.: ShaolinTiger - Kung-Fu Geekery :.

Now this is something that really irks me...

I first encountered it when I joined some Malaysian photography forums a couple of years back, there was a lot of "Wow nice pics, what camera did you use?!" - usually stated with horrible grammar and spelling.

I was a member of a bunch of more International forums too and noticed that I didn't really see that so much, I got more involved in Flickr then and hardly ever saw it there - perhaps because the EXIF info is more easily available (EXIF show what settings and camera were used).

But then there are plugins for Firefox that can show you EXIF in pictures too (Opanda, FxIF, EXIF Viewer) if you really want to know what was used to take the picture, I think it's more important for people to check the settings rather than the camera used.

But why do they care what lens and camera was used? How does it matter? If it's more expensive, or a top-end camera does that mean I have less skill in taking a nice picture?

You don't meet a published author and say "Hey I read your book, it was really good - what typewriter did you use?"

Wouldn't that be considered a big insult?

It's just a tool that achieves an end result, it's not what makes the picture. Given a better camera makes it EASIER to take pictures in certain situations and certainly makes changing settings and start-up faster..but it doesn't effect the exposure, composition, concept or understanding of light displayed by the photographer.

The sensor in a low end dSLR and a high end is often the same, the difference is the build quality of the body, the external buttons (high end cameras have a LOT more buttons) and the speed of processing/taking pictures (faster processor and bigger buffer).

The image quality (known as IQ) is about the same, the photographer is making the difference.

Lenses make more of a difference, but at web size (500-800) pixels a shot with a low-end kit lens (like the Nikon or Canon 18-55) and a high end f/2.8 lens at mid range aperture (f/5.6-8) are indistinguishable.

So really it doesn't matter either, and that is why it irks me.

It's one of the reasons why I stayed on Flickr more than the local forums, and then got tired of both and started Shutter Asia - we totally avoid any gearheads if possible (people who think buying the latest most expensive gear will give you awesome pictures and ALWAYS ask "Wow nice bokeh, what lens did you use?") and we avoid any hero worshiping of 'senior' or 'sifu' photographers that take crappy pics but have expensive gear.

There's an endemic in the photography scene in Malaysia at the moment, all you need to do to get praised is:

1) Take a picture of a pretty girl (doesn't have to be that pretty)
2) Use a long lens with a wide aperture and get creamy bokeh (85mm f/1.8, 135mm f2/0, 70-200mm f/2.8)

People will worship you like you're a God. You can have a crappy exposure, blown highlights, green whitebalance, bad composition (chopped limbs) but as long as you have the girl and the bokeh you are super kau pro photographer.

All you need to do is browse some of the famous photographers on Flickr and see they are using 3.2 megapixel compact cameras....yeah they can't blow up their pics to 40"x30" prints - but they still are making superb images.

Pick any brand, any compact camera and you'll find superb images.

So please don't insult people by asking what camera or lens they use, just appreciate their pics, give some feedback and constructive criticism if possible. The picture they took is pretty much possible with any camera and lens, it's their skill and vision that made the image - not the camera.

Never forget that.

Taxi drivers in Malaysia get a lot of bad press for not using their meters, not taking people if the distance is too short or too long, charging more if it's raining, charging more if there's a traffic jam or just plain refusing to take people because they don't feel like going where you want to go.

For me if a taxi is for hire, you should get in - state your destination and off you go.

Anyway have you noticed the worst drivers on the road are also taxi drivers? Cut queues, change lanes recklessly? No signal, no indication of intent? They drive too fast or too slow...of course there are some good taxi drivers, but on the whole?

I managed to avoid them mostly with their crazy antics, but this time I didn't, I was coming out of 1-Utama carpark (new wing) onto the 3-lane section that goes back to the main road.

My lane was empty, let's call it lane one - I double checked, no cars coming so of course I pulled out onto the lane..

Well I managed to pull out half way..when a taxi in the second lane decided to cut into the first lane without any signal, very suddenly..so of course I was half way out there's nothing I can do, he just ploughed straight into the front corner of my car and didn't stop, so he dragged the entire side of his car along my bumper..

He managed to completely crush the side light (thankfully not the headlight) and due to good design, the bumper absorbed the impact and the bracket popped (so no real dent) there's one very deep scratch though.

Care is in the workshop now, it was time for service anyway...service is done but it'll take another 2 days to repair and respray the bumper *sigh*.

Plus about 3-400 bucks to fix (I'll fix the part that got busted at Plaza Damas too) + normal service.

Shit happens! Just beware of the taxis.

Learn to park dumbfuck.

I mean SORRY - but is it really that hard to park in between the bright yellow lines? When your car is as big as a fucking matchbox.

I can kind of understand parking like this if it's 3am and there's no one in the car park and you can take up three spaces because no one would give a shit..

But it wasn't - it was in the middle of office hours when there was a major shortage of parking spaces.

Ok so to continue my particularly bad week....

My chair breaks, my car gets damaged and then my computer starts playing up....I didn't even have the mood to tidy up the apartment which is starting to resemble some kind of paper recycling plant/rubbish dump.

