Author: photog

Death May Have Its Advantages

photog Current Events, Science, Science Fiction / Fantasy , ,

Back in the 1960s and 1970s many post-apocalyptic science fiction stories included nuclear fallout causing widespread mutations in humans and other lifeforms.  And that made for all kinds of fun monsters with two heads and three eyes and other bizarre anomalies but in real life these mutations no longer seem very likely or dangerous.

But one thing that modern research into modifying the genome of humans and other living things has shown is that modifying lifeforms is well within our present scientific capabilities.  And with the advances being made in artificial intelligence it seems reasonable that at some point in the future we might be able to engineer creatures with traits and characteristics that have never heretofore been seen or even imagined.  Suppose we developed dogs with the intelligence of humans, possibly with the ability to speak.  Would that be a wonder or an abomination?  What if we could design insects who single-mindedly did nothing but hunt and eat ticks?  What if we could domesticate dolphins to patrol along beaches in the summer attacking sharks who intrude into the space where swimmers are?  All these things seem very possible.

But the supreme imperative has always been to improve man.  Currently you hear about tech billionaires chasing after the fountain of youth.  They search for diets, supplements and health regimens to extend their lives and youth.  But all of these things are illusory.  Maybe a sixty-year-old can look forty.  Maybe.  But the reality is the human animal reaches a point where even with hormone supplements and corrective surgeries it slides into senescence.  We age and fade and eventually die.

But it may be the case that advances in biological knowledge of human physiology may reach a point where we know which gene tells us when to die.  And when that happens, it will be the case, regardless of what laws there are against it, that very rich men will have scientists experiment with this knowledge and then it will be used to make long-lived humans.  What if it turns out there is a Methusaleh gene?  What if humans could remain young for a thousand years?  What would happen?  Would it make this a paradise on Earth or a hell?

What if you had a thousand years to accomplish everything you wanted in this life?  Would it be a blessing or a curse?  What if you could know your descendants for twenty or more generations?  Would you want to?  Would they want you?

So, all of these questions are speculative.  But someday they may be urgent considerations.  And what if the billionaires keep the fountain of youth just for their heirs?  Robert Heinlein toyed with this idea in his book “Methusaleh’s Children.”  In the story, the short-lived majority were enraged against their long-lived brethren and wanted to torture the secret of long life from them.  This was despite the fact that their secret was just their natural genetics.  Of course, in the future everyone may have the opportunity to have their children’s genomes tweaked using CRISPR gene-editing technology.  The only question might be whether after a few generations we might want to escape from eternal life.  We may find that death has its advantages.

FE 100mm f2.8 MACRO GM Lens – Damn You Sony!

photog Photography, Photography Reviews , , , , ,

Just when I think I’m immune to lens lust Sony drags me back in!

Alright, this is not an in-depth review because this lens hasn’t even reached the stores yet.  It come out in early November.  But it has already destabilized my photographic equilibrium with its compelling mixture of desirable features and the stellar reviews the experts are giving it.

So just to put my own spin on it, here are the features I find most exciting.

  1. Fast autofocus.  Okay, probably not blazingly fast because no macro lens can be.  There’s just too much focus racking needed in a macro lens for that.  But its four XD Linear AF motors make it orders of magnitude faster than my current Sony 90mm f2.8 macro.
  2. 1.4X magnification.  That compares with the 90mm and its standard 1.0X magnification.  This is a big deal.  Filling the frame with your subject is what makes for better macro shots.
  3. The reviewers stressed that the Optical Steady Shot (OSS) system actually did seem to work very well on macro shots.  That’s always been a sore point for me with the 90mm lens.  There’s nothing steady about the image unless I’m on at least a monopod.  If this pans out it will be a major upgrade to my macro experience.
  4. The reviewers also stressed that the images when using a 1.4X or 2X teleconverter were still very good which if true means that 2X and 2.8X magnification would be achievable.  I’m most skeptical of this claim.  Whenever I’ve used Sony teleconverters I’ve always noticed a very significant image quality degradation (especially with the 2X unit).  If this turns out to be true it would be a very nice benefit.

