Photographic tips

I've been listening to Chris Marquardt's Tips From the Top Floor on my iPod while I ride the bus to work and there are lots of useful tips and tricks for aspiring photographers like myself. One trick I learned recently and has become my favourite is using the fully manual setting on my camera when shooting in consistent light conditions.

I like trying to use natural light through windows when shooting indoors and it is relatively consist for Julie's entire attention span while she's being my model. Since my ist D L2 tends to underexpose my photographs in indoor, natural light conditions, I like to correct for this so there is less post-processing to do. I can set my shutter speed and aperture and the camera also indicates if it thinks the settings are correct or not. I typically overexpose by one full stop to get results I like.

Another great advantage comes during the post processing. Since conditions do not change, all the photos I take are similarly exposed. Ergo, if I'm still not happy, I can batch correct all my photos quickly. I use iPhoto for most of my general corrections and Elements for anything that needs particular attention. iPhoto allows me to copy and paste edits between photos.

My only word of warning is to watch the ISO on the camera. If I take a few shots to start with, I use the P setting and then switch to fully manual when I see that Julie is in a good mood and going to give me a lot of cute faces. The camera remembers the P settings when I switch to M but the ISO resets itself so my first manual shot is horribly underexposed if I'm not paying attention since the P setting with an automatic ISO will often select an ISO of 1600 in low light. My minimum ISO is 200 so I'm typically three stops underexposed if I don't force the ISO to something higher or adjust my shutter speed or aperture.

I'm currently switching from Picasa to Flickr so you can check out those sites if you want to see more of my photography (read: Julie). If you use a news reader, you're probably better off subscribing to the Flickr feed. And check out the Tips From the Top Floor podcast.

Chinese Philosophy

Despite the West's objections to a law imposed on a society by a basically totalitarian government, I have to say I agree with China's one child policy. Though, I'm also glad my parents-in-law paid the fine when my wife was born as their second child. Before anyone asks me any "what ifs" because my wife is around only because of her parents' disregard for the law, you can ask "what if" about any decision anyone makes in life. I try to just make the best of the current situation. Hmm... What if I hadn't gone into geophysics? We'll never know.

Anyway, awhile ago I was listening to Dr. Bob McDonald on Quirks and Quarks talk to Alan Weisman about his book, "The World Without Us." I haven't read the book yet but I intend to and the idea I present here was presented during the interview so, if I don't have the facts of the book entirely straight, I'll try to straighten them out soon. I also apologize for skipping to the end of the book, but Alan Weisman suggests a worldwide one child policy.

If you consider the rapid and unsustainable growth of the human population, reducing our numbers a bit would make some sense. With 6.6 billion people in the world today and 9.4 billion expected in 2050, I don't see how the Earth can keep up with providing for all the humans. Each new person put on this planet requires a certain amount of resources.

Obviously, we're seeing today that the Earth cannot keep up and the ideas put forth about how to be sustainable/environmental without putting a limit on the number of humans on the planet are just ridiculous. The false environmentalist propaganda I like the most comes from the auto industry. Prices at the pumps were low across North America and then Hurricane Katrina blows through. Fuel prices take a big jump and the next day all the car ads have a new voice-over claiming this vehicle is now fuel efficient. Now everyone thinks hybrid cards or ethanol will save the planet. Take a gander over at Ford.ca at their Escape Hybrid. The regular model will set you back 10.7 L/100 km in the city and 7.7 L/100 km on the highway. The hybrid model uses only 5.7 L/100 km in the city and 6.7 L/100 km on the highway. I believe the reversal of economy is due to the sustained power to propel yourself down the highway is way too much for the electric engine so you're burning fuel the whole time. With a price difference of $7500 and assuming you do a lot of driving while gas still costs you around $1.10/L, you'll pay off the extra cost in a mere 136 000 km of city driving or 682 000 km of pure highway driving.

