I recently converted my mid-2010 15" MacBook Pro (2.66 GHz Core i7, 8 GB RAM) to have a DIY Fusion Drive. I replaced the optical drive with a WD Scorpio Black 750 GB drive mounted in an OWC Data Doubler frame, and replaced the 7200 RPM 512 GB Seagate Momentus drive with a 240 GB OCZ Vertex Plus R2 (the machine only has a SATA II interface, so no need to buy a faster drive); this gives a 1 TB fusion drive, 25% of which is SSD. I did the magic invocations detailed on: http://jollyjinx.tumblr.com/post/34638496292/fusion-drive-on-older-macs-yes-since-apple-has with the exception that I formatted both drives as jhfs+ and then used /dev/disk0s2 and /dev/disk1s2 rather than disk0 and disk1 in creating the fusion drive. The result simply screams! If you want, I can write an article describing how to do this.

Mike, Maybe you should move your interest sideways? For example, De Vere (who used to make beautifully over-engineered professional enlargers, including some for sheet film) have produced this hybrid which lets you print digital images on to silver bromide paper: http://www.de-vere.com/products.htm Sorry to add another option to distract you. :-) Alun

Non-photographic: Neil Shubin: 'Your Inner Fish'. A rather nice book about animal anatomy and how it was shaped by evolution. A little *too* chatty in parts, though I bet his lectures in Chicago are great fun. The structure of the limbs is described as: 'One bone, two bones, lotsa blobs, digits.' Chad Orzel: 'How to Teach Physics to Your Dog'. Really fun book on quantum mechanics, with the author discussing the concepts with his dog (who *really* likes the idea of Schrödinger's Cat). You can find videos of the author reading from it on the web. Jared Diamond 'Guns, Germs, and Steel'. An anthropological/sociological classic. Lewis Wolpert: 'How We Live and Why We Die: the secret lives of cells'. Wolpert is an FRS, editor of the Journal of Theoretical Biology, and rather bizarrely a civil engineer who became a cell biologist. This is a very gentle introduction to what goes on in our bodies. Photographic: Bill Jay and Nigel Warburton: 'Brandt: The Photography of Bill Brandt'. Unlike Brandt's 'Shadow of Light' (which with it shares a lot of content), this contains a some background information as well. Beautifully printed by Thames & Hudson. The rear of the dustcover has a quotation from Ansel Adams: 'There are very few artists -- in the true sense of the term -- who practice photography. A photograph by Bill Brandt proclaims him an artist and a poet of the highest order.'

Some of the most interesting dual-lens systems were the V-series digital P&S cameras from Kodak. I have the V705, which has two Schneider-Kreuznach lenses, a 23 mm-e prime and a 39-117 mm-e zoom, each with their own 7 MP sensor. The Kodak datasheet is here: Kodak V705 datasheet (PDF).

Many years ago when I was still shooting with my Russian Zenit-E 35 mm SLR, I'd read a bit about optics. The standard lens on the Zenit was a copy of a 58 mm f/2 Zeiss Biotar (a Helios 44-2): a 6-element 4-group double-Gauss design. I knew that by removing the rear block of three elements (easily done: the whole block just unscrewed) I would obtain a 116 mm f/4 lens, almost completely uncorrected for spherical aberration. I used extension tubes so that I could obtain focus (the tubes were dirt cheap because this was a 42 mm thread lens with no mechanical couplings -- a preset manual diaphragm). Result: a very nice soft-focus lens, ideal for portrait work (although my favourite picture was of a sheep). Perhaps we will now have a run on Zenits on eBay, just to obtain the lens (which was actually a pretty fair performer normally; it was also child's play to screw the rear three elements back in to restore normal function). Sorry I can't show you any examples: I don't have a scanner that will take 12" x 16" prints.