Pentax K-01 gets the DXO mark

The DXO labs posted their rating of the Pentax K-01 sensor, and it looks pretty strong considering the current competitors both in the mirrorless and DSLR fields. The information is here, and you can compare to all tested cameras in this page.

The big cut

Our government announced today the official budget for 2012, which on average means a decrease of 17 % in the expenses for all ministries. It is the biggest reduction of public expenses in our democracy, and I guess it will have bold and ugly consequences in our economy.

In the government theory, this will be useful to recover our economy. In the real world, I am rather unsure, to put it mildly, about the supposed positive qualities of these budget cuts.

Anyway, if somebody is interested, here is the official document with an overview of the new budget.

Jarle Bernhoft, the paramount definiton of one man band

I am absolutely blown away by this guy:

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Kontorkonsert med Jarle Bernhoft

By nrk

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As I have written elsewhere,


Prince in the 80s.
Björk in the 90s.
Sufjan and Antony in the 2000s.


Now is time for Jarle Bernhoft.

How to see around corners

Nature has released this video, showing new technology that allows to see around the corners. Truly amazing:

"Prophet", instant classic from Bernhoft

This song is on continuous repeat, lately, in my mind:

Comparison of Nikon D800 vs medium frame cameras at DSLR Magazine

Valentín Sama has posted a most interesting comparison of the Nikon D800 vs some of the top medium frame cameras, such as Hasselblad H4-D40, Leica S2 and Sigma SD1 as a weird competitor as well.

Plenty of meat to read, available here.

The right party did not win the regional elections in Andalucía

Against all expectations, and at a point when 92 % of votes have been accounted, the Partido Popular did not win the elections in Andalucía.

This fact alone is the big news, today, is Spain. Whether it will be good or bad remains to be seen, but I personally think it is good to avoid the absolute power of the right party in Spain.

Having said that, the PSOE has a tons of things to correct, starting with deeply rooted corruption within their members. Hopefully they will understand the message, unlike Felipe González in 1993.

Paul Buchanan: new website and new album preorders

I discovered today that Paul Buchanan, from The Blue Nile, has opened a new website, where you can order three versions of his forthcoming album "Mid Air", either in CD, vinyl or a special collectors edition with a second CD of songs not available anywhere else. Besides, if you send them your email for further information, you can download the song "My true country".

Hypnotic snowboarding

I discovered this thanks to Buenafuente:

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Glowing Man HD

By Jacob Sutton

Vimeo

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Glowing Man HD from Jacob Sutton on Vimeo.

"I want a government in Spain like the one from Jaume Matas here"

That sentence, stated by the current president of the Spanish government, Mariano Rajoy, became famous several years after being pronounced, since Jaume Matas has been declared guilty in the first of the 22 trials he is going to face, derived from multiple corruption scandals in the Balearic Islands governments. Jaume Matas and Camps are two big icons of corruption in the Partido Popular, despite their official claims of being the main champions against corruption. Both of them evidence the lack of controls and how easy was for people in the governments to hide commissions and get money from operations related to their responsabilities.

But what is worst of all is the fact that both Matas and Camps were leaders of the Partido Popular in two regions, the Balearic Islands and Valencia, where despite such huge corruption, people voted them again to win the government, even with absolute majority.

Sadly corruption still has no consequences, as far as elections are concerned, in Spain.

Valentín Sama: test of Olympus OM-D and predictions for new cameras before Photokina 2012

In Spanish as usual, but if you are interested in the world of photography, this article by Valentín Sama is well worth to have a quiet read, even if you need a translator.
And while we are at it, do not miss his test of the new Olympus OM-D, posted at his website DSLR Magazine. I think that the tests made by Sama and posted at DSLR Magazine are among the very best available online, although the fact that he writes in Spanish prevents many people from paying the attention they deserve. But trust me, that is top notch material, and google translator is your friend (even if I admit the quality of translation is far from accurate).

Sufjan Stevens' "Beak & Claw" album already available

The new project from Sufjan Stevens, in collaboration with other musicians, entitled "Beak & Claw", has been released for sale at bandcamp. Unfortunately I checked at my usual music store, Play.com, and they offer this album as download only, so maybe there are no plans for release on CD.

Bernhoft: Choices - Bocati di cardinale

Some friends with good taste made me discover this song from a musician unknown to me, Bernhoft. And honestly, I am blown away by the vitality displayed in this song. Furthermore, this is an excellent live version of "Choices", much better in my opinion than the studio version.

It's too early to say, but something tells me Bernhoft might be my third huge discovery in the 2000s, after Antony and Sufjan.

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Bernhoft - Choices

By embassyofmusic

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Walking to the river

More pictures from our trip to my hometown. This time, pictures from a walk to a close river.

