astradele

Archive for August, 2008

Software that can “name that tune!”

Posted by GJ on August 31, 2008

You may have heard of 411-Song: you call them with your cell phone, hold up the cell phone to music you’re listening to, and several seconds later, it texts you the name of that song.  Pretty useful, considering how many times all of us have struggled to remember the name of a song.

While there appears to be software (Tunatic) that does something similar from your computer, I thought it would be more interesting if there was something to take an existing music file, figure out the Artist, Album, etc., and rename the file.  Something to make it easy to organize and reorganize your music.

As it turns out, it exists and it’s really quite good: MusicBrainz.  The software’s free, and they have versions that work on Windows, Mac, and Linux.  They maintain an online database of all the music that the community has identified, and the software contacts that database to match your music file to the information they have.  An additional surprise: it works for at least some classical and anime/j-pop music!

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Will photograph food for Flickr

Posted by GJ on August 28, 2008

Seems like a lot of people scour Flickr for food pictures.  I don’t consider myself a prolific photographer, but I’ve been asked for rights to use my pictures a couples times by publications: once from seattlemet.com for the RimRock Cafe (a fancy restaurant in Whistler), and another for Schmap’s Guide to Paris for Chez Clement (they recently told me they included my pictures in their iPhone version).  Both times, they found my pictures months after I had actually visited.

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Based on views, comments, and the like, the key to getting more eyeballs seems to be to add descriptions and tags to one’s flickr photos. That would certainly coincide with what I’ve seen on many popular pictures (lots of tags, many synonyms), and it makes sense - how else would people find the pictures if not through search terms?

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Sunday service on the big screen

Posted by GJ on August 26, 2008

So I finally roused myself to do some church hunting again.  It seems some years my attendance is good, and then there are the other years…  I could go back to my church of a few months in 2006, but I must confess: I’m embarrassed by my 18 month hiatus and the appearance of being a “fair weather friend”.  I doubt anyone would judge me - to my face at least - but it would sit in the back of my mind, never mind wondering if I really am.

With “fresh start” and “explore” in mind, I suddenly remembered a church I had meant to look into the last time I was looking around.  I couldn’t remember the name, but I remembered its unique feature: Sunday service held in a movie theatre.

The Meeting House has multiple locations, most (all?) held in movie theatres before they’re open for Sunday business.  The announcements and singing are performed locally, then they switch over to a satellite feed on the big screen for the sermon.  The pastor presents locally at one of the locations.

I had heard about this church years ago, and it’s apparent it’s been popular.  There were 6-7 “satellite branches” listed and I would estimate that the downtown location filled to 400+ people.

Prior to the start of sermon, there were “pre-roll” slides, similar what one might watch when arriving for a movie early.  The quotes were all related to the sermon’s topic, and I was impressed they had even selected an energetic background music to match.

The sermon itself had excellent videography, and was punctuated with video clips to drive home the point visually.  The pastor encouraged anyone with a question to send a text message, which were later addressed in the Q&A period near the end.

The message itself took a refreshing direction.  Although the series was about David (of David and Goliath fame), the day’s “moral” was about having humility.  In particular, some advice was given on dealing with antagonism, e.g. “Don’t villify the other person, instead relate to the best version of them”.

I’m intrigued so far, and it’s pleasant to attend Sunday service again.  Time will tell, of course, but for now those cushy movie theatre seats have quite a lot of appeal over wooden pews.  :)

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Fan Expo Canada 2008: cosplay costumes on camera

Posted by GJ on August 24, 2008

I enjoy watching anime, but I’ve never been to an anime convention.  By happenstance, I discovered one was coming to Toronto in August, so I figured, “why not?”

The convention is a mix of several genres: anime, horror, sci-fi, gaming, and comics.  While there were workshops, shows, LAN games, and many vendors, I spent most of my attention on the people and costumes, capturing the more interesting as photography practice.

As an aside, the masquerade event (people showing their costumes on stage), was surprisingly good.  You’ll see some mediocre pictures of it in the full set (my angle was terrible), but the MC for the event was quite funny.  Some of the acts were good, too… although some were embarrassingly bad.  Some acts would come on stage to music, or have voice-over dialogue that they were would lip sync or mime to.

As an experiment, I took some of the more easily distinguishable costumes and paired them up with pictures of the characters.  To my chagrin, I discovered the hard part isn’t stitching two pictures together, it’s finding an appropriate image on the Internet.  :/  I did a few before I gave it up as too time consuming.

The video’s not very good quality, you can’t see how good the costumes are.  Higher quality montage pictures are here: http://www.flickr.com/photos/relgar/sets/72157606930635654/

The full set of high quality pictures from the Expo are here: http://www.flickr.com/photos/relgar/sets/72157606933762931/
. There are lots of good costumes that weren’t in the montage video.

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A sushi and ice cream jaunt in Toronto

Posted by GJ on August 23, 2008


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An evening out to grab a bite and chat with a friend, we ended up at Tokyo Sushi.  I’ve been there once before; it’s small, seems authentic, and serves decent sushi!

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The walls of Tokyo Sushi are decorated with celebrities, like Patrick Stewart, that have come by.

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Wandering around a bit afterwards, we settled on Dutch Dreams to gorge on dessert.  I wasn’t able to finish.  :(

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An evening for skating, a cute cat, and some decent ramen

Posted by GJ on August 21, 2008

An “unbusy”, weekend afternoon not many weeks ago, I finally strapped on my skates again and went for a long trip up Yonge Street.  I was craving ramen and quickly settled that my target should be Ajisen Ramen (originally it was Kenzo Ramen, but the extra 4km was a bit daunting).


