New toys!

I just picked up a new towbar kit (towbar, ball and wiring harness) plus a set of roof racks. Ended up buying 'Genuine Toyota' parts because they were cheaper than anything else I could easily find anyway. Who would have thought? Still have to work out how to install them though. The towbar looks easy enough and the wiring kit may have a few tricks in it but there aren't exactly instructions with these things, so it could go either way.

Stay tuned for more exciting car news.

*NEWSFLASH*
Looks like the wiring kit includes some instructions although I'm not convinced yet they are good ones. Once I have pulled my car slightly to pieces I will know. When my car was stolen, it had my (cheap and nasty) toolkit in it, so I'll have to get a replacement. Which means.... MORE TOYS! Yay!

Yet another panorama

Quick(ish) and dirty attempt this time. Just wanted to put it together to see what happens. It's at Gunlom again, but looking up to the lookout where the other Gunlom panorama was taken. I might need to compile the software myself to get the current version and start messing with different projections. I'm using cylindrical at the moment but I want to see how it goes with Mercator, which means either waiting for a binary to turn up or compiling my own. Could try rectilinear but that would probably distort the image too much.

Hooray! Finally got a Flickr account!

I have many photos of the Darwin trip now on Flickr. Of course they are backwards because I am uploading them forwards. I'll fix it when I can be bothered. Maybe. I still have more to put up there I think.

Edit: Hoorah! 61 photos uploaded!

Blogthings

Alright... I should stop procrastinating. But until I do.....

You Are Heineken

You appreciate a good beer, but you're not a snob about it. You like your beer mild and easy to drink, so you can concentrate on being drunk. Overall, you're a friendly drunk who's likely to buy a whole round for your friends... many times. Sometimes you can be a bit boring when you drink. You may be prone to go on about topics no one cares about.

What's Your Beer Personality?

Your Inner European is Italian!

Passionate and colorful. You show the world what culture really is.

Who's Your Inner European?

Your Quirk Factor: 65%

You're so quirky, it's hard for you to tell the difference between quirky and normal. No doubt about it, there's little about you that's "normal" or "average."

How Quirky Are You?

Your Personality Profile

You are funky, outdoorsy, and down to earth. While you may not be a total hippie... You're definitely one of the most free spirited people around. You are very impulsive - every day is a new adventure. However, you do put some thought behind all your actions. Still, you do tend to shock and offend people from time to time!

The World's Shortest Personality Test

More pictures!

Well it was a rather fun weekend, and I took some photos on Saturday which I think are worth sharing. Firstly, these little guys (there were actually 2 of them) landed on the balcony across from me, then flew to my balcony and did not seem even remotely scared. So I wandered off and got my camera, came back and they still hadn't moved. This shot is a little more action than I thought it would be, and looks like birds have taken to skipping. Which is fair enough. If you've been flying for so long, why not?


This next little piccy is from my brother's place up in the mountains. The smurfs have moved in and are taking over his front yard.



I think this mushroom is a Amanita muscaria or 'Fly Agaric' although apparently getting a definite ID on a mushroom is very difficult.

Fog is soooo sexy!

It was so awesome to see Sydney blanketed in fog this morning. I didn't realise how much of Sydney was fogged in. If I did, I would have brought my camera on my journey to work and taken photos of some of the sandstone buildings emerging from the fog. Oh well. I did take a couple of shots of the lack of view from my balcony which I'll pop up real soon now (tm).


The sun can *almost* get through!

One more time for the dummies

Okay... I had to try it again. This time for sure. Wanted to get the contrast right and it looks like it helped. I changed the contrast anchor to be the 1st frame (instead of the 3rd) and left the position anchor as the 3rd frame. Am I OCD? Maybe. Just wanted to get it to look as good as it can. This is also here partly so I remember what I did and can get it right much easier next time I try panoramas.

Gunlom Revisitied

Alas, I can't actually go back there right at this minute, but at least I can still keep tinkering with the photos. Still using Hugin, but using the PTStitcher engine rather than nona and enblend. This allows for colour and brightness correction, and has a different way of blending the borders. I also leaned how to add extra contol points to control horizontal and vertical features, which has left me with a much better horizon. At least I'd like to think so. There are 2 ways to make these things better. One is to use a tripod and the other is to learn how to use the camera better to lock down all the brightness/exposure settings. Even if I only locked the camera settings, it would already have made it much better.


Edit: While I'm on a roll, here's the Nourlangie Rock and Arnhem land photo redone similarly.

Moonrise over Cold War

It's a bit of a shame that I didn't figure out how to take a proper photo of the moonrise before the colours disappeared. It was a lot more purple in bands across the sky, but those photos are all a little blurry. Still I think this one turned out okay. Kinda. Sorta.

Nourlangie Rock with Arnhem Land Escarpment

Guess the title says it all. What it doesn't say is that this took several attempts to try to get horizontal to be reasonably correct. I ended up rotating the image by 0.2 degrees (2 degrees got flat horizon but then Nourlangie rock looked like it was going to fall over). Looks like there's a long way to go to learn how to use the panorama tools properly. The view is from Nawurlandja.

Pan-o-rama-rama

Ok... here's my attempt to panorama pictures taken from a lookout on the way to the top of the falls at Gunlom (from the previous post). I got off my butt and looked for something myself to do the panorma. I used Hugin with autopano and enblend. Results are okay but I wonder if there's any other auto blending tools out there which would help with the colour matching.

Kakadu in 6 easy steps

First, pop out for some rock art in Ubirr


Then hang out in Ubirr for the sunset

Enjoy the clear pools at Boulder Falls


Squeeze thorugh some rocks at Gubara

Enjoy the view from the hotel room at Kambolgie

And watch the water fall down at Gunlom (without pestering the local crocs)

Not awake late tonight!

Well, in a stark contrast to not being able to sleep, this time I'm extremely tired and it's only 9:15. Guess I can blame having an awesome time in Kakadu and Darwin, and coming back on the plane this morning. Oh... and also trying to convince myself to study for an exam tomorrow. eep. Not that this post is any more than a thinly veiled attempt to convince my subconscious that I'm doing something increadibly important that isn't procrastinating. Oh no.