flickr has a top-secret formula, on par with Google’s PageRank, that ranks how interesting your pictures are. Since the top 500 appear each day on flickr.com/Explor e, they don’t want people to know the secret or they may game the system. Here are my top 10 most “interesting” pictures in suspense (reverse) order. See if you agree with flickr. #10

#9

#8

Webmonkey has run a special on the ten best flickr mashups. What is a mashup with respect to flickr? I only know of mashups as songs where different groups put their songs together to create something new such as Jay-Z and Linkin Park. Basically, since flickr has opened up their API (as has Google with most of their web stuff), users can create all kinds of neat applications based on flickr without needed permission. You may have seen on some of my Linux screenshots where I have one such application that runs through my photostream. Well, these people have all kinds really neat website they have strung up. My favorite one is the sudoku one where instead of numbers, one has to play sudoku with pictures. Putting in djotaku for the username will allow you to play as me. I will be linking to my favorites on my links on the right over the next few days. Enjoy!

#6 this photo has been wonderful for me because not only is it one of my most favorite of my recent photos, but others have agreed! In just one week it went from #99 to #6. In fact, it was originally #8 when I was writing the list of #1-5.

#7 - taking this picture gave me the creeps. What if the glass broke?

It’s amazing how much of a difference there is between the number of views of my #1 viewed photo and my #2. They then follow in groups close to each other in number. (#5-10 to follow tomorrow) #1 with 352 Views is

#2 with 246 (more than 100 less!)

#3 with 242

Months ago, I discovered one of the more creative photographers on flickr. Zannah takes pictures of her anime figurines in various locations as if they were real. (Think the “roaming gnome” from travelocity) Here are some of my favorites:

One Two

When I was browsing through techn0manc3r’s page, I clicked on usr-bin-girl and saw that the author was Zannah. I wondered if it was the same one because the picture looked familier. When I scrolled down the page, I saw that it was the same person! Now THAT is a small world if I ever saw one!

Here is the abbreviated commentary on my building of my new computer.Above are the new computer parts I used. In addition to these, I scavanged my DVD-ROM, DVD+-R, and hard drive from my old computer. I actually didn’t use the firewire ports as my motherboard has one in back and a connection for one in the front. I only use firewire for my video camera, so that was enough for my needs. I’m hanging on the to the firewire card for future potential projects.

My Kodak 3600 DX served me well. That 2.2 Megapixel camera was my first digital camera and I took many great shots with it. Some of my favorites are:

But it was time for me to finally upgrade to a camera with sufficient resolution, but which I could carry in my pocket. My Fujifilm Finepix S7000 is a great camera, but extremely bulky. It was a little annoying at Disney to have that huge thing with me. So today I bought a Fujifilm Finepix A345. It’s a 4.0 Megapixel camera. Yes, they have 5 Megapixel point and shoot cameras, but as I tell everyone, unless you plan to blow the pictures up to 16 x 20, a 3 MP camera is enough. So I wanted to give myself the lattitude to be able to do creative things with this camera, but without going overboard. My S7000 is now for planned shots that I want at the best quality. The camera is a little heavy to walk around with everywhere and since 11 Sept 2001, police don’t like people coming into places with bags. So I will have the A345 in my pocket for any shot that comes up and for those fun little shots that you can’t capture on the big boys. I’ll miss my Kodak, as it ushered me into this era, but I think I will really love the A345. And today, being the end of the year, seemed to be the perfect time to get the new guy.

I am extremely happy to announce that I have been approached by the author of The Cognoscenti for use of one of my pictures of Congress on his political blog as part of the header. I have just replied to give him permission to use the picture so I don’t know how long it will be until it is up. With the role that blogs have been playing recently in press and with their popularity soaring, this could be a boon for my photography.

Here is my photo-documentation on the project.