Knuckledragger

EDM fans are so bland. ULF self portrait. Click for slightly larger. Cursed woodstock: Cursed metal band: His true calling: The year is 2050, Todd Howard has just announced Skyrim to be released on the PS9. Rekt. Cannot dispute.

We had a wild one here on MV yesterday. Driver was drunk and attempted to flee.

Need for Speed Hot Pursuit Remastered is currently 87% off on Steam. It's been on my wishlist for ages. Furthermore, Never let it be said that the furry community passes on the opportunity for a joke.

Via Reddit:

In the parlance of our times, wake up babe, the new 300mm Orestegor dropped. Not actually, that'd break my toe. With that said, I had a bunch of packages waiting for me at the post office today. The Janpol Color 55mm F/5.6 enlargement lens arrived. It's weird and have no idea what I'm doing with it yet. I also got a second copy of the Meyer Optik Orestegor 300mm F/4. If I had any doubts about the extent to which my old copy is afflicted with haze and fungus, they are now laid to rest. Allow me to illustrate: Old 300mm, around F/8. Edited in Photoshop to bring the contrast and colors up to acceptable levels. The same, unedited. The new 300, today, unedited. Shee-it.

God damn.

This person knows how to cat.

Nice shirt though. Mexican Snoop Dog. This one is from a huge set of "Barbie Dream Home IRL" which got very dark at the end. I love how AI doesn't know how to gun. Abandoned Scout, Haines AK.

This guy likes sliver.

I'm almost 50 years old (most of head-case: "Cool story, Knuckles. We almost remember being 50 years old.") I'd like to think I'm still "hip" and "with it" but the zoomers inform me on a daily basis I am lacking in "rizz" and that's "no kizzy on god fr fr no cap." With that said, I use most of the same technologies the youts do. Discord is possibly the single most important app I use. Where I draw the line is Tik Tok. I have never used it nor will I. The other side of that coin is the fac that I can't stop staring into the abyss that is AI generated images. A generated "white Snoop Dogg" looks like Kid Rock.

Conversely, in the "low stakes, but still terrifying to me dept" is Elon Musk as the ultimate EDM bro: AI is as good at rendering DJ equipment as it is human hands.

Needs a cat to appreciate that sunbeam.

I elected to exclude some feet photos which are a non-euclidean nightmare they'd make Yog-Sothoth wince. I've still got a whole folder full of cursed AI images yet to go. The real horror here is the AI itself. Right now it's at the "haha that's so funny it's trying to make something real" phase. In a shorter time than we can imagine, it will be nearly impossible to identify AI images. I'm sure we will have people who becomes experts in the field, but that will not stop the era of disinformation from accelerating further. "Don't wake me, I plan on sleeping in."

That Mountain Dew set caused me to fall down a deep cursed AI rabbit hole. There's gonna be a lot of such images mixed in with the regular Slow. Most sane Gary Busey fanfic. In the parlance of our times, most comprehensible AI meme.

I can't recall if I posted the screenshot of the "Workers in Tennessee collecting the Dew from the Mountains" post in here or not. Either way, here's the whole set.

I'm jealous of this room.

Setup by Devon Turnbull at the Lisson Gallery in New York. I don't mind it except for the turntable, which gives me PTSD flashbacks to elementary school. I saw Mr. Turnbull described as a "hi-fi influencer" which is a term I refuse to accept.

Neat setup, but I'd not want to DJ from that position.

The following is in poor taste, uncalled for, and downright mean: In all seriousness, I hope Addison Mitchell McConnell Jr gets the medical attention he needs ...just as soon as he gets out of office.

