rantlust

Posted by papi on January 27th 2008 in Art, Earth, Movies, Reviews, Science
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Saw this short movie today, and thought I’d share it. The full version is not available on youtube, but the first chapter is shown above, and you can catch the full movie in one piece at:

http://www.storyofstuff.com/

Some of the things shown are overly simplified, but then cramming even a broad explanation of a complex problem into a 20 minute short necessitates a certain amount of abbreviation. There are some little nuggets here that are revealing. Only 1% of the consumer goods purchased in the US is used 6 months after its purchase?? That’s a telling statistic! [see comments below]

On a related note, there’s a stunning documentary doing the rounds right now which I highly recommend. The movie is “Manufactured Landscapes” and it’s a documentary by Jennifer Baichwal, on the work of photographer Edward Burtynsky. Baichwal follows Burtynsky on his travels as he photographs the impact of humans on the landscape. Some of the shots in the movie are scarcely believable, as the scope of industrialization in parts of our planet takes time sink in. The images will stay with you long after you’ve left the theatre. The opening tracking shot of a factory is worth the price of admission in itself. Watch, and wonder.

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Posted by anupcs on October 13th 2007 in Movies, Reviews
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Mini-reviews of movies I watched recently, in no particular order:

1. The Lives of Others
2. Wild Hogs
3. 3:10 to Yuma
4. The Kingdom
5. Into The Wild
6. The Valet
7. Away From Her

(Read more…)

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Posted by anupcs on December 14th 2006 in Gadgets, Photography, Reviews
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December is a great time to buy electronic items such as digital cameras. My wife had ruined our previous point and shoot (Canon Powershot S50) by dipping it (accidentally, she says) in the frigid waters of the North Atlantic a few months ago. It was time for a replacement. When I started my research, I was amazed at the choice offered.

The S50 is a great camera and I have been very happy with it for the last three years. But it’s a bit bulky and doesn’t take good photos at low light. The highest ISO setting for that camera is 400 and it’s very noisy at that level. But it allowed manual focus, and allowed aperture priority and shutter priority modes. It also took photos in the Canon RAW (CRW) format. I knew soon after I started looking that I couldn’t get all these features in a slim camera. I had to go with something like the new flagship of the Powershot series, the G7, to get all these features (though even it, doesn’t take RAW photographs). The G7 is 43mm thick as opposed to the 42mm for the S50. I wanted something far slimmer. Especially because I also bought a new dSLR.

Read on for my short list and a summary of my research into P & S cameras.
(Read more…)

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