On January 18, 2010 I set off to drive from Michigan to Colorado. Along the way, when it was safe to do so, I snapped a few pictures.
Unfortunately, most of what I saw were trees. I-80 is kind of boring, and I had a lot of fog to contend with the first day. But the sunset I saw when I was getting into Colorado the second day was amazing.
Scenic pictures of Colorado, because I still think the mountains are awesome.
Santa Claus’ reindeer first appeared in an 1823 poem A Visit from St. Nicholas (a.k.a. The Night Before Christmas or ‘Twas The Night Before Christmas) by Clement Clark Moore. In it, they were named Dasher and Dancer, Prancer and Vixen, Comet and Cupid, and Dunder and Blixem.
Dunder and Blixem were never part of the poem I learned; they were chosen because they translate to Thunder and Lightning in Dutch. However, the poem was later adopted to use the German usages, Donner and Blitzen.
I happened to be in Mount Pleasant one Friday afternoon and this dual-rotor military helicopter flew overhead. I watched it start to circle, so I decided to try to find it. They’d landed in an open area near the towers and opened it up to let people walk through and take pictures. I thought it was awesome–especially how so much of the mechanics are exposed.
Thanks to Faulconer for identifying the helicopter for me.
First Wings game I’ve been to. Hopefully I’ll make it to more this year. I snapped a few random pictures.
I’ve had great experiences with Canon cameras over the years. I’m on my third consumer point-and-shoot so far (PowerShot A80, SD700IS, SD990IS), and in my immediate family we have four more. But as my experience with photography grows, so does my requirement for advanced features. My SD990 is great–it’s got a lot of modes that allow me a great deal of manual control. And they packed all that functionality into an amazingly small form factor.
But it’s still a compact consumer camera, and thus subject to some limitations. The sensor size amounts to 0.43 cm?. Comparatively, the sensor size of the entry-level DSLR Canon Digital Rebel XS is 3.28 cm?, or 7.6 times larger (source). So the DSLR is much more capable of high-ISO shots with low noise. For lenses, there are a wide array of quality options in the DSLR camp (albeit at exorbitant prices). My compact camera…not so much.
But the market is lacking a good transitional camera between compact and DSLR, in particular for those of us who’ve always been shooting digital. Quite simply, I want a compact-style body with a DSLR sensor and quality (but compact) interchangeable lenses. Olympus and Panasonic have finally recognized this market and released the Olympus E-P1 and Panasonic Lumix DMC-GF1, utilizing the Micro Four Thirds standard, but the market leaders–Canon and Nikon–have no comparable offerings.
Maybe the big guys are too stuck in their ways. You know, the big-grip SLR form factor…the moving pentamirror…etc. I don’t need all that.
I’m a solid-state guy, though. Moving parts tend to break, so I want as few of them as possible. So just give me enough components to perform the job I need with no unnecessary complication (okay, maybe a little unnecessary complication, if it’s particularly awesome). Basically, have the light come in and have a straight shot at the sensor. The sensor displays a live view on the LCD on the back, and when you take a picture records a full-quality shot on the card. Simple. None of this bending-light-around-corners, crazy-flipping-mirrors, or secondary-sensors.
Here’s an illustration from http://www.dpreview.com/previews/PanasonicGF1/ that shows how complicated the light path is in a traditional DSLR compared to the compact implementation that I’m picturing and Panasonic/Olympus have released.
So here’s my wish list:
I’d like to take a second to elaborate further on my LCD choice. One feature no one’s introduced yet are touchscreen capabilities on a camera. When the screen gets to be about 3.0″, you have enough real-estate to be able to implement this. It wouldn’t replace the buttons–most of them, anyway. But it would allow the ability to have context-specific options and a more fluid interface. For instance, some cameras now allow you to select a part of the frame to focus on. But I’m sure the method of doing so is cumbersome at best. With a touchscreen, you simply touch where you want your focus to be. Gesture support could also simplify many tasks. I think this feature will be coming before long; it may already be in the works.
So there’s my take on the current state of DSLR cameras and why I just can’t justify buying one yet. Panasonic’s DMC-GF1 is very close to what I’m looking for. If it were priced lower, had a less complicated flash, and in-body IS it would be arguably perfect. None of these are necessarily deal-breakers, though, either; I’m going to keep an eye on the GF1.
