The Flying Pancake

The “Human Provenance pilot project” sound like sci-fi? Be afraid! it is not! It's the new project launched in mid September very quietly without fanfare by the UK border agency to use DNA and isotope analysis of tissue from asylum seekers to evaluate their nationality and help decide who can enter the United Kingdom... The project was revealed by the Daily Mail and The Observer, sparking protests from refugee advocates.

The plan it to use mouth swabs for mitochondrial DNA and Y chromosome testing, as well as analyses of subtle genetic variations called single-nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) and therfore determining if the asylum seeker claiming to be from Somalia and fleeing persecution are actually from another African country such as Kenya... 

Does the Border Agency have even looked at the scientific literature to know whether it's possible or not? surely not! To my knowledge, the research needed to determine the structure of Africa population at the DNA level has not been done (correct me if I'm wrong).
Furthermore, according to Mark Thomas, a geneticist of University College London “Dense genomic SNP data does have some resolution … but not at a very local scale, and with considerable errors.” Alec jeffers, a pionnier in human DNA fingerprinting from Leicester University also say that "assigning a person to a population does not establish nationality - people move! The whole proposal is naive and scientifically flawed.” which I can not agree more.

I am wondering how the Border Agency came up with such idea?... is it by similarity to there own isolated country on an island, they might think all the other countries are also isolated from each other, that people don't move? and therefore the population structure is fix... simple minded idea! I am the proof that it's not the case, a French man in... UK...

To read more see Science
Image by ghutchis'

It will soon be easter! The eggs season! if you want to cook perfect eggs here is the fomula:

Given the starting temperature of the egg T₀, the temperature of the water T_water, the desired temperature of the yolk T_yolk and the circumference of the egg c, and the cooking time t of the eggs in minutes. The formula was derived by Dr. Charles D. H. Williams, a lecturer in physics at University of Exeter.

Too complicate? here is a flash app that will helps you: Kunsten å koke et egg from the university of Oslo!

Ok, it's in Norwegian... but this may help:
1st slider: The circumference of the egg (in cm)
2nd slider: How hard you want the egg yolk to be. (Hard = Hard, Middels = Medium, Bløtt = Soft)
3rd slider: Start temprature of the egg (on the botton, its directly from the fridge. In celcius)
4th slider: How high over the sea level you are in meters. (Because water boils faster the higher you are.) moh = meters over the sea level

And if you want to go further in the science of egg boiling, check this page: how to prepare a perfect boiled egg.

Now, you'll not have any excuse to make bad eggs! Happy easter everyone!

Long time I didn't post anything around here... ok, I didn't found anything interesting lately... But now I found something: A Lomo LCA half Frame.
You know about the Olympus pen? you know about the LCA? From what I understand, (sorry, I have a bad japanese...) A Japanese society propose to modify your LCA in order to transform it into a half frame camera like the Olympus pen! what the f***? a half frame lca??? I found the idea quite nice: Going to the opposite of medium format!

Taking two pictures in one frame have many advantages! so the 36 frame film can then contain 72 verticale pictures in 24X18mm format. Smaller negatives means more grainy printed images (I like that!). It's economic and original!  But the problem is that the focal length of your beloved 28mm LCA lens will be modified also... smaller sensitive surface means longer focal length... too bad... (I like wide lenses). Anyway, if you want to try that and that you are in Japan and also that you understand Japanese, you can try to transform you LCA into a Pen, but it will cost you ￥16800...

And if I didn't understand right, don't hesitate to leave a comment!

A post to speak about myself, so what? I'm happy with my new toy!

photo:Keith Berry

Few post ago I was saying that I was searching for a Ricoh GR1. After some time spent on ebay, I finally manage to grab one! I received it two days ago and immediately put a test roll to see how this little cute camera is working! I have to admit that it's a great camera, very easy to use, intuitive, fast, small enough to be unnoticed. The only negative point I find until now is that some time the autofocus may have some difficulties finding the good focus, ok, it was in low light conditions, but the camera is very clever and let you shoot even if it don't find the right focus. In this case the focus is lock at 2.5m. It means that you never miss a shot because of the autofocus! great idea! instead, you can use the infinite focus, the snap mode (which lock the focus at 2m) or also the fixed focus (where you can lock the focus to any distance). It also have a centre metering exposure function. Its aperture priority is also great and very easy to use. For example, put the snap mode on and set the aperture to f13, and you'll be at the hyperfocal which means that you'll have a HUGE depth of field (for those who are not used to this). The exposure compensation is also there, note that it's the only way to override the DX's ISO of the film (only on GR1)... I'm not a big fan of flash photography, but it may be useful sometime and from what I read teh flash of the GR1 (NG 7 at 100ISO) seems to be quite a good one.

What else can I say about this camera? the 28mm f2.8 lens is just great and quite rare on a compact camera! It's a very good focal lenght for street photography. You have to be closer, more "in" the action, more engaged, and you can also include the environment in the picture. I'm use to my 40mm canonet, or my LCA, which is a 32mm, and I have to admit that even if the difference is not so big, you can breath even better with this 28mm!

I just develop the first roll (Tri-X 400) this afternoon, so I can not say anything about the quality of the image from this camera. I'll upload some pictures soon, but by this time, you can have a look on this review. As a conclusion, and from my small experience with this camera it's a great camera for street photography!!!