I’m a huge fan of Survivorman, and was pleased to learn that Les Stroud has a new TV series starting next week. It’s called Beyond Survival and debuts on Discovery Channel in the United States. It doesn’t look like it’s available in Canada. Shame. Gizmodo did a recent interview with him talking about his gear and setups during shooting.

Update:

This show is coming to Outdoor Life Network (OLN) on September 5th.

A unique fundraising event is happening at the Carlu this November. Called the Chef’s Challenge, it features Gorden Ramsey and local Toronto chefs leading teams against each other in a cook off.  You can get on the team by being one of the five top fundraisers. The selected Toronto chefs are Massimo Capra, Lynn Crawford, Jamie Kennedy, Mark McEwan and David Rocco – household names to anyone that watches the Food Network.

The top 25 fundraisers also get a VIP Brunch in a private home the local chefs and Gordon Ramsay.

The Canon S95 is an update to the Canon S90 that I have mentioned previously. Canon seems to be aggressively going after this space with an update to the camera only a year after it’s release – and soon after the announcement of the Panasonic Lumix LX5.

The new S95 features a new sensor and 720p video recording capability. The front control ring was redesigned to give better tactile feedback. It also adds a built-in HDR feature for better dynamic range. They also tout the Hybrid IS system, however give very little detail about how it works.

The verdict is out on how much better the S95 is in low-lighting conditions than the S90 or the SD4000-IS with it’s back-illuminated CMOS sensor (of which I own). I’ll wait for the first reviews to come out and see what the high-ISO shots look like.

Evosia Photography took some great long exposure pictures of the stars from Joshua Tree National Park.

Joshua Tree Under the Milky Way from Henry Jun Wah Lee on Vimeo.

For larger luxury cars, the following made the “Top Safety Pick”. This required them to have a “Good” score for all four IIHS crash tests and standard stability control.

• Cadillac CTS
• Infiniti M
• BMW 5 Series
• Lincoln MKS
• Volvo S80
• Hyundai Genesis
• Mercedes-Benz E-Class

HardOCP just reported that BFG is liquidating it’s business. I’m disappointed because I really liked the company, it’s products, and it’s excellent customer support. They offered factory overclocked graphics card for PC’s and stood by them with a lifetime warranty. Recent margin pressure on the graphics card industry must’ve just been too much to handle.

Ok this video was taken in Toronto during the storm today (Sunday) by topquark22 on flickr:

I love Calvin and Hobbes. It’s too bad Bill Watterson moved on to other things, but such is his choice. One of my best gifts was the Complete Calvin and Hobbes – a box set of every strip bound in three volumes. Earlier, the Calvin and Hobbes Search Engine was created, a searchable index of all the strips.

It’s a private project, and Andrews McMeel Universal, the owners of the Calvin and Hobbes strips have been militant in the past about squashing any usage of the name and imagery on the web. I hope it will continue to exist but AMU have proven themselves to be ruthless. A note has been added to the page about a cease-and-desist letter already on the way.

The new iPhone 4 and some new cameras (like the Canon SD4000IS) have something in common. They use a new camera sensor technology called backside illumination (BSI). Tom’s Hardware does a good description of the technology on their site.

If you followed the iPhone 4 launch, perhaps you heard about the phone’s improved camera sensor. This was actually an adoption of a technology that Sony first brought to consumers in 2009. With the SD4000 IS, Canon delivers the same backside illumination (BSI) technology to its ultra-compact camera line.

The idea behind BSI is that traditional digital camera sensors use several layers of wiring between the sub-pixel lenses and the photodiodes that register incoming light photons. The wires block a fair amount of the incoming photons, but with manufacturing technologies being what they were, it was infeasible to move the wiring behind the photo sensors, in part because it introduced too much interference. However, recent materials breakthroughs and manufacturing improvements have made this backside rewiring not only possible but dependable and affordable.

Between much more light reaching the photo sensor and the improvement to an f2.0 setting, the SD4000 IS is able to take low-light photos that are dramatically clearer than most other point-and-shoot cameras. This also benefits nighttime video shooting, which can now rival some low-end camcorders.

So again, if you want top quality in an ultra-compact, then the SD4000 IS makes sense. If the BSI technology, slow-motion video mode, and an f/2.0 aperture don’t float your boat, then save some money and get beefier specs with a different camera.

The rest of the article goes into a pretty good review of the best camera in each category, with special mention to my current P&S favorite – the Canon SD4000IS with backside illumination, natch.

The Globe and Mail has been showing videos of some basic cooking skills. This week is a video on basic knife skills.