Dr. Phil's Dreamwidth Journal

Tuesday Is The New Monday

Since I had MLK Day off yesterday, today is the first workday of the week. And the list of school closings and road incidents was long. Temp in Allendale this morning was about 4°F. Windchills at -12°F. But we both managed to get out early. Mrs. Dr. Phil because she was due downtown GR at 8am. Me, because I expected my 1¼-1½ hour commute to take 2 hours today -- which it did.

Actually, the drivers I saw were all behaving themselves. I only saw one vehicle in the ditch and it was going the other way on I-196, on a stretch identified as slippery on the traffic reports. The early birds are the ones who usually ignore reality and forget what winter driving weather is like. So we were driving at 10-20 mph under the speed limits the whole time -- mostly 15mph under. The roads were icy, but only twice did I find myself in a lane which felt a little squirrelly. Reduced speeds, lower gear, 4WD and an easy touch on brakes and steering, did just fine. Maintain good intervals. Use four-way flashers when traffic slows ahead to warn those behind. All covered.

The sun is playing hide-and-go-seek, but it is amazing how much more pleasant the drive is when there's light. (grin)


Heading west on the M-6, I realized that there were very bright sundogs on either side of the sun. Didn't have any Nikons today, so this is with the little Sony. The dark angled bit on the lower left is from one of the little lens cover petals which apparently has been sticking lately -- it's freed up now. This is on the ramp from M-6 West to US-131 South. (Click on photo for larger.)
©2013 Dr. Philip Edward Kaldon (All Rights Reserved)


Second shot showing the sundog on the right side. You'd think the first picture was blurred, but that's actually snow and lens flare on the green signs. THIS shot is blurred, so I'm not putting in a larger version.
©2013 Dr. Philip Edward Kaldon (All Rights Reserved)

Getting ready to go to second class. My office is 63°F. Why?

Dr. Phil

Duel in Dearborn

Back in October I wrote about a NASFiC bid for Detroit in 2014 (DW). No way were the NASFiC in Detroit people NOT going to be at ConFusion. But the Kansas City in 2014 people were also there -- each group had an endpaper ad in the program and their tables were next to each other. The KC crew had hats. I'm very fond of hats, but could not in good conscious fund the enemy campaign. (grin)

****
UPDATE: 1-22-2013 Tue -- I am reminded that "The Kansas City bid is for the 2016 Worldcon / Detroit is bidding against Phoenix for the 2014 NASFIC". Dammit, and I knew that! I cheated myself out of a hat because I wasn't paying attention. (In my defense the KC table was at one of the chokepoints in the hotel layout and whenever I was passing the table I was trying to slip between hordes of people --- and I don't "slip between hordes of people" easily.) (grin)
****

Meanwhile, Al Bogdan was busy taking pictures of people holding up a NASFiC in Detroit license plate. I stole a few from the NASFiC in Detroit Facebook post:


Steve Buccheit, Jim Hines and Dave Klecha. (Click on photos for larger.)


Mary Robinette Kowal, John Scalzi and Patrick Rothfuss. (Click on photos for larger.)


Some Imperial intervention, Dr. Phil and the Dalek delegation. (Click on photos for larger.)

To vote FOR a NASFiC in Detroit, you will need to be a supporting or attending member of Lonestar 3, the 2014 WorldCon in San Antonio TX. Join us in making this a reality!

Dr. Phil

The Long Day

Four of my five panels, plus my reading, were all today. Pretty much only did my sessions, plus meeting people. Very satisfying day -- I mean, somebody has to help provide the content for all the people here. Passing the Registration desk today, I asked and found that we're over 800 here at Immortal ConFusion 2013.

Still not impressed with the new hotel, but I'll save it all for a good rant afterwards.

