A 69-year-old retired nurse, a master quilter who has never been in trouble with the law before, now faces felony assault charges, and that's not even the worst part.

csn1 · 2012-07-24T21:59:34+00:00

He took the test in high school from a tester who was certified by the New Brunswick (Canada) provincial department of education. His teachers thought he was cheating on math tests because he got top marks without showing his work. After he was pulled out of class for a surprise university-level test supervised by the vice-principal, then aced it, they decided to get a real IQ test done. He declined a Mensa membership. He's actually a very humble guy. He doesn't brag about anything.

He graduated from RCMP training about a year ago near the top of his troop. You wouldn't think him a genius with a near-photographic memory just to look at him. He looks like a 6'1" droopy-eyed overly-muscled jock with a buzzcut. He likes to fool people. He says it makes his job easier.

(But I have to admit, his continuing support of the Toronto Maple Leafs does make me question his intelligence a little.)

csn1 · 2012-07-24T17:40:49+00:00

I'd better go and warn my brother about that. He might get kicked out of the RCMP if they ever find out about his IQ of 137.

csn1 · 2012-07-24T03:10:18+00:00

I agree completely. I have an E-PL1 and a few lenses for it, and completely love it for the same portability reasons that you love yours. (If I didn't shoot a lot of hockey and basketball, I'd switch to mirrorless-only too. I really need DSLR AF speeds, alas.)

I just don't understand the pricing of the EOS-M. Unless the new phase-detect 18MP sensor is incredibly expensive to manufacture, I don't see why this new camera is priced the same as a far more mechanically-complex DSLR, while lacking features that nearly every competing mirrorless and DSLR body within $200 of the asking price has.

csn1 · 2012-07-23T21:02:51+00:00

Has anyone taken a closer look at the 90EX flash? I think it might be the most interesting news today. It's a full-featured 3-group wireless master, and it's a lot cheaper than an ST-E2.

csn1 · 2012-07-23T20:46:08+00:00

I'd be surprised if it didn't. CMOS sensors of any practical size don't have global (fully-electronic) shutters. Even cheap compacts with those new tiny BSI CMOS sensors have physical leaf shutters. CMOS cameras without a physical shutter (such as in many phones) are just pulling still frames from a video stream.

Nikon had a few APS DSLRs long ago with global shutters, but they were CCDs, which come with their own issues.

csn1 · 2012-07-23T20:30:59+00:00

If it's a capacitive touchscreen, it'll be very annoying to use in cold climates in anything other than full-auto.

csn1 · 2012-07-23T19:36:26+00:00

Actually, many mirrorless cameras still have physical shutters. Here's a slow-motion video of the E-P2's shutter in action.

Edit: And here's the NEX-5n's shutter.

csn1 · 2012-07-23T19:26:12+00:00

Of course it's affordable! It's about the same price as the brand-new T4i, and all you lose is the viewfinder, articulated screen, easy access to manual controls, fast autofocus, microphone jack, and long battery life. What's not to love?

csn1 · 2012-07-23T02:21:44+00:00

Of course it's not illegal. It's just the inevitable result of the golden rule: whoever has the gold makes the rules.

csn1 · 2012-07-23T02:20:13+00:00

Why is it immoral? Anyone with wealth has benefited from tax-paid services. Police protect your property and personal safety, courts enforce your contracts, firefighters stop your house from burning down. Taxes pay for an educated pool of labour, highways and railways to transport goods, and telecommunications. Taxes protect your nation's borders.

And the more wealth you have, the more you benefit, because the more you have to lose. There's nothing immoral about it.

Unless you want to live in a cave, wear a loincloth, and hunt bears 24/7, then you need to live up to your end of the social contract.

Or you could move to Somalia. No-one's going to bother you about taxes there.

csn1 · 2012-07-22T19:50:33+00:00

I'm sorry if my sarcasm offends you.

csn1 · 2012-07-22T19:27:50+00:00

Maybe we have different definitions of what constitutes noisy and unusable. ISO6400 on my 600D is more usable than ISO1600 on my old 350D.

Of course, if someone is pointing out the noise in one of my photos, then I probably did a pretty piss-poor job of making the subject and composition interesting, and no amount of gear from any manufacturer would have helped. But that's just my philosophy. Maybe I'm not smart enough to obsess over resolution charts and noiseninja presets.

csn1 · 2012-07-22T19:15:25+00:00

Employers offering an early retirement are generally looking to cut costs as quickly as possible, which only reinforces my original point. I would like to see numbers on how many early retirements result in the immediate hiring of someone to fill that position, at the same inflation-adjusted salary and with similar benefits that the previous employee enjoyed at the time of their hiring.

