Vivocity Outing
Saturday, April 28, 2007

Thank you all for celebrating my birthday :)

posted byWilliam at 12:51 AM 0 comments  

Special Project by Min Qi
Thursday, April 19, 2007

Min Qi conceptualized and produced this photo slide-show for Sam Honours Connect. A sentimental conglomerate of photos and messages... Enjoy.

posted byWilliam at 7:37 PM 1 comments  

Visa Application at China Embassy
Wednesday, April 18, 2007

Left home early to process my visa application at Embassy of China in the morning. Though the office opens at 0900, I reckon that there will be quite a queue before the opening hour. And I was right, I arrived at 0830 and there was about ~30 people in front of me. When the gate opened, everyone just rushed forward and it was quite haphazardous. So much for the queue...

The queue line wasn't that defined during the initial formation. When a young lady standing beside me tried to get into the line, she was told off by another lady behind the queue saying that the latter was trying to cut queue. I really don't know whether she was trying to cut queue since everyone was cramped into a lump at that moment. In fact, I could have been the one that is being wrongly accused of cutting queue since I was standing slightly out of the line.

Anyway, the entire process was quite fast. The visa-application queue number starts from 300 and I was 319; there's a separate queue for passport collection. Left the Embassy at 0930.

Just to make the story complete, I need a visa since I will be in China for more than 14 days. I will be away for Sino-Singapore Exchange Programme from 14-29 May; following that I will be traveling with Cheryl and Nikki till 12 June. During the Exchange, I will be going to Kunming, Guangzhou, Xiamen and Hangzhou. And for the independent traveling leg, I will be going to Huangshan, Suzhou, Shanghai and Hong Kong.

posted byWilliam at 10:40 AM 0 comments  

Outdoor Holiday Portraits
Tuesday, April 17, 2007

When I was on exchange in Sweden, and later on the Europe tour, I had a photographic project in mind but I was limited by my gear and knowledge. That project is to come up with portraits of my friends that exceed snap-shot quality. The continuation of this project will be from May-June in China. In preparation, I have been brushing up my skills and techniques. This is a post that I have set as a tutorial question for myself. I hope it will be useful for most of my friends since many will go on holiday this summer.

To me, I rate most of my holiday portraits snap-shot quality. That is to say (this description will be very familiar to most of us), you and your friend(s) stand at a point and another friend/helpful stranger will take a picture. And, hopefully, the photo will contain a relatively large area of the very scenic background with less emphasis on the character(s) in the photo. Boring. I have been doing outdoor portrait research for the past year and I want to share some tips and techniques I gathered from the standpoint of outdoor/studio setup wedding portraits and celebrity portfolios. In particualar, I will be discussing photos in Asian context.

I think most of my gal friends wouldn't want to spend time with photos of Taiwanese female singers, especially those who supposedly "act-cute" like Jolin (蔡依林) and Cyndi (王心凌). To me their photos represent the trend of commercial photography and serve as creative sources. Why do I discuss portraits in Asian context? Because I find it easier to utilize the photographic techniques in Asian-idol portfolios than Western celebrity portfolios. In addition, I like Asian photographic style more than the Western one.

Let us reverse engineer a photo of 王心凌 and learn some techniques.This picture was taken in Tokyo and distributed as photo post-card in the album Cyndi With U.

1. This is a nightshot portrait with flash, so turn to this mode on your camera. If you desire the effect of this photo, do not shoot with the flash only. You need the long exposure to capture the ambient light or the background will be dark.
   
2. Stay still for a while longer after the flash. The long exposure requires you to be stationary or there will be streaking.
   
3. A point about nightshots is try to take them when there's still some light in the sky. This is the period that lasts up to 60 min after sunset. Now, look at the sky in the picture above. There is still a tinge of blue in the sky and this is more interesting than a totally dark sky.
4. The standard rule of the third. Cyndi divides the photo ~1/3 right of the frame.
   
5. Choose a dramatic background. The tram in the background is a trivial subject but the extended exposure made it show as a slight blur; nice!
6. The tilt of the frame is another element that makes this picture work.
   
