masochismtango

Zenitar 16mm Fisheye on Full Frame 5Dmk2 – Distortion Examples

I’ve been using the lens a fair amount since I wrote up my first impressions, and I don’t think they’ve changed.  The poor lens cap regularly falls off, but otherwise I think it’s pretty much ideal for a special effect lens like this – light enough to carry around without noticing, good enough quality for [...]

Custom Vinyl – Van Gogh Teddy Trooper

I’ve finally remembered to post a picture of my first custom Teddy Trooper (the vinyl toy created by German graffiti artist Flying Fortress):

The design is based on the famous van Gogh self portrait with the bandaged ear, currently hung in London’s excellent Courtauld gallery – probably the best gallery I’ve ever been to and well [...]

Passenger Focus Research Into Ticket Purchase Problems

This post originally appeared on the Masabists blog.
Earlier this week Passenger Focus, the UK’s official rail watchdog, released their annual Spring Passenger Satisfaction Survey, and the press release focussed on some very interesting insights into the reasons why UK rail passengers shun automated ticket vending machines.

At Masabi, Passenger Focus’s earlier research into ticket maching usability [...]

iPhone 4 Promo – Marketing Video or Satire?

Watching this video on the iPhone 4, I found I was constantly viewing it from two perspectives – firstly as a typical Apple marketing promo, but secondly as a deliberate deadpan satire about how you can con people into thinking so many very old and well established features are innovative…

Canon vs. Nikon – Unscientific Stats…

I’ve been noticing two camera related things when I go out recently – firstly there are a huge number of people carrying SLRs around these days, and secondly they appear to be almost exclusively Canon. Last weekend I decided to quentify the second point with a little test.

Branded Mug Design

Masabi’s branded mug design – the perfect solution to the impact of rapid growth on tea round complexity!

Fixing Eclipse Update Issues

Trials, tribulations and fixes to handle an update to the latest Eclipse IDE.

Aperture, Light and Stops

This is a diagram I drew to understand aperture numbers (the f numbers on a lens) and the concept of stops. In the graph, the gap between each bar is a stop (click to enlarge):

The most confusing thing was always the non-linear nature of stops – an increase of one stop of light means [...]

Verified by Visa

Verified by Visa – even more annoying when it doesn’t work.

Data Visualisation – Global Gender Balance

An example of using Tableau to generate some pretty infographics.