Scooters!

I walk around Pioneer Square daily. I love all the different scooters that I see.

Nostalgia

Found this in a SX-70 that I purchased from CraigsList. Wish this service was around still.

Skate Jam at Snowboard Connection

Tali

I'm starting a nice collection. I'd like to share.

The Soul of Instant Photography

As seen with a Polaroid Land Camera Model 330

This camera has been a revelation in Composure, Composition and Light.

Medium Format - A different format

It's called Medium Format film, but there are a number of actual crop sizes that fall under that banner. The previous batch was from a 6x6 (cm) square format. The other popular crop size is quite a bit smaller, but still falls under the name Medium Format, 6x4.5 cm. You can see its the more familliar landscape wide-format that we're used to.

It's really all about the resolution obtainable when we put the image on a bigger piece of film. See this example at wikipedia for a size difference.

Here's the first batch from a beautiful camera, the Mamiya 645 PRO.

A new batch of film

New obsession: Medium Format

The decreased Depth Of Field is the obvious part, but there is just something about this format.

This first batch is with a Twin Lens Reflex Mamiya C330 It was inherited from Tali's grandfather who was quite the landscape photographer. These are the results from the first few batches.

More on my flickr site

Prologue continued: Yes, this applies to your life

In mathematics, chaos theory describes the behavior of certain dynamical systems – that is, systems whose states evolve with time – that may exhibit dynamics that are highly sensitive to initial conditions (popularly referred to as the butterfly effect). As a result of this sensitivity, which manifests itself as an exponential growth of perturbations in the initial conditions, the behavior of chaotic systems appears to be random. This happens even though these systems are deterministic, meaning that their future dynamics are fully defined by their initial conditions, with no random elements involved, this behavior is known as deterministic chaos, or simply chaos.

Chaotic behavior is also observed in natural systems, such as the weather. This may be explained by a chaos-theoretical analysis of a mathematical model of such a system, embodying the laws of physics that are relevant for the natural system. -Wikipedia "Chaos Theory"5/12/2009 (this is not my favorite definition by far, but it will work)

I would like to continue my last post first, before I collapse the coming thoughts into form. I'm sure many of you, except the true geeks, won't have much interest in Chaos Theory and how it might apply to your life. Needless to say, your reaction may be that of indifference, or perhaps you have a story playing in your head that tells you that you can never understand this stuff (stuff = anything smart sounding). Well let me reassure you, I have no intention of walking with the greats of mathematical theorem or the rhetoric that they are bound by. I'm not here to baffle you with bullshit just to sound smart. I'm only a visitor here myself, a visitor on a tour, and a guide with a map. 

It occurred to me that for a very long time now humanity has been living under the segregation of scientific knowledge. A hierarchy if you will, those who had the money, motivation, curiosity, and time held the latest discoveries. Even in today's instant information society, the true research into the most hidden and fascinating processes of our existence are done in universities and corporations behind doors closed by propriety. Of course things are on the change, as the Internet becomes more and more live. It also seems there are some of us who's natural curiosity has been switched off. Looking at all the chaos and stimulation in our lives though, why not? Who gives a fuck about some of the insane math that goes into this stuff. Predicting weather patterns? Christ, give me a smoke and a bottle of bourbon. The dope of the masses is religion: what does this stuff have to do with any of that? It's what we've been lacking, true understanding of what science has been doing for the last 300 years, and how it applies to life. We've gotten so caught up in "Practical Application" (how can we monetize this and failing that, how do we use it to blow you up?)  of research that we've forgotten what practical really means.

In the following posts, I will attempt to demystify the mystified, bring psychology and sociology a new understanding, and collapse mathematics and religion into something non-mystic. 

-That'll be enough for now

Hey Feigenbaum! We're not done yet

"TURBULENCE WAS A PROBLEM with pedigree. The great physicists all thought about it, formally or informally. A smooth flow breaks up into whorls and eddies. Wild patterns disrupt the boundary between fluid and solid. Energy drains rapidly from Large-scale motions to small. Why? The best ideas came from mathematicians; for most physicists, turbulence was too dangerous to waste time on. It seemed almost unknowable. 

