Perhaps it's because I'm getting old and "stuck in my ways," or because the world is on fire, but I don't get exercised about Apple's corporate behavior and the European Union. I follow a number of "tech bloggers" (developers and "tech pundits" for lack of a better word), and I wish I could filter out any post that mentioned "DMA."

I don't care.

It just takes up finite attention. I skip the post, but I wish I could filter it from my feed.

This is the feature that's missing from NetNewsWire that I most want. A keyword list that will hide posts containing them.

I like the Miami Herald as a paper, and I subscribe to support its coverage of Florida. I like the fact that it has an RSS feed. It only contains click-bait titles and one-line teasers, but it's still a nice feature. It's made much less nice by including all the horror stories from other states about people killing each other for all the stupid reasons that people kill each other. And, for some reason, it carries a lot of stories about state lottery winners! I wish I could filter all that stuff out.

Back to the "app store" kerfuffle... Apps are like junk food. Candy. There are 278 "items" in my Applications folder on my iMac. Believe it or not, there are 59 apps in my Dock! I could probably get by with less than half of those. I have a lot of apps because I read about them, and I wanted to "see what it does." And then it would just sit there, taking up space. They're like cameras and calculators that way.

This is an artifact of a society with too much wealth that is too inter-connected and chasing all the wrong rewards.

Or it could be that I'm just a weak and sorry excuse for a human being. I suppose it could be that too.

Probably both.

Most of the things I kick myself over these days are the time and money I waste on "stuff." I never look at the app store unless someone writes about an app and says something remarkable about it. Which, if you spend any time in the tech world, is a lot. I suppose it's a testament to the strength of my character or the state of my checking account that I have only 278 "items" in my Applications folder.

I just paid to upgrade BBEdit. Why? Because it has super-powers? Because "I might need it someday"?

Yesterday I used Duplicate Detective for maybe the third or fourth time ever. I've had it for years, I don't know how many. Why did I use it? Because I'm a digital hoarder. Could I have done the same thing for free from the command line? I'm sure I could, but then I'd have to learn something.

Maybe it's time I did some kind of digital purge.

Binge and purge. Fall of the Roman empire. Is there a connection?

I should try to be kinder to myself. Soon enough, it won't matter.

Originally posted at Nice Marmot 06:58 Sunday, 28 January 2024

I happened to hear this radio program yesterday and I thought I'd share it here. It's The Florida Roundup, which is a weekly (Fridays) program on current issues in Florida. The main guest segment was about coastal migration, and I thought it was fascinating. The paper the guests authored is here.

Anyone who is contemplating retiring in Florida should take into consideration the changing dynamics of the state's climate, coastline and demographics.

The infirmary at the Naval Academy was referred to as "Misery Hall." I only went there twice. Once when I had the flu, which caused me to miss my boxing final. And the other time was because of the makeup final in boxing. I couldn't count the number of fingers in front of me correctly.

Anyway, I refer to our house here, fondly, as "Saul Hall," because it's largely Mitzi's creation. But we're going to be hosting her recovering sister for a few weeks until she's fit enough to travel again. Hopefully not in "misery."

Mitzi has extended her time away until Monday, when she'll pick up her sister and bring her up here to continue her recovery. So I've got a few chores to do to get ready to receive her. Our spare bedroom also serves as Mitzi's office and she's been doing some consulting work in recent months. so I'm going to get her set up in the "dining room" (it's more of an "area") so her sister can have a space of her own while she's here.

And then there's the "tidying up." Mostly that means my "office." I'm blogging about it because that's more fun than actually doing it.

"Procrastination, thy name is marmot!"

It occurred to me that I didn't mention why the five stages were relevant in the preceding post. Rather than edit it, I'll just add this.

Chiefly, they describe the process by which we accommodate loss or profound change in our circumstances. We are habituated creatures, and profound change can be unwelcome or upsetting, even as it is often strongly desired at the same time.

Our climate is changing profoundly. Our civilization has changed and is changing profoundly. For the better? There are people who like to be "glass half full" contrarians, and who promote the notion that things have never been better! And yes, the trajectories of many metrics are positive, until they can no longer be sustained by the myths that fueled them. The myths have been frayed for quite some time, and now they've begun to unravel.

The five stages can offer a framework to understand what's taking place, and what is likely to come.

The old disclaimer from Groundhog Day was that I'm an authority on nothing. I make all this shit up. You're encouraged to do your own thinking.

That's still the case. I'd be happy to be wrong.

I haven't been sleeping well with Mitzi away. While I'm not sleeping, I seem to do a lot of "thinking." It's always important to recall that the internal voice is an unreliable narrator, but every now and then it may offer something insightful.

As is probably clear from much of the marmot in recent months, if not years, I've been struggling with my emotions regarding the unfolding climate catastrophe. The cognitive dissonance of the world largely carrying on with business as usual while the collapse of this civilization slowly begins unfolding before us is hard to accept.

So the other night I somehow made a connection between the end of my marriage and the end of this civilization. My marriage ended, but I'm still here. This civilization may end, but people will still be here. Between now and then, there's a lot of suffering, to be sure. But there was suffering in my marriage already, and there's plenty of suffering already in this civilization.

