This Old Blog

While slumming the Internets this morning I came across the wonderful editorial on the New York Times website, " Slaves of the Internet, Unite! ", written by Tim Kreider (someone I'll have to start paying more attention to). In his wonderful editorial I linked to, out pops this one jewel among many: Just as the atom bomb was the weapon that was supposed to render war obsolete, the Internet seems like capitalism’s ultimate feat of self-destructive genius, an economic doomsday device rendering it impossible for anyone to ever make a profit off anything again. It’s especially hopeless for those whose work is easily digitized and accessed free of charge. I now contribute to some of the most prestigious online publications in the English-speaking world, for which I am paid the same amount as, if not less than, I was paid by my local alternative weekly when I sold my first piece of writing for print in 1989. More recently, I had the essay equivalent of a hit single — en...

A ten-week old pup now going on five years Sometime back in May of this year I passed something of a milestone. blogbeebe turned eight years old. Over those eight years it's managed to accret 1,500-plus posts about subjects ranging all over the map. If you look over at the category cloud you can quickly find the top four or five topics I've written about. This isn't particularly rigorous as I've never been careful what topics to associate with any given article. But you can get a pretty good idea where my overall thoughts have been over the last eight years. When I first started this blog I had no idea where I'd be going with it. I had a vague idea it would be a purely geek type of blog, with entries about my encounters with languages (Java primarily) and software systems (Linux primarily). You'll find some Java entries, and some ancillary Java subjects, such as for Netbeans, but nothing quite like I thought I would write. You will find more than a few L...

This post and the following posts are a confluence of odd events. Let me explain a bit. Before this post I had written Matthew that I wouldn't tweet or photography or blog throughout the upcoming week because I was going on vacation and I was pretty much burned out, and I needed a "recharge." But as life would have it, my resolve died rather quickly. Matthew had just written a review of his new Ricoh GR , which I re-read after I wrote Matthew and it triggered a memory of my Sony NEX-5N with its pair of Sigma E-mount lenses , and so, inspired (or jealous, your call), I went back to where I had it all stored and pulled it all out and started to drive around with it. I always carry a camera with me in the Prius, specifically the Olympus E-M5, but I hadn't been getting much use out of it except for the Cloud Lab blimp . I figured what the hell, change up the gear and see what happens. And then I ran across Lee Reamsnyder's " Your Eye Is Not A Camera "...

After my long rambling exposition in the prior post I thought I'd put this out to counter-balance all the intense seriousness. I saw this car this morning while I was out buying some bagels for breakfast. I spied it briefly as I hurried into the store. Once I had my precious bagels I found I could linger a bit near the car to appreciate it's decorative elements, particularly the pink eye lashes. I'm sure that such car decorations have been and will continue to be the subject of casual derision. But not from me. At a point where it seems every piece of news is so grim ( Syria , the NSA spying on us, the echos of Trayvon Martin , the gutting of the Voting Rights Act and our Fifth Amendment rights by an increasingly clueless and hostile supreme court...) it's nice to come across an act of non-destructive creativity that brings a big smile to your face. I hope this car stays this way. And I hope one day to meet the person that owns it. It should be interesting. ...

I've been hearing about random acts of violence since I was a kid; that's over a half century for me. Later some "comedian" came up with "random acts of kindness", later followed by "random acts of art" until the meme was "random acts of [fill_in_the_blank]." For me it's turning into random acts of photography, for no more reason than the mood strikes me at that particular moment. Shapes, colors, textures, design, it can all come together at the most improbable moment. Which is why I carry a real camera at all times, even though I supposedly have a decent camera in my Galaxy S4. While the Galaxy S4's camera is indeed much better than the camera in my former HTC myTouch 4G, it's still a crappy camera for all but emergency situations. Nothing beats having a regular camera (E-1, GX1, NEX 5N, E-M5...) for the ability to hold it assuredly with one hand, shutter release comfortably under the forefinger of the holding hand. In th...

