"Fragile"

I've always disliked when people misused important labels so much that the labels started to become meaningless and overlooked. One example is office workers labelling most of their memos "Urgent!" when they are really not so.
Another one is "fragile".

But this example is so extreme that I have to laugh. These are ball bearing balls which I bought for an art project. Now such balls are subject to immense pressure, so they have to be tough. In fact they are so strong and hard that they can handle tens of tons of pressure on one tiny point without cracking! There is nothing one can find in ordinary surroundings which can make a dent in these!
So to label a shipment of these "Fragile"...

Why hide beams?

One purpose of under-clothes nipple covers is to hide the fact that you have nipples, especially when they are on "full alert"...
One ad, in Oprah Magazine, says "avoid high beam situations", with no trace of irony.  :-)

That's one of those things I consider tragic. Nothing so sexy as "high beams", so why hide it? It *is* covered, so can hardly be called obscene.

David Bowie R.I.P. (Updated)

At 69, David Bowie succumbed to cancer, shortly after release of his latests, Dark Star.

I send blessings to him. For me, he was the Kilimanjaro of late-twentieth century seminal rock music (in the broadest sense). So original I can't even think of anybody who *really* tried to emulate him, while the number of musicians who state he was a major influence is legion.

OMG: Simpsons episode 11 was released on iTunes today, containing this line from Skinner: "She has a cat with two different colored eyes; his name is *Bowie*!"

Even my postman talked about Bowie today. That was one famous dude.

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Handheld video with 820mm telelens!

[Thanks to Bert]

Continuing with the super-stabilized new Olympus super-tele. Here is a video which is taken hand-held with it, *including* the 1.4x teleconverter. Astounding.

(Did you know seals have to crawl on land to sleep? Poor critters.)

Good compacts

It has been wondered why I seem to go for a certain type of camera. Like:

• Konica TC (C for compact)
• Pentax ME Super (Smallest SLR ever) 
• Olympus OM-2
• Konica Big Mini
• Micro Four Thirds cameras
• Sony RX100

Well, the fact is simple: I like things which are compact, powerful, and aesthetic.
Like Mila Kunis.

Bubbles!

This is a short video, but a lot of fun, A Gazillion Bubbles.

I like that she allows herself to show that she is having fun. Very few stage artists do.

Honor Terry Pratchett

A petition to name a new element in Terry Pratchett's honor. He richly deserves it, nobody matches his skill, wit, and intelligence, in or out of fantasy.

New cutting-edge super-tele

Can you imagine a super-tele-lens you can use hand-held? It has been done, but it's hard (for traditional cameras these lenses weigh several kilos), and you need dang good light because you need shutter speeds like 1/1000th of a second. (A tele magnifies not just the subject, but also movement/vibrations.)

Now can you imagine a supertele/camera combination with such effective stabilization (Stabilization tech in the lens actually cooperates with stabilization tech in the camera.) that you can use it hand-held down to 1/10th of a second!? This reviewer says we have one now. If others generally can achieve the same with it, or anywhere close, this is pretty revolutionary. There is no lack of areas where you need a long tele, but a tripod is not practical.

Woa, ten years.

Like they say, even the longest trip is just one step after another.

This blog has gone for over ten years now.
(It started Sep 4, 2005.)

And I did not notice at all, and thus forgot the tenniversary. I might have celebrated it somehow, like with a silly contest like "find the old post with pictures of three characters from Phineas And Ferb, and win a real scale model of P&F's spaceship. [Shipping/handling: $3,500] [Contest void on Planet Earth.]" But alas, it's a bit late for that.

OK, I give

OK, I have changed the colors to a simple black text on a light grey background. This should work for all.
[I refuse to use a white background on aesthetic reasons. Like blue-jeans, it's simple so omnipresent that it crosses both borders of Boring and enters, almost, "irritating". Maybe that's just me. I haven't worn blue jeans (I have no other problems with other colors of jeans) for 40 years and I've never designed a site with a white background. Also a light grey background is more readable, for me and I think studies show it too.]

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Btw, I agree that the wide margins are silly. But my HTML knowledge is limited, and I can't find the setting in the template which determines this...

Half makeup, half woman

I'm never trusting women's looks again.
At least women have the advantage that what they see is what they get. OK, when it gets to personality, that's a whole different matter!

The new layout

I had used the old layout for close to a full decade!
So I suddenly decided to get another one. You like it?