Uploads from Madison Guy, with geodata

EZ Does It!

nobody@flickr.com (Madison Guy) — Mon, 17 Jun 2013 23:39:53 -0700

Madison Guy posted a photo:

Easy or not, it can get messy. Truck at Walnut Street construction site.

Beauty and the Beast

nobody@flickr.com (Madison Guy) — Tue, 28 May 2013 09:12:54 -0700

Madison Guy posted a photo:

Tulips are beautiful and bring joy. Drones are not and bring death.

Should I Turn Off the Light on My Way Out?

nobody@flickr.com (Madison Guy) — Fri, 24 May 2013 11:33:48 -0700

Madison Guy posted a photo:

Wondering if everyone has bailed and I'm the last person I know on Flickr.

Or is it just the Memorial Day weekend? In which case, happy Memorial Day.

Data Mining

nobody@flickr.com (Madison Guy) — Sat, 20 Apr 2013 09:47:03 -0700

Madison Guy posted a photo:

Bit by bit, they've been scooping up our identities and hauling them away to fill up marketing databases. And now there's CISPA, which would take data mining to a whole new level. Why you should care.

(Pen and ink and water-soluble colored pencil on computer printout.)

Moon Over Spring Trail Pond at Twilight

nobody@flickr.com (Madison Guy) — Mon, 25 Mar 2013 10:02:55 -0700

Madison Guy posted a photo:

UW Arboretum, Nakoma Road, Madison.

Anyone Know What These Are?

nobody@flickr.com (Madison Guy) — Thu, 21 Mar 2013 17:30:09 -0700

Madison Guy posted a photo:

Coming out of the Sequoya library this afternoon, I saw these birds circling in the general area of Westmorland Park. Too far away for any sort of closeup; this is the best I could get (click on Original Size to see what detail I did capture). The flight patterns reminded me of turkey vultures, but the silhouettes and what patterning I could see made me think of either Red Tailed Hawks of Bald Eagles, (neither of which I think of flying over the city of Madison in flocks of more than 20 -- there were more outside the frame). After riding the thermals for awhile, they flew off to the northwest -- Mississippi River?

Can any birders tell for sure what they are from this meager photographic evidence?

Ten Years Later, How Is the War Economy Working for You?

nobody@flickr.com (Madison Guy) — Tue, 19 Mar 2013 11:42:27 -0700

Madison Guy posted a photo:

Ten years ago today, T and I were watching a Frederick Wiseman documentary on PBS about domestic violence, when it was interrupted by a feed from the White House and George Bush announced an illegal act of international violence. Typically, it began with a failed assassination-by-cruise-missile attempt cruise, an attack on a Baghdad restaurant that killed many people but not Saddam.

It was never about weapons of mass destruction, bringing democracy to Iraq or any of that nonsense. It was about the war economy, which hasn't worked very well for anyone except its stockholders. They've done pretty well. And they still are.

Blame Wall Sreet for a Lot of Things, but Also for What Facebook Is Doing to Instagram

nobody@flickr.com (Madison Guy) — Tue, 18 Dec 2012 09:06:49 -0800

Madison Guy posted a photo:

When Facebook acquired Instagram, it seemed only a matter of time until FB's relentless, market-driven push to squeeze ever more profit out of every bit of online real estate would take its toll. And that's just what happened with the announcement of new TOS and privacy policy for Instagram starting in mid-January. Not surprisingly, many users are outraged by the proposal to make their photos available to advertisers without compensation. Once again, FB proves that "Facebook privacy policy" is an oxymoron.

Facebook may be forced to back down on this, as they have in the face of public outcries in the past. But for users who abandoned Flickr for the more mobile-friendly world of Instagram, this might be an opportune time to come back home to Flickr and its new mobile app.

Flickr for the iPhone (and coming to Android) is everything their original mobile app should have been and wasn't. It's much more socially connected, with a really cool interface, and it has a nice set of filters and basic photo editing capabilities.

This was processed from one of the photos on my Camera Roll, using the Peacock filter.