My marriage failed because I, probably "we," but I can only speak for myself, believed things that weren't true. This civilization is ending largely for the same reason. I've been happier living "in truth," than in clinging to things that were instilled in me that aren't true. (For one example, no one is responsible for my feelings other than me. ("I"?) Popular culture tells us that others can "make" us happy, mad, sad, etc. That's a myth that we use to blame others, elevate others, control others, and deny our own responsibility.)

I'm aware that the "five stages of grief" are largely in disfavor today; but I happen to think they are closer to being right than wrong, although I agree that the concept of "stages" can be misunderstood. The boundaries may be smeared, and the process isn't strictly one-directional at all times. There can be plenty of moving back and forth between adjacent stages. And I believe the order I use may be unconventional. That is, some place anger before bargaining, but I believe it's the reverse. That is, "denial, bargaining, anger, depression and finally, acceptance."

We have been in the "denial" stage on climate for decades, since at least 1980. We are presently in the "bargaining" phase, as we half-heartedly embrace measures intended to address the damage we've done to our atmosphere. These will prove to be too little, too late and what follows then will be anger.

What is perhaps unclear to much of the world is that this isn't just an environmental disaster. The myths we believed that allowed us to foul our nest are the same myths that undergird much of our advanced technological civilization, and many, if not all, are the fundamental tenets of "western" civilization. Myths about "freedom," "growth" and "property." Capitalism itself, and many others.

So while the evidence is very clear that our climate system has entered a new, disordered phase as it transitions to some new equilibrium eventually; it's less clear that our civilization has entered a new, disordered phase on a course to "degrowth" or "collapse." (Depending on your degree of optimism.)

Efforts to broker peace agreements in the Middle East and eastern Europe represent efforts in bargaining. The crisis at our southern border is an example of ongoing denial (by both parties, though Republicans are crueler, and happily so).

It hasn't become clear yet that the trajectory of this civilization is one of decline and fall. Musk may actually land a Starship on Mars (and it'll probably fall over), but the course is set. Some elements will continue to rise before all, ultimately, fall. Like the wealth of billionaires.

We will reach the stage of "anger" during the violent collapse of this civilization. How violent it will be is uncertain. We should be very lucky if we can avoid any kind of nuclear exchange, though regional ones at least seem likely.

I don't think anyone can say with confidence when all this is likely to occur, only that the process is underway and it's irreversible. I'm inclined to believe it will be before the end of this century.

Billions of people will die.

What follows immediately will be depression, grief, sadness, remorse. I rather expect there will also be plenty of denial among some of the survivors. ("I was a good German!" An affect, not an aspersion against Germans as a people. A more contemporary example would be "I was a good Republican!" Again, not an aspersion against Republicans as people. They will suffer as much as everyone else.)

Eventually, acceptance. Life will go on. Humanity will not go extinct. I suppose it's possible it could; but I think that's highly unlikely and if it did, well, there'd be no one around to care. The question is, what will we remember?

The seeds of our destruction lie in our own nature. How will we avoid repeating the same mistakes? Perhaps we won't. But we also won't have enormous quantities of fossil fuels to accelerate our growth and hubris. Maybe we'll become wiser if we grow more slowly. I don't know.

But I do know it's not possible to live an authentic life believing in things that aren't true. Believing lies inevitably leads to disaster.

Originally posted at Nice Marmot 07:21 Saturday, 27 January 2024

Didn't make it into the preserve this morning, but I brought along the OM-1 on my walk hoping to see a bird or two. Got shut out on wading birds, saw a bunch of mockingbirds, but then I spotted a pair of whistling ducks headed my way. I got the camera up in time and managed to get them in the frame for a few shots.

I wasn't configured for birds in flight, but "you miss all the shots you never take." This cleaned up fairly well in Topaz SharpenAI.

I'll try and get into the preserve more often before the weather gets hot.

Mitzi's in St. Pete visiting a museum exhibit and an old friend (and her financial advisor), so I'm rattling around here by myself.

I had my eyes examined the other day to make sure there weren't any issues with my retinas. There aren't. We discussed "floaters" and I told him that I've always had them. I seem to notice them more when I'm reading and he said that's not unusual. They're most visible when you're looking at a blank surface and so the brain "notices" them more, whereas it's busy constructing the visual scene in other environments, and they just become part of the noise.

I suppose something similar goes on with tinnitus. Last night it was screaming. Normally Mitzi has her CPAP machine going, and I don't notice my ears ringing. Once I notice it, it's hard to let it go. So I played some music through the little HomePod mini on the nightstand and fell back asleep eventually.

Before I went to bed, I kind of made plans to get up early this morning and head down to the kayak launch point and watch the sunrise. I overslept a little because of the tinnitus interruption, but managed to make my way down there in time.

I brought along two cameras. I had the OM-5 on a sling with the 12-45mm/f4 zoom; and I carried the E-M1X with the 100-400mm zoom mounted on the Cotton Carrier on my chest. Spent a little over an hour down there with no discomfort anywhere. I could have stayed longer, but I'd taken a lot of images and wanted to get home to look them over.

