Let's give Arnold Schwarzenegger a break

Looking at all his life accomplishments from his rise from obscurity, I think people are blowing his faux pas out of proportion.   Should his whole life be ruined because he decided to sleep with his maid and had an illegitimate son?  Sounds like a personal matter, not a world crisis.  It's not like they aren't being provided for.  It would be a shame if this is how Schwarzenegger's legacy ends.  Sounds like the maid was well provided for, and was waiting to cash this check on her way out.  What is worse?  Hiding these events from the public, or selling out the good people that you worked for who is probably considered a part of the family, who is also the father of your son, for money?  I vote for the ladder.  Let's give Arnie a break.

Galaxy Note 2 NOT released in South Korea 9/28/2012

I am in Korea and I went to a few phone stores and they all told me that because of the Korean Thanksgiving, it is likely that it will be arriving October 2 but most likely on the 4th.  I know that every tech website reporting on the Galaxy Note 2 is reporting that it was launched in South Korea, but that doesn't seem to be the case.  However, people, such as developers and carrier representatives have had them for a few days now.  There are some floating around, but it doesn't seem like any have actually sold yet.  I have looked through the Korean discussion forums and not a single soul has posted about getting one today.

Update 10/4/2012:  KT has launched the Galaxy Note 2.  SK and LG recalled the shipped phones due to a bug.  Sigh....I'm waiting on the LG version...

Taken 2 Review

I am in South Korea where Taken 2 was released in the theaters a week earlier than in the US.  I thoroughly enjoyed the first movie and I highly anticipated the sequel.  The movie was more of the same with but with a lot less intensity.  I remember 2 distinct things about the first movie.  First thing was the chops to the neck.  Second was the intensity you felt from the main actor fighting through suffocating layers of insurmountable challenges while trying to find his daughter in a foreign country.  The action scenes were there in Taken 2, but it never felt too intense out of the scenes that involved fighting.  Another thing that I thought could have been better was the scale of the location.  The majority of the movie felt like it happened around one building.  There was never really a search, other than through the corridors of one building where all the bad guys hung out.  The first movie felt like a journey while Taken 2 felt like a short weekend trip.  With all that said it was still enjoyable sequel but don't go into the movie with high expectations.

I've brought all my old posts back.

I decided to merge all the blogs together that I have written over the years.  In 10.5 years, I've managed to write 925 blog posts.  A good percentage of them long posts.  I'm not really a twitter user.  Some thoughts are complex and those need to be shared too.

The reason I removed the posts originally was that I had always started new blogs from scratch and essentially made the other posts unavailable to searches on an unguessable addresses.  The reason I am bringing them back is that I realized a few things.  A lot of my posts had good information on them.  A huge reason why people blog is to make the Internet a better place.  What I mean by that is that the Internet is collection of information.  And if you are the holder of information that is not currently on the Internet, it is your duty to populate the Internet with it.  For example, you discovered a solution to fix a problem that many people are having in the world, and when you searched for it on the Internet it was not easily available, you should blog about it.  This is how the Internet operates.  If no one did this, Internet would be a sad place.  We would be back to figuring things out ourselves or paying someone a lot of money just for a little bit of knowledge.

Another reason why I decided to bring all my old posts back is that I no longer feel like everything I used to think in the past is something I don't identify with.  Instead, what my old posts are is a way to see where I was then and how differently I see things now.  In many ways, I haven't changed at all.  Mostly my priorities and where I focus my time on have changed.

Back on the wagon. Don't I mean back off the wagon?

Been doing LISS...low intensity steady state.  It is the equivalent to walking briskly.  And basically no stress on the body.  I read online that LISS, after about an hour or so, consumes muscles for energy.  But people also say that you can walk 10 miles a day (takes 2.5 hours), and that it is a great thing.  Since I can't lift for another week and a half because I've hurt my hand, I'll just do LISS for another 2 weeks and see if I should keep doing LISS or if I should change it up.  I like it because you can seemingly do it forever as long as you keep well hydrated.  And you are hardly sore the next day, if at all.

Days/Calories burned on the eliptical

5/22 1400
5/23 600
5/24 1500
5/25 1500
5/26 2000
5/27 1400
5/28 1400
5/29 1500
5/30 1500
5/31 1400
6/1 1400
6/2 1750
6/3 1750
6/7 2000

14 days working out.  burned on avg 1500 calories.

So I see exactly 3 lbs lost so far.  And I do admit that I do see myself consuming a little bit more calories because when I come back from the gym, I feel like I need to replenish myself.  It is a natural reflex for my body to want to do this, and I do not deny my body the privilege.  I just make sure I am still netting burned calories.

