Wednesday, September 21, 2011

I live with a bunch of ANIMALS!

Feeling anxious today. I live with a bunch of animals. I love it.

Real low lighting in the chinchilla cage. Pulled off this shot by accident, but I like it.

Having difficulty getting good low light shots. Any suggestions? 

Tried to get a good shot of his leg kicking while I scratched his belly.

His name is Kopi. He's spoiled but adorable.

Been listening to this all day. Incredible.

Sunday, September 18, 2011

Rob and Eric (Not me)

I get bored with life sometimes. I don't always know what I'm doing or what I want to do and that usually results in an impulse idea/hobby. Welcome to impulse hobby #35, photography.

I purchased a Canon T3i off of Craigslist the other day in San Jose which usually doesn't make for a good time and results in a lot of awkward communications back and forth with a person you don't know anything about. So I make my way down to San Jose early Saturday afternoon with my friend Alex and meet this guy over at San Jose State University. Turns out he's a graduate professor at SJSU teaching MIS and knows a lot of the professors over at UT. Small world. Anyway, so I'm now a proud owner of a brand new shiny DSLR.

I figure the best way to keep me involved in the hobby and prevent my camera from being an expensive brick, I should take my pictures and post them. If you see any room for improvement in my pictures (I think you'll find plenty) feel free to drop a comment on how it can be better. A lot of the pictures you'll see coming up are kind of tilted to the left or right. That's because I took these pictures while I was walking the dog, and his leash kept dragging my hands down. I figure I'll fix them with photoshop later, but until I get a computer to properly run photoshop, here are the raw files.




Just another picture of the dog. He's a spoiled brat but adorable. Took him for a walk today and decided to bring my camera along.


View outside where I live. Super hilly areas all around. Hills suck.

Flora around this area is really incredible.

My side of Market St where I live. The other side is a lot busier and has a lot less residential areas.

My favorite shot. Notice the carved faces in the wood. Looks like a house directly from a Disney movie.

Found a nice hill/park not too far from me. Met some interesting people. More on that later.


Sprawling city. Not very happy with the composition of this photo. Feels off, but it gives you a good idea of what SF looks like. Those tall buildings on the left is the Financial District.

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Ok, well quick story time. While I was exploring the hill, I see this guy messing around and doing these really cool things with short whips. As I approach, he notices that I'm looking at him and asks me if I want to try. I decline but I start talking to him and his friend that was filming him. The guy with the whips was Asian and 21 although he looked much older and also named Eric. His friend was older late mid-50s I'm guessing and named Rob. Eric tells me some cool and interesting things about whipping techniques and shows me some cool tricks. Rob notices my camera and asks me a few questions. I later find out that he used to be a professional photographer and worked in the television industry for 15 years.

Anyway, so a few take aways that I got after chatting with Rob for a while. He told me that a lot of people he knows that get into photography often become equipment snobs. Equipment is great, he says, but don't forget, your most important piece of equipment is your eyes. That's something I think I'll really need to remember. Being a huge techie geek, I think I can easily get caught up in the hype. The second thing he told me was to always be prepared with a camera. The photograph that can make you as a photographer is usually impromptu. He told me a short anecdote of how him and his photography buddies used to carry small cameras under the seats of their cars so they would be prepared for these moments. Then, to reiterate the point, he pulls out a Sony Cybershot and tells me he never leaves home without it. Point taken. I'll definitely try to remember to bring my camera around more often, and at least always have a backup digital camera on me.

The final lesson I learned from this encounter was that I need to be ballsier sometimes. I would have loved to have taken a picture of Rob and Eric to post on the blog or maybe film Eric and his whips. But I felt awkward asking. Anyway, so yeah, September resolution: If you feel like taking pictures of someone, ask them.

Life lesson learned.





Saturday, July 23, 2011

Goodbye Chicago + 2 thoughts

First off, just wanted to give a quick shout to all my friends and family that have made this past year in Chicago a memorable one. I'm sad to be leaving, but excited to be pursuing new opportunities. Chicago and its people will always have a special place in my heart (and I really mean that, not trying to be sappy).

