[binary visions]

canon's not shaking in their boots.

No? DPReview disagrees

Its big problem was the fact that Canon was still a generation ahead in the noise stakes, managing to consistently deliver clean images despite megapixel jumps. With the advent of the D300 however Nikon has conclusively removed this disparity and if anything stepped ahead of Canon

At ISO 800 the DSLR-A700 begins to exhibit some chroma (blotchy color) noise, the cleanest of the remaining three appears to be the D300 followed by the EOS 40D

The D300 is definitely a stop better than the previous generation Nikons and any disparity in a comparison between this and the 40D is at a pixel-peeping level - at least from what I've seen. Not that there's necessarily anything wrong with pixel peeping, but I'd say, in regards to real world results from cropped sensors, the playing field has been decisively leveled. Good things for the consumers, Canon has to again step up, and then Nikon can do the same

 

[Toshi]

Growing up on Long Island (albeit farther East than where you'll be) I have to say that owning a second car will be useful, if not necessary.

The wife and I tried it for a while when we were living out in CA and since I had the car most days to go to work she was going stir crazy being unable to get anywhere over a couple blocks away.

thanks for the advice. i feel more comfortable with a non-beater, too, partly because if i bought a car for $1500 i'd feel obligated to _not_ work on the brakes, exhaust, or in any way pour money into it and ruin its value proposition.

btw, toshi - congrats! i'd not heard the conclusion of yr residency quest.

thanks, tim. a quest indeed, which turned out as best as it could given the circumstances (failed standardized pt exam -- got my passing score on the retake 5 days ago so all systems are go, btw).

 

[Toshi]

for the next two weeks i am going to attempt to bike commute in every day. while this is usually non-news, it is for these weeks since i'm at the seattle VA med ctr. it's south of town. i live north of town. this will thus involve 12 miles, one drawbridge, two decent hills, and possibly some tears. i figure i should leave about now (6:39 AM) if i'm going to make it comfortably by 8 AM clinic...

irate2:

so i did this today. was very painful. i'm not sure if i'll do it again, and certainly not for the next two weeks running.

note how the mileage markers end after the 21 point (hidden behind the 3). i gave up then and caught the bus back up the hill for the last ~2.5 miles. too many hills. not enough bike lanes. ugh.

 

[narlus]

The D300 is definitely a stop better than the previous generation Nikons and any disparity in a comparison between this and the 40D is at a pixel-peeping level - at least from what I've seen.

i wasn't comparing it to the 40D...i was comparing it to my (2.5 year old, ancient by digital standards) 5D.

 

[binary visions]

i wasn't comparing it to the 40D...i was comparing it to my (2.5 year old, ancient by digital standards) 5D.

Ah, well, no comparison then. Sure, the 5D wins. Larger photosites. Laws of physics rule, even as technology attempts to surmount them - the D3 beats it, though, if you want to do a little apples-to-apples comparison

Let me tell you, you will be very happy when Canon decides that it needs to follow Nikon's lead of putting this uber-high resolution LCD on the back. Seems like a small thing, but it's pretty amazing.

 

[Toshi]

woohoo

did 15.45 miles roundtrip today on the VA commute, with the missing mileage largely in the hills. felt WAY better to do it this way. (plus i hit 33 mph on a fun downhill stretch sans pedaling! might have been more but that's what it read when i glanced down)

 

[narlus]

Ah, well, no comparison then. Sure, the 5D wins. Larger photosites. Laws of physics rule, even as technology attempts to surmount them - the D3 beats it, though, if you want to do a little apples-to-apples comparison

Let me tell you, you will be very happy when Canon decides that it needs to follow Nikon's lead of putting this uber-high resolution LCD on the back. Seems like a small thing, but it's pretty amazing.

i agree.. i use the LCD quite a bit when shooting live music...i mainly shoot manual now, and the histogram + LCD feedback help me dial settings in. more accuracy in the small jpg displayed can only help me.

btw, for the 5D i paid 1/3 of what a D3 would cost me.

