One year without Housequake.com

One year ago, on Juanuary 30th 3009, the patience of Aaron -which seemed completely impossible to exhaust- eventually ended, and he decided to close down Housequake.com. The site had started in 1997 (unfortunately I was not member at the time), and along the following years it flourished, attracting a large community of fans of purple music. When I discovered Housequake.com, back in 2004, it was plain stunning, with plenty of interesting resources, a team of excellent moderators, and a vibrant feeling in the forums; lots of people were interacting, posting funny, interesting, controversial, and entertaining content.

Since I joined Housequake, I was the witness of the highs and lows in the relationship with the musician which was the center of the site. We all knew he was uncommon also in that respect, but obviously we were not prepared for the kind of behaviour he displayed, particularly in the last two years. And still today, I wonder how Aaron managed to keep on working in Housequake.com, for 12 years, in spite of all the issues he had to endure. I gave my word, back in my time as moderator of the site, that I would not disclose a number of things, but I can say that Aaron patience, and commitment, and work, were truly admirable. I guess no other fan would have been enabled to keep such attitude for such a longtime, receiving often, in "compensation", threatens and harassment, instead of gratitude and respect.

Some people said that the mentioned musician was saddened by the closing of the site: who knows, maybe it's true, and maybe at this time he realized of the many mistakes he did regarding the premier purple forum ever: Housequake.com.

But that was then, and this is now. My only point today was to remember what was, once upon a time, the Reference forum on purple music; a place to enjoy interacting with other fans, also nuts about purple music; a place where plenty of talented people contributed their best in order to make a community without peers in princeland. And speaking from a personal point of view, a place where I made friends, actual friends.

I will cherish the memories of many unforgettable nights hanging around at Housequake.com, and I will always remember the site, and its founder and owner, Aaron, with gratitude, admiration, and well deserved respect.

A final word: if somebody reads this without knowing how Housequake.com looked like, you can browse a bit of it in web.archive.org.

Adobe reacting against lack of flash support in iPad/iPhone

Given the clear, intended lack of support of Apple for Flash in their iPod Touch/iPhone/iPad, it seems Adobe decided to become active and provide an application to enable Flash developers to provide version of their content that can be used by those Apple devices. So it seems they realize about the strenght of Apple, and in my book it means that Adobe also realizes that Flash, as universal web standard, could be in its way to die.

Inconsistent names for new apps in iPad

The new iPad and its features are being discussed in depth at many places, so let's forget about those for a while; yet I was surprised when I browsed the information provided at apple.com on the iPad. In particular, the names for the new apps are not consistent and induce to confusion.

Let me show some examples:

The app to browse the web is called Safari. As in your Mac or iPod.

The app for email is called Mail. As in your Mac or iPod.

But then:

The app to organize picures is called Photos. NOT iPhoto as in your Mac.

The app to play and organize your music files is called the iPod app. NOT iTunes.

And the name iTunes seems reserved for the app to browse and buy music from the iTunes music store. However, iTunes does all those things on your Mac (I mean organizing & playing your personal library of music files, and also browsing & buying songs from the iTunes music store).

Pretty confusing if you ask me. I wonder whether this means something that escapes me, or it is just due to a lack of care in the overall strategy for naming apps.

Or maybe it simply reflects that the iPad is in the middle of iPod Touch and a Macintosh, and they were not sure what of both products should be the model to follow when putting names to apps.

The iSomething

Twenty years ago, they had some ideas:

Today we will see the real thing.

I think today's presentation by Steve Jobs is the most hyped product introduction ever, in the story of Apple, which is saying something. And the curious thing is that no official information whatsoever has been leaked. Nobody out of the insiders know what the hell is going to be introduced: all is pure speculation. And all hype is based strictly on speculations. Another point of interest: latest rumblings say that Jobs considers this product the most important thing he's ever done. That's also saying something, if you take into account this guy did the Macintosh, the iMac, the iPod and the iPhone.

Total sales for Lotus flow3r worldwide

At the World Wide Albums page, there is an estimation of total sales for albums released in 2009.

