Random tangent (blog)
Ameel Khan's personal blog. This is a blog about life, technology, photography, typography, the internet, science, feminism, books, film, music, and whatever other random stuff I come across or happen to be interested in today.
It’s been ages since I’ve ridden a tram. At least I got to see one when I went into the office today.
Photo of a classic tram turning into a street in front of some office building. Everything but the tram is blurred in the photo.
Zippy cyclist is zippy.
Photo of a motion-blurred cyclist exiting a curved bridge onto a paved, inner city riverbank.
Maggie would like Nadia to know that she too likes popcorn. Very, very much, in fact.
Photo of a red dog, ears pricked, standing at the foot of a low, outdoor lounge chair. The dog is looking attentively at the person sitting on the chair, whose is mostly off-camera but has their feet visible near the dog’s head.
A few seconds later…[Chariots of Fire soundtrack starts playing]
When the weather is good, you take an extra long walk. And after you take an extra long walk, you nap. Them’s the rules.
Photo of a red dog fast asleep on a towel that’s been spread across the seat of a black leather sofa.
So the Google Pixel 6 Pro smartphone camera’s long exposure functionality is cool.
Selective long-exposure photo of a train passing through a level crossing. The moving train is the only element of the photo that has a motion blur effect applied to it. Because one of the long-exposure photos taken was from before the train appeared within the frame, the train in the final image appears to be semi-transparent. A white car has stopped in front of the lowered boom gate of the level crossing.
The more I use it, the more I like it.
Selective long-exposure photo of a train passing through a level crossing. Only the moving train has had the long exposure effect applied to it, so it’s the only object in the photo with motion blur.
Some days you just gotta…
Yay for post-lockdown catch-ups!
Had a lovely, delicious dinner at Panda Hot Pot with a bunch of friends. The food was good and the company was fantastic. 10/10 would recommend.
There was a line outside the restaurant for our scheduled sitting too. Nature is healing!
Selfie of a man and a woman sitting next to each other inside a large Chinese restaurant. Both are smiling at the camera.
Maggie keeps an eye on us while we eat dinner on the off chance that she’ll score a human-food treat when we’re done. She is forever hopeful and always hungry!
Photo of a red dog, sitting alert and ready, a short distance away from a dining table that has a pattered green and white tablecloth.
Today I used my favourite garden tool (which I didn’t know was my favourite garden tool till I used it today): a line trimmer (aka whipper snipper). Same with my new self-propelled lawn mower, which now my second favourite.
Photo of a grass-spattered line trimmer (whipper snipper) and battery powered lawn mower on an outdoor deck.
A couple of months after I stopped needing to wear it, I had to pull out my puffer jacket to walk the dog this morning. With this current cold snap we’ve taken two steps forward, three steps back on our way to summer in Melbourne. *sigh*
Selfie of a man walking along a residential street. He is wearing a black t-shirt, black puffer jacket, and black cap (with a red trim).
When you’re walking Maggie and she suddenly surges forward or pulls away, you know she’s found something to eat in the buffet that is our neighbourhood.
One in five times she succeeds. The rest of the time I pull her back quickly enough.
But now she knows that I know…
A red dog being walked on a lead in a residential neighbourhood sniffs at a patch of grass in the nature strip by the side of the road.
So these days, when I yank her to a halt (and she’s not still straining because Dammit. She. Is. So. Close.), she immediately feigns disinterest. Sometimes she even takes a small step in the other direction.
Then, the second there’s some slack on her leash, she lunges forward to grab the forbidden morsel. It’s a smart tactic that’s even worked a few times.
But now I know. And she knows that I know.
I’m curious to see what she'll come up with next :)
A red dog being walked on a lead looks back over its shoulder at the photographer who has stopped walking to take this photo.
I do occasionally let her grab a doggy street food snack, by the way. We have a primary school and three cafes nearby so there’s always fresh bits of sandwiches and the like strewn across our neighbourhood.
Finding and eating random stuff on the road is the highlight of her day!
No, really. We are heading into summer in Melbourne. We’re just not going in a straight line.
Photo of a red dog settled down on the floor in front of a gas heater.
Intermittent rain + laziness = tall grass.
Tall grass + sunny day in spring = comfy dog.
Photo of a red dog lying cushioned on some tall grass in a residential lawn on a sunny day.
So the portrait mode + front-facing camera combo on the Pixel 6 Pro smartphone works quite well.
Especially when you can use the magic eraser to remove two instances of unruly beard hair :)
Selfie of a man looking straight into the camera. The man is in his 40s, and is bald with a full, but trimmed salt-and-pepper beard. He is wearing glasses and a black henley-style pullover. The background behind him is out of focus, helping his face stand out more in the photo.
