This Week in Ridiculousness

• People actually waited three to four hours or even days in the rain or under the sun to get a cell phone.
• General McChrystal runs seven to eight miles, eats one meal and sleeps only four hours a day.  I guess that explains his poor judgment:  allows a Rolling Stone reporter to get so close to his inner circle and vents his frustration over the Obama administration.  Of course the Iceland volcano with the impossible name was to blame too.
• John Isner and Nicolas Mahut plays the longest tennis match at Wimbledon in human history:  3000 hours or something.  Isner won.
• BP continues its epic oil spill unabated while I take out my recycle every Tuesday.

Marathon in Wimbledon

American giant tennis player John Isner and Frenchman Nicolas Mahut are still playing after more than 500 minutes on the court.  For those who are a bit slow, 500 minutes translate to more than 8 hours [update: match time is so far like 174 minutes but the match started yesterday].  Tennis is one those games that time is not on your side and one can't really run down the clock.  Both have to play every single point.  Isn't it tiring?

Toy Story 3 Number One Movie in America

Toy Story 3 completes the infantilization of American movies.  From here on to infinity and beyond every movie made will be made with children or adults who are utterly infantilized in mind.  Instead of movies made with real living breathing actors, movies or actually cartoons are made with breathlessly 3-D effects which are fake but yet look so real in IMAX.  Growing up watching cartoon on TV I would have never thought of paying to watch cartoon in a movie house.  And yet here we are.

Nikon 80-200 Observation

This is the one and only zoom telephoto I own.  I have a Tiffen UV filter screwed in the front permanently so as to keep its huge front element pristine like the first day I bought it. The filter adds a bit of height or length to the lens. Normally it's not a problem except it becomes a bit tight when I put in into its carrying case that comes with the lens.

I just notice the other day, the lens flare pretty "badly." It had its lens hood on already--I am a big fan of lens hood, and I was shooting into the sun not really on purpose but just so happened. The contrast was gone and the overall scene became pretty hazy. Diglloyd has a page on this.  I think I will "test" it again without the filter though I do not believe the filter causes the hazy picture.

Overall I still like the lens very much.

甄秀儀/陳浩德（合唱） —— 《分飛燕》1973年原唱版

Canto pop continues ...



Now all we need is the version by 譚炳文，李香琴. Thanks to Sidney for the link.

韋秀嫻 —— 《一水隔天涯》1966年電影版

Canto pop continues ...



I sort of like how she awkwardly moves while chirping away on stage.

Thanks to Sidney.

Alejandro Falla Is Making Roger Work in Wimbledon

Lady Gaga made him a household name even before he hit the manicured lawn in England.  Alejandro Falla is making Federer sweat on the first round.  Now that's pretty unbelievable.



UPDATE:
After R.Fed rallied from behind, Alejandro just got nothing else in the tank to bother with the fifth set and gave it to Roger. Federer once again proves what's made of.

郭靜 - 麻雀

There are no love songs like maudlin love songs and there are no maudlin love songs better than Mandarin maudlin love songs from Taiwan.

 UPDATE 10/28/2011: Looks like the video got taken down because of copyrights issue. Oh well.  Personally I think that's just dumb.

Nikon Nikkor AIS 50MM F1.4

Only the left eye is in focus, I would like to have both eyes in focus.  I either shot at f2 or f1.4 so very shallow depth of field.  It's a pain to focus on the D70, the viewfinder is too small, the focusing screen isn't designed for manual focus. But I am cheap so I have to live with it.

Jong Tae-se in Floods of Tears

Email savaged from the Internet gutter ... Names redacted to protect the innocent.

[redacted],

You should consider introducing Jong to the American audience in your blog. Hig[sic] slitty eyes and big, flat Mongoloid face comes out of a typical Hollywood stereotype. If you were a casting director for a movie about Genghis Khan or the Yellow Peril, you need to look no further. The television picture of him in torrential tears during the national anthem before the North Korea/Brazil World Cup match was the most memorable part of the match as far as I am concerned. Even our old roommate wouldn't have shed that much tears to the memory of the erstwhile Dear Leader thirty years ago.

