The Aptly Named, Sam's Blog

I borrowed a rangefinder camera from a friend a couple of weeks ago. The camera is a Canonet QL17 G-III. I've gone through one roll on it and it's been fun to use so far. I had been using SLR cameras until now and the rangefinder is quite different in operation. The major difference being that the image viewed through the viewfinder is not the same as the one that is seen by the lens. In an SLR you see through the lens, so it's more of a WYSIWYG interface. Here are some of my impressions with using this camera.

• It's a little bizzare to see the lens through the viewfinder, but I got over that pretty soon.
• It is well known that rangefinders are quiet because they don't have a moving mirror. Even so, I was surprised by the quietness of the mechanism.
• The shutter priority operation threw me off for a while because I'm used to shooting with aperture priority. It makes me think in terms of time, while I'm used to thinking in terms of depth of field, or rather not thinking much in terms of either by setting the parameters once and not messing with it unless really needed.

The hardest thing to do was the focusing. The viewfinder has a very small area to check the focus accurately, and its not something I could manage to do quickly. I found myself pre-focusing most of the time by reading the distance marking on the lens. So, I used the viewfinder only for framing, just before taking the picture. I like the speed of such operation, but have been reluctant to do pre-focusing before now. This camera kinda forced it upon me and I'll try to do it more often. I think it is a good skill to have for street photography, especially when using a manual focus mechanism. There is usually no time to focus.

It's been raining again for the last week, so I haven't had any chance to shoot more with this camera. Hopefully things will clear up next week!

I like reading, but unfortunately, I don't get much time to read for pleasure these days. Adding to that sorry state of affairs is the fact that I'm a slow reader. When I do read nowadays, it is more of non-fiction. On those rare occasions that I do read fiction, I love a good short story.

Apart from being concise, short stories stay focused and leave a lot to the imagination. They appeal to the minimalist in me. They build around a key idea or theme and my favorite kind have a twist or climax at the very end. An extreme and wonderful example is Ernest Hemmingway's six word story: "For sale: Baby shoes. Never used".

Here are some short stories that I came across on the internet in recent times. I think they are marvelous and recommend them to you, my imaginary readers. One for each of you three :-D

• The Nine Billion Names of God by Arthur C. Clarke
• The Last Question by Isaac Asimov
• Harrison Bergeron by Kurt Vonnegut Jr.

If you have a short story recommendation, leave a comment! :-)

Meet Liz. She likes to travel. When she isn't traveling, she might be in Portland or Nepal. Right now she is in Asia where she is on assignment from Village Focus International. Through her words and photography she will bring to us a taste of the life in Cambodia as she documents the grassroots development efforts of village folk. She will put nuggets of it on her professional blog.

Her personal blog is Galactic Traveler. There you can read her story and experiences over the years. Many of the posts tell interesting stories about her time in Afghanistan working for the UN for the last two years. See the one about the changes in Afghan society, the one about the bombing outside her office, or the one about Kabul, which has a really cool photo.

She has a wonderful spirit of adventure and discovery, coupled with courage, resolve and that elusive human quality that makes instant friends of strangers. As one of those erstwhile strangers, I wish her the very best in her endeavours.

http://video.google.com/googleplayer.swf?docId=845880604433234913&hl=en
An animation time-lapse movie of people coming into Stumptown Cafe in downtown Portland. I took a bunch of photos with the camera on the table and made a movie out of it. I like the effect but it’s mostly just an experimental first attempt.

Camera: Nikon D70s. Software: iMovie.

I got a promotional email from Netflix today. They would like me to forward an offer of a free month of service to my friends and family. A few months ago I would have sent it out to some people, but Netflix's service has gotten progressively worse in recent times. I'll continue to be a subscriber for a while to see how it goes, but there is no way that I'm recommending it to others at this time.

Wear them horizontally as shown in the picture. The bass sounds much better. They are more prone to slip out when used that way, but if you're not moving too much (just sitting, walking) they will be alright. I've been using them like that for months. It has come up in conversations a couple of times so I thought I'd blog it and share. Maybe it's already well known.

The other day, at the eleventh hour, I learnt that a nearby theater will be playing Stanley Kubrick's A Clockwork Orange. It is based on Anthony Burgess' book of the same name. It is one of my favorite movies and I had never seen it in a theater. So, off I went for a dose of the ultraviolence.

The theater manager informed us that it was the largest turnout in their current series of classic films. The print was an original one, scratches and all. There was even a bit of trouble with it towards the end, which caused a pause in the show. That brought on comments, the likes of which are only heard when the audience comprises fans of a cult classic.

There are many cool things about this movie. The dialogues are peppered with Nadsat, which Burgess invented. Some things made sense only on repeat viewing. That is probably one of the hallmarks of a cult movie, I guess. The movie is beautiful to look at, with lovely locations and colorful costumes. The performances are superb. But the best part, in my opinion, is the music. Beethoven's 9th Symphony forms a part of the story and is partially heard in Wendy Carlos' electronic rendition.

See it. Again.

