The death of MJ and the take home message

There is little to comment on the recent, unfortunate death of Michael Jackson. The fact that both his professional and personal life derailed longtime ago does not detract a bit from his accomplishments: he made three truly stunning albums in the 80s, including some real jewels that will shine forever.

I hope some peers of Michael Jackson will take notice and learn about a few of the things done wrong by him; it is never too late to wake up and correct the bad things, and to try a new, better approach. Wrong guidance, yes-sir-people, isolation, too many expenses, drugs abuse... Michael Jackson can not warn against them anymore, unfortunately, but his story can.

Steve Jobs' liver transplant

Providing official confirmation to recent reports from The Wall Street Journal, the Methodist University Hospital (Tennesee) released an official statement on Steve Jobs' liver transplant.

This whole story has received loads of analysis, and John Gruber posted extensively about it. The actual reasons why this has been revealed (in spite of repeated comments from Steve Jobs and Apple representatives, who stressed over and over these were private matters and therefore would not be disclosed to the media) remain unknown. Gruber's suggests there are different evidences indicating the timeframe of the WSJ report was positive for Apple and therefore most probably there was some involvement of Steve Jobs and/or Apple in the revelations. Now, the above linked statement specifies it is done with the patient's permission, leaving that aspect out of doubt.

Then, why did Jobs decide to let this private information be published in major media?

Is it due to fears that continued secrecy would become counterproductive to Apple interests?
Or maybe there was forced by Apple council, given the huge controversies about the impact of Jobs' health in the share's price?

Obviously I have no inside information, but for a company this secretive, one can't avoid to watch the revelations in full astonishment. And regardless of the reasons, I hope Jobs will be completely recovered and will enjoy many years of full shape at the head of Apple.

Prince will play three shows at Montreux Jazz Festival, on July 18th, 2009

Well, the rumours running for weeks have been confirmed, and this text has appeared at different places, coming from reliable sources:

"PRINCE IN MONTREUX FESTIVAL ARE OFFICIAL
JULY 18

20:30 AUDITORIUM STRAVINSKI main show 1st band
1st set 90mn only hits
Tarif 299chf- (199 euros) en balcon
and 209chf ( 139 euros) en fosse

23:00 JAZZ CAFE 2nd show at night - 2nd band
set d'environs 60 mn visiblement plus "raw" (selon le terme même de l'artiste). Sans doute une performance rock
Tarif unique 169.- chf ( 113 euros)

01:30 PIANO SESSION at Montreux Palace Bar - 3rd band
Un set au piano (maximum 60 mn)
for 250 peoples only
triés selon leurs porte monnaies. Tarif unique 399.chf (264 euros)
Billets en vente via Ticketcorner le samedi 4 juillet, 10h"

Even for those who can't understand French, the message is quite clear.

There are quite a few aspects to comment on this announcement:

First, professionally speaking, it's quite an accomplishment for Prince to play both in 2007 and in 2009 at such a prestigious festival as Montreux. The fact that this time he's doing it in three different gigs suggests that the organizers and also the public was happy after his previous appearance. Reports suggested, when this was first hinted, that he would receive the highest fee ever in Montreux. I don't see that as an accomplishment, but seemingly, Prince does see it in that way. Bizarre, for the guy who wrote the lyrics of "My name is Prince".

Second, looking strictly at the plans of three gigs with very different tracklists and vibe, this is another dream for hardcore fans, just like it was the Lotusflow3r.com introduction shows, with a similar idea: Prince doing three shows with three different bands. The recordings evidenced those shows as a must hear for any serious Prince fan. And I personally found the last gig, with a strong participation of Renato Neto, as the best of the bunch.

Third, the prices are plain madness. We all know about the Prince live legend, and he deserves all praise for his live performances. But from that, I can't infer how he is asking for a total of 576 € if you want to attend the three shows at good places. Legend or no legend, that is insane, and more insane if we take into account the very reasonable prices he did in London in 2007.

But possibly, in order to realize that those prices are crazy, one would need to get down the bubble and start living in this world, where economic recession and crisis rule. Yet, I guess that ivory towers are too far from real world.

The end of Kodachrome

In another sign of the times, and not necessarily good, Kodak announced the end of its mytical film Kodachrome. Further information in The Online Photographer and DSLR Magazine; the latter, in Spanish, provides some actual explanations evidencing that Kodad helped more than a bit to finish the life of Kodachrome.

