Category Archives: Uncategorized

How old?

How much of my technical knowledge has actually deprecated?

In no particular order:

  • I know how to start up a computer with a magnetically coded piece of plastic sandwiched between two other layers of plastic, or between two spools.
  • 64k was enough memory and man, would it have been sweet to upgrade to 128k.  Lowercase “k.”
  • Man, this mouse thing is a great peripheral.
  • HIMEM.SYS
  • 16 scales of gray really made a difference.
  • Dialing up.
  • I was writing things like this in notebooks.  Paper ones.
  • I took a touch typing class, on a typewriter.
  • Developed film and made prints in a lab.
  • I cut articles of paper with scissors and then pasted them onto a board to send to the printer.
  • This Gopher thing is great!
  • I thought I had enough storage.
  • rec.games.video.arcade was a valid resource for Darkstalkers: The Night Warriors.
  • I could play a video game, without buying it for $60.
  • I’ve watched the rise and fall of about four different kinds of magnetic storage media.
  • There were different types of recordable CDs.  Also, there were CDs.
  • When I wanted to know how one of my friends was doing, I would give them a call and hope they were at home.
  • I printed out letters on a dot matrix printer in order to fax them to friends.
  • Mosaic
  • I thought I had enough RAM.
  • I had a list of IP addresses memorized in case DNS wasn’t working for the internet.

Euh.  The list goes on.  But this is just an off the top of my head thing.

Spam Names

I just really like these:

Fletcher Rosenbarker
Whitney Goddard
Daisy Maiocco
Latoya Yazzie
Wilmer McWilliams
Zvi Gunderson
Koeck Thomas
Grandfathers K. Sociability
Kenton Bernard
Ava Cantu
Erna Rasmussen
Diogo McCain

Breaking out

I have been in the condo for way too long.  It is driving me mad.

That’s all I really have to say.

Snow

Lots of snow in an alley behind my buildingI’ve temporarily lifted the focal length limit for this month due to historic snowfall.  Popped on the zoom lens and got busy snapping pictures, although I can already see that it’s made me a little bit lazy in terms of getting things set up and thinking things through before I shoot.

I see far too many outdoor shots where the ISO is inappropriate because I neglected to change it after shooting indoors.  And snow during the day just overexposes everything so it wasn’t necessary.

To counteract that I think I’m going to shoot manual for a while and get back into the check settings, compose, and shoot workflow that I had when I didn’t worry about focal lengths.

Tagged ,

Just another day

It’s a day off from work, not for travel or a vacation.  But it’s a day off nonetheless.  The reason is that no one can get their car out of the snow.  Side streets are equally impossible.  I realize, midway through the day, that I’m out of toilet paper.  Not the last sheets on the roll, but I’m out of the supply in the closet.

So out I go, not out of panic or snow related emergency, but just because it’s time to pick up toilet paper.  It happens from time to time.

Checklist.  Snow boots, jeans, parka, hat, empty backpack, camera.

I take a lot of pictures this errand.  Most unusual for picking up toilet paper at the CVS down the street.  Usually I don’t take any.  But today is different.  Today the district is still digging out from two to three feet of snow in some places.  And tomorrow, there will be more snow.  I will bring my camera and take pictures of whatever catches my eye.

There are a few things.  Icicles three feet long hanging from the eaves of the retirement home.  Plowed snow taller than I am.  Cars still entombed in snow.  Improvised snowmen on the corners.

But I need toilet paper, so I get in line at the drugstore and get it.  Then I walk home.

It doesn’t feel like history.  But I guess it never does.

Tagged , ,