Okay enough hyperventilating.  So let’s give some of the bad news.  It’s fifteen hundred bucks!  And I’ve checked the resale value of my 90mm lens ($450).  So I’d be forking over an extra grand or so.  Gack!!!!

Oh, the pain, the pain.  Well, Christmas is coming up.  And I do have some rarely used lenses hanging around maybe I could shrink that grand down to five hundred bucks.

It’s funny just a few months ago I think I was saying how glad I was that I no longer obsessed about camera gear and lenses in particular.  Sure I’m always interested in descriptions of the new odd-ball super-macros that the various Chinese lens manufacturers seem to create constantly.  But I’m never too excited because these lenses tend to be not of the highest quality.

But here Sony has dropped this thing in my lap with basically everything I wanted except a 200mm focal length (and that would be compensated for if it actually does work as well as they claim it does with a 2X teleconverter).  And here I am with my mouth hanging open, desperate to get my hands on this piece of photo kit.  They truly are evil geniuses sitting there in Tokyo (or wherever the hell their corporate headquarters is in Japan) and saying, “Now we’ve got photog right where we want him.”

And they do.  Damn them!!!

 

 

Cruel Aesop

photog Life in Dunwich, photog's Corner , , ,

The last two weeks have been unseasonably warm here in Dunwich.  And believe me I’m not complaining.  Summer-like days and mild nights is wonderful.  Not to mention I must be saving money on heating oil.  And it means we can enjoy the summer activities a little longer.  For instance, the raspberry bushes are still producing fruit.  Not as many as last month but enough to enjoy a treat from time to time.  And I can still go out and take some macro shots of insects and the few flowers that haven’t completely died.  In fact, the wolfbane is about to bloom in the next week or so.  And every night when I bring the dogs out for their final walk, I can hear the crickets chirping away.

And there is an enormous number of them because the sound is everywhere and it is fairly loud.  But at the same time, it has a different sound in the fall.  This is based on the air temperature.  The lower temperature means the sound will be lower pitched and slower.  It’s almost like a power hum that has fallen an octave.

And to my subjective ears it sounds sad and confused.  It’s as if the crickets don’t understand that they are preparing to die.  Unlike Rutger Hauer’s character in “Bladerunner;” Roy Batty, they don’t realize “it’s time to die.”  And that’s exactly the vibe I get when I see the last of the dragonflies moving around the fields.  They’re confused and slowing down and it’s as if their programming is failing.  It doesn’t cover the case where the weather stays warm after they’re supposed to have died from freezing.

It’s also the case of the preying mantises.  They’re still walking around the gardens trying to find food or mates but they’re running out of steam.  Their eyes are already dark and they’re going through the motions but they’re already the walking dead.  Even if I handed them food, I doubt they could eat it.

The only insects that haven’t succumbed to seasonal despair are the honey bees.  They still go around visiting the last living flowers gathering pollen and nectar to bring back to the hive.  And that’s because they have a future and a plan.  They’re filling up the remaining cells in their combs with food to keep the hive going right through winter and into spring.  Their program hasn’t run out.

Now, I am aware that this is just my emotional response to the realities of insect life and its relationship to seasonal variation.  Evolution has crafted the life cycle of most insects in the non-tropical regions to include the death of adults in late fall.  This is the result of millions of years of evolution and it’s a fact of life.  But humans are affected by these facts and have speculated about them going all the way back to Aesop in ancient Greece.  He talked about the ant and the grasshopper that brings up the same exact dichotomy that I see between the honey bee and the cricket.

And humans anthropomorphize these creatures making the ant a hard-working and thrifty fellow and the grasshopper a lazy, hedonistic good-for-nothing.  Well, Aesop was preaching.  While I find the cricket and even the dragonfly sad figures.  After all, don’t we all eventually find our lives winding down?  And even if it is the circle of life, it has a certain tragic aspect.  Well, just a bittersweet reflection on the beautiful Indian Summer that we’ve been gifted with this year.