If I can recommend something, here’s a piece that leaves me breathless by a brother and sister. Usually there’s another brother but this is a duet. Astonishing talent.
Tag: TomD
Guest Contributor – TomD – 15JAN2025 – Photo
Guest Contributor – TomD – 11JAN2025 – California Wildfires
I live on the Florida panhandle, the population isn’t nearly as dense as central and south Florida. There are extensive farmlands and 10’s of thousands of acres covered in trees, mostly pines.
Except hot and dry spells, you will commonly see large smoke plumes here and there on the horizon. That is called “controlled burning”. That is to burn off the underbrush and dead branches, dry pine straw, etc., but not kill the trees. That reduces the kindling and fast fuel that a major fire needs to get started. It works. This method is common across the US in forested areas.
It is illegal in California.
In the meantime, the LA fire dept has spent the last 4 years hiring mostly lesbians as firefighters with no qualifications other than being lesbians.
In the meantime, California has created no new reservoirs since 1979 despite a near doubling of population since.
In the meantime, California passed a $7.5 billion bill to ensure adequate water supply but not a cent has been spent to that purpose. Some of it was used to destroy 4 then existing dams and reservoirs.
A number of years ago, someone ventured that California was rich enough to be stupid. I’m not sure that is the case any more.
Another interesting point: LA, and California in general, has long been famous for the difficulty and time required to get a building permit. We’re talking years for a house. How do you think the 10’s of thousands of people affected by the burning show up to get permits to rebuild their homes and businesses only to be told that they first need an environmental study and permission from 17 different agencies? Do you think there will be hangings? Hopefully.
Tom’s World – 29DEC2024 – Sandy Springs
Speaking of homogeneous ethnic enclaves, I grew up in Sandy Springs in the 50’s and 60’s, a North Atlanta suburb populated almost exclusively by what were known as WASPS. As far as we were aware, there was no crime at all until drugs started to come into the scene, which would have been the latter half of the 60’s. But, even then, there was no evident violent crime.
I assume that this idyllic period during my formative years is behind my conviction that the present world should somehow achieve that status.
But even Sandy Springs doesn’t exist any more except in name. The monster that metro Atlanta has become ate it decades ago. The woods behind the neighborhood containing the abandoned POW camp have been replaced by high rise offices; the quarry with the lake at the bottom where we kids used to take our .22’s to shoot water snakes is long ago filled in..
And I’m of an age where I won’t exist a lot longer either but that’s okay. It seems that my world is gone and some nightmarish creation taken its’ place.
Tom’s World – 25DEC2024 – Photography – Fast lenses
That (Sony 135mm f\1.8 lens) is a nice lens but, as you note, the range is sort of a “tweener”. But with that IQ, you can always stand a crop.
Like you, I’m still sitting on a collection of A mounts but will probably die with them leaving my heirs to wonder what the devil they’re gonna do with these.
My most expensive lens is an E mount, 24-70, f2.8, GM. I forgot the cost but it was in the low 2,000’s. I rarely use it because it is big and heavy. It is capable of stellar results but almost all the really good results were with my now gone A7R2 body with the 46 mp sensor. My current A7IV, almost always wears a Sony G series, 24-105, f4.0. It has a more usable range, I rarely need f 2.8, weighs half, costs half, and if there’s a difference in IQ (image quality), I’ve yet to discern it.
The main reason f2.8 (or lower) was needed was to gather more light or to increase bokah. These new cameras are astonishing in their low light performance. I limit my ISO to 12,800 but constantly come up with images at that ISO that need no “noise” reduction and are usable as shot. My old A850 (like yours) was getting to be unusable at an ISO of 1600.
Anything around 2400 and forget it. That’s why I am perfectly fine with f4.
Below is a photo that I think I recently posted here, it was shot at 12,800 and has had no noise reduction. It is perfectly clear but if you look at the blurred background, you can barely make out the beginnings of noise. I don’t need 2.8, this camera will almost shoot in the dark. This lens is the 24-104; read the reviews, it’s an incredible lens.
Tom’s World – 24DEC2024 – Macro – Christmas Spider
Florida is a very Christmassy place even without all the wonderful freezing cold, snow, slush and frostbite. We even have Christmas spiders; get a bucket full and decorate the house!
Tom’s World – 22DEC2024 – Bokeh
Tom’s World – 20DEC2024 – Feline Pose
Here’s kitten Lorie on the back of my office chair on which she has inflicted hundreds of puncture wounds.
She doesn’t have the guilty look to be expected from such a miscreant.
Update:
Master Diver commented:
My office chair has suffered similar indignities from Queen-Empress Piper and Ladies Florence and Cuddles.
Sweater
Tom’s World – 19DEC2024 – Incarceration; Retribution or Isolation?
Check this link, the subject is about something I can’t remember ever before having seen.
As far as I can remember, I’ve heard of incarceration in the context of the benefit to society, i.e., putting them away so they can’t do more damage. Among reasonable people, there is no dispute as to the truth of that proposition. (Unreasonable people? Who cares, screw ’em)
The link above is about the mass commutation Biden recently issued and how there is a very low chance of recidivism from the individuals freed, therefore not a net negative to society based on the principle of isolation. But the article disagrees with the commutation based on this principle: retribution, some of those people just flat deserved punishment.
The poster boy for this principle is a judge who was receiving $millions in kickbacks from a for-profit-boy’s prison for sentencing boys to that institution and betraying every principle, every person, and the trust (such as it is these days) in the judicial system, all for his personal enrichment.
So the guiding principle behind punishment for crime is now extended from incarceration for isolation from society to also include retribution, or the principle that people who do evil deserve punishment based on society’s perception of right and wrong.
Tom’s World – 14DEC2024 – Capital vs Labor vs Deep State
Stalin (I think) made the statement that capitalists would sell him the rope that he would use to hang them.
Before manufacturing can return en masse to the US, somebody(s) is going to have to go through the 1.75 x 10^9th onerous regulations and delete most. It’s too expensive to manufacture here and because of the lawyers and bureaucrats, too risky too.
How many landmines are there in the mass of employment laws? Family leave, wrongful termination lawsuits, handicap regs, discrimination lawsuits, DEI, Unions, dockworkers perfectly willing and happy to paralyze the nation or to destroy their employer.
There’s a radio station that I listen to down here that has ads for HR services providers. The ad starts with a (supposed) business owner moaning, “I’ve got an employee who never shows up when he is supposed to, What can I do” I almost jump into the radio yelling, “Fire the SOB, you idiot!” But apparently these days, things are so warped by the lawyers and legal environment that the obvious answer isn’t the correct answer any more. And, in that environment, US employment will be restricted.