Eolake Stobblehouse thoughts

Thursday offense video day

2012-02-02T15:09:00.003Z

Wow, I don't know what is more offensive: the language (and tone) of this video (rap video), or the thought of how much money they used to make this ad (a car ad starring J. Seinfeld).
Well, all right, I'm leaning towards the first one. But then it has a head start in that it is designed purely to offend, it has no actual content except intended offense. Pretty interesting "culture" phenomenon.

The World's Most Expensive Photo

2012-02-02T14:48:00.000Z

Russ pointed to this photo/print, which just set a world price record, 4.5 million dollars.

I wouldn't have thunk it. And I doubt the buyer really love the photo 4.5 million dollars' worth, it's surely speculation. "Duh", you may say, but I find it interesting that probably the whole business of fine art is being held up not by people actually like the art, but by speculators who are betting on what artist will escalate in value.
It's a bit heart-breaking to somebody who when he was young dreamed of living as a painter and really thought that people paid for something because they actually liked it.

Fine Art is different in this way from music and books and films because 1: it's not usually mass-produced, so it has to cost a lot for one picture. 2: Most people have quite limited wall space, so once that is filled, they rarely go "art shopping", and if they do, they usually go to the warehouse to find a $30 frame-poster combination that they like. And most people just don't have tens of thousands of dollars floating around just to throw at something they happen to like.
Oh, and 3: it's only a very, very tiny fraction of people who feel very strongly about visual art. For most, it's just something to stop the wall being bare, and it should match the sofa. I have a feeling that many more people feel strongly about music, if anything.

The problem as I see it is that when speculation is the driving economic force, it creates the odd factor that anything can become the deciding factor. Promotion and fame, for example, and infamy. For instance, rotting pig corpses will be sold as fine art for insane prices, when in a gallery in a side street 200 yards away, really lovely works hang unsold on the walls.

Sure, taste is a wide field, and nobody should be taste dictator. But if not for the speculation factor, I really doubt that any art lover would pay premium prices for rotting pigs, stuffed sharks, and cans of human shit.

But then occasionally you hear of an artist who is not famous but still sells all he makes for good prices. In fact my uncle and aunt are like that, for a hobby they make little statues of animals and faces in stone, and they sell like hotcakes. You don't hear about these people and I doubt anybody has made statistics, so I am kind of curious about how many people in the world are in this fortunate situation.

A green photo-painting

2012-02-02T03:48:00.003Z

I'll nip down to Strategic

2012-02-02T00:21:00.003Z

[Thanks to Jimmy]

Lab dance

2012-02-01T17:44:00.000Z

If you can stand a dog dancing, this is a fun one.

Konica Hexar

2012-02-01T14:54:00.001Z

Like I said, the Konica Hexar was an usually compromise-free camera. This extends to the size: in an age where every 35mm camera was compact, the Hexar was surprisingly chunky. But it looks great and it has an outstanding lens (I read a review back in the nineties that it was at least as good as Leica's 35mm 2.0 lens, and of course the latter was more expensive and did not include camera and autofocus and autowinder.)
Mike Johnston (The Online Photographer blog) told me that the rumor was that Konica made the Hexar after Leica had declined or pulled out of a suggested cooperation.

I think I'll take it through its paces a little. So what's the 35mm film to get these days you think? (400 ISO, B/W). Is Kodak out of the picture? I heard they went down, but I haven't read up on it yet. (I'll forego the darkroom, I see that developing and scanning is surprisingly cheap these days, cheaper than 15 years ago.)

John A and I in late January light

2012-01-28T18:25:00.001Z

I updated this one after a few hours. I applied a texture to it, and I like the result: it flattens it and makes it seem like a painting, more of a Picture. (Click for larger image to see this.)

Texture filters were used on all of these. Except the first one, which I only darkened a bit in the mid-tones to deepen the colors. (I did not touch the saturation slider though, the colors really were like this.)

=====================

BTW, one of the few downsides to the Fuji X10 is that the lens is not really the most flare-resistant one ever. Yes, it's a very complex lens, but it's still a little disappointing.

Mattebox for iPhone

2012-01-28T17:12:00.003Z

tOP pointed to this. I haven't played much with the app yet, but it's interesting even seen just as an exercise in striving for excellent and simplicity.
I love that his model was the Konica Hexar, that camera was a ray of sunlight. Another reach for excellence and simplicity.

Mattebox for iPhone from Ben Syverson.

(By the way, have you noticed how people talk in a particular way in promotional videos? There's a particular way they use the voice tones to make their points, I haven't really pinpointed it yet.)

Birch bark canoes, Kuralt, wood

2012-01-28T13:05:00.001Z

I was looking for a filmatization of Jack Kerouac's On The Road, which I've just started reading. But oddly, there doesn't seem to be any! (A bit strange, revered as it is.) Instead I found an old and clearly beloved TV show, On The Road with Charles Kuralt. Here is a couple of kool segments.

I don't understand how you can build a canoe, much less a really good one, from birch bark and without glue or nails. [Ah, sowing and pitch. Here's a vid, and bit more here.] It's amazing what some people can do with wood. It's a particularly difficult material because unless you "cheat" and glaze it, it will expand and contract with humidity, and all the joints has to be carefully constructed to take care of that! (I was educated a little by a friend who built me an amazing tilting drawing table with inlaid wood in the nineties.)

Google's terms of service

2012-01-27T17:53:00.002Z

Wow, I guess it's true what they say: you don't know how many Gmail addresses you have until Google changes their terms of service!

I, Partridge: We Need to Talk About Alan

2012-01-25T20:03:00.001Z

I, Partridge: We Need to Talk About Alan, new book, an "autobiography" by fictional character Alan Partridge, who actor Steve Coogan let loose on the years ago in the TV show Knowing Me, Knowing You, and later two series of I'm Alan Partridge.
Steve Coogan reads the book in the style of Alan Partridge, but it was apparently written by three-four people.

Alan Partridge is an interesting character. It's hard to say if he's a genuine a-hole, or if he's just really a mediocre blowhard, really self-centered, and extremely oblivious to the way he is coming across and the way he is treating other people. But in any case, if you're in a certain mood, it's really funny, both the shows and the book. The character has lots of zealous fans and it's one that Steve Coogan clearly has been struggling to step beyond.

The End of the Beginning

2012-01-25T17:00:00.002Z

[Thanks to Ian]

The new crane/helicopter

2012-01-24T21:27:00.000Z

Thanks to Tommy for finding this awesome video. This camera copter with built-in stabilizer will replace a lot of crane and helicopter shots in cinema. Not to mention it can go a lot of places where you can't put helicopters or cranes.

CineStar 3 Axis Gimbal from tabb firchau.
(It looks good in full-screen.)

Zorse

2012-01-24T16:00:00.000Z

Male zebra + female horse = zorse. Huh!

I saw one in the film I'm Reed Fish, and I had to check 'em out. I'd looked up the movie being a Bledel fan, I am not entirely sure how well I like it yet.

