Bershon

It's wonderful when you discover that there's a single word for something that, until that moment, you could only describe with many words. The word crystallizes it, makes it singular and whole, and gives the feeling or phenomenon some permanence.


Sarah Brown introduced the blogosphere to the term and defined it thus:




...the spirit of bershon is pretty much how you feel when you’re 13 and your parents make you wear a Christmas sweatshirt and then pose for a family picture, and you could not possibly summon one more ounce of disgust, but you’re also way too cool to really even DEAL with it, so you just make this face like you smelled something bad and sort of roll your eyes and seethe in a put-out manner. Kelly Taylor from Beverly Hills, 90210 is the patron saint of bershon, as her face, like most other teenagers’, was permanently frozen in this expression.



A beautiful description, but if you're still unclear on the concept, the Flickr group I'm so Bershon will more than clear things up for you.



Some random links perused over the holidays

Tyler Cowen lists policy areas in which his views are uncertain. It's refreshing that even an economist of his stature can admit that he is uncertain on so many issues. Cowen links to Arnold Kling's list of what he is certain about.


Vladimir Putin is Time's Man of the Year? Interesting.


RIP Borat, RIP Ali G. May you live on through the annoying and lousy impersonations of thousands of young males across the world.


Google, without asking permission, decides to share all your shared items in Google Reader with all of your GMail contacts.


Warner joins the DRM-free movement at Amazon's MP3 store.


M. Night Shyamalan has another of those twist movies in the works, releasing next June: The Happening.


Sleeveface is the art of augmenting the art on a record sleeve with your own body. You can't do that with a CD cover, unless, of course, you are a really small person.


Connor


I visited Connor in DC the weekend after Thanksgiving. He is a mellow kid whose smiles are fleeting, but thanks to high speed continuous frame rate shooting modes on my digital SLR, I was able to capture a few or his elusive expressions of happiness.


By the way, you do not want to get into a staring contest with Connor, he will wait you out until your eyes are watering something fierce. He has an amazing poker face, and I expect we'll be sending him to Uncle James at an early age to begin his training.




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Available light photos shot at high ISO on Nikon D3


Via Daring Fireball is this post with some JPEGs of pics shot in available light at high ISO using the new Nikon D3.


It's a bit hard to tell for sure because the photos aren't blown up larger, but even so, compared to previous Nikon digital SLRs, the noise levels at these ISO's are unbelievably low. For photographing weddings, as this lucky photographer did, the D3's high ISO performance will be an unbelievable boon. Concert photography will really benefit, too. Goodness gracious.


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D3...serious hotness

Workaround for sending MMS messages using your iPhone. The iPhone camera isn't that hot, but sometimes you just want to send a photo to someone on the spot. Being able to send a photo of decent quality to someone instantaneously using whatever you used to snap the photo is one of those things I would have thought would be commonplace by now, but it's not. Some people have camera phones, but the photo quality is terrible. Others have decent phone cameras, but then the recipient can't view the photo in high resolution. Or you have a digital camera that doesn't have wireless access and a keyboard for typing in contacts.


Speaking of cameras, Nikon and Canon continue to pound the living daylights out of each other on the digital SLR cage fight. Canon introduced the EOS 1DS Mark III, with a 21-megapixel full frame sensor. Today, Nikon came back with the D3, with a near full-frame sensor (a first for Nikon in its digital SLR line), but more importantly, a max ISO rating of 25,600, or "64X what was commonly regarded as high-speed film." It shoots up to 9 frames per second with Autofocus tracking and up to 11fps without.


ISO 25,600? Criminy, that thing will see in the dark. 11 fps? HDMI video output? A virtual horizon function which lets you know when the camera is perfectly level? a 920K dot LCD?!


Once you start collecting some lenses by either Nikon or Canon, it's tough to justify switching, and both are close enough in performance that there's no reason to. But I'd been jealous of Canon's full-frame sensors on its digital SLRs. When Canon announced the 21MP 1DS MKIII, I was a bit envious, but the features on the D3 are much more exciting to me than the 21MP's. That ISO setting, if it's actually usable, may mean leaving your flash at home for so many more situations. Even if it relies on some digital voodoo like the D2X required to reach ISO 1600, the D3 has a still impressive 6,400 top end ISO if you don't resort to digital shenanigans.


