Sub Lime

Wednesday, March 24, 2010 at 2:53 AM | Posted by Juwen
Last Friday was probably the first time that I decided not to go to OCF because of a prior dinner plan that was made. That felt kinda weird because for some reason, I felt that there will be something wrong happening in OCF without my presence there. And apparently the Bible study wasn't as smooth sailing as I hoped it would be according to my sources. Not to mention that I didn't see Barbs when she came to OCF plus a few more other things that didn't quite go according to plan.

But, I had a ball of a time at dinner and even before that. I was assigned to cook curry and a dessert for the dinner and being the ambitious person that I am, I've decided to cook chicken curry from scratch and at the same time make a lime tart for the dessert. To put things in some perspective, the prep time for the curry is pretty long (mainly I don't have the right equipment) and whenever I make a tart, the shortcrust pastry for the tart base almost always goes wrong. I'm guessing 9 out 10 times it will fail in some way or the other and I still haven't quite perfected it yet. Miraculously, I managed to finish the curry and the tart in what I would call a personal record time. AND, the best part is that the tart succeeded in every way imaginable which is a very very rare occasion indeed. The other dishes prepared by the rest were veggies and cereal prawns, the one dish to bring together all of us to one place. Great dinner though we all kinda agree that the cereal prawns were missing something. Then for the dessert, the lime tart came and the moment of truth for the taste. It was just a tad bit sweet but I liked the filling but the crust was AWESOME!! It was like the best crust I've made to date and it was crazy man. I was also glad that the others followed suit as well. Gives me more motivation to bake again. After a rather long drought of baking, it's starting to fire up again. All of those who are not benefiting from this wave of my cooking and/or baking, too bad! =P

And as always, the news:
Apparently 3 cups of coffee a day for women over 65 works wonders but not so in men. Daymn...

Until now I still don't know why no electronic system has been deployed for soccer. This ball is cool though.

Some research questions eventually make history. Others, not so much.

For those who haven't heard, Obama did what no other president since Roosevelt, pass a bill on health care. Sure the public is skeptical but still, think of what this black man has done. Crazy stuff man. One of the interesting facts about the win was that even though the vote was very tight, the bill was passed without a single Republican vote.

Very interesting article from an atheist slightly touching on the Atheists Convention held recently here in Australia.

It turns out some celebrity Twitterers do care about others who follow them.

Seriously? A Malaysian billionaire wants to get the rights for AFL matches? That's just plain weird.

I've always wondered about this.

I love this watch. I can has?

Out of reach, out of the league
Nothing to express, let alone speak
I guess I'm tired, a little fatigued
Of being a person with little intrigue

Emotions can really betray
We hope, we try, we break, we fray
How can I trust what I think or say
So I'll just sit here, swing and sway

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*Scratch* *Confused*

Wednesday, March 17, 2010 at 3:39 AM | Posted by Juwen
Ok so I'm writing this because I can't sleep. Don't know why but I think it is because of the brain still being active after a slow but progressive assignment solving.

Couple of things happened so far. Attended the first surprise wedding of the year, one of a few more to come. I only got my invitation about a week before the wedding just because the friend that was supposed to pass it to me forgot. Despite all the rules of RSVP-ing, I still went for it. Why is it a surprise you might ask? Because the combination of the bride and groom came out of nowhere, like literally materialized out of thin air. Having known both of them before I knew that they were together, I can say that they are of opposite personalities. If someone had suggested to me (back then) that they were together I would be laughing at the person and frantically search for a video camera somewhere. On a side note, seems there are a lot of these cases happening around OCF; hidden video camera documenting the most hilarious responses. Anyway, I knew about them being together really late. Absurdly late you might say. Seems to me that it's another one of my super powers. I only found out about it when they were engaged. In fact, it was something like a couple of months before they started sending out the invitations to their wedding. Needless to say, I had to put on my best face-saving, shame avoiding attitude on. I think even till this day, I still find it hard to believe that they are together. It just boggles the mind.

