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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Memes to Help Face a Monday!

Automotif DLXXXIII...

Here's an attractive little 1964½ Ford Mustang convertible. There wasn't yet a 2-barrel version of the 289 cubic inch "Challenger" small-block, so the base V-8 in the very first Mustangs was the 260-cube version of the same motor, with two tiers of 4-barrel 289 in the option list.

This Rangoon Red ragtop has the 260 and a 3-speed Cruise-O-Matic slushbox.

It was photographed with a Canon EOS R and an RF 24-105mm f/4-7.1 IS zoom lens.

Holy Memes!

Soulless Drones

From an interview with techbro Patrick Collison, co-founder of Stripe:

What the hell? "I don't want to have to spend the time to [watch the show/read the book/listen to the opera], just tell me what happens." Like life is a book report to be cheated on by reading the Cliffs Notes.

"I don't want to actually eat the steak dinner, it takes too long and feels like just a waste of time, so I take two vitamin pills and ask my Agentic AI for a summary of what wagyu tastes like."

What a bunch of shallow, plastic, soulless goons these guys are.

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Demon Core Memes!

(For those who don't know: The demon core.)

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Tab Clearing...

• PHLster Holsters has a new newsletter...and a new newsletter editor.


• The Devil and Sergeant Danny Applewhite


• Deputy Cletus has left the building.

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Memes for Your Friday!

"...then his INDOPACOM started crying."

We're gonna pivot to Asia any day now... any day...

This essay has a good historical analogy...

"CENTCOM remains the operational and institutional center of gravity for the U.S. military, absorbing high-demand assets, dictating deployment rhythms, and monopolizing policy bandwidth. ... Thus, it is a bureaucratic and strategic vortex that resists de-prioritization, even as its theater becomes less strategically vital."

The Global War on a Noun apparently came with a hell of an institutional hangover.

Meme Dump!

Sporty!

I was driving back north to Broad Ripple from our sole remaining camera store, Roberts downtown location (they closed their Carmel store a few years back) and noticed that the little Datsun Sports 1600 that I'd passed on the way down was still parked there on the side of Central Avenue.

So I pulled over and shot some photos of it. You can see more of them here.

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Memes for the Midweek!

Meme Dump!

"Forever", "Four hours", whichever...

Last night:

“I think the ceasefire is unlimited. It’s going to go forever," Trump said in a phone interview.

Asked whether the war was completely over, Trump said: “Yes. I don’t believe they will ever be shooting at each other again.”

Within a matter of hours, Israel claimed that Iran had launched missiles at it, Iran denied it, Iraq reported that somebody had attacked its army bases with drones, and Israel was launching air strikes against central Tehran.

Trump was livid and demanded Netanyahu turn those planes around, do a "friendly plane wave" to Iran, and not drop the bombs.

The Israelis bombed a radar site north of Tehran anyway.

This is quite a charlie foxtrot of a ceasefire so far.

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Predictable...

I mean, there are certain movie franchises that are fairly predictable: James Bond, most MCU flicks, Mission Impossible... They have certain tropes and themes that occur in every movie.

The one that really gets me though is how they can keep doing Jurassic Park flicks, because literally the same thing happens every time. It'd be like going to see Titanic 4: MORE ICEBERGS!

But I guess if the special effects are good enough, it's worth a few bucks.

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Monday Meme Dump!

Deterrence?

Tucker Carlson was against getting involved in Iran, as is Marjorie Taylor Greene, Steve Bannon, and indeed 53% of Republicans in a recent poll. Of course Rep. Massie and Sen. Paul have been breaking out in full libertarian dudgeon.

We'll see if they all toe the line now.

Hegseth repeatedly talked about deterrence in his briefing this morning, but as I've said before on a more personal defense scale, the other guy gets to decide how deterred he feels.

I hope that it is indeed a limited strike that incentivizes Iran to concessions, and doesn't provoke any retaliation, but that's not how I'd bet my lunch money.

PS: Oh, and don't forget that we've just RIF'ed whole swathes of our intel apparatus.

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Meme Dump!

Ugh.

Yesterday's high temp here in Indianapolis was 91°F, with a dew point of 74 degrees, which translates to a heat index of 101. Thing is, with the dew point that high, sweat doesn't evaporate. This is New Orleans or Houston weather (fortunately air conditioners are more common in Indy than salt trucks and snowplows on the bayou.)

Today they're calling for 94 degrees with a similar dew point to yesterday's, so it's gonna be like the devil's armpit out there. By comparison, it's only supposed to get up to 88 in Miami, a daily high we won't see again until Saturday if the weather gnomes are to be believed.

I say again, ugh.

The people I really feel for are the folks who are still without power from the storms last Wednesday. Apparently there are 600-some-odd AES customers still without electricity scattered around Indianapolis.

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Tab Clearing...

• Droughts affecting global food prices.


• U.S. big tech firms losing business in the EU.


• Photographer Dave Jenkins waxes eloquent about his trusty Canon EOS 5D. I love the EOS 5D Mark II so much that when I sold mine to help fund the purchase of a 5DS, I wound up going back and purchasing another 5D Mark II to serve as backup for the megapixel monster. (h/t to Jim Grey)

5D Mark II photos:

Weekend Meme Dump!

The Longest Day...

...is not actually June 6th, but today. Also, summer does not start on Memorial Day weekend, but tonight at ten something o'clock.

Happy Summer Solstice!

Almost like Mother Nature can read a calendar or something, it's supposed to be hotter than Satan's stovetop here tomorrow, and through most of the next week, too.

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