3D TV

*edit:  I posted this picture on tumblr, and it's a picture I've never shown to anyone (I think), which is quite rare.  But I was thinking to myself, "shouldn't my blogspot readers get priority since this is still my #1 blog?"

wow, I'm talking like showing my pictures to the world is a big deal or something.  anyways, this was taken at the infamous Red Square, Moscow, with my SD450.










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It's already here - Here's a picture of Manchester Utd. fans watching Arsenal vs. Man U in 3D TV.




I'm really curious -  live sports in 3D?  that's crazy.

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Why did I start photography.  If anyone's reading this, don't start T.T   You'll be broke for a very long time.

...

and I might add that Pentax Optio i-10 is the second best looking camera after Olympus PEN.  May be it's 'cause white happens to be my favorite color.

tumblr

okay, I made tumblr, against wishes of Elizabeth.  It's about the gazillionth (?) time I made it (more like third), but I think I finally figured out how to utilize it the way I want to.  I will post one picture a day, and that will be it.  My blogspot will consist of combination of photos + writing, while tumblr will be strictly photography only.  The only thing I like about tumblr is that its interface is super clean and simple.  Everything else, I think blogspot excels.

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for those of you who noticed, I changed my profile name from "the professor" to "imnolongerprofessor," because it was brought up that my profile name reminded some people of their unwanted reading assignment.  I will change it back soon though - this is supposed to be a one time stunt.

Old Pictures Remastered

All the pictures were taken in 2006, when I knew nothing about photography.  Ironically, some of them are still the best pictures I have ever taken.

For those of you viewing this through RSS feeds, you might want to actually look at this one in full size, since this entry is pretty much nothing but pictures: http://fspaik.blogspot.com/2010/01/old-pictures-remastered.html

































































China from now on:



















oh and all the pictures were taken with my beloved Canon SD450 point and shoot.





on more for the memory. My friend took this one for me:



hope you enjoyed it.

Tumblr, CDs

Today marked the 3 time I created a Tumblr.  I originally made and deleted two other tumblrs couple months ago, but after watching Jason make one, I felt tempted again.  Of course, after about 5 minutes, I realized why I deleted it twice already.  I probably won't go back to tumblr but anyways, it's annoying how everyone seems to have a different blog - blogspot, tumblr, and wordpress to name a few.  I suppose I could do all that "RSS" crap and look at it all at once, but it just does not give me the same blogging experience compared to visiting individual blogs.  Things like background pictures and color are important because it says a lot about the person you know.

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My Corinne Bailey Rae CD came in today.  Yay.  It wasn't nearly as good as her first album, but it's okay, I love her regardless.

On Jan. 25th (Corinne's album came out on the 26th), I couldn't help but to wonder if the album came out at 10pm Pacific time - since it was 1 am at East Coast and therefore, it was the 26th.  I browsed Amazon, and to my dismay, the album was NOT on sale on Jan. 25th, Pacific/Jan. 26th Eastern Time.

BUT, the interesting part was, that the mp3 CD version was already out & downloadable while CDs were still taking pre-orders.  I was actually quite tempted to buy the mp3 album instead since I did not feel like waiting two days for this highly anticipated album.

After much debates with myself, I just couldn't justify spending 8 dollars for an intangible "organization of sound and silence," aka music, especially when I could get the same thing for free, illegally.  Therefore, I decided to pre order the CD - for two whole hours.  And special thanks Elizabeth.  I actually don't know why she deserves one - she probably doesn't - but she did inspire me a bit to write two whole entries about cds and stuff.  man I'm weird.  My unfiltered thoughts are being regurgitated on to the keyboard without much thinking.  I must be typing 60 wpm.  This sometimes happens.  I'm weird again.  And since I'm writing incoherent, random thoughts, I'd like to have the new Apple iPad, albeit I was quite disappointed by it.  I hope more people, even strangers, read and comment on my blog.  Okay I'll stop.



This was taken at Upland High School, fourth of July.  I forget which year it was though.

