In LA

I made a couple of impulse Blu-ray purchases today, and am now looking forward to watching these fine films:

Time Bandits [Blu-ray] $7.99

The 36th Chamber of Shaolin [Blu-ray] $6.991

But I also showed some restraint. Here’s something I successfully resisted purchasing today:²

White Aphrodisiac Telephone (Salvador Dali, 1938)

1. features commentary by The RZA [↩]
2. probably because none were available for sale [↩]

I like coffee¹ . I like open-source software and hardware. I like the idea of having an over-engineered geeky commercial-quality espresso machine that I and a community can hack. So I found this kickstarter campaign to be sufficiently intriguing to warrant a buy. I mention it here because it’s interesting and because it ends in just a few days.

PID-Controlled Espresso Machine

The reward for investing $300 in this kickstarter project is a v0.2 model² of this as yet non-extant³ espresso machine. It’s supposed to ship in December 2012, which for me will make it a nice surprise Hannukah present as I’ll likely have forgotten it’s enroute.

$300 sounds steep, but this machine includes a proportional-integral-derivative (PID) controller to regulate temperature and pressure throughout a shot of espresso’s “pull”, with the aim of producing a noticeably better result. Commercial home machines that include a PID controller tend to start around $700. Many people modify cheaper home espresso machines to add a PID controller, and kits for that modification appear to cost about $2-300⁴.

Kickstarter is fascinating to me. People post the project for which they’d like to raise money, list various reward levels, and other people on the net are invited to invest in it for a limited time. It’s a way for engineers with an idea to raise enough funds to rent space and start up manufacturing⁵. The reward for backing a projects that are manufactured is often a discounted price on an early version of the product. Several successful products have already been funded via this mechanism, the most famous so far being the LunaTik watch.

1. My wife really likes coffee, and gave her blessing to this purchase instantly when I tentatively ran the idea past her. [↩]
2. The v0.1’s sold out and will ship earlier. [↩]
3. except as a prototype [↩]
4. I did see that one person on the net has manage to do such a mod for less with some lesser-known Chinese-made components. [↩]
5. or increasingly a way for filmmakers to crowd-fund their filmmaking projects [↩]

If you’ve got an iPad and enjoy classic arcade games or have ever thought of building a MAME cabinet, you might want to jump on this deal. Bed Bath and Beyond is clearing out their stock of iCades for half-off, at $49.99. I haven’t tried this, but it may be possible to even bring the price down further — Someone online says “Sign up for emails and get a printable 20% coupon bringing it to $39.99!”¹

The iCade is a cabinet for the iPad that features an arcade-style joystick and eight buttons. It connects via bluetooth to the iPad as a wireless keyboard, and support for it is built into several gaming apps, including Atari’s Greatest Hits. Here’s one user’s review.

If you’ve got a jailbroken iPad² you can use the iCade to control imame4all³ and other emulators. It’s great to play such games with a real joystick and buttons. I’ve been using an iCade for a while, and still plan to replace its joystick with a real sanwa, which apparently isn’t that difficult to do.

I don’t know how long this deal will last, but I think it’s a good one.

1. Not my exclamation point, I should perhaps include a “sic” of disapproval. [↩]
2. jailbreaking the thing is very easy to do right now and is legal [↩]
3. just jailbreak and then install imame4all via cydia [↩]

I just happened upon a deal and figured I’d pass it along. If you’ve been thinking of getting a video-capable DSLR, you can now get a refurb T2i at under $500 shipped.

The Canon T2i is my bang-for-the-buck camera of choice. It shoots video that’s identical to that of their more expensive models T3i and 7D, and it’s also easily hackable to run the Magic Lantern open-source firmware. Magic Lantern gives the camera a ton of new useful features, such as time-lapse, HDR multiple-exposure bracketing, focus peaking, focus zoom, and more.

Canon’s discounted the price of some refurbished cameras by 15%. Which brings the T2i down to what must be its record low price.

The Deal:

• Here’s a link to the EOS Rebel T2i Body Refurbished – $475.99.
• They also sell it with a very good, cheap kit lens: EOS Rebel T2i EF-S 18-55mm IS Lens Kit Refurbished – $543.99.

According to the site at which I found the deal, “Shipping is $5 for $150+ purchases with coupon code SHIP11 [Exp 12/11]“.

Shoot right with this camera, and it can look ridiculously good. I bought mine back when the best price for the T2i body alone was $799 about a year-and-a-half ago, and have no regrets. It allows me to shoot video to a large sensor (APS-C size) using my excellent Canon lenses and even old Nikon lenses using an adapter.

A few clips I’ve shot on my T2i can be found here. They’re not best-of-breed, but should give some idea of what video from the T2i can look like:

• my first online DSLR video
• Looong Steadicam Merlin + Canon T2i shot
• On the streets of Hengdian, China

My first video shot on my T2i:

pizza and the dream of not being filmed from ZachFine on Vimeo.

