Category: new!

What is retina display?

If you are not an owner of the latest technology from Apple, you may have heard of “retina display” and wondered what does the term mean. In the iPhone 4 page in  Wikipedia, there is a good definition of the term: (the bold highlighting was added by me):

The display of the iPhone 4 is manufactured by LG under an exclusive contract with Apple. It features an LED backlit TFT LCD capacitive touchscreen with a pixel density of 326 pixels per inch (ppi) on a 3.5 in (8.9 cm) (diagonally measured), 960×640 display. Each pixel is 78 micrometres in width. The display has a contrast ratio of 800:1. The screen is marketed by Apple as the “Retina Display”, based on the assertion that a display of approximately 300 ppi at a distance of 12 inches (305 mm) from one’s eye, or 57 arcseconds per pixel[42] is the maximum amount of detail that the human retina can perceive.[43] With the iPhone expected to be used at a distance of about 12 inches from the eyes, a higher resolution would allegedly have no effect on the image’s apparent quality as the maximum potential of the human eye has already been met.

Interesting, the claim was disputed by

Raymond Soneira, president of DisplayMate Technologies (who) said in an interview with Wired magazine, that the claims by Jobs are something of an exaggeration: “It is reasonably close to being a perfect display, but Steve pushed it a little too far.” Soneira stated that the resolution of the human retina is higher than claimed by Apple, working out to 477 ppi at 12 inches (305 mm) from the eyes, or 36 arcseconds per pixel.[44]

But as you can see, for all intents and purposes, the iPhone 4 (and likely later Apple technology) meets this standard:

However, Phil Plait, author of Bad Astronomy, whose career includes a collaboration with NASA regarding the camera on the Hubble Space Telescope, responded to the criticism by stating that “if you have [better than 20/20] eyesight, then at one foot away the iPhone 4’s pixels are resolved. The picture will look pixellated. If you have average eyesight, the picture will look just fine.”[45][46]

In a nutshell, if a display is such that you cannot see the pixels, then it is a retina display.

I expect that retina display will come to bigger and bigger screens as the technology advances. First the iPhone, then the iPad and other tablets, to…well as big as displays can get.

When it comes to the Internet, most people are like a 19th century farmer visiting a 20th century city

As more people access the Internet using social technology, they start to feel like the Internet is their home. And for some people, it is their home, just like for some people, New York City is their home or Paris is their home. For New Yorkers and Parisians,  they know the city well, the good and the bad, and they are comfortable with all that.

What I am seeing more of as people using and complaining about social techology like Twitter and Facebook is that they are akin to a 19th century farmer visiting a 20th century city with friends. At first it seems familiar enough when they are on the train with people they know, heading from the country to the city. But the more they look around, the more they realize things are not familar to them at all, and alot of it is overwhelming and scary. There are automobiles and big screen TVs and other things that seem fantastic to them Furthermore, there are parts of the city — this is true of any time — that are dangerous, and people in the city that are threatening.

The Internet is like that too. It may seem familar to you, but there is alot you don’t know about. There are bots and trolls and web sites that are dangerous or annoying. There are ways people in the city interact that are different than how you interact or expect people to interact.

Your first response might be: things things should work the way they do in the country, or in this case, IRL (in real life). But they don’t, and they won’t. You can either avoid the Internet (something that will be less and less possible to do), or you can adopt to it. You need to realize that just because it may seem like real life at times, it isn’t. You need to learn about things like phishing and how to recognize spambots and how to deal with privacy settings and more. It may seem like a big cost, but it is the price of reaping the benefits of being in the big city. You won’t get the know all of this right away, just like you don’t get to know all of a city the first time you visit it. But you need to know enough to make your visit safe and enjoyable and worth your while.

 

Is this evidence of the stunning success of android or more proof that everything is happening faster?

Matt Yglesias has this post on The Stunning Success of Android which includes this graph

It’s certainly true that Android is popular and a good product. But what I want to look at is the axis of the chart: millions of units sold over X number of quarters. What I think we will continue to see is that more and more charts of new technology are going to look like this. We will continue to see products adopted or purchased by consumers at faster and faster rates.