Wikipedia says: A zorse is the offspring of a male zebra and a female horse. This cross is also called a zebrula, zebrule, zebra mule or golden zebra. The rarer reverse pairing is sometimes called a horbra, hebra, zebrinny or zebret. Like most other animal hybrids, the zorse is sterile.

Dear Photograph

2012-01-23T18:57:00.000Z

Dear Photograph, photo blog.
Interesting play with time and personal history.

The last time, a couple of years ago, that I visited the street I grew up on, I was struck by how alien it was. It was like everything had changed, and I honestly might not have recognized it if I hadn't known where I was. I'm not even sure how much was physical changes in the street, and how much was me. But it was weird. It was like the place where most of my developing thoughts had happened, was just gone. Maybe that's one of the reasons they say "you can't go back".

A said:
with the same idea Amit Sha'al won a World Press Photo award.

... it may even be working better with B/W photos.

"See You In My Dreams"

2012-01-23T13:41:00.001Z

[Thanks to Phil]

Music by Lonely Boy.
Khan used the Canon 5D2 for the video to take advantage of the short depth of field (blurred backgrounds) this camera can give, unlike most affordable dedicated video cameras.

"See You In My Dreams" from Basharat Khan.

Caffeinated owl time

2012-01-22T19:59:00.000Z

Art by Nikolay Popov.

When you need to function at ungodly hours: coffee!

Limit search to one site

2012-01-21T20:57:00.001Z

Here's a really useful Google trick which many people still don't know about, how to limit a Google search to one site.
Today I got an email:

I am looking for some of my favorite stories from many years ago, but am not finding them. One was of a group skinny dipping in moonlight when one lost a watch or something. The author had a flashlight, which he shined near, but not on, the girls who were looking. Do you remember the story, or know which newsletter it is in?

I answered:

No, actually I don’t. But Google is my friend! Here it is:
http://www.domai.com/news/2004/04april-23/index.html

The way I found it was, I put into google:
site:domai.com flashlight
(No space after the colon.)
This limits the search to the given domain.

---
There is another good trick: say somebody sends you a good article in email, but there's no clue where to find it on the web. Then you take a phrase from the article, and put in into google, in quotes (which tells Google to keep the phrase whole), for example:
"Then Daniel remembered about the flashlight"
... which finds the same old newsletter, and no other page.

Pixar, Brave

2012-01-19T18:04:00.002Z

They say the next Pixar movie, June 22, 2012, is Brave.

The story and look is a bit more traditional Disney than it is Pixar. Which immediately is not the greatest impression I could get. But some details seem promising, for example lookit the screenshot. I like that the her hair looks more hand-drawn than it looks rendered. It adds a bit of the abstraction I'm missing in the trailer otherwise.
Ah yes, lack of abstraction, that's what felt weak to me. And of course, I'm not crazy about pre-industrial stories or fantasy in general, paradoxically most of it seems to lack the very imagination which the genre by definition allows so much of.

And there's rumors that the next-next Pixar movie will be quite abstract, taking place in a girl's mind with personified emotions, sounds interesting.

I have read that when Pixar was little and unproven, they had to resist a lot of pressure from Disney to make Toy Story a musical. For one, I'm happy they did!

Not that I dislike Disney, I usually enjoy their films. For example Hercules and The Emperor's New Grove are very funny (and lovably abstract, especially the latter), good, and seminal.

Update:
Alex mentioned ParaNorman. That looks like fun. And the light in it is beautiful, see for example the short clips neat the beginning of the trailer, of the sunrise-lit street and the hero seen through a window. It seems to be a stop-motion movie, I wonder how they make such beautiful lighting.

90210?

2012-01-19T15:24:00.002Z

I just noticed there's a 90210 show on TV. I could'na believe it, my sister was a fan of that show over 20 years ago!
But apparently it is the forth series in the "franchise".

Now like then, the actors seem too old to be in high school. And now, man, how thin are some of those girls!? (One of them shown on the right.) Damn, they're barely even attractive. It seems like the bigger the obesity percentage grows, the more people over-compensate in the fashion- and now the entertainment-business.
While I'm being gratuitously critical, none of the actors are exactly overflowing with personality either. But maybe it goes with the bubble-gum tween-twit TV show genre. The characters they portray are the rich and popular kids, and if one of them were to be burdened by a personality, he would be out in the cold faster than you can say "fake tan".

I have seen one show in the genre which I liked though, I wish I could remember the title, but it had ironic distance and was funny, because it was a parody of the culture and intrigue which goes on behind the scenes of a TV show like it.
Update: it was Grosse Point.

Silicon fires

2012-01-18T20:35:00.001Z

Recommended books about the computer revolution:

Fire in the Valley

Insanely Great

Hackers

Accidental Empires

Jayne Mansfield

2012-01-18T16:28:00.001Z

Bought this postcard recently, I think it's very funny.
You certainly can't accuse Jayne of not knowing what to do with what she had! That may be the most daring dress I've seen. And anything which can make Sophia Loren cast jealous glances askance is something else.

Mmm, I actually recall very little I've seen with either of the ladies. Any recommendations?

I Dream About You - Yuka Honda

2012-01-18T15:28:00.001Z

Aurasma Augmented Reality

2012-01-18T13:49:00.002Z

Augmented Reality, post/video.

It is surely in its infancy yet, since somebody has to code in an object before the app will do anything with it. But it seems quite promising if the tech catches on.

Lady Gaga unveils a Polaroid photo sunglasses

2012-01-17T19:27:00.002Z

Lady Gaga is creative director for Polaroid? This world is so dang weird. How about David Beckham becoming CEO of IBM?

Next gen cameras

2012-01-17T16:09:00.000Z

I posted this about next generation cameras on my tech/tablet blog.

Small cameras and shake

2012-01-16T21:02:00.000Z

I've had a realization: admittedly I love a quality pocket camera like the Canon S90 (S95/S100), simply because you can bring it and forget it until you need it. But of course there are disadvantages. One of them I've called "handling", because there's less room on a tiny camera for real buttons/dials and for your fingers.

But one aspect of this struck me today: shooting indoors with the S90, I felt less than confident that I could do it without shaking the picture. On the contrary, going one step up in size to a Panasonic GF2 or a Fuji X10, I have surprised at just how confident I feel in taking low-light photos with a steady hand. It just feels dead-easy to squeeeeaze a steady shot of on those ones.

It seems the better grip on such a camera, combined with the bigger and better shutter button, makes a big difference in steadiness. And it's not just a feeling, I've surprised myself that with such a camera I can take tack sharp pictures on 1/15th second with a mild wideangle, and that's even with the GF2 which doesn't have stabilization if one uses prime lenses.

Going up to a DSLR, I feel less confident again, I think this is due to the mirror smash which accompanies an exposure on these cameras. But I'm not sure if this is followed by fewer sharp shots in practice though. I have a feeling it does, if nothing else then because less confidence makes the hand less steady.