 

[Toshi]

orchestral brass players often have uncomplicated parts compared to the strings, but are often asked to transpose on the fly. for example, a french horn player might be asked to play a piece written for horn in A on their instrument, which is keyed in F. this ability to transpose music on the fly is not really remarkable, as it's a common task. however, if one isn't good at transposing the "cheater way" to accomplish the task is to write out the part by hand in the new key.

in one of my upcoming concerts my trumpet part is largely in F. normally i'd transpose it on the fly without batting an eye, perhaps even rhyming in the process. unfortunately, it is the worst laid out part i've ever run across. in particular, page turns happen inexplicably in the middle of phrases even when the phrases are flanked by multiple long rests, and the scribe felt it would be a good idea to break up multirests such that bar numbers 0 modulo 5 are written out explicitly. (consider a 16 bar multirest at the beginning of a piece: instead of being written as single 16 bar long multirest it would be written as 5 bars, break, 5 bars, break, 5 bars, break, 1 bar, which is an entirely unmusical and difficult-to-count way of doing it.)

in addition to the issues of transposition, page turns, and oddly-formatted rests the part happens to be quite ridiculously high and chromatic: apparently bartók or the scribe figured that key signatures would just confuse trumpet players, and wrote everything out with accidentals.

long story short, i found the part nigh-unreadable and caved in. yes, i ended up writing out my part. shameful, no? i rewrote it all in C* with the multirests and page breaks done in much more sane fashion, and with a few of the chromatic licks respelled enharmonically. i can't remember the last time i wrote out a transposed part, or if i have ever done this before.

* the astute musician-reader might wonder why i wrote out my part in C instead of B flat, when B flat is the putative key of trumpets. the answer is that orchestral trumpet players, me included, almost always play on C trumpets unless the part calls for a note that's so low that it can't be physically played on the slightly smaller, higher pitched C trumpet. the standard B flat trumpet is used more widely in jazz, concert bands, and wind ensembles.

(click on the image below for the part if you're curious what my handiwork looks like. link to the original, horribly formatted and untransposed part.)

 

[Toshi]

internet stars via South Park

http://www.southparkstudios.com/clips/165195/
http://www.southparkstudios.com/clips/165196/

worth watching. chocolate rain, cute panda, laughing baby, numa numa, star wars, zoolander gopher, bubb rubb, tron guy, don't-pick-on-britney girl... it's all there!

 

[Toshi]

crossposted here for keith's benefit:

here's my old Evil, pressed into dh action for one hilarious weekend:

back in its element at Rye Airfield:

me on a boston night ride back in august 2002:

the fun Govt Center wall (i cracked a stanchion the night of the first pic):

pedal kicking is fun:

man, i'm old. i sold my Imperial many moons ago... 2004?

 

[Toshi]

i'm selling some of my stuff, cleaning out the closet. i'll update this post with the eBay auction pages once posted just in case someone out there wants my drysuit or the like.

http://tinyurl.com/6bl4ly to embiggen

trumpet mouthpieces:

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&rd=1&item=110240674101
http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&rd=1&item=110240675538

drysuit:

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=110240678092

 

[Toshi]

i woke up at 5 AM as is my usual habit on sunday mornings. it was a race day, after all, and i'd have to catch the 6 AM ferry to bremerton to arrive in time to register, jack up the car, change the wheels, and walk the course. but this day was different somehow. it felt routine. i'd won my class at the last event but didn't feel any excitement. instead, i fretted as i drove through the darkened streets towards the ferry terminal. should i have packed my ski gloves and hat? was it going to rain as the forecast predicted? how many runs would i get, and how many more runs would the tires last before they'd be dead?

when i arrived at the track my questions were answered: i definitely should have packed storm gear as it was raining like the dickens. what's more, i just didn't feel like doing it. in my mind, the calculus had shifted, and the adrenaline of 5 or 10 screaming minutes out on the track along with the camaraderie of my fellow competitors no longer seemed adequate recompense for spending a full day out in the cold, wet puget sound weather.

so i went home. didn't register, didn't turn a single lug wrench, and didn't stick around to see the weather clear up not 30 minutes later. once at home i frenetically cleaned the car and snapped all manner of photos in anticipation of selling my race tires, spare set of wheels, and the car itself.

i'm mentally done with racing. i'm done with the car. i'm ready to move on to a less expensive, simpler life as a busy resident, even if it means my life will have a little less frivolity and adrenaline.

(on that note, anyone want to buy a 2004 Mazda RX-8?)

http://seattle.craigslist.org/see/car/632592554.html

 

[Fool]

Depending on where you end up once you're on L.I., you may want to keep in mind that sitting in traffic in a manual sucks ... Although owning an automatic sucks more, as I've come to find out, since my current family truckster was only offered in auto at the time of my lease.

