Stop stealing my stuff; my ever-increasing lowered belief in the average person's level of moral decency

Contents:

• The Story
• What to do differently?
• Recent history of crime
• I have a dream

The Story

Last night, my girlfriend and I left Oakland and headed to San Fran's Golden Gate Bridge.  Before heading out, we did our ritual:

• I stripped my wallet of its contents, only bringing ID and 1 credit card, in the event that it gets stolen
• Packed camera equipment in my non-descript hiking bag, as opposed to my obvious camera equipment bag -- to make myself less of a target
• Deliberately left 1 of my camera lenses at home, in case we get robbed I'll still have at least 1 good lens.
• She brought her mace key chain which was gifted to her by a friend as a "welcome to California" present

We are cautious with every step we take, warned by:

1. her roommate had recently been robbed at gunpoint at 10am
2. numerous similar stories from friends, wherein stabbings occurred

Everyone in The Bay seems to have a "when I got robbed" story.  Now, we have one too.

After seeing the golden gate bridge, we stopped at Burger King at 9pm for some grilled chicken.  It's by one of the main downtown subway stations which looks pretty ritzy and touristy in the daytime, but it's like a weird Cinderella story, for all of the daytime tourists magically turn into homeless people at sunset.  It's a very ghetto area.

Out of my peripheral, I saw 3 dudes waltz into the store.  One of them snuck up behind my girlfriend and hit her table w/ their hand.  We were confused what he just did, so we turned towards them, as if to say "What just happened?  Did you do something?"  They had turned away from us and were heading towards the exit while hiding their faces.

We instantly figured out that they must have stolen something.  Without knowing what it was, I grabbed/carried my camera equipment hiking bag in my right hand and sprinted down Market Street after them.  It was completely dark out, and I yelled "Thieves!  They stole my wallet!" in hopes others would help stop them.  I caught up with one of them as they split in a nearby park.  He looked 16-17 years old and said "I ain't got it" and patted his pockets to show.  I quickly left and started to pursue the other 2 but then realized I lost them in the crowd of vagrants which filled the park.  Passerbys then turned to me and offered to call 911 for help.

To make it worse, turns out, there were at least 7 nearby security guards and/or subway police officers (with cars) who offered no help during this, even though many of the store security guards watched me as I ran past their storefronts.  How could they not simply sack the thieves or make any attempt at all?  In Southeast Asia or Georgia, I feel there's definitely a higher chance someone would have done something.

Turns out, they stole my girlfriend's iPhone which was sitting on the table in front of her.

We called the cops 4 separate times, thinking Burger King's security camera would be useful.  To no avail, the police never showed up as we waited for them over an hour.

I am grateful though that 2 guys who witnessed this ordeal turned to me afterwards and immediately offered help by calling 911 on my behalf, helped pin down security guards (which unfortunately were of no use), and for walked back with me to Burger King as they cursed the thieves, lack of nearby help, and overall horrible crime problem.

What to do differently?

Sadly, SF police apparently never show up to thief incidents like these.  So, I keep replaying it in my head, wondering what I could have done differently.  I devoted 0 time to the one kid I caught up with.  Looking back, he was my only lead.  I couldn't have hit him:

• He looked 17ish, thus a minor
• I truly don't think he had the phone
• I had my expensive (25 lb) camera equipment bag in my right hand and wasn't even in a position to fight
• Most importantly, two wrongs don't make a right; more violence isn't the answer.  Violence is the problem.  Heck, even if if the above conditions were different and I did rough him up, that would likely make matters worse:
• His crew were likely watching me from the pool of vagrants 60 feet away (I didn't get a good look at their clothes and lost them in the bunch) and could have easily exacted revenge on me either there in the park are after following me back.
• Even if no harm happened to me, that would surely only further encourage the punks to carry knives and/or a gun -- being robbed via knife is a very common occurrence here already.

Recent history of crime

• August 27, 2013 (San Francisco): guys stole my girlfriend's iPhone

• June 1, 2013 (New Jersey): someone backed their car into mine in a residential parking lot, knocking out my headlight, denting car some, and didn't leave a note.

• December 23,  2012 (Boston Train Station): while washing my hands in the restroom, someone stole my messenger bag with laptop in it, despite my keeping and eye on it.  Sprinted out after them, security guards tracked him down and returned laptop.

• November 28, 2012 (Providence, RI): people broke into my apartment while I was away

• August, 2012 (Siem Reap, Cambodia): hotel staff stole my Kindle Fire from my luggage in room while I was away.

• May, 2012 (Boston): someone broke into my car, stole stereo, and stabbed the subwoofer because they were unable to remove it from my car

• February, 2012 (Boston): condo repairmen stole my GPS from my place while I wasn't home

I have a dream

You get the idea.  I've always been pretty minimal, but with these events, it's as if I have to be on guard of my items 24/7, yet most of these times there's nothing I could do to prevent it.  Having so many occurrences of thief definitely throws off one's concept of owning a product and oddly kind of reverses the stock one places in material possessions.

Imagine that you previously viewed semi-costly gadgets as being nothing too important, just a nice treat which if stolen is replaceable.  Yet, naturally over time, one starts to be on perpetual guard of any (e.g., one's wallet, phone, or laptop while in a library) out of necessity, or face being robbed.  This naturally then makes one redefine the stock placed on that material good.  It doesn't make me desire or love the item any more, it just creates an unhealthy level of awareness of having to protect your stuff.  One shouldn't have to worry about protecting everything and protecting themselves.

Since today is the 50th anniversary of MLK's speech, and since I'm currently staying on a street named after him, maybe it's suiting for me to proclaim a dream: I dream we could all live in a world/community where there was such an abundance of mutual trust, respect, and integrity that we wouldn't have to worry about petty thief, having to lock our homes at night, or having to buy security systems and insurance and on everything we have -- that we need not worry about the character of our neighbors, for we could rest assured and treat each other like our own brothers and sisters, as we live as if one big family.

Yea, the nature of humankind will never reach that equilibrium point, heh.  So, in the meantime, whenever I buy a house, I suppose it should just be a castle... with a moat.  And alligators.  And archmen.   Oh yea, and definitely a drawbridge for the moat.  It's not complete with a drawbridge.

