Electronics

On Full Frame

Kaijuu — Sat, 07 Aug 2010 21:40:00 GMT

Today, I finally bit the bullet and graduated to FF with a Canon EOS 1Ds Mark II.

This is a professional camera, and a little more than I initially aimed for (I was kind of waiting for a 5D mkIII to come out), but a friend of mine wanted to sell his camera body in favour of the lighter 7D, and was willing to part with it for a very reasonable price. Add that to the fact that a new 5D would be considerably more expensive and I'm working on some things that will be revealed later, so this quickly became a now-or-never decision. :)

It's a beauty, it's quick, it's sturdy (wheaterproof even; you can take a shower with this beast), it's kind of heavy and you can cave somebody's head in with it; it'll keep on working.
You can even put two memory cards in and have them act as a RAID 1-set; in the event that one of the cards dies, the other will have the same data on it.

The batteries need some work though; one of the batteries I got with the camera is fairly good, the other two are on the brink of death. I'm going to see whether the refresh-setting on the charger will help, otherwise I'm going to try and refurbish them with some Eneloop replacement cells, which is considerably cheaper than a new Canon battery for this type of camera. :)

I'm as happy as a Danish guy in a tax-free liquor store.

Cheers, K.

On meeting friends

Kaijuu — Wed, 07 Apr 2010 17:34:00 GMT

Today, I went to Tokyo. Normally, it would be rather redundant to travel 600km to a city that's already part of your journey, but Freek, a good friend of mine also happens to be in Japan (along with his brother), so we decided to meet in Tokyo to visit the Miraikan museum.
While this would be my third visit to Miraikan, his would be his first. The museum also keeps on innovating and remodeling, so a visit every now and then doesn't hurt. Kind of like the Evoluon used to be (Evoluon is a congress center these days, but used to display the cutting edge of technology).

As expected, Miraikan changed its temporary exhibition again; this time focussing on 3d printing, nano technology, lab-on-a-chip, various robotics (including Asimo, which we missed, unfortunately) and how ideas are formed and certain things were discovered.

These are some examples of 3-dimensional printing:

The furniture is ink-based; just by using a special form of ink, you can stack the layers on top of eachother, making a three-dimensional objest.
The cogs and their axles have been "printed" in one go, making it seamless. They do this by lighting resin with a laser, which hardens when the laser touches it, one layer at a time.
When you remove the excess resin, you will have moving parts without having to put the whole thing together.

The museum also has a hardware model of the Internet (well, the principle; it consists of five stations, with different networks), which Freek and his brother managed to hack and send a spam message to two other stations.

We went to Fugetsu's for dinner and headed home at about 20:00

I reckon tomorrow will be an easy day; this is a holiday, after all.
Also, Niels arranged tickets for the Hansin Tigers, which will be a blast.

Cheers, K

On dead computers

Kaijuu — Mon, 08 Mar 2010 23:58:00 GMT

Specifically, the computer in my central heating system. It's dead as a doornail (tried another socket, still dead), and the service line can't say whether the repair guy comes in tomorrow morning or somewhat later.

Cheers, K.

Dodgy public relations

Kaijuu — Mon, 28 Dec 2009 21:59:00 GMT

Or; how to screw yourself out of a 2800 dollar turnover...

I'm looking into getting a new surround processor, and I'm not the only one, so when I ran into Emotiva, who punts a relatively cheap processor ($699) which is capable of decoding the latest and greatest formats, I jumped on it. After reading the specifications, I was left with a few questions. One of them was an inquiry about a possible discount if I were to buy four of them at once.
Mind you, I didn't demand anything, I just asked.

All it got me was a bitchy e-mail about them not doing anything of the sort, that the device was in high demand with backorders well into next year and wishing me good luck on finding what I needed elsewhere. They didn't say it outright, but a "go fsck yourself" was clearly between the lines.

Okay, fair enough, but I still wanted to know more, and since the device was one of the few options I have in that price range, I dropped them another line saying that I could understand that, but I had other questions as well.
All that got me was another acid-drenched e-mail that they were far too busy fulfilling pre-orders and that they really didn't do discounts.

