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Republican Hypocrisy in Florida

noreply@blogger.com (Bill Beebe) — Sun, 29 Jan 2012 02:40:00 +0000

It's early voting time for the Republican primary here in Florida, and the hypocrisy is flying about fast and furious. According to a report on CNN, Romney is being attacked for alledgedly committing Medicare fraud by a pro-Gingrich super-PAC. This mud slinging is bad enough, but what really pushes it over the top is it's being voiced by former Florida state Attorney General Bill McCollum.

To fully understand why this is so hypocritical, especially for anyone associated with the Florida Republican establishment, you need to consider our current governor, Rick Scott. Before he moved to Florida to meet the absolute minimum residency requirements of seven years before running for governor of Florida, he was chairman and CEO of Columbia/HCA. He was forced to resign by the Columbia/HCA board of directors in 1997 when agents of the FBI, the IRS, and the Department of Health and Human Services served search warrants on Columbia/HCA facilities in El Paso as well a dozens of doctors affiliated with Columbia/HCA. As a result search warrants and following investigations, Columbia/HCA was charged with 14 felonies related to Medicare fraud, eventually paying over $600 million in fines, the largest fraud settlement in history.

That's right, we elected a real crook as governor of Florida.

And that's why absolutely nobody of this state's Republican political establishment, and I mean nobody, had better sling the accusation of Medicare fraud at anybody else. Not until Rick Scott stands up and tells the real truth about his involvement with Columbia/HCA during that period of time. As chairman and CEO he had ultimate responsibility, and should have had knowledge as to what was going on, and further, that what was happening was wrong. To say anything else shows either incompetence, gross unethical indifference, or both.

Oh. One other little thing. The early voting station had lots of Romney and Santorum signs, and a group of Romney supporters nearby, but not one shred of Gingrich signage anywhere. And I mean anywhere. Although I'm a Democrat, I hope that the Republicans Nuke the Newt this coming Tuesday.

Rick Scott via Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rick_Scott

M.Zuiko Digital ED 40-150mm f4.0-5.6 R Reviewed

noreply@blogger.com (Bill Beebe) — Sat, 28 Jan 2012 15:12:00 +0000

In case you're interested I reviewed this lens on thewsreviews.com. Basically I gave the 'R' lens a very good recommendation, but you'll have to read the complete review for the details. I'm going to expand on a few observations made of the 'R' version at thewsreviews and take more of an editorial/grumpy opinionated tone in the process.

As I noted on thewsreviews this is an all-plastic lens from bayonet mount to lens shade mount at the seeing end. The only parts that aren't, obviously, are the lenses and the electrical (focusing motor) and electronics. Olympus isn't the only camera manufacturer to do this; the vaunted Canon and Nikon sell kit zooms that also have plastic mounts. But that doesn't make it any more acceptable in my book. I mentioned in the review about how I held back purchasing this lens because it was selling for $300. If the lens had had a full metal bayonet (and maybe a little more plastic?), then I would have purchased a copy when I did, instead of waiting for the price to hit $160 on Adorama.

I want metal on the bayonet for two reasons: strength and durability. Strength comes into play when you're slinging the whole assemblage of lens and body around; the mount is the weakest link and will see all the forces of twisting and moving the camera and lens combination around. Fortunately for this lens, there's very little lens mass to worry about. Durability comes into play when mounting and unmounting the lens. I wrote that the 'R' version mounts "snugly" on the E-P2. That's right now, while the lens is effectively still new. I tend to change my lenses a bit on my interchangeable lens cameras, so I'm curious to see just how long this bayonet will last under my usage. I hope for a good long time. I know that every other lens I own, including those purchased over 40 years ago with metal bayonets still click smoothly and snugly into place.

So in case you haven't figured it out already, I don't like plastic bayonets on my lenses. Rather than beat this particular dead horse Yet Again and annoy the reading public over on thewsreviews, I came back into my cave to vent.

The 40-150mm lens concept is pretty powerful regular 4/3rds, and that power caries over onto µ4/3rds systems. It is the focal length equivalent of 80-300mm on 35mm cameras. A zoom with a 4:1 zoom range and 300mm on the long end is quite useful. The the sins of a plastic bayonet are mitigated somewhat by the small size and very light weight of the lens that zooms out to 300mm. I know this because I have an Olympus OM 300mm f/4 lens that weighs more than two E-P2 + 40-150mm zoom combinations. That has to be taken into consideration.

As I noted in the review, the 'R' version of this lens is smaller in diameter than the Mark 2 version, while being a bit longer. I have a theory that what you're seeing is the effective length of the MMF-2 adapter built into the 'R' version (and the earlier MSC/Mark 3 native µ4/3rds version as well).

Why? Nobody talks about it much anymore, but one of the early selling points of the 4/3rds system was telecenticity, or as Olympus advertised, "near-telecentric optics". Telecentricity was the attempt to design lenses that would align rays coming out of the exit pupil of the lens to be parallel to the sensor (or as parallel as possible). You wanted your light rays as parallel as possible to minimize vignetting and chromatic aberrations with the sensor.

While the debate rages in some circles as to the effectiveness of this design, I will say this: I have seen the quality of Olympus optics, and it is because of Olympus glass that I stay with Olympus digital cameras. Whether that quality is due to "near-telecentric" optical design, I can't say for certain.

I back this theory up with one final observation; flip the 'R' lens over and look at the exit pupil of the lens, and see that it's recessed into the rear of the lens. The Mark 2, by comparison, has its exit pupil flush with the bayonet edge. Whatever the case, the 'R' 40-150mm optically performs every bit as well as the regular 4/3rds lens with an adapter, and I don't think the longer length of the µ4/3rds version is an accident.

The greater length is the 'R' over the Mark 2 is even more pronounced when both lenses are extended to their full focal length of 150mm. The designers of the 'R' lens also cleaned up the two-piece design of the Mark 2. As a consequence the 'R' lens feels more solid racked out to 150mm. The inner barrel of the 'R' is also more tightly seated, or at least it appears and feels that way. There's none of the "rattly" feel of the older Mark 2. But then again, when using the older Mark 2 with the MMF-2 adapter, I never felt I got poor quality photos from the older 40-150mm. The Mark 2 is good, but the 'R' just seems better.

If there's one thing I will complain about it's how cheap Olympus has gone on its accessories. Every older lens came with a lens shade and a center-pinch lens cap. For High Grade lenses you also got a pretty decent lens case/bag (which, unlike some people I know, I actually use). Even my Sigma 30mm came with all the aforementioned accessories.

But not Olympus' µ4/3rds lenses (and to be fair, Panasonic is just as cheap). The only thing you get are the front and back lens caps, and that's it. Even the front lens caps have been cheapened. Note that 'R' front cap on the left, compared to the older Mark 2 front lens cap on the right. I should note at this point that both lenses have 58mm filter rings, so the older Mark 2 cap fits just fine on the newer 'R' version.

At this point I would shrug my shoulders and say "what did you expect with a cheap lens", except I know what to expect because Olympus set the standard with its regular 4/3rds versions. What makes it really bad is that this is policy on all lenses, regardless of price. I have the M.Zuiko 45mm that came with nothing but cheap caps, and if I want to purchase the M.Zuiko 12mm for $700, it's only going to come with cheap end caps as well. I guess this is a cost cutting measure to help pay off all those bad investments Olympus made 10 and 20 years ago.

Afternoon Walkabout

noreply@blogger.com (Bill Beebe) — Sat, 28 Jan 2012 00:19:00 +0000

The youngest came down to visit with mom and dad for a few days this past week. We missed her at Christmas because she'd traveled to New Your. She made a promise to help a friend drive up to New York. The deal was she'd help with driving up and down, would pay very little, and would stay at the friend's parent's house to really keep costs down. While she was up there she'd get to see New Your city. She'd never been to New York before then, so she jumped at the chance for a road trip to exotic New Your. And I can understand that.

But she had gifts down here from her folks and relatives, and she was getting home sick, so when work allowed she rented a car and drove down to Orlando on Tuesday. The next two days were somewhat hectic as she worked to take care of personal business and visit a high school and later college friend. She also decided to spend a few hours photographing with her old man. And so on Thursday afternoon she loaded up with her E-1 and I loaded up with my E-P2 and we headed out to Downtown Disney.

I love the winter light in central Florida. The sun sits rather low on the horizon through a good part of the day. It's a warm, rich, more diffuse light, that the hard overhead light you have to deal with in the middle of summer. And so when we started walking about around 1pm, the light was almost perfect.

