Photos Finish

11:59 Friday, 20 November 2015
Words: 635

I've finally given up on Mac's Photos app. I ended up moving all the images that had been in the iCloud Photos app back into Aperture. At some point, I suppose Aperture will stop working with Apple's latest Mac OS releases; but for now it works well enough.

When Photos was announced, what appealed to me was the possibility of having a single, consolidated image library accessible on all my "devices." It never really worked that way, and it wasn't practical with the tools Apple gave me to manage a large library.

If you have a large library, iOS doesn't give you any meaningful way to search for images beyond the date and perhaps the location if the image is geo-tagged. Ideally, iOS would allow you to search all exif data. Even the Mac version of Photos doesn't give you full access to exif data. So, while I could theoretically access my full image library on my iPad Pro, I couldn't do a great deal of useful work on it in the Photos app.

The iCloud library was always struggling to stay in sync. Sometimes it was thousands of images out of sync. This would happen when I'd upload a large number of images from a significant event. I think I uploaded over 2,000 images in October when the Blue Angels performed here. Photos is in no way equipped to handle that kind of load. I'd never ultimately keep that many images, but Photos doesn't give you any real tools to make the kinds of comparisons between images that helps you decide which ones to keep. For a certain number of images, the vast majority, it's relatively simple to use the large thumbnail view to go through and delete the clinkers. But when I got to a couple of images shot in sequence where the composition is mostly identical, I'd like to closely examine both images and see which one was sharper. In Aperture, I can have two images open at 100% at the same time. In Photos, you can't have two images open at the same time, and you can't even maintain the 100% zoom while scrolling through images. If it at least offered a fixed zoom while scrolling, you could flip back and forth with arrow keys and quickly determine which image was superior. But you can't. If you're at 100% on an image and hit the arrow key to view the next image, it loads scaled to fit the size of the window, and you have to hit Z to zoom to 100% and it's impossible to rely on persistence of vision to determine differences in sharpness.

The library also got confused. I'd have duplicate images, sometimes three or four of them, with bizarre file names. These images were full-sized, so they all counted against the storage limit. And I was never certain how iCloud was handling RAW images. It seemed to suggest that with RAW+jpeg images, it uploaded both of them, but all you would ever see was the jpeg unless you chose to create a new jpeg from RAW. In Aperture you have a number of options regarding how you wish to handle RAW files in the library, and it was very clear once you'd made your choices.

For now, I think the best idea is maintain my image libraries in local storage and use cloud services for backup or sharing, not as a primary repository. Aperture remains a superior image management application, with enough editing tools for the majority of my needs. Photos is a significant regression, even from iPhoto, in my opinion. At best, it seems designed to support the very casual photographer who relies mostly on the iPhone as their primary camera. For anyone else, certainly for me anyway, Photos remains an utter disappointment.

XZ-1 Sunset

16:39 Wednesday, 20 November 2024

Current Wx: Temp: 80.98°F Pressure: 1008hPa Humidity: 75% Wind: 8.05mph
Words: 338

Busy evening yesterday, installing an over-the-range microwave. We've been very fortunate here to encounter some remarkable people in the trades. Derrick Marsh is just the nicest guy. He was here for about two and a half hours getting this microwave wired and installed.

I'm loving it here. We took a little walk around "the property" (sounds very pretentious), and imagined where we might build another house, keeping this one as a guest house.

There may be some snow in the offing tomorrow night, we'll see how she feels then.

Got the weather station on the new network. YouTube is your friend here. Ordered some flood sensors. We're not here long enough for me to figure out setting up a solenoid valve to cut off the water in the event of a leak, but that'll be a project for this summer. As it stands, if we get a report of a leak, we'll ask the neighbors to check it out.

It's a gamble, buying these IoT devices. A significant number of the reviews are negative regarding connectivity issues, device malfunctions or battery life. I went with Aquara, as that's what I'm using for cameras. They're not ideal, but they seem to work and I was able to switch them over to the new network without developing a throbbing vein in my temple.

Spent a lot of money at Home Depot yesterday, adding tools to what I brought up here from home. Partly trying to anticipate price increases due to tariffs, and partly as a hedge against a potential SHTF scenario. I'm certain I don't have anywhere near what I'd need, but I'm in better shape than I was yesterday. Being friendly with the neighbors is probably the best investment in that regard.

