| (no subject) |
[Sep. 7th, 2009|10:13 pm] |
| [ | mood |
| |  blah | ] |
| [ | music |
| | Sirenia - The Path to Decay | ] |
So it seems that it has been awhile since I have updated, again. However, that is partly because I've been busy with some issues that I've been keeping off the internets and also because I haven't had much of anything interesting to say.
So just a quick update to let the others on my friends list know that I'm still keeping an eye on their journal updates, even if I don't say much. Those of you that are on my friends list on Facebook tend to get updates a bit more often, so just one quick item for those of you that aren't on there yet. I recently went on vacation up to Nova Scotia, pictures from the trip can be found over on Flickr.
In the photography department there are a couple quick updates. The first of which is that I recently submitted a photograph for a juried show and didn't get accepted. I know that I shouldn't let it get to me too much, but it still does for some reason. However, I have also heard that some of my prints have apparently sold which does offset things a bit. Now I know at the end of the day I shouldn't let shows or sales get to me as it does distract from the art part of photography, which is part of the reason that I'm doing it; however, in some way, they are also the only measure I have of what people think of my work. I don't know, perhaps I'm just being hypocritical in even worrying about what other people think.
However, it is nice to see some of my work showing up on the internet. |
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| (no subject) |
[Jun. 7th, 2009|10:37 pm] |
| [ | mood |
| | blah | ] |
| [ | music |
| | Two Mix - TRY | ] |
So it seems to have been awhile since my last updated, but most of what has been going on is work and school to varying degrees. So a couple quick updates.
First up is that I have setup a more techincal site at http://code-zen.info which is also hosting my Kiva World application. Since I have talked about that project a bit more on Facebook than here on Livejournal, Kiva World was my final project for a graduate course in internet applications I took during the spring term and takes feed data from Kiva and displays it on a Google Map.
Next up is the fact that I have starting studying Japanese and right now my goal is to take the level four Japanese Language Proficiency Test (JLPT) this winter. Granted the level four isn't considered to be much of an achievement, it does give me a defined goal to be working towards which should help my studies.
That's all for now, just a quick update, I might try and write a bit more at a later time. |
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| (no subject) |
[Feb. 28th, 2009|06:08 pm] |
| [ | mood |
| |  annoyed | ] |
| [ | music |
| | Darkwell - Suspiria | ] |
Alright, today makes a first for me, although it tends to be a very common issue for photographers, namely, the unauthorized use of one of my pictures.
The photograph in question happens to be one that I took awhile back of the W.T. Young Library at the University of Kentucky. This also happens to be one of my most viewed pictures in my Flickr account and for some reason turns up quite readily on image searches for University of Kentucky.
The illicit use in question is actually on a commercial website for a major company. I'm not going to name names for the obvious reasons, but needless to say, most people have likely heard of them.
Now, to be honest, in most cases I don't mind if people make use of my work and most of what I have posted to Flickr has a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial 2.0 Generic license applied to it. However, this doesn't apply to commercial use of my photography - I don't mind if another artist out there or a non-profit whats to use something as long as I get a bit of credit, but a commercial use is another story all together.
Since I have never been in this type of situation though, is there anyone out there that can offer me some advice in regards to what to do? I am doing some more searching to see if I find any more situations like this; however, I'm hoping that I will not. |
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| (no subject) |
[Feb. 1st, 2009|10:43 pm] |
| [ | mood |
| |  tired | ] |
| [ | music |
| | Absurd Minds - Masterbuilder | ] |
Today they had a number of Chinese New Year's celebrations going on down in Boston in the Chinatown neighborhood so I took the opportunity to go down there with my digital camera and the medium format camera. I've started going through all of the pictures from the digital side of things and for the most part, the best way to describe them is leaning towards the photojournalism side of things. Pictures are slowly filtering into my Flickr account as I go through them.
Using the Mamiya C330f did make for an interesting day out. This was in part because there were quite a few people that did a double take when they saw it, but also because trying to get pictures and reload film when things are happening quickly is quite hard. Sadly though, I'm still not entirely sure how the pictures I took with it turned out because I don't have a scanner on hand that can scan the film. |
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| (no subject) |
[Jan. 19th, 2009|10:09 pm] |
| [ | mood |
| |  amused | ] |
| [ | music |
| | Itzhak Perlman - Violin Concerto in E BWV1042 (Bach) | ] |
So one of the interesting things that I have been noticing since starting photography is how much you tend to notice things just a bit more than usual. While I'm still working on developing the "photographers eye," I do have a wide variety of analytics and traffic tools on some of the sites that host my pictures. So today, imagine my surprise when I notice a hit from a Romanian site. The article that the site was posted was interesting, and kudos to them for the photo attribution, but the article that the site linked to was even more interesting. Since I ride the T to work every day, it is not uncommon to pass by performers in the various subway stations and I must admit that from time to time they kind of just fade into the background of the hustle and bustle.
