Life As I See It

music

I’m doomed…

Last year I bought my iPhone, iPad, and iMac. All within two months. I do love them but it was a bit of a hit to the old finances. I resolved to be a little more practical with my money this year.

Late last year I had decided that I was going to get a “real” digital camera. Still want to get it, and it really isn’t all that expensive as those things go. I also knew that I would be getting the new iPad when it came out. Well, the announcement for the iPad was today, and it has the two things that I was looking for. A much higher res screen and much faster connection to the internet, so I’m in. Last time I got a 16GB wi-fi only model. This time around I will get a 4g model, so that’s an extra $130. Since I’ll be using it in conjunction with my new digital camera, I’ll get the 32gb version, that’s another $100. SIGH.

But that’s OK, I’ll make good use of it. I use my current iPad constantly, I consider it money well spent. So between the camera (and lens) and the iPad, that’ll be a little more than I spent on my computer last year. Still hitting my target for spending less. But then Apple also released the new pile TV. Since I now live in a place with a really nice TV and I’ve subscribed to MLB.TV, this makes a lot of sense. Plus, I can now stream my videos in 1080p to the TV from my computer. OK, another $100, no problem.

And then he said it. The words I was fearing the most. Tim Cook wrapped up the iPad keynote by telling us that “This is just the beginning” for Apple this year. GROAN… Am I going to get a new phone? A new computer? No no, must resist… That’s the thing about Apple, I know that new things from them are quite capable of instilling idiotic desire from me. Of course I want them to come out with the new, amazing stuff, but part of me dreads it too, in a good way of course…:)

books technology

Remarkable animation

The Flying Books of Mr. Morris Lessmore is an amazing short film. It’s amazing how far animation has come. It’s about 15 minutes long, so be careful if you’re on a bandwidth limited internet connection.

It really is a sweet and touching piece. I found it through an app for the iPad that turns it into an interactive book for children. Each scene has some writing that expands the story and at the end of each paragraph, the movie clip becomes interactive. It really is a lot of fun even though it’s probably aimed at the 6 to 8 year old demographic. You get to play pop goes the weasel on the piano and you get to use the iPad to steer Morris through his flight inside a book among other things. I can only imagine what kind of impact this kind of storytelling could have on kids groaning up. Of course when you apply it to educational purposes, the possibilities are endless. Look out future, here we come!

music

I’d like Lady Gaga more if she played guitar

Post author By Isaac
Post date 02/29/2012
No Comments on I’d like Lady Gaga more if she played guitar

I came across the other day and found it remarkable. I have since been informed by some of my friends that it is old news, but still, I doubt everyone has seen this. It’s a cover of Lady Gaga’s “Bad Romance.” If you’ve been wondering about the appeal of Gaga, this might at least give you a taste.

It’s from an artist that goes by the name Lissie. I think she does a great job with the song, moves it towards a little more honest performance. Gaga’s, in comparison, sounds a little… entitled? Not whiny, but… I dunno, not as honest. I also find Lissie’s glancing down at the neck of the guitar for chord changes endearing.

I often play a game with more recent music where I try to imagine what some of the luminaries from the late 60’s would think of the song. I wonder what would Pete Townsend or Janis Joplin think of this? When we compare this rendition to what was offered back then, you can see how far women have come. First there is the guitar playing. With the exception of “The Duchess” (Norma-Jean Wofford), I can’t think of any prominent female rock guitarists until the Runaways came along. Then there is the content. Women back then just didn’t sing songs like that. I very much doubt that any woman could bring herself to all herself a “freak bitch” back then. I mean, it just wasn’t done. But that’s the point, for a woman to come out and perform a song about lust back then would have been very difficult. Does anyone know of an example?

Some would say that Gaga represents the current state of feminist expression. Maybe, but I’m with Kathleen Hannah, I wish Gaga would would pants a little more often while being a strong woman. Lissie is more powerful I think because she isn’t using any of her feminine wiles to get her point across, but she still gets it across. Anyway, enjoy!

MS odds and ends

41!

Post author By Isaac
Post date 02/13/2012
No Comments on 41!

