This weeks links (2012-04-30)

In brief:

* Skype replaces P2P supernodes with Linux boxes hosted by Microsoft (updated) (2012-May-01) [ARS Technica]
Microsoft has drastically overhauled the network running its Skype voice-over-IP service, replacing peer-to-peer client machines with thousands of Linux boxes that have been hardened against the most common types of hack attacks, a security researcher said.

* The Future of Mobile Learning by Rick Oller [EDUCAUSE]
Abstract: This bulletin provides an overview of the current state of mobile learning in higher education, speculates on future directions, and suggests questions that educators might ask of themselves and their institutions in preparation for the onset of mobile education. Ignoring mobile learning is not an option when it has already begun to show a strong potential to disrupt existing pedagogical infrastructure, including that of online education. It is up to those in higher education to adapt this freewheeling trend to best serve the core mission of educating students.

* Guess the lighting [Guess the lighting]
Armed with only a wacom tablet, less-than-mediocre drawing skills and an acute sense of smell, professional photographer Ted Sabarese guesses how individual images were lit by other photographers and then sketches corresponding lighting diagrams. It’s what you always wanted to know but didn’t know who to ask.

* Amanda Palmer: The new RECORD, ART BOOK, and TOUR
hi folks, it’s AFP. this is my first BIG, LEGIT studio album undertaking since breaking from a major label. i’ve spent four years writing the songs for this record, and more recently, putting together the perfect band, The Grand Theft Orchestra, comprised of genius musicians/arrangers/programmers MICHAEL MCQUILKEN, CHAD RAINES, and JHEREK BISCHOFF. in march, we locked ourselves up in a studio in Australia and, with the help of producer/engineer John Congleton (who’s worked with a zillion amazing people including St. Vincent, Modest Mouse, and Xiu Xiu), we made what I believe is my best fucking album to date. …

• Report: How Amanda Palmer Is Kickstarting The Post-Music Industry (2012-May-02) [Ology]
• Amanda Palmer Raises $368,000 in Two Days, Sets Records on Kickstarter (2012-May-02) [Billboard]

Some reading/listening:

* Something different this week via io9, 100 Albums Every Science Fiction and Fantasy Fan Should Listen To.

• 100 Albums Every Science Fiction and Fantasy Fan Should Listen To: 71-100 (2012-Apr-24)
• 100 Albums Every Science Fiction and Fantasy Fan Should Listen To: 51-70 (2012-Apr-25)
• 100 Albums Every Science Fiction and Fantasy Fan Should Listen To: 31-50 (2012-Apr-26)
• 100 Albums Every Science Fiction and Fantasy Fan Should Listen To: 11-30 (2012-Apr-27)
• 100 Albums Every Science Fiction and Fantasy Fan Should Listen To: 1-10 (2012-Apr-30)

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Music Monday #101 – Iron Maiden

Following on from last week and keeping a foot firmly placed in the ’80s, this week we check out another band with a tremendous stage presence.

Iron Maiden are an English heavy metal band from Leyton in east London, formed in 1975 by bassist and primary songwriter Steve Harris. Since their inception, the band’s discography has grown to include a total of thirty-six albums: fifteen studio albums; ten live albums; four EPs; and seven compilations.
Pioneers of the New Wave of British Heavy Metal, Iron Maiden achieved success during the early 1980s. After several line-up changes, the band went on to release a series of U.S. and UK platinum and gold albums, including 1982′s The Number of the Beast, 1983′s Piece of Mind, 1984′s Powerslave, 1985′s live release Live After Death, 1986′s Somewhere in Time and 1988′s Seventh Son of a Seventh Son. Since the return of lead vocalist Bruce Dickinson and guitarist Adrian Smith in 1999, the band have undergone a resurgence in popularity, with their latest studio offering, The Final Frontier, peaking at No. 1 in 28 different countries and receiving widespread critical acclaim.
– wikipedia

And now for some music …

[photography] Bokeh

I was looking through the Photo a day 2012 Flickr Group and saw Day 27- Somewhere you went by Stacey Quinn, which then let me onto her photostream where she has several interesting bokeh images. What is this? How do I do it?

And hence the investigation that led to this post

The creative use of background blur (and Bokeh) can often be a very useful compositional element. The term comes from the Japanese word boke (暈け or ボケ), which means “blur” or “haze”, or boke-aji (ボケ味), the “blur quality”.

