Rog, chair of photoSoc, asked me to transfer the photoSoc website from the Union server (waldo) to CompSoc.
No problem -- something I've wanted to do for a while. The Union provide a great service, but I honestly don't think that the server they have is quite up to the CompSoc server. Over the past few months we have had near perfect service -- the uptime is currently about 32 days, the last reboot was a scheduled one to apply a minor security fix released by the FreeBSD team.
I sent out the necessary emails -- one to Rob Clarke at Manchester Computing asking him to switch ns0.compsoc.man.ac.uk to be the primary for the photosoc.man.ac.uk and photosoc.manchester.ac.uk domains, and another to Sam Smith, admin of the union box, explaining what was going on and asking for any info he could give me on mail and this sort of stuff.
I got a reply from Rob Clarke to confirm the changes earlier on today but quickly spotted that while photosoc.man.ac.uk was responding, photosoc.manchester.ac.uk had disappeared. It turns out I had inadvertently removed some whitespace in the zonefile, which was causing the problem. Also, both of the photosoc domains are secondaried by utserv, cuwhich willrlew and gannet, instead of just dir.mcc.ac.uk, as 95% of our other hosted society domains are. I emailed Rob Clarke to query this was correct.
But right now, all DNS changes seem fine. I've got an incorrect cache that will last about 90000s, so I'll not be visiting the photoSoc website for a couple of hours.
Next up is scheduling downtime for the website, doing a re-copy of the data (I already did one to confirm the website will run without modification) and migrating the MySQL database. This is fairly minor and will take no more than a couple of hours. After that a new mailing list will need to be created and the existing members will need to be transferred over.
DNS is a pain in the arse most of the time, but with a short timeout (1800s == 30m) it works very well for us. When I'm ready for CompSoc to host the website, I just change the A line and people will seamlessly visit a different website. Same goes for the mail exchanges. Of course, once the transition is done, I'll change the timeouts to something a little more sane.
Tuesday, 28 February 2006
Christmas
So... I don't have an iPod Nano that I've had tucked away since Christmas then? What a misleading dream that was.
Maybe it's trying to tell me something... or maybe in my dreams I don't consider what audio formats these players are capable of.
Maybe it's trying to tell me something... or maybe in my dreams I don't consider what audio formats these players are capable of.
Monday, 27 February 2006
Charity
Charity means different things to different people.
To some people it might be the name of a female friend or relative, to others something for them to participate in or work with towards an important goal. What does charity mean to me?
The week hadn't been going well. I had my post stolen yesterday, this morning I snapped my door key in my letterbox (they are dual-purpose) and could have ended up paying a £20 replacement fee.
At about 4pm I received a call from Rog asking me where the studio stuff was... he said he had about 20 models waiting on it, so I hurried back home with Vlad, managed to get a free replacement key, and jumped into a taxi with the screen, flashes and other studio gear. The three of us then set up a dual-width (mmm, scissors) screen in one of the Union rooms. At this point Rog had to head away for the photoSoc committee meeting but Vlad and I stayed with the screen.
After about ten or fifteen minutes of a lady photographer arranging the models Vlad and I were getting pretty bored and were seriously considering heading off to the photoSoc meeting. It was about this time that she said: "Okay, can you remember your positions? Great. Go take your clothes off."
This was pretty surprising as Rog failed to mention that it was a "naked" photoshoot, but needless to say, this was a fairly interesting twist to the tale. At first I had assumed this meant that people would be removing their clothes and standing about in underwear... well, almost true, only for girls it was sans bra.
By now I am absolutely kicking myself for leaving my camera at home (I had given it some consideration but then decided I wouldn't need it for a committee meeting), but Vlad has his. Oddly enough the "pro" is shooting ISO 400 with the studio flashes. Seems odd to me, but maybe she knows what she is doing.
Fortunately Vlad has his and this is a good thing -- shooting film is pretty hard to do, especially without a light meter. At this point we take a few shots, get the correct settings (f/13 at 1/125th at ISO 200, I think it was) and tell the girl... she seems uninterested with this and continues shooting in Auto. Erm? Fortunately we don't, and we pretty much shoot the same as her, every shot perfectly exposed, which I guess is more than she got.
What I found a little odd was how quickly I switched from "wooo! Boobies!"-mode to a highly professional "err, can you shift back a little, tilt this way and let us see that guy's nipples a bit better"-mode. 99% of the photos Vlad and I took are crap; somebody is always blinking, looking the wrong way, etc. but this isn't too bad considering we were shooting around the other girl. We have a bunch of suitable photos, which we'll pass on -- there's a chance they might even be used for the cause.
So what does charity mean to me? Opportunity.
To some people it might be the name of a female friend or relative, to others something for them to participate in or work with towards an important goal. What does charity mean to me?
The week hadn't been going well. I had my post stolen yesterday, this morning I snapped my door key in my letterbox (they are dual-purpose) and could have ended up paying a £20 replacement fee.
At about 4pm I received a call from Rog asking me where the studio stuff was... he said he had about 20 models waiting on it, so I hurried back home with Vlad, managed to get a free replacement key, and jumped into a taxi with the screen, flashes and other studio gear. The three of us then set up a dual-width (mmm, scissors) screen in one of the Union rooms. At this point Rog had to head away for the photoSoc committee meeting but Vlad and I stayed with the screen.
After about ten or fifteen minutes of a lady photographer arranging the models Vlad and I were getting pretty bored and were seriously considering heading off to the photoSoc meeting. It was about this time that she said: "Okay, can you remember your positions? Great. Go take your clothes off."
This was pretty surprising as Rog failed to mention that it was a "naked" photoshoot, but needless to say, this was a fairly interesting twist to the tale. At first I had assumed this meant that people would be removing their clothes and standing about in underwear... well, almost true, only for girls it was sans bra.
By now I am absolutely kicking myself for leaving my camera at home (I had given it some consideration but then decided I wouldn't need it for a committee meeting), but Vlad has his. Oddly enough the "pro" is shooting ISO 400 with the studio flashes. Seems odd to me, but maybe she knows what she is doing.
Fortunately Vlad has his and this is a good thing -- shooting film is pretty hard to do, especially without a light meter. At this point we take a few shots, get the correct settings (f/13 at 1/125th at ISO 200, I think it was) and tell the girl... she seems uninterested with this and continues shooting in Auto. Erm? Fortunately we don't, and we pretty much shoot the same as her, every shot perfectly exposed, which I guess is more than she got.
What I found a little odd was how quickly I switched from "wooo! Boobies!"-mode to a highly professional "err, can you shift back a little, tilt this way and let us see that guy's nipples a bit better"-mode. 99% of the photos Vlad and I took are crap; somebody is always blinking, looking the wrong way, etc. but this isn't too bad considering we were shooting around the other girl. We have a bunch of suitable photos, which we'll pass on -- there's a chance they might even be used for the cause.
So what does charity mean to me? Opportunity.
New Jeans
Ah, crap. One of my pairs of jeans has a small hole... it's the type of hole that will grow rather rapidly and unexpectedly, just to embarrass you.
So, today I have a bunch of things to do. I need to get the ball photos sent off to be printed, get some new jeans (I'll probably get two pairs as I've been running around in the same pair of jeans for ages now) and have my bracelet thingy repaired -- right now it's being held together by some celotape because I'm pretty fond of it and don't want to lose any more beady bits.
So, today I have a bunch of things to do. I need to get the ball photos sent off to be printed, get some new jeans (I'll probably get two pairs as I've been running around in the same pair of jeans for ages now) and have my bracelet thingy repaired -- right now it's being held together by some celotape because I'm pretty fond of it and don't want to lose any more beady bits.
Sunday, 26 February 2006
THIEVES!
A short while ago I ordered a CCD cleaning kit for my camera as all of the muck has got to the stage (actually, it's been pretty bad for a while -- I've just been a chicken) that it is adversely affecting my photos, especially studio stuff. At the same time I decided to order a 67mm UV filter to replace the really cheap and nasty single-coated one I bought with my camera. The filter wasn't overly expensive -- about £12 including P&P from Hong Kong.
I returned from home this evening and spotted a yellow packet on top of the post boxes and on a quick inspection I found that it was address to me, and that it had been ripped open. It was definitely the packet the Hoya filter came in as it was clearly post marked Hong Kong, although the contents were gone. Great.
I went over to reception to report this and spotted that 127 had been written on the envelope, likely suggesting that for some reason it had been delivered to the wrong post box. I have absolutely no idea why this would be as I had provided a full and accurate address, which is shown on the packet. That said, a little bit is missing -- the bit where it should say Flat 129. What has likely then happened is that the guys in 127 have found the packet, placed it on top of the letterboxes and somebody has then spotted a piece of mail from Hong Kong and thought "PSP game!" or something similar and then proceeded to rip it open. I doubt a small circular piece of glass will be quite what they had hoped for.
