Concordance to The Dragon Waiting

Andrew Plotkin has assembled a concordance to John M. Ford’s The Dragon Waiting. He says “My goal is to document everything that I thought a reader might miss.” This will presumably have to be an ongoing effort :-).

In my latest booknote on this one I said:

I continue to be not as excited about this book as other people. But I know why; I’m just not knowledgable enough to fully appreciate it. In this case it’s my lack of knowledge of third-level characters in that historical period. So I’m sure I’m not getting all sorts of connections that help make the book more interesting and move the story along.

On consideration I suspect my ignorance extends considerably further up the line, but anyway; I suspect I’ll be able to appreciate a lot more of this book now!

(Nicked from a post in Nemesis Draco.)

Perspective Corrections in Casual Pictures

Since Picture Window Pro and Photoshop have made it relatively easy for me, I’ve been sometimes making perspective corrections even in relatively casual snapshots. Mostly I just fixed keystone, but the example I have here from today uses all the controls, including lens distortion. I corrected this photo using the “lens correction” filter in Photoshop CS2 (it’s under “distortion” on the filter menu). Continue reading Perspective Corrections in Casual Pictures

Definitely Not A Studio

But I’ve rigged a couple of simple things to provide better lighting on my bed. That’s the main flat space in my room, and has been used for “tabletop” photography many times in the past (Ebay pictures and such). Also, many of the interesting but technically troubled kitten pictures of the last few years have been taken there. Continue reading Definitely Not A Studio