Dear blog,
Later, when I want to find the chaise from Ikea that I want to put in my sunroom. I’ll probably Google my own site for it instead of looking it up at Ikea again. When that time comes, the chaise is called MYSINGE and there is a link to it as well. I’ll be wanting it in the blue but I’m sure I’ll remember that. Thanks.
Love,
Xian
The White Stripes: The Hardest Button to Button music video. Wow.
Virginia Tech has information and pictures up about their super computer they are building out of 1100 dual 2 ghz PowerMac G5s. They are trying to complete the project by Oct. 1st to be able to be listed in the 2003 Top500 list of the worlds fastest computers.
These are some of my favorite pictures: (These pictures are from this mirror that was put up when the main site went down because of a slashdotting. They are higher res that the pictures that are up now.)
Good luck to the team. Here’s hoping the make the deadline.
If I had a large and empty wall I would so be all over this. [via Blog-Fu]
Apple has apparently filled all of their educational orders and are shipping G5s to everyone now. Preliminary PSBench results unsuprisingly confirm that dual G5s are fast.
PSBench is a collection of PhotoShop actions to benchmark PhotoShop speed and is available for Macintosh and Windows computers. I care about these results because I like my photoshop fast. And right now, it’s not fast.
Here are some sample normalized scores. Bigger is better. See the “dual G5s are fast” link for more.
2x 2000 G5 OSX 10.2.7 (G5 plugin) 547
2x 3060 Xeon (OC'd 2400) 488
3200 P4 (800MHz) 427
3000+Athlon XP 318
2x 1250 G4 OSX 10.2.5 318
600 G3 iBook 70 Yeah, see that score of 70 down there? That’s what I’m working on now. I’ve set my self a goal to have a new computer by June. I want to start doing art again and photography. But I just can’t keep up with real work and anything else on this machine. I will get at least a Dual 2Ghz G5. 3Ghz models are supposed to be out by then. If they are, I’ll get one of those. Now it’s time to work and save. Work and save.
Scoring notes: First column is number of processors, second is clock speed, third is chip, 4th is details ( G5 plugin is a optimization plugin for photoshop released be adobe, OC’d 2400 means the machine was over clocked from 2400mhz, and the 800MHz by the P4 is the front side bus speed), fith is score.
User reviews: When ever I want do get an idea about what people think about lens or any other photo equipment I check these two sites. I find them very helpful.
Technical reviews:
Reviews by a single person:
Special purpose lens comparison with sample images:
While I’m thinking about it:
I’m working a post about camera lenses. How to learn about them sites that review them and more. But instead of finishing it I spent the day cleaning the house. So you’ll have to wait.
I do have a warning though. Fostering an interest in high-end photography is dangerous. Dangerously expensive! My head is living in a land of $500 tripods with $400 heads on them. And worst of all is the nagging of medium format wonders. Like the Contax 645. The wonderous wonderous Contax 645. It runs around $6,500 with a good range of lenses. Considering the camera you are getting that’s not bad at all. In fact, I’d be tempted to throw out my 35mm asperations and go medium format, so sorely tempted, if it wasn’t for the fact that it would cost another $12,000 just to add a digital back to the camera! So freaking sad. I must console my self in the fact that 35mm digital cameras when they first came out cost upwards of $14,000 and compared to the latest crop pretty much sucked. I’ll get a 35mm digital system for now and make it make money for me so I can get into medium format digital later.
Along with getting a DSLR camera I would also like to pick up a nice little ultra-compact for point and shoot duties. Canon’s new Digital IXUS i is probably the sort of thing I’d like. Especially with the waterproof case. I can think of a lot of situations involving Jet Skis where that would come in handy.
In less than a month California Governer Gray Davis Might be recalled from office. In the case of a sucessful recall one of the 135 running canidates who are on the same ballot will be voted in to replace him. Here’s a scan of one of the ballots. The suspense is killing me.
Apple Corps (The Beatles’ music label) is suing Apple Computer. Again.
