Kamangir (Archer)

Six things about Kamangir you did not know!

Kamangir | October 20, 2008 | Category Blogging, Humour, Personal

I got tagged by Tori and this is how the game goes,

1. Post the rules on your blog (kind of recursive, huh?)

2. Write 6 random things about yourself

3. Tag 6 people at the end of your post

4. If you’re tagged, DO IT and pass on the tag (because I am writing this, I have obviously complied with it, sort of recursive again?)

So, enough with the ranting, these are six things about Kamangir you might not have known before, assuming you do care to know of course,

1- I am afraid of the dark. I have always been and I will always be. I just get terrified of the dark. This is quite embarrassing given my age.

2- The best days of my childhood were spent in Taleghan, a rural area two hours west of Tehran. My late grandfather had a cottage there and we used to spend couple of weeks during the summer in the country. There I dug up for bones in an old cemetery which was located on a hill. A road passed besides the hill and they used to crush parts of the hill to make more space for the road. That was how the solitude of the dead would be interrupted and there would come the great discoverer of the dead. The first thing I do, after I go back to Iran, is that I will buy out the cottage from my uncles and renovate it. See pictures from that little piece of heaven here.

3- My GPA in my bachelor’s is horribly low. My current adviser was terribly shocked to see that.

4- Being raised in an irreligious (if not anti-religious) family, I find it rather interesting when I observe “holy temptations” in me. A friend of mine once anticipated that I will become a devoted religious person before I turn forty. She is known to possess psychic powers.

5- I used to not understand what the point of blogging was for a long time, before I started my own.

6- skjhsiu ylkjns l8uy s lkjh sliu ;slk ‘p[oi p[;s ;iuh luy oiy os pou spoi (You need to have the secret key to decipher this item. You have the key if you have the key).

And I tag these great people,

1- Antony Loewenstein

2- Lisa Goldman

3- Shahrzad

4- Bamdadi’s English Blog: The Aurora

5- Terry Glavin

6- Esra’a

And a very special invitation to Nim.

Coming back…

Kamangir | May 2, 2008 | Category Personal

If this is not the first time you are visiting this page, during the last couple of days, you have probably noticed that this page was down for about 48 hours. This is an answer to “what had happened” and “what will happen now”.

In short, Persian Kamangir just celeberated its first birthday and now I need to spend some time to go through what I have been able to accomplish and how I should rearrange things in order to be able to make a better schedule. Right now, my plan is to limit blogging in Persian to one post every few days, similar to what I have been doing here in the last few months. The time I can save this way I’ll invest on being with Azadeh and on my thesis, as well as on my work on the statistics of the Persian blogosphere and on a few other purely-technical projects I have wanted to work on for over a year now.

Happy Persian New Year from Kamangir

Kamangir | March 24, 2008 | Category Features, Lead Story, Personal

Given the number of posts I used to publish here, in the last couple of years, it just sounds too quiet in here now. I do know this and I do hope to have your support for the time when English Kamangir is going to become more active.

The fact is, I have to finish up my Ph.D. Furthermore, I am falling in love with blogging in Persian. Where else can you find such a vast population of youth looking for an alternative perspective, and a critical look at the state-run media? On top of these two, as if there would be any time left, I am pursuing my work on the statistics and the structure of the Persian blogosphere, which I am so willing to turn into a post-doc.

Oh, by the way, as you might know, the Persian year 1386 just ended, and, guess what, Persian Kamangir was chosen among the best Persian blogs in 1386, for “its use of multimedia“.

These days, Persian Kamangir seems to have no rival in the use of multimedia. From audio chats with people who have different views than him, to videos not seen by many, and of course with his many posts everyday, you can find all these in Kamangir. He has been recently gathering statistics of the Persian blogosphere, something which has attracted the attention of the Blogestan.

Well, that sort of makes me feel good. The only problem is, I am not just a blogger and my other involvements do demand a lot more time and attention. Wish me luck!

Enough with bragging. Happy new year, if you celebrate the Persian New Year, and thanks for reading this. A good friend of us took this picture yesterday, of me and Azadeh. I am the person standing, and sort of strangling the lady. She is alive, I assure you! :)

Our Latest Paper goes to Print

Kamangir | February 28, 2008 | Category Personal

A paper I wrote three years ago, as a result of my masters research, has been finally sent to print. This is a non-technical introduction to the issue. Read the whole paper here: pdf or html. This is quoted from here.