Anyway, I'm not too sure what to do now. I've spoken to two people in 127 but they don't recall seeing the packet and the rest of them are out. It was theoretically shipped with insurance from Hong Kong so I might be able to claim on that -- it never did reach my letterbox, after all.
I'll stick up a "STOLEN -- small piece of glass" with a picture of the crappy filter I have now in the hopes that somebody will return it. I can't say I expect to ever see it though.
Of slight interest is an eBay listing for a 67mm Hoya UV filter listed earlier on today with the seller having only registered yesterday... the location isn't Manchester but it is odd, regardless...
I returned from home this evening and spotted a yellow packet on top of the post boxes and on a quick inspection I found that it was address to me, and that it had been ripped open. It was definitely the packet the Hoya filter came in as it was clearly post marked Hong Kong, although the contents were gone. Great.
I went over to reception to report this and spotted that 127 had been written on the envelope, likely suggesting that for some reason it had been delivered to the wrong post box. I have absolutely no idea why this would be as I had provided a full and accurate address, which is shown on the packet. That said, a little bit is missing -- the bit where it should say Flat 129. What has likely then happened is that the guys in 127 have found the packet, placed it on top of the letterboxes and somebody has then spotted a piece of mail from Hong Kong and thought "PSP game!" or something similar and then proceeded to rip it open. I doubt a small circular piece of glass will be quite what they had hoped for.
Anyway, I'm not too sure what to do now. I've spoken to two people in 127 but they don't recall seeing the packet and the rest of them are out. It was theoretically shipped with insurance from Hong Kong so I might be able to claim on that -- it never did reach my letterbox, after all.
I'll stick up a "STOLEN -- small piece of glass" with a picture of the crappy filter I have now in the hopes that somebody will return it. I can't say I expect to ever see it though.
Of slight interest is an eBay listing for a 67mm Hoya UV filter listed earlier on today with the seller having only registered yesterday... the location isn't Manchester but it is odd, regardless...
Saturday, 25 February 2006
Naked Lewis
Hehe, this should prove amusing.
After seeing some of Yoon Bo Shim's naked self protraiture over at pbase I decided that I should give it a try -- it's pretty challenging but unlike him I don't have any plans to upload it to the Internet... is was much more an attempt at doing it for the sake of doing it.
I decided to include four of Yoon Bo Shim's photos... there are quite a few more online at http://www.pbase.com/kratophany/selfportraiture&page=all if you are interested, although these four are definitely my favourites.
from http://www.pbase.com/kratophany/image/35838726:
from http://www.pbase.com/kratophany/image/36649733:
from http://www.pbase.com/kratophany/image/36649737:
from http://www.pbase.com/kratophany/image/35513554:
As if to make this whole thing even more amazing -- these four shots were all taken with medium format cameras! And I thought I was having a hard time with my D70s and "instant-preview" rear LCD display, not to mention auto-focus mechanism!
Don't expect to see any of my attempts here anytime soon because: 1) they suck; and 2) haha, you think I'd upload photos to here?
After seeing some of Yoon Bo Shim's naked self protraiture over at pbase I decided that I should give it a try -- it's pretty challenging but unlike him I don't have any plans to upload it to the Internet... is was much more an attempt at doing it for the sake of doing it.
I decided to include four of Yoon Bo Shim's photos... there are quite a few more online at http://www.pbase.com/kratophany/selfportraiture&page=all if you are interested, although these four are definitely my favourites.
from http://www.pbase.com/kratophany/image/35838726:
from http://www.pbase.com/kratophany/image/36649733:
from http://www.pbase.com/kratophany/image/36649737:
from http://www.pbase.com/kratophany/image/35513554:
As if to make this whole thing even more amazing -- these four shots were all taken with medium format cameras! And I thought I was having a hard time with my D70s and "instant-preview" rear LCD display, not to mention auto-focus mechanism!
Don't expect to see any of my attempts here anytime soon because: 1) they suck; and 2) haha, you think I'd upload photos to here?
I am sick
Something is seriously wrong with me. This is now the third (yes *third*!) day in a row I've been up before 8am! Today I woke up at 04:56 -- I mean, wtf?
I'm going home today and need to catch the 08:42 train from Piccadilly to Selby so as to arrive at Selby station for 09:58. Then I get to go and view some kitchens. I can't say I'm overly excited about that, but I guess it is better than, hmm, sitting about bored.
Maybe it is the stupid tale of the nachos that has done it... my body is now attempting to always be super-tired come the time that I might otherwise consider nipping across the road to Kro2 to grab a bite to eat?
Anyway, I have no idea. I decided to use the extra time to wash my clothes, which I put off last night (and the night before). I didn't wash my sheets today but I'll do those next time and use the spare set I have crumpled up in the cupboard. At least when I come back on Sunday night everything will be nice and "clean sheets"-ised.
Also, I told the downstairs people a couple of days ago that our hoover sucked, but didn't pick up crap. My floor is horrendously dirty -- not my fault either, as I picked up the hoover about a week and a half ago, found it didn't work, so put it back, hoping that the cleaner would get it sorted when he came to hoover the main hallway. I checked again on Monday -- no luck. But I looked this morning and discovered a spangly new (well, to us, anyway) blue hoover sat in the hoover cupboard. I think I'll get hoovering my room at this scary morning hour just to piss off whoever decided to prop their bedroom door open last night while playing loud music.
I'm going home today and need to catch the 08:42 train from Piccadilly to Selby so as to arrive at Selby station for 09:58. Then I get to go and view some kitchens. I can't say I'm overly excited about that, but I guess it is better than, hmm, sitting about bored.
Maybe it is the stupid tale of the nachos that has done it... my body is now attempting to always be super-tired come the time that I might otherwise consider nipping across the road to Kro2 to grab a bite to eat?
Anyway, I have no idea. I decided to use the extra time to wash my clothes, which I put off last night (and the night before). I didn't wash my sheets today but I'll do those next time and use the spare set I have crumpled up in the cupboard. At least when I come back on Sunday night everything will be nice and "clean sheets"-ised.
Also, I told the downstairs people a couple of days ago that our hoover sucked, but didn't pick up crap. My floor is horrendously dirty -- not my fault either, as I picked up the hoover about a week and a half ago, found it didn't work, so put it back, hoping that the cleaner would get it sorted when he came to hoover the main hallway. I checked again on Monday -- no luck. But I looked this morning and discovered a spangly new (well, to us, anyway) blue hoover sat in the hoover cupboard. I think I'll get hoovering my room at this scary morning hour just to piss off whoever decided to prop their bedroom door open last night while playing loud music.
Thursday, 23 February 2006
The stupid tale of the nachos
So yesterday was the photoSoc meeting and we had this cool gig photographer guy along to talk about what he does. The talk itself was very good, he had plenty of photos (good and bad) to illustrate his points and he covered lots of ground that was important, but at the same time didn't get too technical about it all. This guy was a little odd... in the summer he quite literally sets himself on fire and does all sorts of bizarre fire-related tricks. I was impressed with the whole thing, actually, it came off really well.
But what I wanted to talk about was a stupid little tale of nachos and Kro bar. Vlad and I dropped by Subway before the meeting to get something to eat, promising ourselves we'd head to Kro2 afterwards to get some of their glorious cheese nachos. We did: I wandered up to the counter, ordered a Coke and a bowl of nachos then wandered off to sit down. Vlad did much the same, only got a pint of (at a guess) Strongbow instead. At this point the waitress comes over and double-checks with us that we really wanted two bowls of nachos and we hadn't ordered an extra one by mistake. "No, definitely two cheese nachos" I say, amused that she had to ask.
They turn up and I eat about twenty or thirty and decide "Crap. There is no way in hell I'm finishing these." Vlad is thinking much the same thing. So we're sat there with the largest bowl of nachos in the world sat in front of us. I have a cunning plan to call Kirk, who lives really close by, but he's too busy murdering somebody so he can't come. I try about three or four more people, including this girl that I have asked to do some modelling for me. She was amused by it all and I genuinely think she would have come down had it not been for the fact that she was finishing some work off and packing her bags for her week-long skiing holiday she was setting off for today (some have all the fun, eh?). Oh, well. In the end I made a very hasty exit out the nearest door, avoiding all bar staff. I honestly don't think I can go back there and order nachos again. There's probably a story about us two going around already... *sigh*
But what I wanted to talk about was a stupid little tale of nachos and Kro bar. Vlad and I dropped by Subway before the meeting to get something to eat, promising ourselves we'd head to Kro2 afterwards to get some of their glorious cheese nachos. We did: I wandered up to the counter, ordered a Coke and a bowl of nachos then wandered off to sit down. Vlad did much the same, only got a pint of (at a guess) Strongbow instead. At this point the waitress comes over and double-checks with us that we really wanted two bowls of nachos and we hadn't ordered an extra one by mistake. "No, definitely two cheese nachos" I say, amused that she had to ask.