But I'm not concerned about how people are punished for trying to save the planet; I'm concerned about the pure consumption of humans. If I have two children and buy them each a Ford Escape Hybrid and they each drive 100 km per week in the city, they're using 11.4 L of fuel which is more than if I had only one child and bought her the regular Escape. Of course, it's also $41 000 cheaper to buy just one regular Escape. Someone else can do the math to see if two Toyota Priuses are more economical than one regular Toyota. That's also an argument purely based on fuel. The blog at Quirks and Quarks also pointed out that every car loses rubber from its tires which gets washed into the gutter and into our rivers, drips lubricant and requires its share of steel, aluminium and plasticsl. And don't tell me ethanol is the answer. With more people there are more mouths to feed yet we would rather that more people bought more cars powered by more corn which needs more water to grow. More is not sustainable.

If you want to cut greenhouse gases by 20%, why not let the worldwide population fall from 6.6 billion to 5.28 billion instead of making each person find 20% of their carbon footprint to cut. In fact, you'll have to cut more than 20%. Before the Earth's population has had much of a chance to fall under a one child policy, the population will have hit 7 billion in 2011. Now you have to cut your personal carbon footprint by 25%.

Sometimes an authoritarian figure has to step in and force people to do what's best. It should be obvious that governments and a few CEOs making obscene amounts of money aren't going to curb our consumerism or do anything to jeopardize their ability to make even more money.

the old man can climb

Just finished my first bike race in a long, long time and I certainly don't feel well. As you can see from my MotionBased GPS readings , I pushed about as hard as I could but that was only good enough for last. Technically, I wasn't last 'cause another ERTC rider got lost on the course, dropped out and was planning on riding the Expert race. I completed four laps of the course in just under 36 minutes and was lapped towards the end of my third lap. There was still one rider just behind me when I dropped out but he had been closing the gap and I don't think I would have kept him behind me for much longer.

The race wasn't terribly interesting for me. The start was technical with some short climbs up a small hill. My bike handling skills seem to still be quite good as I was able to easily stay with the bunch and I even thought about a few daring passes in corners. There was also a tricky hill climb which most of the Sport racers decided to run up. The approach to the climb was along the side of the hill and then the course turned quickly to the right, down the hill, and immediately turned 180 degrees to a climb. On the first lap, I was able to take a good line, go wide and climb the entire hill out of the saddle. As I climbed and passed a few riders who were walking, I heard someone exclaim, "the old man can climb." I really didn't think I was old but this is definitely a young man's sport. On the second lap, I made an error on the hairpin, twisted my handle bars, ended up in a track stand but was able to recover from my standstill and climb even though I was in the wrong gear. I was forced to run up the hill on my third lap as I got lost amongst all the flagging and was outside the course so I had to jump off my bike, turn around and get back on course.

The only other points of interest to my race were three near falls. On lap two, I took the inside line down the hill towards the asphalt section. There was a bump in the grass just before the asphalt and I caught a little air and landed a little more forward that I would have liked with the transition to a hard, coarse surface just in front. Also on the second lap, my front wheel dug into one of the sand pits and I was forced to put one foot down to recover. On my fourth lap, I hit a small hole in the grass just before I had to turn into a downhill, off-camber corner. The bump jolted me forward and I was left with my elbows on the brake hoods. This is not good posture for a sketchy downhill section but I was able to recover.

I'm still intent on doing a few more cyclocross races before the year is out but I have confirmation that my conditioning is not good. According to MotionBased, I averaged 172 bpm, or 93% of my maximum heartrate, during the race. At least I was trying hard. The course was very tough and I didn't really enjoy it. It was good for the enclosed space but some sections were easy to lose your way and go off course. I also don't know why course designers insist on forcing racers to go up and down hills so often. It seemed the design was mostly an effort to tackle the one hill as much as possible, hit the few other obstacles in the area and keep the racers uncomfortable. The cyclocross course I enjoyed the most was in Edmonton and had a good mix of high speed stretches, technical turns and climbs. Consensus after that race was that there were only three places where you had to touch the brakes. This one had at least ten braking zones and went up or down the only hill eight times. Still, I imagine course design is very difficult, you cannot please all the people all the time and I'm sure some people thought it was a great course. I did enjoy the asphalt section and the spectators could see almost the entire course from one spot.

Getting myself sued for libel

Okay, if I check the dictionary this is not actually libel since I can back it all up. I'd like to say that my experience with Laurich and Associates for the purchase of my house has gone less than ideally. I do realize that we've been living here for eight months but there are reasons I've come to this conclusion at this time.

