Random Brain Dump

I don’t watch Nova religiously anymore, so it’s nice to find that some episodes are now available on the web.

The coming episode (airing 1/3) is an investigation of a mummy (pictured here) in a museum in Niagara Falls, whether it could be the remains of an ancient Egyptian king. Sounds awefully intriguing…

I was testing my new lens the other night by taking random shots with low light conditions. I took this quick shot of Allison without flashing. The only light source was our table lamp. Considering that I had to bump the ISO up till 1600, the noise level is remarkably low. This random shot turned out to be one of my favorite shots of Allison. I just love her composure and in general how this shot turned out.

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This past Friday, the preschoolers put on a holiday show by singing a slew of christmas songs. Well, I may be biased but it has got to be the cutest show I ever seen. Katelyn loves singing, but we were afraid that an audience might make her shy so Suzanne encouraged Katelyn to sing the songs out loud. Turns out that wouldn’t be a problem.

When we arrived at the classroom, the children were sitting and preparing for the program. We waved at Katelyn and she excitedly waved back at us. She wore her Santa’s Helper dress Suzanne recently got for her. I was relieved to see Katelyn seemed happy, knowing that at least she wasn’t too uncomfortable to perform. The parents filled in with each ready with a camera or camcorder. The cameras flashed the children almost non-stop— the parents turned paparazzi! I have to admit that I probably was the one who took the most shots but I minimized the flashes as not to startle them during their performance. (checkout the December monthly gallery for some of pics).

The program began and Katelyn started singing on top of her lungs. Actually, she yelled out the lyrics. Very quickly, the entire thing became a shouting match between the kids trying to outdo each other. Suzanne & I just looked at each other surprised & amused. Not exactly the type of renditition we encouraged her, but it was so funny the way the Katelyn strains her neck and screams out each song. We didn’t mean to ask her to yell out the songs. But Katelyn sang/yelled every word of very songs, not missing a single beat. She was so cute, all of the kids were.

The singing lasted a good 20 minutes. My favorite was when they sang It Must Be Santa. After the singing, Santa came for a visit and all the kids got to sit in his lap. When Santa asked what she wants for Christmas, Katelyn blurted out: “I want walkie-talkies!” Well, that was a different wish for sure. 🙂 I had no idea where she got the idea of wanting a pair of walkie-talkies.

Well, we certainly enjoyed Katelyn’s first ever performance. She was wonderful, demonstrated that she can follow instructions, memorize lyrics, work as part of a group and perform in front of a crowd. She definitely made me a very proud Daddy that day. And I’m already looking forward to her performances in her coming school years. Chalk this up as one of those pleasures of being a dad!

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Weather getting colder, malls getting crowdier, workplace getting quieter, my spending increasing… must be that time of the year. Merry xmas everybody! 🙂

We promised the kids photos with Santa, so Katelyn was very excited all weekend long. The line was rather long, but we managed to get to the mall early so we didn’t have to wait very long. I tried to coax Allison into it by giving her a view of Santa and told her of the goodies she’s going get from Santa. This santa looks pretty authentic, real white beard & everything. When it was our turn, Katelyn ran straight up to Santa’s lap. On the other hand, Allison just bursted into tears and screamed when I tried to put her in Santa’s lap. Oh well, next year for Allison I guess…

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Here’s a video clip of a DUI stop between a demanding officer and a very talented drunk. It’s hilarious!

Update 9/13: A co-worker informed me that this is from Comedy Central’s Reno 911.

Wikipedia is one of the most successful social experiment on the web. It is a wiki-based encyclopedia that is totally open. Any visitors can contribute by posting or editing articles. This collaborative effort results in a collective brain dump of the web community. It’s free, dynamic, and supports many languages. And it thrived. It is surprising to many including yours truly, how successful it has became since it is recently launched several years ago. It goes to show the spirit of the community.

I personally find the site extremely useful. With unceasing edits from the community, the promise is that not only content is free but it’s also more up-to-date than traditional encyclopedias. I certainly find this to be true when looking up technical stuffs. Type in AJAX and it spews out a list of all the entries including Ajax the cleanser and Ajax the new way for web development.

I had wondered how expansive is Wikipedia. I don’t use it enough to get a good feel for that. I suppose folks who do research for a living can attest to whether it’s comprehensive. Personally though I am impressed with it.
The first time I really use Wikipedia for real research was when I was reading Vietnamese history. I wanted to know more about several Vietnamese generals and a poet that I came across in my reading. I wasn’t surprised that Google fails to turn up much links to these obscure names. I tried Wikipedia and voila, there were several write-ups on these ancient Vietnamese military figures. Information not available anywhere else. It blew me away…

As with any open project, one wonders about its quality. Since anyone can edit, one has to be concern about the accuracy of the posts. Without traditional editors, it’s all too easy to post inaccurate information.

In the case of John Seigenthaler (pictured), the issue becomes false information. Seigenthaler is a journalist and served in JFK’s presidential cabinet in the ‘60s. The 78 year old man wrote an article expressing his outrage when he discovered an article about him on Wikipedia suggesting that he was involved with the assasination of JFK. 

It’s “internet character assasination”, according to Seigenthaler. When he tried to track down the anonymous author, he was told by Wikipedia’s founder that it’s virtually an impossible feat thanks to federal laws that protect online companies. The article since removed and Wikipedia now requires registration for posting new articles (no registration required for edits of existing articles however).

Seigenthaler described Wikipedia as flawed and irresponsible. The incident represents more than just vandalism. It illustrates the problem with online information. The take-away lesson is that one needs take care when evaluating information posted online regardless of the source. I am sure that there’re other mi-sinformation incidents like this on Wikipedia. Hopefully, they’re exceptional.

That may not mean much to victims like Seigenthaler, but it illustrates that dynamism of Wikipedia; it is self-correcting, however belated. Evil deeds like this one will be corrected by the good deeds of the community. In the end, netizens have to bank on the goodness of the community, that the good will triumph over the vicious.

I been using my camera for about a year now and now I shopping for new lenses. There are just so many lens on the market, each is designed with compromises based on laws of optical physics. It’s not an easy task shopping for the best buy. I discovered the forums on dpreview.com make me even less decisive; these opinionated folks just go back and forth endlessly.

I found this a Canon EOS FAQ to be extremely helpful. It’s just non-nonsense, comprehensive and up-to-date. It’s a beginer’s FAQ so it’s easy read too.