Elf Tracks

2008 at the Vancouver Symphony Orchestra

2009-01-02T12:46:00.000-08:00

November 29, 2008
Orpheum Theatre, Vancouver, BC
Conductor: Carlos Miguel Prieto

Verdi I vespri siciliani: overture
Awesome piece. If you were def you could still feel the music's energy and passion by virtue of Carlos' conducting!

Corey Cerovsek plays Sibelius Violin Concerto in D minor, Op. 47
Played with amazing skill and passion! Corey took time to chat with the audience about growing up here in Vancouver and the history of the Orpheum Theatre. A woman sitting next to me mentioned that she'd watched Corey perform throughout his career and that his family had been very encouraging from the start.

Bartok Concerto for Orchestra
Strange piece. Lots of great melodies that get prematurely truncated to explore other ideas then it ends. Did Bartok have ADHD?

October 25th, 2008
Orpheum Theatre, Vancouver, BC
Conductor: Pinchas Zukerman

Alexina Louie Infinite Sky with Birds
Pinchas Zukerman plays Mozart, Concerto for Violin and Orchestra No. 3 in G Major
Tchaikovsky Symphony No. 5 in E minor

October 4th, 6th, 2008
Orpheum Theatre, Vancouver, BC
Conductor: Bramwell Tovey

This was my first symphony experience and turned out to be a great introduction. Since this concert I've been a regular at the VSO.

Ryan The Linearity of Light
Modern, interesting, but not (currently) my cup of tea.

Tchaikovsky Violin Concerto in D Major
Hilary Hahn played this amazingly. I enjoyed this so much I bought another ticket to see the Monday performance as well. This has since become my favorite piece and a great version can be found here.

Berlioz Symphonie fantastique
It really is fantastic!

Tennis Notes

2008-01-19T23:51:00.001-08:00

Notes from recent tennis lessons

Serve

Toss should be single fluid motion
Align the toss with your body (don't toss wide or body can't get behind the serve)
Upon tossing keep tossing arm up pointing at ball, eyes on ball, keeping your head up
Hit 'over' the ball to get it to drop
Pronate to get more speed
Tuck left arm in holding stomach to aid balance
Don't over rotate, should land on left foot

Forehand

One preparation (rotate body and ready racket once in a single motion)
Elbows up, moving to ball (get 'around' the ball, right foot behind the ball)
Stop
Follow ball in with left hand (can you tell what brand of ball it is?)
Swing. Left arm kicks back and catches racket
Shorter contact with ball (brush up the ball), fast racket head speed
Front foot moves heal to toe as you step into the swing

Backhand

One preparation again but pinching the racket with your left pulling the racket up to your shoulder, elbows raised, racket grip turns in right hand until knuckles line up with racket frame.
Move to ball (small adjustments)
Stop
Swing low to high: drop the leading shoulder, extend your arm through the swing making contact in front (don't hit too late)
As right arm swings, extend left arm backward
Leading foot pointed towards target (weight moves back to front)

T60 and Eclipse

2007-01-26T22:59:00.000-08:00

The Password Manager captures the Ctrl+Shit+G key sequence on the IBM T60. Unfortunately this key sequence is the default command sequence for locating References within Eclipse. To disable Password Manager from intercepting this key sequence do the following:

Open the Client Security Solution from the start menu. Press the Manage logon passwords button. (swipe your finger) Then you'll find yourself in the Password Manager. Here click on Advanced. (swipe finger again!) Select keyboard settings and disable the default (Ctrl+Shift+G) keyboard binding.

access to native programs

2007-01-03T12:15:00.000-08:00

To get access to platform programs and associated icons:

Program.findProgram(extension).getImageData()

Beautiful Banff and Lake Louise

2006-11-11T11:50:00.000-08:00

I attended the CSCW 2006 conference in Banff (Alberta) last week. The conference was excellent. I had a chance to present Mylar and got a lot of excellent feedback. I was able to take a quick trip up to Lake Louise and (of course) brought my camera along. The lake itself is a beautiful emerald colour and is nestled among some magnificent mountains!

Assignment 1

2006-10-22T21:32:00.000-07:00

time out
[1/125th @ f8 (25mm)]

This weekend I set out to complete the first assignment of my photography course. This assignment has three sections: Difficult Scenes, Low Light, and Details. Three images are to be submitted for each category.

The suggested 'Difficult Scenes' include scenes with lower or higher than average lighting, light object on dark scene, dark object on light scene, back lit object. I found this portion of the assignment tricky because I usually don't go -looking- for these sorts of scenes. The picture above will be in my submission for this section since it meets the criteria of being a bright scene and the subject is backlit.

