Figured I'd give the 45mm/f1.8 its own album.

Figured I'd give the 45mm/f1.8 its own album.

The weather's been crap, so I haven't taken any pics, and I didn't want to write about Automator, which I both love and despise, and, oh what it might have been.

Anyway, I was thinking about the E-M10 Mk4 the other day because I'd just ordered another copy of the lens that I shot this image with. ("Never end a sentence with a preposition," I hear Mrs. Peretta in my head, every time.) It's the mZuiko 45mm/f1.8 prime.

I just got another black copy from KEH.COM for about a third less than I could get a new one from OMDS. I have a silver one, which is what I used for this shot, that I bought in January, 2012. (I paid $3.99 for faster shipping. Pre-Prime I guess.) I bought a black one back in 2021, which I gave to my son with the E-M10 Mk4. I bought it for the E-M10, because a silver lens on an all-black body looks dumb.

The silver one looks fine on all of my PEN cameras, I shot that pic with the PEN-F. (Northern Ireland, April 2018)

Since I used "Sparks Joy" on the last post in February, I didn't want to use it again so soon. But this lens does exactly that. It's a tiny thing, not as long as your thumb, smaller than a shot glass. 90mm effective focal length, into the telephoto range. At f1.8 it's very bright (and just don't start with the "equivalence" bullshit), and at that focal length, when you get near your subject, you get excellent background separation. I won't speak to the quality of the bokeh (or the "toneh"), well, actually I will. It's excellent.

Anyway, I wanted another black one for the OM-5, which is all black. The combination makes for a very small setup. Unobtrusive. You can get some great shots.

I've got the 45mm/f1.2 which is by all measures a vastly superior lens. But it's also bigger and heavier. You're not going to get away with slyly grabbing a candid. When that honking barrel swings your way, you notice. It's not huge by any measure, and by full frame standards, it's positively petite. But it's big enough that I'm much more comfortable shooting with it on the bigger bodies with a substantial grip, which makes the whole thing a much more imposing proposition.

Which is why the 45mm/f1.8 sparks joy. It's just this tiny little thing that punches way above its weight. If I could have only one lens, it'd probably be the 14-150mm super-zoom. Gets me maybe 80% of what I like to shoot. If I could have a 3-lens kit, it'd be the 14-150, the Lumix 20mm/f1.7 (another lens that sparks joy, although it can also break your heart being slow to focus), and the 45mm/f1.8. But I wouldn't be too sad if I could only have one lens and it was any one of those three.

That shot is SOOC ("straight of the camera"). Looking at it on the 27" monitor, I'd probably add some sharpening, but not much, and maybe go with a 3:2 crop. It was bitterly cold that evening, with a stiff wind. A better photographer might have stuck around for some smoother water on the beach and more of a reflection, but I was cold.

The weather's been crap, so I haven't taken any pics, and I didn't want to write about Automator, which I both love and despise, and, oh what it might have been.

Anyway, I was thinking about the E-M10 Mk4 the other day because I'd just ordered another copy of the lens that I shot this image with. ("Never end a sentence with a preposition," I hear Mrs. Peretta in my head, every time.) It's the mZuiko 45mm/f1.8 prime.

I just got another black copy from KEH.COM for about a third less than I could get a new one from OMDS. I have a silver one, which is what I used for this shot, that I bought in January, 2012. (I paid $3.99 for faster shipping. Pre-Prime I guess.) I bought a black one back in 2021, which I gave to my son with the E-M10 Mk4. I bought it for the E-M10, because a silver lens on an all-black body looks dumb.

The silver one looks fine on all of my PEN cameras, I shot that pic with the PEN-F. (Northern Ireland, April 2018)

Since I used "Sparks Joy" on the last post in February, I didn't want to use it again so soon. But this lens does exactly that. It's a tiny thing, not as long as your thumb, smaller than a shot glass. 90mm effective focal length, into the telephoto range. At f1.8 it's very bright (and just don't start with the "equivalence" bullshit), and at that focal length, when you get near your subject, you get excellent background separation. I won't speak to the quality of the bokeh (or the "toneh"), well, actually I will. It's excellent.

Anyway, I wanted another black one for the OM-5, which is all black. The combination makes for a very small setup. Unobtrusive. You can get some great shots.

I've got the 45mm/f1.2 which is by all measures a vastly superior lens. But it's also bigger and heavier. You're not going to get away with slyly grabbing a candid. When that honking barrel swings your way, you notice. It's not huge by any measure, and by full frame standards, it's positively petite. But it's big enough that I'm much more comfortable shooting with it on the bigger bodies with a substantial grip, which makes the whole thing a much more imposing proposition.

