Lighting Experiment

IMG_7931, a photo by ToneDuff on Flickr.

This was a shot done to test the lighting kit I bought on eBay. That or I was just messing around and happened onto this awsome shot. You choose.

GeoTrax Mega Magic

I'm getting back into video and had a go at editing with iMovie. Here are the results.

Waterfall 101

This is not going to turn into a photography blog but I was in the Blue Mountains on the weekend with all my camera gear (it's just easier to take it all) and with limited time thought I would try my hand at a waterfall.

So ok, I'm at the top not at the bottom, first mistake. 2nd was no tripod (no time to go fetch it, toddler falling asleep). 3rd was no ND filter so I had to make do with a small aperture of F22 (that's the right word small?) and a slow ISO of 100 which managed to push the exposure out to 1.6s.

I've seen examples where the aim is for 30s exposure but you definitely need the ND filter for that (and usually the super bad ND400).  So this was my quick attempt at dreamy water. I think for hand held, balanced on a railing at 1.6s it turned out not too bad.

A little bit of post processing in Aperture to clean it up and whalla. All this with the poorly reviewed 20mm F2.8 lens!

I promise, next time, I will make the effort, go down the bottom and do a post card worth waterfall!

Photo Nut

Hey blogosphereans,

I'm getting way to into photography, and I don't mean by simply owning an SLR. No, I now have a small kit of 2nd hand studio equipment. My motivation was simply to acquire a light tent to photograph my wife's craft for her craft blog. Silly me happened upon someone on eBay selling not only a light tent but also two lights a stand and two umbrellas for a bargin price. I couldn't pass it up.

Of course now that I have this kit I need to learn how to use it, but at least I have some semi willing models at home to experiment with!

My Story

1

A long time ago, I had a creative urge to write a story. Simple concept sure, many people have done it but I had little idea on what to write about nor how to go about it. I had great ideas having just read a book too many of the Russian greats but great ideas don't amount to much if you can't articulate your thoughts onto the written page.

I also had ego on my side. Nary a written has gotten by without it perhaps, but not being a writing I wasn't sure this was enough. Sure, my ego told me, anyone could write a book and you are surely greater than anyone so you must be able to write a book. Infallible logic if you ask me.

Next perhaps was the tools. Gone are the days a budding writer would have nothing but a pencil and paper, or perhaps an ancient type writer to slow down their thoughts. In the modern age we have computers and they allow the creative process to plough ahead at a speed greater than any one can think.

Of course that leads to anther problem one that I hadn't considered. If one tries to sit down at a computer and merely type what comes to his mind, I believe you will end up with a good deal of nothing. Gibberish you might say, as all you would be recording is your internal monologue and I can say there's a reason it's internal.

No one really wants to hear what goes on inside your head. Nor my head for that matter.

So far I have an idea, ego and the tools with which to create a great novel but I still had no idea about what to write. Sure, technically, anyone can write a book. Plenty of people do and I'm sure there's many an author who's written a single book, ticked it off their list and been happy to move on. Was that what I was trying to do here?

Surely there's more to writing a book than a case of stroking the ego. Really, why was I even trying to do this? I couldn't answer that question at the time so I merely ignored it and carried on with the project.

I would indeed get flashes of inspiration that led me to believe that it could be really that easy. I would start writing and get a few paragraphs in and think, but now what. How did one get from that flash of an idea to something much greater, a good story?

Was I kidding myself, I mean really? I guess to write a book you have to have some innate ability to tell a story. To make stuff up to draw people in. The guts of the story should just leap from the page right?

So why were the classes on writing, teaching people how to write? Was it because they couldn't articulate, or was it because my assumption that anyone could write was actually quite flawed?

I have to take a minute here to explain myself. I have long believed that anyone is capable of anything given the right stimulus and that innate ability at something just means that less stimulus is required. What stimulus is available determines what we make of ourselves. I have also long believed that am an example of that theory, believing that I could certainly pull off any human endeavour if I were given sufficient stimulus. Sounds easy right? Or perhaps ridiculous?