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As you can see, I detoured onto Mount Pleasant for a stretch.  It really is a much more pleasant skate, walk, drive - anything but shopping - than Yonge Street.  It’s also quite hilly, which is exhilarating on the way down, cuss-worthy on the way up.  :P

Met a rich, mixed Siamese-Abyssinian cat while crossing through a wealthy neighborhood.  It was leashed and wandering around in front of the house, but it didn’t seem particularly afraid of me (well, a little bit of the skates).  I hung around playing with the cat and taking pictures so long, that the owner eventually came out to ask what the heck I was doing!  We “talked cat” for awhile, after it became apparent I was just another cat fan.  :)  I learned that “walking your cat” is not that uncommon (hence the leash), and they quite enjoy it!

BTW for other skaters/cyclists, after the shops at Lawrence ends, the strip of Yonge leading up to York Mills has a great incline: maybe 10-15 degree slope for about 500m?  It was awesome, although I tried to put out of my mind what would happen if I wiped out.  I even flirted with the idea of taking pictures with my new camera along the way, but that’s a level of recklessness I have yet to reach!  ;)  And, yes, the other side of that incline was every bit as unpleasant as one might imagine.

Ajisen Ramen is an adequate place to get a ramen fix, IMO.  I think its main assets are large variety of ramens and convenient access by subway.  While eating, though, I was surprised to hear Christian worship music playing, and noticed a large “Praise the Lord” sign above the doorway.  Fine by me, of course, but I was surprised a business would proclaim its religion so clearly.

After exploring Mel Lastman Square for some night pictures and just relaxed skating, it was time to head home.  I had neglected to pack any shoes to switch into, but discovered that you can easily sneak into the subway on skates if you go to the unmanned, automated-entry-only subway entrances (I think they all have one).  I don’t know if I was seen on the security camera, but at least no one came to haul me away!  There was no way I was ready to skate another 8km back!  :D

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Congratulations, Steve and Vicky!

Posted by GJ on August 21, 2008

Steve and Vicky tied the knot on August 16th!  Yay!

The culled and processed photos are here: http://www.flickr.com/photos/relgar/sets/72157606865426392/.  If you see a picture of yourself you don’t like, let me know and I’ll take it down.  Maybe I’ll even be able to “fix” it with digital editing!  :)  I’m still learning how to post-process (e.g. colours, white balance), so feedback is appreciated.

Steve and Vicky’s wedding was easily the most ambitious I’ve ever attended: 800′ish people spread over a ceremony and two receptions!  Saw some familiar faces, caught up with some, and met new ones!  As one of the helpers, I was a bit too busy to socialize as much as I wished, but that’s OK; what mingling I did reminded me how quickly I either A) draw a blank on what to say next, or B) put my foot in my mouth.  What can I say, I have problems with verbal dexterity under pressure?

Naturally, the wedding provided ample opportunity to continue practicing with my camera.  Having reviewed a few hundred pictures and deleted a whole lot, my main lesson is to check and adjust the camera settings more often.  I had far too many pictures that were at ISO1600 (Auto ISO) and/or were focused on an object in the distance (left it on “centre-weighted focus” instead of “closest subject”).  I also got useful tips from the amateur-going-pro photographers that the couple had asked to help out.

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Blog sweet blog

Posted by GJ on August 20, 2008

I don’t really understand my need to improve and enhance what “ain’t broke”, it’s just there.  It’s not exactly perfectionism, since I don’t have an ideal image before I start tinkering; it’s more like a little voice that asks “why?” all the time, as in “why do I have to do all these tedious steps?”,  or “why do I have to accept this tradeoff?”

However, I really do think the location of this blog is stable now and won’t change in the near future.  WordPress.com handles all the maintenance details, I get a very nice looking blog interface, and I get to the URL to my domain astradele.com; it’s a good intersection of qualities.  I even figured out how to migrate all my old blog content over - without the comments unfortunately.

It’s ironic that my initial move to WordPress six weeks ago was intended to remove the temptation to tweak.  Oh well, at least now I have time to go tweak my digital photos.  :P

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Connecting with the camera

Posted by GJ on August 9, 2008

I’ve been subjecting unfortunate people and objects around me to the business end of my new camera, applying the same principle I’ve applied to my previous cameras: shoot first, shoot often, evaluate later.  I end up taking uninteresting pictures, but the point is to determine what the camera will and won’t do, and how to worth with it to coax better pictures more often.

There are many reviews of the Nikon D40, but some of my favourite “features” in the first couple weeks are:

  • The “click” of an SLR shutter.  Something about it is so much fun!
  • The external flash.  Ceiling bounces are a great way to avoid red eyes and shiny foreheads.
  • 16 GB SD card with USB adapter.  Room for 2000 RAW pictures, very easy to move files around.
  • Smart Auto-ISO.  The camera will bump the ISO up to a configurable max. ISO in order to achieve a min. shutter speed… in 50 point ISO increments!
  • Feeling cool with an SLR slung over my shoulder.  Yes, I’m a poseur, and an “entry-level” one at that!

Most disliked?  None really so far, but I’ll stretch for some:

  • External flash “only” gets about 200 shots with two AA batteries.
  • Challenging “user training” curve, e.g. learning how Auto Focus chooses and working with it.
  • Using a DSLR demonstrates why one “needs” a telephoto lens and a fast low-light lens.

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