Imablog Perspectives of a Canadian in the Old/Deep/New/Geographic South: This is where I ramble on about nothing in particular and post a few nice pictures.

Busy weekend in store

I think this is going to be one of those weekends where I've over-committed myself just a little bit. That's what I get for doing things without consulting the all-mighty calendar first.

First there's volunteering at the aquarium. The Camp Carolina exhibit has gone away to make room for a new Madagascar exhibit, so it will be interesting to see what kind of progress has been made in the last two weeks.

Then a quick run to pick up this week's Ambrose Farm CSA and then off to the fairgrounds for the Charleston Kennel Club dog show. Always a fun time there.

From there it's out to Folly Beach for a second attempt at doing some star trails. Hopefully I haven't run into my second battery by then, otherwise I won't be doing star trails for very long.

Then if I haven't completely worn myself out, dig into the stack of papers I'm supposed to be reading to prepare for writing the proposal for my PhD qualifer.

Sunday is all dog show and more reading.

Whee.

Fat video

The HD video (superfine 1920x1080) from my Galaxy S II gobbles up storage at a rate of about 2 MB per second of video.

I haven't checked how fast the other resolutions use up space, but it will be less than this.

I'm going to need a bigger SD card to put into this thing.

SQL subqueries and joins

A while back, a script I had written to dig stats out of our PACS database stopped working for some reason. Since I was mostly done with that project, I didn't mess around with it too much.

Now I've been asked to resurrect it to gather more usage data in advance of a planned migration.

The PACS database uses Oracle, but all my DB experience is with MySQL. This is the main query I'm dealing with (it runs from a shell script, which is why the variables are there)

select
  count(study_uid),
  avg(num_images),
  sum(num_images),
  max(num_images),
  min(num_images) 
from dosr_study 
where study_ref in (
  select
    study_ref
  from dosr_series
  where modality='${modality}'
)
and study_date between
  '${c_year}${c_month}01' and '${c_year}${c_month}31'

For some reason this query stopped running. Well, it runs, but it just doesn't spit out any numbers like it used to.

If I reformulate the query into what I think is the equivalent query without the subquery,

select distinct
  count(study_uid),
  avg(num_images),
  sum(num_images),
  max(num_images),
  min(num_images) 
from dosr_study, dosr_series 
where dosr_study.study_ref = dosr_series.study_ref 
and dosr_series.modality='${modality}' 
and study_date between
  '${c_year}${c_month}01' and '${c_year}${c_month}31'

the query works, but returns different results from what I got before when the original query worked.

I suppose I'll need to find out more about Oracle SQL so I can figure out why the original query stopped working in the first place.

Update: One of my friends thinks I probably haven't rewritten the query correctly (what I was thinking as well) and suggested changing

from dosr_study, dosr_series 
where dosr_study.study_ref = dosr_series.study_ref 

to

from dosr_study
join dosr_series on dosr_study.study_ref=dosr_series.study_ref

Galaxy S II X-ray Take 2

I was doing some testing on a radiographic room today and took the opportunity to get a better x-ray image of my Galaxy S II. This was acquired using 80 kV, 5 mAs with a little bit of magnification.

Compared to the previous x-ray I took, the NFC antenna integrated into the battery looks like it's probably the series of concentric traces, like those RFID security tags you find in books and stuff. The components on the circuit boards are also much more visible in this one.

Golden Ticket camera

Anybody who follows me on Twitter or Facebook or the blog knows I like to take pictures of my food and post them.

Andra introduced me to the Foodspotting app early last year and since then most of my food photos have been going there and cross-posting to Twitter and Facebook.

In December, Foodspotting ran a Golden Ticket promo contest where they hid Golden Tickets (think Charlie and the Chocolate Factory) within the app. You 'found' them by browsing through food pictures that other people posted.

Just after I saw the email about the Golden Ticket promotion, I found one, much to my surprise. That it was a Golden Ticket for a wee little Sony WX9 camera was an even bigger surprise.

Haven't tried it out yet. It's still charging up. Fortunately Sony saw fit to design the camera so that it uses SD cards (which I already have) as well as their own Memory Sticks (which I don't have). Unfortunately they decided to use a micro-USB like connector, so that means another USB cable dangling off my computer.

Looking forward to playing with this new little camera. Thanks Foodspotting!