They turn up and I eat about twenty or thirty and decide "Crap. There is no way in hell I'm finishing these." Vlad is thinking much the same thing. So we're sat there with the largest bowl of nachos in the world sat in front of us. I have a cunning plan to call Kirk, who lives really close by, but he's too busy murdering somebody so he can't come. I try about three or four more people, including this girl that I have asked to do some modelling for me. She was amused by it all and I genuinely think she would have come down had it not been for the fact that she was finishing some work off and packing her bags for her week-long skiing holiday she was setting off for today (some have all the fun, eh?). Oh, well. In the end I made a very hasty exit out the nearest door, avoiding all bar staff. I honestly don't think I can go back there and order nachos again. There's probably a story about us two going around already... *sigh*
Latvia
PhotoSoc have organised a short trip to Latvia starting at the very beginning of the Easter holiday. As it works out we are flying from Liverpool airport at about 6am on Sunday 2 April and returning three days later.
I've never been to Latvia before, nor has anybody else going so far... except Vlad. Vlad, however, has been a couple of times, even lived there for a bunch of years (like eight or nine of them) so he can speak the lingo and knows all the good places to pick up the cheap girls. Err, not really... he was eight when he left.
Unfortunately my Lonely Planet Europe on a shoestring book, which I bought almost a year ago at great expensive, contains no information on Latvia. Brilliant. We're flying to Riga and staying in some cheapy hostels there.
Turnout so far has been promising. There are about eight or nine people who have their £50 deposit down already (the final price for transfer from Manchester to Liverpool, return flights and accommodation is expected to be £90-£100 -- bargain!) and plenty more will be doing so next Wednesday. PhotoSoc members only, but if you really want to come you can always join for the bargain price of £5 for the half-year!
Right, I best think about ringing my parents and telling them, so they don't read it here first :)
I've never been to Latvia before, nor has anybody else going so far... except Vlad. Vlad, however, has been a couple of times, even lived there for a bunch of years (like eight or nine of them) so he can speak the lingo and knows all the good places to pick up the cheap girls. Err, not really... he was eight when he left.
Unfortunately my Lonely Planet Europe on a shoestring book, which I bought almost a year ago at great expensive, contains no information on Latvia. Brilliant. We're flying to Riga and staying in some cheapy hostels there.
Turnout so far has been promising. There are about eight or nine people who have their £50 deposit down already (the final price for transfer from Manchester to Liverpool, return flights and accommodation is expected to be £90-£100 -- bargain!) and plenty more will be doing so next Wednesday. PhotoSoc members only, but if you really want to come you can always join for the bargain price of £5 for the half-year!
Right, I best think about ringing my parents and telling them, so they don't read it here first :)
Wednesday, 22 February 2006
Blood on the Dancefloor
How come this album sucked when it was released? It has to be the best album going for writing lexical string parsers!
As for the third year project... work goes on slowly. I can now happily parse a filter string, which I have designed to be much like SQL:
I've spent a bit of time umming and aaring over what my project will do. I reckon now that making it into an RSS client server is best in terms of it not totally sucking at being a crappy desktop RSS reader and providing me a decent reason to make it a multi-user reader... not to mention that I reckon it is also the best way to get some more marks.
By client server I mean: my RSS hoojum sits on the server and users connect via sockets (or a web interface, if I'm feeling really frisky) and say: "yo, whassssuuuuuup! I want you to email me with all of the articles you can fetch from the BBC, CNN and the DoJ that contain "Michael Jackson" in either the subject or the body. Let me know of any updates every two hours. Thanks a lot man! Tootles! (FROM bbc.com/rss,cnn.com/rss,doj.gov/rss where body="%Michael Jackons%" or subject="%Michael Jackson%" display every 2h)" Then, the hoojum parses that lot, sets up some threads to poll the feeds and does some filter magic and spews out an email every two hours, if there were any documents that matched.
What makes the whole thing cool (o_o) is the fact that feed data can be shared between users, meaning that bandwidth isn't wasted, and any queries that are placed upon the data do not need to be duplicated. This is where in theory I can make some ace marks. The only flaw is that I have absolutely toss all idea how to share the data between matching threads to allow computation to be reduced. I guess I will ask Alvaro, my tutor, about this later on today :)
As for the third year project... work goes on slowly. I can now happily parse a filter string, which I have designed to be much like SQL:
FROM rssuri,rssuri2 WHERE BODY="regular expression here" AND SUBJECT="another regex" DURATION 30m DISPLAY ON COMPLETION.I've spent a bit of time umming and aaring over what my project will do. I reckon now that making it into an RSS client server is best in terms of it not totally sucking at being a crappy desktop RSS reader and providing me a decent reason to make it a multi-user reader... not to mention that I reckon it is also the best way to get some more marks.
By client server I mean: my RSS hoojum sits on the server and users connect via sockets (or a web interface, if I'm feeling really frisky) and say: "yo, whassssuuuuuup! I want you to email me with all of the articles you can fetch from the BBC, CNN and the DoJ that contain "Michael Jackson" in either the subject or the body. Let me know of any updates every two hours. Thanks a lot man! Tootles! (FROM bbc.com/rss,cnn.com/rss,doj.gov/rss where body="%Michael Jackons%" or subject="%Michael Jackson%" display every 2h)" Then, the hoojum parses that lot, sets up some threads to poll the feeds and does some filter magic and spews out an email every two hours, if there were any documents that matched.
What makes the whole thing cool (o_o) is the fact that feed data can be shared between users, meaning that bandwidth isn't wasted, and any queries that are placed upon the data do not need to be duplicated. This is where in theory I can make some ace marks. The only flaw is that I have absolutely toss all idea how to share the data between matching threads to allow computation to be reduced. I guess I will ask Alvaro, my tutor, about this later on today :)
Monday, 20 February 2006
A word of advice
If you ever go to Asia stay away from the green Mirinda!
(original photo, no saturation or curve modifications!)
(original photo, no saturation or curve modifications!)
Sunday, 19 February 2006
Nandos
Last night Ceyda, Zeynep and I went out to font bar before deciding that we were hungry and, after much discussion, ended up in the Nandos near my hall. I've only been to Nandos once before, just before Christmas the year before last. I can't say I was overly impressed then, but I decided it was definitely worth another shot.
I opted for an "extra hot" double chicken burger with a side of chips and an extra spicy rice. For "extra hot" I was unimpressed. The burger wasn't so great and the sides were slightly cold, although the rice was really nice. With a drink it worked out about £11, which isn't so bad, but for what is essentially self-service it was a little over-priced and the food wasn't quite up to what I had expected. I guess I won't be rushing back anytime soon.
But anyway, after that we decided to head up to "Big Hands", but they wanted to charge a £5 entrance fee which was for a DJ only, no live band, etc. so instead we sat down for a quiet drink in Varsity, across the road. About 30 minutes later we got kicked out because they were closing and so headed to get some ice cream from the lovely Moonlight shop in Rusholme, where we stayed for about half an hour. After that... we all went our seperate ways :)
"Zeynep and Lewis -- Through the looking glass" (haha)
I opted for an "extra hot" double chicken burger with a side of chips and an extra spicy rice. For "extra hot" I was unimpressed. The burger wasn't so great and the sides were slightly cold, although the rice was really nice. With a drink it worked out about £11, which isn't so bad, but for what is essentially self-service it was a little over-priced and the food wasn't quite up to what I had expected. I guess I won't be rushing back anytime soon.
But anyway, after that we decided to head up to "Big Hands", but they wanted to charge a £5 entrance fee which was for a DJ only, no live band, etc. so instead we sat down for a quiet drink in Varsity, across the road. About 30 minutes later we got kicked out because they were closing and so headed to get some ice cream from the lovely Moonlight shop in Rusholme, where we stayed for about half an hour. After that... we all went our seperate ways :)
"Zeynep and Lewis -- Through the looking glass" (haha)
Two annoying things
Two things that are annoying me right now:
# flickr has the most shocking interface in the world. Why on Earth the "search" isn't included on *every* page I do not know. Otherwise it is generally nasty and cluttered and the default image size is too small.
# These big MacBook Pros... people are wandering around gabbling about how sexy they are. Sorry? Did I mishear? No matey, you've just bought yourself an expensive doorstop with LEDs that come on when it gets dark so you don't stub your feet. Talk about wasted space.
# flickr has the most shocking interface in the world. Why on Earth the "search" isn't included on *every* page I do not know. Otherwise it is generally nasty and cluttered and the default image size is too small.