 

[Toshi]

Depending on where you end up once you're on L.I., you may want to keep in mind that sitting in traffic in a manual sucks ... Although owning an automatic sucks more, as I've come to find out, since my current family truckster was only offered in auto at the time of my lease.

i'm very leery of the reliability of automatic transmissions in older cars, however, and no matter what i end up with i think it's a safe bet it'll be out of powertrain warranty.

(the race tires and spare set of wheels are already sold and shipped! i probably could have priced them $100 or $200 higher, but there's a fine line between bumping an overpriced item forever and moving it out the door. given that the wheels were and are ugly and the tires have seen their share of off-track excursions when i've spun i think both parties will be happy.)

 

[Toshi]

i'm considering buying a used electric bicycle. am i insane?!

http://www.ridemonkey.com/forums/showthread.php?p=2889841#post2889841

 

[binary visions]

Can we talk about technology for a minute here?

Meet my friend Ric.

This was just an off-the-cuff snapshot yesterday at a gloomy bar. The illumination was a couple windows about 30ft. away and a couple lamps over the pool table that looked to be about 15 watts apiece. Consequently, this was shot at f/1.8 and ISO3200.

ISO3200.

I don't care what camp you're in, or if there is more or less noise in this brand or that, it's a pretty amazing thing when you can capture a dim bar scene at 1/40th with no flash, and still retain that much detail. No NR, shot RAW, resized and a hair of USM. Technology is cool.

 

[Toshi]

my girlfriend bought me one of these. she rocks.

her quote just now "oh my god, it smells like bacon!" followed by "oh gross!" after biting into it. i think it tastes fabulous.



following up on the electric bike idea above i've decided that converting the Klein would be fun. i'm not sure if this is the setup i'll go with but it sure would be fun...

Crystalyte 408 motor in a 26" wheel, 72V 8Ah NiMH, 50A controller, 100% throttle, mph, N-m) of the motor via http://ebikes.ca/simulator/ :

yes, that setup would push me along at 35+ mph. (26 lbs of batteries + 15 lbs of wheel, and unknown mass/size controller, wiring, etc.)

 

[Toshi]

(on that note, anyone want to buy a 2004 Mazda RX-8?)

http://seattle.craigslist.org/see/car/632592554.html

i'm showing the car off to a potential buyer tomorrow... had another guy show interest but then apparently flake earlier this week. i have faith that it'll sell before 3 weeks are up, and if not then i'll slap it up on eBay motors.



if i do sell it quickly then i'm going to be in a bit of a transportation bind, however, since i'm on a final, away rotation in Tacoma (again, 42.5 miles from my house) for this last month. at least this time i'll have housing down there.

 

[Toshi]

i'm showing the car off to a potential buyer tomorrow... had another guy show interest but then apparently flake earlier this week. i have faith that it'll sell before 3 weeks are up, and if not then i'll slap it up on eBay motors.

so i showed the car today. 4 romanian gentlemen in town for a week, looking for cars to re-export and resell in romania. offered me $12.5 cash on the spot. i declined.

(private party blue book is $15,250 with edmunds and nada coming in from $13.8k to $14 and change, i have it listed for $14.5k, and won't go below $13.5k at this time.)

somewhat shady. then again, if they truly have only a week then i might get a call back in a few days...

 

[Toshi]

for the next four weeks starting today I'm on an away rotation in Tacoma. As noted in my earlier worst-commute-ever whine Tacoma is just over 40 miles south of Seattle. Thus I'm provided housing.

Two things really suck about this, however:

1) no Internet in this apartment save for on my iPhone.

2) the clinic where I'll spend half my time at is 18 miles away, and I don't have a bus pass valid down here.

 

[Toshi]

now on teh internets via dialup. hot damn. i'd say it's been years since i've experienced this but that's actually not true: my parents' house out on the oregon coast still has dialup since nothing else is available. the downside of living on a small mountain.

here there's no excuse: the school just dropped the ball. apparently wireless (with an underlying connection implied) was supposed to be in place a year ago.

 

[DRB]

so i showed the car today. 4 romanian gentlemen in town for a week, looking for cars to re-export and resell in romania. offered me $12.5 cash on the spot. i declined.

(private party blue book is $15,250 with edmunds and nada coming in from $13.8k to $14 and change, i have it listed for $14.5k, and won't go below $13.5k at this time.)

somewhat shady. then again, if they truly have only a week then i might get a call back in a few days...

Now that they know where it is, they are probably just going to steal it.

 

[Toshi]

Now that they know where it is, they are probably just going to steal it.

heh, that's what Car Toys does...

i met them in a mall parking lot. they can scour that lot as much as they want -- i won't be there.

