Independent information

These days, two important Spanish journalists whose work I respect and admire, Fernando Jáuregui and Pilar Cernuda, are introducing two new books focused on the last years in Spanish politics. Right now, they must be doing a formal presentation to media.

I have been following the work of Pilar and Fernando for many years, since I became interested in politics when I was very young. They have written in a number of media and participated in different radios, always dealing with the daily politics in Spain. Their work always was interesting because they got first hand, insightful information, often with insider comments that were most enlightening to get glimpses on the actual situation: the one which happens behind the curtains.

Yet unfortunately, the politics situation in Spain is getting more and more extremist, to the point that a feature formerly considered a virtue in media (independence) is currently extremely rare: in most cases, you can figure out what any journalist is going to say/write by only looking at the place he will speak/write: the good, old days where politically different, credible opinions could be read in a same journal, are gone. And today, people hardly have any exposure to the points of view of the opposite party, making any possibility of consensus in central topics almost an impossibility. And it leads to the sad situation where such topics (education, terrorism, foreign policy) are strongly debated and used as weapons against the other party, insted of being something commonly supported by the main parties.

Under such circumstances, it is rare to see people like Fernando and Pilar, enabled to make respectful criticism to both, the conservative and the socialist parties (called in Spain Partido Popular and Partido Socialista Obrero Español), so that usually their opinions deserve being closely followed and considered. However, it makes also (and I am figuring this out, as I am in no way linked to them) very difficult to continue publishing in places of high profile, given that the big communication groups in my country have no shame in showing their political preferences, which equals to excluding the truly independent journalists.

So I just wanted to pay homage, in these humble pages, to two people like Pilar and Fernando, whose work should be an example to journalists in the making. Their permanent effort to remain independent, and even their troubles in the world of communication, are to me a reminder that there are indeed reasons for hope: not everybody is ready to give up on principles to be favoured by the power.

I would like to conclude this comment by stating that, in my opinion, the most credible place to get information today, in Spain, is not the website of any big newspaper, like El País: it is a little web journal called Diario Crítico, directed by Fernando Jáuregui, where you will often find the "information that someone does not want to be published": the classic definition of news.

And finally, a petition: I would be most happy (and I guess I would not be alone on this petition) if I could listen to comments made in collaboration between Fernando and Pilar (as they have often done in the radio, in the past). Their often differing opinions are, again in my opinion, the best analysis of the reality you can currently find in this lovely country, Spain.

Pentax K20HD: a dream come true?

As a longtime Pentax user (I started using SRL cameras back in 1990, with a lovely, manual, solid Pentax P30T), when I switched to digital SRL I chose a Pentax K10D, which has proven to be a much better camera than I expected (and I expected a lot). Contrary to other brands, Pentax is one of those which seems almost embarrased to state its own qualities, to the point that revolutionary features highlighted by major brands were used in advance by Pentax with little fanfare.

Yet maybe the time has come to see big headlines about their new dSLR, the successor of the K10D. Different rumblings pointed out to truly revolutionary features in it during the last weeks, but nothing had leaked thus far: there was an embargo of information until January 24th 2008, when it will be officially presented to the public. Yet, apparently yesterday there was a presentation to media in Dubai, and it seems some details have been leaked (in spite of non disclosure agreements). Based on posts from Pentaxforums, and on an article by the reputed Spanish photographer Valentín Sama (at his website DSLR Magazine), I think you could predict the new camera (possibly called K20 HD) has the following features:

New 14 MP CMOS sensor

16/9 format (approx. 30 x 16 mm)

Improved AF (contrast method)

Live view on the viewfinder (!!!!!!)

Possibility of using AF with Live view

Improved SR

Continuous shot up to 14/6 shots of 1080 p (full HD)

3 frames/second by shooting RAW (12/14 bits)

Recording of 720p video with built-in H.264 compression software (!!!)

