Friday, May 27, 2022

Forgotten, But Not Gone ;-) And another sell off? **UPDATED**

Well, howdy there Internet People ... sorry, almost stole Beau's opening. 

So this blog has had a very spotty history since about 2013, which coincidentally lined up with a pretty significant life event. I am not sure that I could generate the enthusiasm to start up intense blogging again, especially in a world where this is mostly done on YouTube, but I feel that I should get back to some photography and I'm not sure I have the time or energy to vlog. I suppose we'll see which mix of technologies I choose as the outlet for my hobby ...

One thing that I do have in the hopper in the second great sell off of camera equipment. It is finally time to be permanently shut of Nikon equipment. This is not because I suddenly don't love them, but rather I cannot be bothered carrying heavy equipment around any more. I have some wonderful pieces that I will surely miss (e.g. D600, D7200, numerous excellent lenses), but alas, things change over time and the pandemic has wrought change like nothing else in my lifetime.

As I did ten years ago in 2012, I am consolidating again down onto mirrorless cameras. At that time, I was starting fresh into mirrorless, but this time I already have a stable of mirrorless cameras -- G7 (my daily driver webcam), G85, GX85, GX9 -- that I can use to get my phtographic jollies, so to speak.

But I actually want to update the G85, and possibly even the GX9 (which I only acquired months ago in a screaming deal with several lenses). Basically, I am choosing now between two excellent options ... or even three. They are, in no particular order:

  • Sell the G85 and GX85 and get the G9. This gives me the GX9 and G9, a superb tandem that would last a lifetime in my opinion.
  • Sell the GX9 in addition to the above and get the G9 and the EM5 Mark III. This would be in some ways an even better tandem in that Olympus's cool new features would mostly be available to me. But hand held hi res is not there and neither is the built in pseudo ND filters. So that's not quite ideal.
  • Keep the GX9 and get the EM1 Matk III. This is a shift to Olympus as my main driver with Panny as my secondary. This brings a host of superb features and very good performance. But the G9 performs pretty much just as well and is still my preferred option as the Oly has flaws like a reasonably crappy EVF and such like. Still, this option does not suck. But it is almost as pricey as getting the G9 and the EM5iii.
  • And so the ultimate ... keep the GX9 and get the OM-1. That's the best camera I've ever seen in mirrorless and is tempting beyond belief. The most expensive option of course, but not a lot more expensive than the EM5/G9 option, and arguably a lot more performance. Plus, I love the GX9 feel in the hand and would like to keep that around. And the G9 is very long in the tooth.
Alas ... options, options. I want modern tech for sure as I have little patience any more for slow AF systems. And I have a lot of older equipment that I can essentially trade off against a much simpler and smaller system going forward. 

So if anyone reads this (and that is not a given lol), let me know in the comments what you would do and why. I have a bit of time since there is much to be done to get the equipment prepped and sold.

Update Dec 2022

So I ended up getting a great deal on a used G9 with vlog and a Lumix 25 1.7 for 950cad. It looks and feels like new so I checked its shutter count and lo and behold it had less than 1400 shutter actuations when I got it. Wow. It came from the east coast and shipping was super reasonable, so I count myself very happy with the purchase. Now to get on with the sell off of the Nikon kits and some other miscellaneous stuff.

Wednesday, February 24, 2021

The lamps we're not allowed to have. Exploring Dubai's lamps.

This is a fascinating look at LED lamps made and sold in Dubai (under a 5-year agreement) that makes our current generation look like power hungry monsters. The gist is that efficiency goes up as power goes down per element, so dropping the power and increasing the number of filaments makes the bulbs run cool and last for a very long time.

Just for fun, I tested the concept by touching the base of an LED bulb that burns while I work less than 3 feet away. It was hot enough to burn my finger, reminding me that heat is the enemy of efficiency and long life where electronics are concerned. Imagine a generation of cooler bulbs that last forever. Such a nightmare for manufacturers lol.

Anyway, it's a fun watch and the demo and explanation are fairly short, after which you can turn it off if you don't want to watch the disassembly and analysis of the circuit etc. Note that these bulbs come in only four shapes and do not dim, so they are no doubt a pita for architects.

Thursday, January 21, 2021

Government versus Private Industry ... Who should finance research and development?

