Author Archives: rob

it’s a pen

Posted by rob on

it’s not a point and shoot, not an slr . . . it’s a pen.  what will you create?

well that is how olympus camera company described e-p1, a camera that features the sophistication of a d-slr but is built into an extremely small and easy to use camera.

wired.com

i have been wanting a d-slr camera for sometime now but having a bulky camera with me just dissolves the thought. currently, i use my ever-dependable sony cybershot w300 and i also have a t77.  i am not really knowledgeable on cameras but when i saw the olympus e-p1 on the internet, i got fascinated with its features as an alternative for a d-slr.  here’s the overview of the ep-1 from the olympus webpage ~ click here.

i saw sample images from digital camera review, you have to scroll down on the page to see the pictures they took and it was surprisingly nice!

something fishy

Posted by rob on

as much as possible, i never whine about the food i eat here at the rig but imagine yourself eating the same prepared food every other day seems unbearable.  the thing is, i cannot complain for the only thing i eat is fish and seafood (i practice pescetarianism) and our catering’s food supply is limited.  people here don’t like eating fish – everyone are carnivores!

.. maybe i’m just missing my ma, i miss her home-cooked meals back home.

triboluminescence

Posted by rob on

triboluminescence is an optical phenomenon in which light is generated when material is pulled apart, ripped, scratched, crushed, or rubbed through the breaking of chemical bonds in the material. the phenomenon is not fully understood, but appears to be caused by the separation and reunification of electrical charges. the term comes from the greek τριβείν (to rub) and the latin lumen (light). ~ wikipedia

i have read that this can be observed if you break wint-o-green mints (lifesavers) in the dark – and guess what?!  out of curiosity and boredom, i tried to “experiment” to witness this extraordinary occurrence.  i have a pack of wint-o-greens, took one of these mints with me inside my bathroom with the lights off and broke it by crushing the candy with a metal spoon on the countertop of the sink.  so, did it spark?  nope – then i found out that i have to let my eyes adjust in the dark first!  haha!  fail!  on my second try, i waited for a while and this time rubbed together the two broken pieces of the ring-shaped mint candy and whoa!  specks of blue-green light were detected!

the wintergreen flavor (methyl salicylate) of wint-o-green mints has the characteristic of being fluorescent, thus emitting light through friction.

.. and i therefore conclude that this was the result of my boredom.  lmao!