The Nikon D90 was just announced and this site already has a quick preview of it. Looks it has great low light/high ISO performance, which is what I\’ve been waiting for to trickle down to the lower-end models since the D3 came out. It\’s also the first SLR that can shoot HD video. You can play with the depth of field and selective focus just like on a professional video camera, plus you can use all lenses that\’re available like fisheyes and telephotos.

I\’ve had a D70 for 4 years now and I haven\’t felt the need to upgrade to any models Nikon\’s released since, but the D90 might be the one.

This German site has some great photos from the Olympics. Note to self: never take up wrestling.

A remake of the classic Sierra game Quest for Glory 2 is available for free download. The old EGA game was completely re-done in 256-color VGA and they converted the text-based interface to a modern point-and-click. Everything else is faithful to the original game.

So I was watching the Olympics last night and they were showing men\’s marathon swimming, where they swim for 10 km around the lake they use for rowing. At one point they reached a feeding station and the swimmers reached up, got their drinks, and drank them while still swimming. That seems really weird to me, drinking while swimming? Can\’t they just open their mouths and drink the lake water? It can\’t be that dirty if they\’re freaking swimming in it. I guarantee they\’re accidentally swallowing at least some lake water anyway.

That\’s my sports humor.

Some cool photos of the almost-completed Burj Dubai. There\’s also a pic of the first house built on one of those artificial islands. It looks so lonely.

I\’m obsessed with the Midori Traveler\’s Notebook. This is pure stationery porn. It\’s a refillable leather journal from Japan and the attention to detail is impeccable. For example, the packaging is almost Apple-like. It comes inside a cloth bag, which is inside a cardboard sleeve, which is wrapped in 2 layers of plastic. It even comes with a replacement elastic strap. The leather looks really high quality and there\’s a ton of accessories and refills available, like various kinds of paper refills, calendar refills, adhesive pockets, business card holders and pen holders.

Somehow I think nothing I write will ever be worthy of the journal. It\’s not readily available in the US but I think there are some stores in the Bay Area that carry it. There\’s a good review of the notebook here. Now I just need some fantastic trips to fill the notebook with.

For this year\’s Olympics diving competitions they have a cool tracking camera that follows the divers as they go into the water. It\’s simply a camera tied to a rope, then when the athlete dives the cameraman drops it. I believe on its 3rd dive the camera was disqualified cause it tested positive for doping.

Ignore that logo under the tape!

To ensure that only the companies that pay millions of dollars to be official Olympic sponsors enjoy the benefits of exposure in Olympic venues, organizers have covered the trademarks of nonsponsors with thousands of little swatches of tape.

In media centers, dormitories and arena bathrooms, pieces of tape cover logos of fire extinguishers, light switches, thermostats, bedroom night tables, soap dispensers and urinals. The Taiden Industrial translation headsets in a large conference room have had their logos covered, as have the American Standard faucets in the bathrooms nearby, and the ThyssenKrupp escalators down the hall.

Heh heh, that\’s funny. Sounds like they hired some guys off the street, gave them some tape, and told them to tape over any logos they could find, and the guys took it too literally.

In the Netherlands they have Smart Car fire engines. So cute. I imagine it pulling up to a little fire, then midget firefighters jump out and start setting up a step ladder.

A parking garage in Australia has directional signs that appear to float in the air when you look at them at the right angle. Pretty cool, but I bet the painter thought the designer was nuts. \”You want me to paint the words how?\”