From a helmet cam.
Daily Archives: August 16, 2011
Digital Rot
Sobering blog post by Ken Rockwell.
One day it dawned on me, after I heard about more than one friend buying an old Nikon D1 or D1X for $75, that these old digital cameras are worth far less precisely because they are clogged with worthless digital guts, instead of just having a hole for film.
The D1 and D1X was a Nikon F5 with a sensor and some computer junk thrown in, just as the long forgotten Nikon D2Xs is the current F6 with digital guts. People paid Nikon four times as much for the cameras with the digital guts.
My friends paid $5,500 for the D1X new, and I paid $4,500 for my new D1H back in their day, but the D1X is worthless today because it’s only got the resolution of a Nikon D50 and runs more slowly than a D90.
While a used D1X today is hardly worth the cost of packing and shipping, a used F5 still sells for hundreds of dollars because it takes film.
An old D2H is only worth about $500 on eBay , while a used F6 still goes for four figures. The F6 is still the world’s best 35mm film camera.
Even though the digital cameras cost about four times the price of their film equivalents when new, the digital cameras are worth far less after a couple of years.
It’s true. My Leica M4 film camera is worth more now than when I bought it years ago. But my (digital) M8 has depreciated out of sight. Why? Because its sensor (and image processor) are, well, effectively stone-age devices already.
God’s Blog
Lovely spoof — “God’s Blog” by Paul Simms in the New Yorker. First post reads:
UPDATE: Pretty pleased with what I’ve come up with in just six days. Going to take tomorrow off. Feel free to check out what I’ve done so far. Suggestions and criticism (constructive, please!) more than welcome. God out.
But it’s the Comments that are the really funny bit:
Not sure who this is for. Seems like a fix for a problem that didn’t exist. Liked it better when the earth was without form, and void, and darkness was on the face of the deep.
Going carbon-based for the life-forms seems a tad obvious, no?
The creeping things that creepeth over the earth are gross.
Not enough action. Needs more conflict. Maybe put in a whole bunch more people, limit the resources, and see if we can get some fights going. Give them different skin colors so they can tell each other apart.
Disagree with the haters out there who have a problem with man having dominion over the fish of the sea, the fowl of the air, the cattle of the earth, and so on. However, I do think it’s worth considering giving the fowl of the air dominion over the cattle of the earth, because it would be really funny to see, like, a wildebeest or whatever getting bossed around by a baby duck.
I particularly liked this one:
Adam was obviously created somewhere else and then just put here. So, until I see some paperwork proving otherwise, I question the legitimacy of his dominion over any of this.
Amen
And, of course, “Putting boobs on the woman is sexist.”