Enjoy:

reminiscing compact discs

"Part-time Love," Elton John



(this was my favorite song at age 6).



It's true.  I romanticize the days when I would skip lunch to buy a CD.  It seems my getting older plus the overabundance of free mp3's has devalued music, at least on a personal level.  It's difficult to appreciate something until you've been deprived of it.

I remember the first time touching and listening to a compact disc.  I believe it was the summer of '87, when my parents had returned from their Europe trip.  They brought back about dozen discs, of which 3 of them still remain in my memory: "Essential Mozart," "Single Man" by Elton John, and another disc with a promiscuous looking women wearing a wedding dress.  I was six at the time, and I dared not listen to the CD with the sexy women while my parents were home.  It wasn't until years later I realized I had secretly listened to Madonna's "Like a Virgin."  This was long before I knew a word of English of course. 


(Madonna's Like a Virgin Cover.  Even at age six, I found her music to be disappointing.  I much preferred Elton John at the time, but I found myself starring at this women over and over again.  I don't think it was so much the sex appeal aspect since this was long before my puberty; rather, it's her attitude that always struck me interesting)

Though advantages of compact discs were clear, it wasn't until mid 90's when CD's completely drowned out the cassette tapes.  I hated cassette tapes - they were one thing on earth I hated more than VHS.  All that rewinding, fast forwarding, and figuring out which side is side A or B immensely annoyed me. 

Why in the world, you may ask, would I listen to cassette tapes when CD were already invented?  Two reasons.  One, we only had one CD player in the house, which was in the living room.  Two, I did not have money to buy CDs (or cassettes for that matter).

What I did do, was to buy blank cassette tapes and record songs that played on the radio.  I guess this was an early version of illegal downloading sorta to speak. 


(This is back in 91.  Oh man I wanted to be just like him when I grew up.)



(Yes kids, Mark Wahlberg used to be a rapper.  He was too cool to go by his real name, so he preferred to be called Marky Mark.  Marky Mark and the Funky Bunch to be exact.)

During this time, CDs identified you.  Obtaining the newest and the coolest CD by an artist was the fastest ticket of gaining admiration and jealousy from friends.

Two of my favorite CDs purchased during this time is probably The Miseducation of Lauryn Hill and Third Eye Blind.  I still remember the day I bought Lauryn Hill's wonderful CD.  I ripped up the CD cover as soon as I came out of the store, and I listened to it in the car without driving because I wanted to devote 100% of my attention to her. 

Towards the end of 90's, mp3s started to emerge, and friends borrowed CD's from friends and stored it on their computer.  At the end of millennium, napster was invented, and the era of CDs began its demise.

Though mp3s have long overtaken CD's as the hegemonic form of music, there is still something sensible about purchasing and listening from a CD.  From annoying wrappers to the sound of the CD's initial spin, and the featured art work on the cover, CDs feature a unique mixture of analogue product and digital music.

I wrote this piece because purchasing Corinne Bailey Rae's second album reminded me what purchasing CD used to be like.  Buying this CD is more than just purchasing a product or supporting an artist.  It's to reminisce and to re-experience the nostalgia once felt by a destitute teenager from Korea who had to starve a week to listen to precious music he loved.

Goin' Postal

"My wife lost her credit card, but I didn't report it for three months."

"why?"


"'cause the guy who stole it spends less than she does."

- some random grandpa standing in line at the postal office.  It was pretty funny I must say.




Have a beautiful day folks:

Intense

I wanted to upload a cool picture that no one's ever seen, but I couldn't find any (actually I didn't really feel like looking).  So here are some pictures some of you guys may have seen already:




I love the word intensity. I love the word Focused.

you can only give...

A wise man was walking down the street when he was stopped, cursed, and ridiculed by another man.  The wise man politely waited for him to finish, gave him a short blessing, and went about his day.

When others questioned him for his actions, he simply said, "you can only give what you have."

...

...

...

Habitual criticism is criticism towards oneself.

Tall Guys - and girls (and boys) who love 'em.

