8/26    "Pastafarian student allowed to wear pasta strainer on head for
        driver's license photo"
        http://www.csua.org/u/112h (news.yahoo.com)
        R'amen.
        \_ http://www.nydailynews.com/news/national/pastafarian-recognized-texas-id-article-1.1436608
           With photos.

7/1     "James Woods debuts 20-year-old girlfriend at film premiere"
        http://www.csua.org/u/10jz (blog.sfaget.com)
        \_ huh what??? I thought he was just a character in Family Guy. WTF?
        \_ He's now my idol.

4/11    "Parents hope photo of fatal text serves as warning"
        http://news.yahoo.com/parents-hope-photo-fatal-text-203757749.html
        I'm happy that this guy was promptly removed from the society without
        taking anyone innocent, especially that oncoming driver, along with
        him.
        \_ Gee, I just saw a parent texting driver at my kid's school an hour
           ago.  I actually took the liberty to yell at the driver "No
           texting!  Stop using your cell phone!"  -- OP

4/9     'Government probes case of texting helicopter pilot'
        http://www.csua.org/u/zsc (news.yahoo.com)
        'The pilot ... exchanged 20 text messages, over a span of less than
        two hours preceding the helicopter crashed ... Most of the messaging
        was with an off-duty female co-worker with whom he had a "long history"
        of "frequent, intensive communications," and with whom he was planning
        to have dinner that night ..."
        Texting kills.  Mistress kills.

1/9     "Zorb ride in Russian mountains proves deadly"
        http://www.csua.org/u/yv5 (http://www.sfgate.com
        Darwin Award?

9/12    iPhone 4S has new features like 8MP rear camera and Siri, and iPhone 5
        has 1.2MP front camera, 4" display, and 4G LTE.  My 17-month-old
        Android phone has 8MP rear camera, 1.3MP front camera, 4.2" display,
        voice search, voice-to-text that supports English, Cantonese,
        Mandarin, Japanese plus other languages/dialects that I don't speak,
        4G LTE, and voice-guided navigation, all built-in.  I don't get what
        the hype is about iPhones.
        \_ p.s. two more features on my 17-month-old Android phone:
           simultaneous voice and data over cellular network on Verizon, video
           calling over 4G LTE (not built-in though -- I had to download
           Skype).  --- OP
           \_ p.p.s. one more: 3-D photo-realistic maps during voice-guided
              navigation.  --- OP
              navigation.  I think I should start a web site called
              <DEAD>www.NewIPhoneFeaturesAreSoOldSchool.com<DEAD>  --- OP
           \_ (10/18) one more: VoIP over Wi-Fi, which even iPhone 5 doesn't
               support.  --- OP
        \_ imo, iOS is better than Android, but I agree with you that the
           recent iPhone hype doesn't make too much sense.  Personally, I
           was very happy with my original iPhone, which remains perfectly
           useable even today.  The iPhone 3GS was a nice incremental upgrade
           b/c it added 3G support and additional security features.  But I
           don't see the point of the iPhone 4 and newer - they just seem
           like more of the same.  Must be getting old...
        \_ Microsoft Zune had MORE stuff and it was cheaper! Radio, recorder,
           calendar, etc. Why did shitty iPod that only did one thing
           win at the end?
        \_ The public values elegance and good design >> feature set alone.

9/12    iPhone 4S has new features like 8MP camera and Siri, and iPhone 5 has
        4" display and 4G LTE.  My 17-month old Android phone has 8MP camera,
        4.2" display, built-in voice search and voice typing, and 4G LTE.  I
        don't get it.

6/26    Berkeley is climbing up in ranking, YAY!
        http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Academic_Ranking_of_World_Universities
        \_ According to this ASP page, we're #5!
           http://www.webometrics.info/top12000.asp
           \_ I don't care if we don't make it to the top 3 or top 10 or
              whatever.  But being ranked behind Stanfraud?  What an insult!

