Hong Kong skyline.
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I got rid of title picture because I thought it was distracting the pictures from 365 Day Challenge.
Thursday, May 31, 2012
365 Day Challenge, Day 4
Hong Kong skyline.
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I got rid of title picture because I thought it was distracting the pictures from 365 Day Challenge.
Wednesday, May 30, 2012
Tuesday, May 29, 2012
365 Day Challenge - Day 2
Traveling is one of those things that are almost always romanticized and seldom seen as what it is - a physically and mentally draining experience. But since I am no longer exhausted, I can start spinning my globe in search for the next destination. Let's romanticize again.
Monday, May 28, 2012
365 day photo challenge, here we go.
I know I shouldn't do it, because I'm probably gonna update for about 3 days and call it quits (aka fail). But you know what, that is why it's called a challenge - because it's difficult. And it's not in my character to shy away from something due to fear of failure. Actually, that is precisely my character, but if I tell myself that it's not, then someday it might change.
Anyways, here are the rules:
I will NOT take a picture everyday. That is simply impossible. Heck, I won't even update once a day. But what I will do is:
1. Publish a new picture that has never been seen before.
2. Publish one picture per day, though it will be updated every 2~3 day or a week.
3. Write a short caption about the picture - about the content, my philosophy towards photography, or whatever is on my mind.
Day 1:
I usually know whether a picture is going to be good or not before I press the shutter. When I saw this - or this section - I knew I was seeing something special.
But after composing and taking the shot, I felt like something was missing. It was intuitive. I didn't really know what was wrong, but I knew it was. After about 10 more shots, I finally had what I wanted, which is what you're seeing. The two people have what my previous silhouettes lacked - a human trait that differentiates black shadows on a bridge from a human being. The woman is briskly moving, perhaps to a meeting, perhaps to pickup her children, I don't know. The man, on the other hand, has the weight of the world pressed onto him. Stressed out from work, getting a divorce, who knows. May be he has a gum stuck on his shoe. But it must be a big gum, because he looks quite worried.
On the bottom, there is the reflection of a gorgeous model. She's the type of person that you never see in real life, only in fantasy. I actually like the fact that it's a reflection of the ad and not the real thing, because it makes the ad look more dreamy. The top portion is the complete opposite - pure boredom.
Did all this go through my head when I took this picture? Of course not. But intuitively, I knew it. That is why you gotta act quickly in photography. Ideas are fragile, and you better capture them before they're tainted.
Anyways, here are the rules:
I will NOT take a picture everyday. That is simply impossible. Heck, I won't even update once a day. But what I will do is:
1. Publish a new picture that has never been seen before.
2. Publish one picture per day, though it will be updated every 2~3 day or a week.
3. Write a short caption about the picture - about the content, my philosophy towards photography, or whatever is on my mind.
Day 1:
But after composing and taking the shot, I felt like something was missing. It was intuitive. I didn't really know what was wrong, but I knew it was. After about 10 more shots, I finally had what I wanted, which is what you're seeing. The two people have what my previous silhouettes lacked - a human trait that differentiates black shadows on a bridge from a human being. The woman is briskly moving, perhaps to a meeting, perhaps to pickup her children, I don't know. The man, on the other hand, has the weight of the world pressed onto him. Stressed out from work, getting a divorce, who knows. May be he has a gum stuck on his shoe. But it must be a big gum, because he looks quite worried.
On the bottom, there is the reflection of a gorgeous model. She's the type of person that you never see in real life, only in fantasy. I actually like the fact that it's a reflection of the ad and not the real thing, because it makes the ad look more dreamy. The top portion is the complete opposite - pure boredom.
Did all this go through my head when I took this picture? Of course not. But intuitively, I knew it. That is why you gotta act quickly in photography. Ideas are fragile, and you better capture them before they're tainted.
Friday, May 18, 2012
Tuesday, May 15, 2012
Bonobos
Whenever I learn something astounding, my initial reaction is "why didn't anyone tell me?" Well, just couple days ago, I didn't know a single thing about bonobos, and now that I do, I am absolutely flabbergasted. Why don't they teach about bonobos in schools? Why aren't people writing about bonobos in their blogs? Why aren't we talking about them in bars? Why didn't I know about bonobos before?