# These big MacBook Pros... people are wandering around gabbling about how sexy they are. Sorry? Did I mishear? No matey, you've just bought yourself an expensive doorstop with LEDs that come on when it gets dark so you don't stub your feet. Talk about wasted space.
Favouritest
I decided to upload a heavily cropped 100px version of a self-portrait shot I took today to my TE profile. It replaces either a ShidaX tomato or cauliflower, I can't recall. You can check the tiny little photo out at http://www.trekearth.com/members/lewiz/ -- it's a bit cliched and I've seen at least five other people with the same sort of shot. Still... better than nothing, right?
Anyway, I was pleasantly surprised that I now have five other TE members that consider me one of their "favourites". Nice to know that :)
Anyway, I was pleasantly surprised that I now have five other TE members that consider me one of their "favourites". Nice to know that :)
Saturday, 18 February 2006
Big Red Rog
Rog discovered some exploding stars, or something. For once something that somebody has discovered in space looks good:
Lewis' guide to ball photography
Okay, last night was the CS and a few other departments' ball. For Rog, Samia and I it went pretty well, although it could have gone a lot better. What have I learned:
# Get there and be fully set up at least 45 minutes before people start arriving. This will give you enough time to fine-tune the lighting, make test shots, view them on the computer, and make more adjustments.
# Do everything to cut-down shadows on the backdrop. This will save a lot of hassle and time later on in the editing process. Two dumb (but fairly powerful) flashes at either side shooting towards the backdrop where the shadows will fall will really help. The background doesn't need to be blown out, but if it is, it really helps cut down on the funny blue colours you can end up with.
# Use a hard board to cut down damage to the backdrop if it is fully extended for full-length shots. If it is smooth and white it could go over the backdrop, otherwise it could go underneath. This really helps with girls in stilettos.
# Have sample prints available at the right size.
# Have a clear sign displaying how much photos cost, and how much an extra copy is (in our case a single photo was £5 but extra copies of the same shot were £3 each).
# Organise a website beforehand. While payment is always demanded up front it might be possible to list photos on the website with a "buy print" option after the event. This is a double-edged blade... it could be good but it could also mean that people will come and waste your time only to view the photos online. There is definitely good money to be made doing this stuff (as I know) but compared to the value of equipment we had with us (close to £3,500, I guess) and the time, skill and effort required to take the shots, set up the lights, transport the equipment, the post-processing time and printing, shipping and all other admin costs, it is important to actually make some money!
# Be very organised with taking people's details. We used a laptop and a spreadsheet but if we do it again printed sheets with spaces for name, mobile number, department (if applicable) and email address would work very well in conjunction with the spreadsheet. These would have a tear-off slip, similar to when you get your film developed.
# Investigate all your costs beforehand. A few people thought we were providing photos at a truly spectacular cost. £5 for a photo and then £3 per extra print is fabulous compared to £10 per print, which some people had been charged before! That said, I think £5 a photo is a good idea but people might possibly want to pay more for larger prints. You could get an "oh, big the large is only 30p more than the normal and then, well, the super size is only an extra 60p and you get eight times as much!" scheme going. This isn't just pure business technique (I'm really no good at that) -- this ties in very much with print pricing. There is a significant jump from one size to the next one up, and then after that, the jump is far less dramatic.
# If you want to do this stuff really well, consider tethered shooting and instant preview of photos. People will love this and you massively cut down the chances of not-spotting blinkers on the back row. It also allows people to decide for themselves which photo they choose.
That's all I can think of for now. Definitely lots that can be improved. Something to work on for sure :)
# Get there and be fully set up at least 45 minutes before people start arriving. This will give you enough time to fine-tune the lighting, make test shots, view them on the computer, and make more adjustments.
# Do everything to cut-down shadows on the backdrop. This will save a lot of hassle and time later on in the editing process. Two dumb (but fairly powerful) flashes at either side shooting towards the backdrop where the shadows will fall will really help. The background doesn't need to be blown out, but if it is, it really helps cut down on the funny blue colours you can end up with.
# Use a hard board to cut down damage to the backdrop if it is fully extended for full-length shots. If it is smooth and white it could go over the backdrop, otherwise it could go underneath. This really helps with girls in stilettos.
# Have sample prints available at the right size.
# Have a clear sign displaying how much photos cost, and how much an extra copy is (in our case a single photo was £5 but extra copies of the same shot were £3 each).
# Organise a website beforehand. While payment is always demanded up front it might be possible to list photos on the website with a "buy print" option after the event. This is a double-edged blade... it could be good but it could also mean that people will come and waste your time only to view the photos online. There is definitely good money to be made doing this stuff (as I know) but compared to the value of equipment we had with us (close to £3,500, I guess) and the time, skill and effort required to take the shots, set up the lights, transport the equipment, the post-processing time and printing, shipping and all other admin costs, it is important to actually make some money!
# Be very organised with taking people's details. We used a laptop and a spreadsheet but if we do it again printed sheets with spaces for name, mobile number, department (if applicable) and email address would work very well in conjunction with the spreadsheet. These would have a tear-off slip, similar to when you get your film developed.
# Investigate all your costs beforehand. A few people thought we were providing photos at a truly spectacular cost. £5 for a photo and then £3 per extra print is fabulous compared to £10 per print, which some people had been charged before! That said, I think £5 a photo is a good idea but people might possibly want to pay more for larger prints. You could get an "oh, big the large is only 30p more than the normal and then, well, the super size is only an extra 60p and you get eight times as much!" scheme going. This isn't just pure business technique (I'm really no good at that) -- this ties in very much with print pricing. There is a significant jump from one size to the next one up, and then after that, the jump is far less dramatic.
# If you want to do this stuff really well, consider tethered shooting and instant preview of photos. People will love this and you massively cut down the chances of not-spotting blinkers on the back row. It also allows people to decide for themselves which photo they choose.
That's all I can think of for now. Definitely lots that can be improved. Something to work on for sure :)
Untidy room
So the ball went well. The studio stuff was not only good fun, it was good practice and the results are so far looking impressive... although due to a lot of sensor crap on my camera (which was the only body we used for the studio stuff) cleaning the images up will take a little longer. At some point I really need to get it cleaned... thing is, I don't want to be without it, I'm using it far too much now. I have no idea how Rob is managing with an estimated service delay of three weeks on his muddy D70! There's a little too much shadow too, this wasn't a problem with the earlier setup today but again, no problem, just more work for me :(
But what I really wanted to say was... my room... the mess... oh dear! Anybody interested in buying a full set of studio gear? Flashes, softboxes, screen, tripods? I can do you a good price ;)
Damn, I need to figure out how to get from my computer to my bed...
But what I really wanted to say was... my room... the mess... oh dear! Anybody interested in buying a full set of studio gear? Flashes, softboxes, screen, tripods? I can do you a good price ;)
Damn, I need to figure out how to get from my computer to my bed...
Friday, 17 February 2006
わたしのへやは
(translation: my room is...)
a veritable feast of photos!
The bike is mine, Bob Dylan isn't (unfortunately), Sayaka-chan is mine, the two film posters are not mine, but the landscape shot is. Also, we're still diggin the new camera bag!
Only the green landscape with the big white border and the incense sticks to the far right are mine.
Okay, so there aren't that many... but just you wait until this CompSoc ink system turns up!
a veritable feast of photos!
The bike is mine, Bob Dylan isn't (unfortunately), Sayaka-chan is mine, the two film posters are not mine, but the landscape shot is. Also, we're still diggin the new camera bag!Only the green landscape with the big white border and the incense sticks to the far right are mine.Okay, so there aren't that many... but just you wait until this CompSoc ink system turns up!
Today
Today has and is going to be hectic. Oxfam stuff at 11am in the Student Union... I've got one or two photos that I'm really happy with. I don't think I can include one as I don't technically own them, and I don't think it is fair on the people that have taken part on the understanding that they are one in a million.
The campaign is to get the government to stop dealing arms to country's run by oppressive governments, those with child warriors and this sort of stuff. In honesty, I'm there mostly for the chance to take some photos, although it is obviously a good cause, and that doesn help. On a similar note, here's a photo I took on Wednesday outside the Union -- the university holds £1.4m of shares in arms companies and some students want rid of them. This time, I don't really agree with this... they do us, the students, a lot of good and selling them brings nobody any benefit (please click the image for the non-nastily-browser-resized version!)
I've just spent the last hour sewing my trousers back together after the incident on the train before my Sun interview. I've done a crap job, but it's good enough for tonight. After that I did some ironing! Wow. I almost forgot how this worked. The idea is: the iron is hot and it makes stuff go flat. Sounds easy, but it's not!