Zeiss 100mm f2.0 ZE Makro-Planar: Initial Impressions

This summer, I treated myself to the Zeiss 100mm f2.0 ZE Makro-Planar Manual Focus lens.  This completes my "holy trinity" collection, as I have -- and absolutely love -- the Zeiss 25mm f2.0 and Zeiss 50mm f2.0, too.

As for my initial impressions of the lens:

Sharpness/Clarity:
It has state-of-the-art performance and is one of the sharpest lenses in the world.  This is one of the reason I was attracted to it.

For example, here is a photo that is completely unedited, sooc (straight-out-of-camera):

This image at full resolution is 5,616 x 3,744 pixels.

Did you happen to notice the bee in the center of the frame?

Just cropping the center, we get an idea of the sharpness of the lens:

I was roughly 5 feet away from the bee, yet without a tripod, I was able to get an in-focus shot which is clear enough to show tons of dust in the bee's wings!  This would even be a challenge for auto-focus lenses, especially in terms of yielding this level of clarity.

Color Rendition:
In short, I love the warm colors/temperatures that the Zeiss lenses tend to render.

Build:
The lens is entirely metal; no plastic, as is the case with all other Zeiss ZE and ZF lenses.  It feels like a tank and is heavier than Canon L series lenses.

Manual-Focus:
Aside from the price, for most people this is definitely the most off-putting feature of Zeiss ZE/ZF lenses.  I find that the lack of auto-focus makes photography more fun for me -- it makes me think about shots more, and it challenges me.  Sure, every once in a while I'll miss a shot, but I'm willing to make this sacrifice for all of the other benefits Zeiss lenses yield.

Nonetheless, I admit that this 100mm lens is more difficult to focus with than the Zeiss 25mm and Zeiss 50mm.  All 3 lenses have a very long throw, which is incredibly useful for manually focusing.  However, it's only due to the nature of the shots that makes the 100mm more difficult to focus properly.  For example, when shooting at 25mm, you are usually taking landscape photos.  Thus, it's easy to focus at infinity or near-infinity and have all of the landscape in focus.  At 50mm, you're often focusing on things up-close (a la macro shots) or landscapes -- pretty easy.  However, at 100mm, you're often focusing on things that are between 5 and 20 feet away, so you have a much smaller target/range for focusing properly.

Yet, the throw is buttery smooth, and it's enjoyable to use.  Plus, I've swapped out my internal focusing screen with the EG-S screen, which helps make focusing easier, and the Canon 5d Mark II allows for an focus-notification whereby the focus points light up and a beep will sound when I focus on something that is recognized as being in focus.  This helps a lot.

tl;dr
I love the Zeiss 100mm, it's insanely sharp, and I aim to use it much more than I was using my Canon 135mm f2.0L.

Digging through 11 years worth of backed-up computer files

I present to you some old, archived pictures from back in the day.  Yet, first is the back story:

Over the years, I've had many items stolen from me -- from my apartment being broken into, car broken into in LA and Boston, hostel staff in Cambodia, to dorm staff at MIT (yes, it was confirmed, and I was reimbursed).  I don't have many material possessions which would cause me to be upset if they were stolen, but one of them is my hard drives (i.e., my photos, videos, etc).

Photography is one of my biggest passions, and I go through great lengths to not only backup and organize on an OCD-like level, but I also even parannoyingly (paranoid + annoyingly) hide all of my external hard drives through my apartment, in the event that my place is broken into again.  By the next time I go to backup my files, it's usually like a nerdy Easter Egg hunt, as I've forgotten where I hid them.

I recently realized I've fortunately never lost any computer file ever since I started started college in 2002.  Yep, 11 years ago.  1.5 terabytes.  500,000 files.  19,000 folders.  It sounds nerdy, but since 2002 I have:

• every single photo I've ever taken -- 1st camera in 2005 (70,000 photos)
• every document I've ever typed (e.g., resume, draft of hand written love letters, journal entry, tax document, etc)
• every class assignment from every university I've attended (70 classes)
• every song I've ever downloaded
• every webpage I've ever made

Alas, after much deliberation, the organization is, as Outkast would say, so fresh and so clean clean.  Here's a glimpse into the 'pics' folder for 2012:

Having caved to the temptation to dig through my old photos and cringe-worthy text documents, I give you a sample:

Junior year at FIT (2005).  I look 13.

Junior year, I took my 1st flight ever.  Solo visited San Fran and Berkeley for Spring Break 2005.  Was getting world-renowned Stuart Russell to sign my AI book.  One's Spring Break doesn't get much wilder than that.

The SlackWear movement I created at FIT :-)

Hawaiian Luau at FIT (2005)

Hawaiian Luau at FIT (2005)

Olin, our engineering building at 2am (2006)

Pictured: Kazi.  We studied hard... (2006)

The signature sub for late night sessions (2006)

Good ol' Damian (2006)

Clearly not impressed with the sushi (2006)

All of us RAs.  Senior year, we've finally gone through puberty and are starting to look like proper to-be adults (2006)

I just wish I owned a camera before 2005.  This stuff is a goldmine.  And, despite how trivial some of the text files (e.g., notes, thoughts, letters) may seem, it's awesome to scan through some of the old stuff.  There are memories I had totally forgotten, moments of accomplishments, failures, happiness, and upsets that I can barely recall which at the time seemed so monumental, and they provide glimpses into a former self which has evidently slowly evolved over the years.

My point: backup everything!  Whether it's to the ever-elusive cloud or locally, imagine having such files when you have grand-kids.

A statistical approach to predicting my getting sick

During my recent trip to Iceland, I thought to myself how grateful I am that I haven't been sick, and that it's surprising because "it's about time I got sick again."  Days later, I randomly got sick (sore throat, constant 102 temp, coughing); I should be fine in 3 more days, though.  In the meantime, just for fun during the winter break, I decided to see if I can define some formalism for this supposed intuition.

