Serendipitous Photos
Where luck and skill cross path in a camera.
Wonderful. I recently got my copy of Dynamic HTML: The Definitive Reference, 2nd Edition. Boy, this is a fantastic book. I've been given the wonderful opportunity to do a professional Website. There is so much to learn. If you notice, everything on this Website is all messed up. I now understand how things have to line up precisely, courtesy of Eric Meyer. This Website has to be cleaned up so, please pardon the mess.
I'm really pooped right now but I'll post these two pictures.
It rained earlier this evening. I was headed out and noticed the beautiful colorations of the sky. Just in case, I grabbed the Kodak DC240 and started pedalling my way to the YMCA. Looking behind me, the sky was luminous orange red. One of the pictures taken, looks like it could be on the cover of a horror or murder mystery. The photo is interesting because the DC240 can't focus in moderately low-light situations. The resulting image was blurry and looks almost like a 1950's paperback novel.
The second photo was taken just a couple of seconds after and had a much different sky color, reminiscent of a tropical sunset. Still, the colors are really pretty and I get remind of the Beatles song, "Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds".
According to the CIA World Factbook, the United States spent close to $400 billion in arms in the year 2001. There is no figure for the year 2002 or 2003. Possibly, these figures are even higher, even their expenditure in Iraq. Can anyone explain to me, why it's necessary to spend $400 billion to make enemies instead of $400 billion to make friends?
If the United States spent, on one year, what they spend on the military for peaceful purposes, the world would be forever changed, probably for the better. Yet, each year, the United States continues to spend this ludicrous amount of money on the military.
Nothing changes, certainly nothing for the better. Just imagine, what would happen, if $400 billion was spent to help the world. Their enemies would vapourize, not in a nuclear blast, but from lack of support. Yes, sanity is relative. Somebody, wake me up.
Democracy works on the principle that people choose whats best for them and their nation. In order to make choices, decisions must be made based upon information. What information? The Toronto Star and the Globe and Mail present rather biased reporting of each candidate and their party politics. I won't even bother telling you who the Globe and Mail favors. The average voter will probably vote on what he or she reads in the paper, therefore would be greatly influenced by the paper he or she subscribes to. Do you see a flaw?
I have to take back my word on Sunday's Star though. They gave fair air to both pro Kyoto and anti Kyoto parties. Rick Anderson preferred to side with critics of the Kyoto accord while Linda McQuaig represented the pro Kyoto side. Reading both articles, gives readers a better chance at deciding which is right. Personally, I thought Linda presented the better of the two arguments.
Being an avid cycling commuter, being far from wealthy, it's no surprise who I'm voting for.
Outside, it's raining hard. The window is open and the cool night air, laden with mist drifts in. I pick up my guitar and play, accompanied by rainfall and thunder. The Almansa 436 sounds beautiful, harp-like. I make mistakes but keep the recording. Listen carefully, and you might be able to hear the thunder and the rainfall in the background. So tranquil, and so worth living.
We had our last MCAC meeting before convening for the summer. I heard some shocking news. The city has planned a $41 million sports complex. That's nice but for roughly half the price, our proposed citywide bicycle path network could be complete.
What does this mean? It means travelling in relatively safety through a series of interconnecting bike way (off road, on road, or designated) in relative safety. It means a viable means of alternative transportation. It means less congestion on the roadways. It means health benefits to those who take advantage of the trail system to exercise. It means a chance to create an outstanding example of a bicycle friendly city. It means exposure in magazines, and a decent ranking as a city friendly (re: Bicycling) to bicycle commuters. It means tourism. It means an inflow of cash. It means progress as the money is reinvested into the city to make it a better place. It means a lot.
Interestingly, the Google search engine bought up this interesting link on the secret society known as the Order of the Skull and Bones. The question is, should you believe what you read? Why did I bring up the subject of the Skull and Bones? Well, if what they say about the society is true, then these are the last people you should trust to run your country. Sadly, both the current president, George W. Bush and the head of the Democrats, John Kerry are Bonesmen.
Why so many secrets? Why has no Bonemen ever come to the defence of his secret society? In this day and age where everything and everybody has a Website, why not Skull and Bones? Is something nefarious is afoot or are people just imagining things? Bonesmen, speak up, I dare you!
