March 2010 Archives

Tonight, for dinner, I went to the traditional Vietnamese restaurant here at the Sofitel Metropole by Lake Hoan Kiem in central Hanoi. I decided to live on the edge and ordered a 7 course meal of traditional dishes. I have no idea what I ate. The names were all in Vietnamese.

What I do know: this was the tastiest, most delicious meal I've ever eaten in my life. And the tastes were unlike anything I've experienced before: extremely light, very subtle but clearly defined, and fresh. A couple of the dishes were spicy, but not really hot spicy. I don't know how to describe them. Just divine! I could eat this stuff forever! It's so healthful and so tasty! No wonder these people are all thin and happy! Their diet comes from the gods!

Then, there was the restaurant space itself. I wished I had my camera with me. It is gorgeous: French Colonial. Spectacular lighting fixtures including the containers for the candles. The ornate ceiling design. The beautiful vases of large exotic flowers. The dining room opens to the outside terrace where large flaming pots lit the space. The attire of the wait staff was spectacular Vietnamese floor-length dress.

My meal alone cost 990,000 dong. With tax, it was over a million. What a bizarre currency.

This is a unique place.

Well, today I flew from Bangkok to Hanoi, Vietnam, for a couple of days. Thank goodness a driver and English-speaking guide picked me up at the airport. Some poor English-speaking chap at baggage claim asked how to get to the city, which is an hour's drive from the airport. I had no idea. I feel sorry for him!

Before we were even two blocks from the Hanoi International Airport we had to suddenly slam on brakes. A huge cow was crossing the main 4 lane road. The cow was then followed by an entire heard crossing from one rice patty to the other side! This place is a cacophony of extremes! Then, within another few blocks, we passed a small scooter with a huge live pig strapped across the seat behind the driver! I wished I had my camera, but I'm sure to get even more interesting shots.

The guide said that the traffic in Hanoi would be terrible. I've seen outrageous traffic before, Moscow being the worst. But, I think this place wins for the sheer terror of being run over. The land of the bicycle no more! There are literally thousands of small scooters everywhere and most have at least two people on them. Throngs of people everywhere, crowded beyond belief, and dusty/dirty, the city has about 5,000,000 people and almost every adult, according to the guide, has a scooter.

Oh, and completely the opposite of Bangkok*, people are constantly blowing their horns as if to say, "I'm over hear. Don't run over me." It's literally astoundingly much worse than New York City. People on scooters or in cars will turn out in front of oncoming traffic or pedestrians will walk out and cross a six lane road of oncoming traffic as if they are invincible. No right of ways--just go.

I'm staying in a very nice French Colonial hotel in the heart of town, by the lake. After a brief rest, I'll grab the camera and hit the streets. This will be a wild ride!

* My Bangkok guide said that, because of their religious beliefs, the people in Bangkok try to live more harmoniously and will rarely ever use their horn. (This reminded me of the Japanese culture, where I never heard a car horn.) The narrow Bangkok streets are far more crowded with cars than Hanoi, but I only heard 2 horn blows in Bangkok. Interestingly, it was my car service driver on the way to the airport when two cars almost turned in to my side of the vehicle on the interstate.

I shot this time lapse from my hotel room. This is just a night time short from a full 24 hour time lapse that will be created in a couple of weeks. My laptop is just too taxed producing these to make the longer ones on the road.

Today we welcome Spring. I celebrated by dancing the naked fertility dance in the streets. Actually, always the conservative, I just wore beige trousers--long ones as it's a cool 60.

And, I've now been here, in the house, for two years. Time does fly!!

This time lapse, from yesterday, is better than my first because I used manual focus! :)

It's also more interesting because you can see the stars moving through the sky as well as the fog come rolling in off of the ocean during the night. You can even see the moving fog outside during the day! (Look closely. You can see it.) Because this is a time lapse, the fog appears to be moving very rapidly. The truth is, it was going down the street faster than you could comfortably walk!

The downside of the fog: during the day this caused variance in the brightness of the individual shots in the time lapse. I experimented with removing that with a filter that averaged exposure values over time. It worked amazingly well but dulled the fog's motion outside the window. So, I decided to leave it as shot.

You can view full screen by clicking on the full screen icon in the timeline. (It only appears, in the bottom right, when you mouse over the movie.)

Notes to myself on workflow:

• To resize the finished video file, export from FCP with QuickTime conversion out of FCP at the desired size using H.264
• THEN export that file out of MPEG Streamclip at 100% as an mp4 file for the web.
• Otherwise MPEG Streamclip takes insanely f-o-r-e-v-e-r!

PBS = Philip Bloom Short. This is sort of what I think of the state of the nation right now: empty, desolate, dry, devoid of human kindness, devoid of happiness, just desolate and empty.

This will only be remarkable to me: a proof of concept—use the Canon EOS 5dMkII DSLR to create a filmic look.

I shot this using a 70 - 200mm f2.8L in native 24fps, ISO 100, f2.8, 1/50th, using the Vari-ND to stop the exposure down, shooting at full 1920x1080 HD resolution using the superflat profile. The short little clip was then imported onto my hard drive via ShotPut Pro from my FireWire 800 card reader. I used MPEG Streamclip to transcode the H.264 file using Apple's ProRes 422LT codec and then dropped it into FCP. (I know firsthand that FCP doesn't play well with H.264 files!)

(Unfortunately I had not yet downloaded Canon's free EOS Movie E1 import plugin for FCP which was released today. I'm eager to try it. Interesting post here about that workflow.)

