KWBaker

We need bees to survive. Without them, we would not be able to produce a number of crops—including berries, fruits, vegetables, almonds and other tree nuts. One in every three bites of food that we eat comes from crops pollinated by bees.But we’ve all seen the headlines about how bees and other insect pollinators are in trouble. According to the U.S. Department of Agriculture, the total number of managed honey bee colonies in the U.S. decreased from five million in the 1940s to only 2.5 million today.What’s causing the decline? Scientists have yet to pinpoint the cause for sure, but studies point to multiple factors, including climate change, pesticides, disease and habitat loss.Farms can help native bees by enhancing and protecting the flowering plants and nest sites that pollinators feed on year-round. Other conservation practices that help bees include minimizing tillage, reducing the use of pesticides and protecting natural areas around farms.“A majority of the crops in Michigan are dependent on pollinators,” says Brian Brandt, American Farmland Trust director of agricultural conservation innovations. “But we have lost the varied habitat for honeybees that we used to have. We need to get more pollinator habitat back in the landscape.”A new project by American Farmland Trust (AFT) is enlisting conserved farms in the fight to help save bees and other pollinators. The AFT program will help farms pay for the cost of such practices by allowing them to achieve “pollinator credits” that can be sold to businesses around Michigan that depend on bees, such as food companies.Participating farms will plant selected species that improve pollinator habitat. The program targets farms that have protected their land with conservation easements, or will do so.“I’m hoping we can eventually expand the program to other areas,” says Brandt. “At AFT, we’re always asking, ‘How do we find innovative ways to bring new funding into agriculture to support conservation?’ This is one solution.”You can help raise awareness about the loss of farmland and the impact it has fresh, local food for the next generation. Sign-up to get a FREE No Farms No Food® car magnet from American Farmland Trust and join the farmland movement.This article is brought to you by American Farmland Trust the nation’s leading national conservation nonprofit dedicated to protecting farmland, promoting sound farming practices and keeping farmers on the land. Learn more about AFT and how we are helping beginning farmers thrive by visiting us online at, www.farmland.org.The post Save the Bees appeared first on Modern Farmer.

(Part of the Austin Rocks series of posts by a local about things to do and see in Austin, Texas) Some things haven’t changed over the years in Austin. You take the same road – Comanche Trail – to both The Oasis on Lake Travis restaurant complex and the Hippie Hollow nude swimming area. Follow the correct signs and you’ll be fine. There’s a pretty spectacular view of Lake Travis from this long-time Austin bar and eatery, and it is even better now that we’re out of drought conditions and the lake is full. When drought gripped the Central Texas region

The post Austin Rocks: Sunset at The Oasis on Lake Travis appeared first on Perceptive Travel Blog.

Keeping track of our online subscriptions is something we know we should do, but don’t. The following tools will show exactly what you’re subscribed to, how much you’re spending, and prompt you to cancel subscriptions you no longer need. A year ago, I cancelled all of my unused online subscriptions, and downgraded those I didn’t use enough. Within two hours, I’d saved myself over $1000 throughout the next year. Last week, I did the same thing, saving another $400 per year. This is all great news, but I could have cancelled many of these subscriptions much earlier than I did. But...

Read the full article: How to Easily Manage Your Online Subscriptions & Save Money

So you bought your first Mac. Congratulations! After you’re done admiring its sleek, shiny exterior, it’s time to get down to the business of installing applications and customizing OS X. To help you get started, we have come up with a common list software you should be on the lookout for, along with recommendations for each type. For now, we’re assuming that you’re transitioning to a Mac from a PC. Even if the Mac is your first computer ever, you’ll need most of these apps sooner or later. One last thing — you can speed up the app installation process for free and...

Read the full article: Bought Your First Mac? Install These 15 Apps Right Away

Over the last few years, people have perpetuated the idea that computer screens and mobile devices can harm our sleep, which is why F.lux and Apple’s Night Shift have exploded in popularity. But do they actually work as advertised? The answer might surprise you. Sleep seems to be the one thing that all of us could use a little more of these days. We’re sleeping fewer hours per day than ever before, and staring into the bright lights of our computers and phones isn’t helping us get to bed any earlier — so let’s find out whether this trick is a real solution. The Science of...

Read the full article: Can F.lux & Night Shift Really Improve Your Sleep Habits?