Which is why the 45mm/f1.8 sparks joy. It's just this tiny little thing that punches way above its weight. If I could have only one lens, it'd probably be the 14-150mm super-zoom. Gets me maybe 80% of what I like to shoot. If I could have a 3-lens kit, it'd be the 14-150, the Lumix 20mm/f1.7 (another lens that sparks joy, although it can also break your heart being slow to focus), and the 45mm/f1.8. But I wouldn't be too sad if I could only have one lens and it was any one of those three.

That shot is SOOC ("straight of the camera"). Looking at it on the 27" monitor, I'd probably add some sharpening, but not much, and maybe go with a 3:2 crop. It was bitterly cold that evening, with a stiff wind. A better photographer might have stuck around for some smoother water on the beach and more of a reflection, but I was cold.

Still grinding away on figuring out how to use Automator. Figured I'd drop by here and wave at everybody.

Imagine my surprise when I didn't have a new March container already set up and waiting for me.

I checked my Blog Test Platform, which is where I developed the automation. There was March 2024, right where it belonged, in the 2024 container! Hmmm...

Head-scratcher. Tried a bunch of "jiggling the cable" stuff. Closed (saved) the file and re-opened. Quit Tinderbox and re-launched. Copied the working code from the test platform to the 2024 container (it was identical, but I'm easter-egging here).

I thought I'd better look at the prototype p_Year, which contains the Edict action code that 2024 inherited.

There, as one of its children, was March 2024!

Hmmm...

I'm using local variables, $MyDate and $MyString, in the Prototype and therefore in the 2024 Container. In the 2024 Container, there was the numeral "1" at the end of the Action Code. "1" means "True." I'm guessing the Edict ran first in the Prototype, which is above the archives in the Outline order.

When it ran in 2024, it seemed to be echoing the work of its Prototype, noting the existence of "March 2024" in its Prototype and so just returned a "1". Like, "Checks out, Dave. Everything's cool."

The Edict was also checked as "Enabled" in the Prototype, as I thought it would inherit that setting when the Archives container creates a new 2025 container next year, and it's OnAdd action will assign that container the p_Year Prototype, and it wouldn't be helpful if that Edict didn't fire and create "January_2025" automatically, requiring me to manually enable the Edict, you know, like an animal.

I consulted aTbRef and the Enabled check box controls the $EdictDisabled attribute, which is intrinsic and therefore not heritable. I can disable it in the Prototype and not affect the status of the Edict in the $Created notes.

Once I disabled it in the Prototype, and deleted that March 2024 container, it ran automatically in 2024, as designed. I'll update the Test Platform accordingly.

We'll see what happens on April Fools' Day.

Originally posted at Nice Marmot 11:35 Friday, 1 March 2024

The Fuji X100VI is the new hotness, but I just read this review of an older (new) camera that kind of took me by surprise when I got one. It's the OM-D E-M10 MkIV. I got mine in October 2020, not long after launch, because a pricing error by Amazon made it too good to refuse: $499 with the kit lens.

It became my everyday, walking around camera with the 75-300 mounted.

I gave it to my son because he needed a good camera and I have too many. The OM-5 is far more capable and about as small, but it can be a little intimidating in a way. Don't get me wrong, I love the OM-5.

But that E-M10 MkIV is just such a fun little body. It doesn't impose anything in the way of expectations on you. It's unassuming. It just says, "C'mon, let's go take some pictures!" I kind of miss it, but I still have too many cameras.

I wrote a post earlier today all about this camera, because I'd been thinking about it. Then I found this surprisingly current review, by a familiar name, which made me delete that post and write this one.

This summed it up for me:

One might be tempted to dismiss this camera as an also-ran but that would be a huge error, because in this case, the whole is rather more than the sum of its parts. Just like its predecessor, it’s a lovely little camera that’s a joy to use and delivers great pictures.

Almost anyone in the developed world, existing in this century, is in some way complicit in the unfolding catastrophe. Now, "complicit" specifically implies "wrongful" activity.

I think most folks will reject that. It likely will be regarded as wrongful at some point, if only briefly, not that it will ever matter.

In my "hyperphantasic" interior experience, movie quotes often come to mind in the actor's voice. Lately, in the last year or so, I hear Denzel Washington in my mind asking Christopher Walken, "Do you think God'll forgive us for what we've done?"

