Today was a great spring day here in upstate NY. I spent the afternoon
outside and had another encounter with spring flowers, so this is my
next 14 day entry.

http://www.leafpublishing.com/drebel...ngflowers1.jpg

http://www.leafpublishing.com/drebel...ngflowers2.jpg

http://www.leafpublishing.com/drebel...ngflowers3.jpg

--
Fred Doyle

Fred Doyle wrote:
Beautiful photos Fred! Which Rebel do you use?

--

x theSpaceGirl (miranda)

"SpaceGirl" <nothespacegirlspam@subhuman.net> wrote in message
news:5a99adF2no7hfU1@mid.individual.net...
Thanks for looking and for the feedback. I'm still shooting with the 300D.
These were taken with the Canon 100mm f2.8 macro lens.

I posted these on another forum, and got into a small discussion regarding
the audience expectations and some of the less than usual angles used here.
Your reply gives me a chance to post a little of the discussion and maybe
get some people thinking about the same issues. I really liked the little
bit of give and take that went on with this post in that forum and it
actually fits right in with what I posted elsewhere about being able to set
your own aesthetic in a hobby based environnent.

"I took the more "traditional" shots, i.e. with more obvious angles, greater
DOF, more in line with audience expectations, more representative of the
flower itself. See this shot, as an example of what I mean:
http://www.leafpublishing.com/drebel...ngflowers6.jpg
http://www.leafpublishing.com/drebel...ngflowers4.jpg
"What appealed to me about the shots I chose to display was the degree of
abstraction in them. The angles ARE odd; the first three are shot from
below, an angle you almost never see of a flower. The depth of field is
shallow, with the intent of enhancing the abstraction.

"The third shot, in particular, is almost a total abstraction, and that is
what I found appealing in the shot. It is admittedly very hard to identify
the image as a flower, let alone what flower it is. The flower, to my mind
is almost abstracted to the point of being color on color, and I'd say has
many of the qualities of an abstract painting.

"..It may be difficult for people to to react to a picture of a flower that
is hard to recognize as a flower, that was taken from an angle that is not
"natural" or that is unusual; that are, as you say "odd." But that oddness
was why I chose those shots to show. "

Fred

Fred Doyle wrote:
I especially love #2, then 3, then 1. The second shot immediately tells
me, this is a "living" thing. You could easily convince me that it was a
sea creature. Instead of just being a pretty *thing*, a flower, it's a
living thing. I love the third as a line and texture study.

Traditional photos are fine when all you want/need is a flower. Your
chosen photos help me perceive the flower's parts and bring them to
life. But then, I've always liked to examine things in such a way I
also love shots I've seen that show the translucency and subtle color
changes in some flowers.

inez

inez wrote:

Thanks for the kind words, Inez. A lot of what you are saying is echoes
how I approached the subject. I have a friend on another board who gave
me advice for shooting flowers when I first started using them as a
subject. He told me to start back away from the bloom, shot it in
conjunction with its surroundings and "get to know it." Then move in
closer and closer, getting to know its parts, how they relate to each
other and how its put together and what makes it unique. I've always
valued that advice and and tried to emulate it when shooting flowers.

I agree about the translucency of the blossoms, also. One of my
favorite, and by far most popular photos I've taken is
http://www.leafpublishing.com/drebel..._blossom/2.jpg I love the
interaction of the light on the petals.

I took that image and turned it into an on-line card celebrating spring
last year. It is funny how many people have hot-linked to that card
since I posted it. Right now, it is making the rounds in several Persian
blogs. I can't help but be a little flattered.


--
Fred Doyle

Fred Doyle wrote:
Love that image, Fred! The lines, textures, colors of nature are so
varied and rich. The intricate connections of parts, or the
relationships that form like a delicate tree fern clinging to strong,
rough bark. I get bored with the photos that just turn them into
singular, 2D objects. Sure, sometimes you need a flower to just be a
flower for importing into a layout or design. But your photos capture
and give expression to the art that nature made.

