The following will overlay overlay.png on top of output.png

mogrify -draw "image SrcOver 0,0 0,0 'overlay.png'" output.png

While this one will overlay overlay.png on top of input.png and save it as output.png

convert input.png -draw "image SrcOver 0,0 0,0 'overlay.png'" output.png

You can download imagemagick from http://www.imagemagick.org/

It turns out that the plugin makes a huge difference.

Resource usage comparison over two (highlighted) tests. Cache is OFF on the left, ON on the right.

I kept increasing the rate of requests until the Disk IO rate was the same for both tests. With the cache turned off, CPU usage went through the roof to 400% of my allocation while still only serving up pages at five megabits per second. With the cache enabled, CPU usage settled at 20% and the data rate peaked at over 45 Megabit/sec.

I’m very impressed with the results… It seems that with a moderate spec server, you’ll hit your disk and/or network limit before you run out of CPU or RAM.

I’m moving from my Windows Server 2003 physical co-located server to a Virtual Private Server (VPS) running Linux.

All of the websites have been transferred across, everything else is still to be moved over.

In the meantime, if you find any problems, or anything 404’s, please flick me an email at b…@john.geek.nz

I render them in 512×256, 1024×512, 2048×1024 and 4096×2048 resolutions. The clouds information is obtained from weather satellites and is typically around three hours old.

I also use monthly map files so that the snow/ice on the planet is more realistic.

Check out my real time renders at http://www.john.geek.nz/earth/.

I’m using the same account so you can find all the tweets at http://www.twitter.com/apolloecho.

Back in September I started to acquire a few bits. Since the main component was a kite, I decided I’d start with this first. After a lot of research, I decided that a Delta Conyne was the best bet. This particular kite is a hybrid of a standard triangle shaped delta and a box kite. Most KAPpers report that it has the lifting power of a Delta kite with the stability and high flight angle (ie: the string is almost vertical) of a box kite.

When I said it was a big kite, I meant it!

The next item to buy or build is a mount for the camera. I decided on a picavet as it’s rather simple to build and seems to be a favourite for KAPpers. The picavet I’ve made is very simple at the moment. It’s made of two 150mm long pieces of 1/4″x1/16″ aluminium with fishing swivels for pulleys – Not ideal by a long shot, but a good starting point to check the “theory is correct”.

I got one of my trusty canon IXUS SD1000 – The same model as I use for my 3D Camera. I installed the latest version of CHDK and wrote a simple script to take a photo every five seconds.

On Saturday I shot down to Victoria Park. It was far from ideal conditions as there was little wind and things were being set up for the Guy Fawkes fireworks display.

I finally got the kite above the treeline and flying stable. I clipped on my picavet, turned on the camera and sent it skyward. By this point, it was half past four and already rather dark. Even an ISO of 800 wasn’t enough to stop the blur.

Here are a few images:

It was far too dark for the camera to be using 1/15th of a second for the shutter speed.

Yes, thats me with my reflective sneakers!

A random photo of the fence around the fireworks display. This was the only still photo I got.

The reason santa is coming early this year is that Noah is in the finals stages of cancer that he has been fighting since he was 3 years old.

It seems all Noah wants for his (early) christmas is christmas cards….

I heard about the story here on reddit, and after checking it out on snopes, it seems true.

If you want to send a card, the address is:
Noah Biorkman, 1141 Fountain View Circle, South Lyon, MI, 48178 (JK)

I’m doing my bit….