I've never been inside Planet Hollywood before, and looking at it from the outside, I can't think of any reason why I would go inside. Nevertheless under certain circumstances and at certain angles it looks interesting.

A short walk from Planet Hollywood is a large yellow tethered balloon. In all the years I've lived here and all the years it's been here, I've never gone up for a ride. In the early afternoon light I was captivated by the shapes and saturated colors of the sky, balloon, and the umbrella tops.

As we wondered around the back on West Side Lakefront Walk, I came across the back of a group of buildings that included The House of Blues. Something about the light, the chairs, and the colors...

And then we stepped into Cirque Du Soleil gift shop to "appreciate" the air conditioning and look at what they had to sell. I saw these masks at just this angle, and well, I had to experiment with the light and composition.

On the way back to the parking lot we stopped off at the Hoy Poloi art shop, where I happened to come across this simple wooden model of the Space Shuttle. Set the 45mm to f/1.8, focus on the nose, and it looks like it's floating across a sea of stars in space.

We almost made it out to the parking lot before the smell of mint fudge drew my daughter into the Candy Cauldron. Dad doesn't need that kind candy, but I didn't have any problem with my daughter getting a huge block of it. While she was waiting for her fudge I happened upon all these Minnie toys in a bin. Brings back lots of memories when both girls were small enough to actually want Minnie toys.

Technical

Everything taken with the E-P2 and post processed in Lightroom 3.5. The balloon was taken with the Panasonic 20mm, while everything else was taken with the M.Zuiko 45mm.

The Next Generation

noreply@blogger.com (Bill Beebe) — Fri, 27 Jan 2012 04:30:00 +0000

Nothing will focus your attention on the future like having children. Especially when they've hit their twenties, and you see them making their way about the world. As a parent you hope that you've given them every possible opportunity to prepare for the future, and you hope that you've given them a decent enough world to build on. Over the past few years, however, I've come had my doubts about both.

When each girl was born we took out a Florida Prepaid account for both. My wife and I had decided that we would give them good education at a Florida state school. I worked through college and my wife had taken out loans; based on those experiences we wanted to give our children the opportunity to just go to school and graduate without any financial burdens. We hoped that the girls would do well academically through K-12 on up to college and beyond. Fortunately for all concerned, that's pretty much the way it all turned out.

When my youngest daughter graduated Spring 2011 after four years at FSU, on paper her future looked bright. She'd graduated magna cum-laude and with honors. She had a major in art and a minor in art history. In addition to all her course work she'd also held down a number of on-campus positions, some that paid, and some that were voluntary, but all in an attempt to build up an initial resume that would look good to recruiters and companies looking for entry level employees, either in Tallahassee or elsewhere. But that was on paper. Reality was a whole lot darker.

It turned out that while we were busy raising our kids and paying into Florida Prepaid, the economy grew over-heated, then burst with the Internet bubble, and finally entered the Great Recession (nee Depression) of the mid-2000s with the even larger real estate bubble collapse. By the time my youngest daughter was ready to graduate (and even before that) there were no job offers, no entry level positions anywhere. The best that FSU could do at the time was to offer a job fair with nothing but unpaid internships. FSU provided no help what-so-ever except to make sure she took her assigned classes to graduate and to collect her fees. And there were lots of additional fees above and beyond Florida Prepaid.

She's working right now, but not at what she had hoped to do. It's hourly, which means she has no insurance. And the number of hours worked at the various jobs is low enough that if she gets laid off, Florida's revamped unemployment system won't give her any benefits. Telling her to work hard in school and make exemplary grades and she'd have a shot at a decent job rings pretty hollow right now. I certainly never went through this, but then I came of age during the mid-1970s, nearly forty years ago. My experiences and advice are absolutely worthless for navigating through this particularly bad economic period.

All I can do at this point in time is to do what all parents should do for their kids, and that's give them whatever support possible to help them get launched. She's bright and hard working, and she has zero school loan debt to worry about. That lack of debt offers her tremendous flexibility at this point in her young life. But she doesn't see it that way; she's grown tired of the system and the continuous run around, and I can certainly understand that. So I have to be careful of the advice I give her (if I can even give her any useful advice).

About the best thing I can do is be the ultimate backstop for her. Just because she's "grown up" doesn't mean I've been relieved of my responsibilities as a parent. I'll have those responsibilities until the day I give my last breath. Until that day I will see both girls succeed, and go beyond where I've gone in my life. Right now, it's just tough to envision.

The Silly Season

noreply@blogger.com (Bill Beebe) — Thu, 26 Jan 2012 04:56:00 +0000

The Grand Old Party Four Ring Circus (Romney, Gingrich, Santorum, and Paul) came ramblin' into Florida after the wild show they put on in South Carolina. They held one political performance art installation in Tampa Tuesday, and they'll hold a second Thursday evening. Then the Florida Republicans will vote next Tuesday which of them entertained best. I hope the Florida Republicans can count better than the Iowa Republicans. But we Floridians, since 2000, really have no room to comment about how votes are tallied elsewhere by others.

In the meantime the economy seems to swerve and spin and eddy like a slow moving stream in a swamp, with a lot of trash churning around in it. Junk seems to slowly rise to the surface, while other junk slowly sinks out of site. And so it is with the little slice of economy on University at the entrance to UCF.

These three businesses are opening where three former businesses used to be.

The Centra Care went in where a private walk-in clinic used to sit for years. I know it was there because I had to go pee in a cup there sometime around the mid-1990s for a drug test. I passed the drug test, but never went to work for the company that asked for it. I basically turned the job down when they called me to tell me I'd passed the drug test, at which time I told them what I thought of their interview process and drug testing procedure. This was so I could be a software engineer.

Buffalo Wild Wings used to be a Don Pablos. All but one of the Don Pablos are now closed and reclaimed by other businesses. Buffalo Wild Wings is unique in that they built an extension that looks like a garage complete with roll-up doors. The extension covers what used to be the front of the building and all the parking slots across the front. What did they put in there? A big sports bar. I have no idea what else is in the rest of the building. I'd say it's a good place to go there, but the one and only time any group from my office went there for lunch, it took them an hour and a half to get seated, waited on, and served. Since that time no-one's been back. Oh, and before it was a Bufallos, it was a cheap local bar with a very cheap sign for nearly two years.

This used to be a Backyard Grill. I've been so busy I didn't know it'd gone out of business, but I can say this; it was out of business the shortest of any on University. I have no idea what the place is like, but if it's yet another bar I doubt I'll drop in any time soon. Going east on University from Bufallo, there are at least five major bars that I know of; Buffalo, Houlihans, World of Beer, Tilted Kilt, and this one, Jimmy Hulas. I know the college crowd can drink, but I don't think they can drink all that much.

There are still lots of empty buildings in this area, especially away from University Blvd, but at least there's a bit of life on University.

At Work with Linux: A Failure to Update OpenSUSE 12.1

noreply@blogger.com (Bill Beebe) — Tue, 24 Jan 2012 21:16:00 +0000

Back in early December I installed OpenSUSE 12.1 as a VMware virtual machine hosted on Windows 2008. At that time I'd written that I'd installed Chrome from the Google repository, and wondered if it would automatically and independently update like it did for all the other distributions I'd installed the Google version on. As fortune would have it I was overwhelmed with end-of-the-year work and the holidays, and forgot all about it. Then, every so innocently, someone asked in the comments of the December post if Chrome had auto-updated. So I went back into the lab, fired up the VM, and decided to check and see if the installation would update, and what parts would update.

The update started off automatically and innocently enough. Because the VM had been off since I finished the installation, there were some sixty-plus updates sitting in the queue.

Which, when expanded, showed "132 packages to install" and "110 packages to update". Hidden in plain site was a checkbox; "Do not confirm when installing or updating additional packages." I did not check this box, and I have a feeling that it was responsible for what was about to happen to me.

One of the annoyances of the update is the fact that it required my authorization, which is fine. However, the authorization dialog appeared behind the update window. I didn't see it until I touched the window with the cursor, and the window because transparent enough to show me it was sitting behind it. That's one of the nicer features of KDE 4. After entering my password to authorize the update, then the really bad part of the update started.

I started to get a continuous stream of warning dialogs telling me the package was unsigned and asking if I wanted to install this, because all sorts of horrible things might just happen if I did. This, of course, raised all sorts of questions and observations:

Why was I getting unsigned packages? I was getting this dialog for just about every package.
Why didn't the dialog tell me what package it was complaining about?
There was no global escape button on this dialog. Once this started I couldn't find any way to shut it up or shut it down.

