Home → Archives → by month → October 2004
Switching to del.icio.us
After a long while, the Quick Links are back, reincarnated as a del.icio.us feed:
del.icio.us/haikohebig →
del.icio.us/rss/haikohebig RSS feed →
A basic collection of del.icio.us related resources including its REST API, XML-RPC blog posting mechanism, Mozilla-to-del.icio.us and del.icio.us-to-Mozilla integrations, XHTML conversion and more:
del.icio.us/haikohebig/del.icio.us →
Why del.icio.us?
So, why no longer hand-rolled QuickLinks? Why don't do all the publishing on your own server? Let's have a look at the drawbacks first:
- No more hand compiled collections by topic with multiple links as del.icio.us allows just one link per item.
- No attribution as there is no "via"-field. No attribution = no back link = no good.
- No means to arrange similar tags into groups.
And now at its merits:
- Power through simplicity: super-simple, super-robust, easier than keeping bookmarks / atomized content in a blogging system could ever be
- Dead simple posting via a RESTful API and dead simple data retrieval via the API or RSS feeds (even though the API works on your own bookmarks only)
- Keyword system ("drop the taxonomies")
- Collaborative effort: the group-mind always knows more than the I-mind
If it is so powerful, why limit it to posting QuickLinks? No need to do so. Instead, let's think of using it for all four groups of bookmarks I have:
- QuickLinks, carefully crafted links collections for your enjoyment
- URLs inbox of unread, but potentially interesting items. First attach "toread" or "totryout" tags, then after checking drop the item or use it further
- URLs collected for a specific blog entry, wiki page, research theme or project
- URLs collected for reference use
So let's see how we can handle the drawbacks:
- QuickLinks: attach a "quicklinks" tag, post into single blog entries at intervals, voila
- Attribution: use special "via:"-tags as a "via"-field substitute, leave away the http:// part of the domain name, have the via-links converted into backlinks when retrieving links via the API and publishing them as XHTML (on the blog). Example: If I bookmark something on Papa Scott's weblog, "via:papascott.de" would be the via-tag.
- Cloud forming: no instant solution, room for development
How will the weblog integration look like?
Both retrieving XML via the API and transforming it with XSLT or the Magpie RSS Parser and the XML-RPC route look promising. As an ad hoc solution, I could use Feedburner to merge the blog and bookmark RSS feeds into a single feed.
Further steps?
Extending the API use beyond bookmarking, building visualization tools, building keyword handling, editing and grouping tools, building more nifty interfaces might be further steps. So are gluing together thematically related blog entries, wiki pages and bookmark collections (finally a solution to that!) or applying the tags architecture to entirely different applications like a photo collection (hint hint) or this weblog (there is already a hack that replaces Movable Type's category system with del.icio.us tags). Generally, tagging discipline will be an important subject as it is a cornerstone for building powerful queries.
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One for the Day: Coke Dry Quenching Plant
Click each to enlarge
FACILITY: Coke Dry Quenching Plant
Location: Hansa Coke Plant, Dortmund, Germany
Current status: Closed down, prepared for teardown
Former use: Experimental plant, later large-scale implementation at nearby Kaiserstuhl III Coke Plant, Dortmund, Germany
LEFT: View from the North, August 2004, Canon S40
RIGHT: View from the South, September 2004, Canon G1. Notice the extremely favourable lighting conditions - a much better photo than "View from the North" with its heavy shadows. In terms of technical documentation, "View from the North" is more important though: it reveals far better the core elements and the working principle of such a plant.
WHAT'S COKE DRY QUENCHING (CDQ)? "The red-hot coke is cooled by inert gases, instead of conventional water quenching. It not only effectively utilises the thermal energy of red-hot coke (80% of the sensible heat of coke can be recovered and made use of for production of steam) but also results in improvement of the coke quality"
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Posted in category Endangered Machinery
Pat Buchanan's The American Conservative against Bush
"Bush has behaved like a caricature of what a right-wing president is supposed to be, and his continuation in office will discredit any sort of conservatism for generations. [...] George W. Bush has come to embody a politics that is antithetical to almost any kind of thoughtful conservatism [...] and those issues are enough to render him unworthy of any conservative support."
