cyphercat's Xanga

Buy SanDisk!

Tue, 22 Jun 2010 14:04:46 GMT

Apparently when I took out my much abused SD card (which I keep unprotected in my wallet) had it's "lock" came out and I couldn't write into the card anymore, I decided to give Vector Magnetics a call. No receipt. No package. But was sure it had a Vector Magnetics sticker when I bought it. "Can but need to pay $10 admin fee". Woot! Went down and apparently they didn't repair the SD card... they just gave me a brand new one in package, with new $10 receipt, no questions asked. Oookay... that's service.

No wonder I still stick with SanDisk all these years. They're one of the most durable and reliable memory chip makers around, not to mention, fastest speed (unlike some dubious companies which over rate theirs). Just get their medium speed and it's already faster than some of their competition's "much faster" cards.

Five chilli points to SanDisk and Vector Magnetics.

Amusement

Tue, 13 Apr 2010 23:03:11 GMT

Was back on the Spin bikes last night. Trying hard to regain lost fitness since I stopped cycling since Oct last year. I saw so many people pushing hard on the bike. Some, I can understand (small sized girls) but geez, at least now I understand why I am "fast" on the bike - slow by my own considerations but relatively fast to a huge number of the population who consider a 40km time trialist going at 33kmh to be "fast" - one reason why I stopped taking part in OSIM is because I am trying to get past the "fastest" 36kmh people hogging the rightmost lanes (they assume no one else will overtake them, or at least take their time getting out of the way, and are actually the ones costing me the most time, whereas those going slower than 33kmh generally keep to the left) when I am zipping by between 40-44kmh trying to figure out how to overtake these guys and ending up jamming brake and re-accelerating all the time.

The new Spin bikes have an obvious problem - the lack of grip - and thank goodness for the last many years, we've had good ones else I don't know how I would ever have trained for Genting. At it's "hardest" which you can normally find after trying to make three turns of the knob and not getting any extra resistance, I can still ride during my base stage and yes, at my untrained stage, I was already using 90% of the resistance. It's good because it limits the amount of power I am generating during my base training, forcing me to go low... but when I move to the next stage, these bikes are pretty useless. I may have to make Orchard my permanent spin place where there's still a couple of old bikes (I hope).

Thus when I see people huffing and puffing on these new bikes, it becomes even more obvious than usual, how much power they are really generating.

Last night, I was dripping with sweat on the outside. But I have learnt that generating power can only be seen in two ways
1. flywheel is hot
2. my socks are drenched
Neither happened last night despite all the sweat I was generating on the outside. I also know myself, being my first ride in weeks, I was basically not generating power - at least not much by my standards, but I guess it must have looked like I was. If I continue at this rate, by the end of the week, I am going to be pounding on the handlebar trying to find more resistance from the bike.

A cycle in photography

Thu, 11 Mar 2010 13:55:13 GMT

When I first started out with the G1, I took mainly jpeg photos, but found limitations, especially in the colouring system of the Panasonic. That made me switch to taking in RAW, using SilkyPix that came with the G1. I found some commonly used settings to mass produce photos. After that I moved on to Lightroom (LR). And then I moved back to taking jpeg when I moved to the Nikon. As is. Then I started fiddling with jpegs using LR, which sort of put me back into the seat of a photoshopographer, rather than a photographer. I was being lazy, thinking I could always fix my pictures later on. Not that it's a bad thing - essentially a badly taken shot is better than a missed shot, and things can always be fixed later. Plus I started trying to capture the maximum dynamic range of the light, which means the jpeg does not always come out nicest. Thus the confusion. I was taking some pretty nice photos with limited dynamic range; should I try to capture more dynamic range light and use post-processing to fix things, or to just use the best of exposure and lighting to take the picture that looks the nicest?

Hmmm.

Fav photos

Tue, 19 Jan 2010 16:05:08 GMT

Some of my favourite shots...

This was at Fullerton Hotel. I was moving around the figure, trying to find the right light, and suddenly, I saw it!

I thought this was a nice picture of the cat. It was either this, or a side profile shot... in the end, I chose this instead.

I thought I did pretty well, considering I was using a 35mm prime lens which translate to about 50mm focal length, and still managed to take this giant in total.

I'm not sure why I like this. I just do..
It's from a wide-angle from Panasonic G system

Nice wooden horse from Penang

Choosing one of two pictures... in the end, I chose this because it shows the vast expanse of sea and fisherman is a good size comparison for everything else.

The other picture focuses just on fisherman..

Sunrise @ Esplanade

Tue, 19 Jan 2010 15:35:20 GMT

Great morning shoot with the "Relax shoot" guys at Esplanade. In fact, my second shoot with them. My first shoot was kinda messed up. Not sure why but I think my G1 with the 7-14mm wide angle lens were not focused properly (maybe). But this time, I came with an exact idea of what I was going to do.