Saturday 19 January 2013
11:00a
Dearborn Doing It Wrong... On Purpose
Story trumps all; sometimes research takes a backseat, anachronism becomes expedience, and logic needs to curl up next to physics and cry. What have authors deliberately done wrong to further the story? Do they have favorite examples of such? How does one do something "wrong" right? (Dr. Phil Kaldon, Holly McDowell, James Davis Nicoll (M), Laurie Gailunas, Ron Collins)

Lively discussion on the things we have to do for story. So are you "allowed" one impossible thing in a story before you lose your readers? Two? (grin) (Click on photo for larger.)
©2013 Dr. Philip Edward Kaldon (All Rights Reserved)


The room wasn't completely full, so technically it wasn't Standing Room Only, but there was some crowding over by the door. (Click on photo for larger.)
©2013 Dr. Philip Edward Kaldon (All Rights Reserved)

And... A Balloon T.A.R.D.I.S. and a Dalek? (Yesterday someone had put a folded paper crane on the Dalek's plunger arm -- hee-hee.)

The balloon artist was funded by ConFusion -- as was the grant to build the Dalek the other year and require the builders to bring the Dalek for a couple of years. The laptop by the T.A.R.D.I.S. shows the balloon artist building it in Fast Forward. A little annoyed that I must've been fooled by the leaning T.A.R.D.I.S., so the picture isn't quite level. (Click on photo for larger.)
©2013 Dr. Philip Edward Kaldon (All Rights Reserved)

More coming.

Dr. Phil

First Test Images

I took a couple of minutes before going home to look at the first two pictures I took with the D100R. Actually, they're kind of interesting -- I rendered them in black & white, but there's no question this is infrared photography. (grin)


Annotated "first light" image. I popped on the built-in pop-up electronic flash to see if it contributed anything in the IR band and to even out the light, since there was strong sunlight coming in from the window at the left.
(1) This is a black neoprene camera case for the Nikon F4s.
(2) This is my black Chicon 7 WorldCon cap.
(3) This is a burgundy sweater.
(4) This is a brown sweatshirt.
©2013 Dr. Philip Edward Kaldon (All Rights Reserved)


Similar shot, but this time only with the natural light from the window. Note how overexposed the white Priority Mail box is.
©2013 Dr. Philip Edward Kaldon (All Rights Reserved)

Things are clearly not what they seem when you change the wavelength! And yes, I know that the D1 series CCDs are also sensitive to UV light -- and someday I'll get a D1X converted to UV, but that's a bigger project, because most lenses are not suitable for UV use.

Dr. Phil

My Christmas Present

Last June I posted a couple of test pictures taken with the Nikon D1 and an infrared filter (DW). The Tiffen Wratten No. 87 Series VIII filter I used didn't actually have a proper adapter -- I had it jammed into a Nikon HR-1 rubber lens hood and screwed into the 52mm filter mount of a 24mm f2.8 AI-converted Nikkor. The second problem is that the IR cutoff filter mounted over the CCD sensor blocks most of the infrared light, so when you block the visible light, you get very long exposures and can't see anything through the viewfinder. Which makes using a tripod a pain, because you have to keep taking the IR filter on and off.

I had thoughts of buying an extra Nikon D1X body and shipping it to Lifepixel for conversion to fulltime IR photography. Wasn't going to happen immediately, because it would cost about $200 for a good camera plus about $300 for the conversion.

However, right around Christmas I was cruising eBay and found an incredibly clean looking Nikon D100 that had already had a 700nm IR conversion done. The last owner had bought it used and shot about 1500 pictures. He wondered who had done the conversion, because he felt that they had gone ahead and adjusted the autofocus for IR work, at least with the lenses he was using.

