Some 'worthy reads' and new toys

Over at Salon, Sid Blumenthal has a nice roundup of the talkshow talking heads on the right. I'm currently about halfway through Sid's The Clinton Wars, Parts of it are a bit dry, but he is a thoughtful writer who gives a peak into the real West Wing under Clinton, and to this humble reader doesn't have an axe to grind (except maybe deservedly with Matt Drudge).

Over at the NYT, Krugman does what he does best... Economics. An excellent piece that puts the current economic situation in perspective. Read it here.

On to new toys. Here is something in the photographic realm to report. The project I was working on yesterday involved evaluating single use digtital cameras. These are available from Ritz/Wolf from the brand Dakota. Their business model is interesting, because they are selling digital without the advantages of digital (for the most part). The cameras sell for $10.99 and let you take 25 2-megapixel images. They do not use a CCD in the same way a normal digital camera does and of course the optics will be "disposable", so don't expect the same quality you would from a 2-megapixel camera from Canon or Olympus. With these single use cameras you can't connect to your PC, and as far as I know, this model is proprietary to Ritz/Wolf, so you can't shop around for a better price on processing, at least until these become ubiquitous. Ritz tends to be a bit pricier than Costco or the drugstores, so plan on over $10 for 25 prints delivered with a CD. These cameras don't have a view screen yet, so you can't review your images in camera and you can only delete the last taken image. My opinion is that as the technology grows and they give you a little view screen and the ability to review and delete any taken image before processing this will become the way to go in disposable camera. The requirement to take the camera back to the store you bought it for processing will most likely remain, as this is part of the business model and is how they can keep the price of the camera so low.

Best wishes to the Bonds family.

Mahalo