Fair critique needed desperately!

Fiery Flower by chrisisageek

Copyright Chris Benson 2008. All Rights Reserved.

After HDR developing this from a single raw file, I liked the faint glow of the orange flower, I decided to saturate the colors to accentuate this effect. I like how it turned out, but…

After posting this photo to flickr.com, and submitting it to a critique group, I was brutally obliterated by comments. If I post it to more positive groups, I get 20 little banners promoting other groups, and simple comments like “nice capture”, or “neat effect”.

So I guess what I’m getting at is would there be any suggestions as to where I should post photos for honest critique. I’m more than happy to offer my opinions to others about their work as well. I really want to improve my ability as an amateur attempting to become a pro.

A Small Stream.

I found this small stream feeding into Mirror Lake.

You can only find truth with logic if you have already found truth without it.
-Gilbert Keith Chesterton

Legal P2P Music Service Doomed to Fail | TorrentFreak

If you can’t beat pirates, join them. This is Playlouder’s philosophy, a music download service that allows subscribers to download music from BitTorrent and other filesharing networks, while reimbursing the copyright owners. The concept sure is interesting, but the current setup is naive, flawed and doomed to fail.

Legal P2P Music Service Doomed to Fail | TorrentFreak

Great College Prank.

Georgia Tech Photo by Disavian (CC Licensed) Georgia Tech’s most famous prank wasn’t a single prank but a decades-long conspiracy of pranks advancing the life of a fake student named George Burdell. The prank began in 1926 when a student received two enrollment forms. The student sent both back, one with his real name and one as Burdell. For the next four years, the student did all of his class work twice, once as himself and once as Burdell, earning Burdell a BA in 1930 and a few years later, a masters degree. During WWII, Georgia Tech alumni added Burdell’s name to bomber crew lists, sending him on missions across the European theater. After Georgia Tech computerized class selection and enrollment, students hacked the computers, adding Burdell to the school’s rolls numerous times over the last thirty years.

Great College Pranks | Popular Science

Social Engineering, the USB Way – Desktop Security – Dark Reading

The Most Interesting Way to Infiltrate a System I’ve seen yet.  Pen Testing Still Isn’t my Thing, but WOW, Very Interesting.

“The next hurdle we had was getting the USB drives in the hands of the credit union’s internal users. I made my way to the credit union at about 6 a.m. to make sure no employees saw us. I then proceeded to scatter the drives in the parking lot, smoking areas, and other areas employees frequented.Once I seeded the USB drives, I decided to grab some coffee and watch the employees show up for work.

Surveillance of the facility was worth the time involved. It was really amusing to watch the reaction of the employees who found a USB drive. You know they plugged them into their computers the minute they got to their desks.I immediately called my guy that wrote the Trojan and asked if anything was received at his end. Slowly but surely info was being mailed back to him. I would have loved to be on the inside of the building watching as people started plugging the USB drives in, scouring through the planted image files, then unknowingly running our piece of software.

After about three days, we figured we had collected enough data. When I started to review our findings, I was amazed at the results. Of the 20 USB drives we planted, 15 were found by employees, and all had been plugged into company computers. The data we obtained helped us to compromise additional systems, and the best part of the whole scheme was its convenience. We never broke a sweat. Everything that needed to happen did, and in a way it was completely transparent to the users, the network, and credit union management.”

The Full Article is Here.
Social Engineering, the USB Way – Desktop Security – Dark Reading

Yellow Flower with Spider

Yellow Flower with Spider,
originally uploaded by chrisisageek.

The best day I’ve had in months was simply a day of photos and conversation with a friend I’ve not made enough time for in the past. A mistake I hope to resolve soon.

Dandelion

Dandelion,
originally uploaded by chrisisageek.

My first macro shot.

The Gobbler, Oppulent Kitsch meets Wisconsin Turkey Farmer?

I’m sitting outside of my favorite coffee shop in the Dells one sunny late afternoon, people watching. The coffee shop owner, and good friend of mine, tells me I have to come see this. I sit down in the kitchen behind her laptop on the stainless steel counter next to her kitschy vintage ashtray and pack of Winstons. The most curious Wisconsin oddity I have ever seen is displayed on her screen.

That’s right, it’s a blue-shag “Passion-Pit!” Take care to note the television screen, and 8-track player mounted in the headboard!

Take a swim in the pool, I can’t quite make out the shape that pool is supposed to be though.

The on-site supper club is the real treat of this space, note the rotating bar with a round balcony directly above it.

From the smokers balcony, looking down, note the soft, luxurious, shag EVERYWHERE?

The VIP room, above the smokers balcony, the lounge featuring a drum set, clarinet, and accordian. Put on your dancing loafers, and break out your best polyester leisure suit.

The website on her screen was written by James Lilek, an afficianado of American architecture and design of the 1960’s and 1970’s. What made the experience so unreal to me is that I remember seeing this place before while driving to Milwaukee, or Chicago for many up-all-night dance parties.

The view from the off ramp of I-94, exit 267, Eastbound.

I had driven past these odd buildings many times in the past, and knew I had to go back and see it. As you view the blog here you will see roughly what I have seen. A hint of past glory, in shag carpeting, dramatic curves, and eyesore colors.

Alas, as you can see, that hotel is reduced now to rubble, at least the restaurant still stands.

The designer of this palace is Helmut Ajango. An experienced architect still practicing his prairie-style design philosophy to this day. His work is phenomenal, even if a little ubsurd, I am certain that this space was the only design of it’s kind.

I have driven past, visited, and relished in this space many times since first being introduced to it, and I am saddened that the hotel is gone now, I secretly harbored a hope that the building would someday be restored, and that I would get to stay there. Now the old restaurant is for sale through Judson Real Estate. I know I will visit the space again if ever it re-opens.

I hope you enjoyed what I shared here.

Showing off Flock

Ryan, here is a sample post for everyone to see.

Laundry

Sitting here looking for something to type about, instead of getting my laundry, need to get with it if I want my blog to be worth something someday.  Need to go iron some shirts, so I’ll be worth something at work tomorrow.

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