The question that I came to realize was two. Firstly, I came to realize that I was certainly naive about people. If you reword stimulation as motivation then yes surely you can motivate people to do just about anything. I guess on one hand you could hold a gun to someones head and tell them to write a book. Sure they will give it a go but that doesn't mean that it will be a great book or even a book that you could understand and take something away from. So I had to conclude that no, motivation wasn't sufficient to achieving your life's ambitions.

The second thing I came to realize was that I wasn't the perfect example of this theory. Certainly I could pull of a great many things but some things continued to elude me and I had to conclude that it wasn't always a lack of motivation that was the restriction.

So back to  the story of the book. Given that I had now concluded that I wasn't lacking in motivation or that I didn't have the innate ability, I had to think hard about whether I was understanding myself properly.

Why did I want to write this book? Just to prove that I could? To understand my creative side better? Or to prove to myself that I was capable of anything I had motivation to pull off and to prove to myself that my theory about people is true, that anyone can achieve anything given sufficient motivation?

So here I am thinking about writing a book to prove myself right on a theory that the world is wholly ignorant of (though perhaps it's already been done before) and which perhaps will have not benefit to anyone?

Again you ask, why bother?

Let me tell you a story then and perhaps you will understand my source of motivation. Well I was a much smaller person attending primary school, I had no less ego than I have today. I was scholastically lazy compared to my school mates and thus was variously bored at the whole process. During this time, I was set a creative writing assignment which I duly competed. After the teacher had marked all of the classes entries, he announced in front of the whole class that one students work was so good that he wanted to read it in front of the whole class.

Can you imagine? I was bored but not that bored that didn't pay attention at this point. So the teacher read out my assignment, his only comment was that it was incomplete. The story didn't finish but started beautifully.

Are you starting to understand? Here was a story that I had written with no particular purpose other  than to forfil the teachers requirements yet he found it sufficiently good to read to the whole class. I hadn't really thought before then about writing but as you can see it's an idea that has stuck with me ever since.

Later on during high school a similar situation unfolded. During an English assignment in year 10 I wrote something for a creative writing assignment. In this class you had the students that routinely did well and I was certainly not one of those. So you might imagine my surprise when our work was returned to us that the teacher had marked my work above everyone else in the class. Despite my earlier brush with success I hadn't thought about writing much since. This was a reminder that perhaps I did have some innate ability to write and perhaps I had something that some people would making a living from.

OK, enough background. Fast forward to the almost present and you find me attempting to write story after story. What happened?

As you may see, even though my teachers thought I had potential, what ever that may mean, I only ever started a story. I didn't really finish anything. I couldn't create that story arc that so defines the great stories of our time.

Yet the fact that I can now talk about story arcs shows you something of what I've learnt.

The fact that I am indeed not an author also says that I haven't not learn enough.

2

So, if you have managed to get this far then well done. I don't always stay on track and I write off the cuff so I haven't really planned this out but hopefully you will stay along for the journey if you find it interesting enough.

Many things in life we do because we think we should not necessarily because we actual want to. We get married because that is what is expected of us. Not many of us really know what it will be like getting married and perhaps if we did we never would. Similarly we have kids because we are expected too. Perhaps we also know that deep down that we do want kids no matter how horrible other people might make it seem.

I also had things that I did because that was what was expected of me. Take university for instance. Everyone wants to go there right? I would suggest that not many high school aged people actually know what they want to do with their lives. That's understandable, it's a very hard question to answer. How do you decide what to do with your life? What things do you value enough to dedicate your life to? You hear all the time about people who have made some discovery or scientific breakthrough after spending 20 years of the life dedicated to it. At high school, what student is passionate about something enough to want to dedicate their life to it? I can't think of one. Sure you have females who will say that want to be a mother and that will be their life. But really, that's a bit old school. In this day and age, its not enough to say your a house wife and a mother.