Ran into someone leaving as I got there. He said I'd just missed a pod of dolphins. Water was slack and like glass, but the tide started coming in while I was there. The most exciting thing was a dolphin surfacing and exhaling not more than a few yards from where I was standing. Of course, I didn't have a camera raised. I got a shot of the ripple where it descended.

Sunrise was unspectacular, so I went wandering back on the trail north of the launch point and spotted a bunch of snowy egrets, ibises, egrets and a little blue heron. There was even a wood stork, but I didn't get a shot of it, it left as I came upon them. I put a dozen or so up on Flickr, beginning with this one and you can work your way back if you're so inclined.

I took the RAV4 down this morning, rather than the golf cart. The road is a mess and beats the hell out of the golf cart. The RAV4 handles it much better, and is faster too.

I should do this more often.

If moving weren't such a huge pain in the ass, and the fact that my grandkids all live here, we'd leave Florida. Mitzi and I have talked about it, and if we're ever in the position of having to recover from a catastrophic loss, we'd scrape the slab, sell the lot and move.

But some people feel otherwise. One of my neighbors has moved to... Canada!

If you're considering Florida as a place to retire and age in place, I would encourage you to think again.

This state has been owned and operated by the Republican Party for more than a generation. Gerrymandering has ensured that Republicans retain a grip on power, and so any "competitive" races are Republicans running against Republicans in closed primaries. And that's a competition about who's most "Republican," which means "like Trump." So we have a legislature with a lot of bullies and bigots.

Mostly the party just hand-picks the candidates, gives them a lot of money and there is no real opposition because... Money. But the money comes from their PACs and that comes from corporations and billionaires, so you wind up with a group of legislators beholden not to their constituents, but their party patrons. The legislature serves the party, not the people.

The state is corrupt, and mean and cruel and incompetent. There are two Floridas, one for the privileged and the other is just ignored. With the insurance debacle, even the privileged are beginning to suffer from the incompetence and corruption.

But the weather is mostly nice (summers are getting hotter), and there's no state income tax. We prefer to fleece the suckers. Er, I mean, tourists.

Garret suggests that I look into DXO Photolab for night sky shots. First, thanks for reading the marmot, Garret. That's also one of life's little rewards these days.

But let me politely say that I appreciate the suggestion, but I probably won't be looking at PhotoLab 7 or any other editor, at least in the near term.

Creative people are passionate about their tools. And that's probably as it should be. If you have a good relationship with a good tool, you feel as though you have a super-power. It allows you to do things you might not have been able to achieve otherwise. At least not with as much ease.

That's kind of how I feel about the E-M1X with the 100-400mm zoom (with the 2x teleconverter) and handheld high res shots. Using it feels like a super-power.

And "gear-heads" in photography, which may or may not include me, often chase cameras or lenses in search of new super-powers. Or to not "miss out" on the super-power experience they read or see others extolling in the forums, or on blogs or YouTube.

Editors, software applications that allow you to manipulate digital images, are not much different in that regard. They all seem to attract their own fans, some of whom feel passionate about them.

Photos is about as pedestrian an editor as you might expect to find. It comes free with every Mac and iOS device! The "extensions" feature kind of changes that equation a bit, but even without it, you can do quite a lot just within Photos, and I'm still learning things about it.

But there have recently been a number of AI or ML (machine learning) innovations in image editing software, that afford remarkable capabilities. Topaz DeNoiseAI was, I think, one of the early ones in this regard. DXO celebrates its DeepPrime XD feature for noise reduction in RAW files. I mostly use DeNoiseAI on jpegs or tiffs. I haven't quite managed to figure out the RAW workflow, though I confess I haven't spent much time looking at it yet. Of noise reduction apps, the DeepPrime people seem to be the most passionate that I've encountered.

Of the dozen or more image editors and utilities I have on my iMac, I use only 4 regularly. Photos, Affinity Photo, RAW Power and Topaz SharpenAI. If I'm successful at learning Affinity Photo 2, I'll likely be using RAW Power less. I should also add that I use OMDS OM Workspace occasionally as well, because it's especially designed for Olympus cameras, and replicates the built-in jpeg engine of the cameras. It's also kind of the clunkiest to work in.

Now, DXO PhotoLab 7 may be a better editor than any of the ones I currently use. I know that there are a lot of people who love it in the DP Review forums. But attention and focus are finite resources, and I'd rather build on what experience I already have in these apps than begin with a new one. Granted, a lot of the concepts are likely similar or identical, it's in the implementation where the advantages lie. But I happen to think that, at least in the near term, I'll be better off trying to increase my understanding of my existing tools.

I still struggle with understanding what a "good" image is. I often worry that my bird shots are over-sharpened. Which suggests to me that perhaps they are. But it also seems to me that they ought to be that sharp. Yes, I know about halos and ringing, and I try to look out for that. And SharpenAI can be prone to artifacts in areas that aren't the subject, so I've been masking more often. But I don't know. It nags at me.

