mortiz080

Every so often...   ... you run across a photo that makes you ask, "What's going on here?"  You take a look, and think "hmmm...."   Often, these are images that you find in things you're reading; a figure, photo, or illustration that makes you pause and wonder.  And usually, the text on the page will give you a good clue about the backstory.   But then there are the decontextualized pics .  Like as not, these are photos that you've taken somewhere along the way, and you run across them on your way to looking for something else.   Here are two such photos I ran across recently on my hard drive--images that made me wonder "What's going on here?"   Can you figure out what's happening in each of these images?  1.  What's up with these railroad tracks?  They see very odd, yet familiar.  Why are there three  rails?  (I'll spare you the metadata extraction task.  This image was taken at:  38.90...

It's true: I got an earworm while bicycling...  I know, I know--an earworm  is typically a short, catchy piece of music.  But perhaps my brain (or ear) is wired a little differently and my earworm is a little longer than most.  Whatever the cause, my mind latched onto this tune, playing repeatedly in my head.  The problem was, I could NOT remember the name of the tune.   Of course, this immediately activated my SearchResearch instinct--how can I figure this one out?  The only thing worse than an earworm is an earworm you can't name!   Here's a recording of me whistling the tune:              playable m4a file of the mysterious tune   FWIW, I could play it on the piano as well, but I realize that's kind of an odd skill to have, and not everyone has a piano at home.  But (almost) everyone can whistle.   Now that you've heard it (albeit my tentative whistling), here's our Challenge:...

I was bicycling home when it happened...  I  wasn't thinking about anything in particular, I was just out for a ride. But somewhere along the way I got a terrible earworm--you know, one of those catchy songs that gets stuck in your head, and won't stop--it just keeps repeating over and over in your head.  For whatever reason, I could NOT figure out what it was.  I could sing it, I could whistle it, I could even play it on the piano, but I was utterly unable to put a label onto it. Of course, this immediately activated my SearchResearch instinct--how can I figure this one out?   Here's a recording of me whistling the tune:              playable m4a file of the mysterious tune   This is this week's SRS Challenge!  1.  What's the name of this song?   2.  If you can't recognize it... how on Earth would you search  for this tune?  Naturally, please let us know how you figured out the name...

We've talked about Search-by-Image before, but here's a nuance we haven't mentioned...   When you do a Search-By-Image, you upload an image to Google so it can find similar kinds of images.  To do an SBI search, just click on the camera icon, then upload your image.   It works remarkably well.  But sometimes, it needs a bit of direction--a little guidance to make your result more precise.   For instance, you can search for a picture of a caterpillar that you photographed in order to figure out its name.  Here's the one I found:  When you do a SBI, you see this result:  That's all true, but not helpful.  This caterpillar is NOT the caterpillar of the European gypsy moth.  They look like this:  So... how can we modify the query to improve the search result?   Easy--just give it a bit of a hint--like this:  Now that you've got some decent "Visually similar images" you can click on that link and quickly fin...

You think a decent-sized island wouldn't get lost.. .  And yet, somehow, Google Maps seems to have lost an island off the coast of Taveuni, in northern Fiji.   To remind you of the Challenge:  I was diving in the Somosomo Strait, between Taveuni and Vanua Levu.  In the map below, I've marked both the islands and the strait.   Taveuni Island, the Somosomo Strait, and Vanua Levu, the big island to the west. While I was staying at the Nakia Lodge near the northwest corner of Taveuni, I took a lot of photos, including this one:  In this photo, I'm standing at the edge of the lodge, at -16.741502,-179.950285 -- the photo angle of the this shot is about like this:  But when you zoom in on the map, this is what I see:  And it doesn't matter if I zoom in with the satellite view... there's nothing there, just a kind of smearing of photo edges!   And yet I know, from personal experience, that this small island is basically due west of th...

For me, one of the joys of travel...  ... is learning something unexpected, something I didn't expect, something that makes me wonder at the world, and how/why things are the way they are.  Not long ago, I was in Fiji, diving in the Somosomo Strait, a channel that flows between the island of Taveuni and Vanu Levu.  In the map below, I've marked Taveuni Island and the strait.   Taveuni Island, the Somosomo Strait, and Vanua Levu, the big island to the west. Taveuni is a lovely South Pacific tropical island with remarkable diving, waterfalls, lush vegetation, and a plethora of reefs and little islands to visit.  Here's a bit of a larger view, just to give you an idea of where this is:  That blue dot is where Taveuni sits, midway between the Solomon Islands and the Cook Islands.  It's 1865 miles (3001 km) to the closest point of Australia, and a 13 hour flight from Los Angeles.  It also  happens to be right on the International Date Line, s...