3/7     Does anyone else think the iPad3 isn't really that much better
        than the iPad2?  I don't really understand the hype.
        \_ 5MP camera?  My 1-yr-old Android phone has a 8MP auto-focus camera
           (plus a 1MP focus-free one on the front.)
              \_ The iPad camera seems like a joke to me.  The iPad is just
                 to big to be useful for taking pictures.  Maybe it makes
                 sense to people who video chat, but that also seems like a
                 gimick rather than a useful tool.
           \_ it's all about the screen. Apple doesn't believe in
              spec wars (check boxes of features). Apple believes that
              you just need ONE amazing feature to trump over 100
              check boxes. That one feature is the display.
              \_ Is the display really all that important?  I don't really
                 understand what difference it makes, since the iPhone 3
                 and iPhone 4 screens look nearly the same to me.
              \_ I could certainly be wrong, but it was my understanding
                 that the human eye cannot spot the difference between
                 720p and 1080p on a screen smaller than 50"; how is a
                 2048x1536 pixel resolution going to be better than a
                 1024x768 pixel resolution on a screen 1/5 the size?
                 \_ 1. I guess it's easier to see the resolutino difference
                 \_ 1. I guess it's easier to see the resolution difference
                       when looking at still images than when watching movies.
                    2. People hold mobile devices at a closer distance than
                       they do TV sets.

8/19    "American girl in Italy" wasn't a staged photo after all:
        http://www.csua.org/u/u2d (news.yahoo.com)

9/28    A lot of photos I take come out blurry. A lot of them are clear,
        too, but the proportion of blurry photos is high. This has led me
        to take more photos than I otherwise would in hopes of getting a
        clear one. I took some photos of the Rio grande and they
        were all awesome, but the next day I took photos of landscapes
        and almost all of them were blurry. Could it be the camera or is
        it likely operator error? The most routine photos can come out
        blurry. Seems like I should not need a tripod for most of the
        things I shoot (like fountains and architecture.)
        \- Was the blur due to camera shake or moving subject [river,
           foutain]? For camera shake, one rule of thumb is shutter = 1/zoom,
           so you can hold at 1/60th for a 50mm shot, but even 1/125th is
           inadequate at 300mm. Well/evenly lit landscape typically are
           pretty forgiving from the technical perspective ... subject not
           moving and plenty of light and essentially no DoF constraints
           means you have a lot of shutter/aperture options. In addition
           to the shutter lag issue with PS cameras, they are often super
           light and thus hard t hold steady. Even a little stabilization
           can make the difference ... without going to tripid ... sit down
           and put camera on your knee, put your elbows on a table, lean
           against a building/wall/tree etc.
           Here is my guess what is going on: the camera is seeing a fair
           amount of light, so opts to shoot at its slowest ISO and is
           picking a pretty wide aperture ... and because the camera is so
           light, it's hard to hold steadyat what would be easy to hold on
           a heavier camera with better image stabilization (does your PS
           have IS?). With my G10 I can clearly hold to 1/40. Below that,
           say 1/25, it depends on if you are cropping etc. You'll have to
           get to know your gear to make the blur/iso noise tradeoff.
        \_ What shutter speeds are you using?  Unless you have very steady
           hands, make sure you're shooting at 1/125th of a second or faster.
           Also, are you moving the camera away before it's finished taking
           the picture?  I've used one cheap camera that displayed a preview
           of the shot right after you pressed the trigger, but didn't take
           the actual picture until a second or so later.  It looked like it
           was done once it displayed the preview, but if you started putting
           the camera down at that point, the actual shot would be blurred.
           Finally, are you sure your pictures are in focus?  If you post a
           sample picture, we can try to narrow down what's going wrong.
           \_ Good comments, thanks.
        \_ What kind of camera are you talking about?  SLR?  Point-and-shoot?
           Cell phone camera?
           \_ Point-and-shoot