Two pub pics and more

2012-01-16T14:42:00.000Z

I tried a pub for lunch today where I haven't been in a while. They have new owners and they do food all day, which is great.
Also it turned out that the burger I got was really excellent, a nice surprise, I have been wanting more choice for lunch. Heck, even the corner sofa seat I got was the most comfortable I've sat in for a while. Good lunch time.
There was this great low January sunlight, so I took these pics. (Canon S90, "you don't need to know you got it with you".)

(Clickable.)

While walking and eating I listened to David Pogue's recent novel. I used an iPod Nano in a Lunatik Lynk wrist chain. It's a pretty geeky item one might think, but it looks nice, and it works well both as a watch and an iPod.

On the way home I walked past a watch shop. Most men's watches seemed to be around 5,000 pounds sterling ($8,000). And I guess that now everybody has the time on their "moby", we can no longer pretend that pricey watches are not, well, jewelry. I wonder how such a shop survives in a working class town.

You never know what you have

2012-01-15T17:11:00.001Z

I just found out I can watch Lovefilm films over my bluray box. Kewl. I watched Gran Torino last week over that service on my iPad, lovely movie. (It's a limited range of movies, of course.)

Imagine it, I've had that box for well over a year, but I never tried the Internet services on it before today! I only tried it now because I wanted to check a thing (X-Pro1) on youtoobs, but it was also dinner time, so it would be handy if it could be seen in the living room.

Leonard Cohen - Alexandra Leaving

2012-01-15T15:35:00.000Z

Repost.

BW film photo

2012-01-15T15:19:00.001Z

Our friend EmptySpaces took this lovely photo. Unlike me he likes working with film, this was taken on Fuji Neopan 400. And on a "Black Slim Devil", though I confess ignorance as to what that is. Aha, here we go. Surprisingly not a nickname. Looks kool, and I like the rubber grip and the super-wide lens, that's rare in affordable cameras, probably because they are tough to make with good corner-quality. Which you can't say the BSD has, but I like the look. It's out of stock, but seems to have been reincarnated as the Blue Ribbon.

Coolpix 600, 1998 Lyngby, Denmark

2012-01-15T14:57:00.000Z

I just came across these couple of pics, I don't believe I've ever posted them before. They were taken in 1998 or 1999 with my first digital camera, a Nikon Coolpix 600, where I lived in Lyngby, Denmark, near Copenhagen.
Believe it or not, the linked files at 768x1024 pixels are the full camera resolution... How times have changed. I bough the camera for about $600, just marked down from over a thousand. But even at such basic quality, the immediacy of a digital camera was exciting.

(Clickable pics)

Interview: Kayce Baker, Fujifilm, X-Pro1

2012-01-14T20:00:00.003Z

Interview: Kayce Baker, Fujifilm, long article.

Interview with the Director of Marketing of Fuji USA, herself a keen photographer.
Quite interesting. For example, here we get confirmation that the "pro" in the Fuji X-Pro1 is no accident, like I said, they are aiming for full professional quality here. She says their aim was to make the ultimate leisure-time camera for the professional photographer. Lissa;

...take the image quality above and beyond what is considered mirrorless. So we definitely want to stay in a different stratosphere. Look, are we Leica? It's not going to cost you $15,000 to walk out the door with one of these things, but at the same time we have a premium model here that's going to give you premium results.

She claims that this camera should give full-frame quality (resolution and signal to noise ratio) in a smaller camera and sensor, due to the new type of sensor and lack of softening filter ("low-pass"). Verra interesting. If it really lives up to these claims, and they have a very impressive track record, then the price might be compared to full frame cameras rather than M4/3 cameras, and that's rather a different perspective! Especially since the camera is smaller by far than full-frame cameras are. Actually even smaller than reduced-frame DSLRs, due to no space needed for mirrors and prisms. Could be a good deal in some ways.

If one is the type to hate to compromise on quality, but is tired of 2-kilo cameras, and maybe like to have a 28mm lens and a 90mm lens instead of a zoom, then this camera is a worthy candidate for sure. (They may make zooms in 2013 it seems. I wonder how they will attack that, given the compromise-free approach here. Zooms are usually all about compromise, though less so these days.)

Personally, I'm not sure it's for me. I love it in principle and I'm really happy they made it, but the type of premium quality we're talking about here is mainly noticed in really huge prints, and I don't tend to make those. So, while I reserve the right to change my mind every three minutes like usual, I think the X10 is a better fit for me for now.

------------
UPDATE:
Will said:

Thanks again for your review of the Fuji X10. I've had mine for a few weeks, and I love it. Best camera I've ever had. It's equally good at family snapshots in peculiar lighting conditions (and aren't they always?) and at serious photography (to the extent I'm capable of it). It really hits the sweet spot.

I fully agree, that camera is really a big surprise. If I could only keep one camera, that would be the one.

It's perfect for things like family documenting. I remember trying to take indoors pics of my nephews with my Fuji F10 (which was otherwise ahead of the curve then). But even though it during day, they just got blurry, shaken. (And on-camera flash looks awful usually.) With the X10 that's no longer a problem, if I can see it, the camera can handle it! The stabilization adds at least two stops, and the sensitivity at least another two stops, that's huge. Oh, and the lens is faster too! (OK, the X10 is bigger than the F10, but not huge. Still a good size for travel.)

Silver halide film, ghost begone!

2012-01-14T18:19:00.000Z

That's an ad I just got.
Isn't it a wonder that after, what, 170 years of photography, we finally get rid of the limitations of silver film, we can now make pictures look like anything digitally... and some people want to emulate "the magic of silver halide film". It's also one of the follies of the otherwise wonderful camera company Fujifilm (perhaps because they used to make film and they miss it), their cameras always have these stupid "film simulation" settings. You can't even get out of them, at best you can set it to "Provia/standard". I don't even know what "Provia" is, I've never used one in my life.
I'm sorry, I think film looked like shite if you weren't lucky. It was so grainy and blotchy, and getting tones and colors right was a constant battle. For me this is like being nostalgic for the era of medical healing of anything by bloodletting, or curing mental problems with lobotomies.

Update:
Pop said:
Now look what you made me do. I re-awoke my blog to post this on it. I can hear it grumbling in the next room…

Canon G1 X

2012-01-13T23:59:00.000Z

If my Fuji X10 didn't have such surprisingly good low-light quality, I might have regretted getting it just before the Canon G1x was announced. For the G1x is pretty much the same camera as the X10: high quality, compact, all-round camera. But the G1x has a larger sensor, larger than M4/3, and so in theory it probably has yet better available-darkness powers.
But then it's bigger and heavier (530 grams vs 360 grams, big difference), and it's sort of brutish looking. :-)

Ah, and the Fuji, no doubt helped by the smaller sensor, does have one clear advantage: its zoom is much faster, F:2.0 to F:2.8, as compared with the Canon's much more limited F:2.8 to F:5.8. Particularly at the long end where you need all the help you can get, that's a two-stop difference! (I think Fuji has the record in zoom speed.) ("Speed": how much light a lens or sensor takes in per second.)
Still, doubtlessly this is a very powerful all-round and travel camera.

