Another recycled article from the old Exposures Online Website archives originally published 2nd March 2001
Letter to the Editor
March 2, 2001
Friday Flash
Editor,
Correspondence about the Photofinish in each of your last two issues has prompted us to reply.
For nearly 20 years we have been photofinish camera operators (both film based and digital) in the north. Our company (Northern Digital Photofinish Ltd) operates at almost all galloping, trotting and greyhound racetracks north of Taupo.
As contractors to the Northern Racing codes, we process most of the strip finish photos seen in the Friday Flash and all of the New Zealand photofinish images seen on the internet. These images are low-resolution copies of the high-resolution images used by the judge. We reduce them in order to show more placegetters.
How are the images formed? Unlike still, movie or video cameras, the photofinish camera has no shutter and there are no frames. The capture is continuous. In place of a shutter, the photofinish camera has a narrow line of sensors behind the lens, aligned on the finishline. Using a digital scan (up to 2000 times per second) the Finishlynx system continuously captures an image of the extremely narrow (approximately 5mm) strip of track, which is the finishline. In essence this is a photograph of time and whatever passes the finishline during capture becomes a part of that image. All parts (nose, tail, hooves, ears, saddle, jockey ? the lot) of all horses in the photofinish image are right on the line.
JUDGES LOOK … the same photo as above but at a higher resolution for the judge. This was a dead heat.
Your readers may have noticed that some horses have misshapen legs in some finish images. This is due to a horse putting it’s hoof on the ground right on the line. The hoof stays still as the horse passes over it. The hoof is captured for the entire time it is stationary on the line. Because the capture is continuous, the hoof appears elongated.
Because the photofinish image is the finishline captured over a period of time, it doesn’t matter where the line is placed. As long as it is parallel with the finishline it is always on the line. It functions as a point of reference assisting the viewer to judge which finisher’s nose reached the line first (or third or eighth or whatever). In the Finishlynx system the line is created digitally and is always in line with finishline. It can be moved to assist in placing finishers, but it cannot be tilted or otherwise manipulated.
The digital system is also used for race timing. Because it is a photo of time, it can have a start triggered automatically by the barrier gates or starter’s button. As the finish is captured, the time elapsed from the start is recorded. In this way a time is determined for each finisher and the margins calculated from these times. When a finisher’s time is taken from a beam broken by the finisher we can never be sure which part of the finisher broke the beam first. The Finishlynx time, on the other hand, is always taken on the finisher’s nose. The Finishlynx system prints and exports these results, which we supply as the official record of the finishing order and finisher’s times used by Racing Industry bodies, Clubs and the media.
All of our finishes are available as glossy colour prints and may be ordered from Northern Digital Photofinish Ltd, Ph 09-846 1802.
There are a couple of songs that were game changers for me.
As a kid I saw The Beatles movie A Hard Day’s Night and the idea of girls chasing me down the street had great appeal and I thought I should be in a band some day.
It’s always good to look back on something worthwhile because it reminds you that things that are worthwhile often take a bit of effort.
Since 2006 I’ve been staging annual music concerts. I’ve called them The Waikaretu Performing Arts Festival because they began at my little farm in Waikaretu.
These annual parties/concerts have been going on now since my old band mates from the late 70’s Dave Arrowsmith and Warren Cate and I dusted off some of our old punk rock songs, put a small vocal PA on the front deck at Waikaretu and used bedside lamps to light the way so we didn’t fall over each other.
Every year they get a little bigger, and a lot better. …>>>
A very, very long time ago, when the internet was very young, I started building websites.
That stuff is easy now but back in the mid 90’s it was all very new.
I still do some websites, mainly for close friends and clients I have been working with for nearly 2 decades.
And I have always had Exposures as a personal website.
Exposures has changed a lot over the years and now it’s just a simple blog. back in the day it was an important website for horse racing people. It got awards. And stuff.
I used to write a weekly column in the old sports paper The Friday Flash called ‘Nothing But Net’.
I’ve recently moved servers and transferred a bunch of websites and in the process had to go through some old backups.
And I found the backup for the old Exposures website.
Some of the stuff on there is very dated. Some isn’t. Some may even be of historical interest to some people.
So I’m going to go through it over time and recycle some of the best bits of those years.
When I was 15 I used to work in the weekends picking tomatoes to earn pocket money. A day in the hothouses earned me $5 so every two weeks I could get on a bus and travel from suburban Mangere into Auckland City and buy a new record.
I was just getting into buying records then. One of the first records I bought was David Bowie’s Ziggy Stardust album.
Then he produced Transformer and I was introduced to Lou Reed.
