Author: Milan

In the spring of 2005, I graduated from the University of British Columbia with a degree in International Relations and a general focus in the area of environmental politics. In the fall of 2005, I began reading for an M.Phil in IR at Wadham College, Oxford. Outside school, I am very interested in photography, writing, and the outdoors. I am writing this blog to keep in touch with friends and family around the world, provide a more personal view of graduate student life in Oxford, and pass on some lessons I've learned here.

Six days to Turkey

Back Quad, Wadham College

I am now thoroughly excited about the upcoming trip to Istanbul. Before starting My Name is Red, my general notions about the Mediterranean had me expecting it to be fairly warm, if not as much so as Malta was in March. Now, I am expecting the real possibility of snowfall. Judging by my weather widget, the temperatures there are not incomparable to those in Oxford.

One more seminar and two reasonably short papers to write, largely on the basis of reading that has already been done: it will be quite a relief to have finished all elements of the Developing World seminar, with the exception of the three hour exam at the end of Trinity.

It would be easier to think of things to say if I weren’t so utterly exhausted. Hopefully, a bit of sleep before the OUSSG meeting will make my brain feel less as though there is a sea urchin knocking back and forth between my ears.

PS. Many thanks to Claire, who kindly took me for lunch at St. Cross today. For the uninitiated, it is widely believed to be the best lunch at any college. Quite unexpectedly, eating there also led to my seeing Dennis Danielson – the instructor for my Honours Milton course back at UBC. Of all the instructors I had at UBC, he seems the sort who could most easily cross over into Oxford style academia.

Recommendation for moderately priced digicams

Canon Powershot A510 in mirror

In the last couple of days, three people have asked me for recommendations on point and shoot digital cameras (must be on account of Christmas approaching). In the $250-$350ish range, I don’t think you can beat the Canon Powershot A series. The digital camera that I use is an old Powershot A510 (3.2 megapixel). Nowadays, I would choose one of these:

(Model – Price in C$ – Megapixels – Largest Good Prints)
A530 – $249.99 – 5MP – 6 x 8″ at 300 DPI
A540 – $299.99 – 6MP – 7 x 10″ at 300 DPI
A630 – $399.99 – 8MP – 10 x 14″ at 300 DPI

All are far more than would be required to take photos to put online. If you start uploading images much bigger than 1024×768 pixels (half the maximum resolution on my 3.2MP camera), few people will thank you.

Aside from the number of pixels in the sensor, these cameras are all very similar. The reasons I recommend them are that they have good image quality, decent lenses, and a nice combination of manual and automatic controls. They are easy enough to use if you know nothing about photography, and flexible enough that they can be used quite creatively. Dollar for dollar, my A510 is surely the best camera I have ever owned (a fact that would remain true even if I bought a snazzy digital SLR like the Rebel XTi).

Every photo in the following albums was taken using my A510, though they have been scaled down from the maximum resolution (2048×1546) to just 800 pixels, measured along the longer edge:

Other recent albums include both film and digital shots. Look at the details below, for Photo.net hosted images, to see what equipment was used.

[Update: 30 November 2006] This was the photo previously at the top of this post (thumbnail). It was one of very few photos that I have that include the A510, but it isn’t very good. The photo now atop this post was originally posted here. Because this one page of the blog was getting so much traffic, I decided to make the switch. It helps to not seem photographically inept, when you are trying to give people advice about cameras.

Hearing too many clock tower booms

For non-coincidental reasons, I have been reading about Delayed Sleep Phase Syndrome tonight. The terms used to describe it are certainly most familiar:

People with DSPS tend to be extreme night owls. They feel most alert and say they function best and are most creative in the evening and at night. DSPS patients cannot simply force themselves to sleep early. They may toss and turn for hours in bed.

By the time DSPS patients seek medical help, they usually have tried many times to change their sleeping schedule. Failed tactics to sleep at earlier times may include relaxation techniques, early bedtimes, hypnosis, alcohol, sleeping pills, dull reading, and home remedies. DSPS patients who have tried using sedatives at night often report that the medication makes them feel tired or relaxed, but that it fails to induce sleep. They often have asked family members to help wake them in the morning, or they have used several alarm clocks.

I have certainly tried shifting my sleep schedule through a whole day more times that I care to recollect. Apparently, some doctors even prescribe Modafinil – the most wondrous of the wonder drugs – as a treatment for DSPS. This Calvin and Hobbes strip captures the situation quite well.

