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knapjack honked back 11 Dec 2023 00:25 +0000
in reply to: https://mastodon.scot/users/marisa/statuses/111558851879341488

@marisa Absolutely.

This one has likely seen some abuse, and it's still in really good mechanical shape. Some light haze in the viewfinder and some school engraving and more red paint on the back, but it's kinda fun.

I have a Spotmatic SPII that has been treated pretty well that's in dire need of a CLA. This thing, I think it'll outlive us all.

knapjack bonked 10 Dec 2023 23:32 +0000
original: [email protected]

I had an interesting conversation this morning with a homeless guy. Employed, but not enough to pay rent. Clean and well dressed. Talked with justifiable pride, I think, about the system he has set up. A gym membership to stay clean and healthy. A locker to store his tent and gear during the day.

Talked about how violent the shelter system is.

It’s a deep cruelty that in a land of such abundance we deny basic necessities to people.

#Housing #HousingIsAHumanRight #Encampment

knapjack bonked 10 Dec 2023 21:54 +0000
original: [email protected]

The #library card is *the* emblem of a child’s standing in civic life: their direct access to a public service, not mediated or controlled by others. The library card grants rights to the politically voiceless and powerless.

It’s more radical than the idea of #democracy itself.

knapjack bonked 10 Dec 2023 21:51 +0000
original: [email protected]

Blizzard Warning issued December 10 at 6:32AM AKST until December 11 at 6:00AM AKST by NWS Anchorage AK
* WHAT...Blizzard conditions due to blowing snow expected. Winds gusting as high as 60 mph. Visibility reduced to as low as one quarter mile.
* WHERE...Matanuska Valley.
* WHEN...From noon today to 6 AM AKST Monday.
* IMPACTS...Travel will be difficult. Areas of blowing snow could significantly reduce visibility. The hazardous conditions could impact the Monday morning co... #akwx

knapjack honked 10 Dec 2023 21:49 +0000

I may have overpaid, but picked up a clean Auto Chinon 50/1.4 for $20 USD.

I kept thinking of @marisa's K1000 + SMC 50/1.4, all the goodness she produces, and how it might make a nice kit to keep around.

Body is another thrift shop find from a year or two ago, sub-$5 if I remember correctly because the original lens was busted. Hello Colony Middle School #3. Hope your yearbooks were excellent.

#AlwaysBeThrifting

Pentax K1000 camera with a colorful Chinon lens lying on the table. A red 3 is painted on the left-hand side of the camera body, left over from its days as a middle school camera.

knapjack bonked 10 Dec 2023 16:37 +0000
original: [email protected]

I am stuck, someone must know of such an app?

I have a eink tablet (https://goodereader.com/blog/electronic-readers/boyue-likebook-mars-e-reader-review) running Android, but recently switched from Tiny tiny RSS to Fresh RSS (freshrss.org).
Now there seems to be zero clients/apps which run on the eink tablet and support Fresh RSS syncing?
Don't really want go down the route of converting the OPML/RSS for this one device but RSS reading on eink displays are great.
Any thoughts???
#lazyweb

knapjack bonked 10 Dec 2023 16:24 +0000
original: [email protected]

My mother and grandmother, Coney Island, 1929. From my mother's albums.

I'm still having trouble dealing with mom's death 4 weeks ago, but it is slowly getting better. I have to say though - it is hard to lose someone you've loved for 7 decades.

EDIT: Here are some Mom Stories. She fancied herself a critic, reviewing tv shows and movies with style.

=====
Jul 13, 2022
I tried calling my mother the other day and she told me "not now, call back later" and hung up on me. It turned out she was watching Dr. Pol, the TV veterinarian, and didn't want to miss the episode.

"I love watching a man with his arm up a horse's ass," Mom said.
=====
Jul 23, 2022
They fixed the theater projector in Independent Living last night, so Mom saw The Godfather for the first time.

Me: So how was it?

Mom: Well one lady talked to herself through the entire movie and shouted THAT'S TERRIBLE every time someone was shot, and we all scrambled at the end because everyone needed to empty their bladders.

A monochrome photo of a woman in a flapper-era haircut (tight curls) and outfit (pleated skirt, blouse that hangs below the waist, beaded necklace, scarf) holds the hands of a 3 year old girl. They are standing on a boardwalk in Brooklyn NY, in front of a 2 story Hotel and Baths. A sign on a deli advertises HOT POTATO CHIPS... and an American flag flies at half mast on the roof of the hotel building.

knapjack bonked 10 Dec 2023 16:22 +0000
original: [email protected]

"If I read a book [and] it makes my whole body so cold no fire can ever warm me, I know that is poetry. If I feel physically as if the top of my head were taken off, I know that is poetry. These are the only ways I know it. Is there any other way?"

