I figure "fool" is a good category for personal posts in the vein of "a fool and his money are soon parted." Hopefully there won't be many of them.

We harvested our first greens from the garden, which was more exciting than I expected. Dave the Plant Guy was at the garden and showed us how to harvest leaves while leaving the plant healthy enough to produce more.

It was the garden that got me to use my compact cameras again, which got me thinking about my compact cameras. I'd sold one, the Fuji X20, gave one to Mitzi, the Fuji XQ1, gave two away to my granddaughters, an Oly XZ-10 (I had 2), and an XZ-2. I have four XZ-1s, and I'll probably never let those go, a remaining XZ-10, the Stylus 1s, two Tough cameras, a TG-4 and a 6, and the odd one, an old C-7000. In the box of stuff I still have to post to KEH.COM for an offer is a Lumix LX-7, which will probably go back on the shelf.

Anyway, thinking about compact cameras got me thinking about the Pentax MX-1, which was a camera I'd wanted for a long time, but always seemed absurdly priced on the used market. Thinking about it led to checking the auction site for current prices, and they are still pretty high. $300-$500 range, mostly from Japan.

I did spot one from a U.S. seller for $225 with a "make offer" option. I offered $200, they came back with $210, so I split the difference at $205 and they agreed. I suspect I might have gotten it at $200. My sister is a seller and she says business is bad on the auction site.

I don't know much about the camera business, but the MX-1 and the Olympus XZ-2 both have the same lens and sensor combination. The image processor hardware is likely the same as well, but I don't know. I imagine there are (were?) OEM manufacturers who marketed these things (not so much anymore, in the smartphone era) to camera brands as the guts for a compact camera.

At any rate, I'd always been curious about the MX-1, partly because its "retro" gimmick was brass for the top and bottom plate. This makes the black model more desirable than the silver one I bought.

Well, it arrived yesterday. It was a nearly complete kit, missing the USB cable, but including the external charger (thankfully). The camera itself is nearly pristine. The seller had pointed out a very small blemish on the lens barrel, and there's a slight round mark on the bottom plate that suggests perhaps a half-case screwed into the tripod socket. The only real negative is the rubber grip is sticky where the former owners' fingers likely deposited oils. Alcohol didn't resolve that, and I'm not sure anything will. I may cover it with a bit of black friction tape, which would give a better grip anyway. I use it on my black XZ-1, because it can be pretty slick.

Battery was fully charged, so I put an SD card in it and played around with it yesterday. They say that "curiosity killed the cat," and the MX-1 has cat "meows" as sounds for the shutter, startup and button confirmations. I'm using them for the moment, I'm pretty sure I'll get tired of them soon.

It feels pretty dense, which is probably the brass plates. No sign of brassing yet, and it wouldn't look as appealing against the silver coating anyway. Buttons are very tiny, even the power button, which may be hard to find just by feel, we'll see.

I'd say as handling goes, it's not as good as the XZ-2.

The LCD screen is probably the same as the one on the XZ-2, likely part of the OEM package. Tilts, but no touch. Bright and sharp. It dims pretty quickly, which is probably a setting I need to adjust.

People complain about Olympus' old menu system, but I've been shooting Olympus digital for 15 years and I don't mind it. The Pentax menu was fairly easy to figure out, better than Panasonic's that's for sure. But I haven't found a "quick" setting. Looks like most changes require a menu dive. The XZ-2 adopted Olympus' Super Control Panel, so nearly everything you'd be inclined to change was available in one interface when you pushed the center "OK" button on the back.

I've only taken a few shots with it, nothing worth sharing.

I reviewed my XZ-2 shots in my Photos library, and was reminded of the kinds of images it was capable of producing. They're pretty decent, meaning I enjoy them.

Out of curiosity, I looked at XZ-2 prices on the auction site. Also high, though not as absurd as the MX-1. I noticed one that was reasonably priced, I thought, at $125. There may have been a "make offer" option, but I don't recall. I saved the listing in case I wanted to revisit it later. The low price is because a corner of the cover glass on the LCD is cracked and missing. Not pretty, but it still works.

Well, as these things often go when you "favorite" listing, the seller made me an offer, and, fool that I am, I accepted. I figured I could then do a direct comparison of the two cameras.

The XZ-2 also permits me to use one of my electronic viewfinders, so the LCD is less of an issue.

So I'll play around with two different cameras with identical sensors and lenses. I'm nut sure if I'll keep the MX-1, it doesn't fall into my hand as nicely as the Olys. That may just be familiarity, but I do think the shooting experience with the MX-1 won't be as comfortable. If that's the case, I'll probably sell it to KEH and recover some of my money.

