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Fun with a Fisheye Lens

dustin — 2011-05-16T03:20:37-04:00

2011 was my 6th year attending the Northern Voice personal media conference. I took the opportunity this time to play around more with my DSLR camera. I got to talking with photographer John Biehler about shooting using a fisheye lens, and he was kind enough to lend me his for the second day of the conference.

Fisheye is such a different perspective, it took me some time to get a feel for what it works well on. Here are a few of my favorite fisheye shots from the day (click to enlarge):

See all my photos in my 2011 Northern Voice photoset. The first half were with a 'regular' lens, and the second half are fisheye shots.

I can't believe this is for real

registeredname — 2011-04-11T20:54:56-04:00

He's Back...

The Gaurdien Project

registeredname — 2011-02-25T09:01:00-05:00

Is this a ploy to get geeks to watch sports?

http://www.guardianproject30.com/index.php

At least The Canadian looks cooler than The Canuck.

Get Out Of There!

registeredname — 2010-07-22T00:04:41-04:00

Mr. T has good advice for today or any day

Alex — 2010-05-09T21:34:38-04:00

Straatview

chrisdye — 2010-05-04T00:23:46-04:00

I previously wrote about Baarle-Hertog/Baarle-Nassau, a tiny town in Holland with a few dozen parcels of land belonging to Belgium. International borders run haphazardly through the town, dividing streets and buildings, like so:

View Larger Map

Well, it seems that Google maps has Streetviewed all of Holland and none of Belgium, resulting in Streetview stopping and starting at near-random intervals through Baarle-Nassau. My favourite part is that some of the Belgian parts have little parts inside them that belong to Holland. These tiny strips of Dutch land, some no bigger than a front yard, are streetviewed, while the Belgian parts are all cut off.

Who wants nightmares?

Alex — 2010-02-25T00:00:07-05:00

There's unbelievably terrible, and then there's...

chrisdye — 2010-01-11T22:01:37-05:00

Heh-heh� heh-heh

goodladd — 2009-11-29T16:39:06-05:00

The Bitter End

Chronomorph — 2009-09-24T23:25:58-04:00

The Bitter End is at Mainline for another two nights of its last two live improv shows. Sept. 25th and 26th at 9pm for $8. We have a great Mirror cover story and the first internet webisode.

Go F*ck Yourself

registeredname — 2009-07-20T08:57:58-04:00

For those of you involved in the improv scene who are unaware of what happened this weekend and want a good way to catch up:
http://blog.fagstein.com/2009/07/18/go-fuck-yourself-eric-amber/

Precious

vinny9 — 2009-05-04T09:08:14-04:00

Check out this impressive LotR fan film:

http://thehuntforgollum.com

Zoetermeeriment

chrisdye — 2009-04-04T14:57:04-04:00

Zoetermeer is a city (pop. 119,000) near The Hague and Rotterdam. On the city council website are Zoetermeer-themed computer games. One is a sort of SimZoetermeer, like SimCity except that the city grows according to the history of Zoetermeer from 1960 (when the town had only 6,000 people) to today. The other is Castle Zoetermeer. I haven't tried that one yet.

I think that all city council websites should have video games.

Kids + Painkillers = Awesome

Alex — 2009-02-04T01:06:13-05:00

Microsoft Revolutionizes Music

Alex — 2009-01-29T19:36:03-05:00

First, check out the commercial for songsmith:

then see what happens when people got the bright idea to put the vocal tracks from pop songs into the program. Here's an example:

Magic.

185 atheists walk into a church...

Alex — 2009-01-20T02:02:14-05:00

Part 1

Part 2

Our confused thoughts are with her

chrisdye — 2008-11-26T15:04:43-05:00

This website had a 25-year-old woman's picture with the caption "Barbara Bush".
--------
Update: they have now removed the picture, which it turns out was of Barbara P. Bush, 27-year-old daughter of W. This family seriously needs some new first names.

The Creepiest Thing I've Seen this Halloween

Alex — 2008-10-31T16:14:43-04:00

Embedding disabled, so here's the spooky link...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LlItG4raicA

Jingle all the way

chrisdye — 2008-10-06T16:05:43-04:00

CBC has announced their five finalists to replace the Hockey Night in Canada theme:

http://anthemchallenge.cbc.ca/home

The choice here is, in my humble opinion, so obvious that the contest isn't really necessary.

Why are there so many videos about rainbows?

chrisdye — 2008-09-28T17:49:31-04:00

Northern Voice 2008 recap

dustin — 2008-02-27T18:32:12-05:00

The 2008 Northern Voice social media conference was a blast!

I led a session during the unconference day titled TransitCamp and Open Source Government. It was my first time presenting such a thing, and definitely a learning experience:
- good idea to ask audience how much they know about the topic at the start
- plan for at least 10 minutes of questions (probably more at unconferences)
- work on being a calm and collected speaker

An outcome of my session was this Open Letter regarding Open Access to BC Government data.

Matt Mullenweg was an excellent keynote speaker. However, I must call bullshit on his suggestion that police can make any meaningful difference containing spam in open systems.

Fuck Stats, Make Art was a very entertaining session from DaveO.

CBC is experimenting with crowd-sourcing Citizen Journalism, at least in Vancouver. I am planning to send them some story pitches, and you can too. This could be an awesome opportunity to open up our media. Hopefully I'll write more about this in the future.

Building a Better Conference Badge is a good read for all organizers. The NV nametags definitely need a redesign. Space for user-tagging is a good idea, but you need to tell people to do it when you give them out.