Last time they did this Apple (Computer) paid them 50 million dollars and started shipping an alert sound on all their computers named “Sosumi”. Apparently Apple (Corps) took them up on the offer.
IGN.com might have an advertising deal going on with McDonalds right now. It’s kinda hard to be sure though.
Penny Arcade talks it up and 8 Bit Joystick alerted me of it all.
Incase you didn’t know. There are a lot of people who feel very strongly about The Pirates of the Caribbean. Very.
And that isn’t even getting started on Ned and his mummy. (Be sure to check out Jeremiah Joseph Sturk’s webpage for “details on the truth!”.)
Via: SimpleBits’s QuickBits.
Apple has updated their iMac and iPod product lines. Should it depress me that the top of the line iPod now has twice as much storage as my entire computer?
Formac sells a 20 inch LCD display that competes with Apple’s Cinema Displays. Tech and feature-wise they are on equal footing so it comes down to resolution and price. Formac’s 20” (1600×1200 $999) has Apple’s 20” ACD (1680×1050 $1299) beat on both counts. Going against Apple’s Monstrous 23” ACD (1920×1200 $1999) is a little tougher but I’m pretty sure Formac will win out in the end. One of my favorite features about the 23” ACD is that the feet are far enough apart that you can slide your entire keyboard under it to free up desk space. Which comes in really handy if you want to use the same space with a drawing tablet. That said, I don’t think I’ll be able to rationalize keyboard storage and an extra 320 horizontal pixels as being worth the extra grand.
Especially since that saved $1000 could buy be an EF 28~70mm f/2.8L or even an EF 70~200mm f/2.8L. Sadly it would come no where close to getting me an EF 300mm f/2.8L.
Fnord is this really, really tall mountain.
Fnord is neither a particle nor a wave.
Been thinking about camera bags. Both the Tamrac 5405 ($35 street) and the Tamrac 5747 ($45) street look very nice. One of my goals when I get a camera is to never go anywhere without it. Both of these bags looks very carryable. I espcially like how the 5747 swings around front for access.
Another interesting option would be using the Tamrac 5516 as part of a modular belt bag. Tamrac shows an example of this if you scroll down the page. I think I’d have to try it out to see if I’d like it.
A couple more prices.
Digital Foto Club is selling the IBM 1gb compact flash Microdrive for $184 which is comparable to the prices of flash memory with half the capacity. Microdrives have a bad reputation of being slower to write to than normal flash media, but neither the 10D or the 300D suffer from this.
The Canon EF 50mm f1.4 USM lens that I’ve been geeking about lately is running for just about $300.
And have I ever mentioned that I really love Froogle? Really. And they’ve recently made it even better. Yesterday I think. They’ve added sorting, price ranges and categories. I aprove.
A&M Photoworld is selling the Canon EOS 10D for $1049! This same camera sells everywhere else for $1500. Amazing! At this rate I’ll end up buying a 10D istead of a 300D.
Update: Thanks to comments from Dave and John I’ve learned that A&M has a terrible reputation and this is a gray market camera that doesn’t come with a US warranty or english manuals.
Transblawg has cracked IKEA’s naming system. Well, translated it at least.
Thus bathroom items are named after Scandinavian lakes, rivers and bays; sets of bookcases after occupations; dining tables and chairs after Finnish placenames; carpets after Danish placenames; and much more.
Fnord is the lint in the navel of the mites that eat the lint in the navel of the mites that eat the lint in Fnord’s navel.
Fnord is the 43 1/3rd state, next to Wyoming.
Fnord is the parsley on the plate of life.
“We’re here because we like nonfiction. We like nonfiction and we live in fictitious times” — Michael Moore Oscar acceptance speech
Bowlingfortruth.com picks apart Michael Moore’s ‘documentary’ Bowling For Columbine bit by bit.