Also, the Canon 1DS MKIII costs a jaw-dropping $8,000. Yes, it may perform at medium format quality levels, but at that price you could just buy a medium format camera.


Check out the DPReview preview of the D3 which streets in November. Here's Ken Rockwell's preview.


I wet my pants reading about the D3. All I can say is me...want...now. If I get one, I'm going to set it next to my iPhone in the hopes they mate and spawn some of the sexiest gadgets ever.



Also among the Nikon announcements: an AF-S 14-24mm f2.8 lens. I want one of those, too, as Nikon has really been lacking in the wide-angle lens category for its digital SLRs because of the multiplication factor on its previous sensors.


A photo of mine in Travel + Leisure


A picture I snapped while in Dubrovnik, Croatia last summer appears on page 158 of the Aug. 2007 issue of Travel + Leisure, on newsstands near you. It's a cropped version of the pic below of the Buza bar which hangs on the side of the cliffs outside the city walls. I've had a few pics in magazines before, but they were mostly cycling pictures in odd European magazines I'd never heard of. This one comes with a paycheck which counts at some sort of mini-milestone.


I don't get anything if you buy the magazine, but I picked up a copy for posterity's sake and it looks to be a useful issue for travelers as it features their annual World's Best Awards.


I highly recommend Dubrovnik. I meant to write about it after the trip but I was having too much fun just traveling, and then I got back and school started, and now it resides in my brain as a happy memory, one that triggers a smile whenever I jab it. Dubrovnik is the choice for Europeans when they want to get away for a vacation and hide from the hordes or summer tourists descending on their hometowns.


Derek and I had just finished our Eastern European travels when I left for Dubrovnik where I was to meet up with Jason and family. On arriving at my hotel, I took a bus into town. Jason and I'd loosely agreed over e-mail to meet at an Internet bar outside city walls. Even so, there's something special when it works out in a foreign country, when you can't just call each other up over a cell phone (is this how we had to meet up in the days before mobile phones?).


I was walking up to the cafe when a newly shorn Jason called out to me on the sidewalk. He'd already been there a night or two, and the first stop he took me was Buza bar. We sat down on the balcony (if you look at my photo below, we were sitting at the open table that's just above the guy in the blue shirt on the steps) to catch up over a beer. The Buza is rumored to be a favorite of folks like Bill Gates when they're in town. Looking out on the ocean with the crisp air brushing past my face, an ancient castle city above my head, and an ice cold Eastern European lager in my hand, I couldn't help but think it was one of the truly epic bars in the world.


Cold Drinks "Buza"


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Two for Tuesday


Trailer for Wes Anderson's The Darjeeling Limited (written by Anderson, Roman Coppola, and Jason Schwartzman).


I saw a demo of Microsoft Labs' Photosynth a long time ago. It looked amazing, and now it's in beta. Unfortunately for me it only works for Windows Vista or XP users running IE or Firefox, but if I qualified I'd be putting it through its paces.


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Spiderman the musical?!


Marvel is in pre-production on Spider-Man the musical, to be directed by Tony-winner Julie Taymor with music and lyrics by Bono and the Edge.


Nice Flickr collection of the evocative name placards on apartment complexes here in Santa Monica. I agree with the photographer - these are the sole redeeming feature of the otherwise fugly apartment architecture ubiquitous in Santa Monica (and Los Angeles in general). You've never seen so much stucco and old shag carpet.


Kaoru Kubo is the famous voice heard on Airport Limousine buses ferrying passengers from Narita Airport to Tokyo. Very soothing.


A montage of beautiful title sequences by Kuntzel+Deygas who did the titles for Catch Me If You Can, among others.


Classified government report says Al-Qaeda is the strongest it's been since 9/11. How did this country ever elect Dubya? Perhaps Bryan Caplan is right.


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Required a not-so-modest amount of work


[via Photojojo] A couple Modest Mouse fans got together and entered a stop motion video in the band's "Missed the Boat" contest. They printed out each of the 4,133 frames of footage provided by the band and then incorporated those printouts in stills shot on their digital SLR which were then fused into this video. Very clever. This required a huge amount of work--I sure hope those guys won the contest.