Disclaimer: I know this is some rough, make-shift calculations, but given the nature of having so little data, and that the real, useful data is all immeasurable and not at my disposal, this is what you get :-)

I get a sore throat about 5 times each year -- which always lends me voiceless for about a week -- despite the fact that I:

• eat healthy
• workout regularly
• have good hygiene practices (shower at least once a day, brush teeth & floss twice a day, wash hands frequently, etc)
• have no known allergies or health issues (have seen several docs at MIT regarding this)

I've been tempted to just go to NYC and lick every bus pole and escalator handrail I can, in attempt to go ahead and get it over with by subjecting my body to every known bacteria and virus out there.

Obviously, there's a myriad of variables that can cause one to get sick:

• stress
• germs being spread from air, physical contact, etc
• weakened immune system (i.e., from over-training in the gym, stress, etc)

Clearly, these things are easily intertwined and impossible to accurately monitor and model.

However, in late 2007, I wanted to get to the bottom of it and was curious if there were any patterns in my getting sore throats.  So, for the past 5 years, I've quickly logged every time I get sick (a rating of the severity, how many days, and symptoms).

In the following picture, I plot every time I've gotten a sore throat, rounding to the closest week.

Looking at any patterns over time will only show possible correlations, not causes, I know.  Yet, the times I get sick are highly consistent from year to year:

• I pretty much always get sick on Jan 1
• I essentially never get sick from April 1 - July 31
• my sore throat always lasts exactly 6 or 7 days.
• I get sick roughly 5 times every year from August 1 - March 31.
• 100% of the times that I fly overseas, I either get sick while there or soon as I come back -- but it's not always sore throats.  Here, I'm only concerned with sore throats.

I will refer to August 1 - March 31 as the sick period/months, which spans 32 weeks.  For all calculations, we are only concerned with getting sick during the current sick period, and that each one is independent of the previous years'.

Again, since it's impossible to model the aforementioned variables that are the actual causes of getting sick, I figured why not play around with the time-series data and treat it as indications as to when I'll get sick.  So, here we are making the large assumption that all of the underlying sick-causes variables are consistent and uniformly distributed during the sick months, and that I get sick on average 5 times per sick period.  I think this is reasonably fair as a high-level approximation.

If we model my sickness as a Poisson distribution, we see that the probability of getting sick N number of times during a sick period is:

N	probability of getting sick N times
1	0.033689734995427
2	0.084224337488568
3	0.140373895814281
4	0.175467369767851
5	0.175467369767851
6	0.146222808139876
7	0.104444862957054
8	0.065278039348159
9	0.036265577415644
10	0.018132788707822

I like that distribution; it seems to fit my sickness history pretty well... although places a little too much weight on getting sick more than 5 times.

For each one of these possible outcomes (and including all N up to however many weeks we have left... not just N >= 10), there's a chance of getting sick next week, which is simply N/(# of weeks remaining).... again, assuming uniform distribution of everything, including the times I get sick within the sick period.

Further, if we wish to calculate the overall probability of getting sick next week (i.e., summed over each possible N), we simply combine these two things, and weight and normalize by the Poisson probabilities listed in the above table.

As a real life example, last week:

m = 13 (meaning 13 weeks left until March 31 aka end of 'sick period')

n = 2 (meaning I've been sick twice so far)

lambda = 5 (meaning on average I get sick 5 times each year)

Per the above equation, the probability of getting sick this week (which I did) was roughly 42.10%.

Further, if I did not get sick this week, the probability of getting sick the following week would be 45.43%

Further, not getting sick in the 2 upcoming weeks, but getting sick on the following would be 49.14%

Thus, the probability of NOT getting sick during the current week and upcoming 2 weeks was only 16%, which agrees with irking feeling I got: "sweet; I'm not sick... it's been a while though..." 

In the meantime, if anyone is down for my NYC-immunity-deplete-boost idea, let me know.  I'll let you go first as the guinea pig.

Brown is amazing

This week, I officially matriculated as a PhD student at Brown University.

For the past 6 years I've flirted with the idea of pursuing a PhD -- applied to a several schools back during my senior year of college in 2006.  Brown was actually one of those schools.  They rejected me.  As a shot in the dark, I casually sent them an informal email simply asking if I could be considered for their Master's program.  This was very unorthodoxed, as the Master's and PhD programs have separate applications and are examined differently by the admissions committee.  To my surprise, they replied 3 days later with the following opening line:

Dear Christopher,

Congratulations! On behalf of the Department of Computer Science, I'mdelighted to inform you that your application for admission to the Sc.M.program has been approved by this department.

However, I ended up enrolling at UCLA for my Master's.  The future communication I had with Brown would all prove to be equally impressive, genuine, and caring.

In short:

• my undergrad, Florida Tech, was a great school for me, as it served as the perfect stepping stone and challenged me appropriately as I developed foundations in Math and Computer Science.
• UCLA was great and very different from Florida Tech in every way: 40,000 students instead of 4,000.  More Olympic medals and NCAA championships than any other university.  Tons of crazy overachieving high schoolers who are all very diverse in their interests and talents.
• Brown seems to be the best of all worlds, as I briefly explain below.

Brown has the incredibly smart student body, world-class researchers, and over-achieving everybody.  However, the university is small (6,000 ugrads and 2,000 grads) and is within the quaint town of Providence, Rhode Island, which is like the smaller, like-able little brother of Boston.  Moreover, I've never witnessed such genuinely caring professors, staff, and students.  It really is like a tight-knit community, and in short, they do education right here.

Brown is consistently ranked as the #1 college in terms of happy students, and I can now see why.

There's an open-curriculum, where undergrads get to draft their own program.  No other major university in America has this [1].  Classes can be pass/fail if they want.  And surprisingly, the professors -- at least the ones I've had thus far -- are all excellent teachers, which is naturally rare amongst research universities.  Moreover, it is appears common for strangers to first ask you, "How do you like it here so far?" to which both parties then say, "I love it."  It's eerie how often this seems to happen.

I could ramble for a while about little situations that have risen thus far, and how it's been really cool and impressive.  However, I'll just conclude with two very small events that I encountered during my 3 days.  These events were tiny, but yielded a surprising "oh wow" response:

1. In my first Computational Biology class, the very energetic professor was giving motivation for studying the field and provided a very quick intro to biology.  In passing, and just an incidental part of one sentence, he stated, "by the way, just a few years ago, someone won the Nobel Prize in this area... oh yea, and he was a Brown undergrad here"
2. While walking across campus, I stumbled upon a building that had tons of students who were packed in (and even hanging around outside), as everyone watched some intense dancing.  I caught the latter half of some dramatic African dancing which included Bongo drums!  What a diverse and cool student body.