I put up with this bad behavior for some fifteen minutes, clicking the 'Yes' button the whole time, until I got tired of it and just shut down the VM. I'm not going to be in the office until Friday, and when I get back I intend to just delete this instance and forget about OpenSUSE. I've got other working distributions that do what I need.

This is 2012, folks. This should not be happening with any Linux distribution, let alone OpenSUSE. It seems like this release has been star-crossed from the start. If anyone reading this is having a better time of it, I'm glad to hear it, but I'm not. I don't need a lecture or steps that might fix the problem. This either works as you would expect out of the box, or it doesn't. And if it doesn't then I'll stick with those Linux distributions in the lab that do. I've got plenty to choose from already.

Waiting for the Next Big Thing

noreply@blogger.com (Bill Beebe) — Tue, 24 Jan 2012 03:30:00 +0000

There's been considerable speculation about the next camera allegedly to come from Olympus, the OM-D. You've seen little "peeks" of it on the rumor site, 43rumors.com. I've seen them, and while I find that they certainly pique my interest in this new camera coming from Olympus, they've now started to raise even more questions about what Olympus is planning to introduce the first week of February.

Although I've taken photos of the E-P2 next to the OM-4T in the past, I've not gone to the trouble to make them look as accurately together before now. While it looks like the E-P2 and OM-4T bodies are essentially the same size, they aren't. First off, if you butt the bodies bottom-plate to bottom-plate, the E-P2's length is a good half-inch shorter than the OM-4T. The overall body depth is the same. Secondly, the OM-4T has a large mirror box; the E-P2 doesn't.

Another interesting feature are the lens sizes. I deliberately photographed the M.Zuiko 45mm with the Zuiko OM 50mm to show just how much smaller the 45mm is. On the one hand the 45mm at 1:1.8 is 2/3rds stop slower than the 50mm 1:1.4. On the other hand the 45mm is considerably smaller and lighter than the 50mm. By the time the OM 50mm is mounted on the E-P2 with its adapters, the whole assemblage dwarfs the 45mm. And the 45mm is very fast to autofocus on the E-P2, which the OM 50mm can't. Finally, the 45mm is noticeably sharper at the center than the 50mm, especially wide open. While I certainly got a lot of fun out of using the 50mm, I've "seen the light" with the 45mm, and for me there's no going back.

I've seen the two small images of the OM-D controls on what is the shutter button side of the OM-D. When I compare those images with the OM-4T, well, there's really no comparison. The OM-4T is still a masterpiece of minimal ergonomics. The OM-4T still maintains the original OM-1's placement of the shutter speed selection ring around the lens mount. The ASA selection dial was moved from the shutter button side of the camera underneath the rewind button while given an exposure compensation control concentric and overlaying the ASA dial. The right side was then taken up with the metering controls. I loved the layout and the responsiveness of the OM-4/4T series.

Which begs the question in my mind. People who've seen the OM-D say it reminds them of the OM-4. I'm going to reserve judgement until it's finally released, but from what I've seen so far the OM-D will look like the OM-4T the way my E-P2 looks like the original film Pen, which is to say, only very generally.

The OM-D certainly won't have the mirror box, and it certainly won't have the control layout. They say the OM-D will have two dials on the top deck, one on each side. It will be very interesting to see how those controls are programmed and what it is they do. I do know this; unless I'm very, very mistaken, the OM-D won't have a shutter speed ring around the lens mount, which is a distinctive hallmark of the OM film series.

Which is not to say I'm not interested in the OM-D. I most certainly am. I will more than likely do something I've never done with any camera, and that's put in a pre-order for the OM-D before I've even had a change to hold one in my hands. I've been waiting for Olympus to produce this style of camera for the µ4/3rds series since the release of the E-P1. If it comes in the same general size and weight of the OM-4T, it will still be far smaller and lighter than my E-1 and E-3.

Yes, Throw Hollywood Under The Bus

noreply@blogger.com (Bill Beebe) — Mon, 23 Jan 2012 00:14:00 +0000

This post has been a long time coming. The seed for this post was planted way back in 1998, when a Democratic President (Bill Clinton) signed into law the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, or DMCA. Among its many far-reaching strictures was the criminalization of the production and dissemination of technology, devices, or services intended to circumvent Digital Rights Management (DRM) features built into digital technology, as well as the act of circumventing said DRM, "whether or not there is actual infringement of copyright itself."

For the first time in this country, a law had been passed that made it illegal for you to open up a device fully bought and paid for by you, and perform certain actions that might alter any built-in functionality, specifically DRM, because Big Content had convinced Congress that their High Holy Intellectual Property had to be protected. And they weren't going to release their High Holy Intellectual Property, particularly digital movies, into the new frontier of the Internets without this protection. No longer were you innocent until proven guilty, you were considered guilty irregardless and thus had to be defended against. Hollywood was convinced that each and every one of us were closet pirates, just waiting for the opportunity to pillage and plunder their High Holy Intellectual Property. And so, instead, they pillaged and plundered us by shoving the DMCA onto us.

And of course there was that criminalization of sharing what you learned, either by basic bits (information and/or software) or hardware. For example, in 2001, Edward Felten (the current the Chief Technologist for the United States Federal Trade Commission) was threatened with a lawsuit because he and his team had broken SDMI digital audio watermarks. Never mind that SDMI had invited this via a contest, but when Felten and his team first attempted to publish their results, they were threatened with a DMCA lawsuit by SDMI and the RIAA (little brother to the MPAA). It took a year and the assurances of the Department of Justice saying Felten wouldn't be sued before their work was published.

And heaven forbid if you wanted to move your DVD-based movie from your DVD player to something more portable that didn't have a DVD disc player, such as using Handbrake to rip your copy of "The Empire Strikes Back" to a digital file that can be played back, on say, the Nook Tablet. Fair use? What's that? You sir, are a criminal for even contemplating such use. Here, let us sell you another digital copy to go on your portable digital device. You haven't paid us enough already through your DVD. We haven't made enough billions to satisfy our insatiable greed.

As with all classic tragedies I didn't really appreciate what had happened with the passage of the DMCA or what I'd given up until much later. Starting in 2007, my loss was driven home by the walled garden Apple built around the iPhone, iPod touch, and later the iPad. I believed the lie peddled by Apple that they needed such draconian controls over software going into the iPhone lest some evil sneak onto the handset and cause grave damage to the AT&T network. I believed that until the iPod touch came out and was thrown into the same restrictive walled garden. The iPod touch had no AT&T network access. Why did it have to be restricted?

Because Apple saw the iPod touch as another big monetary channel for content, specifically games, video and music. Apple at the time heavily pitched the iPod touch as an ideal portable gaming platform against similar devices from Nintendo and Sony. And we all know how locked-down gaming platforms of all strips are. And because Jobs had sold Pixar to Disney the year before (making Jobs Disney's single largest shareholder) the iPhone first came out, Jobs and Apple had every reason to make sure that their iDevices were heavily locked down as portals to their High Holy Intellectual Property just in case they wanted to play iDisney content on iDevices. Can't have Mickey Mouse running loose, now can we. And Apple had the perfect weapon via the DMCA to enforce the lockdown.

The literature of the web is rife with all the jailbreaking and unlocking of Apple devices. And Apple's reaction by updating the OS that ran on the devices to break the jailbreak, and the attempts by Apple to send out the lawyers to stop it. It took an act of Congress (an act of the Library of Congress, actually) in 2010 to allow jailbreaking and rooting of your own paid-for device so that those who had the desire to do so could do with their iDevice as they saw fit. Sorta like what we take for granted with the personal computer.

But all of that pales to insignificance with the recent bald attempt by Hollywood's bought and paid for Democratic congresspeople to shove SOPA and PIPA down our collective throat. As Marco Arment so astutely pointed out, Hollywood, through its goon squad, the MPAA, sees "us as stupid eyeballs with wallets, and they are entitled to a constant stream of our money. They despise us, and they certainly don’t respect us." And on matter how bad they get, we still support them by watching their movies. We willingly and blindly give them the money which they in turn use to gleefully build a digital prison around us.

Until last week, when Democrats in both houses of Congress tried to shove both bills through committee. And then the Net rose up en mass and did something it hadn't done quite before: it simultaneously shuttered quite a few of its better known properties for 24 hours. On 18 January, led by Wikipedia, quite a few big and little websites went "dark" in protest against SOPA and PIPA. In the end quite a few senators and representatives dropped support for both bills, but interestingly enough, far more Republicans than Democrats.