I can't add more to what has flooded the news since Edward Snowden's initial leak about the NSA's whole-sale domestic spying and other unconstitutional activities, except my own personal feelings, which are intensely against the NSA's actions. I find the whole Democratic party's participation, in particular Dianne Feinstein's, the chair of the Senate Intelligence Committee, who stupidly labels the NSA's actions as " protecting America " totally reprehensible. The only Democrat with enough backbone who has shown enough anger about the revelations is Al Gore, who called the NSA's actions what they truly are, " obscenely outrageous ." And now comes the news that the U.S. government has issued a formal indictment and a request to Hong Kong to arrest him and hold him for extradition back to the U.S. I don't know if this will do any good, but I am repeating what the ACLU sent out earlier today. Dear Friends, Edward Snowden risk...

o·di·ous    /ˈōdēəs/ Adjective Extremely unpleasant; repulsive. Synonyms hateful - obnoxious - detestable - loathsome - abominable ol·i·garch    /ˈäliˌgärk/ Noun A ruler in an oligarchy. (esp. in Russia) A very rich businessman with a great deal of political influence. ol·i·gar·chy    /ˈäliˌgärkē/ Noun A small group of people having control of a country, organization, or institution. A state governed by such a group. The last few weeks have been bitter-sweet for me. In spite of finding and starting a great new job I've had to deal with the decisions of corporations from which I purchased goods and services, specifically Adobe and Yahoo. First I had to deal with the fact that the oligarchs who rule Adobe decided the only way to purchase the use of Photoshop going forward is via a monthly fee through their Creative Cloud. I have been a purchaser and user of boxed Photoshop si...

Street machine - Olympus E-M5 with Panasonic Lumix 14mm f/2.5 Every once in a while (far less than I should) I mosey over to Wolfgang Lonien's blog and check a different photographer's perspective from half way around the world. Literally. Wolfgang lives in Germany and views the world through a far different cultural lens than I. On the majority of issues I find we are in surprisingly close agreement (which I think goes to show, perhaps a little unfortunately, the over-homogenisation of world cultures). One of those issues we seem to agree on concerns technological openness, in this case concerning digital cameras and post processing software. Wolfgang is a strong believer in open systems and open software. He practices what he preaches, choosing to use Debian at home and supporting Redhat where he works. At home he uses dcraw to process his raw images from his Olympus cameras, feeding the results into RawTherapee . Both of these applications are open source software...

Whether it's stark colors and sharp edges or muted, rich colors that remind me of the old Renaissance masters, the world is full of color, even if those colors border on black and white. That does not mean it's a black and white world. Black and white is an artificiality we imposed on our world because that's all we had for the most part, especially in early photography. From black and white prints in old newspapers, to monochrome photographs stretching back to the late eighteenth century, black and white was  de rigueur . Color was the very rare exception. My first camera was an Instamatic 104. The first photos to come out of it were black and white. When I started developing film on my own it was Tri-X, both 35mm and 120/220. Color, while certainly available, was expensive and required someone else to process and print, adding to the cost. That all changed with digital. All of a sudden I had the ability to work with color to a degree I never even had with film-and-...

This will be short and sweet. What you're looking at is my collection of mirrorless cameras. All of them. Each one has a unique lens on them. And I have other lenses still in the bag. One of them, probably my favorite, is the Olympus M.Zuiko 45mm tucked right behind the Sony NEX-5N. I like these cameras for a number of reasons. Light-weight. Even with a small prime mounted on the body (or a slightly larger zoom), the mirrorless cameras are the smallest and lightest capable interchangeable lens cameras I've ever owned. I can wear one around my neck all day long, and I've even forgotten they're hanging around my neck for the most part. Affordable. With the notable exception of the E-P2 (which I purchased as a kit with the M.Zuiko 14-42mm and VF-2 electronic finder), all of these cameras have been purchased for 'mere' hundreds of dollars. The E-PL1, the least expensive of the lot, dropped down at one point to $150 for the body. The E-PL2 dropped down to $200...

You're looking at two recently deceased businesses on I-10 at exit 262 north bound on County Road 255 to Lee, Florida, one directly across the other. I found these quite by accident when I pulled off of I-10 to switch driving with my wife. I say recently deceased because there's very little wear on the businesses. While I was standing there trying to photograph Kounty Kitchen Restaurant a relative of the former owner drove up in his truck to ask if I was interested in buying the business. When I told him "No" he grew a bit disappointed, said goodbye, and drove on. This is indicative of what I continue to see, small businesses all over that are being shuttered, one by slow steady one, while both political parties continue to dither over a solution. I find the unemployment statistic of "only" 7.8% to be something close to obscene. No, I don't believe the numbers were manipulated by the president. Yes, I do find 7.8% just as depressing as any of the p...