Larger aperture works best, so use a low f-stop number like f1.4, f1.8 or f2.8.
Time to pick up a Canon EF 50mm f/1.8 II, lucky for me that JB HiFi Ted’s Cameras has them on special this week

By using a filter we can ‘shape’ the image’s circle of confusion. I have based the filters on the cardboard sleeve design used in the DIY – Create Your Own Bokeh tutorial [1]. The first trial was a ‘flower’ using a metal punch, this worked quite well with the sharp edges producing a clear image.

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For the second trial the shape was a hand cut person, this has less sharp edges and produces a more blurred bokeh.

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Using the filter with a multiple light source through the leaves of a tree gives an unusual effect;

From the World of EOS:

Next step: Sharp foreground images with artistic bokeh backgrounds.

LINKS:
[1] DIY – Create Your Own Bokeh (2007-Apr-25) [DIYPhotography.net]
[2] How To: 7 Quick Tips To Create Bokeh With Digital Camera (2010-Apr-15) [Photoble]
[3] Bokeh [wikipedia]
[4] About Bokeh [bokehtests.com]
[5] Bokeh Test [www.rickdenney.com]
[6] Bokeh and Background Blur [bobatkins.com]

Firefox 12.0

Firefox v.12.0, was offered to release channel users on April 24, 2012

Fixed in Firefox 12 [4]
MFSA 2012-33 Potential site identity spoofing when loading RSS and Atom feeds
MFSA 2012-32 HTTP Redirections and remote content can be read by javascript errors
MFSA 2012-31 Off-by-one error in OpenType Sanitizer
MFSA 2012-30 Crash with WebGL content using textImage2D
MFSA 2012-29 Potential XSS through ISO-2022-KR/ISO-2022-CN decoding issues
MFSA 2012-28 Ambiguous IPv6 in Origin headers may bypass webserver access restrictions
MFSA 2012-27 Page load short-circuit can lead to XSS
MFSA 2012-26 WebGL.drawElements may read illegal video memory due to FindMaxUshortElement error
MFSA 2012-25 Potential memory corruption during font rendering using cairo-dwrite
MFSA 2012-24 Potential XSS via multibyte content processing errors
MFSA 2012-23 Invalid frees causes heap corruption in gfxImageSurface
MFSA 2012-22 use-after-free in IDBKeyRange
MFSA 2012-21 Multiple security flaws fixed in FreeType v2.4.9
MFSA 2012-20 Miscellaneous memory safety hazards (rv:12.0/ rv:10.0.4)

Vulnerability ratings: 7 Critical, 4 High, 3 Moderate
Evaluation: With seven critical vulnerabilities, it is time to update.

LINKS:
[1] Firefox Updated: Firefox 11 (2012-Apr-24) [Mozilla]
[2] Firefox features [Mozilla]
[3] Mozilla Firefox 11.0 Release Notes (2012-Apr-24) [Mozilla]
[4] Security Advisories for Firefox [Mozilla]

Scavenger Hunter Gatherer

A new longer term photography project “Scavenger Hunter Gatherer” where the aim is to collect all 100 photos;

The Challenges [2]
Complete this scavenger hunt by taking a photo of each item on the challenge list. There are 100 challenges. You must submit a separate photo for each challenge. The my camera challenge must be your final submission. The rest, however, you can take in an order you wish.
Take your time. This is meant to be fun & challenging. Creative thinking is encouraged. I want us to try new things, so branch out and try to use different styles – take a picture you normally wouldn’t.
The challenges were chosen by me because I can.

[Trailwalker] Tales from the trail – The Final Episode – The Event at last

Episode 12 – The Final Episode – The Event at last

G’day folklings,

As this is our very last Tales from the Trail, we would like to sincerely thank all of you who supported us throughout the whole time – from training to event. So many people donated to a cause that we felt was worthy enough to make the effort for. From Tracy’s work colleague who, along with the rest of his family, donated on behalf of his grand-daughter to honour the assistance that charity dollars had provided in keeping her alive at the Royal Children’s Hospital for 4 years until a cure could be found for her, to the members of Gwen’s weight loss club (TOWN) who were so inspired by her efforts that their continued donations spurred her on. The members of Gwen, Thelma and Maureen’s church, who decided that walking wasn’t enough and that Gwen needed to practise her public speaking to explain the cause to them as well, to our son’s primary school who conducted a gold-coin donation casual dress day. Our friends and our families who supported us so much, both with donations and with the moral support that helped us on our journey. We thank you all. Between you all, team 672 “We’re doing what?” has raised over $3,000 towards helping disadvantaged communities around the world.

