I’ll keep this short: I decided to give my boring computer background a makeover.
Naturally, this space dork grabbed some of his favorite images of the universe and cut them down to 1920×1200.
Below is a gallery of space things you, too, can use as computer backgrounds for your widescreen monitor.
Enjoy!
The oft-heard quip about digital cameras is that they never run out of film. Truth. They use solid-state flash memory.
My problem with the witticism, however, is that it implies flash memory can store more photos than anyone could possibly take. Whoever said this never went to Costa Rica.
This tropical slice of Central America offers some of the richest wildlife and most beautiful scenery in the world crammed into 50,000ish square kilometers.
I’m talking about sweeping river basins riddled with rapids, cloud forests lit up with howler monkey calls, beaches invaded by monkeys and crab racoons, lush jungle cocoa plantations, epic waterfalls, and more.
Costa Rica also offers bewildering glimpses into ways of life that are foreign to U.S. citizens like myself. Unattended piles of burning trash, machete-wielding pineapple-harvesting bicyclists, mothers rolling babies down busy country-like roads, over-tanned ex-pat bed-and-breakfast owners, and sanctuaries filled with lumbering sloths, to name a few.
I snapped more than a thousand photos during the March 2011 trip with Kendra and our friends, ultimately filling up a 16-gigabyte card twice over. Below are some favorite shots that survived the delete button.
Woodside, Queens is one of the best-kept secrets in New York City. It’s a vibrant, diverse and taco-truck-filled community nestled just east of Sunnyside, Queens — the greatest urban neighborhood in the world, where I happen to reside. Ok, maybe third greatest.
But Woodside’s secret is that it was built, in part, by a nasty little water mold.
Be my guest if you want to jump right into some recent photos, otherwise stick around for a quick-and-sciencey history lesson about the area.
In the mid-1800s, Ireland was having a rough time. And that’s putting it lightly.
Caustic social and political issues had been piling up, potato crops were failing (thanks to a nasty water mold which caused potato blight), starvation gripped most of the population and disease was spreading rampantly.
During a span of about two decades, in fact, the country lost roughly 2 million people/25 percent of its population. Half of those losses were to death, while the other half emigrated to U.S. cities such as New York City and Boston.
About a quarter of these 1 million emigrants settled into NYC, and then-Nassau county — which the Woodside and Sunnyside areas were a part of in the 1850s — took a lion’s share of that immigration action. In its heyday during the late 1800s, Woodside was about 80 percent Irish. That’s tough to gauge now, however, as the U.S. census only asks for white/black/Hispanic/Asian/other, and that whole America-as-a-melting-pot thing.*
Now about that potato crop failure, which is a huge component of the infamous Great Famine… (more…)
Manhattan’s streets are aligned on a wonderfully regular grid, a relief to perfectionist types out there who crave order in their arrangement of asphalt.
But it ain’t perfect, and I’m not talking about downtown’s quagmire of back streets.
As it turns out, New York City’s grid is slightly skewed in a clockwise direction because, well… it makes more sense given the shape and direction of “Mannahatta.”
Cartographers often fool the foolhardy, however, by rotating streets into a more aesthetically pleasing arrangement (to agree with a map’s rectangular shape). Don’t believe me? Look for the compass on MTA’s subway map. It’s hanging out in the Long Island Sound.
Anyway, this regularity that’s a wee bit off creates not one but two golden opportunities — arguably four, if you like seeing half our backyard star — for photography and astronomy nerds.
I’m plugging away at some late-night work, and peek out of my window — what do I spy rising above the eastern rooftops of Queens?
Well, if it ain’t our familiar friend, a yellow June moon:
Update (7/20/2010): I’ve uploaded a second set of snowy photos taken in Port Jefferson, NY. Brrr…
Some argue there’s nothing like a muggy New York summer, with insult added to injury thanks to the heat island effect. But I can’t stand it any more.
So to cool off, here’s a blizzard from December 19, 2009*. Bonus: a few ugly sweaters in there as well.
* Yes, I am THAT far behind in getting my photos posted. But I’ll catch up… one of these days.