I’ll be turning 41 tomorrow. My 40th year was really a bit of a blur. MS clouded my thoughts and made really lethargic for long periods of time but i think I’ve got it mostly under control now. My doctor explained MS like this, there are two ongoing issues with the disease, damage to the nerves, and the inflammation that causes that damage.

Right now there isn’t a whole lot that can be done about the nerve damage, but the inflammation is a good target for improvement. I stumbled across Gary Taubes’s writing about weight gain. His ideas that insulin, caused by carbs in the diet, is the main factor is weight gain seem to make a lot of sense, and it certainly has led to me losing some weight. What I was surprised about was how much clearer my thinking was and how much better my balance was. That didn’t make a lot of sense to me, but I liked it.

In my usual poring over the internet, I think I stumbled across the reason for that. It turns out that carb rich foods spur on different types of inflammation. I don’t know the mechanism, but it certainly seems to fit my experience.

I have also come across a new supplement that I think is really helping me. It’s called Anatabloc and it is supposed to be a miracle anti-inflammatory substance. There have been some great studies done on various conditions and it seems to really help. This stuff is really expensive as far as supplements go, but in my short time using it, I feel like its worth it. This is the very definition of a small sample size, but in my two days at work with it, I have felt almost normal. In addition, I have not had any leg cramps at night either. I’m going to keep using this for a couple of months and see how it goes. Think I’ll give it a test and try a favorite meal that is guaranteed to make me feel blah, Chic-Fil-A. One of their sandwiches and fries will usually make me swim my and dizzy, we’ll see if this supplement has a mitigating effect.

I can do that because I have the next 7 days off! I’ll be going down to see the folks and see a friend or two, should be fun.

photography technology

I can’t believe it, a digital camera…

Post author By Isaac
Post date 02/07/2012
2 Comments on I can’t believe it, a digital camera…

They’ve finally made a digital camera that I think I’d like to use. Usually that would be no big deal, Isaac liking a camera, big surprise. Of course I just recently talked about how digital doesn’t excite me and I’m going to do analog stuff… Of course, the last half of my “analog” photography was going to be digital anyway. There’s still the magic of the alchemy and the making of a physical thing. And of course it feels good doing something low tech. So I think I’ll still do it, I think. The problem isn’t the cost so much, the problem is that the cost involved is on decidedly unsexy things. I need to get a scanner, a light meter, chemicals, and some processing equipment like beakers and tanks. To me, that’s like buying a bunch of socks. Necessary but not something you enjoy spending money on.

Buying a new camera on the other hand… And of course, the camera is just an excuse to buy some lenses. I am still a total lens snob. I love good lenses for the images they create but also as objects themselves. That’s why I could never own any Sigma or Tamron lenses. They might have been fine performers, they felt like junk to me. My Leica lenses, various Zeiss lenses I’ve owned or own, the Pentax lenses I’ve owned, and all of the large format lenses have been joys to use and to hold. That’s one of the reasons this camera has caught my eye.

Front camera

It is a bit odd looking, as far as cameras go, but the top plate and back plate are really what caught my eye.

Top camera

Camera back

(all pictures from Pentax)

I have never liked digital cameras. I have long since appreciated their performance, but the cameras themselves were just awful. Lots of little buttons spread everywhere. On small cameras, important setting hidden inside menus or arranged in weird ways. This one is the first reasonably priced digital camera that appeals to me. Very clean, the important stuff is readily accessible without a lot of gunk clogging up the interface. The conventional wisdom on the camera forums is that this thing is the ugliest camera ever made. That was my first impression as well. But the more I looked at it, the more I realized I was just reacting that way because other cameras don’t look like that, and maybe the yellow version that is being shown had something to do with it as well. The more I looked at it, the more I appreciated how it was designed.

I had previously liked some of the small Sony cameras. They don’t make any lenses I like but you could adapt other companies lenses to them as long as you were willing to give up auto focus, auto exposure and even auto aperture. If I were going to go that route, I would have used the Pentax lenses (21mm, 35mm macro, and 55mm) because they are amazing and they are about 1/3 the cost of the likes of Leica. So when Pentax came out with this camera, things started to fall into place.

