Author: James Vornov

I'm an MD, PhD Neurologist who left a successful academic career on the Faculty of The Johns Hopkins Medical School to develop new treatments in Biotech and Pharma. I became fascinated with how people actually make decisions based on the science of decision theory and emerging understanding of how the brain works to make decisions. My passion now is this deep explanation of what has been the realm of philosophy, psychology and self help but is now understood as brain function. By understanding our brains, I believe we can become happier, more successful people.

The Swan Was Pensive

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Originally uploaded by jjvornov

I’ve just shot, developed and scanned three rolls of Kodak’s CN400BW. In an earlier burst of enthusiasm, I had bought a 10 roll pack. My first experience with scanning on the Minolta was disappointing and I ended up with some scratches on the film. This time I had the film developed and scanned on the local Noritsu machine at National Photo here in Baltimore. The results are much more impressive.

There’s a difference in feel between the Tri-X, the Ilford XP2 and the Kodak CN400BW. My overall preference right now is the Kodak, but I have to admit I rated it at ISO 320, ending up with denser negatives that have less grain than the XP2 which I rated at a straight 400.

The delight in a way is that an image like this required no post processing at all.

Most Disingenuous

The Motley Fool: How I Lost $200,000:

When you lose hundreds of thousands of dollars, primarily because of your own stupidity, there isn’t much solace.

I was a contributor to the Motley Fool in the early days when they started on AOL. When they “professionalized” their staff, I stopped. I owe a lot to the Gardner brothers, both for what they taught me about investing and about life. But I became disenchanted with their approach during the tech bubble as it became more and more clear that valuations were out of whack. They had a great approach to evaluating businesses, but they consistently ignored value. It was the only way that one could participate in the hot market of the time- you had to ignore what you were paying in order to keep playing.Once I realized that the party was over, I sold most of my holdings and manage to preserve much of the gains I had from the period. Others, like Selena Maranjian who authored the article remained true believers and held on until the bottom. The Fool had to abandon their founding principles in the end because their real money portfolios which had outperformed the markets during the rise had returned to earth. Now they push community and most shocking to me in a way, is they now promote mutual funds. They send out emails trumpeting short term gains in selected stocks which I generally ignore.This article bugs me as Selena seems to be blaming herself for not putting value into the equation and selling during the bubble. I think it would be more honest for the Fool itself to come clean about its mistakes during it’s growth period. They lacked a sell discipline. It’s something every investor needs. Knowing when to sell is much harder than knowing when to buy. In general, one should sell when the reason for buying is no longer present. In a liquid market with relatively low transaction costs, every day that one holds an investment, it is as if one is buying it anew. At least if we ignore tax considerations which can create value in selling stocks held at a loss and penalties in stocks held at a profit.

Hello world!

Welcome to On Deciding . . . Better 3.0. This is the continuation of a weblog begun in 1998 on Dave Winer’s EditThisPage community. I migrated to a Blosxom system in 1992. It’s time to adopt yet another weblog content system, this time WordPress.

Several posts from the old weblog have been successfully imported. I hope to move over more. The Flickr links are being moved as links, not images so they’ll require some repair as I move them over.

In the Marais, Paris

I’m just back from a week’s worth of travel to Paris and Berlin. Icaptured about 500 images, so there should be a steady flow as Ipostprocess them. I shot just about exclusively with the Nikon D80 andmy 24mm f2.8. I’ve realized that with Nikon’s CRC design, I can shootcloser with the 24mm than I can with my 50, so it works well both forthese kinds of street scenes as well as my urban fragment images.This was captured after dinner in the Jewish Quarter in the Marais. Ihad a fine Shwarma platter and was experiementing with artificial lightstreet shooting.

The Nikon 12-24mm f4 Zoom

Ever since I bought the Nikon D80, I’ve been using just my legacyprimes, the 50mm f1.8 and the 24mm f2.8. It’s influenced my photographyin bringing me close to subjects and a picture plane that is generallyflat and close. I used to have the 24mm as a real wide angle lens whenshooting film. During the time I used the Olympus E-1, I had at least a28mm (equivalent) view with the 14-54mm kit lens.Since I’m going to taking a week’s vacation in Italy in a few months, Ifelt is was time to invest in a wide angle solution for the D80. Withthe cropped sensor, the only real option is the digital only 12-24mm f4lens. I bought it used from KEH gettinga fine lens at about 75% of the price of new.So now it’s time to get back in practice capturing the big view in myusual style, so I had the lens out for a few minutes at a local parkwhile out with the kids. For some reason, I like the panoramic crop withthis image, although I admit it’s nothing very special, just showing offthe edge to edge sharpness of the lens.

Philosophy

I was traveling last week but the yield of photographs was low due to
both weather and the level of daytime activity. The only time I had
avaialble with some interesting visual material was the train ride from
Regensburg Germany back to the Frankfurt airport. It had snowed a wet
snow the night before in Bavaria, so I spent some time capturing images
from the train windows. Nothing great due to conditions, but some
material nevertheless.