Anyway, I'm pretty bored here at the airport, so I've decided to put together a quick blog post about two random thoughts that came to my head while roaming the airport.

1. McDonald's doesn't serve gravy: I was feeling a bit hungry at the airport, and since I had a long flight ahead of me, I decided to grab Mickey d's. Now you're probably thinking. Eric, you're leaving Chicago, home of the stuffed crust pizzas and hot dogs, why not get something memorable as your last meal? Well honestly, I'm all pizza and hotdogged out, and there's just something about McDonald's and airports that always get me.

Anyhoo, so I go up and look at the menu and see these new chicken selects. I originally wanted chicken nuggets, but the chicken tenders sounded too interesting to pass up. I went up and placed my order. "Three piece chicken select meal." "What drink?" "Um.. root beer" "What sauce?" "Gravy". As soon as I said gravy, the cashier gave me the most confused look as if I'd just asked for peanut butter or some strange concotion of animal blood for sauce. "Uhh, Mcdonald's doesn't serve gravy!"

Now, before you start lambasting me and telling me that obviously McDonald's doesn't have gravy, let me make it clear. I know McDonald's doesn't have gravy, but the picture in the chicke selects clearly shows gravy. Upon pointing out this fact, the cashier turned her head, looked at the menu behind her, looks baffled (because obviously it's gravy) and proceeds to tell me it's ranch. Uh, no. You guys are tryin to copy Chik Fil A by creating a premium chicken brand, and clearly you guys have put a picture of gravy next to your chicken tenders. I've attached a picture of the box (which also shows gravy) just to prove my point (not sure how attaching pictures on this app works, so hopefully it worked).

End rant.

2. Southwest seating is awkward. If you've ever ridden Southwest, you know that there are no seats. Instead, you get a number which tells you which order you get to board the plane at which time you can also select your seat. It's a good system and works pretty well. Here's the problem though, when you get to the end, you're left with the center seats, and as you awkwardly amble through the narrow pathways, you start thinking about how to strategically find a middle seat that has ample space. All the while, the people in their seats are trying their hardest to avoid eye contact and look as big and space consuming as possible. Here's a tip though if you're ever stuck in this situation. Take the seat closest to the front. You're not going to find a better seat in the back, and at least you'll be able to get off soonr when you land. I think Southwest needs their flight attendants to just start assigning seats at the end, or people (namely me) will walk all the way to the back of the place in hopes that there is a better seat, and then try to crowd their way back when they realize there is no room in the back.

In other news, if you haven't heard yet, Amy Winehouse passed today. Also, tragically, a massacre occured in Oslo which killed 92 people. Although expected to be an attack by a group of Middle Eastern extremists, it soon came to light that the suspect was a local who had yet to be determined reasons. It's a terrifying and sullen reminder that danger can come from anywhere. Remember to stay safe. It's a wild world we live in.
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Sunday, July 17, 2011

HP7 Part deux, initial reaction

Just went to watch HP7 part two. I was still jet lagged, so I kept dozing off. I passed out for 4 to 5 seconds at a time. Every time I passed out at least 30 pages of the book went by in the movie. As a result, I missed a lot. Regardless, here are my initial reactions.

1. You really need to read the book to fully enjoy this movie. As with most books (or comic books) that become movie, you can't always get the full effect or inside jokes if you haven't read the source material.

2. Was Harry's mother a red head in the book as well? I see some Oedpidus complex thing going on in the movie; just was wondering if it was reflected in the book as well.

3. Is Snape Harry's dad? Or is this one of those unanswered questions that have 10,000+ posts in a thread on a HP fan site?

4. That last scene in the movie with them looking old was super lame. White hair + beard + bags under eyes does not equal age. You just threw hundreds of millions of dollars in special effects to create an incredible movie. Why not spend a few more $$ to create legit looking older characters? Did they get to the end and realized they blew all their money on the first 2 hours of the movie and couldn't properly finish the end?