Anyway, the wedding ceremony was held in Scotts Church on Russell Street. It's the first time I've been to the place and it is seriously nice. Their pipe organs obviously have our church's pipe organ for breakfast with a bigger seating capacity as well. Then a couple of things happened. I got tremendously itchy. For some unknown reason, the uncontrollable itch just fell on me like a ton of bricks and it was excruciating. I haven't had an episode like this for awhile and I don't know what triggered it. I joked with a friend that maybe I was allergic to the church or this strange wedding we are attending.

Second thing were the photographer/videographer team. It is probably the first time I've seen a wedding ceremony recorded using a DSLR. Pretty much all the photographers were using Canon 5D MkII cameras but I manage to single out this guy who was holding his camera in a very unusual position. Only then I realized that he was recording video. Quite weird if you asked me and I think I would still prefer to have a dedicated video camera for video purposes. Let cameras be cameras and video cameras be video cameras.

Third was the music at the wedding. First the song played when the bride came in. I'm quite glad that it wasn't the wedding march or Canon in D because I'm really starting to get bored of that tune. Instead, another classical piece was played and I think it's the first I've heard in played in a wedding. The piece was Jesu, Joy of Man's Desiring and it was quite nice. After that were some of the songs that were sung along the ceremony that was accompanied by the pipe organ. I don't know what the pipe organist was on but it sound like a mix of caffeine and drugs. The songs were played very fast even for some of the hymns and the timing had like some random perturbations, making it hard to sing the song properly.

So after the ceremony came the refreshments and it was good to meet up with some people that I haven't seen in a long time. That's something I like about going to friend's weddings. For that short moment you meet some of the long lost friends who you once had a good connection with until they move far away, get married etc. But at this point my itching was unbearable and I had to be anti-social for the rest of the time there. First I did after leaving the church was buy more antihistamines. Funny thing that turned out to be. I went to the pharmacy and I scanned for my favourite drug of all time. They sell it in a pack of 10, 30 and 50 tablets. The 10 tablet pack was $13 (fine), the 30 tablet pack was $30 (expected) but then when I looked at the 50 tablet pack, it had a price tag of $35. In a somewhat confused state, I reached for the 50, paid and left, still feeling utterly confused. When I came back home, I took one and was knocked out for 5 hours.

Had some time with some friends lately and it was great. It's quite sad that recently the string of friends that I've just gotten to know a lot more have a very finite time left to be in the same area as I. Even when I was in Malaysia, the few people that I've gotten to know more are not going to Melbourne. Ever. Ok, maybe not ever but for a very long time. Sure I can meet them when I visit them when I come back but it is not the same. You know, you've put in effort in getting to know the person and then it just drops out of the radar before you even know it. So annoying.

And now for some news:
Life is so fragile yet at times we are often amazed by how resilient life can be.

When you are quarantined, there isn't much you can do. Except rap.

Is Microsoft getting desperate? Let the Office war begin.

RIP Peter Graves. Thanks for filling my childhood afternoons with Mission Impossible

Pretty cool stuff but is it green?

Compressed sensing. You've got to admit it does great things for digital imaging, just that math is hard. I know. I have a friend who is doing his PhD in it and I've seen the math. Crazy but some elegant stuff. Damn I miss math.

For all you people who use dishwashers, u iz doin it wrong.

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What Labour?

Friday, March 12, 2010 at 1:46 AM | Posted by Juwen
For the first time ever since I stepped foot in Australia did I finally not have a class on Labour Day. So to celebrate, a bunch of us went to a friend's place for some yummy waffles and bacon and some great coffee made by our friend. We had a great game of Scrabble and ended up chatting a bit since rain came, kinda ruining the photo shoot that we were suppose to go on but that was alright. Great have a chat with a small group of people. Did I mention that there 4 DSLRs under one roof? Yup, there's an entry level Nikon D-something, a Pentax K20, a Nikon D300 and a Canon 5D MkII. On top of that there were 2 film SLRs, a Pentax MX and a Nikon FM2. So basically, there's an average of one SLR to one person. Talk about camera geeks. I know. I'm one of them.

Eventually went out shopping for a bit before settling down for some food around 5 pm. This is such an odd time for me to eat because it was neither lunch (which can start at around 3 something) and dinner (which can be as late as 10 pm). But more importantly there were some good times there. Sure the rain has disrupted a lot of our initial plans but I think I like it this way.