A great photo takes both the skill and creative talent of a photographer, but technology has also played a vital role in making that job easier (and in some cases, possible in the first place). Since the advent of the dry plate process to today’s astonishingly high sensitivity sensors, the craft of photography has advanced with improvements in technology.

Here are eight photos that couldn’t have been made even five years ago without the steady drum beat of technology.

1. Michael Rubin (computational photography)

One of the Light L16 camera’s breakthroughs is the ability to change depth of field after the shot.

The L16 captures up to ten images at a time for each press of the shutter. Using the data and depth maps created from each optimized lens and sensor, the area and range of focus can be selected to allow shallow depth-of-field with strong Bokeh for portraits or greater depth of field for detailed landscapes and nature shots.

For the first time, shutter speed and aperture have been decoupled from the shot.

Michael is the Marketing Director for Light.co

2. Vincent Laforet (high ISO)

With older sensor technology and/or film, you couldn’t photograph more than 15-20m post sunset in a helicopter. The combination of vibration and lack of light in the world beneath you – with any of the sensors until about 2 years ago – made it difficult, if not impossible, to capture a sharp image. AIR happened because it was a perfect storm of technology and opportunity. I’ve been waiting since my teenage years to be able to do this.

Visual sensors are getting close to [the human eye], and in some instances, they can see more than the human eye can see. That was the breakthrough for me when I took the 1Dx – in effect overexpose the image and I would be able to get more detail in the street. These sensors combined with software like Lightroom, has the ability to bring back the highlight and shadows, brings out range and nuance. Pretty amazing.

Typically: 1/160s +stop; wide open f/1.2 – 2.0. 1600 – 6400 ISO.

3. Mark Terrill (high ISO & autofocus)

I have witnessed the evolution of digital photography starting with the Nikon/Kodak NC2000, back when we were still manually focusing lenses and when the best useable ISO was 800 and now we are talking about shooting in “available darkness” with cameras that have a useful ISO in the range of 100,000 like the Nikon D5.

We used to be happy with focus that was “close enough for print” and now the D5 can get spot focus on a face with “3D tracking with face detection” where, even though your focus point isn’t your subject’s face, the camera will find it and lock on. The technology that they are putting into these cameras is mind boggling.

Five years ago, the state-of-the-art camera was the Nikon D3S which had a native ISO range up to 12,000. The native range of the D5 tops out at more than eight times that. The D3S was already pretty great, but the high ISO range of the D5 means that I can shoot sports at a faster shutter speed which translates to much sharper images.

4. Michael Clark (High Speed Sync)

This image could not have existed only a few years ago. While it may not seem like anything out of the norm, consider that it was created in the middle of the day on a sunny afternoon. Only two small 400 Ws battery-powered strobes were used to light the image, one with the standard reflector and the other with a medium-sized softbox.

What is revolutionary about this image is that the new Hi-Sync technology from Elinchrom allows us to sync the flash at up 1/8000th second shutter speeds, which previously for any camera was impossible.

For this image a shutter speed of 1/2500th second was used both to stop the motion and also to overpower daylight. As a result, there is no motion blur on the subject at all—and I had the creative option to make the image look as if it was shot at night instead of during the middle of the day. The only telling part of this image is the blue sky in the upper right corner that lets the viewer know this image was created during the day. This burgeoning flash technology, for those who are willing to explore it, opens up an entirely new world of creativity.

Equipment info: Nikon D810, Nikkor 70-200mm f/2.8 lens, Two (2) Elinchrom ELB400 strobes with HS flash heads – one with the standard reflector and the other with a 100cm Deep Octa Softbox (diffusion removed), Elinchrom Skyport Plus HS transmitter

Exposure info: 1/2500th second at f/2.8, ISO 200

5. Victoria Will (cinemagraphs)

After spending some time at the Sundance Film Festival making wet plates, I felt like the series was drawing to a close. Not because of any love lost for wet plate (and I continue to make them) but because in this specific environment, a studio at a film festival, it was time to try something new, again.

Honestly though, I had no idea what it was going to be. I basically asked myself what the opposite of a tintype would be and the answer was always something to do with technology.

After collectively racking our brains together, Esquire editor Elizabeth Griffin and I decided it needed to be something in motion—but again, what does that mean? So I really tried to find something that felt inspired and then one day on Instagram I stumbled upon a beer advertisement where the beer was pouring endlessly into a glass.

