Month: August 2020

  • Gabz on Instagram

    Luis Gabriel Santiago Alvarado, aka Gabz: The main reason I keep Instagram is the same reason most people won’t quit Facebook, I have friends and family I want to stay in contact with. Somehow Instagram seems to be the less Facebooky way of doing it, or at least in my head it is. I feel…

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  • I do not like Reels

    Instagram has been the place that Facebook jams all of its cloned-app-features into for the last few years. When it copied Snapchat it jammed all of the features into Instagram. And now, as it clones TikTok, it is jamming those features into Instagram as well. The Snapchat-like features are easy enough to ignore if you…

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  • What I saw somewhat recently #66: August 18, 2020

    Great list this week. See other lists. I wish somehow these lists were exhaustive and complete but they simply aren’t. There are so many great things I stumble across day-to-day and file away to get to. And I get to some of them. And I remember some of them. And these are those items.

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  • George R. R. Martin’s mountain cabin

    George R. R. Martin about his time writing in his mountain cabin: My life up here is very boring, it must be said.  Truth be told, I hardly can be said to have a life.   I have one assistant with me at all times (minions, I call them).  The assistants do two-week shifts, and have…

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  • Nick Clayton on his pandemic photography experience

    Nick Clayton, in a beautifully written and photographed post on Casual Photophile: Walking with a camera is a moving meditation in which paramount importance is placed on being present in your surroundings. Each camera setup comes with a different way of seeing, as it were. And: I won’t lie, early on in the shutdown, with…

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  • Damage at Arecibo Observatory

    Arecibo Observatory: One of the auxiliary cables that helps support a metal platform in place above the Arecibo Observatory in Puerto Rico, broke on Monday (Aug. 10) causing a 100-foot-long gash on the telescope’s reflector dish. Operations at the UCF-managed observatory are stopped until repairs can be made. Y’all know I’m a big fan of…

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  • My favorite #bisect photos from Micro.blog

    This month Micro.blog is having a photo challenge to help spur some posts and creativity from the growing community there. When Jean asked for recommendations I threw bisect at her and she accepted it as one of the themes. I thought I’d cull some of the posts as favorites. The first photo is just beyond…

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  • First lawn mow at new house. ✅

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  • Joseph Irvin on blaming your photo gear

    Joseph Irvin: Here’s a photo I took on a $3 roll of consumer film I picked up at my local grocery store, shot through a Pentax body that I paid $5 for at a garage sale, mounting a $25 lens from ebay. So never mind not having the top-of-the-line equipment, use what you have and…

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  • Marcus Peddle on using film or digital

    Marcus Peddle, remarking on making Jim Grey’s aforementioned list of film photography blogs: I’m honoured, but slightly embarrassed because most of my photography these days is digital. Still, a photo is a photo, right? I hope you won’t be disappointed by the paucity of film photographs if you came to this website by following the…

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  • A list of film photography blogs by Jim Grey

    Jim Grey: It’s time for my annual list of film photography blogs! A great joy of film photography is the community of people who enjoy everything about it: the gear, the films, getting out and shooting, and looking at the resulting photographs. Lots of us share our adventures on our blogs. I am so very…

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  • Microsoft in talks to buy TikTok

    Microsoft: This new structure would build on the experience TikTok users currently love, while adding world-class security, privacy, and digital safety protections. The operating model for the service would be built to ensure transparency to users as well as appropriate security oversight by governments in these countries. I cannot tell if this is a bad…

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  • Tim Bray on blogging

    Tim Bray: But aren’t blogs dead? · Um, nope. Also, this bit: Since most of us don’t even try to monetize ’em, they’re pretty ad-free and thus a snappy reading experience. I’ve successfully monetized niche blogs in the past that made enough for a few incomes. I’ve only tried to monetize my personal blog a…

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