A nomadic blog oscillating between Vancouver, New York and Cape Town, gathering HDR photos and jotting notes along the way

Hi, I'm your friendly Coriolibot (as in "ro-bot").

It would seem Vince (shame on him) hasn't posted a fresh entry in a couple of days, so I am here to keep you entertained no matter what!

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May 16
   Vintage! This is a random post. The year was 2009...

An A for (macro) effort

Up at 4:15 AM this morning again, I headed for Stanley Park long before sunrise - only to find out the wind was blowing 5 or 10 km/h over Lost Lagoon. How ironic! Went I’m not waiting for the wind to pick up in order to fly my paraglider, I’m hoping for it to die down to do some macro photography.

I ended up in the rhododendron garden. These pictures are the result of multiple focus-bracketed exposures blended together for a small bit of extra depth of field. Mixed results. I need to work on tripod stability so that alignment is better and decrease the bracket range to avoid unnatural-looking images.

On the way back, I shot the herons of the previous post. They are actively building or rebuilding their nests.

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2009-05-16 17:07 • Posted in 6 Comments » Toggle display • Reply
We now go back to current chronological entries:
Jul 1

The Tweetboard experiment

There’s a new kid on the blog. You will have noticed the green (or red) vertical tab, left of all things major - on the very edge of Coriolistic Anachronisms. It’s called Tweetboard and it’s a new widget that links to the blog’s Twitter account and allows, among other things, for visitors to leave threaded (or nested) messages, a feature blatantly lacking on Twitter itself.

The sweet little thing is still very much in alpha phase and being released on an invite basis, but seems worth a test run. I might keep it or I might not, since at first glance I can see it competing with the main entries for visitor comments. But as always, I like doing live trials and I’ll ditch whatever doesn’t suit me...

So if you are Twitter-equipped (Who isn’t nowadays? Nobody, I fear.) feel free to tweet back right in the window and watch your prose appear after a minute or so in forum-like threaded style.

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2009-07-01 13:15 • Posted in Web site news: & Web winks: 6 Comments » Toggle display • Reply
Jun 29

Great blue heron

Part 3 of the rainbow evening shoot, here are my herons, photographed on the beach just across the street from home. I wasn’t the only one interested in the herons, as can be seen. They most likely nest in the huge rookery just a few blocks away on the edge of Stanley Park - guano smell and constant cacophony, if you ask me...



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2009-06-29 20:11 • Posted in Photoblogs: & Vancouver: 1 Comment » Toggle display • Reply
Jun 28

A balcony with a view

There is something to be said for living on the 15th floor of a Vancouver high rise. Beach Towers will have been a haven of peace and the most fantastic location I’ve ever lived in. In over two years spent in my 23 floor building, I’ve never had really inconsiderate neighbours. The premises are kept squeaky clean, the parking is hidden underground and newly repaved (ok, that was a bit of disturbance at times, but quite bearable.) The building managers were nice and the rental office staff, simply brilliant. How many people can say they walk in to see their landlord and are greeted with friendly smiles and a helpful attitude? When I explained I was leaving soon, I was simply told « How sad, we don’t want to lose you! » This coming from people who handle four towers - I believe that’s 600 apartments!

If I sound like I’m advertising, it’s because, well, I am. I honestly hope that someone will stumble upon my blog while searching for a place to stay and end up spending happy days here. I have nothing but praise for the Beach Towers and while I am aware that the experience might not necessarily be the same for everyone, I can’t remember ever finding a nicer, easier place to call home.

And then there’s the location. Last night when photographing the rainbow from my flat which faces east, I also leaned over to the northwest to get these shots of low languorous clouds clinging stubbornly to the slopes of the North Shore Mountains. Then I rushed out and simply crossed a street, and I was on the beach, interfacing with herons. I live at the end of a residential street lined with large trees and lots of flowers. Beyond my building is a park with a giant tree and a gazebo. Across the street, the Seawall launches in both directions, around Stanley Park towards Coal Harbour and Canada Place to the right, and back around False Creek bound for Kitsilano to the left.

Great gray herons are fishing by the shoreline and harbour seals surfacing a stone’s throw away. Within walking distance of here, in addition to seals and herons, I’ve seen bald eagles, river otters, raccoons, a beaver, swans, Canadian Geese, chickadees, jumpy squirrels, carps, cormorants, and I’ve so far missed the coyotes and hummingbirds. Sigh.