I say “Happy Halloween” today, but back when I was in grade school I remember receiving a different message, which went something like this:

Don’t celebrate Halloween. It’s a celebration of a day on which bad people used to go around burning Jews.

I did a bit of Google searching today and have yet to find any evidence that there was a general practice of burning Jews on Halloween. Communities in Europe did burn people who had been accused of witchcraft with alarming regularity¹, but I don’t know if they did so particularly on October 31. There does appear to have been a common practice in which black cats were burned on Halloween, which I don’t condone. Many sermons on the net claim that the predecessor to Halloween was a Celtic feast to celebrate a god of death named “Samhain”, and thus anyone of a religion that doesn’t recognize Samhain as a god should spurn the holiday –but it appears that this god of the dead thing is likely a translation mixup that started in the 18th century and according to academics Samhain is just the name of a festival and not a deity.

So I say as long as you’re not inclined to celebrate the flammability of humans of any stripe, feel free to go out and celebrate Spider Man or whoever your costume is supposed to represent. And if you’re driving, watch out for kids chasing candy into the street, and try not to get too distracted by all the women wearing sexy-whatever costumes².

1. but apparently not as often as many believe [↩]
2. “Sassy” Adult Cookie Monster Costume? WTF! [↩]

My previous favorite bluetooth headset¹, the Plantronics 520, is on sale at Newegg until 10/22 for $22.99 with coupon code “EMCJKHK69″².

This Voyager 520 is great, I’d highly recommend it if you need a headset. I’ve gone through a few 520’s and have gifted a few over the years, but have never seen them priced this low. The 520 is small, has enough power for 180 hours of standby, cancels background noise well enough that in my experience the person on the other end of the line could rarely tell I was using a headset at all, and it has one of those futuristic blue LED lights that’ll properly mark it as very dated tech when your toddler comes of age and finds it in a shoebox in the garage.

I get no personal benefit or kickback from recommending this product, it just happens to be a headset I really like at an exceptional price. Get it here if you need such a thing. The coupon code expires on 10/22.

1. I’ve since gone on to a fancier, larger, and not necessarily better Plantronics model [↩]
2. sale price is $29.99 without the code [↩]

My brother seems to have developed a habit of saving lives every time he goes to Minneapolis. Earlier in the year he resuscitated an older relative, this past weekend he was in Mpls for my wedding shower and started taking a series of drugs meant to stimulate his bone marrow in preparation for this week’s bone marrow donation.

He doesn’t know who his marrow’s going to, and the recipient won’t know where it came from, it’s all anonymous, and it’s all good. To donate marrow, you’ve gotta be lucky enough to be a match for someone who needs it. –a rare thing. He took some drugs for a few days that stimulated production of stem cells, and then was hooked to a machine that extracted them from his bloodstream. It wasn’t a completely painless process, but in his mind it was well worth it.

I hope if one day I come down with leukemia and need a marrow transplant that there’s some similarly generous individual in the registry who’s a match for my marrow. Coincidentally, today I read that Amit Gupta, the man who started Photojojo and Jelly, came down with acute leukemia and needs a bone marrow transplant. He’s encouraging South Asians to register in bone marrow drives, as their marrow has a better chance of a match for him. He needs help, and I’d urge anyone out there who is South Asian to go register. Registration is super-easy and can be done by mail with a cheek swab. He explains how to register, and tells the story of how he received his diagnosis, in the blog post linked to this sentence. I’d also recommend everyone else, regardless their ethnic origin, to go register. You never know when your marrow might show up as a match for someone in need. I think my brother was in the database for years before his number turned up. I’ve been in the database for probably 15 years.

I hope the best for Amit. I’m proud of my brother, and I’ll be proud of you if you go register with the marrow registry.

I’ve thought many a time about how much fun it’d be to have a very minimal but smooth little dolly, which I would use to move my DSLR in lines and curves on a smooth surface while shooting video. A number of products have popped up over the years. Here’s a list of the ones I’ve noticed:

Click any image thumbnail to see it embiggened.