This is a work I did a long while ago, during my masters. The aim of this research was to capitalize on the concept of principal colors, suggested by us, and exploit it in order to carry out image processing tasks on color images.

In short, having collected a set of images which correspond to the same material, for example a set of skin images as shown below, we proposed a method for extracting the principal color related to this material, through intersecting the corresponding cylindrical representations.

This approach then leads to color image segmentation, as one application.

For extensive discussion of the topic, please refer to the paper “Principal Color and Its Application to Color Image Segmentation“, or its html compilation.

Has this blog been deserted?

Kamangir | February 25, 2008 | Category Blogging, Features, Lead Story, Personal

The matter of fact is that this blog has not been updated frequently in the past couple of months, at least compared to the rate of update which it saw last year around this time. This, however, does not mean that I have deserted this blog.

The Persian companion to this blog, at persian.kamangir.net, is almost one year old now. Its birth and then its rapid growth has been a surprise, even to me, and another indicator that the Iranian youth do seek alternate windows into the events.

As this pie chart shows, the Persian Kamangir has a readership about four times more than the English Kamangir. Furthermore, the chart shown below exhibits the rapid growth of the number of subscribers to the Persian Kamangir, compared to that of the English Kamangir. The fact is, this chart is about a month old, and since then, the numbers for this blog have not changed much, but there has been another 40% increase in the numbers for Persian Kamangir. Other statistics verify these numbers as well (see: Connection Graph of the Persian Blogosphere).

About two months ago, in a conference in Germany, I had the opportunity of talking to a gentleman who works with Persian outlets on the web. In response to my complaints that, “We do not have a working connection with the mainstream media”, he asked me a very simple question, “What do you think that could accomplish? Can you do anything more than what CNN does? Does the Islamic Republic even care about what CNN says?” He then went on with saying, “What is lacking is a stronger Persian blogosphere. That’s what can cause change.”

Well, I did subscribe to that thinking and the readership of Persian Kamangir does prove that there is huge demand in the Persian blogosphere. On top of that, the reactions of the state-run outlets (example) do indicate that what they hate is a stronger Persian blogosphere and what they do not care about is an Iranian writing whatever he wants to in English.

Nevertheless, I owe a lot of things to the readers of this blog. This is where I started blogging and this is where I learned so many lessons. I do need your support and I do care about you. The only thing is, the Persian Kamangir is where the battle is, at least for now.

My Interview with Global Voices

Kamangir | January 18, 2008 | Category KiBeKi, Personal

What are the objectives of your research and how do you want to develop them?
First, I aim at finding the population of the Persian blogosphere and the connection pattern in there. This will only concern Persian blogs that exist, independent of their nature and frequency of update. Then, in the second phase, I’ll work on determining the volume of activity of blogs through reading timestamps. This will give me a better understanding of the Persian blogosphere and will help reject dead blogs. Nevertheless, more than anything else, this is a preliminary step in helping other researchers.

This is a select part of my interview wit Global Voices Online about project “KiBeKi” (the robot which analyzes the Persian blogosphere). Read the rest here.

Food, Cigarettes, and Taste – My Days in Milan

Kamangir | December 21, 2007 | Category Personal

If I want to describe Milan in three words, I’ll call it the city of graffiti, cigarettes, and warm people.

When I went past the exit doors of Milan’s Malpenso Airport, the first thing that came to my mind was, “Why are we living in the frozen Winnipeg?” The temperature was above zero and there was a thick layer of fog in the air, making this new country look amazingly mysterious. Then, I took the bus to get to the center of the city. On both sides of the autobahn the trees were drowning in the fog, making me seriously think that I really should find a post-doc in Milan. These ideas were what I kept thinking about until I was taken away by a deep sleep.

The next morning, the fog was still there. I thought, “Well, this is early in the morning”. I spent the day in the National Museum and a few historic churches. At 4 pm, the fog started to turn into darkness. The next morning, the fog was back there. Winnipeg is indeed a huge frozen prairie in the winter, but, still, there is a lot of sunshine in there which makes it bearable. At least, if you are in a bus or riding a car, you can enjoy the white landscape every piece of which is shining under the sun. In Milan, in the other hand, there is no -40 but neither is the sunshine, for the most part.

