GAS* Attack
14:08 Tuesday, 1 January 2019
Words: 1781
I suppose, in some ways, it may have been inevitable.
When I broke my Call of Duty habit, a certain amount of the recovered hours of the day have been spent revisiting cameras and photography. Aperture had been my preferred application to manage my collections of images, and my editor of choice. But Apple's abandonment has begun to manifest itself in flakey performance issues.
So I've decided to embrace a kind of belt and suspenders approach to library management. I'm going to use Photos and iCloud, along with Finder and an external HD in case Apple ever abandons iCloud like they did iDisk. I upgraded my iCloud storage to the top tier 2TB level, which should be plenty of storage for probably the remainder of my life. I'm also a Flickr "Pro" and so most of my jpegs from my cameras (not my iPhone) are automatically uploaded to Flickr when I import them into Finder. I really need to think about how to dispose of all this digital imagery upon my death. But not today.
I haven't quite nailed down the workflow yet. At the moment, I'm using Image Capture to grab the images from the camera and storing them in the external drive in a folder system broken down by year and camera at the moment. I use the new Gallery view in Mojave to do the initial review/culling. Then I'll select the best candidates and drag them into Photos. The RAWs won't go into Photos because of the size, but I am using the full rez jpegs now, so 12-16-20MP, which is why the 2TB should be useful. Apple's use of the High Efficiency Image Format for storing smaller versions in the System Library makes this feasible on a 750GB SSD. My MacBook Pro is going on six years old now, so I don't really know when I might begin to expect problems with the SSD. I still have a reported 268GB of "free" space, but that number is somewhat elastic the way the OS accounts for storage these days. I think I'll probably need a new machine in a year or so.
So I've enjoyed a few days of mucking about in the Photos library, getting rid of a lot of junk that shouldn't be in there, (Screenshots of things I wanted to remember, pictures of issues I wanted to report, etc.), and enjoying some happy memories and accidental art. I need to impose some additional structure on the library. What I have is kind of an artifact of what I imported from the Aperture libraries, and Apple's own structure. It's mostly a mess right now.
As far as editing goes, I've had Affinity Photo since about the time it was released. It's probably a deeper editor than Aperture ever was, so there's a lot to learn. I bought their book to kind of help me figure everything out. I do really enjoy their panorama feature, and I managed to figure that out without any trouble. One of the things that surprised me about Affinity Photo is that they seem to use their own RAW engine, or they've tweaked Apple's somewhat. I have a compact Olympus XZ-10 that shoots RAW images. It's a tiny 1/2.3" sensor, but it's a small body with a good lens and a nice zoom range, so I like to stick it in my pocket from time to time. But Apple's RAW engine was never updated to interpret the XZ-10's RAW format. Now, Olympus likely uses very similar RAW formats for all their processors, and it's probably just the header data that changes, and if you could change the header data to another Oly body Apple's RAW engine did support, it'd probably support it just fine. I don't know if Affinity wrote their own engine or tweaked Apple's to ignore some of the meta data, but XZ-10 RAWs open just fine in Affinity Photo. So, cool!
I also bought RAW Power from the App Store. The developer was formerly a member of the Aperture team at Apple, and it's just a modern interface to Apple's RAW engine that resembles Aperture's. I like it because it's familiar, and it wasn't expensive. But it is limited to whatever Apple's RAW engine supports. But if you liked Aperture, it's $29.00 well spent, I think.
I've also been reflecting on my experience in Ireland and trying to shoot with primes in that environment, and my ultimate capitulation to just using the kit zoom to reduce the physical and cognitive workload. I currently don't have a good "normal" zoom. I sold my Zuiko 14-54mm f2.8-3.5 last year. It was built for Oly's original four-thirds system, and it was a wonderful lens, but it was a little large for micro-four thirds. I have the plastic 14-42mm f3.5-5.6, and also the electronic zoom that has the same specs, but collapses into a pancake form factor when off. Both are adequately sharp. They won't make your eyes bleed, but they won't embarrass anyone either. If anything, almost any lens is too sharp these days to shoot flattering portraits without a lot of post-processing. But they're not very bright, and you're more limited in your ability to achieve subject isolation by controlling depth of field.
