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That's Life

The Karmic Effect of Your Integrity ( or lack of…)

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It’s a strange day today, it is.

I set out to accept a rights shares issue for a stock we owned. Since the rights shares acceptance document required a RM10 revenue stamp as well as payment for the lots by Banker’s Draft or Money Order, it seemed logical to get both the revenue stamp and  Money Order from the Post Office, rather than get a Banker’s Draft from the bank and then get the revenue stamp from the Post Office.

Skipped 62 positions! Then karma took over.

I arrived at the Post Office just after 10.30am and took my queue number. Good grief! My number was 3185 and they were currently serving only 3025. That’s 160 positions down the queue! Never mind, I was in high spirit and I settled down to wait patiently. However, by 12 noon, the number called was only 3110. Then I noticed that quite a number of people couldn’t wait and had left, so that quite a few numbers were blown. That’s when a light bulb lit up in my head and I started paying attention to the calling pattern. 3116- counter 6! 3116- counter 6! Two times. No taker. Next number. 3117- counter 6! 3117- counter 6! Again, no taker. And so it went on, until someone claimed a position. 3122- counter 6! 3122- counter 6! No-one. 3123- counter 6! I stepped to the counter confidently, and got served! Great! Skipped 62 positions! Then karma took over.

“Intgerity is doing the right thing even when no-one is watching”.

Now, many of us ( and all Politicians ) mouth the word, “Integrity”, but how many of us really know what it means? It was my son, way back when he was in Primary 6, who told his mum and dad that his teacher taught him that “Intgerity is doing the right thing even when no-one is watching”.
Wow! The sheer simplicity of the definition belies the profoundness of that idea.

So it is clear that my personal integrity was lost this morning at the Post Office. And what was my karmic consequence?

“Sorry sir, the server has problem and I cannot process the money order application”.

“Sorry sir, the server has problem and I cannot process the money order application”. Can you beat that? After I was smirking and congratulating myself for jumping 62 positions, and after standing at the counter twiddling my thumbs for 10 minutes, the counter clerk told me she’s getting errors from the server and cannot proceed. Can I come back later in the afternoon, she asked.

OK, no problem, my high-spirit was still largely intact even though it was dampened slightly. Never mind, go and take my lunch and return later. And that’s what I did. Upon reaching home,

I received a SMS from my son which mentioned a potential disaster.

I received a SMS from my son which mentioned a potential disaster. Another setback. Stay cool. After lunch, I prepared to go back to the Post Office. As I opened the car-door, the alarm went off. I slammed shut the car-door and turned off the alarm. Then clicked the remote to unlock the

And no matter how many times I clicked the remote to set/reset the lock/alarm, the red light remained ON.

door, but I noticed the car alarm red indicator lamp was still ON. And no matter how many times I clicked the remote to set/reset the lock/alarm, the red light remained ON. That would mean the alarm is primed and will sound if I open the car door. Gosh! Yet another setback! I finally broke out of my paralysis and yanked open the car door, despite the red alarm indicator lamp. No alarm sounded. What the…..??? Started the car engine and the alarm light went off. Strange indeed!

From 10.30am to 3.30pm, and I still couldn’t get my Money Order.

I arrived back at the Post Office at 3.00pm and looked for the counter clerk because she told me that I need not queue again; just to go straight to her. She was not at her seat. Her colleague said she was on tea-break and will be back at 3.30pm. Ouch! Another long wait. Finally she returned and I promptly went to her, but she said the server was still down. Grrrrrr! From 10.30am to 3.30pm, and I still couldn’t get my Money Order. No choice but to walk some distance away to the nearest CIMB Bank branch to get my Banker’s Draft, instead. That warrants another story, another time. Finally got my Banker’s Draft and went back to the Post Office to post the rights shares application letter at 4.30pm.

So boys and girls, remember the moral of this story and never compromise your integrity. ‘Nuf said?

By the way, when I reached home, I received another SMS from my son to say that the earlier potential disaster was a false alarm. Be grateful for small blessings! Looks like my karmic reaction to the momentary lapse in my integrity has run its course…for now.