I'll probably keep the wounded XZ-2. Put a screen protector on the LCD and hope the problem doesn't grow.

Fools and their money, and cameras, are soon parted.

Originally posted at Nice Marmot 06:50 Friday, 10 November 2023

After a fairly productive morning yesterday, this morning's walk yielded nothing. I put a few up on Flickr from yesterday's walk.

The other day, I mentioned that the camera mediated my attention on my morning walk. It also mediates others' attention too. More and more frequently, people ask me if I got any good photos, or saw a particular gator or bird.

This morning a guy on his bike stopped and we chatted a bit. He just got a 2x teleconverter for his 150mm lens, and so he's looking forward to getting some better bird shots. He lives at the end of the cul-de-sac, so I'm sure I'll be seeing him fairly often.

So maybe carrying a camera isn't as socially isolating as I thought. Less so than the folks I see wearing AirPods, maybe?

I enjoyed the season finale of The Morning Show last night. I think they let Jon Hamm off a little too easy, but it was ok. I remain sympathetically inclined toward Cory, who at least exhibits some signs of self-awareness.

There was a pretty overt pitch for legacy media in the Howard Beale moment. I'm sympathetic, but I think that ship has sailed and legacy media was never as virtuous as Chip tried to make it out to be.

I wasn't sure I was going to like TMS when it debuted. At first, I thought it was going to be a workplace comedy, like The Office. But it has consistently been a pretty straightforward, topical drama. And what better way to make a drama topical than to center it on the news business?

I'm looking forward to another season. Just wish I didn't have to wait a year.

Originally posted at Nice Marmot 10:22 Thursday, 9 November 2023

Blog memes! I remember...

Anyway, memes can mutate, so here's my "default" app list. Stuff I use all the time, at least once a week.

• Mail Service: iCloud
• Mail Client: Apple Mail
• Spam Filter: SpamSieve
• Notes: Apple Notes (shared with Mitzi, and stuff that doesn't go in Tinderbox)
• To-Do: n/a (I don't do anything.)
• Calendar: Apple Calendar (formerly iCal?)
• Contacts: Apple Contacts
• RSS Service: n/a
• RSS Client: NetNewsWire
• Launcher: LaunchBar
• Cloud Storage: iCloud
• Photo Library: iCloud
• Web Browser: Safari
• Chat: Messages
• Bookmarks: Safari
• Read Later: Instapaper
• Word Processing: Pages (mostly to print a daily photo card to my mom)
• Spreadsheet: Numbers (not weekly, but at least monthly and whenever I have to)
• Presentations: n/a
• Shopping Lists: Apple Note (shared with Mitzi)
• Personal Finance: n/a
• Music: Apple Music
• Podcasts: Apple Podcasts
• Password Management: Keychain Access
• Social Media: Mona (Mastodon)
• Weather: Apple and Ambient
• Search: DuckDuckGo
• Code Editor: n/a
• Blogging: Tinderbox
• FTP: Forklift
• Photo Intake: Image Capture
• Photo Review: RAW Power
• Image Sharpening: Topaz SharpenAI
• Video Calling: FaceTime
• PDF Viewer: Preview
• Automation: AppleScript, Shortcuts, Automator, Hazel,
• POSSE: Micro.blog
• Retro Computing: Virtual II
• Backup: Time Machine, Backblaze
• Local File Management: Finder

There are a bunch of apps I use less often, like Topaz Gigapixel AI. Settings is always open in the dock. Activity Monitor too. Dictionary (to look up big words).

If I look at CPU usage and sort by CPU Time, Mail is the number 1 app, followed closely by SpamSieve. Finder is 3rd, then Activity Monitor, Tinderbox, LaunchBar, Notes, Backblaze, ForkLift, RAW Power, the photolibraryd process, Hmm... PopClip is in there too. And i use UnClutter as a clipboard manager and temp text stowage. Speaking of which, it's been acting weird under Sonoma. Stuff I expect to be on my clipboard isn't, so I have to be a little cautious. Could try using LaunchBar instead, but then I'd have to learn something.

Anyway, I use a lot of apps it seems.

In contrast to the scribblings of the mediocre mind of Jacksonville property lawyer and aspiring political pundit Andrew Moss, Jacksonville Today also publishes the thoughtful analysis of experienced political reporter A.G. Gancarski. While I sometimes disagree with the focus of his reporting, I find his commentary pieces thoughtful and worthwhile reading.

