Analog

00:08 Sunday, 10 August 2014
Words: 702

These are some unidentified people in photographs I discovered on an undeveloped roll of film in a thrift-shop camera.

I went to the Community Hospice of Northeast Florida Thrift Shop last Monday, mostly to drop off some items I wished to donate. (I had a very nice Breville Juicer, which I’d used precisely never in five years. They’re right. You’re better off just eating the fruits and vegetables.) While I was there, of course I browsed around.

Got a nice Brother daisy-wheel electronic typewriter. Doesn’t have an electronic display, but it has a sixty-some character "memory," so it can retype your mistakes for you. Or something. Anyway, I expect to begin work on my manifesto any day now. (Hey! It was $10.00! They still sell them! Cost you $85.00 on Amazon. And no way Google or the NSA is going to peer over my shoulder while I document my fevered conspiracy theories!)

Bought a router/drill guide attachment for a rotary tool. Designed for Black & Decker, works for my Dremel although there is some difficulty attaching the drill guide. $3.00.

In a display case, I noticed an odd looking camera, it was a Minolta Freedom 90EX QD, 35mm point-and-shoot. About a year ago, someone had given me a bag full of expired 35mm film, knowing my interest in photography. I no longer had a 35mm film camera, but I kept it anyway because I suppose I’m a latent hoarder.

Anyway, I figured I’d buy the camera. While I was peering into the case, I saw a small Olympus leather camera case. I asked to take a look at it, and it turned out there was a camera in it! It was an Oly Stylus (mju) Zoom 105. I pulled the lens cover open and the camera powered up! There was still a battery in it, and a roll of film.

I bought it too.

The Minolta is the older camera, released about 1992 (the manual is copyright 1992, may not have been on the market until ’93); the Stylus was released in ’95.

The two images above are from the seven that had already been exposed on the roll. Looks like the couple was at Disney’s Animal Kingdom, and all of those seven were from that trip. The battery was manufactured in August 2008. Perhaps they put a new battery in the camera before their trip, so these pictures may be from about 2008. They appear to be an older couple, and the Stylus was around $300.00 when it was new, so perhaps they hadn’t made the transition to digital, having a good compact point-and-shoot that they liked.

The shots I took with that roll were very bluish, I guess the red-sensitive chemicals degrade faster than the others. I shot another roll Tuesday morning just around sunrise. It turns out that’s too dark for this camera. Images were blurry from camera shake due to long exposure times. The good news is that auto-exposure and auto-focus seem to work.

I ordered a battery for the Minolta and that cost as much as the camera. It’s a 6v lithium 223. I’ve shot a few frames from another roll of expired film, and I want to experiment with some of the features of the camera before I finish it. Apparently it’ll permit double exposures. I’ll have that roll printed, then I’ll probably buy a couple rolls of new Fuji film and see what kind of images I can get with unexpired film.

One of the things that struck me was that I really do seem to appreciate using the LCD display to compose shots. Even the electronic viewfinders in the E-M1 and E-M5 are better than the tiny viewfinders in these point-and-shoots. I can’t see myself using these on a regular basis, but it’s interesting to be reminded of what it used to be like when taking pictures.

It’s better today.

Simple Enough

20:56 Wednesday, 10 August 2022
Current Wx: Temp: 81.18°F Pressure: 1018hPa Humidity: 94% Wind: 3.44mph
Words: 409

How does one manage "knowledge?"

PKM is a TLA for "personal knowledge management."

What is "personal knowledge"? Is it "knowledge" that one manages "personally"? Or is it "knowledge" about one's person? I suspect it's the former. In fact, I'm certain of it, I'm just being a smart-ass.

Why are we using the word "knowledge" now? Didn't we once have PIMs? "Personal information managers". A Palm Pilot, a Newton, that sort of thing? Is "knowledge" a more privileged word than "information"? Does it require a different form of "management"?

I suspect it's just a form of ego-inflation. "Information" is a commodity. "Knowledge" is scarce, valuable. Anyone can find "information." Seeking "knowledge" is a mission.