My feeling is that a "photograph" ought to be what the camera puts out. But that's all "just numbers," and computers allow us to manipulate enormous amounts of numbers with very little effort. So most of my photos are little more than slightly modified jpegs. Or, "what the camera put out."

I'm also a sucker for warm, saturated colors, so I'll do some of that in post if I didn't get what I wanted from the camera settings. But I haven't really grokked the idea of these heavily modified photos that add "mood" or "atmosphere." I think I may want to try some of that, but I'm not sure if it's a "photograph" at that point.

I'm also conflicted on the whole idea of "noise." I mean, if nobody ever told me about it, or that it was "bad," I doubt that I'd ever even notice noise in, like, the sky. Now that I know about sky noise, I look for it and then I think I've got to make that go away! And that's what introduces color shifts in DeNoiseAI, and then I can't get the sky right, in terms of that "Olympus blue" I usually enjoy. I play with the saturation and luminance sliders in the cyan channel in Photos and sometimes I can get close; but I'd really rather not do it at all. Sometimes you get a lot of posterization if you do that after noise reduction. But sky noise isn't especially challenging, Affinity Photo could handle that, and I could just mask out everything else. Maybe? Might be different in a sunset with a lot of cloud detail or texture, but then you're not necessarily looking at large swaths of blue either.

All of which is probably why some people like to shoot exclusively in black and white.

Anyway, all of this should probably be filed under TBPO. (The Band Played On. A category of "problems" that are irrelevant in the presently unfolding catastrophe. The great unwinding. De-growth. Collapse.)

But I welcome the distraction.

Originally posted at Nice Marmot 11:05 Tuesday, 23 January 2024

Last night I went with some neighbors to hear Donna Deegan, the first woman mayor of Jacksonville, speak at the Ponte Vedra Democrats club meeting.

I haven't interacted much with Donna since she was elected in July. I left X(Twitter) immediately after that. We would occasionally correspond by DM during the campaign, much as we did during her campaign for congress.

Since then, I've been content to watch and admire her work as mayor from a distance, over here in Saint Johns County.

The room was filled, and I got to speak a little with a friend, Erica Connor, who is one of Donna's assistants in the mayor's office. Erica and I were on the Soil and Water Conservation District together, and she ran Donna's campaign for congress the same year I ran for state representative. I wasn't sure if Erica had to commute into the office every day, or if she got to work from home occasionally, but she does the daily commute. She loves her new job, and I'm very happy for her.

The meeting began, Donna was introduced and she began going over her prepared remarks. She's looking around the room as she's speaking and when she gets to me she stops mid-sentence and says, "Well hello, Dave!"

I'd say it made my night, but it'd probably be more accurate to say that it's made my year. At least so far.

A little later on I got another shout-out. Someone asked a question about what her agenda was for the beaches, and she talked about how important the beaches were to Duval County; and then she said, "You're just going to have to close your ears, Dave, because I know you don't believe in this," and then went on to describe the "beach renourishment" efforts. I had a good laugh.

For what it's worth, the problem I have with "beach renourishment" is that it is, ultimately, a waste of money. If it were part of a comprehensive plan, to "buy time" while we implemented a long term effort at managed retreat, I'd feel better about it. As it is, we're ignoring a rapidly approaching reality that will incur more cost the longer we delay. But, as she stated a couple of times, "It's a process."

In any event, Donna is very happy in her new role and it shows. I liked all that she had to say, though I wish I shared her optimism about the future in Florida. She's a genuinely remarkable human being, and the entire region of northeast Florida is better off for her efforts.

(Larger version here.)

I've been watching some YouTube videos from Serif on using Affinity Photo 2. I've really been impressed with the value and capability of Affinity Photo, though I mostly only use it for stitching panoramas, which it does really well.

I've never really grasped the concept of "layers" in photo editing. In Aperture, you could brush adjustments in, you didn't have to create a mask in a separate layer and composite it in. In Topaz SharpenAI, you can create masks so that you're only sharpening the subject, but there are no "layers" involved.

Mostly I do global adjustments in Photos, to my own philistine taste, and then run it through Topaz SharpenAI since you can round-trip that right from Photos. I used to use DeNoise AI, but you can no longer do that from within Photos, and Topaz Labs doesn't seem inclined to restore that capability. But SharpenAI includes a nice noise reduction feature as well.

I'm somewhat dissatisfied with all that. Or I feel as though I want to try to do something a little more sophisticated, where I have a bit more control over what's going on. I think you can accomplish a great deal in a good global editor, which I think Photos is; but I often struggle with the sky and color shifts so I think I want to try and figure this layers thing out. (I qualify all this by saying "I think" because I may wind up feeling as though it's more effort than it's worth.)

So I started with something that doesn't really require masking, and usually turns out pretty well in right from Photos with some help from Topaz, the moon.

I take pictures of the moon a lot, just because it still thrills me that I even can. I usually work from the jpeg from the camera. There is a high-res RAW file as well, so I figured I'd try to work on one of those in Affinity Photo 2.

So this was one I took the other day, on the 19th. And what is posted here is a jpeg created from editing the RAW image.

