Very interesting and amusing video of Grant Achatz cooking a turkey sous vide at Nickkokonas‘s house.
(YouTube also has high resolution versions; change the resolution from YouTube’s page: Part 1, Part 2)
[Link from Serious Eats.]
Nov 252008
Nov 242008
Last week, while I was still at PhotoShelter, a coworker and I looked out the window and wondered what the commotion was outside of a van in Union Square. it turns out that it was newspaper distribution. The next morning, she picked up what seemed to be The New York Times from a person handing them out.
The New York Times wrote an article about the prank; there is also a well-done companion site.
Nov 242008
You might think it is too late in the Fall to be hearing about the spider in my window; you would be wrong. Just this afternoon, I looked out my window to see the spider creating a giant 2-foot diameter web. After completing the web, it rested in the middle before hiding once again.
This spider has had some interesting behavior. I’ve seen it out at night a few times; as the nights have gotten colder this has stopped.
I think there may have been two spiders near my apartment at one point. I saw a desiccated spider body caught on a web at the same time as the live spider.
I’ve often wondered where the spider goes when it gets cold and windy. A few weeks ago, I found my answer.
As you can see from this photo, the spider is actually hidden in the sill, specifically between the outer lining and the window.
More interestingly, the spider actually had two legs out hooked to a thread. The thread ran to the center of the still intact orb. In other words, the spider was still hooked into it’s main web and could detect if an insect landed on the web itself.
I’ve never heard this behavior described before.
Here’s a photo that really shows off the web
I’ve taken a couple of videos of the spider. The spider doesn’t move a lot, and when it does, it’s difficult to capture all of it’s movement. (I think this is why you always see spider webs being shown fast-forward.)
I had to swap out the audio of this movie since what I had from the television was even more annoying than the music I swapped in.
Nov 182008
A couple of weeks ago, I decided to visit my friends Phil and Karen at their house by the river near the Bear Mountain Bridge. I had already missed the morning train to Manitou, where they live, so I decided to take the train to Garrison and hike back to their house. It’s only four miles, and I was able to make the hike in under 90 minutes.
It was a beautiful day; the leaves have just started to fall off the trees, and the last of the fall foliage was visible. The hike was very relaxing, even if most of it was along Route 9D. It’s a bit difficult hiking along a highway because the road is sloped and there are no pedestrian trails.
After around three miles along Route 9D, I headed down a twisty road towards the Outward Bound headquarters. The headquarters is a large 10 bedroom building on 18 acres; it’s for sale for $9MM. Taxes are around $51K per year.
You cross over a bridge over the MTA tracks to get to Mystery Point.
After walking by the Outward Bound headquarters, I walked down Mystery Point Road towards my friends’ house.
I hung out at Phil and Karen’s house for a few hours before catching the 5 pm train back to New York City.
I also took a stop-motion video of the hike down Mystery Point Road; unfortunately, it didn’t compress well.
Nov 182008
Empire State Building from 43rd Street and 6th Avenue on November 6th
Nov 182008
Google recently announced that Life had published their photo collection on their system. It’s a project Life was working on while I was still at Time Inc, and it’s beautiful collection of photography. Most of the Life photos have been buried in the basement of Time Inc. for years; limited digital versions were only available internally to Time Inc. on clunky systems. It’s great that the images are now available to everyone in the world.
I’m curious about some aspects of the Life collection. The collection includes a large number of images from the Apollo missions with a copyright attributed to Time Inc. From visiting the NASA web sites, I’ve always thought that the NASA images were either in the public domain, copyright NASA (and by extension the people of the United States), or copyright another space agency. It was a bit surprising to see images like the classic image of Buzz Aldrin next to the American flag with a Life watermark and Time Inc. copyright, especially when the original image is available at the Great Images in NASA web site. (High resolution images are also available.) I’ve dropped a note to the NASA public affairs office at NASA for some clarification; it’s entirely possible that NASA and Time Inc. signed an agreement regarding the copyright years ago. One of the wins of having the Life collection available is that there are images now published that were not previously available on NASA’s website. For example, I was unable to find this specific image of Earth from Apollo 10 on the NASA site, even though there are other images from around the same time at the Kennedy Space Center site.
I was surprised to see that Life is selling physical copies of images with celebrities. I assume they are sharing the proceeds of the physical copies with the photographers if they do not own all of the rights, but were they able to secure model releases from celebrities? For example, you can purchase a framed copy of the Time cover image of Michael Jordan by Walter Iooss Jr., or a red-carpet photo of Elle MacPherson with a happy clown. (Surprisingly, the Elle MacPherson photo is uncredited.) Historically, one of the problems photographers and organizations have had in monetizing their photo collections has been issues of photographer rights and model releases, so I’m curious how Life managed to research and clear the photos.
Overall, having the Life collection online is a good thing for professional photographers, researchers, and the public at large. The photography of Life would not be possible without the fundamental freedoms and innovation of the United States, and it’s great that they are able to share their fruits of their labor.