Letter to Thomas Wentworth Higginson (1870)

~Emily Elizabeth Dickinson (December 10, 1830 – May 15, 1886)

#books #poetry #literature

knapjack bonked 10 Dec 2023 16:20 +0000
original: [email protected]

Man Announces He Will Quit Drinking by 2050.

A Sydney man has set an ambitious target to phase out his alcohol consumption within the next 29 years, as part of an impressive plan to improve his health.

The program will see Greg Taylor, 73, continue to drink as normal for the foreseeable future, before reducing consumption in 2049 when he turns 101. He has assured friends it will not affect his drinking plans in the short or medium term.

Taylor said it was important not to rush the switch to non-alcoholic beverages. “It’s not realistic to transition to zero alcohol overnight. This requires a steady, phased approach where nothing changes for at least two decades,” he said, adding that he may need to make additional investments in beer consumption in the short term, to make sure no night out is worse off.

https://theshovel.com.au/2021/10/26/man-announces-he-will-quit-drinking-by-2050/

#GlobalWarming #Oil #BigOil #FossilFuel #Climate #ClimateChange #ClimateCrisis #Drinking #Problem

Man Announces He Will Quit Drinking by 2050 A Sydney man has set an ambitious target to phase out his alcohol consumption within the next 29 years, as part of an impressive plan to improve his health.

The program will see Greg Taylor, 73, continue to drink as normal for the foreseeable future, before reducing consumption in 2049 when he turns 101. He has assured friends it will not affect his drinking plans in the short or medium term. Taylor said it was important not to rush the switch to non-alcoholic beverages. “It’s not realistic to transition to zero alcohol overnight. This requires a steady, phased approach where nothing changes for at least two decades,” he said, adding that he may need to make additional investments in beer consumption in the short term, to make sure no night out is worse off.

Taylor will also be able to bring forward drinking credits earned from the days he hasn’t drunk over the past forty years, meaning the actual end date for consumption may actually be 2060. To assist with the transition, Taylor has bought a second beer fridge which he describes as the ‘capture and storage’ method.

knapjack bonked 10 Dec 2023 16:16 +0000
original: [email protected]

The eXodus continues apace, and when you see that some person/org finally got/bought a clue and made the transition from X to 🐘 — and you are even *remotely* interested in said person/org: — tap the 'follow' button (I still despise that term Twitter coined).

We need to encourage more folks/orgs to get/buy said clue, and the biggest reason folks fear leaving is "losing reach". That's vain & daft, but so are all of us humans.

knapjack bonked 09 Dec 2023 23:52 +0000
original: [email protected]

On this day in 1968, Dr. Douglas Engelbart gave a tech demo in San Francisco. It became known as "The Mother of All Demos" and was the first time people outside of Engelbart's development lab would see working concepts like:

- a computer mouse and a GUI
- windowed tasks and documents
- real-time remote audio/video conferencing
- real-time remote document collaboration
- hypertext / document linking
- revision control
- WYSIWYG document editing

Much of the demo was recorded and you can watch it on YouTube. There were serious technical issues with recording the event -- it *was* a demo after all -- so some segments of the event weren't captured, but what was recorded is still a shocker.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yJDv-zdhzMY

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Mother_of_All_Demos

knapjack bonked 09 Dec 2023 23:51 +0000
original: [email protected]

The abandonment. This little boat was lying on a beach in Bic, Canada. It is a beautiful place with infinite landscape configurations.

This image shows the bow of an old, weathered boat, foregrounding a misty, mountainous seascape. The boat's wooden structure is visibly deteriorated, with its paint peeling and wood splintering, indicating long-term exposure to the elements. A thick, yellow rope lies haphazardly across the boat, adding a splash of color to the otherwise muted tones of the scene. In the background, the soft silhouettes of mountainous islands emerge from the haze, and the calm sea stretches out towards them. The overcast sky suggests a gloomy or tranquil atmosphere, and the stillness of the water implies a quiet, perhaps abandoned location. The composition of the photograph, with its focus on the decayed boat in the context of the natural surroundings, evokes a sense of forgotten history and the passage of time.