Well, I'm back in the office, the box was opened, batteries loaded and I slapped a 28-80mm f3.5-5.6D AF Nikkor on the D100 and took a couple of pictures inside and out. If there was any question that this was an IR job, the fact that a black hat in sunshine in my office came out "white" pretty much convinced me. (grin)

Here's one of the outdoors shots with a quick-and-dirty hue and saturation adjustment -- the original photos, like the ones last June, start off looking dark red:

False color infrared picture on WMU campus looking north from Everett-Rood. (Click on photo for larger.)
©2013 Dr. Philip Edward Kaldon (All Rights Reserved)

For me, the D100 was a selling point. I've seen some D70 and D90 conversions for sale. But the D100 was (a) the consumer camera that was contemporary with the D1 series and has a similar 6MP CCD sensor and (b) was built on the same Nikon F80 film camera chassis that Kodak used for the DCS Pro SLR/n that I already have, so the camera was a known quantity. The unit also came with the MB-D100 battery pack, which adds a tray that can take a Li-ion battery (one NOT in common with the D1s) or AA's. Given that I am likely to use an infrared camera occasionally, not having to keep batteries charged is a plus. And I can use the same Compact Flash memory cards as my other Nikons.

So... more later when I have time -- and suitable weather -- to play.

Dr. Phil

The End of the World is Coming

No, not that Mayan calendar nonsense. You do understand that just as our calendar ends on December 31st, you just roll over to a new calendar, right?

In this case I'm talking about the imminent winter storm. Oh look, The Weather Channel is naming them now. Welcome to Winter Storm Draco. It's been nearly 300 days since we had any appreciable snow -- and while there are blizzard conditions in some places, West Michigan isn't expected to get more than a few inches.

But that's for Friday. Here on Thursday it was just wet. Lots and lots of wet. Cold and raining.

A Day Trip to Chicago

Mrs. Dr. Phil ventured off to see Pat and Will and meet Emma (from New Zealand by way of Siem Reap). We could've driven, but it's a lot of driving, and well, the rain with threat of snow at the time we had to make plans. The day trip via Amtrak gives you about five hours plus on the ground. Given that I'd slow them down, and if I didn't have my vehicle, I doubt we'd all fit in their car, I dropped Debbie off at the Holland Amtrak station in the cold rain and dark.

Then I drove around to the Paragon bank parking lot and maneuvered the Bravada so that I could briefly open a window and keep the Nikon D1X and lens dry. It turned out to be pretty challenging to get pictures. At ISO 800 and shooting wide open at 55mm f5.6, I was running long shutter speeds. Then the autofocus was getting confused by the large rain drops, so I had to go to manual focus. And the bright headlights and side ditch lights of the locomotive threatened to mess up the exposures, so I switch to Manual mode. If it wasn't for the outstanding Vibration Reduction of the 18-55mm f3.5-5.6G VR DX AF-Nikkor, I doubt I'd have gotten anything this good.


Ten minutes before train time and I was struck by the bright red color of the berries on this tree out my front windshield lit up by my headlights. 1/8th of a second exposure. (Click on photo for larger.)


Amtrak's Pere Marquette coming into Holland MI from Grand Rapids. By 8:29am EST I got the exposure up to 1/30th of a second. (Click on photo for larger.)


I had the longer 70-300mm lens, but it isn't VR, so I never put it on. This stuff is a lot easier to shoot in the summertime. (Click on photo for larger.)


Former Amtrak EMD F40PH locomotive, turned into a cab control baggage car (known as a "cabbage"). The actual locomotive is a GE P40DC pushing on the rear of the train. With the train in the station, the front fouls the grade crossing at 8th Street and so the gates and lights continue running until after the train leaves. I wanted to move to a different angle, but forgot that when the lights were flashing, the idiots dive out of 8th Street and carom through the slalom curves of the Paragon bank parking lot I was in like they were running some damned Grand Prix race. So I managed to turn the Bravada around and shoot out of the driver's window instead of the passenger window, but didn't get a chance to do the wide angle shot I'd planned. (Click on photo for larger.)


Before the Amtrak train left, I could see a headlight in the distant siding. I thought it was the CSX freight that often runs either before or after the Pere Marquette, but it turned out to be some local switching run. (Click on photo for larger.)