There’s a number of reasons for this. For one thing, people are more comfortable with adopting new technology than they were a decade or more ago. Two, the technology is easier to adopt. Three, new technology is increasingly social and therefore the chances of you hearing about it and signing up for or buying it is greater. Four: there are more and more companies developing new technologies like this. And five: there is infrastructure (phone companies, the Apple App Store, etc.) that supports this adoption.

The days of slow adoption rates is over. The future is coming at us at a faster and faster pace. Soon, if not already, it will come at us exponentially, and we will need technology to help us adopt new technology. The technology will change so fast, we won’t even realize it. That’s the way the future will be. That’s the way it is now: most people just aren’t aware of it. Soon, everyone will be aware of it.

The end of Zellers

Zellers is coming to a close (see: Zellers | Liquidation). For those of you that don’t know, 

The company was founded in 1931 by Walter P. Zeller as “stores for thrifty Canadians”. The chain began with the purchase of the fourteen Canadian locations of American retailer Schulte-United, all of which were in Southern Ontario. Almost immediately, Zellers initiated an aggressive expansion strategy. Within 25 years, Zellers operated sixty stores and employed 3,000 people. In 1952, in a move to expand into Atlantic Canada, it acquired the Federal Stores chain of variety stores, adding more than 12 new Zellers locations.

It’s gone through alot of changes and owners over the years, and with the latest change, all of the Zellers will be gone and replaced with Target.

Sad to see it go: it was part of my youth.

( Wikipedia provided the early history.)

On the immorality of the wealthy and how to account for the nouvelle riche

This article has been getting alot of coverage: Cheat, lie, break the law? Chances are, you’re rich – The Globe and Mail. It is not surprising, in that it confirms the prejudice that people have of the wealthy and well off. As the article states:

Testing people for ethics based on class might seem like a challenge, but the researchers for the science journal paper devised a series of ingenious tests to investigate behaviours.

There were two tests that were mentioned. this one…

In one case, they monitored a busy San Francisco four-way stop, and had observers hidden from sight check which drivers obeyed the law stipulating that vehicles approaching the intersection yield to a car already making the crossing. The observers tracked the make, age, and conditions of cars, using them as a proxy for class. High-status vehicles such as Mercedes were considered the provenance of the rich, and those driving them were about three times more likely to cut in than those in less flashy cars.

…is something I have experienced myself! I find the people that drive most aggressively in my neighborhood are BMW drivers. The more I thought of it, the more I concluded that people who are most likely to drive in this aggressive way are the type of people trying to get ahead. They are in a rush, overworked, and frankly likely to be pushy as a way of getting what they want.They are also the same type of people drawn to BMW because of how it is a status symbol. What I have noted is that I see this behavoir mostly in BMW drivers who drive the lower 3 class. I also see wealthy people that drive the high end 7 series and even 5 series in my area and I noted that they don’t drive as aggressively. I attributed this to them already having arrived. I think a study just of drivers of high end cars would be fascinating.

Car ownership aside, I found this test also very interesting.

In one test involving throws of an electronic dice, the researchers rigged computers to allow only low scores. Participants were told that those getting higher scores would have more chances to win $50 cash. They then tracked who lied about the results, and found that people in a higher social class displayed higher levels of cheating and more positive attitudes toward greed.

Again, I would like to see further tests and see if the very wealthy are different from the nouvelle riche. I would suspect they are. I suspect the rich people that are secure with their wealth would behave differently than the wealthy that have just achieved it or are striving to achieve it.

Why Canadians are not Americans. (Something both should read.)

This brilliant essay, by Stephen Marche in The Walrus, That Time We Beat the Americans, is not just a superb review of the War of 1812. It also establishes just how important that war was and why we don’t give it more attention. It is the best type of historical writing – clear, concise, insightful, approachable. Please take a moment to read it. I highly recommend it.

Here comes the drones and how this changes things for everyone but city dwellers

As this article (Drones With an Eye on the Public Cleared to Fly – NYTimes.com) as well as any number of stories have illustrated, drones are here and they are here to stay, at least for a little while.

