20 November 2011
A Conversation Overheard
24/11/11 22:41 Filed in: words
A Conversation Overheard
“Howsya, T?”
“K, ‘Owsyou?”
“Up before the beak in 20”
“Yeah?”
“Yeah - spot of b&e”
“Bummer. Whacha get?”
“Nix. Nuthin worth nickin’”
“Yeah, lean times”
“You got that right - you workin?”
“Some. Distributing a bit here and there”
“Hard game - rozzers everywhere”
“Yeah. Bastards.”
“Yeah”
“I seen J the other day”
“J? ‘Aven’t seen her for yonks”
“Yeah, she’s back - looks like shit”
“At’s what you get for goin’ up north. Hard bastards up there.”
“Too true. She reckons she’s here to stay”
“At’s what she said last time”
“Well, she reckons she’s 100% now”
“She back on the game?”
“Never left it”
“At’d be right”
“Yeah”
“You doin’ anythin now?”
“Getting some food at the greasy”
“Do me a favour - look after the kid while I get processed?”
“‘Ow long for?”
“20 minutes - less.”
“Awright”
“Ta, bro. I’ll tell Ma you lookin’ good”
“Tell her nowt - she’ll just want dosh if she knows I’m around!”
“‘K, T, you got it”
“K, see you in 20 - got any food for the kid?”
“Na, didn’t think I’d be that long.”
“Man, you’re an arse.”
“Ha! That’s what her indoors says!”
“Howsya, T?”
“K, ‘Owsyou?”
“Up before the beak in 20”
“Yeah?”
“Yeah - spot of b&e”
“Bummer. Whacha get?”
“Nix. Nuthin worth nickin’”
“Yeah, lean times”
“You got that right - you workin?”
“Some. Distributing a bit here and there”
“Hard game - rozzers everywhere”
“Yeah. Bastards.”
“Yeah”
“I seen J the other day”
“J? ‘Aven’t seen her for yonks”
“Yeah, she’s back - looks like shit”
“At’s what you get for goin’ up north. Hard bastards up there.”
“Too true. She reckons she’s here to stay”
“At’s what she said last time”
“Well, she reckons she’s 100% now”
“She back on the game?”
“Never left it”
“At’d be right”
“Yeah”
“You doin’ anythin now?”
“Getting some food at the greasy”
“Do me a favour - look after the kid while I get processed?”
“‘Ow long for?”
“20 minutes - less.”
“Awright”
“Ta, bro. I’ll tell Ma you lookin’ good”
“Tell her nowt - she’ll just want dosh if she knows I’m around!”
“‘K, T, you got it”
“K, see you in 20 - got any food for the kid?”
“Na, didn’t think I’d be that long.”
“Man, you’re an arse.”
“Ha! That’s what her indoors says!”
Comments
Reflections
24/11/11 09:10 Filed in: words
Reflections
“Christ! How did I get that face!?”
The reflection in the mirror lip-synched perfectly with my heart-felt utterance.
In my head, I was the same as I had always been - capable of anything, just on the lazy side of ambitious, smarter than some, dumber than others and definitely not a contender in the beauty stakes - but I wasn’t old - not really…
And yet, the mirror didn’t lie. It showed me as bald, with a wrinkled brow, eyes with pouchy flesh around and underneath them, a pock-marked, weather-beaten nose, thin lips with a scar that transected the upper lip on the left-hand side, a round jaw with loose, wobbly flesh hanging from it. A loose, wrinkled neck led down to shoulders that sagged, a chest that had boobs that any transexual (and some women!) would’ve been proud of, a belly that rested comfortably on my thighs when I sat down, but standing, just sagged down so that my belt buckle and groin were not visible in the reflection.
In short, it showed me as old.
Old. It meant, simply, that there were no opportunities, no future except one where you become even more irrelevant, a burden on society (or your family, if they actually cared), nothing to do each day other than to struggle to swallow your pills so your existence in this world could continue, nothing to look forward to except the accelerating decay of the flesh that embodies you. And if you do survive to a “ripe old age” most of your friends are dead, your loved ones are just a memory, and worst of all sex becomes something you used to participate in.
Old. It meant that you had outlived your usefulness. No-one listened to your stories. No-one thought they could learn from you. No-one cared that you knew what was wrong with the world. No-one needed you. No-one wanted you. No-one talked to you.
Old. It meant that the predators targeted you. The Government continually reduced your hard-won rights and gave you less of everything. It meant you couldn’t get a loan. It meant the banks treated you like a second class citizen. It meant any assets you have must be surrendered to pay for your “upkeep”, your health “services”, your continued existence.
Old. I knew it as the time when you found out just exactly what the “American Dream” was - a frigging nightmare of service to an un-attainable goal of “happiness” that magically appeared during a lifetime of producing crap and consuming same. A “journey” from neophyte to ninja in the corporate world to end up….
Old.
Fortunately, I had the remedy in my hands.