And I was surprised to find Lotus flow3r with a figure with is not bad (for my expectations): 523,500 albums; I presume this is the whole set (as they mention Prince/Bria Valente in their entry), so that would make for 1,570,500 CDs sold in total.

Considering the best seller was Susan Boyle at 6,734,500 albums sold, it does not seem a flop all the way (which is what I expected, honestly).

The guys running this page stress that these figures are only "estimations", as reliable as they can get; for further info on their methods, go here.

Besides, if we assume that Prince was getting a significant part of the retail price as profit (let's say $2 per set, to use a conservative figure), that would make for roughly $ 1 million of benefit.

If we consider that he's charging that amount per live show, and if we assume that one third of the amount is net profit, then the conclusion is clear:

Album releases are only worth these days as promotional tool, not as a real money maker. Prince can make the same amount of money by playing three gigs.

(All of the above are of course my assumptions, I have no access to real figures).

Sheila E impersonating Prince in a funny video...

... and a great Linn beat as soundtrack. Enjoy!

Obama to give up on health reform: is this the begining of the end?

The expectations about Obama were obviously impossible to fulfill, even for Superman. But the balance after one year is rather mixed, and in my opinion somehow disappointing.

Today's not the time to go into detail, but at least I would like to address the headlines I have read this weekend in El Pais: according to them, Obama gave up on the health reform to focus on the economic problems of the USA. Apparently, this is the result of a long year of battles against the Republicans, followed by the recent Massachusets Senate loss.

I hope Obama will find new forces in order to continue implementing his electoral program, from which the health reform is certainly a highlight. But I admit there is already a long series of signs suggesting that the Obama deception was, maybe, more than a tendentious movie.

Purple & Gold, new "song" of Prince; or how to feel ashamed of your favourite musician

This needs little comment, actually.

Prince released a short song, intended to be a kind of anthem of the Vikings (it seems they are a team of a sport in the USA).

I heard it online. And I felt ashamed of the fact that my favourite musician, an undisputed genius, can release a song this awful.

If any further evidence was needed to show that the man is in desperate need of quality control and of someone enabled to say "NO Sir, you can NOT release something this bad", then this is the best evidence.

I'm truly ashamed.

Ugly hint about the current events in Haiti

Beyond the actual meaning of the US intervention in Haiti, I think the landing of an helicopter from the US army right in front of de destroyed presidential palace is a very disgusting metaphor on what is actually happening. If the USA want to deny the comments suggesting they are making a hidden invasion, such as suggested by high authorities of France, for instance, acts like this should never happen. I'm sure there were many other places to land; and I wonder why the pilot, or someone else, decided that this specific place was the right spot to land.

The past story of the US army, and the fact that Obama is the current president of the USA, are both strong reasons that should have provoked a careful reflection in the responsible for this landing; and exactly after one year of Obama as leader, it seems to me a very bad idea to exhibit this scenery to the cameras of the whole world.

Priceless video from Onion News about the 6th season of Lost

I found this video posted elsewhere by a friend and I think it is truly priceless; besides it highlights the huge expectations of fans (and that includes me since a few months):

Final Season Of 'Lost' Promises To Make Fans More Annoying Than Ever

Lessons from Musicology/3121: a crossroad for Prince

The following is an article that I posted in April 2006 in Housequake.com. I found it today, when I was browsing the net, and thought it might be interesting to reproduce the content, right after the previous entry on this blog. If you look, the situation now is rather similar to that of 2006, and I think most of the following points remain valid today, in the begining of 2010:

Well, now that it seems pretty clear that the whole 3121 story is definitely over, I think it could be a good time for a few reflections on the current situation of Prince and his career.

Prince is a widely acclaimed musician, not only among his loyal fans, but in the world of music business in general. Regardless of his recent commercial success (or rather, lack of), you can ask anybody from that world and, liking or not Prince's music, he will acknowledge that Prince stands from the crowd, no doubt. The recent infos suggesting that he has been offered many times to play at the Superbowl is just another evidence. He has nothing to demonstrate at this time point, concerning his musical abilities and his obvious superstardom when performing: nobody in the world will top that.

