So instead of finishing my write up (ha, starting) on the lunar eclipse, I fell off the abstaining-from-lolcats wagon (once again) and decided to hold a contest that isn’t really a contest. Basically, lolcat up Bogey in the picture below. Post in the comments if you are comfortable with html, or get in touch with me through the comments (or by email if you have it) and I will help get the picture up. Bigger versions should be available on Flickr.

(This is all Rory’s fault. If he wouldn’t have forwarded me this, I would have been productive today.)

I haven’t got my lunar eclipse photos fully edited yet. I have hit a roadblock in successfully combining the darker images from totality with the partial eclipse photos from closer to dawn. I can get it all together just fine, but each moon shot gets washed out with the brighter dawn pictures.

By the way, I am using Photoshop’s screen blend option to combine the image. If anyone has any suggestions or different approaches I am all ears. I am attempting to emulate multiple exposures on a single frame of film. I should have a full write up tonight or tomorrow.

Perhaps I will avoid setting my adium away message after getting three hours of sleep:

i literally slept for like 3 hours so i could wake up and try to find a frickin hilarious link about orgies and the lunar eclipse so i could put up a link that no one would read that said “it is about time to start your lunar eclipse orgy if you are into that sort of thing” and i couldn’t find a link so instead i rattled on for too long about not finding a link…wtf

out watching the lunar eclipse with cameras and cell in tow

So yeah, we’re going to avoid that in the future. In other news, the lunar eclipse went well, although I won’t know for sure until I process all my pictures. But first!: sleep.

Tomorrow morning (Tuesday, August 28th, 2007, UTC -5 hours) marks the second lunar eclipse of 2007. I’ve been looking through sites today to get some good tips to capture this eclipse on film (literally and figuratively). It is a little late, but if you are wondering, these sites have been a big help:

1. NASA Eclipse Homepage is as good as place as any to start.
2. Find your viewing location’s coordinates using Google Earth or a GPS and plug them into NASA’s Lunar Eclipse Explorer. (Alternatively you can just select a nearby location, but where is the fun in that?) This cool little tool will spit out exact times for all lunar eclipses at a certain location for any century starting with -1999 (2000 BCE) all the way up to 3000. The times provided are an exact measure of returning what lunar eclipse events you will be able to see.

   If you don’t want to mess with the app, this graphic provides a quick reference to see how much of the eclipse you can see. The values attached to the contact curves (e.g. U1, P1) refer to the phases of the eclipse visible for a certain location. So in the Kansas, the eclipse will be visible through the U3 phase; sometime afterwards, the moon will set. The description of each phase is available on the main eclipse webpage.

3. The first result returned by Google when trying to figure out proper exposures is the excellent MrEclipse page. Mr. Espenak has great advice, and his photographs are amazing. His material is great, and with the tables and advice provided I was able to figure out a shooting plan that I hope will provide some great results.

I will post some digital shots tomorrow. If the film comes out, I’ll post it when it gets developed and scanned.

…Play Bioshock now. This game is incredible. Two days ago a massive glitch made me replay about two hours worth of game, and I didn’t care too much. Like other great games, I plan on replaying this one a lot — the glitch just allowed me to start replaying some of the game early.

I have always believed that videogames can be, and are, art. This game only solidifies my belief. I will say this: game critics and fans alike can shove this game in Roger Ebert’s face all they want, but I don’t think a game as violent as Bioshock will change his mind — if that is even possible. If I was trying to sell a non-believer on photographs being art, I wouldn’t start by showing them a street execution or the works of Diane Arbus. Regardless of me thinking “YES! this is art”, photographs that are hauntingly violent or uncanny are not good introductions.  The same goes for games.  I plan on thinking and writing about both Bioshock and games as art in a more meaningful manner; for now I will continue enjoying this great game. You should be too.

(This isn’t a complaint — yet — so much as it is a concern. I’m really enjoying playing through Bioshock, perhaps later if I get unstuck I will post impressions. For what it is worth, I will be discussing certain elements of the Bioshock story that could be considered spoilers, so don’t continue reading if you are concerned about that type of thing.)

In the Fort Frolic level my most recent game save is unable to progress because of an apparent glitch in the quadtych mission. After collecting and posting the photographs of Fitzgerald (the guy at the piano) and Martin Finnegan, I set off to collect the final two photos. After messing around with a big daddy or two, I ran out of film. I searched for more film in Paradise Plaza and some other areas within Fort Frolic and couldn’t find any more, so I headed to the bathysphere and went to Acadia. After finding some film and screwing with a few more big daddies, I returned to Fort Frolic. Upon entering the atrium, I noticed that the quadtych was no longer there: the red curtain that covers the scene before the photo mission starts was in its place.

Hopefully the two photos above are demonstrative enough to show the apparent glitch. Sorry I didn’t capture cleaner pics.

I initially didn’t concern myself with this problem and went after the last two photographs. I dispatched Silas Cobb and then went and found Hector Rodriguez. Hector ended up getting between myself and a big daddy, so I went ahead and hypnotized the big daddy. After a very comical chase, I lost track of Rodriguez; eventually, I got word that he was dead. I still can’t find his body, but I won’t chock that up to a glitch just yet because I haven’t looked hard enough for his body.

I took the photo of Cobb back to the quadtych, and it still wasn’t there. I’m going to spend some time catching up using old saves (thankfully I create lots of save files), but I’m concerned that a glitch of this magnitude made it into this great game. If anyone out there has seen this problem and/or knows how to fix it, please let me know.

Update: I went ahead an launched a save that took me to just before planting the Lazarus Vector. I have all my old saves, so if a patch comes out or some workaround comes about, I’ll check it out.

Apparently, 30% of Xbox 360 owners haven’t heard of Xbox Live Arcade.  Perhaps Xbox Live Arcade awareness would be higher if XBLA had its own blade as opposed to residing on the games blade.  I understand that having too many blades would clutter the interface, but I honestly think XBLA is a good enough component of the Xbox 360 experience that it should feature more prominently.

[via Kotaku]