In an airport (San Francisco perhaps?) I bought Robert Laughlin’s “A
Different Universe: Reinventing physics from the bottom down”. In it,
Laughlin argues very convincingly on how central emergent phenonmena are
to physics and our difficulties in understanding fundamental aspects of
our world. Since I see emergence as fundamental to explaining the
mind-body duality and free will in a deterministic world, I really
appreciated it. It spurred me on, indirectly I guess, to Read Matthew
Stewarts’s “The Courtier and the Heretic: Leibniz, Spinoza, and the fate
of G-d in the modern world”. I’m now most of the way through Stephen
Toulmin’s “Cosmopolis: The hidden agenda of modernity”.

I’m having fun in mashing up these two streams: Emergence and
Spinoza/Leibniz. I may revisit my Tinderbox website on some of the
issues in the next few weeks or, alternatively, mix some philosophy back
into the mix here.

The Jones Falls

I’ve been walking around with the 20mm f2.8 on the camera lately. The
30mm equivalent is nice, but I think the 24mm is better suited for my
usual shots. In this image I appreciated the wider view, but I shot wide
open, so the foreground rocks are out of focus. Had I been thinking, it
would have been a stronger image.

Now that I’ve had the D80 for 6 months and I’ve printed dozens of
images, I’m settling on something of a working style for now. I’m
working with formal composition as always, but looking for the influence
of light and depth on a larger scale than I ever have previously. I’m
working with images in which an area is obscured either by focus,
reflection or some physical barrier which tends to emphasize the light
or depth.

At this point my first figurative street photography work doesn’t quite
fit in, but hope to develop it over time. On Flickr the street
images are some of the most popular and it gives me somethiing to do
with the Leica that I’m less successful at with the D80.

Another area that I’ve started with but have not yet developed is
photographing with flash. Since my time to shoot is limited and the
light is not always with me, it seems logical that I should work on
adding my own light to images. Another area for development

Why Have We Burnt Out?

Doug Miller has taken
down his weblog, saying “Blogging just aint what it used to be.” Alwin Hawkins has been, in his
words, “underground”. And Dave Rogers continues
his ongoing conversation with the net, mostly urging us to be less
influenced and spend less time involved in the blogosphere.

I’ve continued to use this space as an online journal, mostly about my
photography. But I’m no longer involved in the give and take of the
online community. How did this happen?

I believe it’s because we’re no longer needed. RSS feeds and social
networking sites have assumed the role that the blogging community used
to play.

Like many, I now use Google Reader. According to the Trends Page, I’m
subscribed to about 300 feeds and have scanned about 10,000 items in the
last 30 days. There are a few key aggregators that seem to pick up on
most of what interests me in the Tech, Photo, Outdoor/Fitness and
Medicine spheres that I want to keep up with. Of course there are the
few searches a day in which I go off in search of specific information
to help with a purchase or develop a technique, but these rarely result
in new feeds or bookmarks.

I have more than enough to read, so it seems there’s no need for me and
others to be pointing the same items as everyone else. What about
personal experience? Well I can get that on message boards and reviews
on sites like Amazon. These social networking sites substitute the
community that networks of weblogs once provided. I get my feedback on
Flickr now, where a talented group of photographers share images and
discuss equipment and technique.

We early bloggers were, I think, inspired amateurs that staked out the
writable web early on. But those pioneer days are gone and the
infrastructure has gone up to support cities and suburbs. We’re finding
comfortable places to live and looking for the next adventure.

I have no doubt that we’ll find new and exciting frontiers in the next
few years. For me at the moment, it’s a rediscovery of my visual art
though digital photography and the ability to publish on the web both
here and at Flickr. I’ve learned to focus on the Now and relish the
surprises that tomorrow will surely bring.

About James Vornov

“On Deciding . . . Better” is the online journal of James Vornov M.D., Ph.D. A board certified Neurologist and internationally recognized drug development expert, he is currently Vice President, Medical Department for Neuroscience at Medpace, a global Contract Research Organization. He completed his Neurology training at Johns Hopkins Hospital and served on the faculty there for 10 years. In 1998 he moved from academia to the pharmaceutical industry where he worked in a broad range of CNS therapeutic indications

This site, “On Deciding . . . Better” began as one of the first weblogs hosted by Dave Winer when he opened up the web to writers with the EditThisPage community in December of 1999. While the site has served as an online technology journal, it has focused variously on decision theory, systems theory and emergent phenomena in an informal setting. Most recently, digital photogaphy equipment and technique has dominated the subject matter, reflecting personal interests.

Return to Riomaggiore

I’m just back from a vacation trip to Italy. It was just my wife and
myself, in part celebrating our 25th wedding anniversary coming up in
October. It was a chance to use some of the many, many frequent flyer
miles that I’ve accumulated in the last few years. I had the chance to
spend many hours in a somewhat concentrated fashion making photographs.

We had the opportunity to reconnect with a special place that we had not
seen in nearly 20 years: Riomaggiore, a village in Italy that has
provided the basis for many images that my wife has in her paintings. In
a way, I was there as her photographer, to document the visual so that
she would have new references for new paintings.

Riomaggiore is in Liguria, on the Mediteranean coast that is the
continuation of the French Riveria. In the west there is the developed
“Italian Riveria”, but as one moves east, past Genoa toward La Spezia,
the coast is less developed. Just before La Spezia lie five towns which
until after WWII were only approachable by boat. A rail line and then a
highway opened them up after the war, but they remained much as they
were. Known as the “Cinque Terre”, they have been a favorite of artists
and poets. At the sea, now cut off from the rest of the village by the
rail line is the small harbor.