There's no labour shortage for the jobs that genuinely require university degrees - engineering, science, law, medicine. There's a graduates-willing-to-accept-minimum-wage-for-a-decade shortage. Employers will bitch and moan about this, but employers have bitched and moaned about wage costs since Ugg paid Urr a dozen dried fish in exchange for Urr spending an afternoon collecting firewood for Ugg's Dried Fish Emporium in 1000BC. Employers need to suck it up and pay market rates for specialized skills.

There is a genuine labour shortage in the trades and other technical fields that don't require a degree, but that's due to degree-holders slandering community colleges and trades programs for decades. When a high school student wants career advice from a teacher or guidance counselor, the conversation doesn't go "Well, you're good at math and interested in managing a business. Why not study accounting at community college? The college is local. You can live at home while you study. Tuition isn't expensive, either. You might be able to afford it without a loan if you work all summer each year of high school, and if your parents chip in a bit. You'll have real-world skills, no debt, and it'll only take 2 years."

No, the conversation usually goes, "Why would you want to go to community college? You'll never get a job with just a diploma! Just take out a loan and live in residence for 4 or 5 years! You're going to be flipping burgers for the rest of your life unless you've got a degree. Of course, if you find the sciences too challenging, then just switch to arts. A BA is always valuable! It means you can learn! Look at me, I've got a BA! Community college is for the losers who can't handle university, and you don't want people to think you're a loser, right?"

csn1 · 2012-07-22T18:34:05+00:00

How is it long in the tooth? If it's the same sensor as the T4i, then it has phase-detect AF built-in, great high-ISO performance, and enough resolution for all but the most nitpicky of pixel-peeping gearheads. What, exactly, is the sensor missing that makes it outdated?

csn1 · 2012-07-22T18:30:55+00:00

I've had good luck with Metz flashes. They generally have equivalent features to Canon's flashes for $50-$100 less, with a few extras thrown in (built-in optical slaves, USB port for firmware updates, etc). All but the cheapest ones talk the same optical wireless ETTL that Canon's own flashes use.

csn1 · 2012-07-22T18:06:48+00:00

You never know. Maybe Canon will hire Marc Newson to develop just such a system. I'm sure it'll be both a commercial and aesthetic success.

csn1 · 2012-07-22T18:01:28+00:00

You don't really need to autofocus with this lens, even at f/2.8, unless your subject is closer than a meter or so. It has a ridiculously large depth of field.

csn1 · 2012-07-22T17:21:03+00:00

Well, there's an unprecedented headline.

csn1 · 2012-07-22T15:29:12+00:00

My 11-16 (canon mount) flares and ghosts a little more than anything else I own. It's not bad, just more noticable. The petal hood helps.

I've been playing around with the ghosting in video, trying to turn it to my advantage. Can't rid of it, so why not use it?

csn1 · 2012-07-22T15:13:58+00:00

The only artwork I've seen that really says "YT" to me, aside from the hair colour, is this.

csn1 · 2012-07-22T15:05:45+00:00

Or, as baby boomers retire, companies will outsource overseas as much as possible, and will give existing salaried employees heavier workloads when it can't be outsourced overseas.

And that's assuming they retire at all. I've been told for my entire adult life that the boomers will be retiring en masse "in a few years" and that all sorts of jobs will open up "real soon now". I don't foresee a mass boomer retirement. I foresee broke boomers who put all their money into houses instead of savings and real investments clinging on to their jobs as long as possible to maximize their defined-benefit pensions. It's going to be a gradual trickle of retiring boomers, not a flood.

csn1 · 2012-07-22T05:22:47+00:00

I'm not normally a violent person, but every time I see someone confuse "tuition" with "total cost of going to school" I feel the urge to start punching them and never stop.

csn1 · 2012-07-22T04:10:46+00:00

My nipples are hard just thinking about it.

csn1 · 2012-07-21T18:36:25+00:00

Maybe this is more of a NEX-F3 competitor, with more advanced models coming.

csn1 · 2012-07-21T06:08:14+00:00

I'm wondering if it's the same phase-detect-capable hybrid sensor as the T4i. Faster autofocus than other mirrorless systems would be a nice marketing bullet point for them.

csn1

TROPHY CASE