:end rant:

Anyway, overall it was a fun entertaining movie that properly caps off an incredibl franchise (although I still maintain that the three main characters are terrible actors/actress. I think I'm going to try and read the books now.
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Wednesday, June 1, 2011

Patent Trolls... Scary

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Warning: The opinion expressed in this blogpost are often haphazardly researched on a bus while on a mobile phone. Feel free to call me out on any misinformation, or to express your own views.
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http://www.engadget.com/2011/06/01/microsoft-turns-to-crowdsourcing-service-to-swat-away-patent-tro/?m=false

And you thought trolling was only for internet message boards. "Patent trolling" has become more and more common over the years as juries award large settlements to groups who hoarde portfolios of patents and sue companies in hopes of settlement. There are entire companies whose sole source of revenue is to buy up patents then sue companies for "infringing" on those patents (ex. http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/11860819/ns/business-us_business/t/patent-trolling-firms-sue-their-way-profits/)

Basically, patent trolling works this way. Companies build massive portfolios of patents on the most random and basic things. Then, they get a team of researchers to find successful products that inadvertently use their patent and sue the bejeezus out of them. Settlements can often reach millions of dollars. Recently Google bid $900 million for Nortel's patent portfolio just to protect themselves from this type of litigation.

Now I'm all up for patenting ideas and products, after all patent laws help innovation blossom, but patent trolling borders on the absurd. By the letter of the law, patent trolling is not illegal, yet common sense tells us something else. Why are companies allowed to eat into the profits of others who actually created something new and contributed to our society? The biggest problem here, however, is that patent litigation, once used to protect innovation, now instead stifles it. Who would want to create a product only to see half of their revenue go to dealing with a lawsuit?

The system is obviously broken, and I'm glad to see some reform coming about. There have been new laws discussed to cut down on those taking advantage of the system, but it just disgusts me to see that some people are so greedy that they would sacrifice technological advancement and innovaton for their own profits.

Anyway, here's my simple solution to all of this: make everything open source. Unfortunately, we don't live in a perfect world, and very much like Communism, pure open source can most likely only be achieved in theory. So until the world is perfect, watch your backs... the trolls might me coming.

In totally unrelated news, that new movie The Troll Hunter looks pretty cool. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5nnoGTQRodk
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Wednesday, May 4, 2011

Morning Commute: Facebook Spm

Is it just me, or has the whole Facebook community forgotten all its rules about phishing, spamming, and scamming? Recently, I've noticed an exponential amount of my friends posting ridiculous pieces of spam over everyones wall. Dear friends, word of advice, don't click anything on Facebook that looks like spam, offers you to let you see who sees your profile, or reveals sexy outlandish videos.

Two questions:

1. Are people getting these viruses through Facebook, or is there an external source (malicious links, downloads) that is affecting user accounts.
2. What is Facebook doing to stop this? There seems to be an obvious security flaw in Facebook that exploits user accounts. How much of our other data is exposed by this spam? Given many of us put our entire lives on Facebook, it's a bit unsettling to see these security flaws being exploited.
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Monday, May 2, 2011

Fire Ants are Kind of Awesome

I HATE fire ants. I despise these 6 legged pests that invade your home and sting unrelentlessly at you until they die. Growing up in Texas, I had to deal with these menaces all the time. I remember tortuous invasions where I would jump at every touch, fearing one of these creepers had crawled on my hand and was poised ready to sting me. If you've never had to deal with fire ants, consider yourself lucky. The sting is painful and itchy, but the worst part is these things won't die! Seriously, you can step on these things or try to drown them, but they'll keep coming back. No joke, I distinctly remember a childhood memory where I saw a fire ant in my bathroom sink. Instinctively, I flushed it down the sink only to have the damned thing crawl back from out of the sink drain and back into the basin.

Recently, though, I've garnered a new found respect for fire ants. Why? Because fire ants are kind of awesome. These ants are mother natures ultimate survivors. I guarantee you if there was a nuclear holocaust, the only thing left surviving would be roaches and fire ants. And the ants would take over the cockroaches soon after and create the ultimate ant society....well maybe not. The following video is actually what got me thinking about fire ants. These things formed a freaking boat that can't be pushed under water! How's that for teamwork?

WARNING: if you hate bugs don't watch this video.



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