That's because ever since the DMCA was passed the Democratic party has been "bought out" by Hollywood. Hollywood is heavily unionized, and Democrats have historically been the party that supported unions. And it's been a quid pro quo arrangement, especially during the decades when Big Auto was an economic force in this country. But Big Auto collapsed, leaving Hollywood, who, along with the unions, has always been the Democratic parties biggest supporter. And as the years have gone by Hollywood has begun to expect a "return on their investment", especially with regards to donations made by Hollywood.

This was never made more plainer than by former Connecticut Senator, Democrat Chris Dodd, now currently chairman and chief lobbyist for the MPAA, when he was quoted as saying on Fox News:

"Those who count on quote 'Hollywood' for support need to understand that this industry is watching very carefully who's going to stand up for them when their job is at stake. Don't ask me to write a check for you when you think your job is at risk and then don't pay any attention to me when my job is at stake,"

This has further enraged an already angry Internet public, so much so that there's now a petition on the government web site We the People to "Investigate Chris Dodd and the MPAA for bribery after he publicly admited to bribing politicans to pass legislation."

What am I going to do in the mean time? No more movies. I'm already paying $8, $9, and $10/head to see movies in this town, and that's pure crap. No more DVD/Bluray purchases. Whatever I can do to stop willingly pay money to Hollywood, that's what I'll do. Donate to politicians, regardless of party affiliation, but particularly Republican, who are for bringing Hollywood to heel, if not outright breaking them up. There's an unholy collusion between the creation of consumer technology and the creation and ownership of content; Sony is the prime example, but Apple's in there too, if more subtler than Sony. I'd like to see the DMCA either cut back, or better yet, completely repealed.

But whatever it takes, I want to see Hollywood broken. We really don't need Hollywood, they need us, both as willing buyers of what they're peddling, as well as us being the producers of technology that allows them to create their so-called High Holy Intellectual Property.

I've got more to rant about, such as how government agencies such as the FBI have become little more than an enforcement arm to Hollywood. Make no mistake. SOPA and PIPA isn't about making the world safe for little guys like us. It's all about turning us into little more than digital serfs to Hollywood, and I'll be damned if I'm going to just stand around and watch that happen. Not on my watch.

Update 23 January

An Interested Reader sent these observations to me in an email:

I agree with all of it - except for the very end.

Boycotting 'Hollywood' makes perfect sense. But voting republican because they're less prone to that particular Big Entertainment special interest group is a vote for Big Oil, Coal, Insurance, Military, Church, and other groups that want society remade in their images.

The root of the problem ... is that corporations are people, with the same rights to free speech and association as biological people, but vastly greater resources. Until the huge amounts of money go away, it's just [a] matter of picking whose interests you want to be secondary to. For that, if I had to choose, I'd still say that the democrats are the lesser of two evils.

Ars Technica: Throwing Hollywood under the bus could pay dividends for GOP
Ars Technica: If the A5 makes mobile gaming awesome, why isn't it in the iPod touch?

Touchdown

noreply@blogger.com (Bill Beebe) — Sat, 21 Jan 2012 03:42:00 +0000

All this time I've been photographing airships, they've been pretty much moored on the ground or flying high in the sky. I've never seen one come in for a landing until today. Whoever was at the controls made it look as easy as can be, although I'm sure that it's not, especially if you have no training at the controls.

Final approach

Nearly down

Crew capture

Link-up to the mooring mast

Technical

All of these were taken with the Olympus M.Zuiko 40-150mm 'R' zoom lens on the E-P2. While I was very pleased with the results of this lens in Atlanta, I noticed with these photographs that the resolution was not nearly as great as the Zuiko Digital 50-200mm SWD. This is particularly true with the lines in the photos. If you're wondering why the top photo has the airship looking more brown, it's because there's currently a layer of smog over Orlando, through which the airship was passing down through the lower boundary above the ground.

The Great SOPA/PIPA Internet Day of Blackness

noreply@blogger.com (Bill Beebe) — Thu, 19 Jan 2012 04:30:00 +0000

Just a collection of screen shots of some of the sites I happened to visit today that were "blacked out" protesting SOPA and PIPA. Wikipedia came across as the de facto leader of today's protest movement.

Matthew Robertson, Canadian proprietor of 'thews reviews, darkened his site in solidarity as well. I'm sure there were many other smaller sites than that did the same.

The rest of the sites that followed were all the 'big names' that advertised their intention to go dark as well.

Two variations on a theme were Ars Technica and Wired. Ars went black but spent the day writing stories about the issues surrounding SOPA. Wired put up a clever site that showed what was underneath the blacked out areas when you rolled your mouse cursor over the redacted sections. Ars stayed up to educate about the issues, and did a very good job. Wired stayed up trying to look cool and make money at the same time. Wired wound up looking 'tired' if not a little lame out of all the protesting sites.

Ars Stories:

SOPA Resistance Day begins at Ars http://arstechnica.com/staff/palatine/2012/01/sopa-resistance-day-begins-at-ars.ars
Protesting SOPA: how to make your voice heard http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/news/2012/01/protesting-sopa-what-you-can-do.ars
Why one game developer is skipping E3 to start an anti-SOPA crusade http://arstechnica.com/gaming/news/2012/01/why-one-game-developer-is-skipping-e3-to-start-an-anti-sopa-crusade.ars
"Least restrictive means"? One way that SOPA could die in court http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/news/2012/01/least-restrictive-means-how-sopa-could-go-the-way-of-copa.ars
SOPA blackout spreads across the Internet http://arstechnica.com/gadgets/news/2012/01/sopa-blackout-spreads-across-the-internet.ars
SOPA, Internet regulation, and the economics of piracy http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/news/2012/01/internet-regulation-and-the-economics-of-piracy.ars
A history of IP violence: how SOPA's and PIPA's sponsors have waged war on the Internet http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/news/2012/01/a-history-of-ip-violence-how-sopas-and-pipas-sponsors-have-waged-war-on-the-internet.ars
The Lonely Island gets off its boat to oppose SOPA http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/news/2012/01/the-lonely-island-gets-off-its-boat-to-oppose-sopa.ars
When a petition isn't enough: SOPA protestors raise money to hire lobbyist firm http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/news/2012/01/when-a-petition-isnt-enough-sopa-protestors-raise-money-to-hire-lobbyist-firm.ars
What does SOPA mean for us foreigners? http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/news/2012/01/what-does-sopa-mean-for-us-foreigners.ars
Even without DNS provisions, SOPA and PIPA remain fatally flawed http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/news/2012/01/even-without-dns-provisions-sopa-and-pipa-remain-fatally-flawed.ars
PIPA support collapses, with 13 new Senators opposed http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/news/2012/01/pipa-support-collapses-with-13-new-opponents-in-senate.ars
Hollywood fights Internet protests with... TV ad, billboard, radio spot http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/news/2012/01/hollywood-fights-internet-protest-with-tv-ad-billboard.ars

My Trip to Atlanta ‒ Some Camera Lessons Learned

noreply@blogger.com (Bill Beebe) — Wed, 18 Jan 2012 03:58:00 +0000

Clockwise from the top, the M.Zuiko 40-150mm 'R', M.Zuiko 45mm, and M.Zuiko 17mm
At the center, the Olympus E-P2 with Panasonic 20mm

I traveled by Greyhound bus from Orlando to Atlanta to visit my parents over the Martin Luther King holiday weekend. I carried two pieces of luggage with me, a wheeled bag for all my spare clothing and a Kata DR-467 digital rucksack that carried my Dell notebook, my Nook Tablet, and my Olympus E-P2 with a small collection of lenses. Along with the primary devices I took chargers, spare batteries for the E-P2, and an FL-50R flash that never once came out and did nothing but waste in the rucksack. I put it in there on the irrational fear that I might need it. I never did.

The E-P2 lens collection consisted of the M.Zuiko 17mm, the Panasonic 20mm, the M.Zuiko 45mm, and the M.Zuiko 40-150mm 'R' zoom. The lenses used most to least were the 20mm, the 45mm, the 17mm, and the 40-150mm zoom, in that order. If you twisted my arm I could have whittled it down to the three primes. If you'd strung me up by my thumbs, maybe down to the 20mm and the 45mm.

