As a trip I've planned for 5 of us for over a year, I'm proud to say that everything is going as planned, and we are all raring to go. It's going to be my longest trip at 19days, effective 17, which even if you compare the effective days, it still beats my longest in New Zealand at 16 (can't remember effective days).
I've never felt the excitement of a holiday for a long time. The last I recall was in Primary School, where I'd be too excited to sleep properly, and even before that, when I would be too excited to even eat breakfast.
Naturally, I'm able to manage the excitement alot better now, but to be honest, very few places brought out the same feeling as I used to experience many years ago. That is not to say I haven't enjoyed the holidays themselves. I'm talking about anticipation here.
Last minute shopping as usual =D I got my winter stuff, and taking advantage of the fact that I'll need these stuff for when I go to UK, my parents are more willing to invest in a decent pair of winter boots.
I'll also need to pick up a 77mm Circular Polarising Filter for my EFS 10-22mm F/3.5-4.5. I've not much experience with snow covered landscapes, but I recall it was kinda blinding for cameras, especially if taken at the wrong angle. Polarisers also help saturate the colours more by taking away glare from leaves (especially useful in autumn, from the pics I see) and, in this case, a winter landscape will be rather washed out, so polarisers might help.
I'm hoping to shoot around at least 100 photos (average) a day in Japan.
I believe, and this is shared by many others, while it is not officially announced, it is obvious that after the SOPA and PIPA was stalled by the world, the USA, or more specifically the FBI (I think), started cracking down on many file uploading sites, where much of our free resources come from. This cripples a large portion of our sharing, as many people prefer direct downloads compared to Distributed Downloads via P2P software, like torrents.
Torrents can easily be cracked down upon also, if they want to further incur the wrath of the rest of the world. Torrentspy was shutdown in a "cease and desist" order, which, them being nice people, and/or not having the resources to face these overly bathing-in-money rich corporations, simply obeyed and left the face of the planet. Thankfully, thepiratebay.org has been up and about, fighting, and resisting all the way, and I really, really respect them for that.
The big bullies with all the money will continue to try to put down everything else that they see that could potentially make them less money, and as long as the cost to do so is lower than their potential earnings after whatever they want to put down is finally put down, they will continue to try. (We must continue to try to make this process extremely costly for them. The more the cost, the less likely they will try)
This is where the end user comes in. There are 7 billion of us on the planet, of which a few hundred million have access to the internet somewhere in the world. Power in numbers is TRUE power, and not something that can be shaken a stick at (and, I don't recommend you try). We currently are going through nodes, i.e. sites and protocols, which are the choke points (in military strategy), and it will be of interest to whoever who tries to stop us, to focus their attention on choke points. Sooner or later (let us hope later, I'll discuss that in a while), there really will not be anymore free web, unless Capitalism takes a dive. However, there will still be a free internet. And by this, I mean, that the "choke points" will all be blocked. And, we users, will stop playing on the "ground" and take to the "skies".
Open up the world of direct P2P sharing (a revival from times when Limewire, Napster, Ares, etc, were really popular). The next step for everyone. But this time, instead of sharing with unknown peers over the internet, or using servers as trackers (like torrenting), you share with your FRIENDS via NORMAL transfer software like msn, ftp, etc, or even thumbdrives and harddisks. These make use of existing protocols that cannot be shutdown (or the internet itself will die), and with open source and other freeware, it will be extremely easy to establish a direct connection to your friend's computer to share with them anything they'd like.
The setback about this is that you need to know many people if you want to get stuff easily, and also, the rate of spread will be slow. But it can be as fast as it is now, once we have the software to back it up. It will be a different type of software than the ones we use now. And surely, you wouldn't mind helping out your friend who wants to watch that next movie, or grab a copy of that song you have wouldn't you?
Sharing directly also requires fast internet connection, and this is why we need to wait. If you're lucky to be getting symmetrical broadband plans, good for you, but alot of people are on asymmetrical, which means they can't upload as fast as they can download. The connection will only be as fast as the slowest pipeline, so we need a high bandwidth symmetrical plan EACH, for it to work well. Thankfully, fibre access is coming to many places in the world, slowly, but surely. As it covers more of the planet, and internet speeds increase, we will have no problems transferring that huge file (or files) over to another person for them to enjoy. But we need time to let this happen.
We're all connected very few "relation ties" apart. Ever heard of the "6 hops away" thing? It's the statistical average number of relations between anyone in the world. I know you, you know another, and so on. By the time it has reached the 6th person, almost everyone in the world is "known by you". Sharing data can be easily done that way, and that is how it's going to eventually go once the free web goes down.
