Nikon Announces the D4

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Boy, that was fast. You can already preorder the just-announced Nikon D4, which will ship in February, from Amazon. The Verge has a hands-on preview already posted. Vlad Savov writes:

You know you're in for a treat when Nikon decides to upgrade the very top of its camera range, the single-digit DSLR flagship. Taking over from the D3s is the D4, a $6,000 camera that gleefully upgrades just about every spec from its predecessor while also weighing less and lasting longer on a smaller battery. Notable features: * 10/11 frames per second continuous shooting in FX-format for up to 150 frames * Nikon FX- format (35.9 x 24.0mm) CMOS Sensor with 16.2 effective megapixels * Full 1080p HD broadcast quality video * View simultaneous Live View output on external monitors and record uncompressed video via HDMI terminal * Multi-Area Mode Full HD D-Movie: FX, DX (1.5X crop) and New 1920X1080 (2.7X) Crop modes settings They also have posted an excellent comparison of the D4 against the D3s, D3x, Canon EOS-1D X, EOS 5D Mark II, and Sony Alpha A900. And finally, for those of you who just want to look at it, a photo gallery of the D4 shows you every angle you could want to see. Also, Strobist noticed something very cool:

Rick Santorum On Small Government

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Rick Santorum - verbatim, "They have this idea that people should be left alone, be able to do whatever they want to do, government should keep our taxes down and regulations low, that we shouldn't get involved in the bedroom or in cultural issues. That is not how traditional conservatives view the world." Courtesy of Fox News, believe it or not:

Necropolis Now

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Paul Constant, writing for The Stranger:

And then it finally came. Iowa Republicans, in a confluence of Santorum’s relentless retail politicking and rabid anti-Romney sentiment, finally spent seven minutes in heaven with Rick Santorum—a racist, homophobic, Bible-thumping warmonger who thinks government doesn’t belong anywhere but in brown people’s backyards and in everyone’s pants. A good write up of the Iowa Caucus results and the state of the Republican Party's candidates.

Rick Santorum For President?

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Rick Santorum just tied Mitt Romney in the Iowa Caucuses last night, which is hilarious for dear old Mittens. What's even more hilarious (and you're probably aware of already), is that whenever you search for Rick Santorum in Google or Bing, the website spreadingsantorum.com is usually featured in the top few results. If a concerned conservative (or liberal) voter tries to learn about Rick Santorum's policy platform or Rick Santorum for president, or even Rick Santorum's family values, said voter is instead subjected to a mental association likely to hurt Santorum's chances of winning the Republican nomination and the White House. And that is a problem for America. Why? Because spreadingsantorum.com isn't the top result. But we can fix that. This post contains a handful of keywords and phrases Santorum needs to own if he's going to direct curious voters from Google or Bing to Santorum-friendly websites. This post probably needs more (and should probably contain hostile keywords Santorum will likely buy in order to bury spreadingsantorum.com in search results), and you can add them by editing the post when you reblog it. Which you should probably do now. Go to work, Internets. via Geoff Barnes.

Rumsfeld's War Games

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Digging up an old article that written by Joe Galloway courtesy of Olivier Knox:

The referees stopped the game, which is normal when a victory is won so early. Van Riper assumed that the Blue Force would draw new, better plans and the free play war games would resume. Instead he learned that the war game was now following a script drafted to ensure a Blue Force victory: He was ordered to turn on all his anti-aircraft radar so it could be destroyed and he was told his forces would not be allowed to shoot down any of the aircraft bringing Blue Force troops ashore. This topic comes up, due to to today's events. Some defiant, short-sighted conservative heckled Knox on Twitter over the reporting, claiming something along the lines that the Iranian navy didn't stand a chance at hurting the U.S. Navy ships. Knox replied, referencing this article, that this was an example of how it could be done. I wonder if the generals in the Pentagon, now that Donald Rumsfeld is gone, have bothered to plan for this eventuality?

Why Best Buy is Going out of Business...Gradually

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Larry Downes, writing for Forbes:

First comes the strategic bankruptcy, well in progress at Best Buy, where management’s sole focus is improving some arbitrary metric from last quarter, even when doing so actually interferes with customers trying to buy something else. The financial collapse comes later. But if history is any guide, the second part, once it starts, will be quick. Downes puts in writing what I've thought for several years now but never really thought enough about to put into words myself. Best Buy's customer service is horrible. Most store employees behave as if they were used car salesmen who try to peddle one or another bad product on their customers depending on which ever product management is trying to push that day. Whatever you buy they try to sell you an "extended warranty", which is how Best Buy makes a lot of their profits. When doing so, they promise (and sometimes lying to do so) that it will cover any possible circumstance. If you ever actually need to use the warranty however, there will be complete reversal from the sales pitch and instead find every reason that whatever circumstance you have encountered, is not actually covered under the warranty. Their entire business is predicated on scamming their customers. How is anyone surprised that they're now on a downward trend that will lead to their bankruptcy in the next 5-10 years?