So, in short, my first week has been great.  I love Brown.

[1] http://colleges.usnews.rankingsandreviews.com/best-colleges/brown-university-3401

Things I'll miss and not miss about Boston

When I was a senior in high school, I got rejected from some colleges and heard that the valedictorian got rejected from MIT but accepted to Harvard.  I hadn't heard of MIT but at this time I decided to take education really seriously and that this MIT school would be my goal.  It was a childish goal, but that's how I first come to learn about MIT and Boston.

For spring break in 2006, during my senior year of college, I visited Boston with a great friend.  We enjoyed Boston a lot, which further attracted me.

In 2009, I finished my Master's at UCLA and happily accepted an Associate Staff position at MIT Lincoln Lab.  I moved to the heart of Boston -- the Beacon Hill neighborhood.

Now that I've been here for 3 years, I'm leaving for the next stage.

Things I'll miss about Boston:

• work: without going into specifics, the world-class researchers, resources (from computing to textbooks to journal libraries), and freedom have been phenomenal.  I still proclaim that MITLL is the #1 place in the world to work.

• personal relationships: words cannot express

• location:
• living 1 street from the #1 hospital in the nation
• living 1 street from the subway
• living 1 street from the charming Charles River and Longfellow Bridge
• living .8 mile from Boston Common (the oldest park in the nation)
• living 1 subway stop from MIT, where I can see doctors for medical things
• 10-minute drive to Logan Airport (international airport)

Little nuisances I WON'T miss about Boston:

• tiny/expensive apartment (approx $1,000/sq ft for buying)
• no cell phone reception (at home or at work)
• parking: 
• takes 10-20 minutes to find a parking spot by my apartment (sometimes upwards of 45 minutes or longer)
• must move car often due to street cleaning and whatnot.  on those days, you must move car by 7 or 8am.  if you fail to do so, your car will be towed.  luckily, i've avoided this for 3 years, but it surely involves a lot of effort to stay on top of the situation.
• cars get broken into.  mine did, and all i had visible was a cheap $100 after-market CD player installed.
• commute: 30-minutes to drive to work; 1 hr or more via public transportation
• rudeness: unspecific to Boston, large cities have enough people that there often exists at least a few really rude people in any large crowd, and that such rudeness has a platform for many to see.  unfortunately, i was a direct or indirect audience participant a few times.  oh, and driving in my car is like front-row seats for the show.  related, i'm convinced taxis have no brakes or turn signals.  oddly, they use the horn as a substitute.

I'm packin up and moving out in 1.5 weeks.  Bye bye, Boston!

The Great Safari - Day 1 (From Nairobi to Maasai Mara)

Last year, I went by myself on an African safari for 2 weeks with Good Earth Tours, Inc.  I'm finally going through the video.

Here is day 1 (please watch in 1080p):

Panorama of Boston from the sky!

Okay, not quite "the sky," but I took a 24-shot panorama from Boston's Prudential Tower's Sky Walk, which is on the 50th floor.

Here is the picture at 3 different sizes:

1. Tiny (600 x 385 pixels wide):

2. Medium (6,000 x 3,853 pixels): click here for the picture (23 mbs)

3. Huge/Full-size (13,312 x 8549 pixels): click here for the picture (87 mbs)


The green area is the Boston Common (Park) and Public Garden.  My apartment is to the left of it, in the dark area (but before you see bright lights again).  You'll also notice:

• The capital at the edge of the Boston Common (green area)
• Hancock Tower (the big building in the center)
• Highway 90
• Highway 93
• The Hatch Shell (at the very left side)
• An airplane taking off

Bringing back the fruit smoothies!

For the past 3 years, every morning I make & eat two of the following:

• 2 scrambled eggs with deli meat and sprinkled cheese
• oatmeal with walnuts, cranberries, cinnamon, splenda, with applesauce mixed in
• cereal (optionally with yogurt or banana as another side item)
• 1.25 liter fruit smoothie (during Spring and Summer only)

Spring is now here!  So, once again, the produce at my local farmer's market is now better and more plentiful.

My typical smoothies fill my 1.25 liter blender (42 oz) and are comprised of ~6 of the following items, which I try to change up each time:

• ~7 strawberries
• banana
• mango
• kiwi
• blueberries
• apple
• frozen raspberries
• milk
• vanilla or strawberry protein (casein or whey)
• oats
• chobani or oikos yogurt (usually strawberry, vanilla, or blueberry)
• chopped ice

Here's a sample of one in the making:

From above:

Finished product makes 32oz - 42oz:

Each spring/summer, I try to improve over the previous year's by perfecting the combinations of fruit so that it tastes just right.  It's nothing amazing, but pretty tasty :-)

Boston Marathon 2012

A friend of a mine from UCLA (we were grad school classmates), flew to Boston this past weekend to run the Boston Marathon.

I made a video, documenting his pre- and post-race:

Even though my viewing spot at the 26 mile mark (.2 miles from the finish line), it's essentially impossible to get decent footage of the actual race unless you have a press pass -- you can only see runners pass by you.

Producing Ultra-Sharp Images

A few months ago, I bought a Zeiss 50mm f/2.0 Makro-Planar T* ZE Lens. This lens is hailed as one of the sharpest lenses in the world, and it's strictly a manual focus lens (no automatic focus).

Over the past year or so, I've taken 1,000+ pics of the jewelry that Sheley makes and sells. It's a learning experience, but clearly it's desirable to take pics that are incredibly clear and sharp.

So, with my new lens, and my side-hobby task of taking pics for Sheley, I was lead to the quest to produce what I'll call "ultra-sharp" images. I use this technique whenever I can; not just for jewelry photos.