For me the same thing applies for many things. I mean, you take a
picture of a building, or capture an interesting architectural detail.

Flattering, perhaps, as long as you can stand to give them your bandwidth

"inez" <nezmyth@or.fact> wrote in message
news:tT00i.7941$Ut6.7299@newsread1.news.pas.earthl ink.net...
Bandwidth is amazingly cheap right now. Its not really an issue on a site
like this. In fact, it has become so much less of an issue, I see that it is
being left off of many business discussions, probably incorrectly, but maybe
not. As Spacegirl pointed out somewhere else, often the cost of minimizing
bandwidth costs more than paying for the bandwidth.

Fred

On Tue, 8 May 2007 15:32:48 -0400, "Fred Doyle" <fdoyle1@nycap.rr.com>
wrote:

Only on low end sites that don't get much traffic. Fact is sites like
yours are pretty much nothing to a host because they get so little
traffic. Once your site starts gettin a lot of traffic
though...*whistles*...suddenly that "unlimited" bandwidth claim goes
right out the window and they start sendin you REAL costly bills.

Further, the VAST majority of the Internet is still either on dialup
or overseas (in which case it's slow even on a fast cable connection
cause it's got to cross the trans Atlan lines) and for all of those
users reducing every image by even 10% percent whilst still retaining
the same level of quality can mean the difference between wasting
HUNDREDS OF THOUSANDS of collective hours worldwide. You can try and
claim it doesn't matter, but then, if stuff like that didn't...why
have so many companies switched over to just using ONE space between
sentences? It's just a split second, but millions of split seconds
add up REAL quick and the fact is time is money and time is
productivity, the more of that you waste, the less money you make and
the less you'll accomplish.

Even FURTHER, international bandwidth is even COSTLIER and in a LOT of
cases it becomes necessary to have your servers setup in another
country with less fuckheaded rules and regulations...that comes at a
REAL high price though. Of course, even for completely legitimate
sites, most high end corporations like to keep servers overseas so
that their high speed Euro/Asian/Aussie users don't have to wait
forever for the site to load and, again, overseas bandwidth is a fuck
of a lot more expensive.

Maybe if you ever get to the level of PROFESSIONAL you'll be able to
understand all these SIMPLE concepts, Freddie boi. For a hobbyist
AMATEUR like you though...yeah, bandwidth can be considered
"unlimited".

Oh, also, it would ONLY cost MORE if your web dev team was incompetent
and lacking. If you actually hired people who knew what the fuck they
were doing they would have done it right THE FIRST TIME, during the
INITIAL CONSTRUCTION, not as a dribbling after thought.

It's all about quality of work and professionalism. Sure when you're
building a house you can go with the lowest bidder...but chances are
they won't bother to put any tape/coverings down before painting and
you're going to wind up with splatters all over the windows and
everything else, but hey, it's cheap, right? If you don't take any
PRIDE in your sites or what you do then cheap ass paint splatters all
over the floors and windows might not really bother you that much. To
a company that PRIDES itself on its image, its professionalism and
their commitments to their customers...it means EVERYTHING. To say
that you don't care if your dialup customers have to wait an extra 20
seconds for your site to load because you couldn't be bothered to
encode your images correctly REALLY says a lot about you as a company
and how you treat your customers.

--

Onideus Mad Hatter
mhm ¹ x ¹
http://www.backwater-productions.net
http://www.backwater-productions.net/hatter-blog


Hatter Quotes
-------------
"You're only one of the best if you're striving to become one of the
best."

"I didn't make reality, Sunshine, I just verbally bitch slapped you
with it."

"I'm not a professional, I'm an artist."

"Your Usenet blinders are my best friend."

"Usenet Filters - Learn to shut yourself the fuck up!"

"Drugs killed Jesus you know...oh wait, no, that was the Jews, my
bad."

"There are clingy things in the grass...burrs 'n such...mmmm..."

