Exoplanets Talk Coverage
Posted on March 15th, 2008 by blue collar scientistAlaska paleoartist and blogger Scott Elyard of Coherent Lighthouse has posted some comments about my talk Thursday night. What with the necessities of setting up for the talk, talking to some of the people attending, and the legitimate stresses of debuting a new program, I only got to talk to Scott briefly, but I did notice that he was packing a Mac (probably one more high-powered than my own, I’d guess) and a serious-looking Nikon DSLR. Sadly, his photographs of the event apparently didn’t turn out so well:
I do have to report that a 60 mm Macro lens does not make a good general-purpose lens–something I aim to rectify for the future, but for now it means my photos turned out pretty blurry. I’m not often good at photographing in conditions where I have no control over lighting, or, even … if the subject happens to actually move on its own accord.
I’m sure the real problem was that the lights were down. I’m kinda known for showing the pretty pictures, so the house tends to bring the lights to the absolute threshold of safety when I’m presenting.
And it’s a fair cop - I do tend to move about. I am prone to wandering to and fro in front of the audience, as though I were trying to hypnotize them with my pendulum-like motions, rather than dazzle them with what one of my students calls my “mad public speaking skillz.” As far as I’m concerned, a lectern with a snake-mounted microphone is some kind of torture device, so I eschew them where possible.
March 15th, 2008 at 10:21 am
And you know what’s funny? Had I been slightly less tired, I might have noticed that the exposure was set to “manual” from my last project.
I’m not certain how my almost 5-year old G4 stacks up against your own shiny, but it is so very useful, both for digital paint as well as video editing. (Just not, y’know, the fastest machine on the planet at this point.) (Or gifted with a particularly long-lasting battery.)