The American Conservative magazine: Kerry's the One >
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And now let's learn how to write a httpd.conf
waz.de during noon today. Westdeutsche Allgemeine Zeitung or WAZ is one of Europe's largest newspapers. Fixed in the meanwhile.
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The Driest Voice
Reports Ben Hammersley from Afghanistan:
"One morning late in the week I had to get up really early in the morning, so I set the alarm on my shortwave radio to wake me with the BBC World Service. [...] Squeeeeeeeee Squeeeeee The radio goes mental - it’s like rubbing sheep with cheesegraters. Like a thousand nails on a blackboard. London is screaming. What the hell is that? Sabotage? The effects of an EMP pulse? Major power spiking at Bush House? They’re all dead! What’s going on? Then….a voice… '…I’ve always been partial to a bit of German techno…' John Peel. That Bastard."
No more. John Peel has died at the age of 65.
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Fatter pipe
Looks like T-Com has stepped up my DSL account from 768 to 1000 kpbs. Nice.
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One for the day
Lick to enlarge
LOCATION: Heaven and Hell
Facility: Subway tunnel
Current status: Not yet in service
Photo taken: October 2004
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Posted in category Endangered Machinery
Mal wieder von Zwölf bis Mittag gedacht
Aus der losen Reihe "Spiel und Spaß mit Online-Buchungen" heute: Wir kaufen uns eine Kinokarte. Ich sitze hier in der Universitäts-Bibliothek und wir haben uns überlegt, nachher ins Kino zu gehen. 23 Uhr, Bourne II, Cinestar in der Innenstadt. Ich halte vom Cinestar zwar ziemlich wenig, aber man hat die wenigste Fahrerei, also heute mal dorthin. Cinestar.de - Dortmund - Reservierung/Kauf - und dann?
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Mail tailback
Thanks for all your recent messages to my hebig.org and gmail.com addresses. If you have not received an answer yet, it is due to a tailback I am currently working on, so expect your reply soon.
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100 Years of Illustration and Design
This one is for you, Mr Zeigermann: 100 Years of Illustration and Design, Paul Giambarba's blog dedicated to his mentor Harold Irving Smith.
[Via Hicksdesign]
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Fotoserie: OPEL-Proteste
Klick = ganze Serie
Der sechste Tag des mittlerweile beendeten wilden Streiks bei OPEL in Bochum und die Großkundgebung der IG Metall in 74 Fotos:
Fotoserie: OPEL-Proteste in Bochum >
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Bochum - ein Stimmungsbericht
Bochum, heute Mittag, Platz vor dem Schauspielhaus, Kundgebung der IG Metall. Ein Stimmungsbericht.
Es ist voll, aber nicht sehr voll. Der Platz mit angrenzender Kreuzung könnte locker doppelt so viele Leute fassen, aber die größte politische Kundgebung der letzten Jahrzehnte wird es auch so sein. Es ist ziemlich ruhig. Blanke Wut sieht anders aus. Stattdessen geduldiges Zuhören, sachliche Diskussionen zwischen den Teilnehmern überall, keine Zwischenrufe. Aber tosender Beifall als der Vertreter der spanischen Metallgewerkschaft aus Bochums Partnerstadt Oviedo spricht: solidaridad en la lucha de nuestros companeros y companeras. Er könne es noch gar nicht fassen, daß hier auch Klerikale sprächen und gehört würden - in Spanien sei die Stimme der Kirche halt nach wie vor Stimme der Obrigkeit.