I used the same lawyer for buying a condo in the summer of 2005 and everything went fine. Since I had a name for a lawyer who'd done a good job for an average unreasonable price, I thought I'd use the same lawyer again. Of course, that's when things stopped going smoothly.

The first problem was that the lawyer had moved his office seemly due to a split with his partner. The previous office was conveniently located downtown near my work. The new office is in a house in Bridgeland which is not convenient since it's neither near work nor home. It's also a good five to ten minutes on foot from the closest C-Train station. Have you realized that eight months prior to this post was January so walking isn't always nice. If I remember my first house sale correctly, I visited their offices once or twice for a signature. For this transaction, I visited four times and had to get Ying downtown twice. The extra visits were for typos which had to be corrected and then initialled or signed by us or to avoid being charged the lawyer-standard $10 for a 50¢ stamp. The mistakes were just the ones they caught while not in our presence. They also found a good number while in our presence. Our initial run through of the sales agreement went something like this:

lawyer: "this first page just shows the address of the property you're buying"
me: "that's not the correct address. We're buying a house in the NW and that's an address in the South. Also, that seller's name wasn't on the documents from our realtor.
lawyer: "yes, that doesn't match the address on the cover page. I'll have to get this page retyped. Just wait a moment."

The lawyer should also have a professionalism talk with his staff. The girl he has answering the phones is nice but not at all organized and doesn't conduct herself as I expect someone who works the phones for a lawyer should. On the phone, she mentioned a few times her lack of organizing her files, noticed some more of her typos and referred to me as, "hun" a number of times. She seems to be just out of college but I'm not aware of what she studied.

I'll get to talk with her some more on Monday though. Due to the crazy pace of buying and selling in the Calgary real estate market, Land Titles has been a little behind in processing everything. I didn't think they were eight month behind but I guess they were. Two weeks ago, we finally got the legal description of our property. Last week, we got a surprise of almost $200 back from the lawyer. We were surprised since we received a final tally months ago; two months or so after I had to make a trip to the lawyer's office to pick up the money from the sale of our condo. A bigger surprise came today when I noticed on my on-line banking that the $200 had been taken back out of my account. I have other issues with the Royal Bank wanting $1.50 to show me the details of a transaction on-line but that can wait for another day when they finish the job pissing me off and I switch banks. It appears that the lawyer has written a bad cheque. I'll be going through their math tomorrow after my bike race, incase there are more errors in my favour, so that I don't have to phone them more than once to complain. I've already wasted hours of my day travelling to his office so that I can verify that I'm aware of mistakes in legal documents.

When lawyers openly write on your bill that they incurred massive costs for photocopying and local telephone calls, you'd think they'd have enough money in their bank accounts to cover a $200 cheque. It's not even his money! The $200 is the amount they overcharged me on the Land Titles fee and are returning eight months after we moved in.

The agony of defeat

First basketball game, first loss. Doug and Charity have assembled a good team but we met another good team tonight and were defeated by one basket.

There was some controversy in the second half when I was fouled driving to the hoop. It's a social league and there are no actual refs; a "Game Co-ordinator" keeps score and makes sure things don't get out of hand but each team is supposed to call its own fouls. We though the defence called the foul and the other team thought it was the offence. That left two teams calling fouls at our end of the floor and no one calling fouls at their end. Anyway, I wondered out loud why no foul was called, was told to call my own foul and then proceeded to say I was fouled. There was a bit of a discussion as to whom should actually be calling the fouls and play resumed after a few minutes. However, play resumed with them bringing the ball up the court. The foul against me was forgotten.

Personally, I don't like not having refs because a few people in the league don't know what a foul is. There are also one or two GC who act as part time refs, which is extra annoying since some fouls are called by them and then they lose interest for a while. They also don't run the court and are a long way from the action. One in particular has overruled charges which I took on two different occasions. Both were charges and both times the other player had accepted that he committed a foul until the GC pipes up from the sideline.

Ying and Julie liked the game quite a bit; they sat on the stage at one end of the gym. Julie was so excited to see all those people running towards her, like they were coming for a visit. Except, they didn't quite get all the way to her and then they ran away again, making her a little sad. But, just a few seconds later, everyone would come running towards her again and she's get excited. Yet, once again, everyone would run away after a few seconds. These emotional ups and downs took their toll and Julie just slept through the second half.