When a Mac won't download a file

2012-01-13T22:13:00.001Z

Here's a simple trick that many new Mac users don't know: sometimes, I'm not sure why, a Mac won't download a linked file from a web site, depending on the page's programming.
There are two solutions: either option- (alt) click on the file, this forces a download of the linked file.
Or Control-click on the link, this will give a popup menu which contains "save linked file" or similar command.

The control-click thing is universally useful. It's the Mac equivalent of "right-clicking".

A lovestruck fan

2012-01-13T22:07:00.000Z

Thanks to TCGirl. Well, this is unusual, but I have to admit, she is very attractive.

Fujifilm X-Pro1

2012-01-13T12:45:00.001Z

When the Fuji X100 came out a year ago, many people found it highly desirable, but some wanted exchangeable lenses. This was not a trivial task, of course, but Fuji has done it. They have just introduced the Fujifilm X-Pro1 at the CES show in Las Vegas.

This camera won't be cheap (maybe $1500 body-only), but it seems likely that it will punch the hardest in its size class for image quality, maybe even similar to the much more expensive Leicas.

UPDATE: Emptyspaces said:
Just got back from CES, and got a chance to handle the X-Pro1 a bit.
They had a 40x60" print hanging in their booth taken with the X-Pro1, amazingly detailed.
Different Bayer array should make for sharper images (Fuji explained it as a 6x6 array vs. the normal 2x2).
16MP APS-C sensor.
Physically it's a little bigger than the X100. The lenses are fairly small, kinda reminded me of M42 lenses.
Killer hybrid viewfinder.

Thanks. Yes, the pattern in the sensor is more random than usual which helps with Moiré patterns (interference patterns on clothing), so they don't need the usual mild softening filter to combat this. (This idea is pretty old, and older in digital printing (stochastic patterns), it's a pity it has not been used more often yet.)

It seems clear that while the camera is meant to be more compact than most SLR cameras of course, it's not more compact "than it needs to be", and they seem to not have compromised on strength and handling, I think they aimed clearly at a pro camera.

"My New Favorite Portrait Camera"

2012-01-13T12:13:00.001Z

My New Favorite Portrait Camera, article.

The autofocus really is fast – and accurate – ... It’s DAMN fast. One other thing I like about it is the ability to detect a subject’s eye. When you turn on face-detection in the camera, the AF will place a box around what it thinks is the subject’s face. The E-P3 gets this part right 99% of the time. About 90% of the time it finds the eye, and puts a smaller, different colored box around the eye to let you know that’s the precise zone of focus. Now THAT’s what I’m talking about.

The new Olympus Pens and the new lenses a fast super-wide and a fast portrait lens, both of superior quality, are getting tons of praise. The portrait lens was even named Lens Of The Year by The Online Photographer.

With these lenses and with the new superior features, particularly really fast focus, the Micro Four Thirds system of compact system cameras is really entering into adulthood, good enough not only for enthusiasts, but for pros too.

Turning the pennies twice

2012-01-13T11:33:00.000Z

Pretty funny, this guy finds the hight of romance in giving his wife a rose he rescued from a dumpster.

"Fotoshop"

2012-01-12T19:09:00.004Z

[Thanks to Tom]

"You're Getting Old"

2012-01-12T10:48:00.001Z

In South Park episode "You're Getting Old", Stan starts feeling and seeing more and more things as sh*t, and the doctor tells him it's a condition called "being a cynical asshole". I thought maybe it was some healthy self-reflection on the parts of Matt and Trey, but I am not sure they are capable of that.
I might also think it reflects on some aspect of myself, but then I'd have been getting old since I was about ten. Oh sh*t, it happened to Stan after his tenth birthday! Oh no, no, block it out, block it out!!

2x Red Branches

2012-01-11T13:45:00.002Z

(Click for big.)

"Hobbit" home on the cheap

2012-01-10T08:57:00.000Z

Man Builds Fairy Tale Home for His Family – For Only £3,000 article/photos.

More info on his own site.
(I see I was not the only one to immediately think of a Hobbit home.)

Seems cool. And if it's as well done as the Woodsman's Cottage I've blogged before, probably very comfy and cosy too.

Photo of a tiny café

2012-01-07T19:43:00.000Z

This is a photo I took today, a cold January day in Northern England.
It's from an otherwise nice department store, but apparently they have moved the café to the top floor and made it nicer, and reduced the ground floor "café" to just two small, dingy tables stashed away in a dingy corner next to the bakery counter. It really was a dismal little space right there. (Really, this photo shows the whole of the place except a couple of seats by the window sill on the left.)

(Click for enlargement to see textures.)

And by the way, now that phones, not the least iPhones, have cameras rivaling dedicated pocket cameras, they are good for candid photography. The streets today are full of people holding and fiddling with their phone. You do the same, but you just tilt it a bit back and take a photo. If you are not (like people do) obviously "pointing" the phone camera "at" anything or anybody, you don't stand out as photographing. There was a woman standing a foot from me looking over the shoulder at the shelves, me and my camera-phone in full view for her, she didn't even notice I was taking a picture. People with phones are invisible.

This photo was taken on a dull day, indoors in bad mixed lighting, hand-held and in an awkward position, but it's well exposed and sharp. (Once again I made the photo dark for drama, the original photo is perfectly exposed.)

Oh, another detail... literally. To show off the texture I like here (maybe I'll make a print of it), I made this crop. Do click to enlarge.

Our culture is soooo focused on *people* that everything has to be about them. But the artist often wants to go beyond that and capture universalities. Like The Human Condition or whatever.
Whether he is successful or not is another thing, because it's a lofty goal, and certainly a very different one than if one wants to capture nice photos of nice, specific people.

See, with the structure here, it helps it getting abstract. I love abstract art and thought. It's not about "what's aunt Edna's deal", it's about "what's people's deal". In other words, what is the human condition? What are we? Why? How? Art can't solve these deep issues of course, but it can stimulate thought and reflection.

Though I find people will supply all the necessary thoughts and messages themselves no matter what the artist does, so I tend to focus on my idea of aesthetics. I feel aesthetics have an uplifting effect, independent of messages and other functions.

The Troll Hunter

2012-01-07T11:59:00.001Z

Anybody here seen this?
While I loved Spinal Tap, the mockumentary idea in horror films has not attracted me, I have not seen Blair Witch or Cloverfield. For one thing I get dizzy watching the trailers.
A review said Troll Hunter had an interesting variety of trolls, but from the trailers I've seen, I'm not impressed, they seem pretty fake. Sure, it's supposedly more of a satire/comedy, but...

On The Verge, the show

2012-01-06T20:04:00.000Z

TheVerge.com is a very good new tech web site. And they are very ambitious, they even have a web TV show with audience and everything. And so far I really like it. Funny and interesting. This may be web TV entering adolescence. Kewl.
(Viewing more of the show, I'd say it could use a bit more editing around the edges, the main interview for example gets a bit fuzzy in the middle there. But heck, it's early days.)

