August 31, 2005

  • Full-text searches of books: print.google.com

    She must spend all day just reading her comments. Sorry, but that would be too much!

    I hope you enjoy these pictures as much as I do!

    Antz in My Plantz!


    Chris gave me an ant farm for my birthday, and we just
    got the ants in recently. Here they are starting away - Chris punched a
    couple tunnels in to get them started.

    This is from tonight - they've made great technical progress!

    This is as zoooomed in as I could get!
    You can find the ant farm at ThinkGeek.com - a favorite website of mine. They're harvester ants with some
    cool looking bodies - huge jaws, heads, and abdomens. The blue gel is
    both structural for the farm and nutritious for the ants.

    A Quick Lesson in Apertures and Shutters

    On the left - I used a 1/25
    sec (fast) shutter, meaning the camera let in light for 0.04 seconds.
    The aperature was set to 2.2, meaning the opening was a big as my
    camera could handle. On the right - I used a 4 second (slow) shutter, but the aperture was really small (8.0) so that the image isn't flooded with light.

    The foreground is pretty much the same, but the background is
    in focus in one and out of focus in the other. When the camera had a
    fast shutter with a large opening, only the close objects are in focus,
    blurring everything else (on the left). On the right, the foreground
    and background are in focus! That's the result of the slow shutter and
    small opening.

    You might be wondering about why the
    picture on the left
    is grainy. Remember buying film? 100 speed for outdoors? 400 speed for
    indoors? Digital cameras use this principle too. I used 400 speed
    digital "film" on the left which is more grainy but is more sensitive
    to light so I could use a fast shutter. On the right is 50 speed film
    which does the reverse. An automatic setting on your camera handles all
    of these factors, but it's fun to play with them. In fact, the ants
    were always blurry with autofocus, so I did that manually.

    More on exposures.

    I find the ability to search the Florida inmate system quite a curious setup. Not too unlike a dating service! Their records are a mile long! Shooting a missile? What the?!?!  Hold onto your checkbook and identity!

Comments (23)

  • Yay!  Thanks, Nick.

  • Google is amazing... Those people must work insane hours though.

  • Sorry - did some hefty editing. Kari was talking about the full-text search.

  • There were a lot of interesting things in that post. I'm not sure which to comment on. I kind of wonder why you were checking out Florida's female inmates...and I like your ant farm. That's a weird substance they are digging in. I will have to examine the link further. And I need to read the aperture lesson when it's daytime.

  • Hey, I vaguely remember you getting that ant farm.  I totally wasn't paying attention at the time though...that whole night seems like kind of a blur   I think I remember you being really excited about the ant farm, and me being like, "Ummm....ants....cool??" 

    Thanks for the camera info, I keep telling myself I'm going to read the manual that came with mine, or take a digital photography class, or SOMETHING...but in the meantime, I'll just mooch off your knowledge. (How is that different from anything else?!?!)

    I say only one thing about your mockery of the female inmates: JUDGE NOT, my friend...judge not.

  • So noted. Should I rename these to "instant reviews of the entry" instead of comments?

  • ::snark::

  • If you start planning a trip to Florida we'll all know why, lol

  • Thanks for the clarification, Nick. 

  • I'm beginning to think that Nick has run out of things to do this summer.

  • I like your pictures, and that you explain how you took them.  I suck taking pics (in front and behind the camera both) so it's always a pleasure to see someone that does both so well.  I was going to write something smart elic...but I can't remember what it was. 

    I don't dance in the bathroom, no one wants to see me dance, including me.  I do sing, however, very loud and very often, no matter where I am.  Not that anyone (including me) wants to hear my voice, but it's better than the dancing.   

  • Yea, I kinda suspect that Nick needs more to do in his free time, like some of my work.

  • It's always educational reading your site!

    P.S. I had 'Sweet Caroline' stuck in my head all of yesterday. Dang it! There it is again!!!

  • The ants look like Anty from Honey I Shrunk the Kids... I always cried when he got killed by the big nasty scorpion... *sobs*

  • wow, that one girl probably has WAY too much time on her hands!  That's insane to get that many comments...

    here, take some eprops from a fellow Chi Alphan.

  • Was just at a planning retreat at Molalla, OR-- and thought about you while at the place surrounded by beautiful cedars.

  • yeah thanks for the site on floridian felons.

    i've spent an hour looking at them.

  • After reading your entry, I had the sudden urge to search for sex offenders in my neighborhood.  The report was accompanied by ominous pictures of these men.  After perusing the addresses and finding six within a small radius, I contemplated burying myself in a whole for the next five years, but I decided against it.

  • RYC:  I found one possible antidote  link for my problem,  but when the link concluded with a call to firearms I was a bit leary that they were glossing over the cons ...ha...  Dunno what the ethical (and safe) response is.  Perhaps one should 20 bucks as a mugging tax merely for walking the streets of Baltimore and pepper spray for the more violent.

  • Wow... thanks for the update :) You are too funny to give me all that info!!!

     yeah, I am the serious girlfriend, ...law school was hard, but I'm all done now... ha ha ha j/k. Well that's too bad about the serious gf ... I guess I will finally move on :(

  • That's a sweet ant farm... i think I want one... my daughter would get a kick out of it.    Fun times. 

    About the camera stuff..... I really want to get a "nice" camera, I think that is what I am going to start saving for... but a nice digital (they just seem easier) that is some good information though... are you a big photographer? 'cause I would love more info when i get a new camera.  Just a thought.  Well, Just thought I would drop by.

  • I have a theory on why your ants have built for themselves such an extensive home so quickly... Blue raspberry jello.  That's what's in there, right?  I mean, if I had a huge block of raspberry jello I could eat my way to a small condo in a couple of hours.  Give me a day and - BAM - a mansion. (There's always room for J E L L O)

  • So... Whaddya do when the ants have eaten all the blue Jell-O stuff?  Does ThinkGeek.com sell refill filler?  Or do the ants just starve to death??

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