On This Day in the Marmot

Accountability and Transparency

01:53 Tuesday, 11 March 2014
Words: 264

We believe people, and corporations, are responsible for the things they do. When they break the law, hurt people or the environment, we believe in holding them accountable.

In order to hold people and corporations accountable, we have to be able to observe what they're doing.

Apple was held accountable for Foxconn's working conditions because people were able to observe what was going on and report on it. Conditions changed. They improved. Whether they've improved enough is perhaps debatable. But the fact is that without observation, without some level of transparency, there can be no accountability.

Edward Snowden provided transparency into what was going on within the NSA, at some cost to his liberty. The NSA is now being held accountable, at least to some degree. Whether it's enough is perhaps debatable.

What is Google doing in its data centers?

Who is Google's Edward Snowden?

Why does Google deserve more "privacy" than you do?

There is no accountability without transparency.

What is Google doing in its data centers?

Can Google subvert democracy with the information it is amassing on everyone?

Can Google influence what bills make it out of committee?

How is Google different than the most massive opposition research organization ever conceived?

Can Google influence which candidates choose to run?

Can Google influence which representatives choose to retire?

Can Google influence how legislators vote on legislation?

What is Google doing in its data centers?

What does Google know about your representatives?

What does Google know about government regulators?

What does Google know about federal prosecutors?

What is Google doing in its data centers?

The blue hour...

21:37 Sunday, 11 March 2018
Words: 565

Since sunrise is an hour "later" this morning, I considered walking to the beach to get some sunrise shots. But once I got outside, I noticed there were no clouds. Now, there may have been some clouds low on the horizon at the beach, I'll never know. They can add a little interest, but probably not enough to walk to the beach. Since I already had the camera ready, I took a few of the pond.

If you click on the image, you'll get a larger 3MP version, where the sky noise (also reflected in the pond) is readily visible. Part of this was laziness on my part. I bumped the ISO up because I was kind of hurrying. The E-M10 Mk2 has 5-axis image stabilization, and I probably could have shot this at ISO 200 if I cared to take my time.

I probably shouldn't point it out, because unless you're a photographer, or a hobbyist, you'd probably never notice it. And once someone points it out to you, you'll never not notice it.

But it's a technical point, and it doesn't overly detract from the image, unless the technical points are what you look for in an image.

When I first started shooting, someone pointed out to me that my horizons were always tilted. So I'd use iPhoto to straighten them. Jonathon Delacour, himself a skilled photographer, said I should never do that. He felt that the tilted horizon was part of how I framed the image in the viewfinder. So, for a while, I just posted tilted horizons. But I always noticed them, because someone once pointed them out to me.

Well, many cameras today come with the same gyroscopes and accelerometers that are in your phone. They can display the tilt of the camera, both horizontally and vertically. The vertical (pitch) tilt is important in order to avoid "converging verticals." Again, this was something I never noticed, or, at least, didn't think it was "wrong," until I read about it. In an image like this one, where you're trying to capture the reflections in the water as you see them, you need to have the camera sensor parallel to the image plane, otherwise the reflections will be distorted. Again, if you don't know to look for it, you probably would never notice it. But once you do...

So now I have the orientation indicators on more often than I have the histogram. I can kind of gauge exposure through the viewfinder or LCD, but my eye isn't good enough to know when the camera is "straight" without help. I can tell after the shot, on the computer, but not composing it through the viewfinder. So the indicators help.

I shot a lot of architecture on our wedding road trip. All the shots are distorted geometrically. Drives me nuts now. Some of them aren't fixable, really. And if you really want to get things straight from the disadvantaged ground level point of view most of us are stuck with, you have to use a tilt-shift lens and a tripod.

Anyway, I guess the point is, the more you know, the more frustrated you can be.

Tilt

22:07 Sunday, 11 March 2018
Words: 257

This is a small example of the problem of geometric distortion. We spent a day or so in Asheville, NC last October. Lovely city. Hipster vibe is a little too on the nose for my taste, "Austin of the east!" or something. But lovely city.

Anyway, there's a great story about civic construction in the early part of the 20th century, funded by bonds, which was immediately followed by the Great Depression. The city paid off all the bonds, eventually, but there was little interest in a lot of the new developments that took place in the 60s. I may not be exactly correct on that story, but that's what I recall. The upside is that Asheville has perhaps one of the best collections of Art Deco architecture in the country, and I love Art Deco.

I believe this is city all. First shot is straight out of the camera, the other is cropped and rotated a bit - I may have used PT Lens to try and fix it, but I can't recall - other than being very frustrated with PT Lens.

SOOC:

Edited:

So Many Rabbit Holes

06:31 Saturday, 11 March 2023
Current Wx: Temp: 54.81°F Pressure: 1008hPa Humidity: 87% Wind: 8.05mph
Words: 999

I can't say I've ever been diagnosed as having attention deficit disorder, but I do have a short attention span. Novelty seeking behavior, which the internet affords seemingly limitless rewards.

