This week, February and March seems to be video game season again. Bioshock 2, Mass Effect 2 and Ace Attorney Investigations: Miles Edgeworth come out within weeks of each other. And Final Fantasy XIII is soon to come.
Doesn't it feel like end of the year holiday season? It sure does to me. I'm beginning to wonder if some of these releases were pushed back - sometimes one would think the answer is yes.
Let's take a look at my goals for 2009 :-
1. Get my photography up to scratch – I still suck at taking photos, be it visualizing photos, or even just getting shots with my ultrasharp 50mm prime.
2. Learn how to solve a megaminx – I’m quite sure this won’t be too big a problem, but hey, you’d never know.
3. Get a job – Now that I’ve graduated and have decided to not study any more for a while, it’s time to enter the working world and find a job. The economic downturn won’t make this easy, but I certainly hope I’ll be employed before the latter half of 2009.
4. Learn how to solve the 5×5x5 cube without a formula sheet – LOL.
5. Get my 3×3x3 solving skill into the sub-40 second range. (I’m now in sub-60.)
6. Put way more stories on Pressyo.
7. Study smarter! Work harder! Sleep more! (LOL)
Here's the results as of 31st December 2009: 1. My photography is a little better, but it's still pretty awful overall. I have little skill in using a lot of my gear, and looks like I'll still be learning my gear more in 2010 than improving actual photography skill. I have gained a new piece of gear of 2009 - a Nikon SB800 - which opens up a whole new world of possibilities. (for lighting)
2. I can now solve a megaminx - so goal accomplished!
3. I do have a job - but I wasn't employed until the latter half of 2009 - and it's not actuarial, sadly - but 2010 is a new year, and I have hope. :D
4. I could solve my 5x5x5 without a formula sheet for about a month - now I've forgotten how to solve it again though.
5. My 3x3x3 solve is surprisingly now sub-30 seconds. I'm impressed it got that fast considering all I did was focus on making myself faster, not learning anything new.
6. I put a lot of stories on Pressyo - but eventually I got tired of it, and stopped since we're now going into a redevelopment stage again.
7. My study skills have gotten better - I'm now way better at deciding what I need to focus on - no more tending towards what I like to do - which was an awful habit.
In my opinion, I got about half of the goals - and surprisingly, some programming on a Hecatomb card game program went through.
I haven't really thought much about goals for this year, but here's a few:
1. I think I probably just really want to find a better job (at least a more interesting one).
2. Blog more - already got a backlog of stuff to post - just haven't prepared them for posting on the site - I think once a week is realistic, but I'd rather have a post up twice a week. Considering I'm now working, three times a week doesn't work any more. Twittering every day might just work though.
3. Pass more exams. I screwed up one exam last year pretty badly, and I'm not keen on failing any more.
That's it. Seems pretty boring - but I think the 3 goals I've set are massive ones.
Some people wonder why some of us bother to carry (and buy) larger, bulkier DSLRs over compact digital cameras. I thought I'd make a post about it so I don't forget why. 1. Size - Nobody really wants a larger camera unless they bought it to get noticed. If I could get a good optical TTL viewfinder camera (sorry, I hate those LCD viewfinders) at the size of a compact, I probably would. A compact is small, light - and is now no longer limited by the size of the film - but by the size of its electronics - a DSLR is generally still big because of the prism/mirror construct and the size of its sensor.
2. Video - Until recently, most DSLRs couldn't record video. I generally don't take much video except perhaps at night when the camera fails completely at taking photos. Although I've have a Nikon D90, I haven't used the video besides for testing or demonstration purposes. :P
3. Speed - Even the cheapest DSLR is usually faster than the most expensive compact. Everything from boot-up time, to autofocus speed, zoom speed (because it's manual), picture processing speed, card writing speed, picture viewing and thumbnailing speed - bla bla bla.
4. Metering - A lot of smaller cameras (usually the cheaper ones) aren't very consistent when deciding on exposure. This is despite having actual data from the sensor during autofocus. Somehow I think this is more of a crippling thing rather than actually difficulty of getting a camera to meter correctly.
5. Buttons - DSLRs have a lot of buttons. I see this as a good thing - buttons have always been faster and more reliable than touch screens - which seem to be becoming more prevalent among people who think it's the in thing. I've lost plenty of photo opportunities fiddling with the touch screen on a nearly buttonless camera - and am not happy.
