Month: February 2016

Sound of Silence (Disturbed)

In terms of its meaning, I am not sure about the origin of this Simon & Garfunkel song, but after listening to this version by Disturbed, I have to think it has something to do with the alienation and disconnection humans, mostly in the Western world, have from each other. The feeling of being alone with an inner voice screaming I am here but silence all around. We each know that the other is yearning for connection but yet silently continue about our affairs -- suffering.

According to Wikipedia:

Garfunkel once summed up the song's meaning as "the inability of people to communicate with each other, not particularly internationally but especially emotionally, so what you see around you are people unable to love each other."Wikiwan

I watched the video a few times, pored over the lyrics and realized that the song could be used as a commentary on our culture and the current overuse of our smart devices -- our iPhones and iPads, and MacBooks.

In restless dreams I walked alone
Narrow streets of cobblestone,
'Neath the halo of a street lamp,
I turned my collar to the cold and damp
When my eyes were stabbed by the flash of a neon light
That split the night
And touched the sound of silence.

Perhaps that flash of neon light is the collective flash from millions of iPhone screens lit up. Then another part of the lyrics cemented that imagery for me.

And the people bowed and prayed
To the neon god they made.

Maybe Simon & Garfunkel were prescient.

A Basic Shoe Shine Kit

This morning, I commented to a co-worker on how well he kept his shoes cleaned and polished despite the large amount of salt and sand in the parking lot and sidewalks after the snowstorm. I admired his shoes, and then I looked down at my salt laced business loafers. I was suddenly reminded of many of the basic hygiene and personal grooming tips I was taught while attending elementary school and high school in the British West Indies. Boys and girls were expected to keep fingers nail at an acceptable length, laces tied, shoes clean, socks pulled-up, teeth brushed, ears cleaned (especially behind the ears). This expectation lay both with the parents and the school.

I remember attending the St. Vincent Preparatory School1 in Kingstown, St. Vincent and standing outside and lining up for inspection by a teacher. I don't remember if this was a daily or weekly routine. I do recall that failure to maintain proper appearance could result in a verbal dressing down but the teacher. As a boy, nothing felt worse than being in the company of my peers and being told by someone in authority that my appearance was unkempt. Public shaming worked well. Sometimes, a note would be sent home to my parents, indicating my lapse in judgment regarding my nails' proper length. I parents would agree, and I would suffer some consequence designed to correct my error.

I am remiss in teaching my kids similar basics and in setting the proper example. My dress shoes are a mess, an embarrassment. I decided in the moment that I wanted to take better care of my shoes and perhaps look for ways to step-up my personal grooming habits. I did some searching using the keywords "art of manliness shoe shine"2 and found a plethora of articles, illustrations and the following video.

After watching the video, I started thinking about creating a shoe grooming kit. The Art of Manliness web site has an article that provides plans on how to make a shoeshine box. However, I have no wish to build one, so I took the easy way out and searched Amazon.com. I chose Amazon.com because I can get things quickly with my prime membership and because I can read customer reviews. When buying something that I've never bought before, reviews are helpful. Amazon had several kits available, some of which are inexpensive and basic.

Perhaps I should list what the essential shoe shine kit should include:

  • tin of wax polish
  • horsehair shine brush
  • shoe polish brush (applicator)
  • cotton balls
  • shine cloth

The basic kit has all those items. However, I want a nicer kit, one that has a classic look. I like the Florsheim Men's Cedar Shine Box and the Moneysworth & Best 9 Piece Premium Cedar Valet. Both of these kits have the essentials. The Florsheim kit is cheaper but doesn't seem to include a shine cloth. The Moneysworth kit does.

I did some more searching on Google and found the Shoe Shine Kit web site. Shoe Shine Kit is the web presence of a 36-year-old family-owned shoe repair business selling shoe shine kits and shoe and leather care products. I like the darker wood's look in the basic wooden shoe shine kit. The package is considerably more expensive than the basic kit on Amazon, but I seem more complete and seems built to last decades.

  • Two 6" 100% Horsehair shoe shine brushes. One for black only and one for brown or another colour.
  • Two applicator brushes. 100% Horsehair also, and one light and one black.
  • Three jars of Shoe Polish
  • Two Professional Shine Cloths
  • One 8" Professional Shoe Horn

Shoe Shine Kit will also engrave my initials on to the box for free. This seems like the sort of product a young gentleman would buy, use often and keep for a lifetime. I think I have found what I a looking for. I am adding the Shoe Shone Kit basic kit to my birthday wish list. A gentleman is also frugal, so until I have saved the money for the upgraded kit, I will start the habit of removing schmutz from my shoes and using a shoe insert.