It was almost a mind trick. My brain told me I was looking at a still image, but then it continuously moved. I was immediately mesmerized and needed to learn the technology behind it and then try applying it in a portrait setting.

My moving portraits are essentially GIFs. That technology, of course, has been around since the 80s, but to make it smooth and have the appearance of a still image, that technology is just beginning to be embraced. One hindrance it has had along the way is just the file size required for the smoothness. Five years ago it was crashing websites, but with the allowances we have now, and hosting sites like Vimeo, the moving portraits are finally able to be used online and on social media.

6. Deci & Brideen Gallen (pixelstick)

The progression of technology in photography raises the bar of what is achievable and has pushed us to get more and more creative with the limited time that we have at weddings. The pixelstick is just one of the latest innovations that has helped us get more creative.

Previously we had done a lot of more ‘traditional’ light-painting, using LEDs and torches, but the pixelstick allowed us to create something more spectacular a lot more easily. It’s brought a welcomed bit of colour and cheer to dark, cold winter weddings.

We like to embrace whatever technology that we can find. Modern tech can make doing the easy stuff much easier, but that isn’t the best thing about it. What we love is that it opens up new possibilities to push yourself to your creative limits.

7. Eric Cheng (drone)

For the last 15 years, I’ve been focused on storytelling that takes advantage of new perspectives unlocked by technology. Underwater imaging, light field photography, and most recently, aerial photography using consumer drones, are all areas in which I’ve spent a lot of time exploring.

With the rapid improvement in drone technology, I realized that I could suddenly project a camera out arbitrarily more than a mile away, and started thinking about how to capture something like a volcano from a totally new perspective. Drones excel because they can fly low and shoot wide; the images captured from drone look totally different than those captured by helicopters, and as a bonus, there is no danger to humans when getting close to dangerous things like lava.

In this shot, fellow drone pilot Ferdinand Wolf and I piloted two DJI drones over a volcano from about a mile away. We used two drones so one drone would always be in the shot. We hugged the lip of the caldera as closely as we could to maintain line of sight with the drone (for radio reasons only—we were way out of sight, operating by first-person view from the drones’ cameras), but that still meant that we were close enough to the lava for portions of the drones to melt.

We captured not only totally new perspectives of an erupting volcano, but were also able to broadcast one of the flights live, via satellite, to the 6 million people watching an episode of ABC’s Good Morning America.

Eric’s personal website can be found at http://echeng.com. His first book, Aerial Photography and Videography Using Drones, is a tutorial book for beginners looking to get into taking pictures using drones.

8. Peter Eastway (100MP back)

In some ways, the new 100MP back from Phase One is just an incremental improvement, in other ways it is a game change. It’s incremental because we’ve gone from 80MP to 100MP which is incredibly useful for me when producing large prints, but may not be of such interest to web designers!

However, when you consider the new 100MP back in conjunction with the new Phase One XF camera body, it has taken medium format to a new level. Add in true 16-bit files, a greater dynamic range and huge improvements in ISO performance, and suddenly there are many more subject genres that you can tackle. For the 100MP, it means I have more scope for aerials, long exposures, night photography and low light—and the image quality has to be seen to be believed.

The 100MP doesn’t replace other cameras, however. It doesn’t have the operational speed or lens range of my Canon EOS 5DSR, or the small size and viewfinder options of the Fujifilm X-Pro2. Like in the days of film, it’s still a matter of choosing the right camera for the job – it’s just we now have a wider range of cameras for a wider range of jobs. It’s a great time to be a photographer.

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About the author: Allen Murabayashi is the Chairman and co-founder of PhotoShelter, which regularly publishes resources for photographers. Allen is a graduate of Yale University, and flosses daily. This article was also published here.

Romanian photographer Remus Tiplea spent almost four years documenting the traditional ways of shepherding in the Oas region of Northern Transylvania. Shepherding used to be not only a profession, but a lifestyle, with traditions passed from a generation to another for hundreds of years. But things are quickly changing, traditional ways are being one by one replaced by more efficient methods of shepherding. And this trend is changing not only the practical side of things, but also the symbolisms and the bond between people and animals.

