Fujifilm X20, a modern classic camera

Fujifilm X20 Hands-On Preview, article.

Fuji has made a new version of the much-beloved (by me and many others) X10 camera.
It seems to be a really good update, there is now full information even in the quality optical viewfinder (this is really rare, almost unique), and according to Fuji there are significant improvements to both operation (AF etc) speed and image quality (the sensor is really good and big compared to most compacts). And the X10 did not suck at either. (We'll see soon if tests will support these claims.)
Oh, and you now can get it in a silver version, I tend to like those a lot.

I won't lie, I have the hots for this camera. It is a lot of camera in a small, beautiful, and reasonably-priced package.
Not the least, beautiful. If you like the look and feel of classic film cameras, it's hard to find something which is as nice as this, and certainly not for only six hunnert bucks.

I'd say the main argument against this camera is the amazing Sony RX100, which has similar quality but is really pocket-sized (despite an even bigger sensor). Though that camera, for the same reason, is more fiddly, and does not have the same beauty and real-camera feel.

The lens is really good, and unusually fast for a zoom. And it has a manual twist-zoom function on the lens itself, much better than the tiny lever on most compact cameras (including the RX100). 

Info in the optical viewfinder: 

Trapeze dance

What a beautiful couple. And fit! I'll bet their life together is very... intense. Unless he plays on the other side of the road.

Winter super-"tyres"

[Thanks to Kirk]

This video shows what seems to be a real leap forward in the viability of otherwise normal cars in real winter conditions. Mini-caterpiller tracks fit over each wheel.

"Not a scam", best tweet of the month

Thanks to TTL who retweeted this tweet from Leicester Police:

Not a scam: If you’ve committed a burglary in the #Leicester area within the last week - come to our #police station & claim a FREE iPad.

I hope they get takers! 

Wind map

Here's another kewl source, a moving wind map of the US.

I think one of the central things which fascinates us humans is order, something has been aligned and put in an ordered system. And especially if it is big and complex, but still orderly and not chaotic, I think that's a main ingredient of what we consider beautiful.

Stars with pets, vintage

Copyright the individual photographers and CNN.
(I'd like to link to the source page, but I can't find it, and I got these over email.)

Live flight view

Get a schematic of all the commercial airplanes currently in the air and where they are. Very kewl.

Durn gremlins

Durnit, a pipe in my bathroom just sprung a leak. How come something like this, at least to me, always happen late on a Friday? Do the plumbers' Union have a special deal  with the Household Gremlins' Association or what?

Re grandparents

Here is a funny "what kids say" collection on grandparents.



A little girl was diligently pounding away on her grandfather's word processor. She told him she was writing a story.

'What's it about?' he asked.

'I don't know,' she replied. 'I can't read.'

Puppet Shakespeare

Pricing is nuts. Examples:

1. Pet Zombie Rock project. They need $9,700 for some tubes of paint to paint faces on pebbles. 
2. Puppet Romeo And Juliet. They need $1,000 to do a professionally produced puppet video. 

The latter project looks promising btw. The former does not have my interest, but the video is well made and a bit funny.

Pictures from Space

[Thanks to Henry]

Pictures from Space, Time feature.

NASA's Cassini spacecraft produced this glorious backlit view of Saturn and its diaphanous rings, taken while the spacecraft was in the planet's shadow.

A satellite view of The Americas at night. The image was made up by data collected by the Suomi National Polar-orbiting Partnership (NPP) satellite. According to NASA, 312 orbits were required in order to get a clear shot of each parcel of the Earth's surface. Additionally, the image shows Hurricane Sandy making landfall over New Jersey, USA, on Oct. 29 2012.

Agnetha Fältskog

1983:


2004:
 

Debut in 1968:

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One thing I didn't care for in the eighties was the over-use of makeup by singers and models. Unfortunately it seems to have returned recently. Fortunately not by everybody, but then some of them over-do it to a ridiculous extent. I mean color like like a carnival.

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I remember a funny rumor in Australia in the seventies: that the pretty performers were just paid performers, and didn't write their own songs. Well, it's understandable to believe that that much talent and charm can't be all in one person  (or even four).

I still like Abba, though it's a little on the sweet side for me now. But I was a huge fan of them when I was a kid in the seventies, I think their first album (the one with the very funky painted cover of the four) was the first album I bought on my own (or maybe the first I'd wished for and got for xmas).

Update: Aha, TTL points out it was the Greatest Hits album:

Clickable

Good drawing, perfect likenesses, good colors, and such imagination.
Artist Hans Arnold.

I don't generally think technological progress has many victims in art, but album cover art is one of them. I think such things will only get a renaissance when big screens become really cheap and ubiquitous, so it's easier to enjoy high-resolution digital art. You could have a system of say ten big screens in your home, and control it from a tablet or PC, and have rotating art on them. I'm looking forward to that, actually, I've had the same framed posters on my walls for 8 years, and lord knows when I'll get around to changing them.