7. Posing tips. Gals, do not face the camera straight on. Turn your body away from the camera like what Cyndi is doing. It's more flattering since most of us appear slimmer in our side profile.
8. Lighting-wise. Most probably a on-camera flash with light modifier by the absence of shadow on the face. Side lighting would have created very prominent shadow near the nose area.

posted byWilliam at 8:35 PM 0 comments  

Last Stabs at the Exam Beasts

I'm such a sucker for technology... Went to Sim Lim and bought a Digimate III with a 80GB (~8500 6MP RAW+JPEG photos) Seagate 2.5" harddisk for the 1 month China trip. Upon plugging in your SD/Compact Flash card into Digimate, the gadget will transfer the files from the SD/CF onto the harddisk. I have decided not to lug my bulky laptop around like what I did in Europe. Also upgraded lappy's RAM memory to 1GB due to the heavy Photoshop/Lightroom usage for RAW conversion, lappy is running quite a bit faster now.

Talk about preparing for exams... I think most of my honours-year friends are preparing for the exams halfheartedly. A browse through blogs and I reckon that some of my chemistry friends were lost in freedom on Saturday (one day after honours symposium). There's this sense of "what-to-do" feeling when I woke up on Sat too. I know I need to study for the three exams, but there is this growing hack-care attitude (I don't know if this is the correct term to use but you get what I mean...).

Anyway, not very hard-working on my side; have been spending the days watching webcasts. I skipped all Reason and Persuasion lectures after the mid-semester break and I got lots to catch up...

posted byWilliam at 11:28 AM 0 comments  

Sam Honours Connect
Monday, April 16, 2007

Lijie setup a blog for the hons pple in Sam's lab. Click here for content. This address will reside in Links > Article Archive permanently.

posted byWilliam at 11:48 AM 0 comments  

Labels: blog, honours, lab, sam

Chemistry Honours Symposium
Saturday, April 14, 2007

Click here for the full album.

posted byWilliam at 1:44 AM 0 comments  

Labels: honours, symposium

Science, Politics and Journalism
Wednesday, April 11, 2007

In my previous post, an anonymous reader directed me a page on BBC. It says on the page "Billions face climate change risk." It seems like a stark reminder telling me to face the fact.

"Hello! Global warming is definitely an environmental issue. No questions about that."

Perhaps I should rephrase my thesis.

There is no argument about how a warmer global climate is going to affect lives around the world. However, the question is whether human activities have been made a scapegoat for global warming by politicians. Of course, there is no denial that human activities affect the climate. But is it significant enough to cause global climate changes? Or are there other reasons for the global warming we are experiencing.

Let me point you to a very simple alternative possibility about why we are experiencing warmer climate. Look up the sky. Do you see that glowing spot about 150 million km away? How about me telling you that the sun is responsible for our warmer climate? It makes absolute sense. The weather is cooler at night when the sun is out and the weather is freaking hot in a sunny day. If solar activity increases, I think that is going to be a strong reason for global warming. And it has been proven, there has been increased solar activity over the last 1000 years judging from the increased number of sun spots. Here's a page to our favorite BBC that reports this.

Not convinced? A report announced by NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory provided further evidence. In short, a group of NASA and university scientists have turned to historical Egyptian records of the annual water level of Earth's longest river - the Nile for research. Together with historical aurora records in the Northern Hemisphere, which is a reflection of the strength of solar activity, they found a correlation between water level and solar activity. And the conclusion is simple and intuitive: "When solar activity is high, conditions are drier, and when it is low, conditions are wetter."

The whole issue made me reflect on journalism. It's simple. Secretive power will hate journalists who do their job: who push back the screens, look behind the facades and turn-over rocks. However, I think genuine journalism is under threat today. In these days of corporate "multimedia" being run by a powerful few and fueled by greed for profit, many journalists are part of a propaganda apparatus without even consciously realizing it. Together with a censorship in free societies, like Animal Farm author, Orwell says: "unpopular ideas can be silenced and inconvenient facts kept dark, without any need for an official ban." The situation might exactly be the same like in The Great Global Warming Swindle.

At the back of the book Tell Me No Lies - Investigative Journalism that Changed the World by John Pilger, there is a quotation by American journalist T. D. Allman. This quotation is one of my favourites.

"Genuinely objective journalism not only gets the facts right, it gets the meaning of events right. It is compelling not only today, but stands the test of time. It is validated not only by reliable sources, but by the unfolding of history. It is journalism that ten, twenty, fifty years after the fact still holds up a true and intelligent mirror to events."

posted byWilliam at 10:00 PM 2 comments  

Rattles
Tuesday, April 10, 2007

There's this perpetual lag during MSN conversations and I can't accept file transfers when I'm using the LAN connection in my PGP room. Pardon me if you see me going on and off MSN and popping up in that silly little window alert.