Buhrufe, als einer eben dieser kirchlichen Vertreter dazu aufruft, die Arbeit wieder aufzunehmen. Wütendes Geschrei immer und nur dann, wenn die Namen der ehemaligen Vorstandschefs und Chefentwickler fallen, die die Kiste seinerzeit in den Dreck gefahren haben. Jeder hier möchte gerne Autos bauen, gute Autos, die man gerne kauft, und einfach nicht mehr unter unsäglichem Management leiden müssen. Sagen auch die Sprecher von Volkswagen und Ford und die Porsche- und Mercedes-Delegationen. BMW sagt nichts, als einziger deutscher Autobauer, bloß die BMW Motorradwerke schickten eine Solidaritätserklärung.
Parteien und Gewerkschaften halten sich auffällig bedeckt: eine SPD-Fahne hier, ein CDU-Banner dort, keine Grünen weit und breit, dafür reichlich DKP, Marxisten und noch weltfremder. Nur ein kleiner Stand der IG Bergbau und Chemie, keine IG Metall, kein ver.di. Was haben sie auch anzubieten derzeit. Es wehen mehr selbstgemalte Plakate und Transparente, mein Papa braucht Arbeit, nehmt unseren Männern nicht die Arbeit, ThyssenKrupp zeigt sich solidarisch, Bochumer Eisenhütte zeigt sich solidarisch, die Bochumer Kindergärten zeigen sich solidarisch, als die der Parteien und Verbände.
Man spürt, daß die Wirtschaft der Stadt vor ihrem zweiten Genickbruch nach dem Zweiten Weltkrieg steht und daß alle verlieren werden, die Firma auch, und daß man kaum etwas dagegen tun kann. "Damit ist die Veranstaltung beendet. Wir marschieren nun zurück zu Tor 4 Werk I, dort stehen dann Busse bereit. Bitte geht geschlossen und ordentlich."
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More Phoenix
Thank God it's Friday, so let's continue our tour of the Hoesch Phoenix blast furnaces plant with three photos in a row. Yesterday we've seen stripped Blast Furnace 6 with its naked core. This is a very rare view, so let me show you neighbouring Blast Furnace 5 from a similar perspective. Here, nothing has been removed. An operating blast furnace essentialy looks the same:
BLAST FURNACE 5
Lick to enlarge
Now let's put things into perspective. Do you recognize above detail in this shot?
INCLINED ELEVATOR AND WINCH ROOM, BLAST FURNACE 5
Lick to enlarge
Actually, the elevator is much longer, as to the right, it reaches several meters below ground level underneath the burden bunkers which you can't see on this photo. Obviously, I had to fight with a backlight situation, but except of returning in the early morning, there is nothing one can do about it.
To finish this part of our tour, enjoy the colors and grasps the dimensions of this city of industry:
PERSONNEL ELEVATOR, BLAST FURNACE 6
Lick to enlarge
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Posted in category Endangered Machinery
Kitsch
Klick = Ansicht in groß
Weiter im A bis Z der Photographie:
K wie Kitsch oder Kitschphotos. Thronanwärter: Industrie bei Nacht ohne weitere Bildgestaltung, wie beispielsweise diese Chemiebude in Lünen. Geht meist mit Kitschfarben einher und geht wenn überhaupt nur dann, wenn gar nichts anderes geht. Gut geeignet indes um bei ansonsten wenig industrieaffinem Publikum Ohs, Ahs und andere Begeisterungsrufe auszulösen. Standardspruch: "Industrie kann ja doch schön sein."
Und wie kriegt man Zeichnung in die beleuchteten Bereiche, ohne daß die dunklen Bereiche völlig untergehen? Am Computer. Mehrere verschieden lange Belichtungen mit ansonsten gleichbleibenden Einstellungen (hier 60s + 15s + 2,5s bei F5,6, 50mm, ISO 50) werden elektronisch per leicht Gaußsch weichgezeichneten Ebenenmasken kombiniert. Kann in einigen Fällen sparsam eingesetzt auch bei richtigen Fotos sinnvoll sein, um starken Lichteinfall zu zügeln.
