Blog: 2008-07
Cuil & Liars
By now, everyone knows that Cuil, unveiled amid much publicity as a supposed Google Killer, has been shown to have such ridiculous search hit relevance that it wouldn't have even been able to kill one of the pre-Google search engines a decade ago.
Colleagues and I are still trying to figure out what reasoning could have driven Cuil to release before they were working minimally. I'm thinking either terrible internal deception (perhaps the executives were getting the smokescreen from product management?), or a desperate act due to investor pressure.
I wasn't going to blog about this (I already dissed Cuil elsewhere, from the start), but I wanted to quickly excerpt this new message from the "Founders' Note" tab of the Cuil site:
And yet, for a lot of searches, Cuil did provide users with new results, different from the ones folks have gotten in the past, according to the reports we've received. This is one of goals -- to give people an alternative to existing approaches.
I found this PR spin attempt hilarious, perhaps partly because I once worked in a lab with a person who I think would've spun it exactly like that. Come to think of it, I think he also would've frittered away $33M, engaged in internal deception smokescreens, and then shipped something that didn't work, just to appease for one more day the investors who fell for his used car salesman routine.
I don't have time to analyze this situation, but I'll quickly note some patterns we often see with what I'll informally call "liars": (1) liars get trapped in a web of lies (or the variant, known as "the coverup is worse than the crime"), (2) a liar might be truthful to you for a while, but will eventually lie to you, (3) liars get emboldened by the success of their lies, and tell increasingly bigger and riskier ones, (4) liars can act really friendly, yet still be liars.
Unclear whether Cuil are liars, but if they're not, then they should learn to be a bit more intellectually honest before folksy signing of PR crap like the above as "Tom, Anna and Russell."
Dance Fine Art Shoots Delayed
Speaking of not having time for analysis, I decided the other day to postpone my summer fine art project. In June, I did some planning, located a number of dancer models, discussed with a designer who'd shepherd the printing, and did a couple test shoots. In July, however, I didn't find any time to work more on that. For August, I have a different project that needs 100% of my energy. So that we can do a proper job of the shoots, they'll have to wait til late August to start, and probably run through October. New target is to go to the printers in November, and to be ready for sale by Thanksgiving at the latest. If that schedule doesn't work, we have a contingency plan of changing the design, increasing the size by half, and adding more indoor shoots to the mix, for release in time for the tourist season.
I'll probably send an update to the individual models this weekend.
Other dancers: There are still a couple possible model slots available, but you'll have to be available for Boston location shoots in September and October.
Strobists: Nikon SB-26 Spotted in Harvard Square
Strobists: late this afternoon, I spotted a used SB-26 in Hunt's in Harvard Square for $99. As you might know, the SB-26 is arguably the best portable strobe for Strobists, due to the reasonable power, built-in optical slave, and affordable price.
If you wanted to dicker, you could ask them if they'll take $50 for it, and set your target at $80 or so. They're either going to sell it to a Strobist, or it's gonna sit there forever, waiting for someone who shoots film with Nikon and actually needs a new strobe amidst the glut of them.
A good way to assemble your kit after you have your first strobe is to keep an eye out for good deals, and snap them up as they present themselves. I think three is a good number to have, though some people have six or more. Remember that you can own five SB-26s for the cost of one SB-900.
By the way, if you see an old Nikkor 50mm 1.8 or 1.4 (preferably an AF 1.8) in a Boston store for around $40-$50 in the next couple days, I'm trying to pick one up for a friend.
Bad Luck with Tenergy NiMH AA Batteries
I use NiMH rechargeable AA batteries extensively. I happen to have a Powa fast charger, which works great with my 12 Powatech-branded 2700mAh batteries. More recently, I bought 12 Tenergy-branded 2600mAh batteries, and they've been nothing but trouble, even as the Powatech AAs work fine.
I keep NiMH AA batteries together in sets of four, so that the batteries wear and charge evenly. For unknown reasons, in each charging session of the Tenergy AAs, there will be one or two batteries that keep charging for several times longer than the others. When I have to pull dead batteries from a strobe or other device, they're usually Tenergy, even though I have the same number of Powatech.
