Nikon D90, a camera that bridges the gap between beginner to the first time dSLR owner

A phenomena was unleashed today when Nikon released information that the new D90 will be able to shoot 720p video 24fps.

First things first 24fps is the fps used by film/movies. Real film can be shot at a low 24fps because each frame can be motion blurred by having long exposures so that each frame will be seamless into the next. Long exposures takes an insane amount of processing power. To do it right you would need to process something like 24 images shot with 1/25s exposures every second. Looking at samples, on Nikon's website, they are ok, but it still looks like a movie with low fps. In other words, more choppy than cinematic. It is no mistake why they chose more slow moving objects, than say someone briskly walking with arms swinging back and fourth.

A good assumption to would be fair make about users who think video is the next breakthrough in dSLR technology is that they probably don't own a dSLR. Taking pictures with a highly specialized (and expensive tool) was never something they were completely sold on, which is why they don't own one. They might have been on the boarderline of buying a dSLR, but after the video feature was added to the D90, it was the feature that pushed them over the edge. So kudos to Nikon for making it happen.

So today, in the dpreview forums, there was a massive amount of people who were more than in-your-face about the fact that they have finally not chosen Canon in the Canon forums because Nikon made the right move. Is there any point to arguing with a person who wants to buy a highly specialized photography tool with a plan to shoot video? Especially when better video equipment has been around forever. These people are neither photographers or videographers. They are just proud that they've finally made up their mind whether to go with Nikon or Canon.

Seriously, when is the last time you picked up your dSLR and thought "damn, I wish this thing had video?" It just doesn't click.

The phenomena itself wasn't the camera, but the barrage of soon to be first time dSLR owners who all collectively made up their mind that D90 has the extra something they have been waiting to jump on when it comes out. If a Canon one day comes with video, maybe I'll use it once in a blue moon because its there, but I really can't see someone who has photography in their mind giving any weight to the video feature.

Update: After reading the D90 reviews, I take back a lot of things I said about the camera. The video indeed does suck, but the camera itself is awesome, more so than anything Canon has announced recently. Nikon is still in the photography business, Canon seems to be changing their focus so that their features are more appealing to the everyday consumer which is ultimately going to be disadvantageous image quality. Please Canon, no more megapixels. 15 is too much for the APS-C, and I can't imagine what a pain a 21 megapixel raw file will be to handle.

KITH

My first experience at Marie Calendars

When I was young (elementary school/Jr. High), living in Koreatown, my friends always told me how they went to Marie Calendars and how they relished the experience. I used to ask if it was a restaurant, and they'd tell me that they'd have desserts. So it was a place you went to get pie and coffee? It just didn't make sense to me. And that cloudy vision of Marie Calendar remained with me for the next 20 years. What do you do there? Its like a cafe, mostly for desserts and soups? Why would anyone go there for that? And how could it be that good? Well, I went there for the first time on Friday. And it turns out that its pretty much like a Denny's, but of higher quality. Since it was my first experience, I went for the full Marie Calendar experience. That's right. I got the chicken pot pie. That's what they are known for. Just ask Costco. At one time of my life, I really liked chicken pot pies although I've only had one kind of chicken pot pies in my life. I never had a Marie Calendars frozen chicken pot pie (I always thought they were expensive, and one took at the Nutritional Facts sealed the fate that I would never buy one). I only buy the $1 kind with light blue packaging. It was cheap, and I can enjoy it.

So what was the Marie Calendar's pie like? Well, I can say for sure that it was probably the best pot pie i've ever had. But to be fair, its not hard to beat a $1 pie with a $12.85 pie. There is some magic in the crust (probably butter or shortning). When the crust is broken off and dropped into the white cream on the bottom, the stars align. Earth stands still. You spoon the combination of crust and pie center into your mouth, and as you press your tongue to the roof of your mouth, an explosion of goodness happens. The tonge has taste buds for sour, salty, bitter and sweet, but trust me on this one, we have taste buds for fat, and it is revealed to you when you eat something like this. The fat dissolves instantly when it makes contact, and its like someone turned on a switch in your brain, that hasn't been switched on for a long time. And you think "huh....yeah, there is something special about this."