Yet, at 48 years and with such amazing experience on his back, he is arriving a point where decisions have to be taken in order to clarify where is he going from now on, from a professional standpoint. Most musicians from his generation are out of the main trends (and no, Madonna is no musician, sorry, so that sentence is true generally speaking), and while some of them simply fucked up his career (MJ being the most obvious example), other have managed to outline an effective way of continuing their work in the music world, although not selling millions of albums.

You have the dinosaur-always-playing-live-old-songs trick, which works perfectly in some cases. Look at the Stones or Pink Floyd: their recent records barely achieve any significant selling number, but their tours are usually sold out with fairly high prices. And I'm tempted to include others, even more recent, as U2, in the same category, but won't do it to avoid controversies... [Laughing].

You have the old-80s-star-reinvented-by-trendy-producers-and-performing-at-a-circus each album/tour. This is the very definition of Madonna, and although she is no musician, this model works stunningly well for her, in economic terms. I'm also tempted to include Bowie... but I doub whether he is playing any music game by now, other than selling his shares on his back catalogue (and that's another fucking amazing business, it seems).

You have the I-will-release-yet-another-different-compilation-next-Christmas model, in the case of acts that have no too many followers of their live performances. The name of Elton John (and maybe, I'm sorry, the name of Queen) is the perfect example in this case, and this again seems to provide big bucks.

And finally, you have the I-am-still-able-to-release-good-albums-but-you'd-rather-come-to-my-show-to-hear-my-old-classics...and The Boss or The Ugly Bear (aka Bruce Springsteen or uncle Van Morrison) are both a non-stop demonstration on the feasability of this last business model from old glories.

What about Prince? Well, to date he tried a mixture of everything. Let's see what happened after he was "emancipated" from Warner Brothers Records:

First he attempted (self-convinced that he would repeat the TMBGITW success with Emancipation) the "independent" artist model, but in that particular case, personal issues (and the catastrophe at EMI) justified somehow the demise of the album.

Then, after sometime underground again, he was persuaded that he could try a comeback a la Santana, by releasing a commercial album (Rave) with loads of celebrities guessing. This time again, it didn't work, and as usual for Prince, all blame was on the boogie: the label was the only responsible (in his view) for this failing.

Once more, a few years on the underground, an album very well received by most fans (TRC) and an excellent (yet low key) tour afterwards (ONA live).

And, when approaching 2004, a big plan was developed to capitalize on the 20th anniversary of Purple Rain. I don't know if this was planned by him, or convinced by other people. But the fact is that a huge US tour was planned, helped by the release of a (minor) album entitled "Musicology". And (to the surprise of quite a few people, probably) it turned out to be the biggest grossing tour of the year, reinstalling him as a superstar in commercial terms at the USA. Further, if looking at the overall numbers, apparently he regained his crown as major seller, since this album (in theory) was very well sold. But as we know, if you look closer, a more than significant part of the "sold" albums were considered for the sold numbers, but not actually sold: they were given as a part of the ticket price at live shows. Given the huge amount of people going to this tour, it meant loads of "sold" albums. Although it is also true that many albums were actually sold as well.

But apparently, the huge success of the Musicology tour convinced Prince and his environment that he was enabled to become a top seller again, by himself and on the grounds of new music alone (I mean, without accompanying tour). So, after a 2005 hiatus, he showcased grand plans just another time, by a large marketing campaign that started with the worldwide release of TAC with an expensive video, followed by several other videos, singles, TV appearances, etc etc, to be followed by the release of her new protegee, Tamar.

And what happened? Well, the market (i.e., his hardcore fans) said initially a big YES!, thus making his first number 1 album straight away after release, in many, many years. This was an initial buble that ignited some burning emails from NPGMC proudly announcing the good news, in the middle of rave reviews from all over the world. But the bubble was soon disappeared, as the selling numbers started to sink almost immediately, to never recover.

Then, when everybody was expecting a summer worldwide tour, and for whatever reasons, Prince was nowhere to be found, the starting of the messing around the Tamar album, and finally the current situation: supposedly, Tamar and Prince parted ways, both Prince and Universal forgot about the promotion of 3121, and news about a forthcoming US and European tour in 2007 were recently released.