"The more I learn the more I'm killing my idols."

"Is it wrong to incur and then use the hate ridden, vengeful stupidity
of complete strangers in random Usenet froups to further my art?"

"Freedom is only a concept, like race it's merely a social construct
that doesn't really exist outside of your ability to convince others
of its relevancy."

"Next time slow up a lil, then maybe you won't jump the gun and start
creamin yer panties before it's time to pop the champagne proper."

"Reality is directly proportionate to how creative you are."

"People are pretty fucking high on themselves if they think that
they're just born with a soul. *snicker*...yeah, like they're just
givin em out for free."

"Quible, quible said the Hare. Quite a lot of quibling...everywhere.
So the Hare took a long stare and decided at best, to leave the rest,
to their merry little mess."

"There's a difference between 'bad' and 'so earth shatteringly
horrible it makes the angels scream in terror as they violently rip
their heads off, their blood spraying into the faces of a thousand
sweet innocent horrified children, who will forever have the terrible
images burned into their tiny little minds'."

"How sad that you're such a poor judge of style that you can't even
properly gauge the artistic worth of your own efforts."

"Those who record history are those who control history."

"I am the living embodiment of hell itself in all its tormentive rage,
endless suffering, unfathomable pain and unending horror...but you
don't get sent to me...I come for you."

"Ideally in a fight I'd want a BGM-109A with a W80 250 kiloton
tactical thermonuclear fusion based war head."

"Tell me, would you describe yourself more as a process or a
function?"

"Apparently this group has got the market cornered on stupid.
Intelligence is down 137 points across the board and the forecast
indicates an increase in Webtv users."

"Is my .sig delimiter broken? Really? You're sure? Awww,
gee...that's too bad...for YOU!" `, )

"Onideus Mad Hatter" <usenet@backwater-productions.net> wrote

Aha! I see from your resume, you've been involved in those high level
discussions where these issues are discussed. Were you dropping off lunch
from the DQ?

Fred

"Onideus Mad Hatter" <usenet@backwater-productions.net> wrote in message
news:i8k143l5kvlvumhmg3rgonkja6btofqiko@4ax.com...
It just kills you that you're widely recognized as a web designing
hobbyist/hack. Maybe if your register stops coming up short Dairy Queen may
let you volunteer your pitiful skills to maybe updating their *about us*
page.

On Tue, 8 May 2007 16:04:59 -0400, "Fred Doyle" <fdoyle1@nycap.rr.com>
wrote:

No, but your mom was deliverin me a blow job the other day, tell her I
said, "Thanks".

--

Onideus Mad Hatter
mhm ¹ x ¹
http://www.backwater-productions.net
http://www.backwater-productions.net/hatter-blog


Hatter Quotes
-------------
"You're only one of the best if you're striving to become one of the
best."

"I didn't make reality, Sunshine, I just verbally bitch slapped you
with it."

"I'm not a professional, I'm an artist."

"Your Usenet blinders are my best friend."

"Usenet Filters - Learn to shut yourself the fuck up!"

"Drugs killed Jesus you know...oh wait, no, that was the Jews, my
bad."

"There are clingy things in the grass...burrs 'n such...mmmm..."

"The more I learn the more I'm killing my idols."

"Is it wrong to incur and then use the hate ridden, vengeful stupidity
of complete strangers in random Usenet froups to further my art?"

"Freedom is only a concept, like race it's merely a social construct
that doesn't really exist outside of your ability to convince others
of its relevancy."

"Next time slow up a lil, then maybe you won't jump the gun and start
creamin yer panties before it's time to pop the champagne proper."

"Reality is directly proportionate to how creative you are."

"People are pretty fucking high on themselves if they think that
they're just born with a soul. *snicker*...yeah, like they're just
givin em out for free."

"Quible, quible said the Hare. Quite a lot of quibling...everywhere.
So the Hare took a long stare and decided at best, to leave the rest,
to their merry little mess."