If you live in a rural setting or a suburban setting, this changes alot. Now you can build fences or surround yourself with land in order to maintain privacy and keep people away. With drones you will no longer be able to do this, short of building a massive tent over you. Regardless of how high they are, they will be able to video you with a high degree of accuracy, and for the short term, you won’t be able to do anything about it. Eventually drone users will abuse them and they will be dragged to court and boundaries will be set down, but this will take time.

Ironically, it will be better if you live in the city. It will be harder for drones to navigate in the city, and buildings will block them from flying and photographing. As well, if you live in the city and around tall buildings, you have more of an awareness that people can spy on you and govern yourself accordingly. I expect city dwellers to suffer less from intrusive drones.

We live in interesting times, and all new technology changes the way we live in some way. Drones will do that in a significant way.

Thanks to Doug Saunders for highlighting this article (@dougsaunders on Twitter).

On March, 31 Anonymous is going to try and take out the ‘Net . Some thoughts on why, how and what’s next

I think this is more about them than a genuine protest. All it will do if it does work is show their might: I can’t see how it will effect meaningful change of any kind.

Will it work? It depends on how many recruits they get (real or virtual). I suspect they will disrupt some of the root servers, but I think the root server clusters will be able to handle it overall.

Other than the lulz, I don’t see this working out well for Anonymous. The perception of them may shift from We-Take-On-The-Big-Bad-Organizations to We-Are-Reckless-Vandals. They already took a hit when they backed off from taking on Mexican crime lords. This may result in them taking a further hit. But I am hedging here, obviously….we shall see the result soon enough.

For some details on this, see Pastebin.com

Paul McCartney, or everything old is new again

I used to wonder why Paul McCartney still made music. He doesn’t need to money or the fame. His new music is no longer influential. So why?

From watching him at this year’s Grammys, I concluded he simply does it because he loves to make music. He seemed to be having a great time here:

A love of music would explain his new album, Kisses on the Bottom. You really need to read this article by Will Friedwald in the WSJ.com, to see why I think that. (The article is excellent.) It’s easy to be cynical about such an album, and think that it might be a waste of time, but Friedwald convinced me to think otherwise. As he says:

From bottom to top, “Kisses on the Bottom” is a much more classy and heartfelt effort than all the other rockers-go-standards projects (a genre partially launched, coincidentally, by fellow Beatle Ringo Starr’s 1970 “Sentimental Journey”); it will probably be the only one that, in future years, I’ll listen to anywhere near as often as the classic recordings of Nat King Cole, Tony Bennett or Frank Sinatra.

On not leaving your day job: the story of T.S. Eliot and his work at the bank

Lisa Levy has a good review of it here: A Peaceful, But Very Interesting Pursuit – The Rumpus.net.

It seems like something that Eliot liked, not only for what it provided him, but for what he was doing. And while Ezra Pound and others worried about how it affected his writing, I believe Eliot did well with this job: it may have even helped him instead of harmed him when it came to writing.

(Found via Andrew Sullivan.)

The Great Die Off: how the world will change in the 21st century (hint: look to the 14th century)

Populations are aging. As Doug Saunders writes: The world’s losing its workers. How will we compete? – The Globe and Mail. Doug’s column is a good one, and the notion of Peak People is a smart one. Like all his columns, it’s well worth a read.

To see how this might affect the world, it’s worthwhile to look back to the 14th century and how it was changed by the Black Death (Wikipedia). Vast amounts of the world population was lost in this century, with estimates up to half the population perishing from the disease. This had a profound affect on the world, as touched on in this column: How the Black Death Changed the World | LiveScience. I expect the same thing is going to happen in the 21st century (something already visible).

I also expect other changes, like a decline in global warming, more democracy and economic equality, an even greater focus on geriatrics, and a greater appreciation and support for children and families. A population that is declining and aging will drive all this.

The top five regrets of the dying: what you need to change in your life now

This article has been going around recently (Top five regrets of the dying | Life and style | guardian.co.uk) for good reason. It is well written and insightful. I highly recommend it. But what I recommend even more is that you flip around the top five regrets and make them something you resolve to start doing now.

