Saturday, February 09, 2008
Friday, February 08, 2008
Teen abstinence study
Teen abstinence study.
Another article.
"The pledging group was also less likely to use condoms during their first sexual experience or get tested for STDs, the study found."
The US militant, sorry, religious right's programs to promote sexual abstinence to teens and deliberately not teach them ways to prevent pregnancy and STDs if they (oh, the shock) turn out to want sex anyway, is deeply braindead. Such a "plan" does not come from a place of compassion, but a place of deep and ingrown emotional constipation. It is coming from the kind of person whose solution to insubordinate children is to beat them severely. He has never seen this work, but it's the only tool he has, and by gawd he's gonna use it til it breaks.
[By the way, I heard of the study on the TV show Studio 60, which is excellent. Written by Aaron "West Wing" Sorkin.]
Another article.
"The pledging group was also less likely to use condoms during their first sexual experience or get tested for STDs, the study found."
The US militant, sorry, religious right's programs to promote sexual abstinence to teens and deliberately not teach them ways to prevent pregnancy and STDs if they (oh, the shock) turn out to want sex anyway, is deeply braindead. Such a "plan" does not come from a place of compassion, but a place of deep and ingrown emotional constipation. It is coming from the kind of person whose solution to insubordinate children is to beat them severely. He has never seen this work, but it's the only tool he has, and by gawd he's gonna use it til it breaks.
[By the way, I heard of the study on the TV show Studio 60, which is excellent. Written by Aaron "West Wing" Sorkin.]
YouTube cameras
You can now buy cameras which feature "a YouTube capture mode that shoots movie clips in the site’s recommended format and resolution".
I find this amusing because the whole genesis of YouTube is making a web site which made it unnecessary for people to know anything about video formats, the site takes care of it.
I find this amusing because the whole genesis of YouTube is making a web site which made it unnecessary for people to know anything about video formats, the site takes care of it.
New pics too
Update: Bert talked about removing the red post in this one, so I tried it just for fun. I have to admit it has merit.
Thursday, February 07, 2008
Old saying
There's so much good in the worst of us
and so much bad in the best of us
that it's ill advised any of us
to speak against the rest of us
and so much bad in the best of us
that it's ill advised any of us
to speak against the rest of us
Inline images error
This is funny.
A tutorial about inserting images in blog posts... and the images on the page do not appear... :)
Bert sed:
Is it only me, or is there a change on the Internet? Download speeds are blazing fast "outside hours", and I mean capping my 5Mbps DSL regularly, which seldom happened before.
On the other hand, popular services don't respond like they used to. Blogger often takes its sweet time to load pages. Blogs have missing elements all over. Support is lagging everywhere. My iGoogle home page is not reliable. Like everybody is swamped. Or is it just Google?
What's happening?
TTL said:
Where are you based? During the last couple of days someone has been cutting undersea cables around the world. Total number of damaged cables is now up to five. Iran has been most affected by this.
Quote from the article:
"It may be rare for several cables to go down in a week, but it can happen. Global Marine Systems, a firm that repairs marine cables, says more than 50 cables were cut or damaged in the Atlantic last year; big oceans are criss-crossed by so many cables that a single break has little impact. What was unusual about the damage in the Suez canal was that it took place at a point where two continents' traffic is borne along only three cables. More are being laid. For the moment, there is only one fair conclusion: the internet is vulnerable, in places, but getting more robust."
A tutorial about inserting images in blog posts... and the images on the page do not appear... :)
Bert sed:
Is it only me, or is there a change on the Internet? Download speeds are blazing fast "outside hours", and I mean capping my 5Mbps DSL regularly, which seldom happened before.
On the other hand, popular services don't respond like they used to. Blogger often takes its sweet time to load pages. Blogs have missing elements all over. Support is lagging everywhere. My iGoogle home page is not reliable. Like everybody is swamped. Or is it just Google?
What's happening?
TTL said:
Where are you based? During the last couple of days someone has been cutting undersea cables around the world. Total number of damaged cables is now up to five. Iran has been most affected by this.
Quote from the article:
"It may be rare for several cables to go down in a week, but it can happen. Global Marine Systems, a firm that repairs marine cables, says more than 50 cables were cut or damaged in the Atlantic last year; big oceans are criss-crossed by so many cables that a single break has little impact. What was unusual about the damage in the Suez canal was that it took place at a point where two continents' traffic is borne along only three cables. More are being laid. For the moment, there is only one fair conclusion: the internet is vulnerable, in places, but getting more robust."
Wednesday, February 06, 2008
Megapixels
Mike Reichman pontificates.
Quote:
"Things are still silly in the digicam field with shirt pocket cameras now up to about 12MP. This means 2.8 micron pixels (or maybe even less) which if this trend continues will begin to impinge on the size of the upper wave lengths of light. Stuffing photons into these little holes is going to start challenging the laws of physics pretty soon.
