World’s Largest Miniature Circus – Sarasota wiki vacation part 2

Posted on April 4, 2017 by Xinhai Dude 辛亥生

This is part two of the Sarasota Wiki Vacation series. This trip to the Sarasota barrier islands yielded a large number of pictures which I’ve added to various Wikipedia articles. The unusually-long post I wrote became too long and unfocused. It is about 90 pages long. I am now breaking it up into specific posts by location and theme.

This one is about The Howard Bro. Circus, undisputedly  the world’s largest miniature circus, located within John and Mable Ringling Museum of Art.

Ringling Museum Scale Model Circus Entrance

1:16 Scale Model Circus – Main Entrance

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Anna Maria Island – Sarasota wiki vacation part 1

Posted on April 4, 2017 by Xinhai Dude 辛亥生

This is part one of the Sarasota Wiki Vacation series. This trip to the Sarasota barrier islands yielded a large number of pictures which I’ve added to various Wikipedia articles. The unusually-long post I wrote became too long and unfocused. It is about 90 pages long. I am now breaking it up into specific posts by location and theme.

This one is about Anna Maria Island, also known as the Anna Maria Key, where we explored Coquina Beach, Cortez Beach, and marveled at cast-net fishing at beautiful sunset.

Coquina Beach on Anna Maria Island

Coquina Beach on Anna Maria Island

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Sarasota, Florida 2017 – an iPhone Wiki Vacation

Posted on April 2, 2017 by Xinhai Dude 辛亥生

Here is the latest installment of my series of Wiki Vacation posts, from a short stay last week in Sarasota, Florida. The timing could not have been better – daytime temperature was around 85˚F. Not too hot – a quick application of sunscreen was good enough for walking on the beach all day long. And not chilly – Gulf water was warm enough for swimming.

Coquina Beach Lifeguard Station on Anna Maria Island

Lifeguard station at Coquina Beach on Anna Maria Island

The range of day trips covered Siesta Key, Lido Key, Longboat Key, Ana Maria Island, and Sarasota City itself. Activities included paddleboarding by the beach, tunneling through red mangrove trees on kayaks, looking at manatees at the aquarium, and marveling at the world’s largest miniature circus at the Ringling museum. It’s amazing that we managed to visit 7 beaches in just a few days: Coquina Beach, Cortez Beach, Lido Beach, Siesta Beach, Crescent Beach and Turtle Beach. In addition, we also packed fine dinning into this busy schedule. For lazy people who woke up every morning to look at tourist maps gotten at the airport before figuring out where to go, this trip was a resounding success.

Points of Interest around Sarasota Bay

Points of Interest around Sarasota Bay

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Jenn’s Wedding: Saint Thomas 2009

Posted on March 7, 2017 by Xinhai Dude 辛亥生

This is an offshoot of a series of Wiki Vacation posts from my tour of the US Virgin Islands in 2009. The series covers Saint Thomas, Trunk Bay and Caneel Bay. This article documents the main reason we were there in the first place – to be at Jenn and Chris’ wedding.

Jenn's wedding

Jenn’s wedding – accompanied by her dad

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Wiki Vacation 2009: Saint Thomas

Posted on March 6, 2017 by Xinhai Dude 辛亥生

This article is part of my Wiki Vacation series of posts from my tour of the US Virgin Islands in 2009. The first leg of the trip was to Saint Thomas, where we joined a destination wedding. A short detour to Trunk Bay was documented here. And the second leg of the trip to Caneel Bay can be found on its own article.

A Green Iguana sunbathing at Marriott on St. Thomas

A green iguana sunbathing at Marriott on St. Thomas

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Wiki Vacation 2009: Trunk Bay

Posted on February 26, 2017 by Xinhai Dude 辛亥生

This is a mini-post, a part of the Wiki Vacation series of posts from my tour of the US Virgin Islands in 2009. The trip to Trunk Bay was our first visit to Saint John, and was limited to half a day, where we went with family, a newly-wed couple, and friends. Our second trip to Saint John followed a few day after, where we went alone, documented on the long post on Caneel Bay.