It's not something I call to mind deliberately. It intrudes when I think about the future.

Anyway, I recognize my role in what is taking place, and what is about to take place and that informs some of my choices.

The only power we have is the power to choose.

And I recall that all we can do is "our best," and the rest isn't up to us. It's enough to try and figure out what "your best" is. And there's a tension between what might be your best, and what you actually do. We are imperfect beings.

Most of our behavior is unconscious, habituated. That's not to say it's "deterministic." I'm not onboard with the idea that free will is an illusion. It's not an illusion, but it's not what most people think it is either. It's the power to choose, and it's the weakest power we have. It's vanishingly small, and we seldom have the cognitive resources to exercise it to its best effect.

Gravity is the weakest force in the universe, but it holds the whole thing together. Well, the important bits anyway. The accelerating expansion of the universe kind of undermines my analogy here, but let's just say it's the weakest force in the universe, and responsible for all of us falling on our asses.

The power to choose shouldn't be discounted either.

So, my philosophy of life these days is to try to do the least amount of harm possible. Short of killing myself, or giving up all my possessions and trying to live off the land or the kindness of strangers, my 21st century, technology-driven existence will cause harm. It's baked in, and there's no getting around it.

But that isn't a license to do nothing. It doesn't mean that it doesn't matter. I'm off the hook. "Eat, drink and be merry..."

So I do what I can, as best I can, as insignificant as it may be. It's not futile. It's not feckless. It matters to me.

One of the things we did, Mitzi is pretty much onboard with this too, is buy the RAV4 Prime, a plug-in hybrid. And we did that in lieu of buying an electric vehicle, specifically because Mitzi felt the infrastructure wasn't here yet. But we knew we wanted something that would do as least damage as we could afford.

I'm comfortable with that because it's what we determined "our best" could be. And she paid (it's her car) $5K over sticker for the privilege of doing her best.

Well, this was encouraging to see.

GreenerCars is an annual assessment of every new model in the U.S. light-duty vehicle market. It is based on a lifecycle assessment of the greenhouse gas and criteria pollutant emissions from the production, use, and disposal of each vehicle. Unlike other evaluations of the health and environmental impact of vehicles that rely solely on fuel-efficiency, GreenerCars scores every vehicle on its entire impact and is the most effective way to compare gasoline-powered vehicles to electric vehicles. In addition to assessing the emissions from fuel burned in a vehicle’s engine, we assess the upstream emissions generated by electricity used by a vehicle, emissions produced when mining and processing minerals for batteries, and emissions from manufacturing vehicles and vehicle components.

If you don't click through to the link, numbers 2 through 5 on the list are EVs. Number 1 is the Toyota Prius Prime SE PHEV.

Number 6 is the RAV4 Prime PHEV.

This is the first time I've seen this list, though it's been around for a while. Technically, I should point out that our 2021 RAV 4 Prime was the number 9 vehicle for 2021. Still, in the top 10 out of all the models on the market in 2021.

In an ideal world, I think I'd like the Prius. But I do know that I prefer the higher driving position of the RAV4.

Now, and this is important, this is not a license to judge other people either. It's not anyone's job to figure out what your best might be. That's solely up to you.

Just, do your job.

Choices matter.

I made the Auto Train article in the WaPo a gift link, and re-posted it. Need to remember to do that. Sorry, Garret.

We're going to spend a few weeks in upstate New York again this summer. We skipped last year as Mitzi had some international travel planned. We normally drive both ways so we can carry all our crap and have a vehicle to use while we're up there.

The first year that we went for three weeks, we still had Mitzi's Honda CR-V, we also had Schotzie. I wanted to take the Auto Train to have that experience and to mitigate the CO2 emissions. Well, the Auto Train doesn't allow pets. So we did a "worst of all possible solutions," and I took the Auto Train with the car, while Mitzi flew to DC with Schotzie. It did give her another night with her daughter and son-in-law.

Well, I liked the experience and wanted to do it again. Schotzie (Adventure Dog!) passed away a couple of years ago, and I miss her terribly, but it does simplify many things.

It's still expensive, but we have a few things going for us this year. No dog. We're both over 65 so that's a discount of some kind. We're only going to take it one-way, on the return trip from Lorton, Virginia to Sanford down near Orlando. It's just under $1K for two people in the bedroom with bathroom/shower.

The thing that tipped it for Mitzi is that we would avoid driving through South Carolina. The Auto Train is one of Amtrak's most profitable routes.