 

[Toshi]

I still haven't sold the car, despite showing it a few more times. Tomorrow three parties might see it. Something about it really attracts flakes and lowballers, such as a random Mexican dude who called me to ask if I'd take $6000 (I'm asking $14.5k for comparison). "but I only have six thousand!"

Tough titties, cheapskates.

 

[Toshi]

two biking related pics, one of how my road bike currently looks, and another of the electric bits that are starting to accumulate around my room...

 

[Toshi]

I still haven't sold the car, despite showing it a few more times. Tomorrow three parties might see it. Something about it really attracts flakes and lowballers, such as a random Mexican dude who called me to ask if I'd take $6000 (I'm asking $14.5k for comparison). "but I only have six thousand!"

Tough titties, cheapskates.

and now, after several more flakey craigslist would-be buyers (3 no-shows today!) the car is on eBay Motors.

http://cgi.ebay.com/ebaymotors/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&rd=1&item=110249672542

while i'm spamming, i might as well mention that i have a new-in-box copy of windows vista home premium on eBay:

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=110249674212

 

[Sandwich]

how much do you want for the vista vista? does it come with x64 disks, or just 32? I know you can send away for 64, but it's my money, and I need it now!...sorry.

 

[Toshi]

how much do you want for the vista vista? does it come with x64 disks, or just 32? I know you can send away for 64, but it's my money, and I need it now!...sorry.

i want however much eBay will net me

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=110249674212

i don't know about the x64 disk situation. i'd guess no?

 

[Toshi]

background: i'm building an electric-assist bike. the platform is a Novara Transfer, REI's 26" commuter bike with a Nexus 7-speed hub, full fenders, a sturdy rear rack, and a stock front wheel generator and light system. i'm adding electric power via a front wheel hub motor, a Crystalyte 407 at 48V, to be specific. it should be fast. all the parts and the bike were acquired recently, and tonight was the first time i had to work on it. the bike started out completely stock at the beginning of the night...

I worked on the electric bike project tonight for about three and a half hours (9:15 PM - 12:45 AM. My neighbors must think I'm crazy):

- moved rear reflector on the back of the rack an inch or so to the side and mounted the flasher that came cinched to the seat tube next to it. now it's like a VW car with one "dead" taillight...

- removed the kickstand, only to later reinstall it after feeling how top-heavy the bike is...

- swapped out the funky plush REI seat for my trusty WTB SST.K saddle

- swapped out the funky REI sweep bars for my trusty Answer Protapers, which have long straight sections that are ideal for mounting controls

- lowered the stem as far as possible, moving the spacers above it

- with much ado removed the grips. Now I remember why I switched to Lock-Ons on all my other bikes...

- moved the twist shifter for the rear hub to the left grip, mounted upside down, and mounted the twist throttle for the electric setup on the right in its newly vacated location

- carefully removed the generator front wheel/front light setup that came stock on the donor bike (Novara Transfer). This will be sold soon.

- swapped the tube and tire from the original front wheel to the electric hub motor one

- crammed this wheel with hub motor into the dropouts. It has 12mm threaded dropouts with 10mm ground-down flat sections, and is a tight fit. This is good since the torque at the dropouts is HUGE, as the lever arm is very short.

- rigged up a torque arm to lower forces at the dropout by lengthening the lever arm using one 10mm wrench, two hose clamps, a plastic bag, and a ziptie . I first rigged this up on the right side ahead of the fork but thought better of it, and moved it to the left. My middle-of-night force diagram in my head might be backwards, but I think it belongs on the left if ahead of the fork.

- mounted the Swagman rack trunk to the rear rack, placing it as far back as it would go so that it can open up fully while clearing the seat. I dropped the 48V 12Ah LiFePO4 battery in there once mounted, and it fit with several inches to spare.

- mounted the motor controller to the downtube, using the upper bottle cage bolt on the lower end of the controller's mounting plate, and zipties on the upper end . The lengths of the various wires on the controller worked out best when it was in the main triangle. Otherwise the rear rack trunk may have been a nice place for it.

- mounted the Cycle Analyst on the bars, and migrated my front flasher/light from the road bike to this one

- hooked everything up except for the battery, using zipties and velcro cable organizers (much like Lizard Skins of yore) here and there

- adjusted the brakes at some length: the rim on the electric hub motor wheel is a lot wider than the OEM item and is not dished properly (off to the left by maybe 5mm), so i had to set the brakes up to accommodate this.

