episiarch

My guess was a camera card adaptor but honestly I have no effing idea.

Daniel fucking Craigqvist spotting buying Apple stuffs in Stockholm. (There are no Apple Stores there, must have been an Apple Premium Reseller.) No point to this post except I felt compelled to type "Daniel fucking Craigqvist."

AD2K does sound like a reasonable thing to try at this point, especially for those musical preferences and with a solid amp to drive them. Of course everyone loves the Audeze, though I haven't yet heard them myself. (sigh)

Through October 12th, 14.92% off all Allen Edmonds shoes (and all other products), and 30% off some of their styles and colors. For any who don't know, Allen Edmonds makes really excellent business shoes. Top quality, made in America, and they last and last. I have a pair that I bought in roughly 1980, and they are still going strong. (Also, if you're a hard-to-fit size, they make more combinations of size and width than just about anyone.) I am having a hard time holding back from splurging severely on this sale.

Agreed. iPhone 4 teardown photos show the camera is way too thick to go in the Touch. Same with the 3GS's camera. It's unfortunate, but understandable.

From the free case program I've ordered the Belkin Micra. Not much seems to be known about this case, so I'll report impressions, and results vs. JH13 plug, when I have it. Hopefully I got in early enough on Friday to be among the early shipments.

I know you're mainly asking about video, but FWIW here's my advice on still: get a DSLR, a bounce-capable flash, and an eye-fi card. This is how we shot all the pictures of our (then) newborn that are any good (well, at least good in a technical sense). - DSLR because it focuses faster and has less shutter delay than any point-and-shoot I've ever used, and babies won't hold a pose. - Bounce flash because your indoor pictures will look far better with proper illumination. - Eye-fi card because its automatic wireless upload (to your computer and optionally to photo-sharing sites*) is IME indispensable when you have your hands full with a newborn. If I were buying today I'd get a Nikon D5000 (for its quiet-mode shutter and repositionable viewscreen) and the SB400 flash (bounce flash that's small enough and light that we leave ours on the camera full time). *We set ours up so that everything got uploaded to SmugMug, but so that uploads weren't visible until we approved them. This saved the trouble of manually uploading but still gave us the chance to edit what the world saw.

Headroom Ultra Micro DAC 25% off, now $449

If you spent it with Apple, refund; if you spend it on a third-party case, no.

Right, what was I thinking? Sorry. Oh, also the included earbuds totally pwn my JH13s.

A couple things about the antenna issue. 1. Although I definitely have had trouble getting SMSs out when holding it "that way" in a marginal-reception area, its performance with a slightly modified grip has been really good. Today I had no problem sending an SMS in moments from a basement-level bookstore in London, which was a very marginal reception area for my previous phone. 2. Today I received my GelaSkin for the phone (lots of fun designs available, or you can upload your own custom art / photography as I did). It includes side pieces which prevent most (probably 95% but not 100%) skin contact with the sides of the phone. With the side pieces in place, holding it "that way" at my desk at home leaves me with one bar instead of zero bars as before. A useful improvement, with no change in how the phone fits in the Marware holster that I like. Here's how it looks: [ATTACH=CONFIG]3370[/ATTACH] All in all at this point I'm quite happy with the phone. YMMV naturally.

Scotch Scotch. Maybe a chartered bus to get us around. Partying and headphone listening (portable rigs anyway) continues on the bus. Looks like ample scenery for the photography crowd too.

How about Scotland? Specifically, distillery country. Why merely meet and drink when we could go to the source? The spirits of Scotland - latimes.com

In Handbrake 9.4 I'm using the Apple Universal setting, which produces results that look good on computer screen (via iTunes playback or on their own) and Apple TV as well as iPhone. If I'm starting from a ripped full DVD bundle, I also go into the Subtitles tab and select closed captions, if any exist. iTunes and iPhone respect closed captions in that you can turn them on or off during playback. IMO they're a nice feature to have.

Happy birthday, Mike!

I believe there's a genuine technical issue. Bar measurements aside, there are simply times when I can't get a text message out without shifting my grip. It's that kind of symptom, and not bar display, that I care about. I am annoyed that this problem exists, and will be more annoyed if it's not fixed. I am considering the return-for-refund option. But if I'm honest, phone and SMS are sufficiently small parts of my overall use of the thing that it's fairly ignorable problem in my case, so I'll probably wind up keeping it.

