HoodedHawk

At lunch today I was browsing Amazon.com via the Amazon iPhone app. It prompted me to try a new experimental service: Amazon Remembers. Seems you can take pictures of things you want to “remember” while you are out and about. The pix get sent to Amazon, and the system will try to find the item for you.

Well, all I had with me in the lunch room was the book I was reading. I took a quick snapshot of it (bad photo – too much glare from the overhead lights). Sent it on.

Later today I got an email from Amazon that they have found a “similar” item for me: And sure enough, they had a link to The Fire by Katherine Neville.

This is something that will come in handy!

Well, at least two of my photos are. The article below is from the July issue of Scientific American. I’m going to grab a few extra copies of the physical magazine (I’m a subscriber already). The photos of Professors Lawrence Krauss and Richard Dawkins are mine. The one of Prof. Krauss was at a recent debate with Prof. Brian Greene on String Theory (see my recent post). The photo of Prof. Dawkins was at a reading/signing of his book, “The God Delusion“. Cool!

Should Science Speak to Faith?

Two prominent defenders of science exchange their views on how scientists ought to approach religion and its followers

By Richard Dawkins and Lawrence M. Krauss

The boys and I went to see China Miéville give a reading of his new young adult book, Un Lun Dun last night at Politics and Prose bookstore in D.C.. This was the first time I had seen the author live, and he was quite an engaging speaker (and reader). China read a chapter or so from the book (about 15 minutes), and then spent something like 45 minutes answering questions.

Both boys enjoyed the reading; both even asked the author questions afterward. China inscribed a copy of the book for Brandon – “to the one who got the name! Cheers”. Brandon’s question had been about the setting (London), and why the author had chosen it (answer: because he lives there :) ). Dylan had a question about how the author used the term “rubbish”; he wanted to know if he got the term from a Harry Potter book. China smiled, and told him how the term was used in England – and also that he had written a note to himself to explain that but forgot. He also mentioned that J. K. Rowling didn’t invent the term. :)

I recorded the reading/talk on my iPod, but I probably won’t use it – Politics and Prose makes recordings of the author events available on their website.

I did also get a chance to use the Movie mode of my new Canon Powershot S3 IS camera. Whoa. Almost as nice as a dedicated miniDV video camera – but in a still camera. I was able to record about 21 minutes of video on two 2GB SD cards. I also took some still shots (above) without flash. Nice to have such flexibility. And the sound recording was *MUCH* better than the iPod sound. I had the option of just recording sound (about 2 hrs worth) – that will come in handy too.

Prior to the event the boys and I wandered in to Comet Ping Pong, next door. Turns out it’s a funky pizzeria, with ping pong tables in the back. That was a stroke of luck – we had fun playing table tennis in the back and had pizza for dinner. The pizza is thin-crust, made in a real firewood oven (the wood is stacked in a hallway). A bit pricey for the food, but ping pong was only 50 cents. Finding the bathroom was a challenge: find the unmarked wooden doors blending into a wooden wall. No, the trough in the corridor is not to be used, boys.

Spent a pleasant afternoon at Cascade Falls, Patapsco State Park in Ellicott City, MD at a Small Group Shoot directed by Christine Kent Bowles. She’s a great instructor, and I highly recommend her workshops (either at shoots or classroom).

The boys and I recently went camping, and we decided to take a hike along the Patapsco River. A bit of the trail parallels the local train tracks. I had my wife’s little Canon A80 with me (left my larger Nikon back in the car for this hike), and took this shot on the tracks. It wasn’t planned; just noticed the reflection while walking along. Actually, from a standing angle, I didn’t realize it was such a total reflection of Brandon. I put the camera down on the track and took a shot while Brandon walked away. Just goes to show that any camera is better than no camera!