The heart of this image is the pattern/contrast of the stairs leading up to and the woman whose gesture completes image. The lens flare effectively gives depth to the image leading the eye from the high contrast skyline back to the subject (making a 'Z' with the stairs). The middle ground may be a bit busy and detract from the overall story of this image, though I like the dome. What do you think?

You can see from the metadata that this image has been cropped. It looks more like it was shot at 50mm rather than 25mm. Also, f8 gave me far too much depth of field so a little Gaussian blur was applied to the middle/background to emphasise the foreground/subject. Since contrast in this image reveals luminance, I punctuated this by conversion to black and white. See the original image here.

Here are some other back lit images taken for this assignment that probably won't make the final cut (but are a close second):

high voltage

gnarly

2006-10-15T15:09:00.000-07:00

I took this shot while visiting family in Campbell River on Vancouver Island.
- Line/texture of the rocks
- Boat masts and their reflection in the water

> iso 400 1/60s f11

2006-08-20T21:39:00.000-07:00

This is my first document (and blog post) published using Google's new online word processor writely.

2006-08-01T21:41:00.000-07:00

Mr. Fowler explains the benefits of Customer Affinity - "the interest and closeness that the developers have in the business problem that the software is addressing, and in the people who live in that business world"

See also Pleasing The Customer

2006-07-29T10:24:00.000-07:00

Here are some good online resources for working with menus, actions, global actions, retargetable actions etc in Eclipse:

Eclipse FAQs related to Actions Commands and Activities

In particular: here and here

Related Eclipse Articles:

Creating an Eclipse View

Contributing Actions to the Eclipse Workbench

2006-05-04T22:11:00.000-07:00

Here is a great post about how negativity is contagious.

2006-04-01T13:55:00.000-08:00

If you are getting connection 404 errors when trying to listing to internet radio stations the problem may be that your player isn't set up to handle the title information being sent. Here is the solution (enable title streaming) for xmms on linux.

2006-02-16T17:07:00.000-08:00

Code to load files within a plugin folder (Eclipse)

private File getLocalFile(String pluginRelativePath) {
try {
URL installURL = MyPlugin.getDefault().getBundle().getEntry(pluginRelativePath);
URL localURL = FileLocator.toFileURL(installURL);
return new File(localURL.getFile());
} catch (IOException e) {
return null;
}
}

2006-02-04T10:05:00.000-08:00

Some lessons (re)learned this week on the job.

Clean as you Code (Hoover) - Extract strings as CONSTANTS (using Hungarian Notation), rename variable names if unclear, pull out functions in the interest of succinctness and eliminate duplicate code (duplicate code can lead to unexpected behaviour and debugging nightmares). Perform these and other 'house cleaning' activities continuously.

Safety First - If you can't test it, you're walking the high-wire without a safety net. Go to great lengths (and time) to make code testable.

Refactor incrementally - When refactoring, divide the code into manageable chunks split at borders of functionality. Test after each change is complete - remember, Safety First.

Change completely - As you make changes to the code, make the change thoroughly and completely. Leaving legacy/extraneous methods and comments behind just adds to later confusion when you or others must debug/understand the code - be a Hoover.

2006

2006-01-04T21:03:00.000-08:00

2006 is here. Unfortunately for some, like Francis here, the year may not hold much promise. Francis is a street person I came across the other night on Broadway. He was sitting up against a bright white neon sign for warmth. The sign contained the brand names of high fashion beauty products. I traded him a meal at Dairy Queen for his portrait.

As for myself, I've just started work as a Science Researcher at UBC, so 2006 has started well.

2005-10-26T10:40:00.000-07:00

"But like it or not, most of our understanding of most of
the world is comparatively very close to the level of a sixyear-
old’s knowledge of trees: intuitive, emotional, or
practical rather than rigorous and informed."

- Mike Johnston The Empirical Photographer

2005-10-14T09:47:00.000-07:00

Intelligent Reaction

Here Adam Bosworth (VP Engineering at Google) discusses “Intelligent Reaction” – Reacting to client demands rather than “Intelligent Design” where engineers tell the customers what they will want.

race to the finish

2005-10-02T08:11:00.000-07:00

The UBC Day of the Longboat is underway. Rachel participated and her team placed very well. Unfortunately they were disqualified because they didn't have enough females on their team. :(

apple cobblestone

2005-09-24T14:53:00.000-07:00

Posted a few of my favorite photos taken on our honeymoon. I love the cobblestone streets throughout Portugal. The country is very beautiful and I look forward to returning some day soon.

