Island in the Net

24th September 2017 / 1 Comment

Stones

Aperture—ƒ/4
Camera—NIKON D5100
Taken—24 September, 2017
Copyright—© 2017 Khürt L. Williams
Focal length—24mm
ISO—1250
Shutter speed—1/250s

What is a stone?

It’s a unit of measure. The stone or stone weight is an English and imperial unit of mass now equal to 14 pounds (6.35029318 kg). My body weight (Earth) is approximately 11.4 stone.

Stone also refers to a solid aggregate of one or more minerals or mineraloids. Rocks are stones.

It may also refer — in the plural — to the assemblage of English musicians into a rock and roll band or the assemblage of pages and images into weekly periodically about music and popular culture. Was that a pun?

Stone silence on that question. Wait, that was a pun?

My town of Skillman in Montgomery Township lays at the base of the Sourland Mountain, a 27km long ridge extending from the Delaware River in Lambertville to the western end of Hillsborough Township, through Montgomery Township, and into Hopewell Township.

The Sourland Mountain and the area around it are full of hard igneous rock called diabase. The diabase are a type of highly erosion resistant stone known as trap rock.

In the sixteen years that I have lived in Skillman, I have photographed many various sections of the Sourland Mountain including my favorite spot, the Rock Brook. But there are other areas that I wanted to explore for this photo-challenge.

Aperture—ƒ/4
Camera—NIKON D5100
Taken—24 September, 2017
Copyright—© 2017 Khürt L. Williams
Focal length—24mm
ISO—5600
Shutter speed—1/250s

On private property along Rileyville Road in East Amwell Township, Hunterdon County, a series of three large rocks sit on top of another boulder large enough to hold them. Legend claims that many years ago three brothers decided to meet the Devil, overcome him and rid the area of his presence once and for all. But, as it turned out, they were no match for the Evil One who surprised them, turning them into stone on the spot where we still see them sitting today at Three Brothers Rock.

The European’s who settled the area shared a penchant for naming areas after the Devil himself, for example, the boulder fields called Devil’s Featherbed and a collection of huge boulders along the hiking trails in the Sourland Mountain Preserve called Devil’s Half Acre.

Bhavna’s was tired from attending the Bruno Mars concert last night. I was hoping she’ll join me in hiking the eight kilometer (~ 5 miles) Ridge Trail from the trail head at Eastern Mountain Road in Hillsborough Township, along Maple Flats and up the boardwalks into Montgomery Township toward Roaring Rocks, then continue along the Roaring Brook trail over the Texas Eastern Pipeline toward Devil’s Half Acre before heading back down to the trail head.

Instead, I contacted my friend Prasanna who was happy to get out on a hike with me. We hike hikes for just over two hours. We didn’t stick to the plan but instead skipped the outbound hike to Devil’s Half-Acre. It was just a bit to wram and humid for us. We were sweaty and sticky.

Aperture—ƒ/4
Camera—NIKON D5100
Taken—24 September, 2017
Copyright—© 2017 Khürt L. Williams
Focal length—24mm
ISO—4000
Shutter speed—1/250s

Created by photographer Frank Jansen, the Tuesday Photo Challenge is a weekly theme-based challenge for photographers of all kinds to share both new and old photography.

23rd September 2017 / 0 Comments

The Notch

Riccardo Mori on the little black notch in the iPhone X screen.

Well, of course Apple has to present a confident attitude towards the notch and the design statement it represents. Jonathan Ive would perhaps use the term ‘unapologetic’ to describe the presence of that notch. Embracing compromises can be bold all you want, but doesn’t change the fact that they’re compromises. All UI examples I’ve seen so far of apps in landscape mode on the iPhone X keep emphasising one thing: the notch is a quirk, and an annoying one at that. It is a design stopgap I believe Apple can’t wait to get rid of. I still think that in two iterations — maybe as soon as one — this class of iPhone will truly be ‘all screen’.

23rd September 2017 / 0 Comments

iTunes Preview

Last week, Apple removed the iOS App Store from iTunes. iTunes is now focused exclusively on music, movies, television, podcasts, and audiobooks. For me, it’s a loss. Craig Grannell thinks Apple could have learned something from Google’s approach.

Google has always been more comfortable with the internet than Apple, and in this area Apple now falls short. If I’m reading about great iOS apps or games on my PC or Mac, I can no longer quickly grab them in iTunes, and later download them to my iOS devices. There’s not even a wish-list option. I now have to send myself a link, or switch to an iOS device. (Also, some apps are device-specific, and I still can’t buy an iPad app from an iPhone, which is absurd.)

Apple should steal an idea from Google. It should be possible to buy apps directly from iTunes Preview, and choose where to send them. Better: iTunes Preview should grow to become the entire iOS App Store online, giving greater visibility to apps, and freeing browsing and buying them from the confines of iOS.