Craig September 27th, 2007
September 28 marks the anniversary of the birth of the great Chinese scholar and philosopher Confucius. Beginning at dawn, Confucius temples hold elaborate ceremonies to honor the occasion. Unlike other temples, this is the only day of the year that ceremonies are held in a Confucius temple. The following pictures are from the Confucius temple in Changhua. The day is also celebrated as Teacher’s Day.
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Craig September 21st, 2007
During Patrick Gelsinger’s keynote at the Intel Developer Forum (IDF) today, Intel made a small announcement regarding a group of companies who are now working together to create a “superspeed personal USB interconnect” with 10 times the speed of the current generation technology of USB 2.0. The USB 3.0 Promoter Group — which consists of Intel, Hewlett-Packard, NEC Corporation, NXP Semiconductors, Microsoft and Texas Instruments — looks to make several other major changes. More about it can be found here.
Craig September 18th, 2007
At 1.47am on September 21, 1999, an earthquake measuring 7.3 on the Richter scale occurred along the Chelungpu faultline in central western Taiwan. With it’s epicenter located at the town of Jiji (集集), the 921 quake claimed the lives of 2415 people, severely wounded 11 441, caused US$9.2 billion in damage, destroyed 44 338 houses and severely damaged a further 41 336, leaving over 400 000 people homeless. Destroyed bridges in Central Taiwan caused weeks of traffic chaos, sections of land near the fault shifted up as much as 7m and there were 8000 recorded aftershocks.
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Near the northern end of the fault lies the Dakeng (大坑) Scenic area, a mountainous region to the northeast of Taichung city. And, until 921, it was location of the Katoli’s World, a popular amusement park. Damaged by the quake, the park was condemned and closed down. Today, the rides are still there, rusting away, and nature is moving in, reclaiming what was once concrete and metal free. With the eighth anniversary of the 921 quake upon us this week, I thought it was time for a photo post from Katoli’s World.
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Craig September 17th, 2007
What was Henri Cartier-Bresson talking about when he said it felt like “a big warm kiss, like a shot from a revolver, and like the psychoanalyst’s couch.”
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Leica. The closest a camera comes to a religion. Mike Johnston of the Online Photographer put it like this.
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And if you really get used to a Leica, nothing else will serve, either. It kinda gets under your skin. You get used to having nothing available but prime lenses—no zooms—in set increments within a fairly narrow range of focal lengths. (.72X Leicas can use lenses from 21mm to 135mm, but for practical purposes their best range is from 28mm to 90mm.) Your eye gets used to seeing like your lens does. You practice pre-focusing—that is, guestimating distance by eye and setting focus by feel—and get used to having a rather cavalier attitude toward the viewfinder, which you only use sometimes. You stop getting distracted by depth of field considerations, since you never look through the lens (think about it—with an SLR, you’re always seeing the least d.o.f. the lens is capable of). You get used to the ultraresponsive shutter and addicted to the quiet little “snick,” the one that splits into two parts at slow shutters speeds and that hardly anyone ever notices.
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In the New Yorker’s September 24 issue, Anthony Lanes takes a long, informative look at Leica - the history, the cult and the cameras. So grab a coffee, sit back and have a read. You won’t be disappointed.