<blockquote>“The Auto Train, as I understand it, has grown in popularity particularly on that one route because of the sheer congestion that people face on driving down the I-95,” Little said. “A lot of people are prepared to pay for the convenience.”</blockquote>

Bing! It's worth the money to avoid the cruelty of having to drive through South Carolina on I-95. Because it's near the end of our trip on the way home, we have to get as far south as possible on the first day to ensure we get through South Carolina not later than 1:00 PM on the second day. (Close readers of the marmot will note that I used to say 2:00 PM. Then we went to Charleston over the holidays and got stuck before noon.) The longer the day goes on, the worse I-95 gets in South Carolina. The compression waves of traffic begin to build and their amplitude and frequency gradually increase. They're tolerable up to about the early afternoon, after that, you never know. You might escape, or you might be trapped in a three hour backup because of multiple accidents. I have a visceral reaction to having to drive south through South Carolina. Headed north, we're usually through there before noon, so it's not as bad.

Leaving New York, we'll drive to Lorton on the first day, which is way north of where I'd want to be on the first day, and spend the night there. The train doesn't depart until 5:00 PM, but you have to show up a few hours in advance to get your car loaded. So we'll have a lazy day in Lorton, then relax until we get to Sanford. It's a couple hours from Sanford to home, but it's on a decent stretch of 95, unlike South Carolina.

Money well spent, I'd say.

Originally posted at Nice Marmot 10:53 Thursday, 29 February 2024

Just paid the rent on three more years of hosting the marmot and Notes From the Underground. I plan to start posting to NFTU soon, where I'll confine most of my "darker" thoughts.

While there is some cost to having your own URL and web server, it also affords you the privilege of having control over nearly the whole stack. I don't maintain the server, nor do I want to. I suppose it's possible my host might put something nefarious on it without my knowledge, but that seems unlikely at least at present.

I got a nice note from a reader, Alex Johnstone from Scotland(!). He's old-school and visits the page versus subscribing to the RSS feed. That's nice to hear, even though it should be apparent that I don't put a lot of effort into the design of this blog! He's a ham radio operator, which is also interesting to learn. I'm going to have some more time on my hands at the end of March, so I've been thinking about taking my exam and spending some more of my children's inheritance. There are antenna issues here, so it may be more of a mobile rig. We'll see, but I'm leaning that way pretty hard.

In other news, I started a post about the Tinderbox meetup and then got distracted. Figure I'll close that loop here.

First, I didn't embarrass myself. At least, I didn't embarrass myself to myself. I thought I was fine.

I thought Jack was outstanding! I'm probably biased, but I don't think you had any cause for concern, Jack.

Second, Zoom from a laptop while seated in a recliner is very comfortable, but unflattering.

Third, James Fallows was present for a significant portion of the talk about blogging with Tinderbox! I'm fan, what can I say.

While we did talk a lot about Tinderbox, because that was our audience, I think the message about getting people to just start blogging again (for the first time) was pretty clear.

I think it's easier to hear one another when we're not herded into silos and goaded into becoming performing monkeys for the benefit of billionaires seeking to monetize and profit from our social tendencies. We should be in social networks, not concentration camps.

Spread out, people! There's plenty of room in cyberspace.

Originally posted at Nice Marmot 09:49 Thursday, 29 February 2024

Mitzi and I went to another talk in the Florida Forum series on Monday. Same series that we saw Woz at last month. She drove, so I shot this with my iPhone from the window of our car. It's a pretty skyline in the golden hour.

We went to hear retired Admiral James Stavridis. He lives not far from here, in Ponte Vedra Beach. I've been reading or listening to Jim Stavridis for almost 50 years (48 or 49, I don't recall if he was Brigade Commander first or second set.)

Before there was blogging, there were journals. Jim was always getting published in Proceedings, the journal of the United States Naval Institute. I can recall that he was very highly regarded at the academy, which is saying something. He went on to a very long and distinguished career, including Supreme Commander of NATO. A little bit goes a long way with Jim, and you're never going to get just "a little bit" of Stavridis. He does seem to like to hear himself talk.

As I suppose I do, as I "hear myself" as I'm writing.

Anyway, it was a good talk. He threaded some very fine needles in commenting on current events in the Middle East and in domestic politics. He was on the short list for VP if Hillary was elected according to some friends who know him. Maybe it was SECDEF. I can't see a guy with no domestic political experience being a running mate. SECDEF makes more sense, so maybe I'm mis-remembering. But that gives you an idea kind of which way he leans.

