Interesting take.
Category: Guest Contributors
Tom’s World – 13DEC2025 – Sony Trouble
My A7IV is glitching badly on me. The nature of the glitch seems to change but the camera has approached unusability and times and exceeded it at times. Right now, I’m using my backup A6600..
The glitches started by ID’ing my Sony battery incorrectly as an aftermarket battery. Then the warning wouldn’t turn off and the camera was unusable. Right now, it starts taking pictures continuously on startup and won’t stop.
I talked to the shop where I bought it and they recommended a firmware update. I checked and found that since I downloaded 4.0, 5.0 and 6.0 have been issued. But then noticed that 6.0 was bricking cameras left and right and Sony had pulled it a couple of days after the intro. I figured that I could still update to 5.0 only to find that Sony has pulled ALL firmware updates until further notice which could be at least several weeks.
I wonder how long I can go without a main camera? And I especially wonder whether a firmware update will fix it. Logic tells me probably so.
I’ve noticed that the A7V has been issued at “only” $3,000 but I’ve also noticed that my photography level hasn’t increased apace with new and more sophisticated (and expensive) bodies. One big caveat to that, eye autofocus is now a MUST HAVE to me.
I’ve had Sony Alpha cameras since the A100 I bought 21-22 years ago and this is the 1st problem of any description from any of them. With my lenses, I’m irrevocably married to Sony now. If my IV model is screwed, it’s not a given that I’ll buy a V. A large percentage of my best shots were with the A850 but I couldn’t go back to that horrible high ISO performance and the autofocus performance would probably feel antediluvian.
Guest Contributor – Tregonsee – 11DEC2025 – Great Science Fiction Redux
I think the only way to answer this is to look at some stories that have held my attention. I’m going to look at each in 4 particulars Plot, Characters, and Science, why it holds my attention. These are of course my own (potentially assinine opinions) and I apologize in advance if you find your ox has been gored
I Robot by Isaac Asimov
Plot: This doesn’t really have an overall plot per se, but one in each story. This is unsurprising as it a bunch of shorts tied together. Each story is itself is essentially a mystery and I find their resolutions in general quite Satisfactory (but the final story that I have never enjoyed)
Character: Honestly the human characters are cardboard. Susan Calvin feels like a classic scientist character in drag. Donovan and Powell who show up in several are more foils for the story line. The real characters here are the robots like Robbie and figuring them out is the whole point of each story.
Science: The Robot positronic brains are sheer handwavium. Some of the resolutions do involve some actual science. That said the positronic brains are VERY self consistent and that adds to a feeling of reality.
Why I Like It: the pleasure of it really comes from how the puzzles are solved. These are almost more Mystery than SciFi at some level
A Canticle for Liebowitz by Walter L Miller
Plot: There are essentially 3 sections spread out over a period of several thousand years. Each section has an internal plot. All three sections ultimately lead to the final resolution of the plot
Character: Each section has one main character. These are well rounded (though ALL male as they are Monks or abbots of the Monastery for St. Liebowitz). Given their time scale they exist ONLY in their section, although their actions (and to some degree personalities) affect the later sections of the story
Science: This is a post nuclear war book. The effects of the radiation are wrong, though they would not necessarily have been thought unreasonable when these stories were written in the 1950s. Other science (as society recovers) makes sense though is not directly influencing the plot
Why I Like It: The story arcs are fascinating with the overall arch being rather disturbing. Mr. Millers prose is downright luminous in places and his plotting and bits of humor (winking at everyday things we understand but the characters don’t) helps offset the sombre tone of the overall arch of the story. Even though this is three separate stories the work to tie them together is elegant. This well deserved the 1961 Hugo when the Hugo meant something
To Say Nothing of the Dog by Connie Willis
Plot: This is a time travel story where an apparent time paradox must be resolved or history as we know it may just disappear. It is also a closed room Mystery AND a bit of a romance all at once with most of the action occurring in the late Victorian Age. And it successfully wraps up ALL these pieces and (mostly) sets the time stream back to its proper state. This is a tour de force of plotting
Character: Our two main characters (Ned Henry and Verity Kindle) are very well fleshed out. The secondary players also have decent motivations though are though sometimes intentional stereotypes (e.g. a totally distractible Oxford Don)
Science: It has time travel, which in all honesty, appears to be more in the realm of fantasy than SciFI (even though it has been a staple since H.G. Wells The Time Machine). That said the rest of its science mostly makes sense, and other than one critical biology issuethe science is not critical to the plot. The time travel is self consistent (although we are in the process of learning about it in detail) but we don’t get David Weber like info dumps but learn the about the Time travel as we go along.