This reminds me a lot of the (supposed) end of vinyls when the CDs were on their rise. Time puts everything in its place, and nowadays no audiphile will admit that CDs sound better than vinyl. Probably similar stories might happen with colour films like Kodachrome: we will see in a few decades.

Vicente Ferrer dies

Vicente Ferrer died yesterday. You can read further information here, and learn a bit on his labour & legacy here.

I'm an atheist, but beyond believings, I would like that many people like Vicente Ferrer existed, regardless of their spiritual/religious background.

May he rest in peace.

When the ruins begin to sing

I found this article today, when reading Escolar.net; probably the best summary of speculation I have ever found:

When the ruins begin to sing

The other game changer is here: Olympus EP-1

The wait is over, full specs & information from Olympus about their brand new EP-1. If you are serious about photography and you want a small camera with interchangeable lenses, then look no further: this is the camera for you.

Now let me oversimplify the analysis:

If I needed to buy a camera now, I would have three clear choices:

A point-and-shoot with top specs and top image quality? It would be the Panasonic LX3 (in one of the few cases it is available to purchase).

An advanced camera with small, interchangeable lenses? The Olympus EP-1.

A fully fledged dSLR with a full catalogue of lenses of all kinds, in a compact design? The Pentax K-7.

I know this is truly too simple as analysis, but I think it fairly describes the current situation in the market.

As usual, I wholeheartedly suggest you to read Mike Johnston's views on the EP-1 at The Online Photographer, and mind you: a brief hands-on report is already posted there. And also as usual: if you can read Spanish, by all means you MUST read the article posted by Valentín Sama at DSLR Magazine, and in more detail here. Finally, DP Review just posted movie samples taken with the EP-1.

Correction: QuickTime Player X DOES NOT play flv natively

Well, time for corrections:

Yesterday, I posted a little article on a finding I did in the morning: QuickTime Player X played .flv files. I just confirmed it was wrong. This is the background of the story:

I had installed Snow Leopard (WWDC release) last Friday, rather quickly as I was in a hurry. When I came back yesterday, I found a "Previous System Folder", which I promptly deleted. Thus I assumed I had done a clean install of Snow Leopard. Then I started digging around in Snow Leopard, and much to my surprise, I found it played .flv files. Since I had not seen that fact reported anywhere, and considered it of significant interest to many Mac users, I emailed John Gruber (author of Daring Fireball) to let him know.

In the evening, I had received quite a few comments to the previous article in the blog, suggesting I had Perian installed (providing the ability to play .flv files in QuickTime Player), but that QuickTime Player X does not play natively .flv files. Since I had read them at home, I couldn't check the comments until this morning. And this is what I did when arriving at work. And as suggested by many comments, effectively, I had Perian installed, enabling the .flv playback in QuickTime. Which means I had not done a clean install (but then, I can't understand where the "Previous System Folder" came from).

So, to summarize:

1. NO, QuickTime Player X DOES NOT support natively the playback of .flv video files.

2. I apologize to all readers who were confused by my previous article on this topic. I posted it honestly convinced it was true and of interest to other people. So I am sorry for the confusion. Next time I find something this exciting, I will double check before making any announcement, instead of letting my excitation take over.

3. I am really surprised by the huge noise made by this little comment from me. The take home message (for Apple) is that there is a very strong interest in the community of Mac users to see such native support for .flv playback in OS X and QuickTime. And if I was responsible of the development of OS X, I would hurry up to include such support in Snow Leopard before its final release after the summer.

flv playback supported in QuickTime X (available with Snow Leopard)

UPDATE: This comment is not true, as I just corrected here.

Original text:

In the middle of the flood of informations regarding the upcoming release of Snow Leopard from Apple, I didn't find any reference to this fact. And given it might be of interest to some of you, there you have it:

QuickTime Player X, the version which will be included in Snow Leopard, does play .flv videos on the fly*, and furthermore: it can save those videos to m4v. This means that the video format more widely utilized in the video sites such as youtube etc will be natively supported by QuickTime Player. But there is more: when this version of QuickTime is included in the version of OS X included in iPhone/iPod Touch, it will allow you to watch those videos, without prior conversion, on your iPhone or iPod Touch. I think this fact deserves being noticed, as it will save quite some time to many people interested in .flv videos.

But even if you don't use Apple's portable devices, it is really convenient to play .flv videos straight on QuickTime, and besides you can convert them to m4v for playback with iTunes. Interestingly, you can also export in HD format (H.264 video at 5 Mbps max). Yet I found bizarre that you can not directly add flv video files to your iTunes library, although they appear active in the "Add to library" window.