Nothing much that I can say around here except that I think I should really start doing my assignment. This time round it wasn't as hectic as the last semester but I foresee that my 3D Graphics and Animation assignment could be a possible pain in the butt when programming. But at least I would be productive and in some sense I wished that the rest of the subjects were this technical. Either that or they are really slow in picking up the pace. Come on man! I need the challenge!

On a totally random point, I'm feeling for a Bronica 6x6 medium format camera. I would love to have a Hasselblad 500 (it's sooooooo sleek) but I has no money.

And as usual, for me to write another blog post, means that I'm dumping another lot of news stuck on my tabs:
Such an interesting concept for lighting. Would save studio photographers a lot of pain setting up lighting.

I'm sure pretty much everyone didn't see this coming. Can you say "irony"?

I was supposed to be #10 but now I'm potentially going to be #4. But I like being #10...

I would like to know the gender analysis of their subject group for this test. If there is no difference between gender, that may open up a whole can of worms.

This is really bizarre. I don't even know how to piece everything together.

X-ray vision. Yay or nay?

I really want to play Final Fantasy 13. I don't care what they say about the gameplay interface, it has always been a problem to some people. Come on, how can you like resist graphics? =P And yes I'm pretty sure you cried or were utterly shocked when Aeris died.

Selfish doesn't even begin to describe him. Dictatorial is.

Remember the videos from WongFu Productions on how Technology Ruins Romance? With this, expect more ruining.

How is it that the thousands of friends who got or are getting married possibly explain this statistic? Oh that's right, they're not staying in Malaysia...

No aircraft or ground target is safe once this flies. Sick.

Can you imagine all the SuperPoking, giving of stuff in Farmville and the slaying of monsters on Castle Age from him to his "friends"?

Sure it's cool for the PS3 owners but will it blend?

Fairly interesting article on Singapore.

Oh and Pentax releases their fresh from the oven digital medium format SLR, the 645D. That's pretty great but can we get a full frame Pentax SLR any time soon? If you guys can develop a camera with a 44 mm x 33 mm sensor, surely making a 36 mm x 24 mm sensor isn't going to be that hard, no? Kthx.

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Ketinggalan Zaman

Monday, March 8, 2010 at 1:37 AM | Posted by Juwen
*warning: Long post ahead*

As some of you may know, the citizens of Melbourne just survived one of the craziest weather phenomenon in a very long time, if not, ever. Hail the size of golf balls battered cars, people, clothes, trees etc and the heavens opened up to release 19mm of rain in the first hour alone. That of course flooded some areas in the city, a section of the roof at a major train station collapsed and not to mentioned many people's prized plants were all destroyed thanks to this storm we had. Some people found it fun, others were obviously severely inconvenienced and some like to think it's the end of the world. As the storm was going on, I was at a friend's place playing poker when I received an SMS from my sister and this is what it read...
"Have u seen how bad it is outside? SAVE YOURSELF!"

That really got me laughing. There is even a Facebook group that said that we survived this crazy storm. It's now on its way to the tens of thousands of fans. Needless to say, I'm one of them.

Also, today was another phenomenon similiar in its size like the storm we had on Saturday but of a different kind. We play basketball/captains ball after church and today demonstrated the largest turnout for this game ever in OCF. Ever. 28 people congregated at the Carton Primary School for mayhem on the basketball court. And that is not even the full compliment of players yet. And, we were nearly having a 1:1 ratio of guys to girls. Crazy epic man. But it was fun as always. We now need to find a bigger playing area or as a friend suggested, set up a league.

Lately I've been bitten by the medium format bug. It's kinda like the same bug that bit me when I wanted to go film and when I wanted to get new lenses. Not funny man. And I'm not talking about those toy cameras using medium format film. I'm talking about the big-ass medium format cameras that you can look through from the top at waist level. And some of these medium format gear are pretty cheap especially if you are looking for the old ones. Of course, that makes it even more tempting. *shake fist at Khai*

Speaking of which, I've been asked quite a number of times from non-photographers and "photographers" on why I still (if not, more likely) shoot on film. It's so old and everyone is moving on to the digital age with those big expensive DSLRs because after all, we now live in the digital age. Why should I go back to something that is a generation ago where everything is pretty much manually done? There are many replies to this question of which many film photographers better than I am will tell you the same thing. Tone (whatever that really means), colour/character, detail and the list goes on with a bazillion other valid reasons that I will agree with them.

