Posted on
by

This post I rescued from my Google+ archive in August 2011 really speaks to how quickly expectations for mobile computing were derailed by the social media feedback loop.

Years ago, I wanted a smartphone so I could write down all the blog posts I compose in my head when I’m away from a computer. Now that I have one, I end up reading Facebook, Twitter, or Google Plus instead, and I compose blog posts in my head when I’m away from both my computer AND my phone. Maybe I just need a pencil and notepad.

That’s just me, and just one niche that I wanted to fill with a mobile computer. I also wanted SSH access, control panels, the ability to look up information easily, and photo uploads. But those things weren’t pushed out of the way like actual creative output was when I installed a bunch of dopamine generators on the device.

OK, blogging was fading anyway, and typing on a phone was tiresome. But neither of those made as much of a difference as the fact that it’s so, so easy to check Twitter for “just a minute” and find yourself still scrolling twenty minutes later.

It didn’t slow down photography. That was something that the social media cycle could latch onto. (Follow me on Flickr, Instagram, Photog.Social and Pixelfed!) And when I used a better camera, well, most cameras don’t have Facebook on them.

I think my use of social media is healthier now than it used to be. I still find myself staring at the train wreck of Twitter longer than intended, but I confine most of my activity to one session a day (or less) except for Mastodon, and that’s just different enough that it’s less likely to trigger a vortex to begin with. I do miss out on a lot with friends and family on Facebook by only checking once every couple of weeks, but I’m also happier the less time I spend there.

Still, I haven’t returned to the volume of long-form writing I used to do. And I know there’s so much more I could be doing with an always-connected computer in my pocket.

Posted on
by

“The Senate on Tuesday passed the most sweeping conservation legislation in a decade, protecting millions of acres of land and hundreds of miles of wild rivers across the country…”

It passed the Senate 92-8.

Weirdly, I’m on several environmental groups’ mailing lists and I’ve heard nothing about this bill from them except for one specific aspect of it: The Nature Conservancy has occasionally asked me to contact lawmakers in support of renewing the Land and Water Conservation Fund (both before and after it expired last year). On Wednesday they sent me a notice that the LWCF renewal had passed the Senate and asked me to contact my Representative when it goes to the House.

But they’ve said nothing about any other aspect of the over-600-page bill, which adds over a million new acres of wilderness, prohibits mining near Yellowstone, protects 620 miles of rivers, and expands and adds several national parks and monuments. And I’ve heard nothing at all — no news, no campaigns to support it, or reject it as a trojan horse, or amend it — from any of the other groups I follow.

I guess the fact that it’s non-controversial enough for a conservation bill to pass with over 90% bipartisan support even during this administration means it wasn’t a priority for activism. Especially with all the attacks on environmental protections from the executive branch to tackle on one side, and the Green New Deal to talk about on the other.

Posted on
by

The winter storm of the past few days is over, leaving a thick coat of snow on the higher parts of the San Gabriel Mountains and a thin dusting on the lower parts, even the mountains behind the Hollywood Hills, still lingering though mid-morning.

By mid-afternoon, most of the snow in the second photo appeared to have melted, and the patches on Mt. Wilson (barely visible to the left in the first and third images) had mostly faded. The next ridge back was still thoroughly covered, though!

I left work just before sunset, to make sure I could get some photos of the reddish light glinting off of the still snow-covered mountains.

Posted on
by

Yahoo was never sure what to do with Flickr after they bought it. And when they realized they’d missed the smartphone revolution, they tried to make it into something it wasn’t suited for (an Instagram equivalent) and couldn’t sustain (cloud storage for ALL your photos!)

I remember when they panicked over Instagram and the best they could come up with was adding filters, as if that was the key feature that made it take off. (Filters were just a way of covering up the fact that phone cameras of the day were still pretty terrible.) And I remember when Facebook started asking you to auto-upload every single photo to their app in case you wanted to post it later, and suddenly everyone wanted you to auto-upload your photos. Facebook, Google+, and of course Flickr.

But Flickr has a different social structure than Instagram, and being cloud storage for every last picture takes a lot of resources. Maybe chasing Facebook and Instagram kept them alive for a while, but it put them in a bind down the road.

I don’t think Yahoo has ever understood what made Flickr resonate with the people who liked it back in the day, or those of us who stuck with it. They considered closing Flickr several times. And Verizon clearly didn’t want it, since they were happy to sell it to SmugMug.

It sucks that they’re deleting photos to push free accounts into the new limits, but SmugMug taking the site back to basics might make it viable long-term. Maybe now they can work on being a first-rate Flickr instead of a third-rate Instagram or fourth-rate Facebook Photos.

Posted on
by

Wispy clouds with an upside-down rainbow near the top of the sky.

The last few weeks have been really good for halos. The first tangent arc I’ve seen, a clear circumscribed halo, the more common sundogs and 22° halos, and now a circumzenith arc, looking like an upside-down rainbow high above the sun, wrapping around the top of the sky.

I think this is the second I’ve seen, but the first was only a fragment.

Like all sun halos, they’re formed by light reflecting through ice crystals. And since those crystals can be in the upper atmosphere, you can see them even in warmer places like Los Angeles.

Taken with my phone through polarized sunglasses. Color and contrast enhanced.

Posted on
by

Full moon, mostly red except for a whiter edge at the upper left.

The evening was hectic, and I almost forgot. I had literally just put my son to bed when I remembered, “The eclipse!” We went out to see if the sky was clear.

Clouds were rushing across the sky, but for the most part, it was clear, and we had a perfect view of the moon looking like a dark brown chunk of rock in the sky.

Update: It wasn’t quite this red to the eye, it was more of a deep brown, maybe slightly brick red. Probably a matter of retina sensitivity vs. camera sensors.

(Then I spent 10 minutes fighting with camera settings while he went back to bed.)

Update: I went back out about an hour later to check out the view as the moon left the earth’s shadow, and caught these two photos, taken about the same time with different exposures so that you can see either the lit portion of the moon, or the part that’s still in the earth’s shadow.