Hands Off!
On April 5, 2025, my wife, two of my sisters, several friends, and I participated in the “Hands Off!” protest in New York City. The event began at Bryant Park, where we gathered despite intermittent rain showers throughout the day. We met numerous individuals, including some who had traveled from as far as Canada to join the demonstration. After assembling in the park, we proceeded along Fifth Avenue past the New York Public Library with its famous lions, and we finished up our march at Madison Square Park on 23rd Street.
The “Hands Off!” protests were organized nationwide in response to recent actions by President Donald Trump’s administration and the involvement of Elon Musk, who was appointed to lead the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE). These demonstrations aimed to address concerns over policies affecting civil liberties, government restructuring, and the recent decision to apply widespread tariffs. These tariffs have tanked markets around the world.
I was struck by the resilience and commitment of those who participated. The presence of individuals from distant locations, such as our neighbors from Canada, underscored the global attention and concern regarding the current political climate in the United States and its recent global impacting actions. The news reports that there were many protests held outside of the US.
I had my Nikon Z6ii with me and shot a number of photos. Some of which I’ve shared here.
Three Months In 33 Seconds
There is a new HS being built near my home in Wooside. I wanted to do a timelapse of the construction but didn’t want to tie up one of my Nikons cameras for an extended time. I decided to improvise. My solution was to use a Raspberry Pi 3 with a RP camera module and a third party telephoto lens. Notice the trees in the foreground. There are no leaves on them at the start of the clip and then the trees bud and bloom.
I used various scripts and the ffmpeg video utility to create MP4 video clips of construction activity everyday. I them merged them into one long clip and edited in Final Cut Pro X. The Raspberry camera quality is not that great but I enjoyed the experiment. Hope you enjoy it too.
Ring of Fire
Early this morning (June 10th) there occurred an annular solar eclipse or “Ring of Fire.” This was best viewed from Canada, Greenland and Russia. But, here in Queens NY we were able to see a partial eclipse.
I was able to capture this partial “Ring of Fire” from my terrace. I hope you enjoy!
Dawn’s Handmade Jewelry
It’s great being retired but Covid-19 has pretty much killed off all my side hustle of playing bass in a couple of bands. It also killed off my wife Dawn’s business of selling jewelry at street fairs. It’s just too risky for her because of her Lupus.
I’ve built her website to sell her hand made jewelry. I’ve found the the tech side is much easier for me then the marketing side <grin>.
I’m certainly biased but many people find her handmade designs both unique and beautiful. You can see some of her creations below. And, find the web site here: Dawn’s Handmade Jewelry
cafe52 Woodside Webcam
Back in 1999 when I was working at JP Morgan as an IT consultant for CSC I decided to registered the domain cafe52.com. At the same time I had a DSL line provisioned and requested a static IP address. I did this so that I could run my own web server and email server.
Being a member of the JPM network security team at time I couldn’t do things by half, I built a Linux firewall that utilized the TIS Tookkit (Trusted Information Systems). This was an open source version of the Gauntlet Firewall which we used at the time. There were no binaries for Linux available so I had to compiled the toolkit from source code. The firewall directed Internet traffic to my Linux web/email server and, allowed me to browse the Internet. I was in geek heaven.
Around the same time while working at JPM I acquired a Mac PowerPC. This Mac had a video input. The gears started turning and before long I had an 8mm handy cam connected to the Mac and was directing Internet traffic to the video stream from Mac. The Woodside Webcam was born.
Since those early days the Woodside Webcam has gone through many different technology iterations and hardware outages. The current iteration is a Raspberry Pi which is certainly a lot smaller and less power hungry than the original Mac PowerPC. You can see the live stream here:
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