I posted the original jpeg to Flickr after I'd cropped it and made some adjustment in Photos, then ran it through SharpenAI. I liked it, but it seemed a little flat. I probably could have added some additional contrast.

The two images appear sequentially, though the one above appears first in the photo stream. I think the one I processed through SharpenAI does appear sharper, but the newer version seems better to me in terms of the contrast and range of tones.

Anyway, something new to learn.

One of life's inevitable realities for the lucky is getting old. Now, I'm 66 and in fairly good health, but it must be admitted, the margins are much slimmer, even if my waistline isn't.

We went down to Maitland last week to visit with a couple of Mitzi's sisters. One of them owns a condo there with her husband. They're all older than us. One of her sisters was supposed to fly back to her home in New York City on Friday, but tripped on some carpet at the Orlando airport, fell and broke her pelvis. She's being moved to an in-patient rehab center in Orlando today.

Her husband passed away not long ago, and she has no family in NYC, nor in Kingston, NY where she has a condo with stairs.

The Online Photographer, Mike Johnston, often writes of his health issues. He's having a pacemaker installed this week. He lives alone in the Finger Lakes with no family nearby. Friends though. We should all have friends.

I'm very ambivalent about over-55 communities. I feel as though in some ways they're a kind of, very nice, ghetto. We self-segregate of course, but it is "out of sight, out of mind" for younger people. There may be an advantage however, at least in terms of healthcare.

In this planned development (Development of Regional Impact - from back when Florida had sane development laws. Now they just do whatever they want.), Nocatee, our over-55 community is a Del Webb and it's one of the largest communities in Nocatee. Del Webb, a Pulte brand, is even building another, smaller, over-55 community immediately adjacent to this one. So there is a significant concentration of the older population in one relatively small geographic location. (Ghetto.)

One of the largest health systems in Florida, Baptist, has a significant presence here, catering to the Medicare eligible. I'm enrolled in their AgeWell program; and I learned at my last visit that I'll be seen once a quarter, alternating between my physician and a nurse practitioner. The idea, I gather, is to identify issues early before they require more expensive interventions.

That's fine with me, given how convenient their facilities are here. The local office is close enough to take the golf cart or even bike to, though I suppose biking there might skew my vitals. There's a hospital about 20 minutes away, an easy drive. They also specialize in stroke, which is nice.

As if this "planned community" thought of everything, there's also an assisted living facility here with an integrated memory care facility (lock-up). The only thing missing is in-patient hospice. This being Florida, there is no shortage of providers fairly nearby. It's not like you'll be commuting there anyway.

One of our neighbors has just moved into hospice, having lived mostly independently in her home. One of our other neighbors has moved into an assisted living center and her house is now on the market.

We've offered our home to Mitzi's sister, when she's released from in-patient rehab. There's a major rehab provider (Surprise!) also not far from here, if she needs continued rehab and we expect she likely will. There's no surgical fix to her break, just a very painful recovery. She'd not have to deal with NYC winter, and have family to help her get to appointments. We're pleased that she's seriously considering it.

In an odd bit of sad irony, Mitzi and I talked about trying to get her sister to relocate here to be close to us for just this reason on the drive down to Maitland.

Two of my three children live relatively nearby. Ideally, we'd live closer, but at least they won't have to fly in to visit me if I'm hospitalized or when I can't drive anymore.

We had a little dinner party the other night and one of the jokes was about the number of single women living on our street and what makes a single man a hot catch is if he can still drive at night!

Anyway, if you're in your fifties and haven't thought about such things, now may be a good time to start. Moving is a major pain in the ass, and you don't want to be like our next door neighbors who are on their third over-55 community because they couldn't stand their previous choices. Moving from Texas to Tampa and finally here, next door to us.

It was 36°F out, but there was a little breeze too. Crisp and clear though. I brought along the E-PM1 in case I didn't see any birds. (I did see a hawk catch a frog or something. Sequence on Flickr.)

Figured I'd play with taking a selfie. I liked this one because of the shadow, and the silhouette of the OM-5 hanging on my hip.

I bought the hat at an alpaca farm up on Cayuga Lake a couple of years ago. Don't get to wear it too often, but I like it so I enjoyed the opportunity to put it on.

<img src=“https://nice-marmot.net/Archives/2024/Images/P1190170.JPG" alt=“Low angle shot of a yellow fire hydrant against a blue sky with a suburban landscape in the background with a contrasty “dramatic tone” filter.">

Went out for a walk yesterday afternoon and took along the little Oly E-PM1 with the Lumix 12-32mm/f3.5-5.6 zoom. I should've brought one of the OM-Ds with a long zoom, since there was a hawk perched in a tree at about eye level by the back pond. Would have been a nice shot.

Anyway, it's a suburban landscape of new houses and manicured lawns so you have to kind of make do to find something visually interesting. I used the "dramatic tone" filter for a lot of the shots, because it turns everything into this kind of post-apocalyptic, gritty, high-contrast image. For whatever reason, I'm always drawn to fire hydrants and on some kind of whim, I decided to give this hydrant its moment in a "hero pose." This was pretty much a blind shot, since the E-PM1 doesn't have any kind of articulated LCD. Shot three. I thought this one turned out well.