So when I was at school I was not really thinking the long term career that people eventually settle in to. I was thinking of the here and now. I wanted to be a musician. I wanted to go to the conservatory of music and study music. That was about the only thing that I was passionate about. As you can probably guess, that is not what happened. I was talked around to going to university which I did. I failed at that. You could say that my heart not was in it. It took me 14 years to get my degree because I didn't really know why I was there. I didn't really like computers. Sure I could understand them but remember that I thought everyone could understand them given the right motivation. Certainly there wasn't a great deal of motivation whilst I was at uni by anyone.

So even after I had flunked out of uni I was still trying to pursue my musical career though this time with a different angle. I would study to be a sound engineer. This at least was a more certain way to earn a living. I enrolled into a college and begin what I thought would be my new career. I met many people with the same goal, trying to make it in the music industry. Yet I also manage to fail at that too. Running out of money isn't the same as flunking out of uni but perhaps you might say that something was missing.

Can you see a pattern here?

I've heard it said that a man is defined by his actions. But how do you define a man who's actions are defined by others? It seems to me that in that sense, society defines the man and man merely goes along with what society expects of him. Those that don't live on the fringe and are shunned. Life is hard for them.

Perhaps you think this is a bit of a cop out. We have free will, I have free will, we should be able to say we are defined by our actions and we are merely being sensible by allowing societies morals to direct us. If we didn't want to live within societ then we would be living in isolation away from all the things that society grants us. Yet, if we disagree with society or perhaps it's implied morals what power do we have to fix things? How do we change the way society thinks about life and the direciton it's leading us in?

Perhaps you could write a book?

I think that's a great answer. We could write a book about all the things that are wrong with society and perhaps people will read it and change their thinking? I don't think the world works like that.

I will elaborate here. Obviously, there's isn't some gigantic committe called social morals or "What you should really do with your life" that creates guildelines for everyone to follow. So how do we feel these directions that are imposed on us by society? How did I feel compelled to do things that I didn't want to do?

That is a hard question to answer but one I think worth looking in to.

When I think about how I am influenced by those around me I find my thinking often goes like this:

1) Imagine what that person will say about your behaviour
2) Change your behaviour to reduce any negative comments your percieve will come your way.

See the issue here? I am modifying my behaviour on what I imagine those around me (or indeed society at large) will say or how they will react to me.

Sure, not everyone will think like this, but perhaps those that wish to fit in and not rock the boat will find themselves thinking along these lines. It's almost a nice little algorithm, refine your behaviour to that wish pleases most people. It could be seen as the opposite of self-serving. If you wanted to imagine society as a sea on which we sink or swim, then this thinking could be seen as simply floating around, trying not to create any waves as we sit calmly in the boat.

Not very exciting and a not very good way of changing society, then again how does one move an ocean?

Yet this is how people think, I'm almost sure of it. At least some people, with certain personality types. Like me.

Is this a bad thing. Does it help you write a book? Would the resulting book be no better than a bunch of platitudes with nothing to challenge anyone. I think we need to dig deeper.

3

When I was growing up, I lived in a house hold with four females and then me and my dad. That's a lot of potential conflict. During times of agitation, my father would play the role of peace keeper. He demonstrated that one solution to conflict was to diffuse the situation. At least that is what I got from it at the time. I don't seem to remember if the conflict was every actually resolved, just that the immediate action taken was to diffuse things and to keep the peace.

My thinking has been based around that though I do now try to resolve the conflict as well as diffuse the tempers. What does that say about me? Again we come back to the opposite of self-serving. A result of this role model was my stance as a pacifist. I don't believe in violence of any sort and abhor people who do. I can't understand people who advocate violence as a means to anything. It only servces to prove who is the most brutal.

I can perhaps draw you to a conclusion we can make here. Those that have role models who solve their conflict with violence will likely have that on their list of coping mechanisms. I'm not about to say that will be their only method but as you can imagine, I don't have it there at all.