*before I write about today's topic - I experienced the "contrast principle," again!  (read the post below this one if you don't know what I'm talking about)  I went to UPS today to inquire about shipping a 29 pound package to South Korea.  The clerk told me the rates in this EXACT ORDER:

(some fancy name here) ... $371.92  (O.M.G.)
(another fancy name here)... $304.37  (whew a little better)
(something else)...              $222.70  (...wait, this actually sounds reasonable)

Now, even $222.70 is quite a ridiculous price to ship a 29 pound package to Korea but it didn't sound as bad after nearly $400.  So keeping the contrast principle in mind, politely said thank you, went to USPS, and found out that they ship for half the price. 

I love US Postal Service, and I hope they can establish something like it with our health care system.  If US Postal Service can compete so well against UPS and Fed Ex, why not at least give it a shot with health insurance?


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So we all know that many girls, even those who don't admit to it, love tall guys.  Well you are not alone - even guys like tall people.  consider this excerpt from Blink, p. 86:

"...there's plenty of evidence to suggest that height - particularly in men - does trigger a certain set of very positive unconscious associations... I found that on average, male CEOs were just a shade under six feet tall.  Given that the average American male is five foot nine, that means that CEOs as a group have about 3 inches on the rest of their sex.  But this statistic actually understates the matter.  In the US population, about 14.5 percent of all men are six feet or taller.  Among CEOs of Fortune 500 companies, that number is 58 percent.  Even more striking, in the general American population, 3.9 percent of adult men are six foot two or taller.  Among my CEO sample, almost a third were six foot two or taller.

    ...of the tens of millions of American men below five foot six, a grand total of ten in my sample have reached the level of CEO, which says that being short is probably as much of a handicap to corporate success as being a woman or African American.  (The grand exception to all of these trends is American Express CEO Kenneth Chenault, who is both on the short side - five foot nine - and black.  He must be a remarkable man...


    ...have you ever wondered why so many mediocre people find their way into positions of authority in companies and organizations?  It's because when it comes to even the most important positions, our selection decisions are a good deal less rational than we think.  We see a tall person and we swoon."

We unconsciously make decisions upon factors such as race or attire all the time, regardless of how important the decision may be.  We need to add height to that list.



(From Influence, p. 186)

At first, the cartoon may seem funny.  But really, it's actually very scary.  There's so much truth in it.



And of course, Robert Cialdini wrote about height as well.  Let's listen to what he has to say:

"Studies investigating the way in which authority status affects perceptions of size have found the prestigious titles lead to height distortions.  In one experiment conducted on five classes of Australian college students, a man was introduced as a visitor from Cambridge University in England.  However, his status at Cambridge was represented differently in each of the classes.  To one class, he was presented as a student; to a second class, a demonstrator; to another, a lecturer; to yet another, a senior lecture; to a fifth, a professor.  After he left the room, the class was asked to estimate his height.  It was found that with each increase in status, the same man grew in perceived height by an average of a half-inch, so that as the "professor," he was seen as 2 1/2 inches taller than as the "student."  Another study found that after winning an election, politicians become taller in the eyes of the citizenry.  


    ...there are two lessons for us here.  One is specific to the association between size and status:  The connection of those two features can be profitably employed by individuals who are able to fake the first to gain the appearance of the second.  This possibility is precisely why con artists, even those of average or slightly above average height, commonly wear lifts in their shoes.  The other lesson is more general:  The outward signs of power and authority frequently may be counterfeited with the flimsiest of materials."


(an example of a 5cm "lift."  Insoles such as these can be frequently spotted in South Korea.  I wouldn't ridicule people who use these - they are the smart ones)

So we all know that people are likely to hire a white guy over a black dude regardless of their capabilities, though we all claim we don't.  We know that sales persons will likely be kinder and nicer to a better dressed person, though it doesn't mean that they're more likely to purchase an item.

The question is, will you choose a taller candidate over the shorter one in an election?  I bet most people have in the past without thinking about it.