Yesterday: sweltered in Parisian summer heat, and learned that Parisian hotels and shops don't have the same attitude toward A/C that we have in the States and in England. Here, getting the temp down from 90+F to maybe 85 or so is considered climatis

Belated post - several days to catch up on. Last Thursday: stood in line at the local O2 store for an iPhone 4. Wasn't too bad: arrived about 100 minutes before opening, took another 50 to get inside and complete the transaction. From there, about 4 hours until the old phone deactivated, and about 4 more until the new one activated. Last Friday: attended Caffe Culture / World Barista Championship 2010. LOTS of fun. Also lots of coffee. I think I had six espresso shots, two cups of drip, and a cup of Turkish - no big deal for some people but my normal dosage is one ristretto a day, so for me it was a lot. Amazingly, I actually slept that night, but I went coffee-free throughout the weekend just to detox. iPhone 4 was my only camera at WBC. In case you're curious to see how it performed, the full-res MobileMe gallery is here, or you can see my Flickr set (which is lower-res but includes commentary). Monday: saw Mrs. episiarch off to Paris where she's getting the new Apple Store Opera ready for its Saturday opening. Tomorrow baby episiarch and I go to join her. Hoping to be able to get out to Patricia Barber's concert in Enghien-les-Bains on Thursday evening. P.S. Team Chicago, you* ruled the World Barista Championship. Congratulations! *(In the person of Michael Phillips of Intelligentsia Coffee - Video of the champion being announced - Additional Mike Phillips video)

Small note: in an earlier post I said the iPhone 4 fit in an iPod Touch leather case that I had. That was totally wrong. Somehow I wound up with two of the Marware iPhone cases and thought one of them was the Marware iPod Touch case. I stumbled across the actual Touch case this morning and the iPhone 4 does not fit it.

Holding my iPhone 4 "that way" definitely drops bars for me. - Proviso 1: takes time; 10 seconds to loss of 1st bar, another 5-6 seconds to loss of 2nd bar. (not surprising, you'd expect the display to be averaged over time so it doesn't look spastic and jumpy) - Proviso 2: may depend on local signal strength. I was traveling around London today and it seemed like it wasn't happening everywhere I went. But now that I'm home, it's very reproducible. I dug out a wide (like 1/2") and decently thick rubber band that fits nicely around the entire outer edge of the phone -- not just the metal, it actually wraps around the sides and overlaps the front and back a little bit. It does not help the signal-loss problem. People say the official bumpers help (and some say even Scotch tape helps), but, at least in my case, simply insulating the metal band from skin contact is not a sufficient solution. This is a pretty big disappointment. Yes, this is the phone that changes everything, but I stupidly didn't realize 'everything' included how I hold my phone.

Really sorry to read of your upgrade troubles, Nate. Got my phone yesterday around 9am and it activated around 5pm. O2 was having a busy day. The don't-hold-it-that-way issue is short-term slightly annoying for me, but far from a dealbreaker - I'd have been looking for a 'bumper' wrap-around anyway. Still, I agree it never should have happened. No yellow-spot-of-doooom screen issue here. Display is just beautiful. Photographers, you will enjoy enjoying your work on this. Rear LED flash is surprisingly powerful. But really needs some kind of clip-on diffuser for acceptable results. I'm pleased with the SQ. Haven't compared it head-to-head with my other gear, but it's not a disappointment. Fits nicely in a Marware leather hip case meant for iPod Touch which I happen to have, so I'm all set on that front. For me it's a palmful of win. I like it a lot.

Obtained my iPhone 4 today after a not-too-awful wait in line at the local O2 store where I was ~20th in line instead of being umpty-bazillionth at one of the London Apple stores. Not yet plugged in, set up, or any of that. It can wait until this evening.

The plan: wake up in time to get to my local O2 store about an hour before it opens (at eight-oh-two AM. Get it? Nyuk, nyuk. Yes, really). I'm in a sleepy enough little town that that might work. Or it might not. I'd like one sooner rather than later, but I'm not willing to knock myself out. O2 has been a perfectly acceptable carrier for the year and a half I've been here, so I'm content to get a two-year contract. O2 is willing to unlock contract phones, so if I want to, I can switch to a local SIM when I'm traveling. So, may or may not have one tomorrow. We'll see. Has anyone heard reliable reports on the SQ on iPhone 4? I've been operating under the assumption it'll be as good as a 3GS or a 3rd generation Touch, but it would be annoying if that weren't the case and I were stuck with it for two years.

Dithering on IOS 4. My iPod Touch can run it but my ancient iPhone can't. May put it off until the phone upgrade so I don't have to split my finger habits.

Happy Father's Day, all you fellow dads. Was treated wonderfully by my family today as I am, really, every day, and I hope all of you were too.