* Well, maybe "on the fly" is too much saying; in fact, QuickTime Player X takes some time to load the flv file first, before allowing its playback. This is very fast in short files, but noticeably longer when long files are played.

En mi pecho

19 years ago, I remember spending a wonderful afternoon with some friends; we went to swim near Córdoba in a hot summer, when we were ending our University years. After swimming, while we were drying, we listened to a song from a (then) new album of El Ultimo de la Fila, a favourite band of ours.

Yesterday, we went with some friends, and all our kids, to a river near Córdoba. By some weird chance, when we were leaving, the radio in the car played the same song of El Último de la Fila.

The song I mean is En mi pecho. And the lyrics have a deep message that was particularly fitting in both days I recall above:



EN MI PECHO

En mi pecho, corazón,
late libre, sin temor.
Déjame ser verso de amor,
la devoción de un amigo.
Mucho tiempo sombra fui,
en mi mismo me perdí.
De ti aprendí a ser la mano que da
sin recibir, generosa y leal.
¿Qué es la vida? Absurdo trajín.
Dame alma, calor.
Ser tan limpios
como la nieve que cae.
Todo tiene quien todo da.
Nada espero, nada sé,
nada tengo, sólo fe.
Y donde estemos, saber estar;
aunque sea ingenuo, no codiciar.
Nunca ceder
ante la adversidad.
Quiero tener
la alegría del que está en paz.
Mis cadenas he de romper;
fuera penas, amargas como la hiel.

Popmatters.com celebrates the 25 years since the release of Purple Rain

In an anniversary that should not go unnoticed in the world of modern music, Popmatters.com is celebrating with the publication of several excellent articles devoted to such historic achievement. Further information here.

Princevault.com, the Prince & related artists encyclopedia

Yesterday, at the same time of somebody's birthday, was the official release of a new resource focused on Prince & related artists: Princevault.com, a website documenting Prince's long career. It is a work in progress, but it already contains tons of interesting information.

But the key of the site is that the team working for it is ensuring that the quality of information is as good as you can get. In my opinion, this is already the internet successor of the much acclaimed Uptown's book The Vault. And this, as some of you might know, is saying something.

So I would like to say a big thanks to the people behind that project and wish them good luck to pursue this most exciting venture.

Saramago on Berlusconi in El Pais

Nobel prize José Saramago published this weekend an astonishing little piece on Berlusconi. Obviously many Italians don't care about the points raised in this article, but still, I think it's fully spot-on, and a country as important as Italy should be governed by someone with just a little bit of honesty.

Anyway, Saramago puts it much better than me:

La cosa Berlusconi
JOSÉ SARAMAGO 06/06/2009

No veo qué otro nombre le podría dar. Una cosa peligrosamente parecida a un ser humano, una cosa que da fiestas, organiza orgías y manda en un país llamado Italia. Esta cosa, esta enfermedad, este virus amenaza con ser la causa de la muerte moral del país de Verdi si un vómito profundo no consigue arrancarlo de la conciencia de los italianos antes de que el veneno acabe corroyéndole las venas y destrozando el corazón de una de las más ricas culturas europeas. Los valores básicos de la convivencia humana son pisoteados todos los días por las patas viscosas de la cosa Berlusconi que, entre sus múltiples talentos, tiene una habilidad funambulesca para abusar de las palabras, pervirtiéndoles la intención y el sentido, como en el caso del Polo de la Libertad, que así se llama el partido con que asaltó el poder. Le llamé delincuente a esta cosa y no me arrepiento. Por razones de naturaleza semántica y social que otros podrán explicar mejor que yo, el término delincuente tiene en Italia una carga negativa mucho más fuerte que en cualquier otro idioma hablado en Europa. Para traducir de forma clara y contundente lo que pienso de la cosa Berlusconi utilizo el término en la acepción que la lengua de Dante le viene dando habitualmente, aunque sea más que dudoso que Dante lo haya usado alguna vez. Delincuencia, en mi portugués, significa, de acuerdo con los diccionarios y la práctica corriente de la comunicación, "acto de cometer delitos, desobedecer leyes o padrones morales". La definición asienta en la cosa Berlusconi sin una arruga, sin una tirantez, hasta el punto de parecerse más a una segunda piel que la ropa que se pone encima. Desde hace años la cosa Berlusconi viene cometiendo delitos de variable aunque siempre demostrada gravedad. Para colmo, no es que desobedezca leyes sino, peor todavía, las manda fabricar para salvaguarda de sus intereses públicos y privados, de político, empresario y acompañante de menores, y en cuanto a los patrones morales, ni merece la pena hablar, no hay quien no sepa en Italia y en el mundo que la cosa Berlusconi hace mucho tiempo que cayó en la más completa abyección. Este es el primer ministro italiano, esta es la cosa que el pueblo italiano dos veces ha elegido para que le sirva de modelo, este es el camino de la ruina al que, por arrastramiento, están siendo llevados los valores de libertad y dignidad que impregnaron la música de Verdi y la acción política de Garibaldi, esos que hicieron de la Italia del siglo XIX, durante la lucha por la unificación, una guía espiritual de Europa y de los europeos. Es esto lo que la cosa Berlusconi quiere lanzar al cubo de la basura de la Historia. ¿Lo acabarán permitiendo los italianos?