Secondly, we need to thank, as we could never have done the walk without them, our support crew. Steve and Bev, Chris, Thelma and Charles, Sandi and Maureen. You guys were fantastic! You came out training with us, you were ready with yummy, warm, energy rich food at each check point, you pampered us, you filled up our water bottles, you were ready with changes of socks, bandaids and extra clothing for when we needed it, and you did it all in ½ hour blocks before getting us out of the checkpoint on schedule, packing up and moving to the next spot to do it all again. Thank you from the soles of our feet.

And the last group, but by no mean the least, our families, particularly Kira, Liam and George, who lived without us every Saturday for 4 months as we went out to train, who massaged us, who rolled their eyes at our stories, and who will now need to learn to have us around again. And to Ken, for graciously ‘sitting on babies’ every week. We really do appreciate it. Thank you to all of you for letting us have this time.

We're doing what? (672) 32 hrs 53 mins

This weeks links (2012-04-23)

In brief:

* Plunder downunder: How to read the iiTrial piracy verdict (2012-Apr-24) [IT News]

* Top 10 Most Unforgivable Twitter Spelling Mistakes (2012-Apr-20) [BuzzFeed]

* Create a State of Chaos … go and have a play with it

* Wheels for the Mind Autumn 2012 [AUC]

Liege Bastogne Liege

* Liege – Bastogne – Liege 2012 [SBS Cycling Central]

* Liège-Bastogne-Liège 2012 [steephill.tv]

Some reading/listening:

* Novellas, Unbound! (2012-Apr-15) [Worlds Without End]
First, we posted links to all of the Hugo nominated short stories (all free and digital), then we followed up with the novelettes (mostly free and all digital), and now we have… novellas! Of the six nominated novellas, five are available digitally, and four are free. Considering Hugo defines a novella as being up to 40,000 words, that’s a lot of reading for not much.

Music Monday #100 – KISS

A special MusicMonday for #100. KISS was my first big concert back at Waverley in 1980, these guys own the stage!

Kiss (often stylized as KISS or KIϟϟ) is an American rock band formed in New York City in January 1973. Well known for its members’ face paint and flamboyant stage outfits, the group rose to prominence in the mid to late 1970s on the basis of their elaborate live performances, which featured fire breathing, blood spitting, smoking guitars, shooting rockets, levitating drum kits and pyrotechnics. Counting the 1978 solo albums, Kiss has been awarded 28 gold albums to date, the most of any American rock band. The band has sold more than 40 million albums in the United States, of which 20 million have been certified by the RIAA and their worldwide sales exceeds 100 million albums. The 1973–’80 original lineup of Paul Stanley (vocals and rhythm guitar), Gene Simmons (vocals and bass guitar), Ace Frehley (lead guitar) and Peter Criss (drums) is the most successful.
– wikipedia

You Wanted The Best!
You Got The Best!
The Hottest Band In The World!
KISS!!!!!

And now for some music …

[Trailwalker] Tales from the trail – episode 11 – Hitting the road

Episode 11 – Hitting the road

G’day folklings,

As promised, I’m attaching the link to our team page so you can keep track of our progress during the actual walk.

We start at 10 am on Friday, and anticipate getting in to the finish at around 7 pm(-ish) on Saturday and are getting butterflies.

http://trailwalker.oxfam.org.au/melbourne/teams/team-tracker/ takes you to the Team Tracker page and you then look up our Team name or one of the walkers. We are team “We’re doing what?” (Team number 672).

I think any blogging we do (and by that, read Darren does) goes up onto either our team page or makes it onto a strip at the side of the Team Tracker page.

You can also follow the general chatter on Twitter using the #OTWM hashtag, we’ll also add in #Team672 if there is room in our Tweets.

Cheers, and thank you for your support,
Tracy, Darren, Gwen and Frances
Team 672: “We’re Doing What?”

Oxfam Trailwalker Melbourne – 100 km – teams of 4 – 48 hours
To read more about my team go to Team 672 : We’re doing what?

**April Reading Challenge – Authors of the Month – 2012**

The Aussie Readers group on Goodreads has the April Reading Challenge – Authors of the Month;

For a bit of a change, this month we’ll combine special authors with a bit of Easter/Anzac Day spirit. Our authors to choose from will be:
* Tim Winton
* Kate Grenville
* Stephen King
* Jodi Picoult
* John Green

As an alternative…if you are stuck…you can choose an author whom you HAVEN’T read before, who is well published, and has a book which will relate to our either Easter or Anzac Day requirements.

Now to incorporate your author from this list, you need to make sure there’s something which will relate to either Easter (eggs/colour purple/family) or Anzac Day (military/special forces) or both in the stories/titles/cover art of your chosen book/s.

It doesn’t matter how many you read, only one or as many as you want…just put your thinking caps on, challenge yourself with something different and enjoy