Mokka mit Schlag » 2007 » September

As fond of Blockbuster’s online service as I’ve been since I first signed up with them about two years ago, (I’ve rented 516 movies from them and have over 700 more in my queue as I type) it’s become obvious that it’s time to say goodbye and try NetFlix. Blockbuster has been getting progressively worse for months, and it’s not just the usual problems with poor customer service. It’s becoming obvious that they are in deep technical trouble, and they cannot dig themselves out of it. Their development staff is simply not able to fix their problems.
(more…)

This Sunday, September 16, I will be leading a bird walk in Prospect Park for the Brooklyn Bird Club. We meet at the Grand Army Plaza entrance at 8:00 A.M. by the Stranahan statue. (Just look for the folks holding binoculars.) Fall migration is in full swing so we should see lots of good birds and quite a few confusing Fall warblers.

Everyone is invited. Preregistration is not required. If you’re coming from outside the neighborhood, take the 2-3 train to Eastern Pkwy, and walk down the hill past the library and cross Flatbush Ave. and you’ll be right there. (You can also get out at Grand Army Plaza and walk around the circle, but I usually find it a little easier to go one stop further and walk back. )

The Firefox password manager mostly works, but they’re a few sites whose passwords it can’t seem to collect or remember no matter what. Del.icio.us is the most prominent. Speakeasy is another.

Does anyone have any idea why this or how to fix it? I’ve confirmed it with Firefox 2 on both Mac and Windows. Possibly these sites are doing something weird with JavaScript. I can’t see anything in the plain HTML that would cause this problem. If they are deliberately blocking the remembering of passwords, I wish they’d stop. It’s very annoying, and will just lead to me choosing a more memorable but much more easily guessable password than the one I use to secure my password vault.

For my insect photography, I’ve been reading a lot of books and web pages about closeup photography. They usually suggest three things:

• Diopters, a.k.a closeup lenses
• Macro lenses
• Extension tubes

I haven’t tried extension tubes yet, but I did buy myself a cheap set of macro and closeup lenses. However, I discovered that the directions were distinctly lacking. Furthermore, none of the books and web pages I consulted explained what these did or how to use them in words I could understand. So today I ran a few experiments to figure out just what they did and how to use them. Since flying insects in the park aren’t exactly a reproducible test case, I set up my tripod and took some pictures of a flower on my dining room table with different lenses. Here’s what I figured out:
(more…)

Common European Honeybee, Apis mellifera
Brooklyn Botanic Garden, 2007-09-01
(more…)

Leaffooted Bug, Leptoglossus fulvicornis, formerly Leptoglossus magnoliae
Brooklyn Botanic garden, 2007-09-01