All these sounds a little tedious and tough, but it should remind you of why all this started in the first place. People do not want to pay so much. Until prices come down, which won't be soon (cause: greed), sharing and copying will continue. If you feel that it's not worth your money, you will definitely not pay. No one will. That's the basic principle that everything runs on. By trying to tackle the problem without addressing the root, those greedy corporations will never taste victory. The problem, is really, themselves. And until they recognise that, they will continue to fight a losing battle.
The internet itself is impossible to control, unless you eradicate it altogether. Direct sharing will be the next step, and I believe and recommend that we should start working on it in our garages, while delaying the breakdown of the free web. That way we will be ready when it happens.
As you can tell, I'm also in support for this. I cannot say the full reasons for my support, but I'll let the links speak for themselves. In short, this can and probably WILL result in a domino effect which will put the internet out of user generated content. Basically, it will end up as just an advertisement portal. Now, aren't we sick and tired of ads already?
Might I remind you: The RIAA Pirated $9 Million Worth of TV Shows just a few months back. These are the same big corps that are pressing for this bill. They are hypocrites, using the money they've got, to squeeze the rest of the world for more. Greedy? Extremely, but that's what money does to many people. So remember, get rich the right way. It's not a matter of legality. Many legalities are wrong morally. It's about the morals.
Yeap! They just emailed me like 0154 in the morning. Well, I guess for them it's like 1754, clearing up the friday's lot before heading home for the weekend. Unconditional offer! And it's to Christ's College! Which is a great place. I chose it mostly because of its en-suite rooms, but it's also located in the "almost-middle" of Cambridge, so there's not too many visitors, but also really convenient. Now, all I'll be waiting for is MIT or Caltech. MIT is a sure-accept choice, but for Caltech, that might be a harder decision. Well, let's hope I can get into the OTHER Cambridge haha!
...for me that is.
I imagine if I do go back in time to just before 2011, and told myself how much I'd be getting into all this, I might believe myself. But tell that to the me I was in say... June 2010, I'd never have believed so.
While no doubt army has taken away a signifcant portion of my already short life (on the cosmological scale), I at least managed to find and develop a bit outside of it. Not that throwing another several hundred hours into anime is considered as "development", but I'd like to think that at least I furthered myself in an area which I chose to, and learnt... many things.
2011 was the year of the beginning of serious anime watching. And by serious, I mean I don't watch dubs, only subs, listen to the Japanese dialogue while using the subs to understand it better. Sometimes, you can catch nuances that can't be translated into english, and that kind of makes you understand a little more about what's going on.
That was also the year of learning Japanese, because the end of 2010 only got me a little way into it, i.e. the basics: Hiragana and Katakana tables, and the basic grammar structure. I've been trying to make it sound more natural in writing, and that's also one reason I try not to use the polite form, even though it may be easier sometimes.
2011 was also the year of serious photography improvement. I won't say serious photography, since I actually started somewhere in 2009, and decided to get a DSLR in 2010. But my skills somewhat stagnated in 2010, and only in 2011, specifically the second half of it, where I made it a point to research more into technique and composition. My rate of "keepers" has signicifantly improved, and my "worth showing" rate has gone up tremendously.
I also purchased more equipment to help. 2011 saw me getting (in order) the EF 50mm F/1.8 II, the EFS 10-22mm F/3.5-4.5, the Manfrotto 190CX3 with the MH054M0-Q2, and pre-ordered the YongNuo 465 which is due to arrive sometime later this week, or next week.
2011 was my second AFA, this time being waay more serious, and I spent a hell lot on it (almost $500). This had the combination of Anime AND Photography, which was awesome since these are the two biggest things currently for me.
So, quite a big change there for the year 2011...
2012 promises to be an awesome year as well. January is busiest for me since there are all sorts of events happening, while February is gonna be awesome, 'cause that's when we go for our Epic Trip. March and April will determine my future location for the next 4 years, (hopefully it will be the location I've always wanted to go to), then June-July will see DSTA preparing all of us for it, and August will be my self-preparation, followed by September/October which is when I'll get to see my new location, and the start of a new life that will take some getting used to, and I'll probably be able to come back here for a while over December, before you see yet another post stating how awesome my new life is. Wow....
Oh yes, and not to forget those people who will be killed/made fun of/pummeled because they thought the world would end before the next Christmas. Regardless, I'd have already have lived an awesome year anyway.
Heh.
Singapore has crossed the midnight boarder time-zone, and so it's a new year. Awesome way to start it was to take good pics of fireworks. This time, well more prepared than last year's feeble attempt at shooting NDP fireworks.
Btw, I don't make New Year Resolutions. I feel resolutions should always be made as and when necessary.