Common Sense and Whiskey

New Camera Technology News

The Lytro "focus later" camera we first spotted back in June is now in production. I clicked the "buy" button and learned delivery is expected in March or April. Not just in time for Christmas.

I'm a little more skeptical after reading this piece about the science behind the camera, and after seeing the thing. They may be marketing it as revolutionary ("the only camera that captures life in living pictures"), but they've designed it to look like a silly little throw-away mass consumer item - albeit one that starts at $400.

Still, I'm in. I wish them well and we'll see.

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Then there's this, the throwable panoramic ball camera. Ever want to see what's behind you without having to bother turning around? Okay, that's flip, if you'll pardon the pun. Actually, the thing's kind of neat:

Northern Lights in Southern Skies

Fairly insanely jealous of those who saw the aurora borealis down here in the southeastern U.S. last night. Don't suppose the Aurora Forecaster predicted it.

Click through to some pics: Here's a collection of photos from last night, and here's one said to be from just a couple of counties away from us in Georgia.

Here's NOAA's map from about noon eastern today, Tuesday, 25 October, 2011:

Ironically, just yesterday we booked travel to see the aurora in December. Instead of walking outside the studio here, we'll just have to travel 4568.44 miles to see it.

Fun for Frogs in Fiji

The first we heard of a cyclone was Monday afternoon in Port Vila, Vanuatu. We sat, pouring sweat, at a terrace on the only proper street, trying to lunch on burger and beer, but ultimately deconstructing a thing on a bun that started with the kitchen sink and then added beets, onions, carrots, eggs, bacon, cucumber, cheese, tomatoes, lettuce, salt, pepper, chillies, ketchup - and maybe a tiny little speck of free-range, no insecticide Vanuatu beef. In there somewhere.

Next table over a bright pink, corpulent fellow told his ni-Vanuatu lunch mate "Bluh bluh rain, bluh bluh cyclone bluh Fiji."

I leaned out from behind my mound of discarded non-burger and inquired.

"Yeah," he said, "It's southeast of here toward Fiji. We just had a look at it on the internet and it's a big mean thing. It's what's been causing all the rain."

Since we were bound for Fiji in 18 hours this was notable, although just then it was sunny, hot and about 600 per cent humid in Vila. We were just in from Espiratu Santo, another island in the Vanuatu archipelago where we'd passed endless sunny days in relentless, blistering sun.

But in the taxi home we heard the cyclone warnings in three languages on Vanuatu's only AM radio station, with a particular warning for the southeast island group centered around the cult-and-volcano island of Tanna. By now the cyclone had a name. May I introduce you to Jo.

Pretty Far Off the Map in the South Pacific

This week, a couple of quick little impressions about flying in and around the Vanuatu archipelago - Here's one, another in a day or so. Pictured here is an outrigger off Espiritu Santo Island, Vanuatu, and there are a few more photos in the Vanuatu Gallery at EarthPhotos.com.

The Vanuatu domestic flight terminal is like the one in Nepal, and probably a dozen others we haven't seen yet. If you're a desperately underperforming, poor country in the first place, your inclination is to spend your tiny wad on the international terminal for transits and arrivals, your countrymen and the hardy few who venture by plane beyond the gateway be damned.

It's just the way it is.

Our flight from the capital to Espiritu Santo island this morning would stop at Craig's Cove, Ambrym Island. I broke out my map of Vanuatu and found two airport symbols on Ambyrm Island. Which would it be, I asked at the check-in desk.

Blank looks. Much consultation. Studying the maps. Asking the boy in the back, the baggage boy.

No one knew, but eventually I found it, a light blue marking of a physical landmark, not a town, and that brought grateful smiles from the check-in boy.

The door to domestic departures spoke three languages - English, French and Bislama. Respectively, it read: Passengers Only, Reservées aux Passagers, Pasensa No Mo. We filed in.

New Most Popular Photo at EarthPhotos.com

Visitors to EarthPhotos.com have voted in a new most popular photo - it's one of the tree-climbing lions in the Ishasha Wilderness, Queen Elizabeth National Park, Uganda. This photo was also published in a feature on Uganda in a recent edition of Afar Magazine.

You can vote on any photo on EarthPhotos.com. Just mouse over the photo and click thumbs up. See all the photos voted most popular in the Most Popular Gallery.

Since this wasn't the type of photo for which you have leisure time enough to set up a tripod and walk around composing the best angle, it's an HDR from a single RAW. There's a before and after comparison here.

 

Friday Photo Quiz #130 - Where in the World?

There are places in the world where billiards - outdoors - is huge. See this photo of uniformed Chinese soldiers getting in a quick game in Lhasa, Tibet.

