Oddly enough. I already live this way. Guess I should stop beating myself up over it.
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Interesting.
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BWAAA ha ha ha !!
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After holding out for a 5D Mark 2. I decided on a 550D instead. Stumped for the two lens kits.
Serviceable lens that get the job done. Especially for sports where the high speed shutter is a huge jump on my old 300D.
Having handled and used both the 5D and 5DMk2. They’re great cameras. The trade-off is weight.
As much as I’ve been tempted by the new micro 4/3rds cameras. The cost of lens and their size offsets the smaller camera bodies.
So the 550D is a good compromise. All the flexibility and capability of an SLR wthout sacrifices.
Canon have said they’ve plans to produce smaller DSLRs in response to micro 4/3rds. I’m definitely interested.
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I’m on a roll.
This is fun because it looks to be actually four or so dancers edited into a troupe.
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This is apparently quite old. Who knew Claire Dane was such a great dancer ?
Ben Lee, totally your loss.
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An event film worthy of the description.
The story in itself is fairly light weight. Markedly different to the scripts that have floated around for quite a few years. Pretty much standard fare so no surprises here.
Real D is passable, at least to my old eyes. It does deliver stunning colours. The whole movie is a seamless whole. No jarring transition between CGI and real footage. Theres much talk of the uncanny valley being bridged. I’m not so sure. The animation itself is top notch and everything has a sense of presence and weight.
The thing is its all set in an alien world. So there’s just enough familiar to register the CGI as real. Yet just surreal enough to not nag that suspension of disbelief.
Sigourney Weaver is a great presence to have. Sam Worthington, who seems everywhere at the moment, handles the lost naive lead well. Great to see Michelle Rodriguez in a solid role.
Cameron’s keeps the high standards that he sets for himself. The characters are a little short hand. But its delivered with such sure direction, editing and visual style that the short comings aren’t glaring. Its an uncompromising film and left me drained.
Definitely bears watching again.
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The full sized mountain bike I’ve got is just too cumbersome. It lacks that certain fun.
The new foldable commuter bikes are sort of what I wanted. But the origami factor isn’t required.
Having some free time, I ran across this. The Cannondale Hooligan. Its a BMX style, three gear urban bike. Left only fork which looks very mod, smaller 20″ wheels and disc brakes.
The thing is, no where is there a Sydney bike store that seems to stock it. At least, judging by their websites. I’ve even fired off an e-mail to the supposed Cannondale Australia. It bounced.
Whats a consumer to do ?
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Photography has always been a passion. Although its not one I’ve always had the time to indulge in.
I’ve a basic understanding of the principles. There are significant areas that need work. All of which would be hardly anything but.
I’d like to think I have a good eye. From practice, I can see that it requires a major leap in skill along with refinement. Its that edge, a small glimmer of what might be if I can just work with what I have to catch it.
There have been moments of revelation. Dabbling in film. First digital SLR.
Strangely, it was the 50mm lens I picked up on a whim thats taught me the most. Funny how it was the standard lens for so long when a new SLR was purchased. Guess its a sign of the times that kits now come with zooms. If not two or three.
A very different aesthetic.
That 50mm lens gave me control. Fast enough to shoot in low light. Shallow depth of field. Light weight and portable. It forced me to think about the photo. Work myself into the right position.
In return I discovered I could produce pictures that popped. Gave me an appreciation of what it takes.
The next step was the chance to borrow a 5D. I’d been satisfied with the output from the 300D. However having made use of a full frame SLR, I can see why people want them.
Its not just in the build quality. Its the rock solid speed and precision. The full sized sensor that means that lens are actually the focal length they specify. That levels of detail are high enough to crop a meaningful image.
The Mark 2 is an intriguing camera. The HD video looks amazing. I would use it if I had it. Its just that I’d like to master still photography before leaping into moving pictures. As much as it fascinates me to do so.
Somehow hybrid cameras have a ways to go. Its something I could do without for the moment. It looks like its here to stay so I guess I can lump it.
So I’ll be pinching pennies until I can order one.
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Glanced at the announcement for the revision to the Macbook lines.
The main change makes the entire notebook line very disposable. Sure notebooks tend to be that way. However the Macbook Pros are supposed to be aimed at a “Professional” market. As nebulous as that can be.
To my mind the logical lineup is a basic feature set that grows as you move up the line. Firewire and express card slot should be part of that basic set at least for 15″ and 17″.
Apple appear to have bowed to pressure and brought back firewire to the 13″. This makes it a very tempting small machine that I’d seriously consider. Even with the combined audio in / out jacks.
Interesting that they’ve brought back a 15″ at the old mid $2K price bracket. Look closely though. Its a high end 13″ with a 15″ screen. There is no discrete video card.
The big issue I have is the removal of the express card slot from the 15″. Apparently the SD memory card reader is considered more useful. That slot offered a good amount of flexibility for a notebook. As such its a deal breaker if I was in the market for a new 15″.
This leaves the 17″ as the “Professional” machine. But its a desktop replacement with quite a price tag and needs a chiropractor to help with the attendant back ache from hauling it around.
I can see why they’ve gone with a sealed battery. I’ve not got confirmation but I’d say the user replaceable memory and drive feature has probably gone as well. The benefits to Apple are two fold, customers are forced to order their upgrades up front (so improved options sales) and not needing to stock so many pesky batteries.
