Mike Cohen

Links for 2008-09-04 through 2008-09-10

by

Links for 2008-09-04 through 2008-09-10:

  • Obama is RESTful » Idol Hands: Days in the Life of an Alpha Geek – The candidates’ platforms could not be more different: JohnMcCain(.com) relies on corporate backing for his web site, which runs on Microsoft Internet Information Server and uses ASP. Barack Obama, in contrast, relies on widespread contributions from the community, in the form of open-source web technologies (PHP and Apache).
  • Sarah Palin may have more in common with community organizers than she realizes – Pointing out the Hypocrisy of Palin's attacks.
  • DesktopCoreLocation – This is a clean-room implementation of Apple’s CoreLocation framework that is part of the iPhone SDK.
    It uses Apple’s own headers, which are installed when you install the iPhone SDK, as the interface, and implements all the functionality of CoreLocation in an embeddable framework.
  • Talking Points Memo | Mystery Solved! – A lot of people were asking tonight: what the hell was that mansion up behind John McCain tonight during the first part of the speech? As I noted below, the TV close-ups only showed McCain's head against the grass in the picture, which made it look like he was reprising his famed green screen performance. And when they panned out, it looked like McCain was showing off one of his mansions.
  • CocoaDev: Debugging Autorelease – Very useful tips for debugging memory allocation issues in Cocoa

Posted by Postilicious

D90 in low light

by

After using the D90 for a few days, I’m very impressed with it. Live view is a lot better than I expected and I really like having dedicated buttons for settings like white balance, quality, and ISO so I don’t have to keep going to the menu as I did on the D40x.

This evening I tried using it in low light and I found that it performs beautifully at high ISO settings. All of these pictures were taken when it was almost completely dark and without a tripod. I shot in JPEG and didn’t do any noise reduction or other processing.

Taken at ISO 1600, shows very little noise.

D90 @ ISO 1600

Taken at ISO 2000, shows some noticeable noise but still looks good.

D90 @ ISO 2000

Taken at ISO 4000, shows quite a bit of noise but doesn’t look too bad. Passable at smaller sizes.

D90 @ ISO 4000

Haiti

by

I’ve always found this song very haunting, but the devastation from the recent hurricanes in Haiti makes it even sadder. One way to help the people of Haiti is to support Partners In Health.

First look at the Nikon D90

by

The Nikon D90 officially became available today. My local Best Buy got in only 3 and I managed to get the first one this morning.

The D90 is quite a bit larger & heavier than the D40x, but it’s still comfortable to carry.

D90 Unboxing

D90 vs. D40x

Unlike the D40x, the D90 has an LCD screen on the top, where you can see most of the settings without having to turn on the display. The D90 has dedicated buttons for most settings such as white balance, ISO, AF mode, etc, so you don’t have to access the menus too often.

Unlike the D40x, the D90 has an internal AF motor, so autofocus will work on non AF-S lenses, such as my 50mm/f1.8. That alone is almost worth the price for me. I found the lens contacts to be a bit tricky, though. I had to jiggle the lens slightly from the fully locked position until I felt the AF screw snap into place before AF would work.

I didn’t get to try all of the features yet, but I’m very pleased with what I’ve seen so far. Using auto mode, it take beautiful, sharp photos. Recording video is very easy. No dedicated video mode is needed. Simply switch to live view (using the Lv button to the right of the screen) and press the OK button to start recording. Press the OK button again to stop recording. Movies are saved as AVI files with a default size of 640×428.

Keep reading for unboxing photos, sample images and a sample video.

Read more

They just don't care

by

A lot of people were wondering what the building behind McCain during his speech last night was. Talking Points Memo solved the mystery – it’s Walter Reed Middle School in North Hollywood, CA.

An even bigger mystery is why they chose that picture. I’m guessing it went something like this:

Speech Writer: Get me a picture of the Walter Reed Medical Center.

Flunky 1: OK, I’ll do an image search on Google.

Flunky 1: Here’s a good one.

Flunky 2: I don’t think that’s the Walter Reed Medical Center.

Speech Writer: Ah hell… at least it has “Walter Reed” in the name. Go with it anyway. Nobody will know the difference.

mccainhousebackdrop.jpg

Drobo + Time Machine = WIN

by

Yesterday I got a Drobo to use with Time Machine. I only got the USB 2.0 model, since I have it connected to my Airport Extreme 802.11n base station. I ordered it with 2x 1TB drives.

The Drobo is perfect for Time Machine backups, since they grow continuously. When you run out of space, you can simply add another drive to the Drobo to increase its storage capacity. Adding a drive to the Drobo is very easy – simply snap off the faceplate and insert a 3.5″ SATA drive into one of the empty drive bays until it ‘snaps’ into place. You don’t even have to shut down the Drobo. It will immediately recognize the new drive and start using it.

The Drobo has some advantages over traditional RAID devices, like my TeraStation. Most notably, it doesn’t need any setup when you add a new drive – it simply reconfigures itself and starts using the additional storage. The TeraStation also doesn’t support Time Machine without some ugly hacks that don’t work reliably. With all 4 drive bays filled with 250G drives, the TeraStation is a lot more difficult to expand.

Drobo

Uppity?

by

This comes awfully close to a racial slur. Even today in the south you rarely hear the word “uppity” not followed by the N-word. I’m sure most of his target audience mentally added that word to his remark.

Georgia Republican Rep. Lynn Westmoreland used the racially-tinged term “uppity” to describe Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama Thursday.

Westmoreland was discussing vice presidential nominee Sarah Palin’s speech with reporters outside the House chamber and was asked to compare her with Michelle Obama.

“Just from what little I’ve seen of her and Mr. Obama, Sen. Obama, they’re a member of an elitist-class individual that thinks that they’re uppity,” Westmoreland said.

Asked to clarify that he used the word “uppity,” Westmoreland said, “Uppity, yeah.”

Links for 2008-09-02 through 2008-09-04

by

Links for 2008-09-02 through 2008-09-04:

Posted by Postilicious

EXCERPT FROM KARL ROVE PLAYBOOK

by

From an intercepted email:

Here’s what we do. We put a woman with very little real, meaningful experience on the ticket with McCain. Make sure she’s an “average soccer mom.” Preferably someone with some personal baggage to draw attacks from the left.

Put her on the ticket and wait for the Dems to take the bait and begin debating her qualifications and all the reasons she should/should not even be on the ticket. We rally our base by making sure she’s an evangelical who opposes abortion in any circumstance. That is bound to get some women fighting over when, exactly, life begins.

Let’s make sure she has a big family with at least one teenager with personal issues, so we can rally the suburban soccer mom base that we desperately need to get out and work for us. After all, doesn’t every one of them have a child who didn’t follow their advice? Can’t every one of our base totally relate to how unfair it would be to hold that child’s bad judgment against a working mom?

Then we just sit back and watch as America completely ignores the mortgage crisis, the men and women dying in Iraq, the consequences of global warming, the failures of our educational system, the 40 million Americans without health insurance. No one will pay any attention to any of these “important” issues now! It’s perfect.

President McCain. Has a nice ring to it doesn’t it?

Funny thing is, I bet Vice President Quayle will have major episodes of deja vu this fall.

How sweet it is.

Karl