Although nothing is confirmed yet, if the above features prove true, then we have a main contender in the upper part of the prosumer dSLR market: It will make loads of noise and major brands have serious matter to worry, given the usually aggressive price strategy of Pentax. The very fact that a most serious dSLR camera like this provides ALSO serious video, and live view + AF, means you have pretty much anything you would want, and then more.

2nd Update: I posted and then deleted a fake picture of the new camera. Yet if you are interested , it is posted here.

3rd Update: I just found a most interesting post from WendyB in pentaxforums (someone who is obviously under a non disclosure agreement with Pentax, regarding the new camera). As she suggests openly, it is well worth to read between the lines. And if I am getting it right, maybe we can discard the video in the Pentax K20.

Besides, there are quite clear hints suggesting she compared the last offerings from Nikon, Canon, Olympus and Pentax (i.e., D300/Eos 40D, E-3 and K20) and Pentax gets the best image quality.

Whatever the case, we will see in a week.

Zeitgeist: Think freely, think by yourself

A few weeks ago, my friend Stefan suggested me to have a quiet look on a film entitled Zeitgeist. I usually pay attention to his advices, but unfortunately I don't always find the time to watch (or listen to) worthwhile material.

However, in this case (and thanks to the winter holidays), I eventually managed to find the time and watch this movie in full one night. And it proved to be a most interesting experience.

You can get an idea of the movie by watching some parts of it: it is entirely available at different places, including youtube. The Zeitgeist website contains loads of additional information, including an interactive transcript. This movie is a documentary, addressing several different topics with a single background idea: institutions have been lying to us forever, which is an idea that I fully cosign and has been the base justifying some of my attitudes in politics.

The film starts with a part I dedicated to the origin of the story of Jesus, and its multiple links to many different gods of other religious traditions from the past (Egypt, Greece...), all based on astrological phenomena.  Then it goes to discuss the events of the September 11 attacks in the USA, summarizing the many controversial issues around them (part II). Finally there is a part III dealing with the manipulations of the economy in USA and other countries.

As I wrote elsewhere, I was deeply impressed by this film. I was well aware of some of the topics (in particular, I have read loads of information regarding the 9/11 events), while in other cases, as the links of the Jesus story with previous religions, it was all pretty much new to me.

While watching this movie, it reminded me of the films of Michael Moore: both share the powerful drawing and the ideological goal is quite clear, you can't get mistaken about it. The outline is diverse but the linking between all parts becomes soon evident: this is a call to independent thinking, to use your own mind to analyze facts, instead of relying on the official truth about them.

In my opinion, and while I find the whole documentary is well worth to watch, the solidity of the different parts shows a significant deal of variety: for instance, part I seems firmly based; these days, serious research (meaning not manipulated by official research from the catholic church) has shown that most (if not all) of the so-called sacred history is, in fact, based on pure myths. But the detail described in this film is deeply enlightening, and I bet more than a few catholics with an open mind could be deeply surprised by its content.

In the same way (and in this case, my previous information is much stronger), the part II is a quick summary of reports that are extensively spread throughout the net: the story of the 9/11 was, let's say, amazingly reinterpreted by the official truth, so that there are countless inconsistencies, and many lines of evidence indicate that it was basically falsified in order to justify later military actions that were planned well in advance. This is no surprise to many of us and more and more people are realizing it is the case. I found, however, a very illuminating suggestion: Most people considers that the Irak war is going badly for USA. But in fact it might be going perfect (for the people interested in starting it): the longer it gets (as happened in Vietnam), the bigger their profit will be. This is jut another case when you need to regard the news with a different view.

However, the last part, in which the movie goes into detail about the story of central banks and the Federal Reserve of USA and their role in the economy, looks less strong in my opinion. While some of the messages are plausible, the overall interpretation seems a bit simplistic to me, and the final, rather catastrophic message, of an USA economic elite with elaborated plans to gain control over the whole world economy (by implanting a system based on money managed exclusively by chips, that could simply be switched off when an individual gets too annoying for the System) detracts somehow from the otherwise very serious message of the film.

