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Archive for the 'General' Category
My most-published picture is a picture of a juvenile loggerhead turtle being released into the wild just off of Palm Beach, Florida. It is commonly referred to as “the screaming turtle“. According to Google, it is being used online in about 21,200 locations. One day, I will unleash an IP attorney to hunt down all unauthorized commercial use. I don’t care about the personal use, as long as people attribute me and leave my watermark on the picture (which many do not).
Hint: to see where your pictures are used, go to Google Images and drag a JPG into the search field!
Tweets posted by @echeng during the week of 2011-12-19. (read more »)
Last month (November, 2011), 11 people at our office in downtown Mountain View were hit with credit card fraud. Most of us eat at the same group of restaurants on and around Castro Street in Mountain View. I was out of town, and was thus spared being a victim. However, I returned in late November and resumed using my credit card for lunch in downtown Mountain View. A couple weeks later, my American Express was shut down for fraudulent activity. It had been used at two Home Depot locations: one in Pennsylvania, and one in New York. One charge was for over $700, and the other for $450.
That makes 12 credit card fraud victims at our company—a significant percentage. The logical conclusion is that a someone who works at a restaurant in downtown Mountain View is stealing credit cards. If you’re headed to Castro Street to eat, it may be prudent to either 1) go somewhere else, or 2) pay in cash.
Tweets posted by @echeng during the week of 2011-12-12. (read more »)
I have an iPhone 4S on Verizon. Last week, I asked Siri a question, and she responded, “I’m really sorry, but I can’t take any requests right now.” After 24 hours, it was clear that Siri was broken. I looked only, and there were dozens of support webpages offering various tips on how to get the service working again; apparently, it is pretty common for Siri, clearly labeled a beta product by Apple, not to work. This is unfortunate because the iPhone itself is clear NOT a beta product. For any Apple-branded service not to work taints the entire iPhone experience.
Here’s how I finally managed to get Siri to work again:
Settings->General->Reset->Reset All Settings. This will reset things like your Desktop background, notification settings, and network settings, but will not delete any applications or user data. After I did this, Siri worked, but there were still a few problems: Siri refused to call anyone, and all phone numbers in my address book seemed to want to be 9 digits instead of 10. For example, if I entered a normal, 10-digit phone number like (415) 123-4567, Address Book would display it as “4151234567″. However, if I removed the last digit, it would display, “(415) 12-34-56″. Truly bizarre. I turned off Siri. I dialed *228 and selected option 2 to update roaming. After updating roaming, I turned Siri on again and waited for the phone to connect to the Verizon network. At this point, 10-digit phone numbers were again recognized and re-formatted to the proper “(xxx) xxx-xxxx”. Siri was again able to dial.
I hate wasting time trying to get services to work properly. One of the reasons I have an iPhone is that I just want things to work, and all of the effort expended to figure out a way to get Siri to work was not fun. If I wanted to endlessly tweak my devices, I’d still be on Android!
Anyway, I hope this post helps folks out there to get Siri working again on their Verizon iPhones.
Underwater footage from a 26-day Wetpixel underwater photography expedition to Alor and Komodo, Indonesia. Footage taken by me, with Canon EOS 7D, Tokina 10-17mm fisheye zoom lens and Canon 100mm macro lens. Macro footage was lit with dual Light & Motion SOLA 1200 video lights. Additional footage captured with GoPro HERO cameras in modified Eye of Mine underwater 3D housings.
Photos taken at Sizzler off of Lembata, Indonesia.
See the larger version here.
I used Final Cut Pro X, Apple’s controversial new “professional” video editing program to cut the trip video during my latest Wetpixel expedition to Indonesia. These slideshows have become a tradition for guests and combine video, stills, and music into something people can take home to show their friends and family.
Using Final Cut Pro X was, for the most part, fantastic. It is really more like an “iMovie Pro” and includes one-click video stabilization, color balancing, and look filters, which were all features I used extensively. Aside from dealing with small bugs, I was able to produce a 30-minute video fairly easily, without being impeded by any critical issues. However, I am back home, and am now in the process of trying to migrate my slideshow project and event files to my main Mac Pro from my MacBook Pro. This is proving to be impossible. Two excellent threads provide work-arounds for reconnecting missing media, but upon following the instructions outlined within those threads, this is what happened:
- After copying events and projects to the Mac Pro, they showed up and opened in FCPx, but all of the media showed up as missing (red thumbnails).
- Per suggestions, I re-imported all of the media (annoying, since the files are spread out over many folders). The red missing media icons for videos and audio were all restored to color (no longer missing). This seemed like a good sign.
- Many JPGs in the media list were not successfully re-connected; instead, they were duplicated. I have hundreds of JPGs in the slideshow, which are now all “missing” and therefore, would need to be re-cut into the timeline.
