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This Is Why We Dive {Divester}
Jun 29th 2006 10:03PM This particular night dive there was a bit of current running, so the hardest part was getting myself into position to get the shot, take it and then get out of the way so I didn't come into contact with anything and at the same time, be still enough to take the picture clearly. There are about 10 or 11 other photos I took of this same basket star that turned out crappy. This one has a little backscatter but turned out way better than the other ones. The camera is just a Canon S70 in a Canon underwater housing, using the onboard strobe, the underwater white balance (not custom) and the diffuser in front of the onboard strobe. I didn't even shoot it in RAW mode, just JPG at the highest resolution the camera would take. I got lucky. :)
Eric Ripert to open restaurant in Caribbean {Slashfood}
Jun 14th 2006 11:34AM Actually, the Ritz-Carlton opened in December of this year, we were at the bar there on Christmas Eve this year. Considering I live RIGHT NEXT DOOR (literally) to it, you'd think I would have wandered over and blown a paycheck on it by now, but I haven't. My flatmate has, however (she runs in better circles) and said that Blue was one of the best restaurants/meals that she's been to/eaten but be prepared for $150-$200 per head when the bill comes.
Hidden Gems: Hell {Gadling}
Jun 9th 2006 6:53PM Another story about the naming history of Hell is that the first governor or someone like that was being shown around and after seeing the stalagmite-looking formations, said it reminded him of the Hell described by a Sunday School teacher or someone like that. Ole Ivan set up shop there and has been making a (cough) hell of a living of saying "how the hell are you?" to everyone that walks into the t-shirt store, but you missed the actual governmental office right next door: the Hell post office. About 50 yards down the road is a watering hole called Club Inferno, and I do believe they actually have hot wings and chili as well as (relatively) cheap beer.
SeaCURE's Moldable, Custom Mouthpiece {Divester}
May 2nd 2006 5:25PM Same here. Had one (well more than one, for different regs) for the last 6 or 7 years and love 'em. This article reminded me that I have to pull it off and clean it when I get home tonight, it's looking kinda black and moldy right now.
Everytime I pull it out, before I put it in my mouth I think "bleah. I gotta clean this before I go diving again" and then I forget uuntil the next time I pull it out of my bag :)
Ask Engadget: How do you like to move media on WiFi? {Engadget}
Feb 17th 2006 12:24AM I would LOVE to recommend the Prismiq, but I can't. For all the hype on it's box and on their website, the PRismiq is a dead end. I've had one for a couple years, and I've only ever gotten it working maybe 6 months of that. It WILL play XViD and avi files via 802.11g(when it's in the mood) but I found that unless I demuxed, extracted the vbr mp3 to wav and then re-encoded the video with the CBR wav using LAME and XViD, then the audio/video sync would get hosed up.
I recently emailed support (on a whim) to ask about an upgrade to support WPA instead of WEP, and while they were at it, how about recompiling with a newer version of FFMPG and they told me flat out that they were not supporting the Media Player anymore, but I was welcome to search around the internet for a couple open-source projects that were ongoing... except they could not support or condone the use of such... In spite of all that, they still advertise the unit for sale touting all the "features" that don't really work.
Recently, since I'm a glutton for punishment, I set up my AverMedia USb tuner on my desktop (which also runs the cpu-hogging Prismiq Media Server software) and scheduled some recordings as MPG1, and they did play more or less flawlessly on the prismiq media player, but Im not going to go back and re-encode all my stuff to MPG1 from XViD.
The AIM chat is broken, it runs an older version of one of the Linux aim-compatible programs, and Prismiq Support isn't developing for it anymore, so that doesn't work. The web browser does not support swf, java and the resolution of the tv display isn't really that high anyway, so that kinda sucks. Oh and hotmail doesnt work properly in it. you can read your mail, but you can't send any (I bought the keyboard so that houseguests could check their email on there) and gmail and now yahoo use AJAX, so that's probably broken, too.
I really, really, REALLY wish they were still developing/supporting this, as it would be THE kick-ass wireless/wired media player to have, but they screwed the pooch instead. If you're into reading tragedies, I've posted blog entries here and there about what works, what doesnt work, and how I've worked around it.
if I had to do it all again, I would probably just mod my xbox and use XBMC.
If you already have a prismiq, do a search for ezboard and seedwiki with prismiq, that's where you'll find a somewhat active user's group that's trying to love the prismiq.
So this is the video iPod, eh? {Engadget}
Feb 10th 2006 3:45PM the canon powershot has a little sensor in it to detect if you're holding the camera vertically or horizontally so as to rotate the picture so it's "right side up" when viewing onthe back LCD.. it can't be that much of a stretch to use that same tech on this.
So, what'd you get? {Engadget}
Dec 25th 2005 11:42PM A Vespa LX125 with bulletproof windscreen, oil slick & smoke cloud defense mechanisms, and a rear passenger eject seat. Twin front-mounted machine guns and retractable rocket pods.
And a new helmet: black with flames painted on it.
Trying to keep Q happy and bringing it back in one piece this time.
Scuba Hall of Fame Induction & Film Festival {Divester}
Oct 10th 2005 6:19PM aww come on, it was A TRY! Sure it's a stretch, but no one else came up with a better excuse, did they? :) Maybe they were photos made into a video slideshow in Photoshop Elements or something? (even longer, Stretch-Armstrong-worthy stretch)
A Katrina Lesson {Blog Maverick}
Oct 10th 2005 6:13PM Just to add my .02... there were (and are) a lot of expatriates there as well who dived in up to their elbows to help rebuild Cayman. Ex-pats from Jamaica (unskilled labor) Canada (skilled labor and construction foremen, etc) US (A whole whack of linemen and their trucks) Brits, Aussies, kiwis, south africans and phillipinos doing everything from clearing to roofing to cleaning to helping people put tarps over their roofs. Aid came in from the US, Canada and the UK. (I remember tacking down some heavy tarpaulin-like covering on a couple roofs that were imprinted with USAID logos on them, unloading and handing out UK rations and water from Canada and Jamaica). I think that the Americans(let's just call them people, as they're of all different nationalities) of yesteryear that Mark is pining for are still alive and well, they're just spread out over the rest of the world.
Scuba Hall of Fame Induction & Film Festival {Divester}
Oct 8th 2005 1:31PM Maybe they mean film as in film camera? I'm sure that even the big dogs are starting to shoot on digital, but the majority of their work was shot on film, and that's what they're celebrating?
