Hundreds of Tourist Photos Weaved into One (18 total) - My Modern Metropolis. Many tourists photograph the same subjects from the same angles - and here someone has layered many of these images on top of each other and produced composite images. Gives the images a wonderful painterly impression.
Linkblog - 1.2.2011 - 26.2.2011
MostAwesomeDude/bravo is a Minecraft server written in Python. Looking at what's happening around Minecraft, I think I should check it out. Especially after a bit of browsing - it seems to be a good mix of freeform building like Lego and (adjustable difficulty) monster-slaying gameplay. And since you can run your own server, which can now also be multiplayer, you can build your constructions together with others or share them (though they can also break everything if you let them). And it doesn't cost a monthly fee, which personally kept me away from Lego Universe (even though I bought the box).
Ada 95: The Craft of Object-Oriented Programming. Free online book (formerly Prentice Hall from 97) about Ada 95. Quite nice to see the beautifully byzantine-looking source code of Ada again.
Because I wrote about Prograph: Andescotia Software seems to have a new commercial Prograph version available. The whole thing works under OSX 10.4 and there is a demo version to try out. And it's not expensive at all with 68 dollars. I think I know what I'll be playing around with tonight! And as a free download there is the book "Visual Programming With Prograph CPX". Update: the playing has been canceled, the demo does not start under Snow Leopard ... (and the traffic on their mailing list does not look like there is a big reaction to be expected). Too bad. I wrote an email, maybe something will happen yet, but it sounds very much like a dead project again. Once again.
hotzen/ScalaFlow provides a very interesting extension to Scala: dataflow programming with automatic resolution via continuations - you define variables, can access variable values before values are assigned to them and the system itself sorts all accesses and assignments into the correct order. Particularly interesting as a basis for parallelization, when partial areas only emerge later but corresponding processing should already be defined earlier. Dataflow languages have been of interest to me since Prograph. The integration into a normal language as a basis could be quite interesting.
remogatto/gospeccy - a ZX Spectrum Emulator written in Go. Since I was an old Spectrum owner and this was my first box that I bought with my own earned money (back then an article in the c't! My first and only foray into writing!).
lsyncd is somewhat like Dropbox but very simple. Essentially, it's a daemon that listens for directory changes via inotify and automatically triggers an rsync if needed to synchronize directory trees. Since you can sync any directories with it and can also intervene in the sync process via Lua integration in lsyncd, it could be useful for some loosely coupled sync situations (e.g., autonomous nodes in a very loosely coupled cluster or home servers that automatically sync to a server on the internet). Additionally, it offers functions similar to Hazel - you can assign various actions (not just sync) to different file change events.
Plagiarism – GuttenPlag Wiki. With the latest politician statements in support of Guttenberg, I really wonder if a Mrs. Merkel and a Mr. Seehofer are really too stupid to look at the Wikia page beforehand - at the time of my post 175 instances with evidence of the copied originals. This has nothing to do with mistakes or negligence, this is just plain system.
Totally wild: MS Optical Super Triplet Perar 3.5/35. A lens produced in a very small series (only 200 pieces) for the Leica-M bayonet. The basis is a triplet - i.e. a three-lens - but designed with modern calculations and modern glass types. Of course, triplets have known problems - some show up in a softer drawing and lower line resolution, others in the rather meager light strength. Nevertheless, the little guy is pretty cool. Unfortunately, the edition is already completely sold out. For my M8 (and the NEX-3 with adapter) it became a C Biogon 2.8/35 from Zeiss for me. That is already a much more classic calculation and execution, also not so super light-strong, but nicely compact. And Zeiss-typical "chön charf". I admit, however, if Leica had a retractable Elmar 2.8/35 or 3.5/35 (i.e. new, not the old, known lens for screw Leicas - the old one has too many optical defects by today's standards), I could get weak (Elmare are four-lens, I already use a 2.8/50 and 4.0/90, both retractable, the 50 is a hybrid: a four-lens triplet, i.e. the last two lenses cemented).
Spherical aberration. Not only about spherical aberration, but also about the problem of focus shift when stopping down - the latter is not so intuitive to understand, because why should the point of best focus shift in the plane, just because you stop down - after all, only the depth of field is increased. But it's never quite that simple, especially with fast lenses.
BoPhoto.com: M8 coder - simple manual handcoding of M lenses. Another useful template to apply lens coding. Some Zeiss and Voigtländer lenses have a small gap at the bayonet, where you can even use paint for the marking, which then holds better and doesn't wear off as quickly. Or you can make the markings on thinner paper and clamp it between the lens and the body. It's a bit fiddly, but perhaps practical for occasional changing.
Get inPulse and Hack Your Watch. Looks pretty cool, just a small computer and a display, programmable, connected via Bluetooth. Could do some nice tricks with it. Maybe even display the time.
PyPy Status Blog: PyPy Winter Sprint Report. Most important point: fast-forward is in Trunk, so the next version of PyPy will definitely have 2.7 compatibility.
