| Nuuk | March 22, 2012, 6:21 pm |
|
My flight from Warsaw to Chicago a couple of days ago took me further north across Greenland than I am used to, so I got a view of the capital, [wp]Nuuk[/wp] (Godthaab). It was in the distance (c. 25-30 miles away); the first two pics are "establishing shots", and the last two are with 30x zoom. You can easily make out the airport's runway and a fair number of buildings (well, you can see square blobs).     I'll be going to Nuuk later in the year, so it was interesting to see it from the air, still snow covered. |
|
| 10 Comments | |
| Cats | January 30, 2012, 4:49 pm |
|
In AD 2012, Cat Show was beginning. Photos taken at the Saintly City Cat Show, which is part of the St Paul Winter Carnival. <a href=http://img94.imageshack.us/img94/2945/p1330476.jpg><img src=http://img94.imageshack.us/img94/2945/p1330476.th.jpg></a> Red tabby, just after the judge had demonstrated the "stroke its lower back and it raises its butt" reflex. <a href=http://img3.imageshack.us/img3/567/p1330477.jpg><img src=http://img3.imageshack.us/img3/567/p1330477.th.jpg></a> A Norwegian Forest Cat. <a href=http://img163.imageshack.us/img163/9049/p1330481.jpg><img src=http://img163.imageshack.us/img163/9049/p1330481.th.jpg></a> A Maine Coon. <a href=http://img811.imageshack.us/img811/1931/p1330485.jpg><img src=http://img811.imageshack.us/img811/1931/p1330485.th.jpg></a> A cute normal-looking cat. <a href=http://img854.imageshack.us/img854/6648/p1330488.jpg><img src=http://img854.imageshack.us/img854/6648/p1330488.th.jpg></a> A smoosh-face, with eyes lit up in freaky fashion. <a href=http://img696.imageshack.us/img696/5922/p1330496.jpg><img src=http://img696.imageshack.us/img696/5922/p1330496.th.jpg></a> Judging in progress! <a href=http://img864.imageshack.us/img864/3382/p1330500.jpg><img src=http://img864.imageshack.us/img864/3382/p1330500.th.jpg></a> A teddy-bear smoosh-face (no, that's not the technical name of the breed) being prepared to be shown off. It reminded me of Bagpuss. <a href=http://img651.imageshack.us/img651/8066/p1330518.jpg><img src=http://img651.imageshack.us/img651/8066/p1330518.th.jpg></a> This judge's top pick together with its owner. Yes, there is a cat somewhere in that bundle of fur. <a href=http://img848.imageshack.us/img848/4023/p1330525.jpg><img src=http://img848.imageshack.us/img848/4023/p1330525.th.jpg></a> More judging. <a href=http://img13.imageshack.us/img13/2261/p1330544q.jpg><img src=http://img13.imageshack.us/img13/2261/p1330544q.th.jpg></a> Where has its face gone? <a href=http://img163.imageshack.us/img163/4771/p1330552d.jpg><img src=http://img163.imageshack.us/img163/4771/p1330552d.th.jpg></a> Another bag of fur. <a href=http://img710.imageshack.us/img710/1018/p1330557.jpg><img src=http://img710.imageshack.us/img710/1018/p1330557.th.jpg></a> This little cutey didn't win an award. The little girl who was looking after it gave the judge quite a dirty look. omg slideshow wtf |
|
| 44 Comments | |
| OMG! Number 1 again [now the kettle and toaster thread] | January 19, 2012, 2:48 pm |
|
www.amazon.com/gp/bestsellers/digital-text/156380011/ Yep, my book has reclaimed the number 1 spot in the Bestsellers in Chess (Kindle, Paid) list. (If you click on the link some time in the future, that might have changed, of course.) With the huge financial windfall from this, I'll be able to afford, uh, I dunno, a new kettle or something. (Kindle sales are still pretty small.) |
|
| 59 Comments | |
| Detroit Puzzles | October 31, 2011, 8:59 am |
|
I was a "VIP" guest this weekend at the First Annual Michigan Chess Festival. I created some puzzles for this event, and as there are a few chess enthusiasts here at DW, I'm posting them here too in case they are of interest. The attachment to this post includes PDFs of the handouts I gave out at the event. There is an easy sheet and a harder one. The harder puzzles are similar to those in some of the early chapters of my new book The Gambit Book of Instructive Chess Puzzles, which was recently published in the UK, and is soon to be released in the USA. I spent way too much time on this book, but am happy with the outcome.  |
|
| 7 Comments | |
| Christmas with Hitler | September 26, 2011, 7:22 am |
A few "WTF" pictures taken at the Lofoten 2nd World War Museum last night that I thought might be of some interest:   (Sorry the third image is on its side - blame imageshack.) |
|
| 4 Comments | |
| Greenland Minerals and Energy | August 26, 2011, 5:56 pm |
I've been wanting to put some money into this company for some years now, but when I was living in the UK, I didn't have a means to do so, as they are only listed in Australia (GGG.AX), Germany and North America. I finally did so today. I've been to Greenland several times, and like the place very much, but have also found the lack of opportunities for work and wealth creation for the Greenlanders to be quite depressing at times. So I'm very pleased to support a responsible company that is working together with the Greenland authorities to make something of the country's vast wealth of resources. I also feel that it has great growth potential, as the developer of the biggest rare earth metal resource outside China. And it has a cool web address: ggg.gl. |
|
| 1 Comment | |
| Five bears and a cat | June 1, 2011, 10:58 pm |
|
Here's a HD video clip featuring five polar bears. One is a young cub, while two are adolescents. Two are mothers, keeping a watchful eye. Don't worry - they don't fight, as there was a whale carcass nearby, so there was plenty of food for all of them. Taken in Svalbard on 18th June 2010. http://www.4shared.com/file/GQ4_oxIQ/5pbears.html (AVCHD format - about 102 MB; a little over a minute) You'll need something like VLC to watch the video - you can get it here. A couple of stills:   While I'm at it, the following picture was taken at Bobby Fischer's grave, in Iceland, on 13th June 2010. A local cat decided it wanted to be in on the act. :p This was about a week before a partial exhumation was performed, as widely reported in the news.  |
|
| 13 Comments | |
| Change of Cheese | May 20, 2011, 12:06 am |
| When I first took the Cheese Test about five years ago, I was American Cheese. Today I was Cheddar Cheese. Maybe I've become less idealistic and more traditional in the last few years. | |
| 21 Comments | |
| Tornado | May 11, 2011, 12:42 am |
Today there was the first tornado warning of the year in the Twin Cities area of Minnesota. So I took a picture. http://classic.wunderground.com/US/MN/060.html#PUB |
|
| 8 Comments | |
| OMG new book | May 4, 2011, 7:53 pm |
Chess Openings for Kids has recently been published. It's my first new book (as opposed to a new edition) for nearly a decade. My co-author, John Watson, is one of the guys who inspired me to become a chess writer in the first place, so I was very pleased to be working with him on this project. The illustrations (on the cover, and ten inside the book) are by Silverwyvern, creator of the Green Pile. Copies should arrive in the USA in a few weeks*. You can preorder from Amazon.com, though I'm not sure if they'll release copies before the end of June. <small>* Actually, they'll probably arrive in a few days, but could take weeks to clear customs/homeland security/the guy who checks there isn't too much lead in the paper, etc.</small> |
|
| 11 Comments | |