My First DSLR

I did it. I ordered a digital SLR camera. Namely a Nikon D60 with 8-55 VR and 55-200 VR lenses. I'm also going to pick up a UV filter and a memory card. I'll think about getting a new bag and a spare battery. FSM help me if I just use it as a point and shoot all the time. I really want to get into more interesting types of photography and play around with things like HDR and tilt shift. Most of all, I want to take better pictures. I understand that the camera can play a small role in that, but it can certainly help. I figure that I'll start off with an actual "my first SRL" type of camera rather than jumping into something that's more towards the professional end of the spectrum.

My next thought is how am I going to use this when travelling - do I store it in a backpack? A camera bag that looks like a backpack? I think that a lot of cameras bags are the over-the-shoulder type of bag so you can easily get to your stuff, but I find that type of bag ends up hurting me. We're coming up to a trip so I can try it out there. I'll just have to do some test runs with it first.

Now I just have to wait for the camera parts to come into the store. There is only one camera body left in all the henry's in the city. The closest 8-55 VR lens is in Brampton... I don't expect to have my new toy until Jan. 10th. I want it now, but what can you do. That's what I get for buying / ordering it 3 hours before the sale ends.

NEW TOY!!!! :-D

Distributed blogging

Something that I've always wanted to be able to do when traveling is to blog as you go. However, that usually means you're connected to the internet for the whole time you want to read / write. I wanted an "offline" blog that I could sync a handheld computer at a coffee shop (in the amount of time it took to buy a coffee) and then continue on my way. Perhaps to read any comments at the hotel that night. Perhaps compose a post while waiting for a leg of a flight. It's just inconvenient and expensive to have to pay by the minute to be able to write blog posts and read comments.

Ryan pointed out jekyll as a way using git to generate a static blog. That way you could write posts locally, and sync them to a service / web server that would publish them. Now that's a cool idea.

The place where it breaks down in my head is when you want some give and take on a blog - comments. For anyone leaving comments they are not going to have an account with my source control server. People are going to want to post a comment and see instant feedback. That can be done with software fine - that's how this blog works. To try and keep the garbage out (comment spam), you'll have to require some form of logic on the server to stop that.

Comments are one of my favourite things about blogging, so I wouldn't want to move to software that doesn't support that most basic of needs. I don't really want to totally re-invent the wheel and re-implement all blog software because, frankly, I'm much too lazy for that. So I see the issue not as "how do I write better blog software" but as "how do I swap out the backend of existing blog software to meet my needs". Now, swapping out a backend that was designed for db and changing it to a flat file is probably way harder that it would be in theory.

Changing a backend for existing cots products doesn't fit the do the simplest thing that could possibly work, but redoing all the front end work and anti spam measures doesn't either. I'll have to think about this one some more.

Are you pregnant?

We've been in our house for more than a year and we've been married for more than 4 months. That means when ever we're around family or friends one of the questions that always seems to be asked is "is Laura pregnant?" because apparently that's the next logical step. It feels like the question is pretty much guaranteed every outing at this point. If Laura's not drinking alcohol? Then it doesn't matter what we answer, we just get a "riiiiight" followed by a wink.

So frustrating.

*grumble*

I've got an airport extreme because I wanted wireless N, things to "just work", and to pay too much for a router. Well, those were Andrew's words.

Anyways, sometimes something goes wrong with the internet connection, so the easiest way to fix it is to remotely reboot the router. Everything comes back and I can surf the web again. Also need to do that when new firmware comes out. What happens? The network drive stops working. It looks mounted, but when I try and access it, it just spins saying "Connecting...". I can't unmount / eject it either because it says it's busy. I'm tried rebooting various parts of the system - my computer, the router, the network drive. Nothing worked. So I turned off the whole shabang. Waited while power drained from all the devices, then turned it all back on.

It works. For now. Every time they seem to push out a new update, they either get networking working or break it - alternatively. It can be pretty frustrating. Apple's "It Just Works" feels like a lie... they should change it to "it works most of the time".

Internet Fridge

One thing that I always looked on with scorn was kitchen appliances that are "connected to the internet". I always thought that was the dumbest thing. Why would anyone want their fridge connected to the 'net? It didn't make sense to me until this week when we were at the grocery store.

What foods had we written on the board on the fridge? How much milk was left in the fridge? It became guesswork. RFID chipped food containers so the fridge could provide you an "inventory". Tablet connected "white board" that you could sync / read from a mobile device. There would be less guesswork, less transcribing of lists to other lists, less annoying stuff. Now I get it.

