Logic & Sanity

Shoddy reporting at NY Post

Let's play a game.

There's an article in the NY Post about a car accident on the Upper East side last night. Here's a paragraph:

The accident occurred at 5:24 a.m., as boozed-up Harzem Sendogan, 29, of Manhattan drove his BMW on East 84th Street toward First Avenue, according to police.

Ok, pretty straight forward. Now on to the photo.

STUNNED: A BMW passenger (above) reacts with shock after Harzem Sendogan smashed the car into a livery van on First Avenue yesterday. Photo: Seth Gottfried

Got that caption? Now on to another paragraph:

Sendogan, who lives on East 35th Street, was charged with driving under the influence, cops said. He had no passengers and was not injured.

Mmmm. I give up :(

Hazing in the Russian army

Anyone who've served in the russian army will tell you that the biggest problem, bad food and corruption aside, is hazing. Russian army is made up of conscripts who are called to serve right after finishing high school. Hazing is so bad that a huge chunk of them end up with permanent internal organ damage by the time they are done serving mother Russia. My father had enough street smarts to go through all that and come out in one piece. Came out an officer, was second in command of a battalion in the Soviet army by the time he was done, actually. But anyway, not everyone is so lucky.

The latest scandal has to do with private Andrei Sichov (pictured above). The soldiers from Andrew Sychev's unit celebrated the holidays by beating him for three hours straight. On January 4th, Andrei requested medical help from the army, but was refused. Soon after his conditioned worsened and he was admitted to the municipal hospital of Chelyabinsk.

Long story short, due to gangrene, Andrew Sychev ended up having several digits, both of his legs, and his sex organs amputated. His family is currently suing Russia's Department of Defense, and the authorities are investigating.

Panasonic FZ7

You are looking at my next camera. It's time to retire my Pentax 750z which became quite annoying to use due to medicore speed of operation and unreliable focus. Pentax' support is less then useless, which is another minus, but that's a whole other rant in itself. I'll just mention that I'll never buy another Pentax product again. Anyway, the Panasonic FZ7 was announced on monday and is a successor to the popular FZ5, which I was actually considering for a while.

If you are not familiar with the FZ5, it's a small ultra zoom camera (12x) with a bright (2.8 - 3.3), stabilized Leica lense. In a high speed mode, FZ5's focus is as fast as that of dSLR's (no joke!).

Here's what's new in FZ-7 vs. the FZ-5:

1. 1 more megapixel is squeezed into the same 1/2.5" sensor

I am not crazy about Panasonic cramming more pixels into a same size sensor since that's bound to end up in increased noise. Five megapixels is sufficient for 8 by 10's, specially in this camera since its telephoto reach will minimize the need to crop.

2. LCD went from 1.8" to 2.5"

Usually, when it comes to LCD size - bigger is better! Unfortunately the pixel count here is only 114,000 (vs 134,000 on my Pentax's 1.8"), so it could've been sharper. The display is not of a flip out and twist kind, so I'll miss that as well, but given all the other goodies I am willing to compromise.

3. Manual focus added

The FZ-7 has a joystick type control which is rather convenient to use when adjusting focus manually, based on the positive feedback of Panasonic LX-1's owners who have the same joystick-type control, anyway. Sounds good.

4. 848 x 480/640 x 480 movie mode

Nice to see Panasonic jumping on the 16:9 bandwagon, while keeping the old 4:3 format as well.

5. High sensitivity 800/1600 ISO

This has got to be a gimmick. There's no way they can pull off clean 800/1600 ISO images from a sensor this small. I'll be lucky if ISO 400 is decent. Panasonic does mention that the resolution size is significantly lower when using the high sensitivity mode, so obviously they are applying a heavy noise reduction scheme. The size should be good enough for a 4 by 6" print, they claim, and obvsiouly plenty for the web. We shall see how useful those photos will come out.

6. Shutter speed can be set to be as slow as 60 seconds (!) vs. only 8 seconds on the FZ-5.

As you see, the camera is pretty impressive. The FZ7 will be available in march and I am counting days already.........

When it rains it pours!

After having a bunch of PC's for ~14 years and no problems (just a few dead power supplies), I am being bombarded with all kinds of faulty hardware as of late. First my motherboard started acting up, so I had it replaced (...along with the cpu and a video card). Now my 250 gig drive died. That thing had all my photos and music! My attempt to recover data with the IDE to USB cable was unsuccesful. DAMN YOU SEAGATE! :(

On top of everything, I managed to bend the pins on the IDE2 connector on the motherboard. So now my DVDR is down. Crap, crap, crap! So now I have to, either, get an enclosure and run the burner via USB, or (more likely) just buy a new dual layer SATA drive. Mmm. All these excuses to upgrade.. Mmm.

