Daily updates – Page 89 – a sibilant intake of breath

On cameralessness and camera-sight

For nearly a month now, I have been walking around without a decent camera (the one on my phone is too low quality to count). At the outset, I was wondering if it would change the way I looked at the world. It seems plausible that a person carrying a camera might become overly concerned about the possibility of recording experiences and thus become less immersed in the situations themselves. While I think that remains true in some circumstances, I find that the general result of not carrying a camera is simply loss of acuity in sensation. Having a camera forces you to pay more attention to what is happening around you: the quality of the light, the details of natural and man-made objects nearby, brightnesses and distances and angles.

As Tristan and I discussed while he was visiting this weekend, one’s sensitivity extends to include consideration for the kind of equipment being used. You do see a bit differently when you are carrying black and white film than when you are carrying colour; you care more about textures and relative brightnesses and not at all about colour temperature. Probably, there are differences in how you see based on whether you are carrying a camera loaded with 35mm film, one with a small digital sensor, or one with a larger sensor more capable of low-grain performance in low light. It is a bit like Michael Pollan’s description of what happened to his vision when he was collecting mushrooms: our visual systems are quite happy to optimize themselves for the task at hand.

Thankfully, my repaired camera is in the process of being mailed back to me. It is notable that Canon repaired it for free – essentially acknowledging that the problem arose because of a defect in manufacturing. I thus feel vindicated in saying that the Future Shop staff were wrong to reject an exchange, on the basis that I had abused the camera. I won’t be making the mistake of giving them more business anytime soon.

[Update: 31 January 2007] Oh, trumph and celebration! My camera has been returned and seems to be functioning properly. No more photos of the day from weeks past!

Mastercard and RFID

I got a replacement Mastercard in the mail today and was slightly surprised to learn that it has an embedded radio frequency identification (RFID) tag in it. The idea is that it will let merchants bill you card by having you put it near a reader, rather than swipe it though a magnetic strip reader. The existence of the RFID tag does raise a couple of issues, however.

First, it has been shown that such tags can be activated using inexpensive directional transmitters from relatively long ranges. The way they work is by using the energy in the incoming radio signal to power the circuitry that produces a response. I don’t know if the tag in my card simply has a unique identifier, or whether it actually performs a challenge-response authentication. Either way, it is likely that the presence of the card, and the fact that it is a Mastercard, can be determined at a distance of several tens of metres at least, using information and equipment fairly easily acquired.

Secondly, I don’t know about the liability associated with such cards. I know that if I lose my Mastercard and report it promptly, I am only liable or $50 at the most. I am not sure about a situation where somebody clones the RFID tag and uses it to make purchases.

Overall, I see little value in contact-free payment systems. I would rather have a traditional card without new features and vulnerabilities. Unfotunately, Mastercard says that RFID-free cards are no longer available.

Good for eating, and good for thinking

Thanks to the Herb and Spice Shop on Bank Street, I have been able to check off the longest serving item on my running to-do list. Many months ago in Oxford, Antonia introduced me to a sweet soy sauce called Ketjap Manis. I have since sought it in countless stores in several countries, though unsuccessfully until tonight.

I got lots of other good ethical stuff, also: hot curry paste, something called ‘kefir,’ organic salsa and feta cheese, tofu, nice looking bagels, veggie pate, some interesting snacks, and a big bag of oats.

Now, all I need is some St. Peter’s Organic Ale.

Macbeth at the NAC

Recently, I saw a production of Macbeth at the National Arts Centre. It was very professionally staged, with World War I era costumes and props, the minimalist set design common in modern renditions of Shakespeare, good sound and lighting, and competent acting from all concerned. The blocking was especially well done, with creative use of an unusually shaped stage and almost cinematic interludes of voiceless combat between the later scenes.

While the play felt highly polished, it was somewhat lacking in intensity. Perhaps a play as well known and frequently performed as Macbeth doesn’t present professional actors with sufficient challenge or interest to generate a passionate performance, or perhaps it was just a night when they were a bit off. Some of the big set-piece speeches of the play (Lady Macbeth’s sleepwalking, Macbeth’s ‘Tomorrow, and tomorrow, and tomorrow’ speech) were neither performed with straight drama or in a way that was interestingly unusual – they hung between directness and experimentation in a way that satisfied neither. That being said, the play was well worth seeing and a good introduction to theatre in the capital.