The photo in today's quiz is not from Tibet. It is from a national capital. Can you guess the city? The country?

The answer is after the jump.

And a good weekend to all from Common Sense and Whiskey and EarthPhotos.com.

 

Cartophilia

We're cartophiles here. Browse some previously recommended websites, including especially the Strange Maps and Worldmapper websites, and a charming little book called The Atlas of Remote Islands.

Here's a nice new find: the book Maphead is great. Get yourself a copy. From the Kindle version, here's part of a chart called "separated at birth." Good stuff.

Kidnapping Deadly for Victim, Resort

There is news this morning that Marie Dedieu, a 66 year old Frenchwoman kidnapped from Kenya by suspected Somali militants earlier this month has died in captivity. The BBC reports that the Somali kidnappers did not take her wheelchair or medication with them.

Ms. Dedieu was kidnapped from the small island of Manda, part of the Lamu archipelago which, as you can see in this Google map, is about 75 miles south of the Somali border.

There is a resort on Manda called Manda Bay. Perhaps it's more accurate to say there WAS a resort there. The proprietors point out that Ms. Didieu was "believed to be a home owner on the Lamu side of Manda Island," and not resident at their resort. Nevertheless, a kidnapping from your little resort island can't be good for business.

So they've relocated their guests elsewhere and "Manda Bay will remain closed until we are totally confident that sufficient security has been provided for the whole area. "

I'm going to bet that'll be approximately never.

Read the Manda Bay statement.

One More from Here at the Studio

And while we're on the subject, thought we'd share a photo of the EarthPhotos.com and Common Sense and Whiskey studio, from today, 18 October, 2011. It's a nine shot HDR. Click it to make it bigger.

Just Before the Leaves Fall

Our next mission abroad is still some seventy days away, but this isn't the time of year to be away from our southern Appalachian home, anyway. These are the very final days before that last, crashing rainstorm blows out our leaves and blows in six months of brown and chill. Every day we walk around the farm wide-eyed, camera in hand, trying to will a few more of these beautiful, colorful days.

This photo is a seven exposure HDR, taken down at the bottom of our driveway, at the beginning of our lower pasture. It's displayed in the EarthPhotos.com Rural Life section and was taken precisely one year ago, in October 2010. Click it to make it much, much bigger.

Eight Generic Things You Don't Need to Know

People respond to lists. They're a cheap way to attract eyeballs to your web site. So most content providers are weak enough to use them once in a while. Hey, it's Monday.

Some lists are okay, I guess. I like bullet points 4, 6, 8 & 9 in 17 Thoughts on Travel Lists on Perceptive Travel, for example.

When lists aren't used just as generic fluff and filler, you can discover worthy stuff, as in these seven remotest abandoned wonders on a blog called Web Urbanist. Name one other place you've learned about Dallol, Ethiopia and Múli, Faroe in the same article.

But boy, oh boy, when lists ARE used just as generic fluff and filler, you get, well, this.

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See, I'm really skeptical about the coming 2014 Winter Olympics in Sochi, Russia and I've opened up a section here on CS&W called Sochi Olympics Watch to collect others' thoughts. So, when I found a list titled Eight Things To Know About Attending The Next Olympic Games, in the spirit of research, I clicked right through.

But you don't need to.

No, on second thought, click on through. And see if all eight wouldn't apply to the next concert you go to, or even, say, your next trip to the driver's license renewal office. Go early and be prepared to stand in line. Hey thanks! Good stuff!

Sale!

In honor of the six month anniversary of its publication, we're discounting the $8.99 regular price of the Kindle version of Common Sense and Whiskey - the Book, to just $6.99 for the next two weeks.

It's a great read about some of the less-traveled parts of the world. Check it out. This low price is good now through the end of the month.

Download yours right now.

Or, get the print version.

Jigme Gets Hitched

Congratulations to the Bhutanese people. Looks like they're having a huge party around today's royal wedding.

Have you noticed? Most of the time the tone of news articles about Bhutan is a little bemused, treating the Kingdom of the Thunder Dragon as kind of quaint and not quite of this world. Writers always try to mention that "gross national happiness" thing, which started "as a casual, offhand remark" by the previous King. I admit to having treated Bhutan the same way in my book, quoting a man named Phruba about a  

"Ceremony day after (He meant tomorrow) for weather making. It is big this year because this year we have two Junes." He paused. "Sometimes we have no August."

Excuse me?

He knew he had us and he warmed to the subject. "Oh yes. Today is the ninth. Maybe sometimes we have two ninths and maybe no eleventh. This is decided by the monks and they always agree."