Anyway, I went over to Plaza Damas to get some pancakes at Paddington's (a little disappointing) and I was on my way out, the machine to validate my parking ticket was broken, so I went to find another, drove around and around, and decided to go up to look.

As I was peering down the various nooks and crannies to attempt to locate the evasive machine...I went up a ramp without looking properly. I didn't realise it was FUCKED and it was going to crush part of my car.

Suffice to say I heard a noise that made me hope it wasn't bad....but accept the fact there was some damage.

Little did I know the front spoiler would be crushed..

Yeah it doesn't look that bad, but trust me...it's just what I REALLY don't need right now.

Hopefully my new chair will arrive, push me into an energetic fit of cleaning, my computer will work fine...after I replace it's new power supply (bought a 650W Coolermaster REAL POWER PRO from Digital Mall at the weekend)...and everything will be hunky dory for the end of the year.

Will post about that later when I get it in.

I've written about this before some time back, it's happening less frequently I have to admit..but it still happens.

Remember “Yue May Not Mail Me Anymore”, well another occurence happened today. Even worse they had my real e-mail address as I have dealt with the agency before.

The agency incidentally who likes to poach jobs from other people by undercutting, then getting inexperienced staff to do the work - professionalism? Appropriate? I'll leave that up to you.

Anyway I've been to some events by this company, and they were decent..unfortunately their standards seem to have declined and whoever they have approaching bloggers now is a complete fucking tool.

Picture this:

Subject: Urgent. Please Get Back to me

Content:

Hey,

I'm from RetardedAgency and we will be having an event soon. Could you please help us feature this event on your Blog. Hope it isn't too much hassle. Would really appreciate it. Please contact Dumb Fuck (03) 2xx3 2xx7 for further information. Or you can just reply my email. Thanks a blast. Hope you response asap.

_______________________________________

Etc etc standard press release about the event.

The funny thing? I tried to reply to her to tell her what a dimwit she was....as it was so urgent, and it BOUNCED - can you beat that!

This is an automatically generated Delivery Status Notification

Delivery to the following recipient failed permanently:

Stupid.Dickface@my.retarderdagency.com

Technical details of permanent failure:
PERM_FAILURE: SMTP Error (state 13): 550 5.1.1 is not a valid mailbox

Anyway back to the original mail, do you notice the lack of name, lack of introduction, lack of personalisation?

Does it smell like spam to you? Sure does to me.

Can you miss the retarded English?

Thanks a blast. Hope you response asap.

Darling that should be thanks a bunch and hope you respond ASAP.

And the tone of the e-mail, do I look like a push web site for your shitty press releases? There's this thing called an ADVERTORIAL ok, if you want your shitty event on my site you can PAY like everyone else.

Or if it's interesting, I'll write about it anyway for free.

If not you can fuck off to http://www.prweb.com and publish your shit there.

I've always been anti-valentine's day, I've even been in the papers for my views on this.

It seems trendy in the last 1-2 years to go against Valentine's day, it seems anti-commercialism is finally hitting the mainstream.

What's the point really? Overpriced flowers? Overpriced dinners?

As I mentioned before, I learnt a very good lesson about 20 years ago from my lovely mother, I bought her some tulips on mother's day as is customary.

She scolded me upside down..

The gist of her message was why...why did you buy these flowers today when they are triple the normal price? What does today mean? Why do you need to buy these flowers today? Can you not show your appreciation to me on any day? Or every day? Because the flowers are triple price, that means on other days you could buy me flowers 3 times rather than 1, and they would be unexpected, so more appreciated.

She advised me if I wanted to do something, make her a card, or make something, that would show I really put some effort and not just dropped some money, which anyone can do. And it doesn't support the commercial bastards who are intent on emptying our pockets.

Basically she said the day is bullshit, and the same goes for Valentine's day, appreciate your partner every day.

Not just when the man wants you to so he can grab your money. Buy your girlfriend flowers whenever you see some nice ones, surprise her with a nice dinner. Celebrate your anniversary, because that is a meaningful day.

Don't celebrate Valentine's day, Father's Day, Mother's Day or whatever other spend-your-money Day they come up.

And to those singles who say Valentine's day makes you feel more single, you are a bunch of wet, spineless, no brained fuckers too.

Valentine's day has never made me feel anything, either way...because it's a meaningless day created to make money.

Don't support Valentine's day.

Be my Anti-Valentine.

Images from VD.

You can see what I wrote about Valentine's day 2 years ago:

Happy Valentines Day..Or not..

And other people who agree:

my perfect valentine
364 days but not Valentine's Day
The Mathematics of Valentines

Sometimes companies in Malaysia really make me wonder, they make me wonder how they survive..

They make me wonder how consumers can accept them, then I remember ok la, it's Malaysia, there is no concept of customer service or customer satisfaction here.

Or consumer rights (statutory rights) or anything similar, not that's enforced anyway.

So people get screwed, and sadly the majority of the time they don't do anything about it.