knapjack bonked 09 Dec 2023 20:39 +0000
original: [email protected]

Bothy snacks – This shot about six weeks ago. Having just climbed Cnicht with friend and experienced climber Chris, in very strong winds, the descent and hike back was fairly gentle, with a pleasant stop at this bothy and fold.
— 
📷: Pentax MX + SMC M 28mm 
🎞: Fuji Gold 200 
🧪: The Darkroom UK
💡: Plustek 8200i + Silverfast 8  
—  
#FilmPhotography #BelieveInFilm

A figure in bright coloured hiking gear sits at a tumbledown bothy on a hillside, looking toward nearby mountains. The mountains are hazy with others even more shrouded in mist further away. The image is captured with a wide angle lens on colour film.

knapjack honked 09 Dec 2023 09:22 +0000

Allies don't let allies bomb children.

knapjack bonked 09 Dec 2023 05:25 +0000
original: [email protected]

y'ever think about how the modern concept of notifications and the ubiquity thereof are a completely new complication to the human experience over the last ~125 years or so? like, pre-telephone, how many things occurred each day to interrupt the flow of the average person's life?

notifications are used too casually.

knapjack bonked 09 Dec 2023 03:57 +0000
original: [email protected]

Implementing a web browser is literally impossible.

"The total word count of the W3C specification is 114 million words […]. If you added the combined word counts of the C11, C++17, UEFI, USB 3.2, and POSIX specifications, all 8,754 published RFCs, and the combined word counts of everything on Wikipedia’s list of longest novels, you would be 12 million words short of the W3C specifications."

https://drewdevault.com/2020/03/18/Reckless-limitless-scope.html by @drewdevault

knapjack honked 08 Dec 2023 15:10 +0000

About five or six inches of fresh snow fell last night at our place. I was out running the (electric) snow blower at 4 AM. I'm certain our neighbors love me about as much as my wife right now, but it's the time I have.

I still have maybe twenty minutes of unearthing the cars before anyone leaves. Even with the early start, I'm going to be full White Rabbit mode any second now.

🐰⏱️☕

knapjack bonked 08 Dec 2023 14:39 +0000
original: [email protected]

I love this.
Karen Smith was sworn in as school board pres in PA Central Bucks School District; not on the Bible but on a stack of banned books.

Books include Elie Wiesel’s Holocaust survival memoir “Night, ”Toni Morrison’s “The Bluest Eye”; Donna Gephart’s “Lily and Dunkin,” with a transgender main character; George M. Johnson’s “All Boys Aren’t Blue,” growing up Black and LGBTQ+; Mike Curato’s graphic novel “Flamer”; and Susan Kuklin’s “Beyond Magenta.”

#banned
https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2023/12/6/2210087/-Newly-elected-school-board-president-sworn-in-on-stack-of-banned-books

knapjack bonked 08 Dec 2023 14:02 +0000
original: [email protected]

“What grinds our gears is that a large corporation thinks it can come here and set the rules on the Swedish labor market,” says Trade Union Confederation president Susanna Gideonsson. “To think you can waltz in here as a feudal lord and think a whole country should adapt to one’s whims is just wrong.”

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2023-12-08/elon-musk-forces-eco-conscious-scandinavians-to-choose-between-evs-and-unions

#tesla #tech #elonmusk #strikes #sweden

knapjack bonked 08 Dec 2023 14:00 +0000
original: [email protected]

Life is Cinema.

Shot this up at the wonderful Tamagawa Sengen Shrine a couple of days ago.

Six vertical shots stitched into a cinematic panorama.

I like longer lenses and how they render the world, especially when shot with the aperture wide open.

You can't really get the same look shooting the whole scene in one shot, with a wide.

#japan #photography

knapjack bonked 08 Dec 2023 05:19 +0000
original: [email protected]

2/2 Undated, members of the Alaska Territorial Guard in formation. Note the ATG patch on some of their shoulders. Via Anchorage Museum.

knapjack honked back 08 Dec 2023 04:49 +0000
in reply to: https://alaskan.social/users/seachanger/statuses/111542247729554311

@seachanger I am not a chemist, and I'm definitely not in favor of carbon capture so we can maintain the status quo, but I've been thinking about it for a long time.

I think the hardest part about carbon capture is trying to decide an output that won't immediately become valuable. Think about just planting trees as carbon offsets and how people will start eyeballing the value of that lumber in 20 years, and extrapolate that to nearly anything that's made out of carbon. You almost need to eat a pound of celery for every gallon of gas you burn, but even then I'm sure someone will find a way to monetize feces.