Item	Price	Image	Note
The P+S Technik Skater Mini Camera Dolly	$5400		The one that started it all, I think. Costs a little less than the last used car I bought and undoubtedly moves more smoothly. Out of my price range until I start shooting for Spielberg.
Omni-tracker Slim-Line “LITE”	$495		The Omni-tracker looks a bit like a P+S Technik carved of purest PVC plastic and endowed with a carrying handle. This may be the only item in this list that will float in water1. They make heavier duty models as well, it costs $1500 for their top model.
KONOVA Scaled Rotational Axis Skater Dolly	$125		This looks a lot like what I’d probably build if I were to make my own, but I’m not sure that’s such a good thing. Something about them doesn’t appeal to me, but I can’t put my finger on it. If I put my foot on it I could probably skate. +Who named this thing?
DIY Skater Dolly	$20-$∞ + time		Pictured is dvxuser forum member Texanite’s rather gorgeous acrylic skater dolly, he sells them for around $400 when they’re available. This is an example of the kind of thing one could build with infinite time, materials, and skill.
Cinetics Cineskates	$275		An innovative skater dolly consisting of a set of super-engineered wheels that connect to a “GorillaPod Focus”. It’s a Kickstarter project, so the pricing will change soon. I’ve quoted the cost of a full kit, with tripod and ballhead. The wheels by themselves are $150 for a set of 3. I’m a little curious how rigid it’d be, but 930 kickstarter backers can’t be wrong. My resistance to spending $50 per wheel keeps me a step short of buying, but I’m tempted by its bizarreness and quality.
Pico Flex Table Dolly	$65, or $90 with friction arm extension		I give up. This newcomer looks like it will be too much fun. I’d probably spend $65 or more building my own, and mine would be less well engineered. Check out a video of the item in use here. It’s a very simple-looking item, but it does appear to be flexible enough, small enough, and smooth enough for my purposes. Their price for the friction arm is also very good. Ordered.

Cineskates popped up on the net the last week of August and got me interested in thinking again about skater dollies after more than a year of ignoring the category. The Pico Flex, which appeared on the net a week later, is where I’ve ended my search for now. I’m excited to play with the thing when it arrives.

1. I’ll keep that in mind for nautical use [↩]

My cousin Jenny is an internet superstar now due to the existence of this very entertaining music video.

I think Nathan J. Barnatt directed, edited, dances, and flips about in the video as well. Martin Starr tunes it in at the beginning.

Word on the street is that no green screens were used, it’s all implemented using early 20th century filmmaking methods –except for the digital music, camera, editing software, etc.

I like, +1, etc.

I’ve previously written on this blog about the Creative Vado HD solid-state 720p video cameras. I enjoy knocking mine about (both above and below the waterline) and I tend to recommend them to people who just want to capture moments with family, or to those looking for a simple video camera to give to a future filmmaker, or to folk who want a camera cheap enough to risk destroying in unsafe conditions¹, or to anyone who simply wants a convenient tiny video camera. The reason I particularly like the Creative Vado series as opposed to the now-defunct Flip cameras and other competitors is that the Vados feature the widest-angle lenses in this class of camera. I thought these were a good deal when their price fell to $129 a couple of years ago. Today I noticed refurbs are available for 1/3 that price. Perhaps they’re being cleared away due to the fact that some popular smartphones record video of equivalent quality, and are eating away the market? Regardless the reason for the discount, I think these cameras are fun, useful, and a great value.

The Creative Vado HD 8GB (refurbished, first generation), is currently² listed at $40, and the third generation Vado HD (refurbished, available in several candy colors) are on sale for $50.

Both of these are solid-state video cameras that charge and transfer video to computer over a concealed USB connector and record pretty nice (for the price) 720p HD video at 30 frames per second. The older Vado records to mpeg-2 codec and includes 8Gb of storage space (~2 hours of record time), and the 3rd generation records to mpeg-4 and includes 4Gb of space (also ~2 hours, possibly at the same or better visual quality than the older model due to the more efficient mp4 codec). I haven’t yet used a 3rd gen Vado HD, but it appears to include an improvement that was at the top of my wishlist for the earlier Vado HDs: improved dynamic range and some manual exposure control. These cameras clip highlights³, it’d be nice to be able to minimize that issue and knock the exposure down a peg.

Also available at a discount right now, and possibly of interest to anyone with a small camera or phone, is the Creative Labs Vado HD Underwater Pouch. This item has for some reason⁴ dropped in price to $10. I believe it is a rebranded Aquapac Mini Waterproof Camera Case, an item which normally sells for about $30 (under both the Aquapac and Creative brand names).

This pouch is basically a fancy polyurethane bag, with a strong seal⁵ and very clear vinyl windows on front and back. It can hold small cameras easily, and I’ll probably be using mine next month to keep my iPhone dry while kayaking.

For an example of the 2nd generation Vado HD and this pouch in action together, check out this a Green Sea Turtle video I shot in Hawaii. I also recently loaned out my Vado and pouch to The Perennial Plate, and they used it to shoot some underwater footage of an urchin diver for their web series.

1. such as underwater in a fancy plastic bag [↩]
2. last I checked — the price could change any moment due to the way Amazon operates [↩]
3. a characteristic of all inexpensive digital cameras [↩]
4. momentarily? [↩]
5. I trust it more than I would a couple of ziplocs, FWIW, and have had no problems with mine over a couple of years of use. [↩]