Transhumance – the seasonal movement of people with their animals between fixed summer and winter pastures  – is no longer a practice in the area for quite some time now. The sheep owners here are settled. The whole community has become less pastoral and more open to the kind of opportunities brought by developments and the accession in the European Union. These days, many of the young people in the region leave their villages and find work abroad in search of a better income. Therefore,  the practice of transhumance, which required a lot of dedication and availability to the animals is no longer attractive. In most cases the sheep owners don’t even shepherd themselves anymore, they hire someone else to do it instead.

And more changes are on the way. The practice of caring for the sheep – like washing and cutting the wool and making cheese – has been done in the same way for hundreds of years. Most likely, these activities will soon be mechanised and will require minimum human supervision and effort.

But the search for more efficient ways of shepherding is changing something more profound than the daily routines. Something of the bond between people and animals is lost, and something of the symbolic traditions disappear as well. For example, when a shepherd died, an old practice was to have four sheep walk three times around the coffin of the deceased, and then give them as charity to poor children. In Orthodox tradition, what is given away at the funeral is what the departed will have in his afterlife. Giving the sheep as charity was a symbolic gesture meant to ensure the shepherd can be with them in his afterlife. Once widely spread, the practice is now extremely rare and it took Tiplea many years to have the opportunity to photograph it. It looks like sheep will become less important in people’s life, and in their afterlife as well.

All images © Remus Tiplea

The post The Dying Art of Shepherding in Northern Transylvania appeared first on Feature Shoot.

(The was a post on Facebook from Lawrence Reed at FEE)

April 5 is yet another “day that will live in infamy.” On this date in 1933, Franklin Roosevelt signed Executive Order 6102, which criminalized the possession of monetary gold. Americans were ordered to hand over their gold coin and bullion to the government in less than a month (by May 1) under penalty of $10,000 fine and/or up to 10 years in prison, so that the government could more easily inflate the money supply. It effectively repealed the 40% “gold cover” required of Federal Reserve notes by law because if you couldn’t legally own gold, you couldn’t legally redeem your paper Federal Reserve notes in it. Within a year, the U.S. government flipped from prohibiting alcohol and permitting gold ownership to permitting alcohol (with the repeal of Prohibition) and banning gold ownership. They stole our gold but let us keep our booze. Hooray for the “New Deal.”

This is just one of the reasons my Irish catholic New Yorker grandparents considered FDR to be a near dictator. (There are many other examples of FDR acting way beyond his authority. Yet to this day some still celebrate the man. A shame.) His economics extended the Depression and thus contributed to the birth of World War II. FDR literally put American citizens in concentration camps just because they were of Japanese descent. He tried to pack the Supreme Court. But he instituted the Ponzi scheme known as Social Security so – yay!

This came through one of my social media feeds. I do not know the author but I think it sums up what many of our readers feel and what some of our other readers do not understand about the current minimum wage debate.

Designed by Marcello Gandini of Lamborghini Miura fame and presented as Italy's design contribution for Expo 67, the 1971 Alfa Romeo Montreal shares a bond with the more famous raging...

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Each year, Wedding and Portrait Photographers International (WPPI) holds a conference and expo that brings together thousands and thousands of industry professionals to learn new techniques, share ideas, build a network of colleagues, and try out new products and services.

WPPI 2016 was a smashing success, to say the least. Aside from all the educational opportunities afforded to attendees, there was a vast selection of companies displaying their latest, greatest products and services on the expo floor. I was there and got to reconnect with old friends in the industry and had a chance to meet up-and-comers in the photography world as well.

I was amazed at the selection of products and services laid out on the expo floor, and that got me thinking - which companies are the best of the best for 2016? To answer that question, I set out to learn as much as I could about this year’s companies and what they have to offer. I managed to hand-select ten companies that demonstrated over the course of the expo that they are at the forefront of innovation, have exemplary products for photographers, and offer solutions that make being a photographer more fun, more productive, and more profitable.

So, without further ado, here are the ten best companies of WPPI 2016!

One Day Labs

Having a web presence as a photographer is of critical importance. But the problem with developing a website is that they either cost too much money, take too much time, or just aren’t all that great to look at. One Day Labs felt the same way, so they developed a process by which they build a high-quality website that looks great, only takes one business day to build, and is inexpensive.

