New England

Consider the following two statements:

  • It is raining outside right now.
  • It is very sunny outside right now.

One might assume the two were mutually exclusive. Those of us from New England, however, know better. Indeed, it’s a bright, sunny day here, but I’m watching rain fall on the roof outside my window.

Jealousy

From NY1:

Illinois Senator Barack Obama is campaigning in Florida today. He’ll be in Connecticut Sunday to deliver the commencement address at Wesleyan University, in place of Senator Ted Kennedy.

Our speaker was alright, but he was no Barack Obama. And why did Wesleyan get Ted Kennedy, when he’s our Senator?!

About Time

The International Herald Tribune reports that Myanmar’s leaders have just allowed foreign aid workers into the country. I seem to recall a story from a week or two ago about how they were accusing France of sending a warship to take over their country, when France suggested that the ship was actually coming with doctors and food or something like that.

Glad to see that Myanmarians (Burmese?) will no longer have to suffer because of their leadership.

Also: they have pretty fancy rooms in Myanmar, with huge chairs.

Well-done

After hearing that McCain was talking on TV about how Obama would be a good President, or something similar, I figure I’ll continue doing things backwards, and lend a compliment to McCain.

Obama caught tremendous controversy after Rev. Wright’s comments were taken out of context and played over and over in the media. He initially stood by Rev. Wright, which was the “right” thing to do in my mind. But in an election where people are already (unjustly) questioning his patriotism, it wasn’t the popular decision. Rev. Wright went on to make more statements, when Obama finally distanced himself from his increasingly offensive remarks.

Rev. John Hagee talked about how Hitler had just fulfilled God’s will, and then endorsed McCain. McCain rejected Hagee’s endorsement, saying, “Obviously, I find these remarks and others deeply offensive and indefensible, and I repudiate them. I did not know of them before Rev. Hagee’s endorsement, and I feel I must reject his endorsement as well.”

Well-done, sir! (Hagee then withdrew his endorsement of McCain.) And at the same time, McCain made sure reporters didn’t take anything out of context, throwing in, “I have said [before that] I do not believe Sen. Obama shares Rev. Wright’s extreme views.”

I hope the rest of the campaign goes this way: more of a friendly campaign. Both candidates have condemned those in their party that go for underhanded tactics. I confess that I’m not too fond of McCain (though I don’t have anything terribly negative to say about him), but this sort of, “Not being a sneaky bastard” philosophy is one of the things that drew me to Obama. That McCain is adopting a similar policy bodes well, I think, for America, regardless of who wins.

(Full disclaimer: it’s being alleged that Rev. Hagee’s words, much like Rev. Wright’s, were taken out of context, and I believe it. But frankly, it’s a moot point: much like with Rev. Wright and Obama, it’s not so much the truth as it is the perception.)

HDR

I brought my brother to organ lessons today, which are held in an old (18th century, I believe) church in Amherst. So I brought the camera along in anticipation of some more HDR fun.

Church Interior, HDR

This is a so-so interior shot. Note that it’s kind of noisy (grainy), I’ll touch on that in a bit. Also note, just as an interesting tidbit, the green cast on things: it was sunny outside and there were lots of green trees right outside the window. This shot, in my mind, is more about what HDR should be used for: getting ‘appropriate’ results where the camera normally wouldn’t hold up. To get detail in the pews and yet not have the upper third of the image ruined by the windows would ordinarily be difficult.

Church Exterior, 1 Church Exterior, 2

Here, side by side (I hope) are two versions of the same thing. They were both taken from a set of three bracketed shots. That is, I have the camera take three shots back-to-back, the first “normal,” the second overexposed (too bright), and the last underexposed (too dark). The underexposed one gets the detail in the sky and clouds well, but the foreground is really dark. The overexposed one fills in all of the details that would otherwise be too dark, such as the leaves on the tree.

The problem is that, after seeing both, I don’t like either. The “exposure blending” one looks natural, but very washed out and dull. The HDR one, by contrast, looks absurdly unreal, but is very contrasty, colorful, and preserves all the detail.

Burnt

That’s a building right next door to the church that burned down. (And has been sitting there in ruins for months.) It’s weird how the tree in the upper left seems almost like it was Photoshopped in because the lighting doesn’t match at all. This is actually a case where HDR helped more than it hurt, though: getting any details in the charred part of the building and the white part of the building, with the sun reflecting off of it, was impossible. Here, HDR helps both co-exist. Of course, the sky looks bizarre (why does it change colors like that?), the purple tree at far right looks unsettling, and the trunk of the car in the lower right of the image exhibits noticeable “ghosting” (or is that a reflection?).

HDR-IMG_1978_79_80

Finally, we have this image. Despite the fact that I was basically shooting into a window with sunlight streaming in, it was quite dark. I shot at ISO 800 and f/3.5, and got 1/50, 1/100, and 1/25 shutter speeds when bracketing. The ISO was fairly high at 800, but the XTi performs well and has negligible noise. UNLESS you try to pull lots of detail out of the shadows, as Photomatix apparently does. At a quick glance, this is an OK shot, but look at the walls and their graininess. If you view it larger, it’s even more prominent. Further, the image came out a bit soft, so I’d like to have applied some sharpening in Photoshop, but that just accentuates all the noise.

So I’ll concede that HDR has some benefits, but that it’s easy to overdo it. And, above all, shoot at a low ISO if you want good results!

Freedom of Speech

I see two things done a lot that really bother me, because people get very into their arguments, not realizing that they’re entirely wrong. Both happen to concern the First Amendment and freedom of speech. It might be best to begin by quoting it (emphasis mine):

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.