Meaning

2005-09-23T23:39:00.000-07:00

Meaning, Ontology, Semantics, Tags, Labels....Great work.,

2005-09-22T11:25:00.000-07:00

Wireless networking on Linux. Notes to self...

iwconfig is THE program to use

"/sbin/iwpriv ath0 mode 2" will drop the DWL-G520 card down to 802.11b
I put this in the startup portion of /etc/init.d/networking on my Ubuntu machine. If somebody knows where this SHOULD go pleas post a comment. Thanks.

2005-09-14T12:45:00.000-07:00

Rachel and I were married on July 30, 2005! The wedding was beautiful and went without incident. Some photos can be found online here. When I get a moment I will be posting the photos we took on our honeymoon in Portugal!

2005-03-22T18:36:00.000-08:00

Capacitance Electronic Discs - they DO exist!

Many times in discussions about video technology I've described a video system that we had when I was a kid. Whenever I'd describe the system people would always say, "That is an old laser disk technology." I was starting to doubt myself when today I had the same conversation with my roommate and I figured it was time to put this debate to rest. So HERE it is, exhibit 'A'. The technology - Capacitance Electronic Disc. Our family had an RCA VideoDisk system that played these record sized disks (which in this model were housed within a large cartridge). The short story is that the system basically worked like a record player...but could play audio and video.

So there you have it. It wasn't some childhood Star Trek induced fantasy, they really exist(ed).

2005-01-23T17:29:00.000-08:00

Frank Spillers, a usability consultant, explains Progressive Disclosure.

2005-01-20T00:09:00.000-08:00

My three year old niece Keely playing beautiful music. :)

2005-01-15T18:21:00.000-08:00

Here is a virtual desktop manager for Windows that works and is GPLed.

2004-12-02T22:23:00.000-08:00

Some random thoughts for the day...

- Been listening to some "Deep House" music straight from New York

- If you want to purchase music online, iTunes is available in Canada now.

- Sold my Celica to Derry. It wasn't doing much other than taking up space in our parking spot in Van so...

- Rachel and I are heading to Campbell River for Christmas after exams. We expect to get a lot of wedding planning done. Maybe we'll have time to add some content to our wedding website.

- Head on into the SUB at UVic where 5 bucks gets you a good sized bucket of Dhal and a warm pita - mm mm good!

Now back to your regularly scheduled programming....

2004-10-25T11:07:00.000-07:00

Rachel was over this weekend and we went out for a big family (her side) brunch. The night before we went out for Greek food and there was a belly dancer. Not sure I'm totally cool with the idea of some half naked lady, in the prime of her life, jiggling her bounty in my face while I suck back a chicken souvlaki, but what the hey. After brunch on Sunday Rachel's cousin Gord gave us the grand tour of the New VI, the local television station here in Victoria. After seeing how a commercial is produced it gets me thinking that I would like to do creative work like that myself - a far cry from computer science, although computers are used at every stage of the process. :)

loud

2004-10-24T17:25:00.000-07:00

Me holding headphones over ears on the bus head'n to Penticton this past summer.

Lost in Transit

2004-10-17T22:05:00.000-07:00

On the flight back from CASCON there was a business traveller sitting next to me that couldn't figure out how to open his dinner tray. He tried pressing the oval shape at the top center of the tray (See picture). He tried sliding the oval shaped mechanism from left to right - to no avail. He then figured that the oval was not in fact the mechanism for opening his tray. He proceeded to pull lightly on the tray itself placing his large fingers in the crack between the phone consol and the tray. Try what he may; he was unable to open the dinner tray on this aircraft, an Air Canada Airbus.

After watching what results of poorly designed interfaces unfold right before me, I offered my help by reaching over and opening the tray. He was quite happy and perhaps embarrassed to see the tray open. That he would have such difficulty with this variation of a device heâ??d used successfully so many times before was a surprise to him. Amid laughter he explained that he spends up to 2 weeks a month flying around the world giving seminars to large corporations. Certainly a well traveled man and of above average intelligence, yet he was unable to open the dinner tray in front of him.

Now have another look at the picture above. Can you immediately determine the action required to open the dinner tray? Whenever a situation arises where I'm about to use a device I've never tried before, I like to play a little mind game with myself first. The game is very simple and consists of only two steps: first, upon discovery of a new device, look at the device and make a conscious decision as the action required to 'make it work'; second, in one motion, perform that action and that action only. If it works as expected, I win, otherwise I loose and then I go on to discover how it works and why I was mislead.