I then did a little color grading in FCP, added titles and a short music clip, and simply exported the file using ProRes 422LT at full size. Then, using MPEG Streamclip to prepare it for the web, I exported the 1920x1080 (137.4MB) file to 720x405 while converting it to an mp4, using the H.264 codec, at 100% quality, with multipass and better downscaling. The exported file is only 5.4MB! Maybe one day I'll compare which delivers a faster QuickTime conversion export: FCP or MPEG Streamclip. (Everyone says it's the latter.)

I'm posting the finished product here. It's very short! The only thing special: it's a first for me, and it worked straight away!

I think I know some ladies that would actually wear these things, I mean, shoes! Talk about making a statement!! But what, in the name of god, will they do to your feet and muscles??!

This is some high drama footwear by designer Alexander McQueen".

So ladies, here's a survey question for you:

I found this over at The Laughing Squid. The title read: Cat Scan or Copy Cat?

Cost and value. Value and cost. The "deal" is some magical balance between cost and value.

Let me see. The Iraq war cost us $712,616,300,000 as I typed this sentence and has already gone above that—way above that in normal people budgets. The Afghanistan war cost us $260,099,900,000 as I typed this sentence and has already gone above that—again, way above that. So the total cost of these two wars is nearly one trillion dollars, which looks like this: $1,000,000,000,000.00.

So, was it a good value? Did we get our money's worth?

Well, I don't know what we really bought for all of that insane amount of money except a HUGE national debt.

What would we buy for the reported $940,000,000,000.00 health care plan in congress right now? Well, millions more Americans, not all, sad to say, would get some health coverage. The insurance industry will probably make a killing. Maybe thousands of Americans lives will be saved or they will live in better health or less pain.

So is it a good value? Well, at least I have some sense that we are buying something that will help people and not kill them. At least I have some sense that this money will aid people in living healthier lives and not maim people for the rest of their lives. At least I have some sense that I am purchasing something for my tax dollars that I believe has a moral value.

Spending a trillion dollars to learn that Saddam never had any weapons of mass destruction was a complete waste of money. Spending about the same amount to give our own citizens a higher quality of life isn't.

Why did we ever destroy the national trust on these two meaningless wars? Why is killing people more important to our government that helping our own citizens?

OK. So my first time lapse movie, a collection of about 3,500 stills shot in the font living room over almost 24 hours, turned out better than I thought it would. I only had one major issue, catastrophic actually: I forgot to take the camera out of auto focus until the last several hours of the time lapse!!

This cause a number of issues:

• As the sun lights the outdoors and the wind blows the plants, the camera couldn't decide on what to focus: inside or outside. Tragic!
• The focus fluctuation then caused some variance of brightness values (flickering) from image to image.
• The focus fluctuations exposure issues on small thin things link the wood between the window panes.

To reduce how obvious the focus issues are, I am posting a small version of the original 1920 x 1080 time lapse. While this hides the focus anomalies somewhat, it also takes the drama out of the starts moving through the sky as it begins to fill with light. When I turned the auto focus off, the remainder of the time lapse is solidly focused.

The only other thing I really am not happy with (that I should be able to control): such marked changes in brightness from the inside/outside and from day/night cause overexposures and underexposures over time. I'm not really sure how to best compensate for that. When cars drove by outside, they sometimes reflected flashes of light into the room. But, I couldn't block off the street.

ISO: 100
Aperture: 2.8
Shutter: variable
Lens: 14mm
Editor: FCP
FPS: 24 with each still shot as 1 frame
Total images: 3,445
Shot interval: 20 seconds (though when totally dark, the shutter time was at 30 seconds)

For a first try, I'm surprised at how straight forward the process seemed to be! Next time: no auto focus!

Sort of a cross between an electric car and a motor cycle, all on 3 wheels, Honda shows off this concept vehicle. It sort of looks like an insect. (I wonder how many of these concept vehicles have ever made it into production.) I like it just because of the photography! :o

Images Source: Fubiz

Related articles

• Honda's New 1 Person Electric Vehicle Looks Cool, But Who Will Buy It? (singularityhub.com)
• Geneva Motor Show PICTURES: Glitzy Concept Cars From Europe's Glamorous Car Show (PHOTOS) (huffingtonpost.com)

Philip Bloom showed a different cut of this short, Above Skywalker, in the Bonner Theater a couple of weeks ago. It looks magnificent on the large HD screen. I especially like the slider shot during the night time lapse about 30 seconds in (and at 4.20). The macro shots are nice too. Well... The whole thing is. Though I wish the slider shot on the floor of the porch hadn't hit the cutting room floor.

What he didn't tell us was that he shot this in 24p with the new 5dMkII Canon firmware upgrade,released today. The aspect ratio also makes this look really cinematic. I wonder if he used the same plugin he use in his post on How to export and upload 2:35 video to Vimeo.

Be sure to watch this full screen.

Regrettably, I didn't keep track of where I found these and can not therefore site the source for your further exploration. But I found similar shots at this link.  (Click the image below to see 3 pictures of the design.)

Ok, this post will bore my mother. She will skip it.

You may find reading this post easier over at my developing WordPress blog as it uses color-coded and indented syntax structure that highlights the area of code under consideration and allows you to easily copy and paste the code from the page.

But I need to write this so I can remember what I've done when I transition my work blog over to WordPress. This post is about getting my favorite lightbox utility to work in WordPress and customizing it's appearance.

