Light And Dark
an old long exposure of Boscombe Pier on a full moon.

for +Johnny Wills #JoinInDaily (or like me, join in when the mood strikes!)
Today's theme 'Light And Dark'. It was a difficult choice to decide between b/w shadowy shots, or lights at night, but this one eventually won! :)

Honeycombe Reflections
Honeycombe Chine and Beach, Bournemouth, Dorset

An old pic I've dragged out for the
#joinindaily with +Johnny Wills
Today's theme is "Mirror-like Reflections"

Also for #DorsetPhotos

Is there a #StripeySunday theme? Just kidding, this is an old pic for today's #joinindaily theme: "Outside Seating"

Taken in 2012, this deckchair was placed on the beach as part of a promotion for Pimms, and attracted a lot of attention. Possibly the biggest deckchair in the world record of something...

Anyway, #JoinInDaily is a regular theme curated by +Johnny Wills never any pressure to take part, or commitment to post every day. I sometimes don't find the inspiration or time for weeks at a time. Then there's days where the theme rings a bell and has me reaching for my photo archive, like this one...

Do You Like Dags?

If you like dogs, and maybe think you're good at guessing breeds, or simply want to browse through pics of random dogs in the name of science, this is for you!

A citizen science project where you have to guess the breeds of various mongrel mutts. 31 dogs, and a 'pausable' survey of your guesses.

From the About:
https://iaabcprojects.org/about/

The idea of breeds and pet dogs are intimately connected. When asked about our pets, we don’t say “I have a dog,” we say “I have a Golden Retriever,” or “I’ve got a Dachshund.” Statements like these bring with them a weight of preconceptions. Some breeds are expected to be friendly, others aloof. Some are a bit slow, others can practically play chess.

What does this mean for mixed breed dogs? Since these breed categories are so strongly ingrained in our notion of “dog,” naturally our brain tries to put any new dog we meet into one or more of these categories. “That’s a beautiful dog, what kind is she?” How often is a variation of this question the first thing asked when a stranger meets a new dog?

Since with mutts we don’t know the answer to this question, we guess. Those floppy ears look a bit like a Lab’s, the spots might be from a Dalmatian, short legs are definitely like a Beagle, and so on. We take individual characteristics that match our notion of breeds and use those traits to build a box to mentally house our mutt. And, since we have notions about breeds and behavior, we now also have a mental box of behavior we expect from this dog, all based on appearance.

Are we actually any good at this? First of all, can we do a good job of judging the mix of breeds in a mutt by looking at them? Second, do our preconceived notions about behavior and physical traits hold true?

This experiment aims to answer the first question. Using genetic markers, and a panel of known pure-bred dogs, we can confidently determine the ancestral mix of breeds represented in an individual dog. All of the images you will be asked to judge in this experiment are of dogs that have been tested, so we know what mix of breeds they represent.

Now, we need your help in finding out how well people are able to guess these breed mixes based on appearance.

For each image, you will be asked to guess the top 3 breeds contributing to the mix. For the first few examples, we’ll show you the results right away, so you can see how everything works. Following that, we’ll hold off on giving you results until the study is over, at which point you’ll be able to see all of the dogs’ genetic results.

So, jump in and sign up! It's fun & science, and you've almost two months to come back and check out a few hounds at a time!

iaabcprojects.org/survey

#4Science #Dogs

23rd & Mission Valencia
Inspired to share this thanks to a prompt from +Johnny Wills who's #JoinInDaily theme today was is "Electric Lines/Telephone Lines!"

Photo was taken a couple of years back during a trip to San Francisco, where I took a day out with my camera down Mission St.

TL:DR ranting and moaning below

Also, reminded myself of how long it is since I've posted publicly on G+. Due to a long standing bug affecting users who may have a few too many circles/collections/communities to choose from, it's no easy task to select an appropriate collection. When trying to do so from Google Photos, I found the same bug just freezing the page when I tried to view 'More options' from the audience selector.

So, the only way to work around this bug, is to download the pic from photos, and upload it, having first navigated to the appropriate collection. Which, considering you have to first hit your profile link, and obviously the collection you want will not be shown in the carousel, and there's no way to change what does display there, despite masses of feedback requesting such a feature... sorry, excuse the topic drift, but it's quite a few additional clicks... and if you'd made the mistake of entering any text before trying to select an audience/destination that isn't in the top suggestions, you can kiss goodbye to that too...

There was also a brief moment of indecision, as to what collection this could be added to. I opted on this one for two reasons, apart from it being one of my photos.. it appears in the carousel when viewing my profile, and it's also more likely to be used more often than my Americana collection, which contains other pics of my stay in California. If only Google would listen to the feedback that posts can easily sit in two collections, or even more, and this shouldn't be too difficult if the collections had the same audience permissions.

Probably also helped that he inspired me to take a dive into an afternoon of Johnny Cash too... (oh, I could have added this to another collection too...) Anyway, enjoy some JC I'm finding it's helping with my Sunday, and may motivate some chores ;) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Aq344ks1ieg

*Edit* actually, not 23rd & Mission, but a couple of blocks further along 23rd, Valencia being the cross street.

Looking In? Or Looking Out?
One of the many art installations that appear at the Larmer Tree Gardens during the Larmer Tree Festival. But, is it inside, or outside? ;)

Inspired by +Johnny Wills #JoinInDaily Challenge/ Today's theme is "silhouette"

The aim - is to make sharing and viewing your images fun.
To let you join in IF you want to.
Post an image linked to the daily theme and add #joinindaily so +Johnny Wills can find them.

ONLY ONE PHOTO PER PERSON PLEASE !

#iOS App Google+ Update Version 6.18
Bug fixes and stability improvements

Fingers crossed, though no mention of the many still lacking features...

Arguing with idiots is like trying to play chess with a pigeon -- they knock the pieces over, crap on the board, and strut around like they won anyway.

Time for some beats, and stuff that doesn't involve idiots...

oh, and where's that 'block' button again....