... A very ambitious site indeed. They even have a hands-on preview of the new Nikon D4 on the day it was announced.

Nikon D4 announced

2012-01-06T18:49:00.000Z

A new full-frame pro camera generation is hatched from Nikon, the D4. For those with six thousand bucks to blow and the gumption to carry a camera this size, it should be highly satisfactory! 16 megapixels full frame, up to 12.800 ISO plus four extended settings! Ten frames per second with autofocus tracking! Und so weiter as our Germanic friends say.

For a long while now, the D3S has been the king of low-light performance. But there has not been a camera of reasonable size and weight which has had similar performance. And the D4 does not correct this, this chunk could stop a raging bull. It would be nice if/when somebody does come up with something. The Canon 5D2 is getting long in the tooth (over three years), and it's about two or even three stops behind in high-ISO quality.

For both Canon and Nikon, for the first decade of their professional cameras, you had to choose between speed and highest picture quality. But with the D4 and the new equivalent Canon (1D IV) both at 16MP and very speedy indeed, I daresay this is a thing of the past. There's a chance both Canon and Nikon will come out with a 30MP full frame model later, but I do think that'll be a specialist tool, demanding the very best (expensive, big, heavy) lenses to even show a meaningful difference.

Just lookkit this monster...

Google Group sites

2012-01-06T17:16:00.001Z

Google Group sites seems interesting. I can immediately think of a myriad uses for such things, for small and big groups, long term or just for a project.

At least the TVs

2012-01-06T16:03:00.001Z

New Soul music

2012-01-06T16:01:00.002Z

(I recommend minimizing the YouTube page and just listening.)

I posted this one before years ago, but I just came across it again in the great movie Wild Target. (Very funny, and Bill Nighy is outstanding.)

I listened to a few more of Ms Naim's songs, and it seems to be one of those many instances of an artist getting struck *once* by the rays of god. It's very interesting how that happens. I wonder if it's something inside the artist which opens and closes, and for what reasons, or if that's an external influence, I dunno, an angel passing by or a spiritual wormhole to another world, just to let through that one inspiration.

I like the surprising elements, like the constrained low-fi sound of the piano in the start. And the horns. And the claps for rhythm. And the added, very beautiful but very different bit at the end.

Stormy weather

2012-01-06T03:11:00.002Z

Man, the weather is so boring at the moment here in Northern Europe. For a week or so, it's been all bitter cold, rain, and storm, storm, storm. Brrrrrr.

Silo home underground

2012-01-06T02:26:00.001Z

Joe found this cool home, based on a cold-war missile silo!
Just the thing for the well-off survivalist.

'Truly Unlimited' Data Plans

2012-01-06T02:17:00.000Z

I love how human beings can very comfortably redefine words to fit their needs. For example, "porn" can mean anything from six girls and a donkey in close-ups, to a picture of a model in a skimpy outfit. And "unlimited" means anything except actually "unlimited" for all the phone companies. Even a company which advertises that their data plans, unlike those of their competitors, are actually unlimited, throttles their heavy users.

iPad2 Tripod: Movie Mount

2012-01-05T15:57:00.000Z

Here's a similar dealie... it looks like fun, but if you want to make good video, why would you shoot it with an iPad? The camera on it is the size of a pinhead. I think even an iPhone 4 or 4S shoots much better video, it certainly has a larger/better lens and sensor.

iPhone Lens Combo Kit "with Arika"

2012-01-05T15:16:00.001Z

Using a cute presenter for your ads just to get guys' attention is such a crock. That would never work with me! I just think it's kewl how she makes the iPhone lens grow so long.

As for the lenses themselves, well, they are not zoom lenses and they don't have stabilization, and they sit on top of an existing lens in the phone that they have to harmonize with, so all in all I suspect that except as a boy's toy, you're better off with even a cheap zoom camera (just make sure it has optical image stabilization).

Current androids

2012-01-05T12:05:00.002Z

So it seems this is the current state of the art of androids (humanoid robots). I dunno. Perhaps better than I had expected. But I wonder if it'll go like with Virtual Reality: twenty years ago it seemed to be a field on fire, getting close to the real thing Very Soon... and then we've barely heard a peep about it since.

I wonder if androids will ever become really useful, or perhaps as relevant, if they'll become cost efficient. If one could replace a delivery man, but cost a hundred million and breaks down five times a day...

Tin Machine - Prisoner of Love

2012-01-04T22:07:00.001Z

Tin Machine was an interesting flop from Bowie, because coming from anybody else, it would have been regarded as very strong music.

Pix mix

2012-01-04T07:00:00.000Z

Web oddities

2012-01-03T23:40:00.002Z

Sometimes the web is weird. For example it's not unusual to see a big and important commercial web site just showing a sign saying "sorry, the site is closed due to upgrading". This can go on for weeks. Guys, you don't close a web site until the very minute you can put up it's replacement. That's simple common sense.

Another example is sometimes just poor service. For example, I have to pay a duty invoice to FedEx. But the easiest way to do so, online by credit card (or lord forbid, Paypal), isn't there. They even say on their stationary that this is not an option yet! This is just ridiculous. It's basic business 101 that you don't want to make it difficult for people to give you their money! Heck, nobody should even have to teach anybody that.

I also sometimes have to pay DHL, they do have a web payment service, but all it does is give error messages, so I always have to give up and telephone them. Not a heck of a lot better.

The Problem with Perfection

2012-01-03T23:25:00.000Z

The Problem with Perfection, tOP article.

Or consider technique. Why can a flaw like flare or color cast or motion blur improve a photograph? How can blocked up shadows sometimes say more than deep shadow detail? When do the "rules" of composition become an impediment to a great shot?

Like six years ago I bought a Nikon D2x and that humongous zoom lens you saw recently. Together they were like 3 kilos! (And by the way, the D2x had more noise at 800 ISO than the Fuji X10 has at 1600, even with its much smaller size and sensor.)

That kind of equipment is ridiculous unless one is a pro and every mili-gain counts.

The only people who notice technical flaws in pictures are other photographers. The actual audience looks at the pictures, what's in them, and how they make them feel. And this is done equally well with an "adequate" camera as with a "great" camera.

Look at this, for instance, famous photo from a famous photographer, Henri Cartier-Bresson. Very, very far from technically perfect, big grain, unsharp, blocked shadows, you name it. But it speaks.

I write about this more than once, because I'm still only learning it slowly, it's a surprisingly hard lesson to really learn, after years of struggling to Perfect one's craft.

Empathy quotient

2012-01-03T02:17:00.000Z

[Thanks to Norm]

Empathy quotient test.

em·pa·thy [em-puh-thee]

noun

the intellectual identification with or vicarious experiencing of the feelings, thoughts, or attitudes of another.

Panchromatic film

2012-01-02T21:10:00.003Z

Early photographic film (plates) was pretty much only sensitive to blue light. Then came orthochromatic ("correct colors") film, which expanded into green light, but still had very little sensitivity to red light. This is why skies are often white in early photographs (or graduated, because it was corrected in the darkroom), blue colors were over-exposed compared to reddish colors.

