Sorry for the downtime

January 26th, 2010 • chatter
Tags: downtime, server

I have no idea what was going on. I was getting ready to go to bed and found the site and server totally unresponsive. This is the 2nd time in about a week that this has happened. By the looks of it, either DB Cache Reloaded was murdering MySQL, I need to really optimize the tables, or it’s time to get some more RAM. I know two of those are correct however, I’m not 100% sure which ones. I’m going to talk to LSTN tomorrow about the costs of migrating to a new server instead of adding more RAM to this one. They’ve got some new boxes up that are faster and will come in cheaper per month than simply adding more RAM — saving $5/mo is still saving.

Anyway, everything’s back up now. Some of my stats are screwed up but no big deal. Also updated to PHP5.

Chili cook-offs and 35mm

January 22nd, 2010 • chatter, food
Tags: 35mm, food, photography, yashica

The weekend is almost here for me, just about 10 more minutes and I’m FREE! I’m looking forward to this weekend because not only is the KISS Country Chili Cook-off on Sunday, this is the first weekend of the month I’ll be able to take some time to shoot film. Ever since getting the battery adapter for my Yashica Electro35 GSN, I’ve been dying to take it out and shoot. However, I’d not had the funds on hand to do so and I’m not about to waste my Porta and Fuji film stock on a camera with possible issues/light leaks. Wal-mart will be graced with my presence tomorrow when I go to pick up a few rolls of Superia 400. I’ve also got a backup for the Electro35 in case this one is a bust, my father just purchased another one and shipped it to me. The new one has a different custom leather case than mine does, so now I’m wondering if Yashica produced a number of different leather cases for them. Either way, will be cool to have two of them.

Tonight we’re getting dragged off to Singers Karaoke bar down on Sample Road and 95. I hate karaoke and I’m really not looking forward to going but I think it’ll be fun to see my buddy Jeff singing. It shouldn’t be as bad I’m imagining it to be but I know it’s going to at least yield some fun laughs. I’m going to take the Nikon D90 with me, but I’m unsure if they’ll allow it in. I’d definitely get up there and sing but I know for a fact they won’t have any death metal, grindcore, or really esoteric prog rock for me to belt out. I consider that a saving grace — not that I’d actually be singing, more growling. Depending on the camera situation tonight, I may not have a Project 365 photograph to upload.

Next week, after my classes, I’m going to try and do some shooting at FAU if I have the time. There’s some great landscape and fauna there. I’m typically just in too much of a rush to snap anything. I think this will be my push to finally get a super wide angle lens as my two zooms only go to 18mm (27mm on my APS-C sensor) and that’s just not wide enough for some of the stuff at school. I’ve got some great ideas for shots at the Breezeway/quad and of some architecture. I could do some fun shots with 12-14mm from the tops of the parking garages.

As mentioned, Sunday is the KISS Country Chili Cook-off. Another fantastic chance for photos except there’s no “professional cameras” allowed so we just have to get our Exilim snuck in. I’m really wanting to go because it’ll be with all of our friends and it just happens at the Zac Brown Band is going to be playing as well. Friends, beer, chili, and great music, not much else I can ask for. Except maybe good weather! This will be my first cook-off to attend in years so hopefully it’s not the last.

Time for Singers is almost here so I’ve got to go get ready!

I just got a camera, I’m already a pro

January 21st, 2010 • chatter
Tags: photography, satire

I came across this hilarious Salt Lake City Craigslist ad yesterday. It’s a greatly written satire about the influx of new cameras into the hands of inexperienced people who now think they’re pros simply because their pictures look great on the camera’s tiny LCD. This is what happens when most people get handed a DSLR for Christmas. There’s been a flood of posts from new camera owners on Reddit since Christmas asking all sorts of questions, some good, others very bad (or annoying). I don’t fault many of them for these questions however, many of them do expect to be Ansel Adams in a week.

I like this fake ad because, while I’m sure the poster actually got a lot of contact, they’re tired of seeing their niche in SLC flooded with people who think they know what they’re doing but are damned convinced they do. I’m fairly certain their inbox was inundated with requests to shoot because the ad was for a cheap photographer, from people who didn’t see that they were feeding into the problem the poster is having. It’s a good mix of satire and seething barbs at “hacks” who almost overnight make the jump from open box to shooting for money.

Sure, I know what you’re thinking: “he just got a camera a few months ago and is now lampooning new shooters.” You’re entirely correct, except I got my own personal DSLR a few months ago. I’ve been shooting with my girlfriend’s since I purchased it for her and I started shooting 10 years ago, off an on. However, I know that my skills as compared to many top shooters today, are extremely lacking and I’m willing to admit that and am cognizant of it. My enjoyment of this post on Craigslist comes from the fact that I’ve been around people like this in the last few years at various photo shoots we’ve been on and it’s absolutely hilarious to see them work. Or at least try to.

