Too much Internet free time » Nature and global warming

A giant stingray

Yves Roumazeilles — Fri, 20 Nov 2009 23:28:12 +0000

So, scuba divers, did you dive on a stingray as beautiful as this one already?

Paddy field, high or wide?

Yves Roumazeilles — Thu, 05 Nov 2009 14:49:51 +0000

Sometimes an image (from Nepal or elsewhere) hesitates on the better orientation to give to the photographer. Which one of these two Nepalese paddy fields would you choose?

Energy conservation in ads

Yves Roumazeilles — Sun, 20 Sep 2009 18:36:29 +0000

Don't waste electricity

There could be waste in the most surprising places. So, don’t waste, use electricity wisely.

Via FAIL Blog.

The invasion of the Giant Jellyfish

Yves Roumazeilles — Fri, 07 Aug 2009 13:08:02 +0000

No! This is not the title of Hollywood next horror flick. This is a sad reality around Japan. According to National Geographic, for reasons that are not entirely understood giant jellyfish like the ones photographed below are observed in great quantities.

They need to be harvested by boat…

Ukiyo-e books by Kitagawa Utamaro

Yves Roumazeilles — Sun, 26 Jul 2009 19:38:05 +0000

A friend of mine recently bought a copy of a Japanese wood engraving. While reading this article from BibliOdyssey, about the wood engravings of Kitagawa Utamaro, I thought I should share some of the pictures of this artist.

Kitagawa Utamaro (1753-1806)

Fly like an eagle

Yves Roumazeilles — Thu, 25 Jun 2009 12:37:10 +0000

…but I couldn’t fly.

Jose Luis Ortiz has changed it all. He installed a small video camera on one of his royal eagles.

Link to YouTube

And now, you and me can fly, really fly. Breath-taking! Boarding a plane became so down-to-Earth. I now want to have wings, I want to fly like an eagle…

Big Earth

Yves Roumazeilles — Mon, 13 Apr 2009 20:11:00 +0000

True Marble™ is a true color, photo-realistic, high resolution, 3 terabyte image of the earth. All data is provided at a base 15 meter resolution. Even if this was not shot in a single time (sattelite imagery is a bit more complex than Gigapan panoramas), this is really stupendous. But even more, you can download your own reduced subset for free. Keep cool, this is a lot of downloads of big files (they are even available on BitTorrent – much more practical than FTP downloads, and faster too). But it’s definitely there.

True Marble - Earth at high resolution

True Marble GLCD™ by Unearthed Outdoors, LLC is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 United States License.

It’s smarter to travel in groups

Yves Roumazeilles — Sat, 11 Apr 2009 10:10:09 +0000

YouTube link

Bird photos in Vincennes

Yves Roumazeilles — Mon, 02 Mar 2009 12:22:44 +0000

Ten days ago, I went walking in the bois de Vincennes, near Paris, my photo camera in hand in the footsteps of Fabrice Hénon who accepted to share some of his informations. I’m back with pictures of Eurasian Jay and common kestrel.

Common kestrel

Eurasian Jay

All the photos are on www.YLovePhoto.com :

Elephant poaching in Kenya

Yves Roumazeilles — Thu, 26 Feb 2009 21:23:16 +0000

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.

Fishing sardines, pro advice

Yves Roumazeilles — Sun, 22 Feb 2009 18:47:12 +0000

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

One charger for all phones

Yves Roumazeilles — Thu, 19 Feb 2009 22:01:54 +0000

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.

How to cut a forest down

Yves Roumazeilles — Mon, 16 Feb 2009 18:27:04 +0000

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:

Link to YouTube

9 love messages from Planet Earth

Yves Roumazeilles — Sat, 07 Feb 2009 13:22:31 +0000

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!

Underwater movies

Yves Roumazeilles — Sat, 31 Jan 2009 13:45:25 +0000

I recently met a couple of fine underwater movies. One shows a dive to find a nautilus at great depths; The second shows a phosphorescent amalgam of abyss animals. Always a source of great surprises.

YouTube link

Transition times

Yves Roumazeilles — Sat, 17 Jan 2009 09:40:42 +0000

According to the Guardian, change was long overdue. 8 years of Democrat presidency in Washington was much too much. Now that Al Gore is leaving the oval office, it’s time to go to more serious stuff.

You can appreciate it if you read the first paragraph:

No one thought Al Gore would be a loveable president, but, after eight years in the White House, he has gotten truly tiresome. The droning voice, the purchase of an eco-friendly robot dog, the campaign for carbon-free diamonds – all these things were hard to take, and he has been way too smug about reversing global warming. I think we’ve gone too far in the opposite direction, especially in light of the glacier that recently crushed Wasilla.

Go to the Guardian for the rest…

Wallpapers: Quality photos

Yves Roumazeilles — Sat, 22 Nov 2008 20:22:16 +0000

It is always more pleasant to work with a nice wall paper on your PC (or Mac) desktop. Here are two interesting source sof beautiful wallpapers based on photographic quality images:

dozens of nature-oriented images (including some cartoons) on UsingMac.com;
ligthning and storms (15 images).

Downright spectacular.

Camouflage in nature

Yves Roumazeilles — Thu, 20 Nov 2008 21:23:35 +0000

A very nice set of camouflaged animals.

A Grey Cicada hides on pine bark in France

Source: Daily Mail.

Can you buy a giraffe?

Yves Roumazeilles — Wed, 29 Oct 2008 12:32:31 +0000

When I look into the logs of my web site, I sometimes discover bizarre little gems. For example, I recently noticed that somebody reached my web site through a search engine looking for : “buy a giraffe“. I still wonder whether he or she was looking for the real animal or a poster or photo of the animal. I probably will never know (except if the guilty conscience of the poor guy leads to informing me).

It made me look on Google for the very same thing. And I was surprised to find that there is advice to buy a giraffe (a real one). The first tip is: Do you have enough room? For sure, I would not recommend the giraffe as pet if you live in a flat at the fifth floor…

Internet will always bring me surprises.

Sun rise

Yves Roumazeilles — Fri, 17 Oct 2008 15:17:57 +0000