[redacted]

I think, I am not sure, North Korea and China are using this episode to champion nationalism and the love of one's motherland.

Amazon vs Newegg

Both are good online merchants.  What I like about Newegg over Amazon is when the former offers free shipping, the only thing different from normal shipping is it's free and I got the merchandise just as quick or slow as regular shipping.  In most cases, it's within three days that I would actually receive the goods I ordered.  Whereas when Amazon offers free shipping, the order just sits there in the warehouse somewhere and wait another week before it actually got shipped.  What's the deal?  Case in point, I ordered something on Tuesday, that is June 15 and the expected shipping date is June 21.  If the price differential is not significant I will definitely order from Newegg and I do usually.  Now looking back I probably should have ordered from Newegg even I would end up paying close to ten dollars more.  I simply don't like to wait --I thought I can live with waiting for a week and save ten bucks.  I just hate waiting, with a passion.

UPDATE:
6/17/10
As if Amazon read this post, the order actually got shipped via FedEx today.  What a pleasant surprise.

Graduation

I am at the point where I think a better ISO performance can help.

I am shooting at ISO 640 or lower. Anything higher would be too grainy for my taste. With my 80-200 I am set at f2.8 and I can barely hold the lens still. I am inclined to believe the D300s would probably satisfy my needs.

After shooting indoors where lighting is poor once every year or so, I really come to appreciate fast zoom lens and a low noise sensor.  Fast prime with f-stop bigger that 2.8 can be useful in addition to being a bokeh machine.  And since for the most part I can't move around in that kind of setting so a flexible zoom helps and a VR should be a big plus but hey if you don't have it what are you gonna do?  I always shoot whatever I have and just try to maximize their utilities for as long as I could.  I wish my 80-200 has VR but it would almost double its price so forget it.  Maybe I can just get a body with better frame rate so I can shoot a series and pick the sharpest or I can get a newer body with better noise performance at ISO800 and beyond.

The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo

The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo is the first of a three part so called Millennium series by the late Stieg Larsson who died shortly after he submitted the manuscript of what has now become an international bestseller.

The story is mostly about a middle-aged journalist, Blomkvist who has plenty of luck with women and a grown woman Salander who is stuck in a body of a thirteen-year-old and seems to have misguided sartorial taste on Goth, body piercings and tattoos. Together they discover dark family secrets, find missing persons, catch serial killers, expose financial gangsters and what have you. They share a passion for Apple products, hers a Powerbook (she likes it so much so that she gives a blowjob in exchange for money to buy one) and his an iBook (no blowjob mentioned), in between all these activities, they have sex and drink a lot of coffee.

The paperback is almost 600-page thick and the story is well paced, organized and plotted. Every little thing is explained (Remember the TV series Lost? Anybody? Where nothing is really explained and people have so low an expectation that they actually don't expect the finale answers every stupid convoluted clues left before. Ha?). Overall I like the story except I always have some prejudice against translated works. I keep thinking what's missing in the translated English version. Too bad, I don't read Sweden. Salander is supposed to be a world class hacker yet I don't really see her do any actual hacking. I expect the book to print verbatim what commands and source codes she uses to hack. Alas, there is none and I just have to take Larsson's word for it.

Miscellaneous

She looks out the window. It just dawns on her that he'd always liked her: the way he not looked at her; the way he not talked to her.

(PS: Inspired by Stieg Larsson's The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo)

Vuvuzela is Going to Drive you Deaf and Crazy

After this World Cup, half of the world will be deaf, and the other half crazy.  Thanks to something called vuvuzela which is designed for the sole purpose to drive one deaf or insane or both.

Tennis

I am still shooting with my D70. The lens is a 80-200 f2.8. I am happy with my purchase and it becomes my go to lens whenever I need some telephone shots. I mean of course it's my go to lens, what else do I have a 400mm?

