My friend recently sent me a text message,

“Ever been stuck in an elevator? Any ideas on how to pass the time?”

Aside from feeling bad for my friend and passing text messages back and forth to consume the 30 minutes he had to wait before getting rescued, there wasn’t much else I could do. I did however remember about another guy who was stuck in an elevator for 41 hours before finally being discovered. Now that’s a long time to wait. During that time his mind started running through scenarios around the stability of the elevator. Was it damaged for some reason? Was the building on fire? What if he fell to his death?

I wouldn’t doubt that most of us have entertained the idea of a elevator suddenly plummeting towards the ground due to some mechanical failure. Well the good news is that short of a catastrophic event to the building, there are enough safety checks to make sure this never happens.

But what if it does?

I remember watching cartoons as a kid where Daffy Duck was falling out of the sky in a box container and at the last second he steps out of the box and safely walks away unharmed as the container absorbs all of the impact and is crushed. This of course raised the question about the possibility of “jumping” at the last second should I ever be faced with a failed elevator rocketing towards the Earth. Could it work?

Of course I assumed not, this doesn’t seem possible but I was curious what the physics were around the reason and I found a pretty simplistic explanation while reading more about the man trapped for 41 hours. Here’s the answer from an expert:

To the age-old half-serious question of whether a passenger barrelling earthward in a runaway elevator should jump in the air just before impact, Pulling responded…, that you can’t jump up fast enough to counteract the rate of descent. “And how are you supposed to know when to jump?” he said. As for an alternative strategy—lie flat on the floor?—he shrugged: “Dead’s dead.”

So there you have it. If you find yourself in the situation, chances are you’ll be saved by one of the many fail-safes. if those fail, well it was nice knowing ya.

Sad to say that an article on the possible extinction of Sturgeon was accompanied by an ad to promote caviar…the very reason the Sturgeon are going extinct.

High Fructose Corn Syrup is in a lot of processed foods. You’d be surprised how much it shows up when you read ingredients. The most common of course is soda. I’ve been aware of its supposed harmful effects ever since I started watching King of Corn or Food Inc. but this article talks about studies that prove the harmful effects of this corn sweeter.

Although many of us suspected this stuff really isn’t healthy for us,
we didn’t actually know how it was affecting our bodies.

Well, a team of Princeton researchers has now released their official
findings on a high fructose corn syrup study with (not so) shocking
conclusions…more

I recently ordered a Canon EOS 50D DSLR camera and while waiting for it to arrive, I’ve had some time to research taking photos. Luckily in today’s digital age, there is plenty of free information out there for getting started with a DSLR camera. Since we also live in a world of A.D.D. I thought I might summarize the basics of what I’ve learned so far. Think of this as a “Cliff Notes” version on DSLR camera photography and getting started.

Now I should premise this that my so called “expertise” in DSLR camera photography has been built through about three days of nothing but Internet research and no actual field work (like I said I’m still waiting for my camera to arrive). In other words, I’m about as dangerous as my grandmother behind the wheel of a car but all of this information below is based upon pretty common concepts that I’ve pulled from various sites and can be a good starting point if you’re looking to get started with a DSLR camera.

1) The “Exposure Triangle” – This is probably the first thing I came across when graduating from a point-and-shoot to a DSLR camera. Essentially, the Exposure Triangle refers to three variables to consider when taking a DSLR camera photograph. They are Aperture, ISO and Shutter Speed. I’d say that of the things I learned, this is probably the most important to review if you ever want to get off of the automatic settings for your DSLR camera and more into priority and manual modes. Check out this link on The Exposure Triangle to learn more with using your DSLR camera.

2) Correct Exposure is only part of the equation – Once you get the concepts of the Exposure Triangle figured out, that doesn’t mean the DSLR camera photos will suddenly become professional quality. The next step is to figure out how to get a creative DSLR camera photo that is properly exposed. You can have a properly exposed DSLR camera photo using a number of different combinations with the variables above. Finding the one that is best suited for the story you are trying to tell is what makes the difference between a good photo and a great photo. Watch this video on creating a creatively correct exposure.

3) Learn your DSLR camera settings – Seems simple enough but have you seen some of the manuals? Holy crap that’s boring! Besides, who wants to spend hundreds or thousands of dollars to be sidelined with a thick booklet that contains probably 70% of information that I (as a beginner) am not ready for anyway? Again, this is where the Internet comes in handy. I went to YouTube and just searched for my DSLR camera’s brand and model number and I found instructional videos that told me more than I needed to know about how to get started. Plus in many of the videos I found suggestions on where to set my lesser used settings to get the best general results so I can leave them there until I’m ready to learn more about them.

