One of the first things I did when I got home with my shiny new Sony Alpha 850 camera was try to find out if it could honestly deliver on its 24 megapixel resolution. The image is 6048x4032, but does it actually resolve?

First off, is it physically possible? If you break out an optics textbook and do the math on a full-frame 24x36mm sensor, it is possible to keep the circle of confusion below the pixel size at apertures wider than about f/8. With a terrific lens. And a tripod. And a cable release. And mirror lockup. And no wind.

Mind you, the actual measured lines per inch matters far less to me than the fact that it’s a full-frame DSLR that takes all my old Minolta lenses; I’d have been perfectly happy with a 12-megapixel full-frame body, but since 24 is what’s available…

I didn’t feel like breaking out my big tripod or my good lights, so I settled for getting into the ballpark: a decent lens (Tamron 90/2.8 Macro) at 100% magnification, a sturdy table-top tripod, cable release, mirror lockup, indoors, available light. ISO 100, f/8, 6-second exposure. Developed from RAW using Sony’s app, resized and cropped in Photoshop with no other modifications.

more...

Ubuntu Magazine in Japan has decided that penguins are the wrong mascot for the market, and replaced them with junior idols. This month’s centerfold is 12.

[and, yes, I’m using “centerfold” loosely; the photos themselves are wholesome and innocent (more so than you’d expect from the generally quite creepy U-15 market), it’s just the placement that’s new. They’ve launched a new bi-monthly Linux magazine where one of the main attractions is pictures of young girls.]

I’d never heard this one before, but it showed up on URA MELON (now available on the US iTunes store; they really are getting better about releasing stuff internationally). No video, but someone has uploaded it to Youtube as the soundtrack to a really awful low-res still photo. The title is Fuwafuwafuu, or “Fluffy…”.

For a band that Hello!Project had no real interest in promoting, they certainly let them record a wide range of material. And they gave them the single goofiest video in the history of the agency…

more...

“No offense, ma’am, but when does the pretty girl in the kimono come back on stage?”

Happened to wander through San Francisco’s Japantown today, and found something nice in the mall. Not for sale.

So I bought a book on the opening of Japan. Maybe I’m reading too much into this, but the author leads off by explaining that Pearl Harbor was a healthy psychological reaction to the deep wounds inflicted by Commodore Perry’s black ships and the arrogant American imperialism they represented.

I’m dying to see how he explains Perry’s culpability in the conquest of Korea, the invasion of China, the germ warfare, the comfort women, and all the other “healthy reactions” of poor, traumatized Imperial Japan.

Now it’s certainly possible that the rest of the book is an even-handed treatment of the events on both sides, well supported by the historical record, but somehow I doubt it.

I wish to state that I am intensely jealous of my sister at the moment:

From: Nellie Greely
Date: May 24, 2010
Subject: Tokyo.....

Found out today that I have to go there on Saturday for work...

I sent her a pop-out map, the excellent (and out-of-print) Little Tokyo Subway Guidebook, Not Just a Good Food Guide: Tokyo, Fodor’s Tokyo, a Japanese phrasebook, a Suica card (the penguin on the card was a nice bonus), and some pocket change.

It’s a short trip, and mostly business, but she’s got two free days, so I made sure she was loaded for bear.

I also emailed her the following picture to print out and carry into grocery and convenience stores:

more...

[Update: an old interview with Gardner has been reclaimed from the dust.]

Age 95. If you don’t already have his books, go buy some. Somewhere, I think I still have a large pile of xeroxed copies of his old Scientific American columns…

If you have any interest in games, magic, recreational mathematics, or a reality unencumbered by pseudoscience, you should already know how much he’ll be missed.