Nov 172008
I sent my friends Sharon and Mark some letters of reference last week. It was interesting seeing the packages snake through the world to China. I sent two letters; one to Shanghai and one to Guangzhou. I’m a bit amazed that I can send a letter around the world in less than a week and trace its progress. (Even though I shouldn’t be surprised at all.)
| November 12, 2008 | 18:25 | New York East, NY – USA | Shipment picked up |
| November 12, 2008 | 21:10 | New York East, NY – USA | Departed from DHL facility in New York East – USA |
| November 12, 2008 | 22:23 | New York, NY – USA | Arrived at DHL facility in New York – USA |
| November 12, 2008 | 23:02 | New York, NY – USA | Departed from DHL facility in New York – USA |
| November 13, 2008 | 01:24 | Elizabeth, NJ – USA | Arrived at DHL facility in Elizabeth – USA |
| November 13, 2008 | 01:42 | Elizabeth, NJ – USA | Departed from DHL facility in Elizabeth – USA |
| November 13, 2008 | 01:44 | DHL Wilmington Airpark, OH – USA | Transferred through DHL Wilmington Airpark – USA |
| November 13, 2008 | 02:35 | DHL Wilmington Airpark, OH – USA | Arrived at DHL facility in DHL Wilmington Airpark – USA |
| November 13, 2008 | 06:41 | DHL Wilmington Airpark, OH – USA | Departed from DHL facility in DHL Wilmington Airpark – USA |
| November 13, 2008 | 11:59 | Anchorage, AK – USA | Transferred through Anchorage – USA |
| November 14, 2008 | 21:10 | East China Area – China, People’s Republic | Arrived at DHL facility in East China Area – China, People’s Republic |
| November 15, 2008 | 00:05 | East China Area – China, People’s Republic | Departed from DHL facility in East China Area – China, People’s Republic |
| November 15, 2008 | 09:26 | Shanghai – China, People’s Republic | Consignee premises closed |
| November 15, 2008 | 09:36 | Shanghai – China, People’s Republic | Arrived at DHL Facility |
| November 17, 2008 | 08:14 | Shanghai – China, People’s Republic | With delivery courier |
| November 17, 2008 | 13:04 | Shanghai – China, People’s Republic | Shipment delivered |
| November 12, 2008 | 18:25 | New York East, NY – USA | Shipment picked up |
| November 12, 2008 | 21:10 | New York East, NY – USA | Departed from DHL facility in New York East – USA |
| November 12, 2008 | 22:23 | New York, NY – USA | Arrived at DHL facility in New York – USA |
| November 12, 2008 | 23:02 | New York, NY – USA | Departed from DHL facility in New York – USA |
| November 13, 2008 | 01:24 | Elizabeth, NJ – USA | Arrived at DHL facility in Elizabeth – USA |
| November 13, 2008 | 01:42 | Elizabeth, NJ – USA | Departed from DHL facility in Elizabeth – USA |
| November 13, 2008 | 01:47 | DHL Wilmington Airpark, OH – USA | Transferred through DHL Wilmington Airpark – USA |
| November 13, 2008 | 02:35 | DHL Wilmington Airpark, OH – USA | Arrived at DHL facility in DHL Wilmington Airpark – USA |
| November 13, 2008 | 06:42 | DHL Wilmington Airpark, OH – USA | Departed from DHL facility in DHL Wilmington Airpark – USA |
| November 13, 2008 | 11:44 | Anchorage, AK – USA | Transferred through Anchorage – USA |
| November 14, 2008 | 13:02 | Hong Kong – Hub – Hong Kong | Arrived at DHL facility in Hong Kong – Hub – Hong Kong |
| November 14, 2008 | 16:51 | Hong Kong – Hub – Hong Kong | Departed from DHL facility in Hong Kong – Hub – Hong Kong |
| November 14, 2008 | 23:26 | Guangzhou – China, People’s Republic | Arrived at DHL facility in Guangzhou – China, People’s Republic |
| November 15, 2008 | 02:54 | Guangzhou – China, People’s Republic | Departed from DHL facility in Guangzhou – China, People’s Republic |
| November 15, 2008 | 03:44 | Guangzhou – China, People’s Republic | Arrived at DHL Facility |
| November 17, 2008 | 09:10 | Guangzhou – China, People’s Republic | With delivery courier |
| November 17, 2008 | 10:14 | Guangzhou – China, People’s Republic | Shipment delivered |
Nov 172008
Today is my last day at PhotoShelter. I learned a lot at PhotoShelter and had a great time, but for a variety of reasons I decided to move on. I’ll be starting at Google on December 8th.
Nov 072008
Two of my friends have also had this stomach flu; it’s probably what I had when I went on a cruise around Manhattan: another bout of stomach flu.
Nov 042008