An afternoon at Lighthouse Inlet

An overcast day spoiled my plans to do some star trail photography at Lighthouse Inlet, at the north end of Folly Beach. I did get some nice beach photos though, before the cold wind made my hands too stiff to handle the camera. I did end up losing a lens cap to the surf though. At least it wasn't a camera.

There is of course the view of the Morris Island lighthouse. See what I did with the lighthouse on Sullivan's Island in the background?

and plenty of old tree skeletons buried in the sand

This might be one of my favourites from the day. The bright green provides some great contrast against the tangled gray/brown of the branches.

Check out the rest of the images over in the gallery.

Galaxy S II X-ray

A new Orthoscan mini C-arm arrived at the hospital last week, so while I was doing the acceptance testing on it today I used it to get a shot of my Galaxy S II.

The big grey blob in the middle is the battery and the vertical stripe in the battery I'm guessing is the NFC antenna. The square just below the top would be the camera. The square to the left of that just below the top is the front facing camera. On the right side is the headphone jack. The rectangular thing at the bottom to the right of the USB/HDMI connector is the speaker I think.

Charleston Eats: Diggity Donuts

Cinnamon sugar, lavendar sugar, just coffee donuts

Dark chocolate/cherry, Bailey's and coffee, kiwi cheesecake donuts

Charleston Eats: Tokyo Crepes

Spicy corn cheese crepe

Rib roast

Super nom

The Answer to the Great Question

"All right," said Deep Thought. "The Answer to the Great Question ..."
"Yes...!"
"Of Life, the Universe and Everything..." said Deep Thought.
"Yes...!"
"Is..." said Deep Thought, and paused.
"Yes...!"
"Is..."
"Yes...!!!...?"
"Forty-two," said Deep Thought, with infinite majesty and calm.

- Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, Douglas Adams

Star trails on a golf course

In the search for some dark skies, I was off to visit a friend in Moncks Corner who lives near a golf course. Were it not for the nearly full moon, it would have been a good night.

Oh well. At least now I know a good spot to go and try again. It wasn't a total waste. The full moon is pretty bright so I took advantage of it to see what some moonlight only photos might look like.

With a 10s exposure (f/3.5, ISO 100) it almost looks like day time.

With a little colour adjusting, you can make night into day. Daystars!

Moonlight shadow

cast by the moon

This is a stack of 37 images, 15 s each at f/3.5, ISO 100. The bright star in the center is Sirius and at the top you can see part of Orion. The trees add some interesting elements to the picture.

Going to have to head back out there in a couple of weeks to try again.

Charleston Eats: Golden Cup Cafe

Beef Stew

French Dip sandwich

Need fatter intertubes

I've been thinking about getting more bandwidth lately. The 1.5 Mbps DSL from Earthlink has been ok so far. No complaints and I've only lost service once or twice since I've had it. With Netflix in the house now pushing the issue I decided to look into it.

Earthlink advertises up to 6 Mbps DSL service. In an initial online chat I was told that there were no faster speeds available in my area, which is unfortunate. I might actually have to call to confirm this.

AT&T's DSL page tells me that DSL isn't available for my location (WTF?) although I can get U-Verse apparently (maybe they want to phase out DSL?).

Cable internet through Comcast would be the other option.

Galaxy S 2 initial impressions

It's a big honkin' phone.

I knew that. I saw the specs. I saw them in the store. Until I started holding it my hand and carrying it around it wasn't something I really appreciated.

Because of the size, I often end up inadvertently activating things when the palm of my hand touches the screen. Using it two-handed seems to be the best way to use it and avoiding messing things up.

So far I've just been getting everything set up: getting apps installed/reinstalled, filling the screens with app shortcuts and widgets and getting things configured.

For some reason Samsung decided not to build the GS2 with a notification LED, which is too bad. I found it very useful on my Cliq.

The only way to wake up the phone seems to be with the power/lock button.

Motion activation features are kind of neat. Flip the phone over to mute incoming calls/music, tilt to zoom.

Played a little bit with voice recognition. Seems to work pretty well so far. 100% accuracy, although I've only tried one short sentence. Still, it works. Was never able to use it on my Cliq due to microphone issues.

T-Mobile does include a lot of bloatware, which is unfortunate. Some of it is useful, but there are a few that are of pretty questionable value.