In other photographic news, I have a new "toy" on the way. Expect to see some pictures of it up on Flickr long before I have any pictures taken with it up. Lets just say that it has a bit of a learning curve for now. |
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| (no subject) |
[Jan. 3rd, 2009|09:28 pm] |
| [ | mood |
| | annoyed | ] |
| [ | music |
| | FrightDoll - Marionette | ] |
Well, it didn't take me too long once I had the time on my hands to actually sit down and do it, but my photography website is now up:
A View Through Glass
Yes, I'm surprised that the name wasn't taken yet myself either. |
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| (no subject) |
[Nov. 23rd, 2008|10:08 pm] |
| [ | mood |
| |  surprised | ] |
| [ | music |
| | Darkwell - Suspiria | ] |
It's been over a month since my last update, so it is time for another art update. So two pictures that I want to highlight and a bit of news as well as a question.- Misty Dock is a picture that I took up in Meredith, NH back in October at sunrise and one of the interesting technical aspects of this pictures is the fact that the dock was covered with frost. In order to get this picture I was actually laying down on the dock and more or less shivering when I stood up due to being slightly wet. However, the picture turned out, so I guess I can't complain too much.
- Next up is Sunrise on Misty Lake, this is a shot that I noticed on a New Hampshire back road and this is also a shot that taught me a valuable lesson about using a tripod when it is cold. This lesson is that metal tripods get cold when it is cold outside and without proper gloves to keep your hands warm, your hands get really cold. This seems a bit obvious, but it sometimes needs to be driven home at times.
In other news, I was quite surprised to find that "Sunrise on the Misty Lake" was featured in the deviantART news article The Cutting Edge 47/08 (artistic nudes warning). Needless to say that besides the aforementioned surprised, I'm also quite humbled by the recognition, some extremely nice pictures show up in the deviantART news.
Finally, I'm looking to setup a professionally looking site for my photography - any suggestions for hosts? |
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| (no subject) |
[Oct. 5th, 2008|11:14 pm] |
| [ | mood |
| | amused | ] |
| [ | music |
| | Within Temptation - Our Solemn Hour | ] |
So just a quick update today with hopes that I will remember to post a longer update tomorrow. This has actually been a pretty productive weekend in terms of photography in that I went up to Maine on Saturday to take some pictures of the fall colors, I'm still going through the pictures but it looks like one or two might have turned out.
Also, I went over to Dickson Memorial Chapel today and took some pictures. As you an see, one of them turned out. The chapel is actually pretty interesting as the architecture is extremely nice, but it has fallen into disrepair for the most part. The place should look interesting during the winter though once it has snowed.
Finally, there was a Zombie Walk (Myspace warning) today that I followed and took a bunch of pictures of. They are currently going up in to the 2008 Zombie Walk collection that I setup on Flickr as I go through them. Sadly, some of the ones from later on in the walk didn't turn out due to me doing something to the camera, but I still got quite a few nice pictures and more practice with the camera. Some of the costumes were extremely nice as well. |
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| (no subject) |
[Sep. 24th, 2008|10:30 pm] |
| [ | mood |
| |  calm | ] |
| [ | music |
| | フェイ・ウォン - イマジネイション（瞼） | ] |
Well, I seem to be a slacker in regards to posting lately, but things have been busy here. I'm finally as settled as I will ever be in the apartment, but the moving company still hasn't done the right thing in regards to the move. I'm going to be sending them another letter this week, even more so as I still haven't heard back from them in regards to the stuff they broke.
This October I'm going to start selling prints here in Salem - October is also Haunted Happenings which means that things should be, interesting, around here. Not sure what is going to go on with selling the prints, right now if I break even then I will consider it to be a success. My biggest fear is not selling anything and being stuck with a bunch of prints that I'm not going to know what to do with.
More updates to come this weekend, hopefully with any luck I have a firm idea in mind of where I'm going to try to go with the photography. |
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| (no subject) |
[Aug. 17th, 2008|11:14 pm] |
| [ | mood |
| |  artistic | ] |
| [ | music |
| | Enya - Anywhere Is | ] |
Just a quick update tonight as I have been mildly productive in the art department. Two new pictures are up on deviantART -
I think I might finally be starting to get the hang of the camera and I am definitely starting to understand what it means to "go out looking for the picture." The other day I spent about an hour outside around sunset just taking pictures in hopes that one of them would turn out. I still have quite a few pictures to go through, but that one of Pickering Wharf was one of the first ones to stand out.
