Digital Lifestyle

My digital lifestyle was recently enhanced with a modest 15" LCD TV mounted next to the dartboard in the basement. Thanks, CS. Now I just need to hook-up a PS2.

Quote
Madaracs
15" LCD TV mounted next to the dartboard

aren't you worried about it getting damaged? or are you and your friends really good at darts?

It's on a swing arm so he could, theoretically, turn the TV so that darts wouldn't hit the screen.

And it's an electronic dart board so we're talking plastic-tipped darts, too.

BAH! Cork and steel tip is the only way to go.

Poeple don't like it when I play darts. Anyone who's seen my grip will know why...

The only person in danger of actually hitting the TV is my wife. She usually misses the board to the right though so it shouldn't be a problem. It would be very difficult for someone to throw a dart at the TV in it's position. If kids play, I'll probably turn the TV away.

famous last words.

What a journey.

It's really an exercise in intimidation. Those that know they won't hit the TV and are good at darts will do fine. Those that are afraid they might, will aim to the left. It's all good.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 12/19/2007 10:58AM by Madaracs.

Interesting article about pixel density in compact cameras:
http://6mpixel.org/en/

Good article, yes.

Here's another one which gets a little deeper into quantifying the sensor size tradeoff:

http://photo.net/equipment/digital/sensorsize/

Both good articles.

I got a Canon A650is yesterday, to replace the Olympus C5050 I dropped onto concrete back in July. And while the Canon has most of the features I wanted, the 12.1 megapixels bother me--they're overkill, and I know they require compromises given the sensor size. At first glance, the picture quality is no better than, and may actually be a small step below, that of the 5.1 megapixel, vintage 2003 Olympus.

There are actually WAY MORE VARIABLES at play in the digicam world than ever.

Consider the variables that existed in a common compact 35MM camera of only 5 years ago or so and look what has gone from "standard/open" to "who knows". If you wanted to compare how Kodachrome or Fujichrome "looked" it was no big deal to switch them in your camera. If you wondered about the results of Canon optics vs Nikon similarly it was pretty easy to compare.

Now you have different design/dimension of the sensors, different approaches to NR, different approaches to lens design, different philosophy on storing raw data, different compression, etc.

The marketers have too much 'splaining to do, so they resort to boxes with silly numbers on them, as that seemed to work for Intel...

And none of them really get the idea that what 90% of us would want would be low noise.

I dunno, I see lots of old lady types lined up at the "print your digital pictures here" kiosks at the drug store and I think they are more than happy to have some noise as look as the color on their 4x6 prints are reasonable bright and the contrast is strong. Noise may actually look like simply a more festive sweater to them...

It really is not that different than TV shopping or hi-fi listening, the MINORITY cares about accurate reproduction while the masses like things "more real than life".

Maybe time to resurrect the Click-click-click camera and firearms thread.

Just got my buy.com refurb Sansa e250 they had on sale for $35. Should have bought more.

2 GB. Retails/ed for $99.

http://www.sandisk.com/Products/Item(1937)-SDMX4-2048-A70-Sansa_e250_MP3_Player_2GB.aspx



The thing is so cool in ways I wonder why Apple does not do.

The one feature I want for meetings - built-in audio recorder. And it sounds really good, too.
Plays videos. 1.8" screen.
Has FM tuner and it can RECORD it, too. Nice since my Rush station just went FM THIS WEEK. No more Radio Shark needed.

Sync it with the free SyncTunes (I'm doing it now for the first time)

Expansion SD micro slot, so I can expand the storage. Kissy kissy sansa!

I actually like the wheel controller too. It's raised, more touch feedback for me, and it lights up blue, too.

What a journey.

That's pretty nice. Does it work with iTunes? Does it support AAC?



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 12/28/2007 03:58PM by rino.

Had it for hours...but yeah, using SyncTunes, I can pick playlists, podcasts. Video and photos I guess can be manually dropped into the media folders you want them in on the mounted drive. Yes, AAC appears to be a valid format using SyncTunes. (it's free)

I'm not big into formats. I could not tell you if I have MP3 vs AACs, in general.

But for $35 I can't lose. It's slick. If Sansa made an interface just a tiny bit more auto than the SyncTunes, Apple would have to watch out. I like the iPods, but I like choice in feature set, a lot, too.

What a journey.

Here is an audio file I just recorded with the built-in feature&mic.

http://www.mediafire.com/?7lw1is0zknb

What a journey.