The usefulness of reviews

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Here’s a very good example of a helpful review. I’ve always been wary of zoom lenses, because of the optical compromises implicit in them, but I’d heard good things about the Nikkor 18-200mm DX. So I went to dpreview.com and found a detached and informative assessment. Here’s the overall verdict:

Just occasionally, the old cliches are still the best, and with the 18-200mm VR the phrase ‘jack of all trades, master of none’ springs immediately to mind. It’s a lens which delivers somewhat flawed results over its entire zoom range; where it’s sharp, it has heavy distortion, and when that distortion comes under control at the long end, it loses sharpness. Its close-up performance is reasonable, but not spectacular, and overall it will likely be outperformed optically by a cheaper combination of standard and telephoto zooms. So for a certain type of photographer interested mainly in absolute image quality, this may well cause it to be regarded as nothing more than an expensive snapshot lens.

But to dismiss the 18-200mm VR based purely on its optical quality is to miss the point quite fundamentally. The whole idea of such a lens is to allow the photographer to travel light and never miss a shot while changing lenses, or indeed not to have to risk water or dust entering the camera in adverse conditions. So what you do get for your money is a hugely flexible zoom range which can handle the vast majority of photographic opportunities, coupled with excellent autofocus and vibration reduction systems. And all of this is wrapped up in a relatively compact package, with build quality which feels solid without being excessively heavy. It really is a lens you can leave on your camera all day long and scarcely miss a shot, and it has to be said, this makes it a lot of fun to use.

So when all is said and done, we have to understand that superzooms are essentially about making some optical compromises to provide the broadest possible range in a single lens, and it’s up to each individual to decide whether those compromises are acceptable. I wouldn’t recommend the 18-200mm to someone whose primary interests were either architecture or wildlife, for example, but for the photographer who wants to shoot a little bit of everything and not have to change lenses, it’s more than fit for purpose. Ultimately this is probably as good a superzoom as money can buy, so as long as its limitations are recognised and understood, it has to be recommended.

198 reasons why we’re in a mess

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Insightful Simon Caulkin column…

We live in strange times. In the private sector, market rules are so degraded that it has become the role of companies in the real economy, some built up over decades, to act as chips tossed around by high rollers in the City supercasino. Meanwhile, the public sector is in the grip of a central planning regime of a rigidity and incompetence not seen since Gosplan wrote Stalin’s Five-Year Plans…

He goes on to draw on Jane Jacobs’s seminal Systems of Survival (which is subtitled: “a dialogue on the moral foundations of commerce and politics”) to suggest that the root of our problems is the way the ‘moral syndromes’ that characterise our two basic modes of governance — ‘conquest’ and ‘commerce’ — have become inextricably mixed.

Knowledgeable Vista critics

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Wonderful New York Times piece by Randall Stross.

Can someone tell me again, why is switching XP for Vista an “upgrade”?

Here’s one story of a Vista upgrade early last year that did not go well. Jon, let’s call him, (bear with me — I’ll reveal his full identity later) upgrades two XP machines to Vista. Then he discovers that his printer, regular scanner and film scanner lack Vista drivers. He has to stick with XP on one machine just so he can continue to use the peripherals.

Did Jon simply have bad luck? Apparently not. When another person, Steven, hears about Jon’s woes, he says drivers are missing in every category — “this is the same across the whole ecosystem.”

Then there’s Mike, who buys a laptop that has a reassuring “Windows Vista Capable” logo affixed. He thinks that he will be able to run Vista in all of its glory, as well as favorite Microsoft programs like Movie Maker. His report: “I personally got burned.” His new laptop — logo or no logo — lacks the necessary graphics chip and can run neither his favorite video-editing software nor anything but a hobbled version of Vista. “I now have a $2,100 e-mail machine,” he says.

Here’s the punchline: ‘Mike’ is Mike Nash, a Microsoft vice president who oversees Windows product management. ‘Jon’ is Jon A. Shirley, a Microsoft board member and former president and chief operating officer. And ‘Steven’ is Steven Sinofsky, the company’s senior vice president responsible for Windows. Mr Stross garnered the quotes from a cache of internal Microsoft emails unsealed by the judge who is hearing the Vista Class Action suit.

Picture this

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This morning’s Observer column…

Flickr is a classic Web 2.0 story. In the first place, it was an unintended outcome of another project. Its co-founders, Stewart Butterfield and Caterina Fake, were designing Game Neverending, a massive multi-player online game, and realised that they would need a photo-sharing module. In the end, the photo-sharing took on a life of its own and the gaming project was quietly shelved. Secondly, it required no complex technical infrastructure, and could be marketed virally as users began to circulate Flickr links in email and instant messages.