It sounds too good to be true, right? Well, it’s not! One Day Labs sets itself apart from the competition by taking a collaborative approach to the web design process. They specialize in custom builds to fit your needs. You’ll have a project manager that’s with you every step of the way from idea inception to launch. There are a variety of CMSs from which to choose, so you can have your website built on the platform that works best for your needs. Perhaps best of all, the process is painless, creative, and fun. And did I mention it’s inexpensive?

Spider Holster

Spider Holster has an extensive product line that focuses on helping you shoot in a manner that is more intuitive, more productive, and more comfortable. That’s a combination you can’t beat!

Their flagship product, the Spider Pro Holster, allows you to carry your big DSLR safely and securely on your hip for fast, easy access. Spider Pro hasn’t forgotten about photographers with smaller cameras either: Their Black Widow holster offers the same functionality as the Spider Pro, but is specifically designed for smaller DSLRs, point-and-shoot cameras, and small video cameras. Their latest innovation, the SpiderLight Hand Strap, is also a nod to smaller cameras, and gives mirrorless camera owners the ability to hand hold their camera in a comfortable, secure fashion that puts their hand in the perfect position to reach every button and dial.

I’ve talked in previous articles about what an innovative company Spider Holster is, so it makes sense that they hold a position in the ten best companies of WPPI 2016. In fact, I’m hard-pressed to think of a company that has had a bigger impact on the way in which wedding and portrait photographers go about the business of taking photos!

Gifyyy

What do all wedding photographers want, but often can’t find? A great second shooter! Gifyyy understands that problem, which is why they developed their cutting-edge animated GIF photobooth.

Gifyyy hit the nail on the head with this photobooth. It’s easy to transport and set up on your own. In fact, you can carry it with one hand, set it up in about five minutes, and leave it to run itself while you tackle all your other responsibilities of the day. The interactive booth encourages visitors to “touch me,” and when they do, Gifyyy takes a few frames, loops them into a GIF, and displays the result. Even better, the GIF is uploaded to the cloud where guests can have the GIF sent to their mobile phone for easy sharing on social media. Not only will Gifyyy give you an incredibly fun way to entertain guests, but it will also provide you with a creative way to promote your brand: customize Gifyyy’s branding with your logo and link to your website so more people see what you have to offer. Innovation, fun, and increasing your bottom line is what Gifyyy is all about!

Magisto

This list of most innovative companies at WPPI 2016 wouldn’t be complete without Magisto, which is bringing artificial intelligence to the wedding and portrait photography industry.

Magisto is a video creation platform that allows you to select photos and videos, choose a theme, add a soundtrack, and write a title, and it will create a beautiful video all on its own. Magisto is able to do this by analyzing each photo and video you select to develop an understanding of what’s happening in each frame. Magisto can then select the most important sequences, edit them together, and create a fun and seamless movie experience that’s easy to share on Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, and other social media sites.

Magisto isn’t just for fun, though - you can use Magisto for Business to create stunning videos to promote your photography. Create a video to explain who you are and what you do, showcase some of your work, make a movie from the photos you take on a shoot, or use it to announce a new product or service to build excitement about your brand. There are all kinds of applications for Magisto that will help you be more visible to potential customers!

DriveSavers

Let’s face it - losing your photos is a nightmare scenario that none of us want to experience, yet all too many of us have had to deal with it at some point. No matter how many backups we make, there’s always a chance that a hard drive will crash or a memory card will become unreadable.

But with DriveSavers, the stress and worry about data loss is no longer. DriveSavers can retrieve data off of just about any device - your desktop computer, laptop, Solid State Drive, SD card, and even your camera or your phone. No matter what the situation - mechanical failure, fire or water damage, file deletions, data corruption, and more - DriveSavers will save you from disaster and act as your failsafe should something go awry. And the best part? DriveSavers understands that you don’t get to pick and choose when you encounter a data loss issue. That’s why they are open 24 hours a day, seven days a week to help you get your data back. Talk about awesome customer service! It’s that kind of commitment to excellence that snagged DriveSavers a spot on our list.

DXO

Unless you’ve been living under a rock lately, chances are you’ve heard of DXO and their new ONE camera that transforms your iPhone into a powerful, professional-quality camera.