And it is kind of heroic infrastructure. Always ready, standing there, silently, day or night, in the heat of summer or freezing nights.

Yeah, I know, "Don't anthropomorphize fire hydrants. They hate that."

Bit of a drive to get there, but I got to the shop that was hosting KEH. Kevin was the buyer. He's out of Chicago and travels all over buying camera gear. Had a nice chat with him.

There were two guys with appointments ahead of me. The first guy had a huge Pelican case and another large suitcase full of Nikon gear. It took an hour to appraise all of his stuff. While that guy was getting served, the next guy came in and started setting up a view camera. He had several smaller cases of gear, mostly large format film. He was over an hour getting appraised. He got a check for over $3K.

Kevin took a break before sitting down with my gear. He'd been sitting at the table for over two hours. I think we only took 30 minutes, with time out for Kevin to find a power outlet so his laptop didn't die while we were working. Some of the stuff I brought in will go to recycling; but I got money for all the stuff I expected I would. Walked out with a check for $690, and a lot more room on my shelves.

Left a little after 9:00, got home a little after 2:00, but it was worth the time and effort.

Also dropped off three rolls of 35mm film I shot some years ago. No idea what's on any of them. Should know in a week or so. I'm guessing they're mostly throw-away shots, because I don't recall trying to do anything remotely "serious" with the old film cameras I'd bought. Maybe I'll surprise myself.

Originally posted at Nice Marmot 19:36 Friday, 19 January 2024

KEH, the used camera dealer, is going to be in town today and tomorrow. I've put together a big box of stuff to put back in circulation.

It's always an interesting exercise in trying to decide what I want to be rid of. Partly because I've done this about three times now, and it seems like things that I once wanted to be rid of keep finding their way back to me. (At some expense, naturally.)

So I really kind of wrestled with the four thirds stuff I have: three bodies, five lenses. I'd previously sold a 25mm/f2.8 pancake when I got rid of all my four thirds stuff several years ago. Then I bought another copy because I decided I really loved its "rendering." I bought a four thirds to micro-four thirds adapter so I could use it on my E-M1.

So when I happened to travel down the well-worn path about Kodak sensors and color science, I already had a lens I could use with an E-500, which had the last Kodak sensor in a four thirds mount, which made it easier to decide to go ahead and buy an E-500. Then I wanted a good normal zoom to go with it, the fairly large but quite nice 14-54mm/f2.8-3.5, so I got one of those. Anyway, one thing leads to another and now I have three bodies and five lenses that I don't use very often and take up quite a bit of my limited shelf space, and attention.

So that's all going. And I'm hoping that this experience will prevent me from doing the same thing all over again.

There are also a couple of "special" cameras that I once thought I'd be interested in but seldom use, the DJI Pocket 2 and the Olympus TG-Tracker. The Pocket 2 is a little gimbal mounted 1/1.7" sensor camera meant for vlogging, which I don't do. And the Tracker is an "action cam," and that's pretty much out of the question for a 66-year-old fat man.

Then there are a handful of lenses that I have duplicates of because they came with cameras I'd bought, some accessories I didn't know how to describe or grade on the web site, a bunch of batteries that I don't need that hopefully they can resell or recycle and some other bits and bobs that might be worth a buck or two.

I have four Olympus XZ-1s. I debated selling two of them, one is new in the box, the other is the "limited edition" Titanium (silver) model, which included an evf, the VF-3. When I bought it the evf had been removed by the seller to sell separately. I bought another one and put it in the box to make it complete. I figured those might be worth a little something, but I love that little camera so much that I know I'd end up buying another one if something happened to my much-used cameras, a white one I bought new from Amazon on closeout over a decade ago, and a black one I bought used and mostly shoot with today.

I also debated selling the Pentax MX-1. I decided that I haven't used it enough to really know how I feel about it, and they're rather dear on the auction site. So that's sticking around for the time being.

Anyway, I've got to get all that stuff in the car and head on out.

If only they had a similar reseller for calculators...

Originally posted at Nice Marmot 07:58 Friday, 19 January 2024

Went to the Florida Forum last night. It's a fund-raising program for Wolfson Children's Hospital. Mitzi bought the tickets, I'm not sure I would have. I am glad I went. Of course, we talked about wearing masks, which we had in the car. Somehow, after finding parking, it completely slipped our minds again until we found our seats. So I'm hoping I haven't contracted COVID.

Surprise bonus, Apollo astronaut David R. Scott was in the audience and was recognized by the moderator before the interview started. He stood up and waved at the audience, which gave him a standing ovation. He was in the expensive seats and I tried to get a shot, but it wasn't great. As heroes go, he's perhaps the closest I've ever been to one. Pretty cool. Though I did speak to Senator John Glenn in 1987. He visited STEPHEN W. GROVES after STARK was hit, and I described the FFG-7 detect to engage sequence in CIC for him and Senator John Warner.

Anyway... At the opening they announced that photography was strictly prohibited. But I'd brought a camera and so I made a calculated decision to be "one of those guys" and take a couple of pics anyway. I understand the nature of the prohibition. Some folks can't figure out how to turn off their flash. Some would bring monster gear that would be distracting. There'd be focus confirmation beeps, focus-assist lamps, LCDs glowing everywhere, shutter sounds, etc.

