Tag Archives: advice

Thoughts

A rule of thumb to help you avoid accidents

So many traffic accidents happen when we don’t keep our proper distance from the cars in front of us. Here’s a simple equation to help you do just that:

Distance (in car lengths) = (Speed/10) – 1

Let me explain it. Say you’re going along at 20 mph — the distance between your car and that in front of you should be 1 car length. If you’re going along at 40 mph — the distance between your car and that in front of you should be 3 car lengths. Obviously, the formula given above is no good at speeds below 10 mph, so use your judgment there. I try to leave half a car-length to 1 car length between my car and someone in front of me, even if my speed is fairly low. I never know when they could brake suddenly. People’s actions can’t be predicted, and it’s best to have a little room for error in our calculations and reflexes.

I would go further and add an additional car length to that distance — in other words, modify the equation as follows, if you’re older and have problems seeing, if it’s dark, or if it’s rainy or foggy.

Distance (in car lengths) = (Speed/10)

If it’s snowing or it’s icy on the roads, by all means, drive slower and keep as far away from the car in front of you as you can. There’s no way to approximate distances in those situations. You never know just how your car will behave when you brake. Just hope you don’t have to brake on a particularly icy portion of the road, because you’ll skid all over the place, and chances are you’ll hit something.

MINI Cooper S on snowy country road

One additional word of advice. If you’re going to drive through snow, sleet or ice, make sure you’ve either got winter tires on your car, or you’ve got good all-season tires that aren’t worn out. And be sure that your brakes are in good working condition.

I don’t claim to be a traffic safety expert, so don’t think this rule of thumb is written in stone. See how my advice will work for you, and let me know if you think my equations need some adjustments. The idea is to keep the math simple so that everyone can understand and benefit from this.

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Thoughts

Photography, take two, part two

I continued to work on replacing photos hosted with third party services. The list of modified posts is provided below. This has proven to be a huge effort. I had to locate the photos in my digital library — not all of which is keyworded yet, though I’ve got location information for all my photos — but I also chose to re-process, keyword and re-title the photos. You see, most of these photos were keyworded through bulk uploaders, for the purpose of displaying that data on third party photo sharing sites, not for my own library. Clearly that effort was wasted, but I didn’t know that back when I did it… Where applicable, I am also re-writing some of the text.

I want to make sure that the content I provide here at ComeAcross is truly top tier, as much as possible. What does that mean? Well, it means I spent my entire weekend, including Monday, working on the posts listed below, and on the posts listed in part one. I still have more posts to go. I don’t mind doing this — actually, I look forward to it — but I do hope that you, the reader, appreciate the effort that goes on behind the scenes. 🙂

Also see Photography, take two, part one.

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Thoughts

Photography, take two

Over this weekend and the last several days, I’ve gone through posts that contain photographs, and replaced all of the images with ones hosted directly at ComeAcross. In the past, I’ve used photos hosted with third party photo sharing services, and I realize now that’s a folly.

If a third party service goes down, which is very likely with beta services, my photos become unavailable. Even if that service is not in beta, a simple action like closing one’s account shuts down access to all of the photos uploaded there. It’s much more practical to host the photos together with my website. That way, I am fully responsible for making sure that all of my content is accessible. If something goes down, I can take care of it. If I need to change web hosting providers, I simply transfer all of my files over to another server.

It’s not as simple to transfer one’s content with photo sharing services, no matter what they may promise. Image and meta data portability is still not 100% there, and it doesn’t help when a photo sharing service advertises their API’s availability for more than a year, yet fails to put it out for public use. It also doesn’t help when said portability is rendered useless by the amount of compression used on the uploaded originals, or the deletion of meta data embedded in the originals…

You see, everyone is ready to promise the world to you when they want to sell you on something. Quite often, that “world” is nothing more than an empty little shell. I speak in general terms here, from the things I’ve learned through my various experiences — mostly recent ones…

At any rate, I’ve still got to modify a number of posts, but I thought I’d point out the ones I’ve already worked on. They’re quite a few, and I’m happy with the results so far. Here they are:

Also see Photography, take two, part two for more updated posts.

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Lists

Condensed knowledge for 2007-09-19

A bit of a health theme to this edition of condensed knowledge:

  • A new CPR technique was discovered. It’s called OAC-CPR (Only rhythmic Abdominal Compression). As its name implies, you only press on the abdomen, eliminating the risk of broken ribs, mouth-to-mouth, and fatigue from pushing so hard. Definitely worth looking into this!
  • Prozac found in the drinking water in the UK. Apparently so many people are on the anti-depressant in England, that it can now be found, diluted, in the water supply, after having passed through their bodies, into the sewers, through the water treatment plants, etc. Although the “experts” are saying there’s no risk, I doubt it. I mean, this is a drug, found active, in the water supply!
  • WD40 turns out to be a great help for bad joints. Despite the precautions written on the cans, rubbing it into the skin was of tremendous help to a man suffering from joint pain. Not sure that I’d recommend this.
  • Aspartame is the behind the spike in suicides for teen and pre-teen girls. Apparently, it’s a powerful mood-changer — it causes depression. Something to think about the next time you buy your children something with Nutrasweet or Aspartame as the sweetener.
  • Exercising in traffic is bad for your heart. Now that’s something I’ve known was wrong for some time. It just didn’t make sense to me when I saw people running on the sidewalk, next to heavy traffic, breathing in all those noxious fumes. When I run, I want to breathe fresh, healthy air, not someone’s nasty car exhaust. I just couldn’t get why they’d put themselves through something that unhealthy. It turns out the particulates from vehicle emissions decrease our blood’s ability to clot, and restrict the amount of blood that reaches the heart immediately upon exposure.
  • Mobile phones are as dangerous as smoking. So reads a recent headline… People have gone back and forth on the safety of mobile phones for years. Now the EU has finally decided to pick a side and take action. The article’s in Romanian, but what it says is that governments are starting to take mitigating action, first by warning people of the risks, and then by looking at ways to minimize exposure to WiFi radiation. They’re recommending that people go back to using wired Internet connections instead of wireless ones.

