Archive for February, 2009

Once again a gigantic digital image: Tokyo shot with GigaPan.

Can you find Waldo (er, no! the dancing policeman)?

Tokyo

Source: Photoart – Kalmar, via YLovePhoto.

Everything points at a stark increase of elephant poaching in Kenya after years of relative calm. More precisely, in the Tsavo National Park, in the 6 most recent weeks, rangers of the Kenya Wildlife Service (KWS) found 5 dead elephants whose tusks have been sawed.

This is a reminder that some habits which we thought mostly gone are not. Sales of ivory (includign the official ones) are on the rise and there would be some troubling links here. Nevertheless, the KWS rangers already arrested two men and seized AK-47 assault rifles with ammunitions, but it could well be only the tip of a rising iceberg.

Source: Futura-Sciences.

If you want to fish sardines, ask advice from a pro : The sailfish (Istiophorus platypterus). This slides diaporama from National Geographic shows sailfishes grouping themselves to hunt a big school of sardines. Really beautiful and utterly technical.

Photo by Paul Nicklen

News reaches a British sub and a French sub regardnig the satellite collision last week.

UserFriendly.org

*Snort* American and Russian dorks.

I nearly rolled on the floor laughing with this one. But, generally speaking, UserFriendly.org is one hell of a good comics web site.

Thanks to European Community! It just proposed, no! Announced that they would force the mobile phone manufacturers to all use a single type of battery charger.

It’s been years that we all accumulated chargers ready to be abandonned because none is compatible with more than one phone. The EC decided to reduce pollution linked this electronic waste. A European regulation nobody will ever regret!

The universal charger will have to use the micro-USB interface already found on some existing chargers here and there. It will deliver 5V output in a maximum of 2.5 watts.

When will it be compulsory for photo cameras, PDAs?

The GSM Association (no less than 17 phone manufacturers) is setting up plans for an accepted 2012 target.

Airport by El Fotopakismo

After several months when we all heard that corporate jets were the mark of the truly immoral bank or corporate CEOs, it seems that private jet companies are starting to take notice: All this bad press is putting more pressure on them than they would like to in difficult times like ours.

Hawker Beechcraft and Cessna Aircraft (the Empire, here) are fighting back with advertising to support the idea that it’s only true visionaries who are able to forget about all this and will keep using and buying their corporate business jets. Say that to Richard Wagoner Jr or to Dick Fuld! Or speak of stimulus ads!

According to the International Herald Tribune and Reuters, Cessna Aircraft is saying “Timidity didn’t get you this far” or “True visionaries will continue to fly” in their message. Hawker Beechcraft is also promoting its King Air 350 as “the world’s greenest and highly efficient aircraft“.

I am not sure whether this will really boost sales abck to stratospheric levels, but it’s an example of companies which are decided not to let the business go down the drain, despite bad times and worse PR.

We don’t use this in France (storms are enough to bring a forest to the ground) but here is the real hardware you need to cut down a forest in a few days only:

Thanks to BibliOdyssey again, we can see magnificent reproductions of XIXth Century engravings of parrots, maccaws and other Psittacidae birds.

Macrocercus ararauna - Blue and yellow maccaw

But there are also interesting modern parrots. Go and watch the videos and photos from the Perroquet project from fashion photographer Sølve Sundsbø. Did I say impressive?

Nouveau Nikon D400

Would you be interested in knowing what the next Nikon dSLR is going to be? A Chinese web site wants you to know everything about the Nikon D400.

You’d believe that our planet is in love. It can be read on its face (on its surface) merely under the form of pretty hearts nicely drawn.

Heart Reef, Australia

9 other cases. Superb!