And then, there comes the smoking habit. I have come to the conclusion that at any moment half Milanese are holding a cigarette in their hand. At least half the people whom I see in the street are puffing out smoke. This negated my first impression that the people of Milan are very conscious about their health, as finding an overweight person here is a rarity. I had thought that with all the delicious calorie-rich Italian dishes, these people should be doing something big to get into shape. Then, I was really thinking about adapting some of their habits, unless it is the smoking which is burning the fat.

Nevertheless, Italians seem to be the European version of Iranians; the same ever-present sense of humor, the sudden storm of friendship, and the horrible driving.

By the way, I have discovered that people, including Italians, are willing to pay large amounts of cash for things I cannot even swallow, including cheese which seems to have been rotting for years. This I guess proves the theory that we don’t like food because it is delicious, but that it is in fact the other way around; food is delicious because we like it. This one is especially to all my Iranian friends who hate it, and the non-Iranian friends who have to keep themselves from throwing up, when I say I love sheep-stomach, also known as Sirabi in Persian.

Back from the Trip: Flu and selling my soul,

Kamangir | December 19, 2007 | Category Personal

I am just back from a long trip to Europe. I had the marvelous opportunity of meeting two good pen-friends of years and I am very happy about it. And also, I attended a fantastic conference about blogging and had the chance to talk to a few other bloggers and activists and experts and this was a real learning process. But then, my souvenir from the trip was a bad flu.

I almost collapsed in Berlin while the Police officer was searching me through, because for some reason my jeans always irritate the metal detectors. At the moment that I was asking him to let me sit for a while I was thinking of tasers. What is a better method for a hijacker, than pretending that he is sick and then pass through the security with a minimal search? The officer was so nice that he brought me a glass of water and gave me a few minutes to recover. Later, while I was waiting for the boarding time, and had just finished my fantastically sweet Cappuccino, I was approached by a paramedic team that wanted to know how I felt. I was indeed impressed. A blood pressure check, a check of sugar level in my blood, and I received some medication which indeed made me feel much better afterwards.

The conference was held by a well-known institution located in Berlin and they had managed to gather a good team, more than half of which were Iranians flown in from around the world. We even managed to not stumble upon the silly politics of the Iranian diaspora for the whole time.

As I had mentioned on my Persian blog, and here as well, that I was going on a trip for a conference, I anticipated some negative reactions. The fact is, for many, “attending a conference” sounds like “getting financially supported by a suspicious foreign group which has a more suspicious plan to suck on Iran’s oil”. This, I would say, is indeed a result of numerous coups, and alike, all carried out by Iranians funded by foreigners against Iranians. Nevertheless, we need to sit together and talk. This is one of the many aspects of the Iranian dilemma.

My only response to this criticism is that I do not have any intention of turning blogging, or activism, into the main element of  my life. Therefore, clearly, I have no intention of abusing this blog as a moneymaking business. I do not necessarily criticize Iranians who are hired by “foreigners”, because I am personally in contract with the research lab for which I work. My profession is Optimization, so I work for a networking lab, a sociologist on the other hand would clearly be supported through a fund which is disbursed by a politically-charged body. Thus, I have no intention of “selling my soul” to anyone, because it is already sold to TRLabs.

Am I terrorist, or just mentally challenged?

Kamangir | November 29, 2007 | Category Iran, Islamic Republic, Personal

These are the last days before my long-awaited trip to Europe and Africa, partly because of my presentation in an IEEE conference. In fact, Azadeh and I were supposed to go together before her visa application was rejected. Mine, however, was accepted given that I provided them with more information, and I did. Since then, I have been waiting for over a month in order to actually get the visa.

As I am leaving in less than 10 days, it is not exaggeration if I say that I am very worried. Having said that, I don’t blame the Egyptians. The fact that there is a street at the heart of Tehran named after the person who assassinated the Egyptian president Anwar El Sadat is to my opinion enough for the Egyptians to thinks whoever holds an Iranian passport might be seriously mentally challenged and an imminent hazard to his own as well to others’ safety. And I am assuming that they forgive us for praising a terrorist.

Let’s keep our fingers crossed that I make it to Egypt. I do want to attend that the conference and I do want to see the pyramids.