Sensationalism and how NPR completely missed the point

January 19th, 2010 • chatter
Tags: journalism, npr, photography, sensationalism

As you all know, Port-au-Prince got hit by an earthquake last week. It was devastating and heavily destroyed the city. The Western media has spent the last 7 days showing non-stop images of the area and reported on it ceaselessly. Why? Mostly because Americans believe there isn’t anything else going on in the world and they — the media — know we love sensationalist pieces. I’ve been so put off by this I haven’t bothered actually keeping up with any developments about what’s going on. It’s not that I don’t care the people on the ground, it’s that I don’t care about what’s being reported because, aside from this earthquake, what’s coming out of Haiti is the same story for the last twenty or thirty years.

However, there’s a new kid in town: gigabytes, and probably terabytes, of images relating to the disaster plastered all over the news, news sites, Twitter, Facebook, and who knows where else. I’ve looked at what’s been posted at Boston.com out of curiosity. Mind you, not morbid curiosity, but sheer curiosity of what’s going to be posted. I wanted to be greeted with images of people being helped but instead all I got where above-ground mass graves, people being crushed, and people in the hospital. This is what I’ve got a problem with. Everyone in the world knows this has happened, we all know people have been injured and have died, but we also know that there’s been a huge surge of UN and rescue forces dropped into Port-au-Prince to help. Where are the images of those people, helping to clear away the rubble, devastation, and piles of bodies? Nowhere to be found it seems.

Then I read the following article from NPR about disaster photography helping to dull our sensitivity to such issues. The author questions when photos of a disaster go from informative to sensationalist. That’s easy to figure out: when every photograph is of devastation and nothing else. There are scant photographs of the doctors, search and rescue techs, military personnel, and even Haitians helping out. It’s all dead bodies and crumbled buildings. This is when reporting is nothing more than sensationalism. Garsd then goes to question how this occurred and while I agree that six Saw movies have helped to dull our collective senses, the blame lies squarely at the media for not only showing minute after minute of this but actively promoting and pushing it into our faces.

This “new” genre of “gore pornography” has been around for decades now. Horror movies latched onto this back in the days of grindhouse and the Internet certainly was awash in it in the 90s. It’s nothing new, it’s just new to the media. The NPR article fully misses the point that we as humans didn’t naturally become desensitized to images of decomposing bodies, we had media outlets shove them down our throats. While scanning Reddit the other day, I had the displeasure of seeing a picture of a small child being tossed, literally, onto a growing pile of bodies. For the first time in years, I was actually disgusted by this. Not because of the image itself, but because someone was there to take an entirely unnecessary photograph and by the gutless media outlet that published it.

Jasmine Garsd and NPR miss the point of why this happens and don’t bother to look in the mirror. She also offers up the quaint tidbit that she “people who have told me they never donated money to a cause before”, therefore letting all the readers know she is acquainted with some pretty selfish individuals. Thank you for letting everyone else know your friends are just a little bit “better” than the rest of us.

Fuzzy in blue – Photo of the Day #37

January 18th, 2010 • chatter
Tags: nikon, nikon d90, photo of the day, photography, project 365, project365, signs, wowies

My beautiful girlfriend Jess from tonight’s visit to Wowies. I can’t remember if we were talking about eating too much or Australian Chippendales.

Spring is in swing

January 13th, 2010 • chatter, education
Tags: college, education

For school at least; we’re still in winter weather-wise. I’m taking general education courses this semester, mostly because I feel don’t feel like writing a paper. However, now I have to suffer through Weather & Climate and World Geography surrounded by 18 year olds who still think college is high school + 1. Taking these low level classes will allow me to focus on other things which should be good. I’ve still got to get my old Shadow VLX taken down to the mechanic to get the carbs cleaned and put back on the bike so I can get her running again. I’ve also got to de-rust and de-scale its gas tank, which will probably happen at the same time.

Yesterday we received our new (to us) Mamiya 645 Pro TL medium format camera. We got it for a steal at $500 plus shipping and handling. Each piece priced out ends up costing nearly $1000 so we’re definitely glad to have this. Since it’s medium format and takes 120 film, we haven’t used it yet except with the Polaroid “land camera” film back that came with it which had three exposures left in it. Only one of the three even worked and it came out blurry and darker than expected. We should be getting some film next week so we can test it out. I will also be purchasing some regular 35mm film and possibly some 126 film to go along with a Kodak Instamatic my girlfriend received over our Christmas break. I have no idea what 126 is or what it looks like but it’s not heavily used these days and is fairly expensive, comparatively.