A good example is in today's edition of Jacksonville Today. My wife is a Jew and she received information regarding the rally from Jewish organizations she's affiliated with in the region. She noticed it was headlined by local Republican politicians, and gave every appearance of being a Republican partisan political event more than a expression of support for Israel. We did not attend.

It was also not lost on us that these are the same Republican politicians who were slow to react during local expressions of anti-semitism in the region. In fact, the Republican-led Jacksonville Sheriff's Office deputies specifically apologized to Nazis when confronting them. We only know this because the responding deputy felt it was important to include his apology in his report.

The views A.G. expresses in this piece are well founded, and an accurate reflection of the cynical, partisan, morally bankrupt state of Republican politics and governance in the region.

We had a Tinderbox meetup yesterday, and there was really nothing on the agenda. A question came up on whether or not Tinderbox could facilitate a certain form of note-taking where one file might hold disparate topics, and later help bring order to them.

The answer is, it can.

Then a question about why not just use a database program? The answer is, why not? Yes, a database program can do the same sort of thing, just in a different way.

My contribution was to suggest that whatever application one chooses, choose it and be done.

I've lived in Tinderbox, imperfectly, incompletely, for more than twenty years. The marmot goes back a decade. Groundhog Day was shorter, 2003-2009. What happened in those four years in between was the loss of Apple's web hosting as part of its .mac, iLife web services. I moved to Tumbler with Day of the Groundhog, and spent about four years there. I left because it felt like it was going the way of Facebook, and decided to finally get my own domain name and web hosting, and return to blogging using Tinderbox.

Today I wish I'd done that in 2009.

The point is, whatever your project is, pick an app and stick with it until it no longer meets your needs. Unless your project is just trying out apps, which is fine too.

I'm by no means a Tinderbox master, but I know enough to get myself in trouble and know enough people to help get me out.

But here's the payoff, at least to me.

I was sure I'd posted something about Yeats in the past, thinking it was about The Second Coming. So I searched for "gyre" in this document, which goes back a decade.

Nada.

Hmmm... Searched for "Yeats." It turns out, I hadn't blogged about The Second Coming, which still feels odd, maybe it was on Twitter. But I had mentioned Yeats back in 2017, nearly 7 years ago.

That's still a happy event, because the piece I linked to in that post is still online, and still worth a read today. Perhaps more so. I read it, and it resonated with David McWilliams' TED talk too.

Despite being of shorter duration, Groundhog Day contains more words than the marmot. I got sucked into Facebook and promoting myself "living my best life" on that miserable platform. Then Twitter took its place. There's a bit of Yeats in that piece that reminds me of Twitter:

Mock mockers after that

Traffic in mockery.

Anyway, as much as I admire the folks who maintain paper notebooks, and I have the blank notebooks to prove it, I wonder how they would find what they thought they may have written about Yeats?

Originally posted at Nice Marmot 07:16 Monday, 6 November 2023

I should be out taking a walk right now, or riding my bike, but since I just poured myself another glass of ersatz Mountain Dew (Fountain Mist, by Soda Stream), I figured I'd spend a bit of time with the marmot.

Jack Baty is thinking about stepping away from "being online," and says,

Sometimes I take photos just to have something to share. Why do I do that? Photos should be for me, first.

I think it's wise to think about "being online." I do, from time to time, though mostly in connection with what is called "social media." I spend far more time in the marmot since I left the "big three," Facebook, Instagram and Twitter. I don't think much about maintaining the marmot. It's just become a part of me now. I do wonder if it matters in any way to anyone besides me. I don't know.

But, as Jack feels about photos, the marmot is for me, first.

Photos are for me as well. But I enjoy sharing them. It's interesting, because the act of carrying a camera mediates how I see what's around me. If I carry the OM-1 with the 75-300mm zoom, I'm attending to birds, their sounds and movements, looking for a shot. Occasionally the landscape will grab me, and I'll pull out my phone. But I'm not paying a lot of attention to people. I say hello to the people and their dogs that I meet, of course. But I'm not looking for people. I walk to keep from becoming just utterly sedentary, but I carry the camera to look for birds.

Maybe I should walk to say hello to people?

Maybe it's wise to think about walking?

Steve Makovsky ponders the gravity of the current zeitgeist. I'm happy to report that I seem to be emerging from my cloud. Yesterday's Gyre post was a happy one.

I know we're in a great deal of trouble. More, perhaps, than most people understand. But I feel a bit as though I've come to acceptance. I'm recalling the things I learned during my "mid-life crisis," when my career and my marriage both failed; conventionally, the "two most important things you'll ever do."

I learned that all we ever really have are moments to live, and each other... in those moments. Because everything can be taken from you, even, or especially, "each other."