Pictures Or It Didn't Happen

As for Mrs. Dr. Phil's trip, she had a great time and it sounds like they spent hours having lunch at the Russian Tea Time before wandering by the Land's End store in Sears so she could look for a new winter jacket.


Pat, Mrs. Dr. Phil, Will and Emma at Sears in Chicago, taken by a helpful salesperson. (Click on photo for larger.)

No pictures of the arrival of the evening train on account of darkness. On the other hand, the rain had stopped, which made the rendezvous all much easier. (grin)

Dr. Phil

The Sacred and Honorable Act of the Citizenry

It only took twenty minutes -- 0900 to 0920 EST -- to park, walk in, vote, return today. That's longer than usual, because of the length of the ballot, not the lines for Precinct 3. Forgot to look at the ballot number on the tear-off tab, but the machine which tallied my vote recorded me as number 154. Precinct 5, which is mainly GVSU students, was the only one with a line.

Many more people there for today's election than any of the primaries or other elections, probably since 4 November 2008. I'm sure this church sees a lot of the Once In A Great While people in their pews, too. (grin)

The two women ahead of me to get their tear-off tabs pulled prior to scanning their completed ballots didn't know how to vote, as in feeding the machine. That tells me that probably they don't vote much, since we've had the same system for a long time. Sigh.

The little old ladies checking the paperwork -- well, they really ARE little old ladies -- are always cheerful and were happy to see so many people turnout.

Over at the side of the big room that we vote in, there was a masking tape box on the floor and the two poll watcher chairs were occupied. One young woman appeared to be a GVSU student, the other was a 40-ish man in casual business attire. When I came in, both were intently texting on their phones, not watching. The young woman, however, did look up and smile as I passed and I told her that I hope she was having a good time. This is the first time in years that I've seen any poll watchers in Allendale.


The church lot where we vote was packed.


Steady stream of cars coming up and down the long winding drive from M-45 and any empty parking spots were only empty for seconds. There was enough coming and going that I didn't have to wait to get a reasonably close parking space.

The Ballot

This was probably the fullest two-sided ballot I've seen in the twenty-odd years we've been in West Michigan. Besides the major and minor races, there was a lively non-partisan race for state supreme court justices -- including the West Wing reunion ad for Bridget Mary McCormack and PSA for the non-partisan part of the ballot -- plus a half-dozen Proposals.

What does Michigan think it is, California?

The Proposals, five of them Constitutional amendments, were a real mixed bag. And the campaigns wildly insane -- one ad just said hands off our Constitution and vote NO on everything on principle. Proposal 6, a sweetheart deal by the private owners of the Ambassador Bridge between Detroit and Windsor to keep their monopoly, was particularly cynical. Proposal 3 was about increasing wind and alternative power. This should be in the Constitution? Well, given the current political climate, I can see why they'd want to force the legislature and governor to comply. The only non-constitutional ballot issue, Proposal 1, was about the state's Emergency Manager law, in which the governor can appoint managers to take over local governments, and in some cases fire, the locally elected officials. Proposals 2 and 4 were about labor issues, one for government employees including police, firefighters and teachers, the other about home health care workers. Proposal 5 was about tying the hands of the legislature to make it even more difficult to raise taxes, if needed.

It's All Over Except For The Screaming

We were a purple country going into the election and I don't expect that to change coming out of it. And that purple? It's from the red and blue bruises.

Since I can't see either Presidential candidate coming away with 60-70% of the popular vote, we will still be a divided nation. The scenarios have varied wildly from a 269-269 electoral vote tie, to a 305 vote win. If we don't know the results tonight or by early morning, I won't be surprised. If a more decisive, but certainly not "a mandate", win occurs on either side, I won't be surprised either.

In any event, I've voted and I hope that if you are eligible and able to, that you have, too.

And for the record, I utterly oppose any attempts of either voter suppression or voter fraud by any side, for any reason. Anyone arguing that they can do it because the other side is doing it, is an even bigger idiot.

