May 2006 Entries
So while I was running around downtown Chicago this Memorial Day weekend, I ran into 20 fat guys in diapers. Seriously. This is why I need to move to a big city, this type of photography opportunity will never happen in Iowa, and there are only so many pictures of a barn that the world needs. My apologies if you are eating lunch (but maybe this will encourage you to diet)
More images available at my
photograpy site.
Here is another book for DaVinci code fans. I would categorize this book as a DaVinci Code knockoff, except that it was published two years BEFORE DaVinci was. The book was originally written in Spanish (as was Shadows of the Wind, another book I will be reviewing shortly), and published in 2001. No doubt the book's current popularity, and possibly its publishing in the United States can be attributed to DaVinci, but at least the author was original.
Like DaVinci, The Last Cato revolves around a conspiracy theory and the Catholic church. However, this book has some interesting twists on the genre. First, the protagonists of the book are members of the Catholic church. One is a nun, and a member of the Vatican Archives, and another is one of the Swiss Guards, and the "muscle" of the Vatican. There is a third protagonist, but he is not a member of the church.
The second interesting twist on the genre, is that all the normal "conspiracy" ideas that these books deal with are already known. The cover-ups regarding the early history of the church are taken for granted by the protagonists (who as a result of their two roles in the church have access to classified material). This was a nce twist, as it allowed for all of the mystery and conspiracy atmosphere that the genre is known for, without casting the church as the bad guy.
DaVinci centered around secrets, hidden in great works of art. The Last Cato has a simmilar theme - Dante's Divine Comedy (in particular Purgatory) holds the secrets to a ritual for joining a secret society. This secret society has protected the true cross (the actual cross Christ was crucified on) for thousands of years. Relics of the cross have been given to various churches throughout the world, and they are now being stolen, presumably by the secret society.
The ritual deals with purging the aspirant of the seven deadly sins, and making them worthy of the role of protecting the cross. The book deals quite a bit with the history of the church, particularly the scism between the Catholic and Orthodox churches. Th historical (and contemporary) politics of the great churches forms a wonderful backdrop for the story, as the protagonists travel from one ancient city to another (one for each deadly sin).
This book was very well written, and well translated. The characters are well developed, and the dialog is believable. The book does fall into some cliche elements, such as the inevitable romance between the male and female leads (although the female in this case is a nun, which adds some nice twists). If you are a fan of the historical/religious mystery, I highly reccomend this book. In my opinion, it is probably better than the DaVinci code.
The book refers back to Dante's text often, however the relevant sections are always quoted, and sometimes quoted in the original language and English. The book deals with language a lot, as many of the clues are hidden in various church names, saints names, etc. A fan of languages and word puzzles will not be disappointed.
The DaVinci Code has sparked a flurry of novels in its wake. Some of these are excellent. Some are horrible. Unfortunately Templar leans to the latter. The Last Templar has some redeeming features, but in the end, your time and money are probably best spent somewhere else. Templar is Raymond Khoury's first novel, and it shows. The novel is extremely cliche, and the dialogue is almost painful in some locations. The book is directly inspired (if not lifted) straight from Dan Brown's DaVinci Code, even to the point of having the whole “bloodline of Christ” be one of its potential conspiracies, and directly reffering to Brown's novel in Templar several times. Templar follows the formula for this genre flawlessly, including the obligatory hook-up between the male and female protagonist. One nice change was that the female lead actual drove most of the discovery and action throughout the book, the male lead was the side-kick.
The book does feature several flashbacks to the Templars, each time reavealing a bit of the backstory, as the protagonists have discovered clues. These parts are wonderful, and if Khoury had written a book purely about the Templars, I belive it would have been a rousing success.
To repeat myself, spend your time and money elsewhere, unless you are a huge Templar fanatic, or have a lot of spare time. I recommend the following books that fall roughly into this genre(reviews forthcoming)
The Name of the Rose, Umberto Eco - The book that spawned the genre. A must read.
The Historian, Elisibeth Kostova - Excellent historical mystery, revolving around the history of Dracula, both the ruler, and the vampire.