And for those who want an overview of various S3 file systems: Comparison of S3QL and other S3 file systems. The list also includes commercial packages and a simple feature comparison is made.
s3fs - I should also check this out, as it allows me to mount Amazon S3 on the server and access it from the outside via WebDAV, indirectly also to S3. For my pictures, it might be sensible in the long run to have two offsite backups with different techniques. For this purpose, I should also take a look at the s3fslight fork, as it is said to work better with rsync and that would be interesting for automatic backups. Both store files directly in S3, so they can be trivially downloaded. On the other hand, both have problems with the eventual consistency feature of S3, you have to run the synchronization multiple times, especially when you make many changes. Therefore, I should also take a look at s3ql, which forms a complete file system that only uses S3 as storage. This makes it more difficult to access file contents outside of s3ql - but there are also things like deduplication and encryption (in cloud storage, it seems more sympathetic to store things encrypted rather than unencrypted, even if you can trust some providers more than others).
nginx HttpDavModule. I want to check it out to get easier access to my server from OSX - might be quite interesting for some things (e.g. backups of my pictures to my server to have an offsite storage location).
Newspaper: Guttenberg plagiarized parts of his doctoral thesis - and now everyone with the princes: "everything just stolen"!
LR/Blog - Send images to your blog from Adobe Lightroom. I had already found another plugin for this, but this one is more flexible and supports other blog types as well (down to "naked" MetaWeblogAPI). However, I don't know if it works with Lightroom 3 and newer WordPress versions ...
Contador can get back in the saddle - and Spain is systematically making cycling even worse than it already is. The whole thing is just a joke and an insult to every cycling fan, what the Spanish cycling federation is pulling off.
Bracketeer: Exposure Processing Software. Hmm, I've only played with the built-in HDR in the Sony NEX so far, and with HDRTist (I think in the free version). But I could try this one as well. Currently available for 5 Euros in the AppStore.
KammaGamma » Articles » Solving the Leica M8 DNG riddle. Interesting because Leica still claims the M8 is a 16-bit camera - but only 8 bits per pixel are actually stored. The article sheds light on what this means for the images. Short version: reserves in the shadows, but fewer reserves in the highlights. Should be taken into account when photographing. What remains, however, is the dynamic range - because the LUT maps the entire dynamic range, it simply creates holes in the highlight gradations. Nevertheless, I would prefer it if Leica offered an optional DNG format in which all the RAW data would be stored. It would be possible with a firmware update. (By the way, the M9 offers compressed and uncompressed DNGs as a format)
Main Page - Esolang. You should bookmark this blog because Wikipedia keeps deleting programming languages because they are supposedly completely uninteresting ... (currently deleted: Nemerle, Alice ML and Factor is also up for deletion again). What bothers me the most about the whole thing: Google and others now rank Wikipedia so heavily that it's almost impossible to find other programming wikis beyond these deletion pages.
Working Leica M8 Created Using Lego. And while we're at it, crazy cameras ...
- 3D Portfolio of Michael Grote -. If you like fantastic 3D renderings and want to take a peek behind the scenes (he often includes wireframe and concept renderings), just click. Really great work - I particularly like the Steampunk camera ...
Cameras. Specifically folding bellows view cameras, not old ones, but newly produced in various formats. Beautiful devices. Completely impractical, but hey, if I had the money and a realistic chance to overcome my anti-chemistry pig dog, then that would really be something exciting. So for me it's just nice to look at (the website - I wouldn't even buy a camera just to look at it).
'The Beast' Electric Bike: 50mph, $33,500. Ok, you can't really call this a bicycle anymore, it's more like an electric motorcycle-light or something. But still quite fascinating. Seems to be the week of Electro-Bikes or something: the eRockit is also a hybrid (and much cheaper than the Beast, but still very expensive)
Leica M Lens Codes. Since I bought a used M8 (yes, yes, quiet, no chatter) and now don't want to spend money on lens adapters (hey, you in the back, I heard you giggle!) - they cost around 100 euros per lens. Maybe later, but in the meantime, I might get by with a stencil, a black permanent marker, and this table.
SourceTree | Mercurial and Git GUI for Mac OS X. Hmm - it's not exactly cheap at 45 Euros in the AppStore. But sometimes I would already have a GUI for working with Mercurial, especially when I work with foreign repositories and possibly have local changes. Maybe I'll play around with the trial sometime.
JSTalk is a JavaScript editor with an integrated runtime and preprocessor to give JavaScript an Objective-C-like syntax for accessing Objective-C classes and a bridge to Objective-C underneath. Basically, something like FScript, but with JavaScript. Can also be used to script applications instead of AppleScript. Or just for playing around with Cocoa APIs. Somehow pretty cool, even if it initially seems quite inconspicuous.
