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Aciéries
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Physical irony: partially molten plastic letters - at a foundry. Also observe the fine typeface choice.
Les Aciéries de la Meuse steel foundry, Cheratte, Belgium
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Posted in category Endangered Machinery
Developing Fuji S3 Pro RAW Files with s7raw
A serious cold prevented me from doing anything serious for the last few days, so I used some of the time to play around with a full DVD of Fuji S3 Pro RAW-files a photo-friend gave me. This Nikon based camera is a serious piece of kit: nothing for the sports and action shooter, but king and queen of tonality and dynamic range. Just the right thing for photographing industrial interiors where you almost always have to deal with severe highlights and deep shadows. When developing its RAW files, Adobe Camera Raw delivers excellent results. If you are on Windows, be sure though to check out s7raw, too. This is a freeware alternative especially geared towards Fuji RAW files with full support for the S3 file format and a wide range of editing tools. Not bad at all.
Technorati Tags: raw, dslr, fuji, fuji+s3, s7raw
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Dachziegel zählen
Google Earth hat für viele innerstädtische Bereiche des Ruhrgebiets jetzt so hochauflösende Daten, daß man fast die Dachziegel zählen kann. Zum Ausprobieren hier ein fix zusammengeklickter völlig unvollständiger kleiner Streifzug durch Dortmund - zu sehen gibt es, man ahnt es schon, Industrie. Und jetzt bitte Google Maps Germany.
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DeutschesFachbuch.de
Informieren wir uns doch mal über ein Buch, beispielweise über das empfehlenswerte "Stahlzeit in Dortmund" aus dem Aschendorff-Verlag:
Erste Anlaufstelle: die Verlags-Website. Gibt man "stahlzeit" in das Suchfeld oben rechts ein, gibt es null Treffer. Über "Onlinekatalog" aus dem Menü links findet man es dann doch. Eine knappe Beschreibung, technische Daten, das war's.
Zweite Anlaufstelle: Amazon. Nullinformation, nichtmals versandbereit.
Dritte Anlaufstelle, Google-Fund: DeutschesFachbuch.de. Informationsflut: Vorwort im Volltext, Klappentext, Kurzportraits aller Autoren und ein detailliertes Inhaltsverzeichnis; Versand kostenlos. Klasse.
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Photo Notebook
Before taking photos in a specific area, I often try to get a feeling of the area's characteristics and particularities by walking and driving its streets. This can happen quite a number of times before I pull out the camera at all.
Occasionally, I take paper notes, talk into a dictaphone or write notes into a map instantly on site. Occasionally, I don't write down these notes while on the road, but back at home, and occasionally, I don't write them down at all but keep them in my head where over time, my plan what photos to take takes shape.
But occasionally, I want a nifty little electronic helper with Tablet PC-like screen, GPS, moving map, and a snapshot still and video camera that lets me write and draw straight onto blank virtual paper, on the moving map, and on the snapshots taken. It automagically geo-tags the snapshots taken and, once connected to a PC, automagically fills my notes wiki. There, I can browse my notes in chronological and geographic/map views and connect them on click with existing notes.
A small slate Tablet PC similar to the 10,4" HP TC 1100 plus a PCMCIA GPS device plus a small camera could do the trick, but that would be a bulky, heavy, expensive, power consuming, unergonomic and certainly not ruggedized enough solution.
Enter the Pentax Optio T10, a 6 Megapixel, 38-112 mm compact camera with -- tadaa -- a 3" touchscreen and notetaking functionality and EUR 400 list price. I haven't seen this device yet, but it certainly looks good in paper form. I can image loads of use cases. Think of interior designers, painters, craftsmen, technicians, surveyors, accident assessors, anyone who has to work with and reports on physical things. Now, Pentax, please drop a (single-chip) GPS receiver into that box and you've got a killer device.
Technorati Tags: pentax camera workflow gps geotagging notetaking productdesign tablet+pc
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Tag der Poesie
Alle Räder stehen still, wenn es der Franzose will
Hab' ich zu viel falsch gemacht, bin ich um den Pass gebracht
Der Ami schickt die zweite Wahl, vielleicht klappt es ja dieses Mal
Viel zu gut ist dieser Mann, als dass er fortbestehen kann
Auch wenn die Rede manchmal funkelt, ist der Sinn doch abgedunkelt
Kommt in Minsk die Polizei, ist die Demo bald vorbei
Damit kann ein jeder sausen wie der Depp von Entenhausen
Heute ist Unesco-Tag der Poesie. Die Süddeutsche will da nicht abseits stehen und titelt in Reimen.
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Final Salute
I've pointed to this photo before, but then it was hidden inside a Flash applet. Here is a real link to this most powerful photo on Iraq (full story). Link found by Jörg Colberg who made the same experience as I did: "I just can't stop looking at the people who you can see in the windows."
