
<a href="https://d1js6qm6cshi0v.cloudfront.net/oldblog/2012-09-27-state-of-the-offspring-address-september-2012/8026176249_a5c642cf34_o_d.jpg" target="_blank" class="flickr-image post-thumb" title="Cutie Nora">
  <img src="https://d1js6qm6cshi0v.cloudfront.net/oldblog/2012-09-27-state-of-the-offspring-address-september-2012/8026176249_da107445d7_t.jpg" alt="Cutie Nora"/>
</a>

The big news this month has been Nora starting school. Her [Period of Adaptation](/2012/09/06/meeting-noras-teacher/) will end at the end of September, and in October she will be going the full five hour school day. She has taken to it _wonderfully_! Before she used to ask me two questions every morning, "What day is today?" and "Do I have to go to daycare today?" On weekdays when the answer was affirmative, she would be sad. But now when she asks if she has school today, she gets excited. She loves it! She goes in without any complaining and comes out with a big grin on her face. We all couldn't be more pleased about the situation.  <a href="https://d1js6qm6cshi0v.cloudfront.net/oldblog/2012-09-27-state-of-the-offspring-address-september-2012/8009338918_25dcca2638_o_d.jpg" target="_blank" class="flickr-image" title="Happy Turtle">
  <img src="https://d1js6qm6cshi0v.cloudfront.net/oldblog/2012-09-27-state-of-the-offspring-address-september-2012/8009338918_17b7ab6820_n.jpg" alt="Happy Turtle"/>
</a>

One day, as we were walking to school, we came across another boy from Nora's class walking with his mother. Nora's initial class the first week was with one other girl and six boys. To engage them in conversation the boy's mother and I were asking our kids if they were excited to see various members of their class, listing their names. The boy's mother said, "And Nora's going to be in class, too!", to which the boy responded, "Yes, but \[the other girl in the class\] is prettier!" His mother was mortified and speechless for a few seconds before scolding him for saying such a thing in front of Nora. Whatever, he's crossed off the potential son-in-law list.

I've been having fun asking Nora about what she did in school each day, although it's only been for an hour most days. Sometimes she'll tell me that they read a story or painted or sang a song, but sometimes she'll refuse to give any details. I also ask her to tell me about anyone who misbehaved in class. One day she told me that a certain boy was playing with a pirate hat and another boy came to take it from him. A struggle ensued in which the hat in question was destroyed, "And now there's no more pirate hat."

<a href="https://d1js6qm6cshi0v.cloudfront.net/oldblog/2012-09-27-state-of-the-offspring-address-september-2012/7999746162_7cef126fe9_o_d.jpg" target="_blank" class="flickr-image" title="Proud Preschooler">
  <img src="https://d1js6qm6cshi0v.cloudfront.net/oldblog/2012-09-27-state-of-the-offspring-address-september-2012/7999746162_5ab5c8e28a_n.jpg" alt="Proud Preschooler"/>
</a>

Their class mascot is a turtle named _Tomasa_. It's not a real turtle, but a big stuffed one. The kids will eventually take turns taking _Tomasa_ home over the weekends. Apparently they used to use real turtles, but it turns out three-year-olds aren't that well suited as reptile caretakers. _Tomasa_, the children are told, has very sensitive ears and doesn't like it when there's a lot of yelling in the classroom. Every morning they sing a song about her. So far we only know two lines.

> La tortuga Tomasa viaja con su casa,
> 
> y aunque se retrasa, siempre llegará

In English, that's:

> Tomasa the turtle travels with her house,
> 
> and although she falls behind, she always will arrive

<iframe width="505" height="314" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/MRbmLEukygg" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>

One day, Nora came home from school and was beside herself with the hilariousness of chanting, "_¡Caca, culo, pedo, pis_!" repeatedly. For those of you without infantile Spanish potty vocabulary, that translates to "Poo-poo, butt, fart, pee-pee!" We did our best not to encourage repetition, but her enjoyment was often so infectious that we couldn't help cracking a smile. When she told us that her teacher had taught it to her, we were a little shocked. Surely not, we thought! A subsequent meeting with the teacher and all the parents, however, revealed that they are doing a "scatological themed" project which features bodily functions usually performed behind closed bathroom doors. My intellectual side is very pleased by this, but is constantly battling with my visceral social taboo reaction to the subject. Of course the very fact that she thinks that string of words are funny is because she's internalized some of society's discomfort about the subject matter.