Oh well. It was a fun game which was played at a high level. We got off to a slow start but pulled ourselves back into the game at the end. We even had a lead briefly but couldn't hold it. I'm looking forward to next week's game quite a bit. I'd better get some more practice in so I can contribute more.

Getting Autumn underway

This week marks the start of post-Summer activities. A new season of basketball starts tomorrow and I'll be doing my first cyclocross race of the year on Sunday, if my licence arrives.

Basketball should be enjoyable again this time. I like the people I play with and I hope I can contribute. My co-worker, Victor, might also come out for a few games. We're normally a little short on players so we'll need a little help from a guy who's definitely not short on height. Victor and I are also not short on excess mass so we could both use the exercise. Victor claims to have played at a high level back in the CCCP so we'll see if he can shake the rust off. I didn't play at a very high level and it's about two years and counting for me and the rust shaking.

Sunday will be my first cyclocross race of the season and my first race in a long time. Since I last raced, my training has included doing nothing and eating cake. I've also bulked up by about 10 kg but this isn't football and I'm not worried about being pushed around by other large men so this extra weight is not going to help my performance. If you watch le Tour, you'd know that riders my height usually weigh about 25 kg less than I do. Lance Armstrong is just a smidgen taller than me and he was fairly heavy at 70 kg. I do believe I'm a sprinter and not a climber like Lance. My favourite rider is the great sprinter, Erik Zabel. He's also about my height and 70 kg. Ying says she'll come out to cheer on Sunday and I've made sure she won't be disappointed watching me tour around at the back. If I hadn't been doing my cycling commute to work, which is about the length I expect to race, I'd probably have to put her on the bike for a lap while I recover. Anyway, my goal on Sunday is to be last in the easiest category there is. I assure you there will be rejoicing should I exceed my goal and come second-last. I hope to post some photos from the race as Ying will be my official photographer so long as Julie isn't fussy during the race. If there are others around whom I know, I'll try and get some pictures of them too.

Privacy concerns

My As It Happens podcast was about Google's Street View. You can see it in action above. Some people are concerned that having a car driving around taking a picture of every single street in the world is an invasion of privacy; that they'll be caught on camera doing something they don't want the world to see or that a user of Street View will be able to see into their front window. I don't see how this argument stands up.

If you are doing something illegal on the sidewalk, chances are you'll be suspicious of a car driving down the street with a massive piece of technology on the roof. You'll probably be looking out for cars with technology on the roof that flashes blue and red anyway. For thousands of years, people have been walking down streets and witnessing illegal activity with the privacy of the perpetrator never questioned. Companies are also allowed to put up surveillance cameras around their businesses to watch the activity outside. I'm sure that 100% of those cameras are not trained on 100% private property. If you're cheating on your wife/husband, there are better ways for your wife/husband to catch you than scouring the Internet, hoping Google will drive by, take your picture so that you're both recognizable and post the pictures on the Internet in a timely manner.

With the number of roads in the world, Google will probably only drive down your street about once every two to ten years. Every year if you live in San Francisco. Had they driven down my street, I might use that picture when I give directions to my house; that would be pretty cool to do. Of course, my house numbers are legible so it's not that necessary. I've used Google Earth to show friends and family what my roof looks like. Chances are that Google will be driving down exciting streets first and more often. Businesses could use it for advertising! "As seen in Google Street View!" So, once again, the chances of Google driving down your street, taking pictures while your drapes are open and you're standing buck naked in full view is remote. If you're going to sue Google for invasion of privacy, you'd better also sue the retired couple down the block who have little else to occupy their time and the teenage astronomy buff neighbour who isn't looking for heavenly bodies in the sky. I don't think robbers or pedophiles are going to be using Street View for reconnaissance either. As one friend found out first hand, robbers are going to do a little more work than look at a still picture on the Internet. Luckily for his family, the robber attempting to pilfer from his neighbourhood was caught and the robber's notes mentioned the "big dog" at my friend's house.

That all being said, if you zoom in on the picture above, you can that that after about a minute on Street View I found Morpheus! But that's not Neo with him.