The flip side is that I'm starting to think about carbon dioxide extraction from sea water. We have to tackle the acidification problem and maybe if we could extract it from sea water faster and cheaper than from the air we could make some global headway in the next century.

knapjack bonked 08 Dec 2023 04:31 +0000
original: [email protected]

Happy Hanukkah to our friends who celebrate. Rachel Posner, a rabbi’s wife in Kiel, Germany, took this photograph in 1931 -- a potent reminder that fascism must be fought in every generation, even if it's wrapped in an American flag and a red hat.

A menorah in a window across the street from a building displaying a Nazi flag.

knapjack bonked 08 Dec 2023 04:29 +0000
original: [email protected]

If you’re a US adult and have covid or flu, welcome to national free telehealth (and paxlovid if needed).

If you’re uninsured/underinsured, on Medicaid or Medicare, or get VA or Indian Health Services care, you can enroll *without* a positive test and get free Lucira tests sent to you in the mail.

I’m all about infection reduction but nothing is certain for anyone and this is kind of a big step forward.

https://www.test2treat.org/s/?language=en_US

knapjack bonked 08 Dec 2023 04:27 +0000
original: [email protected]

Look America has definitely blown up some journalists in our time okay, but never once was someone like "oh is that Reuters? yeah f*** them up with a tank"

knapjack bonked 08 Dec 2023 04:22 +0000
original: [email protected]

A reminder: When that major security bug shows up in one of your dependencies, and you need to ship a fix right now, that's not the time to discover you're 3 years and 6 API-breaking changes behind the version that has the fix.

Upgrade your dependencies when you don't *have* to. That way, when it is critical, it will be fast and low-risk.

This is *especially* true about that risky upgrade you've been avoiding. Take the hit now when you can schedule it. Don't let others schedule it for you.

knapjack bonked 07 Dec 2023 14:40 +0000
original: [email protected]

We can all be refugees
Nobody is safe,
All it takes is a mad leader
Or no rain to bring forth food,
We can all be refugees
We can all be told to go,
We can be hated by someone
For being someone.

-Benjamin Zephaniah

Sleep well, beautiful man

knapjack bonked 07 Dec 2023 07:29 +0000
original: [email protected]

ANYONE WANNA SIT ON MY SHOULDERS, WEAR AN EXTRA-EXTRA LONG TRENCH COAT, AND TRY TO GET A BANK LOAN WITH ME?

knapjack bonked 06 Dec 2023 15:08 +0000
original: [email protected]

Oof, I can still pick her up! Happy 7th Gotcha Day to our silly, sweet, and smart Talulah Blue. What a joy this dog has been in our lives, and definitely our inspiration for getting outside and walking. One never knows what you’re going to end up with when you adopt a shelter or rescue puppy, but my gambles have always hit the jackpot. #dogs #DogsOfMastodon #AdoptDontShop

A collage of seven photos. In the center is a smiling woman holding a white puppy with gray ears and a face split with white and gray. Surrounding that photo are six other photos showing the same pair taken in subsequent years. The woman is wearing the same blue coat in all of them. The dog grew much bigger and its coat became darker with gray flecks.

knapjack honked 06 Dec 2023 14:46 +0000

It just occurred to me that Santa and Krampus might be the same dude, the Christmas version of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde.

I mean, you're there already. You eat the cookie. You take the presents out, you put the naughty children in the same bag, done. FedEx would be jealous of that kind of efficiency. 🎄

knapjack bonked 06 Dec 2023 14:41 +0000
original: [email protected]

An atmospheric river is soaking the Pacific Northwest with record-breaking rain

The conditions closed rail links, schools and roads in some areas. Amtrak said no passenger trains will run between Seattle and Portland, Oregon, until Thursday because of a landslide. #press

https://www.npr.org/2023/12/06/1217505148/an-atmospheric-river-is-soaking-the-pacific-northwest-with-record-breaking-rain?utm_medium=JSONFeed&utm_campaign=news&utm_source=press.coop

knapjack bonked 06 Dec 2023 14:18 +0000
original: [email protected]

Chasing sunlight around the house for the #FP4Party

When people ask me what I take pictures of I usually say "mostly plants" and, well, it's clearly true!

...but it would also be true to say just "light". I take photographs of light.

