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kaberett) wrote2025-09-02 10:13 pm
(By "today's" I mean not "all of those harvested today, nor even yesterday" but rather "the tomato course with dinner".)
I really love the ridiculous stars on the tops of the Blue Fire.
brithistorian) wrote2025-09-02 03:38 pmI imagine that a web search could turn up the answer for this (or at least it could have, before AI ruined web search), but I feel like one on you could probably explain it to me better, and you might even enjoy imparting your knowledge to someone, so I'm asking the question here.
This morning I was reading the interview with Chow Yun-fat in the Giant Robot 30-year celebration book, and I was hoping one of you could explain what he's saying here about the difference in space and cameras between Hollywood and Hong Kong films:
In the Hollywood studios, you have more room, more space, I mean for the dimension for the camera, for the screen. But in Hong Kong, our buildings, our rooms are narrow, so we must use a lot of action or movement because the depth is not enough to expand the whole images in the picture. So we must use a lot of movement. Also, we must use a lot of wide-angle lenses to enlarge the environment, the space. So every time you see actors in the movie we look wider, fatter because the lens can make the people like that [puffs up his cheeks for emphasis]. Usually here [in Hollywood] we are using 50mm lenses for the close-up or 85mm lens. But in Hong Kong we use 35mm or 28mm, because the depth is not enough.
I'm not understanding the relationship between size of the lens and depth of the picture (and TBH I'm not entirely clear on what he means by depth of the picture). I thought the different sizes of lenses were for different distances between the camera and the subject, but apparently there's more to it than that? (Or else I'm entirely wrong about that?)
sonia) wrote2025-09-02 10:36 amoursin) wrote2025-09-02 04:49 pmJust back from dental checkup - no major problems, one tooth could do with having an inlay done, unurgent.
***
Not bad for one of my years, eh?
The other day I was flitting around online and I came across some advice page where a young(ish) woman was complaining that her ma kept relying on her to do a fairly simple basic computer thing for her own business enterprise (!!!) even though daughter had A Life and increasingly busy career of her own -
- but, she goes, what can you expect, Mother Is An Old and they are not at home with Ye Tech, alas.
Age is given and Ma is young enough to be My Daughter, and not just Had I Been A Gymslip Mother in the 1960s, or even had I rushed to the registrar's office straight after receiving my degree -
For in those halycon days, my little ones, although we received GRANTS to go and study, did a lady-scholar marry while pursuing a tertiary education her grant was seriously reduced -
No, I could have been out into the world some few years before succumbing to maternity.
So really, that is no excuse, I don't consider that makes her even An Old - menopausal brain fog perchance? - but honestly, a woman of those years has had every opportunity to get up to speed with extremely basic computer operations, as in, creating documents and transmitting them to the persons with whom her business is dealing, in fact I don't know how she has managed to avoid this knowledge.
One suspects she is just exploiting Daughter.
nanila) wrote2025-09-02 02:42 pmcosmolinguist) wrote2025-09-01 10:56 pmToday hasn't been a great day in a lot of ways, but I was able to send an online pal €20, about a quarter of what the short Chinese language class costs that they want to take (and the textbook). That made the difference between them not being able to register for the class and being excited now to start it next week.
I don't like to brag about stuff like this, but on some days it's really good to have it to hold on to.
conuly) wrote2025-09-04 03:55 amcellibrithistorian) wrote2025-09-01 09:08 pmWhen I was reading Geoffrey Parker's Global Crisis: War, Climate Change & Catastrophe in the Seventeenth Century, one of the things I make a note to research more later was the fact that Maréchal Vauban had made models to show Louis XIV the fortifications that he had designed. I wondered, of course, if any of these models still survived. As it turns out, many of them do, in a number of different museums throughout France. Here is a blog post that describes a visit to a museum that has one of these models on display, as well as mentioning the locations of some of the others. I was pleased and surprised that so many of these models are still extant, given what's happened in France in the roughly 350 years since they were made. I was also stunned and surprised at the scale of the models: On reading about them, I had pictured something roughly along the lines of 1:5000 scale (roughly 1 foot = 1 mile), but instead it turns out they were constructed in 1:600 scale (roughly 9 feet = 1 mile). Wow! Definitely something I'd like to see, if I ever make it to France and have sufficient time available.