So I was thinking about perhaps getting the Olympus Pro 12-40 f2.8 lens. It gets stellar marks, covers a more useful range than the 14-42, is weather-sealed and has a great close-focusing ability. It's also f2.8 throughout the zoom range, so you get decent depth of field control (for this format), and you can keep the ISO down or the shutter speed up in more challenging shooting situations than you can with the kit lens.
The only problem was the price. It's a premium lens, and Oly charges a premium. Even used, I wasn't seeing prices much south of $600.00. I think I paid about $400.00 for the 14-54 new, back in the day. It'd be a bit of a stretch for a guy living on a fixed income.
Or would it?
I'm going to be 62 this year, and I intend to begin collecting Social Security at my first opportunity. I did the math and I have to live to be 78 or 79 (I did the math, I just forgot the exact result) before I start coming out dollars ahead if I wait until my "full" retirement age of 66.5 years. If you don't already have a defined benefit pension that you can live on, it's wiser probably to wait. But in my case, I can make good use of the opportunities the reduced benefit affords me now, and not significantly adversely affect my hoped-for future longevity.
Mitzi reminded me that I have to apply in advance if I want to begin receiving SS as soon as I'm eligible. So I went to the web site, which seems unaffected by the shutdown, thankfully. I learned have a couple of months before I can apply, and I also checked on my expected benefit. Hmmm... Income perhaps not so "fixed?"
As it turns out, Olympus is launching a new flagship DSLR, the E-M1X, on January 24th. So their current flagship, the E-M1 Mk2 is being being bundled with some lenses at a nice discount to help shift some inventory. I have the first version of the E-M1, and bought it new at release back in 2013. I checked my shutter count this morning and I have just over 40,000 activations. As a "pro" level body, it's supposedly rated at 100K activations and people have reported getting upwards of 200K before replacing their shutter. So mine is in its early middle age, and it's performing well. The back rubber grip has come off, but I have a replacement that I haven't been bothered to install. The one thing I don't like about my E-M1 is focusing, chiefly continuous auto-focus on birds in flight, dragonflies in flight, and Blue Angel F-18s in flight. The E-M1 was supposed to be better in auto focus than the E-M5, because it incorporated phase-detect pixels in the sensor. And, truthfully, it was better. But they weren't "cross-type" phase detect sensors. So, for some targets, particularly things like birds, dragonflies and planes, you were more likely to attain and hold focus if you shot in portrait mode than landscape, which isn't ideal for many reasons. There was also no focus-limiting feature, either on the 40-150mm lens, or in the body, so when it lost focus, it would often rack through the entire focus range. The 40-150mm Pro has the manual focus clutch, and that's useful many times, but I couldn't manage to master it for action shots. I'm not sure anyone has. The MK 2 changes that by incorporating more phase detect pixels at both orientations, and a focus limiting setting in the camera, so if you're shooting planes miles away, or bugs yards away, you can help the lens figure out where to start.
When it was released, the Mk 2 was priced at $2K, which was too rich for me. But now that it's been out for a couple of years, and is about to be supplanted as the top-tier body by the M1X, the price has been reduced to a somewhat more reasonable $1700. You can find it cheaper on the gray market. But you can buy it bundled with the 12-40mm Pro lens for $1999. That's pretty close to better than I could do buying both used.
So, I've rationalized buying myself an early birthday present. I've ordered a bundle that should be here Wednesday. Not in time for a photo walk with my friend at the Jacksonville Arboretum, but in plenty of time for me to become intimately familiar with it before we head up to the Finger Lakes this summer. I'll pay it off with my first SS check, and then be more responsible going forward. Unless that 300mm/f4 looks too enticing. But let's not go there yet.
Anyway, I realize there's something irrational about all this. I don't shoot birds, or dragonflies or F-18s in flight often, so how much of an improvement is it? But the 12-40mm is a sound choice, and it gets me a nice discount on a better body that may inspire me to get out there more and shoot birds and bugs and planes, and maybe surfers too.
Time will tell, and I'll let you know how it turns out.
|*GAS: Gear Acquisition Syndrome
Faithlessness and Dishonor
09:28 Friday, 1 January 2021
Words: 1181
The mob insurrection we all witnessed on January 6, 2021 will be an event that forever indelibly stains American history. To be sure, there are many other such events; and American history is nothing if not "complicated" by immoral actions, decisions and beliefs. But this one was unique.
