New Nikon D70s Digital SLR Camera

My brand new Nikon D70sFor my birthday, coming up in a week from today, my mom got me a new digital SLR camera! I’m still learning all the settings, but I’m loving every minute of it.

It’s a Nikon D70s. I also got a few accessories for it, including a polarizing filter, a camera bag, and a 1gb memory card.

I’m a little hesitant to take it with me on my trip to Mexico, but I got it a week before my birthday so I could do just that. I’ll be watching it like a hawk; at the same time I think it will be worth it.

Here are 12 winter photos I took with my new camera.

LED Throwies

Here’s a neat little project that anyone can do: make battery powered magnetic LED “throwies” that can be thrown and stuck to any ferromagnetic surface in your neighbourhood.

A throwie is made from a 10mm diffused LED, a small lithium battery, and a rare-earth magnet all taped together. They cost about $1 to make and the batteries last about a week.

throwies (LED magnets)

Instructables has a page of step-by-step instructions to make your own throwies.

Also, check out throwies in action.

The Song Tapper

The Song Tapper is a neat web application that can help identify a song that maybe stuck in your head, but maybe you don’t remember the name of it. The way it works is to just tap the spacebar to the rhythm of each syllable in the lyrics of the song you want to identify and then the server returns several possible names and artists. It’s fun and surprisingly accurate.

Toy Story 3 Shelved

It has only been a short time since Disney’s all stock buy-out of Pixar and already some big changes are under way. The Los Angeles Times reports that with this deal comes an end to quarrel over Pixar sequels.

In remarks made during a Tuesday conference call with analysts, Iger and Pixar Chief Executive Steve Jobs implied what other sources confirmed Wednesday: that Disney’s 150-plus-person Pixar sequels unit — which is housed in a Glendale warehouse and is already at work on Toy Story 3 — will soon be no more.

“We feel very strongly that if the sequels are going to be made, we want the people who were involved in the original films involved in the sequels,” Jobs said.

Iger sounded the same note.

“It was really important to me that the people who made the films originally, who had the vision, who knew the characters and the essence of these films get a shot at making any films that were derivative,” the Disney chief said.

“While Disney might have been able to make them, Pixar making them is just so much different,” Iger added. “Not to take away from the talent of other people who might have been picked to make them.”

The announcement isn’t a complete surprise since Disney making Pixar sequels (or not making them) was a major factor during negotiations. Still it’s nice to see that Disney will no longer be destroying classics as they have done in the past. And because Pixar is taking over for Walt Disney Feature Animation, I guess this also means no more Dumbo 2? (Yes, they really were thinking about it.)

Flickeur

This flash app “randomly retrieves images from Flickr.com and creates an infinite film with a style that can vary between stream-of-consciousness, documentary or video clip.” Your mileage may vary—I found it an interesting way of blending random content to create art.

Flickeur

F-117 Stealth Fighter at RIAT 2002

I came across some amazing photos of the F-117 Stealth Fighter today. They were taken at the Royal International Air Tattoo in 2002 in England.

F-117 Nighthawk (Stealth Fighter)

From the site:

The F-117 is a little bigger than the initial impression you get—it’s about the same size as an F-15 Eagle. It has a whole range of tricks to make it stealthy, starting with the dark, low contrast paint scheme which makes it so difficult to see at night (or photograph during the day), it’s covered in radar-absorbent materials and its very shape is intended to deflect radar away from the radar station. Its two jet engines are quiet and produce very little smoke, and the outlets from the engines, visible at the rear of the aircraft, mix cool air with the hot exhaust to reduce the type of heat signature that a heat-seeking missile could lock on to. The unusual “butterfly” tail is designed to shield the exhausts so missiles can’t see them.

See some more cool F-117 Stealth Fighter photos at RIAT 2002. If this topic interests you, you might want to check out Richard Seaman’s index of airshow photographs.