How-to

How to get the GPS Co-ordinates from Google Maps

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Everyday Life’s small nagging issues:

How to get the GPS Co-ordinates from Google Maps?

1.  Type in the location to search in Google Maps.

2.  See the drop-pin that points to your desired location? Place your cursor on the pin-tip and right-click, hover over it and a pop-up should give you that locations co-ordinates in decimal.

3.  If the pop-up does not appear, right-click the cursor on the pin-tip and select “What’s here”. The co-ordinates in decimal will now appear in the search bar on the top of the map.

4.  If that’s (decimal) what you want, you’ve got it. If you want the co-ordinates in degrees, minutes, seconds (DMS), then either manually convert the decimals or use a converter such as

Now you’re ready to use your GPS, whether it reads decimal or DMS.

Featured, How-to, Photography

How Not To Be Embarrassed By Your DSLR

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budgetcameras

So you want to be a hot-shot brilliant DSLR photographer?

Update 16-Jan-2014:  See the related gallery “The Shootout Between a DSLR and a Point-N-Shoot”.

There are very few things in Life that are as humiliating and demoralizing as when a guy with an expensive, massive, mean- looking DSLR takes pictures beside his spouse who is snapping away on a tiny point-n-shoot camera and then friends go “wow!” looking at the spouse’s snapshots and saying “uh ah, not bad” at the guy’s should-have-been-awesome photos. What is wrong with this picture!? … pun intended. If that sounds familiar to you and you can relate to it, or better still- if you do NOT wish to be that guy, read on.

DSLR_AE First attempt with DSLR in AE mode.

 

 

 

 

No-one is DSLRFullAutowatching, set the DSLR to full auto.

 

 

 

compactSpouse’s compact point-n-shoot camera.

 

 

 

iPhone4Same scene taken with iPhone 5, just for the heck of it.

 

 

 

From the above, it is easy to see that except for the first photo, the rest are actually quite acceptable “keepers”.

What went wrong?

If you attend a photography class with a live instructor to guide and hold your hands, so to speak, this scenerio may not apply to you; lucky you! For the gung-ho, teach-yourselves (almost everybody else), this one’s for you. Remember, this is strictly for the NEW newbie. If you’re already ahead of the class here, just shut-up and post your comment at the end of the article.

Here goes:

1. Forget about everything that you’ve read elsewhere or what other “lessons” you’ve been taught about the creative modes of your DSLR.
The absolute first thing you’ve got to focus on is how to get a really “tack-sharp” image. That’s pro-speak for a super sharp in-focus image.
You can try everything that the books or instructor tell you, but you will lose heart and interest if your photos turn out any less sharp than someone’s simple auto camera.

2. The secret to a beginner’s DSLR camera getting a sharp image is Shutter Speed. Some experts will tell you something like shoot at your len’s sharpest aperture. Right, but what’s that and why? Think about it: the reason your picture is blurry is usually because of shaky, unsteady hands. The second most likely reason is because the subject is not perfectly still ( the kid/pet is simply behaving as a kid/pet or the breeze simply will not pause for you or life is just being unkind to you ) .  So you see, as long as you have a sufficiently fast shutter speed, much faster than your hands can shake, much faster than the kid/pet can move, much faster than the flower can flutter in the breeze, you’re already 95% home. OK, I made that up. I don’t know the percentage but I certainly know that you are more likely to get a decently sharp image than not.

3.  Yes, there are probably myriad other reasons why a picture is not sharp, but I dare say the above 2 reasons account for 98% of all new-newbies’ bane. Yes, I made up that percentage, too, just so you can get the picture, get it? And don’t tell me the problem is “out-of-focus” because I’m assuming you’re humble enough to engage your camera’s auto-focus. You just have to check that the auto-focus is indeed focussing on your subject of interest. My Tamron wide-range (18-270mm) lens is notorious for its misbehaving auto-focus at critical times. Yet, I can’t bear to part with it. Sigh! But that is another story.

