Stuff on Fazal Majid's low-intensity blog

A pack of... backpacks

Tue, 02 Mar 2021 23:26:05 +0000

I have many bags. So many I no longer keep an inventory in a spreadsheet but use a relational database to track. For a very long time, I preferred messenger bags but at age 36 I started developing muscle spasms in the right shoulder. After a few years of off and on physical therapy, I figured out it was the asymmetric load from the shoulder bag that was causing it (even though the load was on the left shoulder). This left me no option but to switch to backpacks exclusively, despite their less than ideal looks.

Virtual Reality for the people

Sun, 19 Jan 2020 22:59:33 +0000

I have been shooting stitched panoramas for almost 20 years. I have used manual panorama heads like the Kaidan Kiwi+ and more recently the pocketPANO Compact, robotic heads like the Gigapan EPIC 100 and the Benro Polaris, and four successive generations of the Ricoh Theta (Theta, Theta S, Theta V, Theta Z1).

Setting up and iterating a manual head is incredibly tedious. The Gigapan makes it less so, specially when using long lenses (my standard setup is a Leica M typ 240 or M10 with a 90mm f/2 Apo-Summicron-M ASPH). The Theta series was a major breakthrough in that it could produce nearly seamless 360° panoramas with no motion artifacts or ghosting. The Z1 with its large 1″ sensor finally yields image quality that I am happy with.

The battle of the Tech Dopp kits

Sat, 19 Jan 2019 00:54:11 -0700

Most travelers pack toiletry bags, known in the US as Dopp kits, to organize their toiletries and prevent them from leaking into their luggage. We need much the same to hold the vast assortment of chargers, cables, dongles and other technological paraphernalia required to function in this day and age.

Sadly, the state of quality design in tech dopp kits is sorely lacking at the moment. Many are overbuilt with heavy and stiff fabric that is unnecessary for a bag that will live inside another bag. Furthermore, too often there are many pockets that are just too small to hold anything, but contribute bulk and weight, and reduce the usable space. Things like loops to hold cables are not alternated so cables don’t jam together because it is easier to just bartack a single strip of elastic material in a row. In a wallet-style split organizer, no attention is paid as to how items on either side will mesh together when the organizer is zipped shut.

Colortrac SmartLF Scan review

Fri, 07 Apr 2017 02:17:04 +0000

TL:DR summary

Pros:

Scans very large documents
Easy to use
Packs away in a convenient carrying case

Cons:

So-so color fidelity
Hard to feed artwork straight
Dust and debris can easily get on the platen, ruining scans
Relatively expensive for home use

Review

One thing you do not lack for when your child enters preschool is artwork. They generate prodigious amounts of it, with gusto, and they are often large format pieces on 16×24″ paper (roughly ISO A2). The question is, what do you do with the torrent?

Avoiding counterfeit goods on Amazon: mission impossible?

Thu, 12 May 2016 19:15:01 +0000

I mentioned previously that I seldom shop for electronics on Amazon.com any more, preferring B&H Photo whenever possible. I now have another reason: avoiding counterfeit goods.

My company boardroom is in an electromagnetic war zone—dozens of competing WiFi access points combined with electronic interference from the US-101 highway just outside make WiFi reception tenuous at best, and unusable more often than not. To work around this, we set up a wired Ethernet switch, and since most of our staff use MacBook Airs, Apple USB Ethernet adapters purchased from Amazon. When I side-graded from my 15″ Retina MacBook Pro to a much more portable 12″ Retina MacBook, I wasn’t able to connect using the dongle, and the name of the device was interspersed with Chinese characters. At first I thought it was an issue with my Satechi USB-C hub, but I experienced the same problems via a genuine Apple USB-C multiport adapter as well.

Heat sealers: organizer’s secret weapon

Mon, 15 Jun 2015 05:20:12 +0000

Professional Organizers will wax lyrical about label-makers, file folders, and the like, but one unheralded gizmo I have found surprisingly effective is a heat sealer, in my case the AIE-200C. It’s made right here in California, and very robust, although if I were to buy one again, I would probably spring for the 12″ version. You put stuff in a polyethylene bag (up to 6 mil or 0.15mm thick, but 4 mil seems like the optimum for robustness while remaining flexible and see-through), put the open end under the sealer, set the thermostat, press and cut the excess bag with the built-in cutter. It makes a 1mm wide heat weld in the bag, which is now airtight and water-proof. You can also buy rolls for massive capacity, but that seemed like overkill.

A Passel of Miniature Tripods

Sat, 19 Jul 2014 00:00:00 +0000

Miniature tripods are a handy thing to carry in a camera bag. While they cannot replace a full-size tripod, they can allow you to take a shot where otherwise impossible. Here are a few worth your consideration.

Mini-tripods group photo

Novoflex Microstativ

Pros: very lightweight

Novoflex Microstativ

Pros: very lightweight

My scissors collection

Sun, 01 Jun 2014 00:00:00 +0000

Dovo 6-inch

Made in Solingen, Germany

Dovo 6-inch

Made in Solingen, Germany

Slice by Karim Rashid

A triumph of form over function, very uncomfortable handles

Slice by Karim Rashid

A triumph of form over function, very uncomfortable handles

Allex S-120 (slim), S-165 (small) and S-185 (medium)

Made by Hayashi Cutlery in Seki, Japan. Designed in 1975, won the Good Design award. I have owned the stainless steel one with black handles since 1985

Wotancraft Etan review

Mon, 06 Jan 2014 00:00:00 +0000

Withings smart baby monitor review

Sat, 24 Mar 2012 16:47:21 +0000

One of the ~~joys~~ challenges of being a first-time parent is being exposed to a bewildering array of gadgets and equipment required to care for the baby, from baby car seats, strollers and diaper pails to 2-axis rocking robots (thanks Rohit!). There is an entire cottage industry of books like Baby Bargains that help you navigate through the confusing and sometimes questionable or outright unnecessary choices.

I have a Withings body weight scale that I really like and I was excited to learn they were going to release a networked video baby monitor. It took a while to get to market in the US, however, so in the interim I purchased a Philips Advent DECT digital baby monitor, which ended up unusable in practice, because its microphone sensitivity is so poor that you can barely hear anything. When the Withings baby monitor finally became available in the US, I immediately ordered it.