I think this is pretty funny.
I suspect that if this writer sees the areas of love and sex as Battlefields where there can be only one "dominant side", then probably his enjoyment of those areas is destined to be quite limited.
Notice I'm not saying he has to get down on his knees and Take It to get any enjoyment. That's a matter of personal taste. I'm just saying that in any area you view as a battlefield, well, you're going to find battle. Duh.
Monday, April 07, 2008
Sony A350
Sony A350 video review.
The low-light capability is not impressive, but the live view and tiltable LCD is highly interesting. Unlike previous implementations from other makers, live view does not introduce a delay in autofocus, because the sensor is an extra one in the viewfinder, it's not done with the main image sensor.
It's a pity about the noise issue. In a time where Nikon D3 can deliver quality images at ISO 6400, I am not about to buy a camera which is noisy at ISO 800. Otherwise I'd have been very interested in these Sony cameras. It is disappointing, and a bit strange: Sony is the world's biggest manufacturer of sensors, I believe, so you'd think they'd be very competitive in an area like that, but it seems that both their 14MP camera and the 10MP ones are pretty weak there.
The low-light capability is not impressive, but the live view and tiltable LCD is highly interesting. Unlike previous implementations from other makers, live view does not introduce a delay in autofocus, because the sensor is an extra one in the viewfinder, it's not done with the main image sensor.
It's a pity about the noise issue. In a time where Nikon D3 can deliver quality images at ISO 6400, I am not about to buy a camera which is noisy at ISO 800. Otherwise I'd have been very interested in these Sony cameras. It is disappointing, and a bit strange: Sony is the world's biggest manufacturer of sensors, I believe, so you'd think they'd be very competitive in an area like that, but it seems that both their 14MP camera and the 10MP ones are pretty weak there.
All those comments
Comments on comments on comments on comments...
I guess there's not enough substance to go around.
I guess there's not enough substance to go around.
Bloggers die early...
The extremely stressful lives of bloggers.
To be honest, I had no idea I was suffering this much for you. :)
To be honest, I had no idea I was suffering this much for you. :)
André Kertész
I'm a huge fan of the photographer André Kertész. In my mind he had a feeling for compositions not matched by any other photographer. Review of a book of his work with polaroids.
Sunday, April 06, 2008
Saturday, April 05, 2008
Leica CL
Article on the Leica CL, a classic compact camera.
"By nature, a rangefinder camera ought be the compact, discreet, and low-cost alternative to an SLR for those who can live with its limitations, not something to put in a display case or go bankrupt buying."
Me, I'm still waiting for compact cameras designed for documentary work and street photography. Modern digital compacts actually have everything needed, except for operating speed. Autofocus in a pocket camera is just too slow for a lot of people-shooting work. Also I guess for serious work they need to be more durable.
I've actually heard of a press photographers who uses digital compacts for work in the field in war-torn countries and such. He loves that they are discreet, but he does complain about the focus speed, and that he needs to carry several because they are not meant for the beating professional work gives them.
Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance
Here's more evidence that we have no clue how to predict success: Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance was rejected by 121 publisher. One hundred and twenty one! Holy shite. I can't imagine living through so many rejections.
I liked the book, but I think it let down the reader by being a search for the definition of quality, and then giving up and never reaching it. I've addressed this before.
Why can't we predict success? When millions of people turn out to love a book, you'd think that one of them would be in the place of one of the 121 editors who the book went through?
I liked the book, but I think it let down the reader by being a search for the definition of quality, and then giving up and never reaching it. I've addressed this before.
Why can't we predict success? When millions of people turn out to love a book, you'd think that one of them would be in the place of one of the 121 editors who the book went through?
Friday, April 04, 2008
Online music store now the biggest
iTunes music store has just surpassed Wal-Mart and become the number one music store in the US. If anybody is still doubting if the Internet is more than a fad...
Sex Don't Scare Me None
"Sex Don't Scare Me None." An old favorite article which I've saved from bit-death on the web by reposting it.
Iron Man revisited
The "mystery" of the Iron Man song.
