May Issue of Winding Road

The May issue of Winding Road is out.

My quick notes.

I like the new Jag XF and BMW 1 series.

I don't care for the redesign of the Acura TSX. I have liked the TSX since they came out with it, but I don't like the front grill of the new one. Seems a bit Saturn like or something.

The Alfa Romeo MiTo with those great Alfa Romeo wheels looks kind of cool.

Saab jumping on all wheel drive might be a bit late to broaden it's appeal much beyond it's current niche.

If GM wants the El Camino to last more than a truly short run, they better be working on a four door version. Which upon that note, I'll throw in my 2 cents worth to Subaru; you canned the Baja to early.

With all of the XUV, SAV, etc. designations, I can understand Chris Paukert's statement:

BMW calls the X6 a Sport Activity Coupe. The designation is a SAC of something, alright.

I might have to disagree with him on this point:

-most PR types will probably prefer to see their latest-and-greatest branded as an HIV rather than an SUV.

As it comes down to marketing and there is a stigma attached to the HIV acronym (human immunodeficiency virus) will we be rid of the human immunodeficiency virus in the next 10 years, such that the general public will associate HIV with Hybrid Impact Vehicle over Human Immunodeficiency Virus?

Album Art

I recieved an e-mail from the lead singer of Seven Years Tragedy asking about using some artwork for their album cover. It turns out that it is not my art, just art I have blogged about, so I told them I would get in touch with the artist (Dan Marks) and get back or have Dan get with them directly. The artwork really is cool (prior posts 1, 2). It basically looks to be a local level kid band that would fall into the screamo category. Screamo is not my thing, but to each their own. Dan's artwork would make a great album cover and if you are into screamo you can check out Seven Years Tragedy.

Slow blogging

Posts have slowed as of late. Working on a project at work with a short timeline, which is really keeping me busy. On top of that track season has started and this week I am taking care of my father-in-law's cattle which entails an additional 50 miles a day, plus the time to feed and water the bulls in one pin, the older calves in one pin, the cows and new calves in another pin, and then off to the other farm 5 miles away to feed the cows and calves there. I don't mind doing it. I kind of like farming. If you have followed the blog for long you have probably seen that it doesn't always turn out the best for me (shredded tendon in finger, broken arm, and a broken finger), but still enjoyable.

Is your site up?

Someone at work pointed out "Down for everyone or just me?". A quick site to have hit your site from another location.



Just for additional verification I hit it when we appeared to be down tonight. Unfortunatley it agreed. We were down.

Another Stitch

High Dynamic Range

I really don't know much about it. I jumped to downloading Qtpfsgui and playing with it rather than reading everything about it. If you want to read more it looks like these might give some good insight:

High dynamic range imaging on Wikipedia

A post on photonovice.net

PopPhoto.com's How to Create High Dynamic Range Images

The Luminous Landscape tutorial on merging to HDR in PhotoShop CS2

Here are some examples (a couple which I have set to display on my photoblog at some point in the future)- there are a lot of settings one can pick, so you don't have to go as over the top as I probably have.

The kids track shoes





One of our dogs (Copper)



3 different versions of the Missouri State Capitol

Ready for a Picnik?

Did you happen to notice that Picnik has opened up more of its features to freeloaders via ad-support.

From the Picnik site:

Picnik News

Picnik Evolves (February 27)
Big news! We’ve launched a new ad-supported version of Picnik! Now free users have access to ALL the Effects, Fonts, Shapes, Frames and Touch-Up Tools, and advertisers will enable your addiction to Picnik’s award-winning photo-editing awesomeness. This way, we can provide more of Picnik to more people, so help us out: spread the word about Picnik! The more people use Picnik, the better we can make it.

Meanwhile, our beloved Premium users will get Picnik 100% ad-free, plus new special Advanced Editing tools, unlimited connections to all their favorite photo sharing sites, priority support, infinite photo memory and Photo History, exclusive content and previews of new features, and, best of all, the warm fuzzies for supporting Team Picnik.

LinkedIn

Are you LinkedIn?

I am not big into the social networks, but do have a Facebook account, and others including LinkedIn. I do find it interesting though with as few connections as I have (6), that those 6 have a total of 500, and if you look at it from a network standpoint it says that I have 51,600+ people in my network. I have to admit it, I don't know all 51,600 on a first name basis. :-) That is a fair number of people.

Evernote Pt 2.

I have not installed the client side sync piece of Evernote yet, but did receive an invitation to Evernote and have setup my account. I'll probably take a look at it a bit further when I have time.

Stitch

Looking at trying stitching and don't want to put down some cold hard cash just to try it out. Here are a couple of tools that might be of interest. First is the Autostitch demo. Absolutely amazing. Just through photos together, if you pick one that doesn't have anything to do with those that should be stitched it just drops it out of the mix. Not lining up, putting in a specific sequence, etc., just select the pictures to stitch and you are done.

As stated on the website:

Autostitch™ is the world's first fully automatic 2D image stitcher. Capable of stitching full view panoramas without any user input whatsoever, Autostitch is a breakthrough technology for panoramic photography, VR and visualisation applications. This is the first solution to stitch any panorama completely automatically, whether 1D (horizontal) or 2D (horizontal and vertical).

Autostitch is built using cutting edge research from the AI lab at UBC, but it's incredibly simple to use! Just select a set of photos, and Autostitch does the rest: digital photos in, panoramas out.

I must say when it comes to stitching the software makes the difference.

Another one is an Open Source option called hugin.

Those below were done with hugin. Click them to view a larger version.


Skyline - Jefferson City, MO



Lincoln University Campus - Jefferson City, MO



Adkins Stadium Project - Jefferson City, MO


It is a bit more in depth and might require a bit more than the technically challenged want to deal with, but you can't beat the price.

Feel free to share comments on your favorite photo stitching software.

DUMPR

Interested in making it look as though your photo is displayed in a museum, well Tracey pointed out that Dumpr lets one do just that as well as other interesting things. The resolution is that high, but it looks kind of cool on a webpage.

Q named President and CEO

I noticed today that a prior Director of the Missouri Department of Revenue, Quentin Wilson, has been named the President and CEO of ALL Student Loan in Los Angeles, CA.





Revenue Website as of March 1, 2000 - e-mail and website address have changed so they have been blurred out.

Governing.com Report

David Fletcher mentions GOVERNING.com's "The State Management Report Card for 2008" in a post today.



It is nice to see Missouri in the company of David's state, Utah, getting an A in the Information category. Utah is often one of the top states listed when it comes to Information Technology in the State space.

Do Not Hump

As I saw these words on most of the rail cars that rolled by I am guessing this must be a real problem on the railroad.