’s a running “stream” of photos in near real-time as they’re being posted to Flickr, superimposed on a map of the Earth, showing you where the pictures originate.  The site’s simply intriguing, and showcases the power of the internet.  Take a look.

An article over at PBS.org also details just how broad this new internet mapping craze has gone, from the now taken-for-granted mapping technology in Google Maps and Windows Live Earth that enables users to immediately map and find the closest sushi bars, to Google Street View (allowing you to navigate city streets in 3D, as if you’re walking down the street), to sites that allow the addition of user-selected and statistical data to manipulable maps like Geocommons and Swivel, to the social-networking sites like Flickr.  Check out the PBS article here.

Lime

Haute Cuisine in Madrid, Spain: Restaurante "NEBRASKA”

Funny of the day: a dear friend of mine is traveling, on business, through Spain. He came upon not one, not two, but three restaurants called “Nebraska” in Madrid, Spain. One of them is depicted above.

Is that not exceedingly odd?

At least they got the red right.

Lime out

GiSTEQ PhotoTracker / GPS Phototagger: $99

If you, like me, take tons of pictures, and wish you could automatically record the location of each picture taken, this might just be the solution. GiSTEQ is introducing the $99 PhotoTracker, about the size of a key fob, which you manually sync with your camera’s internal clock, toss in your camera bag or pocket, and off you go to shoot pictures. When done, GiSTEQ’s included software automatically tags your photos with a “geotag” indicating the location of each picture.

Of course, this allows spiffy Google Maps custom clickable maps of your photos and where they were taken.

Prognosis: reasonable price, good solution if your camera doesn’t have built-in geotagging (typically only more expensive cameras have this option).

The GiSTEQ PhotoTracker may ordered at the $99.99 sale price here (regular price apparently $129.99).

Lime

Afghan child

Afghan Child

Originally uploaded by H Lime.

The image of this child has long haunted me. He was, essentially, living on the steps of the King’s Tomb in Kabul, Afghanistan. This seemed to be his home and his bed. There was snow on the ground, and on the high ground of the hill where the Tomb is, it was windy and cold. He was the one placid child on the hill, sitting alone and silent on his bed–multiple other Afghan children wearing trays of candy hung around their necks were running after and haranguing us, competing for $2.00 US, indeed shoving and pushing the candy in our faces to win our money.

Lime

Trompe d’Oeil: Exhibit I

Transparent Screen – felipemusica on Flickr – Photo Sharing!

Almost forgot to share one with you.

technorati tags:Photography

Trompe d’Oeil LCD Monitors?

w00kie’s slideshow on Flickr

Take a look. A little more than pure pabulum, I’d say it qualifies as “cool beans.”

Out.

Lime

technorati tags:Photography

Vista screens?

S!lk

Originally uploaded by | HD |.

The fellow who shot the beautiful backdrops for Windows Vista has made his OTHER photos available on Flickr. Check’em out. Word is that he’ll be making large sized (appropriate for, yes, desktop backgrounds) versions available in the very near future.