The surprising realization (at least for me) is how fickle I am with regards to the 20mm vs. the 17mm. I've taken quite a few photographs with the 17mm on the E-P2. Based on my personal statistics, it's been the most used focal length on that camera, and for good reason. When mounted on the E-P2 the 17mm is diminutive, so much so that it seems to almost blend into the E-P2 body. The 20mm, by comparison, appears subjectively larger, at times much larger. But its darker color helps it to blend in as well with the black-bodied E-P2. But that's just the way it looks on the camera.

The real reason I've favored the 20mm is because the 20m 1:1.7 is nearly a stop-and-a-half faster than the 17mm 1:2.8. And that's a difference I've found quite useful. I have discovered that with the 20mm mounted I can set the E-P2 to auto-ISO mode, limited to an ISO range of 200 to 800, aperture priority mode (usually wide open to f/1.7), and be able to capture anything I care to point the camera at.

Based on experience so far, the camera has produced exposures from f/1.7, 1/8sec, at ISO 800 to f/5.6, 1/4000sec, at ISO 200. This is an EV range of (roughly) 0 to 16, or dim ambient artificial light to full sunlight on bare concrete or sand. The only limitation is autofocus, not exposure. I've gotten enough correctly exposed blurry photos to prove to myself that the E-P2 with the Panasonic lens is more than capable of properly exposing a shot with the 20mm even though at certain times it can't lock focus to save its diminutive soul.

The same holds true for the M.Zuiko 45mm. I can use the same body control settings for the 45mm with equally good effect. As much as I'd like to follow Kirk Tuck with regards to artificial lighting, I have to admit I really force myself to use my two flashes. Like I wrote earlier, the one FL-50R I carried with me sat in the rucksack the whole time, wasting space, while I was out carrying the camera and lenses in my jacket pockets where-ever I traveled around Lilburn and the general vicinity of north-east Atlanta. Broad daylight or late evening, I was always ready.

I no longer carry any adapted lenses. I'm glad I had the opportunity to try out that style of photography with the E-P2, but I've come to discover that native µ4/3rds lenses are far faster to focus with than adapted regular 4/3rds lenses, and blazingly easier to use than manual focus lenses such as the G.Zuiko 50mm 1:1.4. The 20mm is a fraction of the size and weight of the three types of 50mm lenses I currently have, and so much easier and faster to focus and use.

If there is a real limitation with the E-P2, it has to do with autofocus. Not so much the ability to lock autofocus, but the ability to quickly set an autofocus point without having to go through a menu. The E-P2 doesn't have the touch-screen-focus ability of the E-P3. After fumbling and bumbling with the camera menu to set the focus square for the umptempth time to the section of the composition where I really needed it, it suddenly dawned on me how nice it would be to just touch the section of the screen where I wanted focus to be, and oh, have the shutter trip right after. You know, like the E-P3. (face-palm)

With the E-P3 I could have had my E-P2's sensor (which I still love) along with some key features the E-P2 lacks (easier, faster autofocus plus touch-select focus point and built-in flash to remotely trip those FL-50Rs I own (another face-palm)) that would have made my style of photography (no comments from the peanut gallery) a lot easier and faster. By making the brash comment I made last year about how the E-P3 was "too little, too late", I let emotion and personal bias deprive me of a camera with key capabilities I actually needed, that in turn made it more difficult (if not impossible) to capture the kind of moments the E-P3 could have easily enabled me to capture.

So, yes. I have to eat some crow.

Regardless, the current kit with the E-P2 is still a hell of a lot of fun to use and very lightweight to carry. The only lens I might add to the mix is the M.Zuiko 12mm in place of the 17mm. It's dropped down enough in price that it makes purchasing a copy acceptable, and I can only imagine how well it would work, even in my thick-fingered clumsy hands.

Right now is an exciting point in Olympus Camera's history. No, I'm not talking about the fiduciary shenanigans of upper management. I'm talking about the rumors circulating about a Pro Pen that is supposed to be designed similarly to the OM film camera. I'm now poised to either purchase an E-P3 or the OM-D (as rumor would name it). I'm leaning heavily to put in an advanced order as soon as advanced orders are opened. If the OM-D carries all the key features the E-P3 has, even if it still has the same sensor, I'm going to buy it. And if I can't get one, I'll go ahead and pick up an E-P3 body. I've become excited about using Olympus again, more than I've been for quite some time.

The Long Way Home

noreply@blogger.com (Bill Beebe) — Tue, 17 Jan 2012 03:54:00 +0000

Monday didn't start quite as early as Friday did, but it was early enough at 4am. My brother shuttled me down to the Forsyth Grayhound terminal so I could catch the 6:30am bus south to Miami and points in between, including Orlando.

Getting into the Atlanta Greyhound terminal was as simple as walking in, getting a tag for my one piece of luggage, and then queueing up at door #6. Loaded into the bus starting at 6am, and then on the road back to Orlando by 6:30am.

Buses don't just make a beeline trip between destinations. They make numerous stops a long the way. The first stop was in Macon about an hour after we started. Most of the stops were fairly fast, with passengers getting off and new passengers getting on. Two of the stops were 30-minute layovers where the passengers could get a bite to eat. The first was in Tifton, the next stop after Macon, and the second was in Ocala, right before the final leg (for me) to Orlando.

The Greyhound buses are undergoing something of a transformation these days. They're nice, clean, modern, and quite comfortable. The bus I traveled home on had standard American 120V electrical outlets at most seats and open "free" WiFi on the bus. I tried the WiFi using my Android phone, but eventually turned it off because I discovered my T-Mobile connection was faster, and more significantly, I discovered that whey you use Greyhound's WiFi all web pages are wrapped in a "frame" with a Greyhound advertisement banner running across the top of every single web page. That might not be too bad for a device with a large screen, but for a smartphone the banner took up too much screen real estate, and was thus Highly Annoying.

I suppose that's the price you pay for "free" WiFi. My solution works because I'm paying for unlimited data with T-Mobile. For others not so fortunate the banner is something they're going to have to live with, along with the slow throughput. I would imagine that the bus' WiFi is based on technology very much like Verizon's MiFi (which I also have via my job). Greyhound advertises this bus-based WiFi as a way to surf the web and keep up with your email. I'm curious to see what will happen when someone wants to stream YouTube or Netflix, especially more than one someone. You only have one pipe on the bus, and I'll bet the aggregate is fixed. That means that everybody shares the one connection, and it'll only take one "data hog" to make it excruciatingly slow for everyone.

Or maybe not. My worst-case scenario assumes that the typical Greyhound traveler can afford a portable device capable of streaming copious amounts of data, like a Netflix movie, across WiFi. On my bus trips I saw passengers with feature phones texting, or else they read books or magazines they brought with them, or listened to music stored on their phones or dedicated players, or else they just rested against the window and watched the landscape slip past.

And then, of course, there was Orlando, back where I started last Friday. And the same group of security guards scanning dangerous passengers as they walked into the bus station. In all the bus stations we stopped at, both up to Atlanta and back, including Atlanta, there was no other security check at all. It is only Orlando that has the heavy-handed security checking like you see above, complete with rifling through all your personal possessions. Who authorized this, and why would they consider retirees, students, and regular folks to require such invasive inspection? What do they think they're trying to protect the bus traveling public from?

The Dinky 104

noreply@blogger.com (Bill Beebe) — Mon, 16 Jan 2012 00:21:00 +0000

The Milstead 104 "Dinky" Steam Locomotive is a 0-6-0 1905 Rogers Steam Locomotive from Patterson, NJ weighing 94 tons with an overall length of 50 feet. It is one of three left in the world.

Originally owned by West Point Railroad as a switch train, the Dinky was sold to Callaway Mills in 1948 and operated along the 3.3 miles of the Milstead Railroad from the textile mill to the main line in Conyers, Ga. The Milstead 104 hauled bales of cotton to the mill and returned to the main line in Conyers with the finished woven fabric ducking.

In 1960 Callaway Mill closed and relocated its operation to LaGrange, Ga. The Dinky remained in Milstead until 1973 when it was bought by the State of Georgia and located at Georgia Agrirama in Tifton, Ga. A community fundraising effort spearheaded by the Rockdale County Historical Society in 1983 returned the beloved engine to the Conyers area for its final stop. (Transcribed from a sign located at the site of the engine).

