Photos, photos everywhere

Digital photography has changed the world.

I'm sure I'm not the only one who has noticed but you can't visit anywhere worth visiting anymore without your view of the interesting thing being interrupted by all the other visitors taking photographs.



When I started getting interested in photography, way back when I was studying Physics at the University of Kent, Canterbury, the hobby required the use of film.

You had to be careful with composing your shot, selecting the right lens and the best vantage point for the scene. You had to carefully consider the light levels, choosing the correct combination of aperture and shutter speed to get just the right exposure and lighting effect. You took your time over each shot because each one would cost you money, the same amount whether it was a work of genius or a waste of photographic paper and chemicals.

These days you just fire away with a digital. You can take so many shots that you'll eventually get a few good ones, pictures that look good enough to have been taken by a professional.

So, what, apart from chucking the pictures on Facebook or Flickr, can you do with all the images.

Upload them to Photosynth. A few seconds effort and you have a sort of walk around view of images that you can amuse yourself with for longer than it took to take the pictures.

Photosynth is suprisingly good at joining the pictures together, though the navigation can be a bit confusing. To see what I mean take a look at this photosynth of Park Place, a few random shots I took today on my way to, and from, the sandwich shop.

An open, not shut, case

How "open" should we be with information, knowledge and discussion?

There has been an interesting confluence of events at work that have led me to think about that question and this will be the first of a series of posts exploring various aspects.

I work as the IT Manager for the School of Psychology. The staff in the School know a lot about data protection and related issues, about when data needs to be secure and about limiting access to certain data to only those who need to know. When you are involved with research that can collect private personal data from adults and children you need to be very aware of all the issues, the ethical considerations and the law.

However, the School tries to be open with information that isn't private. The School has, like most university departments, a well defined committee structure with a range of committees meeting regularly to make vital decisions about the running of the School. These committees make their minutes available to staff in the School with only minor exceptions for reserved business that deals with private or sensitive matters.

The School takes a default position of information being open and available.

Making information freely available in this way can cause problems with people misinterpreting comments or drawing the wrong conclusions. There is also the issue of what should constitute reserved business and just how reserved it should be and the problem of encouraging open debate in an environment where you know other people will be able to read what you have said. It isn't always easy being open.

Even given the difficulties involved the default open position shouldn't surprise anyone. We are in a university after all.

The driving force of the university is research, the quest for and the development of new knowledge and skills. The natural outcome of this research is education, passing on the knowledge and skills to those who come to learn. You can't carry out either research or education without the open sharing of information, that's what its all about.

Being open with information can be difficult but I believe the people who work at Cardiff University aren't here because they aspired to work somewhere where everything was simple.

University staff thrive on the difficult; difficult is interesting.

There's a new music craze sweeping the web

Every now and then someone in the computer industry decides that something that is very difficult and requires significant training and experience should be massively simplified to the point that anyone can do it.

Music seems to be a popular difficult thing to tackle.

A few years ago Apple tried with Garageband. Apple call this component of their iLife suite "your own recording studio".

Now Microsoft are at it with Songsmith. The idea is simple, select a style, sing into the computer and the software will create a backing track. Instant music! No doubt Microsoft hope to see Youtube filling up with Songsmith records created by budding musicians, but it looks like the jokers are beating them to it.

There's now a growing collection of Songsmith tracks on Youtube where cunning artists have extracted classic vocal tracks and told Songsmith to create the new backing track. I think this version of Wonderwall is my favourite so far.

What's wrong with television today?

Flicking channels last night I stumbled on the end of section of a programme in tribute to Oliver Postgate. The presenter was waxing lyrical about the poetry and power of Oliver's voice, how it drew you into the worlds he was creating. We were then treated to a short clip introducing an episode of the Clangers.

The Clangers was a kids programme, aimed at quite a young audience (I watched it when I was 4 or 5) and this opening sequence contained a phrase that stuck in my head. The planet inhabited by the Clangers was described as "A light among the myriad stars of the firmament". Point me, please, to any kids programme these days, or even one aimed at teenagers, that would use the words "myriad" and "firmament" - let alone use them both in the same sentence.

New Year, New Start?

The new year is supposed to be a time for a new starts but for us (Claire and I) its more of a time for a new stop. We decided last year that we needed a break, not another holiday as the effects don't seem to last that long, but an opportunity to step back from responsibility.

We've been involved in various things at church from almost the first time we went (frightening to think that was 18 years ago). Work, or worship, in the same place for a while and you tend to accrue responsibilities; our main areas for the past few years being the Sunday evening meeting, the music group and house group. So this year, for at least 6 months, we're going cold turkey and handing over the responsibility to other people. We'll be there to help out, to advise (if anybody wants us to) and I've no doubt there'll still be plenty of work that we'll get involved in. But being able to pass the buck for a while gives us a bit more time to think and makes me feel (if not look) 10 years younger.

Dieppe International Kite Festival 2008

It's nice to take a break.



A week ago (and it seems a lot longer than that) we returned from what is now a regular bi-annual trip to the Festival International de Cerf-Volant de Dieppe.