Well, I brought the little Olympus Stylus 1s. 1/1.7" sensor (smaller than a 1" sensor, bigger than 1/2.3" which is typical on most compact super-zooms). The big attraction is a constant f2.8 aperture throughout the zoom range which extends to 300mm effective focal length. It has a tiny leaf shutter which is for all practical purposes silent. I turned off the LCD panel and relied on the electronic viewfinder. I also turned off the focus assist lamp and confirmation beep. Unless they were looking directly at me, I doubt anyone would know I was taking a picture.

The result seen above is straight out of camera, cropped a little. Not a "professional" image by any stretch, but enough to share.

Woz was fascinating. He rambled a bit, and occasionally forgot what he was originally responding to, but he was very entertaining. Mitzi said he sounds like me when he was complaining about how we don't own anything anymore, and they keep changing everything. He said something like, "In the old days, you'd buy a tool and it'd do the same thing it did on the first day, the whole time you owned it." Today, they keep changing our tools. And not always for the better.

The moderator asked him what his favorite device was, and after "the computer," it's his Apple Watch. He interacts more with his watch than with his phone. He doesn't like the e-sim in the iPhone 14. He said that Apple caused a Denial of Service attack on a cruise he was on. The ship had "adequate" internet access until 100 or so people with iPhones all tried automatically downloading a 1GB software update! When he pulled into port, he bought a data sim for his iPhone 13 and he had high-speed internet while everyone else basically had none.

He mentioned a few times that he decided very early as a young man that he would never be political, and that he'd never voted in an election. This was dismaying to me, as there were a lot of young people in the audience and Jacksonville already has an indifferent and disinterested electorate, and the faithless, feckless, Republican-dominated city council to prove it.

Toward the end of the conversation he mentioned it again, "I've never voted in an election..." Adding, "Until the last one."

He's not big on AI. He thinks it may be another dot-com bubble. He does appreciate that technology empowers the good and the bad alike. He's in litigation over a deep-fake that had his voice calling people about a bitcoin scam, "You send me one, I'll send you two."

My impression is that he's every bit the very nice guy that everyone I've ever heard talk about him has described. Very humble. He wants to be happy and "Happiness is smiles minus frowns." Don't do the things that cause frowns. He said he doesn't like blaming people when things go wrong, he just wants to fix them. Which is admirable, unless there are a bunch of powerful people who rely on things being broken to keep their power.

All in all, a very pleasant evening.

Been meaning to add this to my litany of complaints about how Apple TV is turning to crap. In the old "Movies" app, you could look at the store, or look at your purchases. If you looked at your purchases, you could select a movie and you'd get the same splash screen that you get in the store. You could watch a preview if you wanted. You got the actors, the director, etc.

In the new craptacular unified mess, er, interface, if you look at your library, everything seems smaller, and if you click on a movie, it goes right to play. What if you don't remember what the movie was about? I have over 500 movies in my library, some of which were kind of obscure and I may not recall why I bought them. (Alcohol may have been involved.)

Apple sucks. Used to be a pretty good company. Now it's too big with too many people trying to justify their paychecks, changing things for the sake of having something to put in their performance review.

Listened to this story on NPR Morning Edition this, er, morning. It was all fascinating and moving, but what struck me was the fact that some whites reported that they were feeling "invisible."

That just sounded absurd to me. I'm not doubting that people reported feeling that way, but why?

My only guess is that when we begin to bring attention to race and racism, and the injustice and inhumanity that has been perpetrated on African-Americans, their sense is that less attention is being given to them; and that they already feel as though they don't receive enough attention. These are the lonely and disaffected white people who can't recognize their own privilege because it doesn't extend to those areas of their lives where they feel most left out, or left behind.

Part of this is our media culture, where we monetize attention, often through story-telling. They see others' stories, and not their own. Their perspective is shaped by their own suffering, which they may not see in the media they consume.

Maybe this is becoming a photo blog.

I'm wrestling with the usual anxiety and discomfort that comes with having to interact with the healthcare system. I'm glad it's there, but I don't like using it.

Anyway, I've figured out why living here imposes its own sort of cognitive dissonance. This is an over-55 community, and for many of the residents, significantly over-55. The ambulance is a regular feature at night, red lights intruding into the living room darkness during the movie.

I now know some of the people living here.

Anyone over-55 has lived what, for most of human history, is a lifetime. Faces and frames show age and injury and experience. Yet they all live within these brand-new suburban houses. They hide the struggle and worry inside. Not that it's all "struggle and worry," a lot of these folks are party animals and they've got the COVID infections to prove it!

Nothing in the landscape reflects that experience. It's all a masquerade.

(What I thought was a throw-away shot from the E-PM1 this morning. For some reason, which I now think I understand, these rows of perfect suburban homes demand my attention and arouse some discomfort.)

Not that this is going to become a photo blog or anything, but I wanted to mention the little E-PM1 I got the other day.