Big Breakfast With Pancake

Ardent Reader

Time With the Little One

Live Blogging Live Blogging WWDC10

Jobs is seen wearing his trademark outfit.  Wait, there is also a black leather belt around his shrunken waistline.  Yes, a black leather belt, probably between 28 and a 32.

Everything is rosy and all with the iPad.  Using Winnie-the-Poop, no, it's the Pooh as an example.  Oh, no, PDF.  I HATE PDF.   Why not just html?  Is PDF really that great.  I prefer plain text and html.

Netflix and Farmville on iPhone.  For those obsessive office cube farmers, good news.

Guitar Hero too for 2.99 available at app store.

Steve says Apple paid $1 Billion to developers ... wow.



 iPhone ...

Steve says Android is nowhere near iPhone, essentially that what he says.  iPhone 28% and Android 9% .

All right iPhone 4
It's iPhone 4, not any other names you heard.  Jobs says it's iPhone 4.

It's as thin if not thinner than Jobs himself.  Only 9.3mm thick, thin.

It's like a beautiful old Leica camera.  I don't know how the Leica fanboys will feel about it.  Comparing iPhone 4 to Leica.

Wow, iPhone 4, that's why there are so many suicides at Foxconn. 4, nobody would call it a 4 in Chinese as it rhymes with death in Chinese.  But who cares about the Chinese anyway?

[the rest is at my tweeter account]

WWDC10

Your iPhone 3GS is going to be officially obsolete today as Jobs would have it planned.  In all likelihood, the iPhone 4G or the successor of the 3GS will be unveiled later today at the WWDC10.  The "Get a Mac" commercial would show its finale during this occasion as it's been rumored.  It's run marks the war between PC and Mac and it's end really echos the shift from big keyboard computing to handheld computing.  Let's see if Jobs can surprise us by introducing more than just the iPhone 3GS successor.

I believe the usual suspects will carry the live webcast.  And Gizmodo calls it the "Next iPhone, Re-revealed."  Since Gizmodo's run-in with Apple and has become news itself, its coverage on anything Apple seems biased and carries some negativity that I am not sure if I can whole heatedly enjoy.  Negativity is perfectly fine with me but not with the back story that everybody is aware of by now.  I don't know if it pokes fun of Apple because it's fun to do (I like) or just out of spite (I don't like).  Oops, just found out, Gizmodo is unwelcome at WWDC10.

Week in Review

The French Open is over.

I am glad to see some new faces in the Women's final.  My DVR didn't do its job, it's extremely temperamental so I didn't get to see the Women's final.  Before the match my money was really on Samather Stosur, the Australian.  But what do I know?  I am happy Francesca Schiavone took home the grand prize.

On the men's side, Nadal made a very convincing comeback, if one had any doubt on Nadal's physical and mental readiness before the tournament, they should all be gone by the time he steamrolled Soderling in a three set victory.  Soderling played an uninspiring match.  He looked leaden, deflated and just didn't have the fighting spirit to match Nadal's speed and tenacity.  The end result wasn't unexpected but I was a bit shocked how unmotivated Soderling seemed.  Soderling is a legi player but somehow every time when he reaches the final, he looks all exhausted and ready to throw in the towel as if he has given all he has on the road to the final and got nothing left.

Wimbledon is in the offing and since the French Open final ended sooner than anticipated, thanks to Nadal, they were showing last year's Wimbledon men's final on TV.  Boy was it a match or what?  Andy Roddick in the end lost but he did show he could play in the big league against Roger Federer.  Over the years, I think Roddick shows both humility and maturity.  He stays more focused and cut down a lot of trash talks on and off the court.  I would have thought Brooklyn Decker might have weakened his legs but he seems to be fitter than ever, at least from what I could see last year.  So I hope the guy can win one more Grand Slam title.  Anyway, at least he has the one and only Brooklyn Decker so I really don't worry about him.  Another Andy, Andy Murray still has a lot to prove to himself and his fellow Englishmen to win his first Grand Slam.  Too much pressure does the guy no good.

