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Very distressing. RIP to noted humanitarian Mr. Prigozhin.

True Detective

Some photos using my tele lenses (sorry I'm a real newbie in photography): The last month, I used a Canon ef 70-300mm f4-5.6 is ii nano usm: This week I used a Canon ef 100-400mm f/4.5-5.6l is usm: I still have to practice a lot to achieve acceptable results, especially with the 100-400, although the weather, the haze and the forest fires don't help much.

I decided to order some of these, 4oz copper, panelized/scored. Gilmore Purple People Eater, because purple is the most uber color the PCBs will be available if anyone wants a set

Came home to find out my brake lights were stuck on. Apparently there's a little rubber disc that goes on the brake pedal arm that pushes the switch to shut off the brake lights when the pedal is up, and it disintegrated. Found the pieces of it on the floormat when I went to check the switch. Luckily I found a bolt laying around whose head was almost the exact thickness of the disc, so I just shoved that in the hole and now the brake lights work normally again. There wasn't room to get a nut on the back side (the side of the bolt is right against metal), but the pedal has to be pushed way down to even get it in or out, and it's relatively snug in there, so I guess this will be the permanent fix.

it seems like i will be waiting a long while for my Argos lever machine (their QA process has slowed to a crawl) so i've resorted to faking shots using the Fellow Prismo attachment on my aeropress. grinding in espresso range on the P100, immersion for 1:00, then a slow press fully down to compress the puck and produce extra, albeit very thin, foam. the resulting drink is a "FakePresso" 1:3 lungo (18g in, 54g out) that is nowhere near real espresso-feel but the taste is great... way better than anything like a Nespresso. plus i feel like it will help me get used to concentrated flavors and help my real shots whenever i finally can do them. today was Savage Parabolic gesha roasted by Red Meow in Hong Kong.👌

I went again to get you matching funds

Realized it's been 10 months since my last covid booster. Set up an appointment for Flu/Covid vaccines for 10:00 am tomorrow.

Today I got another manual focus 135mm prime lens in the mail. Ya rly. This makes ...I've lost count. It's a Japanese made Suntar Auto 135mm F/2.8. The copy I got is very clean. I stuck an M42/EF adapter on it and ambled around my yard during the golden hour. First thing of note. The minimum focus distance of the Suntar is eight feet. This thing is more farsighted than I am. For comparison, the Orestor can do just over 4 feet, the Tair does 1.2 meters (feet are capitalist propaganda), and the the Sonnar can do 3.3 feet ...and that's just the 135mms I have on this desk. What that meant is I had to completely rethink the way I shoot. Goofing around with DoF during the golden hour. I think this shot was around F/8. Next major point. The Suntar only has full stop aperture increments. Hello? What decade is it? The Great War called. Jerry's up to his old tricks again. This is a colossal limitation that will greatly impact how I take photos. Using a modern digital body, I can of course futz with shutter speed and ISO in 1/3 stops to compensate. I've been spoiled by all my vintage glass with its free floating aperture settings. This one was either F/5.6 or F/8, I do not remember. The Suntar has a not insignificant CA problem wide open, but it seems to lose it quickly when stopped down. I need to test this more, of course. Another bottle shot. This is documentation of me trying to make sense of the minimum focus distance. I will not be using the Suntar for close up images of small objects. TBH, this is not a problem. I already have a small army of manual 135mms and while each has their own quirks and character, they're all good at capturing a bottle sized object. The Suntar is an odd beast, and I will have to move outside my normal comfort zone to make use of it. I should mention I got it for $18 shipped, which is less than I'll pay for the UV filter I eventually put on it ...just as soon as I figure out its filter size (it isn't marked.)

The key is that the thing being shoved into the hole is not too big, nor too small.

(Rinsed and) repeated!

* Actually, #17 unacceptable Oh Rly https://restaurantclicks.com/worst-pizza-toppings/ https://www.mashed.com/183299/the-most-controversial-pizza-toppings-explained/ but thats just other food on Pizza UK: Hold My Beer https://www.walesonline.co.uk/whats-on/food-drink-news/nation-lists-worst-crimes-against-19265902 (* Everyone knows, they go with a nice curry) https://www.creativemoment.co/goodfellas-stands-up-to-crimes-against-pizza-on-behalf-of-the-nation The Aussi's have their say "Dried mixed herbs The Lynx Africa of the spice rack. Gross, overpowering and used only by blokes pretending to have their life together" https://www.smh.com.au/goodfood/eating-out/sushi-and-11-other-things-that-dont-belong-on-pizza-20190730-h1goes.html International incident ? https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/feb/21/icelands-president-would-ban-pineapple-on-pizza-if-he-could https://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/entry/pineapple-pizza-bad-toppings-quiz_uk_58ad5942e4b04a0b274e2bf8 * https://www.the-sun.com/news/6388352/britains-most-hated-pizza-toppings-revealed

The pharmacist had to find a spot between type to mark my covid booster, since my card was full. But I'm boosted again and ready to thumb my nose at the flu as well.