8/28    Hi, anybody printed a photo image to a big plotter?  Something like
        36"x36"?  I'm wondering how many megapixels the image need to
        have in order for the print to "look good".  There is a rule of
        thumb?  Like 6 megapixel is good for X size print.  10 megapixel
        is good for Y size print.  Thanks.
        \_ You don't need that many more megapixels for much bigger prints,
           because people tend to view bigger prints from farther away.
           \_ exactly. Pixel peepers are stupid. Anything beyond 20MP,
              is mostly a waste anyways.
        \_ Try thinking of it in terms of dpi on the final print.  Is 150dpi
           good enough?  If so, then you need a 29 megapixel image for 36"x36"
           (36 * 150)^2 = 29,160,000.  The resolution of the printer can also
           limit the quality of the printed image, so make sure the plotter
           can handle your target resolution.  If you're doing this with a
           plotter, presumably you're not trying to produce a photorealistic
           image anyway.

4/8     I want to by my mom a point and shoot camera for about $150 because
        she's running around with this 1 megapixel camera from back in the
        day. I looked at Canon and Nikon, but I am not as into this stuff as
        some people on MOTD are. I take photos with my Blackberry. What's
        a good choice in that price range? Definitely not more than $200.
        \_ Canon has the best point and shoot cameras.  The A1100 or A495
           are totally reasonable, or you can go for an older version of one
           of the higher-end models like the SD series.  -tom

4/1
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4/2     Can someone please click on the nytimes link below and look at the
        top photo (with the living room). I've been searching for a
        poster like that for a few years now; it looks like a blurry
        photo of buildings at night. Does anyone know where I could
        find such a poster, or a similar one, or even what the name of
        such a photo/poster might be? Thanks in advance.
        http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/04/garden/04cheap.html
        \_ You could try reading the article.
                \_ Done, was of no help. -op
        \_ http://www.flickr.com/search/?l=cc&ss=2&ct=5&mt=all&adv=1&w=all&q=city+night+blur&m=text

4/1
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04/02   Anybody know of a program that can generate a big picture collage from
        a lot of smaller pictures?   I'm not looking for a regular photo
        collage maker that just puts the pictures in tiles one after another.
        The big picture being generated can be something like a company
        logo and the small pictures can be company employees photos.  I've
        seen those in annual reports but I don't know how they're generated.
        Searching for "photo collage" just brings up the regular collage
        generators.  Thanks.
        \_ They're called photo mosaics.
           \_ thank you!  I was searching for the wrong term.  photo
              mosaic did the trick.  :-)
        \_ Photoshop.