Splendent mimosas in February

 In the trip I mentioned in the previous post, we found the mimosa tree in our patio in a truly magnificent state. There were plenty of honey bees taking profit of it and I made plenty of pictures with the Tamron 90 mm f 2.5. I show here a couple of them:

And here you have a short video made with my Sony Xperia Neo V:

Besides the mimosa, there were other trees enjoying this strange, warm spring we are having in 2012:

My parents and an iPad 2 (V): the first video

Time for a little update on this series of comments about the experience of my fathers using an iPad 2:

A couple of weeks ago, we spent the weekend with my family at our hometown. And Saturday, a bunch of people decided to organize an old tradition called "estudiantina", which consists of people wearing traditional suits and singing also traditional songs.

I was nicely surprised as my father (who has done loads of pictures with the iPad, but never tried video thus far) decided by himself to try video for that occasion. And he made a couple of videos from the "estudiantina" which, while being far from the best Spielberg efforts, are quite a huge accomplishment for him. Today we uploaded the video to youtube, something he was very interested in doing, as he wants to share this video with old friends.

My parent was a bit confused as the iPad was changing the orientation by itself, and we will solve that for the next time. Besides, he didn't tell me he planned to record this video, so I discovered it after the recording; and this is good news to me, as it means he is becoming more and more interested in exploring, by himself, stuff he has not used yet in the iPad. And this was a really nice surprise to me, as it meant that slowly, but continuously, my parent feels confident enough to try new things without me being at his side as "tech support".

But the focus here was that my parent was all amazed at the simple (to us) fact of making a video that easily. Let me stress that all of this is almost magic for them.

So I am proudly posting here the first digital video made by my father (in HD!):

 

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IMG 0186

By maangarmol

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New album from Andy Allo, co-written and produced by Prince

According to the usual Prince speaker, the website drfunkenberry.com, Andy Allo will release this summer an album with 3 songs co-written by Prince and 6 written by Andy. The album will be "executively produced" by Prince, and it contains the song "People pleaser", already played in last summer gigs. You can listen to a short sample of the song at that page.

Now I'd like to see if Prince himself will release something at the side of Andy's album, such as he did with Bria. Time will tell.

Oh, and sorry but to all effects, the new album will be, in my book, a Prince album sung by Andy.

Emeli Sandé: smash or flop?

I discovered Emeli today and it's still way too early to tell. She does sing for sure, but we will see whether the vocal gymnastics stand the test of repeated listens.

Andalusian elections: don't take anything for granted

Now that the right party is ready to take the power also in Andalucía, a region governed by socialists since the beginning of democracy in Spain, it is worth to watch the forecast released today by the CIS (Center for Sociological Research):

If these predictions hold true, it is absolutely unclear who will compose the next Andalusian government. As I could not imagine Izquierda Unida supporting the Partido Popular.

The post-PC era takes over at Apple

After following yesterday's Apple event introducing the new iPad, the bolder idea that comes to my mind is this:

the post-PC era has taken over at Apple. With their dominance in the mobile devices running iOS, and with 76 % of the revenue coming from them, it's clear that Apple is going to get more and more focused on that market.

While this is great news for Apple and for the consumers of mobile devices, I'm not so sure it is great news for Apple followers, those of us who have a long tradition (or should I say cult?) devoted to computers, which according to the new terminology, are "pre-post-PC devices".

Hands-on with the Pentax K-01, by Pentaxforums

The guys running Pentaxforums have posted their hands-on report with the brand new Pentax K-01 mirrorless camera. It's a bit early yet to say anything for sure, but I think this camera might be an interesting bridge for people with a lot of K-mount lenses.

First song from the new Sufjan project, s / s / s: Museum Day

I'm at half-first listen of the song, and it sounds GREAT to me; it's called Museum Day, and it belongs to the forthcoming Beak & Claw project, from the band s / s / s, recently discussed in this blog. Thanks to jenesaispop.com for reporting about this.



Sufjan has proven to me, several times, that he can get into new ground and make great music with tools which sound, in principle, outdated, or simply trash.

He keeps on doing it. Sometime ago, I thought that autotune was an awful way of treating voices. Yet Sufjan is using, in this and previous songs, autotune in such a way that it makes it compelling and beautiful.

The more I listen to Sufjan, the more I'm convinced he's the name of the future in music. In other words: Sufjan is in 2012 where Prince was in 1986.

Open journalism

Windows 8 is out there

With the new Metro interface and all, and with the controversial integration Metro/Windows, Windows 8 has been made available to consumers.

Some people say this will blow Apple OS X/iOS out of the water. Let me predict the opposite.

Specs of the Canon 5D III

As usual in the last years, the specifications of the new Canon 5D III have been leaked, this time to Canonrumors.com, and besides they have pictures of the new beast.

The main stuff:

22.3 Megapixel Full Frame CMOS sensor

DiG!C 5+ Image Processor

ISO 100-25600 (expandable to L:50 H1:51200, H2: 102400)

Full HD Movie (ISO 100-12800 H:25600)