My approach is to:

• use a really sturdy tripod (my Benro A-1690)
• use my manual focus Zeiss 50mm lens
• I replaced my camera's internal focusing screen with the Eg-s screen, which assists my vision through the viewfinder by making the in-focus area appear very crisp and everything else really blurry
• use the LCD screen at 10x magnification to view the subject, to help focus
• use a remote shutter release (or put it on a 2-second timer) so that my pressing the shutter button doesn't shake the camera at all

Basically, it's an exciting process and requires much deliberation, patience, and carefulness for each shot. It's the closest I'll ever come to performing surgery.

Sample 1 -- The Penny

click here to view the full image!

The viewfinder is so sensitive that moving the camera's focusing ring the slightest amount I possibly can is the difference between "In God We Trust" being in focus versus "2010" being in focus.

Sample 2 -- Boston Skyline 1/2 mile away

click here to view the full image!

Notice how you can see each window with at least some detail. Pretty crazy considering the windows are half a mile away.

Sample 3 -- huge panorama of Boston from .8 miles away

click here to view the full image!

Sample 4 -- Sheley's Jewelry

click here to view the full image.

Unfortunately, images displayed on the web are rarely greater than 900 pixels in length, and are compressed greatly; thus, the increase in sharpness may often not even be discernible for images posted to the web. Oh well, it's been really fun for me to discover how to push my camera and lens to their limits.

In the meantime, I've become a huge fan of Zeiss, and I can easily understand why they're considered a world leader and pioneer for producing world-class optical equipment, from medical lenses, microscopes, camera lenses, etc.

Oatmeal Butterscotch Chocolate Chip Cookies!

Sheley's made some great recipes lately, including an amazing Mexican chicken dish. Plus, she's been eating super healthy vegetable dishes. Okay, with that disclaimer aside, I can now present the less-healthy, but incredibly delicious dessert that she made, of which I have happily been the primary consumer:

Oatmeal Butterscotch Chocolate Chip Cookies!

Here are some pics I took of them:

The Longest Grocery Store Lines Ever

Instead of my normal grocery shopping at Costco, I sometimes still go to Market Basket (aka Home of Chaos) for their super good deals. Market Basket's parking lot is insane, as it can take 10 minutes to get a parking spot. Yet, it's just a warm-up/sample of the hectic crowd inside.

Today I witnessed the craziness checkout lines I've ever witnessed. All ~10 check-out lines were so long that they bent in all directions and fed all the way into the aisles!

Every single person in this pile up is actually in a check-out line:

As mentioned, some lines extended far into the nearby, incredibly healthy aisles, as shown:

Yummy Oatmeal Cranberry Walnut Mini-Muffins

Sheley and I cook daily, but usually we don't venture too far from our norm. I always cook breakfast, and usually she or I cook dinner ~5-6 nights a week. But, we're attempting to cook more special, tasty recipes and just ad-hoc, fun items.

This weekend, Sheley spontaneously cooked some very tasty oatmeal cranberry walnut mini-muffins, topped w/ pineapple!

Not unrelated, I just bought a 10-lb bag of oats from Costco. So, I'll be making oatmeal/cranberry/walnut/splenda/cinnamon as half of my breakfast fairly often.

Re-Designing New Year Resolutions: No Deadlines, Only Startlines*

At the beginning of 2011, I made a huge spreadsheet of all of the goals I wanted to accomplish throughout the year, which spanned multiple categories: work/research, playing guitar, painting, photography, weight lifting, jogging, recreational reading, cooking, etc. I detailed concrete, quarterly 3-month goals for every single category. Yet, I still failed miserably.

As we all know, it's very easy to put things off. However, I thought that defining objective deadlines for all of my tasks would help keep me regimented. Sure, I was pretty disciplined in some of the categories, but in some categories I essentially did nothing at all. Why is this, and how did it happen?

The main reason is that other, more pressing matters took higher precedence throughout the year, allowing me to completely neglect some categories.

For example, if something at work starts to consume all of my attention, I often put off doing everything else. I feel this is true for most people. We are good at accomplishing deadlines within our career. Why is that? We need to mimic that for all of our deadlines. I believe most people are good at meeting career deadlines because:

1. we all work towards the deadline very often (~daily)
2. we take it seriously (we don't want to be jobless or homeless)
3. we are ideally passionate about the career work

All of these items help, but I believe the biggest one that separates goals of mine that were accomplished from those that were not is #1; when I look at my failed resolutions, the failed categories are ones that I never got momentum in -- the start was flaky at best.

There will always be some unforeseen task that comes up which I bump up to priority #1. And, if I have ~8 main categories that I'm trying to all work towards through the year, it will likely be the case that at least 3 of them will never be touched because of these unforeseen, pressing deadlines related to work/family/other goals. This leads me to think that setting deadlines is not necessarily ideal.

Sure, it's good to have objective marks signifying where you'd like to be, but even setting more regimented, smaller time-scaled deadlines isn't sufficient.

Personally, I always have some to-do list that I'm often working on. I got into this habit since I was just a little kid, my mom tells me. In recent years, my to-do list often spans a few days or a week. Even with this, I find myself often not getting around to at least 1-3 of say 10-15 items each time. Those items are typically not essential, so they sadly get pushed off and never done.

My point is, even a 5-day list of deadlines proves to be difficult enough to follow, so of course there's no way I/we can 100% fulfill a more grand, all-encompassing schedule of deadlines that span an entire year. List of deadlines, even if they are only span a week, will leave me short, as some items never get started.

So, let's not plot everything with respect to the end and the deadlines, even if they have intermediate deadlines. Rather, let's make startlines. Let's list the days on which we'll start things, and this takes highest priority over everything. In fact, when unforeseen pressing matters come up, let's then force these annoying deadlines to work around our pre-detailed startlines.

For example, say some art show is coming up, and I desperately want to edit, print, and mat a bunch of new photos that I had just taken a few days ago. In this very real example, I often put all other recreational activities behind in order to urgently get this done. Instead, I should keep in mind the big picture, relax my requirements for the photography art show (realizing that it's okay to not have the latest photos), and force myself to revolve my schedule around any previously schedule startlines. If I had previously listed that I will devote 2 hours to trying to learn to play guitar on Wednesday, and the pressing art show happened to be on Friday, well, I should still pick up the guitar on Wednesday.

I'm starting this approach for 2012. We'll see if it serves me well.

