@Bluedonkey@mastodon.social
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Bluedonkey

@Bluedonkey@mastodon.social

British ex-pat living the island life in the #SanFrancisco Bay Area. #Alameda.

Architect of #Cloud / #embedded / #IoT systems. Working on #AI #GunDetection.

Like #ElectricVehicles, #CleanEnergy, #Photography, #3dPrinting, #Electronics and #Travel.

All opinions mine.

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schwa, to random
@schwa@mastodon.social avatar

Working (who am i kidding, playing) with a film camera again has made me really appreciate just how OP modern digital cameras are.

I literally cannot do things with this film camera that I take for granted on my Zf. Need to shoot wide open, in super bright sunlight? Not a problem.

Oh wait I only have 400 film and the fastest shutter is 1/2000… Nevermind…

(Auto-)ISO anywhere between 50-204800 is just nuts in comparison (and a shutter speed of 8000…)

Bluedonkey,
@Bluedonkey@mastodon.social avatar

@schwa Just having ISO be something you can change between shots, or leave the camera to just dynamically select is amazing when you compare it to film. And I don't recall ever using anything higher than ISO 800 in film, and even that was rare. 100 and 400 were much more common.

Apparently, the Instax film camera my daughter has uses ISO 800 film (have to be careful with it at airports), and that surprised me (though given the use case ISO 800 makes sense).

schwa, to random
@schwa@mastodon.social avatar

Beginning to drown in empty 35mm film containers.

This is such a nostalgic childhood memory. The amount of these things I had as a child containing the random cruft kids collect.

Bluedonkey,
@Bluedonkey@mastodon.social avatar

@schwa I’ve been wondering about getting lenses from Japan. Often a lot cheaper than from US sellers. Interested to hear if you get any issues with getting it here.

Bluedonkey, to random
@Bluedonkey@mastodon.social avatar

As a venture backed company, you could take that money and spend it on making your technology better than the offerings of your competitors, or you could spend it lobbying politicians to draft bills that limit the choice of solution to the one your company makes, whether it is the best option or not.

Luckily, some state governors are not caught out by this blatant attempt at blocking competition & forcing schools to spend their limited funds on just one company.

Bluedonkey, to photography
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In addition to posting photos here, I have also been adding them to my new photography website (repurposing a domain I already owned). You can see the California birds in their gallery:

https://ourlivez.com/galleries/california-birds/

There are other galleries for birds from Hawaii & other parts of the world, as well as galleries for other animals (that I am still building out).

schwa, to random
@schwa@mastodon.social avatar

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    Bluedonkey,
    @Bluedonkey@mastodon.social avatar

    @schwa The tug is starting to look more like her namesake in terms of condition! I remember seeing that one regularly when I was commuting on the ferry and she looked much smarter and cleaner back then!

    schwa, to random
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    Bluedonkey,
    @Bluedonkey@mastodon.social avatar

    @schwa That would add up really fast with modern camera burst speeds!

    Bluedonkey,
    @Bluedonkey@mastodon.social avatar

    @GeekAndDad @schwa I don't think you can be concerned about costs if you're looking at film these days. It has to be more for the hobby and satisfaction of taking and developing a great photo.

    I did b&w processing at school, but never tried colour processing. Was something I'd have liked to have done back then. Now, not sure I could go back to film.

    dangillmor, to random
    @dangillmor@mastodon.social avatar

    Climate scientists are angry, helpless, and overwhelmed as they watch humanity accelerate toward the climate cliff that will likely destroy much of our civilization. But they have no choice other than continuing to fight, as long as they can.

    https://www.theguardian.com/environment/ng-interactive/2024/may/08/hopeless-and-broken-why-the-worlds-top-climate-scientists-are-in-despair

    Bluedonkey,
    @Bluedonkey@mastodon.social avatar

    @dangillmor

    “The world’s response to date is reprehensible – we live in an age of fools.”

    That pretty much captures it. We are living in an age of fools, and not just in regards to climate. Climate change has been an issue for quarter of a century and still there are politicians who refuse to accept it, and religions that preach it is unavoidable. All the while, oil companies make record profits racing to burn everything before they are finally banned.

    Bluedonkey, to photography
    @Bluedonkey@mastodon.social avatar

    “Look, I can jump!”

    A small white-crowned sparrow jumping in the grass underneath bird feeders. These little birds seem to be happy feeding off the ground or from the feeders (as long as there are no finches on the feeder at the same time).

    Bluedonkey, to photography
    @Bluedonkey@mastodon.social avatar

    “What are you looking at?”

    One of the male house finches looking backwards at me taking its photo.

    schwa, to random
    @schwa@mastodon.social avatar

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    Bluedonkey,
    @Bluedonkey@mastodon.social avatar

    @schwa What lens is on there? They look great.

    Bluedonkey, to cars
    @Bluedonkey@mastodon.social avatar

    Totally out of my budget, but just watching that straight at the end of the lap, with speeds north of 340 km/h is terrifying. And I know from experience that camera footage looks a lot slower than it feels when you're in the driver seat. That is getting close to double the fastest I've ever driven a car...