4. And, oh, the book/expert tells you to use a tripod to eliminate that shake and vibration. But I’m addressing the 99% of new-newbies who have just unwrapped/unboxed  his brand new super duper DSLR and who can’t wait to create the highly anticipated brilliant photos he sees from his books/magazines. Who uses a tripod in the first 100 days of trying out his DSLR for the first time? C’mon!

5.  Here are the guidelines for Shutter Speed priority or Time Value (Tv) on the dial of a Canon DSLR.

  • A good rule-of-thumb is that the minimum shutter speed, secs., = 1/focal length (mm) of the lens used.  For example, if you are using a 50mm lens, then the minimum shutter speed is 1/50 sec. In practice, a new newbie is well-advised to use 1/125 sec for a hand-held shot. And as your focal length gets longer, the vibration risk gets higher with the increased magnification. So while the guideline prescribes  min. 1/200 sec for a 200mm lens, say, push the shutter speed as high as your aperture will adjust to maintain correct exposure. If you find that you need a higher speed than your aperture will allow, you may need to adjust for a higher ISO setting to get that speed.
  • Save in RAW, if possible, so that your less-than-perfectly exposed picture has a chance to be saved. On the other hand, if you used too slow a speed and your picture is blurry due to shakes, it’s game over.
  • In Tv mode for Canon (S-mode for Nikon), set the shutter speed faster than the rule-of-thumb prescription and check the exposure to see if the aperture can handle the selected speed for a given ISO. If not, then dial downwards the speed until the aperture value stops flashing. If that is not possible without going below the rule-of-thumb value, stop! Increase the ISO and try again to get the fastest possible speed.
  • Remember, we are talking about a new newbie just wanting a tack-sharp photo and it’s not about stop-motion, panning, special effect or whatever. Just a tack-sharp photo that you won’t be embarrased to show off, side-by-side with your spouse’s P-N-S photo. So just start with the fastest possible shutter speed. Aperture Priority (Av) and everything else can wait.
  • If you still get rubbish blurry shots, then maybe take a step back and dial in “Full Auto” on your DSLR. Look, no-one needs to know. It’s your own private classroom, after all. After each shot ( quite nice shot, isn’t it?), check the photo information to see all the data and learn. Use your DSLR in Full Auto as your  private tutor. You can’t fail.
  • And I just have to add this parting shot: take as many shots as you possibly can. Memory storage is cheap now, not like expensive films in the past. You could even set your  camera to take continuous shots. I read somewhere that even the Pros do it. It’s not a matter of “kia-su”. It gives you the increased odds of getting a keeper. The rest you can just delete before you show off your terrific photo to everyone, right?

There you have it. Your first 100-days of embarrassment-free, confidence-boosting DSLR photography adventure begin.

You’re welcome.

You ought to be able to do better (with your fancy DSLR) than this shot taken with my iPhone 5, while a steady breeze is gently rocking the flower.

grasshopper

Footnote:
On the issue of gender. This article refers to a male DSLR-hotshot-wannabe simply because I’m male and I’m writing largely of my personal experience. No disrespect is meant to any female reader.

Featured, How-to

Archive Your Audio Cassettes As MP3

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Update:  7-Sept-2014

You hate the incessant tape hiss of your old cassette tapes, right? Well, good news! Audacity has a noise removal feature that will minimise your tape hiss to an insignificant level when you convert your tape recordings to MP3.  Here’s how to do it:

1.  Follow the setup procedure described below, in the earlier tutorial.

2.  This time, after saving your recording as an Audacity Project file ( .aup ),  scroll through the length of your recorded waveform to locate a silent passage (ie. between songs) which is essentially the background tape hiss. Highlight/select this portion of the waveform.

3.  On the Audacity top menu, select “Effect” -> “Noise Removal” -> click on “Get Noise Profile”. That’s the portion of tape hiss which you highlighted in Step 2.

