Words and pictures from Silicon Valley by Chris Gulker
From the monthly archives:
While we probably aren’t up for standing for a couple days straight, we will be doing our usual, eclectic (some might say eccentric) Macworld coverage on gulker.com. So far we’ve touched base with Netgear, Pzizz, Parat, Targus, Harman/Kardon and JBL and, natch, we’ll be scoping Apple’s announcements…
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Wikipedia continues to amaze me… is there nothing that’s not written up on this massive, emergent encyclopedia of everything? Recently, I heard Rufus Wainwright’s version of the song ‘Hallelujah‘… curious, I searched Wikipedia, and sure enough found a long writeup, noting that Leonard Cohen wrote it and including lists of many of the artists who have covered this song that is regarded as a standard – all news to me. And, of course, I read the article on Leonard Cohen, too…
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So, we’ve had a cold for a couple of days, and have used the opportunity of being more or less flat on our back to do a little health research (love that WiFi). The pictures above show the evolution of my mug over the past 18 months or so, during 12 of which I’ve been on massive doses of steroids to control brain swelling left over from radiaton therapy last December.
My face, on the far right shows signs of Cushing’s Syndrome, which Wikipedia describes thusly:
Cushing’s syndrome (also called hypercortisolism or hyperadrenocorticism) is an endocrine disorder caused by high levels of cortisol in the blood from a variety of causes, including… iatrogenic (steroid use).
Symptoms include rapid weight gain, particularly of the trunk and face with sparing of the limbs (central obesity), a round face often referred to as a “moon face“, excess sweating, telangiectasia (dilation of capillaries), thinning of the skin (which causes easy bruising) and other mucous membranes, purple or red striae (the weight gain in Cushing’s stretches the skin, which is thin and weakened, causing it to hemorrhage) on the trunk, buttocks, arms, legs or breasts, proximal muscle weakness (hips, shoulders), and hirsutism (facial male-pattern hair growth).
I left some of the ickier symptoms out, but this pretty much describes how I look and feel. Despite near-daily workouts, my strength and mobility took a nose dive recently when I went off massive doses of decamethasone – apparently my adrenal system has shut down, not needing to make steroids while I was taking them. Hopefully our adrenal mechanism will start working again…
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Clario arrived just in time for Christmas. Clario (Linda and I are very silly and name many inanimate objects in our household – the name is derived from the Latin clarus for ‘clear’) is a replacement for Silvio, an older Lumix FX-9 that had produced many spectacular pix on Linda’s blog before losing an accidental watery encounter.
Anyway, Clario, a Lumix FX-100, features a Leica lens and 12.2 megapixel CCD: the pictures are amazingly sharp. This is the first digital camera I’ve used on which digital zoom is more than just a novelty.
Seen above is a shot that shows 2 coyotes in Arastradero park, snapped by Linda while on a walk Christmas day. Note the size of the animals (in the white circles). Then, see below, an enlargement of one of the coyotes, shot from the same distance (see comment 1) using full (3.6x) optical and digital zoom. I find the quality amazing – compare to this shot made at nearly the same spot with a 420mm lens on a 10 MP DSLR. Amazing… technology marches on…
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Our Christmas present to ourself this year was a lens for the Leica M8 that was ordered last Christmas (camera came late, but lens arrived in time for Christmas).
It’s a new Leitz design, called the Tri-Elmar which provides 3 very wide-angle fixed focal lengths – 16, 18 and 21mm (35mm format) in a single lens (though it’s not a zoom).
The lens works on film M Leicas (35mm) as well as the digital M8 body with its smaller CCD, acting as an 18, 21 and 24mm (35mm equivalent).
Above is a snap of sunset from inside Linda’s car on Christmas day, using the 16mm focal length. As is usual with Leica, the inflated price was built-in at the factory, as was the exceptional quality. We’ll be writing more about Mr. Tri-Elmar in the future… the Christmas scene below was also taken with this lens…
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Granddad Mike, granddaughter Madeline and dad Nick are silhouetted in front of friend Cathy’s famous Christmas tree. Her tree is so loaded with lights, that, one year, a particularly big version blew not just her house’s circuit breakers, but the transformer that served her whole neighborhood (a story her friends have loved to tell and retell over the years). As always, Christmas at Mike & Cathy’s was great fun… and what a dinner…!
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Linda set a beautiful table and our friends, the Bostocks, were gracious enough to join us (it was Sara’s birthday, as well) and John, Julie and Grace rounded out our Christmas Eve. We exchanged gifts and later enjoyed Sara’s very chocolate birthday cake.
Julie , John and Grace got a new big-screen TV, Chris got a new lens for his Leica and Linda got to do all the work of putting up Christmas (and cleaning up afterwards – sorry, dear).
Granddaughter Grace is becoming more vocal, and she was very interested in the goings on at church – her little eyes were very active.
Today we’re off to friends for more family Christmas: much to do!…
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We hope all who have sent us a holiday card or letter will understand that we are doing our ‘card’ online (as usual). We haven’t had time to do printed, mailed holiday cards for years, much less for this very challenging year. So our ‘card’ is here (and above). And very happy holidays to all…
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Why is it that video card makers never put their name and model number on their products? I understand that one factory in China makes all the cards for all the different brands, but can’t ATI or NVidia put a sticker on the card somewhere?
Anyway I found this card in my parts box, and I have no idea what it is. I’d like to set up my G5 workstation for a second monitor, but I have no idea if this is a Mac-compatible card or what drivers it might need. I guess, in the future, I should put a sticker on them…Â
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Well, we’ve installed Leopard on the spouse’s Mac (a dual G5, no less), which is always a challenge, given that I’m the help desk around here. So far, so good: a little grumping about the slow, beach-ball-spinning first log-in, but otherwise the process – including showing Linda how to change her desktop and screensaver – has been smooth. Linda may take the opportunity to move from Microsoft’s Entourage to the open source Thunderbird…
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