In short, let's try to list the actual days on which we'll start and do things, not far-away deadlines by which everything will magically be done.

Along the same lines, maybe I shouldn't think of any my goals in terms of long-term end results; maybe I should define my goals in terms of sheer investment.

To illustrate, well, I'll pick one of my goals which is highly quantifying, tempting to view in terms of long-term end results, and one that is amongst my least embarrassing (one which I haven't been too slack and delinquent): weight-lifting.

One of my weight-lifting goals concerns my body weight and my max 1-rep bench press. I currently weigh 147 lbs and my max bench press is 225 lb. My 2011 goal was to get back to my prime: weigh 156 lbs and bench press 240 lb. I would like to reach this in 2012, too. I know what it takes to get back to this condition (going hardcore on particular exercises, working out 5 times a week, proper nutrition, etc). So, instead of defining my success in terms of some boolean 1-point check of reaching the goal or not, I should make my goal to be the appropriate, necessary investment that's required to meet that goal.

Specifically, my goal should not be:

• By March 30: weigh 150 and bench 228.
• By June 30: weigh 152 and bench 235.
• By September 30: weigh 155 and bench 238.
• By December 30: weigh 156 and bench 240.

Instead, maybe it should be:

• In January, continue to go to the gym at least 3 times a week
• In February, increase to a consistent 4 times a week (17 times total).
• In March, increase to 20 times total.

Similarly, I could define specific workout goals in terms of the necessary investment. For example, "do chest & back workouts 2 times a week." As long as I do this, who cares if I EXACTLY meet some particular bench press weight goal such as benching 240 lbs or not? If I follow this investment schedule, I know I'll be close to my desired results. If I'm a few pounds under or over, so be it. I should be happy with my amount of effort and how much time I dedicate to this hobby that I love and enjoy. That's the most important thing.

Along the same lines, I shouldn't make it a goal to "learn how to play a guitar song by February 1," but "spend 2 hours per week learning to play guitar." You get the idea.

I like this approach. Any thoughts?

* Yea, Startlines sounds cheesy, but I had to call it something.

Tips for buying a new camera and lens

I get asked this question pretty often, so here's my very short write-up.

Disclaimer: I'm just hitting the highlights and providing my own quick, generalized recommendations and tidbits about photography. It's better to exhaustively research equipment for your specific needs.

General Points

• Worry more about your choice of lens(es) than about the body

• Say you have $1.5k to spend. A $1,200 lens on a $300 body will produce better pictures than a $300 lens on a $1,200 body. Try to find some middle ground.

• You truly get what you pay for.

• The popular namebrands all generally make great products.

• Camera bodies:

Canon and Nikon are both excellent. There is no clear superior company. I prefer Canon. Sony is making some serious strides. Pentax currently has some ~$1,000 bodies that are more rugged than anything else at that price point, yet, SLRs are typically much more durable than you'd imagine. Instead of SLRs, mirrorless cameras are really nifty, too, as they kind of combine the best of both worlds: manual controls and lens interchangeability of SLRs, and compactness of point-and-shoots. Panasonic is currently leading this forefront.

• Whatever camera body namebrand you pick, plan to stick with it because you can't expect your lenses to work with other camera namebrands (e.g., Nikon lenses won't work with Canon bodies.)

• Lenses retain their value VERY well (and may increase in price over time), whereas camera bodies are like computers and degrade somewhat quickly (for example, I bought a new $455 lens from bhphotovideo.com. 3 years later, it was being sold for $490, and I sold it used on eBay for $460. At this moment, it sells on the same site for $579!)

• Cameras do not retain their value well: a entry-level camera body for $800 will sell for ~$250 used in 4 years.

• Used lenses are barely cheaper than new ones. So, unless you find some insane deal from craigslist or eBay, buy new.

• Buy from bhphotovideo.com -- they're 1 of the best companies I've ever experienced.

Lenses

• The key to buying a lens is to pick the focal length you want, then aim for the one with the largest aperture (smallest F/stop number). The aperture is the size of the diaphragm that lets in light. You want the biggest hole (smallest F/ number you can get), which means it let's in more light. This is good because it allows you to shoot in poorly lit conditions like when the sun is setting, and it also allows you the option of creating photos such that the background is nice and blurred out.

• Prime lenses (aka non-zoom lenses) are optically better than zoom lenses. This isn't to say that there aren't some amazing zoom lenses. For example, the Canon 24-70mm f/2.8L is a very nice and expensive zoom lens. Yet, at any focal length in that range, Canon makes a prime (non-zoom) lens that is optically superior than what the zoom can produce at that given focal length. Zooms are handy for fast-moving, unpredictable environments like wild life and sports scenarios. See http://www.the-digital-picture.com/Canon-Lenses/Zoom-Vs-Prime-Lens.aspx for more info.

• Canon and Nikon/Nikkor make comparable, excellent lenses. Leica and Zeiss lenses are typically the best that exist. Sigma is a 3rd party manufacturer that makes some great lenses that are on par with Canon/Nikon. I haven't tried Tamron, but they're popular. A moderately-priced (~$700) wide-angle lens that is highly acclaimed is the Tokina 11-16mm f/2.8. As mentioned, non-zoom lenses have higher optical quality compared to their counterparts, but for wide-angle shots, zooms can be handy.

• lenses in the 15mm - 24mm range are ultra wide-angle and good for landscapes and interior shooting

• lenses in the 28mm - 50mm range are good for most general-purpose situations

• lenses in the 85mm - 100mm range are good for macro, portraits, and almost telephoto situations

• lenses in the 135mm - 400mm range are good for telephoto, long-away situations

Research

Obviously, you'll read user reviews of the equipment before you buy it. There is no shortage of online literature; however, I find the following resources particularly useful:

• BHPhotovideo's user reviews.
• fredmiranda.com's forums -- incredible community of hardcore photo gear heads.
• the-digital-picture.com's tools -- view actual comparison images taken w/ tons of camera/lenses setups.
• reddit.com/r/photography -- good, diverse community of photographers.
• lensrentals.com -- #1 source for renting lenses. (although, shipping is expensive.)
• calumet -- few locations in the USA. they rent lenses, sometimes cheaper than above.
• pixel-peeper.com -- view sample images that were taking w/ your equipment.
• dpreview -- good review/article site. so good that amazon bought them out in 2007.
• keh.com -- #1 source for buying used equipment. again, buying new is usually worth it.
• table of all canon SLRs and table of all nikon SLRs

Exact Buying Suggestions

To very specifically answer the question of "what to buy with $X money," this is what I'd recommend for the common person (i.e., one who isn't looking to specialize in only food photography or say airplane photography):

If you're willing to spend less than $1,000:

• lens: buy the Canon 50mm f/1.8 for ~$110
• body: spend the rest of the money on the best Canon body you can afford.