If you didn't know what bonobos are, they are apes, previously known as pygmy Chimpanzees. But scientists now consider them to be a different species of great apes.
What makes bonobos so astounding are their similarities to us. Some studies suggest that bonobos genes are 99.4% identical to humans. Although I'm slightly skeptical of this statistic, there is no way of denying that two species are incredibly close to one another.
Take a look at this video, for instance. For the first half of the video, the bonobos are having sex, and the eerie part is, they are facing each other. Not only that, but look at them walk around in their hind legs, just like humans. How are people not fascinated by this, I will never understand.
Another clip of bonobos in love. They gaze at each other, they hold hands, hug, and kiss (not so much in this video), just like human beings.
And if you want to learn more, since my three days worth of bonobo research is far from expert knowledge, there's always TED:
If you didn't know what bonobos are, they are apes, previously known as pygmy Chimpanzees. But scientists now consider them to be a different species of great apes.
What makes bonobos so astounding are their similarities to us. Some studies suggest that bonobos genes are 99.4% identical to humans. Although I'm slightly skeptical of this statistic, there is no way of denying that two species are incredibly close to one another.
Take a look at this video, for instance. For the first half of the video, the bonobos are having sex, and the eerie part is, they are facing each other. Not only that, but look at them walk around in their hind legs, just like humans. How are people not fascinated by this, I will never understand.
Another clip of bonobos in love. They gaze at each other, they hold hands, hug, and kiss (not so much in this video), just like human beings.
And if you want to learn more, since my three days worth of bonobo research is far from expert knowledge, there's always TED:
Wednesday, May 9, 2012
The Perfect Diet
This is my first post since google changed the layout of the blog. Although I do see definite improvements, I am immensely annoyed by the position of the title in the "compose" screen. It's so detached from the rest of the post, as if the title should have nothing to do with the writing.
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*Disclaimer: This blogpost is my opinion, and I am not a physician qualified to say anything about our diets.
The problem with today's diet is that people are not eating as nature intended. True, if we all went back to hunting & gathering, vast majority of us would starve to death, but the problem is the foods that we consume are so refined and extracted from its original form, that it is causing us harm.
So the diet I'm suggesting is to go back to our roots, and try to limit any refined or extracted foods. In addition, try to limit the flesh of an animal that eats foods that they weren't designed to eat. For most foods, it's not really difficult. Do you see and twinkie growing from a tree? No? then don't eat it. How about spinach? yes? then go ahead. Stuff like orange juice is a little complicated, but it's made from a concentrate, so no. What makes this really difficult is when you have things like salt. My advice is to intake as little as possible. What about sugar? Do you see sugar lying around in the nature? No, it is extracted from a sugar cane/beet. Eat strawberries instead.
Sounds nice and simple right? But it's incredibly difficult. You would have to throw out just about every food that is in a box. And since virtually all of our animals are eating corn we would have to throw all of them out except naturally caught fish (though this creates a new problem called extinction, obviously). So it sounds like being a Pesco vegetarian right? Actually it is much more difficult, because you would have to throw out white bread, white rice, pasta, and many other foods as well.
The sad reality is, this is how we were designed to eat, yet it's almost impossible to do so in this day and age. Americans consume over 150 pounds of sugar a year, in which 1/3 of it comes from added, or extracted, sugar. If you have hard time visualizing, here it is:
10 five-pound bag of sugar. That's a whole lot of sugar if you ask me. That's only a third of what average Americans consume.
So what do I mean by eating foods that we were designed to eat when we were designed to be omnivores who eat everything? Well, let's take cows for an example. Cows are designed to eat grass. It's reasonable to think so because that is what they eat in nature, and they have four stomachs for a reason. These ruminants need all four stomachs to break down the grass. So what happens when you feed these cows corn instead of grass? They'll eat it, but corn only takes one stomach to break down. That's fine you might say, they only have to use one stomach instead of four, which is better right? But the truth is, cows become sick when you feed them corn. Making their stomachs do less work will actually make them sick.
What are humans supposed to eat then? Humans are not ruminants - as omnivores, we are designed to eat all types of foods. This is fine. But the problem is, modern technology has made it possible to extract a single element from plants - like sugar, and make our own food that never existed in nature before. The problem with this is that our body doesn't have to work as hard to break down refined foods like white rice and white flour. The work is already done for us.