The first thing I see happen is somewhat difficult to concisely define, but essentially, some public figure will make some sort of idiotic statement that ends up causing great offense to one group or another. Some people get upset and request an apology and a retraction of the statement. The person who made the remark, though, refuses to apologize because of his right to freedom of speech.

I suppose they’re right: they do have the right to say offensive things. But it’s utterly irrelevant to criticism? Actually, quite the opposite is true! Freedom of speech is what gives others the right to criticize your freedom of speech! It always struck me as a non-sensical argument, to vehemently “invoke” your Constitutional right when no one was trying to encroach on it in the first place.

I see my second pet peeve even more often! Freedom of speech refers to government actions. If you start yelling profanities in school and the teacher tells you to stop, it’s not violating your Constitutional rights. When you vandalize Wikipedia and I undo your edit, I’m not violating your Constitutional rights. When the (private) school newspaper realizes that your article was plagiarized and bans you from submitting articles for the rest of the year, they’re not violating the First Amendment. If the government’s not doing it, it’s not a First Amendment violation!

It boggles my mind how many people miss these points!

Feeding the Trolls

News sites keep adding comment sections, but for some reason draw users who post comments more absurd than those on Youtube. Take this article as an example, about how a decorated military nurse was discharged after commanding officers found out she was a lesbian. The court ruled that they couldn’t dismiss her solely for her sexual orientation.

Comments include things like:

Remember when homosexuals used to just want to be left alone to do their thing in their own bedrooms?

Now they are attempting to overturn society with their desperate craving for mainline acceptance of their proclivities.

And someone going on about eternal damnation. And, as usual, there’s not just hate for some group, but there’s also a complete lack of coherent points:

Homosexuality is still not as main steam as they want us to believe it is. You can”t even watch a television program these days that doesn”t have a gay character in it.

Don’t those two sentences contradict each other?

The thing is… This is a pretty calm discussion. No one has blamed Bush yet, no one has invoked Nazi references, no one has talked about a vast liberal conspiracy, and no one has attacked any of the three major Presidential candidates. This one only makes me cringe a little at the pathetic course of the discussion, not fear for the future of America. Besides, what motivates people to go on news websites to rant about their opinions?

…That’s what blogs are for.

Strange Antenna Challenge

You know those times when you decide to let yourself surf aimlessly? And an hour later, you have absolutely no idea how you got to where you did?

I found the K0S Strange Antenna Contest page from 2003, where some ham radio operators started using, well, strange things as antennas. Who’d think that a ladder works well? (No no, not ladder line, but an actual ladder.) In fact, after working some people off of a ladder, they got an even better idea, and stood several ladders up, using them to support a pair of extension ladders laid horizontally, forming a ladder dipole, with impressive results. Sadly, they report that combining two shopping carts to make a dipole did not get them any contacts, nor did a basketball hoop.

This has me wondering what else would work… An aluminum chain link fence? A railing? Train tracks? Power lines? (Kidding on that one. Please do not try to attach anything to power lines.) Curtain rods? A couple of cars? A section of guardrail? A metal lamppost?

I poked around the site some more, to see if they did it in subsequent years. And they did. 2004, for example, saw my joke about using two cars come to fruition. (Okay, so they beat me to it by four years.) 2005 saw someone use a bronze statue, and, the next year, he was at it again with railroad tracks, albeit not full ones, but some sort of art exhibit / monument. (Aside: I’m pretty certain that trying to hook up a bunch of wires to train tracks may arouse a bit of suspicion by the police?) 2006 also saw a pair of exercise machines being used, with a comment about how they weren’t very effective, but the apt comment, “On the other hand, we did in fact make two contacts with a pair of exercise machines standing only a few inches above the earth!” And, confusing everything I know about antennas, someone used a tree. And a football stadium (which includes a commentary about how the university police were initially slightly suspicious about someone getting out of their car and hooking wires up to the stadium for some reason). 2007 saw a bridge as an antenna.

And 2008? Well, see, here’s the best thing. The 2008 Challenge is this weekend!

Of course, as a Technician-class license, I don’t have many HF privileges… The Technician license was (before all license classes saw it eliminated) the only class that didn’t require a Morse code exam, so it’s somewhat ironic that almost all of the new HF privileges Techs were given are in the CW portions of various bands. I do get 28.3-28.5 MHz now, allowing SSB on HF…

Time to hit the books, I think. (I think mine–and that one–might be outdated, actually. Looks like the question pool got revised in 2007.) There are always sample exams online, and the feedback can be helpful. Study a bit and take an exam a day, and then review your answers. (Theoretically, actually, you could just learn the answers to each question without understanding the concepts, though that’s really missing the spirit and point of ham radio.)

HDR

I’ve posted before about High-Dynamic Range photography, with, err, lackluster photos to demonstrate the concept. I’ve been trying my hand with Photomatix, which has given be slightly better results:

HDR Front Yard

It’s worth noting that those were dark, ominous clouds. I shot this with auto bracketing on in my camera, meaning it took one “normal” shot, one overexposed +2 EV, and one underexposed -2 EV. And then, in very simple terms, Photomatix ‘merges’ them into one shot, taking the ‘best’ parts of each.

Currency on eBay

Have you heard about Zimbabwe’s currency problem? They’ve got runaway inflation, called the worst the world has ever seen. It turns out that some enterprising people have been selling Zimbabwean currency on eBay.

Here’s a $250 million note. It’s worth approximately $1 USD.

Here’s a Zimbabwean 10-cent note. By my quick calculations, it’s worth approximately $0.0000000004 USD.