Psychologists now know what makes people happy

Psychologists now know what makes people happy, article. 

The happiest people surround themselves with family and friends, don't care about keeping up with the Joneses next door, lose themselves in daily activities and, most important, forgive easily.

A virtuous sister's stone

A very old lady came to the stone cutter's studio, soliciting a grave stone for her sister. She talked very slowly, and was very grief-struck.
She told him: My sister and myself lived the same way all our lives, always kept each other's company and no man's, keeping ourselves and each other pure. I want the grave stone to say:

HERE RESTS IDA MILLER
SHE WAS BORN PURE
SHE LIVED VIRTUOUSLY
SHE DIED UNTOUCHED

But the lady did not like to spend money, and there was not much in it for the stone cutter, so in the end he engraved:

HERE RESTS IDA MILLER
RETURNED UNOPENED

'Moral issues' lead banks to refuse porn stars bank accounts

'Moral issues' lead banks to refuse porn stars bank accounts, article.
Adult film actress Chanel Preston has starred in close to 150 porn flicks and is well compensated for her time, but now it appears she is having trouble keeping a bank account.
Preston recently opened a business account with City National Bank in Los Angeles, the so-called 'bank to the stars', but when she went to deposit checks into the account days later, she was told it had been shut down, due to 'compliance issues'.


Here again we see the same pattern: no warning, no recourse.

Fiona Apple - Across the Universe

Still one of the best Beatles/Lennon covers ever, and one of the best music video.

So many great ideas here. I like her serenely, almost apathetically, relaxed vocals. Serenity in the middle of chaos.
And I think it was made all in the camera, that can't have been easy to make without injury. And for Fiona to sing it without flinching.



===

I posted a similar post in 2011, but I don't expect anybody, least of all me, to remember everything. That post also had a kewl version with Dakota F.)

"Heavy Metal" on blu-ray

So, Heavy Metal is on blu-ray. Of course I had to have it.

If you know it and didn't like it, ah well, it was not for you.
If you know it and liked it:
It looks great on blu-ray, and there's a good documentary of the Making Of.
And the music track and the film holds up amazingly well, despite the age. It really does. Go get it.

If you don't know it:
It's a 1980 animated film for adults. Adult guys, to be specific. But not modern "sensitive guys", if you feel guilty about liking graphic violence and lots and lots of boobies, albeit all animated, this is not the movie for you.
If you like animated eye candy, like SF and fantasy, like hot babes and tough heroes, like alien villains being cut to pieces with green blood flying everywhere... and if you like the most beautiful and sexy Dressing scene ever animated, don't wait, get it.
(The vid below gives a taste of it, but doesn't have the graceful, realistic movements. They drew their dream girl as Taarna the warrior, then asked around at model agencies and found a girl who looked like her, and filmed her doing the scenes as basis for the animation.)



Sure, it's simple stories, and it's male fantasy fulfilment... but aren't books and movies full of that? (Or, of course, female fantasy fulfilment.) Isn't every action movie at essense, battle and babes?
Well, there's nothing wrong with a tasty snack sometimes, so long as we don't confuse it with a balanced diet.

Why are big companies always so draconian?

This summary is not available. Please click here to view the post.

Cibo Matto is finally back!

Thanks the lawd, I thought they were gone, but they just took a 15-year sabbatical, of course.

A man and his path

[Thanks to Igor]

Holly, six, runs her own 'London Marathon'

Holly, six, runs her own 'London Marathon', video.
Cute story.

Super-lens at super-price

Often considered almost at opposite ends of the market, Sigma and Zeiss have both come out with a high-quality normal lens at F:1.4.
Both lenses are really, really top-shelf, with many elements and exotic glass types, and both of them are among the sharpest lenses ever made for general consumption.

OK, great, so Sigma can make really high-end stuff too*, that's interesting. But here is what makes it really interesting: The Sigma lens is one-quarter the price of the Zeiss! USD one thousand as opposed to four thousand! If I were an exec at Zeiss, I would be kicking the furniture now.
That price is very aggressive indeed. I think this is one of the lowest prices I have ever heard of for a lens of this class. They surely can hardly make any profit on this, they must be gunning for the market share.

Review Zeiss Otus 55mm 1.4
Review Sigma 50mm 1.4 Art
The build quality was exceptional, but what really got our attention was Sigma's off-handed remark that they weren't looking to surpass Nikon and Canon, but rather the $4,000 Zeiss Otus 55mm ƒ/1.4 monster.
The Sigma 50mm ƒ/1.4 Art is quite large and bulky with a total of 13 elements in 8 groups, including 1 aspherical and 3 super low dispersion elements. 

They are full-frame lenses of course, and the Sigma's supported AF Mounts are: Canon EF, Nikon F, Sigma SA, Sony A.
I hope Sigma will start making such lenses for Micro Four Thirds. Although for my sake they can skip the normal lens, I don't really know why anybody would want one these days.

The Sigma monster:

The Zeiss monster:

They are both very big lenses, and both really well made, and both beautiful. The Zeiss perhaps mostly so, but 300% premium's worth? Doubtful.

This shakes things up quite a bit... not the least: why are we paying Leica and Zeiss 4 to 6 thousand dollars for a lens, if Sigma can make it in the same quality and sell it for 75% less?
Also, what impact will this have on prices for quality lenses of the future? On the one hand this seems a devastating hit, but on the other hand, traditionally, the prices of luxury products ("Veblen goods") have proved magically durable. Most people who would buy a $4k lens buys it as much for the prestige as for the product. And a Zeiss lens will impress his friends and colleagues much more than a Sigma lens. And many of them will surely be able to convince themselves that there has to be some difference in quality that's worth it, otherwise why would it cost so much more?


*By the way, Sigma's weakest point has been their quality testing, too often their exemplars showed greatly varying quality. But reportedly they have made great efforts to change this.

The best magnifier? Satechi Readmate

For some years I've been looking for a really good magnifier. But I didn't find much. This surprised me, there is usually some good products to find in any category, though sometimes one may have to pay more.
But now, thanks to macobserver.com, I found one I really like, the Satechi Readmate. It is a 5X magnifier with built-in LED lights.
It looks great, is very reasonably priced, it's optically better than anything else I've seen of the kind, and it's very practical to use.

Photo by MacObserver

(It seems not to be sold in Europe yet, I had to buy it from Amazon US. But it was swift and not too expensive, well worth it I thought.)

I'm also considering their combined desk lamp/magnifier 2X, which seems useful for small manual tasks and for reading paperbooks with fine print.

Dear River - Kina Grannis

I predict Kina Grannis will be a big success.
(Not a difficult prediction.)






I've always had a problem with beauty in her caliber. It attracts like hell, but it also hurts. Really hurts. Anybody else know this?
Maybe if I could fool myself, like most of us do, that "catching" her would be to catch the beauty and thus end the pain, but I can't.