My Olympus E-100RS is dead. This photo of the Toronto Opera prop room is one of the last photos taken by this dear camera. It started with a couple of wierd photos, totally messed up. Things got progressively worse and now the camera just doesn't take pictures anymore. I'll miss this camera. Lack of funds prevent me from purchasing a new digital camera so it's back to the old Kodak DC240. Anyways, it's not the camera but the photographer, which makes the biggest difference.
In the last couple of weeks, I've been bicycling to work when the weather permits. That's the nice part about working for BIOS Computing, total flex time. The journey from Mississauga to Toronto takes about an hour and covers a bit more than 25 kilometers each way. If it wasn't for the stop lights, commute time would be even less. The rising cost of gas? It doesn't bother me much.
What have a learned about bicycling to work? 95% of the drivers are considerate. It's the 5% you really have to watch for. Cars transmogrifies this 5% of the population into psychopaths. There's no need to discuss what type of misery cars have brought to society because that's well documented. Unfortunately, the North American society has created a culture that makes the car indisposable for the majority of the population.
It seems so hopeless, trying to introduce cycling as an alternative form of transportation. The budget for bicycle lanes in the city is minute. For the cost of a single community centre sports complex, the entire city of Mississauga could be covered with trails. It's not like the trails aren't being used, it's just that people don't think about asking for trails. As soon as the trails appear, people of all ages suddenly start using them.
Why do people ride on sidewalks? Well, if you watch how dangerous cycling on some of the major roads in Mississauga can be, you'd cycle on the sidewalk too. Are things going to change? I'm not sure. I belong to MCAC and we try to bring change but it's difficult when people don't petition council for bicycle trails. Contact your ward councillor. Change is always possible if there is enough people that want it.
Took a while but the photos from the Washington DC AIDS Ride 5 are now available for your viewing pleasure. The photos are located under the snapshots section, because they're just snapshots. There are many photos that have yet to be posted. The ride made lasting impressions on my life.
Ever since I started my part-time contract job with Bios Computing, I've been too busy to update this Website. Though nobody may read it, I'm compelled to put something on it for some strange reason or another. Photographs, or at least strange, don't necessarily have standard compositions.
As an experiment, I tried to take some not so normal photos. Most of them use the macro feature of the camera, something you should play with now and then. Here are photos of something red, something small, something woody, something reflective, and something fuzzy. What? These are lousy photos? I was aiming for curiosity and not composition.
I keep suggesting to Isabella, we see pseudo investigative documentaries. The latest one was Super Size Me. Excellent movie but it nauseated me. See how McDonalds can make Unhappy Meals.
Last Sunday, Isabella and I went to see the documentary movie, The Corporation. The movie starts slowly by giving the audience the history behind the corporation. Througout the movie, behaviors of the corporation get checked of against a list for traits exhibited by a psychopath. There are many disturbing and rivetting points made througout the movie. One horrifying bit which makes me glad I'm in Canada is the introduction of Bovine Growth Hormone (rBGH) in the US dairy cattles.
The movie goes on to show what terrible clout the corporation of Monsanto has with the television broadcasting industry. Trickling down, the whistle blowers in Fox are fired. Pretty horrible considering what is known about rBGH. Michael Moore, Noam Chomsky, and many big name shit disturbers contribute to their opinions and concerns about corporations. Dr. Chomsky isn't a rabid leftist but rather, a scholar who is merely reciting the facts of a situation, a good thing for the movie. However, those facts are very solid and betrays the true intention of a corporation.
My recommendation is to see this movie, though a bit long for some, I found quite appropriate in length given the list of horrors corporations have inflicted on society. I personally, have never opposed capitalism. I'm a staunch defender of capitalism but not capitalism gone rampant without social or ecological regards for the damage caused to our world. For once, I'm glad I'm not working for a corporation.
I read in the news, the other day, Howard Stern, talk show radio host, has been suspended for voicing his comments about George Bush. This is sad. I applaud Howard Stern for having the courage to voice his opinion. A lot of people despise Howard Stern but I find his honesty quite refreshing.