I have an interest in locomotives because some of my family ancestors worked on various railroads from Georgia to Texas. The most notable was my great-great-great-grandfather, a locomotive engineer on the original steam-driven Nancy Hanks that ran from Atlanta to Savannah in the late 19th century. When I was a little guy I rode the Nancy Hanks II to visit my grandmother in Savanah, and she would ride the Nancy to visit us. We kept that up until my dad worked long enough for Delta that he could fly grandmother up on standby. It's probably one of the reasons why my dad and uncle made a career in the airline industry, because by the time they decided what to do for a living this nation's train system was in decline and commercial aviation was growing considerably to take its place.

Meet The Parents

noreply@blogger.com (Bill Beebe) — Sun, 15 Jan 2012 04:40:00 +0000

My dad is not a retired CIA counterintelligence officer (Delta, aeronautical engineer, 44 years), doesn't give lie detector tests (doesn't need to, after raising four kids he knows when you're lying), and is actually a pretty nice guy in spite of having raised four kids.

My mom is equally nice, but is the classic southern steel magnolia, the center of the family that binds and the power that keeps us on the (reasonably) straight and narrow. Although I tower over my mom and I'm twice her weight, I wouldn't dare to harm a sacred hair on her head. And neither would anyone else in the family.

They will both turn 80 later this year, which makes each of these trips up to Atlanta more and more important. While I expect to see them both for quite a few more years, life, if anything, is unpredictable. So I take the time to travel and visit and tell them I still love them very much.

Technical

Both were taken with the E-P2 and M.Zuiko 45mm. I took my dad's while we were sitting in a room in the house and I was demonstrating the camera and lens to him (my dad has been an Olympus user since he purchased his first OM-1). It was a casual act (the photograph), but I liked the results. The photo of my mom was made in essentially the same relaxed way while were were talking this morning. The way she is holding her hands and looking over them is one of her classic (to me) mannerisms.

You Really Can't Go Home

noreply@blogger.com (Bill Beebe) — Sun, 15 Jan 2012 01:05:00 +0000

Or not to the home you remembered from 30 years ago.

This former theater is close to my parents place. It's the theater I first saw "TRON" in back in 1982. Watching movies back then was a lot more low key than now. It was out several weeks before I even knew it was there, and it played for several more months before it moved on. It was inexpensive and fun, usually costing no more than one or two dollars to view a movie (depending on its release). It's now shut down.

Right next to that theater was a small electronic arcade. I don't remember the name of it anymore, but I do remember it having the first TRON arcade game I ever played the same year the movie was released. Since I went to see movies there on a semi-regular basis (I lived in a small apartment off of Peachtree Industrial at the time, as I also worked for DCA when it was located on Peachtree Industrial), I tended stop off at the arcade after the movie to drop a few quarters and play the game. Nothing hard core, but an enjoyable little diversion. That lasted several years, until I married and moved to Orlando.

Today Green's Corner is nearly empty, with an Avis rental office the only thing that's open (that must be one of Avis' fleet cars parked inside and in front of the closed movie theater). I'm assuming the Galaxy Cinema sign was a later incarnation of the theater, but if that's the case I wonder why the later owners never took down the Green's Cinemas signage over the front entrance.

There's a lot more to the small mall than this, such as a former K-Mart. But if you've seen one former K-Mart you've pretty much seen them all.

The shutdown of all these businesses could be lain at the feet of the Great Recession, and there would be some truth to that. But what also appears to have happened has been the great Illegal Sweep through Georgia. Unconfirmed reports have it that once those "illegals" were forced to leave, they took their buying power with them. There appears to be some truth to those stories, as a lot of the stores had English/Spanish directions and advertising in a number of the windows. Which makes me wonder if the Great Recession wasn't made greater by the rabid junk-yard dog Tea Party "influenced" conservatives and their drive to clean up then perceived multitude of sins due to "illegal immigration." If you bother to look around where my parents live you'll see a lot more empty small businesses, businesses that catered to Spanish-speakers. Spanish-speakers who left and took their purchasing power with them. And as the Great Recession really deepened, those self-same rabid junk-yard dog Tea Party "influenced" conservatives turned their ire towards the Barack Administration. After all, it's all Obama's fault, isn't it? Well, isn't it?

All of this drama took place where Rockbridge Road turns off of Jimmy Carter Blvd. Drive down Rockbridge towards where my parents live, to where it intersects Lawrenceville Highway, and you pass the BAPS Shri Swaminarayan Mandir. When I left, and for many years after, Rockbridge was a simple two-lane road. Where the temple now sits it was mostly wooded land with very little development. And then in sometime around 2006 to 2007 this was built.

I know nothing more than what I've read on line (see link above), but it sure looks impressive from the road. There's a BAPS temple in Orlando, but it's nothing like the one I photographed here in Lilburn. We were able to drive onto the property to make these photos; we had to stop at an entry gate where the guard on duty asked us our name before letting us on through.

The only religious building in Orlando that comes anywhere close is the Morman temple on Apopka Vineland Road, just north of the intersection with Conroy Windermere Road. Looks like I'm going to have to stop by there when I get back and do a little photo documentation of that spot.

Technical

The only photos I want to note are the last two. I used the M.Zuiko 40-150mm 'R' lens for both, stopped down to f/7.1 and f/6.3, respectively. I wasn't even shooting at a full 150mm (300mm). You can click through the images for all the gory details. I'm just very surprised and very pleased with the performance of this lens for how very little it cost.

Atlanta Trip 2012

noreply@blogger.com (Bill Beebe) — Sat, 14 Jan 2012 03:35:00 +0000

First comfort stop, Ocala, Florida

My mostly-annual January trip to see my family in Atlanta started around 1:15 am this morning at the Orlando Greyhound terminal at John Young Parkway. I got to the terminal around 11pm so I wouldn't be late and to be able to queue up early enough to get a decent chance at picking my seat on the bus.

Normally I fly up, but this year the prices out of Orlando to Atlanta were trending towards the outrageous (Delta flights had hit $500 round trip and were going higher each day). So I booked a round trip bus trip between Orlando and Atlanta on Greyhound for a rather inexpensive $90.

It's been a while (years, really) since the last time I traveled Greyhound anywhere; the last trip was up to Tallahassee so I could ride back to Orlando with number 2 daughter in the Volvo (which we still own). Traveling by bus was simple back then; walk in, purchase the ticket, wait for the bus, board the bus, and then get off at your destination. This time I had to run the gauntlet of Greyhound's "security officers"; my bags were all opened and searched and I was wanded front and back to make sure I didn't have anything that might be construed as a weapon (see listing below).

Restrictions from the Atlanta end of Greyhound

One of the reasons I choose to ride the bus was to avoid the institutionalized and unconstitutional TSA harassment that is unavoidable if you fly. And before anyone rises to the defense of the TSA, let me note that outside of the four planes used in 9/11, none have been used since. The only other incidents, the shoe bomber and the underwear bomber, were overwhelmed by the passengers. Yes, some terrorist plots have been stopped with better up-front intelligence and cooperation between international agencies, but the real damage has already been done on 9/11. What's even more amazing is that, as far as I can research, and relying on my admittedly error-prone memory, there have been no terrorist incidents on Greyhound buses, especially in the seven or so years that passed between 9/11 and the point where all of the security screening started.

So here we are, having taken one more step down the slippery slope to a tighter police state with intrusive searches every step of the way. They should just go ahead and suspend the Bill of Rights, since that's the general direction we seem to be headed.

The other issue I have is Greyhound's labeling of their security personal as "security officers." The term "officer" automatically and immediately implies "police officer", of which they are most definitely not. This is the same problem that many now have with calling TSA personnel officers. The STRIP Act is meant to end the TSA's "impersonation" of "real cops." If the TSA aren't real cops (and they most certainly aren't), then Greyhounds security personnel certainly aren't either.

After the annoyance of getting into the terminal I sat near the departure door until about midnight, when I stood up and got into the queue. I was told that the bus would load around 12:30 to meet the 1am departure time. The bus didn't start to load passengers until nearly 1am. Fortunately for me there bus was only about 2/3rds full, allowing for the bus to quickly fill. We were 20 minutes late getting out on the road.

While waiting for the bus to start rolling to Atlanta, may of the passengers fired up their various electronic devices and started interacting with them. Whether it was cell phones, computers, games, cameras, or multiple devices per passenger, the was a wonderful freedom to use whatever they had. I had my Android phone, my Nook Tablet, and my E-P2. You can tell I was using the E-P2, but I was also able to use the phone to check messages and later I was able to use the Tablet to play back movies I'd ripped earlier with Handbrake.

