DP Review previews the Fujifilm X-Pro1

This new piece of kit was made available for pre-order just a few days ago, and I signed up right away. I also pre-ordered the 35mm f/1.4 to go along with it.

If interested, check out the official site, a video walkthrough of the menuing system and the three official videos from Fujifilm (40 minutes total). Also, Hugo Poon has put up some shots he’s taken with the X-Pro1, including some incredible high-ISO snaps, like this ISO3200 shot.

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To My Old Master

In August of 1865, a Colonel P.H. Anderson of Big Spring, Tennessee, wrote to his former slave, Jourdon Anderson, and requested that he come back to work on his farm. Jourdon — who, since being emancipated, had moved to Ohio, found paid work, and was now supporting his family — responded spectacularly by way of the letter seen below.

A beautiful, honest letter that’s equal parts tragic and joyful. (Kottke did some follow-up research into Jourdon Anderson and family.)

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The machine-tooled happyland

In a 1965 article for Holiday magazine, Ray Bradbury described his first visit to Disneyland, and went on to explain how Walt Disney’s “audio-animatronics” changed his perception of both humanity’s future and the role machine’s will play in helping us understand—and believe in—our pasts.

[W]e live in an age of one billion robot devices that surround, bully, change and sometimes destroy us. The metal-and-plastic machines are all amoral. But by their design and function they lure us to be better or worse than we might otherwise be.

In such an age it would be foolhardy to ignore the one man who is building human qualities into robots—robots whose influence will be ricocheting off social and political institutions ten thousand afternoons from today. […]
Disney is the first to make a robot that is convincingly real, that looks, speaks and acts like a man. Disney has set the history of humanized robots on its way toward wider, more fantastic excur­sions into the needs of civilization.

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How air flows over a wing and generates lift

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How to get a nuclear bomb

If this interests you at all, be sure to check out Richard Muller’s Physics for Future Presidents: The Science Behind the Headlines, which deep-dives into this topic and a host of others. (You’ll learn a lot, I promise.)

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Bookmarklet → Chrome extension with just a single click

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A sampling of advancements associated with past world’s fairs

Though world’s fair have long been outmoded, I’ve always romanticized them. Can you imagine being a Parisian teenager in the late 1800s—wholly interested in technology and science—and stepping onto the grounds of a world’s fair? Your head would explode.

We’re spoiled these days—what with infinite access to infinite knowledge and all—but back then your mind would have exhausted itself racing with the possibilities of what was taking place before your eyes. Not only had you never seen most of this stuff before, you likely had never even imagined it. The feeling must have been overwhelming.

(Relatedly, check out Erik Larson’s The Devil in the White City: Murder, Magic, and Madness at the Fair that Changed America, which chronicles both the production of the 1893 Chicago World’s Fair and a serial killer who created a killing chamber in a hotel near the fairgrounds.)

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Low-profile magnetic iPad stand from Ten One Design

This thing is absolutely beautiful, but I’m skeptical of its ability to keep the iPad still when you’re interacting with it.

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Burger King tries home delivery

Burger King has quietly begun testing home delivery of its burgers, fries and other sandwiches. […]

There’s a $2 delivery fee. And depending on the store, minimum orders vary from $8 to $10. The stores try to deliver within 30 minutes of the time a phone or online order is received. Delivery customers must live within a 10-minute drive of the store.

Our hunter-gatherer ancestors would be so proud.

I, of course, would do this in a heartbeat, but only if they somehow disguised themselves and the bag(s). There’s no way I’m walking down to the lobby of my (rather nice) apartment complex and accepting—in plain sight of people I interact with on a daily basis—delivery of a BK Big Fish and fries.

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Video of a crow using a jar lid to sled down a snow-covered roof, over and over again

If this doesn’t blow your mind, then, well, you might not be as smart as a crow.

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Announcing Arc: a new magazine about the future from the makers of New Scientist

Arc will explore the future through cutting-edge science fiction and forward-looking essays by some of the world’s most celebrated authors – backed up with columns by thinkers and practitioners from the worlds of books, design, gaming, film and more.