This one was, if we are lucky, the culmination of years of duplicity, perfidy and faithlessness by a U.S. president. If we are unlucky, it was only the opening battle in what may be a lengthy and costly insurgency within our country.
But the president didn't act alone. He was aided, abetted and enabled at every turn by one of the two major political parties in America, the Republican Party.
When Trump announced his candidacy to be the Republican nominee for president, the party reacted the same way any political establishment would, they scoffed. He was a failed real estate developer, a game show host who craved the media spotlight. A huckster for his brand, his political career seemed just another way to promote it. "Serious" Republicans didn't believe he had a chance of winning the nomination; but, one by one, he defeated and humiliated each of them.
And each, in their turn, acknowledged him; most actually embraced him. "If you can't beat 'em, join 'em," seemed to be order of the day. What Trump had exposed was that the Republican electorate was hungry for the brand of populist, white nationalism he was selling. It was angry and energized and aggrieved.
This post isn't intended to analyze the American political landscape or the descent of the Republican Party from "the party of Lincoln," to the party of Q-Anon. That's too much for one post. This was to just briefly set the stage.
After five years of political insanity, the election of 2020 seemed to be a very clear repudiation of Trumpism, at least. Although Democrats did not enjoy the "blue wave," many predicted or hoped for, Trump was soundly defeated by the popular vote and overwhelmingly defeated by the electoral college.
American democracy, it seemed, had rejected Trump and his brand of demagoguery and incompetence.
But not Trump.
And so the Republican Party, in an act of groveling sycophancy, rejected democracy.
This post is about my representative, "the honorable" John Rutherford, Republican.
My local paper has recently published two excellent commentaries on this matter, and I commend them to your attention. The first was from Nate Monroe on the day of the insurrection. The second was published this morning by another talented reporter and writer, Mark Woods. Each takes Representative Rutherford to task for his decision, along with over a hundred of his Republican colleagues, to object to electors from a number of states.
Rutherford's district is solidly Republican. Although Duval County went for Joe Biden, the Democratic portion of the city is carved out of Rutherford's district. I'll go into that another time. The practical effect is that Rutherford's seat is safe from a Democratic challenge. I was part of an effort that supported someone we believed was a viable candidate who could challenge Rutherford, Donna Deegan. Unfortunately, the conventional wisdom proved correct and we came up short on that effort.
The result of being in a safe district is that Rutherford has nothing to fear from the left. His only significant challenges can come from the right. And so he must pander to the most extreme elements of the Republican Party in order to fend off a primary challenge from any candidate who believes he is insufficiently "conservative."
It also means that as long as he panders, the only constituency that matters to him isn't going to be taking a hard look at his rhetoric or votes. This makes him unaccountable.
And lazy.
If you take a look at his online media, Facebook, Twitter and his official web page, you can read what Rutherford chose to share with his constituents after the election, up to the the date of the certification of the electors.
After the election, Rutherford posted little on any of his online media accounts expressing any concern or reservations about the election, allegations of fraud or malfeasance by state governors or courts. It didn't seem to be an issue that was commanding much of his attention.
During that same period, Trump and his allies were crafting the false narrative that the election had been stolen, that he'd won in a landslide. They were taking cases to court, and losing them, and relentlessly fomenting anger and outrage among his supporters.
Rutherford could have done something he's never done before in his terms of office, he could have been a statesman, placing his country's interests before those of his party. He could have voiced confidence in the election, in the process of resolving issues in the courts, in the American ideal of democracy.
He did not. He chose silence.
The cowardly complicity of silence.
Then, more than five weeks after the election, on December 12th, it was reported that Rutherford had signed an amicus brief supporting the Texas Attorney General's suit, seeking to overturn the election results in four states.
On December 10th, Rutherford had quote tweeted John Kruzel, legal affairs reporter for The Hill, who was three tweets into a thread on the suit. The one Rutherford chose to quote included screen caps of four basic claims in the suit. The previous two tweets showed the names of 106 Republican House members who had signed onto the brief. Rutherford's name appears on the second image of the second tweet of what was ultimately a six-tweet thread.