So many of us go through life wearing masks, concealing our opinions, for fear of being either ridiculed or persecuted. Should we stand idly while innocents die? The United States would be a frightening place if opinions were not voiced and heard. Let's hope McCarthism doesn't return. Speak up and be heard. Your opinion is important. Without such, the United States would never have been.
There seems to be one area of inequality women will never conquer. That is the position of anchorman or anchorwoman. It's interesting to note that almost every television channel seems to have middle aged, grey haired gentlemen opposite a much younger, shapely woman. Yes, I know why but it just seems so unfair, that woman should not be allowed to age yet men can do so with honor. Will this ever change? According to Desmond Morris (author of the Naked Ape), probably not. Well, I suppose there is the inevitable inequality of the man having to initiate a request for a date, typically not done by a woman.
About two weeks ago, I had the opportunity to visit a wonderful art gallery run by my alumnis. Some photos have been posted of this event.
Created this section to put future JavaScript code bits here. Also, the WEP key generator now works properly in Gecko-based browsers. Minor things fixed and the abilty to generate a key on every click of the button.
I got tired of using my credit card to generate WEP keys. Using JavaScript, I wrote this really simple hex mode WEP key generator. I'm also partly employed now!
The wireless setup finally works. Apparently MAC filtering is too much for the USR8054. I've no problems ever since MAC filtering was disabled. All the wierd problems with FTP and otherwise have all disappeared.
I'm not sure what happened but that scrappy Microtek 6u scanner is functional again. The drivers were uninstalled and reinstalled and that seemed to have fixed the problem. Yes, settings were reset before and that did nothing. Some of the badly scanned in images have been updated with better ones. Psst, Wendy if you are looking at the photo of Toronto City taken from Leslie Spit, I've tightened the cropping on that photo as well.
It's late or early again. That time stamp isn't PM, it's AM. Being unemployed, my hours are really crazy now and I don't hit the sack till the wee hours of the morning. I've been reading more of Shooting the Hippo and discovered I'm a major contributor to the deficit! This is bad. I need a job and am running out of money. If it wasn't for my mom's place I'd be out on the streets.
There's another wonderful piece of music by Tarrega called Adelita, which I'm currently learning. It irks me when people say its a really easy piece to learn. Adelita isn't hard to learn but neither is it easy like a first or second grade piece. I guess if you're a good guitarist, yes. I'm but a guitar hack, but that doesn't stop me from playing.
We have a possum in the neighbourhood. I've never seen possums here and was really surprised to discover one in our backyard. Humans have little regard for life other than their own, and sometimes, not even that. How rare life is in the universe yet we spend hundreds of billions trying to either exterminate it, or find it elsewhere.
It seemed like a good idea at the time. A wireless network at home. We have two computers at home and we're sharing the Net. There was this ugly Ethernet cable that ran between the two rooms. Not good, especially since I've tripped on the cable at least twice.
The BestBuy flyer offered a wireless 802.11g base station and PCI card with a rebate. I purchased the combo thinking that USR would make a reliable, well-built product. For something that should have come up quickly it took me an entire day to setup. The documentation was poor, both in quality and accuracy. This would have been forgivable had the product work flawlessly. However, the base station has an annoying tendency to suddenly stop working, lock up and become inaccessible.
I'm not sure how this product made it out to production with the quality of the firmware and documentation. For a famous company like USR, who once were leaders in their field, this is difficult to believe. I've found so many bugs in their firmware and documentation, it's getting tiring submitting forms to their technical support department. So, the setup sort of works for about a day, then becomes ineffective, at which point the router has to be reset. I think I'm going to take this thing back to BestBuy.
Other than that, I've not been up to much other than job searching and playing my guitar. Every second or third day, the Apex wind trainer with that beautiful 99 Team Fuji gets a workout along with me. The setup is located in the basement. I turn the lights off and cycle in the dark, with nothing but the whooshing of the fan blade and mechanical whirling of the drive train for company. The lights go on and only 5 minutes have passed though it feels much longer. It's hot and off comes the hooded sweat. Keeping the lights on seems to make the time pass faster. Another 20 minutes, groan. Trainers are horrible and absolutely no fun. Can't wait till Spring.
My scanner is busted. Rats. In this age of digital photography, not sure if it's worth buying a new one.
Current reading, Shooting the Hippo - Death By Deficit and Other Canadian Myths by Linda McQuaig. I'm starting to get upset again.