Canon has a big announcement planned for 9/29/2009, according to Canon Rumors, although there’s a good chance it has nothing to do with cameras. But I’m definitely hoping they’ll soon recognize this market and build me another great camera. (But Nikon, if you’re listening, here’s a great opportunity to break my Canon streak if you beat them to it.)
Huron County has installed a system of Vestas V82 1.65MW wind turbines. Since I like this sort of thing, Dad and I took a motorcycle ride up there to see them.
Apple just held this event (covered at Engadget). As someone who doesn’t drink Apple’s Kool-Aid, here’s my take.
Genius this and Genius that. Genius is a recommendation engine. Which makes it more of a marketing tool than Apple might admit. Genius mixes are like Pandora, last.fm or Slacker, except it only plays the music you own instead of introducing new stuff.Conclusion: Free and Open technologies have offered most of these things for years. I’m unimpressed.
Popular Mechanics wrote an article of the Most Dangerous Places To Live on the Planet. But I figured I could still take it one step further.
Got another suggestion? Comment!
(All images lovingly sourced from Wikimedia Commons.)
I thought I would take a few minutes to talk about some of the recent scientific/medical advances I’ve heard about lately and thought were cool. I hope these come to fruition.
MGAT2: The Fat Gene?
I read a story today about a scientists discovering a gene, MGAT2, that controls how mice process fat. Flipping this switch causes mice fed a high-fat diet to weigh 40% less and have 50% less fat than the “normal mice.” I would have liked a bit more detail on their experiments, such as if their normal mice were a real control group, and what the duration of the experiment was.
But if scientists are able to apply this to humans, it could help to adapt our bodies to more foods. Personally, I’m all for scientific advancement, but I also think we should eat responsibly. I just don’t want to see this become an excuse for people to gorge on Big Macs three times a day.
Eliminating tooth decay
This is one I remembered reading about years ago, but I haven’t heard of any further advancements, which disappoints me. Our mouths contain a host of bacteria, among which is Streptococcus mutans. This is a bacteria that feeds on sugars, excreting lactic acid, and is a primary cause of tooth decay. But by genetically engineering a strain of Streptococcus mutans that doesn’t secrete lactic acid, they were able to stop tooth decay in the test rats, even when fed a high sugar diet.
HIV blocked by Delta 32 mutation could lead to cure
There is a particular genetic mutation called Delta 32 (inherited from both parents) which blocks the CCR5 receptor on cells. This receptor is what enables HIV to enter and infect cells. By blocking the receptor, the subject becomes functionally immune to HIV and AIDS.
This has been demonstrated in humans already in Berlin. In an astoundingly unfortunate double-whammy, a man contracted both HIV and Leukemia. The man needed a bone marrow transplant, and in doing so, they deliberately chose a donor with the Delta 32 mutation. The effect of this was that the patient gained this resistance to HIV, and subsequent testing showed no signs of the virus.
Bacteriophages
Bacteriophages are a set of viruses whose targets are not humans, but bacteria. Therefore they pose little threat to us. The FDA does not, however, recognize them as legitimate ways of treating bacterial infections, though testing overseas has shown great promise. One particular example given in the Popular Science article (linked below) is combating flesh-eating bacteria, which is usually treatable only by cutting out the infected area and performing skin grafts to close the now even larger wound. Or by amputation.
In particular, the former Soviet republic of Georgia has made some of the most important advances in phage therapy. They’ve engineered thousands of strains that are adept at killing particular target bacteria. Using a sample of the infection from the patient, they can mix a cocktail addressing all of the bacteria in the infection, which is then dribbled over the wound painlessly. In a few days, healing begins. In a few weeks, a wound that would have otherwise required surgery and skin grafts, or even amputation, is healed.
The FDA needs to come to their senses and realize that for new scientific advances, we cannot simply deny the potential benefits because the treatment doesn’t follow the arbitrary rules we’ve set for testing. We need to be flexible, and adjust the rules so that these treatments at least have a chance to be tested and prove themselves.