In his tweet, Rutherford did not announce, declare, mention or otherwise indicate he had signed onto the brief. Instead, he @'ed Donald Trump, and wrote:
We are a nation of laws. As @realDonaldTrump has said, there is substantial evidence that officials violated state law in at least 4 states. The Supreme Court must rule on these allegations immediately so the appropriate due process and constitutional framework may be followed.
Perhaps he believed everyone would read up the thread and notice he'd signed onto the brief. He sure didn't seem to be making it clear that he was a part of it. And that was it. Nothing further when the suit was tossed by the Supreme Court on the same day Rutherford chose to quote Kruzel. If it was an issue he felt strongly about, as his rhetoric suggested, he sure wasn't making any effort to make it clear to his constituents.
The suit accomplished nothing. The amicus brief accomplished nothing. Except, it validated the unfounded fears and resentments of those who were being misled by Trump and his enablers, Rutherford among them. It told them the election was rigged. The presidency was stolen from them. John Rutherford fed that narrative, and "what you feed, grows."
On January 1, 2021 he broke his silence again and made this announcement to his constituents via Facebook and Twitter. There is no press release on his web site containing this statement.
In his brief statement, there is little in the way of specific deficiencies.
Imposter Syndrome? Moi?
11:20 Sunday, 1 January 2023
Current Wx: Temp: 59.88°F Pressure: 1006hPa Humidity: 92% Wind: 5.75mph
Words: 519
I used to subscribe to the New Yorker because I like it and I wanted to support it. But since I was paying for it, I felt as though I had to read it, and I couldn't keep up. So it felt like I was wasting my money. (As if I don't waste money in many more useless ways.)
But they have my email address now, and I hear from them regularly. This morning, for instance.
The article they commended to my attention is this one, The Objectively Objectionable Grammatical Pet Peeve, by David Owen.
I'll almost always read an article about grammar or writing because, well, I'm a blogger. On my desk is a book that arrived Monday called Writing Tools, by Roy Peter Clark, because someone mentioned it in another blog that I subscribe to. ("To which I subscribe?" This stuff will make you nuts.) Maybe I'll blog about it.
I'm not a writer, writers write. I blog.
But I'm conscious of the fact that what I'm doing involves writing; and I have two fears when I'm doing this, neither of which has had the good effect of compelling me to stop. I'm afraid that I'm writing badly, and I'm afraid that it's boring.
Yet I keep doing it. It's some kind of compulsion. Especially now, since I'm not satisfying my itch by issuing regular doses of snark on Twitter.
I liked Twitter from the standpoint that it was usually just a 280 characters. I'd go on a thread rant now and then, but most of the time it was just 280 characters in which I would offer a creatively cynical take on the feckless fools who think they govern around here. Or a dark preamble in a quote tweet of some disquieting climate news.
It was short. I could fuss over it a bit, but never very long. Spelling and typographical errors were my bane, and I'd often reply to myself with an *correction to show that I'm not, you know, ignorant.
Blogging is different. It's almost like writing. Much more anxiety.
When we watched Hallelujah, I was struck by how much Leonard Cohen labored over his lyrics. Whenever I hear or read about how writers or artists struggle with, or refine and hone their prose, I feel bad.
I pound this stuff out, kind of listening to it as it's going on the screen and keep going. Occasionally something will grate and I'll fuss with it a bit, but I'll keep moving. If I can't keep moving, I'll quit. If it's something I liked or cared about, I might stick it up in the Drafts container, hopefully to revisit it. I almost never do. Usually I just delete it.
So, whoever reads the marmot has my gratitude and my apologies. I'd like to say I'm doing the best I can, but I'm certain that's a lie. I just can't help myself.
(It's 7:54. The time-stamp for this post shows it began at 7:20. 34 minutes for 500 words. 2170 characters. 7.75 tweets. There's a certain amount of overhead copying and pasting links.)
✍️ Reply by emailCool Phone Wallpaper
12:13 Sunday, 1 January 2023
Current Wx: Temp: 57.92°F Pressure: 1007hPa Humidity: 91% Wind: 12.66mph
Words: 97
Follow the James Webb Telescope's Flickr account, get cool wallpaper. Click through to the official link in the description for larger images.