But' I'm not going to repeat the same answers but instead I'm going to attack this question from a slightly different angle and the answer is not a technical answer. In fact, it has very little or nothing to do with photography at all. This can be applied to many other things outside of photography and it is not some knowledge that I received in the middle of a nap or while playing computer games or doing a random assignment. It is widely known but few take the time to think about it. It is an answer, or rather, a philosophy that is fast diminishing from this ever advancing world that we now call home, where things are moving at an exponentially fast pace.

I'd like to be pleasantly surprised.

Yup, that's right. That's it. I just want to be pleasantly surprised. For those who have been following my blog and think that this sounds too familiar, like in a post somewhere, you're right. It is here, the third video. And a lot of what Barry is saying actually somewhat does apply to my stance on film.

This stance has somewhat followed me for awhile now but it was not until the Turkey trip that I've begun formalizing my thoughts. Most of which are lines of thought from Barry's short presentation but I think it somewhat does hold. Film inherently gives me less choices in what I can do for my pictures as compared to a digital camera these days. For example, I can't adjust the white balance, the ISO in between shots, the colour saturation, contrast and many other aspects in between shots, unless I finish the roll of film. What am I to work with are only three things; shutter speed, aperture and imagination, given a roll of film. So shooting in film essentially has three choices (debatable but at the very least, it's this number but I'm guessing no more than 5 or 6). Compare that with a digital camera. We can choose between settings in each shot from portrait, landscape, night scene, beach, snow, indoors, sports and a whole supermarket of other settings. Add that to the throng of settings for white balance, colour saturation, contrast, RGB/CYMK and, if you are having a DSLR, the usual choices of ISO, shutter speed and aperture. That is definitely waaaaay more than three and you can imagine what kind of effect that would have on the normal everyday user of cameras. So what happens when you take a picture that doesn't really look that great? What's the expectation? Do you blame the camera or yourself for not nailing the shot? As with Barry, the more choices you have the more likely that you will blame yourself for the seemingly bad choices that has been made. And when you do nail a shot, you're probably not as excited about the shot because you had the expectation that these settings will make my picture look awesome. There is now no such thing as a surprise anymore, nothing, not even the most magnificent landscape set before your very eyes, will catch you by surprise in your pictures. At most you'll think, "This is great but I already knew that". That's the digital age for you.

Now what about film? We have less choices to make, simplifying some things but complicating others as well. We have to work with shutter speed and aperture and it forces us to go back to the fundamentals which I would say is really all you need, the rest are just extras/luxuries/bells and whistles. The other thing about film is that you'll probably spend more time thinking and shooting just to finish up the roll of film, not to mention the processing time as well. Probably the worst thing about film, which ironically is the crux of what I love about film, is that you don't know how the shots will turn out. What kind of expectation that sets on you? Pretty low actually and at most you'll be like "I think this is going to be good but will see how it goes". And after you have the film processed what happens if the shot you think is good turns out to be not so great? Yeah that's a bummer but you've had a low, or rather, lower expectation about the shot anyway so it's not likely to affect you in a severe way. If it turn out to be a great shot, your excitement level would be high since you've had a lower expectation from the beginning. But the best part of it is when you have no expectation for a particular shot and, lo and behold, this stunning picture landed in your hands where all the elements of colour, exposure, depth of field and detail magically come together and so how's your excitement level going to be like? I expect that you should be half way to the moon already. It's pleasant little surprises that overall lifts you about your photography and not to mention doing wonders to your self-confidence and mental health. So even the most mundane things can turn into a magnificent photograph because you don't know what to expect. Obviously not professional grade photographs (possible but let's not get our hopes up, shall we?) but it's good enough to leave an impression on you, encourages even spur you on to find your artistic niche in photography. And isn't that what photography should be like, or any art in general?