Note: My pen name is not unique

Kamangir | November 25, 2007 | Category Human Rights, Personal

I have been asked before if the gentleman who writes under the name Kamangir in Iranian.com is me. The answer is no. I have not read many of his pieces, but I found his last one rather disturbing,

…[After the regime collapses] It’s [Khomeini's Shrine's] destruction must be a very interesting and waited event by the vast majority of Iranians … In the future of Iran there will be no room for any arabo-muslim jackass like Khomeini and his bunch. [Emphasis by me]

Sir, democracy means there is no “must” unless people vote for it. I am pretty sure no referendum has been ever held to determine the fate of that building. Nevertheless, I don’t appreciate it when you use such racist terms as you have did.

Busy days

Kamangir | November 12, 2007 | Category Personal

When you are a blogger, blogging is what you do. Sometimes, however, things we do to prepare for blogging, such as dealing with technical issues, distract us from doing what we have exactly set up our blogs for, i.e. blogging. This rather twisted sentence is maybe the best way to describe my situation during these days.

I am preparing for a trip to Cairo, for a scientific conference (I talked about it here). At the same time, I am being sucked into the Persian blogosphere, mainly because of the fabulous community we are building there. That’s my main “reason” for having not updated here in the last few days.

I mentioned all this to assert that I am alive and that I am following the news. I am going to a very long trip, passing through many European capitals. That means that I will have a lot of pictures to share in less than a month. In the mean time, do not lose the opportunity of getting to know the “Persian Young Goats“, as Ahmadinejad put it a few days ago.

MP’s Website attacks Kamangir

Kamangir | October 28, 2007 | Category Human Rights, Iran, Islamic Republic, Personal

Alef, a web site which represents a major group of conservatives in the Parliament, mentioned to be run by a top-ranking MP, published a piece about Kamangir yesterday [Persian]. In the report, the author writes,

A blogger claims that Fars News and Press TV have assigned false sentences to the Norwegian Foreign Minister [referring to: Did IRNA change Norwegian Foreign Minister’s Words?]. He [the website mentions my real name] claimed that the sentence “West must be more concerned with their own arsenal, rather than pointing at Iran and North Korea” is made up. The blogger mentions that he will follow the story with the Foreign Ministry of Norway. Fars News and Press TV have not reacted to these accusations yet. This is not the first time this blogger makes similar claims.

Then, Alef publishes a pictures of the author of this blog, accompanied by my real name, and follows,

Who is he [real name]? He [real name] is a resident of Canada whose blog is frequently referred to by the media and warmonger neo-con blogs (including Pajamas Media and Gateway Pundit). His blog is the number one source for anti-Iran news from the Iranian blogosphere, for the neo-con media. The content translated by him, regarding President’s speeches, Iranian missiles, stonings, executions, the social security project [Police raid against "immodesty" and alike], and so on, have been enthusiastically followed by the neo-con blogging networks. During last few months, he has increased his presence in the Persian blogging atmosphere, and also Iranian social networks, in order to direct anti-Iran content.

Shortly after this report, an Iranian blogger who first disclosed my real name started attacking me in a Persian social network, Balatarin [Persian]. He accused me of being a part of a “big filthy plot” against Iran. This coincidence has made some people making guesses about the source of the accusations made in Alef.

The matter of fact is, among the people who read this blog, and refer to it, there are certain people whom like, or adore, the current American administration. Nevertheless, I have always tried to be objective and not take parts. The mission of this blog is to give an accurate account of the events which happen in Iran. Having said that, I happen to agree with Alef on parts of their report and I am actually very satisfied if I have been able to help the news about stonings and executions escape the borders of Iran.

Kamangir’s Birthday

Kamangir | October 15, 2007 | Category Personal

It is again that time of the year. October 17th 2004, in an attempt to write essays for the upcoming TOEFL exam, I started writing a blog titled “Kamangir” in blogspot with the secretive address kmgr.blogspot.com. If by any chance you like to know about the history of this blog, please refer to the Archeology Section in the appendix.

Some Statistics:

This figure shows the number of posts of this blog, and those of its Persian companion, in each month. Clearly, July, August and September have been very busy months, one of the reasons behind the “retirement”.