6. Ease-of-use - A lot of people have the perception that DSLRs are more difficult to use than compacts - this is incorrect. It's the other way round. DSLRs are awesome point-and-shoot cameras. You can literally point the camera, focus, take the photo - and there it is, a technically good photo (artistically it's a complete other matter). With a compact, the ISO could be too high, the flash might decided not to fire in a really dark room, the metering could be off my several stops, the AF took 1 second to get a lock, despite the blinding red light your subjects just saw. Not to mention, if you happen to need to change the ISO, aperture, shutter speed, exposure compensation, or flash mode - it's gonna take you a lot more than a few seconds. And you might argue, why in the world would you want to change those settings?
On a DSLR, ISO 3200 can look better than a compact's ISO 200 or 400 - so you don't have to go off and adjust the ISO all that often. Why would you need to adjust shutter speed? Most compacts don't have a setting for a minimum shutter speed (or maximum for how long the shutter stays open) - this can result in the camera wanting to take a 2 second exposure of that photo your group is posing for. On a DSLR, you generally set things once and forget it - and if you need to change it - it's a button press + dial turn away. On a compact, you have to reset every thing AGAIN when things get tricky - and if you need to change things, it's MANY button presses away even on an XMB style menu.
A compact isn't easier to use because you have to adapt to the quirks of your camera - I don't trust strangers to get it right with my compact - but I can be pretty confident they won't screw up with my DSLR - except maybe focus - since a DSLR does indeed usually have a significantly more narrow depth of field compact to compacts - but in my experience of handing cameras to strangers to help us, none of them have failed using either type of camera. (Of course, in my experience, a lot of people forget how important it is to make sure your camera is focused before taking a photo. In the days of film, when I was working on the school magazine, the random security guard actually proved to be more skilful (since he was more careful) than some of our bidding photographers - who have had the camera for at least a year.) I used to used a cheapskate Sony digital camera which practically had no settings whatsoever (this was very normal during the age I bought my camera - don't go off saying Canon would've done it better, their same camera in the same price range was actually worse - not to mention, it was less responsive and took longer to cycle its flash) I had to do strange things to get the camera to take photos properly at night.
7. Battery life - DSLRs have always been better - but you tend to take more photos with them, and the batteries are significantly larger and heavier. A compact could give you 300 photos, when a DSLR will easily double or even triple that. (Consider this - because the DSLR boots so quickly - you don't have to keep it on waiting for the shot, you can actually switch it off while waiting for people to get into position - more power savings! This isn't even considering that a DSLR's LCD screen is usually off - while a compact camera's LCD screen is almost always on.
8. Ability to attach nonsense - DSLRs are famed from their ability to attach to nonsense - this isn't necessarily a good thing - because it means the camera is generally bigger because of all these extra ports, connectors and other things. Not to mention, you usually attach super large items like flashes (which can easily be as large as the camera), monopods, tripods, battery grips and other things that make you even more noticeable.
9. Low light - No explanation needed here. If you're in a dark place with digital cameras and no flash, be prepared for a lotta noise. A DSLR happens to be better because the sensor is larger. You don't have to be a genius to understand that more light on the sensor = better performance in low light situations.
10. Price - Hah. DSLRs are generally WAAAAY more expensive than their compact counterparts. What's worse is that to get a 10X zoom on your DSLR will cost you maybe three times a 10X zoom compact would cost - and that's just the lens! The camera itself might cost you 1.5 times a compact - which means to get a 10x zoom DSLR would easily cost you more than 4 times a compact camera with the same zoom capability would cost you - so really this is the biggest difference - and why you buy what you need, not what you want. No reason to fork out loads of cash for a DSLR.
After reading this post, I decided to think about signalling at fast food queues. Why only fast food places? Fast food places are one of the few restaurants where there's actually more than one queue for food! At most restaurants, you're usually in one queue - perhaps in multiple queues at the same time ( one for your appetizers, one for your drinks, one for your main course, one for your dessert perhaps).