4) Rules of Thirds – This is less about the technical settings of your DSLR camera and more about the artistic aspect of photography but I bet some would argue this is as foundational as a rule to learn as the Exposure Triangle. The Rules of Thirds basically states that if you divide your viewfinder into three horizontal and three vesicle sections, the intersection of each area is where the interesting points should go. A common mistake when taking a photo is to place the horizon at the center of the photo. This is conflicting and instead the horizon should go 1/3 or 2/3′s of the way down the picture to emphasize either the ground or the sky.

5) Learn the rules, then break them – If we all followed the same rules then we’d stop being creative. One common suggestion I’ve come across is that when it comes to photography, rules are more guidelines than rules. Sometimes breaking a rule makes the photo more interesting. Take a look at photos that others have taken and see what feedback they get on some of the photography discussion forums and you’ll start to understand what rules work and may not work in certain situations.

That’s all for now. Check out some of my older photos (using my point-and-shoot camera) on my new photos section of the website and let me know what you think. More photos from my new DSLR Camera coming soon (once it gets here).

Google recently announced that they will start displaying QR Codes in stickers in front of stores which will allow people to “zap” the code with their cell phone and do some cool things like write a review, receive a coupon, or go to a website.

QR Codes have been around for a while but I figure something like this will start to gain in popularity now that Google has put a stake in the claim. As a BlackBerry user who has BlackBerry Messenger 5.0, this is also pretty cool because we can take advantage of these QR Codes immediately. Don’t worry if you don’t have it, just  check this announcement by Google and they offer plenty of other options for cell phone users.

Take the image below:

If you open up BlackBerry Messenger 5.0 and select “Add Contact,” and then “Scan Invitation Barcode from another BlackBerry” you’ll be presented with the same view you get when you want to take a photo. Just point your phone at the image above (make sure you get the whole image to appear in the screen) and the phone will do the rest. No need to click the photo, the system will open a new browser when it reads the code and take you to the super-secret website (hint, it looks a lot like this one).

Want to make your own bar code? Check out Kaywa where you can generate a code that opens a website, offers a textual message, or even provides a phone number.

**Update 07/14/2011**

Funny story, I was recently contacted by someone who received a t-shirt as a gift that had a QR code on the front. He scanned it and apparently the QR code was directed to my site. I can only guess that the image above was pulled when printing the shirt but apparently there are shirts being sold in Bangkok with my website address as a QR code. See below. Thanks Avinash for sharing!

QR Code for Pete Dudchenko's Website as a T-Shirt

As many of you probably know, California is very much into the healthy lifestyle. Exercise and nutrition are at the top of most minds here in San Diego and an  article in The Reader proves just that. As you can see, the discussion below weighs the various cooking options of properly preparing a hot dog in the most healthy manner.
Stay Classy San Diego…..

(click to enlarge)

They say that you should find at least one good cause to support. For me, as much as I love cooking and learning about food it’s been pretty apparent that there’s a growing movement around finding sustainable food. I’ve only just started to become educated on the subject but it’s been interesting looking for resources specific to seafood sustainability in San Diego.

But first, what is seafood sustainability and why is it important to the food I eat? According to one website, “It is seafood that is fished or farmed without compromising fish populations or marine habitats. Moreover, sustainable seafood is also generally healthier and of higher quality than the run-of-the-mill seafood.” Basically, it means that we don’t take fish from the ocean faster than they can be replenished and the manner in which we catch the fish is friendly to the environment.

When you look at farming techniques like Salmon farms, not only are they unhealthy for you to eat but they can actually hurt the environment more than just “traditional” fishing in the wild since many of these farms release pollutants into the water from the overcrowding of fish. Also, according to some predictions, Scientists predict that if we continue fishing as we are now, we will see the end of most seafood by 2048.

As a sushi fan, and a big Salmon fan, it was concerning to realize that many of the fish the local restaurants and grocery stores are serving are farmed Salmon and not wild caught.

So what can someone do? Well for me, the first step is to get educated and that’s the step I’m on right now. Below are a few resources that I’ve found that help describe what you can do to help the cause:

Seafood Watch – A great resource for learning more about seafood sustainability and especially great for sushi lovers. Download a free pocket guide or access their site on the go from your cell phone to help choose the right seafood to select.

**Updated – Seafood Watch has been doing a great job with releasing easy to access mobile apps and pocket guides to make it easy to select the right choices. Check out the widget at the bottom of this post.

Marine Stewardship Council – The MSC is the world’s leading certification and ecolabelling program for sustainable seafood. Look for the blue MSC ecolabel when shopping or dining out.