"In the 21 presidential elections from 1904 to 1984, the taller candidate won 80 percent of the time. What's more, he says, in the whole history of the Republic, only two presidents--Harrison and James Madison (5'4")--were appreciably shorter than the average height in their day."

excerpt from: http://www.straightdope.com/columns/read/787/does-the-taller-candidate-always-win-the-election



(world's tallest man meets the world's shortest man)



(the world's shortest man trying on the tallest man's shoes)


I guess I'm trying to say two things.  First, let's try not to be so biased when we're making important decisions, such as presidential elections or car purchases. 
 
Second, there's nothing wrong with liking tall people.  But remember what I said about shopping?  People buy based on emotions and justify with their logic.  The same logic is still valid.  People often choose their mates based on unconscious signals such as height, and rationalize their decisions with logic - girls guys gays lesbians alike.

Am I saying that tall people are always bad and they make terrible mates and girls are stupid for liking tall guys?  No, I'm not.  Am I saying that you should act as if you're indifferent to tall people when you really do?  No I'm not.  What I'm saying is, be careful of the bias when it boils down to important decisions, such as marriage.  According to Blink, there's a sure way to determine whether your marriage will continue for over 15 years or not, and it has nothing to do with height or any of the obvious biases.  The method?  I will share another time.




(South Korean college student, who came out on one of the most popular TV shows in Korea 4 months ago and publicly stated, "SHORT MEN ARE LOSERS."  This obviously caused a social uproar.)


(who the fuck is this bitch?)


(short guys are what?  comrades, kill 'em all!)


Saying that short guys are losers is like saying "girls with cup size C and less are losers."  You have bad taste in ridiculing someone for things that they cannot change, such as race or body parts.

The contrast principle

*I wasn't going to write more about this psychology, but since one person (Lillian) found it to be interesting, I shall continue.  My goal was two people, but oh well, one is good enough.

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If you were a sales person, would you show your customers expensive items first and move down the price range, or would you show them cheap items first and move up the ladder?

Before I go on, this is how the contrast principle works:  If you put your hand in a hot water first, and then put it in a lukewarm water, the water will feel as if it's much colder than it really is (relative to the hot water), but if you put your hand in a cold water first and then put it in a lukewarm water, you will be led to believe that the lukewarm water is actually much hotter than it really is.  Quite obvious right?

But what is super interesting is when you have a person put one hand in hot water and the other in cold water, and then have them put both hands in the same bucket of lukewarm water.  Logic tells them that the water is lukewarm, while their emotions tell them that it's not. 

So back to the sales question - what should you do?  Show the customers the expensive items first of course.  If they buy it, good.  If they reject it, then show them the cheaper item next.  They are more likely to buy the product, because the item will seem much cheaper than it really is - just like how the lukewarm water seemed to be colder after hot water.   



This is actually a real method utilized my many salespersons.  For example, a real estate company usually has bunch of "setup" properties, where they show their customers bunch of shady looking houses at a high price.  They never will sell these properties; it's just there for show.  After their customers have looked at couple of  "setups," the agent takes them to real houses on the market.  After watching bunch of dumpster like houses, the customers' eyes light up, even at a mediocre house at a decent price at best.







Still don't believe me?  Read this letter by a first year college student.  It's quite long, but it's worth it, I promise.


Dear Mother and Dad,

Since I left for college I have been remiss in writing and I am sorry for my thoughtlessness in not having written before.  I will bring you up to date now, but before you read on, please sit down.  You are not to read any further unless you are sitting down, okay?

Well, then, I am getting along pretty well now.  The skull fracture and the concussion I got when I jumped out the window of my dormitory when it caught on fire shortly after my arrival here is pretty well healed now.  I only spent two weeks in the hospital and now I can see almost normally and only get those sick headaches once a day.  Fortunately, the fire in the dormitory, and my jump, was witnessed by an attendant at the gas station near the dorm, and he was the one who called the Fire Department and the ambulance.  He also visited me in the hospital and since I had nowhere to live because of the burnt-out dormitory, he was kind enough to invite me to share his apartment with him.  It's really a basement room, but it's kind of cute.  He is a very fine boy, and we have fallen deeply in love and are planning to get married.  We haven't set the exact date yet, but it will be before my pregnancy begins to show.