"There's a difference between 'bad' and 'so earth shatteringly
horrible it makes the angels scream in terror as they violently rip
their heads off, their blood spraying into the faces of a thousand
sweet innocent horrified children, who will forever have the terrible
images burned into their tiny little minds'."

"How sad that you're such a poor judge of style that you can't even
properly gauge the artistic worth of your own efforts."

"Those who record history are those who control history."

"I am the living embodiment of hell itself in all its tormentive rage,
endless suffering, unfathomable pain and unending horror...but you
don't get sent to me...I come for you."

"Ideally in a fight I'd want a BGM-109A with a W80 250 kiloton
tactical thermonuclear fusion based war head."

"Tell me, would you describe yourself more as a process or a
function?"

"Apparently this group has got the market cornered on stupid.
Intelligence is down 137 points across the board and the forecast
indicates an increase in Webtv users."

"Is my .sig delimiter broken? Really? You're sure? Awww,
gee...that's too bad...for YOU!" `, )

On May 8, 8:52 pm, Onideus Mad Hatter <use...@backwater-
productions.net> wrote:

We pay $10 per terabyte of outbound traffic from our main pool of
servers. We generate 5-15Tb a month, over two dedicated 100mbit links.
That's $50-$150. We have around 1.5 million requests a day (in total).
We serve sites mostly in Europe and the US, but our servers are East
Coast US. Response time is around 60ms from the UK to Florida
(transatlatic pipe).

Bandwidth IS cheap. It's the least important part of the costing of
our server farm, that's for sure.

On 9 May 2007 01:43:23 -0700, SpaceGirl
<nothespacegirlspam@subhuman.net> wrote:

And comparatively speaking, your sites are on the LOW end of the
spectrum as far as server usage. I mean, take binary Usenet servers,
they handle terabytes of traffic DAILY. And can you even begin to
imagine the bandwidth requirements of sites like YouTube? Also I
*HIGHLY* doubt that your response time from the UK to Florida is
around 60ms...maybe under the absolute IDEAL conditions, directly from
one major host to another with minimal routing, but on the USER side
of things...I don't think so. I've NEVER encountered a Euro site that
could even dream of loading THAT fast and I've got a freakin uncapped
cable connection. Post teh linky to this site that you say loads in
60ms, let me check it on my line, we'll so how fast it is under END
USER circumstances.

--

Onideus Mad Hatter
mhm ¹ x ¹
http://www.backwater-productions.net
http://www.backwater-productions.net/hatter-blog


Hatter Quotes
-------------
"You're only one of the best if you're striving to become one of the
best."

"I didn't make reality, Sunshine, I just verbally bitch slapped you
with it."

"I'm not a professional, I'm an artist."

"Your Usenet blinders are my best friend."

"Usenet Filters - Learn to shut yourself the fuck up!"

"Drugs killed Jesus you know...oh wait, no, that was the Jews, my
bad."

"There are clingy things in the grass...burrs 'n such...mmmm..."

"The more I learn the more I'm killing my idols."

"Is it wrong to incur and then use the hate ridden, vengeful stupidity
of complete strangers in random Usenet froups to further my art?"

"Freedom is only a concept, like race it's merely a social construct
that doesn't really exist outside of your ability to convince others
of its relevancy."

"Next time slow up a lil, then maybe you won't jump the gun and start
creamin yer panties before it's time to pop the champagne proper."

"Reality is directly proportionate to how creative you are."

"People are pretty fucking high on themselves if they think that
they're just born with a soul. *snicker*...yeah, like they're just
givin em out for free."

"Quible, quible said the Hare. Quite a lot of quibling...everywhere.
So the Hare took a long stare and decided at best, to leave the rest,
to their merry little mess."

"There's a difference between 'bad' and 'so earth shatteringly
horrible it makes the angels scream in terror as they violently rip
their heads off, their blood spraying into the faces of a thousand
sweet innocent horrified children, who will forever have the terrible
images burned into their tiny little minds'."