--

Ilford FP4 Plus (variously fresh and 20 years expired)
Minolta Dynax 404si & AF 50mm f2.8 macro lens

#BelieveInFiIm #BlackAndWhite #photography

Close up portrait format black and white photograph of a white ceramic mug, with steam coming out of it. There is a window nearby with the sun streaming in, and the sunlight is catching the steam causing it to be visible. The background is blurred, but some kitchen utensils can just about be made out, and there are lots of round points of unfocused light where the sunlight is catching on metal.

Close up black and white photograph of metal clothes pegs attached to a small laundry hanger. The photograph is surprisingly glamorous looking, for a picture of some clothes pegs! One peg is in sharp focus towards the left half of the frame, and it quickly falls away to a blur of metal and light behind. Sunlight from a nearby window is catching the metal pegs, giving it a dramatic but also dreamy effect.

Close up black & white photograph of a single large white Phalaenopsis orchid on the end of a stem. The flower is viewed from behind and is in sharp focus. The light is shining through it causing some parts of the petals to be lighter and some to be darker, and there are shadows where the petals overlap each other showing the structure of the flower. Behind the flower there is a window with a black venetian blind creating a striped effect of alternating dark and bright lines. It is blurred, causing points of sunlight to spread into soft overlapping bright circles.

knapjack bonked 06 Dec 2023 06:19 +0000
original: [email protected]

LOL perfect. I was just trying to explain/introduce the concept of #Mastodon to *an executive at Sony.

I said “Remember how a wonderful STEM-based post would pop up, and you could literally yell ‘SCIENCE TUMBLR COME EXPLAIN,’ and some amazing chemistry grad student would come in and kindly explain everything flawlessly? Yeah so those kids graduated with honors in computer science and are on Mastodon now” …and he let out the longest OOOOH I’d ever heard. 🤣

From: @vruz
https://mastodon.social/@vruz/111530515067621199

knapjack bonked 06 Dec 2023 06:15 +0000
original: [email protected]

What constitutes a dream job in the #Fediverse? Ian Forrester is living the dream as Senior Firestarter at the BBC where he is helping to chart the way forward in the Fediverse for a highly influential global media brand. Check out my interview with Ian where we dive deep into the experiments the BBC is running, what they’ve learned so far and what a day in the life as a BBC researcher is like.

Follow Ian at @cubicgarden

https://about.flipboard.com/inside-flipboard/dot-social-ian-forrester/

knapjack bonked 06 Dec 2023 04:28 +0000
original: [email protected]

It was very mild November across northwest North America and far northeast Asia, but especially north of 62N, with some areas more than 10ºF above the 1991-2020 average.

Based on ERA5 data, ranks of November 2023 average temperature since 1950:
Alaska: 3rd warmest
Yukon Territory: 6th warmest
Northwest Territories: 9th warmest
#akwx #Climate
@Climatologist49

Map centered on Alaska showing November 2023 temperature departures from 19991-2020 average (ºF).

knapjack bonked 05 Dec 2023 13:38 +0000
original: [email protected]

My cousin died about a week ago. Graham was 60. We weren't close, but we were on friendly terms. He was a high school janitor for almost 35 years, retiring earlier this year.

I found out too late to get to Missouri for the funeral. My other relatives filled me in on what happened.

The funeral was at one of the largest churches in his city of 6,000 people. The local school district dismissed classes early so students and staff could attend.

They filled the church.

There was story after story of how Graham had made their day with a smile and a kind word, or helped them out with a difficult problem, or was just the guy they could always rely on.

Graham was actually a pretty reclusive person. Yet everyone in the city seemed to know him.

He made an impact on a lot of lives, both tangibly and intangibly.

I've reflected on all this and realized that, even with my specialized career in cybersecurity covering more than 30 years, I never made that kind of impact and never will.

People in professional contexts often seem to be posturing and positioning themselves for advancement, self-promoting and patting their friends on the back. (LinkedIn, I'm looking at you.) Maybe they spend their time exchanging private messages in public to make themselves seem part of an exclusive club. (Infosec Twitter/X, I'm looking at you.) But they're not making the kind of impact Graham made. And they never will.

Graham wouldn't have known. He didn't have a computer. The last letter I got from him was written on a typewriter. He had a difficult life in a lot of ways but he never took it out on others. I just don't possess that kind of grace, TBH.

I don't want to preach here. So I'll just keep in mind that my advanced degrees and mostly-successful career had their value - but a life spent supporting others has value as well. I'm no better than anybody else, and neither are you.