Shadows of the Wind, Carlos Ruis Zafon - A wonderful novel, very rich in its descriptions. Highly reccomended
More book reviews to follow.
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So I guess I was wrong in my previous post. There is a Digital SLR that will do a LCD Preview, the Olympus EVOLT E-330. This camera works in two modes.
Mode A : The light hits a mirror, as in a normal SLR, but rather than being directed out the viewfinder, it is split (with a prism). Half of the light goes to the viewfinder, half of the light goes to a second CMOS sensor.
Mode B : The mirror is locked up, and light passes directly through to the primary CMOS sensor. This mode gives higher quality preview, but the viewfinder is turned off. Also in this mode, auto focus is disabled, so you have to use manual focus.
Both of these modes would significantly reduce battery life, compared to a standard DSLR. You can leave a DSLR on for weeks without draining the battery. Using the meter (which automatically turns off in most cameras) uses a small level of power, and the bulk happens when actually shooting the picture. Using the LCD (either as a review, or as a preview) consumes a massive amount of power, and will cut your shooting time WAY down. Many point and shoot cameras will get 50 or so pictures on a charge. Most DSLRs can get 400 or more, because the LCD is only activated manually when you want to review a picture.
One nice feature this camera has is the articulated LCD screen, so you can hold it over your head, and still see what the picture will be of. |
I saw this post on Thomas Hawk's blog, pointing to a nice article comparing DSLR's to Point and Shoot Cameras at Digital Photography School. This article is a great primer for people thinking about making a jump to higher-end photography.
A point the article makes that I cannot emphasize enough : Megapixels are not the most important factor in picture quality. Equally (if not more important) is the size of the sensor, and the size of the apeture. Both of these combine into how much light from the world is actually used to generate your picture. The more light, the better your picture, especially in terms of noise etc.
For everyone who is at all serious about photography, get the DSLR. Have a point and shoot as a backup, or for carrying with you in your pocket. But the DSLR is better in every other way. As for film, unless you are developing and printing them yourself, in your own darkroom, 35mm film is absolutely dead. Medium and Large format are still where the top quality though.
If you do buy a point and shoot, buy the biggest one you feel comfortable carrying (especially the biggest lens). However, as soon as you get to the $700 and “bigger than my pocket” size, switch to a DSLR.
One error I did see in the article :
No live LCD - in almost all DSLRs the only way to frame your shot is via the optical viewfinder. Some photographers prefer to use a camera’s LCD for this task. Some DSLRs seem to be being released with this feature being added however so if you’re a fan of the LCD framing method you might want to check.
This is not true, by definition, any camera that shows a preview in the LCD is NOT a DSLR. A DSLR works by bouncing the light off a mirror, into the viewfinder. When the shutter is released, the mirror moves out of the way, and the light hits the sensor. If you have a LCD preview, then the light is hitting the sensor all the time. This means your viewfinder is either going through a different light path, or is a mini-LCD. Both of these have problems - if you are using the LCD all the time, you chew up your battery much faster, and if you have a second light path that means what you see through the finder, is not exactly what the picture will be taken of (due to paralax)
NOTE : There have been some comments getting out of hand. I am deleting any rude or personally insulting comments in this thread. Keep it clean.
So in reading my blog referrers, it seems becoming a vampire is a problem many people have, so I decided to write a little vampire guide. This guide contains some mild spoilers. be warned.
Becoming a vampire is really easy. There are two major paths
1) Fight a vampire.
2) Recieve the “dark gift”
There is not a way to make yourself a vampire via spells, a ritual, or anything else like that.
Two notes : 1 )You cannot become a vampire in GOD mode, if you are cheating, it wont work.
2) If you cure yourself, you cannot become a vampire a second time. You are permanently cured.