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Living in Germany (I)
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Herten, Germany, with #4 shaft, Schlägel und Eisen Coal
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Posted in category Endangered Machinery
Radio.blog.club
From my first impression, this is rather cool: Radio.blog.club let's people put a small musicplayer popup on their website through which you can stream music stored on their servers. I've never seen such a widget out in the wild, but if you use the seach box on the radio.blog.club website, you can access quite an abundance of music for free playing. Each link in the result lists takes you to someone's playlist which has the specific track or artist. Sample search: Nina Simone. I didn't try the bookmark and blogging features which require the creation of a free account.
Technorati Tags: music, toys, radio
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Frohe Kunde
Der Schacht Konrad in Niedersachsen kann voraussichtlich zum ersten deutschen Endlager für Atommüll ausgebaut werden. Das Oberverwaltungsgericht Lüneburg wies am Mittwoch die Klagen eines Landwirts und dreier Gemeinden gegen den Planfeststellungsbeschluss des niedersächsischen Umweltministeriums vom 22. Mai 2002 zurück. Eine Revision ließ das Gericht nicht zu.
Damit ist man genehmigungstechnisch ein gutes Stück weiter. Auch wenn die Gegner jetzt wohl erst noch zum Bundesverfassungsgericht laufen werden, sieht es also so aus, als könne bloß 24 Jahre nach Einreichen des Bauantrags und vier Jahre nach Erteilung der Baugenehmigung schon mit dem Ausbau begonnen werden.
Das 1965 eröffnete Eisenerzbergwerk der Salzgitter Stahl sollte ein 6 bis 15 km breites, 60 km langes und ca. 1,3 Milliarden Tonnen reiches Erzvorkommen aufschließen, wozu zwei Schächte mit ca. 1230 Meter und 999 Meter Teufe (normaldeutsch: Tiefe) und umfangreiche Grubengebäude (normaldeutsch: unterirdische Anlagen) auf den 800- bis 1300m-Sohlen aufgewältigt (normaldeutsch: gebaut) wurden. Der Abbau wurde jedoch nach nur 0,5% der geplanten Förderung im Jahre 1976 wegen Unrentabilität eingestellt. Bereits ein Jahr zuvor wurde mit Untersuchungen zur Eignung als Endlager für schwach- und mittelradioaktive Abfälle begonnen. Die Anlage ist nach Konrad Ende, einem früheren Aufsichtsratsvorsitzenden der Salzgitter AG, benannt.
Reuters: Gericht weist Klagen gegen Atommüll-Endlager ab →
IM INTERWEB
Exkursionsbericht der TU-Freiberg (PDF, Seiten 19-23)
Beschreibung des Bundesamts für Strahlenschutz (PDF, Seiten 34-42)
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Zeitfalte irgendwo?
Ich bin gespannt, ob der kleine Hinweis, den ich eben unter diesen Eintrag gesetzt habe, Wirkung zeigen wird: seit ungefähr einem halben Jahr bekomme ich nämlich in schöner Regelmäßigkeit mindestens eine Anfrage pro Woche, ob denn das angebotene Bandequipment noch zu haben sei - das Bandequipment, das 2003 über eBay wegging.
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Blumenthal Coal (I)
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Posted in category Endangered Machinery
Coal Washery (Reloaded)
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Imagine everything around you is rattling, shaking, humming, dusting and dripping. Dozends of dirty machines, some small, some several floors high, all cramped together in huge, muggy buildings with dozends of platforms, intersected by uncounted conveyer belts and pipelines, all sclutching together into one infernal organism, chewing 10,000 tons of raw coal and more per day. It's dark, hot, dusty, wet; a tight maze, opaque and intricate in most places, yet, seen from some elevanted viewpoints, a beauty. You are in a coal washery, the closest thing to a doomsday machine you are likely to see.
General Blumenthal Coal, Herne zwo, Germany; closed down
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Posted in category Endangered Machinery
Great MediaWiki Tools
The MediaWiki Toolserver is home of a number of interesting tools, many of which by User:Duesentrieb. Here are some:
CategoryTree
http://tools.wikimedia.de/~daniel/WikiSense/CategoryTree.php
Lets you dynamically browse the categories of a number of Wikipedias in tree view. Put into the sidebar of your browser, this is useful to quickly browse a Wikipedia and to see what's already there (example). If you start from category root (example, it's fascinating to see how complex some Wikipedias already are. I'll try to integrate this script into some of my own wikis.
CatScan
http://tools.wikimedia.de/~daniel/WikiSense/CategoryIntersect.php
Lets you search categories recursively, for intersection with other categories, subcategories, templates, stubs, recent changes and images. Stubs search would be useful on one of my own wikis where I use stubs a lot. Great tool for watching all images of a category on a single page, too (example).
