Smithology

Last night I finished reading Someone Comes to Town, Someone Leaves Town by Cory Doctorow. I had gone into Pulp Fiction last week to grab Little Brother but they had sold out so I thought I’d get an idea of Doctorow’s style in this book. (Actually if I had been so inclined, I could have just downloaded the book from his website for free as he seems to release all his books this way)

With this book I was expecting a fairly straightforward urban tech novel maybe similar to what William Gibson has been writing lately which is just a totally wrong assumption. Doctorow’s style in this novel is possibly more of an experimental partial post-modern deconstruction or something. Or maybe it’s allegorical, I don’t know. The book has a fairly straightforward plot if your exclude the main character. It’s about a share house and a neighbourhood wireless mesh starting up. Then this weird main character is dropped into it who seems to have stepped out of a badly remembered dream. As the story progresses, even more weirdness is revealed. But somehow the story is really compelling and I had to keep reading just to see if any of it was going to be explained. I was pretty happy with the ending and might have enjoyed the book more had I known beforehand that it was going to be pretty weird.

[tags]science fiction, cory doctorow, books[/tags]

books books, cory doctorow, scifi

An interesting habit developed with the toddler tonight. It started at dinner time:

Me: What would you like to drink, juice?
Him: (hands me the soda water) beer!
Me: ok I’ll make you a “beer” (mixes the juice and soda water)

Later on he’s in the bath with his “beer”. As he gets out he slips over and has a bit of a teary. When he’s calmed down he sees his cup on the floor: “My beer!” he exclaims tragically.

So as I’m reading him his books (including one with pictures of utes given to him by a friend) I ask him if he’d like some milk to help him get to sleep and of course he says: “No I’d like a beer”.

Disclaimer: he only sees me drinking maybe once a week which consists of one light beer so all I can surmise is that he’s tapped into some kind of Jungian Aussie bogan consciousness.

[tags]beer, bogans, humour, toddlers, utes[/tags]

fatherhood

As I mentioned previously, we’ve been preparing for a new baby. The day came last week and it all went relatively smoothly and we now have a beautiful baby girl.

My role during the day consisted of saying reassuring things, sitting in the corner, some hand-holding, getting towels and glasses of water, SMSing, calling the midwife, reading the output from all the machines and commenting on what I thought they did, running the music and taking photos.

On the music front, I’ve gained a few tips on selecting tracks. Basically you want music that is happy but not demanding attention so I had it all on low volume most of the time.

Approved:
Badly Drawn Boy – About a Boy Soundtrack (also approved by obstetrician)
Morcheeba – Parts of the Process
Mutton Birds – Envy of Angels
Darren Hanlon – Hello Stranger

Not that great (and comments from the customer):
Ryan Adams – Gold : A bit too rocky in parts
My Friend the Chocolate Cake – self titled : too brooding (but actually starts quite happy)
Daft Punk – Discovery : too bleepy. Has a good part in the middle that works ok
Midnight Juggernaughts – Dystopia : too harsh

The new Pentax K100D “Super” DSLR (recently obtained as part of an insurance claim) performed ok but I was expecting better. The point and click cameras may not be outstanding in every way but they often make the most of a bad situation: bad light and inexperienced photographers. Right at the end of the birth I was asked to cut the cord and a midwife took a few photos. She was not used to a SLR and so I think she either shook the camera or the light was just such that we couldn’t get a good exposure. I had the flash turned off because I have a problem with flashing lights in everyone’s faces and I think flashes make everything look harsh.

My advice on cameras is to have a point and click one as well as a good one. The DSL is excellent when you know how to hold it and can put it onto the right settings. The sales guy told me that the DSLR would do all of the auto things that a point and shot camera does so wouldn’t be a problem for inexperienced users. I have found that you do have to know a bit more what you’re doing even if it’s just knowing how to hold it.

I also had a chance to actually play with the camera while we were waiting for things to happen and mostly discovered the different white-balance settings and the auto ISO sensitivity settings. My camera can go up to 3600 ISO but will only go to 800 in auto mode to save you from taking grainy photos. I prefer grainy to blurred but had to manually go to 1600 or 3600 for the low light stuff. Also the camera can be set to compensate from different types of fluros and incandescent lights. The LCD display can be a bit misleading here: on my laptop, the photos were more yellow than I thought and the white ones that I didn’t like on the LCD came out more natural looking.

If you’re choosing a hospital to have a baby in in Brisbane, my experience of the Mater three years ago was pretty negative, the midwives just seemed negative and I can’t really explain it. The Wesley this time around was warmer and the midwives seemed to have a buzz and were enjoying their work. We felt a lot more informed as the day progressed. Just those small things made the difference.

[tags]baby, birth, brisbane, cameras, hospital, music, photography[/tags]

fatherhood