Category: arts and letters

DxO Optics Pro 3.5 announced

book cover: Bridge to Terabithia

DxO Optics Pro 3.5 from DxO (email)

In November, DxO just announced they will be releasing DxO Optics Pro 3.5.

Maybe a bit of history is in order.

DxO started with DxO Analyzer package used by magazines and websites in order to evaluate the quality of lenses and cameras. Taking some shots of specialized targets at specific distances and camera settings, reviewers to analyze quantitatively things camera design compromises such as image sharpness, ISO noise, vignetting, chromatic abberation, and spherical distortion.
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Posted on by tychay 9

My reading list…

book cover: Bridge to Terabithia

Bridge to Terabithia from HarperTrophy

In light of it being Banned Books Week, I went back to the ALA’s list of most challenged books in the last decade and I was surprised to see Bridge to Terabithia made the top 10. This book was first published in 1977 and was one of my favorite books growing up. A quick net search told me it was challenged (and banned) because of offensive language and satanism.

What a laugh!

The only thing satanic about this book is the number of reviews on Amazon. Since the “satanic worship” done in the book is a bunch of children play acting Narnia, one of the most pro-Christian fantasy pieces of all time, the irony is stunning.Continue reading →

Posted on by tychay 0

Corpse Bride

Last week, Bill, our resident Canon guy, mentioned that Tim Burton was working on a new stop-motion animated movie called Corpse Bride using Canon digital still cameras. The attention to detail and imagination in motion animation never ceases to amaze us.

Mark Jen sent me this article confirming the use of Canon digital still cameras and Nikon lenses.

Animator Peter Dodd sets up a shot with the Corpse Bride puppets. Photo courtesy of Warner Bros. Pictures.

Animator Peter Dodd sets up a shot with the Corpse Bride puppets, by Warner Bros. Pictures.

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Posted on by tychay 2

Building Liquid Websites with PHP

Okay because Apple upped my iDisk quotas, I’m putting up my OSCON talk there temporarily. Caitlin finished producing this talk last month, but I haven’t seen it because I can’t stand the sound of my own voice.

production Silver Keys Studio
video source HD and Keynote
size 104.8MB
run time 50 minutes, 32 seconds
format H.264 (Quicktime 7 required to play movie— free download)

You should: Right click-download this link or click on the image below.

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Posted on by tychay 21

The future of Nikon DX

Canon has an EF-S lens series, which is roughly like Nikon’s DX lenses except they won’t mount on their full-frame or film cameras.1

  1. EF-S 18-55mm f/3.5-5.6 USM
  2. EF-S 10-22mm f/3.5-4.5 USM
  3. EF-S 17-85MM f4-5.6 IS USM

For comparison, here is Nikon’s DX line:

  1. 12-24mm f/4G ED-IF AF-S DX Zoom-Nikkor
  2. 10.5mm f/2.8G ED AF DX Fisheye-Nikkor
  3. 17-55mm f/2.8G ED-IF AF-S DX Zoom-Nikkor
  4. 18-70mm f3.5-4.5G ED-IF AF-S DX Zoom Nikkor
  5. 18-55mm f/3.5-5.6G ED AF-S DX Zoom-Nikkor
  6. 55-200mm f/4-5.6G ED AF-S DX Zoom-Nikkor

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Posted on by tychay 12

Identity 2.0

Identity 2.0

Identity 2.0, uploaded by tychay.

Joseph mentioned that Dick Hardt has posted his excellent Identity 2.0 presentation he gave as OSCON.

This is a great presentation with a excellent use of Lawrence Lessig simplicity combined with some of the new text effects in Keynote to emphasize it.

It is very easy to get the repetition/refrain that Dick uses for effect using Keynote. You simply put all the slides in an outline under the first slide of the string. Then option-drag the slide to the points in the talk you need it.

If he had more time, he could have used to new auto-build feature of Keynote to transition the slides automatically. But then again, it was somewhat amusing to see him tap away.

Lots of great ideas worthy of theft. 🙂

I promise to post my talk soon. I need bandwidth. I’m not rich like Dick.

Posted on by tychay 1

Jon Stewart Emmy Speech

John Stewart has a puppy for the Democrats and a Kitten for the Republicans about Hurrican Katrina

John Stewart’s two things uploaded by tychay.

Dru pointed me to an excellent Jon Stewart presentation of an award at the Emmy’s.

It’s quintessential Daily Show. He definitely wouldn’t have gotten away with this on CBS two years ago.

Another interesting thing is to see that the liberal blog linked got the video from a right-wing blog. It’s amusing to note that the amount of peer pressue that accompanies the vitriol in these right wing blogs—Ad hominems have more weight than logic, and if you aren’t a hard to the right you are barraged with threats of excommunication.

I wonder what will happen now that it is no longer “in” to be an idiotic right winger? Looks like we’re getting as fed up with this as we were with Political Correctness.

(The quality of the video sucks shit because it is transcoded from Windows Media. Some people have no pride in their piracy.)

Posted on by tychay 2