One thing I had forgotten about the play is the scene (IV, iii) where Malcolm goes on and on about what a bad king he would be. Perhaps it is unsurprising that he is succeeded by a ruler not his heir.

Fissure in the Beaufort ice pack

During the past month, a massive piece of ice has broken off west of Banks Island, in the Canadian Arctic. This picture shows the area in question, while this animation from the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. ~~The split left open water in the Bering Strait for 45 days.~~ At the same time as the fissure, there was an unusual 45 day period of open water in the Bering Strait.

For a sense of scale, here is a map showing Banks Island in relation to the rest of Canada. While one event of this kind cannot be understood without comparison to what is happening in other areas and what has happened at other times, it is a reminder of the dynamic character of the polar icecap, even in the middle of winter. According to NOAA’s 2007 Arctic Report Card, anomolously high temperatures are yielding “relatively younger, thinner ice cover” which is “intrinsically more susceptible to the effects of atmospheric and oceanic forcing.”

It will be fascinating to see what happens the the icecap next summer: specifically, how the level of ice cover will compare to the shocking minimum in the summer of 2007.

[Correction: 15 January 2008] The open water in the Bering Sea is unrelated to this fissure, though both took place at the same time. Both pieces of information are listed in this report from the Canadian Ice Service.

Bacteria-fuelled imagination

I can understand the intuitive bodily response “we seem to have a cold -> sleep until 6:00pm.” More difficult to understand is the addendum: “And make sure the time is filled with a never-ending string of insane dreams.” The bits where I could rollerblade using just my feet were pretty entertaining; the bits where the bulk of the mass of my teeth fell off, leaving shark teeth behind, a lot less so. The number of cameo appearances made by acquaintances from decades past gave the sense of a deranged reunion.

Soup-filled and re-vitamined, I am returning to the experience.

Leguminous illustration

A comic in which Emily’s artistic talents have been combined with my egregious printing is now on her beanhead site. It is also mentioned on her blog. Tristan has produced a video about the whole beanhead phenomenon, featuring exclusive footage of Emily and I walking around in Vancouver’s Chinatown and inventing silly answers to silly questions.

Book project: month two

Entering the second month of our reading agreement, neither Emily nor I has finished the first book. Allowances can be made, however, for the fact that December ended with holidays and my visit. I am aiming to finish Love and Hydrogen in the next few days and move on to Nabokov’s Laughter in the Dark soon after. No doubt, she will be through the more hefty A History of Warfare before too long.

Despite my nervousness about assigning a second military-themed book in a row for Emily, I have given her Ender’s Game for January. It is quite a compelling read and it serves our original purpose of sharing books that have meant a lot to us and influenced us somehow. Not only have I read this Orson Scott Card novel dozens of times, but it was a pretty important aspect of the collective knowledge of some of my closest friends in high school.

Prior posts:

Airborne and streaking eastward

I should now be in the air on my way back to Ottawa. Many thanks to all the people who helped to make my holiday in Vancouver so entertaining and personally meaningful. It has been a reminder of how important friends and family really are, and it has left me thinking with renewed energy about possible means of returning to British Columbia on a more permanent basis in the medium to long term.

For now, I need to get back on top of work projects and tardily finish my December book for the reading agreement with Emily.

Powershot A570 IS dead in three days

Three days after purchase, the battery hatch on my new camera broke during the course of ordinary use. I opened it to change the batteries and, when I tried to close it again, found that a little plastic bit was bent outwards. Afterwards, it would not close.

Future Shop refused to exchange it for a working one because they said the breakage was my fault. It was a reminder of just how poor their customer service is. The agent doing the return insisted that it had been dropped, even though it looked absolutely perfect aside from the bit that was bent.

The camera is being sent back to Canon for repair under the manufacturer’s warranty. Hopefully, they will simply repair or replace the hinge assembly. Irksomely, it can only be sent back to the store that did the original sale. When it comes back in a few weeks, it will therefore need to be mailed out to me in Ottawa.

[Update: 16 January 2008] More than two weeks after turning in my camera for repair, it remains ‘unprocessed.’ Perhaps, they say, they will be able to tell me the cost of repair within a week.

[Update: 23 January 2007] Apparently, the A570 has been repaired. My mother has kindly offered to pick it up and mail it to me tomorrow.

[Update: 31 January 2007] Oh, trumph and celebration! My camera has been returned and seems to be functioning properly. No more photos of the day from weeks past!