- Soon after re-import, I noticed an import background task running. Upon closer inspection, I realized that FCPx was in the process of copying over all the newly imported media instead of honoring my request to leave the files in their original location (by leaving “Copy files to Final Cut Events folder” unchecked). The source media is hundreds of gigabytes. Duplicating them is not an option.
- Closing FCPx and re-opening it immediately causes the import process to re-spawn. If I cancel the process, the media simply does not show up in my events.
Put quite simply, there is no way to move a complicated project and its associated event media from one machine to another. The fragility of the media storage system in FCPx is shameful—it’s like the product was never tested in the real world.
I will, in this case, essentially lose this project and never be able to edit it again. I suppose I’ll archive the events and projects in case FCPx improves its media handling capabilities. One significant side effect: if I upgrade my machine or need to reinstall, I’ll effectively lose all of my FCPx projects. Until there is serious improvement in media management, I can’t see myself using Final Cut Pro X again.
Commensal Periclimenaeus storchi shrimp inside tunicate, originally uploaded by echeng.
This bright green Periclimenaeus storchi shrimp lives inside a large Didemnum molle tunicate. I can’t find it any of the critter ID books I own, so maybe someone out there can help me get an ID. We did a night dive in Alor, and many of the Didemnum molle tunicates contained critters living inside of them (I saw 2 different shrimps and an amphipod). All of the critters fled from lights, and getting this picture took over half an hour of careful planning and execution. Photo by Eric Cheng, taken with Canon 7D, 100mm macro lens, Nauticam underwater housing, Light & Motion Sola 600 focus light, 2 x Ikelite DS-125 strobes.
Update: this shrimp has been identified as a Periclimenaeus storchi. It isn’t a true snapping shrimp.
More info on this shrimp:
- http://www.itis.gov/servlet/SingleRpt/SingleRpt?search_topic=TSN&search_value=612360
- http://www.chucksaddiction.com/car013.html
Tiny frogfish tries to eat an amphipod, Indonesia, originally uploaded by echeng.
A juvenile frogfish attempts to eat an amphipod and some unknown eggs. The amphipod survives the encounter after being rejected by the frogfish. See grains of sand, for scale. These animals are tiny! Photo taken with Canon 7D, Canon 100mm USM macro lens, INON macro diopter, Nauticam underwater housing, 2 x Ikelite DS-125 strobes. (Night dive at Sizzler; Wai Verang, Indonesia)
Wai Verang
November 4, 2011; 10:22pm
The known dive sites at Wai Verang ("wai" = water, and "verang" = crab"; known as "Wai Wowang" to Western dive folks) consist of a strip of muck along a fish processing plant with a fresh water outflow. The dive sites we’ve been doing are called Rhinorama and Sizzler; Rhinorama’s bottom is fully covered by new coral growth, and although it is most certainly full of Rhinopias (we found 3), it is difficult to spot anything in the chaotic backdrop. Sizzler is a slopey, sandy area with quite a few Rhinopias, but the real show was an army of juvenile frogfish (painted, clown, and Randall’s). During our two full days of diving at Wai Verang, we probably saw in excess of 20 juvenile frogfishes. Each frogfish claims a single rock or clump of Halimeda macro algae. The frogfishes here seem to be hunting and eating shrimp constantly; our group recorded single frogfishes consuming multiple shrimp during only a few minutes of observation. Jhoey and Agung, the dive guides aboard the Damai II, had never in their guiding careers seen anything like this.
Like the sandy slope at Beangabang, Wai Verang’s substrate is completely covered in crustacea at night. In addition, nearly every clump of rock and coral is home to a bunch of Caprella sp. skeleton shrimp. These skeleton shrimp are enormous, and completely fill the vertical frame of a Canon 100mm macro lens at close focus on a crop-sensor SLR.
Sent from mobile. Apologies for brevity/typos.
Rhinopias medley, Indonesia, originally uploaded by echeng.
It is difficult to upload pictures from our current anchorage just off of Wai Verang in Indonesia. Hopefully, this compilation of some of the Rhinopias scorpionfish I’ve photographed over the past few days will make it online. These pictures were taken between October 29 and November 3, 2011. We have seen about 14 different individual Rhinopias in the last 6 days. I have pictures of 10 individuals, and 9 are shown here. Pictures were taken with a Canon 7D in a Nauticam housing, and with a Lytro light field pre-release camera.
Sent from mobile. Apologies for brevity/typos.
Beangabang, Take 2, originally uploaded by echeng.
November 1, 2011: For critter diversity, there is a certain magic to the combination of a dark sand bottom and a fresh water outlet (in this case, a hot spring). I dove Beangabang for the first time in April of 2009, and after 2.5 years of planning, we’re back, diving its mucky waters again. The water is much colder this time around, and the village here looks completely different. Last time, the entire island was green; this time, the shore is devoid of green (we’re here exactly 6 months off from when we originally visited).
