This summer heat wave has beaten all the previous temperature records since the beginning of weather monitoring.
I’ll just put it here. To try to warm myself during the long and cold winter’s nights.
2010 Summer Heat Wave
July 29, 2010 by vkiPhone 3GS camera
July 29, 2010 by vk
I have had a bad impression about mobile phones photography capabilities since the 2005 when the first so-called camera phones have started to emerge. The low-res, blurry, with a shifted and terrible wrong colors images that was coming out of the tiny greasy holes on the back of the mobile phones were the mockery of the sole idea of the digital photography.
Now, with the mobile camera modules like the one in the Apple iPhone 3GS, I must admit that the mobile photography at least as much acceptable as a lomography. Though, it’s still a pain to look at such photos without a postprocessing on a bigger computer. May be the future smartphones with high-res displays and the gigahertz of CPU and GPU power like in modern iPhone 4 will allow to postprocess photos on the go. It’s a software problem, after all.
+37 Celsius
July 24, 2010 by vk
Samyang Lenses For Samsung NX System
June 28, 2010 by vk
When it comes to the large (comparatively) sensor entry level cameras they are all pretty much the same in terms of image quality if you’ll take to judge the camera bodies only. It is “the system”, the lenses, what make the difference.
And when it comes to the EVIL cameras we have three systems to choose from: Micro 4/3, Samsung NX and Sony NEX. Micro 4/3 is teh oldest one and despite of that fact it has the system not so rich – just the two major manufacturers: Olympus itself and Panasonic. Sony NEX is the youngest among three and has nothing but the three lenses it has announsed with the first NEX camera bodies.
Till now Samsung was all alone with their NX system. But the barely known Korean optics manufacturer Samyang has brought Samsung’s system to the whole new level with today’s announcement. From now on Samsung NX system has three not expensive fixed lenses including fish-eye, ultrawide 14mm (21mm, considering crop-factor) and the 85mm f/1.4 portrait prime.
Facebook Ethnicity Data
June 22, 2010 by vkFacebook ethnicity and geography data reveals one interesting picture. Take a look at the spread of black and asian facebook users:
The areas most densely populated by asian and black facebook users (and all asian and black people in general since this data is practically the same as one from the US census) are pretty similar to what it was before – fifty years ago, a century ago.
What does it mean? People in general don’t like to change their areas of habitat. Even in America where almost everyone have a car, where all the country is densely stitched with superhighways and there are no legal restrictions to move anywhere, even in America people tend to live where their parents an parents’ grandparents lived.
Blizzard’s Billing Scum
June 17, 2010 by vkBlizzard stole my $14.99. :( Again. :(
I believe they are deliberately doesn’t fixing their billing to grab some bucks from those customers who’ve been ripped off and decided not to fight with the ultimately unresponsive Blizzard billing and sales support desk over it.
As far as I know, two out of three World of Warcraft players have been ripped off by Blizzard at least once. Normally, the minimum transaction is a one month fee – $14.99 or, let’s just say it honestly, $15. 80/20 law says that there are only 20% of people would fight over their fifteen bucks. So, a let me do a little math for you:
(10'000'000 users / 3) * 2 = 6'666'666
(6'666'666 / 10 ) * 8 = 5'333'333
5'333'333 * $15 = $79'999'995
…and we will get the whopping eighty million dollars. That’s how much Blizzard done on their buggy billing system for the past several years. Not bad at all, I would say.
Why not?
June 8, 2010 by vk
Graffiti designed to interfere with you inner monologue.