Yes, Mother and Dad, I am pregnant.  I know how much you are looking forward to being grandparents and I know you will welcome the baby and give it the same love and devotion and tender care you gave me when I was a child.  The reason for the delay in our marriage is that my boyfriend has a minor infection which prevents us from passing our premarital blood tests and I carelessly caught it from him.  I know that you will welcome him into our family with open arms.  He is kind and, although not well educated, he is ambitious.

Now that I have brought you up to date, I want to tell you that there was no dormitory fire, I did not have a concussion or skull fracture, I was not in the hospital, I am not pregnant, I am not engaged, I am not infected, and there is no boyfriend.  However, I am getting a "D" in American History and an "F" in Chemistry, and I want you to see those marks in their proper perspective. 

Your loving Daughter,

Sharon

(from Influence, Science and Practice, p. 14)












Car dealers will often charge you 150 dollars for a mat that you can buy for $15 at Pep Boys.  Why?  Because after dealing with tens of thousands of dollars, 150 dollars doesn't seem at all important to a customer.  Of course, before you know it, all those small little options will have ballooned out of proportion. 

...

...

...

From my personal experience, the contrast principle works - actually, it works very well on most people.  This is the strategy I exploited over and over while playing Monopoly.  I would first ask 1,400 for a property I would be content to trade for 800.  Most people would bargain to may be a thousand, and few would ever realize the meaning of my smirk after the deal is made.  The trick is not to over ask to a degree where they think you're crazy, or you're trying to severely rip them off. 

And for fundraisers?  Are you selling those dollar-a-piece candy bars?  offer them a useless, $25 item first, like a candle or something.  When they refuse, ask them to at least buy a friggin candy bar.  A dollar will seem like nothing after a $25 dollar candle.  At least you can eat it you know? 

Oh and after you've sold all your candy bars?  return the candles - with the original packaging untouched of course.

why,

hello, beautiful.





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*Edit

Oh, and on a side note, my other Korean blog finally surpassed the 100 thousand visitor mark after a year and a half.  I hope to break a million someday. ^^

Theories, psychology,

*vast majority of ideas I'm about to write came from "Influence, Science and Practice," by Robert Cialdini.  It is a wonderful book.  I'd actually go as far as to say that it's one of my top 5.


"Civilization advances by extending the number of operations we can perform without thinking about them."  - Alfred North Whitehead.


Theory One: 

Human beings perform most of their activities out of habit.  Every time you log into computer, which sites to you visit?  Probably the same routine sites you visited the day before.  Who did you talk to on the phone last week?  Probably the same 5 people you always talk to.  What is important here, is that when anything turns into a routine, it no longer becomes a decision.  You perform without thinking. 

Our brains only have the capacity to execute so many decisions in a day - and less important decisions are pushed back into a form of a routine.  Red light you stop, green light you go, and everyone hates the yellow because it involves just tiny bit of unnecessary decision making we don't need in our lives.  This is why we get extremely tired when we travel, because we find ourselves in a situation where we need to make more decisions than we ever did.  From my experience, third and fourth day is usually the worst, and we begin to adapt to the new environment.


The Strange Case of a Turkey and a Polecat: (Cialdini, 2)

Mother Turkeys spend most of their time nurturing their young, but virtually all their nurturing is triggered by one sound: the "cheep-cheep" sound of young turkey chick.  If the chick makes a "cheep cheep" sound, the mother will care for it; if it does not, the mother will ignore the chick or sometimes even kill it.

Animal behaviorist M.W. Fox took a stuffed polecat, the natural enemy of turkeys, and hid a tape recorder inside the polecat.  The recorder inside the polecat mimicked the "cheep cheep" sound made by the turkey chick.  The mother turkey began a vicious attack against the polecat until the "cheep cheep" sound was turned on, and the mother turkey greeted the predator with acceptance and love.  When the recorder was turned off, it began a vicious attack against the stuffed polecat.  When the sound was turned on again, the turkey ceased its hostile activities. 

