At Crab Cove there are always squirrels sitting on the rocks at the edge of the shoreline. This one was the only one that didn’t run for cover when I approached with the camera. He paused briefly, then went back to his meal.
There are signs up all over this area, and the adjoining Crown Beach asking people not to feed the squirrels. As you can see from the one in this photo, they get enough to eat without any help!
A very close up shot of what I think is a member of the Brodiaea family. Unfortunately, I couldn’t find anything that looked exactly the same at eNature.com (the site I normally use to identify the wildflowers that I photograph). You can see a photo of the full flower in the flowers and plants gallery.
Also, it is worth clicking the thumbnail on this one to get the larger popup version – the thumbnail does not show the detail visible in the larger version.
There have been a number of really great photos online in the last couple of weeks. Over at spriggs.net there have been some great macro shots, including the one on the right. While on that site check out splash, butterfly on orange and fuzzy red.
Then there’s a really great dragonfly shot over at Joe’s NYC.
Finally, on PhotoSydney site there are some great photos of Yarramalong Valley. The colours in the sunset shot are amazing, and I really like this foggy shot, the panorama and this tree.
Taken in the Marriott hotel in Nagoya, the sign on the right is a classic example of Engrish. You can find a lot more examples at engrish.com and plenty more in the archives of the “An Englishman in Nyu-gun” blog – another blog from Japan written by an Englishman, this time a vegetarian one. I can sympathise with the problems finding food (and I agree that the okonomiyaki is a great option though!). I’ve added this blog to the links section too.
In addition to the excellent Tokyo Times blog, I’ve added An Englishman in Osaka to the links section in the left column. This is another blog from Japan written by an Englishman, and well worth a visit.
Why the photo on the right though? No connection at all! Well, other than the fact that it was taken in the hotel elevator at the Shinagawa Prince Hotel, in Japan. Since the only buttons in the elevator control which floors it stops at, the instruction is impossible to follow. Made me smile though thinking about trying all those “channel” buttons on the elevator wall to see if I could find another channel to enjoy 🙂
As part of his recent trip to the US, PhotoSydney’s Ben spent some time here in San Francisco and managed to find time for some shots of the city. Jump over to his posting on PhotoSydney for all the photos. (While you’re there you should take a look at the Boston photos too: 1 and 2.)
An article on the BBC website made me think about possible improvements to the security of credit cards. Let’s face it, the current scheme is pathetically outdated and the credit card companies (the likes of Visa and Mastercard) do nothing about it.
So how about a better scheme? Signatures are outdated (and they never check them anyway). A time-based rolling number, like that provided by the RSA SecurID Token that must be entered manually and is only valid for a few minutes (and one transaction) might help. Or perhaps smart card technology (already in use in Europe) that can digitally sign transactions (although this would need card readers for home users so that they can continue to shop online). One-time-use numbers might help online, but they have problems (they cannot be used where a physical card is needed to pick up the item, such as when ordering movie tickets or airline tickets online) and they don’t guard against the card processing firms “losing” the numbers they are sent by stores.
A very cool time lapse photo of the moon rising over Seattle by photographer Shay Stephens.
Thanks to The Daily Irrelevant for the pointer.
The final one of the three photos of posters for the recent Star Wars: Revenge of the Sith movie that I took in the lobby area of the Megabox movie theatre in Seoul, Korea. The scene in this one is taken from the big Obi-wan vs Darth Vader fight towards the end of the movie. And, yes, that is lava you see in the background.
The second of three posters for the recent Star Wars: Revenge of the Sith movie that I took photos of in the lobby area of the Megabox movie theatre in Seoul, Korea.