If 3500 calories = 1 lb, I am netting 750 calories burned every time I go to the gym.  The rest of the 750 calories burned that day makes up for the gatorade I drink and extra calories I consume.  I am blown away by the elegant patterns in the numbers.  6 lbs a month is a good rate...probably optimal.  The downside is that I can do probably 6 lbs a month and spend less than 1/2-1/4 the time at the gym lifting weights and doing HIIT.  But that always seemed like a shot in the dark.  Because calories burned had a lot more to do with the body growing muscles, repairing itself, and burning fat while you slept and a lot less to do with the actual calories you burned during exercise.  I think I can do all the LISS I want to get to a desired body weight, then I can lift weights to gain lean mass later.  My logic is that when I'm trying to gain muscle, I was never successful at gaining muscle while losing fat at the same time.  I remember mental battles on a daily basis feeling like I was starving myself the calories I wanted then going to the gym and doing a hard workout for months.  I don't think it needs to be that difficult.  But it seemed painfully easy gaining muscle and keeping my weight the same.  Sticking with LISS.  Sounds like a solid plan to me.

DIY Reverse Osmosis Water Filtration

Revere Osmosis Water Filtration is Awesome!
Drinkable tap water in Southern California is pretty much a myth.  Who wants to drink gritty water that smells like chlorine and leaves traces of lime (not the good kind) in your mouth?  You have a few options.  Have water delivered to your home, or you bring the water to your home.  It is an arduous process that seems totally unnecessary.  But wait, why go through all that trouble when you can have it readily available?  Your solution is reverse osmosis water filtration, and yes it is pretty awesome.  And when you have it in your home, the water tastes great.  And it is in fact much much cleaner than something you buy at the market.  To get it to your home, you probably didn't install it yourself.

The installation
There are many companies that come to your home and set it all up.  And they all generally use the same system.  It is a 5 stage reverse osmosis filtration system with a sediment filter, 2 carbon filters, a membrane filter, and a pressurized water storage tank.  This system's retail price is $150.  If you don't like the idea of drilling into your granite/ceramic/stainless steel sink/counter-top, sticking your head into an area where black mold lives and thrives, they'll come by and install it for you for $300.  That is pretty steep for an hour of their time, but remember they have to drive to your place and back.  They have insurance, gas, vehicle fees, advertising, sales, labor, tax, and social security to pay.  It is a stiff premium for dirty work you don't want to do, but I don't fault them for it.

After about a year or two, you will want to change these filters because you'll notice it in the taste of the water.  Surprisingly, the filters are inexpensive.  About $25-$28 retail price for all 3 filters (2 carbon, 1 sediment).

Save money on the installation
You can save yourself $300 if you like simple home projects.  It will take you up to half a day, watching youtube videos, drilling, cleaning, troubleshooting, and maybe running to home depot for parts and some equipment if you don't have something like a drill, a drill bit for this application, a bike pump, pressure gage.

Change the filters yourself
Yes it will get a little messy, but it is water after all.  And you definitely don't want to let these scam artists into your house thinking you just got them to do a lot of work for basically no profit.  Just shut off the water, it will get a little messy because you will be unscrewing a canister full of water in an awkward position.  When you put in a new filter, the most important step is that you empty out the container full of water.  If you don't do this, when you tighten up the canister, it will not seal because of the water and pressure getting in the way.  After you are done, check back often to make sure there is no leaking of water.

Re-pressurizing the water storage tank
I found this awesome video online.  You need to empty it completely, and then pressurize it to 5-7psi.  After the tank is full with water again, it may be up to 35psi.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J4MIWZXHeo0&list=UUQ6bpnkVqzXDx3OzpchoNqQ&index=2&feature=plcp

Conclusion
You should always change the filters yourself.  It is painfully easy and cheap.  Don't call the service guys because their goal is not do the work for free.

How to shoot like a Leica owner.

So how do you shoot like you own a Leica?  I know this topic will surely offend some.  What I mean exactly is that people with a lot of photography experience tend to gravitate towards a Leica.  So if you go to the Leica forums on dpreview.com for example, you're bound to run into some talented individuals with some samples that inspire you.  A Leica camera's only differences, compared to a Canon or a Nikon SLR, are that it's interpretations of color, some unique magic of handling of UV light to alter the lightness of some surfaces, and it's amazing edge to edge sharpness that comes from it's small but very expensive lenses.  90% of the quality of the images however are of the talents and efforts of the photographer.  Someone who's willing to spend $7000 camera is probably someone who takes photography seriously.

The biggest thing you'll notice is the Leica's sensor's interpretation of blues.  If you look at the skies of Leica sample pictures, you'll see that the sky is almost gray.  This is in part of how the camera handles the colors.  But Leica users understand this, and actually prefer to avoid blue skies when they can.  Overcast days also offer perfect even lighting outdoors.  A novice would see a bright sunny day as a beautiful perfect day to shoot.  Leica users get inspired the same way, but on overcast days.