<a href="https://d1js6qm6cshi0v.cloudfront.net/oldblog/2012-09-27-state-of-the-offspring-address-september-2012/8026175905_65873e758b_o_d.jpg" target="_blank" class="flickr-image" title="Going To School">
  <img src="https://d1js6qm6cshi0v.cloudfront.net/oldblog/2012-09-27-state-of-the-offspring-address-september-2012/8026175905_65286460ef.jpg" alt="Going To School"/>
</a>

They form a "train" to go into the school, with each kid grabbing the shirt of the one in front. Nora and her classmates think this hilariously fun.

Nora is often so excited to get to school that, when her teacher comes out of the school to collect her class, Nora will run at full speed and slam into the legs of her teacher. Once she even ricocheted off and fell flat on her bottom. Again, we couldn't be happier.

<a href="https://d1js6qm6cshi0v.cloudfront.net/oldblog/2012-09-27-state-of-the-offspring-address-september-2012/8030309997_86cc91a878_o_d.jpg" target="_blank" class="flickr-image" title="School Train">
  <img src="https://d1js6qm6cshi0v.cloudfront.net/oldblog/2012-09-27-state-of-the-offspring-address-september-2012/8030309997_fa54ffff9a.jpg" alt="School Train"/>
</a>

The longer train with all the kids. Nora was the caboose.

These last two days of September, she is going to school for 3.5 hours in the morning. This requires getting up about an hour earlier than usual and going with all 24 kids. When she came home after her first 3.5 hour school day, she was mentally exhausted. She wouldn't tell me anything about her day and had sort of a blank stare. Eventually her brain had processed all the stimuli and she could tell me about things she'd done.

<a href="https://d1js6qm6cshi0v.cloudfront.net/oldblog/2012-09-27-state-of-the-offspring-address-september-2012/7979362911_41ea17d059_o_d.jpg" target="_blank" class="flickr-image" title="Wearing Mommy's Shoes">
  <img src="https://d1js6qm6cshi0v.cloudfront.net/oldblog/2012-09-27-state-of-the-offspring-address-september-2012/7979362911_c9f877285d_c.jpg" alt="Wearing Mommy's Shoes"/>
</a>

She'll fill her Mommy's shoes soon enough. The state of the offspring is strong!


State of the Offspring Address - September 2012


![USA Flag](https://d1js6qm6cshi0v.cloudfront.net/oldblog/2012-09-26-hey-obama-my-3-year-old-wrote-you-a-campaign-slogan/8027071902_a2818e2033_o.gif) Dear President Obama,

No doubt you are missing that mindless chant of [Yes We Can](/2008/06/11/podemos/) that your followers could repeat incessantly during your 2008 campaign. It was brilliantly open ended. If what "we could" do was elect the first African American president, then yes, we could. But now so many of your promises turned out to be harder to accomplish than expected, so you certainly can't use the same slogan for re-election. Fear not, however, dear leader, for my three-year-old has written a new slogan for you. Recently my daughter told me that some of the grownups at her daycare were talking about me and saying that I was English. This is a common mistake due to the double meaning of the word for the language and the people. The same happens in the US when people refer to Spanish_\-speaking_ latinos as "Spanish people". Anyway, my daughter took it upon herself to correct them, informing them that I am actually an [_americano_](/2011/12/28/papa-americano/).

Since then, she and I have been having discussions about nationality and about who is which nationality. She hasn't quite grasped how she can be [both Spanish and American](/2009/06/23/dual-nationality/).