For the latest anecdotal evidence, when I grabbed fresh spares from my bag just now, two Tenergy sets were completely dead (as far as my radio scanner was concerned), and only the one set of Powatech had a charge. All had been charged within the last week or two. I'd estimate that Tenergy are dead about half the time I pull them from my bag, and Powatech never are.
I'm using Powatech for comparison because it's what I happen to have, not that they have an especially reputation for quality.
The cause might be my fast charger, which I've heard rumors can be hard on NiMH batteries. However, the Powatech continue to work like champs with it.
Air Conditioner Offenses
Temperature-wise, Boston is not a hot city. Some summers, I didn't even get the portable fan out. A few years ago, I bought an AC, which paid for itself the first freak day the heat index hit 95, but I usually run the AC only a few days a year. Almost all the time, I prefer to keep the windows open.
I don't begrudge the newly-arrived Floridian ex-pats who insist on sealing up their apartments and running ACs all summer as if they do not want to experience the concept of seasons. It's the way of their people, and they need to suffer through the looming six-month Boston winter for themselves before they can appreciate the foolishness of their ways. (Then there will be much wailing, beating of breasts, gnashing of teeth, and ruing every day they artificially turned from 79F to 72F.)
Sadly for the rest of us, every summer there's one neighbor who has an old, broken window AC that makes unacceptably loud rattling, buzzing, and/or knocking noises throughout much of the day and night. This is a problem for those of us who are packed together densely in these Cambridge multi-family structures, where the non-soothing sounds of the ass-ends of broken ACs sometimes waft into our bedroom windows all night.
This summer, rather than the proverbial one such broken AC unit, there were three of the infernal devices. One of the offending neighbors has thankfully found enlightenment and removed the crapbox AC altogether. Which leaves two.
As I sit typing this at 02:25 -- wearing sweats and drinking warm liquids because it's 67F out, with a cool breeze, after a day that barely touched 80F -- one of the remaining two enemy units, which has been puttering along continuously for days, is still running.
At the shopping mall down Cambridge Street, Best Buy has a new AC available for $129.99, and Sears has one for $139.99. (The Sears one appears to be the same model I own, which has worked quite well in my 2BR apartment.) Short-term, it would be in my best interests to just hand the neighbors the money and push their old contraptions out the window, to be busted open on the sidewalk below, and thereby neutralized. But I do not make deals with terrorists.
My only consolation, other than that the two neighbors will eventually rot in hell, is the hope that these old, broken, energy-inefficient ACs will cost their operators hundreds of dollars in kilowatt-hours this summer.
Canon Lens Repair
My Canon EF 17-35/2.8L arrived back from Canon service center today. FedEx actually tried to deliver it yesterday, before the shipping notification was sent, so that would've been 8 days between me dropping it off for USPS Priority Mail (Boston to New Jersey) and it arriving back at my doorstep.
The standard fee lots of people mention, $158, applied. Plus there was a $15 return shipping fee, and the $20 and change it cost to ship. For my $193, they fixed the loose front ring and the broken manual focus ring (both of which had been damaged during shipment when I bought it used), and calibrated it. It seems sharper wide open now than it did before, with f/2.8 not being radically softer than f/8. Nowhere near as sharp at f/2.8 as the 28/1.8 that I sold to help pay for the 17-35, but such is the nature of zooms, even L ones.
I could've kept it going with a little gaffer tape, but that just wasn't trustworthy enough for my (now delayed) fine art project, and I was in danger of damaging the lens further. Also, the $193 investment more than paid for itself in increased resale value.
I was kinda hoping Canon would no longer have the right parts, and would have to send me a replacement lens of a new 16-35/2.8L Mk. II. Oh, and that the FedEx driver would be a very attractive photographer, and that it would be her last delivery of the day. But alas.
Running Rapid Ramp-up
Last week I resumed running. On Tuesday, the temps were in the 80s F, but I was tired of putting it off, so I went out around lunchtime. I lasted only one length of the Esplanade, between the Longfellow and Harvard bridges. When I stopped, I felt very ill, I started to black out after a few minutes, and I had to collapse for about ten minutes before slowly shuffling home.
