Last Supper

This is pretty cool... apparently they took a DSLR up to Leonardo's Last Supper to digitize it. The real work is fading fast and is so sensitive to light they have to keep it in near darkness. Shucks, by the time I make it up to a trip to Europe the only thing left for me to see are some charred lumps of marble and some faded blank old rag canvases.

Anyway, this is pretty neat. Take a peek at the hi-rez image if you're interested....you can zoom right up to the flakes of paint coming off of the thing. While it's not quite as exciting as standing there in front of the painting itself, you can certainly see details there that you would never see unless you got your nose right up against it.

A 16-billion-pixel image of Leonardo da Vinci's The Last Supper -- said to be the world's highest-resolution photo -- went online Saturday, making the masterpiece available for scrutiny by art lovers everywhere.

http://www.wired.com/culture/art/news/2007/10/lastsupper

Interesting to note DSLRs have come such a long way these days that they're being used for rare situations such as these.

Now for something a little less fine art, I took this photo this past Sunday. It's a view from King Street over on the right (never knew King Street was that straight) down across to Nuuanu and the Downtown area.

I like the Matrix-y look of it all. The sheets of rain coming down around Downtown gives it this cool look.

Yay Firefox!

Hey, here's interesting news for you fellow web designers or web-site managers out there. Google Analytics reports a tipping point for browser users. Firefox has finally overtaken Internet Explorer in terms of browser use. COOL!

Firefox
Sep 18, 2007 - Sep 24, 2007 45.84%
Sep 25, 2007 - Oct 1, 2007 46.19%

Internet Explorer
Sep 18, 2007 - Sep 24, 2007 46.42%
Sep 25, 2007 - Oct 1, 2007 46.07%

Opera
Sep 18, 2007 - Sep 24, 2007 3.89%
Sep 25, 2007 - Oct 1, 2007 3.79%

Safari
Sep 18, 2007 - Sep 24, 2007 2.82%
Sep 25, 2007 - Oct 1, 2007 2.91%

For those of you who don't do web design work. You have NO idea the amount of extra trouble it is to fix Internet Exploder bugs on websites. Good riddance.

Of course, take these statistics with a grain of salt. These stats are never 100% accurate for all kinds of reasons.

Panoramic Fun

On a recent visit to the Pali Lookout, I decided to try taking a bunch of snapshots of the Windward side of the island intending to stitch them together into a giant panoramic when I got home. Maybe it might make a nice wall display someday? I knew that the latest version of Photoshop CS3 had this amazing one-step tool that would do all the hard work for me.

It came out quite nice in fact, it could have been a less cloudy day, but when are you ever going to find the Windward side without clouds hmm?

The process was so simple that I thought I'd quickly share that with those of you who might have a passing interest in photography like I do.

Step #1
When you're on location, just take your camera out and shoot across your scenery. You don't even need a tripod anymore these days, just take multiple shots across the view paying special attention to overlap each shot just a tiny bit.

Step #2
Open all of these scenic photos in Photoshop CS3. FILE > OPEN > Find your photos and open all the ones you need for your panoramic.

Step #3
Go to FILE > AUTOMATE > PHOTOMERGE...

Just keep everything else at default. It should be the "Auto" layout and the "blend images together" option should be checked.

Click on the "ADD OPEN FILES" button and Photoshop should automatically add all your open files to the list. Click OK to launch Photomerge and watch the magic happen.

Viola! That's it. Photoshop magically stitches all your photos together, adjusting for color, position, & perspective. There's some pretty sophisticated math those programmers must have used to accomplish this.

If you don't have the latest version of Photoshop, I know older versions of Photoshop Creative Suite had the Photomerge tool in it but it might not have been as intelligent in past versions. In any case, it's still WAY better then the old scrapbook & Scotch-Tape methods our parents used.

Taking retards to Boxcar Racing

A good friend of mine, Phil, was having his wedding this past weekend. In lieu of his "bachelor party" we had good clean fun doing some boxcar racing over in the Kunia area. Picture a group of 30-some year old guys sitting in some tiny boxcars in the afternoon sun.

Yes, we were sober. I don't have any incriminating pictures of me in my Gallery. I bet some of the other guys do though. We all looked like idiots. My bike helmet didn't fit snuggly on my head so the whole time I probably had it tipped off to the side like a retard. I could barely limber up my legs to fit into the cars. And once or twice I almost missed the brakes and plowed headfirst into the grass and gravel.

You ever heard that Dead Milkman song, "Taking retards to the zoo?" Well, I certainly heard that song in my head while I was there. Only, I was the retard.


Me and my old buds, Robb, the groom Phil, and Derrin. Now we're all married and a couple of these guys have kids of their own. Hard to imagine that this is how we looked like before: