Archive for April, 2006

Books that will induce a mindfuck is a post on Everything2.com, and it gives a list of pretty interesting English books.

People keep asking a simple question: “why do my expensive camera fail to auto-focus when I plug my tele-lens into a 2x converter?”. Unfortunately, the answer is pretty simple. Most auto-focus cameras (digital or not) have a AF sensor limited to f/5.6 detection. If your lens is not opening more than that, the AF is technically impossible (the AF sensor does not see enough to separate details).

So, the f/8 mirror lenses are out of AF. But also, reasonably priced tele-lenses (like a Sigma 400mm/5.6 lens) are just at the limit and if you had a tele-converter (1.4x or 2x) you loose some more and lo! it will no longer focus.

Known exceptions:

• Canon 1D up to f/8.

All inkjet papers were not born equal. For example, their surface can be varying a lot from one paper to the next. Maybe, you thought that the only difference was in the weight of the paper, whether it was glossy and its price. Oh boy! Were you wrong…

As a matter of fact, paper manufacturers don’t even speak about it (marketing droids don’t want to frighten people with technical details…) but a new generation of papers has hit the market of inkjet printing:

Microporous paper

Let’s see what it is all about.

(more…)

In a private circle, I had made the prevision that the United States of America would initiate a military action against Iran in 2005. Time proved I was a poor prophet. But, now, I wonder whether 2006 is time for celebration of my failure.

From voices usually well informed, we hear repeated stories that the President of the United States of America is ready for all solutions to be sure that Iran will not get nuclear power. In our language, this means that the use of tactical (only!) nuclear weapons is a possibility.

After all, why not? Like me, you are probably afraid just at thinking that a weapon that has not been used since 1945 could leave its heavily guarded silos with all the expected collateral damages of breaking such a powerful international military taboo dating back to WWII. Probably, your first reaction is to answer “G.W.Bush wouldn’t dare” ; But, unfortunately, wasn’t it what most people said in 2001, before the allied troups entered Iraq.

(more…)

This is the right combination against blurry images at Sony: With the new DSC-T30, Sony brings both optical stabilisation and a button to press to reach high sensitivity. Two aces to allow Joe Average to take neat snapshots.

Valve, the famous producer of the Half Life video game, decided to try transforming distribution of video game software. As they announced, the next launches will see short episodes (shorter than the original successful game) aimed at a public ready for paying less but more often. It seems to be a way to avoid the major financial bumps of launching a new game only after severla years of development.

• SiN Episode 1: Emergence
• Half-Life 2: Episode One

We’ll see if success will be there to meet this tactics. If the game synopsis are ok, it could well change the scene of FPS (First Person Shooters) and the way most people play.

Your blog contains AdSense ad banners and you are wondering whether they are always taking into account the real content of the articles you publish. A few remarks from a mere user.

(more…)

That is exactly the title of an article just published in the New York Times and explaining how online publication had to adapt itself to search engines, their literal-minded approach to text and the impossibility to use nice, intelligent, witty, humorous, sarcastic titles.

Gertrude Walton is probably not the last person and certainly not the first to be facing the wrath of the RIAA while this association fights against music pirates. She is a bit unusual in the sense that she is an 80-year old Granny and stands accused of downloading 700 songs off peer-to-peer (P2P) networks under the nice pseudo of smittenkitten, since elderly people do not seem to be among both the worst pirates and madly in love with top-50 songs.

She is more unusual because she definitely did not answer to the threats from the RIAA and may be facing thousands of dollars (if not more) for her unlawful life of piracy. But this is not even the point.

Where she becomes really unusual and quite a legal problem for the RIAA is when you notice that she’s been dead since December 2004. Her daughter produced a death certificate that did not stop the RIAA. They only stoppped when the press started asking questions about where it was leading.

The RIAA decided to drop the case. I don’t see why. In the Middle Ages even dead witches (or dead people accused of being witches) were hanged for the best of the community. Why not dead pirates or ghosts accused of roaming on the P2P networks?

It’s been years that flight attendants repeat to bored flight passengers that portable phones should be switched off during the flight because they may interfere with navigation equipment of the plane.

Also, it’s been years that Boeing and Airbus tested this hypothesis and found no risk at all. But nobody wants to take the risk of changing international flight regulations. Up to now, when Air France decided to change the face of in-plane phone.

As a matter of fact, on some Airbus A319 flights (starting with Paris to North Africa travels), Air France should introduce this Summer an in-flight SMS distribution service. That will ask for keeping the phone switched on or even using it during the flight.

It may change a number of current habits. Or maybe not, since a test done a few months ago in the United States of America has shown that in all flights there is at least one switched on phone in the plane - these are average figures - either in a piece of luggage, or in a passenger pocket or even used by the passenger. Under the funny pretext of new planes, we may start having the right to use portable phones again in the coming months or years.

All inkjet papers were not born equal. Not even all papers. Far from the surface quality, one of the characteristics easiest to evaluate and most important to appreciate a good paper is its weight. But quite often you will hear paper industry specialists and printing experts speaking about the paper’s hand.

What is this and why is it so important?

(more…)

Sony just announced the name of its new/future range of Digital Single Lens Reflex (D-SLR) cameras. This is a minor surprise since they reuse the brand previously used by Minolta and Konica-Minolta in the Japanese market: Alpha. Minolta used Maxxum in the US and Dynax in Europe, but Sony seems to be shooting for one brand only.

We are still waiting for the products themselves.