Trunk Bay on Saint John, U.S. Virgin Islands

Trunk Bay on Saint John, U.S. Virgin Islands

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Wiki Vacation 2009: Caneel Bay

Posted on February 26, 2017 by Xinhai Dude 辛亥生

I dug up more Wiki Vacation pictures from my 2009 to Caneel Bay, following the first in the series from the trip back to Taiwan. Caneel Bay is a resort on the northwest side of St. John, one of the US Virgin Islands, with seven private, picturesque beaches.

Guests of the [[:en:Caneel Bay|Caneel Bay]] resort disembark at the Caneel Beach from the resort's own boat, Mary II.

Guests of the resort disembark at the Caneel Beach

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My Favorite Wiki Vacation Pictures: Taiwan 2009

Posted on February 25, 2017 by Xinhai Dude 辛亥生

I’ve been uploading vacation pictures to WikiMedia since 2015. I call some of my vacations Wiki Vacations, because I go to places with an explicit intent of taking pictures, processing them afterwards, and then uploading them to WikiMedia, for use on Wikipedia articles. I don’t actually know how other Wikipedians refer to this mode of vacation. But I do know the official definition of WikiBreak, nicknamed Wikivacation, means almost the opposite.

Regardless of the terminology, I do find the experience rewarding. As reported earlier in Some of my Most Popular Pictures, time spent getting good, useful pictures for Wikipedia is more than made up by seeing some of these pictures widely distributed online, with or without credits. Here I posted a few of my favorite Wiki Vacation pictures. Not all of them are well appreciated though. But it doesn’t matter. At the end of the day, beauty is in the eye of the beholder.

This is from my trip to Taiwan in 2009. Hey, it’s on the first result page of Google image search.

CiSingTan Bay with the Central Mountain Range in the background, in Hualien County in Taiwan 中文: 七星潭位於花蓮縣新城鄉，緊靠著中央山脈。

CiSingTan Bay with the Central Mountain Range in the background, in Hualien County in Taiwan

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Some of my Most Popular Pictures

Posted on February 20, 2017 by Xinhai Dude 辛亥生

I have been uploading my best photographs and images to Wikimedia since 2005. Some of these pictures have made it to major Wikipedia articles in many languages. A few have been voted as Quality Images. As a result, I sometimes come across my own pictures when browsing reddit and other online media.

For instance, this autostereogram (MagicEye picture) of a shark is often pirated by online media, even though it is of relatively low-resolution by today’s standard. This is because I made it the article picture of Autostereogram on Wikipedia when I wrote that article.

Autostereogram (MagicEye picture) of a shark

Autostereogram (MagicEye picture) of a shark

Check out the usage record of this picture on Wikimedia to see how prevalent it is. The Sun tabloid featured it as late as 2016. The DailyMail also used it in 2016. A variant of this shark in an animated GIF of the shark comes back once in a while to haunt reddit and imgur.

For the same reason, I often need not look past the first page of a Google image search to find some of my own pictures. For instance, this photo of a watermelon always shows up on the first result page on image search.

Watermelon at a Tainan City Organic Farm

Watermelon at a Tainan City Organic Farm

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Music sung by Vocaloid Miriam

Posted on February 20, 2017 by Xinhai Dude 辛亥生

In 2005 I was mesmerized by Vocaloid, a singing voice synthesizer from Yamaha. I composed a three-part acapella piece, with all three voices sung by Vocaloid Miriam (also see this).

Your Fish Tank was writen in 2005. It is the first piece of music I synthesized using Vocaloid Miriam. Bruce Yates graciously allowed me to use his underwater pictures in my YouTube video showcasing this music. See lyric at the end of this article.

Thingymajigtus, written in 2005, was my followed-up to Your Fish Tank, with four-part voice, and piano accompaniment. Lyrics refer to one of  The Seven Sins of Memory, with non-prominent parts set to words from Mozart’s Requiem, which is in turns taken from an ancient liturgy Dies Irae, or the Day of Wrath.

Thingymajigtus had been circulating online for quite a while, before I noticed. It’s probably because I uploaded it to Wikimedia, and linked from the Vocaloid article to these sound tracks (Thingymajigtus and Your Fish Tank).

Here are a few videos that feature this music. There even a woman lip-synching it.

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