As you may all know, our former Prime Minister Jean Chretien was trying to decriminalize possessions of small amounts of marijuana. I share Eric Schlosser's view on this subject so you'll have to read Reefer Madness if you want my opinion. It hasn't happened due to pressure from the US. However, this hasn't prevented people from poking fun at the entire issue.
Still listening to Beautysleep. There are some real gems on this album. The dark and grim song 'the shadow' feels like a plea to someone to hold on to them while in the pits of despair. Oddly enough, perhaps if the listening is willing to follow the singer 'into the shadow', is rewarded with the hidden song on the same track about two minutes later with a melancholy love song. Good grief, it's late. I'm probably not making any sense.
Have you ever wondered why time seems to pass so slowly when we're young and so quickly the older you get? If it possible, the mind slows down so relativistically saying, things seem to pass quickly? It's really late and I'm making no sense at all now.
While downtown Toronto, I picked up an album called Beautysleep by Tanya Donelly. My initial take on the album wasn't so positive but after listening to Beautysleep a couple of times, it's really quite good, in fact better than King and Star. One or two of the pieces (The Night You Saved My Life) still have some of the poppy quality as found in King but that's not a bad thing. It's surprising this album never saw any air play. There's stuff on the album that's catchy, more so than on Star.
Those for looking for an edgy, frenetic album ala Breeders, will be disappointed. Beautysleep is a whole different beast and the tempo slower than anything I've heard with Tanya in it.
There is also the experimental and progressive music feel found in Star. One song that really stood out was Moonbeam Monkey, a very original, eerie and haunting piece. I can't quite put my finger on it, Moonbeam Monkey reminds me of another favorite tune, Slow Dog from Star. Don't forget the hidden track on the album. Not sure what the song is called but its in the same track as The Shadow at around 5:56 into the track, a very poignant piece with nothing but an a acoustic guitar and Tanya's voice. The entire album seems to be an introspective look though I could be totally wrong.
Back in the late 80's, there was a personal computer called the Amiga. I used to do artwork with a mouse and a program called Deluxe Paint 2. The Amiga is gone but the original files are somewhere on floppy still. I think there was a restrictive 64 colors and the resolution was ridiculously low but remember, this is in the late 80's when PC's had a measly 16 colors. I used the Rebel Canon to capture photographs of the image off the screen.
Ghost is one I really liked a lot. I'm disappoint to say I've seen stuff out there that looks like my painting but I couldn't have plagarized because this image came from 1991 and all the stuff I've seen which looks like Ghost comes later than this. Nightmare was done earlier than Ghost. I like this one. Starshine is somewhat static but looks much better on the screen.
It snowed a lot a couple of days ago. I've got a photo of what my mom's house looked liked before if finished snowing. By the end of that day, there was a heap of snow that was taller than me. Lately, it's just been cold.
It's really snowing in Mississauga. It's snowing like it snows in Montreal. It's also pretty darn cold. I shovelled this morning, I shovelled this afternoon, and I'll probably have to shovelling ever day for the rest of the week. There's nothing but snow in the forecast.
Learning XML has taken a back seat to learning some new guitar pieces. There's this beautiful piece of music called Gymnopédie #1 by Erik Satie. It's got a mood and a feel that suits the contemplative winter scene just fine. I took a picture of my guitar and the backyard of snow. It's an Almansa 436, a true Spanish guitar. This is my second guitar and I love it dearly. A very balanced instrument, just a delight to hear regardless of how good one is.
The log entries have been reformatted in hope there is eventual some way to automate the blog entries. It's pathetic how I manually enter the stuff right now. If it wasn't for HTML Kit, I'd be dead.
Sympatico's FTP server is really frustrating. I've attempted to use Blogger to publish to this site but Sympatico's FTP server just doesn't like it. Well, I continue to be stuck in the stone ages.
Something embarrassing I've noticed. Most of the pictures posted pertain to the winter and the cold. This is terrible! Canada isn't quite like this (most of the time). It's really warm (usually) in Toronto. When spriing and summer roll around, I'll go out and shoot more warm weather photos.