Where the designs appear to have gone as user friendly as possible. Its flipped the other way completely. No room for improvements. Totally sealed units.
I’m of two minds. Given my usage is fairly average these are not problematic. But for a media professional that’s quite a lot of limitations if they’re wanting to be totally portable. Once that battery is drained, good luck with finding a power point.
I don’t believe that Apple are saving on production costs by removing such features. Some just don’t make sense, like firewire. They’ve done it before and brought it back to the 15″. Its just odd. The designers seem to work in a bubble or at least have a very specific user requirement in mind.
By and large this works to their benefit. However this just seems to emphasise how disposable notebooks are becoming. Guess my next upgrade can wait for the next revision. Not that that’s a significant change.
Corrections:
The fun of leaping in boots and all. Apparently the Mac Book Pros can be upgraded by removing the bottom plate. Not as huge an issue as I initially thought.
According to Anandtech, the revised batteries grant significantly greater battery life. Staggeringly so based on their tests. So the tradeoff is the EC card slot being taken up by battery it seems. The 15″ almost doubles its battery life.
Thats not insubstantial. Well worth considering.
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As much fun as Guitar Hero and Rockband are. There’s nothing quite like the real thing.
This is the whole song played with a minimal backing track.
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The thought was to implement a wiki for the development team. Simple enough.
Decided on MediaWiki. Check out the requirements. The latest PHP and MySQL were required.
The wrinkle is that the UNIX server is Red Hat Enterprise 4. An upgrade you say ? Well the problem is that neither the downtime or time required to get the upgrade done are available. Since its the development back end.
Put it on the Windows server ? Feasible. Lots of good WAMP stacks available. The problem is that most are designed as development environments. Additionally MediaWiki requires a couple of UNIX utilities. There are good Windows versions. However some additional work would be required in getting it configured to use them.
Seek an alternative. Well there is that Mac Mini spare at home. Only the problem is that its Tiger on a G4. Its got a use by date ticking closer every day. Its got the same issue that the RHEL4 server has. Eventually it’ll end of life.
Another option is to repurpose an old machine. Put on the latest version of Fedora since thats what I prefer.
Its the fact that Open Source projects are predicated on the latest and greatest stack. As they should be.
The upshot is that hardware should be generic. Allowing as many options as possible. In the case of Apple, the premium paid means that the buyer darn well better run OS X. Why else buy one. However it can be repurposed should the need arise since its now Intel based.
So here is to old leftovers.
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So I pulled the old desktop out. Refreshed it and have it running server duties. As I’m lazy as all get out, its running Windows XP. All thats needed is file shares and running TVersity for media streaming.
Flicking through the local stationary office supplier and big box store catalogs yielded a plethora of NAS devices. Some that even acted as DLNA servers. Nifty in terms of a plug and play option.
However there were a number of problems:
- Wildly varying feature sets and price points.
- Limited expansion.
- Not quite as silent as expected.
- Exchange rates causing prices to rise by 20% +.
Given these issues, I decided to plod on with the noisy heat generator.
But then the NForce 730i landed. In the shadow of the new Macbooks, these nifty HTPC motherboards offered a great feature set for a reasonable price. Reasonable graphics card, video acceleration, hdmi. All crammed into a small board designed to generate a minimum of heat.
So I set out wallet in pocket to upgrade just the core. Meaning CPU, motherboard and memory. The total cost was a touch more than the NAS option. However a lot more flexible and expandable.
Herein lies the problem. Most hardware stores are geared to volume. Even more so with the current retail climate. So these boards are scarce as hens teeth. Despite all the breathless press coverage.
So here sits CPU, memory, disk and SATA DVD burner with no useful purpose. Options multiplying to headache proportions. Going with the alternative Intel G series chipsets (supposedly less advanced but common as flies) or with a more standard motherboard (and possibly needing to upgrade the power supply as well).
The additional wrinkle. Mistakenly buying 1066 DDR2 memory.
When did it become so complicated ?
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Mazin’.
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I know. Christopher Nolan gives them to him. Caught an early screening of the Dark Knight yesterday. This is by far and away the best movie I have seen this year.
Its seamless. The story is solid. Its totally character driven. There is action albeit choppy and sudden in the same way as the last. Filmed as realistically as possible. Giving it a solid grounding. All the more spectacular for it.
I won’t spoil the film. All I’ll say is that where the 1989 Batman was mostly a one trick pony. Relying on Nicholson to propel most of the movie. Good for its time.
This new installment is a wonder to watch as it unfolds. Dark and full of flawed characters. Enjoy.
My only caveat would be that its not for small children. Its very much adult fare.
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Attended Google Developer Day. Along with a significant proportion of local and interstate developers.
Three streams of crunchy API goodness. There were a number of American accents floating around which was great. Google are definitely making a commitment to developers and producing solid tools.
Enlightened self interest.
Well run and organised. I attended the introductory talks and flitted between the in-depth ones. Most of the talks are available on youtube and the documentation is around for study.
Caught up with some folks. Chatted with some new people. All up it was a great day.
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Terrific cover of the Jackson 5. A guitar, a tambourine and a sampling peddle make for a great interpretation.
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This has been out for yonks. Simply a placemarker to remind me of it.
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Shamelessly stolen from a Boing Boing post.
A couch, a uke, a great smile and a heaping serve of talent.
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