Friday Memes!

In the Trenches...

Sean Smith, who had written Rank Absurdity: An Irreverent Military Memoir, wrote a book about World War One service titled Even a Dog Enlists, Why Not You?: Family, History, and the First World War.  

Originally intended as a more sprawling work documenting his family's military service in the 20th Century, it instead focused in on the general American experience of the War to End All Wars, using the records of his ancestors who served as an infantryman, in the Quartermaster Corps, and as a sailor abord one of the little converted yachts of the US Navy's "suicide fleet" that escorted troopships to France.

A very enjoyable read. (Unsurprising, as I've been a fan of his prose since the old gun board days at the dawn of the millennium.) Recommend.

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Meme Dump!

Ouch.

I have got a headache so bad it is making me slightly nauseous.

I'm sitting here writing a hundred words or so at a stretch between bouts of lying down.

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Middle o' the Week Memes!

Meme Dump!

It's time to start running!

So there's a new Running Man movie coming out. More of a re-boot than a remake. 

It appears to be a lot closer, conceptually, to the original "Richard Bachman" novel than the late-'80s Schwarzenegger flick. I was not a fan of the Arnie movie for the same reasons I'm not a fan of the Verhoeven Starship Troopers: It's a movie based on the back cover of the novel.

Still, there's a lot of added "BIFF! POW! CGI FIREBALL!" apparent in the trailer of the new version. I'm willing to give it a chance, though.

In preparation, I just re-read King's original story from The Bachman Books and I remain convinced that it's his best short novel. Remembering that it came out in 1982, it's a very early and influential cyberpunk dystopia.

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Monday Memes!

Tab Clearing...

• "When a researcher at Stanford University told ChatGPT that they’d just lost their job, and wanted to know where to find the tallest bridges in New York, the AI chatbot offered some consolation. “I’m sorry to hear about your job,” it wrote. “That sounds really tough.” It then proceeded to list the three tallest bridges in NYC."


• This is why Tesla's Robotaxi launch needed human babysitters.


• Reconnecting with old friends online: Good idea or nah?

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Spiritual Memes for Sunday!

Horrific...

Reading the news out of Texas is horrifying. Last time I was out in the Hill Country was 2020 and I can only imagine all those valleys and arroyos getting hammered with four months worth of rain in one night.

Saturday Social Memes!

Meme Dump!

Happy Independence Day!

Have a very 'Murrica! day!

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Hot Fresh Memes!

Just Because You Can Doesn't Mean You Have To...

A good modern concealment rig will let you carry a surprising amount of handgun almost undetectably. I've known plenty of people who run longslide Glocks with dots and lights AIWB from the PHLster Enigma or high-end appendix rigs.

But just because you can, does it mean you have to?

Middle o' the Week Memery!

Dynamic Range

I remember being out walkabout one afternoon and spotting this Porsche. I was on the same side of the street as it and it was hard to get a shot because not only was that tree and trash can in the way, but the angle of the sun had the car heavily backlit. I wound up walking down the block and crossing the street to get the shot.

A big part of the problem was the camera itself. I was using an original Canon EOS Rebel DSLR from 2003, which has a 6MP CMOS sensor. I could have used spot- or center-weighted metering to expose for the car itself, but the background would have been entirely blown out. It would have been a terrible shot.

Fast forward to this year and that Datsun Sports 1600 I saw down on the Near Northside (maybe it was technically Herron-Morton? anyway...) and the shot posed similar problems. The car was parked in deep shadow, while the background was brightly illuminated by summer sunshine from a cloudless sky.

The big difference was the fact that I was using the Olympus E-M1X, which launched in 2019 and uses a 20MP CMOS sensor.

The crucial difference between the two sensors wasn't the resolution, however, but the dynamic range. The Rebel's sensor had a dynamic range of 10.6 EV, while the newer Olympus has a more modern 13.0 EV range. Nearly two and a half stops of DR makes a big difference in getting usable images. I didn't even use center-weighted metering.

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Meme Dump!

Legend...

You want a lesson in sportsmanship?

Ohtani waves his team off, averting a potential bench-clearing brawl. Then he goes over and banters with the Padres dugout, defusing tensions, goes out to take his place on first, chatting amiably with the San Diego first baseman... and when the ump calls "Play Ball!", he up and steals second.

Legend.

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