Finally, I recently bought a Chinese silk painting that has been in the shop for the past week while it was getting framed. Today I was able to finally pick it up from the shop - so here is a picture for everyone. |
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| (no subject) |
[Aug. 5th, 2008|09:03 pm] |
| [ | mood |
| | blah | ] |
| [ | music |
| | Eisbrecher - Vergissmeinnicht | ] |
Well, I have been settled into the new apartment for a couple days now, and I must say that it is indeed much cozier than the old one. Of course, this goes without saying as the new apartment is 450sqft and the last one was 750sqft, this size also puts it in the range of being considered to be a "micro apartment." Of course, with an apartment of this size you are generally giving something up, so in addition to square footage I'm also loosing out on a full sized kitchen, in unit laundry (fairly rare up here, so not that big of a loss), and storage space. However, in return, I am getting a very nice location in terms of soundings and convenience to things - I can get most places just by walking and the commuter rail is only about a 5 to 7 minute walk from door to platform. As a whole, now that I have everything unpacked and superfluous items thrown away or donated, I am quite content; even the cat seems to be liking the place as now she can sit in windows and observe her "domain."
However, the move itself has been quite stressful - the moving company managed to completely screw things up, and to make things worse, the managed to break stuff as well. I'm trying to get in touch with them to see if they will do the right thing, however, if they do not, I will be posting up a full story of what happened. |
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| (no subject) |
[Jul. 17th, 2008|04:47 pm] |
| [ | mood |
| |  exhausted | ] |
| [ | music |
| | 井上喜久子、冬馬由美、久川綾 - coro di dea 女神達の歌声 | ] |
Short update - I am now in my new residence in an old, historical city. The move was quite painful and I am still unpacking. There is likely to be a rant about the moving company this weekend. |
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| (no subject) |
[Jul. 7th, 2008|08:11 am] |
| [ | mood |
| |  shocked | ] |
| [ | music |
| | Elis - Brothers | ] |
Alright, just a quick heads up for the rest of the people out there that watch anime - especially since this caught me by surprise - but ADV has gone belly up and taken a number of good titles with them, like Kanon. On the upside, it looks like Funimation has picked up some of the titles and will be finishing them one way or another. Hopefully they will release the remaining volumes posthaste.
Anyway, just wanted to let people know as I was caught by surprise myself, guess I need to actually start reading newsletters again. Here's also some more information for you. |
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| Writer's Block: Just Desserts |
[Jul. 5th, 2008|08:04 pm] |
<cliché>Well, I will take the pie since the cake is a lie.</cliché>
However, with that bit of humor out of the way - it depends on my mood and the type of desert. In most cases a good pie is enhanced by adding á la mode, but most good cakes don't need that sort of enhancement. In the case of cakes, I prefer them served cold, but most pies tend to be better when warm. |
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| (no subject) |
[Jun. 8th, 2008|11:21 pm] |
| [ | mood |
| | blah | ] |
| [ | music |
| | Darkwell - Realm of Darkness | ] |
Alright, I know I haven't updated much lately, but what can I say?
Anyway, I have been a bit apathetic towards the internet in general lately and haven't really been keeping up with most things too much. I'm not sure as to the exact reason and it's not for want of time some nights, just haven't had much desire to do stuff on the internet. So I do believe a short up date might be in order.
I did the graduation thing recently and was one of the student speakers - I have video and will see about figuring out a way to share it out with some of the people on the friends list. The speech has already been posted for some time now as a friends only post.
Surprisingly, I did manage to finally get through all of the pictures that have been "piling up" on my computer and get a good chunk of them posted up to my Flickr account and some of the better ones have even ended upon my deviantART account. I'm still debating going through and creating prints of a couple of the pictures as well.
I'll see if I can post more in awhile, and I'm still trying to figure out how 2008 is already practically half over. |
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| (no subject) |
[Apr. 13th, 2008|11:21 pm] |
| [ | mood |
| | blah | ] |
| [ | music |
| | Utada Hikaru | ] |
Alright just a quick update tonight - mostly because I wanted to post this link while it was still fresh in everyone's minds.