Finally got the time to start playing Forza Horizon 5 today! Hello Mexico :)
Really fun game so far. Looks gorgeous in widescreen HDR. Great music too. 10/10 would recommend.
Photo of a widescreen computer display that’s showing the interior of an airplane cargo hold that contains a jeep that’s about to be parachuted out of the rear cargo door that’s open behind the vehicle. On the desk, under the display are two speakers. Directly in front of the screen is a gaming steering wheel that's attached to the desk.
The thunderstorm itself might have missed our suburb, but at least we got to see the gorgeous cloud formations on the fringes of that weather system.
(Of course even this distant thunder managed to freak poor Maggie out. She was a trembly dog all afternoon. *sigh*)
Photo of a completely overcast sky above the roofs of some houses. The sky is full of puffy, swirling clouds and looks quite dramatic.
Cinemas are back, baby! And it’s awesome to have a large screen Reading nearby. Speaking of which, I liked The Eternals a lot more than I thought I would.
Photo of a large, indoor cinema screen that the Reading Cinemas logo is being projected on.
Watching Nadia eat a piece of roast chicken is instantly and infinitely more interesting than playing with a rope toy.
Photo of a red dog on a carpet, with one of its paws on an orange and grey rope toy. The dog has interrupted its play and is looking up intently at someone off-camera.
Do you have a favourite typeface for writing code? (Assuming you write code, of course.)
If not, CodingFont is a brilliant website that will help you find your preferred coding typeface — tournament style!
The process is simple and elegant: you compare code written in two popular coding typefaces side-by-side, then you pick the one you prefer. Do this over and over again and, through the process of elimination, you’re left with the coding typeface you like the most.
In my case that’s JetBrains Mono. (Though I’m also happy to code in both Fira Code and Source Code Pro.)
I love typography and have literally spent days pouring over typefaces, comparing them closely, and then picking the ones I want to use in different scenarios. Like this comparison I did when I wanted to select a typeface for all the charts and diagrams I post on this blog:
Which is why all my charts and diagrams are now in Fira Sans or Ideal Sans. (Where they used to be in DIN Next or Open Sans.)
CodingFont lets you do this type of side-by-side comparison without any of the hassle. So, if you’re a coder – or even someone who regularly uses monospaced fonts – then this is totally worth a try.
Have fun!
Nadia and I made the most of the gorgeous, post-lockdown Sunday we had today.
First we had brunch at the Altona North Jolly Miller Café. (I’d been missing Eggs Benedict so much! Not enough to make any at home though.)
Photo taken from the top of a table in a café. On the table is a menu that’s out of focus because it’s so close to the camera. Behind the menu are a water bottle, two glasses, a salt shaker, and a pepper grinder. In the background are other tables and chairs, as well as floor-to-ceiling windows through which you can see a bright blue sky.
And then we went for a relaxing, hour-long walk through the lovely Paisley-Challis wetlands nearby.
Selfie of a man and a woman wearing hats, sunglasses, and light jackets. They are standing in a flat wetland area, with lots of green grass, several bushes, and pools of water. In the background, behind all this greenery, is the sea.
There were several walkers, runners, and cyclists on the track, but the rest of the place was so peaceful.
A wide-angle photograph of a green, brushy wetlands area, with the blue sea in the background. On the extreme left of the image you can see a thin walking trail with a single person on it.
A lovely way to spring into post-lockdown spring in Melbourne.
Whoa. The Pixels 6 Pro’s forward-facing camera really is excellent!
This photo was cropped slightly, but is otherwise completely untouched.
Selfie of a smiling man standing on an outdoor deck on a sunny day, with a residential garden behind him. The man is bald and has a trimmed, salt-and-pepper beard. He is wearing glasses and a t-shirt with the original book cover of Phillip K Dick’s book ‘Do Android Dream of Electric Sheep?’ printed on it.
Also, compare these two untouched (again, only cropped) selfies.
The Pixel 6 Pro (right) does a much better job than the Pixel 3XL (left) that I just upgraded from.
Collage of two selfies of the same man in the same location. The man is bald, has a salt-and-pepper beard, and is wearing glasses and a pair of black wireless headphones. He is standing in a residential garden, with the sun behind him. The photo on the left, captioned 'Pixel 3XL', clearly shows the bright environment he’s in, but his face is shadowed and the clouds in the sky aren’t well defined. In the photo on the right, captioned 'Pixel 6 Pro', his face is well lit and you can see some of the details in the clouds.
Oh, and in case it isn’t bleedingly obvious by now, I bought Google’s latest and greatest smartphone: the Pixel 6 Pro :)
This is personal website of Nadia Niaz and Ameel Zia Khan. Here we document our lives in Melbourne, Australia.
Melbourne, Victoria, Australia