Unfortunately, I wasn't feeling like chicken pot pie, so I didn't savor the experience, but I ordered it anyway to get it out of the way so I never have to wonder. To finish off the original Marie Calendar experience, we ordered individual pieces of lemon marange, cherry, and banana cream pie.

The entire experience itself was ok. I'll go back when I feel like eating some chicken pot pie.

RSS feeds, and the ridiculousness of the update frequency

I'll admit I'm not an expert at RSS and I haven't read the ISO doc or anything like that. But what I can say about RSS feeds is that its ridiculously slow to update.

Are some of the servers providing RSS feeds on a 2400 baud modem? Is that the problem?

We're at an age where we no longer should have to wait for anything if we don't have to. How about a RSS relaying service for something like iGoogle? For example, say you have a popular rss feed, and you don't want a million people that have added the rss feed to iGoogle (Google's news aggregator) to request from your server with limited bandwidth. So instead, Google's rss relay service checks your rss feed every minute, and when people update their iGoogle page, it displays what Google's last update was.

Maybe they are already doing that. And if that's the case, there is no excuse for slow updating RSS feeds. A slow updatting RSS feed is as good as day old newspaper.

Chipotle

You know what would be really good at Chipotle? If they had lamb steak (like the steak they have now) sauteed with some cumin. That would make a damn good soft taco.

...[drool]....

Week 5: Day 1

Making huge improvements on the fly machine. I could probably do a set at 160 by next time. Was able to do some jump roping on my off day. I must keep that up by doing it tomorrow.

Business is on the up and up

I gotta hand it to my sales guys. We got deals in the pipeline, some already closed (just going to take some time to get a PO). Our new website is fantastic and highly tuned for any kind of adword campaign and every SEO optimization we want to do. Software is improving. We've been approved to bid on government contracts which is one of the sales guys' specialties.. And last but not least we now have a new process in place to get additional leads at any time. It involves "selectively emailing" some target indivduals (we've purchased 25k email addresses of people with selective job titles in specific industries), but its effective. We invite them to a webinar on a topic they want to hear more about. And we've been really surprised at the conversion rate.

Just a few more sales and we're hoping it should be for me to finally to make the move up to LA, and get a better sales office so I can work in person with my sales guys. We would always be making a lot of progress. It would also make us work more and more efficient. Working from home is great, but slacking off is too easy. When you work for your own company, it is a joy and a curse at the same time. That is why I have not bought Rock Band, a game I find immense joy playing and improving on the little of it that I play at Stan's house. Which seems to be maybe once a month, if that. I haven't bought GTA: IV, a game I had been waiting for a since it was announced 2 years ago. I did manage to re-mod my Wii to get a mod chip with an updatable firmware so that I can play the 3 new Mario games. Luckily, the games did not prove additing. It could be that I have a new hobby now, which is 55+5. And for once, its a hobby that is not a waste of time.

Does cheap gas burn faster?

I've always thought so but was it can never be more than speculation.

I filled up on Saturday at Costco, I drove to Stan's house, then I drove home. Then I drove to LA Fitness and back. After not driving until Monday night, I got back in my car I noticed that the tank read at 2 lines below the Full line. And with the amount of driving that I did, which was less than 15 miles, I expected it to still exceed the Full line. Usually after I've burned through 2-3 gallons of gas, I would expect it to be where its at.

I think we need mythbusters for this one. But that's pretty friggin amazing how quickly the gas burned off. Even if they pumped a gallon less into the tank to make me think I filled up my car for a lot less, it would still not make sense.

San Diego

Knock on wood, but the weather has been exceptionally exceptional. 73 degress, all day and night.

Can you ask for anything more?

How about if a thousand dollars fell into my lap.

Waiting.....

Waiting....

Nothing yet....

Still nothing...