Author: iopadmin

  • Hades and the Sandwich

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    About two months ago I started to tell my young son stories, to teach him the idea of narrative. The stories are almost always about a medium sized dog named Hades, who is extraordinarily clever for a dog. Hades lives with his family: Mommy, Daddy, William, and Elizabeth and has many adventures. In the last…

  • Back Yard Oriole

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    We were visited by a female Bullock’s Oriole Icterus bullockii this evening, and the last.  She came to the feeder for the grape jelly.  I guess her kids eat like mine.  What a treat to see her.

  • Simple Gifts

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    The melody for Simple Gifts is one of my favorite, going back to Copland’s interpretation I heard on vinyl when I was small.  My son learned the song, to sing, in preschool this year. Since he likes the song I made an insert card for our Melody lap harp.  It prints on letter paper (8.5…

  • Clock for Teaching

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    I made a print-and-cut clock for teaching my son to tell time with an analog clock.  It is linked here.  If you find it useful or have improvements please leave comments.

  • Birds of My Yard

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    Most of these pictures were taken through a window, with insufficient telephoto and probably insufficient tripod use.  Nevertheless, you can tell what kind of bird they are, and for me that is interesting. With luck, I’ll update these with better pictures over the summer, especially the hummingbird. The broad-tailed hummingbird is my best guess at…

  • Zoom Lens Comparison

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    Firstly, credit where it’s due; the pictures were taken by my friend Robert Hohlfelder.  The pictures were taken of a dollar bill from about 15 feet.  The camera was tripod-mounted, and the lenses with VR had it turned off.  The three lenses are the Nikon 55-200 VR, Nikon 18-200 VR, and the Nikon 70-300ED.  Photos…

  • Coffee to Water Ratio

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    A friend of mine (thanks Marc!) forwarded the linked article to me last week.  While it is more of a coffee tease sort of thing than anything else, it just so happens that the article discusses the coffee/water ratio used by some of these gluttons.  You’ll be surprised how modest my recipe looks. New York…

  • Giant Juniper Berry

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    My wife took the baby for a walk yesterday, when the weather was nice.  She grabbed a juniper berry while she was out, because its size was astonishing.   It is pictured below, sitting a US quarter dollar coin.

  • PaintShop Photo Pro X3

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    The latest version of Corel Paint Shop Pro is now apparently called PaintShop Photo Pro X3.  Perhaps they’ll eventually regret their ridiculous naming. Many things are the same since the previous version.  The obvious differences are that the menus have been re-colored to be higher contrast.  I find it overdone and a little garish, but…

  • Corel Releases New Paint Shop Pro

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    Despite Corel’s dreadful marketing, it appears today’s quasi-clandestine webinar was to unveil a new version of Paint Shop Pro, now with the awkward name Paint Shop Photo Pro X3.  For pity’s sake. However, it appears to have included at least two things I care about: Better speed by multithreading (though there is no indication of…