Basically, he took the audience around the globe and talked about "challenges and opportunities for leadership," and it was mainly geopolitical. Nothing really about climate. Nothing about uncontrolled growth and system overshoot. Which is fine. Not exactly in his wheelhouse, so to speak.

He had some things to say to the audience about how they might help. "Read more." Well, it's an expensive talk, (a fund-raiser for Wolfson Children's Hospital) so the audience that perhaps really needs to be encouraged to read more probably wasn't in the seats that night. "Listen to each other," was the other. Yeah, I don't know about that one. People don't "listen," around here, so much as "wait to speak." So maybe the advice was good, but I don't think anyone heard it.

He had some kind things to say about Jacksonville, which was polite, I suppose. Although he called Jacksonville natives "Jacksonians," and I've never hear them referred to that way. It's either the neologism "Jaxsons" or "Jacksonvillians." His wife is a native, so that was kind of an inexplicable slip.

He said that people are "so nice" here. But it's Florida, a part of the former Confederacy and "southern" nice is a different kind of nice than, say, New York nice. New Yorkers may be abrasive, but there's seldom hostility; and if there is, it's right in your face.

This is "bless your heart" country. The myth of the genteel ways of "Old Dixie," dies hard. They'll smile to your face, but stab you in the back in a heartbeat, and do so gladly. And it won't be "personal." It'll just be one of two things: business or politics. But, "nothing personal."

Also bear in mind that Florida is really two states. One Florida is of and for the privileged, mainly white but all relatively wealthy people. The other Florida is the ignored. The people in the margins. The poor, immigrants, people who aren't cis-gendered. The people Florida's generation-long Republican rule won't expand Medicaid for.

They used to be just "the ignored." Now, under DeSantis and Republicans like Randy Fine and Dean Black, they're the openly attacked. So, yeah, if you're among the privileged, I suppose people seem nice.

All of that "southern hospitality" and "civility" was a mask for one of the most brutal cultures in history.

Which I think is why hate has found such a welcome home here. It never left. It's not Jim Crow pervasive yet.

But give it a chance, and it will be.

Originally posted at Nice Marmot 07:02 Thursday, 29 February 2024

I remembered later that I often star RSS items in NetNewsWire so that I can blog about them later. I went looking for something I wanted to blog about and didn't find what I was looking for, but I did find this!

It was a video, and, unsurprisingly, it was at Kottke.

My plan was to go through Gary Rosenzweig's Automator YouTube playlist and just create each of the Automator programs. (Gary does some of the best work explaining things on the Mac of anyone I've seen.)

So I'm doing this one, which is the last chapter in the video, a little Finder Quick Action to get the file path to a file or folder, with a keyboard shortcut assigned to it. (Yes, I know Opt-Cmd-C, but this is for learning about Automator.)

Pretty simple and straightforward, I enter it and it shows up as a Quick Action. I execute the Quick Action and... no notification.

Check the clipboard and the file path is there on the clipboard; but, no notification.

I'm no dummy. I check System Settings to make sure Automator is allowed to make notifications! Hah!

Hmmm... It is.

Oh! Wait! I'm in the "Work" Focus mode, and I have limited notifications! So I turn off Focus.

Run the QA. Huzzah! A notification!

Which just gives the name of the variable, not the value. What?

I figured I missed a step or something, so I watch that portion of the video again.

Nope. I got everything right.

I figured I'd go ahead and move the variable up into the Title and see if it showed up there. Nope. I put it back in the Message and added a title, "File path:" Honestly, I've forgotten what happened then. But I didn't get the FilePath variable.

The video is a couple of years old, maybe something is broken in Automator under Sonoma. I search the MacScripter Forum. No joy. No reports that Automator notifications are broken.

Well, I got on the 14" MBP and re-created the QA in Automator on that machine. Works perfectly.

Got back on the iMac and basically re-created the QA in a new document, overwrote the old one and ran that. This time, I get the correct Title text, "File path:" but the Message is "Notification."

This gives me very little faith in Automator at this point. I'm going to reboot now, because it's the computer equivalent of "jiggling the cable." Presumably, something is confused somewhere and it's just a matter of getting everything back into a known state.

I hope.

But yeah, my love affair with computers is a pile of cold ashes.

Originally posted at Nice Marmot 13:49 Wednesday, 28 February 2024

Once upon a time, I used to like titling posts with puns. In truth, I still do. This thought came to me before I went on my walk and I briefly considered delaying my walk to post it, but blogging is never urgent.

