Absurd Singularity

Early this morning Erin had to go get her biometrics taken with the Department of Homeland Security so we got Devon all suited up for the outdoors. He wasn't particularly happy about that since this was his prime sleep time so he wasn't diggin' it when we started to cram him into another set of clothes.

Since the federal building was close to my office, we took my normal commute (bus to Journal Square, PATH to Christopher) which usually runs about an hour one way. Erin had him nestled in his Baby Bjorn carrier and he pretty much slept through the entire 3 hour trip. He made a little fuss when Erin was having her fingerprints taken but overall remained comatose. Erin though was really tired after all that. Guess Devon's really packing on the pounds.

I've long resisted the temptation to purchase headphones for use with my old 3rd gen iPod. Never much of an audiophile, I figured my ears wouldn't be able to tell much of a difference between a $100+ pair of headphones and the stock ones that come with the iPod. For the most part the iPod headphones worked fine for me. Only thing I noticed was that with loud background noise I couldn't hear much of anything with them. But when it comes to pricey headphones, you definitely don't know what you're missing until you actually use them.

This actually wasn't my first foray into in-ear headphones however. Awhile back I had purchased the Apple iPod In-Ear Headphones when they first came out. That was a mistake. Couldn't get the things to stay in my ear so I sold them off real quick. But in anticipation of a widescreen iPod late last year (that never came to fruition), I decided to take another look at the headphones that were available. Based on the review at iLounge, I decided to pick up a pair of Etymotic ER-6i Isolator Earphones.

If there's anything I have that's worth selling, I usually give it a shot on good ol' craigslist first. It usually works out well since the buyer is local and I can meet them for a straight up cash exchange. It's not entirely roses though as prospective sellers also have to wade through their fare share of scavengers and outright scammers.

Scavengers I mostly ignore. You know, and they know, that their offer is ridiculously low but hey, maybe the seller's a dumbass and they'll get lucky. It happens. Hagglers, on the other hand, are fine. I always expect some amount of haggling so I usually bump up my initial price appropriately. I still wind up getting an acceptable amount and the haggler goes away feeling like he accomplished something. Win/win.

The emails that I find most amusing come from the foreign scammers. I'm not exactly sure why these guys still try to do what they do on craigslist. If you're a seller, and you fall for their line, you should just return your computer and stay off the web. For starters, craigslist has this convenient page that warns potential bonehead sellers what to look out for. And the emails that I receive are just chock full of signs that the person on the other end isn't who he/she wants you to believe they are. For instance:

"Hello, How are you today? I saw your item on display on craigslist and I'm interested in buying from you. I'll appreciate if you can give me a good description of the item and probably send to me the picture so I could see its condition. Please get back to me ASAP.Thank you."

1. Skip the pleasantries. No one I've ever received an email from who was a legitimate buyer types crap like "How are you today?"
2. RTFA (Read The F*****' Ad). Send you a description and picture? Hello? I described the item and posted not just one, but FOUR pictures with it. Obviously you just worked up a bot that trolls through the classified ad emails and shoots crap out to everyone selling anything remotely of value.
3. Stop being so damn polite. A "thank you" at the end if you're requesting information is perfectly understandable. Pleasantries in the beginning of the email (see point #1) along with unnecessarily "nice" ways of requesting things just don't wash. Especially here in NYC.
4. Work on your grammar. The combination of polite writing and poor grammar is just weird.
5. Offering to pay MORE than what the seller is asking for will not make them like you. It just raises warning bells. People who frequent craigslist classifieds are trolling for a cheap deal. They rarely offer you your asking price much less more.

A couple more examples of what I'm talking about:

"What is the best price you offering for this item? will be expecting yourprompt response at your earliest convenient time."

"Hello i want to know if you still have this product for sale and what problem is having before i proceed with the payment, if no problem i will offer you some extra money to it."

I want to know, who, WHO falls for this type of stuff? Obviously somebody is otherwise we wouldn't be seeing this kind of crap constantly. It'd be a waste of the scammers time. Argh!
Anyway, even after all this I'll still hit craigslist as my number 1 selling destination. Just like with almost everything else out there on the web, the signal to noise ratio is annoyingly lopsided but the ones that do get through make it worthwhile.

I'm not sure why, but I'm mucho, mucho excited about this. Apparently they'll be in NYC in August.

EVER. Maybe I should switch. ;-)

Following in the steps of my first lens comparison post, I had the opportunity to test out 4 mid-range zooms recently: the venerable, battle-hardened Canon 24-70 f/2.8 L; its younger, lighter and longer-ranged sibling, the Canon 24-105 f/4 L IS; its wider, shorter-ranged non-L bastard stepson, the Canon 17-55 f/2.8 IS; and its cheaper, luck of the draw distant cousin, the Sigma 24-70 f/2.8 EX DG Macro.