Now for some funny stuff:

And some economic discussion:

  • Greenspan on Iraq war, oil link. He confirms what I’ve thought and said for some time. In his talk with Matt Lauer, he touches on the housing bubble and the fiscal irresponsibility of the current administration, but he has no compliments for the Democrats, either. Last, but no least, he says the dollar may be replaced by the euro as the reserve currency of choice.
  • Transparent Investing: what your broker doesn’t want you to know. Here’s a site that offers a purportedly frank discussion of index investing. Definitely worth a look.
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How To

Should I get Canon or Nikon?

I’ve gotten asked this question a few times lately, and it’s probably a good idea to share my thoughts publicly. Here’s an email conversation I had earlier today:

B.T.: “Simply put, is the Canon 30D or the Nikon D80 the best way to go? […] Was about to get the Nikon D40, but then got a piece of advice that said that Canon might be better in the way of sports photography. I’m not sure if this was a “standard” or a perceived notion. Anyhow, now I’m trying to decide between the D80 and 30D. I know once I buy into either the Nikon or Canon “family” I’m pretty much there because of accessories and lenses.

So… what was it that made you choose Canon? I knew you were considering the D200 for a bit. […] But what are you thoughts on overall image quality between the two given the different types of image sensors (CCD vs. CMOS)? And I’ve actually thought of going ahead w/ the D40 as a stepping stone to the D200. To be honest, I’ve been back and forth a few times… but wondered about your opinion. […]”

My reply, with some additional edits:

I’m always hesitant to give brand-specific advice, because what works for me might not work for you. I have not used Nikon DSLRs yet. People that use them love them. By the same token, people that use Canon DSLRs love them as well. And people that use Olympus DSLRs love them too. And Sigma, and Fuji, etc.

What I can tell you is to try out the camera. Inquire locally, perhaps at your local camera shop, and see where you can rent the camera you’re interested in buying, even if it’s only for a day or two. Then rent the camera from the other brand, and compare. Even if it costs you up to $200 for the total cost of renting them, it’s well worth it considering you’ll be spending thousands on the equipment and will own it for several years or more, particularly the lenses.

When it comes to the 30D and D80, I tried out the 30D for a whole month. Then I went to the store and examined the D80 closely. I liked the grip and feel of the 30D better than that of the D80, but that’s just me, and my hands are different from others’.

What I can also tell you is that it seems the Nikon cameras have a little more noise and they lose some of the detail in low light when compared to Canon. But if you plan to use a tripod for longer exposures or a flash — and both of these devices will allow you to use a lower ISO — the difference in photo quality is going to be difficult to see, so don’t hang your entire purchase decision on this issue alone, unless shooting mostly hand held in low light is going to be one of the main reasons you want the camera.

Once you get above a certain level (you graduate from a point-and-shoot to a DSLR), the brand or the camera itself doesn’t matter that much. It won’t be the camera that takes the great photos, it’ll be you. To a certain extent, the lenses that you use will matter more than the camera body. You can get great photos with any brand of camera, provided you know its strengths and weaknesses and know just how to use it.

One last thought: the CCD vs. CMOS sensor arguments are pretty useless all around. Don’t forget, Nikon itself — while praised for its CCD sensors — uses a CMOS sensor for its flagship model, the D2X. It doesn’t matter what sensor is inside the camera, as long as the camera manufacturer uses it well. It seems Canon makes pretty darn good use of its CMOS sensors, while Nikon makes great use of their CCD and CMOS sensors as well. And after trying out an Olympus DSLR, I was pretty happy with their CCD sensor as well (except in low light). The Fuji Pro line has some pretty interesting sensors as well. And Sigma is doing groundbreaking work with the Foveon sensors in their SD line. The SD14 is a pretty amazing camera, and I would have bought it instead of my 5D if its effective resolution wasn’t 5 megapixels. (Note: the SD14’s advertised resolution is 14 megapixels, because it has three stacked sensors at 4.7 megapixels each, but the effective resolution is still about 5 megapixels.)

The point is to find out what works for you, and know how to use it well. You can only do that when you’ve held the equipment in your hand and researched the field thoroughly. It really helps when you sit down in front of a spreadsheet and add up all of the stuff you want to buy: camera body, lenses, filters, tripods, batteries, bags, sensor and lens cleaning equipment, editing software, etc. You’ll quickly find out what your ceiling price is, and you’ll know what camera body and brand you can afford. And if you compare your choices that way, you’ll have the information you need to make an educated, logical choice. The decision will be all yours, and believe me, you’ll enjoy your equipment a lot more that way.

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