The lightbox is, of course, mediaboxAdv by John Einselen over at iaaian7. mediaboxAdv opens a significant number of file formats, including video and HTML "windows", in a lightbox popup on top of the dimmed web page window.

The successful implementation of mediaboxAdv via the Mootools framework in WordPress is provided by Cheon Nii, at CheonNii's blog. Cheon adapted the mediaboxAdv javascript into the Lightbox M plugin. (Fortunately Cheon uses enough English to make his download understandable for me. I couldn't figure out his native language to translate it.) WordPress has huge issues running Mootools as other plugins frequently seem to use javascript frameworks that conflict with Mootools. Cheon's plugin seems to get around this successfully and can be configured to only implement the javascript code on the pages that require it.

The totally cool customization solution comes from Enric, at Sonic Bite Desarrollo y Diseño Web. I used Google translate to translate it to English. He describes how to include a logo-styled image overlay in a corner on top of the lightbox popup. Great for branding. Nice touch.

The Process

1. Download and install the Lightbox M plugin.
2. Using your FTP client, open the mediaboxAdv-1.2.0.js file (in wp-content --> plugins --> lightbox-m --> js folder)
3. At line 32 in mediaboxAdv-1.2.0.js, add line 1 of the code below (lines 2 - 10 should already be in mediaboxAdv-1.2.0.js. Roroland will become a div for the logo element.
   
   new Element("div", {id: "roroland"}).injectInside(center);
image = new Element("div", {id: "mbImage"}).injectInside(center);
bottom = new Element("div", {id: "mbBottom"}).injectInside(center).adopt(
new Element("a", {id: "mbCloseLink", href: "#"}).addEvent("click", close),
nextLink = new Element("a", {id: "mbNextLink", href: "#"}).addEvent("click", next),
prevLink = new Element("a", {id: "mbPrevLink", href: "#"}).addEvent("click", previous),
title = new Element("div", {id: "mbTitle"}),
number = new Element("div", {id: "mbNumber"}),
caption = new Element("div", {id: "mbCaption"})
);
    
   
4. Open the mediaboxAdvBlack.css file (or the mediaboxAdvWhite.css file if that's the one you are using in the Lightbox M settings panel) and add the custom div below. I just added mine to the bottom of the css file.
   
   /* custom div containing logo */
#roroland {
position: absolute;
z-index: 9999;
width:100px;
height: 113px ;
top:-30px;
left:-40px;
background-image: url(../images/logo.png);
background-repeat:no-repeat;
}
    
   
5. Find the block of code below, in the same css file in step 4, and change it to the block of code in the lower code window. This comments out the css that would otherwise hide any portion of your logo image that extends beyond the boundaries of the lightbox popup.
   
   #mbCenter {
position: absolute;
z-index: 9999;
left: 50%;
overflow: hidden;
background-color: #000;
-moz-border-radius: 10px;
-webkit-border-radius: 10px;
-moz-box-shadow: 0px 10px 40px rgba(0,0,0,0.70);
-webkit-box-shadow: 0px 10px 40px rgba(0,0,0,0.70);
} 

#mbCenter {
position: absolute;
z-index: 9999;
left: 50%;
/* overflow: hidden; THIS IS COMMENTED OUT TO DISPLAY THE LOGO WHICH PARTIALLY APPEARS OUTSIDE THE MEDIABAXADVACED LIGHTBOX */
background-color: #000;
-moz-border-radius: 10px;
-webkit-border-radius: 10px;
-moz-box-shadow: 0px 10px 40px rgba(0,0,0,0.70);
-webkit-box-shadow: 0px 10px 40px rgba(0,0,0,0.70);
} 
    
   
6. In an application like Photoshop, create your logo image using a transparent background.
7. Save it as a png-24 file, preserving the transparency, with the name "logo.png" --without the quotation marks, of course.
8. Using your FTP client, upload the logo.png file to the wp-content --> plugins --> lightbox-m --> images folder.
9. Go to wp-content --> plugins -->lightbox-m and edit the lightbox.php file by adding a single line of code to the $lightbox_files = Array statement at line 26. We need to include the logo image in the array. If you used a different name for your logo image, change the name here accordingly. So, this block of code (notice you have to scroll down to see it all):
   
   $lightbox_files = Array(
'css/mediaboxAdvBlack.css',
'css/mediaboxAdvWhite.css',
'images/50.gif',
'images/80.png',
'images/BlackClose.gif',
'images/BlackLoading.gif',
'images/BlackNext.gif',
'images/BlackPrevious.gif',
'images/MinimalClose.png',
'images/MinimalLoading.gif',
'images/MinimalNext.png',
'images/MinimalPrevious.png',
'images/WhiteClose.gif',
'images/WhiteLoading.gif',
'images/WhiteNext.gif',
'images/WhitePrevious.gif',
'js/mediaboxAdv-1.2.0.js',
'js/mootools-1.2.4-core-yc.js',
'swf/NonverBlaster.swf',
'swf/player.swf',
'lightbox.php'
); 
   
   should become this block of code (notice you have to scroll down to see it all):
   
   $lightbox_files = Array(
'css/mediaboxAdvBlack.css',
'css/mediaboxAdvWhite.css',
'images/50.gif',
'images/80.png',
'images/BlackClose.gif',
'images/BlackLoading.gif',
'images/BlackNext.gif',
'images/BlackPrevious.gif',
'images/MinimalClose.png',
'images/MinimalLoading.gif',
'images/MinimalNext.png',
'images/MinimalPrevious.png',
'images/WhiteClose.gif',
'images/WhiteLoading.gif',
'images/WhiteNext.gif',
'images/WhitePrevious.gif',
'images/logo.png',
'js/mediaboxAdv-1.2.0.js',
'js/mootools-1.2.4-core-yc.js',
'swf/NonverBlaster.swf',
'swf/player.swf',
'lightbox.php'
); 
   
   
10. If you use a different name for your logo file, you must update the name in the background-image statement of the roroland div added in step 4.