In a very Malaysian way, they just bitch about it, or whine at the mamak to their friends, but they don't write a letter or complain or try and make a difference.

The example I have today is Taxis.

Now Malaysian Taxis already have a very bad reputation for not using the meter and ripping people off when it's raining/jammed/late or for other random reasons not even picking up passengers (too near/wrong race/too far/don't know how to go etc).

I've never loved Malaysian cabs due to the amount of times I've had to give directions for every freaking turn to the taxi driver.

HELLO IT'S YOUR JOB TO KNOW WHERE EVERYWHERE IS, AT LEAST ROUGHLY, IF NOT BUY A FUCKING ROAD MAP AND LEARN TO USE IT.

Like the other day I hailed a cab...he didn't even know how to get out of the area we were in to the highway...and had never heard of the area I wanted to go to..

So rather than try to hail a cab and get ripped off I got some numbers of cab companies and called them..hoping for something a little better.

The first 2 days was ok..apart from the fact the taxi drivers were about 120 years old and drove at 40-60km/h all the way, frustrating to say the least.

And the first one had no freaking idea how to go anywhere..

Today was even worse, quality customer service at it's worst.

Timeline:

10:27am - I call a cab from Sunlight Taxis, they take my details as usual.
10:27am-11.03am - I wait and wait and wait
11:04am - Sunlight Taxis calls me, mumbles something and hangs up. I assume they mean the taxi is here, so I go outside..
11:15am - After a reasonable 10 minutes, I work out there is no Taxi and one is not coming
11:16am - I call Sunlight back and ask them where's my Taxi, I'm informed that they had called me and told me "No Taxi"..I was somewhat dumbfounded. Sunlight asked me "If I wanted to try again". I asked "Try what exactly?, I just want a Taxi"..."Ok ok, I broadcast again" and hangs up.
11:31am - Sunlight calls and tells me a Taxi will arrive in 10-15 minutes.
12:06pm - The Taxi arrives and he knows the way, w00t.

Got to where I wanted to go about 12:40pm...a full 2+ hours after I first called the taxi.

I was really dumbfounded when they told me "No Taxi"...excuse me, but aren't you a Taxi company, if I call you...you get me a Taxi goddamnit.

I liken it to going to McDonalds, one that is open and advertising food for sale..Going in and ordering a Big Mac meal, the staff take my order and disappear to 'get my food'. Then the staff comes back in 15 minutes and tells me "Sorry, no food".

You'd be in a rage right?

Stomp on some babies and shit, yeah me too.

Sunlight sucks.

Relying on cabs sucks too, I want my car back (more about that later!).

I hate that shitty snap.com preview shite.

Take it off your sites you assholes.

IF I WANT TO SEE THE SITE I WILL CLICK ON THE LINK.

I don't want to pop up in my face when I run my cursor over some anchor text so I can see the link location in my status bar.

It disrupts my reading.

I don't know why you use it anyway as it takes traffic away from your site, not brings it.

You may well think it's cool and "web two point oh"..

But it's not it's just gay and annoying.

I don't often talk about my work, or my job, just where I am and what I do outside of work.

A while ago I quit my job, I couldn't stand it any more, there were many reasons why, some I might go into here some I might not.

One of the main reasons was a project in Saudia Arabia, Riyadh to be exact..for the duration of 3 months. Now I'm not awfully fond of the location and the timespan..is way way way too long for me to take. Especially for what I'm getting paid..

I don't get some super-fantastic salary, I am accorded no 'expat' benefits, I am treated (and paid) exactly like a local. Actually in someways underpaid...according to market rate.

Anyway the consistent mis-management, complete lack of client expectation handling and lies through-out the upper tier of management have become too much to bear.

Read more

AHGRH!H!H!

Meant to post some more pics over the weekend, got lots to do...but Streamyx was down since 11am Saturday morning.

Until now.

I called them twice, apparently they are having some major nationwide outage...I wonder what happened I really do.

There's nothing on the Streamyx site about this either, it's out of date.

Can't they just keep us informed?

Is it too much to ask for a stable connection? I've given up dreaming of decent latency and a good ping time for gaming as they continue oversubscribing.

Can't you buggers work on the weekend too? If you call at the weekend the earliest they can look at is Monday..

Gee thanks, I happen to be most productive at the weekends, especially for my online business..

That means I'm losing money and many hours of productivity due to your unforseen downtime.

I ended up playing a lot of Call of Duty 2 though, which was cool!

And finished a bottle of Glenfiddich 12 year old, cheap crap.

It's the same story during holidays as well, if your net happens to be down during Raya, good luck, might get it back in 10 days time..

What exactly is it we are paying for?

I saw a new promotion for RM77 aswell, so new subscribers are getting a cheaper deal than us existing customers? Why don't we cancel and subscribe again? Get another free modem and shit?

Doesn't make any sense to me really.

The Malaysian Internet Exchange is supposed to be coming up soon, which will introduce cross-ISP peering..this might really help the net problems we have. I'll get more info about that soon, I'll publish what I have now on Monster.