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:: in category Das A bis Z der Photographie
One for the day
Lick to enlarge
FACILITY: Blast Furnace 6
Plant: Hoesch Phoenix blast furnaces plant
Location: Dortmund, Germany
Photo taken: October 2004
Camera used: Olympus C-8080
Changes since: Unchanged
Note: You see a blast furnace stripped down to its core, the smelting chamber with its water cooling shell
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Posted in category Endangered Machinery
One for the day
Lick to enlarge
FACILITY: Cowper or recuperator
Plant: Hoesch Phoenix blast furnaces plant
Location: Dortmund, Germany
Photo taken: October 2004
Camera used: Olympus C-8080
Changes since: Unchanged
RELATED ON THIS BLOG
2004-06-04: Cowper group
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Posted in category Endangered Machinery
One for the day
Lick to enlarge
FACILITY: Cooling tower
Plant: Kraftwerk Rauxel, Kraftwerksgruppe West 2 (Rauxel electrical power plant)
Company: e.on Kraftwerke
Location: Castrop-Rauxel, Germany
Status: Unclear, either in cold backup mode or permanently closed down
Photo taken: September 2004
Changes since: None
Camera: Canon G1
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Posted in category Endangered Machinery
What's the Frequency, George?
The notion that George W. Bush is just the useful puppet of a few willing men could actually be right: even in a TV debate, others could do the thinking for him if he wore an audio receiver. Wireless help or not: Register to vote, even if you are overseas, and say no.
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Happy Birthday
Nach persönlicher Terminverifizierung nun auch noch auf diesem Wege: Herzlichen Glückwunsch, Lyssa!
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First C-8080 Tests
Mainly for reference use, here some first Olympus C-8080 test shots. Early results look promising, now it is time to get a grip on exposure and white balance characteristics and processing parameters.
MÖLLERBRÜCKE METRO STATION, DORTMUND
Lick to enlarge
Settings: 3.0 s, F 5.6 (manual settings), spot autofocus, 140 mm, ISO 100, manual white balance, noise reduction off, internal sharpening etc. all neutral/off
Processing: original cropping, no digital processing except of incremental size reduction (-200px width per step) plus one sharpening after the 3rd step. OK result. There is a 15 stops red/blue shift slider that is extremely useful for manual white balance setting.
KLÖCKNERWERKE METAL PLATE
Lick to enlarge
Object: Metal plate, Hoesch Phoenix mill, Dortmund, original width 9 cm
Environment: darkness, no available light, no light sources
Settings: 1/125 s, F 3.5, internal flash (automatic exposure), macro autofocus, 125 mm, ISO 50, automatic white balance, noise reduction off, internal sharpening etc. all neutral/off
Processing: no digital processing except of incremental size reduction (-200px width per step), no sharpening. For given conditions, very OK result.
HOESCH MESSER AIR FRACTIONATION PLANT
Lick to enlarge
Settings: 1/30 s, F 3.5, spot metering (automatic exposure), spot autofocus, 107 mm, ISO 50, manual white balance, noise reduction off, internal sharpening etc. all neutral/off
Processing: black and white transformation, perspective correction, gradation curve correction, sharpening and incremental size reduction (-200px width per step). OK result. Processing parameters used for Canon S40/G1 shots are a good starting point for finding out which work best with C-8080 shots.
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Trigger Happy again
My new camera just has arrived. After working with Nikon and Mamiya film SLRs and Canon brick-type digital cameras, the Olympus C-8080 is of the fourth make and third camera type I use. Online ordering from cyberport.de has been a breeze, its body feels rock solid and my first impression is even better than anticipated. Now this will be a trigger happy weekend.
Imaging-resource.com review >
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Feuertaufe 04
Öffentlichkeitsarbeit, wie man sie von einem deutschen Stahlkonzern nicht erwarten würde: der österreichische Technologieführer Voest Alpine stellt derzeit im Rahmen des zwei Milliarden Euro fassenden Investitionsprogramms Linz 2010 seinen Hochofen A neu zu und dokumentiert die Ereignisse detailiert in einem Bautagebuch auf einer eigens dazu angelegten Website, in der auch die Phasen des Vorhabens allgemeinverständlich und zeitgemäß visualisiert erläutert werden. Die regionalen OÖ Oberösterreichischen Nachrichten berichten ausführlich im Rahmen einer Medienpartnerschaft.
