The Megapixel Myth

Now I’m not saying I know a damned thing about photography. I know what aperture does to your depth of field, I know why high speed film is grainy (even when it’s high speed digital “film”) and I know why a fast 1200mm lens makes an excellent christmas gift, but that’s mostly about technology, not photography. The kids in Born Into Brothels didn’t know any of that stuff and they shot more powerful photos with dollar store 35mm point and clicks than I will likely ever manage with cameras far more spiffy than I will ever buy. Photography is about taking the things that you see in the world and capturing them so that other people (including future instances of yourself) can see them the same way you did. In a sense this is, of course, impossible for a host of reasons but basically you take a photo so that later you can look at the photo and go, oh yeah, remember that?

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Please No Shopping Carts Inside The Restaurant

For those who, according to the BS pop-psych uncalibrated self-tests they had everyone do in 1987, are “visual learners,” or “greens,” or “type IIIs,” or “QNTZs,” or “hippies,” I have finally put something in my flickr account, and provided suitable linkage herefrom. May I present then, without further pomp or ado,

Photos That Please Me – a photoset on Flickr

I believe I was the photographer on every one in which I am not a subject, so hefty derivative cheques come hither. It should be noted that this reexamination of old pictures was greatly facilitated by Picasa2, which you should all go download.

Political Hermitage

I am an avid political junkie, and I don’t think it will surprise any friends of mine who read this blog to know it. On the other hand, to look at this blog, or indeed it’s former incarnations, a Martian would have little cause to suspect as much, since I don’t frequently comment on it. If this seems a puzzling contradiction to you, let me offer a third point which I think serves to unify the others quite nicely: I don’t want to be a shrill, hyperbolic, apologist sack of regurgitated talking points.

That last “value” (which has become, most unfortunately, in the current Canadian political discourse of all parties, a sort of empty pronoun for “policy” or “soundbite” or “sentence.” A tax cut is not a value. “Stephen Harper is the devil” is not a value either. Values inform policy, and direct it, but they are not the same thing.) makes political discussions difficult because the truth is that most people who talk about politics, even though they agree with me that that is a horrible thing to become and certainly they would never descend to that, become shrill, hyperbolic, apologist sacks of regurgitated talking points.
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Techno-Bumpkin Convergence

Because I seem to know an awful lot of cross-stichers, and because I frequently taunt them with accusations of being extremely slow versions of a CRT[?], I offer this linkage to express my undying love for the work they do, and appreciation for the patience they demonstrate in the face of my withering criticism:

Cross Stitch Pattern Generator That (Mostly) Doesn’t Suck

One thing it probably can’t do well, with any random image you decide to throw at it, is decide on how to blend the thing into the background colour of your fabric, so I’m guessing the best results can be had by doing that yourself ahead of time in photoshop or some-such.

I made a gollum, because it was one of the only small gifs I had lying around. But then I looked around a little more and made a duck as well. I predict stitchers won’t like the duck though. There’s rather a lot of “light beige.”

Cognitive Science Lesson #27 – Phrase Structure

A man meandered down the street
his terrier bounding ‘neath his feet
when suddenly he came to meet
a boy

The boy had followed him from mass
wherein his priest had let him pass
the tests for priesthood awfully fast
and frocked him

The priest was quite a modern sort
he went to movies, followed sport
and loved that band, The rolling snort–
urr, Stones, that is

The Stones were calming down it seems,
they took up yoga, logged their dreams,
their art class used up reams and reams
(of paper)

Their teacher was a careful man
for everything he had a plan
like aprons for to save their pants
and shirts

But the lawyer down the hall was drunk
and of booze consequently stunk
hurled every insult ever thunk
or thinked, that is

So despised was the bum
that when his monthly cheque would come
the firm withheld a tidy sum
for “grievances”

Which is all just an immense aside,
I’ll try to get this knot untied
and cease to furthermore misguide
(besides which I am quite red-eyed)
some closure now I must provide,
(and please before you’re wont to chide
I mean it not as some bromide)
my purpose here is quite cockeyed,
my story a perverse joyride
(and this is where the reader sighed,
and rightly, he was quite shanghaied)
the characters here writ to elide
the tale of a dog, but one which I’d
describe as follows:

The dog the man the boy the priest the band the teacher the lawyer the firm docked mocked smocked rocked frocked stalked walked.

—

And that’s what they meant in Linguistics when they said humans can’t understand deeply nested, recursive sentences. That feeling you get when reading the final line, where your brain just gives up trying to put it together into a meaningful sentence, even though you know what the words mean, and even who the people are? That’s how a computer feels when it crashes. End of lesson.

© Johnathan Nightingale, 2005

How to fix Hollywood

If you haven’t noticed lately, Hollywood has sort of started to suck. There are a variety of situational explanations proferred, notably:

  1. …that Hollywood has lost its willingness to take risks, opting for mediocre formulaics instead of boom-or-bust definitive works
  2. …that Hollywood has lost touch with the new generation that expect their media to fit within a broader context: downloadable, modifiable, and with an online community built up around it
  3. …that Hollywood has become irrelevant in the face of a globally connected media market, which sees foreign films on small budgets competing more evenly for exposure and hype

Personally, I would suggest that #1 above hits closest to the mark but to put it more succinctly – Hollywood needs to produce stuff that doesn’t suck. In that vein, then, I have done my part to help it along (towards rebirth or ruin I leave as an exercise for the reader).

The Best Movie Ever Made…
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How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Market

Maybe it’s the Chianti talking, but I’ve got something to say about investing: get your plan sorted out because I have exactly zero interest in paying for your retirement. Every day you decide not to bother, or say you’ll think about that in a few years, or complain that other things are more pressing, is a day you’re leeching off my taxes, my CPP, my hard work.

And the worst part is: it’s not hard to be smarter than almost everyone. You can sit down in an hour and get yourself set up to do better than top-dollar money managers.

All you have to do, and it’s a tough pill, is get used to the idea that it’s not very exciting you don’t get to brag about it.

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