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iPhone--it was who we thought it was


David Pogue publishes the first official iPhone review I've seen yet in the NYTimes. Very comprehensive and worth reading for all who want a balanced report from someone who's tested it firsthand. Some highlights and lowlights:


  • the glass screen doesn't scratch easily though it smudges

  • the software is fast and beautiful and simple to use

  • the phone is fun to use; once you buy the phone, you choose your phone plan at home in iTunes

  • call quality is average and dependent on your AT&T signal strength

  • e-mail and the web browser are great, and so is the battery life (Pogue suspects you'll recharge once every other day); however, someday the battery loses its charge and will have to be sent to Apple for replacement

  • no chat program, voice dialing, or memory card slot

  • you can't install programs from anyone other than Apple

  • web browser can't handle Java or Flash

  • the 2MP camera is good, but only for motionless, well-lit subjects, and it doesn't capture video or send MMS photos (i.e., picture messages). =(

  • a biggie: typing on the screen keyboard can be frustrating, and Pogue doesn't see it besting the BlackBerry on that front

  • the biggest issue all along for me is confirmed, to my dismay: AT&T's network is lousy

  • the EDGE network is super slow; web browsing will be painful


After the crush of hype, it turns out most of what was rumored and suspected about the device turns out to be true. Since I always carry my iPod and cell phone with me, the iPhone is attractive as a way to consolidate gadgets, and it sure would be great to get the real-time traffic reports via Google Maps here in eternally-congested LA. However, I had such a lousy experience with AT&T (in its Cingular guise) that I feel comfortable not waiting in line on Friday. I really wish Apple had found a better partner for this venture.


UPDATE: Walt Mossberg has his review of the iPhone up now as well. Here are some of his thoughts, which confirm my worst fear, that the iPhone is held back by being tethered to AT&T's network (when it isn't connected via wi-fi). Overall, he still liked it, but like Pogue, notes that it isn't a grand slam:


We have been testing the iPhone for two weeks, in multiple usage scenarios, in cities across the country. Our verdict is that, despite some flaws and feature omissions, the iPhone is, on balance, a beautiful and breakthrough handheld computer. Its software, especially, sets a new bar for the smart-phone industry, and its clever finger-touch interface, which dispenses with a stylus and most buttons, works well, though it sometimes adds steps to common functions.

The Apple phone combines intelligent voice calling, and a full-blown iPod, with a beautiful new interface for music and video playback. It offers the best Web browser we have seen on a smart phone, and robust email software. And it synchronizes easily and well with both Windows and Macintosh computers using Apple’s iTunes software.



It has the largest and highest-resolution screen of any smart phone we’ve seen, and the most internal memory by far. Yet it is one of the thinnest smart phones available and offers impressive battery life, better than its key competitors claim.



It feels solid and comfortable in the hand and the way it displays photos, videos and Web pages on its gorgeous screen makes other smart phones look primitive.



The iPhone’s most controversial feature, the omission of a physical keyboard in favor of a virtual keyboard on the screen, turned out in our tests to be a nonissue, despite our deep initial skepticism. After five days of use, Walt — who did most of the testing for this review — was able to type on it as quickly and accurately as he could on the Palm Treo he has used for years. This was partly because of smart software that corrects typing errors on the fly.



But the iPhone has a major drawback: the cellphone network it uses. It only works with AT&T (formerly Cingular), won’t come in models that use Verizon or Sprint and can’t use the digital cards (called SIM cards) that would allow it to run on T-Mobile’s network. So, the phone can be a poor choice unless you are in areas where AT&T’s coverage is good. It does work overseas, but only via an AT&T roaming plan.



In addition, even when you have great AT&T coverage, the iPhone can’t run on AT&T’s fastest cellular data network. Instead, it uses a pokey network called EDGE, which is far slower than the fastest networks from Verizon or Sprint that power many other smart phones. And the initial iPhone model cannot be upgraded to use the faster networks.



The iPhone compensates by being one of the few smart phones that can also use Wi-Fi wireless networks. When you have access to Wi-Fi, the iPhone flies on the Web. Not only that, but the iPhone automatically switches from EDGE to known Wi-Fi networks when it finds them, and pops up a list of new Wi-Fi networks it encounters as you move. Walt was able to log onto paid Wi-Fi networks at Starbucks and airports, and even used a free Wi-Fi network at Fenway Park in Boston to email pictures taken during a Red Sox game.