Then, a week or so ago, out of the clear blue silence, she started chanting something. This happens often, and it's often nonsensical, but I listened more closely and asked her to repeat it louder. She was saying:

You and me, we are America!

She meant "America**n**", of course, but she was having a ball chanting it to herself over and over again.

That's when it hit me. What a perfect campaign slogan! It's inclusive, it's personal, it's unifying, and it makes use of the language's ambiguity about the plurality of our second person pronoun! It's perfect!

<iframe width="505" height="314" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/LJUqFA9_Sxg" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>

Mr. President, send over some black helicopters, and we can talk licensing.


Hey, Obama, My 3 Year Old Wrote You A Campaign Slogan


<img src="https://d1js6qm6cshi0v.cloudfront.net/oldblog/2012-09-14-how-to-throw-a-ball-against-a-wall/7985717582_8dc0375eb1_t.jpg" alt="How to throw a ball against a wall (thumbnail)" class="post-thumb"/>One day back in July, I was out with my daughter at the school playground and she was playing with a ball. She wasn't throwing it very well, so I stepped in to fulfill my fathering responsibility of teaching my child how to throw a ball. I explained that you turn your side to the target, and step forward with the opposite foot as you pivot your body and transfer your weight before releasing the ball. Step by step, I pointed out how my body was positioned as I slowly mimicked throwing the ball.  I have my doubts as to how much of my instruction sunk in, but she clearly loved my narration of physical activity because she immediately (and for several hours afterwards) began describing whatever she was doing in the form, "You need to do this, and then this." Apparently, the day before, her mother had given her some instruction on throwing a ball against a wall and catching it again, so that is what she began teaching, either to me or to an invisible class of students. So I began filming.

The result was this hilarious video that is a perfect example of her very different skill levels of English speech and hand-eye coordination. It reminds me of a physical comedy sketch, something I could imagine John Cleese or Rowan Atkinson performing with total seriousness.

<iframe width="505" height="314" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/MUIFczqLFuc" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>


How to throw a ball against a wall


<a href="https://d1js6qm6cshi0v.cloudfront.net/oldblog/2012-09-12-grape-flies/7979344082_affd06dc77_o_d.jpg" target="_blank" class="flickr-image post-thumb" title="Fruit Flies on Grapes">
  <img src="https://d1js6qm6cshi0v.cloudfront.net/oldblog/2012-09-12-grape-flies/7979344082_9004e3a25a_t.jpg" alt="Fruit Flies on Grapes"/>
</a>

My wife brought back several kilos of grapes from her grandfather's grapevine in Extremadura last month. They are very sweet and delicious, but, having grown up eating only seedless grapes, I have found it nearly impossible to adjust to eating grapes I can't just chomp down on but have to be careful to either remove or swallow the seeds. I had no problem adjusted to eating olives with pits, but I think it's the ambiguity between whether or not grape seeds are small enough to swallow or big enough to spit out that has kept me from enjoying Spanish grapes.  Anyway, we were unable to consume them all before they started to ferment on our kitchen table. One day when I accidentally bumped the bowl, a cloud of fruit flies was released into the air, which was both shocking and pretty cool. It reminded me a little of _The Green Mile_ (RIP Michael Clarke Duncan).

Yesterday I finally got around to dichotomizing them, placing the edible ones into the closed tupperware container and the rest into the trash can, but before I did, I got out my tripod and photographed some of the flies on the grapes. They are _tiny_ little buggers!

<a href="https://d1js6qm6cshi0v.cloudfront.net/oldblog/2012-09-12-grape-flies/7979343346_1bacd7a623_o_d.jpg" target="_blank" class="flickr-image" title="Fruit Flies on Grapes">
  <img src="https://d1js6qm6cshi0v.cloudfront.net/oldblog/2012-09-12-grape-flies/7979343346_1b2ceb3a7c.jpg" alt="Fruit Flies on Grapes"/>
</a>

I love the weblike structure you can see in the grape. I'm curious if the black freckles have any causal relationship with the flies. I assume the flies must be piercing the skin and eating the sugary insides of the grape, so I wonder if the dots are some oxidation at the site of the hole or something, sort of like the swelling at the site of a mosquito bite? Some of the freckles are actually part of the grape's skin, but others are particles that can be washed away. Fly turds?