Yet this does not block in any way the central idea: the humans institutions, along the full story, have been using pure and simple lies in order to have social control. In many cases, some of the lies were established for years -or even centuries as the truth, leading to the appearance of most influential religions, or to the start of wars whose actual origin was purely economic.

All in all, I think this movie deserves being watched and I am trying my best to spread the word about it. Whether you agree with all or not is rather irrelevant: the focus on independent thinking, on making your own analysis about the reality, is what actually matters here. I think this film succeeds admirably in transmitting this message, inspiring the spectators to wake up and have a completely different regard on reality. And that is a message I completely cosign: do not let others dictate your way of thinking. It can be harder and take you more time, but it is always worth to persist in having your own ideas after analyzing the information by yourself.

So a sentence used in its ads by a favourite company of mine could be the best conclusion for this review:

Think different: Think freely, think by yourself. ;-)

Digging in the dirt of internet

For any longtime user of internet, it is becoming more and more clear that the huge amounts of information (on any topic) requires a significant work of filtering data and focusing only on the relevant resources. In other words, the levels of noise are rather high, and you better select your sources if you want to get good information. Or by using the beautiful words of Spanish poet Antonio Machado, you need time to "distinguir las voces de los ecos" (differentiate between voices and echoes).

A couple of recent examples in my own fields of interest showcased this fact.

For instance, I have been searching for information on the field of digital photography during the last 2-3 years, basically because I was planning to move into digital photography after many years using films. At the begining, the task was rather confusing given the very many sites you can find by using even refined searches. And it soon was obvious to me that I needed to spend time and read in some depth (and for some time) a few sites, prior to be sure I had found the right places. Eventually, late in 2006 I reached my goal and had shortlisted a number of sites that provided quality information and were updated on a regular basis. To name two main ones: theonlinephotographer.com (in English of course) and dslrmagazine.com and valentinsama.blogspot.com (in Spanish). If you are after finer details, both have plenty of them.

Now regarding a favourite musician of mine, my experience dates longtime ago: back in the early 90s, in the very begining of internet, I remember using a little app called "Gopher" to make an extremely basic browsing of internet: you typed a topic (myfavouritemusician) and then you were jumping from one page to another. A kind of extremely simple googling of the time, that was a very pale shade of the current possibilities to look for information. At the time, it was close to impossible to be so selective as you can be today. Yet I found the (then young) PML, where I participated from time to time.

If you compare to the begining of 2008, we are truly quantum leaps ahead: there are countless places devoted to this musician, although the quality is extremely diverse.

Yet there is a common feature in fields as different as photography and my favourite musician: you can find many, many, many places claiming to be "the best" place to get information about both topics. And in my experience, those claiming louder never correspond to the actually best sites.

If I was responsible of any site (devoted to any topic) and wanted it to become the (actually) best page about such topic, I would spend much more time carefully getting good information, verifying its accuracy, and getting good writers and good researchers for the site; and then I would let the actual quality of the site spread slowly (but surely) around internet, so that the people looking for quality would certainly find my site after a while. Quality can not be made in five weeks: it requires loads of effort, and work, and commitment.

Although it is obvious from the above, if I was responsible of any website with real ambitions, I would not spend a second posting everywhere with ads (either explicit or implicit) stating how good my site is and how exact and important is the information I provide.

In my humble opinion, the two photography sites I mentioned are good evidences of what I describe in the paragraphs above.

In short: focus on quality, forget about publicity. Stunning quality always attracts readers. Stunning ads (when not based on stunning quality) only attract curious people, but they will soon be gone for greener pastures.

Four reasons for hope

In the middle of the mess that we use to call "modern life", we often forget the important things. The truly important things.

I'm posting today only to say Happy New Year 2008 to all readers of this humble blog, and to let you know that I decided to continue posting here. The scope will be broad, even if that might possibly be the hard route. But I don't like the idea of keeping a single topic as the center of this page.

So there we go. In the mean time, I'd like to show you my four main reasons for hope in 2008. It's the first picture I add to this blog, and it had to be this one: