2005 December Archive at The Aptly Named, Sam’s Blog

December 30, 2005 Comments

My photography in 2005

This has been a watershed year for my photography. I’ve always had a casual interest in it, but this year I invested time and money into practicing it. The time came from shunning TV. I don’t miss it. I recommend it. The money required was less than what would have been necessary in a pre-digital age. That made it affordable. flickr.com has been a great influence as it has provided me with a community with whom to share, discuss, and enjoy photography. Thanks to all of them! I’ve added two photos below that I liked a lot. You can click on them to see larger versions on flickr.

I deliberately chose one B&W and one color photo. I like working with both. The B&W shot is film and the colored one is digital. Interestingly, both were very quick shots, about ten seconds from identifying to clicking. Both were taken on a street, first one in Portland and the second one in Seattle. I like taking pictures on the street and that is where I focus my efforts, even though these photos don’t present the flavor of street photography that I like. In that regard, I particularly admire the work of Garry Winogrand.

On Intelligence

I recently read “On Intelligence” by Jeff Hawkins. The book is about the author’s efforts to understand the human brain’s mechanism for intelligence and to apply it to machines. He presents a model of intelligence called the memory-prediction framework.

This was perhaps the first time I had read a somewhat detailed analysis of the possible mechanism that drives human intelligence. Some concepts that I found especially interesting were that of invariant and hierarchical memory. Also, the idea that the brain predicts all actions before they are executed was fascinating. If the subject interests you, I highly recommend it. It is quite readable.