Almost 2/3’s of the way there now. There’s some additional incentive to give for the next few days, the foundation has received an offer by a private donor to match up to $50k for all funds raised this week. So double your impact this week!

Wow. Doom 2 Map 01 for KF1. That brings back some memories. Brent screaming "medic medic MEDIIIC" while I try not to run out of ammo with the Crossbow.

I'm working my way through BG3. Its also not my type of genre. Post apacalypse would be more my style. That said, it is amazing. One of the best games I've experienced as well. I'm also into lore and games in order but trying to go back to Fallout 1, reality set in and the monotony of those early games made it too painful, so I gave up.

In the famous wise words...

2077 and Starfield... I want to be more excited but Baldur's Gate 3 was the best single player gaming experience I've ever hard. For them it will be like having to follow James Brown as an opening act. I hope they live up to the promise but I don't see either coming close to the quality of Baldur's Gate. I hope I am wrong about that.

If those are the only 2 options id go with the 100v but if its a 115v primary not a 120 or you have high line voltage you’ll want to go to 200v+ rated caps for this board the difference in heatsinking isnt going to be a lot

Ukrainian drone destroys Russian supersonic bomber.

Well, it seems that the D700 + 50/1.8G shows no signs of slowing down, here are some edits. For a 15-year-old sub-400$ camera, it's superb. And it's only the second time I've used it. AF can get confused (you can see how it missed the eyes on the vertical shot, it generally wants to focus on the closest thing), might try messing with settings. RAW files require far less time, providing a denser, richer, more colourful image with more of a filmic, timeless quality to them (imho). All embedded LR profiles work great. At first, I didn't even notice that there are also DX2 Profiles to mimic Nikon's software. I wish modern cameras would work similarly, not making me curse while editing... The only thing that I will pay attention to is occasionally dialling in a bit of negative expo compensation to protect highlights on faces. Dynamic range is of course not quite as much as a modern camera but it's fine, more malleable than the 5D Mk1 (same regarding the AF system). And of course, wouldn't it be nice to have a 28/1.4E to complement the nifty fifty - maybe one day... Here's one with the R6 for comparison, colours feel quite different to my eyes (cooler, less saturated). There was a huge discount on the R6 Mark II so the R6 is already gone. Haven't tested it, some said colour science has been improved. Demand on DSLR cameras have plummeted, so I might still get a 6D or a 5D III just to see if I can find that perfect happy medium between old vs new, basic vs complex, cheap vs expensive. Right now, what the D700 does to my eyes reminds me of what the SR-Lambda NB does to my ears.

In spite of the above, I spent much of the weekend shooting with the 5D IV. It's quite a beast. The 100% viewfinder is really something. Being me, I dug out a big chunk of my manual focus glass collection and began taking pictures of stationary objects. I make no secret of the fact that I am not greatly impressed with flower macros. Bottles on the other hand, I find highly amusing. Long time readers will know of my interest in old manual lenses with an excessive number of aperture blades. These lenses allow for precise "bokeh shaping" of the OOF area of a photo I'm starting with the king of them all here, the Russian made Tair 11a 135mm F/2.8, which has 22 aperture blades. I don't know of a widely produced 35mm lens with more. This shot was taken around F8. I say "around" because like most of my old manuals, the Tair doesn't have F-stops. The aperture ring spins freely throughout its range. I should say "freely" as the ring is quite stiff on my copy, particularly past F/8. To be fair to it, I dropped it in 2008 and it's never been the same since. Being old, Russian and probably afflicted with some haze, the Tair is not a contrast king. I'd not shoot film through it, but with digital imaging it's a trivia task to adjust the levels in Photoshop. Next in line is the massive Meyer-Optik Orestegor 300mm F/4 and it's 19 blade aperture. The 300 is 5 pounds by itself and the 5D with a battery grip is not exactly light either. I cannot handhold the combination steadily enough to take photos with it. I ended up bracing the 300mm against a fence post and framing as best I could. This shot was also taken around F/8. I had to bump the ISO up to 1600 to get a sufficiently high shutter speed. With the 300, I always observe the "one over focal length" rule even with the lens is supported. My Orestegor copy has visible haze and fungus in it (sad) so I always have to edit photos taken with it. This one was relatively easy to clean up. As is the case with most of these old lenses, it's quite sharp stopped down. The same bottle gets boring after a bit, so I used my mid 1950s Praktica F. X 2 35mm SLR as a subject. Taken with the Tair 11A, around F/8. If the camera looks kind of grubby in this photo, that's because it is. I took this shot after I spent considerable time cleaning it with a toothbrush. I only ever put one roll of film through the F.X 2, and got like 3 usable shots out of it. I love old lenses. Old SLRs, not so much. Attached to the F.X 2 is an E. Ludwig Meritar 50mm F/2.9, which was the "kit lens" for this camera when it was new. I've never used the Meritar much. I have a bunch of 50s and for me it's not a particularly interesting focal length. I did attach the Meritar to my 5D IV briefly. More on that later, maybe. I have been photographing bottles on Marthas Vineyard for a long time, using a large variety of lenses and cameras: The reason I bought the Praktica F.X 2 in 2007 was not for the little 50mm Meritar. Also included in the auction was a Meyer-Optik Orestor 135mm F/2.8, which has a 15 blade aperture. It's the lens that got me started on collecting old manuals. I took this shot in the spring of 2008. The Orestor was around F/8 (there seems to be a pattern here), on a Canon Rebel G film SLR using expired Kodak Portra 400UC. I had minimal idea what I was doing here. I should have set the EV down by a third of a stop ...or a half, I don't think the Rebel G did thirds of a stop. The worst thing about color print film is that it's such a crapshoot. I took this on 06/07/08 - 4:30PM (as my notes say), with Kodak Gold 200 AKA one of the most meh film stocks imaginable. In this instances, the Gold 200 decided to one up its much more expensive sibling. This shot has a wonderfully dreamy quality too it. Lens was once again the Orestor 135mm. I have no idea about exposure settings. My notes for my earliest rolls of film are spotty at best. This is a fact that comes back to bite me in the ass repeatedly. Facing the other direction for once, with a neatly shaped bottle. Taken in the spring of 2009 with my 30D and humble 35mm F/2. This was not long before an idiot knocked that combination off a table in a nightclub and broke the 35mm's AF motor. I've used it as a manual focus lens for 14 years now. Going out with a bang here. 10/06/08 - 11:53AM. 135mm Orestor at F/5, 125th. Canon Rebel K2 with Fuji Velvia 50. Cropped to 5:4 but otherwise unedited. When I list of the things in my life that I have encountered that lived up to and even exceeded the hype (Citizen Kane, Tapatio Hot Sauce, Canon 85mm F/1.2L, Biosphere's Substrata, Fuji Velvia 50) I am not fucking kidding. Velvia 50 absolute smokes every other color film stock on the planet. The way it renders blues and purples makes digital cameras look like toys. It's ISO 50 and mercilessly unforgiving about exposure tolerances. It was dearly expensive 15 years ago and even more pricey now. It has no peers. The cobalt blue bottle speaks for itself. Later I'll do a post of a bunch of V50 shots I took in 2008. Right now I have to contact the seller of the 5D IV I bought and tell him he bent a CF card slot pin.