Picking up on signals at fast food places requires a little more observation than at the supermarket. At the supermarket, you can simply look at the number of items in people's baskets/carts and how many people there are in a queue - and if you go often enough, you'd probably also know which cashiers are faster, and which you can beat by self-checkout (you're usually slower, so a cashier slower than you is pretty bad).
At a fast food place, there might only be one guy in the queue - ordering for 10 people at the same table. How can you try to spot these large orders?
First things first, look at the time - if it's lunch time, dinner time, or just a time where there's a huge crowd there, there's a good chance most people, including you, are holding orders for more than one person. Try to spot groups of people - people generally talking among one another is usually telling. If you can hear what they're saying, even better. If they're talking about what to order for themselves, then it's probably not gonna be an order much larger than the group there. If they are talking about what Tom, Dick and Harry ordered, then be prepared for a little confusion and a slightly larger order.
The other thing to look for are parents - a little racial discrimination helps here - some races of people make more babies than others, so avoiding parents of a certain race will make your queue time shorter in general - most parents make relatively large orders - especially if they're without their children (i.e. their children are sitting at the table waiting with the other parent), then their orders could be significant.
You can sometimes spot groups at lunchtime by observing their name/ID tags from work - the group of 10 people wearing IBM lanyards are probably together, so are those group of 5 people wearing ING ones. This tells you a little about which queues will take longer than others - of course, they could be completely separate groups of people from the same company coming to the same place to eat - but unless the company has a particularly large presence there (you would know this if you eat there regularly) it's more probable they came together.
The other signal that's pretty useful is seeing if it's a new guy/gal at the counter - they usually have supervisors hovering around them teaching them what to do, or they might be constantly looking back to ask questions about how to do something. If you've got a large, difficult order, you should avoid them since they'll take longer to put together your order - but if you've got a simple one, go for it - people with complex orders should naturally avoid this cashier - but that's not always the case, especially during peak hours.
During most peak hours, it usually doesn't matter much which queue you're at. If you've come in a big enough group, you should queue in every possible queue, that way you'll get to place your order at the quickest possible queue. If you're alone and it's not peak hour, you're in luck, you can probably try to avoid people with large orders (there'll be fewer during off-peak) not to mention, the more relaxed pace means that there are less screw ups. :D
Not everything that affects queuing time or serving time has signals.
One thing that is difficult to watch for (if not impossible) is the complexity of the order. Some fast food outlets have a nice breakdown of what needs to be on the trays - others, do not. This could lead to plenty of problems if the cashier is not experienced, or lacks the brain power to keep track of a complex order. For example, let's take KFC's Malaysian menu. Take an order of a Snack Plate Meal, X-Meal with Zinger Burger, X-Meal with Alaskan Fish Burger, Alaskan Fish Burger Meal and a Zinger Burger Meal. Seems simple right? It's really an order for one snack plate, 2 Zinger Burgers, 2 Alaskan Fish Burgers, 2 packs of fries, 2 separate pieces of fried chicken, 2 packs of wedges and 5 separate drinks. It may seem simple now - but imagine a hectic lunch time, and while you might not miss the burgers - be forewarned - if you aren't watching, you could easily be missing fries, wedges or even the 2 pieces of chicken!
This is even without any habitual patterns forming on the part of the cashier/packer. An example is ordering apple pies at McDonalds. Most people order 1 apple pie. This causes problems when you make a complex order of several McValue Meals followed by an order for TWO apple pies. So - guess what happens if you don't check your order? That's right - you get one apple pie. It's not intentional, it's just a habit to pack one - the difference between one and two apple pies isn't that great, when you've had to pack 4 different drinks, 4 orders of fries, 1 Big Mac, 1 Quarter Pounder with Cheese, 1 McChicken and 1 pack of fried chicken.
After spending 6 weeks in a graduate development program, I decided not to take the placement offered - and took up another job instead. The job itself happens to be with a general insurance company. I'm not really doing all that much, just really more like data entry. Of course, there's quite a bit to learn about how internally the company works, but it's just a matter of time before I get bored, I think.
I can't really say at this point since I don't seem to mind the work too much, I do it, and before I know it - it's lunchtime. After lunch, I get back, and before I know it, it's time to pack up and go home. Time usually flies when you're having fun - so I guess I don't loathe the work and don't mind doing it. Not yet anyway. Give it a few months and then we'll see.
That's it for my short update for now.