This website is here as a recourse to expose the distortions and dishonesty in Michael Moore’s Oscar winning documentary, Bowling For Columbine . The point of this website IS a lot of things, but here are some that it is not: It is not to reveal a ‘bias’ in Moore’s work - bias in documentaries doesn’t bother me. It is not to make the case for guns - I’ve never owned a gun, never shot a gun, and probably never even held a real gun; Guns scare me. It is not, in large part anyway, even to rebut Moore’s beliefs. Rather, this site exists because Michael Moore is clever and glib and a very good film maker - but he uses his powers for evil. Michael Moore persuades his viewers by deceiving them, and this site exists for those who wish not to be fooled.
A couple of new ones for reading. Photographyblog.com which is a general photo biased best of the web deal. And Photodude.com which contains many things that are photoful and dudeful. Including an interesting write up about a photo jouralist who was disqualified from winning his awards because he darkened them too much he’s even got before and after pictures.
Douglas is sleeping, well I would say trying but he actually is sleeping, curled up on top of a CDR spindle. He’s a small cat, but he’s not that small anymore. He just doesn’t fit. It’ very cute watching him do it though. Well he’s gotten of the spindle and is now trying to catch my typing fingers while continuing sleeping. He’s such a cute cat. If I had a camera I’d take pictures and show you. Now if I could just find one I like. ;-)
It would also be easier to type this if he’d get off my delete key.
DPReview’s 300D Samples Gallery offers some very interesting examples. Pay attention to the shots that were taken with the EF-S 18-55mm lens that comes with the camera. Which is all of them except for the five of the Chinese idols/statues. Not bad at all for a entry level peice of glass that comes with the camera for only $100 more than than the body kit alone.
Vic Icasas has posted his own personal review of the Canon 300D.
As I mentioned, I was fortunate enough to be able to use this camera for several days prior to the local launch, which was one week after it was announced to the world. When my good friends at Canon called me to say that the camera had arrived from Customs and was ready for me to look at, I was hightailing it next door to the adjacent Canon office even before the conversation was over. (Scenario: “Hello, Vic? … Vic? .. Oh, there you are!” )
Large versions of the images he talks about in the review are available here. Please note that these images are aggressively sharped for display via projection. And as such extra artifacting does occur. Confidential to Michael: The ‘food’ shots (wine, desert and chef) were taken with that 50mm f1.4 lens we’ve been talking about.
There is also a PBase gallery showing a random sample of all the 300D pictures that are on the site.
I want one.
A most bueatiful panorama of the Alps from Erik Krause. Also from Erik, an interesting write up of contrast blending.
DPReview has just posted their full in-depth review of Canon’s new 300D Digital Rebel camera.
Fnord is why ducks eat trees.
Fnord is the bucket where they keep the unused serifs for Helvetica.
Man buys song from iTunes music store for 99¢. Man tests bounds of legal ownership in the digital age by turning around and selling said song on ebay. Man declares that all proceeds from the auction will go to the EFF. The masses aparently approve of the idea and bid the living crap out of it. As of this writing, one day into a seven day auction, the hig bid stands at $16,600.
It will be interesting to see how the actual transfering of the rights will take place.
Right now I’ve come up with a couple ways that the transfer of ownership could take place. One is to call up Apple and ask them to do it for me, which would be an interesting call. The other way would be to give my account to the winning bidder, which doesn’t seem like a bid deal considering that I’ve only purchased one song. Still, I’d have to make sure that my credit card info was completely disassociated with the account. Or I could just create a new account and repurchase the song on that account.
Oh, and in case you were wondering, the song is Double Dutch Bus a remake of the Frankie Smith song by Devin Vasquez featured on the Master of Disguise soundtrack.
Michael it seems, does not understand the fnord. So in order to help him out I’m starting a new series called The Daily Fnord. I’m Kicking it off with a special threefer.
The Daily Fnord: Sweetmorn 27, Beamtenherrschaft 3169.
Fnord is evaporated herbal tea without the herbs.
Fnord is an apostrophe on drugs.
Fnord is the serial number on a box of cereal.