The night dive this evening was incredible. There were octopi *everywhere*. Each diver probably found a dozen octopi on their own; most were of the long-arm variety, but there were quite a few coconut octopi (Amphioctopus marginatus) and poison ocellate octopi (Amphioctopus siamensis) as well. Two coconut octopi were mating (shown in this post).
The octopi were the main subjects for the dive, but the sandy bottom was literally crawling with life. At all times, thousands of crustacean eyes reflected the light from our dive lights—a thousand pinpoints of light blanketing the dark slope. In addition to the sea of crustaceans blanketing the sand, tiny little dragonets and scorpionfish flitted about. The entire substrate was in motion!
Sent from mobile. Apologies for brevity/typos.
Insane fish fry upwelling, Alor, Indonesia, originally uploaded by echeng.
October 31, 2011; 5:04pm – I’ve just surfaced from one of the most incredible dives of my life. We’ve been diving in the sound between Alor and Pura for the past few days, and the water has been rich with the critter life for which this area in Indonesia is well known. It has, however, been unusually cold—the coldest any of us have ever experienced while diving in Indonesia—and during one dive yesterday, our computers reported water temperatures of 15ºC (59ºF)! This is totally unheard of in this part of Indonesia.
Today’s diving started out rather typically, with two productive critter dives. During one dive, we saw and photographed five different Rhinopias sp. scorpionfish. Three of them were new individuals, which means that the dive site, named "Mucky Mosque" for the mosque it is located in front of, is home to at least seven individual rhinopias (rather extraordinary for a single site). We decided to go back to a site called "Slugfest" for the third dive of the day. At the site are two pregnant xeno crabs (Xenocarcinus tuberculatus) and dozens of species of nudibranchs and other pretty sea slugs. About 45 minutes into the dive, photographer Julian Cohen and I were at around 85′ engrossed in photographing one of the xeno crabs. Cold water had seeped up from the depths earlier in the dive, and there was a noticeable thermocline. Suddenly, we noticed a huge, milky, white cloud ascending from the deep. In no time at all, the white cloud enveloped us, and we saw that the gigantic formation was comprised of million—if not billions—of tiny fish fry. The fish cloud completely covered the reef, and vertically-blessed corals (like long wire corals) jutted outed of the milky mass like tall trees emerging from fog. As the giant school of fry hit the shallow reef, it changed formation, branching out into hundreds of rivulets, each snaking organically around any coral formations in the way. Tentacle movements were not unlike the water creature from the movie, "Abyss." With so much food in the water, reef denizens went berserk. Fish by the hundreds shot out into the water column, gulping down the little fry in a frenzy of feeding. But there were nowhere near enough predators to affect the overall population.
Photographer Julie Edwards was confused. "Nothing was eating them! I was expecting a whale shark to show up."
Indeed, the bulk of the huge mass of fry simply blanketed the reef in a virtual atmosphere of baby fish bodies. Unfortunately, all of us photographers had entered the water expecting to photograph tiny (individual) marine critters, and had configured our cameras as macro rigs. Since we couldn’t take any pictures, we just sort of floated around, gawking in disbelief at the strange marine spectacle. A guide was carrying my 3D GoPro setup. I tracked him down in order to retrieve the camera, and captured some basic footage of the scene. The footage I captured pales in comparison with what we actually saw, but I was glad that I was at least able to capture some of it. I’ll upload it when I return from Indonesia.
Scary xeno crab is scary, originally uploaded by echeng.
We’ve had a day full of fantastic critter dives here in Alor, Indonesia. The first dive site was reminiscent of the muck at Laha in Ambon–a sandy slope with rubble patches–which was filled with photogenic subjects: rhinopias, seahorses, nudibranches, and more. We dove across the bay for the next 2 dives, where we saw at least a dozen species of nudibranch.
The xeno crab (pictured here) isn’t particularly rare, but they are one of my favorite subjects to photograph. There is no need to leave Planet Earth to look for alien life forms!
Sent from mobile. Apologies for brevity/typos.
Good bye, Hong Kong! See you next time. Thanks to everyone who made time to see me while I was here, including the AsiaD folks; Rae Chang, Adam Tow, and his family; Winnie Cheng; Ryanne Lai; Timothy Redel; Edward and Jacqueline Lai of Nauticam; Aey Komson, Mean Mora and Jan; Tammy Loh.
I’m off to Indonesia tomorrow for the Wetpixel Ultimate Indonesia Expedition 2011. I’ll have sporadic access to email while I’m away, and almost no image-sharing ability (except for posts to my journal via Flickr). See you when I’m back!
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