That existence, being, is the negation of nothingness. An affirmation. In effect, an act of faith. That we live on a razor's edge, in the tension between Heraclitus' "harmony of binding opposites," the yin and yang of faith and fear.

And confusion about "free will" notwithstanding, we do get to choose which aspect we embrace.

None of us is getting out of here alive. Many people, as I write this, are living in profound uncertainty, with unbearable suffering, amidst unspeakable violence. About the most I can do for them right now is pray for peace.

I do embrace gratitude. I do appreciate how fortunate I am, and how undeserving I am of my good fortune, and how quickly it might change. Everything can be taken from you. Ultimately, it will be. Being afraid doesn't change that.

I recall a little Buddhist parable about a monk being pursued by a tiger. The monk reaches a cliff and there's nowhere else left to run. He leaps and grabs a tree or a root growing from the side of the cliff. Above, the tiger. Below, the rocks. There, growing from the side of the cliff is a strawberry.

The monk eats the strawberry.

I'm enjoying my strawberry.

Originally posted at Nice Marmot 09:33 Sunday, 5 November 2023

On Thursday, Mitzi and I went to Jacksonville University to hear Dr. Helen Czerski speak at an event where she received the Jacksonville University Marine Science Pioneer Award. (You can read about that here. Ignore the privacy warning from Safari, you'll have to click through two warnings.)

I follow her Mastodon account (@helenczerski@fediscience.org) and saw a toot that she would be in town on November 2nd, speaking at an event sponsored by the World Affairs Council of Jacksonville. I knew Mitzi had signed us up for something like this, and thought this might be one of those events. So I asked her, and it wasn't.

But she wanted to go see it anyway, so we did.

Loved it. She's a young, energetic and inspiring speaker. She received two standing ovations from the audience. One for her talk, the other for her award.

Dr. Czerski's talk was about the old chestnut that we know more about the moon than we do about the ocean. We do know plenty about the ocean. As a retired naval officer, who was educated as an ocean engineer, and whose career was spent, to a significant degree, understanding oceanography in order to find submarines (alternatively, to hide from them), I appreciate how much we know.

In any event, this post is about the "strange loops" that seem to go on in my head. A gyre is a feature in oceanography that describes large rotational currents. I installed the TED app on our AppleTV last night, specifically to look for Dr. Czerski on TED. You can find her here, great talk, btw.

That reminded me of two other talks I'd read about, or someone had mentioned to me, but I hadn't seen them yet. I had to do a little searching. The first was the one about the "first sustainable generation," which I posted earlier today. The second was about "unconventional thinking," which is also posted below.

I enjoyed Hannah Ritchie's talk about sustainability, but it left me uneasy. I subscribe to a Florida-focused climate RSS feed, The Invading Sea, and it often features posts from young Republicans advocating "market-based solutions," which are appealing to young Republicans but otherwise inadequate. Ms. Ritchie's talk felt very much in the same vein.

I also subscribe to an RSS feed from Resilience, which is where the link to Cheap Grace came from, which is in the same post as Ms. Ritchie's TED talk.

Resilience doesn't offer full-text feeds, so I have to click through and open them in Safari, and I often don't visit the page immediately, just leave the tab open until I get around to going through my tabs. It's not a great system, but it's how I roll.

I'd opened the Cheap Grace post yesterday, but hadn't read it until this morning, which, together with watching Nyad, is what prompted this morning's first post.

So, saw Dr. Czerski on Thursday. Watched the last half of Nyad on Friday afternoon. Installed TED on AppleTV to look for Dr. Czerski on Friday evening. Watched Hannah Ritchie because I recalled something about a TED talk by her and I'd just installed the app. Then watched David McWilliams because I also recalled something about "unconventional thinking." Then read the Cheap Grace post this morning.

And here we are. Four posts that somehow were connected, or related, at least in my mind. Contingent though they may be, "free will" being something of a misunderstanding.

Anyway, all these things happened in close proximity to one another, and the route by which they all came to my attention resembles, in my mind, a gyre. That image was brought to my mind by David McWilliams' reference to Yeats, and its meaning in oceanography, which brings us back to Dr. Czerski, and Diana Nyad, and sustainability, which is all about "closing the loop," eliminating externalities.

Anyway, I seem to recall that someone once had a blog called "I thought these might be clues." That also comes to mind.

There's more here than meets the eye.

Which I suppose is a bit of "unconventional thinking" itself. And a small bit of comfort too.