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2009-06-28 13:56 • Posted in Photoblogs: & Vancouver: 4 Comments » Toggle display • Reply
Jun 28

The rainbow that reached across a continent

Earlier this afternoon, I called Marie on Skype. She answered a little out of breath, and untangling her earphones she said in an excited voice: « I was on the terrace. There is a beautiful rainbow! » Nice, I said, thinking that New York’s really got it all, mammatus clouds, rainbows and black cats.

Then later tonight, after the wind had picked up and blown hard bringing low grey clouds and rain, I caught a glimpse of orange light through my curtains and thought that maybe the sky was clearing a bit and allowing some sun to shine through before it sank beyond the world.

I got out on the balcony and my jaw dropped. Unknown to me, a perfect rainbow had formed to the east and was hitting the Shangri-La - highest tower in Vancouver - dead on. I rushed back in, grabbed both cameras and in my underwear, stood on the balcony and shot as fast as I could.

The sky was turning purple and windows were shining brightly in the evening’s first and last rays of sunshine. The rainbow seemed to be launching from within the Shangri-La in downtown and reached all the way to the other side of False Creek. At some point it even doubled up. Behind me towards the west, clouds lingered on the slopes above Howe Sound, fire within and shadows all around.

Later, the light seeming to last, I jumped in a pair of shorts and a sweater and ran out, tripod in one hand, camera in the other, a spare lens in my pocket and shoe laces untied. On the beach, I ran into two friendly herons. But that will be another post.

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2009-06-28 01:19 • Posted in Photoblogs: & Vancouver: 4 Comments » Toggle display • Reply
Jun 26

10 best ways to download the 5 most useful free social networking tutorials from 7 startup sites in less than 20 minutes via a new faster photoshop plugin

Of course, the title doesn’t mean anything! It never tried to.

This just illustrates what I think of the direction blogging is taking nowadays: a tangent to nowhere via this visceral need and pathetic attempt at magnetizing traffic by using catchy and keyword-savvy titles, and the corresponding topics. So what do I think? It’s SHIT. And yet I’ll bet anything that this very title will get me more traffic than a post about Stanley Park’s incredible beauty and the pictures that might go along...

It would seem that less and less bloggers are writing for the fun of it, for the pleasure of rambling, for the lust of a few puns, for poetic license, to say nothing, to say too much, to put foot in mouth and dots on i’s, to be unique. Instead, most are beginning to write for traffic and to please the masses, to attract numbers and distract them long enough to gain a numbed interest - click here and make me your fav, addict yourself to my keywords, chain your returns into my lack of creativity, me, me, me.

The hell with social networking and all those bright new ideas and startups turned giants, if all they can generate is stereotyped bulshit, the disapearance of individuality and the end of a properly punctuated sentence.

We didn’t need 15 years to evolve from IRC to messaging, to intelligent blogging and comments, back down to Facebook and finally as low as Twitter. We could have stayed there. IRC was geekier and funnier, and it was already invented.

If you want an antidote to all this crap, go check out some amazing mammatus. Really!

Or enjoy this from Bash.org, to make us smile after such a bleakly negativational post:

<reo4k> just type /quit whoever, and it’ll quit them from irc
* luckyb1tch has quit IRC (r`heaven)
* r3devl has quit IRC (r`heaven)
* sasopi has quit IRC (r`heaven)
* phhhfft has quit IRC (r`heaven)
* blackersnake has quit IRC (r`heaven)
<ibaN`reo4k[ex]> that’s gotta hurt
<r`heaven> :(

Note from Vince:
Ok, this was for IRC geeks only - one must understand how the /quit command works otherwise it makes no sense whatsoever.
/me says too bad for you.
: - )

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2009-06-26 21:43 • Posted in Schtroumpfissime: 2 Comments » Toggle display • Reply
Jun 25

Approaching D-Day

Once again - as I have felt it so many times before - time is up to its usual tricks, reminding me that it might well after all only exist inside my brain... It coils itself tightly like a threatened snake, slowing down to a hiss until an eternity seems to hang in mid-air, waiting for the strike. The rhythms around me appear to dash ahead and lose their depth while I curiously raise a hand in slow motion and watch my fingers wave against a background of furiously blurred, meaningless activity. It is a time of distancing, of chasms created and boundaries leveled. A time for counting one’s cards and preparing to throw them on the table, bluff exposed and hopes at their apogee. Soon the jump will come and all bets will be off. There will be no turning back, nor one wanted. The deeper the dive, the stronger the narcosis, erasing layers of surface boredom, years of flatness and adding a dimension. Once again, this time for good, two routes intersect, two navigators plot a common position and one duo moves forward, and up. I am so ready.