I don't get the status of Black Sabbath, by the way. To me the drummer sounds amateurish, and Ozzy sounds like a choir* boy with a cold.
Probably I'd feel different if I'd grown up with it. That seems to be the overruling factor of musical appeal.
I apologize to Black Sabbath fans.
* "Choir" is pronounced "quire"? Geez.
I don't get the status of Black Sabbath, by the way. To me the drummer sounds amateurish, and Ozzy sounds like a choir* boy with a cold.
Probably I'd feel different if I'd grown up with it. That seems to be the overruling factor of musical appeal.
I apologize to Black Sabbath fans.
* "Choir" is pronounced "quire"? Geez.
Thursday, April 03, 2008
Wednesday, April 02, 2008
Predictions
"I FEEL THAT the camera finds its main importance as a recording and communicating mechanism, and I should like to see it develop until it takes its place with the pencil and the typewriter as an instrument of our everyday language. Photography should be taught in the schools along with penmanship as part of postwar education's expansion.
"It is possible to perfect the camera to the point where it will become an automatic instrument which will focus, expose and process the film by the mere push of a button. In this way we will be able to realize a medium possessing an immediacy between seeing and recording unachieved by any other art.
"I would like to see the camera and photographic material so refined that we need never use anything larger than a miniature camera exposing single frames of 16 mm film. For this we need grainless film with dyes rather than silver particles as the sensitive medium. The camera should have a built-in lens turret, mounting a wide angle, normal and telephoto lens, a photoelectrically controlled lens diaphragm and an automatic dry processing chamber. A camera of this sort could be easily carried about along with a plentiful supply of film. You wouldn't have to wait for results. And it would never need intrude itself upon the scene being photographed, leaving reality unchanged. There should be color film with greater latitude and speed and controlled brilliance, as well as the black-and-white which will do for most purposes.
"This extreme simplification will bring photography to everybody. It will leave the photographer free to develop his creative and esthetic principles. And art, if it is to come from photography, will come out of the meaning of the photograph and the greatness of the observation of the photographer."
Written by Eliot Elisofon... in 1944!
"It is possible to perfect the camera to the point where it will become an automatic instrument which will focus, expose and process the film by the mere push of a button. In this way we will be able to realize a medium possessing an immediacy between seeing and recording unachieved by any other art.
"I would like to see the camera and photographic material so refined that we need never use anything larger than a miniature camera exposing single frames of 16 mm film. For this we need grainless film with dyes rather than silver particles as the sensitive medium. The camera should have a built-in lens turret, mounting a wide angle, normal and telephoto lens, a photoelectrically controlled lens diaphragm and an automatic dry processing chamber. A camera of this sort could be easily carried about along with a plentiful supply of film. You wouldn't have to wait for results. And it would never need intrude itself upon the scene being photographed, leaving reality unchanged. There should be color film with greater latitude and speed and controlled brilliance, as well as the black-and-white which will do for most purposes.
"This extreme simplification will bring photography to everybody. It will leave the photographer free to develop his creative and esthetic principles. And art, if it is to come from photography, will come out of the meaning of the photograph and the greatness of the observation of the photographer."
Written by Eliot Elisofon... in 1944!
The camera industry
Charlie Brown
One of my favorite Peanuts strips.
I am subscribing to the Complete Peanuts collections (I have eight so far). It's a top-quality hard-cover publication collecting every strip from the fifty years of Peanuts, two years per book. Warmly recommended for fans of Peanuts.
I should note that if you start with the first book, don't judge it too harshly. It's good, but not yet great. The strip gets better and better as the fifties go along, until it hits its surrealistic stride in the sixties.
The only strip, to my mind, which came even close to Peanuts was Calvin And Hobbes, what years we got of it before his breakdown (I think it was). But great as that was, I find now that nothing is as re-readable as Peanuts is. My favorite Peanuts collection (a big hardcover omnibus collection sampling strips from a wide spectrum of years) I have read half a dozen times.