I think we should be skeptical about this current PKM fad. I think it's a bubble. It's inflating a certain type of software and the reputations of certain individuals who think they have their hands on something that can help them in some way unrelated to managing "knowledge."

If you ask me, and nobody does, which is fine, I don't think we need better tools or techniques to "manage knowledge." Information, yes.

Then there's the "tools for thought" (TFT) bubble. Can a tool help you think? Yes, I suppose it can, insofar as it can augment working memory, which is a finite cognitive resource. They can also augment long-term memory, but I'm not sure that's really a "tool." Is a bucket a tool? I guess if you stand on it, maybe.

In The Making of the Atomic Bomb, Rhodes described Fermi watching the instruments monitoring the reactivity of his atomic pile, and he would use a slide rule to help him confirm that the behavior of the pile was conforming to the theory.

Is that "thought"? Maybe.

I suspect the "thought" occurred long before, and this was all just behavior.

The thinking occurred as a result of experiments, where physicists tried to imagine (think about) what might explain the things they were observing.

Are experiments tools for thought? A tool is something that has a function. Is the function of a tool for thought just to give us something to think about?

I don't know. I'm just thinking out loud.

But people do get infatuated with their tools, their insights, their processes and habits.

I don't know. I'm an authority on nothing. I make all this shit up. You're encouraged to do your own thinking.

With whatever tools you that make you happy.

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Another Necessary Adjustment

22:02 Wednesday, 10 August 2022
Current Wx: Temp: 85.53°F Pressure: 1018hPa Humidity: 80% Wind: 8.05mph
Words: 420

The HVAC contractor called yesterday, said they didn't have the Mitsubishi split system they'd quoted to me, and assured me was, in stock. Six to eight weeks. Supply chain. COVID. Whatever.

But they did have the next higher-performance unit in stock. 18 SEER, 9.9 EER. So we negotiated a bit and I'm getting that installed on Monday. Basically split the difference between the original quoted price, and what it would have been with the better unit.

EER is a more relevant measure of performance for cooling than SEER. The 16 SEER unit was a 9 EER. So the next step up is 10% more efficient than the lowest cost unit. Theoretically, I should need about 10% less overall energy to do whatever cooling I'm going to do in the garage.

This is useful to me from the standpoint that I'll be less likely to "run out" of our own, locally generated power, and more likely to remain a modest net energy source.

Overall, we make more power than we use, the excess is sent to FPL and they credit us for that amount. It's not a lot, because they won't let you put more on your roof than you're likely to need.

On those days when we've had a lot of cloud cover, or high demand, and the batteries are flat, we'll draw power from the grid. We don't end up paying for that power because of the credits we've earned. The last time I looked at the data, we were a net positive. They'll never "pay" us for the excess energy we provide to the grid, and I think the credit expires with some periodicity, so it generally works out to FPL's favor. Plus they now charge us $25 a month just for the grid connection, exclusive of any energy credit.

Since we installed the system, we've added the RAV4 Prime plug-in hybrid, which is a big load. And now we're adding the garage AC. I put a Level 2 charger in the garage (essentially a 220v circuit), which charges the car in 5.5 hours from flat, versus 11 hours on 110v AC. If we're clever, which we sometimes aren't, we wait to recharge the car until about 0900 as the solar production begins ramping up and we can power the house, recharge the car and still recharge the batteries, albeit without sending as much or any power to FPL.

All in all, a happy ending. Installation is scheduled for Monday. Peak Florida, an air-conditioned garage.

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!Florida Moment

02:01 Thursday, 10 August 2023
Current Wx: Temp: 95°F Pressure: 1010hPa Humidity: 57% Wind: 8.05mph
Words: 114

Dropped a card in the mail to Mom this morning. Timed it perfectly, as the garbage truck was just collecting our trash, so I brought the container back up to the garage on my way back in the house. I flipped open the cover to the keypad and saw a flash of green and felt something cold and soft hit my forehead and stick!