I have (another) long winded post about cheap cameras with plastic lenses in the works, but I've been distracted by artificial intelligence. Someone has let loose an AI bot on Flickr. The account has six photos uploaded to Flickr. They are all very competently done. The images have full EXIF, so it's clear they were all taken with a 5D III, in the last few years. Here's where it gets weird. This bot account scans images uploaded by other users then spams an AI generated comment on them. It's weird and inhuman. Some examples: The Edgartown lighthouse, April 2007. Dollar Store Camera and Kodak Gold 200. The bot says: You fuckin' WOT, m8? The EDG lighthouse is famously short and about as majestic as a seagull. (NB: This is unfair to seagulls, which can appear quite majestic while flying.) "Calming body of water." lol. Sweetened Water Pond (across the street from where I now live) in November 2006. Dollar Store Camera, Kodak Gold 200. Authentic light leaks and muddy colors. The bot says: Definitely some "vibrant hues" and "lush trees" going on here. SMH my head, as the kids say. This bot account commented on a bunch of photos in a similar fashion. I'm not entirely sure what is the goal of the operator of this account, but it seems to be working. The photos on bot's account page have hundreds of favorites and comments. Also today I discovered that one of my old Flickr contacts, who used to do square landscapes and artistic model shoots has switched things up a bit. His work looked like this years ago: Iceland 2009. Just down the street from Birgir! (Not really.) Paris 2010. Model in France, 2010. This guy is now posting porn. AI generated porn. Of thick black women. Initially I thought they were real, but AI's "uncanny valley" lighting almost invariably gives itself away. NSFW: This one has a "bo-ob." It's a really weird time to be alive.

It's true that black and white print film has no equals when it comes to capturing and reproducing a wide dynamic range of values. It's also true that at LEAST half the work with B&W film is in the darkroom, making prints. Ansel Adams was an undisputed master of this process. Henri Cartier-Bresson claimed to be allergic to developer chemicals and had other people do the work for him. I've never shot, developed nor printed B&W print film, so I am in no position to talk shit. So anyway, there's this fake-ass B&W film that Kodak used to make called BW400CN. It's black and white film that is developed the same way color print film is done. Meaning it's easy for scrubs who don't have access to a darkroom, and a total gamble as far as results go. Also, I have great beginner's luck followed by a roller coaster plunge. Let's come out of the gate swinging. This is one of the best shots I've ever taken and will ever take. The inside of the Edgartown lighthouse, 07/28/08 - 3:43PM. 17-40L at the wide end, Canon Rebel K2, Kodak BW400CN. This shot is lightning in a bottle. Here's the underside of that same bottle. Looking out the porthole. This photogenic little trustafarian fuck blew out my surf guitar amp, returned it to me broken, and then de-friended me on Facebook. Kodak Rebel G, Kodak BW400CN, and the mighty Meyer-Optik Orestor 135mm F/2.8 showing off why it's a "bokeh monster." My friend Alyssa's patented look of disapproval. 5/25/08 - 7:00AM at the breakfast diner. EOS Rebel K2, EF 85mm F/1.8. Kodak BW400CN. Okay, let's drop that other shoe, shall we? 02/22/09 - 5:04PM - 17-40mm @ 17mm, F/8, 1/45th. Rebel K2. Kodak BW400CN. This is an absolute nightmare. The soup nazi says "No midtones for you!" The ancestral cottage on MV, 09/15/09 - 5:34PM - 17-40L @ 17mm, F/9.5, 1/180th, Kodak BW400CN. This one is actually one of the better frames from the second two rolls. 10/04/09 - 5:25PM - 17-40L @ 17mm, F/13, 1/30th, Rebel K2, BW400CN. The lack of midtones and detail in general is appalling. I actually like the composition of the shot, even if my dumb ass had the lens hood on the wrong way. See that black bit in the upper left corner? Memento Mori. 10/06/09 - 5:43PM. Rebel K2. Kodak BW400CN. The mushroom cloud laying motherfucker of a lens that is the Canon EF 85mm F/1.2L II @ F/2, 1/2000th. I had to stop down because the poor Rebel K2 said "bro, I can't move my shutter fast enough to compensate for that much light!" Leave it to a bad BW400CN run to wreck 85L bokeh. The road where hopes for midtones go to die. 03/06/09 - 5:19PM - 17-40mm @ 24mm, F/13, 1/350th. I have a bunch more, but I've made my point. I still have one last roll of BW400CN, some 14 years later. I dunno if I can be arsed to expose it. At this point I'd rather attempt to develop Tri-X in my bathroom.

The Monochrom does show a lot of values of gray. It's funny how it just ends suddenly with low light detail. To my eye it behaves more like slide film that B&W print film in that regard. Related: Anyone remember when B&W slide film was a (common) thing? It's all but nonexistent these days.