Noteworthy on the Web- Bits: Daily Report: Google Privacy Inquiries Get Little CooperationIn Wednesday's New York Times, David Streitfeld and Kevin J. O'Brien take a deeper look at how Google escaped a full accounting for its Street View project, in which specially equipped cars scooped up data from wireless networks as they photographed the world's streets. […]By THE NEW YORK TIMES
- Ming Thein | Photographer: May 10, Part 1: The Leica M-Monochrom reviewThe focus of Leica’s May 10 announcement landed in my hands a few days ago (not counting the X2, which was reviewed here); I suppose that Facebook post* might have done the trick. *I left a message on Andreas Kaufmann’s wall; score one for the power of social media.... […]Ming Thein
- DPReview News: Just Posted: Canon EOS 5D Mark III reviewJust Posted:Our Canon EOS 5D Mark III review. The 22.3MP 5D Mark III appears to offer similar specifications to 2008's 5D Mark II. However, sensor and processing developments, along with a host of user-interface revisions mean the Mark III is a much more capable camera. It also gains a... […]DPReview News
- Gizmodo: Better Cell Phone Towers Kill People [Cell Phones]AT&T's network sucked in 2008, glutted with iPhones and facing the menace of a 3G rollout. So like its competition, it put together a slapdash operation to build towers at any cost. Even a human cost, ProPublica reports. More » […]Sam Biddle
- Laughing Squid: Ben & Jerry’s Euphori-Lock, An Ice Cream Pint Combination LockBen & Jerry’s Euphori-Lock is a combination lock to keep other people out of your favorite pint of Ben & Jerry’s ice cream. The Euphori-Lock is available to purchase from Ben & Jerry’s online store. I’m terribly sorry but there is no “u” in “my pint”. Here’s more information... […]Rusty Blazenhoff
- The Brooks Review: ‘The Facebook Fallacy’Michael Wolff:Facebook is not only on course to go bust, but will take the rest of the ad-supported Web with it.That’s the opening sentence, and it only gets better and harder to argue with from there. Wolff makes some great points, not only about Facebook, but about web... […]BenBrooks
- jg's Ramblings: A Milestone Reached: CoDel is in Linux!The CoDel AQM algorithm by Kathie Nichols and Van Jacobson provides us with an essential missing tool to control queues properly. Eric Dumazet wrote the codel line discipline (based on a quick prototype by Dave Täht) which landed in net-next a week or two ago; yesterday, net-next was merged into the Linux... […]gettys
- Boing Boing: All-in-one slipcased edition of SandmanHere's some lovely news: DC is bringing out an all-ten-volumes-in-one-slipcase edition of Neil Gaiman's Sandman. Gaiman writes, "I’m thrilled. You have no idea how long I’ve been asking DC to do one of these. (Er, about 16 years.)" The all-ten-volumes-in-one-slipcase-edition of SANDMAN Amazon pre-order page (via Wil Wheaton... […]Cory Doctorow
- The Register: Raspberry PiBare bones computing Review No review is ever written in isolation, absent from context. Usually, you can guess the reviewer's bias within a few paragraphs, and compensate accordingly. He hates LCD display quality, she dislikes proprietary software, they yearn for the days of full bandwidth vinyl. You get the idea.… […]The Register
- Living with IPv6: New Nmap w/ much improved IPv6Nmap has had rudimentary IPv6 support for a while, but, frankly, it's been pretty limited. A new version was just released today with much improved support.Some highlights:Raw packet supportOS detectionNeighbor Discovery pingNew IPv6 detection techniques (including some neat tricks with MLD and SLAAC).This... […]Living with IPv6
- bert hubert finally blogs: Random points of contentionI'm working on some high performance code which needs to scale to many, many CPUs. Against better judgement, I decided to use threads again, but to steer clear from anything that needs locking. I've previously found this to be very hard, and this time round proved to be no exception.... […]bert hubert (noreply@blogger.com)
- High Scalability: Pinterest Architecture Update - 18 Million Visitors, 10x Growth,12 Employees, 410 TB of DataThere has been an update on Pinterest: Pinterest growth driven by Amazon cloud scalability since our last post: A Short on the Pinterest Stack for Handling 3+ Million Users. With Pinterest we see a story very similar to that of Instagram. Huge growth, lots of users, lots of... […]Todd Hoff
- Ars Technica: Smartphone hijacking vulnerability affects AT&T, 47 other carriesCisco Systems' ASA 5500 series is one of many firewalls that drops data packets that contains invalid TCP sequence numbers. The feature leaks data that can be used to hijack connections. Cisco Systems Computer scientists have identified a vulnerability in the network of AT&T and at least 47 other cellular... […]Dan Goodin
- The Tao of Mac: Leap MotionApple, buy these guys NOW. Here’s a bit more. Looks amazing, and the price is certainly a matter of production volume.☯ […]Rui Carmo
- AnandTech: HP Z420 Workstation Review: Competition Heats UpRecently we had a chance to review Dell's Precision T3600, and we found it impressive. A company that seemed content to be an also-ran in the enterprise desktop space reinvigorated itself with smart new chassis designs to go along with the refreshed hardware from Intel and NVIDIA, and the... […]Dustin Sklavos
- Ars Technica: The future is forever: the state of IPv6 in the Apple worldPhoto illustration by Aurich Lawson With the demise of Apple's own networking protocol AppleTalk, Apple's products are suffering from the same issue as anyone else's: the Internet is running out of addresses. Google, Facebook, Yahoo, Netflix, and others will permanently turn on IPv6 in less than a month... […]Iljitsch van Beijnum
- David Lebovitz: Aux Tonneaux des HallesEveryone once in a while, it hits me: I need steak-frites. It’s an infrequent indulgence, but when I do have it, I like my steak with a crisp exterior, pan-seared until saignant (medium-rare), with a large pile of real frites. Most my French friends like their beef bleu,... […]David
- Econbrowser: Fiscal stimulusMy colleague UCSD Professor Valerie Ramey has an interesting new paper looking at the effects of higher government spending on GDP. Ramey (2012)approaches the question from a forecasting perspective. Suppose a certain event (examples of which are detailed below) causes you to revise your forecast of how high government... […]James Hamilton (jhamilton@ucsd.edu)
- The Trouble with Tribbles...: Vendor Stack vs build your ownOperating System distributions are getting ever more bloated, including more and more packages. While this reduces the need for the end user to build their own software, does it actually eliminate the need for systems administrators to manage the software on their systems?I would argue that in many cases... […]Peter Tribble (noreply@blogger.com)
- LensRentals Blog: Testing for a Decentered Lens: an Old Technique Gets a MakeoverWhat is Decentering and What Does it Do? Strictly speaking, decentering would involve one or more of the lens elements being off of the central axis of the lens. This would prevent the curved surfaces of the lens from bending the light properly. In severe cases it could result in... […]Roger Cicala
- Bits: Daily Report: Google Privacy Inquiries Get Little Cooperation
Category Archives: Photo
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
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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
Posted in Photo, San Francisco
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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
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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
Large sensor compact cameras finally on the horizon
I have stated on the record that my dream camera is a digital Contax T3 with an APS-C size sensor (or larger). Sigma launched the DP1, the first large-sensor compact this year, but it is a flawed camera, very sluggish, … Continue reading