Im Rahmen des 105 Tage dauernden Neubaus wird der alte Ofen bis auf das Außengestell abgetragen und in dem dann ein neuer Ofen mit größerem Gestelldurchmesser errichtet. Neben dieser Kapazitätserhöhung werden Leitwarte, Gebläsehalle, Gichtgasrückführung und Filter erneuert. Nach Anblasen wird der neue Ofen auf einer 15 Jahre dauernden Ofenreise gehen, um dann 2019 neu feuerfest ausgemauert zu werden (Neuzustellung).
Voest Alpine Feuertaufe 04: Bautagebuch >
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90 Jahre Stahlerzeugung in der Stadt Brandenburg
Fernab größerer öffentlicher Aufmerksam feierte die Stadt Brandenburg bereits am 24. September 90 Jahre Stahlerzeugung. Heute gehören die Stahlwerke Brandenburg und Stahlwerke Henningsdorf der italienischen Riva-Gruppe, einem Familienbetrieb, der nach der Wende die Betriebe kaufte, veraltete Teile wie das Siemens-Martin-Stahlwerk und die Stahlgießerei schloss, das erst Ende der 1970iger Jahre gebaute Elektrostahlwerk modernisierte, fast eine Milliarde Mark und damit fast zehnfach so viel wie die öffentliche Hand investierte und die Anlagen nun mit etwa 1,4 Millionen Tonnen Jahresproduktion profitabel betreibt. In der frühen Werksgeschichte auftauchende Namen wie AEG, Lauchhammer und Friedrich Flick zeugen von prominenter Provenienz der Unternehmung. Die Märkische Allgemeine hat ein Interview mit Riva-Geschäftsführer Hans-Hinrich Muus:
Jahrelang waren wir nur ein Steuerzahler >
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Vote for Change
The Vote for Change tour featuring Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band, Pearl Jam, R.E.M., Dave Matthews Band, John Mellencamp, Jackson Browne, Bonnie Raitt and many others will see its final this Friday, so let's recall what the artists have to say:
Bruce Springsteen's Rolling Stone interview: We've Been Misled >
"From Bruce Springsteen to Jadakiss, artists speak out about John Kerry, George Bush and what's at stake on Election Day": Voices for Change >
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Meine erste Platte
Bei einigen deutschsprachigen Blogs (siehe Links am Artikelende) scheint eine Diaryblogging-Welle ausgebrochen zu sein. Würde ich da mitmachen, stünde hier folgendes:
Erste selbstgekaufte Vinyl-Single
Klaus Lage - Faust auf Faust
Erste selbstgekaufte LP (verdrängt)
Europe - The Final Countdown
Erste selbstgekaufte LP
Judas Priest - Priest ... live! - als CD erst gestern noch in Auszügen wieder gehört und auch hier im Blog schon erwähnt. Immer noch unglaublich gut.
Erste selbstgekaufte CD
The Rolling Stones - Steel Wheels - sorgfältig mit "CD 001" beschriftet, enttäuscht in den Schrank gestellt, nach einigen Jahren wiederentdeckt und noch heute begeistert davon.
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Useless knowledge
Skip if you are not interested in self-reflective blather.
In the city I live in alone, smelters of a combined size into which entire small cities would fit have been torn down recently. The same in other cities. Most relevant closed-down plants of the coal, coke, iron and steel industries have been torn down already, and the few remaining parts will be gone within the next few weeks. Then, nothing will be left beside a small number of museums that cannot represent what has been lost or don't even cover important processes like oxygen steelmaking at all. So I've learned how to photograph such closed down plants and mills, and now that I know how to do, none are left, the race is over. In the past, closed down plants used to be left alone for years. Now, scrap metal prices are up, and not a single ton of steel gets left behind. It is not that there is nothing left to do for an industrial photographer. It is just that a very unique episode in regional history has come to an end. Let's assume it's normal for anyone doing a somewhat creative job to doubt one's own work at certain points. I might have reached such a point now. It is a good thing as in the end, it will lead to even better photographic results.