If you're willing to spend $1,000 - $2,000:

• lenses: buy 2 lenses: 1 somewhere in the 30mm - 50mm range, and 1 in the 85mm - 100mm range. I highly recommend the Sigma 30mm f/1.4 for ~$450 and the Canon 100mm f/2.8 for ~$480.
• body: spend the rest on the best Canon body you can afford.

If you're willing to spend much more:

• body: buy a high-end full-frame body from Canon or Nikon (they currently cost $2,000+).
• lenses: spend the rest of the money on high-end lenses such as Canon L series lenses. I highly recommend the Canon 35mm f/1.4L and the Canon 135mm f/2.0L, but all Canon L series lenses are great. If you deem 135mm to be too long of a focal length, the Canon 85mm 1.2L and Canon 100mm f/2.8L are also highly acclaimed.  Alternatively, if you prefer wider-angle shots as opposed to telephoto, the Canon 16-35mm f/2.8 II L is a spectacular lens, too.  If you feel comfortable shooting in manual-focus mode, Zeiss makes manual-focus lenses for Canon and Nikon which often outperform anything Canon and Nikon can offer for a particular focal length.  Specifically, the Zeiss 25mm f/2.0 ZE, Zeiss 50mm f/2.0 ZE, and Zeiss 100mm f/2.0 ZE are world-class and unparalleled in performance.  I currently own the first two of these Zeiss lenses and enjoy them immensely!

If money is no object:

• please buy me a Leica body and/or some Leica and Zeiss lenses.

Other Accessories You Might Want to Eventually Buy

• Back-up batteries
• Filters (e.g,. polarizing, UV, ND, etc)
• Remote Shutter Release (they are as low as $5 and allow you to remotely press the shutter, which helps because it shakes the camera less than when touching the button. also very useful for long exposures)
• Good Tripod (at least $150. I highly recommend Benro A-1690 Travel Angel)
• Camera Backpack (I highly recommend the Lowepro Flipside 300)

General Starting Tips

• fully read your camera's manual
• take a LOT of pictures
• think about what you're trying to capture and convey
• learn to shoot in Av and Manual mode
• shoot in RAW mode
• get good/comfortable with a powerful photo editor (I recommend Lightroom)

travellin

i haven't updated in a while, but for record-keeping purposes, here are some highlights from the past 40 days:

1. kazi -- a good friend from the undergrad days -- visited me in boston.

back in 2006, we both visited boston together for what would be the first time for each of us. it won us over back then, and this visit was like the reunion.

• i housed kazi and showed him around boston.
• did a lot and had a good time.
• kazi landed a summer internship w/ my employer, and he'll be conducted research similar to mine.

2. i flew to dc for work purposes, again. i also extended the trip into a personal trip:

• visited my good friend, dan for a day:

• stayed w/ my good friend, g francis for a few days

g francis and i randomly decided to experiment w/ light painting photography one friday night. it ended up being a blast. we learned how to take long exposures and shine light onto subjects in the dark, thereby taking a complete additive approach to the lighting aspect.

this experience has motivated me to try night photography more:

3. visited brown's 3-day open-house event in rhode island.

amazing school and campus. founded in 1764, it's officially "old school."

4. visited santa barbara, california for 5 days for a conference.

on the way to and from airport, i took some pics.

iPhone 4 revolutionizes my life in a mere 5 days

i'm rather slow to adopt new technology -- i didn't get a cell phone until feb 2006, and up until last week, i still had a $20 cheap, camera-less GoPhone from bestbuy. i had never been able to share cell phone pictures, download ringtones, or anything like that.

i decided to get w/ the times, so 5 days ago i bought an iPhone 4 for $80 (cosmetic refurbished, but it looks perfectly fine).

i've already found it to be really useful:

1. FaceTime - i was able to video chat w/ one of my best friends who is currently in law school in indiana. he was in his campus' library and i was able to see it. likewise, i showed him around my boston apartment! (below is not my friend.)
2. Mobile Internet - while at costco, i was curious how good of a deal a certain product was. i knew how much i usually pay for a similar product, but was unsure of the # of servings it contains. using google, i found it within 1 page click, which allowed me to discover how good of a deal it was at costco.
3. Subway/Bus times - instead of driving my car, i take public transportation to/from work each day. it's almost 3 hours total. i only have to wait less than 10 minutes for any subway/bus. but, boston's vehicles now all have GPS, so thanks to an app, i can track them! today's temperature was 1 degree outside. so, saving me a few minutes of waiting outside is very useful!
4. Sleeping - there's an app that monitors your matress' vibrations to detect how soundly you are sleeping. it wakes you up when you are in your lightest sleep within a 30-minute window that you tell it ahead of time. wake up more restful! here's my 1st stats from night 1 of using it:
   
5. Gym - for the past 7 years, i've logged my workouts. during the past yr, i would handwrite my workouts, then would transcribe them online to my private blog during my peak times, this would require 15 extra minutes each day. i found a great app -- Gym Buddy -- which is perfect for logging weights very quickly. it literally takes me less than 4 seconds to log any exercise. the app records histories of everything you could want, and it even includes stopwatches! this saves me SOO much time.
   