Open letter to Gary Groth, owner of Fantagraphics and editor of The Complete Peanuts:
Dear Gary Groth,
Permit me to express my great admiration and gratitude for your publication of The Complete Peanuts.
Both the ambition itself and the execution are of the highest caliber. And I'm certain that this high profile hard-cover publication will be invaluable in presenting and preserving Mr. Schulz's oeuvre, the greatest comic strip ever made, for current and future generations.
Sincerely yours, Eolake Stobblehouse
In 1954 there's a strip where Charlie Brown makes a comic strip featuring a man riding across the US on a power mower. (For some reason he considers this to be "science fiction".) I wonder if that strip gave David Lynch the idea for The Straight Story?
I am subscribing to the Complete Peanuts collections (I have eight so far). It's a top-quality hard-cover publication collecting every strip from the fifty years of Peanuts, two years per book. Warmly recommended for fans of Peanuts.
I should note that if you start with the first book, don't judge it too harshly. It's good, but not yet great. The strip gets better and better as the fifties go along, until it hits its surrealistic stride in the sixties.
The only strip, to my mind, which came even close to Peanuts was Calvin And Hobbes, what years we got of it before his breakdown (I think it was). But great as that was, I find now that nothing is as re-readable as Peanuts is. My favorite Peanuts collection (a big hardcover omnibus collection sampling strips from a wide spectrum of years) I have read half a dozen times.
Open letter to Gary Groth, owner of Fantagraphics and editor of The Complete Peanuts:
Dear Gary Groth,
Permit me to express my great admiration and gratitude for your publication of The Complete Peanuts.
Both the ambition itself and the execution are of the highest caliber. And I'm certain that this high profile hard-cover publication will be invaluable in presenting and preserving Mr. Schulz's oeuvre, the greatest comic strip ever made, for current and future generations.
Sincerely yours, Eolake Stobblehouse
In 1954 there's a strip where Charlie Brown makes a comic strip featuring a man riding across the US on a power mower. (For some reason he considers this to be "science fiction".) I wonder if that strip gave David Lynch the idea for The Straight Story?
Legislators
When buying and selling are controlled by legislation, the first things to be bought and sold are legislators.
-- P. J. O'Rourke
-- P. J. O'Rourke
Tuesday, April 01, 2008
Music composing system
I've purchased/built a little semi-pro music composing system, a Musical Fidelity X80 Aviator system. It's pretty advanced, almost all it does is done in hardware, and makes almost pro-studio sound, and it's a Real-Time system (meaning no delays in signals).
The OS is Linux, and all the software is open source, and free. The amazing thing is that it does not have any screen, just the box, the speakers, and a keyboard. The whole composing process and interface is done with acoustic cues about what you're doing. It takes some learning, obviously, but when it becomes intuitive, it's great.
I've hard that Moby has been using the predecessor system, the X79, when he was on the road.
Update April 2: this was an april fools joke. There used to be an iMac on top of the hi-fi amp, and the keyboard got left behind. I thought they looked like they belonged together.
"In 1998 [on April first], a newsletter titled New Mexicans for Science and Reason carried an article that the state of Alabama had voted to change the value of pi from 3.14159 to the "Biblical value" of 3.0."
TidBITS may change its format radically to cater to the short-attention-span-generation.
The OS is Linux, and all the software is open source, and free. The amazing thing is that it does not have any screen, just the box, the speakers, and a keyboard. The whole composing process and interface is done with acoustic cues about what you're doing. It takes some learning, obviously, but when it becomes intuitive, it's great.
I've hard that Moby has been using the predecessor system, the X79, when he was on the road.
Update April 2: this was an april fools joke. There used to be an iMac on top of the hi-fi amp, and the keyboard got left behind. I thought they looked like they belonged together.
---------------------------------------
And now for something completely different:"In 1998 [on April first], a newsletter titled New Mexicans for Science and Reason carried an article that the state of Alabama had voted to change the value of pi from 3.14159 to the "Biblical value" of 3.0."
TidBITS may change its format radically to cater to the short-attention-span-generation.
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