The next thing that I'd love to have for grocery shopping? In store pickup. Do some ordering online, say what time (aprox) you'll be there, pull up and have them load the car. Done. The amount of time we spend wondering around the store looking for things or waiting in line would be ours again. That's probably 1-2 hours per week. I can't really see it happening in the short term, but that would be so good.

Waltzing Blackflies

One thing that I always liked on tv when I was smaller was the Log Driver's Waltz. Much later came Blackfly, which is also a classic. Catchy, lots of interesting things to watch, just enjoyable.

It's a bit funny that the nfb is selling the shorts on dvd for 15 $... the clips are you youtube of course if you look on the official site in flash: Blackfly and Log Driver's Waltz. I just watched both sets and now I have a mix of the songs in my head...

For he goes birling down a-down the white water
That's where the log driver learns to step lightly
In North On-tar-i-o-i-o, in North On-tar-i-o

Film is cheap

For a while I've been saying "film is cheap, the moment is expensive" as a way to say "shoot lots of pictures". This does even really make any sense anymore as there is no film. I saw an updated version of that expression where they said "ones and zeros are free". I don't really agree with this one. There is always a cost. A cost of going through them to decide if you want to keep them, of storing the photos, of doing any processing the photos, tagging, backup, etc. The cost of each digital picture is very, very low, but it is a non-zero value. Like everything in life, there is always a cost.

Body & Soul & Dick

I remember an episode of 3rd Rock from the Sun where Dick gives an eulogy about someone that everyone hates (edit: everyone hates the guy that died, not the speech). I remember it as being such a beautiful speech. Every once and a while I look around on the intertubes for what episode it was. Tonight I was able to figure it out. Apparently it was called "Body & Soul & Dick" and was Episode #8 (internal production code 113).

For the life of me, I can't find anywhere that eulogy appears. The best that I've come is forum posts asking the same question in 2002 and pointing to a currently broken website that looks like it was last updated in 2001. *sigh* I don't actually want to buy that series just to find that 1 minute. Perhaps I'll rent it.

Just a note: if you can't think of the word "eulogy", can you imagine how hard it was for me to figure out the by just using words like "funeral" "3rd rock from the sun" and "dick". Sometimes the interweb is not a forgiving place when you're unable to come up with the right keywords. :-(

How to take better pictures

I love photos, but I'm still not happy with what I produce. I'd like to think that it's something wrong with the camera, but I know better than that. If you ever want to see what other people can do with your camera, just take a look on flickr for some examples. Here are the ones using the same camera as us - a sony cyber-shot DSC-P73.

A couple of years ago I had "figured it out" for what I was doing wrong with sunset pictures and how to fix it. I now think that I was wrong and it has more to do with the white balance rather than anything else. Here's one page that explains white balance pretty well.

Another site that I've been spending a lot of time reading is one with tons of tips on... well, everything. There is a how to photograph section as well as portrait photography tips section. Pretty useful and interesting, but be warned - I've lost like 1/2 day or more reading that site. General tips are as follows:
1) get low to your subject if they're kids / pets / animals
2) rule of thirds
3) when shooting people / animals, use the burst / rapid fire mode because the 3rd picture might be the best
4) experiment and take your camera everywhere - but still put it down and be a person
5) plan ahead if possible and be prepared

One thing that I have a lot of trouble is wrapping my head about the concept of aperture and quotes like "Set a small aperture (ie a larger number) to increase the depth of field". Wait, set a small number to get a big number? Huh? I think that I understand - because the aperture is a expressed as a function of the f stop over the number. Bigger the number on the bottom - the smaller the fraction becomes - the smaller the hole.

Ya, I've probably got that totally wrong. Oie. I just get confused when big equals small which changes depth. Ah well. I'll have to keep looking at it until I figure it out.

Love our new stove

It may sound weird, but I absolutely love our new stove. I wanted a gas stove because I had enjoyed cooking with one when in high school, but I couldn't never point to an exact reason. The sales people will tell you things like "instant on" and "super control", but that just sounds like a crock to me (even if they are right). Not counting how it's got a probe that checks the internal temp of food when you cook it and turns off the oven at the right time that makes the perfect roast, why do I like it?

It's hot. Yes, that sounds dumb, but for searing I was always frustrated with a electric stove. I wasn't able to sear food and it would always seem to turn out with a blah meal. Now I can keep the pan pretty hot for pan searing of fish or what-not (mmm... love the what-not). I just love it so much... I'm so glad that I've got gas. (You don't hear me express that thought much.) ;-)