The white shirt actually looks ace... I've done a really good job, but my trousers are a little below par, thanks to having a really thick towel to iron through. Obviously you can't directly iron black trousers, otherwise they go all nasty and shiny (how ace is knowledge like this!?)
I have about fifteen minutes in which to get all tarted up for my departmental ball (there are other departments too, so it won't all be blokes!). I'm there in an official capacity... but an ace one. There will be myself, Samia and Rog and we're the photographers! Sounds like a good film to me.
It's a bit different though, as we get to charge a whopping £5 per photo. This is genius, there is potential to make quite a bit of dosh here, especially if we can find somewhere really cheap (that still meets our quality requirements, obviously) to print the photos. I think we'll be splitting all of it three ways, although I'm not sure.
Right, best get myself organised!
The campaign is to get the government to stop dealing arms to country's run by oppressive governments, those with child warriors and this sort of stuff. In honesty, I'm there mostly for the chance to take some photos, although it is obviously a good cause, and that doesn help. On a similar note, here's a photo I took on Wednesday outside the Union -- the university holds £1.4m of shares in arms companies and some students want rid of them. This time, I don't really agree with this... they do us, the students, a lot of good and selling them brings nobody any benefit (please click the image for the non-nastily-browser-resized version!)
I've just spent the last hour sewing my trousers back together after the incident on the train before my Sun interview. I've done a crap job, but it's good enough for tonight. After that I did some ironing! Wow. I almost forgot how this worked. The idea is: the iron is hot and it makes stuff go flat. Sounds easy, but it's not!
The white shirt actually looks ace... I've done a really good job, but my trousers are a little below par, thanks to having a really thick towel to iron through. Obviously you can't directly iron black trousers, otherwise they go all nasty and shiny (how ace is knowledge like this!?)
I have about fifteen minutes in which to get all tarted up for my departmental ball (there are other departments too, so it won't all be blokes!). I'm there in an official capacity... but an ace one. There will be myself, Samia and Rog and we're the photographers! Sounds like a good film to me.
It's a bit different though, as we get to charge a whopping £5 per photo. This is genius, there is potential to make quite a bit of dosh here, especially if we can find somewhere really cheap (that still meets our quality requirements, obviously) to print the photos. I think we'll be splitting all of it three ways, although I'm not sure.
Right, best get myself organised!
Wednesday, 15 February 2006
Compiz
All the cool kids are doing it... why aren't you?
I'm seriously impressed... I've got Xgl and Compiz running on my laptop (an i810 graphics chipset) and it all runs fairly speedily. The battery hit seems to be negligible (surprisingly) and as a result I get all sorts of cool goodies.
The coolest is Expose -- hit F12 and see all of the open windows tiled on your desktop. This has been available for MacOS X for some time now. ALT+TAB has a fancy new dialogue, which is good eyecandy but also handy for finding the window you're looking for. Windows now "burst" onto the screen and wibble-wobble when you move them about.
There are a whole bunch more plugins that I haven't got working yet -- one of the coolest is the rotating cube desktop... but this still seems fairly elusive for most people.
Great work Dave Reveman!
I'm seriously impressed... I've got Xgl and Compiz running on my laptop (an i810 graphics chipset) and it all runs fairly speedily. The battery hit seems to be negligible (surprisingly) and as a result I get all sorts of cool goodies.
The coolest is Expose -- hit F12 and see all of the open windows tiled on your desktop. This has been available for MacOS X for some time now. ALT+TAB has a fancy new dialogue, which is good eyecandy but also handy for finding the window you're looking for. Windows now "burst" onto the screen and wibble-wobble when you move them about.
There are a whole bunch more plugins that I haven't got working yet -- one of the coolest is the rotating cube desktop... but this still seems fairly elusive for most people.
Great work Dave Reveman!
とおりゃんせ
In Japan musical tunes are played at major road crossings so that blind people can hear what is going on, when it is safe to cross and so on.
The one I will never forget is the big crossroad outside Kyoto Train Station, where an old folk song called Tooryanse is played. It's kind of a dull, depressing song... not sure why I remembered it, really.
A translation of the lyrics goes something like:
Pass through, pass through
Where is this narrow path here?
It is the path of the gods in heaven.
Please pass through a short while.
Those with no business may not pass.
For this child's seventh birthday
Go to offer up a protective scroll
Going is good, good, returning is scary
Even though it's scary, pass through, pass through
My guess is that the lyrics are used too... so "pass through, pass through" means walk and "those with no business may not pass" might mean stop. I'm not sure though.
There's a highly informative thread on USENET that you can reach via this link.
I've even attached an Ogg version of the little tune, which I converted from a MIDI I found somewhere on the Internet. Enjoy!
The one I will never forget is the big crossroad outside Kyoto Train Station, where an old folk song called Tooryanse is played. It's kind of a dull, depressing song... not sure why I remembered it, really.
A translation of the lyrics goes something like:
Pass through, pass through
Where is this narrow path here?
It is the path of the gods in heaven.
Please pass through a short while.
Those with no business may not pass.
For this child's seventh birthday
Go to offer up a protective scroll
Going is good, good, returning is scary
Even though it's scary, pass through, pass through
My guess is that the lyrics are used too... so "pass through, pass through" means walk and "those with no business may not pass" might mean stop. I'm not sure though.
There's a highly informative thread on USENET that you can reach via this link.
I've even attached an Ogg version of the little tune, which I converted from a MIDI I found somewhere on the Internet. Enjoy!
National Student Survey 2006
I received an email from IPSOS, who are conducting this year's National Student Survey, on January 31. It asked that I take part in a survey to aid views on the quality, assessment and support of teaching. An "opt-out" option was provided, upon completion of a "short online questionnaire" (quote: "To make your opinions heard
or opt out of the survey please complete a short online questionnaire, using the link below").
I ignored this email. Another arrived on February 10 saying that an email had been sent and that a response had not yet been received.
I ignored this email. Today I received an email from IPSOS stating: "Over the past fortnight we have sent emails inviting you to take part in the National Student Survey (NSS) to your main email address.As yet, we have not received a response from you so we are attempting to reach you by using this alternative email address."
Wonderful. This is entirely unsolicited email, worse than the regular spam I receive, which gets identified as such and deleted automatically.
I do not agree with the MANCHESTER-* lists that the university run. They are largely full of more unsolicited email and absolutely no opt-out is provided (but a quick procmail rule does the trick). However, as this survey is being sent out to final year students a better place would have been the final-year mailing list, not directly to my university and private email addresses.
I am actually very upset by this. I wrote a stern reply and informed them not to contact me again. I almost went one stop further and demanded that they disclose all information they have about me under the Data Protection Act.
or opt out of the survey please complete a short online questionnaire, using the link below").
I ignored this email. Another arrived on February 10 saying that an email had been sent and that a response had not yet been received.
I ignored this email. Today I received an email from IPSOS stating: "Over the past fortnight we have sent emails inviting you to take part in the National Student Survey (NSS) to your main email address.As yet, we have not received a response from you so we are attempting to reach you by using this alternative email address."
Wonderful. This is entirely unsolicited email, worse than the regular spam I receive, which gets identified as such and deleted automatically.
I do not agree with the MANCHESTER-* lists that the university run. They are largely full of more unsolicited email and absolutely no opt-out is provided (but a quick procmail rule does the trick). However, as this survey is being sent out to final year students a better place would have been the final-year mailing list, not directly to my university and private email addresses.
I am actually very upset by this. I wrote a stern reply and informed them not to contact me again. I almost went one stop further and demanded that they disclose all information they have about me under the Data Protection Act.
folderblog EXIF info updates
Okay, just as I was about to go out and grab myself some dinner I had an idea for a quick fix for the aperture field on my photoblog. I'm using folderblog to do this but I don't think that the issue really lies there. Instead I think Bibble Pro exports "odd" (although valid) EXIF info.
My idea was just to round the aperture to one decimal place... this works perfectly. I then decided that I should probably look at why the shutter speed is incorrectly calculated... it turns out that the EXIF stores the shutter speed (and aperture and probably other values) not as a single value, but two. Odd? Seems a little to me.
Anyway, fb_exif.php was checking if one of these two numbers is not equal to one. But my EXIF info is slightly odd, so I reworked this to check if one number was larger than the other (i.e. less than 1s) and then rounded the resulting shutter speed to 0dp. Perfect!
My idea was just to round the aperture to one decimal place... this works perfectly. I then decided that I should probably look at why the shutter speed is incorrectly calculated... it turns out that the EXIF stores the shutter speed (and aperture and probably other values) not as a single value, but two. Odd? Seems a little to me.
Anyway, fb_exif.php was checking if one of these two numbers is not equal to one. But my EXIF info is slightly odd, so I reworked this to check if one number was larger than the other (i.e. less than 1s) and then rounded the resulting shutter speed to 0dp. Perfect!