"How sad that you're such a poor judge of style that you can't even
properly gauge the artistic worth of your own efforts."

"Those who record history are those who control history."

"I am the living embodiment of hell itself in all its tormentive rage,
endless suffering, unfathomable pain and unending horror...but you
don't get sent to me...I come for you."

"Ideally in a fight I'd want a BGM-109A with a W80 250 kiloton
tactical thermonuclear fusion based war head."

"Tell me, would you describe yourself more as a process or a
function?"

"Apparently this group has got the market cornered on stupid.
Intelligence is down 137 points across the board and the forecast
indicates an increase in Webtv users."

"Is my .sig delimiter broken? Really? You're sure? Awww,
gee...that's too bad...for YOU!" `, )

Onideus Mad Hatter wrote:

No, her sites' bandwidth usage is not on the "low" end. You can say it
is to try and make a point, but its just not true, Matt. Quote some
facts, please, not an uniformed personal opinion.

I can see this is a scary reality for you. The aesthetic that you've
based your entire image of yourself around is a relatively low level
consideration, currently.

BTW, my knowledge about the importance of bandwidth in the business
considerations of buying, housing and maintaining servers comes from
being in the room where these issues are discussed for a site that gets
300,000 page views/day, 100,000,000 page views/year (page views, not
requests for individual files). It's not YouTube, Amazon, or Ebay, mind
you, but certainly a mid-range site in terms of traffic. It also comes
from continual interaction with industry personnel who are involved in
similar and larger sizes.

Please, tell us where it is that your knowledge of the importance of
this issue comes from. Do you have facts, not your opinion?

--
Fred Doyle

On Wed, 09 May 2007 07:11:51 -0400, Fred Doyle <fdoyle1@nycap.rr.com>
wrote:

Okay, tell her to post her Alexia rating. LOL, you're done.

--

Onideus Mad Hatter
mhm ¹ x ¹
http://www.backwater-productions.net
http://www.backwater-productions.net/hatter-blog


Hatter Quotes
-------------
"You're only one of the best if you're striving to become one of the
best."

"I didn't make reality, Sunshine, I just verbally bitch slapped you
with it."

"I'm not a professional, I'm an artist."

"Your Usenet blinders are my best friend."

"Usenet Filters - Learn to shut yourself the fuck up!"

"Drugs killed Jesus you know...oh wait, no, that was the Jews, my
bad."

"There are clingy things in the grass...burrs 'n such...mmmm..."

"The more I learn the more I'm killing my idols."

"Is it wrong to incur and then use the hate ridden, vengeful stupidity
of complete strangers in random Usenet froups to further my art?"

"Freedom is only a concept, like race it's merely a social construct
that doesn't really exist outside of your ability to convince others
of its relevancy."

"Next time slow up a lil, then maybe you won't jump the gun and start
creamin yer panties before it's time to pop the champagne proper."

"Reality is directly proportionate to how creative you are."

"People are pretty fucking high on themselves if they think that
they're just born with a soul. *snicker*...yeah, like they're just
givin em out for free."

"Quible, quible said the Hare. Quite a lot of quibling...everywhere.
So the Hare took a long stare and decided at best, to leave the rest,
to their merry little mess."

"There's a difference between 'bad' and 'so earth shatteringly
horrible it makes the angels scream in terror as they violently rip
their heads off, their blood spraying into the faces of a thousand
sweet innocent horrified children, who will forever have the terrible
images burned into their tiny little minds'."

"How sad that you're such a poor judge of style that you can't even
properly gauge the artistic worth of your own efforts."

"Those who record history are those who control history."

"I am the living embodiment of hell itself in all its tormentive rage,
endless suffering, unfathomable pain and unending horror...but you
don't get sent to me...I come for you."

"Ideally in a fight I'd want a BGM-109A with a W80 250 kiloton
tactical thermonuclear fusion based war head."

"Tell me, would you describe yourself more as a process or a
function?"