Flickr’s designers also displayed a shrewd grasp of the essence of Web 2.0 thinking – namely that the big rewards come from making it easy for other developers to hook into your stuff. So they were quick to publish the application programming interface (API), the technical details other programmers needed to link into Flickr’s databases. This then made it easy for bloggers and users of social networking sites to create links to their Flickr ‘photostreams’. The results are clear for all to see. On 12 November last year, Flickr images passed the 2 billion mark. At present, between three and five million photographs are uploaded to the service every day…

Harry’s war

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Hooray for Marina Hyde…

On the one hand, it was nice to see Prince Harry in a British army uniform, as opposed to one of Hitler’s. It’s a little bit like Pokemon, really. I’m hoping he’ll give us a highly collectible Hutu warrior snap soon. Gotta catch ’em all! On the other, is there anyone over Pokemon-playing age who believes it was really worth it? The sheer number of man-hours and money lavished on allowing one young man to experience job satisfaction is mind-boggling. It has to be the most fatuous use of Ministry of Defence resources since Geoff Hoon.

According to the executive director of the Society of Editors, who helped establish the controversial media blackout, it was not designed to mislead readers and viewers but to ultimately give them “a deeper insight into a new side of Prince Harry”. But how completely intriguing. And yet, is he basically still a fairly dim, fairly affable chap, you might ask? It would appear so. But he’s being fairly dim and fairly affable in Afghanistan. Or rather, he was until the news broke, at which point a detailed, prearranged plan to get him out – how many logistical brains are wasted on this nonsense? – was mobilised. So at least we have an exit strategy for Prince Harry, if not for the actual war…

Barack unveiled

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Excellent New Yorker profile by Larissa MacFarquhar…

There are three things that Democratic political candidates tend to do when talking with constituents: they display an impressive grasp of the minutiae of their constituents’ problems, particularly money problems; they rouse indignation by explaining how those problems are caused by powerful groups getting rich on the backs of ordinary people; and they present well-worked-out policy proposals that, if passed, would solve the problems and put the powerful groups in their place. Obama seldom does any of these things. He tends to underplay his knowledge, acting less informed than he is. He rarely accuses, preferring to talk about problems in the passive voice, as things that are amiss with us rather than as wrongs that have been perpetrated by them. And the solutions he offers generally sound small and local rather than deep-reaching and systemic…

IMHO, the New Yorker is the best print magazine there is. (The only publication that comes close is the Economist, which is the only magazine I make sure I read from cover to cover every week.) The trouble with the New Yorker, though, is that it’s generally a Big Read. I used to subscribe to it, but found the mounting pile of partially-read back numbers too reproachful. So subscribing again to the print edition has joined the list of things I am going to do when I win the Lottery. (Another one is to hire a personal tech support guy as good as DisplayLink‘s Dave Hill.)

Getting things done, Daily Mail style

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Interesting column by Martin Kettle…

If you live cocooned and, dare one say it, comfortable on Planet Guardian, then maybe you have not yet fully reflected on why this week’s Daily Mail’s campaign to Banish the Bags has been both so brilliantly effective, orchestrating the endorsements of Marks & Spencer and the prime minister within its first 48 hours, and also so politically interesting. But you should. It’s important.

The Daily Mail did not invent the issue of plastic bag pollution. Paul Dacre’s newspaper is a Johnny-come-lately to a long-established environmental cause. It is 20 years since Labour’s Chris Smith first raised the issue in the House of Commons and six since Ireland and Bangladesh caught the world’s attention by slapping a tax on them. You can find hundreds of speeches by ministers saying something must be done. But until the Mail’s campaign ministers were still – there is no other word for it – dithering.

Once the Mail went into action the outcome was settled. Ten pages on Wednesday, seven more on Thursday, another four on Friday and the job was done. The Banish the Bags campaign was well planned, well focused, well judged, well timed and was executed on a scale and with a ruthlessness that would have impressed Bismarck. M&S was lined up in advance to create a second-day wave with its 5p-per-bag charge announcement. Even Prince Harry could not shove the campaign off the front page yesterday, as Gordon Brown, who now recycles his garden waste instead of his policy announcements, pledged that the government would “step in and act”…

Hmmm…. He’s right about the amazing inability of the current government to assign meaningful priorities and get on with what’s important. But then one remembers that Mussolini got the trains to run on time…

Yo! Prof Blair

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P.G. Wodehouse’s shrewd observation that a strong interest in religion is invariably a prelude to insanity is brought to mind by the news that Tony Blair is to ‘teach’ at Yale. Here’s the announcement:

New Haven, Conn. — Yale University is pleased to announce the appointment of Prime Minister Tony Blair as the Howland Distinguished Fellow for the next academic year.

Mr. Blair will lead a seminar at Yale and participate in a number of events around the campus. The course in which he will participate with Yale faculty will examine issues of faith and globalization. His efforts at Yale relate to the work of the Tony Blair Faith Foundation that he will be launching later this year.

The Deans of the Yale School of Management and Divinity are working with Mr. Blair on finalizing details of the program….

If you take that last sentence literally, it would seem that Yale has a School of Management and Divinity, but then I suppose the poor dears were so excited they hardly noticed what they’d written.

Coincidentally, George W. Bush is an alumnus of Yale (where he spent many happy days under the table). Perhaps he will be a Distinguished Guest Lecturer in Professor Blair’s seminar programme? Truly, you couldn’t make this up. What hope have comedians when reality doles out developments like this?