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The Soros Blog
The Soros Blog is where Mr Soros answers your e-mail questions on the administration, the election and the war.
Thoughts on the Iraq war and the current administration by George Soros >
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Evaluating camera makers websites
When selecting a new camera like I am currently doing, there is hardly a second thing beside the product itself that tells so much about a specific make than its website. Time to do a little evaluation. Criteria include:
- How easily can a specific camera of known type be found?
- What level of detail do the camera and accessories descriptions offer? Does the information come broken down into sections or does it merely read like a press release?
- Are there manuals, brochures, drivers, sample shots available for download?
- Is there a support section, a knowledge base and details on how to get real world support?
- Does the website appeal to me? What is the general impression?
OK, so here are the contenders and their results:
- Sony.de - clean, detailed and - once you've found the camera, which requires to parse some marketingspeak - well organized, but not appealing to me personally.
- Minolta.de - choose between flash brochureware and two pages per camera plaintext brochureware. Silly.
- Nikon.de - Full Flash, popup hell, packed main menu, camera descriptions less than brochureware: respective paper brochures offer more description and technical data than the website does. But: extensive knowledge base, much more detailed than on any other site tested.
- Canon.de - small support area, some manuals just as EXE files that selfextract HTML files, very simple driver download area, target=_blank hell, single products feel a bit lost in the vast range of products offered. Powershot.de as a community website for Powershot products.
- Olympus.de - well structured, appealing presentation with very detailed camera specifications and detailed product views from all sides, links to brochures and manual downloads clearly visible (no search required), detailed accessories descriptions, good support area including a toll free phone number and product registration, unobstrusive, decent style that gives ample space to each product.
I like the Olympus site. KonicaMinolta really should think about if their site is suited to make someone fork out a grand or more.
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Which new cameras to watch
Several new cameras have been introduced to the market, including the Canon 20D (marketing driven), the Konica Minolta Maxxum 7D (a 300D/D70 class DSLR that looks promising), the Nikon D2X (marking Nikon's migration from CCD to CMOS sensors, possibly a strategic decision) and the Leica Digital Modul R, a digital back for the R8 and R9 (for the Gentleman Photographer). But which one really to watch?
A, the Mamiya ZD digital medium format camera working with Mamiya 645AF interchangeable lenses. This is not only the first time that a MF camera maker comes up with a completely digital model, but also the first time that €10k buy an entire MF camera with digital back (sans lenses). Read: three years from now, digital medium format photography will be affordable for the non-pro.
B, the Fujifilm S3 Pro. Fujifilm DSRLs are the "silent third" beside Nikon and Canon cameras, and both the S1 and S2 turned out to be excellent solutions in a number of situations. Now, we finally see the full integration of camera and digitizing parts - and a new sensor that is said to offer "almost two stops more dynamic range than conventional CCD." For this, Fuji employs two photodiodes of different size and sensitivity per pixel: a smaller diode of lower sensitivity captures details above the saturation point of the much larger high sensitivity diode, the camera then combines both information and thus extends the sensor dynamic range nearly to that of a negative film. €2.5k list price, €2.0k street price, calculate at least the same amount for lenses of appropriate quality.
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A Pictorial History of Nikon Cameras
A Pictorial History of Nikon Cameras is the incredibly comprehensive work of Michael Liu that takes you on an insanely detailed ride through the world of Nikon's F-series SLR cameras. Its navigation can be confusing, but so can be the amount of information on the site.
What might strike you as odd is what unbelievably complicated and unbelievably expensive, yet technically brilliant solutions have been found for things that seem to be a mere question of software today - and for things that still are surprising or even unachieved by today's standards: F2 Data Cameras to superimpose handwritten data on a photo, F2 High Speed and F3 High Speed motor winders for 13 exposures per second, bulk film backs for 250 or 750 exposures, the Speed Magny Large-Format Attachment Back for exposing large format films, F2 Photomic viewfinders and the EE Aperture Control Units that employs an external motor to rotate the aperture ring of mechanical lenses, thus adding shutter priority and program modes to non-computer models like the F2.