It was cloudy most of the day, clearing a bit toward the afternoon. I'd put the little Olympus XZ-1 on charge earlier today and used it for this shot. It may be my imagination, but there's something about this landscape that "feels like home."

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Little Victories

07:24 Thursday, 20 November 2025
Current Wx: Temp: 26.74°F Pressure: 1025hPa Humidity: 82% Wind: 4.03mph
Words: 651

It was a very sunny day yesterday, with little wind, so it was pretty comfortable working outside at 40°F.

Mitzi put my Ridgid Pro Gear System Gen 2 toolboxes up on Facebook Marketplace in the morning and we had them sold by the afternoon. Generally, anything she puts up on that service gets sold rather quickly. The slowest was the set of Makita battery chargers I didn't need (and not many other people do either, it seems). It did generate a lot of messaging, usually people asking if it included batteries.

I worry about reading comprehension.

So we went down to the storage unit to complete the transaction and to look for the Hanukah menorah, which of course was in a box at the back of the unit. But the sale of the toolboxes and that effort yielded a kind of corridor within the pile of personal possessions, which will be useful in the future.

I hadn't heard anything back from Westinghouse, because why would I? Before boxing the thing back up to return to Home Depot, I figured I'd make another attempt to start it.

Several first attempts were the same as the previous ones. No indication at all that it could start. I verified proper alignment, because I was a qualified Engineering Officer of the Watch, and followed EOSS (Engineering Operational Sequencing System), and got zilch in the way of encouraging sounds or vibrations.

On a whim, I cycled the fuel select valve back and forth between gasoline and propane several times. It wasn't so much a whim as thinking perhaps something hadn't fully engaged. There was no immediate sense that it would make any difference. Nothing clicked like it hadn't before, but it didn't cost anything to try.

So, choke out, fuel on, Run/Stop in the Run position, and pull!

It coughed!

Choke in slightly, pull again.

Nothing.

Okay, something happened.

It took several more attempts, with little coughs of encouragement from time to time; but just when I was about to give up (and had removed my jacket and begun sweating), it started.

Woo-hoo!

Quiet little thing. I hadn't anticipated success so I had nothing to plug into it to put a load on it. I went back in the garage where most of my tools are of the aforementioned Makita cordless variety. But I found the heat gun and took that outside. The cord was stiff from the cold, but I got it straightened out and plugged it into the 120vac outlet and turned it on. The generator responded as if it were under load, and the heat gun, well, heated. (Never put your hand in front of a heat gun to see if it's on. That should probably go without saying, and I'm happy to report that I didn't. But I didn't want to leave that out there in the ether without a proper offering to the safety gods.) I wilted and burned some grass with it.

Okay, progress. Now, can I replicate success?

Run/Stop to Stop, engine stops. Let it set for a few minutes.

Choke out, Run/Stop to Run and pull.

It ran.

One in the win column. Now if the power goes out and the batteries run low, I can recharge the batteries right here on the hill. Though, honestly, I'm probably going to look into using an EV charger in the village if they have power. We've had a lot of wind the past week or so and the power hasn't flickered. So I'm optimistic that between last year's snowfall, last summer's thunderstorms and the pruning effort the utility made during the summer, most of the vulnerable trees and limbs are down. There will be outages, but they will be fewer in number and thus quicker to restore, and we shouldn't see another 30-hour outage at least for this winter.

Mostly a good day, yesterday.

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God Bless Mark Kelly

15:32 Thursday, 20 November 2025
Current Wx: Temp: 46.54°F Pressure: 1020hPa Humidity: 59% Wind: 4.21mph
Words: 109

I'm not as plugged into the news as I once was, so this story got past me when it broke.

“There’s a real issue there of morale and a feeling like they don’t have a lot of senior leaders who are protecting them,” Ms. Slotkin said. “There’s a lot of folks in the rank and file who feel very alone.”

A lot of retired senior "leaders" who have been sitting on their hands and covering their asses. This isn't as timely as I would have preferred, but these people have more to lose than the professional talking heads who appear on the cable news channels to offer their "insight."

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