I was unfamiliar with the name Dietrich Bonhoeffer, so I did a little digging. This piece is perhaps a useful capsule summary. I had often seen references to the Confessing Church in books about Germany under the Nazis, so I suppose I may have seen his name before.

The article includes this:

On the other hand, the theological section of the essay also contains the traditional antisemitic teachings that for centuries had characterized Christian understandings of Judaism, and Bonhoeffer argued that the “Jewish question” would ultimately be resolved through the conversion of the Jews. He never explicitly abandoned this view.

To which I would offer that he was hanged at 39 years of age, less than a month before Germany surrendered, still a young man. We will never know how his views might have evolved. I think it's important to note his thinking at the time; but I think it's possible that such a man might have changed his views, and indeed may have.

I don't think we'll ever know.

Originally posted at Nice Marmot 08:55 Saturday, 4 November 2023

Since I'm in a TED sort of mood, here's one I watched last night and it speaks to the challenge the current generation is facing. The challenge of "conventional thinking."

Conventional thinking isn't going to meet the challenge.

An idea worth spreading.

Mitzi watched the Diana Nyad bio-pic on Netflix yesterday, and I saw the latter half. As I recall, "courage" was something of a war-cry or motto for her. I also admired her "resilience" and "never quit" attitude.

I think we can all find something inspirational in Diana Nyad's example, especially in the effort and sacrifice she made to achieve her dream.

Because, while we're supposedly beginning to confront the reality of our situation, it isn't clear to me that we really have.

I watched this TED Talk last night. It's from back in April of this year. It's worth a listen.

Sounds great, right? It does. But, it's a gloss. I liked her formulation that any sustainable solution must allow for a decent life for all people.

She doesn't go into any specifics about how we would go about delivering a decent life to all people, using entrenched institutions and economic systems that are founded and predicated on the notion of persistent inequality, and which incentivize the worst characteristics of human behavior.

Here's a much shorter read, which is more honest and accurate about the genuine scope of the challenge that confronts her generation.

I'm not saying that her generation is incapable of meeting that challenge. I hope they are. But they will never even try, unless they understand what it really is.

And that's why I think it's important to talk about not only the climate, environmental degradation, inequality and systemic inequity, but how we got here as well. Because we can't rely on the mechanisms that created the problem to solve it.

And it's going to take all the courage and sacrifice they can muster to meet that challenge.

And never quit.

Whoa.

I liked episode 9. Well, I hated episode 9 too.

What was I saying about none of the characters being irredeemably evil? Yeah, I think Paul Marks is pretty irredeemable.

People seem to enjoy watching evil people. House of Cards, Succession, the list probably goes on, but those are two series I started watching and then stopped because I hated all the characters.

I haven't hated anyone on The Morning Show, and there are enough characters I care about that even if Paul Marks is a sociopath, I probably won't stop watching it.

Which is good, since the series has been picked up for a fourth season.

Alex and Bradley were agreeing that, "People suck." I think people are weak, and the systems they operate in make them suck. Capitalism is among the worst.

Well, the yogurt experiment didn't go as well as I'd hoped. The "proof" setting isn't very warm at all. I was worried it'd be too warm. The infrared thermometer showed about 86°F, which isn't as conducive for the little critters to do their thing.

I left it in for 10 hours though. It is yogurt, but it's not what I was hoping for. Not as tangy and thinner than I expected.

Just ate some with berries and granola. If I'm not doubled over in pain in an hour or so, I'll consider it a partial success.

What I may do next is perhaps warm up a pizza stone in the warming drawer of the oven first. Another fancy feature we've never used. It supposedly gets up to 145°F. Transfer that to the rack below the next batch I try to make. I'll find a thermometer and do a dry run first. It'll have a decent thermal mass. I think we have a cast iron skillet around here, I might be able to do the same thing with it.

One of the videos suggested just putting a pot of 120°F water in the oven with the yogurt. Perhaps some combination of the two or three with the oven in proof mode. I did hear the oven come on from time to time.

They make yogurt makers, and you can use an instant pot, or a sous-vide circulator, but the idea is to not buy another gadget, which we wouldn't have anyplace to store anyway.

I'm trying to make yogurt today. I bought some UHT milk and watched a YouTube video, so I'm all set.

After heating the UHT milk to 115°F, I mixed in some plain greek yogurt. Poured the whole shebang into a glass bowl I'd warmed up by running under hot water. (Wasteful of water.) The question then was where to put the mix so the little bugs could stay warm and do their thing.

We have a fancy induction range, and the oven has a "proof" setting. The manual suggests it won't let the temperature go below 125°F. That may be too warm, but I'm not sure, so I'm giving it a try.