Tuesday, 14 February 2006
Smoking ban
The front page article on the BBC News website is currently Smoking ban in all pubs and clubs! Great news.
What I am still a little confused about is what a private members' club is. Is this just what anybody else would call a "club", or something else?
And does this mean that smoking is banned in pubs regardless of whether food is being served, or not?
What I am still a little confused about is what a private members' club is. Is this just what anybody else would call a "club", or something else?
And does this mean that smoking is banned in pubs regardless of whether food is being served, or not?
Comments enabled
Just hacked the folderblog comments support and integrated it onto the main viewing page (instead of a pop-up page as is default). I'm happy to say that this is the first time that I've used this much JavaScript and "dynamic" CSS. The comments menu is now very (well, okay, a little bit) Web 2.0 in that you must first click the comments link before it appears. I'm happy about this as I don't want the main photo display site to become too cluttered.
Already I've added a few more fields that I didn't really want. Instead of showing just a title, I added the comment field that folderblog supports. I will likely just be using this to display the location the photo was taken (as per the current two entries), and not much more. I guess it could come in handy for other things from time to time.
Actually, the whole comment dialogue needs tidying up a bit... by default folderblog doesn't suppress the "view current comments" when there are none. Because of the way folderblog is designed, this sort of makes theming it a little difficult (this isn't strictly true, it just means going against the model/controller-view design). I'll get it sorted out later on though.
Only other outstanding issue I can think of is the odd rounding of the EXIF info -- i.e. apertures of f/5.59999997 instead of f/5.6... and the truly bizarre shutter speeds that span days. I believe this is more an issue with EXIF export from Bibble than with the PHP EXIF support.
But anyway... get leaving some comments :)
Already I've added a few more fields that I didn't really want. Instead of showing just a title, I added the comment field that folderblog supports. I will likely just be using this to display the location the photo was taken (as per the current two entries), and not much more. I guess it could come in handy for other things from time to time.
Actually, the whole comment dialogue needs tidying up a bit... by default folderblog doesn't suppress the "view current comments" when there are none. Because of the way folderblog is designed, this sort of makes theming it a little difficult (this isn't strictly true, it just means going against the model/controller-view design). I'll get it sorted out later on though.
Only other outstanding issue I can think of is the odd rounding of the EXIF info -- i.e. apertures of f/5.59999997 instead of f/5.6... and the truly bizarre shutter speeds that span days. I believe this is more an issue with EXIF export from Bibble than with the PHP EXIF support.
But anyway... get leaving some comments :)
Monday, 13 February 2006
photoblog!
Photoblog now available at www.lewiz.org/plog !
Please subscribe to the RSS feed or bookmark that URL. I'll do my best to upload a new photo every day or so.
Please subscribe to the RSS feed or bookmark that URL. I'll do my best to upload a new photo every day or so.
lewizsite2
I've mostly finished this photoblog... there are a few things to tidy up but I'm planning on making the first image available soon.
In the process I came across an old version of my website, which you can see at http://www.compsoc.man.ac.uk/~lewiz/sites/lewizsite2/ (did I post this already?) It make me think what a totally ace site that is... to be honest, it's probably better than this one, only I don't think I can include images and other stuff.
If that wasn't good enough, I coded the whole thing to work without a SQL database! Damn, I could be bothered to do things back that... what went wrong?
:seriously considers scrapping Drupal and installing modified version of lewizsite2.
In the process I came across an old version of my website, which you can see at http://www.compsoc.man.ac.uk/~lewiz/sites/lewizsite2/ (did I post this already?) It make me think what a totally ace site that is... to be honest, it's probably better than this one, only I don't think I can include images and other stuff.
If that wasn't good enough, I coded the whole thing to work without a SQL database! Damn, I could be bothered to do things back that... what went wrong?
:seriously considers scrapping Drupal and installing modified version of lewizsite2.
Sunday, 12 February 2006
NEW SHOES!
This evening was a bit of an oddity. I got a message from Qíyin at about 8:00pm asking me if Huseyin and I wanted to join her and some other guys at M2. Okay, weird part number one: I agreed. This is totally not my scene, but I figured what the hell... I was only going to sit about on my own, messing with my photoblog idea. Thing is, I had to meet Mandy at 9:40pm to allow us to get in free before 10pm. Wow, that's about an hour and a half to go out and get fed and get ready to go. Somehow I managed it... but not after mass panic about ten minutes before I was supposed to be setting off in case they refused to let me in.
Thing is, somehow I misunderstood or misheard somebody say something and thought that Samia once got refused entry because she had white shoes on, or something... turns out it wasn't true, I don't know. But my shoes... wow, they're something else entirely. The whole front of my right shoe is in pieces and both of my soles have a good number of holes. In short... they're scruffy and a mess... probably a health hazard too! But my ingenious plan to celotape them back together won through and the bouncers didn't so much as give me a second look (or the black bag I was carrying that contained my camera, a hat, my keys and a spare lens, battery and CF card). I did, however, get a fairly odd look from a couple of girls when I pulled a whole pile of celotape off my shoes at about 12:30am.
So, that's one story... the end result is that I've decided it is probably time to head back to River Island and see if they still stock this line of footwear. I think this is my second or third pair now, and they've lasted fairly well, on the whole. They're also pretty comfy and come in styles that don't disagree with me. So, that'll be another £45 on Monday.
I guess the next story starts with the black bag, or rather the contents... I'm not a big dancer, far from it. But what I've discovered over the past month or so is that if I take my camera with me, it gives me an excuse not to dance too much and people don't give me funny looks for standing there like a scarecrow. But this was a proper club place, not the little Legends bar for the Greek party, or Pangaea where I was the "official photographer" for one room. I've heard a bit about these websites that people pass through clubs taking "clubbing" photos for... I can't say I really expected the reaction though when at about 11pm I took a few photos of the guys I was with -- it was like being swamped. It's totally bizarre to be stood with your friends one minute, only to be attacked from every angle the next minute as people try and get you to take a photo of them and their mates. I think I even have one bruise to prove that it's not always peaceful, either... damn, that wasn't a cheaky nip -- *that hurt*!
So, after I explained to the first people that I wasn't shooting for tilllate.com (or any other site) and that the photos were supposed to be just of the people I was with... well, that didn't matter, they wanted their photo taking anyway. Well, that's fine. More photos == less scarecrow, plus it's all fairly amusing. Thing is, explaining this to every person just gets tedious... so I just stopped bothering (will they even remember they had their photo taken come tomorrow morning?), until people started asking after I'd taken the photo. I gave in and fajita.org a dormant (well, except for my personal email) domain now has a use. Pity that I have to spell it out to every person that asks, but I don't know that I'm really willing to put money (even £10/year) into this thing.
Check out www.fajita.org for all your Manchester clubbing needs!
Thing is, somehow I misunderstood or misheard somebody say something and thought that Samia once got refused entry because she had white shoes on, or something... turns out it wasn't true, I don't know. But my shoes... wow, they're something else entirely. The whole front of my right shoe is in pieces and both of my soles have a good number of holes. In short... they're scruffy and a mess... probably a health hazard too! But my ingenious plan to celotape them back together won through and the bouncers didn't so much as give me a second look (or the black bag I was carrying that contained my camera, a hat, my keys and a spare lens, battery and CF card). I did, however, get a fairly odd look from a couple of girls when I pulled a whole pile of celotape off my shoes at about 12:30am.
So, that's one story... the end result is that I've decided it is probably time to head back to River Island and see if they still stock this line of footwear. I think this is my second or third pair now, and they've lasted fairly well, on the whole. They're also pretty comfy and come in styles that don't disagree with me. So, that'll be another £45 on Monday.
I guess the next story starts with the black bag, or rather the contents... I'm not a big dancer, far from it. But what I've discovered over the past month or so is that if I take my camera with me, it gives me an excuse not to dance too much and people don't give me funny looks for standing there like a scarecrow. But this was a proper club place, not the little Legends bar for the Greek party, or Pangaea where I was the "official photographer" for one room. I've heard a bit about these websites that people pass through clubs taking "clubbing" photos for... I can't say I really expected the reaction though when at about 11pm I took a few photos of the guys I was with -- it was like being swamped. It's totally bizarre to be stood with your friends one minute, only to be attacked from every angle the next minute as people try and get you to take a photo of them and their mates. I think I even have one bruise to prove that it's not always peaceful, either... damn, that wasn't a cheaky nip -- *that hurt*!