I’m working on different themes for my photography project so if you have any ideas, please let me know via comment or email!

I really don’t want to leave the house tomorrow

January 11th, 2010 • chatter
Tags: chatter, photography

Right now, it’s 30F outside and it’s supposed to get colder throughout the night. Tomorrow morning around 8:30AM, I get to suit up and ride a motorcycle. The last thing I want to do is go outside. Whether that be tonight or tomorrow. This freezing weather — which is far colder than it was last year at the same time — reminds me that I sorely need to buy cold weather gear once summer gets here.

As all of my recent photo posts show, I’m still working on Project 365 and will spend the rest of the month taking random photographs. However, once February starts, I will be doing specific photography techniques each month, depending on ability to actually do them (e.g. I can’t do a promo shoot with a lot of set lighting as I don’t have any). I have not decided on what I will do first, I still have a few weeks to figure that out. I’m itching to get my old pre-AI Nikkor-S 50mm f/2 lens AI converted so I can use it on my D90. I would love to get some new filters and shoot an entire month using them, like a whole month of shots with neutral density filters or something like that. I’ll also try and figure out how to incorporate film into this although, doing it everyday will be impossible simply due to cost. I’m very open to suggestions from readers.

Within the next week or so, we should be receiving our newest toy: Mamiya 645 ProTL medium format camera. I’ve never shot medium format and am frankly intimidated by the thought of it. It’s not so much the shooting I’m worried about, it’s the results. I’ve got to find out if our local guy does medium format or not, or if Total Chrome in Davie does. I just hope we don’t have to ship this stuff off somewhere like Chrome Digital in San Diego, the wait would be hardly bearable.

It’s freezing in our apartment, as I won’t turn on the heater because it smells like it’s on fire, so I need to go bundle up to get in bed and be ready for school tomorrow!

So, Nexus One or not?

January 6th, 2010 • chatter, phones
Tags: google, journalism, nexus one, t-mobile, technology

Yesterday, Google announced their first foray into direct sales of a phone running their Android OS. Most tech bloggers and readers weren’t surprised by any of it as it had all been leaked out before. There’s a few reviews out there, which make interesting observations based on two key things about the device:

What I find more important than the reviews themselves are the slowly coming negative comments about a device that, up until roughly Christmas time, no one outside of Google had ever touched. These comments are coming out from various tech bloggers and their disappointment with the device and then squarely blaming ol’ Goog without looking at themselves directly. Reading sites such as Engadget, Gizmodo, TechCrunch, CrunchGear (the illiterate son of TechCrunch), and countless others during the months of November and December showed nothing but admiration and idolization for the device, all without as much as a peep about it from Google officially. They too know that all the higher ups at Google loved all the free press and speculation, even if the device that was to be released was the worst phone released in recent memory. All of this then makes it difficult to get a clear draw on the phone itself without combing all the reviews that are currently up, most of which are still excited about the device but realize its flaws. Of course, one still has to rule out those out liers which either completely lambaste the phone or purport it to be the iPhone’s death knell — I read one such review just about an hour or two ago from one of the aforementioned sites, whose big shot owner lauded the phone and said it was the best phone on the market to date.

If I were to look at reviews alone, I’d be fairly convinced that no one has a clear idea if the phone is worth a purchase or not, but they do know that it’s a very nice phone with some very nice capabilities. I came across a worthwhile price breakdown of current smartphones on the market. While I think the “average” plan of 1000 minutes is a bit high personally, it’s probably a lot more average than I care to think. The whole top 70% of the infographic is what most people care about but I’m very interested in the total cost of ownership over two years. Then I came across the following price breakdown for current T-Mobile customers as well as new customers. I took this and compared it to Ben Ferguson’s TCO breakdown over two years with only a data plan.

I’m going to guess that a lot of people aren’t going to pick up on this but the plan that Google wrangles you into with T-Mobile is $20 more expensive than the Even More PLUS plan with the same amount of minutes. That’s a very sly move, Google. I’m not concerned about how much profit they’ll make off of these walled plans but it does make me wonder why new customers get hit with a $20 fee every month for an already set T-Mobile plan. I can say that it’s a pretty slick move on both parts; I wonder what kind of Nexus One premium Verizon customers will get to enjoy in the next month or two when it’s released on the Big Red network.

With my Sidekick LX ailing pretty heavily these days, the Nexus One is looking like an upstanding option. As usual, T-Mobile’s always on the lower end of phone hardware in comparison to Verizon and AT&T, they now have another smartphone to help prop up their sales of Blackberrys. I’ve been considering jumping ship to Verizon for the Droid but I absolutely hate their plans and extortion level early termination fees, and I will be damned if I’m switching to AT&T’s working-not-working network for an iPhone. Will the Nexus One be the phone that helps me stay a customer of the purple T a few more years? We’ll know at the end of the month when I try to order one.

