Nikon D5000

Nikon D5000 article.
I'm very interested in the articulated screen, it really frees up viewpoints. But sadly, it is now revealed that in "live view" mode (which you have to use to use the screen for framing) the autofocus is still very slow indeed, which makes it pretty much useless to me.

I'm wondering why it is that Panasonic has managed to make a fast live view autofocus system with the G1 and GH1, and the DSLR makers can't? Some say the lenses have to be made for it, because they have to be adjusted several times every time the camera focuses, unlike with traditional DSLR autofocus (phase), which knows exactly how far to adjust the lens before it starts. So maybe only brand new systems will achieve this successfully. (One could imagine Nikon making a special lens to make this faster, but it does not feel to me likely to happen or be succesful.)

Is it optional?

There's a famous book out about how it takes 10,000 hours of practice to become good at anything in the arts. I think that's fair.
And this is before you start trying to promote yourself and try selling your stuff and yourself.
So doing all that and supporting yourself is a full time job. "Full time" meaning days, evenings, and weekends.

Add to that a boyfriend or girlfriend, and it becomes way more difficult yet.
Add children, and it's basically impossible.

And yet most of thinks that getting a "significant other" and getting children is something we simply are "supposed" to do. It's simply part of what you do in life, isn't it?
Is it? Or is it optional for somebody who has other plans?

Computer art judgement

Computer art judgement, article. Funny.

You can be my Yoko Ono

Without getting into a fruitless debate of any "guilt" of Yoko Ono's for anything (I'm just using her for a colorful label), let's think about the many people most of us probably know who had talents and dreams, and then seemed to give them up for a lover, and/or for a family.

Are they making a sacrifice, or are they just chickening out of something which was too hard?

Breathing through the ears

To my great pleasure I'm re-watching 2.5 Men 1, and am up to the first of the two episodes with the smooooking Jenna Elfman. (Seriously, her ice-cool and yet warm and sassy charm and sense of humor...)
And Jenna's character says to Alan words to the effect of: "So you do good spinal adjustments, and you make good pancakes... if you had a TV on your forehead and could breathe through your ears you'd be perfect."

... I guess I didn't get it the first time...
ROTFL!!

I'm not sure I can think of anybody but Jenna who could deliver that with perfect innocence and perfect sauciness at the same time.

[For those who don't get it, it's the female equivalent of the joke that the perfect woman is three feet tall and has a flat head.]

Short links

Tip: for long links in comments (or emails) you can shorten them at:
http://snipurl.com
or even better:
http://tr.im
The latter has a very useful widget for it.

Update: I use them because long links sometimes don't work well in emails or in web pages with long columns, and it's time-consuming to make html links (I don't use html in email anyway).

But TTL points out some points against them, see comments.

Update: I've finally made myself that macro I've meant to make, to make hyperlinks. (I have to paste this as a picture, otherwise the code messes up.)

Wall-E computer case

Man, that's dedication to your hobby!

"Mind Programming" by Eldon Taylor

"Mind Programming" by Eldon Taylor, a video trailer (for a book). About the effects advertising and mass media have on us.
(Amusingly, while I am writing this post, a Madonna song is playing with the words "more! more! more!", which feature importantly in the linked video.)

Update: Angelo points to Taylor on "self actualization".
Seems obvious to me that there's hardly any more important question in life than "what's my life about?". "What's the most important thing?"

Live the active liefestyle you always wanted with Acai Berry

From my email:
"{SPAM?} live the active liefestyle you always wanted with Acai Berry"

Why did nobody tell me before? I've always wanted to globetrotting, skiing, scubadiving with dolphins, climbing the Himaleyas, partying with the jet set, and racing Lamborghinis through the Andes. And all it ever took was some berries I'm missing?

(Note: for some reason my mail server has labeled this important message as spam, I'm going to complain.)

Toddler buys earthmover in online auction

Toddler buys earthmover in online auction, article. [Thanks to TC.]
Just goes to show, don't name your girl Pipi!
(I'm not sure how this is even possible though, aren't you supposed to write in an amount and so on?)

The Millau Viaduct

The Millau Viaduct. Pretty impressive.
It is part of the new E11 expressway connecting Paris and Barcelona and features the highest bridge piers ever constructed.

Pentax K-7 body naked (updated)

[Update: I have to admit, I have this "Terminator" camera on my desktop right now. Also additional thought: It's a real pity professional cameras are so tied to the lenses a photographer already has. Pentax has a real uphill battle in the pro market against "Canikon".]

A little male fetish erotica.
Image from the IR article.
(Let me just once again throw in a word of praise for Imaging-Resource.com: I find they have the more readable articles and the best testing methods, and not only that, they are usually out of the barn door with the first comprehensive articles before others have barely noted a camera has arrived.)


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... Oooh, interesting: the K-7's in-body anti-shake system can correct not only for horizontal and vertical shake, but also rotational! I think this is a world's first.
(And since it's in-body, it will work with any lens, not just specially designed ones, like is sadly the case for Canon and Nikon cameras.)
Oh, and notice the 50-200mm zoom here. That must be the most compact -200mm zoom lens ever made. Remember, this is 300mm equivalent (for a full frame camera)!

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The possibility for a 2009 camera release which has me really interested though is the mini Olympus is working on. It is almost too much to hope for that they will get it really, really right, though, but wow, will it be cool if they do.
I somehow was not really aware that the compact Olympus Pen had been a full SLR system camera. That is very excellent. And of course the really exciting thing about this is that while the half-frame system on film was a significant downside in image quality, the same is not true in digital!