Some things should be left alone

Today on my lunch break, while browsing articles on Digg, I came across a story on New Scientist Tech about a neckband that translates thought into speech by picking up nerve signals. The device has been developed by Texas Instrument in conjunction with Ambient Corporation. According to Michael Callahan, the co-founder of Ambient, the band’s primary goal is to make cell phone conversations more private. (Read article here)

While the idea in itself is pretty neat and, needless to say, the technology behind this device is absolutely amazing, some inventions should never see the light of day. And this is one of them.

I am not a conspiracy theory nut, nor am I a paranoid nerd sitting in my mom’s basement, looking for ways to thwart the governments’ attempts to probe my brain. And even though I am a staunch believer in technological progress, I’d be the first to admit that sometimes progress simply for the sake of progress is a bad thing.

Let’s assume that in a year or two this neckband hits the market and we’ll see fewer people in public places who annoy the hell out of everyone by talking loudly on their cell phones. That would be great, wouldn’t it? Now think about what would happen if someone expanded that technology to scan nerve signals of anyone who happens to be nearby? That would truly mean the end of privacy. Who needs phone tapping if you could sit outside of someone’s house and listen to their thoughts?

This argument might seem childish and simplistic, but the scientists who participated in the Manhattan Project probably created the nuclear bomb just to satisfy their scientific curiosity. Surely, they had good intentions and were probably assured by their military superiors that the bomb would only be used as a deterrent to other superpowers. Unfortunately, as we’ve been brutally taught so many times, the road to hell is paved with good intentions.

Whenever someone invents a device that could potentially backfire, it is often difficult to make an objective and ethical decision about whether or not that invention should see the light of day. As a software engineer, and as a vain human being, I can understand the ego trip and the satisfaction of making a name for oneself. To be honest, I don’t know where my morality would go if I invented a nano robot that could clean cholesterol-filled arteries of an obese patient, but could also be used to shred the arteries of an enemy soldier.

The more I read about modern research in artificial intelligence, medicine and robotics, the more I become convinced that Terminator scenario is not so far-fetched, and judging by the exponential rate of the growth of modern technology, not so far away.

The Horror of Horror Movies

Yesterday I came home from work and plopped myself on the couch in front of TV. I don’t watch TV much, but last night I was so exhausted that I simply did not have energy for anything else.

I channel surfed for a while until I came across a commercial about an upcoming horror flick, “Shutter” (http://shutter-movie.com). The 15-second trailer pretty much summed up the movie – a couple gets married and on their honeymoon the ghost of the husband’s ex begins to haunt them. This plot is not very original, nor particularly engaging. However, I am positive that millions of people will go to theaters to see this movie and that most likely “Shutter” will be followed by “Shutter 2”, “Shutter 3” and eventually, “Shutter 57”.

The “Saw” managed to squeeze out 3 sequels, one gorier then the previous. The “Ring” managed one sequel. With modern digital technology and advancements in special effects, horror movie industry has been raking in the money, making one crappy movie after another, relying more on how scary the monster looks rather than on the plot.
Personally, I despise horror movies. Before you call me a sissy, let me clarify – I am not afraid of horror movies, and no, they don’t give me nightmares. What turns me off from the whole genre is the fact that our society has become completely desensitized to violence and human pain.

A few months ago a friend of mine asked me to hang out with their 12-year-old son. They told me that they rented a bunch of movies for him, so he’ll keep himself entertained. When I came to their house, I realized that the movie the kid was watching was “Hostel”. I was appalled by the fact that a 12-year-old found gruesome killings fascinating rather than disturbing and disgusting.

Why do we need horror movies? Real life is much more horrifying than anything that even Stephen King with his fucked-up imagination can come up with.