6. PDFs - i have copied PDF slides of a textbook and of course letctures to the iPhone, which allows me to read them during my commute. realistically, i'll probably just stick to hardcopies on this one, but it's still very handy to have this as a backup for times that i don't have the hardcopies on me!
7. my todo-list on the go! - i use google tasks from multiple computers. it's good to always have access to it while at a computer. now, i can take it with me anywhere! because the list loads as a webpage, i can even load it before leaving my apartment, go offline while outside, and still view the pre-loaded page. of course, i can contribute to the list anytime i want, too. this is very helpful to me.
8. graphical search - you can take a picture of something that you are unsure about, and google will do an image search for you! this is incredibly useful, although i haven't used it yet.
9. barcode reading - you can scan barcodes of anything, and it'll search for that product. if it's food, you can view the nutritional info. if it's a product like shampoo, you can see others' prices and info. haven't used it yet. definitely will.
10. outings - there are a myriad of apps to use for going out, obviously. from yelp, FoodSpotting, Ubranspoon, google maps, google places (hotpot), etc. this will come in handy for when we want to be slightly more unprepared and whimsical.

after just having the iPhone for 5 days, i pretty much believe that it's the most powerful mainstream computer that exists. when i say powerful, i mean not so much its computational abilities, but its degree and variety of utility. sure, a modern laptop has a faster processor, but you can't take it everywhere so easily. moreover, it can't do everything an iphone can -- from its webcam (which as i said, can be used for things such as scanning barcodes to taking pics to live video streaming) to having built-in gps and calling abilities, the doors are obviously open for a somewhat unlimited range of utility -- hence the plethora of apps.

it's obviously a superset of an iPod too. i could ramble on for a while.

basically, i'm sold. i've set ground rules for my usage of it, for i refuse to let it interfere with my normal-day living. yet, i appreciate its power and ability to assist in my daily life, and i plan to use it well.

the beautiful mess of inexactness and unaccountability

(note: if you're short on time, just read the bold parts)

the computer scientist and mathematician in me often cause me to think about how to make commonplace situations the most efficient and beneficial for everyone. for example, situations such as:

• boarding an airplane -- how to board everyone the quickest w/ minimum hassle
• waiting in lines at a store
• boston's subway -- how to decide how many subway trains to have, where to place them, and how often to run
• placement of products within department stores like target

these types of things naturally cross my mind as i encounter them. yet, lately, i've come to not only accept the fact that the world at large is a massive NP-complete, inexact, sub-optimal system, but that it's often best this way.

for example, while at mike's pastries recently (my favorites there are the chocolate covered ricotta cannoli and german chocolate brownie!), i was thinking about how horribly disorganized that place is: basically, there's one line that forms outside, but once inside the store, there are no lines. you merely force your way up to any of the surrounding glass counters and compete for the attention of a nearby cashier. oh, and they only accept cash.

i've been to mike's pasties tons of times, yet it's always exciting and enjoyable -- even if it does have a huge touristy vibe. while thinking about how long this place has been famous, and how well their system works for them, it then hit me: the seemingly horrible time-inefficiency of their system actually isn't too bad. moreover, their inefficiency actually benefits them and is a vital part of their success! see, the chaotic nature of their store helps facilitate the exciting vibe of being there. if the lines were streamlined and branched off smoothly to cashiers, then the place would be typical. it wouldn't be as fun. this chaotic fun helps make the whole experience better, and probably even influences our perception of how good the food tastes.

lesson learned: what may be seem like an objective benefit to people may not actually be what's best; sometimes the sub-optimal solution is incidentally optimal.

as for unaccountability, lately i've witnessed two tragic events:

• a man die by plummeting down a gigantic waterfall (see recent post)
• a police raid; unseen to me, police shot a man 10-12 times. the victim merely had a water gun.

the waterfall incident went almost unnoticed. i saw the man fall, and the ~4 nearby people heard my screams and participated in the search. minutes later, hikers entering the trail had no idea what had just happened. it was only the next morning that officials found the victim's body. the incident only received a few sentences on local news sites, and the news was wrongly report too -- for they stated that he had fallen into the river. i would have thought that the park would have been encouraged to post more warnings about the dangers of going beyond the railings, and would have possibly constructed a plague dedication to the victim. nope. it was merely wrongly reported and probably only listed as a park statistic at best.

it baffled me how easily such an important thing like one's life can fail to garner proper action. i realize everyone's short on time, and that there are only a limited amount of resources for everything. yet, i'm constantly amazed and constantly realizing how limited these things actually are, and what's realistic to expect. this isn't some depressing message; it's just my coming to understand the inexactness and imperfections that occur in the world -- that not everything's ideal. of course.

as for the police raid incident, my friend brian and i witnessed ~20 cop cars come to one's home. the police constructed battering rams, kevlar shields, and gigantic guns as they prepared to invade this peron's house. we didn't really know what we were witnessing. days later, i looked online and found essentially no information reported. like the waterfall death, it was merely a 3-sentence blurb stating nothing beyond what we already knew. days later, i looked online again and found a slightly more detailed story: the victim apparently only possessed a water gun, and police supposedly didn't provide the man a chance to cooperate; police merely came in and used him as target practice. victim had 20 holes in him, mostly from gun shots.

what's the consequence? i don't know. i assume the victim's family will try to take to court some of the police, or maybe some policeman might be fired, but i don't know. it's just crazy to think of how large a mistake can be made without proper consequence/punishment/justice -- both justice in the form of police being punished and justice with respect to the story getting recognition in the news. i'm sure it's impossible for this to happen ideally. there are way too many people in the world, and there's no way every death can receive news coverage for everyone who cares. people die all the time, and the world is constantly fighting for everyone's attention. our attention is very very valuable and expensive, apparent by ubiquitous ads and just the nature of our very fast-paced lifestyles.

it's just weird to first-hand witness a life perish, possibly illegally, and for there to be so little accountability. oh yea, i was supposed to talk about accountability. basically, it's alarming, and for the same reasons that i've already said. there's so much going on, and there'll never be enough resources (time, energy, care, money, etc) that can properly do justice to everything. that's impossible and too expensive.

i don't mean for this entry to read as a depressing message. it's merely a reminder and a lesson that our world is imperfect, and that it takes a lot of very special effort, time, and care to make something the way you want it... and that for everything you do see, it's often the product of a lot of care and deliberation. thus, we shouldn't take things for granted. from streets being cleaned to newspapers being delivered, it takes a lot to get something done.

basically, we live in a beautiful mess. we should remember this and be more grateful for the things that do work.