At least sleeplessness leaves me with plenty of time to read. I would be willing to venture that a big part of reaching the place I occupy today was played countless nights in elementary school spent reading until the (horribly annoying) sound of birds chirping in the morning became audible. Already, I am more than 1/3 of the way through My Name is Red and making good progress on this week’s Economist.

I am not sure whether it is comforting or not to read that: “Some DSPS-friendly careers include computer programming, work in theatre, the media, freelance writing, and taxi or truck driving.”

PS. As well as contributing to the above, Facebook and instant message programs have taught me a great deal about which of my friends are almost certainly up and looking at a computer screen at 4:00am. Wikipedia says that well under 1% of people in general have DSPS. Among my friends, I would guess that the figure is at least ten to twenty times that.

If you can’t open it, you don’t own it

Umbrella

Make, a community of tinkerers and open-source affectionados, has published a list of gift suggestions. Some of their projects look really cool. Among them:

They are also selling a neat Leatherman warranty voider, in case you know a geek that does not yet have a multi-tool. (I have two: a Swisstool X and a little SOG Crosscut on my keychain). Their philosophy of “If you can’t open it, you don’t own it” is increasingly relevant in a world where manufacturers are allowing fewer and fewer things to be done by those who purchase their products.

I have long been a huge fan of open source software. The blog runs on Redhat Linux, using Apache Server, and both WordPress and MediaWiki are open source projects. All of these pieces of software can be used for free, even more usually, your right to take them apart and rebuild is limited only by your creativity. Wikipedia is probably the best website ever created, and it is all about collective effort and shared information.

Pre-reading for Turkey

In preparation for the trip to Turkey, I have moved on from V.S. Naipaul’s Half a Life to the copy of Orhan Pamuk’s My Name is Red that my mother sent as a birthday gift. Somewhat surprisingly, I find that I get more non-fiction reading done when I intersperse it with chapters from good fiction. It lets you take a break while remaining in a reading mode, and achieve a bit more balance without compromising your ability to get things done.

Written from the perspective of someone who has died violently, but remained capable of immortal communication, the beginning reminds me a bit of Orson Scott Card’s macabre short story “Memories of my Head.” There is an interesting contrast in literature between those who have passed through death to be uncaring about worldly things and those, like this narrator, who remain concerned with matters like wealth and revenge. The most sensible view has always seemed to be that expressed in Emily Brontë’s “Song.” It is a great shame that she herself died so young.

Academically, I have mostly been reading for the seminar this Thursday. Interesting as they have been, it will be a great relief to have the weekly effort they require ended, allowing greater opportunity to focus on the thesis.

Birthday party concluded

Kai and Jessica

My thanks to those who attended the party last night. It was great fun, with lots of good music and conversation. Particular thanks to Alex and Bryony, for correcting my lack of an Oxford academic robe (I had been borrowing Kai’s for high table dinners), Kai for Simpsons magnets and a history of Pitt the Elder, and to Emily for an Albert Einstein action figure. I think I will make him sit atop my stack of thesis books. In the vicinity of Popper and Kuhn, he will look especially appropriate.

Contrary to my fears that the birthday party would be as poorly attended as the Canada Day party, quite a good number of people showed up. That is particularly appreciated, given how busy the end of term is for everyone. Things ended exceptionally late, and in circumstances not comprehensively remembered – generally the marks of a successful student party.

It’s exciting that there are now just three days left before my father will be visiting Oxford, and a just a week before we are leaving for Turkey. Now, to get back to thesis and seminar work.

First published photograph

Costumed people dancing, Queer Bop, Wadham College, Oxford

On page 3 of the 23 November 2006 issue of The Oxford Student, there is an article by Kate McMullen on the Wadham Queer Bop. Specifically, it describes a homophobic attack being investigated by the police. Accompanying it is a photo that I took at last year’s bop and posted on my blog. The same image is on Facebook. It doesn’t suit the headline very well, and it wasn’t taken at this year’s bop, but it seems like such issues are not of major concern to the editorial staff at The Oxford Student.

It would have been nice for them to have asked me, prior to using it, or at least given me some accreditation. I have sent a short and friendly letter to the editor:

Sir,

I was surprised to see – on the third page of your November 23rd issue – a photo that I took at last year’s Queer Bop and subsequently posted to my website (www.sindark.com). Next time, please let me know that you are planning to print one of my photos, and I will send you a higher resolution copy.