Why am I doing this? Unsure at the moment. Partly it's nominally cheaper. 32oz of UHT milk is a couple bucks less than 2lbs of Greek yogurt, I didn't price the regular kind. UHT milk comes in a plasticized paper carton that weighs 50g, the yogurt comes in a plastic container that weighs 30g. I'm not sure which one is "better" for the environment, but I'm inclined to think that the plasticized paper contains less overall plastic than the plastic container.

If I can pull this off, then I'll consider the tradeoffs more closely, though I doubt I'll ever have the kind of data I'd need to make a clear choice on the basis of reduced environmental impact. Wallet impact may be clearer.

I'm letting it do its thing for five and a half hours, then I'll give it a little test, or taste. There's some reason to believe a little longer may be better in terms of taste and consistency, but I may be running hot so maybe faster? If I'm not killing it.

I'll keep you posted.

In other news, it occurred to me on the bike ride that I was probably conflating a season of Pennyworth and one of the Robert Downey Jr. Sherlock Holmes movies with the Victorian sex and drug cult thing in Bodies. Pennyworth isn't Victorian, but similar characters.

Not that it matters. Just glad I can still retrieve some memories.

It's cool this morning, so I'm wearing jeans. I've learned that I don't like wearing jeans while biking. Not that I ever wear biking shorts either. I'm usually just in shorts! I have some synthetic lightweight hiking trousers I can wear when it's windy, I guess.

Anyway, I learned it again this morning when I biked to the garden. This time I brought along the Olympus E-500 with the 25mm/f2.8 pancake mounted. I have something of an irrational affection for that lens. Having bought one back in the day when I was shooting four-thirds dslrs, I sold it when I went strictly mirrorless.

Then I bought another copy after I looked at some of the images I'd taken with it. It's got kind of a "look," I guess. It's irrational. I like it.

Then, of course, I bought an E-500 dslr, because it has the Kodak CCD sensor and it was sprinkled with magic CCD dust made by the elves of Rochester, NY.

Anyway, I like the combo. Small. Lightweight. Simple. Gives a very mechanical vibe with the mirror slap and the noisy focusing motor.

Put a few up on Flickr. SOOC, because why not?

We finished watching Bodies on Netflix last night. It reminded me of Cloud Atlas meets Looper. There was another movie that came to mind, with a Victorian sex and drugs cult thing, the title of which I can't recall at the moment.

In that regard, it was disappointing. These series that rely on multiple stories separated by time and space can't seem to do enough in the way of character development to make them reward the investment of the time it takes to watch them. I'm also thinking of Foundation here. Invasion to a lesser extent, as it's only dispersed in space, not in time.

Cloud Atlas and Looper were much smaller chunks of time, and so the plot moved along quickly and the gimmick was the star of the show. In this case, I got the gimmick right away, because I'd seen it before, and so that wasn't especially entertaining. I was mostly just wishing they'd hurry up and do something.

Peripheral was much better in that regard, in that I quickly became invested in the main character. I don't know if that's coming back or not. Probably not, since I liked it.

To the extent that I did become invested, I mostly just wanted to see how they would resolve the thing as a technical exercise; not that I cared about any of the characters. It was modestly successful in that regard, though there were a lot of loose ends and a couple of holes I think. I'm not going to watch it again to take detailed notes, but I think if you watch it you may have a similar experience.

Solid "Meh."

We finished watching Bodies on Netflix last night. It reminded me of Cloud Atlas meets Looper. There was another movie that came to mind, with a Victorian sex and drugs cult thing, the title of which I can't recall at the moment.

In that regard, it was disappointing. These series that rely on multiple stories separated by time and space can't seem to do enough in the way of character development to make them reward the investment of the time it takes to watch them. I'm also thinking of Foundation here. Invasion to a lesser extent, as it's only dispersed in space, not in time.

Cloud Atlas and Looper were much smaller chunks of time, and so the plot moved along quickly and the gimmick was the star of the show. In this case, I got the gimmick right away, because I'd seen it before, and so that wasn't especially entertaining. I was mostly just wishing they'd hurry up and do something.

Peripheral was much better in that regard, in that I quickly became invested in the main character. I don't know if that's coming back or not. Probably not, since I liked it.

To the extent that I did become invested, I mostly just wanted to see how they would resolve the thing as a technical exercise; not that I cared about any of the characters. It was modestly successful in that regard, though there were a lot of loose ends and a couple of holes I think. I'm not going to watch it again to take detailed notes, but I think if you watch it you may have a similar experience.

Solid "Meh."