Now, quite frankly, I don't like my logo image at all at the moment. I'll tweak that later. Just figuring all of this out to get it to work was challenging enough for one day.

Configuring WordPress for Implementation

• After doing the above 10 steps, make sure your Lightbox M plugin is activated.
• At the present time, I export a photo out of Lightroom at 1024 pixels wide, which, based on my visitors' stats, will fill most of my viewers monitors. [This means they will not see all of my logo image unless I adjust the css. Oh well... The world needs more giant monitors!]
• I went to the Media Settings in my WordPress Admin console (You get there from the left column of the Dashboard.) to configure the media settings.
• Since the main body section of my blog is 680 pixels wide, I use a maximum image size of 620. 620 plus a 10 pixel margin on each side plus the 20 pixel margin of the main text area (each side) equals the 680 pixel width of the body area. [Note to self: the 620 image size does not work well when embedded in an indented bulleted list (see below) as it doesn't accommodate the additional indentation.] I have the following media settings (Click to see full size image):
   
  
  
   
  
• I have the following Lightbox M settings (Click to see full size image):
   
  
  
  
  
• And these are the settings I use in the Upload/Insert dialog that appears when I place an image on the server and into a post.
   
  
  
  
  
• The only part of the implementation that is awkward, when placing a picture in a post, is having to copy the title="Top_Line_Title::Bottom_Line_Title" information from the HTML image source code into the hyperlink code as well to have the title also appear in the bottom left corner of the lightbox popup. You don't have to do this, but I really like it.
• I also write my titles in the format shown in the above step and here: title="Top_Line_Title::Bottom_Line_Title." to use both top and bottom lines of the title area in the popup window. The double colons do not appear in the popup lightbox but rather separate the title into two lines at that point.

Again, unless you are into such things, you will not have made it to the end of this post. But it has taken me weeks to sort through all of the weird variables and plugins that are out there for WordPress in my undying effort to figure out how to get the mediaboxAdv plugin to work—a must for my transition from MovableType to WordPress.

Now that I better understand WordPress and the whole media toolset it offers, along with so many other features, I am really getting into WordPress!! And a special thanks to John Einselen, Cheon Nii, and Enric for freely and kindly sharing their expertise with the web community. I could never have done any of this without their brains! You guys are Awesome! Awesome! Awesome!

Tonight's sunset was different from the norm with its clouds hanging low in the sky, but then, what exactly is the norm for the Pacific Coast? It is always expressing a subtle shift in mood.

The extreme, religious right-wing conservatives have won yet another significant victory in their efforts to force their world view down the throats of unsuspecting Americans. I personally don't care what they choose to believe. But I take HUGE issue with their feverish evangelical approach to forcing everyone else in the nation live by their narrow belief system. In fact, I resent the hell out of anyone, right or left, forcing their beliefs on me, let alone forcing them on unsuspecting children to whom they didn't give birth!

Knowing they could never pull this off in California, the conservative movement targeted Texas, the state that gave the nation George W. Bush. In a 10 - 5 vote along party lines, the Texas Board of Education voted to approve the following conservative tenets being taught in their state's Social Studies curriculum and supported by the state-adopted textbooks:

• stress the superiority of American capitalism
• question the founding fathers commitment to a purely secular government
• present Republican political ideologies in a more positive light

Make no mistake, this is a carefully planned, well executed strategy by the ultra conservative think tanks. They have turned their initial claims of their own personal religious persecution into the wholesale religious persecution of the entire nation.  The end result will be religious tyranny, a return to the middle ages.

This decision in Texas has enormous ramifications for the entire nation—hence why it was targeted. The school textbook industry sells more textbooks in California, but too many people here have diverse thinking. But Texas is ripe for the picking. The good people of Texas think conservatively—very, ultra conservatively. Texas has the second largest textbook purchasing power in the nation. This is significant.

Now, the textbook industry will rewrite the Social Studies textbooks so they can sell them in Texas. This means the remainder of the nation will be forced to buy the drivel with which the ultra conservatives want their children in Texas indoctrinated. Mark my words:  This is a political victory of the highest order with long term ramifications of the most serious kind.

The extreme right-wing conservative think tanks have taken the minds of many unsuspecting Americans with their ownership of FOX so-called "news."  They have taken ownership of the conservative Republican party of which I was once a part. They have manipulated to control the highest court in the land. Now they are seeking the minds of the nation's children.  This is serious!  My country is actually under assault!

These extremists have quietly and patiently executed their strategy well under the banner of traditional values, heritage, and the homeland for decades.  The only way I think Americans can fight this momentous trend to force the nation to live by a narrowly-defined, prescriptive set of religious values that divest diversity, deep thinking, critical analysis, social justice, economic opportunity for all, open mindedness, tolerance, freedom of thought, freedom of speech, freedom of faith practice, et. al., is to support countervailing strategies that are just as well planned and executed.  As I've said, people who have divergent opinions and thoughts are the carefully selected target.