What is the message of all this? Well, in my opinion:

1. Contrary to the initial expectations generated by Musicology, Prince was unable to get a big hit on the grounds of a new album alone (although I still am convinced of its huge potential; but I am not the average music buyer, of course).
2. I don't want to go into personal stuff, but this time again, it has been demonstrated the lack of a good management team in the environment of Prince. Someone with the capacity to shake him when required and ask for a bigger promotional commitment, when so big plans were outlined with the full backing of a big records company.
3. The lack of a tour supporting 3121 is most probably very related to the failing of the album in the charts.


And what is the conclusion?
The clear message from the market (i.e., the actual people buying music, out there; not the loyal fans compulsively checking hq, the org or NPGMC every five minutes...) is something like that: "Hey Prince, we love your music, but we mostly love your old 80s music; you can release fucking great albums, but at this moment, if you don't allow me to enjoy your old hits, I just don't give a shit about any new album, even if it's very commercial as 3121".

So in my opinion, the people is loudly asking Prince to follow the Springsteen/Van Morrison etc model: forget about coolness, forget about being the last hype, forget about celebrities parties, forget about becoming the King of Business again (do you remember... "...cause I've been in the top / and it's just a dream". These words remain true today, Prince.)

Focus on what you do best: release personal, sincere, good albums (and forget about writing music on purpose to sell millions of trendy albums). Focus on live tours with first level musicians. It has always worked along your career. And most of all, when you are in difficult times, focus on your large, loyals fans community. Change your mind framework on them: they are sharing live, unofficial recordings from you, but they are not your enemies: they are buying pretty much everything you release officially, they are going to countless shows from you. So support them in a fair manner, not by using a self-massaging web site where all negative opinions (even the most logical, coherent, and positively intentioned ones) are deleted. You should support them because, in the end, they are supporting you, even in times when almost nobody else is doing so, do you remember the WB fighting times...?

Next Prince album will be for hardcores

(First of all, this is strictly speculative, so nobody should figure out that it's based on inside info, because it is not.)

I was driving today when suddenly I had a vision:

The next Prince album will be for hardcores, not another one intended for masses.

In other words, the next album will be in the vein of TRC, not that of Musicology, 3121 or Planet Earth (and I don't mean style, I mean the intentions). Why? Several hints suggest this will be the case.

First, at this point it is entirely clear that Prince won't become again a massive seller. There are many reasons for that: to start, nobody is these days a massive seller (at least, no musician). And besides, Prince status (a legend for music) is out of the categories of people enabled to sell loads of albums in 2010 (which for the most part have only side connections with music). Finally, he tried hard, particularly in the case of 3121, which was an excellent album and a very commercial one, and received loads of promotion at the begining. But beyond the initial number 1 in USA, it plain flopped from a sales standpoint.

Second, the legendary status of Prince as live musician means he can focus on live shows as his main source of income (and not only public live shows: ask those millionaires that sign him for private parties). He does not need to release commercial albums in order to fill arenas, as evidenced in USA or in the UK in recent years. He only needs good promotion, but not necessarily smash singles or multimillion sales of albums. I guess he learned about that. And the model deployed in London worked wonders: cheap tickets, huge shows with his neverending catalogue of hits, and then aftershows where he, the band and the fans had a great time while listening whatever he felt like playing. This led to a record breaking number of shows, plus (I'm sure) a very healthy final number in the bank account (which is, according to his own hints, what seems to matter to him nowadays).

And third, the latest rumblings regarding collaborators in recording sessions suggest that he's getting in a jazzy phase again. Even if all remains unconfirmed, Blackwell, Spalding and Baker have been mentioned for those sessions, and that, besides smelling very nice to me, seem to point out to an album going to uncommercial territories.

If you put all of the above together, and if you take into account that Lotus flow3r is past story obviously (no tour or stay thus far, no promotion excepting France, and a fully blown website full of nothing and without new content for weeks and weeks), I think the result might be an album that could change the opinion of my beloved Jaime.

