Forbidden Planet

For those who don't know, Montreal is the largest city in the province of Quebec (located in that northern country known as Canada). Quebec is a French province and Montreal is mostly French as well. On Sunday, as the kids and I were walking downtown, we passed a man begging with a sign. As we passed, Tania asked me, "Why does he say he's ugly?" I asked what she meant and she said, "His sign says, 'Je suis laid'" . She further explained that laid means ugly. I had seen the sign but did not understand the first part since I didn't know what laid meant and I assumed (incorrectly) the kids didn't either. The rest of the sign (which I did understand) said ... help me out and I can get a facial. (ok, it said it in French not English). The word came up again last night as Jason was reading to me Les Trois Boucs : "... un ogre tres laid et très méchant ..." ("... a very ugly and very mean ogre ...") . It is pronounced the s...

Went downtown with the kids again and took a few pictures (412 - I wanted to experiment some more with panoramas). I took a number of burst shots on the highway because I was curious what AutoStitch would do with them. This is 1 of 12 shots heading down Autoroute 15. AutoStitch assembled them together in a sort of fish eye view. This is one shot (out of 12) on Autoroute 20 heading into downtown. This is the image retouched using GIMP (something similar to PhotoShop, but free). I straightened the image, cropped out the front of the car, eliminated some window reflections and adjusted the colours to make them brighter and more vivid. I think it came out pretty well. Total retouching time was about 30 minutes. This is one shot (out of 34) inside the Ville-Marie Tunnel. I liked the colours and the blur. This is a retouched version of the image (once again using GIMP). The image was straightened and cropped, the colours and contrast were adjusted and front of the car was painted out and t...

I have been trying my hand at panorama pictures lately - taking multiple overlapping shots and then stitching them together. My first attempts came out quite well. My later attempts highlighted some shortcomings with stitching software. 360 degree panorama in a park we went to for Mother's Day. This definitely came out well, even though I was just holding the camera and turning in spot. A smaller view cropped from the panoramic view. Part of a panoramic shot taken at St. Joseph's Oratory in Montreal. Subject matter which moves between shots end up looking like ghosts. I tried to capture a wall of graffiti by taking multiple shots and sliding horizontally between shots. Unfortunately, it seems the stitching software expects the camera to remain in a fixed position and not to be moving. As you can see, it did not stitch it together correctly. The red door on the left is in the wrong place and if you look to the right side, the automated parking ticket dispenser is partly ghosted ...

is the title of a fictional poem I quoted from in a play I wrote in 1985, for a course called Theatre and Drama . I was 19. Below are the 3 lines I quoted from it. Even then, I could be pretty morose. At times fear does seem more to be the enemy than the empty darkness which beckons us to our death. Oh, foolish mortal! Can you not see or has the darkness entered your eyes? See how the fool does dare to trek across the open hand of Death. I also came across a book of compositions from Grade 5. As you can see, my penmanship and artistic skills were a little on the challenged side. Feb 21 BEING A MALE MOSQUITO If I were a mosquito I would be small and I wouldn’t bite people yet one day someone will succeed in killing me. The captions are: HATCHING and KILLED Image credit: Richard of Forbidden Planet

Throughout the city [Jerusalem] people were dying of hunger in large numbers, and enduring unspeakable sufferings. In every house the merest hint of food sparked violence, and close relatives fell to blows, snatching from one another the pitiful supports of life. No respect was paid even to the dying; the ruffians [anti-Roman zealots] searched them, in case they were concealing food somewhere in their clothes, or just pretending to be near death. Gaping with hunger, like mad dogs, lawless gangs went staggering and reeling through the streets, battering upon the doors like drunkards, and so bewildered that they broke into the same house two or three times in an hour. Need drove the starving to gnaw at anything. Refuse, which even animals would reject, was collected and turned into food. In the end, they were eating belts and shoes, and the leather stripped off their shields. Tufts of withered grass were devoured, and sold in little bundles for four drachmas. But why dwell on the commonp...

"A man is thrown down on his back and three or four men sit or stand on his arms and legs and hold him down; and either a gun barrel or a rifle barrel or a carbine barrel or a stick as big as a belaying pin, -- that is, with an inch circumference, -- is simply thrust into his jaws and his jaws are thrust back, and, if possible, a wooden log or stone is put under his head or neck, so he can be held more firmly. In the case of very old men I have seen their teeth fall out, -- I mean when it was done a little roughly. He is simply held down and then water is poured onto his face down his throat and nose from a jar; and that is kept up until the man gives some sign or becomes unconscious. And, when he becomes unconscious, he is simply rolled aside and he is allowed to come to. In almost every case the men have been a little roughly handled. They were rolled aside rudely, so that water was expelled. A man suffers tremendously, there is no doubt about it. His sufferings must be that of ...

I love it when one of my off the beaten path observations is right . I find and article supporting my thesis in the Journal of Oleo Science published by the Japan Oil Chemist's Society. The article is quite dull (no, really, it is horrendously mind-numbingly dull), but it confirms what I had suspected that sunscreens containing TiO 2 or ZnO are damaging to the skin. You can find the article here . The citation for the article is: Hisao HIDAKA, Hiroyuki KOBAYASHI, Takayoshi KOIKE, Tsugio SATO and Nick SERPONE, “DNA Damage Photoinduced by Cosmetic Pigments and Sunscreen Agents under Solar Exposure and Artificial UV Illumination”, J. Oleo Sci., Vol. 55, 249-261 (2006) . [Update 13-May-2008 @ 23:48: fixed broken link] [Update 14-May-2008 @ 00:17: add graphic and more information] From the study, sun block using TiO 2 , ZnO or CeO 2 results in more DNA damage than exposure of DNA to raw UV. Note: the image is somewhat deceptive in that it uses 3 different timescales: 360 minutes, 120 ...

Before gaining entry to the afterlife, the ancient Egyptians believed that the deceased would be judged before a tribunal of gods (actually, his/her heart would be weighed to see if they had been just or not). They were also expected to recite this negative confession. There are a few different versions of this floating around - the exact number and specific assertions sometimes slightly vary. The form is always the same: "[Name of god] who comes from [name of place], I have not [committed this transgression]" . I have eliminated the introductory clause of each assertion. The Egyptians had a lot of gods and there is some overlap (e.g. "I have not stolen" and "I have not stolen grain" were affirmed to two different gods). I have not committed sin. I have not committed robbery with violence. I have not stolen. I have not slain men and women. I have not stolen grain. I have not purloined offerings. I have not stolen the property of God. I have not uttered ...

adj : very cold, icy. From the Latin gelidus which is from gelu meaning frost. I came across this word last night in Stephen King's short story I am the Doorway : ... the flesh was soft and gelid, like the flesh of an apple gone rotten ... . From the context, I guessed wrong at the meaning. My impression was it meant something akin to gelatinous - I was wrong. From a writing perspective, I wonder if the adjectives and the simile are both necessary. The simile amplifies the adjectives and repetition or amplification can be a good thing - it can also be wordy "... the flesh was soft and cold ..." "... the flesh was like an apple gone rotten ..." But who am I to tinker? Has anyone ever seen this word (and knew what it meant) before today? [As an aside, I notice I haven't been receiving e-mail notifications from blogger for the past few days, so I failed to notice that there were new comments. Yes, yes, I know, I can always check my own blog, rather than che...

Leonardo da Vinci