I have some other things that need to be taken care of (oh the joys of adulthood…) and it’s still not nice enough outside to go shooting anyway. I’m hoping that by the time spring rolls around I’ll be shooting again…

music technology

CDs

Post author By Isaac
Post date 02/04/2012
No Comments on CDs

Dad and Butler brought up my CD collection when they moved me into Rick’s place. I packed them up before I went to Yemen and haven’t seen them since. It’s amazing how much space 400+ CDs take up! I’m in the process of ripping them to my computer where they will take up considerably less space. Don’t know what I’ll do with them afterwards, do people still buy used CDs?

The box I’m working on now has part of my classical collection with some jazz thrown in. I’m struck at the number of discs I got through services like the BBC magazine and the Musical Heritage Society. Before them it was BMG and some other CD service. Before that I was a member of the RCA club for cassettes. You remember those clubs right? They send you 12 or 13 albums for a penny and you only have to agree to buy… what was it, 10? more CDs in the next year. Of course b y default they would send you one a month unless you sent in the paperwork on time. Each time you bought something at full price (17.99 if I remember correctly) they would give you a certificate to buy the next one at half price.

I tried to remember to send in the “do not send me the selection of the month” letter every time for the popular music clubs. I’d screw up from time to time of course and I’d get something or other that I didn’t want. I think the only time that ever worked out was the time I got Pat Benetar’s “Live From Earth” cassette. That was pretty good, at least 13 year old me thought so…

I went ahead and got the selections of the month with the classical clubs mostly because I wanted to hear a lot of different things. The BBC Music magazine was supposedly a cornucopia of classical music information, but I really only ever cared about the CDs that came with it every month. I got some stuff that I never would have thought of getting that way. I never would have dived into early music otherwise. Of course, I also wouldn’t have gotten any of the early English operas either, anyone want a copy of “Alfred?”

We’ve come so far in such a short period of time. Convenience is king nowadays. It is trivially easy to find and download almost anything you want. The world of popular music is your oyster with new streaming services like Spotify MOG. Classical and jazz folks still have to buy their stuff mostly, but it is out there. The streaming and downloading options for popular music sound just fine with the compressed formats. The classical types have a variety of high res formats available to them too.

When the CD came out, we couldn’t believe how nice it was. There was no surface noise, no pops, no cracks and most people mistook the absence of defects for sound quality. CDs and CD players eventually got really good and we figured, “This is it, this is the ultimate audio medium.” Of course having no medium at all has proven to be far nicer, and at no penalty of sound quality. When I sold audio gear, I fantasized about having a 300 CD changer so I could have most of my music in my system at all times. These eventually came into being but they were always too clunky, slow, and prone to breaking down. Now I can stream 12 million songs whenever I want for 10 bucks a month, life is good!

ADDENDUM:

I just googled BMG Music Service, just for old times sake. It’s hilarious. Towards the bottom, there is a pane that says BMG Music Service is what Columbia House Music was. Then the pane above that says that BMG Music Service is closed and is now Columbia House DVD service… Anyway, the deal isn’t too bad really, you have to get 12 CDs for a little under 50 bucks. That’s pretty cheap. I can’t imagine having to deal with the clutter of all of those CDs mind you. The selection is straight out of the 80’s. They boast of having over 14,000 albums to choose from! That was impressive back a ways, but nowadays with iTunes having 18 million songs, 14,000 is laughable. I can only imagine that it is filled with the blandest radio hits type of folks too. Good luck with that Columbia/BMG/Columbia!

medical

Diet update

Post author By Isaac
Post date 02/03/2012
No Comments on Diet update

I’ve been pretty good about my diet. I’m allowing myself one day a week to eat bread or rice, the rest of the time it’s veggies and meat. I’ve felt pretty good, very little of the usual muddy headedness and balance problems. It’s also striking what happens when I deviate from it. My father and stepmother moved me into my new/old place (more about that in another post) and then took me out to dinner. We went to a really nice Indian place around the corner. You can’t very well eat Indian without bread and rice, so I ate bread and rice. Ice cream was offered later and I couldn’t say no. The next night, my mother made a family favorite, Hungarian goulash. I have no idea if it’s actually Hungarian or not, but it sure is tasty. It’s served over a bed of noodles. Well, it’s an unusual treat, and mom made it, so of course I was going to chow down. I felt lousy for the next two days. Dizzy, fatigued, and muddleheaded. Started eating my usual meat veggie diet and it cleared up within a day. Maybe it’s a coincidence, but it does fit in with the longer pattern I’ve noticed.

