Photo of the Day

I'm building a small studio to do photography work for the hospital. It's quite an adventure doing it on a very small budget and with limited gear. Today I made Fumiko be my guinea pig for a few shots. The setup certainly isn't complete. There are a number of problems I found while shooting that will need to be resolved soon, which is fine as it was exactly my goal for the day.

To get Fumiko to make this face, all I had to do was suggest she take her shirt off. Man, women are so easy!

The Truth Of Things

Link in title.

The Detail In A Satellite Photo

Just how much detail can you see through Google Maps? Well, that all depends on the source images that came from the satellite. In some rare cases, there may be extreme levels of detail not exposed by the Google Maps interface. Through a little URL hacking, though, we can get to it.

• Elephants
• People at a well

For more Google Maps hacking fun, check out the Wikipedia article.

Is That In The Play Book?

Winning Japanese wrestling moves.

Might hide the children before opening the full size version of this image.
Thanks for the find, Scott.

Socialized Medicine?

This guy was full lights and siren racing to an emergency

when BLAM! His left rear tire exploded right in front of our house. As the sound echoed up and down the street I thought to myself, "what a great blog post this would make on the dangers of letting government use the lowest-bidding-contractor for medical services..."

Pics from the Hospital

Healty Diet According to Japan

Cow fat = bad.
Pig fat = good.

In practical terms, exercise caution with the marbled steaks, but go to town on the bacon.

Photo of the Day

COIL Loveless

On Surgery

This is a bit of a follow up to my previous posting on my first surgery experience.

Having had the chance to really watch a surgery up close, it's finally clear to me why they take so long to recover from. We toss around expressions like "surgical precision" rather easily, but what a load of shit! Precise it ain't. Surgery is a very violent process, and even the most careful of surgeons is something like a bull in a china shop. When you think of the size of a scalpel in the context of the microscopic cellular world, it's a bit like using a demolition ball on a crane to remove the gate from a dainty white picket fence. What's more, it's easy to forget about all the things that have to be cut, pulled, tugged, torn, yanked, clamped and crushed out of the way just to get to the surgical target. Clamping sounds innocent enough, but when you really look at the clamp you realize a soft tissue is being squashed between the tiny steel teeth of a very powerful little device.

The Cost of Transportation

All freeways in Japan are tolled. To drive from Yatsushiro to Kumamoto, about 10 miles, is ￥1,050, or roughly $10.50. That's one way. Round trip is $21. This is in a rural area, too.

My First Surgery

In about 15 minutes, I'm going to go into my first surgery. It's a follow-up procedure on a kitten with a funked-up eye. (Yes, that's the medical term.) If all goes smoothly, my job will be only to give the doctor suture thread at the end. If the kitten stops breathing, my job gets a lot more complicated as I'll have to breathe for him manually, then if the doctor deems it necessary, operate the ventilator.

I've been wanting to photograph an operation for the company website, but Fumiko suggests (and I'm not one to disagree) that it's probably better to wait for a more standard procedure such as a spay or neuter.

Speaking of Web Design

These tools have been indispensable:

• W3C Markup Validator
  


• W3C CSS Validator
  

Much better than the validation tools in Dreamweaver. (I'm using CS3)

Web Designers Unite

<!--[if IE]>
     /wrists
<![endif]-->

On Coffee

Dark roast, extra dark roast, rich, bold... all these words make great marketing when promoting coffees. The words sound luxurious and appealing. But I've pretty much come to the conclusion that, when it comes to java, these words are really just code for "bitter, extra bitter, gross, and pungent."

If you want to actually enjoy your coffee, look for a medium or mild roast. Something that hasn't been burned into oblivion and lets the flavor of the bean come through.

Another advantage -- some say that caffeine is heat sensitive, and thus the lighter the roast the more caffeine remains intact. (I'd be curious to know if anyone has more information on this.)

Lately I've been enjoying medium roasts from Mexico and Guatemala.