The trailer for the upcoming Netlix documentary on legendary singer and activist Nina Simone was released today. I can’t wait to see it:

Speaking of taking enough time before reviewing a product, I’ve been using the Think Tank Retrospective 5 camera bag for exactly a year now. Hopefully that will help keep confirmation bias in check in this review. I know I haven’t always been able to do that in the past — confirmation bias works both ways, you can totally lose objectivity by spending too much time with a product as well — but I’ve been making a conscious effort to keep things fair and in perspective for a while now.

The Retrospective 5 is not perfect, but it’s a really, really solid camera bag and fulfills a very specific role very well: it is tough, discreet and just the right size to be a great walk-around bag for everyday use. If that sounds like something you’d enjoy, go check it out.

Jaw-dropping movie by Kalle Ljung. Via Kottke:

This movie was shot during our 20 days trip to Antarctica in December 2014 to January 2015.

We started from Ushuaia in Argentina and went to Port Williams in Chile, rounded Cape Horn and crossed the Drake Passage towards the Melchior Islands in Antarctica. We spent 16 days in the Antarctic and got to experience the most amazing scenery and wildlife before we returned back to Ushuaia.

Messy Nessy:

It doesn’t hurt that the Basement Galley’s Underground Supper Club is run by a Cordon Bleu chef either. Paris-trained Alex Cooper and his business partner mastermind Tom Fothergill, started out hosting small dinners Brixton flat but “upgraded” for a slightly more unique setting two years ago when they stumbled across a decommissioned 1967 London tube carriage on a filming location website.

In a tiny disused café on a former Victorian waste pumping station where Alex produces his gourmet four-course meals and sends them out to the old underground carriage decked out in white table cloths and fine silverware, surrounded by other disused relics of London transport on the lot, an unlikely Underground Supper Club was born.

Any place is fine for dinner as long as there’s enough wine, I suppose.

With the flood of Apple Watch “first thoughts” articles popping up everywhere online, Ben Brooks touches on a topic I feel very strongly about: the importance of taking enough time to use a product before reviewing it. Otherwise, we may fall into a classic confirmation bias trap:

It’s the reason I try to take a couple weeks or more with products before posting a review. The reason why I take extra time with things I don’t like. I can’t know if it is confirmation bias at play until I spend enough time with something to wash those thoughts away. Until I think about it enough.

Exactly. This is true of any product, but especially true of the Apple Watch. So many of its features will make sense only when they find a place in our everyday lives — or rather, if they find it at all — that it really doesn’t make much sense to talk about them at this point.

Whoever rushes out to the Web to claim they have unlocked the mystery of Apple Watch is only fooling themselves. You may be genuinely convinced today that Force Touch is the best thing since sliced bread but being 100% honest, there’s simply no way you can’t know yet.

He seems to like it:

But one thing remains a constant with this lens. It delivers the goods each and every time I bring it out or use it. From deep rich color, to beautiful black and white to nice creamy bokeh (background blur) that will not give you a headache, this lens shows what the Sony A7 system is capable of. I have tried the Sigma Art lenses. I have shot with the Canon 35L on a 5DII, I have shot with the Nikon 35 1.4 on a D800 as well as the Zeiss ZF 35 1.4. I have owned and shot with the Leica 35 1.4 Summilux, all versions. It is safe to say that I have had great experience with all full frame 35 1.4 lenses.

This Sony is the best one I have ever used for my tastes as it does everything right. Period. The one that comes closest is the Zeiss 35 1.4 Zf, then the Sigma Art 35 1.4. Last place would be the Canon 35L as it is getting a but (sic) long in the tooth, even when used on a 5DII or III.

I have a small confession to make: lately I’ve been thinking about building a full-frame system, and I’ve been torn between the Canon 6D and the Sony A7II ever since the latter was released. With 35mm being my favorite focal length, this certainly doesn’t make things any easier for me — or my wallet.

Mimi Evans, writing at McSweeney’s:

While we consider applicants from all backgrounds who excel both in and out of the classroom, we really want student savants who relentlessly pursue a single instrument, sport, or other activity. Unless you have written a New York Times bestseller, won first place in the Intel Science Fair, or cured type 1 diabetes using only solar power and a tampon string, we’ll put you at the bottom of the pool.

Sounds like a nice college.

Erin Brooks:

Remember when unabashed laughter was a daily occurrence? An enveloping hug could cure pain? Remember when friendship was pure? The feeling of loving openly, before you’d ever been hurt? To really believe that if you just swung high enough, you could go all the way around the swing set bar? A time before worry? When there was no safer place than nestled in your parents’ arms? That any wish, if just wished hard enough, just might come true? When PJs, a super hero cape, and a tutu were acceptable regular-day wardrobe choices? That the best days involved playing with dirt? That Summer had a smell?

The most humble, honest comment I can make on Erin’s beautiful article is that it makes me wish for the day I can take pictures of my own kids. Here’s hoping.

Fantastic, mesmerizing work by Mila over at We The People, as always. Kind of surreal to think that these are the outtakes. She really is that good.

Never in a million years would it have occurred to me to use Apple Watch as a presenting aid. I mean, you’d think there are enough things distracting you already when you’re on stage.

The funny thing is, apparently it works, and it works well. Although I found it funny that Fraser actually recommends taking the watch off when using it as a remote:

You want to have the face of the watch nestling in your cupped fingers. The same place you’d interact with a TV remote or a more traditional presenter’s remote. I found that taking the watch off, re-closing the sport band and placing three fingers through the band, in the way that you might pick up a watch to look at it, was an effective way to hold it. The most important thing here is that you don’t distract your audience by fiddling to switch slides and you don’t make a mistake when navigating.

I seriously doubt this is the usage pattern Apple had in mind when designing the Keynote watch app but hey, whatever works.