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7x9amijnDt4

    Bluedonkey, to photography
    @Bluedonkey@mastodon.social avatar

    These little Anna’s hummingbirds are also regulars in front of our house even though they don’t eat anything from our feeders. They’re also pretty hard to catch in flight (they do like to rest on this tree between feeding trips to a flower below). This time it stopped to try to eat from the blossom tree.

    skinnylatte, to food
    @skinnylatte@hachyderm.io avatar

    I learned early on there isn’t an ‘objective best’ when it comes to . American food media pretends there is but there isn’t. What you like, what makes you happy, what you dislike is as subjective as everything else about you.

    Take bánh mì in my neighborhood (Tenderloin in SF). Everybody loves Saigon, and it is the best American sandwich with Vietnamese fillings. It’s huge, and it’s spilling over. I don’t love that in any sandwich so my spot is a Vietnam-sized sandwich with good fillings.

    Bluedonkey,
    @Bluedonkey@mastodon.social avatar

    @skinnylatte I'm fine with places having options for those who don't like spicy food (e.g. my wife), but I don't see why you can't do both. Then everybody in a group can be happy.

    Bluedonkey,
    @Bluedonkey@mastodon.social avatar

    @skinnylatte Everybody's idea of excessive heat is different though - my wife will be literally suffering, with her lips swelling up, eating a dish that for me is barely above bland. Two of her nieces were born and raised in Malaysia, one loves spicy food, the other is worse than my wife when it comes to spice levels.

    Bluedonkey, to photography
    @Bluedonkey@mastodon.social avatar

    Today’s bird photo is a female house finch. These are the most common visitors to our feeder, and they perch in the tree outside the French doors in our bedroom in between feeding. They’re getting more used to me being there with the camera too. This one was eating one of the buds on the tree too.

    Bluedonkey, to random
    @Bluedonkey@mastodon.social avatar

    We took my wife's Q5 down to LA, mainly because my 91 year old mother-in-law doesn't like getting in & out of the Taycan. Didn't need fuel for the car en route, but both ways we stopped twice for 30+ minutes each time anyway (for restrooms, lunch and just to stretch our legs). And in all the places we stopped (4 different ones in total), there were chargers (Electrify Americ, Tesla and sometimes ChargePoint too). No real time difference to take an EV vs ICE any longer.

    Bluedonkey,
    @Bluedonkey@mastodon.social avatar

    @pixel @breakfastgolem Can’t speak to the whole country, but we’ve done a lot of long trips in the Taycan, and not had problems charging at EA sites. Recently, they’ve been busier, but I’ve only had to wait once in three years, and that was only for ~10 minutes.

    I have heard that outside of California / west coast things might not be as good, but also note that the EV cannonball time was held by a Taycan using EA for a while (before s Tesla reclaimed it), so can’t be that bad.

    Bluedonkey, to photography
    @Bluedonkey@mastodon.social avatar

    A mourning dove. Fairly regular visitor now to the ground below the feeder, but very hard to get good photos of as it is ultra-timid and leaves at the slightest sound or motion.

    KiwiEV, to random
    @KiwiEV@mastodon.nz avatar

    How does one say, "I've been trying to tell you hydrogen was a scam for two decades now" in marketing speak?
    Just give up on this oil company-led nightmare and go pure electric already. Being tied to the pump is so 𝘧𝘦𝘵𝘤𝘩. 😂

    Bluedonkey,
    @Bluedonkey@mastodon.social avatar

    @KiwiEV They are still pushing the nonsense. YouTube put a video in my home page yesterday all about Toyota's new hydrogen combustion engine tech and how it delivers the same power and torque as a gasoline engine so it will destroy the EV market. I guess they didn't realize that power and torque numbers are not a winning metric for ICE...

    They just cannot let go of hydrogen. First they failed with fuel cells, next they will fail with hydrogen ICE. What comes after that?

    schwa, to random
    @schwa@mastodon.social avatar

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    Bluedonkey,
    @Bluedonkey@mastodon.social avatar

    @schwa Even more interesting when it is a container processing data in real-time... those printed logs give me a record I can look at after it has failed to see what happened before it failed.

    Bluedonkey, to photography
    @Bluedonkey@mastodon.social avatar

    Love birds…

    schwa, to random
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    Bluedonkey,
    @Bluedonkey@mastodon.social avatar

    @schwa I’ve seen a few of these recently and none of them has told me what the app does, nor can I discern it from the list of changes. I was not curious enough to find out more. I just scrolled past.

    harrymccracken, to random
    @harrymccracken@mastodon.social avatar

    Finishing up doing my taxes with TurboTax, and it's been such an unsatisfying experience that I tried H&R Block's equivalent, which is also bad, but in different ways. Are any of these good? Maybe the desktop versions?

    Bluedonkey,
    @Bluedonkey@mastodon.social avatar

    @harrymccracken I tried TurboTax Live, and while it was relatively painless in terms of my time , the over doubled the estimated cost when they presented the final bill. Won’t be using them again.

    skinnylatte, to food
    @skinnylatte@hachyderm.io avatar

    Having lived in Malaysia and Thailand and Indonesia, I put all the hot sauce at once to try to feel something, but don’t (the black Yucateco sauce, not pictured, is a slight tingle but very faint). All of these are just like, flavor. At least they’re tasty!

    In my part of the world people chew on raw Birds Eye chillies for fun so

    Bluedonkey,
    @Bluedonkey@mastodon.social avatar

    @skinnylatte Bottles of hot sauce here are oddly disappointing. I had a bottle of Carolina Reaper sauce once (was a seasonal special, and I’ve never seen it again) that was truly hot. If you can find them, fresh CR peppers are a special treat too.

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