I was going to park myself at one spot and just take pictures of multiple exposures of the same spot. By the time I got set up it was still okay - darkish at 6.37am... took a few test shots, then started shoot at 6.38am. Every minute after that, I will take a few more shots of different shutter speeds. First time doing this... now I know, every 2 mins, the shutter speed needs to be moved up. Also, as the sky got clearer, I need to not let the shutter increase too fast, as it is supposed to be brighter with sun going up. In the end I took 350 photos... till 7.52am. Quite enjoyed what I learnt, it's amazing. In fact, out the the 350, I think there's only three photos that are "there", each from a different scene.
1. Dark, with lights from the building
2. Sky turning from blue to red, half half
3. Sun is on the way up, or fully up - yellow.

My fav is two. It only happens between 7.01am and 7.02am, with only the right shutter speed to bring out the full colours. Undoubtedly, a lot of shots, and different setting, all to get "the" picture.

Now I understand.

Tired but keeping the HR

Tue, 15 Dec 2009 05:01:19 GMT

It's a lower level of HR now and getting more difficult to push the HR up, but surprised that I still managed OK. This morning (15 Dec), HR finally dropped drastically and very very difficult to push both power and HR. Most likely due to a very good interval ride last Fri (3 days ago)

Three consecutive days of workout, followed by two days of rest. Which is totally the opposite of what I do for base (continuous consecutive days with many many workouts per day).

This one I kept going at higher and higher pace as the body warmed up.

I was feeling very tired at first and didn't plan on pushing but midway, felt good enough to start pushing it. Went for hard intervals and hard recoveries. Generated a lot of power.

Hayao Miyazaki fest!

Wed, 09 Dec 2009 11:26:13 GMT

Oh wow. Hayao Miyazaki movies are coming back to cinema this December!! I'm so excited!!!!

Showing at Cathay Picturehouse

Normality

Fri, 04 Dec 2009 23:11:36 GMT

These two graphs are from one of my last few rides before my crash. A Thursday morning ride (same ride that Serene Lee crashed) while about four of us including Lost Boy Keiser were trying to pull away from the group. I remember being a little impatient because no one was working much while Lost Boy was ... a little lost. Finally getting into a rhythm, we hit a bump on the road while heading down Clementi Road area (the section that links into the highway) and we actually passed the area already when we heard the distinct sound of a crash behind so we slowed and some of us stopped while Serene was tended to. I can't believe it was only 24 Sept when this happened; it seemed so much longer before even prior to my crash on Oct 3.

http://sports.groups.yahoo.com/group/longhouse5am/message/16356

It has been a bad year for me.. between April to June, I thought I was never going to be able to ride at a decent pace again. My heart was giving me scares I've not experienced before, and everything I did (and boy, did I try a lot of things - recovery, more base rides, different diets) didn't help. I attributed the problem to be work-related. I destroyed my body the second half of 2008 while working on a project, drinking loads of caffeine related products, having inhumane working hours, many days lasting 6am till 12am and using Coke and other stuffs to keep pushing myself to complete projects. Over and over and over again. It was possibly a withdrawal syndrome but boy, was I glad when things started getting better in July. I could at least start getting back to riding normally (albeit slowly). So July was a lot of base training and finally getting in shape in Sept. And then the Oct crash.

I remember I was having a good time at the ride, mostly because I was drafting the first part of the ride. As usual Changi was harder. But enough to still sprint for the end. Was riding back with Kit when the freak accident happened. Almost two months later, I am back trying to train for 2010.

It is not easy for me to sustain or go above 160bpm normally. Am hoping to tweak some more of my training this year but it looks like more of the same; the super high heart rate I had for the first two trainings are already going down.

A new look for Xanga

Thu, 03 Dec 2009 22:51:11 GMT

Makes it easier to read. I pretty much designed the entire theme from scratch. Haven't put any pictures yet but even so, it will be in background; out of the way. I also have www.cyphercat.com registered for 5 years for a nominal fee, redirected to here. I guess when the time comes, I should be able to easily redirect it away somewhere else.

Slowing a bit

Thu, 03 Dec 2009 22:49:53 GMT

After the first two days of setting new MaxHR, wondering how much longer I can keep it up. I can generate power now, but sustaining is a bit more difficult. Without going out to ride outside, it is quite difficult to do base training, be it at higher or lower HR. Classes are pretty limited to one hours. The only way is doing multiple classes in a day during the weekends. With a busy schedule, that may not be possible also.

Easily going above 160bpm and sustaining high HR, but not exceeding 180bpm already.

Trying to generate sustained power by remaining seated throughout the ride. One of the keys of base training. There are seven of them. I can't remember all of them at the moment; when the time comes, I will. There are also personally developed methods of achieving them. HR is much lower but I am cranking more power. Too fast, too soon?