And as I've said before, I've become increasingly disgusted with what my nation is rapidly becoming, where the will of the few is increasingly being inflicted on the many in wealth aggregation, religious practice, legal policy, and now school curriculum. The extremist conservatives are well funded and organized at the grassroots level. It's time to stand up to them in an equally well funded grass roots effort.  The problem:  unlike the radical conservative thinkers of their movement who can manipulate their masses with a highly defined, carefully crafted agenda of fear, open minded people who think critically lack a central focus around which to organize.

We have lacked a motivating rallying cry around which to centralize our efforts.  Let this be it:  preserving our true American heritage from those extremist conservatives who are rapidly redefining it and marginalizing everyone who thinks differently from them!

Where are all of the libertarians that want the freedom to live their lives as they personally define the pursuit of life, liberty, and happiness?!

Tim is so not happy!

Related articles

• Texas Textbook MASSACRE: 'Ultraconservatives' Approve Radical Changes To State Education Curriculum (huffingtonpost.com)
• Texas Approves Conservative Curriculum (politics.slashdot.org)
• Texas conservatives rewrite history | Richard Adams (guardian.co.uk)
• Texas Becomes Laughingstock Once Again: State Board of Ed Determines History Is a Liberal Conspiracy (schoolsmatter.info)
• Texas Conservatives Win Vote on Textbook Standards (nytimes.com)
• Texas ed board adopts social studies standards (sfgate.com)

Source: Link

If you watched the City of Lakes trailer, you probably missed the extensive use of slider and dolly shots. They add so much subtle visual interest while increasing perspective, presence and focus! Here is a do-it-yourself from Friedhelm Fischer to build a camslider for about $100. The full post can be found at Friedhelm Fischer's blog.

• 1 MANFROTTO 501PL camera plate - Price: approx. 22 $ - buy best click here
• 1 IGUS DryLin® W shuttle plate - WK-16-60-10-1 100mm / 3.94 inch - Price: approx. 65 $ - Order now click here
• 1 IGUS DryLin® W rail - WS-16-60 1000mm / 39.37 inch - Price: approx. 85 $ - Order now click here
• 1 M5 bold with a shim and a 8mm / 0.31 inch nut - Price: approx. 1-2 $ - DIY market next to you

• 1 MANFROTTO 701HDV PRO FLUID VIDEO MINI HEAD - Price: approx.125 $ - buy best click here
• 1 MANFROTTO 501HDV HEAD - Price: approx. 185 $ - buy best click here
• 1 MANFROTTO 055XPROB Pro Tripod Legs - Price: approx. 180 $ - buy best click here

Be sure to check out the blog post about the movie. It includes more information about the picture and several fantastic stills.

And so much a wedding symbolizes. So many questions it tends to raise: What is love? What is faith? It was our hope to explore these themes in a far more dramatically engaging way than we felt possible in a traditional documentary... Perhaps there is more within this story then meets the eye."

Yesterday was an interesting day for me—most days are, actually. But the planets seemed to be especially aligned, or maybe yesterday was a "rip, a hole in the time/space continuum" that "take us thru the event horizon." *

1. I got an email invitation to connect with another Tim Tyson on a social network site. What was particularly interesting is that I've been receiving emails for over a year, maybe two, intended for this guy. Apparently our email addresses at a particular email service provider are very similar, and people would type his incorrectly. Since we both have the same name, it's understandable.

At first I thought these were all some sort of junk mail. But they followed a pattern. Apparently he is a well respected videographer who travels the world filming special projects. Nice. (Maybe he's really me in another life?--hence my quotation above)

I'm not really sure how he figured out who I am or why he asked me to join his social network, but when I checked out his social network site (which talked about what he does for a living) along with his email address (which is almost identical to mine), I realized the connection. (You realize, of course, that this could only happen in a digital world with palm-sized, time-warping transporter devices, right?)

Even more amazingly, the "other" Tim Tyson recently finished projects with the British Council about Global Schools Partnerships. Amazingly, the last year I was a school principal, the Director of Bilateral Programmes from the British Council came to visit my school. She was interested in setting up partnerships between the UK and my school. And now the other Tim Tyson is shooting video about these projects?! What are the odds, I ask—even demand?!

The multi-year-long bizarre mystery of the Tim Tyson emails has been solved! But I save the best for last...

2. Imagine getting an unexpected email from a former student who writes this sentence: "I have come to realize that doing what is comfortable or popular tends to be far less rewarding than doing what is right." Now, this young man is only 18! He apparently has become somewhat of an activist for issues related to respect and social justice "for historically marginalized groups." His efforts have earned him national recognition, honors, and some significant opportunities.

My first encounter with younger students who felt a moral imperative to act on issues of social justice came during the Ronald Reagan years. (To cut big government spending, Reagan eliminated funding for homeless shelters thereby forcing the homeless to literally live on the streets.) Shortly thereafter, one of my 8th grade students first saw homeless people in downtown Atlanta. He was from an affluent home and had no idea such a thing could exist in our country. He was outraged, and, as an 8th grader, on his own, took it upon himself to launch a letter-writing campaign to the Georgia governor to have the issue addressed.

I've known many such young people since then—all with an inner calling directing their efforts to make the world a better place. I celebrate all of these young people who, at a very early age, feel compelled to act for positive change.