(Yes I know the last sentence seems almost impossible, but who knows: the USSR came down when nobody expected, and I think Madonna once sung one or two good songs, back in the 80s; so anything can happen...).

Earthquake in Haiti

There's little I can add about this catastrophe; my main reflection these days is that the worst of all is that it happened at a miserable country with plenty of problems for its population. Things were already hard enough over there, and this is a sad last drop in a flood of problems.

Hopefully the international help arrives quickly and is used for its actual purpose. And hopefully they can recover in as short time as possible.

Drug firms cashed in on scare over swine flu

Found this in The Daily Mail:

The 'false' pandemic: Drug firms cashed in on scare over swine flu, claims Euro health chief

The swine flu outbreak was a 'false pandemic' driven by drug companies that stood to make billions of pounds from a worldwide scare, a leading health expert has claimed.
Wolfgang Wodarg, head of health at the Council of Europe, accused the makers of flu drugs and vaccines of influencing the World Health Organisation's decision to declare a pandemic.
This led to the pharmaceutical firms ensuring 'enormous gains', while countries, including the UK, 'squandered' their meagre health budgets, with millions being vaccinated against a relatively mild disease.

Trapped: British family Neil, Maria, Samuel and Abigail Willis were quarantined in their hotel in Beijing, China, at the height of the swine flu scare
A resolution proposed by Dr Wodarg calling for an investigation into the role of drug firms has been passed by the Council of Europe, the Strasbourg-based 'senate' responsible for the European Court of Human Rights.
An emergency debate on the issue will be held later this month.
Dr Wodarg's claims come as it emerged the British government is desperately trying to offload up to £1billion of swine flu vaccine, ordered at the height of the scare.

Chief Medical Officer Sir Liam Donaldson last year ordered the NHS to plan for up to 65,000 deaths
The Department of Health warned of 65,000 deaths, set up a special advice line and website, suspended normal rules so anti-flu drugs could be given out without prescription and told health and local authorities to prepare for a major pandemic.
Planners were told to get morgues ready for the sheer scale of deaths and there were warnings that the Army could be called in to prevent riots as people fought to obtain drugs.
But with fewer than 5,000 in England catching the disease last week and just 251 deaths overall, Dr Wodarg has branded the H1N1 outbreak as 'one of the greatest medical scandals of the century'.
He said: 'We have had a mild flu - and a false pandemic.'
He added the seeds of the scare were sown five years ago, when it was feared the much more lethal bird flu virus would mutate into a human form.
The 'atmosphere of panic' led to governments stockpiling the anti-flu drug Tamiflu and putting in place 'sleeping contracts' for millions of doses of vaccine
Dr Wodarg said: 'The governments have sealed contracts with vaccine producers where they secure orders in advance and take upon themselves almost all the responsibility.
'In this way the producers of vaccines are sure of enormous gains without having any financial risks.
'So they just wait, until WHO says "pandemic" and activate the contracts.'
He also claims that to further push their interests, leading drug companies placed 'their people' in the 'cogs' of the WHO and other influential organisations.

Sue Armitage with her children Daisy and Ralph who could not go on holiday after catching swine flu
He added that their influence could have led the WHO to soften its definition of a pandemic - leading to the declaration of a worldwide outbreak last June.
Dr Wodarg said: 'In order to promote their patented drugs and vaccines against flu, pharmaceutical companies have influenced scientists and official agencies, responsible for public health standards, to alarm governments worldwide.
'They have made them squander tight healthcare resources for inefficient vaccine strategies and needlessly exposed millions of healthy people to the risk of unknown side-effects of insufficiently tested vaccines.'
He does not name any Britons with conflicts of interest.
But last year, the Daily Mail revealed that Sir Roy Anderson, a scientist who advises the Government on swine flu, also holds a £116,000-a-year post on the board of GlaxoSmithKline.
GSK makes anti-flu drugs and vaccines and is predicted to be one of the biggest beneficiaries of the pandemic.