"Apparently this group has got the market cornered on stupid.
Intelligence is down 137 points across the board and the forecast
indicates an increase in Webtv users."

"Is my .sig delimiter broken? Really? You're sure? Awww,
gee...that's too bad...for YOU!" `, )

On May 9, 4:08 pm, Onideus Mad Hatter <use...@backwater-
productions.net> wrote:
How relevant is alexia? Surely that's just a snapshot of people who
have their plugin installed... which is not that many people. Anyway,
I'm not sure how their thing works, I checked one of our most popular
sites and it came up with:

16,815

*shrug*

The site is at the top of google, msn and yahoo, and has 15,000 paying
members.

"Onideus Mad Hatter" <usenet@backwater-productions.net> wrote

I can see this is a scary reality for you. The aesthetic that you've based
your entire image of yourself around is a relatively low level
consideration, currently.I'll ask again. Maybe you'll answer this time and
not run away. Please, tell us where it is that your knowledge of the
importance of the issue of optimizing for bandwidth in high traffic sites
comes from. Do you have facts, not your opinion?

I work on a site that requires bandwidth for 300,000 page views/day,
100,000,000 page views/year. (Actually, that is only one of several URLs,
there are others but they don't generate traffic that one does). I've been
in meetings where server and bandwidth requirements are discussed and
decided for that site. I'm in daily contact discussing related issues with
individuals who work on similar size and larger sites. That's where my
knowledge comes from.

Sapcegirl told us she works on a site that requires support for 5-15 Tb per
month of traffic. That's where her knowledge comes from.

Where does your experience and knowledge in this area come from? On what do
you base your opinions? Anything? If you have an informed opinion and can
detail where it comes from, I WANT to hear it. If not, I'd be glad
tocontinue pointing out that it is an uninformed opinion.

Fred

Fred Doyle wrote:


Fred, you must have forgotten that he's "God like". God knows everything.

But he'll run away anyway. He ALWAYS does when cornered. And he's been
cornered a lot in here lately.

Drew

"Onideus Mad Hatter" <usenet@backwater-productions.net> wrote

"Alexa is also apparently quite easy to manipulate.

"Here's a step by step trick from Sitepoint Forums member KLB:

"1) install the Alexa toolbar into your browser.

"2) Create a special webpage that contains a JavaScript array of webpage
addresses from your site. Then create a JavaScript function that loops
through the array and opens each address into a separate browser window
(make sure they all use the same window). Between cycles through the
function, cause the function to "sleep" using the "timer()" function for a
random interval of time between say 5 and 45 seconds. Make sure that when
the function reaches the end of the array of addresses it loops back to the
beginning.

"3) Periodically set the script to action in your browser with the Alexa
toolbar installed and let it churn away overnight. To save bandwidth you can
always disable the loading of images. If you want it to be really effective,
have a few friends run the same script from their browsers with the Alexa
toolbar installed.

"That is all there is to it. I did this about a half dozen times to one of
my sites over a period of one month and it jumped up to the 80,000 mark in
Alexa. I'm sure if I ran it more often it would have done even better."

"SpaceGirl" <nothespacegirlspam@subhuman.net> wrote

I checked ours, as a result of this post.Although the numbers posted in the
results seem a little funny, as near as I can figure its 27,947 for a 3
month period.. I also did a check of http://www.backwater-productions.net.
Its 1,046,849.

Not sure what it means, or why anyone would care. Its an odd little measure
that seems to be easily manipulated. Doesn't speak in any way to the
business goals of a web site. It certainly doesn't speak in any way to where
Matt's knowledge about the importance given to optimization by larger
traffic sites on the web due to bandwidth considerations, but hey, it was
kind of fun to see.

An I'm still waiting for an answer to the question about where his
self-professed expertise about the issue of the importance given to
bandwidth optimazation by large traffic sites, comes from, and why he holds
it as such a high aesthetic. I think he ran away from that.

Fred