climate change activist and science communicator; photographer; mapmaker — advocate for a stable global climate, reduced nuclear weapon risks, and safe human-AI interaction
Generally musings of the day, usually accompanied by a photograph
Following Nick’s excellent New Year’s party, my time in this fine city has grown terribly short. As usual, I have seen lots of interesting people – though I have missed a good number of friends also.
I will be back in Ottawa tomorrow evening, and back in my cubicle the morning after.
As is generally the case during the last few days of a visit to Vancouver, everything has been reduced to an untidy but highly enjoyable attempt to see as many people as possible before I am dragged across town to the plane ride east.
Today, I am to see my first ballet (The Nutcracker at the Queen Elizabeth Theatre) before attending a gratuitously carnivorous New Year’s party. Tomorrow will be my last chance to meet up with anyone. Posts with substantive content will resume when I have more time to devote to such things.
Today involved a visit to a Hindu temple that serves free vegetarian lunches and dinner at Darma’s Kitchen: a vegetarian restaurant at Broadway and Alma. The latter looks like a Yaletown version of the Naam; the former had markedly better food.
If there are things out there better than tasty free curry and Naan bread, I have yet to discover them.
Tonight’s party went very well. Thanks to everyone who showed up. Having the chance to see so many friends during my relatively short time in Vancouver was much appreciated.
The Bhutto assassination and the ongoing instability in Pakistan provides one of those situations where we see history unfurling hour by hour in front of us. At one level, it sharpens one’s appreciation for how one action or one individual in one situation can alter outcomes. At another, it reminds one of how dynamic history is, in broad sweeps.
Inheriting the world and beginning to understand it is one thing – having the imagination to anticipate the ways in which whole societies and groups of nations will evolve and interact is quite another.
When I saw a camera markedly superior to the one I have been using for the last two years on sale for about $150, including a 2GB memory card, it seemed that the time to upgrade had arrived. I was drawn to the Canon Powershot A570 mostly because of the image stabilization, which allows sharper photos in lower light. It is also nice that it has ISO ratings going up to 1600 – compared with 400 on my old A510. It remains to be seen how the graininess of the two cameras compares at fast speeds. The controls on the new camera are nearly the same as the old, though it will take a while for them to become as utterly intuitive as the A510 was after its years of valued service.
What surprised me most about the A570 is how pleasantly quick it is. The time lag from pressing the shutter to taking a photo is much shorter. All sorts of other camera operations are faster too; transferring photos to my computer is about three times faster. The Digic III processor is probably responsible for most of that. As you can see from the two linked images, the A570 also seems to blow out highlights less than the A510. Those frequent white patches were one of the most substantial failings of a camera that is excellent overall.
The old camera remains perfectly serviceable. Virtually every picture posted on this blog has been taken with it. It will probably be available at low cost to a friend who will use it well.
[1 January 2008] The camera has passed to Emily Horn. May she use it well.
Some people are predicting that 2008 will be the year when the internet slows down. The cause is expected to be massive amounts of video traffic, partially driven by social networking sites. All those voice-over-internet phone calls will naturally add to the flow of packets that need to be routed around the world.
All this makes me wonder whether it might be better to allow a bit more discrimination in routing. Sending and receiving video is fun, but rarely essential. Having the more prosaic uses of the internet suffer unduly because of such things seems improper. I could probably surf text all day using the bandwidth required to watch a few minutes of television online.
I don’t really know enough about internet architecture to be able to say whether such filtering could be accomplished, whether it would be cheated very easily, or whether it would cause additional problems. That said, you can certainly expect such questions to get asked more often if predictions of slowly loading websites and jerky video calls prove correct.
This afternoon, Emily and I were looking through photo albums from when I was a young child. One of many thoughts that occurred to me during the course of flipping through photos nearly a quarter-century old is the enduring quality of such media. Digital photography is a lot cheaper and more convenient, but it is also likely to be more ephemeral. Who has confidence that their digital photos will endure for twenty or thirty years? Who has the backups, and on media with that kind of lifespan? Neither burned CDs nor hard drives can really be counted upon for such a duration.
People may age may be the last generation to commonly have baby photos to look at in old age. Someone should offer a service where digital files are pressed onto bronze in file formats that will still be readable decades or centuries hence.
Today marked the second time in three days when I have made the snowy trek up Grouse Mountain with my father. Today’s venture benefitted from three excellent additions: the presence of my friend Jonathan and post-hike beer and nachos. Vancouverites are lucky to have the option of spending an hour rapidly gaining altitude by hand and foot, only to walk into a nice restaurant and begin feasting on a considerable heap of cheese-chip-vegetable synergy.
Residents of Vancouver should consider making the climb during the next few days. You need to walk past the signs advertising that the trail is closed and then eastward around the fence. I wouldn’t recommend doing it alone or after dark, but it is quite safe and very beautiful in the snow.
Today, I did two things that are impossible in Ottawa in December: climbed a 1200m mountain and got rained on quite a bit. These activities are to be followed up by Chinese food and a Commercial Drive party. When one gets immersed in Vancouver, one must try to become thoroughly marinated before departing.
