Hypnotic Photography Technique

It's not often that I simply post a picture to this blog - nor was it ever my intention - but this one deserves exception. It's a shot of Manhatten taken from the Empire State Building, its vivid, mesmorizing colours the result of a technique called high dynamic range imaging (HDRI).


For more examples of HDRI images, check out Flickr's HDR Pool, which has hundreds of HDR images and guidance on HDR resources, software and more. And if you like the pic above, you should DIGG it (that's where I came across it).

Rae Bankrolls Political Foes

At least, you'd be forgiven for thinking so based on recent news media reports on Canadian Liberal leadership candidate Bob Rae's donating habits. Said media - across the political spectrum - reported this week on Elections Canada's recently disclosed documents showing Rae made donations to (now political opponents) NDP parliametary candidates as recently as 2005.

But really...

...what the documents show is that Rae donated the princely sum of $550 to two NDP candidates in the last federal election, on top of donations he made to several Liberal candidates, including interim Opposition Leader Bill Graham, and even (in a previous campaign) then PC leadership candidate Hugh Segal.

So - in the words of Michael Krauss - I think the question you've got to be asking yourself is; is this a blatent example of Rae's opportunistic motivess, and lack of consistency and solidarity towards the party he is vying to lead, or is it a lifelong politician maintaining a sense of loyalty and support for colleagues he's worked with and admired throughout his career?

Comments and debate would be really, really welcome.

Johhny Canuck action figures hitting store shelves?

Last month in a blog posting called HELP WANTED, I shared some thoughts on ways I thought the Canadian armed forces could ramp up the magnitude and effectiveness of its recruiting efforts. One of those ways was to look at what the U.S. Army did in creating an online game called America's Army.

On Friday the Associated Press reported the U.S. Army is taking it one step further with the introduction of $10 Army action figures to hit store shelves by this Christmas season. Excerpts from the article include:

“We're trying to put a face on soldiers so that kids can relate to them,” said Col. Casey Wardynski, director of the America's Army project. “It's hard to relate to a big green machine. This is a chance to get to know some of them who have done really outstanding things.”

The program comes after the Army fell short on recruiting last year, the first time since 1999. As of last month, the active-duty Army had signed up 72,997 new soldiers, nearly 3,000 above its year-to-date target. The Army National Guard was about 200 below its target of 63,240, while the Army Reserve was almost 2,000 below its year-to-date target of 33,124.

Wardynski said the Army spends about $2.5-million annually on the free PC game, a first-person shooter in which players go through a simulated boot camp or team up with other real players on-line in three-dimensional battles. About 27 million copies of the taxpayer-funded game have been distributed since its July 4, 2002, debut, and there are about 7.5 million registered users.

For the full story visit Likeness of real soldiers added to America's Army on the Globe and Mail's web site. Again, not a bad idea to look south of the border for some guidance on this one.

TV viewers provide telltale signs of tragedy

I caught the news of the tragedy at Montreal's Dawson College yesterday at a convenience store on Queen Street where half a dozen customers had surrounded and were glued to one of the store's two television sets. Between September 11, last year's London Bombings, the most recent war in the Middle East and others, this scene of strangers staring together in awe at live, unfolding coverage of horrific events in stores and on street corners has become eerily familiar; just by the looks on my fellow customers' faces and the way they stopped dead in their tracks to watch the news unfold, I knew instantly I was about to learn of another terrorist attack, genocide or fatal shooting.

It's an interesting phenomenon borne of - in my view - two main factors. One is certainly - between cell phone cameras and embedded reporting - the news media's ability to deliver details of (all too often) tragic events in almost real time. Spend 5 minutes watching something like Dawson unfold in a convenience store, and you're as up to speed on the tragedy as the people involved - be they victims, soldiers or witnesses.

The other, more telling contributor appears to be (and I hate to use the expression) the "post 9/11" factor. We've all experienced this factor in terms of day to day lifestyle inconveniences - taking our shoes off during airport security screenings, surrenduring our pocket knife keychains going into a baseball game or simply increased police presence at public events - but what's just as profound is how we (North Americans) react to tragedies like Dawson.

In particular, the fact that terrorist attacks and other violent events in recent years are hitting closer and closer to home (not, as Bill Mayer puts it, in a country you can't find on a map) has created a need to stay on top of developing news stories around the clock. For what the Taliban and Al Queda have taught us in recent years is that, no matter in what Baltic or Middle Eastern state an attack or conflict might be right now, the next one could down the block.

What we've also done is sought comfort in in numbers as we watch tragedies unfold. Watching horrible events on CNN or CBC with our families, friends, co-workers or even strangers in a convenience store has become a more common occurence. It's become that telltale sign I mentioned earlier as we wait to see if the latest tragedy will be the Kennedy assassination of our generation, where decades from now we'll be able to recount exactly where we were and with whom.

