Normally I’m not the least bit excited about perfectly good streets getting ripped open, quite the opposite in fact, but this time it means we will be getting fiber optic internet. Yay!

We currently have cable (for digital TV, home phone and internet) and besides the phone service it sucks teh monkeys balls. Digital TV has crap reception here, internet isn’t nearly half as fast as it should be. With the fiber optic will only be half as good as they tell us, it will still be twice as good as the cable is now.

In three weeks time we should have the connect inside the house, hopefully the provider will connect us soon after that. *fingers crossed*

Some other entirely unrelated facts:

• About the iPad I said I would not buy one very soon and I’ve proven myself a liar: it is awesome.
• One of my WordPress plugins has more than 20.000 downloads: also awesome.
• My Playstation 3 died (YLOD): not awesome.

Nigma walckenaeri is a small spider, only a couple of millimeters in length, commonly found in gardens in the Netherlands.
This one is of the male genre, females have a greener torso/head.

This was one of the first pictures I took and at first I thought I was moving to much. It was only until I looked closer I could just make out the fine web it had spun, which created this painterly stripe effect in the shot.

Ps: I’m currently using the excellent BorderFX plugin for Aperture for the copyright notice in my pictures. It has a lot of possibilities to create borders, notices and what-not. You can find it at: iborderfx.com.

The pictures where taken with a Sigma 30mm opened fully to ƒ1.4 without flash or other artificial lighting.

This tower is the only remaining building of what once was de village of Koudekerke in Zeeland, the Netherlands. The village was abandoned, taken apart and partly lost to the sea. The tower remained and has since served as a lighthouse and is currently a monument, information centre and a lookout point.

With this photo I have experimented a bit with HDR photography.

I took this a few weeks ago on the Dutch beach near the Oosterscheldekering, loved the contrast between this branch sticking out of the dune and the light sand and grass surrounding it.

My grandparents have/had lilies in their garden. A few weeks ago they got invaded by Red Lily Beetles which are very destructive when it comes to lilies. Amazingly they did not touch any of the other plants in the garden.

Just about every stage of this beetle’s life was present on the lilies. From eggs to larvae to full grown beetle.

I took photos of the eggs two days apart, which shows some change in the eggs over time.

The larvae are a dirty bunch. The yucky brown stuff (called frass) on the second photo is exactly what it looks like; poo. It uses this as a defence against the elements and predators. The larva on the first photo was the only “clean” larva I was able to spot. They all look like blobs of mud until you look closer.

This beetle looked quite angry and it probably was. It was making squeaking sounds (with its wings) which they do to deter predators.

Getting rid of these beetles seems to be quite a problem, especially outside of Europe where there is a lack of natural enemies. The most effective way seems to be to crush every beetle you see, not really my thing.

I know from first hand experience how radiation can affect a persons life. In my case it is partly the reason why I’m still alive to type this, the other side of the coin is that all my current health issues are directly or indirectly caused by the collateral damage done during the treatment. Radiation doesn’t discriminate between healthy or sick, young or old. This is why I support this project and try to raise just a little extra awareness through my site.

Visit the Safecast website here, or visit (and pledge if you can) the project on Kickstarter here. Thank you.

On a slightly related note; I’ve created and released a small WordPress plugin today to easily embed Kickstarter widgets in your blog: Easy Kickstarter Widget

I recently upgraded from just my old Oly E-300 with standard kit-lenses to an E-30  with a Sigma 150mm ƒ2.8 Macro lens. Both are spectacular and really have given a boost to my efforts in macro photography. I usually go into the garden a few times a day and a few days ago my mom pointed out this green shield bug to me.

It had positioned itself on our Japanese Maple, a poor choice in camouflage but it resulted in a spectaculair contrast between the bug and the leaves.

I was very pleased with these results, I have more macro shots I’m quite proud of but they will have to wait for now. I hope to get around to publishing those soon.

The images and music really work well together in the commercial and it seems the commercial, and the music, got noticed a lot. The youtube clip has been watched roughly a gazillion times by now:

While writing the draft of this post on my iPhone, I’m in bed listening to Ghost for the first time and I very much enjoy the special raw-but-fragile sound of this album. If you’re curious you won’t regret a small detour to the Radical Face website. In fact I’ll stop typing now so you are done here anyway! For now at least