The Monarch RE-760 arrived and it cleaned up very nicely. Love the way it looks. I'll take a pic one of these days.

It works, but it's pretty deaf on the low end of the AM (or MW for "medium wave" for the radio geeks) band. I've got my eye on another one. If I'm successful, I'll pull the chassis out of one and see if I can restore its hearing.

Goodwill's online auction site is another rabbit hole. I've got two little nonsense radios inbound. One is one of those hand-cranked "emergency" radios. The other is an old general purpose, large portable with AM, FM and weather band coverage, which, frankly, I didn't need. Reasonable price though, comparing it to eBay.

Typing random search terms into Goodwill's site can provide endless hours of entertainment. I missed an opportunity to get a Tivoli Model One for about $50 last night; because one thing led to another ("Ohh! What's that???"), and I forgot about it because I didn't set up a reminder.

Snipers exist on Goodwill. The interface isn't as responsive as ebay, so it's tricky to time it well. And for some reason, most of their auctions end after my bedtime. So I slept on the Model One. It went for $36, which seems like a great price, but that can be deceptive with Goodwill. You always have to estimate the shipping cost before you bid. It varies widely. That particular store was reasonable, so the radio would have cost, with shipping and "handling," about $50, which I think was reasonable for that specimen. The finish on the cabinet was near perfect for a radio that was about 18 years old. There's a nearly identical one on eBay listed for $50, with $15 shipping, with a scratched up top. It's a local seller, so I might be able to arrange local pickup. We'll see.

There was a $45 Model One on eBay with $15 shipping, also in very good shape. Listing said it accepted offers. Seller had zero feedback and no other items listed. I submitted an offer for $40, and the item was taken down.

The cause of my distraction was part of an Elegoo robot car kit. I didn't know what that was, so I had to do some "research." It's an incomplete kit, but it includes the cpu. A newer version, complete, is $55.00 an Amazon, so once you factor in shipping on it, as a "spares" purchase, it's not a remarkable deal.

But I did end up buying a new one on Amazon. Why? I don't know.

I spent some time studying the manuals of my two Sangean HD radios. I have the tiny portable HDR-14 and a table top HDR-18. The smaller one has memory for 20 preset stations, while the HDR-18 only has 10. The 18 is much easier to program than the 14. It wasn't clear from either manual if you could store individual HD channels for a given station. It turns out you can. It can take several seconds for the digital channel to decode though, so give it some time.

I mostly use the digital channels with the local public radio station, WJCT. They offer three digital channels, one of which is the Electro Lounge, which I like to listen to.

The RF-2200 went off to be re-capped on Wednesday, should arrive at the service today, I'll check the tracking on that. Good communication with the guy who's going to do the work, so I'm optimistic.

Inside Saul Hall (our house) isn't a very friendly radio environment. There's a lot of electronic noise from the LED lighting, and the roof decking has an aluminum foil backing to help lower the temperature in the attic. It does better as a faraday cage than an IR barrier, in my opinion. But Mitzi's recently completed screened addition, with comfortably upholstered chairs, has made a nice space to play around with radios outside. Antennas will remain a challenge due to HOA rules and penetrations, but it's better than being inside the house.

Mitzi told me that a member of the women's club that she serves with on a committee is an amateur radio operator. That surprised me a bit. If so, and if she's active, it may facilitate making arrangements for taking a license exam. We'll see.

I've been keeping up with mailing a card to mom every day. I need to start paying attention to which photos I've sent her. I don't keep individual files of every card, just replace the image in the same file for a given card size. Feels pretty good getting some use out of these expensive photo printers I've had for many years.

In other news, I'm reading Aftermath: Life in the Fallout of the Third Reich , by Harald Jähner and Shaun Whiteside. It's less sensational than Savage Continent, which I stopped reading about halfway through, but equally depressing.

There must be a whole area of academic study on the matter of "truth and reconciliation," for lack of a better term. How human beings come to terms with their inhumanity to one another, even if those terms are largely unsatisfactory. We have our colonial past, killing and displacing indigenous people, and slavery, which we seem largely incapable of confronting. The Balkans, Rwanda, Cambodia, South Africa, Armenia, the list goes on.

It feels like the general response by those responsible is to ignore it, bury it, suppress it.

Perhaps thereby, inevitably, to repeat it.

"Never again?"

Germany, publicly at least, appears to be the exception. But I'm not sure how genuine it is.

A post for another day I think.

I'll close on that happy note, and go take a walk. I think I'll need pants. It's a little chilly this morning.

Accountability and Transparency

The blue hour...

Tilt

So Many Rabbit Holes

A Quick Test For Mark

Night Sky

Overhead

Geekin' Out

BBC News

Subscribed!

Local News

Breakfast of Champions

Breakfast of Champions Part Deux

Florida

Tripping Around the Blogosphere

Like, "Nobody could have foreseen this..."

Things To Do

Action Taken

The Big Lie

Further to the Foregoing

The "Good Old Days"