The DXO ONE has garnered all sorts of awards recently, and for good reason. It can be used as a standalone camera for quick and easy one-handed photo taking. You can pair it with your iPhone to turn the phone into a giant viewfinder for easy photo-taking. It’s got all the modes you’d expect on a traditional DSLR - full auto, aperture priority, and full manual shooting so you have complete control over the camera’s settings. Sharing is simple as well: connect to social media to share the informal shots you take in your daily life or the photos you take as part of your paid gigs.

What makes DXO such an innovator in the world of photography is that they have developed a product that makes taking photos more intuitive, simple, and easy. We all get tired of lugging around our big, bulky DSLRs - the DXO ONE solves that problem by packing a lot of punch into a tiny camera and harnessing the power of your iPhone to create a truly unique - and useful - product.

EZ Photo Booths

It was the year of the photo booth at WPPI 2016! EZ Photo Booths wanted to create a second shooter for wedding and event photographers that was easy to setup and maintain. The result is the T12 photo booth, which, at just 35 pounds, is easy to maneuver around, yet sturdy enough to stand on its own without you having to worry that patrons will accidentally knock it over.

If you’re a wedding photographer, the EZ Photo Booth is the perfect accessory to have. You can set it up with a tablet, DSLR, and ring flash, and wedding-goers can take their own candid photos. It gives you a convenient way to get more images of the day, and get the candid images of guests that are often hard to capture when you’ve got a camera in their face. Not only is this a fun product for your clients to have at their event, but it’s also a productive product for you that will add novelty and excitement to the event. Not only that, this is the kind of product that will get clients talking about you, your business, and your services, which will help you get referrals and improve your bottom line. That’s a great return on investment!

WhiteWall

Part of helping photographers stay profitable is helping them offer products that are exciting and on the cutting-edge of design. WhiteWall does just that, with a wide variety of photography products that make you stand out from the crowd. Prints under acrylic glass, HD metal prints, solid wood framed prints, and canvas prints are just a few of the items you can tantalize your clients with. WhiteWall’s products are among the highest quality in the business, and come with a five-year guarantee too!

But WhiteWall isn’t one of our top companies just because of their products. They also make our list because of their easy, streamlined ordering process. You just upload the photo to WhiteWall, select one of their awesome products, determine the custom size of print you want, and place your order. It’s an incredibly simple process that gives you the power to provide top-notch products to your clients without having to spend a ton of time selecting or ordering what you want. So not only can you give your clients a high-quality product, you can do so in just a few minutes!

Album Registry

I think we’re all in agreement that one of the best ways for clients to view photos is still in a good, old-fashioned photo album. There’s just something about being able to hold an album in your hands, having that tactile experience while you gaze upon the photos, that’s so much more satisfying than clicking a button to scroll through photos online.

Album Registry understands that the digital age is upon us, and utilizes modern technologies to help you create a photo album that will last your clients for generations. Essentially, Album Registry is a crowdsourcing platform that allows you to work with your clients, their family, and their friends to collaboratively create a memory-filled album. Not only does this approach to album-building get everyone involved, but it also helps spread the cost around, saving your clients money in the process.

And like many of the companies listed here, Album Registry takes an approach that makes life as a photographer easier and simpler. Just give guests a business card with a special link to your Album Registry site. Guests then go to the Album Registry link, add a page (or two, or three) to the album, and checkout. Once the album reaches 30 pages, your clients will get a gorgeously crafted, custom designed album. What a great way to capture memories and get everyone involved and invested in the event!

G-Technology

Another entrant into the storage and backup field at WPPI 2016 that really impressed me is G-Technology. The company has created a line of external hard drives specifically designed for photographers that make storage safe and editing a breeze. G-Technology's products are small, lightweight, and portable, yet incredibly durable, expandable, and reliable. Use them in the studio, on location, or at points in between with bus-powered drives that don’t need to be plugged into the wall. That gives you a level of portability that makes your life much easier.

But the best feature of G-Technology’s products is their speed. Sometimes, time is of the essence, and you can’t afford to sit around and wait while your files transfer to your drives. But with G-Technology, even RAW files transfer at breakneck speed - up to 12 times faster than FireWire 800. That means you spend less time storing and transferring files and more time actually taking photos or working in post with the confidence that your files are safe and secure.

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Our necks, shoulders, and backs suffer when we hunch over our keyboards and screens all day. If you’d like to correct your posture, these 30-second exercises could help.

Read more...