The “Retirement”

I think this is a good place to discuss the issues which led, and resulted from, the “retirement” post. Basically, Azadeh kept torturing me with lashes and other horrible instruments to make me stop blogging, or that’s what many people have told me half seriously half jokingly. The fact is, what happened was “blogger’s burnout“, as Frieda put it so well. So, I’ll keep blogging but blogging will not be my first priority anymore. That’s all and thanks for all your support, I did need it.

And, a Birthday Present for me, Please!

If this is not the first time you are reading something here, or anywhere else on kamangir.net, please leave me a comment. Tell me one thing you have liked on this blog and one thing for which you would have slapped me on the face if you ever saw me.

Appendix: Some Archeology:

The first post on Kamangir was this,

This is the birth of this weblog. I am not sure that I am going to continue this game, but it seems nice right now. My close friends will almost kill me when they read this phrases, because I have had long discussions with them against such nasty things as weblogs. I am not sure my opinion has changed massively….

I kept blogging in blogspot until at some point of time, which I am unable to determine, and for some reason, which I am not able to remember either, Kamangir moved to the fantastic blogging service Wordpress at the address kamangir.wordpress.com. From this point of time things start to become clear.On 26 February 2007, at last, I got the domain kamangir.net, and I remember it was 11pm when I did that. By 4am the next day, Kamangir was up and running, although I needed a few more days to completely transfer posts and comments from the old place to here. Then, the original English Kamangir started to enjoy having sisters and brothers as a Persian blog and a Photoblog started here, on 1 May 2007. Finally, because of a fancy camera Azadeh got me for my birthday, a photography blog joined the team.

Politics and Fuzzy Clustering

Kamangir | October 10, 2007 | Category Personal

Last night I was at my desk till 4am, working on the slides for my today’s presentation. That means that I only went to bed at 5am, 5 hours after which I was to stand in front of our group and do the presentation. After three hours of sleep, and thanks to Azadeh for preparing a pack-and-go breakfast, I successfully carried out a one-hour presentation, although a part of the audience was really bored of all the math and I had to cheer them up from time to time. Any way, everything went fine.

I said all this to clarify the circumstances under which the rambling about genocides came about.

Retirement

Kamangir | October 6, 2007 | Category Personal

In the last couple of months, my most creative time has been spent here, and I don’t feel bad about that at all. However, the fact is, I am a student and a researcher and there are other things which I am very good at. I will leave the job of causing awareness about the horrible things which go on in Iran to those who can do it the best, because they hold a degree in politics for example, as opposed to my degrees which are all in engineering. Therefore, I will spend most of the time I used to spend here on having quality time with my lovely wife and on my research and on reading books about what I used to write about here.

Take this, these days I am reading the fantastic book “Taliban” by “Ahmed Rashid”.

Any way, this means that this page will not be updated as frequently, hopefully. But that does not mean that I have any intention of loosing the good friends who helped me, and others, learn new things by their comments. Please keep coming here. I strongly suggest subscribing to Kamangir’s feed.

Good News

Kamangir | October 2, 2007 | Category Personal

Aside from the Ph.D. thesis, I work in a research lab. Here, I am focused on fuzzy design and maintenance of Video on Demand (VoD) systems. This week, I received two good news about the work we have been doing in the last few months.

We had submitted two reports about our works, one to an IEEE conference, and the other one to an IEEE journal. The good news is, we were informed that the IEEE ISSPIT 2007 conference has accepted our work, and that means a trip to Egypt for Azadeh and I, because Azadeh has her own paper to present there. Furthermore, IEEE Transactions on Systems, Man, and Cybernetics has accepted a longer version for publication.

While this is all good news, it is also a reminder that I do have other works to attend to. I’ll try to cut down the time I spend in the Persian blogosphere. I should also spend more time working out plus improving my lousy English. Keep your fingers crossed for me, please.

An e-Friend from Argentina

Kamangir | September 11, 2007 | Category Personal

Blogging not only helps you blow off steam, but also it brings you friends from all around the world. For example, last night I had the privilege of talking to a gentleman form South Africa, as my only e-friend from the African continent. Another one of these great friends is Carlos E. Hös from Argentina. It is a shame that I cannot read his blog, because of language problem, but we have been able to communicate pretty well anyways.

Recently, Carlos sent me a list of questions, to which I provided very short answers. I just noticed that he has published my babbling in his blog. Gracias Carlos y tome el cuidado!