Their lives color the world with hope.

* Yes, I stole that line from a tweet by Miles Kahn, a producer for The Daily Show. That's actually part of what he said about tonight's show. I laughed out loud when I read his tweet.

Everyone is reporting about the silver-headed gentleman who frantically called 911 early in the week stating that his Toyota Prius was accelerating out of control down the San Diego interstate. In my mind, these are some of the salient things he says in his on camera CNN interview:

• The the floor mat was not stuck up under the gas pedal.
• The car reached speeds in excess of 90 miles per hour causing him to narrowly miss hitting other vehicles traveling down the road.
• The accelerator took on a mind of its own and was stuck.
• That his attempts to reach down with his hand and physically pull the gas pedal back up were unsuccessful.
• That, since the vehicle was speeding out of control down the interstate, it was unsafe for him to take one of his hands off of the steering wheel to place the car in neutral.
• That, since the vehicle was speeding out of control down the interstate, it was unsafe for him to take one of his hands off of the steering wheel to turn the car off, fearing the steering would lock up and cause a horrible accident at the speed he was traveling.
• That he was standing on the brake pedal with all of his weight and this did not slow the run away vehicle's speed very much.
• That when the highway patrol pulled up beside him and, using the speaker, told him to stand on the brake and use the emergency brake at the same time, the car slowed down to 50 mph, allowing the patrolman to pull in front of the speeding car, make contact between the the patrolman's trunk and the Prius' hood and use the patrol car to brake the Prius to a stop.

Now, I could be wrong, and forgive me if I am; but, I don't buy this at all! This sounds like total hogwash to me.

Allow me to elaborate...

As a crazy teenager with very little driving experience, I was driving a car, with around 350 horsepower, that got stuck in full throttle, with that huge engine racing at full power down a two lane road, with traffic, at night! Needless to say, I was shocked and dumbfounded. But bringing the car to a full stop was a simple, yet frightening thing.

I put it in neutral.

The frightening part was that the engine then revved to the max and sounded like it was going to explode. I turned it off.

Since I was out in the middle of no where, I then decided to turn it back on and drive it (stupid kid) to the nearest gas station to call my dad. Remember, this was before any kind of portable phones even existed. I could control the car's speed, with this huge engine, by Pressing firmly on the brake and dropping the car into neutral when needed.

But this isn't why I think this man staged this whole event. Aside from the fact that he is an experienced driver, look at what he says. His own words make zero sense to me.

• If you own a Prius (I do.) odds are very high you are fully aware of the media reports about runaway Prius(es?) that have allegedly killed people. (One report said he was aware of this possible problem and had previously asked his dealer if his car was affected.) If you haven't given some serious thought to how you would bring your vehicle, of any make or model, to a full stop should something like this happen to you, in my mind, you are negligent!
• He said it was too dangerous for him to take one of his hands off of the steering wheel to reach just a few inches over to place his car in neutral. WHAT??!! But it wasn't too dangerous to reach under the dashboard all the way down to the floorboard with his hand to try to pull the gas pedal up, thereby not just taking his hand off the steering wheel but his eyes off the road he reported speeding down at 94 mph?! (I can't see the road and touch the gas pedal at the same time in my Prius.) Please!! Get real, dude!!
• He said it was too dangerous for him to take one of his hands off of the steering wheel to reach just a few inches over to place his car in neutral. But it wasn't too dangerous to get out his cell phone and place a call to 911? (Did the officer give him a ticket for using his cell phone while driving, which, because it reduces the driver's response time more than driving under the influence of alcohol, is against the law in California?) Even with a USB headset and the phone options package on the Prius, I still have to touch the phone or the dashboard several times to dial 911. Don't tell me you couldn't reach a shorter distance to touch the vehicle's on/off button once or place the car in neutral! No, no, no!!

Related articles by Zemanta

• Toyota Reviewing U.S. Report of Prius With Stuck Gas Pedal (businessweek.com)
• Toyota Driver Spins Out Of Control At 94mph (news.sky.com)
• Runaway Prius halted by Calif. police (cbc.ca)
• Toyota With 'Stuck' Accelerator Hits 94 MPH, Driver Rescued by California Highway Patrol (abcnews.go.com)

I love video. I love timelapse. I love tilt-shift. What could be better than putting them all together? Well, watching it in full screen. Check it out.

Related articles

• Hands-On With the Lensbaby Fisheye and Soft-Focus Optics (wired.com)

At the master class last Saturday, I saw many bright, creative people.  Jeremy Ian Thomas, the creative director at RawWorks, was among them.  He wrote, along with Robert Lehman, and shot this short, micro budget film ($3.00) that has a compelling message and is really well executed.

Vimeo Link and additional info at the RAWworks blog.

Philip Bloom mentioned, in his master class yesterday, a file utility I had not heard of before, one that seems brilliant to me:  ShotPut Pro.  This program will copy your media files from their source (camera card) to up to 3 locations simultaneously.  Brilliant!

I think that always having an untouched copy of your original media files and a working copy of them is always a bright idea.  This practice not only gives you the option of having an emergency backup of your files in case of drive failure or theft, but provides you with some measure of future-proofing your media files for later use—perhaps in projects using CODECs we don't even have today.

I also use BackBlaze to automatically and continuously sync all of my data off site.  The three important parts of that last sentence are:  off site, continuously, and above all:  automatically!  BackBlaze is a steal of a deal at only $50 per machine per year for unlimited storage!  I just do my work using my machines, and BackBlaze is always keeping my offsite backup up to date.