If those are the top give regrets, you should resolve to:

1. Have the courage to live a life true to ourselves, not the life others expected of us.
2. Stop working so hard.
3. Have the courage to express our feelings.
4. Stay in touch with our friends.
5. Let ourselves be happier.

(Via swissmiss).

The top five regrets of the dying: what you need to change in your life now

This article has been going around recently (Top five regrets of the dying | Life and style | guardian.co.uk) for good reason. It is well written and insightful. I highly recommend it. But what I recommend even more is that you flip around the top five regrets and make them something you resolve to start doing now.

If those are the top give regrets, you should resolve to:

1. Have the courage to live a life true to ourselves, not the life others expected of us.
2. Stop working so hard.
3. Have the courage to express our feelings.
4. Stay in touch with our friends.
5. Let ourselves be happier.

(Via swissmiss).

It’s not so much that we age as that we atrophy

Here’s some visual evidence:

It’s not that being 74 causing the muscles to decline: the 74 year old triathelete has the same body composition of the 40 year old triathelete. Furthermore, if the the 40 year old triathelete was to be incapacitated for a long period of time, they would start to resemble the 74 year old non-athlete.

This is not to say that our bodies don’t suffer wear and tear as we get older. But we have more control over the aging process than we may think. So get out there and exercise, regardless of how old you are. Just do it. 🙂

Via Jay Parkinson + MD + MPH = a doctor in NYC (What really happens to our muscles as we age if we…) and swissmiss.com

What people talk about before they die

This article, My Faith: What people talk about before they die – CNN Belief Blog – CNN.com Blogs, is worthwhile reading to the end, regardless of what you believe. It is simple and profound at the same time, but like much that is profound, it is right in front of you and overlooked.

As an aside, it is easy to deride CNN these days, but kudos to them for hosting such good writing.

(Found via AndrewSullivan.com)

Here’s a simple but effective tool for copying CDs, DVDs and Blu Ray disks: ISO Recorder

I wanted to make backup copies of some family photo DVDs and I found this tool, ISO Recorder v3, very effective. As it says here, “ISO Recorder for Windows Vista/Windows 7 supports CD, DVD and Blu Ray operations. Blu Ray on Windows Vista requires SP2”. You just right click on the diskand select an option. I made an ISO file first because I wanted to make multiple copies and that was the easiest. Then I right clicked on the ISO file and copied it to a blank disk. Worked like a charm.

There may be more feature rich tools out there, but for simple copying, I like this.

In considering Kodak’s demise, it’s important to remember that Fuji is still going strong

And if you read this excellent article, Technological change: The last Kodak moment? | The Economist, you can see how each company dealt with the coming tidal wave of digital cameras. Through a combination of smarts and hard work and some luck, Fuji has managed to do well for itself. Sadly that is not the case for Kodak.

Facebook and Grades – an really good infographic on the topic from OnlineEducation.net

The truth about Facebook is that lots of young people use it as their default media for communication. It’s not simply a waste of time (though it can be that too), but if you think that is all it is and that it has a major drag on the grades of students, you might want to relax.To see what I mean, check out this infographic from OnlineEducation.net (bigger version here: Facebook and Grades)

Rick Santorum, Stephen Harper, and the corruption of the sweater vest

I am a big fan of the sweater vest. It provides warmth and let’s you bridge the gap between formal and casual well. Sadly it turns out that political consultants have latched onto this and are using it to humanize right wing politicians that are seen as something other than that. Sound overly dramatic? Well, here’s Rick Santorum rocking the sweater vest and here is Stephen Harper

My take is that if they wore these vests all the time, then there is nothing wrong with it. But everything tells me that they are doing it based on image consultants. Ironically they make change the association one has of sweater vest to a cynical one, and people will see them as a mask. That would be a shame.

For more on this, see Santorum’s Tressel Gambit — Daily Intel and Wearing sweater vests. – Things Stephen Harper Does To Seem Human

Baked eggs are perfect: simple, nutritious, delicious, and elegant


As Mark Bittman demonstrates, baked eggs are The Simplest Egg, Yet the Most Elegant.
You just need an egg and practically anything else for a superb dish. For example, here’s his recipe: Recipe: Baked Egg With Prosciutto and Tomato – New York Times. Here’s another one with bacon: Stacey Snacks: Baked Eggs in Bacon Baskets. This morning I lined muffin tins with cold cuts (turkey slices) and then followed Stacey’s examples.