Domain and Hosting Available for a Decent Blogging Project

Kamangir | September 10, 2007 | Category Personal

A long while ago, we started the website Parsi Youth as one of the satellite projects of the Middle Youth. The project was aimed at providing English translation of the Persian conversation in the Iranian blogosphere. Unfortunately, that project did not proceed quite as we wished it to do. Now, the domain name, plus the hosting, is available for a decent project which would concern the Iranian blogosphere. Please leave a comment here or contact kamangirblog@yahoo.ca if you have an idea.

A Great Gift for my Birthday

Kamangir | August 22, 2007 | Category Personal

I am turning almost thirty in a few days. While that is not very good news, Azadeh got me a Canon Rebel XT digital camera. Now, that is what kept me awake last night setting up a new Photography Blog. The pictures in there are still what I have taken with our old Canon A60. I’ll be adding more pictures as I learn how to use my new toy.

By the way, this has nothing to do with the the Canon Ad which featured Ahmadinejad.

The Canoe Trip

Kamangir | August 7, 2007 | Category Personal

As mentioned before, Azadeh and I spent the last four days in a fantastic canoe trip. It was a good time with no Internet, and thus no execution or stoning. I have uploaded a few pictures of the trip in here. I wish to thank Ahwazi, Incognito, RoxieAmerica, Ella, Roman Kalik, Hajiwashington, Julia_1984, Mahi, Bikhanemoon, and Ghoghnoos for their nice comments.

Vacation

Kamangir | August 2, 2007 | Category Personal

Azadeh and I are going to a Canoe trip and thus I’ll not be writing anything till Tuesday 7th. As mentioned before, to support the imprisoned Iranian students, the title of this blog will temporarily change to “August the 5th: The day of support for jailed Iranian students”.

Apology

Kamangir | July 27, 2007 | Category Personal

If you have also seen the “Quote Exceeded” screen when logging into Kamangir, I apologize. Following the recent incidents of DoS attacks, Kamangir was attacked today by a distributed DoS attack. I have talked to my host and they are figuring out a way to deal with this issue. Thanks for your support. Also, thanks to Azadeh and Matthew for sending me emails when the blog went down.

A Story about Allah and Dell Computers

Kamangir | July 22, 2007 | Category Personal

Azadeh went shopping and sent me home to wash the dishes. When I arrived home, all sweaty, the only thing I did was to sit in front of the air conditioner and to do a “quick” check for comments and emails. That only finished right before Azadeh buzzed. Aside from the fact that it is general knowledge that you turn your machine on to check your emails and end up reading blogs and checking links here and there, I was very outraged when I saw the footage of an execution, just deleted from Youtube because of its graphic nature. So, I posted the video in both English and Persian . The Persian title I chose was “The Allah who is not great“. That was a big mistake, as I found out later.

After I posted the video, and watched it online to make sure everything was fine, my screen went all blue and the Blue Screen of Death came on, with a funny message “dumping memory”. Who pays attention to this, I said to myself and forced the machine off. That was when Windows did not boot anymore, despite all my efforts. So, I ended up reinstalling windows, and getting the horrible message “Hard disk damaged”. So, I also formatted my hard disk. Fortunately, I don’t keep any information on my notebook. So, I did not loose much, rather than music and movies I had downloaded off the Internet.

The story became silly when I started looking for drivers, which to my surprise were not installed by Windows itself. I had a CD-ROM which I was not sure if it was for my notebook, a Dell Inspiron 640m. The CD-ROM calls the model the drivers of which it carries to be “ME051″. Obviously, I did not trust my guts and I thought maybe that’s for Azadeh’s notebook. So, I looked up the service tag in Dell.ca, where I was referred to a page which held drivers of a system called ” Inspiron E1405/640M”. I took some of the drivers and managed to install the basic functionalities. Then, just asking “what if that CD was actually mine”, I started installing what was provided there, and good job! Everythign is now functional.

The moral of the story is, do not mess with people who shout “Allah is Great” and do not even try to think why Dell uses three different numbers for one product.

Harry Potter It Is

Kamangir | July 21, 2007 | Category Personal

Although I don’t like it anymore, getting it on the first day was still a must. :)

Trip to Pinawa

Kamangir | July 10, 2007 | Category Personal

Azadeh and I had a fantastic weekend in Pinawa. You can see a few pictures of the beautiful nature of that area in Kamangir Photoblog.