Startled the heck out of me and I jerked my head forward to dislodge whatever it was. It fell to the dirt, happily not on the hard pavers. Little green tree frog! Seemed to collect itself and then hopped into the shrubs. Another Florida moment. One of the good ones.

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Rabbit Hole

20:44 Thursday, 10 August 2023
Current Wx: Temp: 83.52°F Pressure: 1009hPa Humidity: 88% Wind: 8.05mph
Words: 76

Got little I'd planned accomplished yesterday. Went looking for my Dad's other pics of Nagasaki, found a couple and uploaded them to Flickr at the end of the LCS(L)-103 album. Decided I should look for other pictures of Nagasaki after the bombing to see if I could identify at least the church. Failed. But then I got sucked into this at the Truman Library, and pretty much the rest of the day was shot.

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!Concur

22:53 Thursday, 10 August 2023
Current Wx: Temp: 89.76°F Pressure: 1011hPa Humidity: 73% Wind: 11.5mph
Words: 33

I concur with Jack Baty and Petapixel. I don't make enough use of all of Flickr's features, but that's slowly increasing. I prefer Flickr for sharing photos to things like Instagram or Pixelfed.

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And Now for Something Completely Different

10:18 Saturday, 10 August 2024
Current Wx: Temp: 86.38°F Pressure: 1017hPa Humidity: 78% Wind: 10.36mph
Words: 455

Been watching some movies lately, and figured I'd post something here in lieu of, well, anything else.

Saw The Fall Guy the other night. Loved it. Ryan Gosling has some comedic chops! Loved the dog too. "Engage your core!"

Mitzi and I saw The Marvels in the theater when it was out, and when I read something in a review of Deadpool and Wolverine about how many references it made to the tangled mess of the MCU, it prompted me to want to see Captain Marvel. So I bought the combo from Apple TV and watched them in reverse order, as one does. Mitzi had gone to the head in the theater during the big song and dance number in The Marvels, and she loves musicals, so I figured she'd enjoy seeing it again anyway.

Well, I also enjoyed Captain Marvel very much, and it got me on a little super-hero binge, a genre I was very tired of.

I had Deadpool 2 in my library, but I evidently never watched it! That's been rectified and I enjoyed it very much. But that made me want to revisit Wolverine's first movie appearance in X-Men, so we watched that next. (I should check the Groundhog Day archive, because I recall seeing X-Men in the theater and being pleased with it. (Twenty years ago!))

That led me to look for Logan, also in my library. But this time I watched the Logan Noir version. I haven't done any background reading, but it doesn't appear as though they did any re-grading of the original, as the tonality seems to resemble something less "noir" and more "digital." But I enjoyed it nevertheless. About a third of the way through it, you kind of forget that it's in b&w and you're just enjoying the movie.

Oh, and we watched Guardians of the Galaxy again too. Fun.

That's where we've stopped for now.

Streaming-wise, it's been pretty dry lately. I started watching the fourth season of The Boys again. It's a tough sell. It's so over-the-top on the violence and gore, but the characters and plot are engaging. And I love the way they kind of dis the whole fan culture. It reminded me of the mainstream press and the way they cover Trump. He shits all over them, but they keep going back for more. Talk about co-dependency!

We saw the Netflix movie Hit Man too. Enjoyed it.

I'm anxious for the return of Slow Horses and Silo.

That's it for now. Guess I've got to go get a box spring for the Finger Lakes (FLX) place and bring it home on the roof of the RAV4. Should be fun. (Not.)

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Tim Walz

15:25 Saturday, 10 August 2024
Current Wx: Temp: 87.51°F Pressure: 1015hPa Humidity: 72% Wind: 12.66mph
Words: 178

Kottke pointed to the Tim Walz Fixed Your Bicycle site. (Or you can follow this link.)

On my way home from Publix, encountering my fellow Nocatee-ans, (not to be confused with Nocateens, the juvenile of the species), a "Tim Walz..." occurred to me, which then prompted a whole series on the way home.

The ones I recall follow:

Tim Walz uses his turn signals.

Tim Walz returns his shopping cart.