4.  Next, on the Audacity top menu, select “Edit” -> “Select” -> “All”. This will highlight/select the whole recording.

5.  Finally, on the Audacity top menu, select “Effect” -> “Noise Removal” -> “Step 2 ……… stay with the default settings, Noise : remove” -> click “OK”.

6.  Audacity will now do its magic; it will scan the whole recording and remove whatever “noise” that’s comparable to the “noise profile” . Depending on how long is your recording, it may take a few minutes to complete this process.

7.  Now you can export the .aup file to MP3, minus the irritating tape hiss.  That’s it.  Enjoy!

If you are a music lover and if you are now a forty-something or more,  chances are that you will have a treasure trove of precious cassettes ( and maybe vinyl records or -gasp!- even 8-track audio cartridges) that you want to archive in your  hard disks or thumb-drives. Well, here’s a neat way to do just that.

Things you need:

1.  A cassette player with line out (or at least headphone output); preferably a stereo-player with USB output for easy connection to a PC.

IMG_5279_1038Most cassette players should be adequate. I bought a no-frills stereo-player with USB output for USD18.00 online that does the job well.

 

Audacity-logo-r_50pct2.  An audio capture software that converts the tracks to MP3.  There is a free software, Audacity, that will do just that.

The cassette player which I bought online came with Audacity on a CD but it was an old version. You can easily download the latest version from http://audacity.sourceforge.net/
Audacity is such an awesome software that you can easily get lost in the multitude of functions and features. Stick with me here, and I’ll walk you through the mere essentials you need to get our immediate task done.
To me, Audacity is to Audio that GIMP is to Images/Photos; you get the picture.

The Procedure

1.   Load your cassette into the player and connect the  player to the PC with the USB cable.  Do this before starting Audacity so that the software can recognise a USB device is connected.

2.  Start Audacity.
a.  Choose 2 (stereo) input.
b. Set USB device as your input. Do not select stereo mix for your input. If there is no USB option available, choose Transport > Rescan Audio Devices.
c. On the “Advanced” tab, in the “Default Format” section, make sure the drop-down menu is set to “2 channel 16 bit 44100 Hz”.
d. Enable the Meter Toolbar and select Monitor Input. Start your cassette trial playback and aim for a maximum peak of around –6 dB.
e. Stop and rewind your tape and you’re ready to go. Start the player and simply press the red Record button in Transport Toolbar to start recording from the player.
f. Save the project as a Audacity Project File ( .aup) and then export as MP3. That’s it!

Travel Photos

Europe 2013

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Venice on 2-August-2013, standing on the Scalzi Bridge across the Grand Canal at 6.00am with Kelvin Chin to catch the rising sun.
barcelona800x600
Park Güell is a garden complex with architectural elements designed by Antoni Gaudí.
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The Sagrada Família is a large Roman Catholic church in Barcelona, Spain, designed by Catalan architect Antoni Gaudí.
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The Vatican Museums are the museums of the Vatican City and are located within the city’s boundaries.
Videos

TV: Bullet in the Face

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bulletinthefaceWhen I first watched this on Astro, I didn’t know what to make of it. The opening minutes already had buckets of bloody violence and layers of not-so-subtle profanities, such that my immediate instinct was to change channel. However, I was transfixed and amazed that somehow the gore and gory and vulgarity seemed familiar. I stayed glued to the screen.

Then it struck me that the characters and action and dialogue seemed to be a MAD Magazine episode. In fact, I began to enjoy the show immensely as soon as I view it as a spoof episode very much like a MAD Magazine story.

The setting is in a fictional city, Bruteville.  Gunter Vogler (Max Williams), a psychotic hitman was shot in his face by his lover, Martine Mahler (Kate Kelton) who is also the partner and lover of his Boss, Tannhäuser. When Gunter awoke in the hospital, he discovers that he was saved by the Police and given a new face; the face of the cop he killed just before he was shot by Martine. The Police figured on leveraging Gunter’s desire for vengeance to help them take down Tannhäuser.