Panchromatic film, much closer to our eye's perception because it included sensitivity to red, gradually won over in the early 20th century, although it was more expensive and harder to work with, for example you could no longer use a red light in the darkroom, it had to be actually dark. (B/W photo paper for prints is still red-insentive, so you can use a red light to navigate by.)

(White sky example, photo taken on an orthochromatic plate in 1906. Bigger picture on click. An even bigger one can be found on Shorpy's.)

Understanding Southern, Cosby

2012-01-02T01:35:00.003Z

[Thanks to Henry]

Feet and metres

2011-12-31T21:42:00.001Z

Having cappuccino with Judy, 39, and Jade, 11 (well, she had ice-cream instead of the coffee), talk fell upon the technical drawings of crop circles which I have framed on my walls. I mentioned that one of the largest ever was over 900 feet. Young Jade had to have that translated into meters, whereas Jude says she only uses feet, not the metric system. I find that funny. The world does change, but sometimes very slowly.

----
The famous, enormous Milk Hill formation:

(It was also formed within a single 4-hour summer night without any witnesses.)

TikTok manufacturing

2011-12-31T19:59:00.002Z

This shows the manufacturing of a brand of iPod Nano wrist watch adapters. I find it lovely the precision which is applied in all the steps, for example the exact amount of pigment put into the silicon mass for the strap.

Here are more videos about that product. It seems like a very nice one.

Here's a particularly nice one, the new LunaTik Lynk, black-anodised aluminium:

A funny thing, going full circle, is that they also make real old-style watches for the bands now! Thus entirely leaving out the Nano, the product which started the whole thing.

Guitar strings!

2011-12-31T04:27:00.002Z

Cool. Though the effect is from the digital shutter, not the strings' actual vibration.

POPA button

2011-12-31T02:44:00.002Z

Here's an interesting new iPhone (4 and 4S) accessory: put a camera button (and a handle) on the iPhone.
Just for one thing it seems one can use the iPhone camera one-handed, something which is virtually impossible with only the screen button.
Aluminium and leather, sounds like it'll look and feel good. (Not super-cheap though, about £50/$75.)
It communicates to a dedicated app via the connector.

[Update: I have mine now, and it does not perform so great really. It keeps loosing the connection to the phone, and support doesn't seem to have a solution. A shame.]

They say the fit is very secure and snug, the phone won't drop out. They also say that one can use all the normal iPhone functions while the POPA is mounted. That's good. It would be clumsy to have to take it on and off. And I suspect it will make the iPhone easier to hold too, while still fit in many pockets.
It was originally called RedPop, here's the introduction video on Kickstarter. And a newer FAQ page.

I've ordered one, I'll be interested to use it. I think the new iPhones are great as take-everywhere cameras, but one has to admit they are slightly fiddly to hold and shoot.

Here's a very positive review of the POPA. Among the interesting bits of info is that the shutter is instantaneous, since it does not wait for focus lock. But since the iPhone autofocuses continually, or you can use touch-to-focus, I think this is a good feature, potentially allowing for precise capturing of moving subjects, one of the things which has always been an issue with phone cameras and other compacts. Of course one has to learn to watch for whether the subject is in focus before pressing the shutter. (*Not* having to learn that is the reason compact cameras have that focus wait.)

That is a feature of the app, actually (and the app is free and can be used without the grip). This other review says:

"Yes, I’m still shooting with the iPhone 4, but the amount of time it takes for the camera to focus, un-focus, focus and then finally lock focus has been killing me*. As a street photographer, speed is everything. Capturing moments that might exist for a split second simply cannot be accomplished with a great deal of shutter lag.
Enter the POPA app.
What Brendan and his team did with the POPA app is put the camera on a sort of ‘shutter release’ priority as opposed to a ‘focus’ priority. Which, in turn means … you guessed it … no shutter or focus lag. When you press that big red POPA button, or tap the red POPA button on the screen, the camera fires."

*A little real life research tells me that interestingly, on the iPhone 4S (but not the 4) and when using the Volume Up button as shutter (but not the screen button), you also have an instant shutter, regardless of focus!
And in my testing, the 4S is no slouch at focusing, less than half a second normally, so it's not so durn bad as a street camera just in itself. You have to be pretty hot on that shutter button to catch out the camera on focus.

UPDATE: TCGirl found these better pictures on The Verge (an interesting tech mag, by the way).

By the way, one-handed shooting should only be done in bright light (short shutter-times) to avoid shaken pictures, particularly since the lens is at the extreme other end of the iPhone from the handle.

1948 Buick Streamliner

2011-12-31T00:07:00.001Z

[Thanks to Kirk]

More pictures here.

(I wonder how they produced metal sheets to such smooth curves back then.)

Jade and Judy

2011-12-30T18:09:00.001Z

I took these photos today of my friends Jade and Judy, before and while we went out for our post-xmas dinner.

(Like usual, click for big pic.)

The sepia-toned one is from Pentax K-5 with portrait lens 77mm F:1.8 (at 1600 ISO and F:1.8), the color one is from iPhone 4S (it does better than I'd have expected in existing light if you take care to hold it still).

Canon S100

2011-12-29T23:33:00.003Z

For people who think that even the Fuji X10 (see posts below) is too large, for those who prefer a real breastpocket-camera which disappears when it's not needed, I think the brand-new Canon S100 should hit the spot. Very rarely is so much quality and so many professional options (Shutter- and aperture-priority, RAW capture, etc) placed in such a small body.
I have the Canon S90 which I love. The S100 has slightly longer zoom (5x vx 3.8x), more pixels, 12MP instead of 10MP, and HD video recording.

It hits the Goldielocks spot between an always-there camera like the one built into the best phones like iPhone 4S, and a serious enthusiast's big-compact like the Fuji X10 or the Canon G12. There is very little this camera won't do, although of course for space reasons many settings are banished to menus rather than have dedicated buttons for them.

It's also available in "silver". The photo is from this review.
... Actually when I heard that the S100 had a longer zoom, I immediately had doubts, this (and the tighter pixels) might affect image quality. And in fact the above-linked review confirms that the S95 has the edge in pure image quality. And one is likely to find it cheaper! (It should be said that the PhotographyBlog review disagrees with the image quality assessment, though. I'm sure they're both very good.)

Ice fountain

2011-12-27T00:42:00.001Z

Cool (and cold) old photo from Shorpy.com.

Detroit circa 1904. "Fountain of ice, Washington Boulevard." 8x10 inch dry plate glass negative. (Super size.)

1909. "Mid-winter carnival, 'storming the fortress,' Upper Saranac Lake, New York." 8x10 inch glass negative, Detroit Publishing Company. (Super size.)