Stromuhr

If you know how to spell stromuhr, you get a shot to be the National Spelling Bee.

My Re-imagination of a Conversation Between Homer and Langley

Langley:  I am a bit depressed.
Homer: ...
Langley:  I wish I had a sina micro blog account or whatever it's called.
Homer: ...
Langley:  I feel kind of left out.
Homer: ...
Langley  You are really a nobody until you have a sina micro blog account.
Homer: ...
Langley:  No-one has deleted my tweets on twitter.  The truth is nobody actually cares about my tweets.  And sure nobody cares about my foursquare whereabouts, either.  I am sure I'll feel better about myself if my "tweets" actually got deleted over at sina.  Or my account got deleted.  Even better.
Homer: ...
Langley:  You feel like you are dangerous and subversive.  You are important.  I want to be dangerously and subversively important.  I want to be a threat.  Kind of like a rebel.  Kind of like the pen is mightier than the sword.  You know a martyr dying for a cause or something.
Homer: ...
Langley:  You know I can't do the "ultimate sacrifice" like got rolled over by a tank but at least if I can get my posts deleted or even my account deleted that would be great.  I am sure it means something.
Homer:  You suck.

Homer & Langley

Homer & Langley is E. L. Doctorow's re-imagining of a true New York story that spans several decades beginning in the thirties.  Homer is blind while Langley is insane and together the brothers are just insanely blind.  The story, interspersed with historical references and cultural shifts, is narrated by Homer, the younger of the two, who though blind as a bat is acutely perceptive to tell in details their slow descend from riches to rags voluntarily and inevitably after the passing of their well-to-do parents.  The narrative is exceedingly dignified and beautifully poignant, in the end one is left with no choice but to sympathize with the brothers even they were to die in their own filth tragic comedically.


Notes:
p. 139.  "I will not here detail the ... "  It seems like the editor is asleep.
p. 116  "It's no different than always, said Massimo."  Massimo is the son of a gangster so he may not be speaking grammatically "correct" English.  As such he doesn't say "different from" so it may be intentional and not a mistake after all.  Still, I can't get over it.

Nikon F3 and 135mm f2 DC

I saw a fellow shooter with a Nikon F3 and an AF DC-Nikkor 135mm f/2 D lens attached.  Usually I heed my Mom's advice and don't talk to strangers and would only break that vow when that stranger is a fellow shooter.  I complimented his choice of gears and he told me he is from Canada and is visiting NYC for a day and his girlfriend doesn't even know he is here.  Nikon shooters are just cool, aren't they?

We Are Safe, Sort Of

The Williams sisters are out of the singles game .  We (OKAY, I) can breathe a collective sigh of relief not to be tormented by Venus' skanky tennis outfit and rest assured that there won't be any Serena on court outbursts.

4G iPhone: Theft, Extortion and Sex

Jobs on D8 Conference with Walt Mossberg and Kara Swisher

Jobs thinks they ought to make a movie out of the missing 4G iPhone prototype because it involves stolen property, extortion and probably sex somewhere.  At some point he says he got a lot of advice that "they shouldn't go after a journalist because they bought stolen property and they tried to extort you."  Then he goes on to say he would rather quit than let it slide because something to do with the core values of Apple, so on and so forth.  Even though the case is pending and as he put it it's up to the DA, but I think he really believes or wants to sway the public to believe that it was indeed a theft, sale of stolen property and extortion were involved.  That should keep the Gawker legal department busy

Back To Our Regular Programming

Memorial Day weekend is over.

Venus Williams got knocked off of the French Open.  No more lingerie on clay.  I saw some of the highlights of the match.  She wasn't wearing her lingerie so maybe that's why she lost--she couldn't distract her opponent.  Too bad.

Andy Roddick lost.

Nadal is moving along just fine.  The guy is definitely back to his form.