Tuesday on the Web

This week's edition of On the Web brings you a final image (from this trip) of NYC street scenes.  I'm very intrigued by the classic night-time street photography of greats like Cartier-Bresson but find my own equipment mostly lacking.  When I upgrade to full-frame, I'm excited about the low-light possibilities.  If I jack up the ISO to get the image, the grain is unbearable.  Below, the valet stand at the Hilton.

On the Web

Non-Newtonian Fluid on a Speaker Cone If you're a regular visitor here, you'll remember the kids running across a pool of muddy water and not sinking in.  Well now we have the same stuff (tons of cornstarch and very little water) atop a speaker.  It does really freaky things - freakier things than you think a puddle of cornstarch water is capable of - growing fingers, jumping around, neat stuff.  Too bad I'm a couple days late for Halloween but you can always get a head start on next year! Are you searching for a unicorn? I was going to save this link for my Sex at Dawn book review, but I think I'll share it now.  The lady's basic jist is that your husband cannot be everything for you.  Your ideal man may be attractive, kind, level-headed, a good cook and a great lover with an even temper, zest for life and great sense of humor.  But likely, your man is a bit off the mark, which is absolutely as it should be. And if sometimes you can't get what you need from your husband, well, that's pretty normal.  That's why we have friends and family and professionals. Mint Data for DC Mint is a website that helps you dynamically track your spending.  You give it access (and it claims to be totally zipped-up, security-wise) to your bank account and credit card transaction information and it aggregates the information to show you your spending patterns.  Well here we've got aggregated data for all users, which makes for some very interesting statistical analysis, one of my favorite things!  The link here will take you straight to data for Washington, DC but you can click around to lots of other cities/categories. How Brains are Boosted by Love and Sex Quoting a quote: "Daydreaming about your sweetheart may boost inventiveness and help you come up with creative ideas, while sexual thoughts could help you solve an analytical puzzle.”  What do you know! Kayak Explore This is a pretty sweet travel tool that I very recently discovered.  You go here, put in where you're traveling from and some other criteria like average temperature (!) and how much you want to spend, and it shows you where you can go.  Neat!
Hilton Manhattan NYC valet stand, b&w

Tuesday on the Web

This past Saturday, I was a model instead of being the photographer.  I could be all coy and say it's not something I enjoy, but that's a lie.  I take too many self-portraits to even pull off the suggestion that I don't like being in front of the lens.  It was just a quick promo shoot for Burke & Herbert Bank's 2011 calendar.  I submitted a photo and it got honorable mention!  I'm not big on landscapes and such (the majority of photos chosen), so this was a pretty cool little accolade.  It would have been awesome to get my own month, but I take my small victories where I can get them. After the very quick snap, I headed back to my car and possibly freaked out a lady photographing this mannequin.  The street was pretty empty and she was standing right in front of this store.  I just stood there and waited for her to move.  It was a bit awkward.

On the Web

Each Tuesday, I post a roundup of the best stuff I saw on the internet that week.  Enjoy! Scale of the Universe This link is amazing.  You must click on it. Guest Blog Wednesday with Jasmine Star Lots of people have lots of opinions about J* (as I've frequently seen her abbreviated in photography forums).  I, for one, think she's amazing.  Every time she gives away important business info like her ideal wedding timeline, my ears perk up. Create a Home Inventory with Amazon Mobile App via Lifehacker A nifty tool for taking on a home inventory.  George and I haven't got much that's worth anything so we've been sloooow to get on a home inventory.  Any little time-saving tip is helpful for tasks you feel only vaguely guilty about not accomplishing. Goodwill's Online Auction Site - look for camera gear PetaPixel reminds us that Goodwill has an auction site too, and they have camera gear.  I didn't find anything that was worth buying but you might!  I'll be back in the future. Deliberately uninformed, relentlessly so [a rant] I don't remember exactly who referred me to Seth Godin, who writes insightful, short blog posts on things like marketing, but he is a fascinating, intelligent guy. You may think you're not interested in marketing, but you will be interested in what Seth has to say. For instance, from this rant: "The thing is, watching TV has its benefits. It excuses you from the responsibility of having an informed opinion about things that matter. It gives you shallow opinions or false 'facts' that you can easily parrot to others that watch what you watch. It rarely unsettles our carefully self-induced calm and isolation from the world." Android App: Check Sunrise and Sunset Times with Sundroid For those of us chasing the "golden hour", this is a very useful app. You'll have to forgive me if I start referencing Android apps on here - I just got a new droid and it's pretty sweet. mannequin in Old Town

Tuesday on the Web

I know that the photo below is a bit creepy.  Sure, I should have stayed and done something pretty with the beautiful orange light that was falling on my face as the afternoon got on towards sunset.  But I was rushing out the door to come home and just snapped a few in the cool mirror at the Mandarin Oriental.  It's the latest in my series of hotel self-portraits.

On the Web

Each Tuesday, I post a roundup of the best stuff I saw on the internet that week.  Enjoy! How to turn black and white photos into color photos Photojojo is an absolute must for photo-enthusiasts. Not every project they present is worth the effort (to me) and sometimes they just write to say that they have a new gizmo in their online shop, but mostly they write amazing, comprehensive tutorials on how to do fantastic, otherworldly things with photography gear you probably already have. Here is an example. XKCD: Tech Support I used to tease my husband and friends about reading this cartoon... until I started reading it myself, and now I realize how brilliant it is. "Find Big Mail" - Gmail sorter This program sorts your inbox by attachment/file size.  Good for people like me who are always sending or receiving photo attachments... Eating at the wrong time might make you fat They're looking at patterns of mice, so take this with a huge grain of salt, but a new study shows that when a mammal eats can have a big effect on how much.  Mice that were forced to sleep with "relatively dim" light gained a lot more weight than mice that slept in the dark - it messed them up as to when day and night were and thus their eating patterns got thrown off.  Interesting! Proposed credit card settlement could mean lower product prices American Express lost an important lawsuit recently that in effect allows merchants to charge multiple prices for the same goods, depending on how you pay. It has the potential to really shake up the credit card market, as "premium" (that is, cash-back, mileage, etc.) cards are a lot more costly for the retailer to process. Which Halloween candy is "healthier"? Another incredibly irritating "magazine" formatted post (that is, you'll have to click 14 times to get all the info), but a good one, explaining which Halloween candies are going to make you fatter than others.  Cuz it's not like we're not all going to get fatter during Halloween.