Is This the Last Teeter-Totter in Madison?

nobody@flickr.com (Madison Guy) — Sat, 27 Oct 2012 23:25:08 -0700

Madison Guy posted a photo:

Call them teeter-totters, call them see-saws -- whatever you call them, they're becoming increasingly rare in Madison, mostly replaced by a new generation of safety engineered playground equipment placed on a soft bed of crumbled tires. This one is in Owen Park, in the section abutting Crestwood. They're not entirely unconcerned about safety; note the old tires set into the ground on both ends, just in case one teeterer or the other prematurely jumps off.

(Geotagged, see map.)

You'd Think You Were Way Out in the Country Somewhere

nobody@flickr.com (Madison Guy) — Fri, 05 Oct 2012 11:21:59 -0700

Madison Guy posted a photo:

Looking at the autumn colors. You'd be wrong. University Bay Drive, Madison.

The Dark Sky of Door County -- Especially on the Night of the New Moon

nobody@flickr.com (Madison Guy) — Tue, 21 Aug 2012 08:41:02 -0700

Madison Guy posted a photo:

We arrived in Door County on the night of the new moon, so the clear, dark night sky above the peninsula that juts out between Green Bay and Lake Michigan was even darker than usual, a reminder to city dwellers like us of just how many stars are out there that we usually don't see. When you look up at the Great Dipper in Madison, it really stands out because you don't see all that many other stars. In Door County it was almost lost in the stars.

This is looking north across Green Bay from Gills Rock, at the tip of Wisconsin's thumb, toward Michigan's Upper Peninsula, or UP. Two distant Michigan cities beyond the horizon leave their glowing imprint on the darkness of the night sky -- Escanaba, twice as large and twice as close, being much brighter than the dim red glow of Ironwood. The latter is about 30 miles away as the crow flies, while Escanaba is a mere 15, if I'm reading my map right. The dots of red light seem to be channel markers out in the bay.

Looking for Perseids on a Cloudy Night at Indian Lake

nobody@flickr.com (Madison Guy) — Sun, 12 Aug 2012 20:42:33 -0700

Madison Guy posted a photo:

Saturday night was supposed to be the peak of the Perseid meteor shower, but unfortunately it was cloudy in Madison, so we decided to take a faith-based approach, driving to Indian Lake County Park in hopes that the skies would clear. It's in a really dark valley, protected from the usual ambient light sources. Got there about 10:30 and stayed until a little after midnight.

It worked, sort of. It was a beautifully dark setting -- with only a bit of light leaking out of the much-appreciated restrooms near the parking lot. Other people had the same idea, and there were small groups of people talking softly in the dark, clustered in lawn chairs around the silhouettes of a half dozen cars. It was fun being in a good-humored group to share what was basically a disappointing show. The clouds did actually part here and there, revealing an occasional scattering of stars. I even saw the very faint streak of a meteor now and then. But whenever something more spectacular flashed overhead, and it wasn't very often, I was either looking elsewhere or fiddling with my camera. And when the stars were visible, they weren't very bright, screened by a curtain of haze even where there were no clouds. Ditto for the meteors, such as they were. I took a lot of 30-second exposures, but not one of them captured a meteor. Eventually the clouds covered the whole sky and we left. Perhaps if we'd had the patience to stay until the predicted peak at 4:00am, the clouds might have parted once more, and I might have had better luck. Or not.

But, still, it was a nice trip, and a lovely, quiet night out there in the dark Wisconsin countryside.

View Large On Black

Unusual Visitor on the Military Ridge Trail

nobody@flickr.com (Madison Guy) — Thu, 12 Jul 2012 11:39:51 -0700

Madison Guy posted a photo:

We came across this pigeon along our ride to Riley's yesterday. The peregrine falcons have really decimated the pigeons that used to congregate in downtown Madison, looking for handouts, so it's a long time since I've seen a pigeon up close. Lovely birds, really. At first I thought this pigeon might be a refugee from the urban slaughter, but that didn't make a lot of sense -- out in the open, pigeons are easy prey for every raptor and owl in the neighborhood, which is why you rarely see them in open country.