Winter, you’re right on time

January 4th, 2010 • chatter, photography
Tags: cameras, chatter, cold, photography, south florida, weather, winter

With the new year comes cold weather for us in South Florida, although it typically starts right around Christmas. Unlike our northern brethren, it only lasts for perhaps 2 months out of the whole year and it looks like 2010 will be following the same routine. I was outside last night and it was a chilly 45F with a ~6MPH NNW wind, that’s very chilly when wearing shorts. It’s going to be like this until roughly March when spring break starts, so I’m eagerly looking forward to March this year.

Unlike many people, I haven’t made any resolutions because I don’t believe in making some future goal I can’t attain, or will be simply uninterested in attaining. This is something I’ve long believed in and find it much more realistic to simply make periodic goals that are both easily manageable and easily attainable. A few of my goals from last year hold over to this year:

maintain a healthy weight

continue academic excellence

maintain professional work environment and demeanor

Some new additions for this year are things I’m very excited about:

Photography project 365

Shoot more 35mm film

Regimented motorcycle maintenance

Build a multi-account savings nest egg

Read more books during down time from school

Some of these I’ve already started doing (project 365, savings) and others will take a little work on my part (books, maintenance). I’m very excited about things photography-related. I’m starting a 365 day project of taking at least one picture a day for the whole year, an idea I got from toomanytribbles whose taken some of the best amateur photographs I’ve seen all year. Her portfolio really grew from January 2009 to December 2009 in terms of quality. My girlfriend and I are also going to work on shooting more film throughout the year. My goal is at least 2 rolls a month, which is extremely attainable given current film costs associated with the film and processing it. Shooting film is going to help us with our digital work immensely in that it definitely helps us understand and associate different settings and their uses to their digital counterparts.

My film work was never great, but never terrible either. It was definitely very mediocre and middle of the road, with a few lucky shots here and there. I’m not sure what cameras she’s going to use to shoot but I’m definitely going to work with my growing cadre of cameras:

Minolta X700

Yashica 230AF

Yashica Electro 35 GSN

Canon AE-1 Program

I’ve had the Minolta for almost 10 years now but it sat dormant for the last 5 years and I just cranked out its first roll of film last month. It needs a bit of an overhaul, as does the Canon. I have not shot either Yashica yet due to not having any batteries or film; the Yashica Electro 35 GSN actually requires a battery adapter to use modern batteries, which I just received on Thursday of last week. I will be buying film for both (cheap Fuji X-tra Superia 400) to see if I need a diopter or if either of them need servicing before heavy use. So far, I adore using the Canon AE-1 Program over my old Minolta. The two bodies aren’t separated by much development time in years but during that time in the late 1970s until the mid 1980s, everything changed almost every day. I love the ergonomics of the Canon over the Minolta, the Minolta has a much clearer matte split-ring focus viewfinder while the Canon’s viewfinder is brighter while sacrificing clarity (requiring a -1 diopter, something I don’t need on the Minolta), the film advance lever on the Canon is more intelligently placed than the Minolta’s (that’s what about 7 years in ergonomic design gives you), the Minolta has better top controls while the Canon is dead simple to literally point and shoot. I’ve heard stories that the Minolta SRT-101 is on par with the AE1P but since I already have a Minolta, I’m not sure if I’ll dive into another one that’s almost identical.

I’m dying to try the Yashicas since they’re from two very different eras, separated by roughly 30 years of development. Not to mention one is a rangefinder (Electro 35) while the other is an early 1990s CPU-controlled auto-focus beast (230AF). Experimenting with this various equipment exposes us to a lot of what went into the development of our Nikon DSLRs we both carry around and helps us understand why some people still prefer film over digital or vice versa. I’m in the middle of that camp. I love digital’s all-you-can-eat abilities and the wide range of functionality that it presents the user however I do prefer film overall. But that’s another story in itself. In fact, most of what I just wrote could have been another post!

2010 is going to be another great year for me, I hope it is for you as well. I’m going back to work!

Infographic for how pointless TSA is

December 30th, 2009 • chatter
Tags: photo of the day, security, tsa

This is a graphic depicting the real odds of an air-based terrorist attack based on historical data, accurate to September 2009. Boy, all this money, time, and energy pumped into TSA surely seems like nothing but a waste given the actual odds of another panty-bomber or worse, a bra-bomber or a girdle-bomber. Maybe we can start dumping more money into TSA to protect AMTRAK as well, they badly need the money and exposure.

I like how this displays that we have a better chance of going to Neptune twice than have a single airplane as an attack vector. We can’t even get to Neptune to begin with, which makes it that much more funny.