As you read more about the emerging crisis of modernity, one of the ideas about possible "solutions" is degrowth. We're terrible at framing. Degrowth is probably accurate, but the notion that "growth" is a "good thing" is so firmly embedded in our collective psyche that it will inevitably be re-framed by the right as "de-good."

We read this decades ago when anti-nuclear activists were told to "freeze to death in the dark in caves."

This piece explains the idea of degrowth using the leaf-blower as a metaphor or analogy. All the horrors of leaf-blowers aren't dispelled by using electric leaf-blowers, because leaf-blowers are merely a symptom of the deeper problem. I related to it, because we do have all-electric lawn care tools, and solar panels on our roof to charge them.

Lawns, and 27" iMacs, aren't essential goods. They are things we've created because we can, in large measure to satisfy ego-driven needs to display status or conformity, by a capitalist system that prioritizes profit above all other considerations.

If I were king of the world for a day, I'd ban residential lawns outright. As deliberate features of public amenities, and only where they are essential, like a gathering place or playing field, they'd be allowed. Otherwise, something closely approximating a "natural" landscape, compatible with local climate (i.e., not requiring thousands of gallons of irrigation annually) would be required. Landscapes that didn't require tons of fertilizers, herbicides and pesticides to keep them looking like "carpets."

Of course, this would offend nearly everyone's notion of "personal freedom." But nearly everyone's notion of personal freedom is wrong anyway. Perhaps the evidence being developed that shows that tech companies use algorithms to drive behavior will begin to expose our ignorance and misunderstanding of what "freedom" really is.

In the meantime, I live in an HOA that mandates lawns. So we do our best. We only run the irrigation when it's necessary to maintain the lawn. Most folks run it on a timer, and it gets watered whether it needs it or not. Mitzi uses electric tools and does the work herself. Most folks hire landscapers, who use gas-powered tools.

We live in a region that is car-centric, like nearly all of America, with some marketing features that purport to show golf-carts as an alternative. Where we can, we use the golf-cart. We drive an SUV, a vehicle enormously larger than our needs, but a plug-in hybrid with the longest available battery range at the time. We only have one car, though the golf cart should count as a vehicle.

We're roughly 90% self-sufficient on power on an annual basis, but we're still net-positive in terms of the overall energy balance. That is, we provide more solar power to FPL's grid than we receive from FPL's natural-gas powered generators.

We Americans will have the biggest problem in adjusting to the new reality, and a new reality is coming whether we want it or not. It will be imposed on us by the climate, by the biosphere. Degrowth will happen. What we might hope for is a controlled descent, rather than a violent one.

What we can do now is begin to think about and be aware of all the ways we do too much. Have too much. Take too much. Want too much.

And maybe try to embrace less, and see "growth" as the cancer that it is.

This isn't a guilt-trip. But a day is coming when guilt and regret may plague the survivors. I could be wrong. Denial is a powerful coping mechanism.

This piece has been making the rounds in my feeds, and it seems to be resonating with a few people, including me.

Most of us are caught on a treadmill of constant software updates. Some of that is necessary because of how tightly-coupled software is to modern existence, and the security vulnerabilities it exposes to faithless actors (including criminals).

My rant about Apple moving the pause and stop buttons on the Fitness app on the Apple Watch is very much in this mode. Change for the sake of change, or rather, so someone has something to put on their brag sheet when performance reviews come around.

I'm sure it won't be too long before the new locations are committed to muscle memory. And then they'll change them again anyway.

When I was a young man, technology and technological change was exciting. I don't know if it still feels that way for young people today. It wasn't just the marketing. At least in my cohort, we were seeing many things for the first time. Calculators, "home computers," digital cameras.

What are some examples of new, consumer-facing technologies that young people are seeing for the first time? I can't think of any. But maybe I'm just old.

There are new apps. New colors, new ways of presenting the same things.

When home genetic engineering kits become available, maybe that'll be exciting. People home-brewing their new pets.

At some point, my 27" iMac will become unsupported in new OS updates. Maybe Sonoma is it. Maybe then I'll get to enjoy "finished software."

What's kind of interesting about retro-computing is the experience of watching people discover these old machines for the first time, and seeing oldsters with deep, profound knowledge about how they work, kind of guiding people around.

I struggled briefly last week with wanting to buy an Apple ///. I can afford it, but I really have no place to put it. And once you buy the box, you wind up buying a ton of other crap to go along with it. So I'm sticking with an emulator.

Emulators are often updated, so I guess they're not "finished software." But presumably they're getting closer to perfect fidelity because they're chasing a finished, fixed, objective.