I don’t have a radio. On many occasions I’ve heard people say good things about NPR and so recently I’ve been listening to some of the podcasts offered by them. They are excellent programs and I thought I’d recommend a couple to anyone interested in listening in.

The first is All Songs Considered. It is hosted by Bob Boilen (sometimes in conversation with guests) and features newly available music from various artists. The selection is eclectic and I’ve found some great new artists from listening to the show.

The second is Science Friday. It is hosted by Ira Flatow. He discusses various current issues in science with guests who are prominent members of the scientific community. The conversations are interesting and introduce me to a larger scientific domain than what I’m used to hearing about in the computer science area.

They are both weekly shows, so it’s not that hard to keep up. Check them out!

One of my photos created using the Holgafy technique described here has been selected amongst six photos as a finalist in the current contest. Thanks Kent! You can cast your vote for the best photo ;-)

Kent publishes a video and audio podcast of interesting Photoshop techniques and tutorials every week. It's quality stuff and I recommend checking it out at that site after casting your vote.

My cousin sent me some scans of old photos. She is the little one in the pictures. These are from 1986/7 and were taken at our house in New Delhi. We all used to live as a joint family, ten to fifteen people spanning three generations in one house. Anyway, the photos brought back memories and I wrote about each one of them on flickr. See the photoset.

Photo mosaic made with fd’s Flickr Toys.

"The Search" by John Battelle is about the impact that search technology is having and will have on our culture. "Search" is defined quite broadly and includes the coming realm of ubiquitous computing. Google is a major focus of the book, and its influence and growth surely warrant that focus.

What motivated me to read this book was the concept of the "Database of Intentions". It refers to the ability of an ubiquitous search technology to extract the intention of one or more of its users by analyzing their interactions with a plethora of devices. That is absolutely fascinating and will be quite something when it is realized. Needless to say, it will be the Oracle of the information age. It is an update on the idea of the Memex described by Vannevar Bush in "As We May Think", which is cited in the book. A meta-Memex.

A good portion of the book, however, is devoted to the history of search technology and industry. That is quite interesting in and of itself as I like to read about such things. There are several anecdotes about the people and companies that played a part in these nascent times. I found it to be too detailed in some places, but the book is written such that one could easily skip those parts if one finds them too dull. I didn't.

The epilogue highlights that we remember people from history because they became immortal through records. In the future, everyone will be immortal because everything will be recorded. This blog is being recorded. All of it will add to the noise and one will have to shout or be referenced a lot to be seen clearly. Will you shout? What will you say? I think you should write a book while they are still in vogue ;-)

This has been a watershed year for my photography. I’ve always had a casual interest in it, but this year I invested time and money into practicing it. The time came from shunning TV. I don’t miss it. I recommend it. The money required was less than what would have been necessary in a pre-digital age. That made it affordable. flickr.com has been a great influence as it has provided me with a community with whom to share, discuss, and enjoy photography. Thanks to all of them! I’ve added two photos below that I liked a lot. You can click on them to see larger versions on flickr.

I deliberately chose one B&W and one color photo. I like working with both. The B&W shot is film and the colored one is digital. Interestingly, both were very quick shots, about ten seconds from identifying to clicking. Both were taken on a street, first one in Portland and the second one in Seattle. I like taking pictures on the street and that is where I focus my efforts, even though these photos don't present the flavor of street photography that I like. In that regard, I particularly admire the work of Garry Winogrand.

I recently read "On Intelligence" by Jeff Hawkins. The book is about the author's efforts to understand the human brain's mechanism for intelligence and to apply it to machines. He presents a model of intelligence called the memory-prediction framework.

This was perhaps the first time I had read a somewhat detailed analysis of the possible mechanism that drives human intelligence. Some concepts that I found especially interesting were that of invariant and hierarchical memory. Also, the idea that the brain predicts all actions before they are executed was fascinating. If the subject interests you, I highly recommend it. It is quite readable.

Unfortunately, after all these days I have returned to find that blogger is lacking in features. On the other hand, wordpress.com has launched recently and that is looking pretty cool. So, I’m moving to samgrover.wordpress.com. Maybe I’ll be back or move somewhere else another day, leaving trails in cyberspace as time goes on.

Just moved here from samgrover.blogspot.com. Time to start afresh. Technorati Profile

I started this blog a while back and then stopped posting about fifteen months ago. Now I’m reviving it and will post stuff here occasionally. The feed is available through the new standard feed icon shown in the sidebar.

Exactly what the world needs, another WMD. How fast can you say dual use?

Congratulations to everyone involved in the project and thanks for a great web resource.
Press Release
Fund them!

Google Doodles and holiday logos are the transformed Google logo to represent a special day or event. Currently they are running doodles showing the 2004 Summer Olympics. I recently noticed that they now have a mini version of the current doodle on the search results page too. That’s great because I use the search box on Firefox or Safari for my searches and was missing out on the doodles.

Japan’s ISAS has successfully deployed (1, 2) two solar sails for a first in space endeavors. Congratulations to all involved!