Let there be light!

Ok… some of you might wonder where the hell I have been this last month! As some may have guessed, I have been more than busy. Many things have changed in my life.

To make a long story short, I have quit my job as a web designer/developper at EducExpert and I must say that I have spent two great years with this company full of young talent!

The reason for this major change is that I found another great job in a whole new world: The world of helicopters! I will slowly start flying as a helicopter pilot over the next year which I feel extremely privileged. The year 2009 was extremely difficult for this industry and for me to find a job only 6 month after my course is something that I can be proud of.

Another thing that can explain the absence of new posts on my site is the fact that I didn’t carry my camera very much these last 2 months. I find November & December extremely boring months for photography since the trees have lost their colorful leaves and the white fluffy floor has yet to fall from the sky.

Theoretically speaking, I should have more time in January 2010 to post articles on a regular basis. Until than, I leave you with this photograph that I have taken in 2007. The two photos featured in this post are some of the best photos I have taken in that year and that very few people have seen.

Peace! Maxime

Textures of the earth

Here on earth, we see everything from a standing point perspective. This means that if we look straight in front, we are likely to see the horizon. While this perspective can often be astonishingly beautiful, we are missing out on what satellites see of our giant blue planet.

To satisfy your eyes, here are some beautiful looking textures of our home.

Band-e-Amir National Park, Afghanistan

Wilkins Ice Bridge Collapse

Chaiten Volcano, Chile

Thunderstorms on the Brazilian Horizon

Biokovo Range, Croatia

Carajás Mine, Brazil

Glacial Dust off Alaska

Great Blue Hole, Belize

Some of the most interesting satellites are Earth observing satellites which provide us with incredible imagery for many purposes such as weather and environment. They are usually located at an altitude between 600km and 800km above our planet and travel at an approximate speed of 27 000km/hour. While satellite imagery has been around for decades, it was pretty much inaccessible before 2004. It really started to be accessible and popular when Google launched Google Earth in 2005. Everyone was impressed to see their home on the search engine giant. Today Google Maps/Earth is an essential tool whenever people go out to an unfamiliar place.

Curious minds will also enjoy the NASA Earth Observatory site which offers a daily article with a satellite image related to our planet Earth.

Speaking of satellites, there is also tons of space junk orbiting the earth. This so called debris could be very destructive to existing satellites as a centimeter cube particle hitting an object in space could pulverize that object into even more debris. Fortunately, there is so much cubic space up there that the chance of a debris hitting a functional satellite is quite small.

Halloween, Rockets and Typography

Not so long ago, the excellent designer Jason Santa Maria, and writer Rob Giampietro posted an article mentioning the rocket candies for this upcoming Halloween.

I thought the idea was fantastic and I though that I could use the little round candies for something creative! So I took my camera, stole a few rocket packs and started shooting alphabet shapes. Here is the result:

Mooooooose

I know that it has been a little while since I posted and I apologize for the delay. I have been extremely busy over the last few weeks which kept me from posting more often.

As you may remember, I posted an article a few weeks ago about the Parc National de la Jacques-Cartier. Well, I liked this park so much that I have returned at least four times since then! As a result, I have been quite lucky to see 3 moose and 3 beavers on October 12th 2009. I have to admit that I was impressed to see those mammals as I rarely see animals out in the wild.

Now the park is slowly starting to be covered in snow, but rest assured that I will prepare my snowshoes to snap some more picture this upcoming winter! Peace.

To tweet or not to tweet?

Twitter has been the hot buzz over the last few years as far as social networking goes. The free service allows users to post (really) short message of a maximum of 140 characters via it’s website http://twitter.com and via mobile phones.

I have known the service for a long time, but I never had an account until today. Maybe one of the reasons is that I have read studies that suggests that approxmatly 60% of Twitter users quit during the first month and I didn’t want to be part of the statistics. It’s all cool sending little messages, but social networking takes time and time is precious. I have decided to try it out and see if I can make a benefit from the service. Moreover, I want to explore the possibilities behind Twitter as it’s popularity keeps increasing as days goes by. Many companies and organizations have even started using it as a marketing tool.

You may have noticed that my site articles now show a retweet button located at the upper right of my articles. This button allows users to tweet and retweet my articles. The number of tweets are then compiled on the Tweetmeme site which is similar to Digg except it uses tweets. You are all invited to try it out!

All things considered, I believe that Twitter can be useful and fun to use. In the meantime, make sure to checkout my new Twitter account here!

Poll:  Do you have a personal or business Twitter account?