<a href="https://d1js6qm6cshi0v.cloudfront.net/oldblog/2012-09-12-grape-flies/7979344082_affd06dc77_o_d.jpg" target="_blank" class="flickr-image" title="Fruit Flies on Grapes">
  <img src="https://d1js6qm6cshi0v.cloudfront.net/oldblog/2012-09-12-grape-flies/7979344082_9004e3a25a.jpg" alt="Fruit Flies on Grapes"/>
</a>

This was the biggest fly I could see. She's female. The males have blacker abdomens and are smaller. I took these using my regular 200mm zoom lens. It was fun watching them through the viewfinder as they moved their front legs around.

<a href="https://d1js6qm6cshi0v.cloudfront.net/oldblog/2012-09-12-grape-flies/7979343761_641c1109ae_o_d.jpg" target="_blank" class="flickr-image" title="Fruit Flies on Grapes">
  <img src="https://d1js6qm6cshi0v.cloudfront.net/oldblog/2012-09-12-grape-flies/7979343761_58ac870769.jpg" alt="Fruit Flies on Grapes"/>
</a>

On top of the world! This one reminds me of _Le Petit Prince_.

By the time I was done washing the good grapes, all the flies disappeared, dispersing into the world to look for more food…[or wine](/2009/11/02/inebriated-fruit-flies/).


Grape Flies


![TV Idea Thumbnail](https://d1js6qm6cshi0v.cloudfront.net/oldblog/2012-09-06-app-idea-synchronized-social-commentary-for-television/7941917270_860341d572_o.png)Like many of my friends, I rarely watch live television anymore, aside from sporting events. I did, however, watch the closing ceremony of the London 2012 Olympics alone on my sofa. Except it didn't _feel_ like I was alone, because I had my smartphone, and many of my Facebook and Twitter friends were also watching the same event and making witty comments about what they were seeing. Though separated by vast distances, we enjoyed the spectacle much more than if we hadn't had the social networks to unite us.

My friends in the United States, however, could not participate, since their Olympics coverage was delayed in a ridiculous prime time ratings power play by NBC. A few of them expressed annoyance at my "spoiler" comments about the event. And sure enough, when it aired in the US, there was a wave of social media commentary as they were witnessing the event. That's when the idea came to me...

### The Market

There are a number of services already designed for live chatting while a television program airs, but they are useless for the ever-growing demographic that watches programs after they air, either via a DVR recording or Hulu or iTunes or Netflix.

### The App

The app I'm envisioning records social media chatter, either via Twitter hashtags or from one of the services mentioned above. Users watching live can leave comments directly in the app. Once the show is over, the app now has a social commentary stream the exact length of the show. Users that recorded the show on their DVR can then open the app and hit _Sync!_ right when they press play on their DVR, and the app replays the recorded social stream in realtime for that user as they are watching the television show. Optionally, if something clever occurs to the user, they can add comments to the stream themselves, which will be displayed to all subsequent users.

Obviously, there's going to be a lot of noise in the stream, so users can vote up particularly funny comments or vote down off-topic or uninteresting comments. Over time only the best comments are shown. Not only do your votes count to improve the stream for everyone, but also to personalize your own stream to favor comments from users you like. Existing [karma](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trust_metric) algorithms can apply to weight votes. Of course you can whitelist friends that you always want to see comments from.

Perhaps there could be some sort of "verified account" system that could allow for the writer, director or actors of the show to participate as well, maybe even answering questions posed by the viewers.

