Monthly Archives: February 2009

Photo Firsts (Mark, Dan again) and Stats

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Life has gotten another month of updates. It would have been more, and you were going to get some photoshops as well, but then I decided to be social and Ally came over and we went to the bookstore and Safeway and I just got home, so you only get a month and no photoshops.

Here’s my first photo of Mark:

October 10, 2004, before the Simmons Farm trip. This is not, however, my first photo of Rob Bayer… I have one photo of him standing there before I included Mark in the shot.

Also, it turns out I was incorrect in this earlier post about my first Dan photo. THIS is my first Dan photo:

September 29, 2004, in 15200 lecture. This may also be my first Matt photo… I have not confirmed yet.

I am now, unfortunately, done tagging all my CMU photos. This means that every photo I have taken between May 27, 2004 and present day (as well as many, many before that date) is tagged and searchable. I’m at over 120,000 photos tagged. Awesomeness.

This means I can present some stats on my photos, for those interested (currently only limited to things that start with CMU since high school photos aren’t all tagged yet):

    Number of photos by person, for people I group as “Fairfax people” (basically, all the people who have had “Photo Firsts” posts so far):

  • Apphia: 1812 photos, 9-2-04 to 5-18-08
  • Dan: 1360 photos, 9-29-04 to 5-18-08
  • Greg: 2286 photos, 9-9-05 to 12-25-08
  • Ian: 892 photos, 9-2-04 to 12-23-08
  • Keith: 2315 photos, 11-13-04 to 8-16-08
  • Mars: 600 photos, 2-26-05 to 5-18-08
  • Mark: 2131 photos, 10-10-04 to 2-7-09
  • Tim A.: 2285 photos, 9-2-04 to 12-23-08
  • Tim M: 2856 photos, 9-10-04 to 5-18-08
    Additionally, by date starting with Freshman year:

  • August 1, 2004 to July 31, 2005: 19172
    • August 1, 2004 to December 31, 2004: 13740
    • January 1, 2005 to May 31, 2005: 5220
    • June 1, 2005 to July 31, 2005: 212
  • August 1, 2005 to July 31, 2006: 20495
    • August 1, 2005 to December 31, 2005: 6920
    • January 1, 2006 to May 31, 2006: 10741
    • June 1, 2006 to July 31, 2006: 2834
  • August 1, 2006 to July 31, 2007: 23146
    • August 1, 2006 to December 31, 2006: 6392
    • January 1, 2007 to May 31, 2007: 14128
    • June 1, 2007 to July 31, 2007: 2626
  • August 1, 2007 to July 31, 2008: 35743
    • August 1, 2007 to December 31, 2007: 23916
    • January 1, 2008 to May 31, 2008: 8672
    • June 1, 2008 to July 31, 2008: 3155
  • August 1, 2008 to present: 10213
    • August 1, 2008 to December 31, 2008: 6223
    • January 1, 2009 to present: 3990

Quiznos’ Deceptive Marketing

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So a couple weeks ago I received a ton of Quiznos coupons in the mail (not as part of some larger coupon packet, so they must have sent it themselves), about half of which were coupons for free subs (either when you buy one sub, or when you buy one sub and a drink). Thinking this was a good deal, I pulled some coworkers into going with me. When I got there, it turned out that they weren’t actually honoring the coupons, and their “since” date on the notices posted were before I had even received the coupons so it would seem that they had never intended on honoring the coupons. Instead, they gave some small discount with the coupon ($3 off two subs, I believe it was). I figured since we were there anyway, we might as well do it. (Felt a bit cheated the whole time though, like they had pulled a bait-and-switch on me.)

Today, I came across the million subs website, which gives you a coupon good for a free sub if you sign up with some personal info (name, age, favorite sub, state and zip). Again, I sent the link around and headed there at lunch with a couple coworkers intending to get a sub. Once again, there was a notice that they were not honoring the coupon and were instead giving a small discount. I checked another nearby Quiznos and this seems to be standard for the area.

I consider this extremely deceptive on their part. I understand that the area is a little more expensive (it *is* the financial district/SOMA in SF), but they did send out the promotional material the first time, and the website did not state any limitations on the use of the coupon, even though it had my zip code and could have easily notified me. To do this to pull in customers, and then refuse to honor the deals, is unacceptable.

So yeah, I’m a little pissed off about this. I used to love Quiznos, and would go to the one in Pittsburgh sometimes and get their tasty soup-in-a-breadbowls and ones here for Sammies (nom nom). But after this experience, I think I’m going to be dropping Quiznos from my list of lunch destinations in SF. Shame on you for your horrible marketing practices.

In other, unrelated, news, Alisa and Chris, you still haven’t reposted the meme. I have your photos mostly finished, but you won’t get them until you repost :P

In other other news, I ordered the lens I talked about in my last post. It should arrive at some point next week. Exciting! :D

Piccaring

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I went photographing with Gopi today, and had a lot of fun.

I got to try out Gopi’s 8mm lens, with 180 degree view:

Also, it was rainy:

I also shot a lot of photos with Gopi’s 50mm f/1.4 lens. I’d forgotten how much I loved the lower fstops on my film cameras because of the amazing depth of field you get, and the ability to handhold after sunset or indoors (such as the cluster):




Have to end with this:

As a result, I will likely almost certainly be buying myself this lens (50mm f/1.8, ~75mm equivalent for digital) later this week. My normal-use lens (18-200mm) only stops down to f/3.5 at the 18mm end and f/6.2 at the 200mm end (and my 100-300mm isn’t much better), which is generally worthless for depth of field. Also, this would be an ideal portraiture lens, and I tend to prefer shooting portraits. Meh.
…
…I can afford to spend $130, right?
…I still feel bad spending it though. Blahhh.
…I’m also tempted by the 50mm f/1.4 but I don’t think the extra stop down is worth an extra ~$250.

Ugh camera repair

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So some of you probably remember my horror stories about this camera repair service (such as not fixing it the first time, not being open during their advertised hours causing me to waste a trip downtown, not having people on-hand to do repairs despite that being their name, losing my flash popup button such that I had to use a paperclip to pop it).

Turns out they left me with another present: When they fixed my camera, they set the time on it behind by 12 hours. This isn’t something I noticed before because I usually don’t use timestamps, and the time itself is right (it’s just the AM/PM part that’s wrong). Noticed this today while tagging photos because Photoshop Album (which is a rather terrible program in itself, but I digress) sorts photos by chronological timewise but reverse chronological for days (i.e. as you’re scrolling down, 12:01 midnight on January 2 appears before 11:59 PM on January 1, but 11:58 PM on January 1 also appears before 11:59 PM), so some days were being split up (because photos taken before vs after noon on that day were being reported as different days). So yeah, now I have to go and fix the timestamp on every photo from August 5, 2007 until today. Argh.

Don’t ever use this camera repair service. Seriously.

On the plus side, I have now tagged 104226 photos. Yay photos.

Video! Release! (In the other order!)

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There was a 158R2 release. I gackwatched R2a, and am on support for R2b. The R2a release was surprisingly smooth and awesome. Yay releases.

Tim made this for me, and it’s simultaneously awesome and frightening. I’m tempted to rip it into an MP3.

Photo tagging goes well. I have now passed the 100,000 photo mark, with ~100,950 photos tagged. I have no idea how many photos I have total now, although the number has certainly gone up (possibly past 170,000) since the last time I checked.

I don’t know. I just felt like I should make an entry.