At last, a good reason for a lottery

I'm not a big fan of lotteries.  The fact that governments encourage gambling (and known addiction) is appalling.  And the fact that lotteries (naturally) appeal mostly to the the less-wealthy of the population, makes the practice even more sinister.

But, people love to gamble and play the lottery.  But what if they could play and potentially win something without sacrificing their hard earned money ?

I was travelling last week and the hotel I stay at next to my HQ in Cupertino (Kimpton's Cypress) is kind enough to deliver a paper of choice to its members staying at their hotels (membership is free).  I chose the NY Times for its top-notch journalist and interesting non-news insights.  I often keep papers for reading when I'm back home and have some spare time on the weekend.

I just read a wonderful little op-ed by Rhichard H. Thaler, called Making Citizenship Good Fun (Feb13th, 2012).  It's not about citizenship, as-in immigration, but rather our responsibility to be good citizens, recycling, paying taxes etc.  The article cites some wonderfully creative ideas from around the world to encourage good citizenship rather than what most of us face, negative reinforcement.  A few of which reward good citizenship with the chance at a lottery, like dispensing lottery tickets for doggy waste in New Taipei City or attaching lottery tickets to restaurant receipts in mainland China (reducing cash transaction tax work-arounds).

Now that's the kind of lottery I could support.  Reward people for doing the right thing with a chance at winning a few doubles and having some fun in the process.

Scarborough lakeshore landscape

Scarborough lakeshore landscape, a photo by PJMixer on Flickr.

Via Flickr:
Scarborough Bluffs.

Yes, this is actually in the city of Toronto !

Scarborough lakeshore landscape

Scarborough lakeshore landscape, a photo by PJMixer on Flickr.

Via Flickr:
Scarborough Bluffs

Morning neurons, incl. photography, music, sports and work

I'll glad Kooper woke me up early.  I took another Saturday as the weekend day for a hangover, leaving me clear headed this morning (not a fan of hangover Sundays).  Lots of neurons firing this morning, especially after our long walk.  Beautiful morning out there kids.

Photography - I've been tackling photo organization and editing methods and choices for some time.  I paid a visit to Thomas at 44wide on Friday and his simple advice for photographers (of my ilk) - just shoot in raw and use Lightroom.  So I'm seeing if Lightroom (version 4 beta now available at no cost), fits my needs.  But it gets complicated quick, as my wife is a little more stubborn than me and wants to stay with Photoshop Elements and doesn't want to bother with raw image processing, so I may have a setup that looks something like:

• "art" photography (raw images) processed, organized and shared with Lightroom
• occasionally dropping into Photoshop (Elements) for edit tools that I'm a fan of, but are missing from Lightroom, e.g. high pass filter.
• Casual family shots, JPGs from non-DSLR cameras, iPhone shots etc processed, organized and shared with Photoshop Elements
• exporting some art photos from Lightroom to Elements (need to do some research on how to do this properly - with the goal to avoid multiple copies of images, but ok for raws to be in Lightroom and JPGs to be in Elements)
• Note that there's a nice Picasa (Google+) plug-in for Lightroom that could help with sharing those family shots or broadening my sharing to Google+.

Music - still trying to create a formula that defines the PJMixer music taste(s).  I've always said certain music fits best with certain times of the days or energy levels.  Simple examples are downbeat electronica late at night, mellow folk-rock in the mornings and dance music when you need to be energized (ultimate pre-game).  But a element that keeps playing with my musical neurons is the sound of horns - love 'em in electronica (Thievery Corporation) right through rock (Rolling Stones) and those big doses in soul and of course jazz.  Now adding an accented female vocal element starts to shape the PJMixer formula.  Then the variances for mood and time come into play, heavy bass and groove rhythms (man I can never spell that word) for urban music and later pm time slots; acoustic instrumentation for more organic sounds for daylight hours.  I need to spend more time in the lab, but the formula is coming along nicely.  Playlist for the dog walk this morning included Bon Iver and Noah and the Whale.

Work - I was a quite a week, resigning on Monday and trying to handle logistics of wrapping up 7 years with my old company and transitioning into the new company, starting with a quick trip to California for some training starting Valentine's Day (sorry darling).  I'll now be working from home, which is a first for me, but looking forward to a change.  I'm excited about the move, new challenges and some great opportunity.  More later on other channels (Linkedin).

Sports - great sports day planned.  Manchester United play Chelsea in just about 15 minutes.  If you haven't noticed, Fox have started showing EPL games live on Sundays - great bonus for footy fans who can't afford Sportsnet World / Setanta.  I'm cheering for Man U (a rare occasion) as Arsenal try to bump Chelsea out of the top 4 for a Champions League spot.  After that, I've got a 3pm ultimate game with a new masters team, which works out perfectly to get home for Super Bowl sunday festivities - chili, beer plus.

Thanks Kooper.

Movie reviews - January 2012

Rise of the Planet of the Apes (2011)
Great prequel premise and story line, but I couldn't really get past the CG apes - their expressions weren't convincing to me. However, pretty entertaining and rather scary at times.


The Tree of Life (2011)
Very unusual film - full on art film with very sparse story and dialog. Very difficult to get into, but once I began absorbing the mood and visuals, I was glued. Superb acting, especially from the youngsters and beautiful cinematography. Definitely not for everyone but was pretty special in my book.