Why this change in behaviour? There are probably a hundred explanations, equally valid. My simple answer is that we're cutting our teeth on living in a vulnerable world. For 150 years(Pearl Harbour aside) North Americans have had the luxury of living in a world that's been insulated from the bloodbaths and destruction that have rocked other civilizations throughout history. But as anyone who has lived in Northern Ireland, Romania or Israel can attest, constant vulnerability appears to be an unfortunate reality in any longstanding nation. The simple truth may be that North America is just growing up.

Another great free resource...and it works!

Converting documents to PDF can make many people's jobs much easier, but the $349.00 price tag for Adobe Acrobat - or even $99/year for the online subscription service - can seem steep, particularly for SOHO or small business owners.

Thanks to the wonders of open-source software (although I'm still not sure how the revenue model works) software development kit company BCL Technologies offers the same functionality of Adobe's online service for free. Better yet, it works like a charm. To use the service,

1. Go to www.pdfonline.com
2. Select the file you want to convert to .pdf
3. Create a new file name
4. Enter your email address

Within 5 minutes you'll get an email with your .pdf attached. If you don't want to use the email or online service, for $14.99 BCL also offers an easyPDF Driver so you can print documents directly to .pdf on your desktop.

Test Your Site on 30 Different Browsers: a great, free resource...if it worked.

"See how your site looks in various versions of Firefox, Internet Explorer, Safari, Netscape, Mozilla, Firebird, Dillo, Opera, Seamonkey, K-Meleon, Konquerer and more. Counted a total of 30 setups between Linux, Mac, and Windows. Also configurable to see your site in different resolutions,". say the owners of Browsershots.org.

It's really a great idea, a simple and obvious step that surprisingly, many firms unfortunately overlook. Having a 15" monitor on my laptop, it's quite clear to me when a company has failed to test their websites on different monitors, browers or resolutions. Now that I've got a Treo (awesome...maybe my first product review to come), I can easily see how resolution/browser issues are only magnified with the proliferation of Palms and Blackberries (which, at least based on some of my colleagues, is the primary means of online interaction for some).

Unfortunately, after half a dozen attempts ; twice I got an erroneous error (telling me to add something that was already in the URL I typed), and the other few times I encountered an "internal traceback" error. Still, if the service actually does what it says it does, I'm going to give it a few more chances and hope the bugs get worked out.

read more digg story

Quebec to oversee nationwide driver training?

At a campaign stop in Montreal last month, Michael Ignatieff spoke of his "ferocious passion" for Quebec because of the second chance at life the province gave his family when they arrived as Russian refugees in 1928. While I can't tell as moving a story, I definitely have what I'd call a ferouciuos passion for many things Quebecois. Apart from my wife, her family, the culture, scenery, poutine, cretons, history, Mordecai Richler and the many other things the province has given me, one of the things I appreciate the most is its appreciation for driving etiquette.

Yes, tailgating may be the province's unofficial provincial sport, and yes I do feel a bit morally superior knowing how to make a right hand turn on a red light, but Quebeckers respect the left hand passing lane like no other in the continent. On virtually any autoroute - rush hour aside - the left hand lane is almost always empty as far as the eye can see, except for cars moving out to pass before getting right back into the right hand lane.

I make the drive from Toronto to my wife's family's cottage in the Eastern Townships half a dozen times a year, and each time it's the same. As soon as I cross into Quebec, traffic speeds up and people move to the right...my blood pressure lowers and I also relax my grip on the wheel. Going back - without even looking at the road signs or familiary scenery - I can tell the instant we're back in Ontario because of the almost magnetic pull of every other car to the left hand lane, where they happily cruise at 110 km/hr while my grip tightens and blood boils.

The concept of the left hand passing lane works, and it's there for a reason. It fosters a smoother flow of traffic, reduces fuel consumption from slowing down and speeding up, and it eliminates the need for deadly weaving and right hand passing (I'm a civil engineer...I know this stuff!!). They teach you that in driving school, and signs are posted on highways throughout the country, so why are Quebeckers the only ones who get it???

Every time I make the drive - in addition to the rise/drop in blood pressure - I'm reminded of one of the funniest listener calls into a radio station I've ever heard. It was about 3-5 years ago on Q107 and it involved two callers. They were both voicemails that went something like this:

Caller 1: Hi, I'm on the 401 right now stuck behind a stream of cars going 90 in the left lane and I'm calling to ask...am I the only (explitive) guy on the road who knows that the left hand lane is for passing??

Caller 2: Hi, I'm calling to respond to the guy who asked if he's the only one on the road that knows the left hand lane is for passing. No he's not...I'm the other one!!

Maybe you had to be there, but as the third (non-Quebecker) guy who apparently knows this, I get a kick out of the banter every time I think of it.