Noteworthy on the Web- arXiv blog: Demographers Discover The Fundamental Law Governing the Growth of CitiesThe discovery of a law governing the growth of cities means that future urban populations can now be forecast in advance […]arXiv blog
- Eater SF: BurgerWire: Struggling Southern-California based diner chain Johnny...Struggling Southern-California based diner chain Johnny Rockets has been sold to a private equity firm, as the OC Register is reporting. The company, as you may recall, closed its Marina location last year—it became a Super Duper— and closed its Upper Fillmore location earlier this year—it's now Glaze Teriyaki... […]Jay C. Barmann
- Laughing Squid: Terrible JPEG Compression Transforms ‘The Tragedy of Romeo and Juliet’ Into ‘Tej Uqahdfs”me$nolcr Dlc!ulfgr’As part of an experiment to demonstrate the poor quality of JPEG compression, Tom Scott saved Shakespeare’s Romeo and Julietat various qualities, transforming the famous play into “She Uragedy!of Romeo Anb!kulies,” “Tej Uqahdfs”me$nolcr Dlc!ulfgr,” and worse as the file quality degrades. Scott then got the different versions bound as... […]Kimber Streams
- The Register: Remote code execution vuln appears in PuppetBig trouble in automated clouds Puppet Labs has blasted out a security advisory about a vulnerability in the popular infrastructure management tool Puppet.… […]The Register
- The Consumerist: Is Verizon Deliberately Slowing Down Netflix Streaming To Customers?(Maulleigh)One of the companies that provides bandwidth to Netflix claims that Verizon is allowing a traffic jam of data to build up at its connection points to the huge telecom company, resulting in a degraded connection for customers. Cogent Communications is one of the nation’s largest bandwidth... […]Chris Morran
- The Register: Apple's screw-up leaves tethered iPhones easily crackable24 seconds from pickup to pwned iPhones being used as Wi-Fi hotspots are open to attack because of lax security protocols in the automatic password generation system Apple has in place, according to new research from the University of Erlangen in Germany.… […]The Register
- Typblography: Adobe CFF font rasterizer accepted by FreeTypeLast month we announced that Adobe, in collaboration with Google and FreeType, contributed its CFF font rasterizer technology to FreeType. Today we are happy to let everyone know that the Adobe CFF Engine has been accepted by FreeType and the Adobe-enhanced rasterizer is now on by default. We’d like... […]Nicole Minoza
- Marginal Revolution: India to send the world’s last telegram on July 14thAt the Bharat Sanchar Nigam Limited (BSNL), India‘s state-owned telecom company, a message emerges from a dot matrix printer addressing a soldier’s Army unit in Delhi. ”GRANDMOTHER SERIOUS. 15 DAYS LEAVE EXTENSION,” it reads. It’s one of about 5,000 such missives still being sent every day by telegram –... […]Tyler Cowen
- The Register: Google Brain king slashes cost of AI gearAnything CPU can do GPU can do better The architect behind some of Google's mammoth machine-learning systems has figured out a way to dramatically reduce the cost of the infrastructure needed for weak artificial intelligence programs, making it easier for cash-strapped companies and institutions to perform research into this crucial... […]The Register
- Daemonic Dispatches: Cryptography is a science, not engineeringThomas Ptacek tweeted yesterday that "If you're not learning crypto by coding attacks, you might not actually be learning crypto." Judging by the number of twitter "favourites" and "retweets" of this comment, it seems to have struck a chord; but with all respect to Thomas, I absolutely disagree.... […]Daemonic Dispatches
- The Consumerist: How To Not Kill Every Rechargeable Battery You Own(poopoorama)It seems like every device we use, from toothbrushes to mobile phones, has some kind of rechargeable battery in it now. I mean, seriously, toothbrushes? Prolonging the battery life means prolonging the useful life of your gadget. Are there things you can do that would wreak havoc... […]Laura Northrup
- Geek.com: Kone’s lightweight UltraRope to make 1km high elevators a realityFinnish company Kone is set to double the height elavators inside skyscrapers can travel with a revolutionary new rope that is up to 90 percent lighter than the existing industry standard. Look at… […]Matthew Humphries
- Lifehacker: Dump Your Luggage on Your Bed to Prevent Unpacking ProcrastinationThe last thing you want to do when you get home from vacation is unpack, even though you probably should. Give yourself motivation by putting your stuff between you and sleep.Read more... […]Eric Ravenscraft