The end result is sort of a _Mystery Science Theater 3000_ commentary for every episode of every television show, both personalized to your social group of friends, but also including particularly funny or interesting people from across the internet.

### The Biggest Challenge

The biggest hurdle I foresee is what to do about commercial breaks. Many DVR viewers are going to prefer to fast forward through commercials, and iTunes customers or pirates are going to have video files with the commercials removed. Also, I often pause shows as I am watching them, and I would have to also pause the social feed. There needs to be some method of staying in sync for all of these cases. Easier said than done.

### The API

The ideal end product would also provide an API so that content streaming websites like Hulu or Netflix could put a widget on their page to show the social feed and comment box. That way they could handle pausing and post-advertisement synchronization themselves. It would also allow for the development of standalone players that could play a video file or DVD and handle pausing and syncing. A player app could even download the stream for offline viewing, like on a long airline flight.

### Monetization

All the methods with which current live apps are monetized will work. Product placement jumps out as an obvious example. When a character on the screen is drinking a Coke, an ad for Coca-Cola could appear in the stream. There are already some services that will let you buy clothes you see television characters wearing. Selling soundtrack songs is another obvious one.

Alternatively, it could be a [Freemium](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freemium) service, where the first 25% or 50% of the show is free, and if you're enjoying the feed enough, then you can choose to pay $0.99 for the rest of the show. Subscriptions to an entire season could be discounted to $0.69/episode.

There are many ways to make this app profitable. I, for one, would be a paying customer.


App Idea: Synchronized Social Commentary for Television


[![Apple](https://d1js6qm6cshi0v.cloudfront.net/oldblog/2012-09-06-meeting-noras-teacher/3504948544_d89698be57_t.jpg)](http://www.flickr.com/photos/jcstender/3504948544/ "Apple by js10der, on Flickr")Today we had a meeting where the parents of all the 25 kids in Nora's school class had to go and meet the teacher, get information about the school schedule, and see the classroom and facilities. Nora has been getting up at 10:30 or 11:00 this week, but this morning I had to wake her up at 8:45 to make sure we were on time for the 10:00 meeting. She was _not_ pleased. But when I told her, "We have to go meet your teacher!", a huge smile broke out across her sleepy face and she sat right up, ready to start the day.  She was clearly quite nervous, as she insisted on holding my hand from our apartment door, in the elevator, and all the 200 meters to the school. When we arrived at 9:55, we found a group of parents milling around outside the locked school door. I had a premonition that I'd be spending a lot of bored time waiting with this group of people over the coming years. Only one other student came to the meeting.

At 9:57 the doors opened and we were ushered into the school cafeteria, which also doubles as an auditorium, since there was a stage with closed curtains on one side. In the front of several rows of chairs, facing back at the chairs were seated seven young women in their twenties or thirties, and an older woman in her late forties.

Something from my days as a student clicked in, and I thought, "Hey, I'm glad to be here, don't want to miss anything, and want to form a good relationship with the teacher!", so we marched right up and sat in the very front row. When we did, the older woman waved and said, "_¡Hola, Nora!_" I'm extremely bad with faces, but hers didn't ring any bells at all, and Nora never returns the first salutation, so I just smiled.

Once we were all seated, a very professorial gentleman walked up to the front of the group. He looked right at home in front of the whiteboard on which "Adaptation Period" was written above a table with dates and groupings. As well as being a teacher for the older kids, he is also some level of school administrator and gave us a brief introduction to the school. Several times he used the Spanish adjective _familiar_, which, while its fourth definition in Spanish is the meaning it has in English, most often means "like a family". There are only 250 students at the school, and everyone knows each other, everyone lives nearby, and all the parents are encouraged/expected to help out with school functions.

The three-year-old class that Nora will be entering is called the Turtles, because they are slow, the four-year-olds are the Bears, because they are standing upright and getting bigger, and the five-year-olds are the Elephants, because they are _biiiig_! These three classes are often combined for school activities like recess, and they all get to know one another throughout the school year. The same teacher stays with the students throughout the first three years.