Why I Like It: This is just an absolute romp. You are swept along by the mystery and by trying to resolve the change in the time stream that is introduced. As I said the plotting is genius level, the mystery is very like a good Poirot story. There are little details you may miss in the first reading that on second reading you wonder how you missed it. Again a worthy Hugo award winner
That’s probably more than anyone wants to read. Looking at it (and other stories I return to time and again) I am mostly attracted by good plotting. I admire additional character work and language. I am willing to suspend disbelief if the “science” is self consistent. I will tolerate massive violations of reality such as time travel, matter transports (looking at YOU Star Trek) and other massive violations of basic science. I’d love to see other people look at their favorites in a similar light
Guest Contributor – Tregonsee – 10DEC2025 – Ray Bradbury
Bradbury is nearly sui generis amongst the 40’s/50’s/early 60’s SciFi Writers. His stuff often feels more like Lovecraft or Clark Aston Smith. My first “adult” scifi (not juvies like Tom Swift Jr. or young children scifi like Spaceship in the Apple Tree) were two of his collections. They were R is for Rocket and S is for Space that my 5th grade reading teacher found for me in the school library. I recently got a new audible version of his Martian Chronicles and although the technology doesn’t really make sense (maybe not even then) the stories themselves are beautiful and elegant in a fashion that the Asimov/Clark/Heinlein stories usually didn’t try for. Bradbury makes a lovely palette cleanser among other SciFi. Some moderns try at his style but honestly most of them are pale imitations like art students copying a Rembrandt or one of the pre Raphaelites.
Tom’s World – 06DEC2025 – Car Photo
Tom’s World – 04DEC2025 – The End of “Our Democracy”
Here’s a column by Christopher Chantrill, whom I’ve been following religiously for several years. He has several uncommon, shall we say, takes on the political landscape.
“Our situation is not whether to have a republic or democracy. Our situation is what to do after the failure of the educated-class project of the last 150-200 years. Obviously, the educated class wants to hang on.”
…
“Problem for any ruling class is that, at the end of the dynasty, the rulers are not sending their best: Biden, Harris, Walz: see what I mean? And so, even though they have sat majestically on the throne for decades and won world wars and saved workers and blacks and women and gays from a fate worse than death, when it comes to the crunch, they don’t have the ability and the skills and the cojones to realize that they have screwed up, that their regime is incompetent and corrupt, and that dynasties don’t last forever.”
Tom’s World – 29NOV2025 – Boat Show
WARNING: Never launch your wife’s Escalade without first inserting the drain plug.
Actually, that is his wife’s Escalade he’s standing on to keep other boats from running into while docking.
BTW- That’s salt water, no chance of renovating that.
So long and thanks for all the fish.
My brother in the foreground and Pensacola Beach about 10 miles to the north.We were apparently bottom fishing on top of one of the 100’s of wrecks and reefs scattered everywhere in this part of the Gulf.
Tom’s World – 28NOV2025 – Car Show
Tom’s World – 22NOV2025 – Kookaburra
I’ve has some fun and success with coins. I use a lightbox and a frame surrounding it made out of 1” PVC to support lights.
Guest Contributor – Tregonsee – 17NOV2025 – Handicapping a Civil War
The thought of a civil war is VERY messy. My (limited) familiarity is that I’d say 80% of the enlisted tend to be from the poorer (bottom 3-4) deciles of the population. The upper enlisted officers tend to come from families that have been in the services for a long time. They are more from the red/purple areas than deep blue. Officer Corp is more split(again from my very limited experience), Flag officers are VERY political and Obama’s purge of the flag ranks (as well as Col. ready to promote) means there is a very blue tinge at the top. Lower rank officers likely come from families that have traditions of service and come from more traditionally conservative backgrounds as the militery calling is pooh poohed by the Left. Pretty sure neither red nor blue troops would kill civilians without severe provocation. Most would also not participate in massive disarmament of citizens. I think the latter ends up with mutinies and fragging of officers, with enlisted disappearing off into the bush. That said, the Left has its own shock troops in the armed bits and bobs of Antifa/Pantifa and other similar groups. They are far less morally bound than the members of the armed services. Would the National Guard and LEO stand back and let them go at it? Beats me, I’m not eager to find out.
As for strategic resources, the blue states have an issue. I think all the missile bases, plus Whitman AFB (B2, soon B21) are in red states). The Atlantic Boomer base is in a red state (no boomers run out of Groton CT any more), Pacific Boomer base is at Bremerton WA but would that matter? Boomers are odd they really try hard to stay at sea for long periods before switching crews. In a Red/Blue divorce, the Reds end up with most of the fixed ( Missile assets). I doubt the Red would disarm, given the Ukraine precedent.
Honestly any scenario I see tends to be rife with insurgencies. Blue in the more rural parts of Red would have massive hit and run attacks on them by light arms. Red going into citified areas will have Viet Cong like insurgents blending into the populous (with either the populous supporting them or by threatening the populous.
I just can’t create an Arisian like vision of the cosmic all on this one. If I were using the old magic 8 ball I’d be getting “Better ask again” or “Reply Hazy, try again”. The only thing I can say is I deeply doubt your model of a looser coalition, it seems very doubtful. Much of the Blue side views this as almost a theological/eschatological vision. There are as likely to live and let live as the 16th-century Spanish Inquisition. Certainly, there are parts of them that don’t believe (all) their nonsense. But those parts know that if they divert from the path, they are likely to find an ice pick in their forehead like a good menshivik.