The Geek Tree 2006 Photo Set

For years, people have been asking me for pictures of the Geek Tree, and for years, I've been promising to find a way to take them. This year, I finally did. Check out the Geek Tree in all its glowing glory in this Flickr photo set.

I experimented with a couple of different approuches, but ultimately I hit upon taking the photos with my Sony Cybershot DSC-L1 digital camera on "auto" mode with multi-point focus enabled and the flash turned off. The baseline photos this created were not spectacular, but using Adobe Photoshop Element 3's "Auto Smart Fix" enhancement at 25-50% effectiveness I was able to improve the brightness and contrast of the photos without making them look bland and washed out. I'm pleased with the result -- the shots aren't spectacular, but they nicely illustrate the tree.

Converted

I converted The Atomic Age over to the Blogger's beta software. So far, it's looking pretty good -- it's not nearly as impressive as WordPress (what with it's built in support for Flickr, Del.icio.us and other web goodies) but it's a giant leap forward from what they had. Heck ... it's got categories now!

Geek Gazette

Yes, the Atomic Age has been quiet for a while, but I figure promoting a fellow geek's web site is a good exercise for it. All power to Google!

The site in question is the Geek Gazette, a monthly to bimonthly (hey, publishing is hard!) PDF-based ezine. Its content spans the breadth of geekdom itself, from movies to games to TV to comics to, well, everything that makes up geek life! Pick it up and geek out!

Radio Active #41: Harping Monkey's Second Life, SysStat, Model Makers

Sickness and teething played havoc with Radio Active's publication schedule, but the podcast returns with a shorter show that catches folks up on happenings around the thermonuclear burg. In Net News, I take a look at the Harping Monkey Inn's virtual digs within Second Life, talk about the SysStat widget for Mac OS X, and talk about a the Model Maker's Podcast, a show dedicated to tips and tutorials for wargamers and modelers. Get the episode.