The Olympus E-PM1 was my first micro-four thirds camera back in 2011, I think. I'd been shooting with an E-520 and later an E-30 four thirds cameras for about three years. Micro four-thirds was the new hotness, and I wanted to see what all the fuss was about. Long story short, I was sold on the system and haven't looked back since, though I've bought some used four thirds bodies just to play with from time to time (E-410, E-420, E-500, E-1, E-620).

The E-PM1 was something of a revelation, given its size and the kinds of images it was capable of producing. Today, it's something of a relic. As an entry-level camera, it was never as advanced, sophisticated or robust as its more expensive siblings. But it had the same sensor and image processor.

People like to talk about "a look" that certain cameras offer, and it's true. Different manufacturers have different formulas for rendering their jpegs, the sensors have differing characteristics that affect that as well, even though when all is said and done, it's just numbers. I've always liked the E-PM1's jpegs. They're rich, saturated and contrasty. Just don't pay too much attention to the highlights and shadows, because there isn't much there. You can turn on "auto-gradation," which lifts the shadows, but this is "normal" and straight out of the camera.

Well, I wanted to play with an E-PM1 again, so I bought one from Japan. Was supposed to be in excellent condition, and for the most part it is. But the image stabilizer is broken. Happens to a lot of this series. A nylon gear comes off the shaft and a lot of unfortunate noise happens at startup and the camera tells you the IS has failed.

Not a huge deal. I turned IS off, and I think, though I'm not certain, that when the camera knows IS is off, it'll send power to the lens' IS system, if it has one. In good light, you seldom need IS anyway. I put a little Lumix 12-32/f3.5-5.6 collapsing zoom on the E-PM1 and, as small as it is, it supposedly has an image stabilizer.

The big advantage is that it's a tiny zoom, with a 24mm effective focal length at the wide end. It fits easily into my vest pocket, where I would often carry a compact like the XZ-1 or XZ-2 in case I didn't see any birds.

So that's what I did this morning. Stuffed the E-PM1 in my vest pocket and put the 75-300mm zoom on the OM-5, hoping for a bird or two. These clouds were cool, I thought. You look for relief wherever you can find it in a landscape that resembles a real estate development sales brochure. This cloud made me smile.

Thought I might have been shut-out on birds, but a little blue heron landed just before I had to turn around for home. More pix at flickr for those inclined. Most lightly edited and cropped.

The sun came out yesterday afternoon, hallelujah! I went out and took some pics with the OM-5. Nothing spectacular, because I just walked around the house.

But around dinner, I recalled I'd gotten a text from Spot the Station, that the ISS would be overhead that night. (Often, I forget these things unless I create a reminder. Most often, it's too cloudy to get a shot.)

I thought I'd try something different and use the MEIKE 3.5mm/f2.8 circular fisheye. It's kind of a gimmick lens in that it covers a 220° diagonal, meaning it's nearly impossible to keep yourself out of the frame. (It can see behind itself a little.)

Because I figured I'd forget between when I remembered and when it appeared, I set a timer on my watch and went ahead and set up the tripod before sunset. The ISS would be visible an hour after sunset. I also put the MEIKE on the E-M1 Mk3, which usually does star trail Live Composite duty for me.

About 15 minutes before it was to appear, I mounted the camera on the tripod, checked to see if the focusing ring was at infinity, the aperture was fully open and the camera was pointed directly overhead. I should have bumped up the exposure because the MEIKE is a little more than stop slower than the mZuiko 8mm/f1.8, but the ISS Is pretty damn bright so I knew I wouldn't miss it. Wasn't sure how the stars would turn out.

I pressed the shutter and hoped for the best. The result is above.

This is the text you get from Spot the Station:

Time: Sun Jan 14 6:57 PM, Visible: 5 min, Max Height: 44 degrees, Appears: WSW, Disappears: NNE­

Looking at the image above, south is at the top of the frame, where my giant head appears. The ISS track is in the lower left quadrant. It appeared at the left edge of the frame, near the 3:00 o'clock position, just below the crescent moon. Max "height" appears a bit less that 44° because we're looking at 220° of coverage, so 110° to zenith from the edge of the frame. It tracks north-northeast, away from my giant head, and disappears in the trees northeast of the house.

The usual north-south commercial air traffic is visible in the frame, along with a few other aircraft. This is about a 30 minute "exposure" or perhaps, "integration" time.

If I do this again, and I probably will, I'll think about putting the top of the camera pointing to the north, so the image isn't "upside down."

Another radical celebration of life amidst decay.

I feel as though I should elaborate a bit on the preceding post. I alluded to why I decided to shoot a weed, but perhaps a little more context is helpful.

This little weed was poking itself up defiantly in the middle of the manicured sod surrounding it. I admired it for that. What defines a "suburban bourgeois landscape" more than acres and acres of carefully maintained grass?

It's fortunate that we're in "winter" where the landscapers mow less frequently as the grass is somewhat dormant. Soon enough, the establishment will be along with its mechanized means of violently enforcing conformity.

I could have done wider shot to establish that visually; but I thought the little flower deserved its moment memorialized more as a portrait.