And I'm glad I did, because now I've read this post at The Verge:

It sounds a little like I’m advocating for the return of the ’90s, when the computer was a giant box that lived in a central room of your home and the only way to use it was to go to it. And to some extent, I am!

The thought that had occurred to me before I left was the notion of "critical mass," that social media networks always seemed to be striving to achieve a number of users and level of engagement that would yield a self-sustaining chain reaction.

Like a nuclear reactor.

I saw a video or a post somewhere about a new documentary called Join or Die, related to the sociologist who wrote Bowling Alone. In it, there was a graph that showed a decline in clubs or other forms of social activity, like bowling leagues, and it had been declining steadily. It must have been a video, because I think I paused it to look at the year 2007, when the iPhone was introduced. And I recall feeling satisfied that the slope of the curve increased (Decreased? Got more negative.) after 2008.

It's not just the social media platforms that alter our experience of one another, it's also the ubiquity of these always-connected devices.

We have this low-grade, yet self-sustaining nuclear (social) reaction going on, that's also creating a lot of radioactive waste that's hard to dispose of. It's funny how social media platforms are always talking about "moderation." You use a moderator in a reactor to control the rate of the reaction, absorb "excess" neutrons. The analogy is pretty sweet.

Combine social media with something that's always in your pocket and welcome to the hellscape of the 21st Century.

The whole damn stack is radioactive.

(And just because I like "explaining" my clever puns, perhaps you'll appreciate the fact that "radio" is what connects all these devices. Gosh, I'm witty.)

Anyway, I'm supposed to be playing with Automator right now. Carry on.

Did a search on Flickr, because it just occurred to me that I could.

I guess it's not that unusual? I don't see anything that exactly resembles what I saw, but it's clear that it does have something to do with the way they tuck their necks in. I suspect that it can't tuck its neck in the way it normally would because it just ate something.

Beats me.

But, yay Flickr!

Originally posted at Nice Marmot 06:43 Wednesday, 28 February 2024

I agree with the ideas expressed in this post by Manu Moreale, an Italian blogger.

I don't offer the marmot by email, though I suppose it wouldn't be terribly difficult to export a day's posts at the end of the day into an email that could be sent to subscribers. Would anyone be interested in that?

I like what he has to say about the interaction piece, but it's never been an integral part of the marmot.

Back in the Groundhog Day era, I had comments at one point. I think it was early on. It may have been around the time of the Time's Shadow/Groundhog Day transition, and maybe the comments were in Time's Shadow.

Anyway, I had an interlocutor who disagreed with me about the Iraq War and it got kind of tedious, to the point of being unpleasant. I think I'm a bit wiser today about how I'd handle a situation like that. But it was an experience that has caused me not to miss interaction terribly much.

I think email is ok. I know I miss the correspondence I used to have with an Australian blogger, Jonathon Delacour, who used to write a blog called The Heart of Things. David Golding is another Aussie I would correspond with from time to time, and the interactions were always pleasant.

There is a bit of a dopamine hit, perhaps a "thrill," to see someone comment in their blog on something I've posted, as Garret did the other day. Likewise with seeing some number of views greater than zero on a photo I've shared at Flickr, though I take no offense or feel no profound disappointment if an image goes unseen. If I want to be certain it's seen, I can post it here and I know it'll show up in someone's feed reader!

I don't think we ought to "syndicate everywhere." I get that the priority is connection, but do other platforms, more platforms facilitate connection, or just distraction? I mean, it's the "world wide web," right? Theoretically we're all just six degrees of Kevin Bacon, connection is almost bound to happen at some point if you hang around long enough.

Anyway, I think these "platforms," whether federated or centralized, have an undesirable effect of concentrating interaction which leads to distortions.

I recall thinking, back in the early days, when Technorati was kind of a king-maker, that John Robb was an interesting blogger. But then a phenomenon like the Instapundit came along, and it seemed like he kind of changed his approach. It seemed like he was grasping for that level of attention.

The worst example, not to be unkind, was Robert Scoble. He was "chasing clout" before we knew what "chasing clout" even was. He had some success, but it seemed like he kept wanting more. And people would try to associate with him to leverage his clout. And I think it ultimately had a negative effect on him. But I could be wrong. Maybe everything was great and that was all a huge success and I was just envious or something. Haven't heard much from him in many years, and don't make any effort to find out what he's up to. I recall he didn't seem to offer anything insightful, mostly just hype. I just remember it all seemed kind of sad.

