O Lucky Man!

(self-strangling morning glory; 
no cameras or photographers were harmed making this photograph)

I am very fortunate. 

I recently came upon a Serious Warning in my camera's user's manual: 

"Sunlight focused into the camera when the sun
is in or close to the frame could cause a fire."

And another: 

"When operating the viewfinder diopter adjustment control with your eye to the viewfinder, care should be taken not to put your finger in your eye accidentally."

I am very fortunate! Taking photographs – many photographs – without having heretofore consulted these Serious Warnings, I never set the camera on fire, nor stuck a finger in my eye. I shall give thanks for my good fortune, next month on Thanksgiving, once I get my finger out of my ear.

Correlation and um, y'know, the other thing...

"Chocolate Consumption, Cognitive Function, and Nobel Laureates" appears in the October 10th issue of the New England Journal of Medicine.

Seeing Is Believing.

Last week I was in Melbourne, Australia, for the 20th annual meeting of the International Society for Magnetic Resonance in Medicine, which took place in the Melbourne Convention and Exhibition Centre. There, I made a remarkable discovery. The toilets bear warning labels:

These labels, clearly, compel a startling conclusion: In Australia, dogs can read.

e.g., "Rule number eight: exploit superstitious thinking"

"Ten ironic rules for non-statistical reviewers" ("... written for reviewers who may not have sufficient statistical expertise to provide an informed critique during the peer-reviewed process, but would like to recommend rejection on the basis of inappropriate or invalid statistical analysis") by Prof. Karl Friston will appear in the journal NeuroImage.

Si

"In vivo" means in a living organism; "in vitro" means "in glass" (e.g., a test tube). And now, because electronic computers use silicon chips, "in silico" has become a fancy way to refer to computer simulations. A recent google search on the phrase "In vivo, in vitro, and in silico" yielded over 35,000 results.

"AF Nikkor 35mm f/2D"

Nikon doesn't want to sell you our favorite lens.

Photo: Nikon.

The lens that's on our camera most of the time, the one with which we take most of our photos, is the little AF Nikkor 35mm f/2D. Why, just this July, for our Four Cities Tour of the Upper Midwest (T.U.M.), the 35mm f/2 was the only lens we took.

Here are four snaps, one from each of the Four Cities of the T.U.M.:

MILWAUKEE, WISCONSIN

Frogwater onstage at Milwaukee Brewing.

STEVENS POINT, WISCONSIN

On our favorite feedlot.

DULUTH, MINNESOTA

Sharing dessert with Mark Mitton at the Duluth Grill.

MINNEAPOLIS, MINNESOTA

Atop the Foshay Tower.

We love this lens. If you want a fast prime that is at least normal, but you don't want to go any wider than necessary (and if you're not willing to lug around a boat-anchor), this is it. And, as such things go, it's actually inexpensive. However, Nikon doesn't really want you to buy one.

When you go to the Nikon USA website, and select "lenses", you get a lens splashpage asking you to choose between lens categories. It appears that these optical devices now come in categories, called "Travel and Landscape Lenses", "People and Events Lenses", & "Sports and Action Lenses":

But here's the thing – No matter which category you choose, you will not find the 35mm f/2! It's not under any of the categories. You can find it only if you click on the small "Show all lenses" link on the lens splashpage.

To be sure, Nikon makes this lens, and sells this lens. But do they really want to? Or, would they rather that you buy something else – something more expensive?

"Nikon 400mm f/2.8G ED AF-S VR(II)" - Gone!

We regret to inform you that the discounted refurbished ten-pound super-telephoto lens appears to have been sold.

"Nikon 400mm f/2.8G ED AF-S VR(II)", continued.

That refurbished telephoto lens we mentioned back in April is still available, but the price seems to have recently been reduced from $8699.95 to only $7999.95. No reduction in weight, though; it still weighs ten pounds.

Yes, it's a bike-related post for Earth Day.

We love most bikes, but we wonder whether riding this one might make us safer in traffic.

"Nikon 400mm f/2.8G ED AF-S VR(II)"

Because Nikon sells a lot of stuff, they get some returns, in many cases of cameras and lenses that are perfectly good, and essentially brand new, but just not what the customer wanted. Too complex, too heavy, who knows?

Nikon can't sell these items as "new", so they check them out, clean them up, repackage them as "refurbished", and sell them through Adorama, Inc., in New York City.

We've bought one camera and one lens this way, at real savings, and have never had a problem with either. So, we have Adorama's offerings of refurbished Nikon products bookmarked, and we check it from time to time.

For quite some time now, a super-duper telephoto lens has been at the top of that list, and we wonder how long it will stay there. Now, we'd be interested in the lens ourself, except for just three things: First, we more often shoot wide, rather than long, so it's not clear how much we'd actually use it. Second, we'd want someone to carry that ten-pounder around for us. And third, well, the price is $8,699.95.

_______

[Vendor & product names appear via fair use; no endorsement or sponsorship is implied.]

A Sunday prognostication.

We suspect that we are not alone in having a dog in order to walk around talking to ourself without being stopped and detained for evaluation; so, we suggest that the evident proliferation of cellphones, earbud headsets, & bluetooth earpieces presages a decrease in dog ownership.

A metacognitive approach to problem-solving.

"You're a pretty smart fella."

"Not that smart."

"If you're not that smart, how'd you figure it out?"

"I tried to imagine a fellow smarter than myself. Then I tried to think, 'what would he do?' "

- from Heist (2001) by David Mamet

On reductionism.

"Don't let your left hand know what your right hand is doing"

"While Warning About Fat, U.S. Pushes Cheese Sales" - New York Times.

"... help create the fact"

"Believe that life is worth living and your belief will help create the fact."

- William James (1842-1910)

six is the first perfect number

Because there is strong evidence that those who consume alcohol in moderation live longer and healthier lives than those who don't drink, I have strived to conquer my natural aversion to intoxication and my fear of immoderate & inadequate drinking and aspired to drink moderately. Namely, having a beer with dinner.

However, when I looked into the matter, I found that "moderate drinking", for men, means two drinks per day. This was upsetting. Was I underdrinking when I had one beer with dinner?

Was that bottle of beer just half-a-serving?

I became more confused after a summertime visit to Munich, where we sat in beer gardens and drank beer in one-liter mugs, which is about as much as three American beer bottles. So, was my bottle of beer really just one-third-of-a-serving?

Two good insights; two good concerns. Was that one beer one-half, or one-third, as much as I needed to drink healthily? I decided not to disagree with either insight, and instead to resolve the matter diplomatically:

• 2 drinks = moderation;
• 1 drink = 3 bottles;
• 2 x 3 = 6 ;
• 6 bottles = moderation.

To moderation!

[title refers to this]