Gallery
http://tools.wikimedia.de/~daniel/WikiSense/Gallery.php
Another image handling tool. Lets you see browse all images of a Wikipedia, shows usage and tagging status and has optional filtering or grouping by user. Good to quickly see which newly uploaded images are untagged or orphaned (
example) or to see all images provided by a specific user (
example).
Even more
Wikisign lets you issue SQL SELECT statement to a number of Wikipedias.
Personendaten - example use of the Personendaten metadata embedded into many Wikipedia articles.
Related
The Wiki Research Bibliography "is meant to collect all scientific literature about Wikis."
Technorati Tags: mediawiki, wikipedia, wikitools, wikis, tools, tinytools, bibliography
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Rauschendes Fußballfest
Wir werden mit unseren Gästen ein rauschendes Fußballfest feiern
sagte Dortmunds OB Langemeyer. Das städtische Umweltamt hat das jetzt präzisiert:
Danach sollen bei privaten Open Air-Veranstaltungen nur maximal 27 von 64 WM-Spielen übertragen werden können, davon 14 mit Anpfiff um 21 Uhr (wir berichteten). Ein musikalisches Rahmenprogramm darf es außer auf dem Friedensplatz – auch tagsüber – nur freitags und samstags geben.
Mit der Idee kommt man reichlich früh - pikanterweise nachdem Stadtverwaltung und Stadtbetriebe die Gastronomie bisher zu umfangreichen Angeboten motiviert und sie bei ihren Planungen tatkräftig unterstützt haben.
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Deppen Leer Zeichen
Deppenleerzeichen-Blog (Danke, Anke)
Leer Zeichen und Pluralbildung mit Apostroph - woher kommt diese neuen Brauchtümer eigentlich?
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phpAjaxTags
Tag Selectors, Autocomplete, Callouts, Form Field Updating, Portlet Lookalikes, Tab Panels an more, all with a few lines of PHP - phpAjaxTags, a clone of JSP AjaxTags, can be a real time saver. (For callout-alike popup bubbles, also see overLib mws.)
Technorati Tags: webdev, ui, php, ajax
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Google Pages to Google Wikifarm
Free linking of pages is the biggest strength of wikis, but ironically, in most wikitools, linking pages is also one of the hardest things to actually do - most offer no helpers, no supportive GUI, nothing. You have to know what other pages are there, and you have to manually insert the linked page's name. Lots of room for improvement.
Now I've seen this simple form at Google Pages:
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Inserting a link to another page by selecting from a list of all page names, freeform link text, and the wiki-esque feature "Create new page by linking to it" is already there, too.
Now imagine these two extra features: "Invite friends to edit some of my pages" and, in above screen, the fifth button "My friend's pages". Add some bits here and there - voila, welcome to Google Wikifarm. Let's take it as inspiration for a userfriendly small-wikis-tool.
Technorati Tags: googlepages, googlepages, usability, userinterface, wikitools
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Misconceptions
Interesting reaction to yesterday's posting on photo theft: a long and winding essay on teledyn.com in which the author claims that the whole copyright thing is childish and I am a "blind and naive" bad guy who shouldn't "sit at the table" of blogworld.
There are a few misconceptions though: A, if you attack someone, make sure you at least spell his name right. Haiko is not Heiko, and Heiko has nothing to do with it. B, if you lump together everything from loading a page into your browser and citing a webpage to freeloading, you do your case no good. And C, the whole thing is not about fair use at all. I thought this was obvious. So to be clear:
I am perfectly fine with fair use. It is important. If you use preview versions of my photos to link to or to cite my website, absolutely great. I even encourage you to do so. That's what blogs are made for. No need to feel intimidated. Just to weigh your words.
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Adding some green
So far, black, white, grey, red and blue have been this blog's colors. The green of the new "Add to Technorati Favourites"-button in the sidebar really spices things up, doesn't it? ;-)
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Image Theft: Don't do it
OK, that's a simple one: don't steal my photos. They are not for free taking, not for free inclusion in your academic papers, and not for free mass reposting on your favorite web forum. If you want to use them, simply ask. It does not hurt and makes you friends.
If you want to use my photos in a professional context, you can buy a right of use. Fees depend on use case and circulation. For private, noncommercial, academic and NGO uses, arrangements with considerably reduced, symbolic or no fees could be met, depending on the context. From time to time I also donate photos.
From now on, those few who do not understand these simple rules will receive invoices. Self-servicing with your source quoted will result in the twofold fee you would have had to pay normally. Self-servicing without citing your source or claiming someone else to be the copyright holder will result in the fivefold fee. Asking first is free - and easy.
(Using preview versions of photos to link to or to cite my website is of course free and encouraged, see Misconceptions)
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