Not sure how battery life is yet. I was tempted by the case with built-in 1500 mAh battery (to supplement the 1850 mAh battery the GS2 comes with), but I had already ordered a spare battery and charger so I figured there wasn't much point. Like the Cliq, I'm not terribly optimistic.

Visibility of the screen is pretty good in full sunlight. I was pleasantly surprised about that.

Haven't spent any time playing with the camera yet. Planning to spend the weekend doing that.

The GS2 wakes up and notifies you when it's fully charged. Not sure I see the point of that, but ok.

The internal 16 GB is set up as three partitions. There's about 2GB for system storage (apps and such), 11.25 GB as USB storage (acts like a built-in SD card mounted at /mnt/sdcard) and the rest presumably for the OS. If you add in a microSD card, it shows up in the file system mounted at /mnt/sdcard/external_sd. It confused me a little when I went to look for stuff on the SD card and didn't find it where I expected. There's 784 MB of RAM used for running things.

Really liking the phone so far. Way better than the Cliq. It's fast, responsive and has a gorgeous screen. The bluish tint takes a bit of getting used to though.

SGS II Unboxing

I finally bit the bullet and decided to dump the Cliq for a shiny new Samsung Galaxy S II.

The goodies inside the box: Phone, wall wart and cable, SIM card and battery. Interestingly, the antenna for the Near Field Communication (NFC) is integrated into the battery.

Here it is side by side with the Cliq. It's a big phone, but pretty slim.

Power up!

Apparently I need to go get the data on my old SIM card transferred to the new one. The manual says it will allow me to upgrade to Wi-Fi calling when it becomes available. I could probably pop the old SIM in there I guess. At least the wifi works fine.

Update: After trawling through the T-mobile forums, I discovered there was an update to Androild 2.3.6 available (the phone came with 2.3.5). After a few hours of futzing around and staying up far later than I should have, I got the update downloaded and installed. Then the phone told me that Wi-fi calling was available, but that my SIM card (I put the old one in to test) needed to be updated. Off to the store at some point.

Charleston Eats: Geechee Island Food Truck

Conch stew with rice

First photos of 2012

Yesterday I wandered out to Lighthouse Inlet at the north end of Folly Beach. I've driven out there lots of times before, but never got out of the car to walk out there.

It's a pretty nice spot and there were a few people out there enjoying the New Year day weather. Offers a nice view of the Morris Island lighthouse. Since it was just a spur of the moment thing, I didn't have my regular camera with me.

Lots of interesting tree skeletons buried in the sand.

Lots of beach to wander along too.

Going to have to head back out there soon with the good camera.

Photo favourites: 2011

2011 marked a return to the SLR world with the acquisition of a used Canon Digital Rebel XT. I spent most of this year experimenting, playing and learning. Lots of photos were taken. Lots of panoramas, experimenting with different photo settings, dabbling with long exposures and a lot of learning how to manipulate RAW images.

These are some of my favourites from this year.

This one was from a CSCLUG meeting we had at Coastal Coffee Roasters in Summerville. It's the falling beans that I liked about this photo.

This was from a sunset photowalk at White Point Gardens. I really like the orange-y cast of the sunlight and the shadows of the trees.

This is from a night time photowalk I went on with some friends. A simple photo of some spanish moss lit by the flash, but it has kind of an alien look to it against the black background.

I started experimenting with star trails and long exposures recently. This is one of my favourites from my recent experiments.

The rest of my favourites are silhouettes, a technique I enjoy using. The first one was taken at the Red Bull Illume exhibit that was set up in Marion Square earlier this year.

These three silhouette images use my favourite light source: the sun. I just think objects backlit by the sun look really cool.

New starts and fresh beginnings

2011 was an interesting year, in that Chinese proverb/curse sense of the word. Hopefully 2012 will be less "interesting".

I see new things in store for 2012 and it looks to be a busy one.

Probably the biggest event in store for 2012 will be getting past my qualifier. Once I make it past that, it should be a reasonably clear road to finishing my PhD. My original intention to do work, classes and research at the same time turned out to be somewhat overly optimistic, especially this past year where I didn't get much in the way of research done at all. Hopefully I'll be able to make faster progress starting in the new year, because quite honestly I'm starting to get tired of the whole school and research thing and will be very glad to get it over with.

Also looking forward to finally getting rid of this dud of a cell phone and upgrading to something with that will be a little more fun to use.

More simplicity is the goal for 2012.