This all adds to the complexity of system cameras which are complex yet per se. With a modular body design with interchangeable prisms and viewfinders, focusing screens, film and data backs, motor winders and power sources and a wide array of accessories like remote controls and intervalometers, film SLR would beat current DSLR cameras hands down when it comes to customization.
A Pictorial History of Nikon Cameras >
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Dilbert for folk with non-shitty jobs
That's how Doc Searls describes Hugh Macleod's excellent gapingvoid.
Related: Don't miss The Hughtrain and How to be creative.
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The better photography
Mulholland Drive. The English Patient. Don't look now (Wenn die Gondeln Trauer tragen). Polanski's Knife in the Water. Requiem for a Dream. These are just some of the movies I've seen recently. Each one for itself forms an virtually unlimited reservoir of shots that would make priceless, fantastic photos. Sometimes I think cinematography is the better photography.
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Deceptions Leading to War
The New York Times: How the White House Embraced Disputed Arms Intelligence >
Dan Gillmor on the article: "This lengthy article [...] persuasively describes that the Bush administration's blatant misuse of intelligence information about Iraq's military capabilities - information the Bush people knew to be false or very, very much in doubt - to push the case for war in Iraq. The story is complicated, but the bottom line is an indictment of the most powerful people who work for the president, if not Bush himself."
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3. Oktober
"Es wäre ein neuer schwerer Fehler, sich damit abzufinden, dass die aktivsten Bürger im Osten ihre Zukunft im Westen suchen müssen - diejenigen aber eine Perspektive vom Leben im Osten haben, die sich den Rechtsradikalen und ihren Netzwerken anvertrauen."
Wir und die Einheit - Kommentar der SZ zum 3. Oktober >
UND ALLE JAHRE WIEDER AUS DEM ARCHIV
03.10.2002 Weil Wahlkampf war
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MoOM exhibit
"A single industry. A single year. A single medium of communication. Specificity is a major factor in evaluating a collection for inclusion in the MoOM. Maybe nobody does ads for smelters anymore, at least ads that appear in places where we'll run across them, but in retrospect, the beautiful confidence of the layouts and the strength of the headlines and typography seems elegaic somehow and seeing them all together somehow foretells the fast-approaching end of an era."
Jim Coudal on the inclusion of my vintage prints and ads collection into the Museum of Online Museums - thanks Jim!
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Canon G1
Click to enlarge
FACILITY: Ammonia factory
Plant: Hansa coke plant
Location: Dortmund, Germany
Photo taken: September 2004
Current status: unchanged
While my Canon S40 is broken (again, more on that later) and I haven't decided on what camera to buy next (more on that later, too), I am using a Canon G1 for the time being. If you want to start photography, this camera and its successors G2 and G3 are excellent choices, even though the G1 is a four years old model. It has a very fast lens, smooth zoom, spot meter, a fully rotable TFT, very clean screen overlays, unobtrusive menus, fully manual exposure control with very fine shutter and aperture steps, an infrared remote control and a flash hot shoe. What's much more important, image quality in terms of general impression, contrasts, colors, sharpness and, on longer exposures, noise is convincing. Color neutrality in manual white balance mode amazes me again and again (see example above).
Given that the G1 sells at eBay around 150...180 €, I wouldn't know what to recommend else with a similarly low financial threshold (expect you simply want to do snapshots). 50...80 € more buy you the G2 with selectable focus areas, evaluative metering, reduced chromatic aberrations, 15 instead of 8 seconds max exposure time and a histogram in replay mode (with the G1, experience has to tell you which contrast levels work and which won't). If you wan't to fork out even more money and get the G3, you have reached near-SLR level in photo quality. Don't go for the G5, as similar to the S50, its lens and sensor don't play together very well.
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