The women sitting before us were introduced as the adults our children would be interacting with at the school. The older woman was Viky, who will be Nora's primary teacher for the next three years. People who choose her profession must, by their very nature, be endearing and affectionate, but this lady seems extra sweet. My first impression of her was excellent. She had made the effort to learn all the kids' names before even meeting them was a nice touch (she even identified some parents by their facial features, e.g. "You must be \[so-and-so\]'s father!"), which was how she knew to say hello to Nora. Two of the other women were introduced as the teachers of the older two classes. I didn't take notes, but another woman was some sort of developmental psychologist, and there was one that was a "religion teacher" (I'm guessing she only teaches one). Another was a speech therapist sort of person to evaluate language acquisition, and there might have been one other that I forget. Several of them rotate between several schools in the region.

Her teacher, Viky, expressed several things she needs from us that she thinks are very important. First of all, like the dentist told us, never make going to school part of a punishment, and never, ever, ever use the teacher as an enforcer (e.g. "If you do that again, I'm going to tell Viky!"). Seems reasonable. Also, she said that it's extremely important that we be punctual to class and to read to our children every day. She told us that many parents dismiss the importance of the preschool years as useless since there is no studying and no exams, but she said that she thinks they might be even _more_ important than later years, since the child's personality and sense of self is taking shape. She added, "Of course all of us here think that, since this is what we've chosen to dedicate our lives to."

We were told about optional services like the cafeteria lunches and the people who will look after kids that have to be dropped an hour or two early so their parents can make it to work on time. The latter is organized by the town hall, and the former is from a catering company. Due to shifts in the regional government after the spring elections, however, no catering company has been awarded the contract yet, so they couldn't tell us any prices. We're not planning to use either of those services.

### Adaptation Period

School starts on Thursday, September 13th. I rather like the idea of starting with a two day week. All of the kids in the entire school only go during the mornings in September, and then start with morning and afternoon in October. The freshman class eases even more gently from the hot summer into the icy scholastic water.

For the first two days, the kids are divided up into three groups of 8, 8 and 9 children, chosen based on who they know from their daycare. The first day, they only go for a half hour, with the parents in the classroom the entire time. The second day, they go in alone with the parents waiting outside.

The next full week, they go with the same small groups for a full hour. The first three days of the following week, there are only two groups of 12 and 13 kids, and they go for 90 minutes. The final two days of the adaptation period they go all 3.5 hours in the morning all together in one class of 25 students. By then it's October and they go the full five hour schedule, from 9:30 to 13:00 and from 15:00 to 16:30.

Preempting complaints, she told us that some parents think the adaptation period is a waste of time and that "My kid will be fine!", but that sometimes it's the kids that do best at daycare that have the hardest time adapting and sometimes the kids that have never gone to daycare do fine. Even so, it's important that the kids that do fine _be there_ because they make up the environment that the kids that aren't so fine need to habituate to. Again, very reasonable and well explained. Have I mentioned I like Viky?

One item we are asked to bring rather surprised me. We have to bring a group photo of our nuclear family. These photos are placed on a cork board in one corner of the room. The teacher says that the kids spend hours there staring at the photo of their parents, and find comfort in the fact that, while Mommy and Daddy aren't with them physically, their photo is there to keep them company. At this point some dust flew into my eye and I had to wipe away a tear. She said that the kids also like showing their family to the other children, often saying things like, "This is my older brother; he's mean," and she's lost count of the number of times she's had to respond affirmatively to the question, "Look! Isn't my Mommy pretty?" Seems like another clever idea.

The teacher gave us a laminated sheet with all the kids' photos and names. It's clearly what she's been using to study up on everyone's name. There are fifteen boys and ten girls. All the girls have unique names, but many of the boys have the same name. There are 2 Hugos, 2 Lucases, 2 Diegos and 3 Marios! Wow.

