Summer ‘09 in Pics vol. 9
Fireworks at Gas Works Park
This weekend I traveled to Seattle to visit some Rice friends who are interning/working there. We went to Gas Works Park to watch the fireworks show over Lake Union. It was extremely crowded, with thousands of people carpeting the grass for acres. We managed to get right to the water, and I set up my tripod directly in front of the fireworks barge (although there were some unfortunate bushes right in front of me). A lot of these pictures were taken with my friend Kevin’s Panasonic Lumix DMC-LX3.
Playing around with CHDK
I own a Canon Powershot A540, and I’ve been putting it through its paces this summer. There are a few ways in which I’ve sort of hit the limits of its capabilities; for example, I can’t do the typical slow-shutter-speed waterfall photographs because the aperture only goes down to f/8 (although I could probably hack it with a makeshift ND filter or something). Interestingly, the capabilities of these cameras are in part set by the firmware, and so there is an open-source firmware enhancement project called CHDK which aims to both unlock the full featureset of the hardware and augment it with more featureful software.
Dark and Disquieting Portents
Have you noticed an increase in the margin on the left side of the Google search results page recently? My coworker started noticing it yesterday, but I thought it was just him. Then I noticed it when I got home, and saw it mentioned on Twitter as well. The weird thing is the platforms where it shows up. My friend first started noticing it with Firefox 3.5 on Windows. I noticed it at home with Firefox 3.0 on Ubuntu, and on this Windows machine I see the effect with Chrome, but not Firefox 3.5 or IE 7:
Summer ‘09 in Pics vol. 8
San Jacinto Peak
My latest mountain conquest is San Jacinto Peak, east of Los Angeles and just to the west of Palm Springs. It is an impressive mountain, rising up from land not much above sea level, and the views from the top can be spectacular, if the smog isn’t too bad. San Jacinto is the highest peak of the San Jacinto Mountains and the second highest point in southern California. I climbed it on Saturday with my dad, on the Devil’s Slide trail starting near Idyllwild. This is a moderate hike of about 15 miles, with around 4500 feet of gain. I found it to be an uninspiring trail with only mediocre views until the very top.
Summer ‘09 in Pics vol. 7
Mount Whitney
I hiked to the top of Mount Whitney on Saturday. This mountain is the highest in the continental US, and is a popular hiking destination. There is a quota on the number of people who are allowed on the mountain between May and October, and I very luckily managed to obtain a permit on short notice. As it turned out, the whole thing was something of an adventure.
Summer ‘09 in Pics vol. 6
Mount San Antonio (aka Mount Baldy)
Yesterday I climbed Mount Baldy, the prominent peak directly north of Los Angeles. This peak is most frequently climbed from near the bottom of the Mt. Baldy ski area (you can even take one of the lifts to make the trip shorter, if they are running). I thought this sounded a bit weak, so I took the Bear Canyon trail starting in Baldy Village (elevation 4200 ft). This route has 5900 feet of elevation gain on the 6-mile trail to the summit (a fairly steep grade). I thought it would be a good warm-up for Mount Whitney, which has only a few hundred feet more vertical gain but a trail nearly twice as long.
I started out at the Mt. Baldy Visitor center and worked my way up through a narrow valley filled with gigantic pine trees and slightly trashy summer cabins. The trail quickly moves up the side of the valley and then eventually up the side of Bear Canyon. This is a long, steep slope with sustained switchbacks that definitely takes some work. The trail works its way up onto the ridge, where the views get better and the trail becomes a bit more varied. A mile or so from the peak the trail winds along a ridge and past several lesser peaks, with great views in all directions.
Ctrl-C is Back
My (indirect) host, fsckvps.com, was pretty messed up by hackers using a HyperVM exploit. Fortunately, the server I use seemed to be OK, but the DNS servers were down and due to one thing and another I wasn’t able to set up alternate nameservers until just now. I’m using free service from afraid.org. It seems kind of slow, but it’s definitely better than nothing. Anyone know of any alternatives? Is it possible to roll my own?
There is a slight improvement; http://www.ctrl-c.us/ now redirects to http://ctrl-c.us/ :-)
OK, it’s now way past my bedtime. I’m getting up in just a few hours to go on another epic hike. Pictures to follow.
Summer ‘09 in Pics vol. 5
Villager Peak
This past Saturday I climbed Villager Peak, far out to the east in the desert. This 5756 foot peak lies on the southern side of the Santa Rosa Mountains, in the Anzo-Borrego Desert. The top offers fantastic views (potentially 100+ miles) in all directions, and the area tends to be quite secluded. The catch is that the trailhead is below 1000 feet in elevation, located on low salt flats only about a dozen miles from the huge inland Salton Sea. This means the prospective hiker is looking at almost a mile of cumulative elevation gain on the 13 mile round-trip hike.