I figure that the last of the campaign ads will get off the airwaves by Thursday or Friday... (evil grin)

Dr. Phil

Glory

I don't drag along the Nikon D1 commuter bag with me every day, but my equipment bag does have the little Sony digital with a Carl Zeiss zoom lens. It's autofocus is much too happy locking onto the front windshield, so I lose some pictures, but at least I have a camera. (grin)

A week ago Thursday the sun was hiding behind a bank of clouds and the gaps created these lovely glory rays shooting over half the horizon. It persisted for the first forty five minutes of the drive, but in the beginning it looked like Allendale was blessed. This pattern continued in the evening, too, but those pictures weren't very good.


Sun rays basking glory over Allendale -- from 84th Avenue fields. (Click on photo for larger.)

The Flock Struts

Last weekend I wrote about the elusive wild turkeys (DW) and the large flock which has taken to crossing some of the roads about a mile, mile and a half, from us.

This Thursday morning I had to stop on Warner to let the big birds calmly strut across the road. It had rained overnight and between the dark clouds, the sun rising and the wet, it looked pretty amazing. While waiting, given that there's about 20 birds in this flock, I got out the Sony to try one shot. Of course, I had to look up at the rear view mirror because of the tire screeching noise behind me. Seems that this Toyota was all hell bent on closing the gap to the Blazer, which meant it was going in excess of 55mph, decided that they were going to pass me -- and then saw all the birds and was trying to brake and shimmy on the wet road, as they were not practicing driving under safe conditions. I wasn't too worried, they were screeching to a halt quite a distance away. But what-ta-id-iot.


I didn't correct the exposure, because you can see more of the turkeys this way. (grin) (Click on photo for larger.)

Two driveways up a second grouping of turkeys had just crossed and were standing around. Yesterday, I slowed in that area and saw about two dozen waiting at a driveway about to cross. There's a K-O-A campground nearby, and Mrs. Dr. Phil said that the other day someone reported early morning turkeys walking around that place.

It's like Hitchcock, but more stately and in slow motion.

Dr. Phil

It's Rather Surprising

It's been not quite two years since I got back into Nikon SLR photography (DW) when I picked up a Kodak DCS Pro SLR/n. The intent was to get a relatively cheap Nikon FX digital SLR so I could use my old Nikon lenses from "the film era" (grin) with a full-frame 24×36mm sensor. But I ended up getting some newer CPU-chipped auto-focus lenses to work with the electronics of the Kodak.

So the Pro SLR/n is a bit of a Frankenstein, with the Kodak digital camera parts grafted onto a Nikon F80 consumer film SLR chassis. Lightweight and sometimes a bit squirrelly. Just under a year ago I spend even less money (grin) on getting some older Nikon D1-Series DX digital SLR cameras (DW), with the smaller 16×24mm DX sensor. The D1s are tanks -- much heavier duty and reliable than the Pro SLR/n.

The result is I haven't used the Pro SLR/n in a while. Which is a shame because (a) I have the thing and (b) it's a 13.87 megapixel camera, compared to the 6MP D1X and the 2.7MP D1/D1H. The funny thing is that I've been using the Pro SLR/n in a 6MP JPEG mode -- never taken more than one picture at the full resolution.

On Saturday, that ended as I went out on a sunny mid-70s September afternoon to see what I could get at 14MP. Of course, I'd forgotten in the interim that one has to meter the Kodak a little more closely than with the D1s. It's really a better studio camera than a field camera, which is why I got the D1s in the second place. (double-grin) And sometimes it fails to write to the memory card the first time, so you have to remember to flush the buffer. Like I said, I haven't given it much use time in 2012.


I think of all my lenses as my favorite lens. (grin) But I haven't nearly spent enough time with the ultrawide 20mm f2.8 AF-Nikkor -- I briefly had a 20mm lens for my Pentax equipment in high school and been a big fan of the 20mm ever since. This is a new house going up on 84th Avenue, which I've been documenting all summer. I used the 20mm to emphasize the hill of lawnless dirt it rests on. (Click on photo for larger.)