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Kaufmann’s posographe

An ingenious six-variable exposure calculator from the 1920s. This kind of blew my mind.

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A breakdown of Scientific American‘s very first issue (which was published in 1845)

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Ten things everyone should know about time

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Shawn Blanc reviews the Galaxy Nexus

I usually mark-as-read product reviews if it’s something about which I already know a fair amount. That said, I ended up reading this piece because Shawn is a friend and I was curious what his opinion was of Android’s latest flagship device, especially given that this was his first real experience with Android.

It’s a thoughtful write-up that I encourage everyone to read, particularly the iPhone-for-life crowd.

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Engineers create virtual sky for office ceilings

I so want this in the bitcave.

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How to dismiss iOS banner notifications

News to me. (Via Shawn Blanc.)

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Video tribute to the defunct-as-of-yesterday “Jaws” ride at Universal Studios

This brings back some memories.

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Misconceptions about iOS multitasking

The multitasking bar always shows a list of recently used apps, regardless of whether they’re in the Background, Suspended or Not Running states. (Emphasis mine.)

I thought this was well known, or at least just common sense, but all the links to this post in my RSS reader tell me otherwise.

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Why is the NYPD after me?

[O]n average, every young black man [in New York City] can be expected to be stopped and frisked by the police each year.

America, 2012.

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Florida was weird as only it can be in 2011

There’s pockets of strangeness all over the country, but here it’s a baseline lifestyle. There, it’s the aberration. There, it’s the tail end of the bell curve. Here, it’s the peak of the bell curve.

So, so true.

Relatedly, I was back in Florida earlier this week visiting friends and family, and tweeted: “In an incredibly smokey bar with my brother discussing probation violations and trying to ignore a large dog at my knees. What? Florida.”

Most of the conversations I have—and overhear—when back in Florida, wouldn’t be believed unless you’re from there. It’s just a different world, and one I often miss.

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Kindle iOS app can now manage emailed content

This is kind of a big deal, especially for those that don’t have a Kindle device and instead just use the iOS app. As you guys know, each day I send a ton of articles to my Kindle, and until just a few days ago those articles could be read only on the device itself, because content not purchased from Amazon didn’t get synced with the various Kindle apps. With v2.9 of the iOS app that’s no longer the case—non-Amazon content is automatically archived in the Amazon Cloud (including last page read, bookmarks and annotations) and (re-)downloadable on the app.

While I don’t see myself using this too much (simply because I prefer e-ink for all of this stuff), it’s pretty cool that in a pinch I can pick up my iPhone or iPad and read something I’ve sent to my @free.kindle.com address.

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A (seemingly exhaustive) list of Chromium command line switches

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Jake Dyson’s CSYS LED task light

It will surprise no one that I keep a collection of beautiful desk lamps—along with every other type of product—inside Yojimbo. This way I don’t have to go scouring the web each time I decide to buy a new product; I simply scroll through the stuff I’ve accumulated over the years.

All of these products have two things in common: simplicity and beauty. If a product strikes me as having both of those qualities, it goes straight into Yojimbo, along with at least two tags: “Want” and a tag that describes the type of product (e.g., lamps).

Now, I don’t currently have a desk lamp in my home office, and don’t particularly need one. I like to tell myself that if I got one I’d write more. Really, I get these romantic thoughts of me hunched over a desk late at night, desperately trying to carve some great idea into a Moleskine. I know that that’s not likely to happen and that even with a desk lamp I’d still probably write only when adding sentiments to Christmas and birthday cards, but come on, just look at this task light and tell me you don’t want it!

The rub: it’s $850. But, it’s so pretty! And the bulbs will last for at least 37 years! And it has so much great tech! And…

OK, fine, I’m not going to buy it right now, but you can be damn sure I’m keeping it in Yojimbo.

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Not quite 1,000,000,000,000 frames per second

Professor Allain throws some water on that insane video camera I linked to last week.

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A primer on evolution

For those of you who may not study this sort of thing (how can you not?!), but still are interested, be sure to give this a read. It’s short.

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Claire Felicie’s triptychs of marines before, during and after their tour of duty to Afghanistan

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