These foods, known as simple carbs, causes a spike in our insulin levels because the hard part - breaking down the rice - is already done for us. If you eat rice in its more natural state, it takes time for our bodies to break it down and absorb the energy. In short, white rice and other simple carbs burn like gasoline, while complex carbs burn like wood - slowly for a longer time.
My theory is that it is the same for sugars. Although some people may disagree, sugar from sugar canes probably act differently in our bodies compared to sugars from fruits because the hard part is already done for us. I believe sugar from fruits such as strawberries requires more effort and time by our bodies to digest, which helps our insulin levels stay rather constant. Hence, eating naturally occurring foods that contain sugar is fine, but extracted sugar is not.
So there it is, my perfect diet. It actually should be called the common sense diet. I mean, all I am saying is, let's eat like we were designed, whether you believe in evolution or God, to eat. Why is it so hard to do?
_______________________________________________________________________
*Disclaimer: This blogpost is my opinion, and I am not a physician qualified to say anything about our diets.
The problem with today's diet is that people are not eating as nature intended. True, if we all went back to hunting & gathering, vast majority of us would starve to death, but the problem is the foods that we consume are so refined and extracted from its original form, that it is causing us harm.
So the diet I'm suggesting is to go back to our roots, and try to limit any refined or extracted foods. In addition, try to limit the flesh of an animal that eats foods that they weren't designed to eat. For most foods, it's not really difficult. Do you see and twinkie growing from a tree? No? then don't eat it. How about spinach? yes? then go ahead. Stuff like orange juice is a little complicated, but it's made from a concentrate, so no. What makes this really difficult is when you have things like salt. My advice is to intake as little as possible. What about sugar? Do you see sugar lying around in the nature? No, it is extracted from a sugar cane/beet. Eat strawberries instead.
Sounds nice and simple right? But it's incredibly difficult. You would have to throw out just about every food that is in a box. And since virtually all of our animals are eating corn we would have to throw all of them out except naturally caught fish (though this creates a new problem called extinction, obviously). So it sounds like being a Pesco vegetarian right? Actually it is much more difficult, because you would have to throw out white bread, white rice, pasta, and many other foods as well.
The sad reality is, this is how we were designed to eat, yet it's almost impossible to do so in this day and age. Americans consume over 150 pounds of sugar a year, in which 1/3 of it comes from added, or extracted, sugar. If you have hard time visualizing, here it is:
10 five-pound bag of sugar. That's a whole lot of sugar if you ask me. That's only a third of what average Americans consume.
So what do I mean by eating foods that we were designed to eat when we were designed to be omnivores who eat everything? Well, let's take cows for an example. Cows are designed to eat grass. It's reasonable to think so because that is what they eat in nature, and they have four stomachs for a reason. These ruminants need all four stomachs to break down the grass. So what happens when you feed these cows corn instead of grass? They'll eat it, but corn only takes one stomach to break down. That's fine you might say, they only have to use one stomach instead of four, which is better right? But the truth is, cows become sick when you feed them corn. Making their stomachs do less work will actually make them sick.
What are humans supposed to eat then? Humans are not ruminants - as omnivores, we are designed to eat all types of foods. This is fine. But the problem is, modern technology has made it possible to extract a single element from plants - like sugar, and make our own food that never existed in nature before. The problem with this is that our body doesn't have to work as hard to break down refined foods like white rice and white flour. The work is already done for us.
These foods, known as simple carbs, causes a spike in our insulin levels because the hard part - breaking down the rice - is already done for us. If you eat rice in its more natural state, it takes time for our bodies to break it down and absorb the energy. In short, white rice and other simple carbs burn like gasoline, while complex carbs burn like wood - slowly for a longer time.
My theory is that it is the same for sugars. Although some people may disagree, sugar from sugar canes probably act differently in our bodies compared to sugars from fruits because the hard part is already done for us. I believe sugar from fruits such as strawberries requires more effort and time by our bodies to digest, which helps our insulin levels stay rather constant. Hence, eating naturally occurring foods that contain sugar is fine, but extracted sugar is not.
So there it is, my perfect diet. It actually should be called the common sense diet. I mean, all I am saying is, let's eat like we were designed, whether you believe in evolution or God, to eat. Why is it so hard to do?
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