sebruiz.net » sport

HDR Imaging – Qtpfsgui – Surf

Seb — Mon, 05 Nov 2007 12:52:49 +0000

I’ve had the pleasure of owning a Nikon d80 for the last two months and have only recently started playing around with the advanced image post-processing techniques like HDR which have interested me for so long. Unsurprisingly, HDR (High Dynamic Range) imaging is appealing to so many people because it can make images look larger than life and surreal with the colours and contrast which are shown.

Now that daylight savings has kicked in I can get home from work during daylight hours. A recently southerly picked up the surf swell and I got some excellent photos of a well known big wave surfer and Bra Boy, Richie Vaculik surfing a normally rather insignificant break at Lurline Bay.

Qtpfsgui is one of the finer HDR/tone-mapping pieces of software available for Linux, despite the abhorrent name choice. With a bit of tweaking I managed to get a few nice images out of my raw images. I’m looking forward to improved HDR support for KDE in Krita.

Busy Busy Bee Weekend

Seb — Tue, 17 Apr 2007 00:54:36 +0000

The last week has been really busy, in that really great and satisfying way. On Saturday Mish and I went for a hike in the Royal National Park, on a wonderfully sunny day and we spent the day running along cliff edges. There were fishermen (no doubt fishing) off ledges a good 20m above the sea water, and you’d know why if you saw: the water was chaotic and smashing along the rock walls.

Sunday morning I went for a surf with Tony and Dani – great fun at Bondi beach until disaster struck and Tony has his board snapped in two . In the afternoon I found some time to fix my KDE4 build and got into some Amarok hacking again, working on the new-and-totally-cool context view. We’re using QGraphicsView which is so yummy and fun to work with.

Yesterday I spent the day at work and was totally surprised when the Tomcat/J2EE application that I’m working on “just worked” when I threw it onto Linux. I was shocked that it worked since the webapp was compiled under Windows, and with a different version of Java. Still very slow, but it worked.

Finally, last night I went to the Red Hot Chili Peppers concert, which was fantastic. Great music, and a much greater ‘funk’ in their live versions of the newer song releases. The only really terrible thing was the support act, Har Mar Superstar, an overweight hairy man who is convinced of his “sexiness” and did a striptease down to his underwear. I thought it was hilarious however, and was laughing the entire set .

When Surfing Goes Down Hard

Seb — Sun, 15 Apr 2007 07:01:00 +0000

Went down to Bondi beach this morning for a surf. Weather was a warm 25 degrees, the water was pleasant enough to not need a wetsuit. After a couple of hours in the water, it was break time after a good series of being dumped by the close outs. Dani joined us, and as we went out past the break Tony got sucked into a big one and his board didn’t come out of it alive .

The photo hides the fact that there were infact big waves down at the beach. Poor Tony, I hope the board can be repaired.

… and here’s to reality

Seb — Sun, 04 Mar 2007 11:40:13 +0000

I got back from holidays, then I got a full time job, and then two weeks later I left because the contract was totally unfair and crap. Then I re-enrolled in uni 1 day a week. This last week was spent practically living on the beach with my surfboard as my only shelter, eating blue bottles and drinking from the shower taps. My arms and shoulders hurt from all the surfing – feels good.

Tomorrow I start another job, working part time three days a week. Looks fun, at least.

Windsurfing on the Red Sea

Seb — Fri, 29 Dec 2006 22:02:54 +0000

I’m in Dahab now, and this morning I decided to give windsurfing a try. Wow, it was pretty hard. i met a couple of Hungarian pro windsurfers who gave me a lesson, which was fun. The sail is heavy, and there is lots to do instead of just standing on the board and riding it! I think I’ll stick to wave surfing at home, but trying it again at another stage is definitely a must.

Tonight I went out for an enormous chicken kebab meal, with rice, tahina, baba ganoush, green salad and fresh warm pita for a whopping set back of A$5. Satisfaction is guaranteed in Dahab, especially when food is the topic. We tried to find a pool table tonight, instead we kicked back with a beer in a tacky boat shaped hang-out joint.

The homeless world cup

Seb — Fri, 22 Sep 2006 10:11:11 +0000

Unbelievable, but its true.

There was doubt that South Africa would have its stadiums built by the time of the 2010 World Cup.

I think they’ve fixed that problem by hosting the homeless world cup. Homeless people playing a world cup competition on the street.

Crazy!

Fanatical Flares!

Seb — Wed, 16 Aug 2006 13:27:53 +0000

Went to see the football this evening, Australia vs Kuwait as part of the 2007 Asian Cup qualifying rounds. I’m glad we won

buzz buzz splash!

Seb — Tue, 15 Aug 2006 08:57:14 +0000

This week has been pretty eventful already, and it’s going to get even busier! Over the weekend I noticed that my computer was making more funny noises; you may recall that I’ve had a string of calamities which seem to be aligned like dominos on an oily table. Because I’m nearly at tipping point with my computer, I just started banging it when the noise started, and the quiet hush of the fan resumed its whirring. Sure, poor solution, so I discovered the problem was with the power supply unit. Wherever there is life there is death, and wherever there is death there is medicine/engineering (or both!). I replaced the fan with a replacement which I have, but not before snipping the wires and realising that I couldn’t solder straight onto the psu board without risking imminent death on switching it on. I only found enough shrinkwrap to cover one solder point on the wires, so the other had to be rigged up with the shell of another larger cable i found in the bin. Resourcefulness is the most attractive quality a man can ever have, I’m sure of it.

I also indulged in some retail therapy this weekend, buying a wetsuit to go with my surfboard! It’s been quite warm lately in Sydney, and work has caused me to become jaded about ever being able to be in the sun with some free time. Today was a good day, so I went for a surf after leaving uni early for . Seriously though, I feel so unfit as I could barely hold myself amongst the waves after thirty minutes in the water. Then I walked home and it hailed. Hilarious stuff, this city!

Tomorrow I’m going to cheer for the Socceroos as we play against Kuwait for the Asian Cup qualifiers, and then on Thursday I’m off to see the All-American Rejects – looking forward to the game and the concert!

wetsuit and summer

Seb — Mon, 14 Aug 2006 23:59:37 +0000

Wonderful weather this weekend, summer is coming back reeeaaallly soon! So, I bought a wetsuit and hopefully will be going back to the surf very soon.

hooray!

The Italian Job

Seb — Tue, 27 Jun 2006 09:48:33 +0000

Italy wins against Australia:

originally found on: http://users.on.net/~billt/italianjob.gif