So you can perhaps begin to see that , keeping the peace started with my father and my sisters and now I extend it to all my human relationships.

When I got married I was so worried about offending my in-laws that I am sure I came off as rather timid at first. Even to this day I am very respectful of them and wouldn't wish to do anything to offend them despite having been married for a good few years.

Keep the largest number of people happy. It's a good rule but it comes with some limitations.

Yes, before I go on, I'm not a one dimensional creature, nor are you but for now lets just pretend.

So what are the limitations to this keeping the peace mentality?

I guess the biggest one is an inability to leap into the unknown? Nah, that's not right. It's more that you are restrained by the percieved potential offence of those around you. This ends up dictating your behaviour in many situations. There's no pushing the boundries here but instead trying hard not to offend those around you. It makes it hard to be bold and yet sometimes being bold is required.

Canon 85mm f/1.8

I have recently purchased (but yet to recieve) a lens on eBay which I hope will help me take great photos of my kids.

It's an 85mm focal length prime lense with a maximum f-stop of 1.8 which will give fantastically soft backgrounds and allow for very low light shooting.

You can find a review here:

http://www.the-digital-picture.com/reviews/canon-ef-85mm-f-1.8-usm-lens-review.aspx

I really like the extremely narrow depth of field this lens produces. You can see in the picture below that whilst the eyes are perfectly focussed the ears are already showing fuzziness. It works well to draw your attention straight into the eyes. Even the picture above, one eyelash is very sharp whilst the other is fuzzy.

My Bossy Son

I had an interesting experience last week whilst picking up my son (3yo) from daycare. I had collected him and was looking around for his drink bottle. After spotting it, I told him to pick it up. Just at that moment another boy was approaching the same place and my son said to him, "Michael, pick up my drink for me" (his exact words).

Needless to say I was a little astounded at my sons attitude to others, more so that the boy complied without a word which made me think my son had done this before and not been noticed.

I questioned him about it but he wasn't too willing to talk about it. I just don't know if he was imitating us when we ask him to pick up things at home (yes, sometimes our things not his) or if he was just enjoying being bossy. Whilst my son has been bossy at home I had never imagined him behaving this way at day care.

What do you do? We explained that this was not the way to treat his friends at kindy (as we call it) and even if Michael complied without complaint, it wasn't ok to treat him like a servant and that he (our son) should be picking up his own drink not getting others to do his bidding.

I know in a family we ask each other to do things all the time but in a social setting it can be different. It isn't wrong to ask someone to do something for you but I think the thing that irked me was that both my son and Michael were standing right in front of the drink and my son choose to be lazy and get someone else to pick up the drink for him.

Perhaps this isn't really a problem but I don't want my son to be that kind of person.

What do you think?

The Meter Man Came

Well the meter man finally came. I got to learn what was in that mysterious cupboard outside our unit. I also found out that our hot water meter doesn't work. Who knows how long we've been getting free hot water but there's no way for them to work it out so they can't back bill us.

Unfortunately, for the gas it wasn't so easy. The meter worked, it just didn't report back to the utility properly and it was way out. So, no doubt, my next gas bill will be horrendous and they'll be pricks about it. The good side is the hot water will remain free until the man comes back to fix the meter which considering we've been in the place almost 3 years and this is the first time someone has come to check the meters are working...

Perhaps we can argue someone else was living in the until up until now?

Anatomy of a Paypal Scam

Over the course of the last few days I have been the target of a PayPal scam. This was one involving a car I have for sale online. The gist of the scam is detailed here.

The first part that threw me was the perpetrator was claiming to be on a oil rig, having no phone access but working Internet access.

"thanks for mailing back,i am a petroleum engineer and i am on rig right now.i am buying this as a birthday gift for my dad,i've been trying to reach you but i discovered that our  phone is currently scrambled due to the bad weather please bear with me .I can only pay through paypal at the moment as i dont have access to my bank account online,but i have it attached to my paypal account and this is why i insisted on using paypal,i will like you to send me your paypal email so i can deposited the money."