If you were doing professional projects, where setting up the shoot required a significant investment or was time sensitive (can't be easily repeated, for example), using locally redundant copies of the original media and off site backups is essential!

Neil Smith, at hdiRAWworks, arranged for Philip Bloom to conduct a Canon HD-DSLR masterclass yesterday here in LA. This was the first time I've ever attended such a thing, and I rather enjoyed it and learned a lot too. The little tidbits you pick up are also interesting: like why the Canon 5Dmkii will only shoot video for 12 minutes. I always thought it was just a storage capacity issue. No. (We live in such a weird world.)

Philip showed several of his shorts, which, of course, are amazing. I've embedded a few of them here at tt.us from time to time. While they look great on the computer screen, they were stunning on the big screen with the HD projector.

He spoke of many things related to his craft, but I suppose I learned the most from his talk about setup, actually using the DSLR for video. I've never bothered with custom camera settings before but have already imported the superflat settings he recommended and am eager to try the workflow: shooting with the increased dynamic range, though visually initially less "interesting," and then grading the footage in post. It makes sense as I do the equivalent process with still photography all the time. We just can't get raw data out of the 5D. Philip says: "Yet..." (See Luka Crnkovic-Dodig's post: How to increase the Canon 7D/5D dynamic range, which includes this link to the superflat settings file, among others.)

In my own casual exploration through this space, I've ended up with a lot of the same software and equipment, and now have a better understanding of implementation and process for video and timelapse using my 5Dmkii. It's now time to play, play, play!  I'm also eager to explore timelapse.

Aside from being brilliant at what he does, Philip is very personable and has a great sense of humor. He also comes across as completely genuine and open about what he recommends and why. If you ever have the opportunity to attend one of his masterclasses, jump at it! I'm glad I stepped outside of my comfort zone.

Related articles:

• Canon Rebel T2i DSLR: 18MP and Legit 1080p Video for $899 [Digital Cameras] (gizmodo.com)
• Canon EOS 7D digital SLR (go.theregister.com)
• Canon's EOS 1D Mark V DSLR defying death, launching tomorrow? (engadget.com)
• The First Clips Shot on the Canon T2i Look As Good as the 7D [Photography] (gizmodo.com)
• Gorgeous (timtyson.us)

The Unhappy Hipsters just slay me!

Related articles

• Unhappy Hipsters (socialhallucinations.com)
• Interview with the Unhappy Hipster (trueslant.com)
• Unhappy Hipsters' parody Web site is a hit (seattletimes.nwsource.com)

Yes, The Oscars are upon us!

Back when I first visited my new dentist (who, incidentally, I really like!), I drove by a building I thought to be a church.  I was surprised to see that it is The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences--the people responsible for The Oscars!  I made a mental note.

Today, with the festivities fast upon us, I drove back out there and took some pictures of the building as well as the Hollywood sign, which is only about 5 miles further.  Three pictures of the Academy lurk behind the one shown below.  Click it to see them all.

The image is cropped; the roof, telephone pole and wires (enlarge to see) are removed; the sky especially (and the image as a whole) has a bit of my 11 different herbs and spices; and the electronics, fence, and road at the top of the hill are all removed.

Related articles

• Download the official Oscars App for iPhone and iPod Touch (teabreak.pk)
• Barbara Walters: Final Oscars Special Is Best (huffingtonpost.com)
• Oscar nods aren't translating into ticket boom (msnbc.msn.com)

I've never been much of a coffee drinker.  I don't like the aftertaste.  However, I love the smell of coffee.  I'll go to Starbucks and order an Earl Grey Tazo Tea just to savor the smell of the coffee while drinking my tea!  I'm crazy, I know.

But, after reading this CNN article, I will no longer give my business to Starbucks.  I don't know if California is one of the 43 states that allow people to tote guns around with them.  But the last thing I want is to be in a Starbucks, which allows their patrons to bring their guns into their stores if state law permits it, with patrons drinking their new 31 ounce coffee!

Now some hair-trigger, gun-toting, chip-on-his-shoulder nitwit with the caffein jitters can pretend he's back in the wild, wild west when he gets in an argument with the barista over the temperature of his grande mocha latte.  No thanks.

If people feel the need to have guns in their homes to protect them, that's their business.  If people feel the need to have guns for the sport of hunting, that's their business.  But I've worked with the public too long to trust most people's spur of the moment judgement.  Put a gun in their hands at the Starbucks?! No, I won't be around to see how this turns out.

Starbucks, you just lost a customer.

Good grief!

[Image via Wikipedia]

Jacob Bijani, Tumblr’s Creative Director, said “I always have to stop and think when setting a border radius in CSS, so I built a tool for it.” And so, Border-Radius.com was born. Easy, intuitive, interactive, practical, and gorgeously designed.

Beautiful!  But I would fall to my death!

Source:  FFFFound

I have finished my income taxes.

In sackcloth and ashes, I wail!

So, let me see...  what did my tax money help purchase?  Well, that money continues to fund wars I believe are immoral.  My taxes allow greedy bankers to get millions in bonuses while their banks all but put the economies of the world in collapse.  Umm... no health care reform.  Stupid, evil senators block continued unemployment benefits, because we can't afford that for the millions who have lost their jobs as a result of reckless, unchecked, capitalists' greed.