"Oh, the wind, the wind is blowing,
through the graves the wind is blowing,
freedom soon will come;
then we’ll come from the shadows." 

Leonard Cohen - The Partisan
(Adapted from La complainte du partisan
by Emmanuel d’Astier de La Vigerie and Anna Marly)

 

2009-06-25 08:19 • Posted in Always: No comments yet »  Post one!
Jun 21

Owls of Kirstenbosch

Nested right at the foot of Table Mountain, the Kirstenbosch National Botanical Garden is, among other things, an approach path for those headed up to the plateau and its reservoirs via Skeleton Gorge. But there is a lot more to Kirstenbosch than access up.

For one thing, it grows only South African indigenous plants. For another, it is home to very cute owls. So when we heard reports of chicks being spotted, we went for a visit and tracked them down. We found a parent and one young, the other two having presumably gone for a walk about.

... Forgive the captions but the birds’ attitudes easily lend themselves to interpretation...

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2009-06-21 12:40 • Posted in South Africa: 5 Comments » Toggle display • Reply
Jun 19

South African Flowers

Bizarre, beautiful, maybe simple, often exquisitely complex, at times shy and others outrageously loud, whether orchids or carnivores, these are the flowers and plants of the Western Cape. They are the fynbos, part of the Cape floral kingdom, smallest of the world’s six floral kingdoms but also the richest per area unit.

Most shots were taken around Cape Point, Table Mountain and Silvermine, magical places if I ever knew one, on many a beautiful walk with Marie, nature all around, peace within.

I will label each specie once my specialist has looked at them and pronounced a verdict.

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2009-06-19 09:36 • Posted in Photoblogs: 3 Comments » Toggle display • Reply
Jun 18

Coriolistic Anachronisms featured in the Top 10 User Examples of the month

Each month, Todd Dominey over at SlideShowPro chooses 10 SSP-powered web sites that he likes. I was happy to find Coriolistic Anachronisms mentioned for the month of June. Check out the list for other very interesting implementations of SSP.
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2009-06-18 09:10 • Posted in Web site news: 5 Comments » Toggle display • Reply
Jun 17

Neuroplasticity: I think, therefore I change

I’ve always believed that what we put in our brain directly influences who we become. That’s one of the reasons why I refuse to watch violent and horror movies, and will always favour comedies and adventure stories. I’ve long been a firm believer of visualization as a training tool for physical activities and even after 20 years away from Aikido, I still catch myself mentally rehearsing tsuki kote gaeshi and shomen uchi irimi nage.

I recently found a fascinating CBC documentary via Stumble Upon; it’s called « The brain that changes itself » and it talks about the emerging concept of neuroplasticity, which is the ability for our brain to change and rewire itself upon learning or receiving new input. That’s a drastic departure from traditional brain science that had it all figured out: our brain was a fixed machine. It would start aging and decaying and the process would never stop until the end. Trauma was irreversible and no new neurons could ever be created.

With the new concept of neuroplasticity, this all changed. Scientists are beginning to realize that our brain, like most of our body, has the ability to adapt and regenerate. But what’s even more fascinating, it would seem it is able to reprogram, or rewire itself to use various areas to perform a given function - in other words no single region of the brain can be exclusively associated with specific tasks and activities.

What’s more, studies are showing that our thought process has a direct impact on brain development and hence, on our personality. At some point in the documentary, neuroscientist Alvaro Pascual-Leone is explaining a study he conducted where subjects were instructed to rehearse a five finger piano sequence for five days, after which their brain was examined via transcranial-magnetic-stimulation (TMS). A specific growth was registered in the motor cortex region associated with playing the piano.

However he decided to push the experiment one step further and repeated the process with new subjects, this time instructing them to only mentally rehearse the sequence without actually touching the piano or even moving their fingers. Stunningly, he found out that the same growth was registering in the brain of these passive subjects, without any actual physical practice!

At that point of the interview, he goes on to say: « What that ultimately means is that one needs to be careful what one thinks... »

It gives me chills.

 

2009-06-17 11:59 • Posted in Schtroumpfissime: & Science: 7 Comments » Toggle display • Reply
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