✍️ Reply by emailCloudy With a Chance of "Meh."
13:58 Monday, 1 January 2024
Current Wx: Temp: 56.91°F Pressure: 1010hPa Humidity: 50% Wind: 9.22mph
Words: 338
Got the OM-5 yesterday and of course the weather is uninspiring. It feels denser than I thought it would, heavier than such a tiny body should be. But lighter than an E-M1!
I'll probably go out in a bit, try to get some exercise and hope something catches my eye. Perhaps some new and exotic fungus or something.
I've been printing and mailing a photo as a greeting card for my Mom every day. The idea is that she gets something in the mail every day. But the U.S. Postal Service seems to have other ideas. She'll go days without a card, then get four or five at once. Kind of defeats the purpose. The ones she likes she tacks on the wall (tapes?) outside her apartment and her neighbors comment on them. In a good way, I suppose.
KEH is going to be in town next week. Maybe I should make an appointment and bring a box of "extra" stuff I have and see if I can reduce the clutter and get a little "walking around money" in the process. That'd be the smart play.
Finished Monarch and For All Mankind last night. Both were, overall, better than I'd expected at launch. If Monarch doesn't return, I think it ended on a satisfactory note, that it was relatively self-contained as a story.
If For All Man Kind returns, I guess we're looking an alternative history of a decade ago. I wonder if the conceit runs out of steam at that point. What's the entertainment value in a subsequent season that offers a vision of the present that is predicated on an alternative past? Beats me, but we'll see. Maybe it's just an "I told you so," moment for everyone who thought we'd have colonized the moon and Mars by now.
Reacher seems needlessly gratuitously violent. That seems to be a thing with some Prime shows, like The Boys.
I've got to get busy and read my 100 pages of The Power Broker too.
✍️ Reply by emailRSS Test
16:37 Monday, 1 January 2024
Current Wx: Temp: 55.74°F Pressure: 1011hPa Humidity: 39% Wind: 17.27mph
Words: 20
Fixed a bit of hard-coded date stuff in the RSS export template. Next January things should go much smoother.
✍️ Reply by emailInfrastructure Week
06:26 Wednesday, 1 January 2025
Current Wx: Temp: 55.58°F Pressure: 1017hPa Humidity: 71% Wind: 10.36mph
Words: 918
Happy New Year!
To usher in the new year, I seem to have contracted some upper-respiratory crud. Blech.
I'm happy to note that the Tinderbox files that I have open all the time both rolled over to the new year successfully. But now I need to set up an automation to create a new 2025 Images folder for the marmot. I could put a test in the Photos export automation to look for a folder named for the current year, and if it doesn't exist, create one. But it only happens once a year, so why do all that work every time I want to post an image?
This is the year we escape Florida. To that end, Mitzi has secured the use of a small temporary storage facility where we'll stash stuff ("clutter") as we begin the process of making the house presentable for prospective buyers later this spring.
To that end, she also took a bunch of stuff to Goodwill. I threw in a bunch of radios I accumulated on my "radio kick." Do not be misled, I still have lots of radios. I plan to take over the shed next to the garage and finish it inside to make it my "radio shack." Put a couple of solar panels on the roof and a big battery inside. It'll be my office, or hideout, or getaway until we decide on where we're going to live full-time.
She also sold her kayak and accessories yesterday. Guy took it home strapped to the roof of his Toyota Camry, lying on some bathroom rugs with the rubberized bottoms so the kayak wouldn't slide around. It's a lot easier putting a kayak on top of a Camry than a RAV4.
As a couple living in a rural setting, relying on one vehicle will be less practical than it is here in this "planned community," where they planned to not make it walkable; but you can take a golf cart or a bike to damn near anyplace you need to go. So I'm looking at owning a car for the first time in more than a decade.
Not a car, exactly. I'm going to lean-in on the "rural" thing and buy a truck. Trying to be a savvy consumer, I "did my research," and decided that the Ford Maverick hybrid is the one I want. I originally toyed with the idea of an F-150, but they're just too big, too heavy, use too much gas and cost too much, even used.