Never shoot at eye level.  Just like having a blue sky in a photograph, a picture shot at eye level are a dime a dozen.  Good rule of thumb about anything art related is that you want to show the viewer a different perspective than what the viewer is used to.  You can do that literally by squatting or elevating yourself when composing your picture.

Leica lenses are expensive because they offer amazing edge to edge sharpness with little to no chromatic abberations.  Most, even professional lenses, for other camera manufacturers however do not offer the same kind of crispness at the edges.  But who says you can't achieve this level of crispness with just about any lens?  Achieve edge to edge sharpness by shooting at the sharpest f-stop.  Somewhere around f6.3 and f8.  Shoot wide, then crop.

Leica shooters love showing off their black and white photographs, so why not shoot with creating a black and white photo in mind, and turn the contrast to eleven!  Ok, that's just a figure of speech.  And eleven is probably not enough contrast anyway.  Good photographers know how to isolate their subjects to get out a clear message.  And sometimes, even the colors may be distracting.  Or maybe it is inconsequential to what the picture is saying.  So it is often eliminated.  And after you isolate, the next step is to enhance what you want the user to focus on.  That's where contrast comes in.  Enhance contrast to bring out the definition of your objects.  This is why black and white images are used when you want your vieweres to pay attention to interesting textures or patterns in the image when you want to, for example bring out the textures of the gravel of the pavement or the stucco on the wall.

Tell a story.  Now you've heard this advice before right?  I see photography as having only 2 major categories.  One is a perfectly isolated product shot.  The other is a capture of a moment in time.  If you take a picture, and it doesn't fall in either of these two categories, then you essentially have nothing.  With a camera like Leica, you're going to be probably taking a picture of the latter.  So how do you capture a story?  Sure you can try to tell a clear story, of what is exactly happening here.  Hopefully it is a more interesting story than "Hey look, my friends and I are having dinner and we're posing for a picture."  But ultimately, the story is in the eyes of the beholder.  And even if you can't get across exactly what is happening, hopefully there are elements in the image where the viewer can easily take those elements and form a story on their own.  For example, a classical image is an old guy crossing his arms with a dirty apron having a cigarrette in front of a old restaurant with chipped paint.  You can easily tell that this guy is probably the owner, he cooks, he's had this restaurant for a long time, and he's probably proud of his restaurant.  It doesn't matter if the story is true.  It matters that these elements are there, and the stronger and consistant these cues are, the better the picture.

Adjust your color like a Leica.  Leica's color interpretation is definitely unique.  The darker blues are less saturated and less luminous.  Yellowish greens lose the yellowness and become dark greens.  Some colors have an added red/violet hue to them.  Again, art is all about offering a different perspective than what the viewer is used to.  Leica controls colors in a way that they don't look wrong, it just looks just a little surreal enough that it looks more engaging.  There are some tools out there like PSKiss Cross Camera DNG Color Profiles.  I think it helps, but you still need to adjust the colors a bit more as I find that product not agressive enough.

Don't forget the basics.  Rule of thirds.  Isolate your subject.  Control your sources of light.  Then lastly, post process.  Crop for symmetry (as needed).  Crop to place your subject in respect to rule of thirds (not always necessary).  Adjust exposure, shadows, highlights.  Add contrast, unsharp mask, add vignette.  Remember, 90% of why people with Leicas seem to take good photographs, is because they are good photographers, and very little has to do with simply owning a Leica.  This is why some Leica owners who expect to be impressed by something straight out of their cameras are often left wondering what they are doing differently and why their Leica images don't seem Leica-like.

Post processing walk through:

Step 1: Adjust exposure (Balance out histogram by adjusting for desired levels of lighting by feel).  You can just hit the auto button if you wish, but this gives you less room to play with later.

Step 2: Add a little touch of "Clarity".  ~+12 to bring out the textures.

Step 3: Saturation -100 (duh).  If not a B&W image, re-up  the saturation after you're done with all the steps below.

Step 4: Tone Curve Highlights -64.  The whole goal is to go for a cinema film like image, not "Three's Company" live TV feel.  You can reduce this live effect by reducing the highlights drastically.  This will make all your whites into light shades of gray.  This is the most important step.

Step 5: Split Toning Highlights Hue/Saturation 52/2
Step 5b: Split Toning Shadows Hue/Saturation 37/2
To add a hint of sepia.  Not necessary, but Leica does it.

Step 6: Sharpening Amount/Detail 100/0 (Seems to do a good job sharpening the edges without darkening the edges.

Step 7: Noise Reduction Luminance 25 (Varies depending on noise, adjust accordingly)

Step 8: Enable Profile Corrections for Make and Model of lens.  Fix those distortions that is brought on by cheapo, zoom, or wide angle lenses.

Step 9: Post-Crop Vibnetting Amount/Midpoint -51/37 (Just a touch, not necessary)