November Flower

This blossom was still blooming outside in late November on the Massachusetts coast.

New England Beach

A New England beach on a blustery day Saturday after Thanksgiving.

Building Artificial Faces

Don't like your face online? There's software that can automatically swap out features from a library of other people's mugs. It looks like a variation on morphing, only the software is taking eyebrows, eyes, mouth, nose, and so forth, from one face and blending them into another's. It could be used to protect privacy -- but it also increases that unease over the nature of reality when that world meets a digital realm. Don't like your face on Match.com? Change it. I understand the desire for privacy, and yet I also appreciate how quickly we are slipping through the looking glass into a place where nothing is as it seems, literally.

Online Travel Photo Tutorial

While browsing about, I came across a series of tutorials and tips at Fodor.com on how to take better travel pictures. There's a bias toward discussing film, which makes me think that this was written some time ago. But the fundamentals will apply, whether film or digital, so take a look before you take off on your next trip.

Beef Up Storage Now

"I've got plenty" is the last call of the computer owner who will end up with a rude shock when suddenly nothing more fits on the hard drive. I've said this multiple times when I kenw better, and the most recent was realizing that I needed a much bigger hard drive. Now, I had something on the order of 200 GB split between two drives. But if you're going to keep a lot of photos at close reach, then that is nothing. Shoot RAW images and you can easily find one session sucking up 1 GB or more of storage. Forget the online services for this. What happens if you forget to pay or if yo uhave a big problem? Do you want umpteen gigabytes of data to evaporate or to be downloding for hours? I just checked at a store and saw a 750 GB hard drive well under $300. Now, it will be a pain to transfer everything and set up yet another drive, but that's what I'll end up doing within the next few weeks. And I'll be all set - until next time.