The Dark gift is available as a Dark Brotherhood quest reward. To get this, first join the Dark Brotherhood. You may be able to join the brotherhood by going straight to their hideout and sanctuary in Cheydinhal, but the standard way is to kill someone. This is slightly confusing, because you can't kill just anyone. You need to kill someone who is not attacking you, and who is a member of at least one evil faction. The easiest ones in my opinion are the Deadra shrine worshippers. Complete a Deadra shrine quest, then kill the worshippers (do the quest first, if you kill first, you can't do the quest). Then go sleep somewhere safe (an inn or something), that will lead you to the Dark Brotherhood. Do a few of the quests, and bingo, Vincente will make you a vampire.(You can choose not to accept the gift as well)
The other way to become a vampire is just to fight vampires. There are MANY vampire covens around, and many side quests that lead you directly to Vampires. A few of the quests and where to start them are listed below. When you fight a vampire, you may contract Porphoric Hemophilia. At this point you are not a vampire. If you drink a cure disease potion, or visit a cure shrine, you will not become a vampire. However, if you wait 3 days, then sleep. You will become a vampire. Fighting vampires is easiest with fire spells or weapons, and some detect life spells, because vampires can become invisible. For best effect, let the vampire hit you without fighting back too much, so that you have more chances to contract the disease.
Being a vampire has perks, and some downsides. There are 4 levels of vampirism. At the first level, its pretty much all perk. You are stonger, sneakier, more powerful with magic, and have a night vision & detect life power. The only downside is an increased weakness to fire.
Each 24 hour period you go without feeding, you become more of a vampire. You get more powerful, and gain additional spells (like invisibility). However, at levels 2-4 you take damage from the sun. At level 2, the sun damage is not too bad, a mage can run around and heal faster than the sun hurts. However, at levels 3 and 4, the damage is quite heavy, and you will need to stay indoors. Also, at level 2-4 you cannot fast travel during the day. The further you get down the vampire path, the less people will like you. If you have high personality or speechcraft, this isn't a problem. You only increase levels when you wait or sleep, so you can go for many days at any given level as long as you don't wait or sleep. If you need some time to pass, just run around, or fast travel to another city, and do a step or two of a side quest. I prefer to stay at level for the most part, so that I can fast travel during the day. But if I am going to fight in a hard dungeon, then I wait for 3 or 4 days to become stronger. If you are taking sun damage, just go inside and wait until night. This serves 2 purposes. 1) you wont be taking sun damage anymore, and 2) people are now asleep so you can feed on them.
Feeding : Its easy to feed, just walk up to someone that is sleeping, and try to talk to them. You will get a choice between talking and feeding. Feed, and you are back to level 1! There are many easy targets for this, any of the guild halls, the blades, sleeping bums, or random people's houses.
Curing Vampirism : I have not done this (because I like being a vampire), but there are several ways to start the cure vampirism cure. You can talk to the count of skingraad, Vincente in the Dark Brotherhood, or your contact in the Mages Guild.
Quests to meet vampires, note these may be considered mild spoilers.
Ulterior Motives - Mages guild quest, Arcane University, Imperial City (Vampire Hunting Quest)
The Order of Virtuous Blood - Temple District, Imperial City (Vampire Hunting Quest)
Lost Histories - Thieves Guild quest, eventually vampire related
Origin of the Grey Prince - Side Quest, Arena, Imperial City
A Brotherhood Betrayed - Side Quest, Bruma - THIS IS NOT A VAMPIRE QUEST, but it seems like it.
So the title is somewhat misleading, I have sold many photos in the past, mainly to cast members of shows at the local theatre, and for very small change ($0.30 a pop or something). This time, I sold a reproduction license for one of my photos, so a theatre in canada could use it in their season brochure. They are going to print 30,000 copies of it, and give me a credit line in their brochure as well. The actual price is pretty irrelivant, and it doesnt even make a dent in paying off my photo equipment, but it does more than pay for my smugmug membership. Since they found the photo through smugmug, that is pretty sweet!
The photo was from Beauty and the Beast, which my theatre did last year. We were the first community theatre to do the show in the country, before that every performance had been professional. Now the show is popping up like wildfire all over the country, and my site gets tons of hits on google for Beauty and the Beast photos.
The photo is nothing special, I think many of the other shots from the show are actually better, but its a nice “anonymous“ shot that is reusable without being noticably from a different theatre.