Between the summer drought and the coming fall, the fields are yellowing up. Here's some volunteer corn sticking up in a field on M-45 Lake Michigan Drive, shot with the 70-300mm f4-5.6 ED AF-Nikkor at 300mm. (Click on photo for larger.)


Distant dirt mounds off M-45 for the construction development at the Placid Waters ski-jumping water park. Looks like it should be part of some ancient archaeological or pyramid site. 70-300mm lens at 190mm. (Click on photo for larger.)


Part of our luxuriant goldenrod crop in the front yard at 300mm. Enlarged you can see the tiny bugs flitting around the flowers. (Click on photo for larger.)


Another shot. (Click on photo for larger.)


Slightly cropped shot of our thistles in fluffy bloom, still at 300mm. (Click on photo for larger.)


A somewhat abstract shot of partly backlit ground leaves in our overgrown front yard, with the unruly vines beginning to change colors. Also at 300mm. (Click on photo for larger.)

Overall, a good test run. I've got to play with the settings some more. Wasn't enchanted with the famous Nikon Matrix metering, so I reset all my DSLRs to do center-weighted metering. The D1s do okay, but some of the shots I didn't post here with the Kodak, I couldn't quite pull a decent image out of what was there. Needs more saturation.

Dr. Phil

Thursday 30 August 2012

65. The Hunger Games in the Classroom
4:30pm (Bronze West) Comiskey

After my meat-up with Al Bogdan (DW), I stopped in on this panel on using The Hunger Games in the classroom. I've been thinking about adding this book to my Science Literacy reading list, with the instructions to look for the use of high technology and its consequences in the story. At least one of the panelists was from a Canadian university and from what I heard, there was a lot of discussion about what would and what wouldn't fly in a Canadian university classroom. This one panelist kept saying -- even after I made a comment about my assignment and how it (a) was about science and wasn't about literature and (b) students are urged NOT to read books they've already read -- that it was bad to pander to students' baser reading interests. Not really of help for my decision.

Afterward I ducked out and checked out the Con Suite one level down to get something to drink. Was impressed that it was an open air space, rather than stuffing people into a fixed size room, and that they had an array of salad bar items. Don't know how they were for meals or other treats, but it struck me as different from some of the cons I'd been to. As I mentioned earlier (DW), as a panelist I took advantage of the Green Room for lunch, and it was well done for me.

Then it was on to:

80. Jim C. Hines Reading
5:30pm (Silver West) DuSable

Getting to DuSable was tricky, as there weren't escalators to this level and not all the elevators served this floor. This West Hyatt building struck me as being older and more convoluted and we had a helluva time getting off that floor afterwards.

When I got there I got one of the last seats and then people started to line up or sit against the walls. Jim was busy munching on some sort of a candy bar -- apologized for having his sugar level out of whack and that it would be at least entertaining for a few minutes as he'd sit back and freewheel for a bit. (grin) Of course I've been to a number of "normal" readings of Jim's, so I'm not sure I could judge that there was much difference. It's just as well that Jim didn't read from Libriomancer at his August Schuler's event (DW), but just talked about it, so I could enjoy his most excellent Chapter One reading at WorldCon. (grin)


Jim being a little loopy to start. (Click on photo for larger.)


Chapter 1 of Libriomancer with great voices... (Click on photo for larger.)


... to a packed room. (Click on photo for larger.)

I just finished reading Libriomancer this afternoon, and I'll post a review Real Soon Now, but I'll say right here that it's an excellent book.

As we left to get ready for the Wendy Wake at WorldCon, the next reading featured donuts. (grin) What I'd forgotten from the schedule sheet, was that it was Nancy Fulda. Darn, I've read her blog for a long time now. Oh well, that's WorldCon -- you can't do everything and meet everyone.

Dr. Phil