The trip to Atlanta was scheduled to last nine hours. Because there are no facilities on a bus, the bus makes a number of "comfort" stops, usually lasting 15 minutes, for the passengers to get off and do whatever nature demands of them. On this trip there were only two, on in Florida and one later in Georgia. I managed to make the Florida stop, but slept through the Georgia stop.

Unlike flying and rail, buses are bound by the vagaries of the the nations's currently open roadway system. This means they mind all road signs and warnings, such as railroad crossings. This one was particularly bad because it was stuck down. After sitting at the stop for nearly fifteen minutes, the driver got out, walked to the crossing to check the situation, then backed us up and took an alternate route. This essentially added another 30 minutes to the time we were supposed to reach the Atlanta station.

Buses are built to seat passengers two abreast on both sides of the bus. When the bus isn't full and you're the only one in your seat, you can pretty much fill the seat and sleep. I chose to sleep upright but with the seat back, and as a consequence got a poke in the ribs by a passenger we picked on at a stop in Georgia. The passenger in front was full stretched out across her seat the whole trip.

One of the features of the current Greyhound bus are the power outlets at each seat. I managed to fill both of mine with a charger for my cellphone and my Nook. I think in the future I should find a more compact charger than can handle more than one USB charging cable. But it's a very nice feature none-the-less and a feature missing on every aircraft I've currently flown to date.

Every stop seemed to rouse the passengers a bit. You'd hear lots of conversation (and at several stops, somebody's hip-hop collection turned up loud). Then the conversation would taper down and eventually stop. As morning broke the passengers began to stay active longer, until around 8am, at which time I was immersed in multiple conversations and three separate phone calls (but mercifully, no more hip-hop).

The final stop was in Macon. The final stretch to Atlanta was uneventful, but filled with lots of construction activity. Roads are still being widened and new roads and bridges being built to handle the burgeoning population. Atlanta is certainly much larger than Orlando, but seeing that kind of construction is simultaneously heartening and disheartening; heartening that the economy is growing stronger, but disheartening that we're still hap-hazardly building for the individual gas-guzzling automobile.

Our driver

I wonder who's actually checking the phone

Scrambling to get their luggage

With batteries reasonably charged and everything back in my backpack, I stepped off the bus and into Atlanta and into the teeth of a bitingly cold wind. I've long since forgotten just how cold Atlanta can get in the winter. Atlanta had that day highs in the 30s with lows in the 20s. Add a brisk wind channeled by downtown Atlanta's skyscrapers, and you'd better be reasonably bundled up when you step outside. I had on a reasonable jacket (I thought) but pulled out an extra hooded jacket and put it on inside that jacket when I finally got my bag out of the bus.

Riding Marta to Doraville

The last leg of my trip up to my parents was on Marta's rapid rail. I was born and raised in Atlanta, so I'm reasonably familiar with Marta. Marta's been under construction since the late 1970's, yet I hadn't had an opportunity to ride on it until today. The part of the Marta rail system I road on (red line from downtown next to the Greyhound terminal until Lawrenceville, then transferring to the gold line to Doraville) was clean, bright, but definitely well used. If you're into Star Wars 'chic', with the well-used high tech look, then you'd love the Marta trains with its copious use of scuffed plastics on nearly all the visible surfaces.

The trains ran well and on time, and I was picked up by my brother who drove us up to my parents home near Lilburn.

I made this long trip by bus for many reasons, some of which have to do with a better understanding of all modes of transportation in this country. I might have my complaints about riding Greyhound, but they're minor in comparison to the problems I have with, and more importantly the loathing I have for, flying. I would have taken the train but Amtrak has been so mis-managed over the decades that it would have taken me three days to travel by train from Orlando to Atlanta. For me this was and is an opportunity to observe, document, and to learn.

Lunch with a Big Big Pig

noreply@blogger.com (Bill Beebe) — Thu, 12 Jan 2012 19:27:00 +0000

Preparing for the trip to Atlanta, I headed out for a rare lunch trip to pick up some travel money from the bank, and then stopped off at the local Bubbalou's for a Big Big Pig (pork) and a large foam cup of Luzianne tea (unsweetened). Then I sat in a corner and chowed down.

This Bubbalou's is pretty big (the biggest of the three I've eaten in, I think). They've added the Luck Pig bar as well as enhanced the overall interior. And it's a good thing because this Bubbalou's seems to stay pretty packed, at least around lunch time.

I don't normally come here due to its location, and that's a good thing, or else I'd eat here all the time, and as good as the food is, that would be a bad thing for my diet. In particular I go to Bubbalou's when I want to break training and eat french fries with lots of Heinz catsup, BBQ sauce, and lean pork.

Oh well, back to work, then later tonight a ten hour bus trip to Atlanta. More to come.

An Afternoon at City Hall

noreply@blogger.com (Bill Beebe) — Wed, 11 Jan 2012 03:31:00 +0000

Orlando's City Hall is a sleepy little affair, nestled in the north-east quadrant of the I-4 and 408 interchange, at the corner of W. South Street and S. Orange Avenue. It usually sees more activity when there's a protest rally going on than it does the city's business is supposed to be conducted. I decided to make a quick stop on the way home because I wanted to see if anyone from Occupy Orlando was there. They'd long ago left their original starting place on S. Ivanhoe next to the Chamber of Commerce. A mix of self-inflicted factors combined with being hassled steadily by the police convinced them to withdraw and re-group at City Hall.


ChargePoint charging station

When I arrived at City Hall I parked in the first empty spot I could find. I couldn't believe my eyes when I looked to my right and saw an electric vehicle charging station by ChargePoint. I'd been told that a few had started to appear around Orlando, but I hadn't seen one yet. This one was unique because it was the only one on the street, there was no "EV Parking Only" sign near it, and you have to pay to use it. I have no idea how much it costs, even though I looked around for some explanation as to cost.

The small area in front of City Hall was quite empty. It made it easy to find the few folks that were at City Hall. I did indeed find two who were representing Occupy Orlando, and was told that the majority were meeting up in Tallahassee this week to chart policy with regards to Occupy in Florida for the coming year. It will be interesting to see what comes of this.

While I was there I spotted this small interview taking place between one of our elected (appointed) city officials and the local ABC affiliate, WFTV-9.

Right before I left to head on home I came across a street musician at City Hall. After dropping in a tip I was allowed to take a few photos while he performed. He was a pretty good player and singer, or at least he sounded good to me, which is all that matters.

Another Day, Another Dead Business

noreply@blogger.com (Bill Beebe) — Tue, 10 Jan 2012 04:28:00 +0000

I missed this one. Friendly's declared Chapter 11 last September and closed 66 stores in the process. This store, at the intersection of University and Alafaya, was one of the 66. I'd eaten there a number of times in the past, but I hadn't been there for some time. So many have gone bust that I've grown rather numb to the whole process. Fortunately, every business along University that has gone out has been re-opened with something else.

That is, except for this former Chevron station that's been an empty lot on the corner, next to the former Friendly's, for nearly three years. This is a view across the property where the gas pumps used to stand. The close, larger circular plates on the ground are the access ports to the underground tanks that fed the pumps.

And yet a new business is going up a block west of all of this, at the corner of University and Quadrangle Blvd. This used to be a heavily wooded lot I wrote about in 2010, a small piece of remaining wetlands, that was cleared and then left alone for most of 2011. Now it looks like somebody is finally going in there.

I took on a contrarian mood today. I've been swimming in all the announcements, and accompanying excitement, over the release of new cameras from Nikon, Canon, and Fuji. And I started to think I could buy one of the newly announced cameras (not the Nikon D4). And then I started to think about all I currently have. And then the overcast skies settled over that end of town, and as I started to drive home from the office I started to see the changes in the environment I'd seemingly missed, or outright ignored. And I started to feel a certain degree of personal guilt, and a little shame.

it probably doesn't help that I've been watching the 2004's "The Manchurian Candidate" with Liev Schreiber, Denzel Washington, and Meryl Streep. It's a dystopian view of our future, a wonderfully paranoid view of too few men with too much money and power trying to control it all. In light of all that's occurred since that movie was released I sometimes wonder if it's too uncomfortably close to the truth. With us now in the 2012 presidential season that movie resonates and rattles around in my head now more than ever.

To me the real reason to own my cameras is to use them to document my environment as much as possible, warts and all. You don't need expensive cameras to do that. Just cameras that are Good Enough and motivation.