A young girl is given an inoculation at a medical centre in Cockermouth, England. Millions were given vaccines against swine flu, with pharmaceutical companies being paid huge sums by the government
The Department of Health says that although the disease appears to be on the wane, it cannot rule out a third surge and urges all those entitled to the jab to have it.
Professor David Salisbury, the Government's head of immunisation said there were 'no grounds whatsoever' for Dr Wodarg's claims, saying people with conflicts of interest were kept out of the decision-making process.
A GSK spokesman said: 'Allegations of undue influence are misguided and unfounded. The WHO declared that H1N1 swine flu met the criteria for a pandemic.
'As WHO have stated, legal regulations and numerous safeguards are in place to manage possible conflicts of interest.'
The company, which still employs Sir Roy, said he had declared his commercial interests and had not attended any meetings related to the purchase of drugs or vaccine for either the Government or GSK.

Furthermore, apparently the World Health Organization will review whether the procedures to face swine flue were implemented correctly, or there was some inappropriate actions being taken under injustified fear of swine flu.

Related information:

El País

The 3rd and the 7th, wonderful, computer-generated short movie

The Third & The Seventh from Alex Roman on Vimeo.

I found this movie linked in two of my favourite places, The Online Photographer and Daringfireball, which have little in common; that was a clear hint suggesting this had to be fantastic stuff. And it is, indeed.

I quote the notes from the authors:

A FULL-CG animated piece that tries to illustrate architecture art across a photographic point of view where main subjects are already-built spaces. Sometimes in an abstract way. Sometimes surreal.

Credits:

CG
Modelling - Texturing - Illumination - Rendering| Alex Roman

POST
Postproduction & Editing| Alex Roman

MUSIC
Sequenced, Orchestrated & Mixed by Alex Roman (Sonar & EWQLSO Gold Pro XP)
Sound Design by Alex Roman
Based on original scores by:
Michael Laurence Edward Nyman. (The Departure)
Charles-Camille Saint-Saëns. (Le Carnaval des animaux)

Directed by Alex Roman

Done with 3dsmax, Vray, AfterEffects and Premiere.

What's more interesting, the author provides a torrent with the movie in mp4.

Hats off to a job well done. Enjoy (and please watch in full screen)!

More brands joining the micro-4/3 system? Canon??!!

Valentín Sama, Spanish photographer whose reputation is out of discussion (and who published more than one significant scoop in the past), just posted a small article suggesting that more brands could join the micro-4/3 standard; although some names are mentioned (Fuji, Sigma, Kodak), nothing is clear at this time, but that per se seems quite interesting.

Now what I truly did not expect is that, according to Sama, Canon (yes, THAT Canon) could also join this standard in the "very long term". This might be one of the most impacting news, if/when confirmed, in the world of camera manufacturers. I advice you to read his article, even if you need to use some translator.

The Guadalquivir, in the afternoon

Last Saturday, we enjoyed a sunny afternoon (after days and days of rain) to walk around the Guadalquivir, and I made many pictures; some of them are here. As usual, Pentax K10D, standard 18-55 lenses, in most cases ISO 100. I have never seen the river with so much water, and it was really a pleasure.









The last two were made in gardens next to the river:

The Online Photographer Camera of the Year 2009

Well, it's there: The Online Photographer finally published their much awaited Camera of the Year post. I'm not spoiling their article, but I wholeheartedly advise photography lovers to have a look if you are thinking on buying a new camera. You will hardly find more entertaining, useful, fun, interesting and full of common sense thoughts in the net, regarding new cameras.

Blasphemy banned in Ireland (yes, we are in 2010)

I heard it some days ago in the radio, and apparently it is not an April 1st joke with three months of advance: Ireland has approved a law banning blasphemy.

I have no words to express my surprise. In the second decade of this millenium, and in a civilized country such as Ireland, one would expect full freedom of expression, including blasphemy for those who feel in the mood. A law banning it seems out of place like a law enforcing to attend religious events. But obviously I was wrong, and maybe we are not in 2010, or maybe what I considered a civilized world is not so civilized, after all. Now I wonder when the Inquisition will be implemented again.

Richard Dawkins surely has something nice to say about this.

Posting often in 2009... what's up for 2010?