The Maverick is so popular, high-mileage used ones are going for nearly the original sticker price. So I'm going to buy a new one. Base model, the XL, 2024, with the Ford Co-Pilot 360 package, and that mainly for the rear crossing sensors for backing out of parking places. When I park, I try to look for a spot that I can pull through (no curbstone), so I can pull out rather than back out. There are a few at a local dealer, I'll see if I can get one. Mavericks. Not parking spots.
I know the Maverick has been the subject of many recalls, and one issue remains unresolved at the moment - the backup camera will freeze and you'll be looking at a still image rather than live video if you rely on it to, you know, back up. So don't rely on it. But people genuinely seem to love it, and it seems to regularly exceed its EPA mileage ratings. I won't be a commuter, mostly around-town (or country) driving, so it should be economical to operate.
When family comes to visit (realistically, we're probably only talking her daughter and son-in-law from DC and their son), we'll be able to throw a couple of inflatable kayaks, PFDs, a cooler and some picnic supplies in the bed, and all be able to fit in the cab to go to a park by the lake. That would not all fit in the back of the RAV4, and the lower bed of the Maverick is more accessible than the bed of a conventional body-on-frame pickup, and way more accessible than the roof of the RAV4.
And I foresee making semi-frequent trips out near Albany to visit Mom or my siblings, so the highway mileage being pretty decent is a plus as well.
We're probably going to be living in the large "tiny house" for at least a year, maybe more, so our expenses will be significantly reduced, New York taxes notwithstanding. I'll try to pay down the car loan as fast as I can. If I kick off some time in the next several years, my youngest daughter will get the Maverick if she wants it. Each of my two older kids got a car at some point in their lives. Melissa got hers the earliest, as a teen, a VW bug, 1974 I think. I gave my son and his wife my Outlander Sport when Mitzi moved in with me at the condo. They're still driving it as their second car.
Almost hate to say it, but I'm kind of excited about owning my own car again. I love the RAV4 Prime, but it's Mitzi's car; and there are some things that we do that'll be easier with an open truck bed, even one as short as the Maverick's.
Anyway, new year, new adventure. Almost makes gettin' out of bed in the morning worthwhile.
The beat goes on...
✍️ Reply by emailthe marmot checking in the net
05:54 Thursday, 1 January 2026
Current Wx: Temp: 12.27°F Pressure: 1008hPa Humidity: 74% Wind: 13.44mph
Words: 427
Popping in here to make sure everything went according to plan, and it appears as though it has. I seem to be on the backside of this thing. Wasn't the worst viral infection I've ever experienced, but it wasn't a walk in the park either.
Most notable, or unusual symptom was cognitive. I had the most bizarre dreams, though I'm not really sure they could be classified as the usual REM-sleep kind of dream. I hardly slept at all.
It was more akin to "lucid" dreaming, where by "lucid," I mean out of my mind. Decidedly unpleasant, though one included my funeral at the Naval Academy with the Pope in attendance, which is just totally weird, and a troubling sign of subconscious delusions of grandeur. (Can delusions be subconscious? Beats me.) Another one was a recurring frustration with a computer program, though I have some idea where that originated. And a third was trying to solve an operational logistics problem with missile launchers, fuel trucks and control stations, solve for the greatest rate of sustained fire. And it was unsolvable because "they" wouldn't give me all the data. (Not that I have an idea how to go about solving such a thing anyway.)
No idea where that came from.
Got a nice note from Noah Valk, thank you.
I'm reluctant to say I'm happy to have 2025 in the rear-view mirror because, let's face it, there ain't that many left up the road. But 2026 will be different than any of the decades past, if for no other reason than we are no longer in Florida, which is a good thing even with winter gales in the mix.
I was thinking about Bodhi early this morning. I often wish I had a dog up here, but I think it might be a bit too much for me now, especially if I get sick or the weather gets weird. Saw a YouTube video of a woman thrown by a storm door caught by gust of wind after she'd opened it. I suppose we could make a fenced-in area for him to go out on his own. I wonder how this wind experience might shape our house plans? Maybe some kind of alcove for the doors? ("Make a note of that, Dave.")
Anyway, the stuff one "thinks" about when one can't do much else.
Still have the cough. Still behind on my sleep. But I can sit at the keyboard, which is more than I could do yesterday or the day before.
So, Happy New Year!
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