I’ve long thought that the resolution of most digital cameras has reached the point at which it’s overkill, and there are a lot of other improvements that the camera needs. Unfortunately, the marketing people at Canon don’t agree:
Canon engineers are being held back from developing new sensor technology by marketing departments in a “race for megapixels”, claims an employee of the Japanese photography company.
The employee told Tech Digest that Canon have the technology to “blow the competition away” in terms of image sensors, but are instead being asked to focus on headline figures like the number of megapixels a camera has. When asked for his opinion on the Canon EOS 5D Mark II, which we covered this morning, the employee said:
“I am hugely disappointed because once again Canon engineers are dictated by their marketing department and had to keep up with the megapixel race. They have the technology to blow the competition away by adapting the new 50D sensor tech in a full frame format and just easing off a little on the megapixels. Although no formal testing has been done on the new model yet, judging by the spec and technology used, it just seems to be as good or as bad as the competition – not beating them by a mile (which we used to).”
I’d rather have more speed and better S/N ratio myself.
There’s an amusing discussion of this, and the perennial war between marketing and engineering, including examples from Dilbert, over at Free Republic.
Michigan, or Notre Dame? The real season starts today.
Also, interestingly, my current home-town university Florida Atlantic, is playing the Spartans today.
[Update late in the first quarter]
Well, so far, it looks like the smart money was on the Irish. They’re up 21-zip in the first quarter, on two Wolverine turnovers. It’ll be a blowout if Michigan doesn’t get their act together.
Engineer’s salaries, taking into consideration education and responsibilities, the stress of accelerated delivery schedules and their direct impact on corporate profits and overall success of the company, seem absolutely inadequate.
Well, I’ve known a few who were. But no, not in general.
In many of these overpaid professions, there’s some kind of government-induced market failure going on (e.g., longshoremen), but in a lot of cases, it’s just the occasional irrationality of the market place.
Jessica Gavora, native Alaskan (and aka better half of Jonah Goldberg) has some thoughts on basketball and Sarah Palin:
We didn’t play basketball to pad our college applications or fulfill some bureaucrat’s notion of “gender equity.” We played because the winters were long and cold and dark. There was nothing else to do. Maybe as a result, basketball was deadly serious business. Away games were played at the end of eight-hour bus rides or
harrowing plane landings in frozen, remote villages. Our opponents were tough, and the fans were unforgiving. And even though the law that feminists like to credit with all female athletic success, Title IX, was then unenforced in high school sports, we girls wouldn’t have dreamed of taking second place to the boys–nor did we.
Palin earned her now-famous nickname on the hardcourt–“Sarah Barracuda.” Her enemies have tried to belittle her by pointing to her stint as a beauty queen, but it is clear that Palin’s background in sports, more than any other experience, is what has made her the existential threat to liberal feminism (and possibly the Democratic ticket) that she is today.
I wonder how she’d do one on one with Senator Obama? Did he ever win a state championship for his team? Perhaps it’s another comparison that his campaign should avoid.