TWU = Clueless

Transit workers reject the new contract! I hope they strike again! Seriously! I am not even joking. We got other options, like:

In Paris, the Meteor Project was launched in 1998, with an automatic piloting system that controls the train line’s traffic, regulates speed, manages alarm devices, and allows for traffic of automatic and traditional conductor trains on the same line.There have been no serious accidents reported since this system deployed in the late 1990s, and more than a billion people have been transported. Computers make the trains run on time and they don’t threaten to walk off the job.

A computer controlled train is already being tested on the L line! Another strike would just speed up the process and put them out of work. Those guys got it sooo good and they are bitching? All their last strike accomplished was pissing off the public and informed everybody of how good they got it. Another one would be suicide.

Kobe sea lions?

At a zoo in Lipetsk, south of Moscow, director Alexander Osipov said monkeys would be given wine three times a day "to protect against colds," the RIA-Novosti news agency reported, while Rossiya television said a circus sea lion was being treated for pneumonia with brandy body rubs.

Heh... Wine and brandy rubbed sea lions! Delicious! Lucky monkeys! :]

Blowback

The MTA pitted motorman versus machine on the L train early yesterday morning with the first tests of computer-controlled subways during real train service.

For now, the system is merely guiding the train operator who "is still fully in control of the train," NYC Transit spokesman Charles Seaton said.

The tests will continue all week from midnight until 5 a.m. on two trains between Rockaway Parkway and Broadway Junction in Brooklyn. "We are in the 21st century, it's time we had 21st-century technology," said Beverly Dolinsky, head of the NYC Transit Rider's Council

Amen! This is great news! The Transit Workers Union will whine up a storm, for sure, but who's going to sympathize with them now?

Chuck Norris news

From today's NY Post:

A Bronx teen has sued a Midtown karate school, claiming that as a novice student, he was wrongly paired with a highly skilled student-instructor, who kicked him in the face, breaking his jaw.

The student-instructor was probably Chuck Norris in disguise! Here are some of my favorite Chuck Norris "facts":

Chuck Norris' tears cure cancer. Too bad he has never cried.

President Bush DID have a sure fire plan to end the war in Iraq, However Chuck Norris was busy that day.

Chuck Norris has already been to Mars; that's why there are no signs of life there.

Chuck Norris built a time machine and went back in time to stop the JFK assassination. As Oswald shot, Chuck met all three bullets with his beard, deflecting them. JFK's head exploded out of sheer amazement.

Yea, I know these have been going around as of late, but how does one resist posting about Chuck Norris???

Jim Carrey on coffee

He says, "A lot of it has to do with living more healthily. I've eliminated wheat, dairy products and sugar from my diet because they make me less clear.

"I've also cut way back on caffeine, which I think is a major health problem, especially for children who are drinking too much soda pop and coffee.

"I have one coffee a day now rather than seven. The world is living in a coffee-induced hyper mode that is insane."

Definately something to think about. This might be two weeks late to be a new year's resolution, but anyway...

I drink 2 large (16 oz each) cups of coffee a day, so starting tuesday I'll be eliminating one of them. This will not be easy, as I usually do not get more then 5 hours a sleep a day, but maybe it will force me to change my lifestyle, as well.

Another thing is cutting back on the amount of red meat I consume. I'll try to get it down from 5 times a week, to 2. The upside is that, since I won't be decreasing my steak budget, I will be getting those $15.99/lb filet mignons from Stop n' Shop (certified angus!) every time! Mmmm.

Lastly, I should probably be cutting back on liquor, though I am not quite sure how I should go about structuring such a feat :)

Bye, bye film!

Here's more evidence, for you doubters, that film photography is on its way out:

Following the success of our digital line-up over the last seven years, which has resulted in more than 95% of Nikon’s UK business being within the digital area, Nikon Corporation has made the decision to focus management resources on digital cameras in place of film cameras. This decision will allow Nikon to continue to develop products that match the demands of an increasingly competitive market place.

Despite this growing competition Nikon Corporation has continued to outperform the market, and has recently reported positive financial results which saw group net profit climb by 20% in the fiscal first half which ended in September. Group sales also increased by 9.8% to 342.85 billion yen in the same period. Sales of high end digital SLR cameras and the success of products like the D70s and D50 have helped contribute to these positive figures.

As the film camera market shrinks and the popularity of compact digital cameras increases, demand for products that offer advanced features and extra value is continuing to grow. High performance digital SLR cameras are performing well as users shift from film-based SLR cameras or upgrade from compact digital cameras to digital SLR cameras.

As a result of the new strategy Nikon will discontinue production of all lenses for large format cameras and enlarging lenses with sales of these products ceasing as soon as they run out of stock. This also applies to most of our film camera bodies, interchangeable manual focus lenses and related accessories. Although Nikon anticipates that the products will still be in retail distribution up to Summer 2006.

Paying attention, Mike? :)