If you want eggs sunnyside up for dipping in, you can substitute baked eggs and cook them for around 10 minutes and you will get a perfectly running york with cooked whites that look much nicer than those in the pan. Plus there is the added treat of whatever you lined the pan with.

You can also saute anything you like and then serve it topped with such an egg and you have a wonderful dish.

Best of all, it’s so easy: even people who hate to cook can bake an egg. I did mine in a toaster oven and it comes out well.

You may want to experiment first before you make this for others. 375 is a good temperature to cook the eggs in, and with my toaster oven, 10 minutes yielded a very runny egg. Next time I will aim for 12 minutes. Eggs require attention for best results, but the results are worth it.

My new year’s resolution in 2012 is to suck at things (and also excel)

This is an odd resolution in a number of ways. First of all, you might say, isn’t the point of resolutions to be better at life, not suck at it? And how can you suck and excel at the same time?

As I get older, I find I am less inclined to do new things and tend to stick with what I do well. When I try new things, I suck at them, and I give up on doing them. I find it uncomfortable sucking at things at my age. Unlike my kids, I am self conscious and uncomfortable about doing poorly at things in public. I try them, I hope they will go well, and when they don’t, I put them away. When I was younger, I would rationalize this by thinking: I have work/kids/&c to contend with….I will get to that later. That rationalization is not working so well anymore. Futhermore, there are things that I would like/love to do, but I don’t.

The things I think I suck at but would love to do and do better at are filmmaking, drawing, painting, photography, programming and running (and fitness generally). All of those things I love and I would love to be able to do well, but I know if they take them up again, I will do them poorly. My resolution is to try to keep working on them all year, even when the outcome is terrible. If at the end of the year, I still suck, then I will reconsider if I am going to keep doing them. What I resolve not to do is give up right away.

I was planning only to focus on the things I suck at for my New Year’s Resolution, but there are alot of things that I do that I don’t suck at, but I would like to improve at doing or even excel in doing. Those things include being a dad, a cook (or bottlewasher!) or an IT architect/consultant.  I don’t want to just focus on the things that I suck at: I still want to improve on those areas, because they are most important to me.

I wrote it in the hope of (a) proding me to stick to this resolution and (b) inspire others to make unusual resolutions that would inspire others.

Thanks for reading this.

 

 

 

 

 

A very important Christmas consideration: white lights or colored lights? The NYtimes has the scoop

 

It may seem silly, but it is a debate I have been in a number of times myself, and based on this article, I am not alone: Colored vs. White Is a Christmas Light Debate – NYTimes.com. Personally I lean towards colored lights on the Christmas tree and white or monochrome outside, though not the blinking kind (they drive me crazy). However I have been overruled in my house and we have gone with white lights in and out. That’s fine by me, because in winter, any additional light is welcome. Even more so when it is festive and comforting.

Merry Christmas!

 

 

Who disagrees with Christopher Hitchens on capital punishment? Christopher Hitchens

Here he is in 2011, Staking a Life – Lapham’s Quarterly, on capital punishment. And here is is in Slate in 2006, Don’t hang Saddam. – By Christopher Hitchens – Slate Magazine.

I am not sure if he changed his opinion or not, but I found it interesting how he refers to Saddam with regards to capital punishment and whether or not he deserved it.

The right way to wear a bowtie

I love bowties, but I avoid them because of how closely associated they are with looking like a dweeb. That’s a shame, because they are a great accessory. I could never figure out how to avoid that look, but I think this photo has given me a hint. Aaron Young (pictured here) knows how to wear a bow tie. His suit, shirt and boots are cool and subdued — nothing dweebish there — and his hat is striking. So much so that the bowtie doesn’t get all the attention. I think this is the best way to wear a bowtie: always have one other item of clothing that diminishes it, while keeping the rest of your look cool. Smart.

Found here:the selby