To begin the celebration of their 200th year distilling in the historic Islay region, Lagavulin are releasing this 8-year-old 200th Anniversary Scotch Whiskey. This bottling honors the work of the...

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My family eats a lot of chicken. But I never learned how to properly butcher a chicken. It’s hard (and foolish) to cut a chicken by trying to saw through bones. So I watched a bunch of YouTube videos on the art of chicken cutting. I found two I liked a lot.

The first is FudeHouse’s “How to Butcher a Whole Chicken.” The bro chef attitude annoyed me, but this was one of the few videos that didn’t rush through the process:

The second is Gordon Ramsay’s “How to Part a Chicken.” The camera is jerky, but I’m including this one because he shows a good way to prepare the drumsticks:

Here’s one that is shot beautifully, but the chef, Thomas Joseph, goes way too fast for it to be useful for a beginner like me:

https://youtu.be/_UyyLRqah3E

The trick, it seems, is to learn where the joints are and cut through them, not the bone. Also, notice that all the chefs have large cutting boards. I need to get one.

-- Mark Frauenfelder

submitted by Everyday Carry

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The Four Rules of Gun Safety prevent firearms-related accidents — more accurately called “negligent discharges” or ND’s. Follow all Four Rules of Gun Safety and you eliminate the possibility of creating a dangerous perhaps even deadly ND… (via TheTruthAboutGuns)

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Many businesspeople and aviation enthusiasts lamented the day that the Concorde was decommissioned, ending the dream of commercial supersonic flight. The Boom Supersonic Passenger Airplane is trying to rekindle that...

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War on terror taking toll on bomb dog supply...


(Top headline, 6th story, link)

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Various engine-cleaning gas tank additives claim to remove carbon deposits from the engine, including from the vulnerable fuel injectors, resulting in smoother idling, better mileage, and more power. These contain detergents of the PEA (polyetheramine) category, originally developed by Chevron and sold as Techron.

A highly liked (355 upvotes) Amazon reviewer, Glenn Carpenter, tested several engine-cleaning fluids in a car whose onboard computer system reported figures that allowed him to estimate the cleanliness of the injectors. He found that all fluids were effective in quickly cleaning injectors. He settled on Red Line SI-1because he estimated it contained more PEA per dollar than competitors.

He also determined that the amount of detergents contained in gasoline is too low to be effective, and that engine cleaners not containing PEA were not effective either. (However, the Lucas Oil 10512 Fuel System has some knowledgable fans on Amazon.)

I added a third of a bottle (i.e., 5 ounces) to my half-full gas tank. Within a dozen miles the idle’s roughness was gone. I haven’t driven far enough yet to test its other claims, but reviewers on Amazon report good results in those departments. It’s rated at 4.5 stars there, on 322 reviews.

-- Roger Knights

Red Line Complete SI-1 Fuel System Cleaner ($16)

International Amazon link

Available from Amazon

Obviously classic, yet completely brand new. The Jaguar XKSS is being reborn by Jaguar Classic in a limited run that replaces the "lost" cars that burnt up in a fire...

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The 1969 movie Easy Rider was produced by Peter Fonda, directed by Dennis Hopper, and starred both of them plus a young Jack Nicholson. The counterculture biker film was made for a million dollars and made back $60 million, winning awards along the way. It’s a classic. But since Easy Rider is 47 years old, you most likely don’t know what went into making it. Now’s your chance to learn.

1. THE MOVIE WAS MADE FOR THE YOUTH OF THE TIME.

Before Easy Rider, Hollywood was churning out happier films starring the effervescent Doris Day, but Dennis Hopper’s film changed that. “They were making films like Pillow Talk and The Glass Bottom Boat. Gidget? That’s not a kids’ film. Beach Blanket Bingo? C’mon,” Fonda told The Hollywood Reporter. “Those were not really films of the youth that I had grown into and up with, shutting away the establishment, going on their own. We made a movie for these people that didn’t have their own movie.”

Karen Black, who played one of the prostitutes in the movie, agreed with Fonda’s sentiment. “When you went to see a movie like Easy Rider and when you saw these guys really smoking grass by the fire, and really the camaraderie was warm, real, and rare, you went, ‘What the hell am I looking at? This has value! This has a completely different kind of value than Pillow Talk,” she said in the documentary Easy Riders, Raging Bulls. “This is something extraordinary. I want more of that. And then I think it went a bit far, because I kept seeing movie people vomit.”