So, after I explained to the first people that I wasn't shooting for tilllate.com (or any other site) and that the photos were supposed to be just of the people I was with... well, that didn't matter, they wanted their photo taking anyway. Well, that's fine. More photos == less scarecrow, plus it's all fairly amusing. Thing is, explaining this to every person just gets tedious... so I just stopped bothering (will they even remember they had their photo taken come tomorrow morning?), until people started asking after I'd taken the photo. I gave in and fajita.org a dormant (well, except for my personal email) domain now has a use. Pity that I have to spell it out to every person that asks, but I don't know that I'm really willing to put money (even £10/year) into this thing.
Check out www.fajita.org for all your Manchester clubbing needs!
Saturday, 11 February 2006
photoblog
Right, I've spent all night messing about installing crap photoblog software... I swear there is not one decent package out there... half of them don't work, some have the most nasty hardcoded values and so on.
I've decided to write my own (as I've already mentioned). My photoblog software will be very simple... and will likely operate in a very similar way to folderblog. If I can be bothered I'd rather use a database (probably with some abstraction, e.g. PEAR::DB) so as not to rely on either image names or last modified information to provide the image ordering. Right now I don't care about comments, but something like that is always easy to add at a later date.
I came to the conclusion that a good photoblog is defined largely by a) the photos (duh!); and b) the site design. The whole idea of this thing is that it is very simple and allows you to concentrate on the photo, not all the whizz-bang camera settings, image manipulation, big site logos and other stuff. With this in mind I've come up with a prototype design in HTML and CSS (no PHP yet) that fits these needs quite well.
I'm in two minds about the little RSS logo and text at the bottom-right corner of the page... on small screens this will overlap the image, which isn't good. I think 1024x768 is my basis for the design, which is a fairly safe bet -- trying to design the site for 800x600 is a bad idea as I don't want to provide tiny images like most other sites do these days. Images will be 800 pixels at the maximum dimension (so for a 6"x6" photo it would be 800x800).
Anyway, the idea is at http://www.compsoc.man.ac.uk/~lewiz/photos/photos.html -- let me know what you think!
P.S.
I know the RSS thingy stick to the bottom corner... I guess some fancy stuff is required to make that work. Just imagine it does for now.
EDIT: Well, I've made the RSS thing do what I wanted, although it doesn't seem to do horizontal scrolling... I'm tempted to just ignore that ;)
I've decided to write my own (as I've already mentioned). My photoblog software will be very simple... and will likely operate in a very similar way to folderblog. If I can be bothered I'd rather use a database (probably with some abstraction, e.g. PEAR::DB) so as not to rely on either image names or last modified information to provide the image ordering. Right now I don't care about comments, but something like that is always easy to add at a later date.
I came to the conclusion that a good photoblog is defined largely by a) the photos (duh!); and b) the site design. The whole idea of this thing is that it is very simple and allows you to concentrate on the photo, not all the whizz-bang camera settings, image manipulation, big site logos and other stuff. With this in mind I've come up with a prototype design in HTML and CSS (no PHP yet) that fits these needs quite well.
I'm in two minds about the little RSS logo and text at the bottom-right corner of the page... on small screens this will overlap the image, which isn't good. I think 1024x768 is my basis for the design, which is a fairly safe bet -- trying to design the site for 800x600 is a bad idea as I don't want to provide tiny images like most other sites do these days. Images will be 800 pixels at the maximum dimension (so for a 6"x6" photo it would be 800x800).
Anyway, the idea is at http://www.compsoc.man.ac.uk/~lewiz/photos/photos.html -- let me know what you think!
P.S.
I know the RSS thingy stick to the bottom corner... I guess some fancy stuff is required to make that work. Just imagine it does for now.
EDIT: Well, I've made the RSS thing do what I wanted, although it doesn't seem to do horizontal scrolling... I'm tempted to just ignore that ;)
Friday, 10 February 2006
Xgl, compiz
Well, so much for my big plans. I managed to get Xgl running on my laptop, which has an Intel 855GM chipset (uses the i810 driver). Unfortunately there is a bug with the i810 driver that causes it to be horrendously slow. I understand this will be fixed some time, but for now Xgl is not usable on my laptop.
No such luck with my desktop machine, which has an NVIDIA Quadro NVS 280, which is basically a GeForce 4MX. Known issues with the GeForce 2 and 4 chipsets mean that I get a black screen. No amount of attempting to compile the "fixed" CVS code has worked. I guess I'll just have to wait a bit. It's no big deal, anyway, as currently things don't seem to work with TwinView (two displays) anyway. Maybe for this I just have to wait until NVIDIA release updated drivers that support the new extensions, instead of the Mesa libGL.
As for the photoblog... well, didn't do that either. Or go to Kro bar. Or go take some crappy photos in the evening. Hehe, so, I didn't do a great deal. Anyway, time to head out for some food and then I'll have a play with some PHP or Ruby on Rails for this photoblog.
No such luck with my desktop machine, which has an NVIDIA Quadro NVS 280, which is basically a GeForce 4MX. Known issues with the GeForce 2 and 4 chipsets mean that I get a black screen. No amount of attempting to compile the "fixed" CVS code has worked. I guess I'll just have to wait a bit. It's no big deal, anyway, as currently things don't seem to work with TwinView (two displays) anyway. Maybe for this I just have to wait until NVIDIA release updated drivers that support the new extensions, instead of the Mesa libGL.
As for the photoblog... well, didn't do that either. Or go to Kro bar. Or go take some crappy photos in the evening. Hehe, so, I didn't do a great deal. Anyway, time to head out for some food and then I'll have a play with some PHP or Ruby on Rails for this photoblog.
GNOME power management
Finally! GNOME has a decent power management applet... the defaults are a little un-sane (somehow insane doesn't seem right) as it decided that running on AC power my display should not be at full brightness.
This is a turn for the better... it even has buttons, sliders and options to configure it, which is a lot more than can be said for the latest reincarnation of the GNOME screensaver.
I wonder how long before the GNOME interface Nazis get their hands on this great little application... time will tell.
This is a turn for the better... it even has buttons, sliders and options to configure it, which is a lot more than can be said for the latest reincarnation of the GNOME screensaver.
I wonder how long before the GNOME interface Nazis get their hands on this great little application... time will tell.
Thursday, 9 February 2006
This evening
I'm feeling most refereshed after an early night (10:30pm) last night. I didn't get up particularly early, but that doesn't matter.
This evening I have a number of tasks I must complete:
# Compile this fangled new Xgl server and compiz. Get it working on my desktop and laptop. Play with eyecandy for a little bit, before getting bored and declaring the whole thing as a useless waste of time and crap.
# Finally bother to make this photoblog I mentioned a few days ago... after sampling all sorts of existing software, I can safely say that no such software exists that meets my exact needs. My wotsit will use a database, will have a very simple design and shall support some taxonomy stuff for good luck. Maybe I'll expand the taxonomic classification to provide a sort of ad-hoc gallery.
# Get something to eat
# Go to bed (well, maybe that can be tomorrow morning)
Tomorrow lots of exciting things are happening. CompSoc's fangled new printer stuff should turn up... this includes a Lyson continuous printing system, ink and some fancy archival paper to go with the rest of it. I'll stay in bed while this happens, as Vlad will thoroughly enjoy setting it all up. I'll go to some lectures, then go to Kro bar for the weekly "show and tell" (aka "sitting about in the pub chatting") session, before going to see a film (maybe) and then going to take some crappy photos with a tripod (I've got one, but I hate using it) around the printworks with some other guys.
It's all GO GO GO in the land of Lewis. (haha, a land of me would be ace)
This evening I have a number of tasks I must complete:
# Compile this fangled new Xgl server and compiz. Get it working on my desktop and laptop. Play with eyecandy for a little bit, before getting bored and declaring the whole thing as a useless waste of time and crap.
# Finally bother to make this photoblog I mentioned a few days ago... after sampling all sorts of existing software, I can safely say that no such software exists that meets my exact needs. My wotsit will use a database, will have a very simple design and shall support some taxonomy stuff for good luck. Maybe I'll expand the taxonomic classification to provide a sort of ad-hoc gallery.
# Get something to eat
# Go to bed (well, maybe that can be tomorrow morning)
Tomorrow lots of exciting things are happening. CompSoc's fangled new printer stuff should turn up... this includes a Lyson continuous printing system, ink and some fancy archival paper to go with the rest of it. I'll stay in bed while this happens, as Vlad will thoroughly enjoy setting it all up. I'll go to some lectures, then go to Kro bar for the weekly "show and tell" (aka "sitting about in the pub chatting") session, before going to see a film (maybe) and then going to take some crappy photos with a tripod (I've got one, but I hate using it) around the printworks with some other guys.