Tim Walz polices his brass. (Military reference. "Brass" are spent shell casings.)

Tim Walz picks up after his dog.

Tim Walz recycles.

Tim Walz picked up your trash can after the wind knocked it over and put the trash back in.

Tim Walz let you use his pickup truck to get a box spring.

That's about all I can recall.

I suppose it's possible we can get a little too excited about Tim Walz. All men have feet of clay, after all.

But I'm certain that Tim Walz is among the ranks of the "genuinely nice men" in the world.

Not "perfect." Just a decent human being.

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Further to the Foregoing

15:48 Saturday, 10 August 2024

Current Wx: Temp: 90.21°F Pressure: 1015hPa Humidity: 67% Wind: 14.97mph
Words: 0

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Furniture

15:51 Saturday, 10 August 2024
Current Wx: Temp: 90.21°F Pressure: 1015hPa Humidity: 66% Wind: 12.66mph
Words: 833

The box spring made it safely home on the roof of the RAV4. I had some ratchet straps that I don't use often enough to really understand how to use them correctly. Happily, they worked well enough.

Because we live in an area of suburban sprawl that is still developing, there's a lot of "churn" in the online marketplace. People moving out. People moving in. Buying new furniture and getting rid of old furniture. Wide selection to choose from and many bargains to be had.

We've got to furnish this place up in FLX, and it's not our primary residence so we're not looking to spend big money on furnishing it. Normally, this would be kind of a fun opportunity; but it's complicated by the distance.

We're going to head up there in September, assuming the closing goes through this month, to take possession and basically learn how to light it off and shut it down. We'll only be up there for a week, but we're going to need something to sleep on. And we have nearly enough "stuff" to supply another house. Flatware, cookware, tools, towels, quilts, extension cords, etc.

So we're going to pay some service to drop off a big trailer here. We'll fill it as much as we can and they're going to haul the thing up to New York. We'll fly in and rent a car and be there the day before it's supposed to arrive. Weather permitting. One night on an air mattress.

The challenge is, storing this stuff for now. We considered renting one of those storage units, but it's only for a few weeks, and we weren't certain they'd let the trailer sit there for three days. Frankly, we're not sure the HOA is going to be happy about it. "Forgiveness is easier than permission," and so on.

Anyway, we're stashing it in the garage and Mitzi's office (the spare bedroom) for the time being.

Once we get up there, I've got to figure out how everything works with this radiant heating in the floor. It has a mini-split for AC, but it'll also heat I'm sure. Basically need to make sure it doesn't freeze. Because of the rather unfamiliar nature of the environmental controls, I won't have a smart thermostat to monitor the internal temperature. So I'm going to buy another weather station with an interior sensor. It'll give me data on the local weather as well, which will be interesting to track as time goes on.

I'm also getting a couple of networked cameras, just so I can see what's going on outside the place. Our nextdoor neighbor is the seller's father, and I think I mentioned we met him and that he's a very nice guy. I'm sure he'd kind of keep an eye on the place, but I want to have "eyes on" myself. Mitzi's daughter and son-in-law may come up sometime while we're not there. I'll let them know how to disable the cameras. Ian puts tape over his phone camera, so I'm sure he could do the same but I'd rather not deal with the adhesive residue.

It's kind of exciting. Jack linked to John P. Weiss' post this morning before I could. It resonated with me as well. "Old guy angst," begins to intrude. I think this place in New York is going to be something of an antidote for that, at least for a few years.

I'd told Mitzi that I wanted to cover the front patio or porch. The other morning, on my walk, I realized that that would obscure the sky from the kitchen window. Worse, the stars! We may look into a retractable awning at some point, but for now we're bringing a big umbrella we have out back but seldom use.

Brad, the seller who built the place, estimated covering the porch would cost maybe as much as $10K anyway. That made me swallow hard, but I figured we could swing it. Now we don't have to.

