Swan Island Airport

Swan Island Airport

I came across this picture postcard the other day when I was looking for information about Swan Island Radio. At first I thought it was somebody's Tom Swift fantasy, I mean no one would try and put an airport in downtown Portland, and Swan Island (there is one in Portland) isn't anywhere near big enough, is it?

Swan Island Municipal Airport terminal in Portland, Oregon

    Turns out it was a real thing, a hundred years ago. It was big business for 20 years or so, they even built a fancy terminal building.

Searching

Sometimes when I enter a search term, Google will come back and ask if I meant some other term, a term that is spelled similarly to the one I entered. Now sometimes I did misspell my word, and the suggested term is the one I want. But sometimes I didn't, and I don't want the suggested term, but the question just sits there. What we need is a way to say NO, that is not what I meant, and the question then disappears from the screen.

Dino Pet

Dino Pet

As part of my foray into advertising, I signed up with Tomoson. Turns out most of the stuff they are promoting is of no interest to me, but there's a lot of it, so I started thinking that maybe I could turn this stream of promotions into a blog all its own, an all advertising, all the time deal, kind of like Home Shopping Network. I mean it could work, right?
    So I open their latest email and Dino Pet jumps out. Now that is kind of cool. First promotion from Tomoson that interests me. Isn't that just the way it goes?
    What we have here is a clear container full of water with a colony of bio-luminescent algae. Leave them out in the sun during the day, shake em up at night and they glow for a bit. Plus you have to feed them once a week or so. I guess that means they aren't plants. Plants you can seal up in glass bottle and they will survive just fine.
    The Dino part of the name is a bit of a stretch. The microscopic, glowing critters are called dinoflagellates. I suppose that's where they got the 'dino' part of the name. Kind of spendy for a gee-gaw, but it's not electronic, which is a plus in my book.

Admiral

Admiral International Trailer 2
We started watching this on Netflix tonight and I was totally blown away by scenes of the 17th century warships duking it out. How have I not heard of this movie? It's like Neal Stephenson's Baroque Trilogy come to life. The only question in my mind is how did London get to be more important than Amsterdam? Or maybe that just depends on whether you speak English or you live on the Continent, as mainland Europe is called by those who live in that neighborhood.
    Do not confuse this movie with The Admiral, which is a Korean move about some Korean battle. I could have sworn that Netflix labeled this movie as The Admiral, but Google only delivers the Korean movie. You have to did deeper to get the Dutch one. Probably because it's in Dutch and you have to read the subtitles, and stupid, lazy Americans hate to read subtitles. Or so one might surmise.
    Anyway, it's a great movie, best old-time-sailing-ship-battle-scenes I've ever scene, especially the parts where you see the opposing fleets maneuvering. We had to stop halfway through because mama has to get up for work in the morning.
    Wikipedia has an article about this guy (the Admiral). His attack on the Medway is famous. (Map).

Horsies!

Odysseo by Cavalia | Trailer
Coming to Portland July 9th. Looks like a combination of Cirque Du Solei and old time circus trick riding. Should be great fun.

Torpor Rules

I Can See the Future - Chris Zabriskie

Elliot, the creator of Spectrum Shift visualization software put this video together with pieces from several places. The tune is from the band lo-fi is sci-fi. The video was made using the Spectrum Shift visualizer for WMP and iTunes with a time lapse video of clouds. 

Once upon a time, personal computers had a small table they used to determine what colors were actually displayed. Digital images contained codes for the colors that were to be displayed, but these codes were only indexes into the palette table where the actual values for that color code were stored. Those values were sent to the DAC's (Digital to Analog Convertors) that translated those numbers into voltages that were sent down the wire to the display. Tweaking colors with that kind of arrangement was child's play, all you had to do was change the values in one, small, table, the palette table, and your whole world went psychedelic.

     That is when Elliot got started with this. Since then the hardware has evolved and there is no longer just one palette table. There might not even be a palette table at all anymore. So Elliot has had to get creative in order to get in the there and munge the video data stream as it is flowing to the display controller.

You can sometimes see similar effects in the movies, and it's relatively easy to do, easy that is if you have access to a zillion dollars worth of specialized video equipment and all the time in world to play with your 15 second video clip that will get cut to three seconds when it gets spliced into the movie.

With Elliot's Spectrum Shift you can try it now with a personnel computer for free.

Walrus Cam

Round Island Alaska Walrus Cam
Clicking the link will take you to the Walrus Cam page.
I tried embedding it, but it didn't work, so we have an image taken from a screen shot.

If there aren't any walruses in view, go get a cup of coffee and check back in 15 minutes. Unless it's night time. Check back in the morning.

Round Island, Dillingham, Alaska
There are numerous other 'Round Islands'. There is even another one in Alaska, down in the Aleutian Islands. This one is one of the Walrus Islands.

Walrii. There are so many you can see them via satellite.

Via Posthip Scott.

Update April 2025 replaced link to live Walrus Cam.