But this Wi-Fi capability doesn’t fully make up for the lack of a fast cellular data capability, because it is impractical to keep joining and dropping short-range Wi-Fi networks while taking a long walk, or riding in a cab through a city.




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Short interview with Atul Gawande in the Freakonomics blog.


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Today is the day of silence for Pandora and other Internet radio sites to protest the increase in licensing fees for online radio (a move driven in large part by the RIAA). Save Net Radio!


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The Beastie Boys' are on Flickr.


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Paul Shirley, having played with both Kevin Garnett and Kobe Bryant, assesses the possibility of the two of them playing on the same team:


Having spent a similar amount of time in the semi-intimate company of both men, I can say confidently that two people couldn't be more different. Kevin Garnett is one of the most impressive humans I've ever been around.



Kobe Bryant isn't.

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Some footage from My Blueberry Nights


First trailer I've seen for My Blueberry Nights. You can find lots of stills from the movie if you click on the pic below and register on the forums at KFCCinema.com. I worry about the pic as it's WKW's first effort in English, and because the only time I saw Norah Jones in concert she seemed to withdraw under the gaze and attention of the crowd. But some directors you follow wherever they go.




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Little bit of that


Seeing beyond sight: photos by blind teenagers.


It's been apparent to everyone that this season of 24 has been the worst yet. I gave up on it a few episodes in. The good thing is that low ratings have forced the show producers to take notice.


The Golden Ratio for making your butt look great is being employed by a jeans mfr called The Proportion of Blu:




I used to think those commercials by Citicard about credit card theft, where a criminal's voice would play over the lip movements of an old lady or other credit fraud victim were quite remarkable, the lip matching was so perfect. Then I used VocAlign with Pro Tools at school and realized it wasn't that technically difficult to pull off after all.


Now that the whole HD-DVD code story is a day old, the hot blogosphere story of the day seems to be this article in the NYTimes which cites an economic study (PDF) by Justin Wolfers and Joseph Price finding evidence of racial bias among NBA refs, namely that white refs call fouls at a higher rate against black players than against white players. The NBA did their own study that they claim shows that refs are not biased, but their refusal to release the underlying data from their study really weakens their position. Steven Levitt looked over the Wolfers/Price paper and found it sound. I suspect that if you'd asked a bunch of NBA fans and observers beforehand if they'd expect the study to find bias, and if so, how much bias they'd expect, they'd come up with numbers higher than Wolfers and Price found in their study. In other words, the study isn't that shocking.


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I'm still alive


Winter quarter, first year film school, they own me. Just two more weeks to go, though, and I'll be back to a more humane schedule. For now, though, immersion is the word that comes to mind. Cheers.


Adobe plans to offer an ad-supported online version of Photoshop within the next half year. That's a better idea than Photoshop Elements, the neutered version of Photoshop. It will be interesting to compare revenues from Photoshop Elements (most of which is probably a bounty paid to Adobe by other companies who bundle PS LE in with their products) with ad revenues from an online version of Photoshop.


If you want to shoot slow motion, it's best to do it "in camera" as opposed to in post in Final Cut Pro or some other editing software. To see why, watch this video displaying the results side by side.


Fascinating article in this week's NYTimes Magazine about the quest for an evolutionary explanation for the belief in God.


Useful tips from a former Verizon sales rep.


A great tip to speed up Apple Mail, and a follow-up on how to automate that process.


Final Cut Pro 6 on slate to be announced at NAB. Also rumored is Final Cut Extreme, a hardware-accelerated version of Apple's video editing software to compete with Avid. A few years from now, an interesting HBS case study can be written on the battle between Apple and Avid in the non-linear editing market.


Ouch.


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grab bag


Fun surrealist photography by chema madoz.


Another cautionary report on global warming. It doesn't seem like the argument is about whether or not global warming is occurring anymore, but instead about how severe and sudden the consequences will be.


Photos of tin tabernacles.


Some mischievous pop art paintings, e.g. a Brokeback-esque Batman and Robin.


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