/dev/random

The Nikon D90 officially became available today. My local Best Buy got in only 3 and I managed to get the first one this morning.

The D90 is quite a bit larger & heavier than the D40x, but it’s still comfortable to carry.

Unlike the D40x, the D90 has an LCD screen on the top, where you can see most of the settings without having to turn on the display. The D90 has dedicated buttons for most settings such as white balance, ISO, AF mode, etc, so you don’t have to access the menus too often.

Unlike the D40x, the D90 has an internal AF motor, so autofocus will work on non AF-S lenses, such as my 50mm/f1.8. That alone is almost worth the price for me. I found the lens contacts to be a bit tricky, though. I had to jiggle the lens slightly from the fully locked position until I felt the AF screw snap into place before AF would work.

I didn’t get to try all of the features yet, but I’m very pleased with what I’ve seen so far. Using auto mode, it take beautiful, sharp photos. Recording video is very easy. No dedicated video mode is needed. Simply switch to live view (using the Lv button to the right of the screen) and press the OK button to start recording. Press the OK button again to stop recording. Movies are saved as AVI files with a default size of 640×428.

Keep reading for unboxing photos, sample images and a sample video.
[Read more →]

A lot of people were wondering what the building behind McCain during his speech last night was. Talking Points Memo solved the mystery - it’s Walter Reed Middle School in North Hollywood, CA.

An even bigger mystery is why they chose that picture. I’m guessing it went something like this:

Speech Writer: Get me a picture of the Walter Reed Medical Center.

Flunky 1: OK, I’ll do an image search on Google.

Flunky 1: Here’s a good one.

Flunky 2: I don’t think that’s the Walter Reed Medical Center.

Speech Writer: Ah hell… at least it has “Walter Reed” in the name. Go with it anyway. Nobody will know the difference.

Yesterday I got a Drobo to use with Time Machine. I only got the USB 2.0 model, since I have it connected to my Airport Extreme 802.11n base station. I ordered it with 2x 1TB drives.

The Drobo is perfect for Time Machine backups, since they grow continuously. When you run out of space, you can simply add another drive to the Drobo to increase its storage capacity. Adding a drive to the Drobo is very easy - simply snap off the faceplate and insert a 3.5″ SATA drive into one of the empty drive bays until it ’snaps’ into place. You don’t even have to shut down the Drobo. It will immediately recognize the new drive and start using it.

The Drobo has some advantages over traditional RAID devices, like my TeraStation. Most notably, it doesn’t need any setup when you add a new drive - it simply reconfigures itself and starts using the additional storage. The TeraStation also doesn’t support Time Machine without some ugly hacks that don’t work reliably. With all 4 drive bays filled with 250G drives, the TeraStation is a lot more difficult to expand.

This comes awfully close to a racial slur. Even today in the south you rarely hear the word “uppity” not followed by the N-word. I’m sure most of his target audience mentally added that word to his remark.

Georgia Republican Rep. Lynn Westmoreland used the racially-tinged term “uppity” to describe Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama Thursday.

Westmoreland was discussing vice presidential nominee Sarah Palin’s speech with reporters outside the House chamber and was asked to compare her with Michelle Obama.

“Just from what little I’ve seen of her and Mr. Obama, Sen. Obama, they’re a member of an elitist-class individual that thinks that they’re uppity,” Westmoreland said.

Asked to clarify that he used the word “uppity,” Westmoreland said, “Uppity, yeah.”

Links for 2008-09-02 through 2008-09-04:

• Attacks, praise stretch truth at GOP convention - Fact-checking Palin's RNC speech
• Flickriver - A new way to view Flickr photos and more… - View flickr photos as a continuous stream
• Raw Replay - Revisiting History - The Daily Show’s “best news team on the planet” cover the Republican convention as if it were the New Orleans’ Superdome during Hurricane Katrina. Absolutely brilliant!
• First Look At WordPress 2.7 »   Weblog Tools Collection » Blog Archive - Although tentatively scheduled for November, WordPress 2.7 looks to be as big of a release since WordPress 2.5, perhaps even bigger.

Posted by Postilicious

From an intercepted email:

Here’s what we do. We put a woman with very little real, meaningful experience on the ticket with McCain. Make sure she’s an “average soccer mom.” Preferably someone with some personal baggage to draw attacks from the left.

Put her on the ticket and wait for the Dems to take the bait and begin debating her qualifications and all the reasons she should/should not even be on the ticket. We rally our base by making sure she’s an evangelical who opposes abortion in any circumstance. That is bound to get some women fighting over when, exactly, life begins.

Let’s make sure she has a big family with at least one teenager with personal issues, so we can rally the suburban soccer mom base that we desperately need to get out and work for us. After all, doesn’t every one of them have a child who didn’t follow their advice? Can’t every one of our base totally relate to how unfair it would be to hold that child’s bad judgment against a working mom?

Then we just sit back and watch as America completely ignores the mortgage crisis, the men and women dying in Iraq, the consequences of global warming, the failures of our educational system, the 40 million Americans without health insurance. No one will pay any attention to any of these “important” issues now! It’s perfect.

President McCain. Has a nice ring to it doesn’t it?

Funny thing is, I bet Vice President Quayle will have major episodes of deja vu this fall.

How sweet it is.

Karl

If you have an old camera you’re not using, consider donating it to LOVE - Lens of Vision & Expression. I donated my Canon S100 and A75 to them today.