I gather this was a ploy so that I could only contact him via the Internet and not speak to him in person. The mobile number he gave just rang out with no voice mail.

The next step was that the car had to go to Darwin which is a long way from where I am and that he couldn't pay for the pickup agent from his location.

He offered extra money above the price of the car to cover this if I could just wire the extra money to his pickup agent in the UK (never mind the issue of using a pickup agent in the UK to move a car in Australia).

The clincher came the next morning when a fake PayPal email came saying money had been transferred into my account (it hadn't) but to release the total value I had to prove that I had sent the money to the pickup agent.

The email looked fake. Checking the headers (View Original in gmail) gives:

Received: by 10.216.15.8 with SMTP id e8mr41876wee.59.1282688603259; Tue, 24
 Aug 2010 15:23:23 -0700 (PDT)
Sender: mark.markspencer.spencer8@gmail.com
Received: by 10.216.170.140 with HTTP; Tue, 24 Aug 2010 15:23:23 -0700 (PDT)
Date: Wed, 25 Aug 2010 00:23:23 +0200
X-Google-Sender-Auth: ovZN1dj6pw_bFlMm7Z5wEsKi3LQ
Message-ID: 
Subject: ****Regarding Your Payment****
From: "service@paypal.com" 

If you have dealt with Paypal before you know that notifications for instant payments
come from the person doing the payment, not from PayPal. I did a search for Mark Spencer  and variations on that name appear with many scams. If they were smart it would be an alias but lets not presume too much here.


During my long conversation with the scammer (yes he wanted to chat too) it was
evident that he didn't understand English that well and didn't get that he'd been sprung.

me: I should tell you I work in IT. This sounds too much like a scam to be 
anything 
but.

Jayceon: but?

I sent the original email on to the advertising agency who confirmed it was definitely a scam. I also forwarded the fake PayPal emails to PayPal so that they can investigate. I don't expect anything to come from this but it was an interesting experience nonetheless.

I have a full chat log plus all the original emails if anyone is interested.

iPhone4

Were you one of the silly people up at midnight clicking away trying to order a new iPhone4 over the 'net? I was. It was silly.

Couldn't get through between midnight and 1am so gave up. Tried again at 6:30am and still couldn't get through. Finally managed to order one at 7:30am.

I was very surprised to see the expected delivery date of 2nd of August considering they stated the phones were already on back order. I think that means the paltry initial allocation from Apple had run out but we all know that was deliberate so they could say in the media that they'd sold out. No company in their right might would deliberately under cater with such a hot product. I presume Apple has plenty of iPhones tucked away and will delivery them rapidily once the hoo har settles down.

That's my hope at least.

I'll update you all as to how far past the 2nd of Aug it is when my phone actually arrives.

I'm also still waiting on my 2in1 microSIM which they promised by the 29th of July!

Oh well.

Is Sexy a Bad word/

My son came home the other day with a new phrase, 'Sexy man'. I can only assume he's heard one of his teachers at kindy talking about someone and decided to repeat it. That or perhaps from a song? I couldn't get it out of him (who can at 3?) but I guess it doesn't matter.

Now, I never wanted to be parent to use the phrase "you're too young" though by any stretch he is to be using that phrase. I would much prefer to give him a real reason as to why daddy thinks he shouldn't use that word. I feel I get a much better response from him when I give him a solid reason he can understand rather than a brush off.

The "you're too young" just seems like a cop  out or makes me feel like a lazy parent.

I guess my issue is trying to articulate to a 3yo what is bad about the term sexy, at least coming from a 3yo but I just couldn't do it on the spot.

I just feel my argument of 'just because' doesn't hold enough weight and as a parent I need to give solid reasons for 'no' if I want them to have any affect.

Do you have any ideas? Comment below on what you think.