Here's a super sweet quote I got from a mass-mail, enjoy:

For the ladies –

• Find a guy who calls you beautiful instead of hot.


• Who calls you back when you hang up on him.


• Who will stay awake just to watch you sleep.


• Wait for the boy who kisses your forehead, who wants to show you off to the world when you are in your sweats.


• Who holds your hand in front of his friends.


• Who thinks you're just as pretty without make-up on.


• Wait for the one who is constantly reminding you of how much he cares about you and how lucky he is to have you.


• Wait for the one who turns to his friends and says, "...that's her."

For the guys –

• Find a girl who calls you baby faced instead of hot or sexy.


• Who can't stand it when you hang up on her and calls right back.


• Who would sit there for hours looking into your eyes.


• Who doesn't care what you look like, but what's inside counts the most.


• Who looks at you with the twinkle in her eyes and kisses you on the cheek instead of the lips.


• Who wants to be with you in public, even if you wear those old grass stained and ripped pants with the bleached jersey like always.


• Wait for the girl who is a constant reminder of your happiness and joy, who makes you smile just by knowing she loves you back.


• Wait for the girl who you give piggy back rides to in public and she still is in view of her friends, while she gets off and you hear her go: "you're the one for me, for always".

posted byWilliam at 12:18 PM 0 comments  

Countdown...
Monday, April 09, 2007

Yippee! One of the heaviest (most probably THE heaviest) burdens in my Uni life is off my shoulders: the thesis.

Spent the Good Friday planning the China itinerary with Cheryl and Nikki. It was pretty fast; since the plan was based largely on a Chan's Brothers itinerary which caught Nik's eyes. The planning déjà vu from the last Europe trip was overwhelming... I can never estimate the huge amount of time spent on the constant visits to travel forums, official travel destination websites, train schedules sites, domestic flight schedules, hotels, reviews, recommendations... Lots of clicking, traveler's anxiety, excitement and anticipation :D Had a talk with Sean, a travel executive with Pricebreaker in the evening; he helped us much with his travel tips. Night: Sino-Singapore outing at Timbre. The live band was great.

Explored the Nikon Capture NX software during the weekends. The noise reduction algorithm and RAW conversion engine are just fantastic (very good reasons for me just to try the software). The greatest weakness of Capture NX is its demand on system resources. I am running the software on a Pentium 4 M 2.0GHz with 768 MB RAM and the rendering of JPEG preview is so, so, so slow. Painfully slow. The upgrade from .NET 1.0 to .NET 2.0 speeds things up quite a bit though. Lots to explore: the optimization (fellow chemists, it brings back memories, right? ;P) of sharpening and noise reduction values, the U-point technology... However, it shouldn't take long for me to become proficient in the software, the user-interface is very friendly. I feel more and more like a technical geek rather than a photographer...

Anyway, two portrait shots from the Sino-Singapore farewell dinner. A little back-dated, I know. All processed from Nikon .nef RAW format to JPEG via Capture NX 1.10.

Nikon D50 @ ISO1600
with Tamron 17-50 f2.8
Noise reduction with Capture NX

posted byWilliam at 12:11 AM 0 comments  

Science and Politics
Monday, April 02, 2007

Is global warming an environmental movement or political propaganda? Has the whole issue been cleverly used by political activists to cloak agendas that has more to do with, say, anti-capitalism or anti-globalization than ecological science?

In the movie, "An Incovenient Truth", Al Gore defends the underlying science of global warming and the movie gives him a strong platform on the environmental issue, much stronger than his position as vice president of his presidency candidacy. Having been brain-washed by the years of environmental education, I was pretty upset about how we humans have set the Earth on a course of heat destruction. Or should I?

Here's another movie for consideration: Apocalypto. In the movie, a Mayan high priest uses an eclipse to scare the masses and manipulate their minds. Do you see the parallel? How you ever considered that Al Gore is manipulating our minds just the same as the Mayan high priest? The slight increase (bear my words, the increase is slight) in temperature is being used by Al Gore or maybe the whole politics of environmentalism to scare the masses and manipulate our minds. Just like the intelligence experts that reported stock piles and building of weapons of mass destruction that were never found, the whole global warming issue might be just liberal nonsense.

If you have time, please watch The Great Global Warming Swindle. This documentary, which was broadcast on Channel 4 (UK), is better than expected.

posted byWilliam at 9:32 AM 1 comments