  1. The school systems in the West Indies are based on the British system. In the island where I lived, children under 13 attended preparatory schools to prepare them for high school. To enter high school, students must pass an entrance exam. This is similar to the system used in Britain. Coincidentally, I attended for the first year of prep-school and last year of high-school in St.Vincent but attended schools in three different islands in between those years. ↩
  2. I have made up my mind that the Art of Manliness web site is the sort of web site that my male high-school teachers would have enjoyed and directed us to had the Internet exhausted 35 years ago. It's culturally very American, but there is much good content that I find useful. ↩

iPhone Photo App Image Quality Compared

The iPhone 6 has an 8 megapixel (3264 x 2448 pixels) camera with a fixed aperture 4.15mm f/2.2 lens, a shutter-speed range of 1/2000 of a second to 1⁄2 a second and ISO range from 32 to 2000. With the crop-factor, the lens is equivalent to a 29mm f/15 lens on a full-frame 35mm camera. That's a fairly wide lens with very little depth of field which in my opinion is best suited for landscape photography.

When you save a photo on your iPhone, either at the time of shooting or after editing, the app you’re using determines several factors that affect image size and quality. And not all apps are made equal. How Different iPhone Photo Apps Affect Image Quality

After reading that article, I wanted to do my test of the camera apps I have installed on my iPhone 6. I recently

For the test, I set up my iPhone 6 on a tripod near a window. I set up each app to record in its highest quality mode. For some apps that meant a TIFF formatted file. Some of the apps capture in JPEG format only. Some of the apps can do both. JPEG is a lossy compression format. This means that the JPEG algorithm makes decisions and removes information it deems irrelevant. This compression varies between apps. TIFF files may or may not be compressed but the compression is lossless. TIFF files sizes tend to be larger than JPEG.

The camera apps that I tested include the native iPhone Camera app, Camera+, ProCam, Manual Camera, Slow Shutter Cam, Manual Camera, and VSCO. Most of the apps on the list are ones I actually use to capture images. Some of the apps, like Enlight and Adobe Camera, are the ones I use mostly for filters or editing my images. I have a few other apps with cameras but these apps included so little data with the image that I removed them from the test.

This table is a comparison of the file sizes shown in megabytes (MB) and the resolution of the images that I shot with these camera apps.

App File Format Resolution (WxH) File Size (megabytes) GPS Data
Adobe Camera 1.0 (from Lightroom Mobile) JPEG 3264x2448 1.78 MB Yes
iOS 9.2 Camera JPEG 3264x2448 2.1 Yes
ProCam 3 TIFF 3264x2177 28.4 Yes
Enlight JPEG 3264x2448 2.0 Yes
Manual Camera JPEG 3264x2448 4.6 Yes
Camera+ 7.1.1 TIFF 3264x2448 9.6 Yes
Slow Shutter Cam by Cogitap Software TIFF 3264x2448 24 Yes
VSCO JPEG 3264x2448 1.7 Yes

The iOS 9 native camera app, Adobe Camera, Enlight and VSCOcam have the smallest file sizes. The smaller the file size, the poorer quality of the image is likely to be. Since doing this test, I have switched to using Camera+ as my default camera app. Camera+ features a widget that I installed in my iPhone’s Home Screen Notification Center. From there, I simply press “Take Photo” to go straight to Camera+. However, if my iPhone is locked, it will ask me to unlock it before taking me directly to Camera+. It's not as quick to get access to as the native camera app but is still faster than unlocking your phone, finding Camera+, opening, and going to the access screen.

I discovered that editing TIFF files were a challenge for some apps including the native Photos apps. Every crop edit I made I resulted in my image turning black. Once it turns black it stays that way in every other app. Instead of the Photos, I now use Photogene for cropping and minor editing of TIFF images. Fortunately, Photogene makes non-destructive edit and exports images in TIFF format as well as JPEG and I can specify the image size on export.

Since I started using Camera+ I have made some changes to why mobile editing workflow. I capture images with Camera+. Camera+ is set up to save all images in TIFF to my image catalogue. From there I open the image in either Photogene to make crops and edits or Prime or RNI Films to apply a filter. It's an efficient workflow.

However, I am considering switching to using the ProCam app. It can also be accused via the iPhone lock screen, saves in TIFF format, allows manual controls of ISO and shutter speed, but also has some of the functionality of Slow Shutter Cam by Cogitap Software. ProCam app could replace three apps. However, I'm reluctant to switch because it means learning a new app and my fingers are already tuned to one way of working. But I expect I'll switch eventually.