conuly) wrote2025-09-02 09:16 pmazurelunatic) wrote2025-09-01 01:37 pmmarginaliana) wrote2025-09-01 05:08 pmallen to see The Who at Fenway for their farewell tour. It was exquisite - because how could it not be? So many people there, all singing together. I scraped my voice to shit during You Better You Bet, I nearly cried during Love, Reign o'er Me. Absolutely magnificent. I want to pack the memory away into my soul.stultiloquentia's place with her housemate and bironic eating extremely fresh and ripe tomatoes and chatting about plants, homeownership, taste in art, bats, whether Batman gives enough to charity, etc. andersenmom) wrote2025-09-01 02:35 pm
andersenmom) wrote2025-09-01 02:27 pm
oursin) wrote2025-09-01 08:18 pmSome while since I posted about being solicited to attend a dodgy-sounding medical conference ('a boutique-style event that emphasizes depth and interaction. Modest in scale but rich in content, the conference’s intimate setting fosters close communication and meaningful dialogue.').
My dears! they must be quite desperate for me to attend, for I have subsequently received not one, no, but TWO further invitations to 'be an Oral Speaker and/or Session Chair', they 'would be honored' to have my participation.
This may be like that invitation I received to a Virtual Trade Mission to Estonia in the supposition I was person of similar name to mine who had at one time had something to do with the Alpha Chi Omega Fraternity, Inc (I do not know whether it would have been of any relevance to them, either).
Maybe there is an actual OB/GYN person of similar name - further hilarity if they are of a different gender, my first name being liable to confusion - and even more if they get queries asking them to be on podcasts about Queen Victoria's sex life and other saucy topics.
On another prickly paw, this person, who does in fact exist and Know Who I Am, and has been assured my continued existence and (relative) compos mentis state, has quite failed to get back to me. Perchance the tone of my response was just a tad tetchy - I did not say JFGI but even these fallen days I felt that a little poking around on Ye Internettez would have uncovered usable contact details.
umadoshi) wrote2025-09-01 04:03 pm
scruloose's mind and energy are currently elsewhere (long-overdue reno project). Also, y'know, I have a rewrite due in less than two weeks that I'm having real trouble focusing on; both that and the general restlessness are presumably not being helped by inevitable mild worry about Jinksy having dental extractions (also long-overdue) tomorrow.brithistorian) wrote2025-09-01 11:37 amI'm currently reading Friend of the Devil: My Wild Ride with Jerry Garcia and the Grateful Dead by Len Dell'amico. In the first chapter, Dell'amico tells about meeting Jerry Garcia for the first time in September 1980. They're talking backstage in Garcia's dressing room before a concert. One of the other people in the room is a Hells Angel named Tiny. Garcia pauses his conversation with Dell'amico for a moment to talk to Tiny. As it turns out, Tiny had been sent to deliver an official message to Garcia, which begins " I come tonight with a message for you from Mr. Sonny Barger, the president of the Oakland Chapter of the Hells Angels. . ."
As a historian, this is interesting/amusing to be because by 1980, Barger had already been worldwide head of the Hells Angels for 22 years, yet here Tiny is introducing him as "president of the Oakland Chapter." Apparently the Hells Angels use the same leadership structure as the Catholic Church (where the pope's official tile is "Bishop of Rome)! ^^
umadoshi) wrote2025-09-01 11:36 amscruloose and I were married, but we were already in it for the long haul, and at this point I had zero reason to think I would ever be able to have cats again because of their allergies), and when I finished the scrap of the song I knew and stopped, she quite reasonably belted out "KITTENS COME! IN A CAN!", which I had no way of predicting, and I probably didn't literally hit the floor in horror, but it came close.scruloose had to explain WTF had just happened and talk me down a bit, I think. ^^;andersenmom) wrote2025-09-01 08:27 am