Yeah Yeah Yeahs - Cool It Down

Cigarettes after Sex. A lot of it. (Dream pop with a slight tint of melancholy)

Moderators: can we please change the site name to poisonousclan.com? Kthxbye

Back on the Ted Train for season three - and it is not disappointing.

I would not have put you down as fan of Scary Spice, but your secret is safe with us.

I watched the entire season of races, know everything that is coming, and yet this show still has me hooked with the unprecedented behind the scenes footage. Netflix does such a good job with this.

Loudermilk

In case you haven't heard, Lil Dicky is returning in season three of Dave in April.

Yesterday I took a Wednesday bellyful Pretty entertaining, I was expecting worse.

It's really strange seeing Sacha in a dramatic role. But, as is true with so many great comedians, they usually prove to be excellent dramatic actors.

OK, now I'm in love..... Wednesday in a goth dress dancing to the Cramps' "Goo Goo Muck" 💖

^Also Wednesday (Netflix) - six eps in, two to go. It's fab👍

Wednesday on Netflix. Huge Addams Family (original TV show) fan. And while this is not the same, nor will anything ever be, it seems fairly good through 2 episodes. Less campy than the TV series (or movies), but I do think Jenna Ortega plays a good Wednesday. Appropriately dark.....good one-liners in that vein.

https://smile.amazon.com/What-About-Bob/dp/B0B8TGMJQB/ref=sr_1_1/?crid=OE4CJZLQ8GWM&keywords=peripheral&qid=1668606329&sprefix=peripheral%2Caps%2C210&sr=8-1 It's one of my favorite books, and the series lacks some of the depth, but is still well executed and worth watching.

This is pretty good. Stanley Tucci is excellent.

I learned much of what I know from watching Norm. I truly feel like I know the man. I did have the pleasure of having lunch with him and Steve Thomas. The company I worked for in Alaska set it up for me. They knew what a huge fan I was. And they got me on the panel at the Home Show, and the luncheon with Norm. I set across from Norm and next to Steve Thomas. After 10 minutes or so I got up the nerve to throw out a zinger about what a premadonna Bob Vila was. That got both of them laughing and we spent the rest of the lunch making fun of him. Great fun, and a day I'll never forget. He is getting old, and it makes me sad. It's hard to believe he's at the end of his career, and I'm not far behind. Time goes by so fast!

Atlanta (FX) - season 4 started up last week, with the first two eps. Came out swinging 👍

So binged The Bear last night-this morning. The whole season is pretty damn good.

Hmmm. Prigozhin Listed as Passenger on Plane That Crashed, Killing All Aboard https://www.nytimes.com/live/2023/08/23/world/prigozhin-russia-ukraine-war-news