Gunter’s police partner is Lt. Karl Hagerman (Neil Napier) who probably was his dead partner’s gay lover, and whose face is now transplanted on Gunter. The local police commissioner, Eva Braden (Jessica Steen) who is sexually frustrated may have been in love with Hagerman’s dead partner and now hits on Gunter.

The creator and producer is Alan Spencer and filmed in Montreal, Canada.

Catch the show before the censors start butchering it. It is a short series of merely 6 episodes.  Strictly above 18 only.

Books

What do Hawking, Bryson, Lloyd have in common?

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bryson100x133 hawking100x133 lloyd100x133

What do Hawking, Bryson, Lloyd have in common? From their biographies, it would appear that they have nothing in common at all.  Except that they all call the UK their home ( Bryson was born in America, but mostly stayed in UK), and both Bill Bryson and Christopher Lloyd were successful journalists at some point in their lives.

STEPHEN HAWKING is an Honorary Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts, a lifetime member of the Pontifical Academy of Sciences and a recipient of the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the highest civilian award in the United States.  Hawking was the Lucasian Professor of Mathematics at the University of Cambridge between 1979 and 2009.

BILL BRYSON does not have such an illustrious academic background, having initially dropped out of university to go backpacking and only finished his formal college degree circa 1975. But nevertheless, his writings and various books showed a complete mastery of the language and the unique ability to render arcane subjects into a comprehensible read for ordinary folks like me.  He excelled in his career as a journalist par excellent, rising to chief copy editor of the business section of The Times and then deputy national news editor of the business section of The Independent. In 2005 Bryson was appointed chancellor of University of Dunham.

CHRISTOPHER LLOYD has had a broad and comprehensive career both as a journalist, writer and as a general manager in the education business. After graduating from Peterhouse, Cambridge in 1991 with two scholarships and a double first-class degree in History, he became a graduate trainee journalist on The Sunday Times newspaper and was trained at the City University where he gained a diploma in newspaper journalism . Christopher Lloyd now divides his time between writing books and delivering interactive lectures / workshops to schools, societies, literary festivals and other organisations.

So what do they have in common? Or more correctly, what do the three books,  A Brief History of Time (S. Hawking),  A  Short History of Nearly Everything (B. Bryson), and What on Earth Happened? (C. Lloyd) have in common?

All three of them start with the Big Bang, the story of how our known Universe began; from a singularity of infinite mass that “exploded” into an expanding Universe that we know today. That’s the common ground for all three books.

While ABHOT went on to  describe the concepts of Space-Time, Black Holes, Worm Holes, Time Travel and the possible Unification of Physics, ASHONE describes our lonely Earth and Life and finally how we came to be.  WOEH takes it further from there and goes on to describe our endeavours leading to the eventual “fates of human civilisations and the natural world fused into a global whole.”

bryson360x480Of the three books, ASHONE describes the Big Bang, the formation of the Universe, the Solar System and gentle introduction to quantum mechanics, the best, in a highly readable and comprehensible manner. In 2004 Bryson won the prestigious Aventis Prize for best general science book with A Short History of Nearly Everything. In 2005, the book won the EU Descartes Prize for science communication.

hawking360x480On the other hand, ABHOT has sold more than 10 million copies. It was also on the London Sunday Times best-seller list for more than four years. ABHOT remains a “must-read” for any non-physicist who wishes to acquaint himself/herself with the origins of our Universe and all the peculiarities of quantum mechanics with its unusual ensemble of quarks, mesons, bosons and fermions (in his follow-up books, “The Universe in a Nutshell” and “The Grand Design” with Leonard Mlodinow).

lloyd360x480WOEH continues the story by painting the big picture of the Universe, Earth,  Nature, Life and human civilisations  to present-day. It is written in such a way that you can jump  in at  any point. In the end, as the big picture unfurls, you will see the connecting together of the dots of the past giving them meaning and making them memorable through visualization, context, cause and effect.  In 1994 Christopher Lloyd won the Texaco award for the Science Journalist of the Year.

“The oldest books are only just out to those who have not read them.”  – Samuel Butler