As far as the diet part is concerned, I weighed myself yesterday and I came in at 204. That compares with 219 three months ago. Yes, I used two different scales, but that’s a big enough difference that I know there’s been a real loss. It’s good to drop the weight, my jeans certainly fit better. I’ve also started to check my blood pressure in the morning. I’m averaging around 120/67ish. The months previous to me starting my diet I was hitting 130 and 140 at my monthly infusions. Yes, it’s only been a handful of days, and my previous measurements were only done once a month where any old thing could throw them off. Still, I like the difference:) It’s possible losing the weight could be enough to lower the BP, I don’t really care. I’m going to continue weighing myself and taking my blood pressure, who knows, maybe I’ll start exercising or something too. The diet is pretty easy to stick to, especially since I have a cheat day built in. After I’ve been on it for several more months, I’ll go get my blood drawn and see what it looks like.

christianity Philosophy religion

Culture and the Bible

“It rains on the just and the unjust alike. What do you think that means?”

“Oh, teacher! It means good things happen to both good and bad people.”

That was an exchange I had with my class in Yemen. The saying is from the Bible (I can’t remember where in there) and my first reaction to the student was that they had it completely backwards. WIth just a second’s worth of thought though, I realized that their view of what rain means is probably a lot closer to the Bible’s than my Euro-centric vision. Rain is a good thing when you live in a parched place. While we usually associate rain with melancholy, cancelled picnics, and general ickiness, they rightfully see it as a life giving gift.

It made me wonder what else we have been getting precisely wrong out of the Bible because of the culture we are in now. Some things that seem obvious to us might have had a very different meaning back then. We need to remember who was being taught to. I don’t have any hard evidence, but it certainly seems like Yemen is much closer in climate and culture to 30 AD than we are in the US. With that cultural filter put into place, let’s take a look at two different well known teachings from the New Testament.

But I tell you, Do not resist an evil person. If someone strikes you on the right cheek, turn to him the other also.

This is usually seen as a straightforward appeal to pacifism by Jesus. If a guy hits you, you shouldn’t resist, right? Well, it could be a little different… The translation of that passage is pretty consistent, with most translators using slap, some use smite. The really interesting thing is that they all say “cheek.” None of them say, “If someone gives you a black eye, don’t hit him back,” or even “If someone slugs you in a bar…” No, it says if someone slaps your cheek, you should offer the other one to be slapped as well. What’s the significance of a slap on the cheek?

Even in western culture, a slap across the cheek is the universal symbol of disrespect. There is no damage involved, there are far more violent things you can do than slap someone. What a slap offers that a punch doesn’t is shame. I was warned by some of the expat “old timers” in Yemen to never slap a guy. If I got into a fight, well, that can happen. But if you slap him, he will be forced to defend his honor and that will have much worse endings than a brawl.

With that in mind, that passage may not have much to do with pacifism but with keeping your cool and not escalating things. Don’t let concepts of “honor” drive you to committing a worse sin than the guy that hit you did. Modern day Yemen, and I’m sure all of Semitic culture going waaaaaaay back has many problems with honor related violence. I’m pretty convinced this passage is addressing that instead of being a blanket exhortation of pacifism.

Homosexuality isn’t actually mentioned all that much in the Bible. Lots of conservatives will point to the Old Testament’s “sodomites” as a counter example but word is a really dodgy interpretation. The King James version sounds weighty, but most Bible scholars lament its awful translation. A more accurate translation is “temple prostitute.” It certainly makes more sense when read that way.

Jesus didn’t actually say anything at all about homosexuality. I think that’s significant as I put the most weight on what “The Man” says more than anyone else. But others disagree. Paul was pretty straightforward in his commendation of homosexuality though, and that’s where a lot of nontrivial discussion about it in Christian circles comes from.