Prior to the gentleman sitting down and struggling with his tray, I had played my little usability game and after some consideration, did in fact win by GUESSING the correct action. I am finding that my score has been pretty high of late and I can attribute it mostly to making the correct guess about the mechanics of the device. Once I've formed a hypothesis about how the device works mechanically, I then make a judgement of the communication put forward by the interface. In the case of the tray, I observed the oval piece at the top of the tray and due to its position more than anything, assumed it to be the mechanism by which the device would open. Unfortunately the oval did not afford a SINGLE action such as, pushing in like a button, sliding right, or sliding left, as my friend immediately discovered. In my case I guessed that if this was indeed the mechanism for opening the tray that the simplest mechanism would be a vertical spring loaded latch that would hold the tray in place and that one would have to pull that latch down to release the tray. This is what I did and it turns out I was correct, but what cognitive gymnastics to simply release my dinner tray!

Now, had the lighting been stronger in the aircraft, both my new friend and I might have seen the engraving of a small arrow pointing down in the centre of the oval. I wonder how this additional information would have affected his ability to operate the device? Would he still have tried pressing the centre of the oval as though it were a button? Why was this seasoned traveller mislead into trying every possible way of opening the tray except the 'correct' one? Feel free to comment below.

PNE Vancouver

2004-10-16T11:41:00.000-07:00

PNE Vancouver

We spent an evening at the PNE in Vancouver this past summer. Here is Rachel on the swing at the PNE.

CN Tower

2004-10-15T09:54:00.000-07:00

CN Tower

Ian took Rob Lintern and I on a quick tour of down town TO.

The Hilton - CASCON 2004

2004-10-15T09:27:00.000-07:00

CASCON-HILTON

The Hilton hotel where we stayed during CASCON. This photo looks almost like a computer generated image, but it isn't. I took this photo at sunrise.

2004-10-08T16:51:00.000-07:00

I just got back from CASCON 2004 in Toronto. CASCON is a conference put on by IBM every year. I was manning the GILD booth. Since I spent the week in Toronto, I'm way behind in most of my work so this weekend is going to be a catch up weekend. I'll try to write more later about my trip and maybe even get some photos posted.

Not 20 minutes into my demos at CASCON, the media requested an interview. Here is a link to an article on itbusiness.ca where I'm quoted.

2004-08-28T10:40:00.000-07:00

Walter Gage Toastmasters

The shining happy people of Walter Gage Toastmasters, UBC. I joined up this summer and have enjoyed the experience so far. I hope to be able to find a Toastmasters club at UVic as I'll be moving back there to finish my masters.

2004-08-14T11:08:00.000-07:00

Holly and Kieran's Wedding

Rachel and I were honored to be guests at Holly and Kieran's wedding. It was a beautiful event with the ceremony hosted in the hills of Naramada (near Penticton). It overlooked the orchards down to the lake. The ceremony wasn't long which turned out to be a good thing since the temperature was in the thirties. At the reception, the entertainment provided by the father of the bride and his two brothers was outstanding and the food was excellent. Rachel and I really enjoyed ourselves.

2004-08-06T14:26:00.000-07:00

Saw Matthew Good last night at the Commodore Ballroom. It was a great show of course. Often when I go to these big name concerts I look forward to the opening 'up and coming' act. Last nights opening act was Wil from Calgary. I must say this two man act was something to see and hear. The energy, honesty, and raw talent was awesome. Wil reminds me of the Canadian equivalent of Paddey Casey.

2004-07-26T17:39:00.000-07:00

Molson Indy Vancouver 2004

It was loud. Alex and I went on Saturday and got great seats on the grassy hills along Quebec street. Gained new respect for the Champ Car drivers. Hard to believe how fast they maneuver that course.

2004-07-20T10:17:00.000-07:00

I tried to user Blogger's fancy Hello application to post a photo but the image doesn't appear. This is probably due to some rule on my apache server related to only allowing local referrals. If you have an idea about this, let me know. :)

2004-07-08T11:17:00.000-07:00

Gave my first speech at Toast Masters last night. Went okay but I find that I was much more nervous than when giving impromptu 'table topic' speeches. This is probably because I know the expectations are a little higher. But this one was only an 'Ice Breaker' speech. My reviews were pretty good considering I don't feel like I did very well. It was mentioned that I clasp my hands too much and that maybe I should keep my hands at the sides. I expect to do better on the next one.