So on Wednesday I had to get me some more of that. I took another route along the Charles, jogged until I was out of steam, then sprinted the last bit, just like I used to.
On Thursday, the weather was milder, and I ran along both sides of the Charles, stopping only to walk through the BU campus.
That was an easier ramp-up than I was expecting.
Which reminds me. A few years ago, a woman I was dating heard me use the term "ramp up" in a completely innocuous context. She had never heard the term, and thought it was a vulgarity. She was a young writer and educator with a Humanities PhD, who grew up in the US in a high-verbal English-speaking household, and who had already made it into the distinguished alumni gallery of a certain Ivy. I assured her that many business people and engineers have been saying "ramp up" for some time, to characterize an upward ramp-like function, with no salacious connotations whatsoever. It hadn't occurred to me that this term was not in the popular vocabulary. Business people have additional terms like "hockey stick growth curve," which, too, are innocuous. If they wanted to be foul-mouthed, business people would say "priapism growth curve," and I'm sure their filthy little minds would think of something like that.
Truth About Protesters
Speaking of the visit of US Vice President Dick Cheney to the USS Constitution ceremony on the 4th of July, Adam Gaffin writes in post Protesting Dick Cheney on the great Universal Hub site:
Looks like some folks did show up to protest Cheney's visit [...]
The page to which he links has some pretty snapshots of protesters. I didn't pursue protester portraits, since my images would have been about "in lighter news tonight, a few mediagenic protesters dressed up." The story I was seeing was that the protest was surprisingly small.
Playing journalist, I don't advise demonstrators nor create news, but I'm going to try to report it. There was no media presence where the protesters were, other than little ol' me. And I bet the protesters couldn't even discern Cheney's visage from where they were during the approximately three seconds the limos were in view.
So, the photo I'm going to post is not something visually interesting enough to publish, but I think it most accurately captures the perceptions of the audience of police and a few dozen sightseers: unedited wide shot of protesters as motorcade passes.
I probably could've found an interesting one-person's-story by interviewing a few protesters, and then shooting a news portrait to accompany the best story. I decided instead to make my way to the other side of the perimeter, to hopefully get images of the official events and the boat.
Evils At Work & USS Constitution
Visiting the USS Constitution on the Fourth of July, I photographed Dick Cheney.
To the limited extent I got to see Cheney, he didn't seem evil. The only evil I perceived was the front ring of my professional ultrawide zoom lens inexplicably detaching. I held it in place for the next hour.
The lens breaking was the first evil. The second evil was when my old lens didn't show up on the list of lenses that Canon still repairs.
The third evil was when I went to call Canon technical support, and they gave a phone number with letters -- 1-800-GO-CANON -- but no numeric translation. My Nokia smartphone does not have these letters.
The fourth evil was when I translated the phone number for dialing. Yes, NON is 666.
An ominous sign, I thought, as I shipped my most expensive lens to New Jersey.
By the way, very quick pick of shots of the USS Constitution from the ceremony: firing cannon, in Boston Harbor, juxtaposed with Zakim Bridge. As you can tell, it was heavily overcast, and raining on and off.
Got 'Im
Cambridge and Boston proper aren't big on birds -- mostly just
sparrows, pigeons, ducks, geese, and seagulls. So, the other day, when I saw a
bright red cardinal on my block, I ran home to get my camera, and spent the
next half an hour running back and forth the street, trying in vain to get a
good shot of him. At one point, I was hitting him 4 stories up on the edge of
a church roof, using a strobe for fill, since he was backlit against a late
afternoon sky. Finally he hid where I couldn't find him.
So yesterday I hear this unusual bird chirping outside my kitchen window, I lean out, and it's the little bastard. Not a sore winner from the other day's competition, the cardinal was gracious enough to pose for a snapshot. He even cleaned up nice, with his hair all slicked back.
That was a quick post of a snapshot. I have a bunch of new material, including working Boston Pride, but no time to really go through and post. With the exception of occasional news shooting, I'm saving my photo administrative energy for my summer dance project.
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