Gift of small sensors (updated with S90 pic)

2011-12-26T23:22:00.002Z

A little demonstration of the gift that high-quality small sensors (and lens tech developments) have given us...
Granted, technically there's over 30 years and tons of differences between the two cameras, so an actual comparison would be rather silly, but still. The Olympus was a *miracle* of compactness when it was made, and that included the lenses. (It's still a remarkable and beautiful camera.)
The Fuji, because of today's fantastic small sensors, has at least comparable quality (I'd say it beats the O in many ways, plus a ton of features), and it jacket-pocketable. Its zoom, granted, has slightly smaller reach (120mm (equivalent) vs 150mm), but then it goes much, much wider (28mm vs 75mm), and it's way faster (F:2.0 to 2,8 vs F:4.0).
(If I'd had an F:2.8 zoom from back then, it'd have been twice the size and heft of this Olympus lens.)

The Fuji lens is shown in its folded-up size, and the Olympus lens is shown at its shortest setting, though it looks like it's zoomed out.

Wait, I do have a full frame F:2.8 zoom to show. OK, it's a bit longer still, 80mm-200mm, but just look at that beast! And it's not even an old lens.
The Nikon with lens is 2.3 kilograms! The Fuji is 360 grams. (Five pounds vs 0.8 pounds.)
(By the way, that Nikon lens cost over three times as much as the whole Fuji camera, but when they started making full-frame cameras, it turned out the corner quality was really poor, so they had to replace it fast.)

Like I said, I know that these are not really comparable sets of gear, this was just for fun.
If I'd put the Canon S90 (or S95 or S100) on the left, it'd be even smaller yet (breast-pocketable), and have a not-dissimilar quality, though the handling of course suffers on such a tiny camera.

UPDATE: Russ says:
Olympus has been making high quality, pocketable cameras for decades. My favorite is the XA model. It has a wonderful 35mm 2.8 lens. However, I think the best feature is the almost inaudible shutter. Makes for great stealthy street photography. Even though most are now over 30 years old, you can still find good working examples on eBay for relatively little money.

Yes, the XA and similar film-cameras like the Minox 35, the Rollei 35, or the Konica Big Mini, are amazing.
Though in order to be this compact, they are confined to a 35mm lens, probably F:2.8 or less. This can be all right, and I have owned and several of such cameras*, they are highly useful and I love them.
But if one want's a zoom, it gets a lot bigger if one keeps the large film/sensor size. And if one doesn't, on film the quality suffers badly. This has been the issue, and personally I find that the Fujifilm X10 is so far the best compromise I have seen in these matters, brought about by advances in lens and sensor quality.

*My first film super-compact was a Ricoh with a gate design like the Minox, I loved it. But it's apparently lost in the tides in history, I can't even find a photo of one, boohoo. Wish I'd kept it. A couple of my more successful pictures were taken with it, this one for example. This one was also taken with such a compact, though I forget which, I only had it briefly.

UPDATE: Okay, I just had to include the Canon S90 too, for completeness's sake. Outstanding camera, for a real pocketcamera. (28mm - 105mm zoom.)

No nipps please

2011-12-26T22:32:00.000Z

It is apparently common when they make movies and TV shows, that if a woman's nipples are showing too clearly through a shirt, they will tape them down!

Isn't that amazing? Here is a free gift of great sexiness, without nudity, and they remove it!
I can only guess that some parts of the general audience are so sexophobic that even the outline of nipples through a shirt (not even a transparent one, mind you) is so strongly offensive that the movie- or TV-outlet will get in trouble for it. Hokey mama.

"Just Go With It"

2011-12-25T22:20:00.000Z

Just watched "Just Go With It".
Occasionally I thought it was not as funny as it would like to be, and sometimes a bit tasteless, as has been the vogue for some years. But overall I liked it, it was sometimes quite funny too. And it has three actresses in it who are all good, and funny, and show totally amazing bods in bikinis, Brooklyn Decker, Jennifer Aniston, and a surprisingly into-it Nicole Kidman.
It was a very good part for Aniston, once again I think she showed that she is well more than the one who introduced the "Rachel" haircut, she is genuinely funny and very sincere too.
So basically, unless you're fed up with Sandler (which I can get, I don't find him all that likeable in many of his roles) it's recommendable.

The kids are good too, especially the girl, in the movie she's a budding actress and keeps doing this atrociously overdone and funny cockney British accent.

At just ten, Bailee is a very busy actress apparently, and some of her own movies she can't go watch in the theatre because they are R-rated! Too funny.

Heidi Montaq has changed

2011-12-25T21:25:00.002Z

What a durn pity, she had honest beauty.

Before:

After, after many many changes, none of them wise in my opinion:

I mean, she's been turned into this plastic parody of what some people think is "hot".

All Saints - Never Ever

2011-12-25T17:36:00.001Z

I miss All Saints, perhaps my favorite girl band ever. Seminal and powerful music, great pop.

Kate Bush - The Sensual World

2011-12-24T11:17:00.003Z

The Sensual World was actually always one of my least favorites of Kate's albums, one of the less accessible of an often little-accessible artist's works, but the title track doesn't suck (and neither does A Deeper Understanding).
And the video is pretty. (First time I've seen it, gotta love youtoobs.) Lawd she was hot too.

The cover was striking though. She has been very well photographed.

Pleasing folks

2011-12-24T11:10:00.004Z

If an artist has no desire at all to please people, he loses his audience. If he has nothing but desire to please people, he loses himself.

Fingertip gloves

2011-12-24T09:15:00.000Z

Thanks to Russ for recommending Freehands gloves for optional bare fingertips (two on each hand) for cameras and phones. Just got mine, they are nice quality for a reasonable price.
The tips fold back with the help of little magnets, a very nice touch.

A Fine Frenzy

2011-12-24T09:07:00.001Z

Update: Russ recommended this:

Yahoo groups

2011-12-23T21:21:00.000Z

I've found Yahoo Groups very useful over the years. Probably greatly aided by using ad-blocking software in my browser!

But I'm told that these days to sign up for a yahoo group, one needs to provide a zip code, birth date, and needs to get a yahoo email address.
Can anybody confirm this?
(And can it be fake ones? Surely they can't check?)
(It seems one can add other email addresses to use, later, but it still seems a bit silly that one has to get a yahoo one (although I'm sure it boosts their prestige to advertisers).

Some people hate all this, but considering what I hear from professionals of the difficulties of running mailing lists with tens of thousands of addresses, and the spectacular cost of professional services (Lyris which I'd been using, just boosted their *minimum* fee to $1250 per month!), there must be some downside to the highly flexible and free service Yahoo provides. I've been a member of several groups for many years, and find them very useful and even comparatively user-friendly, and with an ad-blocker in place, I'm not bothered. (I had actually expected ads to appear in the emails themselves, but I don't seem to get that. I think that shows restraint.)

Merry eks-mas to all

2011-12-23T03:35:00.001Z

Aaaaaanyway... I have decided to take it very easy from now on until a few days after new years at least.
How this will impact my blogging is anybody's guess (I don't tend to plan). But I just wanted to wish you all a very happy and pleasant holiday season, and thank you so much for being with me in the past year(s).
Love, Eolake

Leaf-cuts by Lorenzo Duran

2011-12-23T03:32:00.002Z

... Case in point. Pleasant art. (While admittedly also on the decidedly mild side, but no harm in that.)