Anyway, as some of you may or may not be aware, the Red Sox had their season opener at Fenway Park this week, and part of it entailed a fly over by the Vermont Air National Guard who performed, let's say a "less than conventional maneuver." Here's the YouTube Video of the fly over for you to check out, the relevant part starts at about 1:48. Of course, this was not without consequences. |
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| (no subject) |
[Mar. 31st, 2008|10:31 pm] |
| [ | mood |
| | blah | ] |
| [ | music |
| | Tarja - Oasis | ] |
Alright, I know I haven't been posting much lately and my deviantART account hasn't been updated in almost a year; but I'm not sure what to say. I'll try and be a bit better about posting to LiveJournal, and deviantART will be updated as I actually sit down and do art related things.
I've been working on trying to get an in-house software suite deployed at work which accounts for the delay the past couple weeks, but quite frankly I really don't have much of an excuse on the deviantART issue.
There is a longer post up for people on my friends list as well. |
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| (no subject) |
[Jan. 20th, 2008|10:16 pm] |
The Age of Gold: The California Gold Rush and the New American Dream by H. W. Brands - Another book that follows the standard of "truth in titling" and as you might suspect, this is a non-fiction book about the California Gold Rush. As a whole, the book is quite good and follows the entire gold rush from the initial discovery to the impact of the gold rush, namely, the accelerated founding of the State of California. However, with the amount of time that is being covered, the book does gloss over some periods a bit too quickly. Hands down I would recommend this book to anyone interested in history and specifically if they are interested in California or the Gold Rush.
The Language of God: A Scientist Presents Evidence for Belief by Francis S. Collins - I originally picked this book after flipping through it at the bookstore in part because it was written by Dr. Francis Collins, the leader of the Human Genome Project. The book is well written and Dr. Collins presents his arguments in a straightforward and readable matter, but I don't know, the book as a whole just didn't seem to go deep enough in to the arguments for my taste. While the book does make for an interesting read, your millage may very. However, anyone working on anything involving bioethics might be interested to know that the book included an appendix on the subject.
The Cuckoo's Egg: Tracking a Spy Through the Maze of Computer Espionage by Cliff Stoll - The Cuckoo's Egg is considered to be one of the class books relating to computer security and after reading the book you know why. While the technology involved is dated by modern standards - the story took place back when 1200 baud was a good modem - but the techniques described in the story are also what setup most of the techniques used to investigate modern security breaches. As such, this is almost required reading for anyone in the computer industry and everyone else will find it to be a decent yarn with some good examples of why you should use a password. |
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| (no subject) |
[Dec. 18th, 2007|09:43 pm] |
| [ | mood |
| | tired | ] |
| [ | music |
| | Augustana - Boston | ] |
So it seems that it has been awhile since I last updated, while long story short, I took too many classes this semester and have spent most of my time hitting the books and being tired. Now what do I have to show for all of my hard work?- MA 310 - Discrete Mathematics - B
- CS 315 - Intro to Algorithms - A
- CS 405 - Software Engineering - A
Also, I have completed all of the requirements for my Bachelor's in Computer Science and thus I am now able to move on to bigger and better things, I guess. I am also working on a paper that came about as a result of the project I did for the software engineering course, hopefully I will have something to post on that after the new year.
There is some other stuff going on and I will save it for the weekend, going to try and get back in the old posting routine again. |
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| Book Reviews |
[Sep. 30th, 2007|09:13 pm] |
Under the Black Flag: The Romance and the Reality of Life Among the Pirates by David Cordingly - As the title of the book eludes, this is a book about the more factual aspects of the historical pirates life. The book covers a variety of topics in a fair amount of detail without going too in detail. While some could take this as a good thing, those that are seeking more detailed discussion of of the finer nuances of the pirate life will find the book a bit lacking. That said, it is still recommended as a decent historical book that provides good insight and also provides good sources on where to find more information.
The Big Oyster: History on the Half Shell by Mark Kurlansky - From the same author who wrote the previously reviewed Salt: A World History this book covers the rise and fall of the oyster in the development of New York City. While the subject matter covered is a bit eccentric it is presented in an intriguing matter and the author does a good job of explaining exactly why oysters have been so important to New York Cities development. It is a food history so it might not be for everyone, but those that are interested in the historical development of New York City will likely find the book interesting and the same applies to those that are just generally interested in history.
Spice: The History of a Temptation by Jack Turner - This books is another in the realm of culinary history and follows the historical development of the use of spices and their role in history. The book is generally divided up along the lines of the acquisition of spices, the use of spices in food, the use of spices in every day life, and the spiritual uses of spice. The first three parts of the book were quite good; however, the book lost a bit of something during the last quarter of the book with the religion parts. The primary reason for this is that it was written in such a way that I wonder if some of the authors own beliefs where filtering through as opposed to just presenting the material. That said, the book was still quite interesting and worth reading. |
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