This pigeon seemed young, very well groomed and quite tame. We wondered if it was a homing pigeon or an escaped pet. It seemed comfortable with people and let us come very close. We had the feeling that if we stayed a little longer it would have let us hold it (would have been interesting to read the band on its leg).

The encounter led me to read about homing pigeons and their amazing capabilities, including this cool story about a homing pigeon that outperformed a DSL connection in transferring 4 gigs of data over 50 miles in an hour several years ago:

In September 2009, a South African IT company, based in Durban, pitted an 11-month-old bird armed with a data packed 4GB memory stick against the ADSL service from the country's biggest internet service provider, Telkom. The pigeon named Winston took an hour and eight minutes to carry the data 80 km (50 mi). Including downloading, it took two hours, six minutes, and 57 seconds for the data to arrive, the same amount of time it took to transfer 4% of the data over the ADSL.

When we continued our ride, the pigeon was still sitting there. I hope it's OK and that the hawks didn't get it.

There's a Cow in My Polling Place. What's in Yours?

nobody@flickr.com (Madison Guy) — Tue, 19 Feb 2013 17:24:39 -0800

Madison Guy posted a photo:

Winter continues to assault us with its extremes. Subzero windchill when we went to the polls tonight. Just a lightly attended primary to determine the candidates in the spring election. It was tempting to delegate the selection of candidates to other voters, but that would be wrong -- so we bundled up and made our way to Wingra School in Madison. The nice thing about voting in a school library is that there's always something interesting to look at while you wait in line (a very short line tonight).

Alternative Winter Hiking Venue

nobody@flickr.com (Madison Guy) — Fri, 15 Feb 2013 17:46:11 -0800

Madison Guy posted a photo:

These days, if you're sick of winter but even more sick of just sitting around indoors and just want to go on a good, brisk walk, there are not a lot of options. There's too much ice on most sidewalks and along the edge of the streets. You can do it, but you have to be so careful it's hardly worth it. You can go mall walking, but that's kind of creepy and mall walks have a way of gravitating toward the food court.

This is when the Madison area's commuter trails come into their own, since they'r well maintained for bike commuters and mostly ice-free. This stretch of the Capital City Trail near Dunn's Marsh in Fitchburg is typical.

Rainy January Walk on Ice Age Junction Trail, Verona

nobody@flickr.com (Madison Guy) — Wed, 30 Jan 2013 12:18:33 -0800

Madison Guy posted a photo:

Yesterday we went on a long walk with umbrellas just to prove to ourselves we weren't total wimps and that we weren't going to let a little tropical downpour in January keep us huddled inside. Today it's all different.

Clementine Flower

nobody@flickr.com (Madison Guy) — Tue, 15 Jan 2013 09:55:35 -0800

Madison Guy posted a photo:

Oh my darling, oh my darling,
Oh my darling, Clementine!
Thou art lost and gone forever
Dreadful sorry, Clementine.

Yum. (And I still have the flower.)

Clean Up After the Storm

nobody@flickr.com (Madison Guy) — Fri, 21 Dec 2012 16:13:30 -0800

Madison Guy posted a photo:

Clearing tree limbs off the power lines. (1,100 people in the city of Madison are still without power, more out in the country.)

Solstice Heron

nobody@flickr.com (Madison Guy) — Fri, 21 Dec 2012 15:23:14 -0800

Madison Guy posted a photo:

I've never seen one on ice before. Apparently it wanted to experience a northern winter solstice. (Wingra Creek, Madison.)

Pheasant Branch Creek Trail

nobody@flickr.com (Madison Guy) — Sun, 01 Jul 2012 15:50:52 -0700

Madison Guy posted a photo:

Want to bike or walk in the Madison area but the broiling sun is just too much to take? This bike path runs along the Pheasant Branch Creek in Middleton as it meanders toward the Pheasant Branch Conservancy and then Lake Mendota. The path is cooler than the surroundings. It's shaded by the trees, and the same sunlight that is so hot elsewhere flilers beautifully through the trees, casting highlights on and near the creek.