2006.09.12
I got the Olympia FE-190 to replace my Canon SD400, which I guess has a reputation for fragility. In part I was willing to take a gamble with a new brand because it was only $200, though I'm missing some of the Canon bells-and-whistles already. (It's also annoying that selecting on form factor and price keeps me in the "entry level" demographic, when I have delusions of grandeur that I'm taking things that are more than just snapshots.) UPDATE: This camera sucks. You really do get what you pay for in this case, focus was terrible and pixels were very noisy. Damn it.
I guess I find it irksome that small cameras are all striving for the same metrics, megapixels and big old LCD viewscreens. I'd much rather have a tiny, STURDY camera that took fantastic pictures, even if it had a tiny screen and the resolution was only, say, twice what my monitor at home can display, rather than 2.5 to 4.
Same for laptops, where they still seem to be striving for CPU performance, even when for web browsing and Office and casual gaming it would be nice to have a machine with long battery life that you could actually keep on your lap. (At least there is a niche of rugged laptops.)
Mascot of the Moment
Sunday was a goodbye dinner for Ivan as he goes off to college... I brought up the site
logoserver and he found this true gem. (I guess it beats "The Fightin' Messiahs".)
Of course, his
own school's mascot,
the geoducks
gives even the Banana Slugs a run for their money. All these guys make the "Tufts' Jumbos" look downright ordinary.