- High Performance Web Sites: Browser Busy IndicatorsI’m doing research on the perception of speed for my Ignite Velocity talk. The perception of website speed is obviously fueled by what the user sees in the browser. While the content of a website is controlled by the website owner, the browser also provides feedback to the user. This... […]Steve Souders
- Charlie's Diary: Short Story: Bit RotNeptune's Brood is due on bookshelves in just over two weeks' time. (And some of you lucky people will probably be able to get your hands on paper copies of it a bit earlier.) It's set in the same universe as Saturn's Children, but a whole lot later. That... […]Charlie Stross
- CNET News.com: NSA admits listening to U.S. phone calls without warrantsNational Security Agency discloses in secret Capitol Hill briefing that thousands of analysts can listen to domestic phone calls. That authorization appears to extend to e-mail and text messages too. [Read more] […]Declan McCullagh
- Everything USB: Centech's USB Power Meter Tells You Which Gadget is Most Power Hungry[…]newstips@everythingusb.com
- Image Sensors World: All About CMOS Sensors in 75 SlidesTaiwan National Chiao Tung University published a nice CMOS image sensor course materials covering pretty much all important things in just 75 slides, written by Chia-Ming Tsai. There is also 58-slide long CCD course on the same page. […]Vladimir Koifman (noreply@blogger.com)
- The Tao of Mac: Automating iOS: How Pythonista Changed My WorkflowFrom November last year, but still awesome.☯ […]Rui Carmo
- LE FIGARO - Une: Calimero, un héros très françaisAlors que le petit poussin fête ses 50 ans au festival d'Annecy, Gaumont animation produit 104 nouveaux épisodes de ses aventures pour une diffusion sur TF1 en 2014. Plus actuel que jamais, Calimero ? […]Maxime Pargaud
- arXiv blog: Demographers Discover The Fundamental Law Governing the Growth of Cities
Category Archives: Photo
The ultimate irrelevance of image quality
Months ago I showed my father how to take screen shots on his iPad and iMac, and he routinely takes them while using FaceTime video conferencing with my 1 year-old daughter. Due to poor bandwidth at home (we live in … Continue reading
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Sony RX1 first impressions
Despite my hatred of all things Sony, I purchased two of their cameras in the last few months: a RX100 for my wife, and a RX1 for myself. the bragging rights of a full-frame sensor with a Zeiss 35mm f/2 … Continue reading
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Prints not-so charming
Ansel Adams wrote a celebrated series of photo instructional books. It is organized as a trilogy: , and . Of these, the camera business is still going strong, buoyed by sales of digital cameras and upgraders to DSLRs (although market … Continue reading
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How prevalent is high-ISO photography?
Low light performance is one of the most important factors I consider when buying a camera. At one point I did an expensive switch from the Canon system to Nikon, when the D3 came out, for its amazing high-ISO performance … Continue reading
Clearing custom crop aspect ratios in Lightroom
Lightroom’s crop tool allows you to constrain the aspect ratio to a proportion of your choice, e.g. to 4:3, defaulting to the same aspect ratio as the original. The last 5 or so custom crop aspect ratios are saved, but … Continue reading
Is this a Google Street View car?
Update (2011-05-12): the answer is no, it’s a Navteq 3D mapping car with a LIDAR array. Thanks to Darrell Kresge for the clarification. As I was walking to lunch today, I caught sight of this weird contraption, and had just … Continue reading
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Panasonic GF1 first impressions
I bought a Panasonic DMC-GF1 compact large-sensor camera in a kit with a small 20mm f/1.7 pancake lens on Monday to replace my Sigma DP2 as my everyday pocket (well, jacket pocket) camera. While the 17.3x10mm micro four thirds sensor … Continue reading
Leica Monovid review
Leica recently introduced the Monovid monocular. Monoculars are more compact than binoculars, but you lose stereo vision, which is why birdwatchers tend to shun them. I myself have a very strong director eye and correspondingly poor binocular vision, so this … Continue reading
Olympus E-P1 hands-on impressions
I had the opportunity to handle an Olympus E-P1 camera at Keeble & Shuchat in Palo Alto. There has been quite a bit of excitement on sites like Rangefinder Forum and many were expecting this to be the first pocketable … Continue reading
Fuji GF670 first impressions
I just received my Fuji GF670 from Dirk Rösler at Japan Exposures. This is a folding medium-format rangefinder camera, an anachronism in many respects, but I regret not getting a G690 when they were still made and since this is … Continue reading