This is by no means a lab-grade test. Just me with a tripod, a 30D, these 4 lenses, and some spare time on my hands away from the baby. And it's just a comparison of sharpness. Sharpness alone doesn't make a lens but as a personal preference, I like my lenses to be sharp right from the get-go. Plus these results only show the sharpness of the particular copies of the lenses that I had in possession. Quality control is a bit of an issue with lenses so as always, YMMV.

The Canon 24-70 is obviously the gorilla of the bunch, weighing in at a hefty 2.1 lbs. Followed by the Sigma 24-70 at 1.6 lbs, the Canon 24-105 at 1.5 lbs and the Canon 17-55 bringing up the rear at 1.4 lbs. Length-wise the Canon 24-70 is the longest of the bunch with the other 3 pretty much the same length. Build-wise, the Canon 24-70 and 24-105 of course rule the roost with their L quality construction. While the Sigma 24-70 and Canon 17-55 EF-S are more plastic-y, their still considerable heft doesn't make them feel much cheaper.

In another installment of my lens sharpness comparison series, I now pit the solid, renowned workhorse, the Canon 70-200mm f/2.8 IS with its new younger and more svelte sibling, the Canon 70-200mm f/4 IS.

The 2.8 IS is big, heavy, and fast, weighing in at 3.2 lbs and 7.7" long while the 4 IS is significantly much smaller, lighter although a bit slower, weighing in at 1.7 lbs and 6.8" long. Diameter-wise, the 4 IS is smaller by 10mm which doesn't sound like much but when you see it in person it definitely is.

Word on the street is that the 4 IS is possibly the sharpest and best resolving zoom lens Canon has made to date. At half the weight of its 2.8 older brother and with a newer IS that's supposedly good for 4 extra stops of light, it almost makes the 2.8 obsolete. Or does it...

Devon turned two months old this past Monday. He's recently taken to licking at his right mitten for unknown reasons. Not sure if it's a sign of hunger cause he usually has other signs for that. I'm hoping it's not a sign that we need to get him a pacifier cause we're trying to steer clear from having to go that route. The evening before I was surprised to see him actually raise his upper body up on his two pudgy arms when I flipped him onto his stomach. But only for a second as he promptly toppled over and almost fell off the bed. Ah, kids...

So today we celebrated by braving the elements (snow overnight and driving sleet during the day) and taking him to the pediatrician to get his first battery of immunization shots. One oral and 4 needles. The doctor started off with the oral first which went fine since it was sweet. While Dev was still distracted from the new flavor in his mouth, he was then jabbed with 2 needles into his left thigh in quick succession. Apparently his reaction time still needs some development cause it wasn't until the second needle was withdrawn that he started to bawl his eyes out. Unfortunately for him there was still 2 more needles looking to embed themselves deep into his other thigh which the doctor proceeded to do quickly and efficiently. Needless to say, Dev wasn't thrilled by this sudden turn of events but to his credit, he didn't cry for too much longer after everything was done.

Anyway, he has another 2 months to go before his next meeting with 4 needles. At least he's been growing rather well, now weighing a little over 14 pounds and measuring a bit over 2 feet long. Apparently he's big for his age. I'm thinking with Erin trying to feed him every time he's awake has something to do with that. ;-)

Felix & Maria's new line of baby clothes is starting to get some press! Rock on!

indeed. What's harder to stomach? This donut burger (available at Google's NYC office cafeteria oddly enough) or paying $100+ for each of these culinary badboys.

This is pretty sick. 10 fps??? I'm having enough problems handling 5 fps on my 30D much less having to contend with 10. Geez. But it sounds like it's going to be one hell of a camera. My gadget lust is ragin' right now. For more details on this monstrosity, check out the white paper. I'm almost afraid to see what the 1Ds Mark III is going to be like.

On a side note, I'm kinda glad they didn't announce the 40D this time around, means I can stick with my 30D for awhile longer. =)

Almost forgotten with the 1D Mark III hoopla is this potential gem that Canon sprung on us on the same day. It's a 7.1 megapixel camera that also shoots widescreen high def (granted, only 720p) video and looks more like a camcorder than a camera. As opposed to the camcorders that look like camcorders and also takes really crappy still pictures. And it's just slightly bigger than their Powershot series of point & shoots. I think it's pretty ideal for a new mom who doesn't want to mess with the weight and intricacies of an SLR. Hint, hint. ;-)

Doh! Found out today that one of the two best known multi-IM chat program on the Mac, Fire, has discontinued development. I had been using it ever since it was available for MacOS X. Wasn't until Tiger that I switched over to Adium. No reason for the switch, just thought I'd try something new. There are some parts of Fire that I still prefer over Adium, like the keyboard shortcut to log in to all your IMs in one shot, but that's kinda moot now. Maybe someday it'll be rekindled but until then, thanks to the developers who had spent so much time on it making it the super program that it was.