I’m trying to get into great shape this summer, and among other things have taken up riding my bike again. I’m not an avid biker, so I haven’t spent any time learning about bicycle design and engineering, but the more I ride the more I discover about the intelligent decisions bicycle designers make. My bike is a Specialized Rockhopper, circa 2005 or so, but these are general observations certainly not specific to my ride.

Most interesting is how the shifters work to help you find your way efficiently around 24 different gear ratios. My rear cog has eight gears ranging from 11 to 30 teeth, the front chainring has three gears of 22, 32 and 42 teeth. Rather than think of it as 24 “speeds,” it’s much easier to think of it as three overlapping ranges, as mapped out below.

What works so beautifully is that the shifter levers on the handlebars work together seamlessly to move you between ranges. Using your thumb on both shifters moves the chainring higher and the cog gear lower, and your right thumb can downshift the cog gear by one, two or three speeds depending on how far you push. By downshifting two or three gears on the cog and upshifting one on the chainrail you effectively change to a higher range without significantly changing the gear ratio (and vice-versa with up/down shifting with your forefingers).

So what’s all that mumbo jumbo mean? It means that you can keep the same pedaling pace and power while a simple press of both thumbs or tug on both forefingers will set you up for better gear ratios as you approach a climb or descent.

Elegant.

I have been reading Sherlock Holmes in a book and on a borrowed iPad. I’ve never read a book on an electronic device before and I have to say that overall I liked the iPad experience of reading, though the resolution of the iPad did bother me a bit as the anti-aliasing on the type is clearly visible. Out of curiosity I downloaded the Aldiko eBook app for my Droid to see what reading looks like on a small screen.

I was shocked – it actually works really well. I tweaked the font size so that it’s about the same size as the type in the book (17pt on the Droid), and with the higher resolution of the Droid screen the type is crystal clear. The Aldiko app allows you to flick the page to turn it (like the iPad), and also lets you use the volume rocker (conveniently under my right thumb when reading) to turn pages forward and back.

I was skeptical of the small number of words that would fit on a page, but the flow felt very natural and easy.

Overall, I have to admit I enjoyed the experience. And I don’t have to carry any more devices than I already do. Wow, what a surprise!

Now that we’re only a year away from being empty nesters we’re thinking about bringing all our old photos into the digital age. The kid in this shot is now 17.

I’m testing out scanning negatives on the Nikon Coolscan V ED that I have been using for scanning slides. The image quality is coming out beautiful, but it’s taking way too long (over 3 minutes per negative after it’s done all its processing).

Next two options: shooting with my camera on a backlit macro set up and processing in Photoshop, or just paying a service to do it all for us.

A timelapse video of my approach to solving crossword puzzles. I start with the first word I can enter and expand from there, rather than doing all the across or down clues first.

One frame per letter shot on my Canon 40D and processed in Lightroom and Premiere.

See it in HD on Flickr or Vimeo. Or even better, click the ‘HD’ option in the frame above and then play it in full screen mode.

I’ve been living with my Droid for about a month now. Friends have been asking for a review, so here it is. Note, I haven’t used an iPhone so I can’t do a comparison between them.
(more…)