We all signed up for a time to have a half hour parent-teacher chat, preferably with both parents, next week before school starts. The purpose is for Viky to pick our brains about our child's habits, likes, dislikes, fears, favorite activities, etc., information which becomes invaluable to her at the beginning of the school year, as well as to get a sense of what we, the parents, are like. Again, seems like a great idea.

When I called my wife to ask if the time I'd randomly chosen seemed okay, she got worried. "Why do we have to meet with the teacher without Nora there? Already?" "She meets with all the parents like that." "Oh, phew!" She'd thought Nora was in trouble already…on Day # -7. It just shows how nervous we are.

After we had all our pamphlets we headed to go see the classroom. I was very impressed. It's quite large and is subdivided into various activity zones. There's a couch with some books, a make-believe area with a toy kitchen, an area with clothes to play dress up, a crafts section, and more! In one corner of the room there's a door that opens to a small bathroom, so the kids have quick access when nature calls without having to wander the halls.

Nora was _extremely_ delighted with the classroom. She's very enthused about starting school.


Meeting Nora's Teacher


<a href="https://d1js6qm6cshi0v.cloudfront.net/oldblog/2012-09-05-egocentric-light-painting/7786416576_9dae7af57a_o_d.jpg" target="_blank" class="flickr-image post-thumb" title="Light painting: erikras">
  <img src="https://d1js6qm6cshi0v.cloudfront.net/oldblog/2012-09-05-egocentric-light-painting/7786416576_4424c66f49_t.jpg" alt="Light painting: erikras"/>
</a>

On Flickr, I follow the work of this Finnish guy, named Janne Parviainen, who does [absolutely crazy things](http://www.flickr.com/photos/jannepaint/) with a trick photography technique called "light painting", which involves opening the camera's shutter and then "painting" with an LED in three dimensions. In the same way that a long exposure photograph of cars at night shows only the headlights and no cars since the cars don't reflect enough light from one position to leave an image on the film or digital sensor, the body of a light painter is also invisible in such photographs.  I am really quite bad at this technique, but I recently decided to give it another try, so I set up my camera on the tripod facing our hardwood floor, and got out my LED flashlight. I hadn't planned what I would draw or write ahead of time, so there, standing in the dark hallway, I did what any bored 12-year-old girl would do in her school notebooks, and I wrote my name…

…in loopy cursive.

<a href="https://d1js6qm6cshi0v.cloudfront.net/oldblog/2012-09-05-egocentric-light-painting/7786415284_8e99dee5e5_o_d.jpg" target="_blank" class="flickr-image" title="Light painting: erik">
  <img src="https://d1js6qm6cshi0v.cloudfront.net/oldblog/2012-09-05-egocentric-light-painting/7786415284_7f6ea368dd.jpg" alt="Light painting: erik"/>
</a>

Interestingly, the reflection is readable and right side up. Can you explain why?

<a href="https://d1js6qm6cshi0v.cloudfront.net/oldblog/2012-09-05-egocentric-light-painting/7786415864_028ca65533_o_d.jpg" target="_blank" class="flickr-image" title="Light painting: erik">
  <img src="https://d1js6qm6cshi0v.cloudfront.net/oldblog/2012-09-05-egocentric-light-painting/7786415864_e17b98d12e.jpg" alt="Light painting: erik"/>
</a>

If I had written on the plane perpendicular to the floor, the reflection would've been upside down. But since I was writing on a plane parallel to the floor, about 50 cm above the floor, the reflection is also right side up.

<a href="https://d1js6qm6cshi0v.cloudfront.net/oldblog/2012-09-05-egocentric-light-painting/7786416576_9dae7af57a_o_d.jpg" target="_blank" class="flickr-image" title="Light painting: erikras">
  <img src="https://d1js6qm6cshi0v.cloudfront.net/oldblog/2012-09-05-egocentric-light-painting/7786416576_4424c66f49.jpg" alt="Light painting: erikras"/>
</a>

Ooh, I should see if that domain name is available!


7 posts from September, 2012