CNN reported last week that 86% of Americans, and I'm sure those would be the "real Amurrrricans," think our government is broken.  Who the hell are the 14% that think anything about our government works?!  How long can this continue?

Bloomberg reports today that, astoundingly, Iraq is now opening its doors to BP, Exxon Mobile, and Shell for the first time since 1972, when the country, under the leadership of the now executed Saddam Hussein, nationalized all of its oil fields. Astoundingly, this will open the 3rd largest oil reserves in the world directly to western countries.

And, um... why are we complaining about the bank bailouts? How much money did the citizens of this country spend on (and will continue to spend on) making this happen for the oil corporations? (Not to mention the number of people that were killed!)  If there is a hell, unfettered capitalist greed needs to rot in it.

Very clever time-lapse shot in Tokyo. To see the video in full HD, check out this link. Or you can click below to watch a smaller version from YouTube. To learn more about how the video was shot, go to the Laughing Squid.

With a recent storm having come off the Pacific, coupled with the Chilean 8.8 earthquake and its ensuing tsunami warning, the Pacific Ocean here in the South Bay Area, has been the most active I've ever seen it.  In this short video I shot yesterday with my iPhone, the sandy beach, which typically begins out where you see the waves starting to break, is completely gone.  No one was in the water.  You could even see some of the currents zipping around as waves would head back out to sea crashing into the waves coming in from the sea.  It was a spectacular site!

Related articles

• BREAKING: Violent 8.8 quake hits Chile, sends tsunami towards Hawaii (crooksandliars.com)
• Chile Earthquake, Tsunami Warnings: Science of a Disaster (abcnews.go.com)

I have quoted from Mike's blog more than once here at tt.us.  So often, he nails it.

Mr. Stearns argues that evangelicals were often so focused on sexual morality and a personal relationship with God that they ignored the needy. He writes laceratingly about “a Church that had the wealth to build great sanctuaries but lacked the will to build schools, hospitals, and clinics.”

via Waving or Drowning?.

I loathe the use of religion to aggregate wealth and power by marginalizing and then persecuting those who aren't a "member of the club."  The more noble path is to contribute good to the world by helping, with no strings attached, those in need.

In my earlier post, I mentioned that the surf has been out of control with the storm and earthquake.  The life guard stations had to be moved inland—waaaay inland, and the surf still almost got to them.  Here you can see that the sand was completely eroded away by the surf, creating the sudden drop off that was as tall as me!  (Click to enlarge.)

Normally, along a seashore, one expects to find seashells.  Well, not so here in the South Bay.  Regrettably, the dumping of LA's sewage has long ago killed such sea life.  But what I found even more distressing was the amount of trash the surf brought to the shore line.  It was unbelievable!  Thousands of plastic bottle caps littered the shoreline as if they were the missing seashells! Bits of styrofoam, in various sizes, were everywhere.  This is outrageous!  We have turned the Pacific Ocean into a sewer. Click the image below to see two different pictures.

Yes, I've ranted about my AppleTVs world without end!  Well, apparently, one of them was just completely messed up:  the hardware was bad.  Naturally, it wasn't under warranty.  (I think Apple only has a 90 day warranty unless you spend the extra money on AppleCare.  I always do for computers but hadn't for the AppleTV.)

So, I bought a new AppleTV.  My god!  The thing actually works!  After having been plagued with sooo many issues for sooo long with the other device, I was fully expecting this one not to function properly either.  But it works well!  And I purchased AppleCare for this one.

The only thing that greatly annoys me with the AppleTV:  the largest hard drive you can get is 160GB.  That's ridiculous.  I frankly don't give a rip what Apple thinks, Tim thinks he should be able to store his entire media library on the AppleTV hard drive and not have to clutter up the home LAN with streaming audio/video!  This would also give me another backup for the media files!

I do love being able to stream nearly 10,000 photos and music on the large flat panel TV downstairs for parties—like the one held here at the house last Saturday night.  (BTW:  Bristol Farms does a great job catering!!)  My photos just look awesome on the big screen, if I say so myself!  :)

I've made myself stop wearing a watch.  My iPhone has a clock on it that auto syncs to the network.  And, as I travel so much, that comes in handy.  My iPhone is always showing the timezone in which I currently am located, unlike my watch which requires a manual change.  I've gotten comfy going without the watch.

But this watch, with tiny lasers to indicate the hour and minute hand, would be enough to make me start wearing one again!

NPR, CPB, PBS:  all such powerful voices for deep, reflective, critical thinking in a time when we just tend to want some quick affirmation from those who support our current perspective on reality.  I've often, through the years, speculated that this is indeed the very reason these voices come under attack from political forces that feel challenged by dispassionate reason and reflection.

I've always had such great respect for Bill Moyers' work.  He asks deep and difficult questions in a quest for understanding and clarity rather than persuasion and opinion-making.  I stumbled upon, quite by accident, this Bill Moyers' Journla today:  an interview with Ted Olson and David Boies—unlikely legal partners joined to litigate against marriage inequality in California's ongoing battle with Proposition 8.

Having missed the broadcast (I was completely unaware of it.) I listened with interest as these three men had a provocative discussion of the case.  I was most curious how a brilliant, extremely conservative attorney and a brilliant extremely liberal attorney could in any way find common ground on this, of all, issues.  The conversation with Bill is fascinating and illuminating. In typical fashion, Bill asks some very demanding questions of these men.

This video and transcript, along with many other programs, can be found at PBS:  The Bill Moyers' Journal.