Thanks.
A new Dad

Passed CCNP ROUTE

Yay, another exam another day.

See my post here.

Such an adrenaline rush it was, I was really pumped this morning, what with the cold and the caffine and then the adrenaline rush of sitting the exam. I guess all of that is good for blood flow to the brain, just have to deal with the come down on the other side. At least I have something took look forward to when I get home! 

My Phones gone bung

Yep, my beloved iPhone has lost it's most useful function, the home key. Whilst everything else works the face that a) only one thing runs at a time, b) the method of switching between them is borked, means that the functionaility of my phone is vastly reduced!

The only way I can switch between apps is to reboot. I did manage to find an install link via a website which took me through the app install. But that only gets me from the browser back.

Guess who'll be getting an iPhone4 quicksmart!

Don't get technical

My three year old found a DVD of Up in the computer today. Instantly he wanted to watch it on the TV, that's ok, it's watchable. The thing is, the DVD was from the Blu-Ray version which included a copy on DVD. I found myself trying to convince him that we should use the other disc (i.e. the Blu-Ray version) but was having trouble translating my purely technical argument into 3-year-old style logic.

Turns out it doesn't translate well and in the end I relented.

It made me think about his descision making process. He wanted to play the DVD because it had a different picture on it than the 'other' disc. Even once it was in the machine, he was excited because the menu was different, thus new.

Whilst it may be said that 3 year olds are easily influenced they can also be finicky.

This whole story would be a lesson in how not to negotiate with your three year old, or when to know you're fighting a lost cause, if it were not for the fact that the DVD stopped working part way through and we had to revert to the 'other' disc.

It wasn't me, I swear!

ANZAC Perspective

For all the effort that goes into commemorating ANZAC day, I feel a little disconnected from it all. I guess ANZAC is supposed to be something that _most_ people have some history with. Yes, I do too but it goes so far back that it's hard for me to relate to.

I certainly haven't had any experience of way, but neither did my dad nor his dad. I have to go back four generations to find anyone in my family that went to war. This distant relative only went reluctantly and only for a short period, not really the war hero.

Does that mean we should march? I just don't feel it. I would feel like a fraud even though my dad has his service medals. I guess if my dad had fought then I would feel more connected to it but both him and his father were primary producers during the relavent wars and thus excempt from any conscription.

Am I the only one that feels this way? Perhaps it is a good thing. I'm sure as more and more generations roll forth, more and more people will have little connection with the 'great' wars of yesteryear. Heaven forbid we have any more but certainly...

lest we forget

Get away from her you Bitch...

I want one:


This looks way cool but I'm sure it will be ages before average joe's can get into one.

Hot Stuff

Many years ago we had an admin girl who's strong point was not details. She accidentally ordered 10kg of drinking chocolate instead of a much smaller quantity. Needless to say, many years later, our small office of 5 people are still working their way through this 10kg.

Recently, I've been a bit crook and have discovered a nice combination to make use of this choccy. I take one teaspoon of instant coffe (eww I know), one teaspoon of drinking chocolate, add sugar and milk and you have caffine and energy boost all in one.

Yes I know it's a mocha but to me it's not real coffee but it's still drink able.

So very Tired

Children who routinely get up at 6:30am can make you very tired. Did you know?

Hey, if you didn't know that you should check out my lazy parents website. Full of hopefully useful tips.

Though now that I think about it, there's nothing in there about kids that wake up frightfully early. I'll have to add that in.

ITs scary out there

Yes, I finally did IT... well ok, perhaps I'm not being transparent but I applied for a job last night. Way out of my leage of course but still enthralling to do so. It's a people manager role which is where I'm a bit soft but it's strong on technical skills so that part I should be ok. Just need to brush up on my Cisco voice stuff.

Wish me luck, applications close 5th of Feb so I imagine I won't know anything until after then.

Nicks Swimming

Nick is learning to swim! He has just started swimming lessons just days before his 3rd birthday.