 

There was a story about the quantum theorist Werner Heisenberg, on his deathbed, declaring that he would have two questions for God; why relativity, and why turbulence. Heisenberg says, "I really think He may have an answer to the first question." - CHAOS 1987 James Gleick

PROLOGUE

I've been reading up physics' and mathematics' exploration on this idea of Chaos. I started the conversation a few months back with my quickie on Fractals and Karma. Looking back, it’s evident to me what I was trying to say, but I'm not so sure that I even knew the measure of this hydra at that time. Elegant as the piece may have been, it was a half-explored idea, based on intuition's shapeless and fascinating beauty. Not that exuberance should be censured, quite the contrary, but we must attend to inspiration to realize the possibility of freedom whispered to us. 

 

Apologies aside, I'm feeling overwhelmed and humbled with an understanding of what I feel to be a paradigm shift in human consciousness. Like a sailor on his first extended voyage, my legs and stomach are weak with a young man's lack of confidence of skill at his chosen profession. Replete with the joy of a poet, as yet tempered by the vast emptiness in front of me. Perhaps someday I will compile these articles into a book, but for now as the author learns to trim the sheets he asks the reader to employ a measure of empathy.

 

Lastly, I'd like to qualify all this by admitting that none of this may be new. I haven't done the exhaustive research required by scientific law to discover and cite proper authors. Where possible I will link to articles and books which I've based my thoughts upon.  I plan to write some portion of this diary in the 1st person, uncited except for my own intuition about certain principles discussed. Just as the pioneers of Chaos discovered, they were left isolated in academia as neither mathematicians nor physicists. It’s seemingly plausible that in humanity's current fascination with self reflection and spirituality someone has already overturned this rock and looked beneath at the wonders abounding, hidden; revealed. As this series develops, I will strive to draw upon established research and place it in context with the concepts that will be imparted to the reader. I don't claim to be the owner of any of this at all, rather like most scientific study; it is based on the strong back of those who have shared inspiration before. I am the scribe, in the spirit of a child eagerly collecting snowflakes of a sparse early winter snow molding the form of a snowman. There are children up and down the street doing the same, all experience the same snow storm, and our individual creations are invariably as different as the flakes we create from.

Perhaps Albert Einstein was on to something with his quest for a unified field theory. Or perhaps it was life in a box which overtook his mind, unable to create anew. It’s a state we're all familiar with; in fact I hold that we live most of our lives bound by our own beliefs and ideals. Unable to create new thought while stuck in our web of (dis)belief. I think we're all guilty of idealizing Einstein himself. What article or reference to him cannot begin with credentials to the effect of "greatest scientific mind of the 20th century"? In his own time a legend already, the pressure to create was immense. All indications are that he was in fact a human and following his own intuition, with wild disregard to the quantum vogue. Reminiscent of another inventor of similar caliber and similar end-of-life focus:  Nicola Tesla. I suppose I'm only trying to extend a nod to great men who've gone before me, and faced the wrath of the scientific cadre. Mentioned, before I start, before attempting to use the thoughts of thinkers past without a degree of credibility myself.

SpectraLight flash diffuser

I received in the mail today a really cheap, but interesting flash diffuser. Its called a SpectraLight. Simple, versatile and seems to be quite universal. It just straps onto the top of your flash and has a ball joint that allows for all kinds of bounce possibilities.

It came minimally configured with 2 reflective color bounce card stickers that go on 4x4 plastic cutouts, Silver and Gold. It also came with a translucent diffuser for taming harsh flashes. The package came wrapped in a nice nylon case with pockets for everything for protection.

I found it on eBay, and didn't have much hope for it for the low price of 14.99. Yeah its cheap construction, but there just isn't much to break on it. There are some funky contraptions out there on eBay, but the SpectraLight seems quite well thought out. I chose this one because of the versatility and the possibility that I can manufacture my own color cards. Verdict: good buy

Here's some samples of it in action, and results. Nothing spectacular, but its just a quick test.

Oh yeah, and I picked up two lenses from CraigsList today. Here's one of them, Pentax-M SMC 50mm 1:1.7. The other is a beauty, the Pentax SMC 135mm f/2.5 (not pictured)

A new batch of film