It’s published in Kuensel (the newspaper) every Saturday, so you have to check.

"This is why you cannot know when are the festivals."

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That quote comes from the Bhutan chapter of Common Sense and Whiskey, the book. You can read the entire chapter online.

The photo at the top is from Punakha, the site of the royal wedding. It's at the confluence of the Mo and Pho rivers. See over a hundred photos in the Bhutan Gallery at EarthPhotos.com.

And if you ever hear anything, please let me know where I can pick up a pair of these Royal boots.

 

 

Japanese Nuclear Propaganda

An article in the current New Yorker tells us about about the frightening Little Pluto (for plutonium) Boy, a cartoon used to indoctrinate children about the benefits of nuclear power. Here's a clip on You Tube.

Common Sense and Whiskey, the Book - Sri Lanka, Chapter Nine

Here is Chapter Nine of Common Sense and Whiskey, the book. We'll publish each chapter over the course of the year (Track down previous chapters here). You can order the entire book direct from EarthPhotos Publishing, or at Amazon.com. Photos and additional commentary are available at A Common Sense and Whiskey Companion. And here's the Sri Lanka Gallery at EarthPhotos.com.

9 SRI LANKA


There are certain things a guidebook ought to level with you about right up front, before gushing about the exotic culture, pristine sandy beaches and friendly people. Number one, page one, straight flat out:

YOU ARE FLYING INTO A COUNTRY THAT CAN’T KEEP THE ROAD TO ITS ONE INTERNATIONAL AIRPORT PAVED, AND LINES THE ROAD IN AND OUT WITH BOYS WITH NO FACIAL HAIR HOLDING MACHINE GUNS.

Lurching into and out of potholes on the road from the airport to the beach, dim yellow headlights illuminated scrawny street dogs sneering from the road, teeth in road kill. Mirja and I took the diplomatic approach and decided, let’s see what it looks like in the morning.

Accomplished Traveler Inspires Countries-Visited Envy

In his review of Common Sense and Whiskey, the book, editor of Perceptive Travel magazine writes that I'm "one of those 'been to 100 countries' types." I'm not entirely sure in what spirit that was meant, but I take it as high praise.

Of course, whenever you find yourself feeling self-satisfied, it's healthy to be humbled a little bit.

And so I present to you Gordon Kilgore, a fellow Georgian who has traveled to all 50 states, 7 continents, the North Pole, and 181 countries. I mean, Antarctica FOUR TIMES. And he has taken pictures. Enjoy his site, Picture Perfect. I'm putting him in the "Photographers, with Respect" sidebar on the right.

Friday Photo Quiz #129 - Where in the World?

There are clues to this week's quiz answer in the photo, and not just the minaret.

Can you name the city? The country?

The answer is after the jump.

And a good weekend to all from Common Sense and Whiskey and EarthPhotos.com.

New Book Review from Perceptive Travel Magazine

Excerpts of the new review of Common Sense and Whiskey, the book, in this month's Perceptive Travel magazine:

"Enjoyable to read ... literally all over the map ... A nice book to pick up, read one section of, and come back to later.

Approaches each destination with a thirst for adventure — or at least looking to find a taste of something unusual.

A keen sense of the ironic and bizarre, told without embellishment.

Doesn't shy away from the country's underbelly or the dark sides of tourism.

Lets the place and the people tell us the real deal."

As reviewed by Perceptive Travel editor Tim Leffel. Read the whole review here. Thanks, Tim.

Buy CS&W on Amazon. On Kindle.

"Evidently, denture adhesive is improving"

Oktoberfest ended yesterday in Munich with the loss of

"a Viking helmet, two crutches, an electric wheelchair, a rucksack containing two foldable camping chairs, a case full of musical notes, 1,300 items of clothing, 520 wallets, over 1,000 identity cards, 390 mobile phones, 370 pairs of eyeglasses, 90 cameras, 80 items of jewellery and watches and 425 keys..."

and only one set of dentures, down from previous years.

"The year I started," a worker in lost and found said, "I remember we had five or six sets of false teeth in, and a pensioner walked in and tried them all on. Unfortunately, his weren't among them."

Read all about it here in Der Spiegel.

The Englischer Biergarten, Munich.

New Book Review

On her popular blog Songberries this morning, Carol Harlow reviews Common Sense and Whiskey, the book, and writes:

"Bill Murray is a great story teller and a wonderful writer. He made me feel like I was right there with him. This is not an ordinary travel book,this is more like an adventure book for out of the way places. I thoroughly enjoyed reading it."

Thanks very much, Carol.