LOVE partners with non-profit organizations by providing cameras and digital photography workshops to marginalized children in third world countries. The children from LOVE’s workshop have documented their lives photographically and the issues surrounding them: their living conditions, environment, work situations, as well as their dreams for the future. Proceeds from the sales of the student’s work are used to further their education and realization of their dreams.

You can visit their Flickr stream here.

Pisoth 2, originally uploaded by LOVE_LensOfVision&Expression.

Links for 2008-08-31 through 2008-09-02:

• Chromium Build Instructions (Mac OS X) - Instructions for building Google's Chrome browser on OS X
• Breaking Bad Habits in Photoshop - Tips for using Photoshop more efficiently.
• Real separators for the Mac OS X Leopard dock - how to add a real separator to the dock

Posted by Postilicious

Google released their new browser today, but only for Windows. The Mac version is supposed to be available soon, so I tried the Windows version under VMware. Even in a VM it’s blazingly fast. Despite the speed, Chrome is ugly. The tabs are much too big. It lacks a menu bar and it isn’t too obvious where to find your bookmarks. It feels more like a toy or something you would use on a web appliance than a real browser. Chrome seems more appropriate for a kiosk or web-enabled device than a desktop browser.

Chrome looks like it would be great for someone unfamiliar with computers or web browser, but for anyone who’s used other web browsers, it just feels so different that you have to stop and think about how to do basic tasks.

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As you’ve probably heard, Sarah Palin’s 17 year old daughter, Bristol, is pregnant. Although there are calls to stay away from the subject, this is a political issue due to Palin’s views. Sarah Palin is anti-choice and supports abstinence-only education, even though studies have shown that abstinence-only education has raised teen pregnancy rates.

Gustav missed us, but it’s heading for New Orleans and looking pretty grim there.

Although we dodged another one, Tropical Storm Hanna is out there and heading in our direction.

One of my favorite people, Ashley Maher is leaving Monday for Dakar, Senegal to record her 5th album at Jimi Mbaye’s Studio Dogo.

Ashley bought Jimi a new Mac Pro for his studio to help pay for her studio time. Getting it there was quite a saga. Jimi was supposed to pick it up in Washington, DC when he was supposed to perform with Youssou N’dour, but he was randomly denied a visa. It ended up flying to Paris before finally arriving safely in Dakar. I’m sure Jimi will do some great work with it.

Ashley is a great dancer as well as a great singer. Her Sabar dancing skills have made her a star in Senegal. Her dance videos are some of the most popular at Seneweb.com.

On a related note, I finally watched Xala by Senegalese director Ousmane Sembene, one of the movies on my “bucket list”. Even though it was in French & Wolof, I enjoyed it a lot. Unfortunately in a few scenes the white subtitles were on a white background, making them difficult to read. The music was great, featuring Star Band de Dakar.

I noticed something very unexpected in my MediaTemple account GPU usage report: an unusually high number of hits for /user/register and /user/login, which I would expect to account for little or no usage. The only explanation I can figure is spambots attempting automated logins & registrations.

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Links for 2008-08-28 through 2008-08-30:

• The Case Against Sarah Palin - Normally VP picks don’t matter so much, but in this particular case, due to McCain’s age and health, the choice really matters. She is not ready to be vice president by her own statement. She’s not ready to be president.
• Worldwide Photo Walk - 2008 Winners -
• iDevKit - The Largest iPhone & iPod Touch Development Community -

Posted by Postilicious

Thanks to Wonkette for this image.

Since I’ve been writing a lot about photography lately, I’d like to showcase a few photographers that inspire me.

• Trey Ratcliffe makes some of the most amazing HDR images.
• Thomas Hawk creates some of the most eye-catching compositions.
• Paulo Jordao, the leader of our local photo walks, always captures the perfect moment.
• Michael Mistretta is one of the best young photographers I know. He does amazing work with light and perspective.
• Jordan Chark, another young photographer, makes excellent use of color and depth of field.

Click the links for their Flickr photostreams.

Sarah Palin? I’m sure McCain could have found a more experienced woman like Elizabeth Dole.

McCain’s choice is such obvious pandering to the 20 or so disgruntled Hillary Clinton supporters who haven’t come to their senses. He found someone already tainted with scandal and with less experienced than Obama. As a creationist and anti-choice candidate, she’s also aimed at the theocratic base that wasn’t comfortable with McCain.

McCain and the Republicans like to emphasize Obama’s lack of experience, but they don’t mention that George W. Bush had even less experience when he was elected. Jimmy Carter also had very little experience when he was elected. You could even say George Washington had no government experience before he became president.

Being able to inspire & motivate people is a huge advantage. The fact that Obama is well liked overseas will be a huge boost to our international relations.

We need to repair our reputation in the world, which Bush damaged so badly. We can’t stand alone; we need the rest of the world’s cooperation. A president who will bully & threaten other world leaders and lose his temper will make the rest of the world less willing to cooperate with us. A likable & charismatic leader with good negotiating skills will raise the world’s opinion of us and strengthen our alliances.

Links for 2008-08-27 through 2008-08-28:

• Comments by Mike Cohen — BackType - Track comments & replies from various websites in one place.
• Society In Decline Project: Intrastate Commerce - Photo set of roadside signs.
• WordPress Coda Clips Collection - Coda clips for wordpress tags & function list.

Posted by Postilicious

Xcode gives this very informative error message when an iPhone enabled for development is being updated in iTunes.

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