How I Make Peace

This is how I made peace with my work day today …


… and get ready for the kids to get back from skating classes.

What is your favorite way to unwind off work?

SRK Tweets Over The Sena Furore

Though I am a bigger fan of Aamir, I have to admit that I am very impressed by SRK’s tweets.

Below are a few of his tweets on the recent Sena furore. What a contrast these are as compared to some of the crass utterings you get hear from the Sena’s mouthpiece.

iamsrk: sad my statements are seen as a stand against a group instead of a stand for myself and my individuality.

iamsrk: differences in ideology should be grounds for debates & discussion. a must for freedom of thought. to see it any other way is so unfortunate.

Those who stand up for themselves are rare …even rarer are those who stand for their beliefs when bullies are all over them. The least we can do is to lend our voice or support to this rare breed.

What say?

My Lunar Adventure (Moon Photography)

It was supposed to be the brightest & the best full moon of the year 2010. The photographer in me was excited about the prospect of shooting the moon for some amazing results.


(Referenced from http://www.wrotniak.net/)

The entire first half of the 30th Jan was spent on reading up about lunar photography. Tips & tricks from across the web were read, understood & made notes of. After finalizing on a good location for the shoot, I announced to the family that I would be away with my third baby (that is how the Canon 500D is referenced to by the wife when peeved) for the whole of the Saturday evening. If looks & sighs could kill …..

Thanks to a brain wave at the last minute, I landed up on the 10th floor of a very familiar car park that proved to be a great location for the purpose. I spent more than an hour waiting for the moon rise & setting up the equipment … all in the company of an amused security guard (pictured below).

Bengaluru’s air pollution came into play & hid the moon till it rose a clear 5-10 degrees off the horizon. After that, the full moon was a breathtaking sight. With all my preparation & good luck with the weather, I had to return with some amazing snaps. Right?

Imagine my disappointment when the two best shots of the evening turned out to these below:

IMG_1255-1IMG_1331 IMG_1315

Oh well … not everything was lost. It was a great outing. I got to do something out of the ordinary. And thanks to all my preparation, I know exactly what would’ve resulted in me taking spectacular snaps (like Andrzej Wrotniak’s snap at the beginning of this posting).

If any of you are interested in photographing the moon, find below some notes from my prep work for this adventure :

Tips:

  • Pack in your tripod & a telephoto lens (300 mm minimum; bigger the better; a tele-converter would be handy)
  • Its a good idea to bracket your exposure
  • Use the camera’s highest resolution setting
  • Experiment around f11 – f16 : 1/125 – 1/250 : ISO 100 – ISO 400

Resources:

Tip #1 was where I bit the dust – I only have a cheap Sigma 18-200mm lens that was just not big enough for the occasion. I now think I should’ve carried my older Minolta aim-n-shoot camera. Its 20x optical zoom might have given better results. Well, the next full moon is just a month away!

Common Thread Across Oracle & Apple Announcements

The 27th of January witnessed a couple of high profile IT events – Apple launching the iPad and Oracle outlining its strategy for Sun. Though the events addressed completely different markets (Apple bringing technology to the common man, whereas Oracle is building technology focused on enterprises), there was a common thread across the two.

oracle-sun

Software – Hardware Integration.

Executives of both companies touted their unique prowess to engineer hardware – software integration for their customer’s benefit. Though this is not a new concept (another example is IBM’s concept of Appliances), we are getting to hear more of this in the market place.

apple_ipad1

The views expressed on this blog are my own and do not necessarily reflect the views of Oracle.