We do want to put in an ADU (accessory dwelling unit) next to the place, in lieu of an addition, to offer another bedroom for family and guests. It won't be a full-on "tiny house." More like a hotel room, though I think we'll go tall so we can add some loft space for kids. Toilet, shower, sink and power. A little closet space, some sort of HVAC. Maybe go with interior wood instead of drywall. Been watching a lot of YouTube videos on tiny home construction and shed conversions. A lot of clever ideas out there.

We could get "really small," (Steve Martin reference) but we want guests to be comfortable too. So we'll see. Again, apart from probably having to deal with a contractor again, and writing checks, it'll be fun and exciting.

It was 100°F here yesterday. Flooding in upstate New York. All things considered, I think I'd rather be in New York. Ask me again in February.

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Speaking of Flooding

16:52 Saturday, 10 August 2024
Current Wx: Temp: 89.73°F Pressure: 1015hPa Humidity: 74% Wind: 10.36mph
Words: 44

Shelley, residing in our neighbor to the north, offers a report on their situation and prospects for the future.

Georgia may be more purple than Florida, politically, but they're just as clueless when it comes to figuring out what the future holds. Development rules.

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These Are Better Days

09:11 Sunday, 10 August 2025
Current Wx: Temp: 72.68°F Pressure: 1024hPa Humidity: 68% Wind: 5.59mph
Words: 312

A close friend sent me a text yesterday, saying she read this in The NY Times and thought of me. I asked her to gift me the link because I'd unsubscribed to the Times many years ago for its dereliction of journalistic duty.

If you can't, or won't, click through, it's a piece by John McWhorter about his newfound appreciation for Bruce Springsteen as a poet.

My friend mentioned the comments, and so I read some of them (there are over a thousand). Familiar sentiments, similar views. Nothing to complain about.

It's hard for me to describe the place that the Boss holds in my heart. While little of my biography could be said to be reflected in his lyrics, so much of my inner experience was. Enduring that experience, surviving it, and ultimately transcending it was a journey with Bruce as a companion and often a guide.

Bruce has written and spoken of his father's struggle with depression and his own. Been there, done that. Still encounter it from time to time, but not so much anymore. Doesn't seem to find any purchase. No ghosts that haunt me these days. Maybe they'll be back someday, but I don't think so.

I think that's probably one of the few gifts of getting old.

Therapy was undoubtedly more valuable than the CD player, but the music was more accessible. More available. In the car, in the parking lot, in tears before going to work.

Everything was so everything back then.

Now everything is just everything. And that's okay. It leaves space. Admits grace?

Everything is exactly the way it is supposed to be.

Do your best, the rest is not up to you.

We're all in this together.

We only have moments to live, and none of us is getting out of here alive.

So just breathe.

Because these are better days, baby.

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Taughannock

15:15 Monday, 10 August 2026

Current Wx: Temp: 69.08°F Pressure: 1014hPa Humidity: 91% Wind: 9.42mph
Words: 280

The framers were here at 0600 this morning, and I can see them from my desk as they stand on the walls of the basement, handling floor trusses as they're being handed up by Brad's excavator. This gave me anxiety, so we went for a hike at Taughannock Falls.

On our way home we stopped at Here, a restaurant in Hector. We'd heard good things about it, but we'd never eaten there before. Well, it's a popular spot. They opened at 0900 and we got there about 20 minutes after opening and the parking lot was full!

Mitzi had a breakfast sandwich and I had the huevos rancheros, and we agreed they were delicious. It was a beautiful morning so we ate outside at a picnic table, while the people near us played corn hole.

After all that we headed home. I was relieved to see that they'd placed a few of the pieces of subflooring on the trusses, so they could handle the trusses more safely.

Thunderstorms rolled in about 1300, so they knocked off for the day. They have only three more trusses to set, and then they'll start putting down the subflooring.

I'm still grappling with the HVAC design, and worrying now about how the plumbing for the primary bathroom and the half bath may interfere with the ducting. One small thing working in our favor is the happy accident of having the basement ceiling also be 9'4", which gives us room for soffits if we have to route plumbing below ducting, or vice-versa.

I will be so relieved when we finally get this figured out.

Other than that, it was a pretty nice day.

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