I watched as the reflection in the mirror placed the ancient revolver (and the irony of that old pistol against my old flesh was not lost on me) to its right temple.
I saw with absolute clarity the motion of the index finger of the right hand of the reflection slowly draw back the trigger, causing the chamber to spin and the hammer to go back. I saw the hammer start its forward motion.
My last thought was
“Christ! How did I get that face!?”
The reflection in the mirror lip-synched perfectly with my heart-felt utterance.
In my head, I was the same as I had always been - capable of anything, just on the lazy side of ambitious, smarter than some, dumber than others and definitely not a contender in the beauty stakes - but I wasn’t old - not really…
And yet, the mirror didn’t lie. It showed me as bald, with a wrinkled brow, eyes with pouchy flesh around and underneath them, a pock-marked, weather-beaten nose, thin lips with a scar that transected the upper lip on the left-hand side, a round jaw with loose, wobbly flesh hanging from it. A loose, wrinkled neck led down to shoulders that sagged, a chest that had boobs that any transexual (and some women!) would’ve been proud of, a belly that rested comfortably on my thighs when I sat down, but standing, just sagged down so that my belt buckle and groin were not visible in the reflection.
In short, it showed me as old.
Old. It meant, simply, that there were no opportunities, no future except one where you become even more irrelevant, a burden on society (or your family, if they actually cared), nothing to do each day other than to struggle to swallow your pills so your existence in this world could continue, nothing to look forward to except the accelerating decay of the flesh that embodies you. And if you do survive to a “ripe old age” most of your friends are dead, your loved ones are just a memory, and worst of all sex becomes something you used to participate in.
Old. It meant that you had outlived your usefulness. No-one listened to your stories. No-one thought they could learn from you. No-one cared that you knew what was wrong with the world. No-one needed you. No-one wanted you. No-one talked to you.
Old. It meant that the predators targeted you. The Government continually reduced your hard-won rights and gave you less of everything. It meant you couldn’t get a loan. It meant the banks treated you like a second class citizen. It meant any assets you have must be surrendered to pay for your “upkeep”, your health “services”, your continued existence.
Old. I knew it as the time when you found out just exactly what the “American Dream” was - a frigging nightmare of service to an un-attainable goal of “happiness” that magically appeared during a lifetime of producing crap and consuming same. A “journey” from neophyte to ninja in the corporate world to end up….
Old.
Fortunately, I had the remedy in my hands.
I watched as the reflection in the mirror placed the ancient revolver (and the irony of that old pistol against my old flesh was not lost on me) to its right temple.
I saw with absolute clarity the motion of the index finger of the right hand of the reflection slowly draw back the trigger, causing the chamber to spin and the hammer to go back. I saw the hammer start its forward motion.
My last thought was
Interstellar Travel
23/11/11 15:50 Filed in: words
[ An excerpt from “The History of Interstellar Travel” by Calum Three ]
Interstellar travel came to humans as a result of an accident, curiosity and serendipity.
The accident happened at the Large Hadron Collider experiment towards the end of its life. The Black Hole that everyone feared it would create, did in fact, happen. But the Black Hole was not as predicted, in as much as it did not draw all things into it like a huge bottomless well. It was stable. You could actually walk right up to the event horizon without any undue ill effects. Several things were sent through the Black Hole, but none gave any useful data except a tethered video camera which showed a picture - grainy, fuzzy but still a picture - of a group of stars. No-one knew which stars, and most believed the “stars” to be nothing more than the dying static burst of the cameras sensor. Since nothing could be learned from the Black Hole (except how to make more of them) it was eventually shut down. Several more were later made in an effort to learn more, and many items were passed through in an attempt to find out something about the “other end”, but nothing useful was forthcoming.
The curiosity was that of the earlier space explorers and Astronomers (plus one researcher (name unrecorded) in GIS (mapping systems) ) who spent their lives gathering information from as far as they could reach into the Universe. Literally millions of photographs of all sorts of space phenomena were filed away on Earth, and many had not been studied to any great degree. This body of photographs was used by the GIS researcher in his thesis on Astral Navigation for earth bound travellers (essentially, he was looking for a way to remove geo-stationary satellites from the sat-nav equation ). Using the millions of photographs of stars and other space objects, he found and matched a pattern of stars to the only image that existed from the “other side”. Unfortunately, his research went largely unnoticed in GIS as most of the sat-nav companies had a vested interest in keeping the satellites in the equation, and his research also went totally unnoticed in Astronomy.
The serendipitous incident occurred many years later when a prominent Astronomer was given the wrong research by the On-Line British Scientific Library. Her field was in deep space navigation, and as such she was excellently well-placed to recognise the obscure GIS researchers picture of what was to become known as “Black Hole 1” or the “BH1 star configuration” as corresponding to the only useful picture from the LHC Black Hole.
Since it was now known where the other end of BH1 was, it was now known how long it would take a signal to get from there to here. A Black Hole was formed, and a specially designed transmitter (designated T1) that had coded information blasting out from it continuously was pushed through the event horizon.