- rode it around in this state (no battery connection) to make sure things were mechanically sound. The Cycle Analyst display would light up but not display anything when I was cruising about on human power.

- finally, I hooked up the battery while holding the front wheel safely off the ground, with the key on the controller in the off (? red) position. No drama when I did so, and nothing when I twisted the throttle.

- turned the key on, and the same. Nothing when twisting the throttle.

- hitting the red button on the back of the controller yielded a "Cycle Analyst v2.1" boot screen briefly but nothing after that.

Now I'm quite tired. I'm glad nothing blew up, although it's mildly disappointing that I didn't get everything working in one night. I have a feeling I just need to read the Cycle Analyst and Crystalyte controller manuals online to see how to start the thing up properly...

 

[Toshi]

the electric bike works! got it working this morning, and now it has just shy of 20 miles on it. i'm using about 20 Wh per mile with my usual pedaling (which is good as there's 48V * 12 Ah, or 576 Wh total battery capacity).

top speed on the flat is around 25 mph in a tuck with no pedaling. right now the gearing on the Nexus hub is such that i'm spinning 100 rpm cadence around 20 mph, but i'll remedy that shortly and will be able to pedal along at 25 mph.

 

[Toshi]

current version as of today (version 4 already!). much easier to handle. battery in an Ortlieb Bike Shopper pannier.

 

[WTGPhoben]

That commuter is awesome. it reminds me of a modern version of those beat-up gas scooters that you always see one or two of around college campuses, except this is, well, not a scooter.

I just got back from My Kokopelli ride (143 miles or so from Fruita, CO to Moab). The terrain out there is truly awesome. On the last day of the ride we descended continuously for about 3hrs over some pretty nuts (for XC bikes) terrain with drops and exposed cliffs on the edge of the trail the whole time. Pics here: http://www.phoben.com/photos/pgal/subGals.aspx?albumID=625

Teasers:

 

[Toshi]

That commuter is awesome. it reminds me of a modern version of those beat-up gas scooters that you always see one or two of around college campuses, except this is, well, not a scooter.

I just got back from My Kokopelli ride (143 miles or so from Fruita, CO to Moab). The terrain out there is truly awesome. On the last day of the ride we descended continuously for about 3hrs over some pretty nuts (for XC bikes) terrain with drops and exposed cliffs on the edge of the trail the whole time. Pics here: http://www.phoben.com/photos/pgal/subGals.aspx?albumID=625

Teasers:

sweet. you are the most hardcore rider i know. your server is timing out on me intermittently. bandwidth issues?

also, could you un-inline the panorama and put in a 750 px "thumbnail" of it? it's screwing with text wrap everywhere, including in the reply page...

 

[WTGPhoben]

yeah, the internet connection in my parents' house (where my server still lives) is totally ass-tastic today.

 

[WTGPhoben]

how do you do the thumbnail thing?

 

[Toshi]

how do you do the thumbnail thing?

my lazy way these days for individual images is to use http://imageshack.us/ and check its "resize image to 640x480" option. make sure to uncheck the sneaky right-sided check box for yahoo hotjobs.

(for galleries my sw does it automatically)

 

[Toshi]

and now, after several more flakey craigslist would-be buyers (3 no-shows today!) the car is on eBay Motors.

http://cgi.ebay.com/ebaymotors/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&rd=1&item=110249672542

the RX-8's eBay Motors auction ends tomorrow. what's more, it looks like it actually will sell! so far there's 1 bid but 19 watchers. the dude who bid is from near Calgary, AB, and called me up tonight to verify that i'm legit.

 

[Toshi]

1h left on the auction. The bid is below reserve. Why aren't the 19 other watchers bidding?!

Agh. I want this thing to sell...

 

[Toshi]

didn't sell. second chance offer sent. i guess the RX-8 and me are meant for each other by process of elimination.

 

[WTGPhoben]

it is a sexy ride... I mean seriously, do you reeeally want a practical car?

Fallout from Kokopelli: Sending front and rear shocks to be rebuilt due to faulty (fox) and worn out (5th element) oil seals respectively. Between switching out these parts for their older counterparts and throwing on the new-to-me set of training wheels (non-racing, not need outriggers for balance ) I think I've added about 3lbs to my bike. I also finally have to switch out the master cylinder on the left hand of my martas because the leak has gotten pretty bad (I've had the replacement for about 6mo now). Maybe I ride my bike too much...