Make Your Own Tilt Shift Pictures

tiltshiftmaker.com is a site that lets you modify your own pictures so that they look like pictures of miniatures or models. The technique is known as tilt-shift photography because of the special camera lens used to achieve the effect "in real life".

Here's a picture of my house modified by the site. It's not as good as some of the examples on the site but it should give you the idea.

Display anywhere

This TED talk is a demo of an interesting new wearable computer technology. The computer hangs around your neck and has a projector that sends images forward. The computer detects the images and can adjust for where they are projected. For example you can use a wall as a display and manipulate the objects being displayed with your hands (the computer can follow the positions of your fingers). An other example near the end of the video is that if you draw a circle on your wrist the computer projects the time (onto your wrist).

I first saw this in an article in the National Post that was sent to me by email. The article was very irritating - especially given how cool the device is. Firstly they seem to think the sixth sense reference has something to do with the movie of the same name. Secondly, I was a bit shocked that someone who writes a pop and culture blog would insultingly refer to someone who develops new technologies as a nerd. Whether an MIT nerd is better than a non-MIT nerd I will leave as an exercise for the reader (assuming there are any).

Slashdot also linked to the video.

Amazing Biking Video

Kottke.org has a post with an amazing video of a fellow riding his bike and doing tricks in an urban environment. It is almost like parkour on a bicycle. I would never have thought that you could just ride up to a fence and jump over it without a ramp.

Hubble as seen from Earth

Astronomy Picture of the Day has a photo of the space shuttle and Hubble telescope passing in front of the sun. The picture was taken from the ground but the shuttle is easily recognisable.

Volvo Ocean Race

The Big Picture has a nice set of photos of the Volvo Ocean Race. The nine month round the world race is now in Boston after completing the 5th of 10 legs.

What's up with bond holders

My friend Tim has a blog post about why some bond holders have an interest in driving the companies whose bonds they hold into bankruptcy. Basically if you have insured the bond using a Credit Default Swap (a CDS - one of the derivatives that is so much in the news lately) then you get all your money back if the issuer of the bond goes under. You'll get a lot less than that in a settlement.

Titan, Saturn and a rock

Astronomy picture of the Day has a nice shot of Saturn's rings in front of the moon Titan with a smaller moon passing by.

Flickr Formation

A neat page on Flickr where a photographer has taken advantage of the standard Flickr page layout to make a composite picture.

via reddit