It was estimated that the signal would take 4 years and 2 months to reach Earth from the transmitter somewhere near Proxima Centauri. Meanwhile, the plan was to send un-manned probes through that could transmit signals back to Earth with observations of that side of BH1. A range of sophisticated and ever more refined instruments were sent through and data was eagerly awaited.
The coded transmission from T1 arrived some 4 years and 2.3 months later, being picked up by SETI. Soon, other information from the equipment sent through after T1 started streaming in. The other end of BH1 appeared to be a naturally occurring Black Hole with exactly the same properties as BH1. A primate was sent through (with the full knowledge that it would not survive long (if it all) after it arrived at the other side - after all, you can only carry so much food in such a small space) with a view to testing what happens to living tissue as it traversed the black hole.
Since BH1 generation started, scientist from all disciplines had been hard at work stripping down the required systems for generating “BH1 clones” and felt confident that they could send through a BH1 generator and supporting technological requirements to generate a BH1 at the other end, with a view to connecting back to the original BH1 on Earth. There were no shortage of volunteers to be put through BH1 after it was proved that the primate survived for 7 weeks, tragically finally starving to death.
Not surprisingly, the thought of all this made Joe Citizen slightly nervous - it was one thing to connect to something several light years away, but to have something several light years away connect to Earth was just a little bit scary. Nevertheless, the powers that be were persuaded by the scientists arguments ( new planets, economic prosperity, answers to scientific riddles, and so on ad nauseum ) and the ordinary populace were pacified with the usual promises of more - more wealth, more space, more jobs, better times, a brighter future.
So, first, components of a small habitat module were passed through, as were several stores of food and water (enough, it was estimated for a year for the number of personnel that were planned to go through BH1) and then the components of “BH2” , the black hole generator that was going to connect back to Earth.
The project was declared ready for connection some 18 years after T1 was first pushed through the event horizon of BH1.
What happened next can only be pieced together from the records recovered from the habitat that housed the remains of those approximately 82* hardy travellers that ventured through the BH1. It appeared to them that the Earth just vanished, but we now know that the opening of BH2 in proximity to the original end-point of BH1 (the naturally occurring black hole) along with the subsequent opening of BH1, set up a series of cataclysmic gravitational changes on and around the planet such that it was compacted into something the size of a small meteor in a very short time. No life remains on it.
So, officially, approximately 82*Humans were first with Interstellar Travel. Unfortunately, their race no longer exists.
* It is assumed that 82 is the right figure, but it seems that starvation drove some members of the expedition to eat their weaker companions, so the figure comes from official records, not recovered remains.
Photographically Speaking
21/11/11 11:17 Filed in: Book
The book does this by first discussing the photographers intent - that is, what the photographer intended to express through this photograph, then by discussing what influences makes the photographer choose to express his vision in this way (his personal larger vision of the world being one). David acknowledges that this is not easy, and that many photographers will never do it, but that you will become a more satisfied photographer if you fully engage in the process of “making images”.
Following on from this are the elements the author wishes us to consider when we make an image - the frame of the photograph, the “depth”, the layers of impact we put in and a discussion of the “rules” and their place in making our images. This is all discussed with a view to making us more comfortable in talking about our images, and what we intended them to convey to the reader. There is a section in here that talks about how awkward we (as readers of photographs) are in starting to critique a photograph - we shuffle, we mumble, then someone inevitable says ”Well, I like it…” . If you have attended any such gatherings then you will instantly recognise this scenario.
The second part of the book is concerned with the “Visual Language” which is made up of the “elements” of all photographs (lines, colour, light, contrast, juxtaposition, repetition, moment etc.) and is rounded off by what decisions we make when we use these elements to realise our vision and convey our story to the reader of the image. Our decisions relate to the craft of photography - how we frame the image, image orientation and aspect ratio, the choice of lens, aperture, shutter speed, the point of view we adopt, the perspective we choose, how we balance elements within the frame and how we expose the image - and reflect earlier writings from David on the subject of craft.
(Check out the Craft & Vision web site - it is not called “craft” and “vision” for nothing!)
Part Three of the book treats us to a discussion of 20 Photographs made by the author. These discuss each photograph in terms of the language we have just been learning about, some more in depth than others. David walks us through his thinking while making the image, and then shows us how the resulting image expresses his intent through his vision, and what he hopes the reader will get from the image.
Overall, this is not an easy book. It doesn’t jolly you along with platitudes and an avuncular manner - it challenges you, it makes you think about why you pick(ed) up a camera and what you are trying to do with it. It will make you aware of the process of “making an image” and it will challenge you to improve your reasoning behind your choices in an image, and it will make you aware of the “reader” who will assess your image by applying their frame of reference to it.
Personally, I will read this book again ( and then again ) because, like Davids’ images there is a lot of depth that will reveal itself with further study.
Recommended.