Based on an ingenious Jobst Brandt (author of The Bicycle Wheel) design, this tool is the non-plus ultra of tension gauges.Inlaid, stainless, laser-etched nameplate.
[Nice. Seems a shame that the ability to record a reading is not on the body of the unit (it’s on the USB cable). I couldn’t help but be reminded of this stunning P&K Lie wheel truing stand while watching the video:
Again, I doubt I’ll ever own one, but wow.]
Source: Wheel Fanatyk
Select and copy text within Quick Look previews:
To make text selectable in Quick Look previews, you just need to enable a hidden Finder setting. Select and copy the code below, open Terminal (/Applications/Utilities), paste that code at the prompt, then press Return:
defaults write com.apple.finder QLEnableTextSelection -bool TRUE; killall FinderAfter a second or two, the Finder will restart. Once it does, you’ll be able to select text in Quick Look previews and copy it to the Clipboard for use elsewhere.
If you decide you don’t deserve to select text in Quick Look, you can turn this feature off with another Terminal command:
defaults delete com.apple.finder QLEnableTextSelection; killall Finder
[There’s an improvement.]
Nikon D4 overview: Digital Photography Review:
WT-5 Wireless Transmitter with web-browser camera control interface
With the D4 comes a new WiFi transmitter, the WT-5, which is a neat little unit that screws onto the side of the body and draws it’s power from the camera’s battery. Its real party trick, though, is a built-in web browser-based remote camera control interface that doesn’t require you to download or install a specialized app. Essentially, you can log into your camera (with a username and password) using your laptop, tablet or smartphone and its standard web browser, at which point you’re presented with a camera control panel with live view feed. You can adjust a wide range of parameters – exposure mode, shutter speed, aperture, exposure compensation, ISO, white balance and so on, and initiate remote shutter release or video recording.
The WT-5 connects to the socket on the lower left of this image. In the center you can see the microphone and headphone sockets. On the lower right is the Ethernet port.
The web interface also allows you to control multiple cameras simultaneously, including the ability to release their shutters simultaneously. You can even autofocus anywhere in the scene, simply by touching your iPhone or iPad’s screen. Because this is all web-based, you don’t have to physically close to the camera either – in principle you could operate it from a different continent.Nikon has clearly paid attention to professional photographers’ workflow requirements when shooting, and has tried to set the camera up so there’s no need to use a laptop alongside it any more. To this end the D4 allows photographers to add full IPTC data to all of their image files as they shoot, and can store 10 data presets each containing 14 fields. There’s a new network setup wizard to configure the camera for use over wired LAN, or WiFi in FTP and HTTP mode. The camera can even use the GP-1 GPS receiver to automatically set its internal clock, so multiple cameras can easily be synced and specific events from a shoot identified by the time at which they occurred.
[I’m so glad to see this begin to happen. And the number of ports on this thing is impressive. Allez!]
That doesn’t mean the ride is going to be easy. But if you think it hasn’t taken a lot of hard work and hail mary’s to get to where we are with the net today, as it is, you don’t understand how we got here.
[This lesson spelled every which way remains. We are all of a kind. And we refuse, as a species, to be contained by others.]
Source: Scripting News
Misconceptions About iOS Multitasking:
Here is the advice – and remember it is wrong:
All those apps in the multitasking bar on your iOS device are currently active and slowing it down, filling the device’s memory or using up your battery. To maximise performance and battery life, you should kill them all manually.
Wrong. Wrong. Wrong. Wrong. Wrong. Wrong. Wrong. There are caveats to this but anyone dispensing the advice above is clearly uninformed enough that they will certainly not be aware of these subtleties.
[Listen up.]
Source: Fraser Speirs
ActiveRecord (and Rails) Considered Harmful – Literate Programming:
If you’ll notice, I basically have said that models are a problem. Controllers are a problem. Views are a problem. MVC has served the web well, even if it isn’t the GUI style MVC that named the pattern. But I think we’re reaching its limits; the impedance mismatch between HTTP and MVC, for example, is pretty huge. There are other ways to build web applications; I’m particularly excited about WebMachine. I don’t have a constructive alternative to offer here, I just know there’s a problem. I’m still mulling this one over.
[Some interesting thinking here. It feels like it makes certain things easier but is not fleshed out. Maybe because it’s new, but maybe it just doesn’t feel quite right. I’m fairly convinced that part of the problem is the amount of functionality we often cram into one application.]
Ohm looks interesting. On my short list to dive into next week.
Redis in the NoSQL ecosystem – Blog : Siyelo:
All these different options place Redis in the NoSQL ecosystem somewhere between simple caching systems like memcache and feature-heavy document databases like MongoDB and CouchDB. The question is: when do you pick Redis over other NoSQL systems?
[I wouldn’t limit my thinking to the use cases listed here, but th post does give a quick, if limited, overview. It does not mention all the datatypes or the scripting for example, so make sure you explore Redis from the documentation on outward.]
This also puts the “new business model” mantra in a new light. Remember that the classic business model is a simple monetary trade: the customer gets something of value and they pay money for it. It is fair and easy to understand. The further we go from it, the closer we come to a point where we are forced to choose between going out of business or throwing business ethics out of the window. In order to maintain the illusion that the customer can get something valuable for free, we may have to introduce the illusion that they are getting it for free (while in reality, we collect stuff from them that they may not be inclined to give away). Once you cross that moral event horizon, it becomes much easier to do other objectionable things. I mean, that’s how the new economy works, right?
I’m just thinking out loud and I have no ready-made conclusions to offer, but perhaps we should be a little more hesitant to sing praise of “revolutionary” new ways of doing business. Unless there’s a clear element of trade evident and the terms are set out, chances are that somebody’s getting cheated. Continue reading →
[This piece continues my theme that the more convoluted transactions become the more problems they create for our society—Stay close to the source. If I drive to a store and purchase something made by the individual selling it (or at least the person in the shop in the back) that has tremendous social value. And it doesn’t matter if that’s a kitchen knife or software or a bicycle. The longer the chain gets from “I did it” to “you bought it” the chances for negative social effects increases, and happily the positive social effects increase the closer you get to the source. In the case of Google most of us were happy users because of their great search results. That was a long time ago, and they started tracking me long before I paid any attention to them. Facebook’s “sale” takes place when you sign up, with no explanation of the game whatsoever. I recently saw a news program where individuals were asked about the GOP candidates by name. And while I realize it was a produced segment (edited for results) they had no problem finding people who didn’t even know the names of the candidates, never mind anything about them. Considering the barrage of coverage and the endless debates… imagine what people don’t know when it’s actively being hidden from them? ]
Source: The Cynical Musician
Nobody in the Android ecosystem — not Google, not manufacturers of Android devices, and certainly not the gadget blogs that review and promote them — seems to care about long-term user satisfaction, even when “long-term” is as short as a two-year smartphone contract.
Rich people and gadget bloggers can upgrade their smartphones every 6 months, but what about everyone else? Will most of Android’s userbase feel much loyalty to the platform at their next contract renewal?
[How wasteful is this environmentally? Are these devices being built with recycling or up cycling in mind? They clearly aren’t being built to be useful in the long term (even for computers). I like to think about things that I build in centuries. Preferably 3 centuries. If it lasts 300 years, it’s probably worth investing resources. (For example, if it takes 100 years to produce the tree whose wood I’m using, isn’t 3 times that long feel like it balances out the time it’ll take to regrow that tree?) ]
Source: Marco.org
turnings :: daniel berlinger 