Some days ago I noticed that, after a couple of very quiet years, the number of posts increased strongly in 2009, with 198 posts (against 14 in 2007 and 23 in 2008). I don't know whether this means something or not, other than I found time and topics of interest enough. When analyzing the data from google analytics, I see that still today, many visits come due to the post on QuickTime and flv which was highlighted in Diringfireball.net: this is strange, as that post included wrong information (which I posted honestly, since I thought it was correct).

On the other hand, there are also people coming here looking after Housequake.com, and this is no bad since I cherish the memory of that site. Anyway, there are many other topics discussed here, and I hope some of you find it worth to have a look, from time to time.

As for plans for 2010 regarding this blog, I have no big changes in my mind: the usual mixture of things that I consider of interest and a few personal pictures from time to time. Purple stuff will continue appearing, for sure, and maybe a bit more of content related to Apple, given that it seems we are in a busy year for the Mac company: the tablet, iSlate or whatever other name, is around the corner, and from the different hints posted around the web, it seems another Apple blockbuster is waiting to put Apple shares even higher on the map: maybe, as expected by some people, it would drive Apple to a total share value topping that of Microsoft, but who knows...

In any case, welcome to 2010 and be ready to enjoy the ride.

The Guadalquivir, after loads of rain

As promised a couple of posts ago, here you have some pictures of the Guadalquivir river after two weeks with loads and loads of rain:




I particularly like the following two pictures, which are basically the same, but taken at very different conditions. Both were taken with the camera on top of a bridge; the first used ISO 1600, maximum aperture (F 4.5), automatic speed (0.7 s):



The next is the same, but with ISO 100, maximum aperture (F 4.5), automatic speed (in this case, it was much longer: 10 s):



As you can see, the images are very different, and although I like the look of both, the second one seems much nicer to me (and not only for the detail and lower levels of noise).

Here you have a picture of the old Roman bridge, similar to another I posted some weeks ago, but with much more water in the river:



And finally, here you have an aborted picture: I was making a long exposure of the other side of the river, when it started raining strongly, so I had to switch off the camera and escape quickly; however, the resulting, moved picture is quite strange and nice:

The new Samsung NX-10, officially introduced

After months and months of rumours, here it is: the new NX-10 has been officially introduced by Samsung. I am not going to repeat here the specs (plenty of sites, including the above mentioned link from Samsung) are offering them in detail. I am going, however, to stress a few points of particular interest to me:

First, the size of sensor is significantly bigger than that found in competing, similar systems like micro 4/3.
Second, this camera can use K mount lenses (Pentax) via an adaptor. This is really big news for Pentax users, given that Pentax has not (yet?) developed a mirrorless camera with interchangeable lenses.
Third, built-in electronic viewfinder.
And fourth, Samsung claims it has one of the fastest autofocus in its class.

In the negative side, we have a rather bulky camera (compared to the Olympus E-P2 or the Panasonic GF-1), in part due to the sensor size. The camera body is not stabilized. And only three lenses (two stabilized zooms and one pancake) are available for it, at this time, with only average luminosity.

If all of this proves to work fine, Samsung might have a winner. I am certainly interested and will follow this story with interest.
Now that the NX-10 is out, I wonder what Sony has prepared to surprise us in this category.

A rainier december than in the last 50 years

Wheather is not a favourite topic for discussion of mine, but last weeks in Spain it's an unavoidable topic. After a very dry autumn, with temperatures of almost summer, suddenly around December 22, it started raining in Spain like if there was no tomorrow. And worse of all, it kept raining and raining and raining, to the point of making almost impossible to have a quiet walk with kids around the city, or spending a day at the field to enjoy free air. In fact, Sunday's newspapers stated that last December rained more than in any other December of the last 50 years.

So here we are, closed at home, with the kids truly tired ot home resources (table games, tv, movies,books, puppets, etc etc) but without other possibilities. The positive side of it is that water reserves have increased a huge proportion, and we have now water enough for the next four years. The negative side, besides all the above, is that the Christmas holidays -usually a time for relax and doing unusual things- were wasted due to the awful wheather.

Today I plan to visit the Guadalquivir river, which must be at maximum levels, and if I get good pictures I will post some of them.