In the DSLR world sanity seems to be settling in, with pixel counts in the 12 – 14 MP range becoming the norm. The high end of the pro DSLR market seems to be at the 21 – 24 MP range, and while that leaves room for the lower end of the market to still move upward, the ceiling isn't going to get much higher once pixel count gets above 25MP and photosite sizes below 5 microns, because noise will become too big an issue at anything other than moderate level ISOs. Photographers now want image quality above pixel count, or at least I do.
It also needs to be asked – which photographers need these large files? Typical commercial uses (magazines, newspapers, etc) are easily satisfied with files in the low to mid teens, and while a larger file, such as from a Canon 1Ds MKIII, is great for making a 24X36" print, how many people actually need this? Of course a larger files means a greater ability to crop and still get a usable image size, but this then starts to stress lens performance; a bit of a vicious cycle.
So, as far as I'm concerned, anything north of a high quality 12 Megapixels is fine for most applications, and 20+ MP files (whether from a DSLR or a medium format back) are only needed in the work that I do for my most critical landscape work and some commercial projects. (For example, I have a commission to document a major urban renewal project, and in addition to an eventual coffee table book have been told that wall-sized blow-ups for a presentation center will be needed. So, I'll be shooting much of that with a 39MP medium format back.)"
I agree. I would even say that for most users, anything at or over 6 megapixels is quite sufficient. Really. I have big (30cm x 40cm) framed prints on my wall taken with 6-MP cameras, and they look great.
For critical work and most professional work, 10-14 MP is quite sufficient. Anything bigger is only needed for very specialized work, even for pros.
The move to 12-MP pocket cameras is dumb. Fuji totally trashed their previously wonderful low-light capability when they moved up to 12 MP with the F50. (Though I have to say that Canon managed it better with the Ixus 960/SD950.)
Update: here's a site advocating 6MP compact cameras.
... Of course the noise argument hinges on the shaky assumption that light-gathering and processing is standing still. That's not so. Until a couple of years ago, no pocket camera had decent quality above 200 ISO. Then the Fuji F10 came along and showed low noise even at 800 ISO. So I don't think we can assume anything definite about anything.
Also the same amount of noise per 100 pixels will matter less on a camera with more pixels, because the picture has to be enlarged less when printed.
Quote:
"Things are still silly in the digicam field with shirt pocket cameras now up to about 12MP. This means 2.8 micron pixels (or maybe even less) which if this trend continues will begin to impinge on the size of the upper wave lengths of light. Stuffing photons into these little holes is going to start challenging the laws of physics pretty soon.
In the DSLR world sanity seems to be settling in, with pixel counts in the 12 – 14 MP range becoming the norm. The high end of the pro DSLR market seems to be at the 21 – 24 MP range, and while that leaves room for the lower end of the market to still move upward, the ceiling isn't going to get much higher once pixel count gets above 25MP and photosite sizes below 5 microns, because noise will become too big an issue at anything other than moderate level ISOs. Photographers now want image quality above pixel count, or at least I do.
It also needs to be asked – which photographers need these large files? Typical commercial uses (magazines, newspapers, etc) are easily satisfied with files in the low to mid teens, and while a larger file, such as from a Canon 1Ds MKIII, is great for making a 24X36" print, how many people actually need this? Of course a larger files means a greater ability to crop and still get a usable image size, but this then starts to stress lens performance; a bit of a vicious cycle.
So, as far as I'm concerned, anything north of a high quality 12 Megapixels is fine for most applications, and 20+ MP files (whether from a DSLR or a medium format back) are only needed in the work that I do for my most critical landscape work and some commercial projects. (For example, I have a commission to document a major urban renewal project, and in addition to an eventual coffee table book have been told that wall-sized blow-ups for a presentation center will be needed. So, I'll be shooting much of that with a 39MP medium format back.)"
I agree. I would even say that for most users, anything at or over 6 megapixels is quite sufficient. Really. I have big (30cm x 40cm) framed prints on my wall taken with 6-MP cameras, and they look great.
For critical work and most professional work, 10-14 MP is quite sufficient. Anything bigger is only needed for very specialized work, even for pros.
The move to 12-MP pocket cameras is dumb. Fuji totally trashed their previously wonderful low-light capability when they moved up to 12 MP with the F50. (Though I have to say that Canon managed it better with the Ixus 960/SD950.)
Update: here's a site advocating 6MP compact cameras.
... Of course the noise argument hinges on the shaky assumption that light-gathering and processing is standing still. That's not so. Until a couple of years ago, no pocket camera had decent quality above 200 ISO. Then the Fuji F10 came along and showed low noise even at 800 ISO. So I don't think we can assume anything definite about anything.
Also the same amount of noise per 100 pixels will matter less on a camera with more pixels, because the picture has to be enlarged less when printed.
Tuesday, February 05, 2008
Epson 11880
Need a bigger printer to handle the pictures from your new Hasselblad? This one comes recommended, but is probably overkill if your camera can fit in your pocket.
More detailed article. This article says that there are also less gargantuan printers coming with these new technologies, including anti-clogging measures, something which has been needed in the otherwise excellent Epson printers.
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