Shoes and Photography

noreply@blogger.com (Bill Beebe) — Mon, 09 Jan 2012 04:28:00 +0000

Look in the corner of any guy's closet and you'll find a small pile of shoes. Shoes that usually span about a decade, give or take a few years. This is the corner of my closet. At the lower left you'll find a pair of waterproof deck shoes that my late Uncle Tommy wore and that were given to me by my aunt. Next to them are my Skechers slip-on, and then surrounding them a few pairs of lace-up Rockports. All of them size 12 wide.

I decided to go back and photograph them because I'd read a tweet from a Proper Photographer who sagely tweeted how they didn't get 365 day photo projects "when people shoot their lunch, their shoes, and other stuff like that." Suitably inspired, I mounted an FL-50R on my E-P2, went back into the closet, flipped the head around on the flash for bounce, pulled out the wide-angle diffuser, and fired off a few quick photos of my shoes in my closet, choosing this as the best of the best.

While not quite the same thing as Arab shoe tossing, or shoefeti, or some other form of shoe tossing, it is a bit of a nose thumbing (virtual) at what I have begun to perceive as an elitist attitude towards the iPhone/Hipstamatic slinging masses who are so enamored with the results, they seem to be setting Proper Photographer's teeth on edge. And the Proper Photographers are expressing great umbrage and potent snarkiness (or at least they perceive it as potent) at this current trend.

My simple answer to all these aggrieved Proper Photographers is to loosen up. As I look dispassionately at both sides, I see excellent talent making fun of those who want to enjoy photography simply with equipment far less expensive and complicated than what they use. It's the second group exhibiting innocent enthusiasm and enjoyment that is apparently annoying the first. The first group comes across as a jaded field of Professional Photographers who've invested tens of thousands of dollars into Proper Photographic Equipment over the years, if not decades, of their professional lives, and now feel threatened by this simple enthusiastic outburst. I don't know why.

My advice to the Proper Photographers who find themselves annoyed with the iPhone/Hipstamatic slinging masses is to either ignore them, or better yet, simply embrace them. iPhones and Hipstamatic will never replace what they've got, neither talent or technique, hype to the contrary. It's not that it's beneath them, but their constant criticism is. Sooner or later some percentage of the iPhone/Hipstamatic will want to advance beyond this stage, and if the Proper Photographers have built the right 'bridge' to this group, that group will turn to them for advice, and just possibly, be willing to spend money learning from them. There's also something to be said for a camera that allows the user to install software on that camera to add new capabilities. There's plenty to benefit from on both sides as long as both sides are willing to be open minded, especially the pros.

A Sign of Possible Economic Recovery?

noreply@blogger.com (Bill Beebe) — Sun, 08 Jan 2012 04:51:00 +0000

While out today I happened by the location where they're still building the Drury Inn and Suites. Looks like they've got some crews working overtime to finish up the building. That's good when you can not only get a regular hourly job, but work OT as well. That means the owners have a specific date in mind for when they wan to open this hotel. So somebody higher up thinks they can fill this with enough travelers that it's worth pushing crews into overtime to get it done. Happy days are here again!

I'd be somewhat pleased at this except that there's still the empty office complex directly across the street that's been finished and empty for over a year, finished before they started work on this hotel. There's still gaping holes in a lot of the shopping blocks in the surrounding area. I don't think the solution is to get those future travelers who might stay here to shop in the immediate area and stimulate new businesses to open, especially across the street. I don't see how there could be enough. But I could be wrong.

The still-empty office block across the street (taken October 2010)

Fixated

noreply@blogger.com (Bill Beebe) — Sat, 07 Jan 2012 04:37:00 +0000

Still on the moon-in-the-frame jag, and it looks like it won't change, at least through the wolf moon on the ninth. I wonder of the Labs will howl. Can't remember when they have in the past.

Taken after leaving physical therapy again this early evening. Post processed first in Lightroom and then in Silver Efex Pro 2. Played with color filtration and sensitivity in an attempt to produce a pseudo infrared style of photograph. Photo taken with the budget 40-150mm R lens wide open.

Moonstruck

noreply@blogger.com (Bill Beebe) — Fri, 06 Jan 2012 04:56:00 +0000

Carrying on with my moon-somewhere-in-the-frame photo series.

Long work days in the winter provide an opportunity to experience early moonrise well before final sundown. The first image, although it looks very dark, was taken at 4 in the afternoon with the M.Zuiko 40-150 R on the E-P2. In post I added 40% red filtration to dramatically darken the sky. The photo was taken right in front of my office building, sighting over a tall crepe myrtle that had gone to seed but had yet to be pruned for the coming spring.

The second was taken later in the evening as I was about to head into a 6pm meeting. That meeting is for a volunteer group I belong to.

All of this made for a long, long day. Here it is, with me not even back to work a full week, and I already feel like Christmas was months ago, not last week. I'm definitely going to need a lot more camera therapy in 2012 than I had in 2011.

I Like What I Like

noreply@blogger.com (Bill Beebe) — Thu, 05 Jan 2012 04:16:00 +0000

I had another session in physical therapy today for the teetering tottering wobbly knee. The quads are still squishy as my bright young physical therapist noted, but never fear, we'll get them whipped back into proper shape in no time. I can still fell bone-on-bone when I hit one of the tears in the cartilage, but at least it's a dull pain now, not like somebody jabbed an ice pick into my knee and started to root around. After an hour of PT and an ice pack cool-down, I walked out in remarkably good shape and reasonable spirits. My knee felt like it hadn't felt since I can remember; like normal, with no pain or other reminders. It just felt good. That was 4:30pm.

As I came out I saw the setting sun shining on the tennis courts of RDV. And like yesterday a moon hung above the whole scene. I walked around a bit and tripped a few exposures with the E-P2 and the 20mm. Then I settled into the Prius and headed home.

I knew my good feelings were too good to be true. Around 7pm my knee started pounding like a son-of-a-gun, and I started walking around like a sailor with two peg legs. Yep, my right knee has grown jealous of all the attention my left has been getting, so it started to compete for my attention too. I still had more writing to do on a project (I worked at home today so I could suffer productively in silence), and I had other little chores like cooking supper, walking the Labs, and getting the trash and recyclables ready for tomorrow's pickup.

While I was sitting and suffering, I pulled the few exposures I'd picked up during the day off the E-P2 and started to dink around with them. In my new state of mind I took one of the RDV tennis court exposures, cropped it square, processed it in Silver Efex Pro, darkened it (Low Key 1), and cast it in an evil red tone (Copper Toner 18 if you must ask). It changed from being somewhat bright and nondescript to looking like a modern day correctional facility, empty, devoid of real humanity, complete with chain link fences, lights, and a typical attempt at modern institutional architecture off to the left.

And I like the way it turned out. You may not, but I don't do my art just to make you happy and feel good.

I'm not the most cheerful soul these days, what with all I've read about SOPA and PIPA and the signing of the National Defense Authorization Act for FY 2012 (NDAA) with section 1031, indefinite detention without trial, and section 1032, requirement for military custody, which together affirms the President's write to detain anyone around the world, including in this country, any person or persons essentially deemed a terrorist, without any due process whatsoever, for an indefinite period of time. What's chilling about 1032 is that it allows the military to hold U.S. citizens indefinitely without access to legal counsel.

Obama threatened to veto the NDAA if those sections were included, but he managed to find enough wiggle room so that he signed it anyway. And to think I voted for him, believed what he said, in 2008.

Welcome to the next way station on the road to hell...

Video: Cops Arrest Activist For Yelling About NDAA In Grand Central

Whimsical Tuesday

noreply@blogger.com (Bill Beebe) — Wed, 04 Jan 2012 03:10:00 +0000

First day back at work. Quiet but intense. Driving home I had to stop by a local Home Depot and pick up an oil-filled room heater for the back of the house. The temperature's headed down to freezing or the upper 20s, depending on where you live in the metro area. Since I'm on the south west side near Universal, the temperature will stay a little higher than than the northern sections, especially around UCF and Sanford.

The Home Depot I visited is near Waterford Lakes. This Christmas a small circus set up in the parking lot in the back of the Waterford Lakes. When I drove past their area they were in the process of packing everything up and heading on out.

The ferris wheel was the last ride still completely up. I thought I'd park nearby and grab a few shots as the crew were packing up. I didn't find much of interest until I looked up and happened to see the half moon hanging over the wheel.

I can remember riding something very similar when I was a little kid growing up in Atlanta. And I can remember seeing the moon like this and imagining I could somehow ride the ferris wheel to the moon.

If it were only that simple.