"Press Kit" « Lucs Journal. A plugin for Lightroom that can export directly to the Wordpress Media Library or a NextGEN Gallery. However, of course again via xmlrpc.php, which I only reluctantly enable due to the more frequent security issues with it.
Advanced sign-in security for your Google account - Official Gmail Blog. Generally a good idea, as it makes the login - when used correctly - really more secure. But whether one overcomes one's inner laziness and actually uses it ... (I'm not even sure if I want to do this for my email)
ongoing by Tim Bray · Broken Links. Why these overused #! fragments in URLs are a big mess and why you shouldn't use them. And yes, it's annoying to rape the web - especially since there's absolutely no reason to do so, dynamic servers can easily map various URL structures. And yes, I know about the problem that you can only switch the URL in the browser in the fragment part via JavaScript, without forcing a reload - but that's no reason to convert all URLs to such a stupid fragment format.
Beginners GH1 Custom Firmware Guide - EOSHD. Maybe I should take a look at custom firmware for the GH1. However, it's very video-heavy, and so far I haven't done much with it.
Secret texts 'key to Julian Assange case' - or "just because you're paranoid doesn't mean they aren't trying to fry you". It's looking more and more like a campaign by the currently investigating prosecutor and less and less like a legal procedure. But as a Swedish acquaintance laconically commented: "we also throw people in jail for posting links to files that contain links to illegal downloads".
scgi-wsgi 1.1 released - Allan Saddi's projects blog - so far we have been using its FLUP-based server that comes with Django, but the option to switch to mod_prox_scgi would be interesting because we could effectively save one server in between and no longer have to work with ajp. Although ajp is not that bad either - so maybe just do a few tests. For simple web services, however, I will continue to use the wsgi server based on gevent that I have been using in deezeit, because it is simply incredibly fast and uses almost no resources.
Streitfall: Telekom will einheitlichen De-Mail-Domainnamen per Gesetz - state-subsidized scam free from technical expertise. The entire de-mail debacle can hardly be surpassed in absurdity.
Carl Zeiss joins Micro Four Thirds System - and this makes things more interesting for my Panasonics again, as the Zeiss video lenses could really be great additions to the system. And what Schneider-Kreuznach will bring is not yet known, but they have already delivered interesting things for the field of digital large format cameras. I say photography technology is really exciting at the moment.
Gravatars: why publishing your email's hash is not a good idea. And it also explains why avatars have disappeared again from my blog for commentators - not that I suffer from paranoia, but why open up the possibility of determining an email address for a gimmick?
IN-12 / IV-12 Nixie / VFD Clock. Well, tubes are just awesome. However, I would rather go for the "ready-assembled clock" option, my fingers often end up on the wrong (hot) end of the soldering iron ...
RUR-PLE is something like Logo, only with Python instead of Logo as the language. So actually just the graphical environment of typical Logo implementations. In any case, a nice toy.
using negotiate authentication (GSSAPI Kerberos) with Firefox. We have looked at this from time to time and wondered how to link Firefox to Kerberos logins.
Newcomer: Kenko to offer system camera with C-mount lenses. Simply interesting because this brings another somewhat unusual system camera - C-mount are compact video lenses, there are also some from Zeiss (so with quite good quality) and the image circle of these optics is rather suitable for compact camera chips. This naturally means worse low-light capability, but chances for very compact bodies (although my NEX with its APS-C chip already delivers a very compact body). It's a bit like the heyday of analog photography in the 35mm format again, when the market became really colorful with the Olympus Pen, the Pentax 110 and other camera exotics. I like it.
How to write vim plugins with python. Because I like Python, because I like Vim and because you always want to build smaller things that make life easier. And because Vim's own scripting language is rather awful.
It seems that the Sony Alpha NEX-Open-Source-Firmware is Linux-based. I can't yet say exactly what's behind it, but Sony has Linux Kernel downloads (and the usual embedded tools) for the NEX on the server. If there's really a Linux running on it, this could become a hacker's paradise in the long run!
WorkingWithSubversion - Mercurial. Since I keep encountering outdated SVN repositories and clearly prefer Mercurial, I should take a closer look at hgsubversion.
Because I'm not looking for something like this for the first time and it looks quite practical: Sorting elements with jQuery – James Padolsey.
SLR Magic 35 1.7 Lens review on the Sony NEX-5. Interesting - cheap - lens for the Sony NEX. Basically, this is a lens like those used in surveillance cameras, adapted to the E mount. The optical quality is "interesting" - basically a fun lens for experiments.
Ricoh developing M-mount module for GXR system: I ended up with the Sony Nex 3 to revive my Leica lenses. And I am very satisfied with the new firmware for the Nexes. But the GXR with such an M module would certainly also be quite interesting (though probably not price-wise).
Vimari - Keyboard Shortcuts extension for Safari - GitHub. A bit like Vimium for Chrome, but can do significantly fewer tricks (and the links seem to be affected by the page CSS, which is why the QuickLinks look weird on my website)