Though the mother turkey seems incredibly silly in this experiment, human beings are not all that different.  In psychology, we call these behaviors the "fixed pattern behaviors," where a certain behavior occurs in virtually the same fashion and in the same order every time.  What are these behaviors? you may ask.  That is the topic of "Influence, the science and practice," and my future blogs (since it's waaaaay past my bed time).  If I draw enough attention here - meaning if I see sufficient number of comments, I will write more about this topic.  If not, well, I'll shut up and post more pictures I suppose.



Keep in mind...

...that obviously, we cannot say every single human beings act in same mechanical, predictable patterns all the time.  What we are trying to say is, enough people act in similar, predictable patterns for it to be statistically significant in certain situations.  What are these situations?  well, let me see how many people find this topic to be interesting...



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LA pictures, though I don't have any pictures of Kevin T.T



The reflection was NOT photoshopped.  BUT, it's really easy to know what I did if you look at it carefully...





couple self portraits.





out of focus on purpose.




Karen is sooooo cute.



F for Fred.  Actually, for FAIL.

shopping

"...people buy based on emotions and justify their decision through logic."

I think this is true with nearly ALL human decisions.  we are not as rational as we make ourselves to be.

Do I sound...

like a distressed artist complaining about the world because he's not understood?  haha, I didn't mean to whine.

Difficult vs. easy pictures

True, just because a picture is more "difficult" to take doesn't necessarily mean that it's a better picture.  But... arg... I'm having trouble expressing myself.  This is quite rare... let me explain through pictures:



A lot of people were impressed by this picture. And honestly, I can see why people like it so much - because it looks nice.  But you know what?  This picture is incredibly easy to take, and it means NOTHING to me.

Am I being humble?  absolutely not.  Two other photographers went with me this day, and their picture looks nearly IDENTICAL to this one.  If 10 other photographers would have gone, their pictures would look nearly identical as well, regardless of their equipment (yes, even with a point and shoot).

Don't believe me? you better believe it.





(taken by kim jipsanim and park jipsanim)

Can you see why I don't really care about the picture above?  It does not take an ounce of creativity - literally anyone can take the shot.  I mean come on!  You have beautiful buildings in front of you, with water reflecting the lights.  There's really very little thinking involved with this one.

But no one took this picture:



which was ten times more difficult picture to take than any of the other pictures.  Not because it was technically difficult, but it's really hard to see a spider web on a pitch dark night, especially with such a nice view surrounding you.  You'll most likely be drawn to the buildings and pass up a small details like this one.

Plus, even if you do see one, there's slightly more thinking involved.  At what angle will you take this shot?  What will be the depth of field, how much buildings should you show, etc. etc.

And this one, people absolutely love this one, but again, it's really not difficult to see this one:



I mean, it's a friggin' fireworks - or even better, it's fire works in middle of an ocean.  Everyone knows that it's pretty.  You'd have to be an idiot not to capture the fireworks with the ocean under it.  All you have to do is set your shutter speed to 1/15th of a second and fire.  It's really not difficult.  Really!

But what about this one?



It has a philosophical meaning to it.  Half of the apple is rotting, while the other half is alive as it's still clinging on to the tree.  Do you see pictures like this often?  probably not.  At least I haven't.

What about this?  Do you know where this picture was taken at?



none other than covenant UMC. It's incredibly difficult to take creative shots at a place you've been at for over a decade. 

anyways, I guess what I'm trying to say is, I like pictures that are creative, not the ones anybody can take.  Anyone can take pictures like this:



thousands of people have, and thousands of people will.  About a week after I took this one, I saw a nearly IDENTICAL picture at the front page of Korea Times.  Lame.


I know it doesn't look as cool, but I'd much rather take pictures that are more unique and creative, at least in my point of view.