Finally, some random link love:

Bokashi - Hassle-free composting

Thinking Cap - Internet Marketing

Hop Studios - Internet Consulting - has done government access to information requests

Anita Webster - Vancouver PR

353 Haiku Movie Review

How to save the world .ca

Green politics .ca

Vancouver bloggers on parade

dustin — 2008-02-13T04:10:11-05:00

Vancouver is a high-tech city; tons of people here are bloggers. Here's a clearing house of Vancouver based blogs that have ended up in my RSS reader. I don't actually end up reading them all now, but there's good stuff within.

Beyond Robson - vancouver events and commentary
Bicycle Buddha - zen and cycling
Boris Mann - technology and start-ups
Critical Mass - bicycle news and events
Frances Bula - city life and local politics
Geoff Meggs - local politics
IGDA Vancouver - international game developer association
Kris Krug - photography
Kurrs Broadcasting - music and books
Later Comics - post-apocalyptic web comic
Livable Region Coalition - working for a green future
LiveJournal Vancouver - open forum for LJ users
Metroblogging Vancouver
Random Dude - games and culture
Roland Tanglao - mobile technology
Scout Magazine - restaurants and food
SFU City Program - urban planning
Stephen Rees - transportation
Tim Bray - technology and culture
Vancouver is Awesome - events and fun
Vancouver Public Spaces Network
West End Girl - photography and life
Wired Cola - biking and beer

Vancouver bloggers: please comment with a link to your blog and a description of what you write about. The internets will check it out.

And say "hi" to me at this year's Northern Voice Vancouver blogger conference.

We Are A Family

vinny9 — 2007-12-10T15:00:26-05:00

Fun or Logical Analysis?

Mariana — 2007-10-31T21:10:20-04:00

The one Linguistics paper I would ever show to Chris Dye before GBrowdy: Imperfect puns, Markedness and Phonological Similarity.

My Freakin' Pride!

Mariana — 2007-10-14T16:28:54-04:00

I tried to respond to Andrew's post below several times, to offer an explanation before GBrowdy could show off. Alas! Sillytech thought I was spam! Even though I was logged in.

So I will offer you more auditory illusions thanks to the awesome Al Bregman AND another way cool video demonstrating the properties of sound using salt.

I will also remind Andrew- and any other readers who may or may not be named Gil- that he called me the better linguist. That's right... I'm the ~~pettier~~ better linguist!

2007 Vancouver fringe festival picks

dustin — 2007-09-14T04:53:34-04:00

Here are ratings for the shows I've seen in the 2007 Vancouver fringe fest.

★★★★★ Flamenco Con Fusion - Fantastic flamenco guitar, rhythms and dancing.
★★★★★ The Absurdyssey - Magical outdoor circus and story (dress warm).

★★★★ Cody Rivers Show - Action-packed sketch comedy.
★★★★ Napolean's Secret Diary - One man comedy show with a French historic flair.
★★★★ Die Roten Punkte - German heavy metal musical farce.
★★★★ Scratch - Good improv combo. I love the soundtrack addition.
★★★★ Uber Alice - A scatterbrained comedy.
★★★★ It's Good to Know People @ The Fringe Club

★★★ Kenny's Fried Chicken - Embellished musical biopic of Kenny Rogers.
★★★ LOUNGE-ZILLA - Ridiculous gay cabaret.
★★★ The Fugue Code - Classical music thriller about secret societies.
★★★ Fluffy 10th Street - A dirty puppet short.

★★ Daniel Packard's Live Group Sex Therapy - His parents didn't love him.

There are a ton of good shows in 2007's crop. The festival goes till the 16th so you still have time to go see some great flamenco or comedy.

The fringe website sucks and they charge for the programs (double suck). Use this PDF schedule and Venue Map.

photos from the fringe

dustin — 2007-09-09T05:37:42-04:00

I've posted a bunch of my Vancouver fringe festival photos.

Day 2 fringe festival report

dustin — 2007-09-08T04:10:13-04:00

I highly recommend you see The Absurdyssey at the Vancouver fringe festival, being put on by Green Leaf Circus. An outdoor theater sets a magical atmosphere for this story. It's getting cold at night so dress warm or cuddle up.

The comments on my last post have really heated up. Hair-Beard-Combo posted his early picks and the Infringement people are taking issue.

Alex Eddington is blogging about traveling the Canadian fringe circuit for his show The Fugue Code.

A Culture Vulture in Lotus Land looks to be blogging the fringe also.

Suzan Marczak was an awesome volunteer and her artwork is fantastic.

Fringe Festival and Infringement

dustin — 2007-09-06T18:02:01-04:00

The Vancouver Fringe Festival opens today! The fringe is dedicated to showcasing independent and experimental theater performances that you probably wouldn't have a chance to see otherwise. It's been voted Vancouver's Best Arts Festival five years in a row by Georgia Straight readers!

CBC covers some controversy some artists are raising, which isn't a new thing for fringe festivals. Canada has the dubious distinction of being the birthplace of the reactionary (and moronic) Infringement Festival.

I looked around to see if I could find some dedicated fringe bloggers, but couldn't find anybody unfortunately (I'll keep looking). Without Annette has been blogging the Montreal Fringe for the past few years, and it's definitely gained them increased notoriety on the circuit there.

Lucky timing, an inside connection, and a last-minute drop-out combined to make me a part-time venue captain at Performance Works! So I may be able to spread some insider buzz...

UPDATE: I posted my 2007 Vancouver fringe festival picks.

Emergency Beirne Unit

Gbrowdy — 2007-06-04T18:25:41-04:00

I know that most readers of Sillytech are also readers of Said the Gramophone. Nonetheless, I highly recommend everybody check out today's post.

Dan is reinventing everything ever.