Life and stuff

Note to self: build out Hackint0sh and upgrade a few boxes to quad core after China. Processing panoramas and raw files eats CPU time and memory like no tomorrow =\

Anyhow, I’ve been back from Montana and Alberta for about a week, and am just beginning to rein in the number of pics. So rather than attempt to describe the scenery with words, here are some panoramas:

(Click on the picture for the full res version, click on the link for the geotag and photo info)

Waterton Marina Sunrise

http://www.panoramio.com/photo/12650578

Chief Mountain and Surroundings

http://www.panoramio.com/photo/12584313

Hidden Lake Trail (looking South-East)

http://www.panoramio.com/photo/12649908

Grinnell Glacier Overlook (Second Saddle)

http://www.panoramio.com/photo/12584074

The poppy fields were quite productive this year:

Sucks for these late risers:

The flowers in these pics looked like they were slightly past their peak, so it could be a few years before the bloom looks this nice again.

I like the actual framing and composition aspects of photography, but I can get seriously apathetic when it comes to sorting and processing. Still, I force myself, and its slowly coming along.

In the meantime, here are some random pics from inside Heathrow Airport Terminal 2.

Absolutely no ambiguity what you can get from this place:

A guide to Facebook. Yep, in dead-tree form too. I’d have to seriously wonder about any potential purchaser of said magazine. Seriously, if millions and millions of teens and other random people out there can figure it out, then it can’t be THAT hard, right?

Smoking kills. The obvious warning, or some variant thereof, stamped on each and every box of Marlboros in the shop. Also on all the other brands of cigarettes too. Can’t say the purchasers aren’t being warned …

The random napper, who plopped down right in front of me and snoozed away. He was certainly more content than the rest of the travelers that day, wondering if and when our planes would finally show up.

Jet lag blows. I was on LA time for most of my trip in Germany and got used to German time right before the flight back to LA. So its noon over there, and I’m wide wide awake.

I’d normally flex the time and just sleep in, except there’s a test flight today — show up at 7, and be locked away in mission control for 6-7 hours.

Sooo tempted to call in sick =\

Since I’m up and about, here’s a fisheye shot of the town center in Munich:

My new XO laptop came in yesterday. First impressions: SMALL. I knew it’d be small, but even then it managed to defy expectations. It definitely feels like a quality unit, though the rubberized keyboard will take some getting used to. The speed of the unit isn’t too bad considering the specs are geared more for power savings than for brute performance. I like to click around just to see what happens, so the interface wasn’t really an issue; its just different.

A few minor niggles so far:
- no WPA encryption over wireless until the next software update (or via a handy-dandy script for a CLI person)
- suspend doesn’t work yet (covered by next software update)
- no extensions in the web browser — adblockplus could be very useful for stripping ads to save screen space

Just for kicks, here it is in comparison with a Thinkpad T60 (15.4″ display):