I went back through Lou Reed’s catalog and discovered The Velvet Underground.
I bought a drum kit and formed a band.
Right from the start we did Lou Reed covers. I still do Lou Reed covers.
I have a concert at my farm every February. In 2011 my band was called Deja VU and Nico and we did only Lou Reed covers.
I think I have everything the he released, including the crap. That’s what you do when you are a fan. You even buy the crap.
I saw Lou Reed live in concert twice, in 1975 and in 1978. I took a cassette deck in to the ’75 show and still have the tape. I listened to it again yesterday.
This year’s father’s day I wrote a tribute to Lou Reed. He is the father of most of the songs I ever wrote. He was the one who gave me a voice and walked me through every step of the way. It’s simple. You play a chord, you say the line, you move down the page and you tell the story.
I knew he was sick, but I started to think he was never going to die.
But he died.
Age 71.
He leaves behind a body of work that is stunning in it’s depth and width.
I don’t have a favorite song or album or era. I just have a favorite artist.
I hear a lot of stories
I suppose they could be true
All about love
And what it can do to you
Highest risk of striking out
The risk of getting hurt
And still
I have so much to learn
I know, ’cause I think about it all the time
I know, that real love has quite a price
And a good heart, these days, is hard to find (a good heart)
True love, the lasting kind
A good heart, these days, is hard to find
So please be gentle with this heart of mine
My expectations may be high
I blame that on my youth
Soon enough, I’ll learned
The painful truth
I’ll face it like a fighter
Then boast of how I’ve grown
Anything is better
Than being alone
I know, ’cause I learn a little every day
I know, ’cause I listen when the experts say
That a good heart, these days, is hard to find (a good heart)
True love, the lasting kind
A good heart, these days, is hard to find
So please be gentle with this heart of mine
As I look back
On all my childhood dreams
My ideas of love
Weren’t as foolish as they seemed
If I don’t start looking now
I’ll be left behind
And a good heart these days
It’s hard to find
I know, it’s a dream I’m willing to defend
I know, it will all be worth it in the end
And a good heart, these days, is hard to find (a good heart)
True love, the lasting kind
A good heart, these days, is hard to find
So please be gentle with this heart of mine
And a good heart, these days, is hard to find (a good heart)
True love, the lasting kind
A good heart, these days, is hard to find
So please be gentle with this, with this heart (with this heart) of mine
A good heart
A good heart
A good heart
A good heart
A good heart
A good heart
An new album is on the way. Here are the studio demos.
Some people have had issues accessing these songs on Soundcloud so I have uploaded them to my blog. Right click the hyperlinks to download any mp3’s you want to keep on your local PC
Yesterday, as our parliament of ‘honorable’ representatives passed into law under urgency a bill which even conservative polls showed that over three quarters of the population had strong opposition to a colleague told me he was ‘ashamed to be a New Zealander today’.
I was pretty taken back by that remark.
This is the country that led the world in equal suffrage, and stood up to the might of the United States to make a principled stand on nuclear armed warships entering our ports.
When the French government were conducting atmospheric tests in the Pacific Islands and used their military to engage in acts of violence against New Zealanders with the courage to protest our government sent a naval frigate with a cabinet minister on board to protect our countrymen.
This is the country where a Labour government denied visas to a rugby team to play apartheid sport and when a National Government supported apartheid sport this is the country where over a million people stood up to be counted.
In fact on every important issue of principle over several generations New Zealanders have stood up and taken a decent stand and have demonstrated to the world that we are capable of thinking for ourselves and expressing our own point of view, even if it is at odds with others.
Sadly we have an administration that is not working in the interests of New Zealand but instead seems to be more loyal to the wishes of foreign governments and corporations.
The interests of the country and it’s citizens are ignored and the government regime acts as a lapdog for their overseas masters.
We have seen a lot of this around the world recently. You only have to turn on the news and see that the world is rebelling against despots and traitors in a way that must scare the pants off the rich and powerful.
The only thing that is bigger than their hatred of ordinary people is their fear of them. And for good reason.
So I’m not ashamed to be a New Zealander because we have a government that works against us and sells us out to some foreign power.
I’m just looking forward to the day when they get what’s coming to them for their treason.
There is one thing you can never do and this is to give up on the people, especially the New Zealand people.
We have too proud a history of doing the right thing to let these scumbags get away with what they are doing to this great country.
John Key might think that we are the kind of people that would ‘run for the hills’ when attacked, but you’d have to ignore history to believe it.
Speaking of running for the hills when attacked…
Video Player
Media error: Format(s) not supported or source(s) not found
Comments are closed 
A very, very long time ago, when the internet was very young, I started building websites.