For some reason, the quote "I'm not an actor, I'm a movie star," keeps coming to mind. Maybe "us chickens," the "back-fence bloggers" are really actors, and all this is just a performance. Some of us are reliable character actors, most of us are just "extras." But some people want to be a star. Maybe "all the worldwide web's a stage," after all.

And "social media" platforms, low friction, low latency, high-frequency interactions with a focus on metrics and "virality" gives people the idea that they can be a star.

And then throw adolescents into that meat grinder! Oy.

That's to say nothing of being a "grievance engine." Apart from the self-important sages, it's the otherwise perfectly nice people who feel compelled to state the obvious about, pick any current horror that are kind of disappointing.

Yep. I know about it. It sucks. Thanks for the update.

What's the point?

I guess just to vent. Or maybe it is "virtue signaling." I don't know. But write a little essay, don't just offer a quip, a complaint, a put-down. Not a problem for me anymore, I deleted my account.

Wow, talk about "topic drift"...

Anyway, "social media bad... Blogging good."

Another Blinding Glimpse of the Obvious from a large ground squirrel.

Originally posted at Nice Marmot 05:46 Wednesday, 28 February 2024

Another shot from yesterday morning. Wood storks are just amazing to me. They're huge in the air, and they look almost prehistoric on the ground.

On the last part of my walk when I do the 3.25 mile loop, I'm headed south, so everything in front of me is pretty backlit. I thought it worked for the feathers. This is at 150mm (300mm effective on a full frame body), so I could have tightened up the framing with the 75-300. But I wouldn't have gotten something like this with a normal zoom, like the 12-45. That's an ibis on its right. There were quite a few different wading birds all next to each other.

On my walk yesterday, I was carrying the OM-5 with the 14-150mm/f4-5.6 superzoom. It's not a birding lens, really, but it can give you some reach. And I was in aperture priority because I'd been using shutter priority for Live ND shots. (I could switch from aperture priority into shutter priority and Live ND would still be active.)

Anyway, spotted this egret flying low over the pond and figured I'd give it a try, not expecting much but a lot of blur. Turned out better than I expected, but still an otherwise unremarkable image.

Except, what the hell is going on with that bird's breast? I'm assuming that it has a "crop" and that it's holding a rather large fish.

I have never seen anything like that before. Now I have, and you have too.

Been awake since about 0230, writing blog posts in my head while trying to go back to sleep. Eventually, I gave up and got up. Stuck my head out the door, there was the moon. Took the MC20 teleconverter off the E-M1X and put the MC14 on it. Less reach, but I'm shooting at f9 versus f14. Dropped the ISO to 200 and leaning against the porch pillar I could stay steady enough to successfully get a handheld hi-res shot, even though the moon was pretty high. (It's harder for me to hold the camera/lens steady when I'm pointing it nearly overhead.)

Anyway, the moon "sparks joy." I wish to share it.

I deleted my account on Mastodon. Right after Mark Bernstein followed me.

Damn.

I don't think I have a problem with Flickr. Yet, anyway. I'm happy that my pics get some views. I'm not chasing "likes" or "faves" or some number of followers. I just like knowing that they get seen from time to time.

I suppose that could change.

Not watching a movie tonight, so I was scrolling through my Mastodon timeline. I don't spend a lot of time on Mastodon. Certainly nowhere near the hours I spent on Twitter each day. I think I visit my timeline every couple of days or so, and since I don't follow as many people as I did on Twitter, I don't feel as though I'm missing out on much.

There was a poll toot recently that just concluded, which asked something along the lines, "How toxic is your timeline?" I think the majority response was, "Not toxic at all."

I responded to the poll before it closed with that answer, because I don't experience the same level of vitriol that I did on Twitter, which is what I associated with "toxicity."

That said, my impression this evening is one of disappointment. I liked one of the things Jack Baty said about "comments" on many sites, that most of them are "performative." Too much of what I read on Mastodon is, I think, also performative.

Sometimes that's fine. If it's a part of an online persona that's offered in a light-hearted, sort of self-deprecating or unpretentious way, I enjoy that. I mean, I don't feel as though I'm getting to know much about you as a person. But I can appreciate the performance. And for some folks, maybe that's the safest way they can engage on social media, which raises questions of its own.

But then there are the ones that just come across as very condescending. Their Mastodon account isn't a "micro-instance" of chatting over the back fence, it's a way to puff themselves up. A vehicle to promote themselves before a very tiny audience. Their many years of deep, deep experience with a particular issue that may be something of a topic de jour, compels them to wave all that froth away, dismissing the excitement and enthusiasm, while citing some admired, deceased pillar of "the community," whose work they still refer to "often."