We had an uncharacteristic spell of bad weather that forced everyone bar the Scratch Bunnies to down kites for a few hours.



Mostly the weather was pretty good with more than enough sunshine to warrant the liberal application of some factor 30.



Dieppe really knows how to put on a festival. Unlike the UK kite festivals that usually last a weekend Dieppe runs for 9 days with the various sponsors flying in visitors from all over the world. One of the highlights in the night fly on the final Saturday. The organisers line one of the main arenas with flood and spot lights then at 10pm the local council turn off all the street lights and the fun begins.



A load more photos are on my Dieppe 2008 set on Flickr (best used with Cooliris, formerly Piclens - if you have Firefox). Videos will follow once I've had a chance to edit them.

Solid State Disk - Needlessly Expensive?

There are reports online today that Sun will offer Solid State Disk (SSD) in most of their servers. EMC and IBM have both talked recently about replacing hard disks with SSDs sometime in the next 2-4 years. In the Sun releases John Fowler is quoted as saying Sun will sell you a 32GB SSD for around $1,000. That seems somewhat expensive to me.

The talk of SSDs has prompted people on Slashdot to discuss whether the industry will move to two tier storage - use the SSD for commonly accessed files and move the less frequently access ones onto standard hard drives. The discussion goes on to suggest you could even save power by shutting down the hard drive most of the time, only starting it up when you need those infrequently access files. They might be right - for a while.

At the moment SSDs are new and they are massively over priced. For example a 16GB SSD, something intended to replace the hard disk in a laptop, costs around £200 at the moment but a 16GB USB stick (which is a lot smaller) costs only £40.

Now I know that the type of memory used in the SSD is of a better quality, it supports faster read/write speeds and it can probably support a higher number of write operations before it dies, but a factor 5 in price difference seems to be more than it needs to be.

As SSDs become more common they'll approach USB sticks in terms of cost per GB. That still makes them, currently, a factor of 10-12 times more expensive per GB than hard disks but that gap will continue to close. When it hits a low enough point the size, latency, bandwidth, reliability and durability advantages of solid state storage will consign the hard drive to computing history.

Were back from not so sunny Spain

Flying into Malaga, uploaded by Phillip Fayers.

A couple of weeks ago we hopped on a plane to have a short break in the sun. We were off to Granada to meet up with Peter and Anna who were revisiting the city. Unfortunately the sun decided to take a short break, starting with the day we arrived. Fortunately there were enough breaks in the clouds to get a collection of photos and by the end of the week the weather had returned to something closer to normality.

Jasmine sky

A couple of weeks ago I was relaxing in the garden and though this would make a good photo. The only processing done since it left the camera is a 180 degree rotation...

I've finally gone digital

After much internal debate on which digital camera to get to replace my trusty Ricoh GR-1S film camera it finally came down to two models. The nicely portable Ricoh GX100 and the more SLR like Sony DSC-R1. In the end portablity won out, if the Sony R1 had been a real SLR with an optical viewfinder it might have been a different story.

So, yesterday a shiny new GX100 was delivered. I've not had much of a chance to try it out yet but I really like the macro mode - it really brings out the best in our roses.

5 Months

Today marks the end of the longest break in blog posting for me. Its been almost 5 months since my last post and I can't really put my finger on why.

I suppose I could blame being busy but then that seems to my normal state (on account of finding it difficult to say no) and I'm no less busy now than in the months since my last post.

The posting drought isn't to do with having a lack of things to say either - as those of you who know me will realise.

Maybe its just that I missed a few days, then a week, then just got used to the fact that I wasn't posting anything. Its easier to drop into a habit of omission than a habit of commission.

Anyway, I thought it was about time there was some fresh content here and you've got to start somewhere.

Review: The Prestige

Let me say straight away that The Prestige is a good film. Good in the, I'm really glad I went to see it, sense. It doesn't make it into the category of great films simply becuase I'm not sure I'd get much out of seeing it again.

The Prestige is about a couple of competing magicians. These Victorian magicians engage in an unhealthy rivalry, becoming obsessed with outdoing each other. The acting is good, the cinematography is good, its well paced and it regularly manages to create a wonderful sense of foreboding. Without using cheesy music or obvious set ups you regularly get the feeling that something is about to happen and it probably isn't going to be nice. Rest assured the film doesn't always deliver on the foreboding, just to keep you on your toes.

Throughout the film we get taught that a magic trick has three parts. Part one is The Pledge where the magician promises something will happen, like showing you a box and a pretty assistant. Part two is The Turn, where something does happen, the assistant walks into the box and vanishes. The important part is part three, The Prestige, where the pretty assistant appears from some completely unexpected part of the theatre. The film is full of Pledges, Turns and Prestiges - but its the final Prestige which you might have a bit of trouble with if you don't like your films to be different.

All in all its a good film, well worth seeing. As I hinted earlier the reason I don't think its great is because a large part of the enjoyment is not quite knowing what's about to happen. In fact, given enough time to forget the minor twists I'm sure I'd enjoy watching it again.

Film Review The Prestige