10/16   Interesting new Canon P&S cameras: G11, S90.
        http://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/find/newsLetter/PowerShot-G11-S90.jsp
        BTW, has anybody used the new D10 [not the old 10D] ... any thoguhts?
        I'm trying to pick between {my G10 + buy waterproof housing} or
        a buy a nw D10 (beach, boat/raft/kayak, snorkel ... not scuba).
        \_ http://visualsciencelab.blogspot.com/2009/10/canon-g11-new-professional-camera.html
           \_ i think this review is overly gushy. there are a lot of pix
              you can take with 28-105mm field of view ... esp if the camera
              is small enoght to keep with your, and the image stab is really
              nice and give you an advantage over optically nice but older
              non-IS lenses ... BUT imagine never shooting blew f/8. Come on.
              The inabilty to chop DoF is a big lose. Maybe you can debate
              the benefits og 2.8 -> 1.4, but even the supposedly "fast"
              S90 or LX3 ... dont really give you a much shallower DoF.
              Also, I dont think this dood's G11 sample are that good ...
              I take pix that are as good with my G10 and I dont think I'm
              a pro worth listneing to.
              [BTW, I own and really like my G10 and have recommended it to
              others so not dissing the specific model or P&S in genreal.
              But when O was evaluating whether to buy a LX3 as a "portrait"/
              "fast indoor" camera i did the math to calculate the real DoF
              corrected for sensor size [just like you need the FOV multiplier,
              you have a DoF multipler], so f2 is not what you expect.]
              \- YOU FUCKING DIP SHIT, delet my post again and I'll
                 delete yours from now on.
              \_ You're an idiot for suggestion G10 over anything else without
                 making consideration of other things like over-megapixel (do
                 you seriously need 15 MP on a small sensor)? Also, when
                 you pack so much MP into a tiny sensor, you get lots of
                 noise at anything above 80 ISO thus the extra MPs you get
                 will have much higher noise. The G10 looks amazing under
                 the most ideal lighting situation and at 80 ISO. However,
                 most people normally shoot at all conditions (indoor,
                 night, etc), under less than ideal situation, and their
                 extra MP and extra disk space is wasted due to much lower
                 signal-to-noise ratio.
                   Secondly, you're an idiot for even trying to compare
                 the depth of field of a small compact to a SLR. Even if
                 if you have f/1.0 on a compact, the DoF is still higher
                 than an SLR at f/2.0. It's the same reason why DoF on
                 SLR will *NEVER* reach the DoF of a medium format on
                 an equivalent focal length.
                   The G11 is a great camera because Canon finally learned
                 that people are demanding less noise and a better well
                 rounded camera, than a G10 that only looks good in
                 ideal situation. The G10 is an awful awful camera that
                 a lot of pros (that want compacts) didn't want to get.
                 Overall, your response shows that you're an idiot.
                 SUCK MY BALLS.
        \_ I was debating between a G11 and a LX3. On the other hand, I think
           I will just wait now that I'm not working. The new D3x with
           oven 100,000 ISO is simply amazing.

9/15    "The $150 Space Camera: MIT Students Beat NASA On Beer-Money Budget"
        http://www.csua.org/u/p2i (http://www.wired.com
        I just hope that copycats won't pop up everywhere and cause airline
        crashes.
        \_ How did they beat NASA?  This is cool, but comparing it to
           NASA is just stupid.
        \_ Perhaps you'd like to calculate the odds of releasing a
           balloon and having it hit an airliner at 35,000 feet.  -tom
           \_ Bird strikes don't occur at 35,000 feet.
              \_ Yes, and?
                 \_ The balloon needs to travel through all the low altitudes
                    before it can reach a high altitude.
                    \_ Yes, and?
           \_ The odds are probably astronomically small if you don't release
              it in like... LA.  Its the same deal with the f-load of
              satelites in orbit that almost never hit eachother.  I can
              accept 1 plane down for every 100,000 weather balloons or
              something like that.  Probably much less likely than that anyway.
              -mrauser
              \_ In VFR condition, you'll see the balloon clearly before crashing
                 into it. In IFR condition which is above 12,000 feet, the
                 tower will see it waaaaay before anyone else does and
                 will usually compensatae for rerouting. I agree that
                 there is a risk, and that by law, any vehicle operating
                 in IFR must carry at least a transponder mode C. Read
                 your FAR 2009.
              \_ Planes crash into each other at takeoff and landing
                 because that's where they are all clumped together.
                 Much rarer are planes crashing into each other midflight
                 but even then it's only because they are restricted to
                 fairly narrow flight lanes.
              \_ A weather balloon would almost certainly not take down
                 a plane, anyway, but 1 in 100K is way too low, even in LA.
                 "His pattern shows...two dimensional thinking."  -tom
                 \_ It's a weather balloon plus a camera and a beer cooler.

9/8     Leica M9: $6,995 msp ships September, will not need uv-ir, will use
        regular m8 accessories.
        Leica X1: $1,995 msp ships January. The Leica X1 is AF, has VR, 12mp
        cmos sensor and comes with optional viewfinder, ever ready case, grip etc.
        \_ A tour of the Leica M9 factory. German engineering is THE BEST!!!
           Oh my, I WANT ONE:
           http://www.luminous-landscape.com/videos/m9-video.shtml