Another game changer: the Olympus EP-1

Well, as it is becoming usual in the last years, no important product is introduced in the world of technology without its corresponding leaks to the web in the weeks prior such introduction.

This time is the turn for the new Olympus micro-4/3 camera, the EP-1, which surfaced in Chinese web pages. Pictures of the new camera (shown above) and also the specs are available:

Olympus Pen E-P1

120x70x35 mm, 300g
Lenses:
17mm F2.8
14-42mm F3.6

13Mpixels RAW, JPEG, RAW+JPEG
Video: 1280x720 7min, 640x480 14min
Liveview
ISO 6400—200
60-1/4000

Besides, DSLR Magazine also gives the official name, Olympus EP-1, and different bits of information on its features. For those who can read in Spanish, the article published by DLSR Magazine on the vintage Pen cameras from Olympus is a must-read.

Pentax K-7, a game changer

After the wave of introductory articles on the Pentax K-7, the first hand-on, serious analysis are appearing, and we all are waiting for in depth reviews which will probably take a while.

In the mean time, some of the first analysis are extremely promising. Today I will point out to three of those articles, the first from Adorama, who qualified the K-7 as "no less than a game changer". Wow!

Thanks to its many unique, innovative features, the Pentax K-7 makes a compelling case for owners of other brand cameras to change systems. As Jack says, it's nothing less than a game changer.

The second was posted by one of the most respected places, Imaging Resource. It's possibly the most detailed article published thus far:

Pentax has it right when they call the K-7 a camera with pro features at a semi-pro price. I'm tempted to warn pure amateurs away from the Pentax K7, as I did with the Nikon D300, so that they don't get lost in its wonderful tangle of fine-tuning options. But the good news is that if you lock the Pentax K7 into Green zone mode it turns off most of the options that can befuddle and just starts using Pentax's years of experience to take well-balanced photographs.

The third was posted at a more general site, Wired, who also had nice words about the K-7:

Pentax has nearly hit a home run with the K-7. It's svelte, sturdy, fairly easy to operate, has a great range of available lenses and a feature set that's unmatched at this price

All in all, it seems Pentax has a very strong contender, and one that could make important shift in the market of dSLR. Now, stay tuned to the heavy weights of reviews to see how this goes on. My feelings? More than a few pros will switch of brand in the coming months.

Pedro J and his conspiracy stories: What a shame

In the last movement to suggest that obscure political conspiracies are somehow linked to the killing of 200 people in Spain back in 2004, famous Spanish journalist Pedro J. Ramírez published today an article entitled "I accuse (Spain 2009)", where he goes further and states that he is accusing a number of people of different faults.

How this journalist and his newspaper, El Mundo, has been trying to evidence that such conspiracies exist, is among the most ridiculous stories in the politics of Spain. And I can't grasp how this guy, once a respected media director, pretends to keep on being a respectable journalist after all this ugly stuff, it truly escapes my understanding.

What a shame, that such strategies are still used in 2009. And what a shame that still some people buy these stories.

Video samples recorded by Ned Bunnell with a Pentax K-7

After a while not posting on the new Pentax K-7, today I found a video posted by Ned Bunnell, showing the astonishing video recording capabilities of this camera. The video speaks by itself, but if you are interested, you need to read the very enlightening post by Ned at his own blog. By the way, it is quite refreshing to see a high executive of a major brand in photography, posting his feelings in such a down-to-earth manner. Hats off to Ned, one of those guys who make the difference.

I was not too fond of videos made with dSLR cameras, but this video is truly an eye-opener:

First Takes: K-7 Video from Ned Bunnell on Vimeo.