I've added a photo of the E-5 as a visual aid, not because I'm going to run right out and purchase a pair. I pretty much expressed  my modest opinion about the E-5 back on September 2010 ( The Future and Olympus ), when the E-5 was released during Photokina 2010. I also expressed my modest opinion about the E-P3 back on July 2011 ( The Olympus E-P3 — Too little, too late ). I spilled a fair amount of bile in both of those posts, and I still feel justified in having written what I wrote. And then I came out all hot and bothered about the OM-D E-M5 in February ( I'm A Believer – Again ) where I expressed something close to ardour for the camera without even holding the camera, let alone used it. That ardour has since faded, and with the theft of my Olympus 4:3rds cameras, the desire to own the camera has gone into neutral. It's not as if I don't have any cameras at the moment. I own three jewel-like µ4:3rds bodies; an E-P2, an E-PL1 and an E-PL2. Along with the bo...

I rarely write inflammatory (what some might call trolling) titles to a post, but this building you see before you deserves it. I've been seeing this building next to I-4 just east of Altamonte/436 and Crane's Roost for nearly 12 years, and never knew who owned it. Today on a trip up to Lake Mary with my wife I saw it yet again. That's when I told her I wanted to stop by on the way back and poke around the property, and photograph any parts of it if I could. What I discovered was this still unfinished eighteen story (I counted) white elephant, overgrown with weeds and yet still under slow-motion construction. It looks impressive with its exterior glass curtain walls, but that impression is quickly lost when you see the unfinished lower stories and look inside to the unfinished interior spaces. A quick check via Google leads to an article written in 2010 by the Orlando Sentinel about the Majesty Tower. Based on what I read in the article it's owned by SuperChannel ...

The title comes rather round-a-bout from a Warehouse 13 episode that was a riff off of the Frank Capra movie . That's enough of a clue to figure out the episode. I wasn't watching so much as listening, as I'd seen the episode already. My wife was watching the episode after we'd gotten back from supper out. It was fajita Wednesday at Don Pablo's. It's one of the few low calorie, healthy meals you can eat out. Summer monsoon season here in central Florida means afternoon showers and spectacular sunsets. We didn't get rain on our neighborhood today but we certainly got our share of spectacular sunset. I'd been entranced by the skies both headed to supper and headed home from supper. Right before the sunlight darkens completely there are a few moments where the clouds are lit with spectacular color against purpling skies. Right when I drove up into our driveway was when that moment occurred. I stepped out with my camera and caught these two views looking u...

I know what you're thinking. Why is this idiot in Orlando talking about an Austenite he's never met in person? Because I like the guy and I like what he writes and the way he rights. Because it looks like some self-righteous forum assholes have taken Kirk to task over his shift from µ4:3rds to a Sony Nex system (Nex7 to be precise), a move that streamlines his camera system usage to all Sony. This seems to have outraged all the pro-µ4:3rds/anti-Nex partisans in much the same way it seemed to enrage equivalent pro-Canon partisans who railed against him when he shifted from heavy Canon kit (5DMk2, 7D, 60D) to the Sony α77. If nothing else I always keep up with Kirk's transitions, in part because I find them fascinating, in part because he can do what I can't, and that's afford to try something new on a fairly regular basis. Kirk can do this because (1) he's an honest-to-god working pro with decades of experience and (2) he's developed a decades-long solid b...

What you see are two nature photographs I've taken roughly nine months and to versions of Lightroom apart. The upper photo was taken today with an E-PL2 and the Leica 25mm lens, and post processed in Lightroom 4.1. The lower photo was taken with an E-1 and the Zuiko Digital 50mm Macro back in early November 2011, and post processed in Lightroom 3.5. The general composition is pretty much the same, portrait photos of plant growth growing from bottom to top and sorta following the rule of thirds . Both photos also have strong reds and violets in them (the lower photo far more than the upper), which is the color I much prefer over so-called Olympus blues. Call these Olympus reds and magentas if you will. Maybe it's my bad eyesight, but when I place the two photos side-by-side as prints and view them at a normal distance (not with me so close I leave nose-grease on the surface) that I find them, for all practical purposes, technically indistinguishable. I can't honestly tel...

This is a small cautionary tale about business, one a small business, and one a large one. We'll start with the small business, the former Seminole Wind on Monroe. The first time I even knew Seminole Wind existed was when I drove by it July of last year and caught site of the sign addressed to the President hanging up high (see below). I stopped and grabbed a photo, and then drove on. It was in July of last year that I helped my youngest daughter move into her current residence, another rental. We were driving up an down Monroe between where we were staying on Monroe and where my daughter eventually wound up. My daughter had never heard of this place in all the time she'd been there and I'd never noticed, like I said, before now. After this one photo I forgot about it. And then, this past weekend, driving up Monroe back to where our hotel was I happened to glance over to the place and saw it was completely closed up. The only indication that there was even a closure was ...