My personal opinion is that a lot of Paul’s writing sounds like Paul spouting off. He certainly doesn’t sound like Jesus, and he wasn’t around for any of Jesus’s teachings. But let’s ignore that for the time being… It shouldn’t be a surprise, but there is actually a fair amount of confusion about the translation of the word Paul used that most conservatives assume is homosexual. It could mean a variety of other things instead. But let’s ignore that too and concentrate on the audience that Paul was preaching to.

One of the worst kept secrets in the middle east is how much guy on guy sex there is. To our eyes, it is clearly homosexual sex, but they have a little different view of it in Yemen. Keep in mind that guys never see any women over there that aren’t their mother or sister until they get married. Starting in puberty, guys are only with other guys. Hormones being what they are, things go on. From a western perspective, they are all engaging in homosexual acts. Over there, people tend to mostly ignore younger guys fooling around with each other. It’s a little more tricky when they are older. Yemen, like most Arab countries doesn’t consider the one “giving” to be engaging in a homosexual act. It’s my understanding that if you’re married and doing this, it’s a much more serious problem…

My point is this, I don’t think it’s too much of a stretch to think that the same behavior was going on back then. Taken in that context, I think it very likely that Paul would be addressing the guys screwing around because they are horny. That’s a far cry from people wanting to marry each other.

Maybe I’m full of it, but I really do believe that a lot of the stuff we supposedly learned from stories in the Bible have been twisted around completely. That is a translation issue, but we need to understand how big a role culture plays in understanding what is said. Somehow we need to put ourselves into the hot, arid, conservative culture of 30 AD. Yemen is about as close as we’ll get today.

art photography

Photography? (Maybe)

I’ve been following the Facebook page dedicated to former employees of Penn Camera and participating in the nostalgia. People are digging out old pictures and we’re all remembering what it used to be like.

It got me thinking about photography again. I haven’t been shooting much in years. I brought back a smattering of old pictures from mom’s place, mostly stuff I did in school and decided to share some of them on Facebook. Looking at, and holding these things brought back a lot of memories.

Digital photography has never done much for me. I just can’t get excited about it. When I looked at the prints and polaroids I made in school, I remember shooting it, but I also remember making that object. THe process of developing the negatives, cutting them up, making the prints in the darkroom, even matting and framing them are all part of the interest for me. There is a difference between capturing an image and taking a step in making an object. The film I develop was what received the light, and the chemicals I chose determined how that light would look on the film.

I know, it all sounds silly, but it does make a difference. Digital photography to me puts almost all of the emphasis on getting the shot. Yes, there is post processing, but I always feel like I’m doing a spreadsheet or something when I’m manipulating data.

I have been thinking that I should get a “real” digital camera soon. They really are remarkable these days, far far better than when I was selling them. No matter what comes out, I just can’t get excited about the gear, or the process. Certainly not excited enough to spend what it will take to get one of the cameras that interest me.

Then it struck me. All of the most recent pictures that I have a connection to were taken with cameras I still own. My best pictures in Yemen were taken with a Chinese folding camera from the mid sixties and a pinhole camera. Here was my rather radical idea; why not shoot film?

I immediately liked the idea. I figured I’d do a “last hurrah” with the cameras I own. Thought maybe I’d use the B&W slide service I’ve used in the past. The slides you get back from them are just gorgeous. Shooting film in the quantities I have in mind isn’t all that expensive, or at least it wasn’t until I looked at those slides. It would almost $20 a roll in processing, etc. Way too much, no matter how beautiful.

The second thought that struck me was why don’t I develop it myself? Film processing is dead simple, and incredibly cheap. Now we’re talking…

I’ll need to buy a few more things like a light meter, processing equipment, and the chemicals. The big expense will be the scanner. Yes, I could buy a passable digital camera for that kind of money, but I wouldn’t use it. I may have finally grown up, the thought of owning the niftiest camera doesn’t really excite me any more. The few things I have to buy are less expensive enow than they were when I sold them.

Here’s my plan. I am going to primarily shoot with medium format film with small cameras. I’ll develop the film myself and scan it myself. I’m going to try to use a single film type but probably use two different developers. This all sounds really exciting to me now, with any luck I’ll be ready (and still excited) when spring comes around. It’ll be good to flex my creative muscles again.