Please...

Now, shame on me, I should just unfollow those accounts.

But I think it's just an aspect of that medium.

It's almost like a live audience, depending on how often you post, how many followers you have. It invites that sort of "performative" post. If you think of yourself as some sort of sage, and you want to be perceived as a sage, respected as a sage, then it practically demands that you be condescending.

And nobody's going to call you on it. If you've got a relatively high follower account, if you're a high attention-earner, then those lower in the hierarchy are more likely to reply with "likes" or favorable comments. Partly because that's "more civil," or "less toxic" than calling someone out. It's also less risky. There's probably more upside to being nice to a pompous blow-hard than piercing their pretension. So they never experience negative feedback, and it just reinforces the behavior. They get more pompous.

I think these social media platforms that quantify things like "followers" and "likes" and other "metrics" distort the "social" aspect of the medium. I think Mastodon would be improved if you and I didn't know how many "followers" we had, or who "followed" us. What are we supposed to do with that information?

I think it only serves the platform, by making it more appealing to users who look to social media for validation or approval, for some measure of their "popularity" or "authority." People looking for those things will go to a platform that provides it. People who are missing something in their lives, seeking to fill it with, I don't know, metrics.

I'm going be thinking about my Mastodon account. I was entertaining the idea of joining Bluesky, but now I'm not.

"We shape our tools, and then our tools shape us." Somebody.

We ought to be getting a clue by now, don't you think?

Ok, looks like the Automator application works again. It's not optimal, because I'm just pointing it to the Images folder in the 2024 archive. This means that in 2025, I'll have to point it to another Images folder.

There's a "variable" I can use, and I'll be exploring that as I go on. For now, I just wanted the overall automation to work so I can post pics while I continue to update and modify the workflow.

It's perhaps a "nothing" image, but I've been playing with the Live Neutral Density Filter option on the OM-5. I've used it before on my other Olympus/OMDS cameras, so I basically know how it works. But I want to get more familiar with it, so the fountain is just a target of opportunity. We don't have much in the way of dynamic water here in the neighborhood. I could go to the beach, but then I lack any foreground interest.

I feel as though I have to point out that if we had any conception of what was coming, we'd turn all these things off. There are many things we can't turn off, but continuing to consume energy for utterly superfluous reasons ought to be criminal.

One day, it might be.

Originally posted at Nice Marmot 12:46 Tuesday, 27 February 2024

Although I'd intended to do some work on the marmot, I got distracted by the moon. I had tried a different method of editing the moon recently, and I liked the result. I'd followed some guidance in a YouTube video, and naturally I can't recall what the process was, or which video I watched. Shame on me! Take notes!

Anyway, I also have to fix the Automator action that moves images after export, so I figured I'd first verify it was broken on the iMac as well. It is.

So, off to play with Automator!

Now I get to watch the YouTube video of our Blogging With Tinderbox meetup, and see how much I may have embarrassed myself.

Probably better at YouTube to see all the shared screen data.

Garret mentions he doesn't have an "inner voice." I've only learned of this fairly recently, within the past few years, I think. Bix Frankonis is also not "neuro-typical." It's very interesting to me to learn of the varieties of internal experience people have.

The Guardian piece Garret linked to, likewise linked to a test to evaluate the "vividness" of your "mind's eye." I took it.

I was "hyperphantasic." I can picture all of those scenes, in great detail. It's always frustrated me, greatly, that I can't draw them on a piece of paper!

Likewise my "inner voice" is a virtual chatterbox, though I've learned not to take everything it says seriously.

May go some way toward explaining why I like photography and writing so much?

Now, I don't have a "photographic" memory. I can picture scenes or things I'm familiar with in great detail. If I've only seen something once, I can only recall specific things if those things are characteristics I've seen before. A "blue" car, or a "Ford." If it was a "blue Mustang," I could recall that, picture that. But I couldn't recall enough details at a glance to identify the year, or what type of wheels it had.

And my experience is such that it seems almost impossible to me to conceive of an internal experience without them. I don't know what particular use there might be to be able to picture things vividly, other than to recall things that were pleasant or welcome. Or if I had any artistic ability, perhaps to render them in some way.

That said, I "hear" myself writing as I write and I'm aware that I have no idea where the words are actually coming from. That is, "hearing myself" is integral to my writing process, but it's the "still, small voice" that is the actual author.

Anyway, one of the cool things about blogging. Finding out about other people.

Originally posted at Nice Marmot 09:41 Monday, 26 February 2024