December 2005

There were 28 posts published in December 2005 (this is page 5 of 5).

Titanic Discovery

From deep under the sea:

The discovery of two large pieces of the Titanic’s hull on the ocean floor indicates that the fabled luxury liner sank faster than previously thought, researchers said Monday.

This part is funny:

Explorer Robert Ballard found the bulk of the wreck in 1985, at a depth of 13,000 feet and about 380 miles southeast of Newfoundland. Ballard was not impressed with the expedition’s find.
“They found a fragment, big deal,” he said. “Am I surprised? No. When you go down there, there’s stuff all over the place. It hit an iceberg and it sank. Get over it.”

Interesting how Mr. Ballard is so cavalier about the matter now. Where was this “the ship sunk–get over it” attitude a few years ago when he was involved in a multi-million dollar venture investigating the debris field?

Cost Of Printing Digital Pictures

In case you, like me, wondered about this but were too lazy to do the math:

The average price of printing a 4-by-6 at home is 27 cents, if you include the costs of photo paper and ink but not the printer, according to IDC. The retail segment, stores like Walgreen or Costco, has an average price of 21 cents a print. For online photo services like Kodakgallery.com, Shutterfly.com or Hewlett-Packard Co.’s Snapfish.com, the average price is 30 cents, including shipping.

I’ve had a digital camera for over a year and have not bought a photo printer. Frankly, I’ve only printed a few pictures–to give away; by and large, I just burn them onto CDs. But even if I did make a lot of hard copies, this suggests it just as cheap to let someone else print them.

Nightly News Line Up

CBS has yet to make its move, but it seems pretty clear to me that NBC is the only broadcast network not experiencing a notable drop off in replacing its big anchor.
I haven’t seen a lot of Elizabeth Vargas and Bob Woodruff, but they both seem mediocre. Moreover, they don’t strike me as having the kind of on-screen presence to gracefully handle the havoc of an breaking news/extended-coverage type event.