Yeah, I got it the first time guys.

Cheers, K.

Super Mario Bros. on 8p

Kaijuu — Sun, 13 Dec 2009 21:46:00 GMT

Not exactly high resolution, but fun nonetheless; some guy named Brad has made a Gameboy clone with a 64 pixel RGB-screen. What does he play: Super Mario Bros. obviously!

Very cool; fun to see that even in that kind of resolutions, SMB is still recognisable.

Cheers, K.

PCH C-200: region-free Blu-ray

Kaijuu — Sun, 22 Nov 2009 09:38:00 GMT

Well, after looking a little bit more into the firmware of the drive I used, it's clear that my understanding of RPC-1 firmware was a little bit crooked.
RPC-1 only tells the region-setting of the DVD-part of the drive to stuff it; the BR-part is still "locked" to one particular region through the firmware of the C-200, which can be switched 5 times. After that, the region set last is the region you'll be stuck with.

This leaves me to try and find some firmware which does what I want.

As I also have a PS3 which has the A-region, I'm not in a hurry to do that, but I'll keep my eyes open.

Cheers, K.

PCH C-200: Blu-ray

Kaijuu — Thu, 19 Nov 2009 20:59:00 GMT

I bought a BR-drive for the C-200 today, in order to turn in into a regio-free Blu-ray player. Unfortunately, the RPC-1 firmware I found didn't make the drive region-free, so I need to look elsewhere.
When I pop an ABC-disk in, however, the player starts the disc and you're watching a movie before you know it.

I like it already.

Cheers, K.

Popcornhour C-200

Kaijuu — Tue, 17 Nov 2009 21:53:00 GMT

Today, I finally received my Popcornhour C-200 media player, which I ordered in September.
First impression: looks good. It's a real, full-size device which makes the A-110 look like a hobby project. RF-remote works brilliantly, the LCD at the front is a blessing (you are finally able to scroll through the contents without needing a TV or projector switched on) and the interface is quick.

I plan on looking into it a little more after the weekend, hopefully with a Blu-ray player built in as well; too tired right now to do more with it.

Cheers, K.

Zoom Experience '09: I love my mobile phone

Kaijuu — Sat, 31 Oct 2009 18:44:00 GMT

I've been the proud owner of a Sharp 903SH camera phone since 2006. Since Anime 2006, to be exact, since I bought the phone during that weekend.
It's a bit bulky, but I don't mind that; the keys are nice to the touch and not overtly small; the screen is nice and big, and it takes pretty pictures.

And today, it landed me a digital photoframe. :)

I visited the Zoom Experience today; a photography fair organised by Zoom.nl magazine.
It wasn't much of an experience, though, as the usual kind of people at these venues showed up. The kind you can sum up with only three words; beergut, backpack and toe-stepper.
Many interesting subjects (like scantily clad and bodypainted women) were obscured by clouds of photographers, the catering was overpriced and sucked, and there weren't many special offers I was interested in, so that extra Canon Speedlite 580 EX-II flashgun I wanted will have to wait a little bit longer. :)

I got the photoframe in some sort of sweepstake; there was a guy from Hama, claiming that they had accessories for pretty much every modern gadget people had on them, and if you could produce something they couldn't cater, you'd get a digital photoframe.
So I whipped out my trusty 903SH.

They tried Sharp (not in the brand list) and Vodafone (that was in the brand list, but no 903SH in the model list), so they gave me the frame as a reward. :)

I also managed to pick up a few coloured backdrops (nice to have during Anime 2010 photoshoots), a reflector screen and an Expodisc at reasonable prices before I had enough of the crampt venue the event was held in and fled the scene with my prize and purchases.

Cheers, K.

Daylight savings

Kaijuu — Sun, 25 Oct 2009 11:00:00 GMT

Yep, it's that time again; got to love devices and clocks who are able to set themselves straight:

Cheers, K.