Film gives you a great deal of things to the user and teaches you equally as many things. You learn to slow down, take time to think about your shots long before raising the camera to eye level. You learn to appreciate things when you slow down and sometimes the appreciation has nothing to do with photography, you just learn more about the world around us. Along the way, it gives you little surprises that just makes you say "Wow! I never expected this." and sometimes it gives you the opportunity to explore your artistic or creative side in ways you never knew. All in all, photography is almost like the concept of Zen which is no surprise that the Japanese are the ones who makes the cameras.

What I've said here may not be the reason why you still shoot in film (or digital for that matter) and you may not agree with what I've presented here as an argument for film, from a non-arts totally amateur photographer. But it is real enough for me to continue going to film. Comments are welcomed.

Fire away...

And now the news:
If this formula for a happy lasting marriage is true, that means my future wife is now 21-22 years old, have a PhD and from Malaysia or Singapore. It's not looking good...

Possibly the cutest set of milk teeth ever.

I'm sure we've met people like these but I'm also sure that we do the same to them as well, in one way or another

Girls, be careful when some guy says to you that you are genetically diverse

It's funny that we know how the last dinosaurs were wiped out but only now it's made official. But people have been wrong on occasion.

IQ isn't everything

Can you imagine your grandmother mixing beats on the dance floor?

Gaming is evident in all people. Take this guy for example.

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Boring Film

Thursday, March 4, 2010 at 2:20 AM | Posted by Juwen
At long last, I finally finished the final roll of film that I've used when I was in Turkey and now it has been processed ready for the world to see. To be honest I was quite surprised at the pictures that have been taken on that roll of film. Although the colours turned out to be warmer than the Sensias that I used, as expected from a Kodak, and that it would probably look weird for the winter scenes there, it turned out alright. More importantly than the colours, I was pleasantly surprised by the shots. It took me quite some time before I managed to finish that last roll of film but on hindsight I should have made more space on that roll of film when I came back to Melbourne. The warmer colours would look quite nice this time round. Anyway, the remaining Turkey shots below.


Following that are some shots I took at home and in Melbourne.
Pachyderms. Such a cute name for an elephant

How.

Time's up

R

This is one expensive bike accessory. For those who don't know wines, Penfolds Grange wines are one of the more seriously expensive wines in the world

Golden days

Environmentally friendly

Now that I've gotten this film out of the way, it is time to play with something new. I got a Neopan 1600 Black and White film when I was in Singapore. Was curious to see how the black and white looks like with even more grain. This should be fun. Expect me to bring my film camera out at night more, probably one of the few times that you will see my camera in action at night.

First few days since uni has started and it is looking a bit dull this time round. I've attended 3 out of the 4 subjects that I am doing this semester and I have to say it is a big yawn. Software Engineering Fundamentals is completely not interesting but it is the last core subject that I have to take for my course. So whether I like it or not, I have to just push through. Foundations in Distributed Computing was something that I thought it would be interesting but the first lecture says otherwise. I am really hoping that this will pick up speed in the weeks to come otherwise I am going to cry every Wednesday nights. The one that hasn't disappoint is the Interactive 3D Graphics and Animation. At least they jumped straight into getting programming down to do some graphics. I can foresee that this subject will be a pain when I do the assignments because debugging is going to be a lot harder to do for these programs. Also I learned another thing about how RMIT rocks my socks. In the graphics computer lab, there is a note at the end of the page content of the graphics computer lab on games. It says that there are games that are accessible through the terminal such as Unreal2K Tournament. They advise us to play these games outside the class times and other people's class times. In other words, they are allowing and/or encouraging us to play games here under the right conditions. Sweet.

And now for the news:
An interesting article on the research of human intelligence.

I think you'd better stand up for this one...

"Hi, my name is Juwen...and I'm..................a fake achievement addict"

As a large number of us know, Malaysia is known for the wrong reasons.

$41,300 for a game that is more than 20 years old. Sick.

Pass this one on. Very interesting read.

Does this mean that China is not going to reduce their carbon emissions?

I wonder how the bully feels now.

Project Natal is awesome. But because it is developed by Microsoft, there is a chance that it will not be awesome because of either the Red Ring of Death or the Blue Screen of Death.

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