Behind the scenes extra on the extended version of the Two Towers DVD is awesome. Did you know during the scene with the pursuit of the Orcs to Isengard, Orlando Bloom had a broken rib, Viggo Mortenson's two toes were broken, and the double for Gimili had a dislocated knee? All were in incredible pain though you wouldn't know it from watching the movie.
The job search goes on. There isn't much work for embedded systems developers out there these days. Perhaps, Second Cup will accept my application. Serving coffee isn't a bad idea because I'm a coffee snob. EI is only going to last so long and then it's going to be tough. I'm in good company, though. Very talented people have been unemployed. David Shea, Web master for Mezzoblue was unemployed for a stint, just recently. There is always hope.
XML isn't that difficult to pick up. Hopefully, the database of comments for the photos will all go into an XML file in the next couple of days. It's not that there is any real advantage currently in putting the comments for the photograph in XML, it's just that I'll learn something from the exercise.
Just perusing the Net, I noticed the general political bent of Web designers. I've yet stumbled upon a politically conservative independent Web designer. I'm sure there are but most of those designers out there would be classified as liberal, right-wingers. I've read a lot of stuff concerning, anti-SUV, anti-Bush, and anti-war. Now why is that?
Outside, it's snowing and cold (-20C). Tried some JavaScript and the comments for the photos are now floating according to the width of the photo. There seems to be multiple ways to solve this problem. The current solution is a real hack and is there simply as demonstration of dynamically changing the float on an element. I'd like to find the most elegant solution though.
Things are still a disarray with this Website. The font has been changed to Verdana for better readability on browsers. Much work remains.
I shot some photographs of downtown Toronto and some of them were sort of neat. The falling snow made the sky, a very light shade. I photograph St. Michael's Catholic Cathedral, some Toronto skyline, and Younge Street.
Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix was quite good. If you liked Goblet of Fire, you'll like this one as well, though I think Goblet of Fire had a better ending. Rowling's fleshing of characters in Order of the Phoenix is even better than Goblet of Fire though.
I finally broke down and purchased Eric Meyer on CSS. This book cost $69.99 Cdn (ouch especially since I'm unemployed) is quite worthwhile if you really want to truly learn tricks you never thought possible in CSS. Perhaps, one of my biggest mistakes was designing this Website without any regards for browsers that don't support CSS.
The book is a wealth of information concerning tricks and tips on CSS I've yet to find anywhere else. I've already made a couple of changes based upon the books recommendation. Though nothing will show, some of the underlying CSS should become more structured and friendlier to non-CSS browsers. An excellent read and one that'll take a while to digest.
This Website is a mess but hope the knowledge I gain from reading the book will make things better.
To everyone, a happy New Year.
Forward and backward links are now available for the pictures.
According to Reinvigorate about 90% of the browsers out there are Microsoft Internet Explorer. 93% of the platforms out there are Microsoft Windows. Why bother coding for Gecko based browsers? Because I use Firebird.
Too much fun. Still tweaking the look and feel of this Website. If I could only make a career out of doing something like this... By the way, Merry Christmas!
The first article of thirty from the United Nations' Universal Declaration of Human Rights. How many of these articles do we follow in our nation?
There are a number of new photos up now. The photos cycle in sequence if clicked on. Interestingly, most of favourites are of the sky. Bit of JavaScript went into getting the text to change with the photos.
The Website is friendly to low resolution screens as well as browsers other than Microsoft Internet Explorer. Unfortunately, visuals are only guaranteed with the latest generation of browsers, and even then there are quirks.
CSS is fascinating and powerful but full of browser dependent idiosyncrasies. The Website should be renamed "Serendipitous Style Sheets", for the odd things that one discovers while playing around with Style Sheets.
Perhaps, a bit redundant, a concious effort has been made to make these pages viewable at an obsolete 640x480 resolution.
Style sheet loading is now dependent on browser type. This bodes ill for maintenance but we all learn from our mistakes. Let's see if this is one of them.
Rising from the ashes to look and be looked upon by the world. Images of past for the present.
){kind=link}
){kind=link}
){kind=link}
){kind=link}
){kind=link}
){kind=link}
){kind=link}
){kind=link}
){kind=link}
){kind=link}
){kind=link}
){kind=link}
){kind=link}
){kind=link}
){kind=link}
){kind=link}