Seoul-based artist Choi Xooang

2011-12-23T03:27:00.000Z

Seoul-based artist Choi Xooang, more.
I always preferred art which, while it might be challenging in different ways, at least had a core of being aesthetic, or appealing. So it always puzzles me a little when we see the artists who seem to specialize in art which is, well... less so.

Snapseed play

2011-12-21T00:26:00.001Z

Snapseed (Not surprisingly from NIK*) is an iPad app which has become very respected and popular, and I can see why. It has one of the easiest learning curves I've tried, and yet you can do a lot with it. (Some brief demo videos.)
Here is just the first experiment I did.

This was some of the more Effect-y settings, the app will also do basic things like contrast and cropping, of course.

By the way, I hope to take some portraits around new year, that should be fun.

*NIK has some unique filtering techniques so you can apply adjustments to only the sky or a blouse, without a lot of fiddly masking-off. It's pretty amazing when it works best, and I don't think anybody else has anything like it.

Street art mixed

2011-12-19T21:40:00.002Z

More photos.

A really nice guy...

2011-12-19T21:36:00.005Z

Full comic here.

UPDATE:

An attractive woman pretty much has every man she meets wanting her, so her choices are either to boff them all and making them all ticked off soon (and getting VD), or making most of them sad.

But many men really feel that it's disingenuous of a woman to hang out with him if she doesn't want to sleep with him. That's nuts, and hardly her problem.

Missing vital info

2011-12-18T05:41:00.000Z

This is just one of the things which bugs me about our whole society: it's a widespread tendency in books, in comics, and in television, that when something is in a series, publishers/broadcasters do NOT inform their customers where in a series a particular title is placed. I look at my Tivo with ten episodes of TBBT recorded, and there's no way to tell which ones I've watched or what seasons they are from.

Haven't these people heard of basic, vital information? This is like selling food stuffs without labelling content and quantity. It's insane and I don't get why it's so widespread as to be near universal.

J. Cameron's Speaker For the Dead

2011-12-18T04:14:00.001Z

J. Cameron's Speaker For the Dead, no, Avatar.

Well, it's hard to make up new stories.
(I don't recall any of that from Orson Card's Speaker for the Dead, but then it was a very complex and wordy novel (Card said it was nick-named "My Dinner With Ender".)

BTW, I have tried twice, but I never even reached the middle of Avatar. Does it get better?

Four young deer saved by fishing boat

2011-12-17T15:07:00.000Z

[Thanks to TCGirl]

Four young deer saved by fishing boat, article.

Pretty bright of them to think that the boat and people might be salvation. Most animals in danger are just in mindless panic.

Olympus tells lenders cash crunch looms

2011-12-17T14:53:00.000Z

Olympus tells lenders cash crunch looms, article.

Of course I hope Olympus will survive and prosper. It has been an important camera company, in the development of compact gear especially. Olympus OM-1 was a shock to the camera industry in the seventies.

Though I did think they flopped a bit with digital, with the four/thirds format, which is smaller than the normal APS-C format, and much smaller than the full-format sensor which many pros prefer. They attempted to make pro cameras and lenses, at very pro prices, with cameras which weren't all that much smaller than other DSLR cameras despite having the smaller sensor.
It's only in the most recent incarnations of their cameras for the Micro Four Thirds format, for example the Pen Lite, that I think they have really hit on something great. But that may be years too late to save the company.

Alyson Hannigan is pregnant.

2011-12-17T14:39:00.001Z

Alyson Hannigan is pregnant, article.

They named their firstborn "Satyana"?? Oh. Good things kids are always kind, and fundamentalists never take things too literally. So I'm sure she won't be teased in school about that, or give any misgivings about the family to the hardcore Christian factions.

Even if the name has no relation to Satan at all, I wouldn't put too much stock in that fact, in a world where you no longer can use the word "niggardly" (which means being cheap. A niggard is a miser).

Fight the Blacklist: A Toolkit for Anti-SOPA Activism

2011-12-16T22:30:00.002Z

[Thanks to Anna.]

Fight the Blacklist: A Toolkit for Anti-SOPA Activism, article.
Congress is debating dangerous legislation that would give the Department of Justice unprecedented power to “blacklist” websites without a trial and give Hollywood copyright holders a new way to shut down a website’s financial services for alleged copyright infringement. It’s nothing short of a bill to create a U.S. censorship regime, and it’s moving fast.
-

Throwable Panoramic Ball Camera

2011-12-16T17:47:00.000Z

[Thanks to Ian]

To be frank I'm not impressed with the quality of the stitching of the images, but it's early days and it's all done in-camera and in a cheap one, so...

Anyway, I think it's a good example of how cheap electronics is changing a field and making things which we could not imagine a few years ago.

Another example: a couple of years ago, William Gibson had as an essential plot element in his book Zero History (written in 2009), lighter-than-air toy ballons with cameras, they silently "swam" through the air like a fish through water, one of them shaped like a manta ray. You controlled them with an iPhone app. In the book these were very expensive cutting-edge things, but now, just a couple years later, you can buy such things on a healthy Christmas-present budget.

F.A.A. Approves iPads in Cockpits, but Not for Passengers

2011-12-16T01:50:00.001Z

F.A.A. Approves iPads in Cockpits, but Not for Passengers, article.

Exciting blue lights

2011-12-15T18:16:00.001Z

Fantasy novelist number 670:
"... OK, now the two wizards get into a battle. Now, how would wizards battle? Well, the great thing about fantasy is that anything can happen, so let's do something original and amazing. Oh, I got it: let's have them stand there and throw blows at each other, like two boxers except with blue lights instead of fists!"

Comic book writer number 2556:
"... OK, now the two wizards get into a battle. Now, how would wizards battle? Well, the great thing about fantasy is that anything can happen, so let's do something original and amazing. Oh, I got it: let's have them stand there and throw blows at each other, like two boxers except with blue lights instead of fists!"

Movie script writer number 7921:
"... OK, now the two wizards get into a battle. Now, how would wizards battle? Well, the great thing about fantasy is that anything can happen, so let's do something original and amazing. Oh, I got it: let's have them stand there and throw blows at each other, like two boxers except with blue lights instead of fists!"

What to Get Your Girl for Christmas

2011-12-15T00:53:00.004Z

What to Get Your Girl for Christmas, article.
Oftentimes, the items she points out, while you’re out on the town, or shares with you, whenever you’re together, would be good indicators of things that she enjoys and will give you plenty of ideas to choose from. Mostly, it is how well you have paid attention...
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By the handle

2011-12-14T19:09:00.001Z

A mother's advice to her grown daughter, who is going into the male-dominated cooking trade: "Remember, with either a sharp knife or a dull knife or a man, always grab it by the handle, and it will be far more useful for you."

It's good to let it out

2011-12-14T16:22:00.001Z