Originally posted at Nice Marmot 07:34 Wednesday, 1 November 2023

My new month Edict worked flawlessly this morning. I see one more tweak I might make to it. (Adding the name of the export file.) Otherwise, pretty much a hands-off thing. Cool.

I've read a few things in my feed and on Mastodon about Apple's recent product introduction. No 27" iMac. I'm not sure how I feel about that.

Is a 27" iMac kind of metaphorically similar to a Ford F-150 lifted and ballooned to be bigger than a Sherman tank the same kind of thing?

How much more does a 27" iMac consume in manufacturing resources than a 24" iMac?

We want what we want, but do we need it? I could probably exist quite happily on a 24" iMac, but I'm not likely to get one anytime soon.

There's this insanity in computing that's like the myth of "more lanes" when it comes to traffic congestion. Traffic just expands to fill the existing road space, so congestion never decreases. Software just expands to take advantage of the increased compute resources. Your super-wham-o-dyne bazillion teraflops box with VR display turns into a dog slow boat anchor in a few years.

And you feel it as you're posting cat pictures.

We're nuts. The world's on fire. There are people in the world who are actively opposing democracy, equality and equity, and, get this, they're doing pretty well. One of two major political parties in this country is enthusiastically supporting them, and pretty much pursuing the same agenda right here at home. News from the cryosphere ain't good. Hottest year in human history.

But we're complaining about a corporation not offering consumers a giant toy.

Habituated thinking. Hysteresis. Inertia. The inability to see what is right before our eyes.

We're nuts, and blind and screwed.

Anyway, I'm not buying any new Apple products anytime soon. I thought I might get that AR/VR headset thing, but it just seems irresponsible to do that now. Just one more toy to distract me from the unmitigated, incontestable, ongoing catastrophe unfolding before our eyes. (On screens of all sizes.)

Feels like a good way to start the month.

Figured I'd ride the bike this morning and check out the garden. It's been pretty foggy, but it looks like it's starting to lift.

While I'm waiting, I might as well close out October here.

I posted a pic of this morning's moon on Mastodon, and someone remarked that they needed to upgrade from their smart phone. I follow them and they take some very nice pics with their phone, and I said so.

Jack's thinking about cameras. I've been thinking about them too, but not in the way I used to. I haven't had a GAS attack in months. (GAS is camera-nerd for "gear acquisition syndrome.") The mZuiko 8-25mm crosses my mind from time to time, but doesn't seem to hold my interest.

Rather, it's the garden that's got me thinking about my cameras again. I was really pleased with the way the shots from the XZ-1 turned out, and it reminded me of how much I really enjoy that little camera. The Stylus 1s, likewise, pleased me when I took it along and got the shots of the bees at the banana tree.

I haven't been carrying my compacts in a long time. Mostly just the OM-1 with the 75-300mm zoom on my walks, hoping for birds. I took the OM-1 down to the kayak launch point on Saturday morning with the 12-100mm zoom mounted, hoping to get a nice sunrise. I haven't been shooting landscapes for such a long time, I really failed to take advantage of the camera's best features. I stayed in auto-ISO when I could have shot at ISO 200, relying on the combined image stabilization of the 12-100 and the OM-1's IBIS. I could have used handheld hi-res too. You get stuck in a rut looking for birds and forget how to use the camera for anything else! (F-18s are almost like birds.)

Anyway, I'm happy with the cameras I have. I expect I'll remain that way for many years to come.

I think I'm going to put the 40-150mm/f2.8 on the E-M1 Mk3 and take that to the garden. It'll do handheld hi-res and if there's no wind (as the fog seems to suggest), I may try some HHHR shots. Might pop a circular polarizer on it too. But, maybe not.

Looks like it's getting pretty clear so I'll wrap this and go strap a bag on the bike.

Originally posted at Nice Marmot 08:19 Tuesday, 31 October 2023

"Lured by the nation’s highest premiums and new laws making it harder to sue insurance companies, investors see an opportunity in Florida’s broken insurance market. Current and former state officials and other observers said they are receiving regular inquiries from potential investors looking to make a profit."

Having created an insurance crisis, through a combination of incompetence and dereliction of duty, Republican lawmakers now seek to profit from it.

John P. Weiss is always worth a read. Today especially, I think.

I found the link to Kate Marvel's quote in this piece. Just one dimension of the multi-dimensional challenge we face.

This resonated strongly with me. Faith is the foundation of existence. Love is the first derivative of faith with respect to time, "Love is faith in action."

Courage is the second derivative of faith with respect to time. Acceleration, a force. The means of change.

We need courage, not hope. Hope and faith are different things.

Nothing better for a Sunday.