Nikon have conspired to leak the specs of their next top-line pro DSLR, the D3X. Naturally, I want one. Because, you know, what Nikon user wouldn't?

I've spent most of the week trying to work out the best way to cart camera gear to the states for UDS week. I'll be there all week (try the pasta, folks) and I'll have the Sunday before UDS to be Mr Tourist, so I figured that taking at least some gear with me would be worth it.

Of course, I've got to deal with Virgin Atlantic's stupidly small hand baggage limit of just 6kg (13lbs to our American brethren), so I've spent much of the week trying out various configurations of equipment in the two camera bags that I own to see what I can manage.

As far as I can tell, for 6kg, in my lightest bag (a Kata R-103 backpack) I can take:

• My laptop and its charger.
• The D300
• My 50mm f/1.8 Nikkor (the lightest lens I own)
• and nothing else.

So, I toyed around with a couple of solutions:

• Buy a lighter bag.
• Buy a Nikon 18-200mm lens to replace the 18-55mm and 55-200mm lenses

And then I realised something fairly fundamental: I was actively trying to work out how to spend money so as to not fall afoul of Virgin's silly restrictions. Even I, crazy as I am sometimes, am not daft enough to actually thing that that's a smart thing to do.

So on the advice of a friend of mine who travels so much I'm surprised she can ever stop to lick a stamp I'm going to use the strategy known as "you're a man, you've got pockets: use them." Once I've checked in the lenses can go back in the bag for security and everyone will be happy. Hopefully. Well, we'll see anyway.

But all this arsing about with weighing scales and gear configurations brought me to ask myself another question: Why the hell am I trying to take all this stuff with me? What do I actually need?

Looking back over my photos from the last year I've realised that I don't actually use all that many different lenses most of the time. As far as I can tell, my preferred lens is the 10-20mm Sigma, with the 30mm Sigma coming a close second.

So, for San Francisco, then, a challenge: Can I shoot The City with just two lenses? I'm going to take with me the 10-20mm, the 50mm Nikkor and, for insurance purposes only, the 55-200mm. I aim not to use the latter unless I absolutely have to (and if I have to then I've failed in my task, evidently).

I'll let you know how it goes.

This just in: TV shows that include sex may increase the risk of teenage pregnacies [link].

Teenage girls who watch a lot of TV shows with a high sexual content are twice as likely to become pregnant, according to a study.

Boys watching similar programmes, like Friends and Sex and the City, were also more likely to get a girl pregnant, the research in Pediatrics found.

The study authors said limiting exposure to sexual content on TV might reduce teen pregnancies.

Or, heaven forfend, kids should be educated about safe sex.

I don't know if it's just me who finds this startlingly obvious, but I'll lay out my argument here, just in case.

1. Teenagers, as a rule of thumb, tend to be horny.
2. When done right, sex is fun.
3. Certain TV shows portray sex as fun because it is, when done right.
4. Teenagers watch TV.
5. In the end, with all the different methods of accessing TV shows these days (web, torrent, DVD, hell, even TV itself), it's pretty hard to stop teenagers from watching TV shows, especially the ones that they think are cool to watch.
6. Watching something that says "hey, this is fun" is more likely to increase your desire to do said thing.
7. Because of 5, kids will watch these programmes, even if you don't want them to (get used to it, they're teenagers, they'll do plenty of things you don't want them to do).
8. Teenagers will most likely experiment with sex before they stop being teenagers; Point #6 will encourage them, but it would probably happen anyway because of point #1.
9. If you don't educate your teenagers about safe sex then the chances are massively increased that they will either get pregnant or catch an STI.
10. Ergo, educating your kids about safe sex is the best way to prevent them getting pregnant or catching an STI. They will have sex, regardless of whether you want them to or not.

Thankfully, the BBC article makes this point and quotes a couple of good sources of information, though it fails to link to them. I'd suggest at least linking to Brook, which offers "free, confidential advice on sex and contraception to young people."

From BBC News:

A prayer group in Washington DC is claiming the credit for the recent sharp drop in the US price of petrol.

Rocky Twyman, 59, a veteran community campaigner, started Pray At The Pump meetings at petrol stations in April.

So, market forces anyone? Well...

Mr Twyman is sceptical that market forces might be responsible for the lower prices.

But there is an upside to this silliness:

But he and his prayer warriors have changed their motoring habits.

"We believe not just in prayer - because we believe that faith without works is dead. So we've encouraged people to car-pool more and organise their days more, because it's a combination of faith with these other factors."

I just wish we could get the second part of this without people saying "but we need God to sort things out for us."

I have had various reactions to my wearing the above at UDS today:

• From Bacon himself: "Oh. My. God."
• From Julian Edwards: "Wh?"
• From Dave Murphy: "I hope you're not joining the Cult of Bacon.
• From one apparently insane UDS delegate: "Sexy"
• From two UDS delegates (including the aforementioned insane one): "Can I get one of those?"

The world is a little bit weirder than it was yesterday. Especially, I suspect, if you're Jono Bacon.

I don't do memes as a rule, but this one's been doing the rounds on Planet Ubuntu, so I thought I'd give it a shot, too.

So, the results of the query are:

graham@bloodnok: ~$  history|awk '{a[$2]++ } END{for(i in a){print a[i] " "}}'|sort -rn|head
93 bzr
66 python2.4
46 sudo
44 cd
39 grep
22 make
19 ls
18 vim
11 tail
11 lpvim

So now you know.