Thanks,

Milan Ilnyckyj
Wadham College, Oxford

That said, it is good to know that I have taken at least one photo that is worth blowing up and putting in a newspaper. The official student newspaper of Oxford might also be considered a cut above your standard such offering.

[Update: 9:30pm] As Sarah quite correctly pointed out, my focus on the photo issue completely missed the broader concerns raised by the story itself. A homophobic assault taking place within an Oxford college should definitely result in a comprehensive investigation and the punishment of those implicated to the fullest extent of the law.

[Update: 27 November 2006] I sent a message to the Oxford Student asking them to do three things in order to amicably resolve the above situation: print the letter to the editor above, credit me for the photo in the web version of the story, and formally state that they will not use materials from my websites without prior permission in the future. I have received the following response and, pending the printing of the letter above, will consider the matter formally and amicably settled:

Dear Milan,

Thanks for your message. Apologies for the unattributed use of your Queer Bop photo. I’ve forwarded your message on to the relevant news editors (Kate McMullen had nothing to do with the photo). btw, it’s a fantastic photo and really makes the page look great. The issue it appeared in was the last one of term, so your letter cant be printed in the paper until next term.

Statement: We will not use photography or other content from webpages that you operate in the future, without prior written permission.

Yours sincerely,

Robert Cookson
[Editor in Chief]

As I said in the past, I am quite happy to have my photos used in newspapers and other publications, provided that a request is received in advance and proper attribution is given.

Old v. new economy

Google, a company with 9,378 employees, now has a stockmarket capitalization of $155 billion: about $16.5 million a person. General Motors has about 326,999 employees and a stockmarket capitalization of about $19 billion: about $58,000 a person.

It is impossible for me to believe that Google has enough good ideas to justify such a huge amount of capital per employee. That said, they did earn $1.47 billion in 2005, compared to a loss of more than $10 billion at GM. Also, everybody has known for years that GM’s pension and health care obligations are going to bury the company, barring some massive default.

Nuclear fusion as a power source

Staircase in New College

At dinner, this evening, I was speaking with one of the Wadham College fellows about nuclear fusion. He highlighted an element that I hadn’t previously heard discussed: namely the fact that you need to build truly enormous reactors so as to have a surface area to volume ratio low enough that fusion can be sustained. He spoke of the possibility that two or three gargantuan power plants could serve areas as vast as Europe or North America, but that enormous technical hurdles remain, most of them relating to plasma control.

Remember that, once atoms form a plasma, they have been stripped of their electrons. As such, the positive charges of all protons cause them to repel one another with a force inversely proportional to the square of the distance between them. Imagine trying to push the north poles of two powerful bar magnets together, and you will begin to appreciate the kind of force dynamics at work. For fusion to be attained, that repulsion needs to be overcome. In the kind of reactors being experimentally constructed now, that is generally achieved through containment using extremely powerful electromagnets.

Under construction now, in France, is the International Experimental Thermonuclear Reactor (ITER). Construction will finish around 2016 and the device will hopefully provide the information and experience required to develop fusion reactors commercially. If they could be deployed, they would offer the benefits of existing fission plants (reliable and substantial electrical generation), with relatively few issues relating to radiactivity (though, as the fellow pointed out, the gamma rays generated in hydrogen fusion would cause the reactors themselves to become quite radioactive, over time).

The possibility of a deus ex machina stepping in to deal with energy security and climate change is certainly an alluring one. With enough power, it would be possible to produce as much hydrogen as you could desire from water. If gargantuan plants are the mechanism to make fusion feasible, energy from them could be partially distributed in that way. Even if fusion were not a panacea, it could be an important component in a response that also includes conservation, the development of renewables, and technical mechanisms to make fossil fuel use carbon neutral.

I don’t know nearly enough about nuclear physics to be able to comment on the viability of fusion as a power source. One thing you hear constantly in journalistic coverage of it is that it has been twenty years or so off for ages now. Hopefully, with the lessons learned from ITER, it will be a real twenty years this time. If that did come to pass, it would certainly not be too soon. On a political note, it is probably a good thing it is being built in France. When it (inevitably) goes way over-budget, the government is reasonably unlikely to scrap the project. By way of comparison, recall how the US government cancelled the Superconducting Super Collider in 1993, after the expected cost tripled to US$12 billion.