Finding Sustainable Seafood in San Diego – Those of us local to San Diego will find this article interesting as it has a few local links to also investigate.

San Diego Roots: Sustainable Food Project – A list of San Diego Restaurants that use locally grown food.

In Fish We Trust – San Diego’s one-stop-shop for sustainable seafood. Another great list of restaurants in the San Diego area that offer sustainable seafood menus.

The End of the Line – I haven’t watched it yet but it’s a documentary on sustainability. “The world’s first major documentary about the devastating effect of overfishing premiered at Sundance Film Festival.”

Finally, check out for yourself what’s good to eat:

Admittedly, this post is technical and niche, but then again, so am I sometimes. Really, I just wanted to share this concept with anyone out there searching for a way to avoid getting bombarded with work emails on their BlackBerry while they also sit in front of their work computer.

My cell phone is not a business phone so I have a BIS account but I still like to get work emails on it so I don’t have to power up a laptop outside of office hours just to see if anything important came through. Of course, while in the office, it meant I was hit twice with any work email notifications; one on my phone and one on my laptop. To me it was pretty annoying, I’d be sitting at work and managing my emails on my laptop, and anytime a new work email would come in, I would get a notification on Outlook and my cell phone. I had to manage both devices to clean up the Inboxes.

The alerts quickly came to a stop, I adjusted my settings on my BlackBerry to not alert me when I got a work email (since I’m right in front of my laptop, I don’t need my cell phone to tell me this). The challenge however was with managing the emails on both devices. When I did check my phone for any other personal notifications I might receive, it was easy to lose a text message or personal email in the mix of the mass amount of work emails received in one day.

The solution was relatively simple however. I set up a new folder in Outlook (I run 2007) and routed all email into this new folder. Since I have a BIS BlackBerry account, I don’t get emails that are not stored in my Inbox. By routing the emails to a new folder, I just work out of this folder during the day as a regular Inbox but my cell phone doesn’t receive any of these emails anymore.

The way I set it up, I created a folder and called it “0) Inbox”. The “0)” part is to make sure it resides right below the actual Inbox since Outlook lists all folders alphabetically. Then I created a rule to route all email into this new “0) Inbox” folder. The rule is set to the condition of “on this machine only” and this is important because what that means is when I shut down my laptop for the evening, all emails I receive will now still go to the original default Inbox and I will get them on my phone.meaning I can still check work email from my phone after hours. When I log back onto my laptop (presumably the next morning) the rule kicks in and moves all of those emails into the new “0) Inbox” folder with everything else.

Again, highly technical and niche but if you were looking for help with this I hope you found it.

My wife and I recently took a road-trip to the Grand Canyon and as you can imagine, we took lots of photos. One thing I wanted to try however was to figure out a way to create a panoramic photo using a few digital photos that I had taken of the trip.

Luckily, before we ventured out on the road, I had read that in order to do this with a regular camera, there are a few tricks to learn that you must consider while taking the digital photo. Ideally, I would snap a photo, move the camera slightly to the right, snap another photo, then repeat and when I got back home, I would splice the images together and viola, there’s the panoramic picture. This of course only works if the photos are perfectly aligned. The trick, is to overlap the subsequent photos because this will allow the splicing (that occurs later) to work best.

Here’s a sample of what I mean. Say you wanted to create a panoramic photo that looks like this:

You would need to take say, three separate digital photos in order to capture everything.

 This requires that the line where one photo ends is exactly where the next photo begins. This is impossible to do on-the-fly. Rather, try to overlap the camera’s viewpoints about 30% so it looks more like this:

In this case, I took four photos but made sure there was considerable overlap between each photo. This is important because when we splice the photos together the tool we use will require this overlap to set up the photos and align them properly.

The other trick, which I learned after my trip unfortunately, is that you want to maintain the same white balance on your camera for each photo. This basically means setting the white balance to a manual setting or turning the auto-balance feature on your camera off. The reason for this is that, especially with outdoor photos, the adjustment of white balance from one photo to the next can throw off the panoramic photo later on. The left side of the photo may look darker or lighter then the right.

Finally, splicing the photo together is actually the easiest part. I know Photoshop does this but since I didn’t have Photoshop, I needed something else, and preferably free,

It turns out, Microsoft offers just this sort of thing from their Windows Live Photo Gallery which is a free download. After installing and adding the photos into the library, I just selected the 4 images I wanted to use and then right-click to “create panoramic photo” and wait. It runs on its own and the end result is a great panoramic photo to save or print out.

I printed mine out to keep at the office using EzPrints if you want to try them.

Did you want to see the final panoramic photo from my trip to the Grand Canyon?