The Dilemma (2011)
Hard to categorize this one, serious plot and emotions, but lots of Vaughn driven humour. Perfect casting: Vaughn prime; James showing some depth; Queen Latifah rock solid and Ryder the evil villain. Lots of awkward moments through a cleverly crafted plot, but Vaughn banter was irresistible.


The Green Hornet (2011)
Very silly, but Rogen's humour was contagious and the car and effects were awesome. Christoph Waltz was superb (again) and added a full star to my rating.

Photo organization and editing on OSX

In response to a friend's Facebook question - can anyone share experiences with Picasa, iPhoto, Aperture, or Other on OSX ? I jotted down the following notes and thought I'd post it hear for those that may be interested.


I have over 50K photo files (JPGs and raw - I shoot in both and try to keep one or the other, but often keep original and edited versions) to manage, so I've tried a few different photo software products on different platforms.

I started off many years ago with Picasa on my PC.  I still think it's a very good product and I recommend it to many people for organization and basic editing needs.  I use it on occasion to post to my Google web albums and it seems to run fine on my Mac computers (Macbook and iMac).  I only use iPhoto occasionally to get albums onto my iPhone.

But I've been using Photoshop Elements now for quite a few years.  Loved it (v6) running on my PC until my library got too big and the PC too slow.  So I moved to an iMac just last year with Photoshop Elements (v9).  But the experience has been less than perfect and has exposed some bugs and different functionality on OSX.  I'm sticking with it and have noticed that one really stupid bug (date changing) has been fixed. Note that I use PS for my raw processing/edits too.

As I wasn't 100% happy with Elements, I tried Aperture and Lightroom.  Lightroom had all the organizing features I was looking for, but you still needed PS Elements or PS CS for edits so the price would be too high.  I played around with Aperture for a little while - it seemed to have everything to needed but all the editing functions were completely different to what I've been learning in PS for many years.  So I dropped it.

Good news is that you can try all these products out with full featured eval versions.  I'm sticking with PS Elements on my iMac, my workflow works well for me and it's not having any consistent problems with my 50k+ library, and the thing I like the most is that PS is still the my common product in the market so you see lots of tips in the mags (although sometimes the features mentioned are only in PS CS).

Coincidence - Nagra pops in in Alcaltraz

Watching the Golden Globes on Sunday night, my wife confuses Slumdog's Freida Pinto with the actress from Bend it like Beckham, Parminder Nagra.  Unlike, Pinto who I'd seen recently in Rise of the the Planet of the Apes, I hadn't heard nor seen Nagra in a long time.

I decided to give the new Alcatraz series a try last night (very good I might add) and who is one of the stars - Ms. Nagra.  I had thought there was a second coincidence, but I was mixing up Sam Neill with Derek Jacobi who I'd seen in The Gathering Storm on Sunday.  Almost a double.

Also posted in my Only Coincidence ? blog.

Nagra pops up in Alcatraz

Watching the Golden Globes on Sunday night, my wife confuses Slumdog's Freida Pinto with the actress from Bend it like Beckham, Parminder Nagra.  Unlike, Pinto who I'd seen recently in Rise of the the Planet of the Apes, I hadn't heard nor seen Nagra in a long time.  

I decided to give the new Alcatraz series a try last night (very good I might add) and who is one of the stars - Ms. Nagra.  I had thought there was a second coincidence, but I was mixing up Sam Neill with Derek Jacobi who I'd seen in The Gathering Storm on Sunday.  Almost a double.

There have been lots of coincidences since I posted last in October, but unfortunately have been neglecting this blog.

Welcome to Canada and its winter city slush

Welcome to Canada and its winter city slush, a photo by PJMixer on Flickr.

Saturday street sax

Saturday street sax, a photo by PJMixer on Flickr.

Via Flickr:
I believe he's playing a soprano saxophone

Good morning Chicago

Good morning Chicago, a photo by PJMixer on Flickr.

Red eye flight home from SFO, via O'hare.

Good morning Chicago

Good morning Chicago, a photo by PJMixer on Flickr.

K Jan 2012 mud

K Jan 2012 mud, a photo by PJMixer on Flickr.

Fair mannequin parts

Fair mannequin parts, a photo by PJMixer on Flickr.

Happy New Year

Happy New Year - #365/365, a photo by PJMixer on Flickr.

Via Flickr:
Unedited. One take. It's a wrap of my daily photo project. To be specific, second full 365 day project, 778 daily shots in a row total.

Why stop ? Time primarily, I still hope to take tons of shots in 2012, but I hope to take the time with my subjects and up the quality control.

For all those finishing their daily projects or in the middle of a long run, enjoy, have fun and learn lots, be inspired and inspire other photographers. See you in 2012.

Happy new year everyone.

Remote flash (to the right) triggered in "commander mode", pop-up set to zero, manual exposure 200th sec, F6.3 w/ 35mm f1.8 lens.

Frosty walk home

Frosty walk home - #364/365, a photo by PJMixer on Flickr.

Snow blind

Snow blind - #362/365, a photo by PJMixer on Flickr.

Via Flickr:
I did wonder if this would stir some debate on street photography ethics - for me, there's a story here.

Duplex stacked with a dish

Duplex stacked with a dish - #361/365, a photo by PJMixer on Flickr.

First snow; from the porch

First snow; from the porch - #360/365, a photo by PJMixer on Flickr.

Via Flickr:
Pallet knife Photoshop filter

Double 14 x 2: Bowtie

Double 14 x 2: Bowtie - #359/365, a photo by PJMixer on Flickr.