3. IT WAS ONE OF THE FIRST FILMS TO INTEGRATE FOUND MUSIC.

Instead of hiring a musician to compose a score for the film, Hopper decided to use pre-recorded music from Bob Dylan, The Band, Steppenwolf, and Jimi Hendrix on the soundtrack. “No one had really used found music in a movie before, except to play on radios or when someone was singing in a scene,” Hopper told Interview Magazine. “But I wanted Easy Rider to be kind of a time capsule for that period, so while I was editing the film I would listen to the radio. That’s where I got ‘Born to Be Wild’ and ‘The Pusher’ and all those songs.”

The filmmakers had to show the movie to the different bands involved in order to get licensing approval, and each band received $1000. They showed it to Dylan, whose song “It’s Alright, Ma (I’m Only Bleeding)” was in two scenes, but Dylan said they couldn’t use it. “He said, ‘Have [Roger] McGuinn do this first part, but you can’t do it after that,’” Fonda told Daily Camera. “I said, ‘But, Bob, any good fight’s a combination of punches.” McGuinn covered Dylan’s song, and Dylan and McGuinn wrote the closing credit song, “The Ballad of Easy Rider,” which was sung by McGuinn, and didn’t have Dylan’s name on it.

If you haven’t seen Easy Rider, be aware that this trivia list at mental_floss contains spoilers, but that shouldn’t keep you from reading it, or watching the movie eventually.

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America may be unified as one country, but each state is more like it's own mini nation, with its own sense of style, favorite foods and, of course, its own set of urban legends.

Miss C lives in Kentucky, which is home to Sleepy Hollow Road, where people claim to have heard phantom infant cries near Cry Baby Bridge.

There are also reports of people being tailgated by a driverless black hearse, and Satanic rituals were supposedly held near Devil's Point in the 70s and 80s, so people claim to hear disembodied voices chanting in the area.

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John Farrier lives in Texas, home of the Galveston ghost face, a spectral visage that appears on the side of the UT Medical School building in Galveston that just won't go away.

Jill Harness and I live in California, where the mysterious "Alien Blood" incident rocked Riverside General Hospital back in 1984:

Over two dozen emergency room staff were KOed after a woman named Gloria Ramirez had her blood drawn in the ER. The very second her blood began being sampled, a foul odor filled the entire area and Ramirez’s skin began taking on an oily sheen.

Suddenly, multiple medical support staff began to pass out and / or lose control of their limbs. The entire Emergency room was evacuated, safe for a skeleton crew of doctors still trying to save Ramirez’s life. They failed, and she died forty minutes after being admitted.

And Neatorama founder Alex Santoso recently moved to Oregon, where he may pay a visit to Crater Lake, the subject of strange stories and the site of several unexplained disappearances.

On second thought, maybe you'd better avoid Crater Lake altogether Alex!

Read Here Is The Scariest Urban Legend From Every State here

In 1986, two aspiring Washington, DC, filmmakers lugged their video equipment to a parking lot in Largo, Maryland, where people were coming in to see a Judas Priest concert. They shot footage of hyped-up fans and edited it into a 16-minute documentary called Heavy Metal Parking Lot. Now what? John Heyn and Jeff Krulik had no clue how to distribute a film, so they screened it at a local club and took VHS copies to some rental stores. People liked it. Their friends made copies and passed them around. And they kept passing copies around for years.  

Krulik: A friend of mine was moving - his name is Mike Heath. We call him the Johnny Appleseed of Heavy Metal Parking Lot, because he asked for copies because he was moving out west in 1992.

Heyn: I worked at a video dubbing company, so it was free copies with labels and boxes and everything.

Krulik: Mike got copies, took them west. And in 1994, John gets a call from Sofia Coppola. She’d looked his name up in the phone directory in Maryland.

Eventually, Nirvana got a copy and played it on their tour bus regularly. Heyn and Krulik built a website in 1998. And Heavy Metal Parking Lot is still an underground hit. The documentary was screened for its 30th anniversary at SXSW this year, and The Verge has an interview with the filmmakers that tells the story of the movie’s long slow dissemination. Oh yeah, you can watch it, too. The video is full of profanity, minors drinking, unlicensed music, and a couple of criminally loud ads. -via Digg  

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