It's all GO GO GO in the land of Lewis. (haha, a land of me would be ace)
Wednesday, 8 February 2006
tres tired
I was up quite a lot of last night working on my final year project. It's a fancy RSS reader that will do powerful article matching based on all sorts of different criteria. I finished off the duplicate document checking code and did some basic regular expression matching. Next up is figuring out how to do the proper matching (now that I have threaded RSS fetchers, matching engines and display code in place).
The meeting was at 9am so I ended up with about an hour in bed (thanks to a rediscovery of the classic game "Out run") before waking up for a shower. The rest of the day was spent in two shockingly boring lectures, before heading to photoSoc were, due to a massive cock-up, groups of people were in different rooms all over the university so Ed ended up talking about photography basics to a mere fraction of the total number of people who turned up.
Fortunately (?) the mistake had been realised and everybody had turned in the wrong right room in time for me to make a fool of myself (again) as I explained exposure, the inter-relationship between shutter speed, aperture and film sensitivity. It was basically the same presentation as last time, although streamlined a little. I went through it all a little too quickly, but not to worry ;)
After that I headed up to the Post Office to post some photos to France and Japan, before grabbing some stuff from Sainsbury's only to forget the prints I was taking home. Shattered, I had to make another trip to Sainsbury's and decided to go all out and buy some more toilet roll *and* kitchen roll at the same time.
This evening... who knows? who cares... sleep...
The meeting was at 9am so I ended up with about an hour in bed (thanks to a rediscovery of the classic game "Out run") before waking up for a shower. The rest of the day was spent in two shockingly boring lectures, before heading to photoSoc were, due to a massive cock-up, groups of people were in different rooms all over the university so Ed ended up talking about photography basics to a mere fraction of the total number of people who turned up.
Fortunately (?) the mistake had been realised and everybody had turned in the wrong right room in time for me to make a fool of myself (again) as I explained exposure, the inter-relationship between shutter speed, aperture and film sensitivity. It was basically the same presentation as last time, although streamlined a little. I went through it all a little too quickly, but not to worry ;)
After that I headed up to the Post Office to post some photos to France and Japan, before grabbing some stuff from Sainsbury's only to forget the prints I was taking home. Shattered, I had to make another trip to Sainsbury's and decided to go all out and buy some more toilet roll *and* kitchen roll at the same time.
This evening... who knows? who cares... sleep...
Miaow miaow miaow miaow
wtf? This weird lecturer guy is standing at the front of the room going "miaow miaow", "miaow miaow miaow", "miaow miaow miaow miaow".
Compilers, you say?
Compilers, you say?
Tuesday, 7 February 2006
New logo!
New logo! Yes, new ways to procrastinate and waste my time!
Fear my amazing Inkscape and katakana skills!
Fear my amazing Inkscape and katakana skills!
It's a win!
Woohoo! Internet in my room again. I wonder how long this will last... ;)
Slightly more complicated procedure than last time, but I best not go into detail here.
Today I was supposed to be taking some photos for the Oxfam End the Arms Trade or whatever it is, which was to be held in the ex-UMIST Student Union. The cool thing about this, is that it's Harry's Bar and Paddy's Lounge -- the place we used to hang out in the first year! Vlad came along with me but when we turned up the other photographers were nowhere to be seen... it'd been cancelled because there weren't enough people. Ah, well, not to worry.
A quick game of pool turned into three, with Vlad and I both amazingly shit. The number of double shots due to a) hitting the wrong colour; b) potting the wrong colour; c) hitting nothing; and d) potting the white was quite outstanding. We should get an award for that. But, skill shone through and I won the first and third games, making me the overall winner. So, what did we learn... I'm better than Vlad!
Now, I best concentrate on writing an RSS readery-thing in Python for the interview with my tutor tomorrow. This should just be a case of being bothered now that I have the Interweb in my room. Here goes nothing...
Slightly more complicated procedure than last time, but I best not go into detail here.
Today I was supposed to be taking some photos for the Oxfam End the Arms Trade or whatever it is, which was to be held in the ex-UMIST Student Union. The cool thing about this, is that it's Harry's Bar and Paddy's Lounge -- the place we used to hang out in the first year! Vlad came along with me but when we turned up the other photographers were nowhere to be seen... it'd been cancelled because there weren't enough people. Ah, well, not to worry.
A quick game of pool turned into three, with Vlad and I both amazingly shit. The number of double shots due to a) hitting the wrong colour; b) potting the wrong colour; c) hitting nothing; and d) potting the white was quite outstanding. We should get an award for that. But, skill shone through and I won the first and third games, making me the overall winner. So, what did we learn... I'm better than Vlad!
Now, I best concentrate on writing an RSS readery-thing in Python for the interview with my tutor tomorrow. This should just be a case of being bothered now that I have the Interweb in my room. Here goes nothing...
Thursday, 2 February 2006
Coming soon to a lewiz.org near you...
... a photoblog!
Yey! I figure that instead of pointing people to TE all the time I could have a "latest photo" on the front page, along with a link to my regular blog and other stuff. In addition to allowing quick and easy access (RSS too!) to my latest photo... this will have the added advantage of pissing Vlad off. What more could one want from a photoblog?
I've had a very quick play with a simple PHP folder-based script and you can see the results (after some minor hacking) at http://www.compsoc.man.ac.uk/~lewiz/photos/fb.php -- I reckon I could either fix all of the bugs, remove the cruft, etc. from that one, or just start from scratch with my own -- it will hardly be difficult as I don't want any of this "leave comment", "rate", "tell your mates about this photo" crap. It just needs to display a photo that is in a directory.
Anyway, it's getting late and much as I love MC, I don't think they can love me as much... so I'll be off.
Yey! I figure that instead of pointing people to TE all the time I could have a "latest photo" on the front page, along with a link to my regular blog and other stuff. In addition to allowing quick and easy access (RSS too!) to my latest photo... this will have the added advantage of pissing Vlad off. What more could one want from a photoblog?
I've had a very quick play with a simple PHP folder-based script and you can see the results (after some minor hacking) at http://www.compsoc.man.ac.uk/~lewiz/photos/fb.php -- I reckon I could either fix all of the bugs, remove the cruft, etc. from that one, or just start from scratch with my own -- it will hardly be difficult as I don't want any of this "leave comment", "rate", "tell your mates about this photo" crap. It just needs to display a photo that is in a directory.
Anyway, it's getting late and much as I love MC, I don't think they can love me as much... so I'll be off.
Wednesday, 1 February 2006
A helping hand
One of my sets of images from Ayutthaya, Thailand got corrupted and I had to resort to dumping a full image of the card while sat outside a beautiful temple with people milling all around me. A similar problem happened to me while in Japan almost two years ago, which I fortunately managed to recover from. Using the very same Perl script I recovered 150 photos from the card (all of them, I believe), each around 5.5-6MB in size.
This script was designed to rescue only JPEG files, not the Nikon RAW files I was shooting in. This basically meant that I had now got combined RAW/JPEG files with a .jpeg extension. I briefly looked at the shots, thought little of them and promptly forgot (read: tried to put off the final step of the recovery) about them.
This evening I recovered every single shot by hand. This involved searching for a specific sequence of characters, splitting and saving to a new file. It didn't take too long and I'm very glad I did so. One of the shots I had previously ignored jumped out at me and I quickly cropped, sharpened, adjusted curves and messed with saturation and contrast. I am immensely pleased with the result... it's probably not the best from my holiday, but I think it has just become my favourite.
For once picking a suitable title was not difficult; it was as obvious as day. The bokkeh is outstanding (thanks Nikkor glass!) and while the focus is ever-so-slightly off I don't think this matters. I don't like to get all sentimental and lovey-dovey about photos (or anything, really) but I think the content here is outstanding, and I wish that somehow I had done something special to make it what it is... but I didn't. It was just there and I snapped at the right time.
So, here is "A helping hand":
This script was designed to rescue only JPEG files, not the Nikon RAW files I was shooting in. This basically meant that I had now got combined RAW/JPEG files with a .jpeg extension. I briefly looked at the shots, thought little of them and promptly forgot (read: tried to put off the final step of the recovery) about them.
This evening I recovered every single shot by hand. This involved searching for a specific sequence of characters, splitting and saving to a new file. It didn't take too long and I'm very glad I did so. One of the shots I had previously ignored jumped out at me and I quickly cropped, sharpened, adjusted curves and messed with saturation and contrast. I am immensely pleased with the result... it's probably not the best from my holiday, but I think it has just become my favourite.
For once picking a suitable title was not difficult; it was as obvious as day. The bokkeh is outstanding (thanks Nikkor glass!) and while the focus is ever-so-slightly off I don't think this matters. I don't like to get all sentimental and lovey-dovey about photos (or anything, really) but I think the content here is outstanding, and I wish that somehow I had done something special to make it what it is... but I didn't. It was just there and I snapped at the right time.
So, here is "A helping hand":
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