I went to MSNBC website, and the first thing I saw was a headline that read “1 in 4 teen girls has sexually transmitted disease” (http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/23408145/from/id/23574940/). That was disturbing, but not quite scary yet. So, just to amuse myself, I did a search for “murder” and received 106000 search results. I ran a few more searches, and here are the numbers:
Rape: 35500
Theft: 21500
War: 271000
Paris Hilton: 8410

If you don’t find these numbers scary, you probably don’t qualify as a human being. Horror movies are scary? Please, they are nothing more than fantasies of fucked-up minds brought to the silver screen. Go to any news site on the web, or open a newspaper, and I guarantee that you’d be a lot more scared than if you watch “Saw 57”.

The argument had been made violent videogames teach children violence. Same could be said for horror movies, although this argument is flawed. I don’t believe that movies and videogames promote violence. However, they do something just as harmful – they desensitize us to pain and suffering and take away our humanity one little bit at a time.

Perfect Travel Camera

As a professional photographer, I care a lot about the quality of my photographs. Because of that obsession I have always lugged heavy bags laden with SLRs, lenses, flashes and other accessories on my trips and vacations.
A few months ago my wife and I went on a short vacation to New England. After hours of hiking with a backpack on my back and two SLRs (a Canon 20D with a 70-200 f/4 L lens and a 40D with a 17-40 L lens) my back was killing me to the point where I was sorely tempted to leave everything under a tree and hike back to the car. Granted, lugging all that equipment paid off and I brought back some really wonderful and memorable photographs. On the other hand, my vacation turned into just another working weekend and my enjoyment from the trip was greatly diminished by all the extra weight on my back and shoulders.
Once I came back to Pittsburgh, I swore that never again will I lug 30 pounds of photo equipment on a vacation. Thus, my search for the perfect travel camera had began.
I spent hours on dpreview.com and photographyreview.com reading people’s opinions of various advanced point-and-shoot cameras. I emailed every professional photographer that I know and asked them what camera’s they take on their vacations.
Several of my photographer friends swore by Leica M8 as the perfect travel camera, but the $5000 price tag is a bit too taxing for my wallet. So, after much deliberation, I picked up two cameras – a Canon Powershot S5 IS and a Canon Powershot G9.
At first, I was totally in love with the G9 – it’s size and weight were perfect for travel and the retro styling of the body just looked cool. The fact that it could shoot RAW was also a big plus. However, after playing with it for a couple of days I became very disappointed with the images. At low ISO the images were wonderful, very much on par with my SLRs and Canon L-series lenses. Alas, if I set the ISO to 400 or higher, the images became so noisy that they were virtually unusable. I thought that maybe I got stuck with a defective camera, but as it turned out many photographers complained of the same problem. With a heavy heart I put the camera back into it’s original box and took it back to the store.
I don’t know what possessed Canon to stuff 12 megapixels into G9’s tiny sensor. If they stuck with 8 megapixels of G7, G9’s predecessor, it would have been so much easier to control the noise at high ISOs.
Canon Powershot S5 ended up being a keeper, although it’s nothing to write home about. The image quality is very decent, but far from stellar. The super-zoom lens is nice as an all-around travel lens, but there is a considerable amount of purple fringing at the telephoto end. Also, the images are very soft past 200mm.
The fact that the S5 is powered by AA batteries is also a big drawback. Regular AA don’t last very long – maybe about 50 shots. Rechargeable metal nickel hydrate batteries last for about 100-150 shots, but considering the fact that I shoot 500-1500 images on an average travel day, I have to go through at least 4 sets of batteries that have to be recharged afterwards. Why Canon decided not to use a high-capacity battery with the S5 is beyond my understanding.
If anyone from Canon, Nikon, Olympus, Pentax, Fuji, or any other camera manufacturing company comes across this post, please, I beg you, make the perfect travel camera. These are the features that I would love to see:
1. Small and light – the size of Canon Powershot S5 is perfect
2. A slightly larger sensor than 1/1.8 or 1/2.5
3. Don’t pack it with megapixels – 8 megapixels is sufficient for a travel camera
4. Image stabilization
5. Usable ISO 800
6. Faster lens – I don’t care about super-zoom, just give me a high-quality lens that would cover a 35mm equivalent of 24-105 mm
Canon, if you can add these features to what’s already packed into the S5, I’ll be forever in your debt.