In North America, we seem to have a fascination -- or perhaps fixation -- with private industry being more efficient than the public service when it comes to doing "stuff". Whatever we want done, we think that private industry will make it happen faster and more efficiently than government could ever do.

Bollucks.

Note: I thought I might take this post into territory where I discuss the takeover of the elites (a.k.a. Oligarchy), or globalization, or some other angle on our fascination with the assumption that the wealthy have it all figured out. But the reality is that this is just a distraction from the topic I would rather discuss, and so instead I urge you to read this excellent New Yorker article that discusses the book Hillbilly Elegy. It thoroughly discusses the plight of us normal people and how the elites look at us. Think about it a bit before automatically rejecting the value of government intervention where it is needed.

Now, we've recently been treated to the news that our vaccine shipments have been interrupted for at least a week. We also know that we have only managed to vaccinate 1% of the population in the time that the Americans have vaccinated over 3%. So what gives? Well, here is a clip from a McLean's article regarding the recent aggressive mutation and what it might do in light of our embrassingly poor vaccination plan. This clip explictly discusses why we are suffering the difficulties in supply.

How widespread or common is such sequencing of COVID samples in Canada?

Canada has been conducting viral genome sequencing through the Canadian COVID Genomics Network (CanCoGen), which was started in April 2020—though many public health labs and research labs had started sequencing to some extent prior to this. As of Dec. 22, more than 25,000 viral genomes have been sequenced as part of this (roughly five per cent of confirmed cases in Canada at that time.)

Some countries are doing more sequencing than we are in more of a “real-time” fashion; e.g., the U.K.’s sequencing network, with whom CanCOGen is partnered, has sequenced ~10 per cent of all their cases. Part of this relates to infrastructure and years of ongoing investment. The U.K. is one of the world leaders in using genome sequencing for public health surveillance, with capacity they have built over the course of the last decade for enteric pathogens and tuberculosis.

How much sequencing would Canada need to be doing in order to know how B.1.1.7 and other variants are spreading here?

This is difficult question. The higher our sequencing and analytic capacity, the more we will be able to detect B.1.1.7 and other variants are they arise. However, there are substantial challenges to increasing this in the middle of a pandemic. Investments need to be made to continue to build infrastructure, fund sequencing, hire skilled scientists who can lead and conduct analyses, and support those already working long hours on this, etc. It’s not as clear cut as just “sequencing more,” unfortunately.

So that's depressing. We don't have the ability to create a vaccine, nor to produce one. We lost all the researchers at some point. And here is an article from the Hamilton Spectator explaining how the last Conservative federal government (a.k.a. Stephen Harper) drastically cut research dollars that had the inevitable knock-on effect of researchers saying goodbye to Canada along with all those partnerships that get shit done. Resulting in the fact that we don't have a single Pharmaceutical partnership to lean on and thus we are automatically at the back of the line to those who do.

Bummer.

Let's all try to remember then that government funding of pure and applied research is a good thing and ultimately benefits the population in ways not understood when the hack and slash of austerity raises its ugly head to the benefit of cronies and other relationships but to the obvious (now, at least) detriment to the population being governed.

Yes, people rarely do learn this lesson since each candidate for government pays attention to controversial issues that can galvanize their base to kick those bastards out! But that does not make for good government (see USA 2017-2021), and maybe we should also remember to factor in all those unnecessary deaths in both countries. After all, we have "business first" governments at the head of most provinces and of the USA and many states. The coelescence of these governments in a time of hyper-partisanship could not have been worse given the presence of a deadly pandemic and all ...

My bottom line -- the federal government in Canada should be ensuring that we have the capacity to resist the next pandemic, and that we revive at least some areas of our manufacturing capability so that we are not trying to fight the entire planet to get in line for factories in other parts of the world. Surely it is worth paying a bit more for goods when that also means more jobs for our own population. The elites have a whole world to plunder. The elites shift profits around to avoid paying taxes in Canada. These are very good reasons to none get too bent when the worst of them bugger off somewhere else to pillage the population.

Wednesday, August 8, 2018

Published in the Ottawa Citizen tomorrow, 9 August 2018

As always, my thanks to Robbi Hay, editor of the Ourtown section of the Citizen … don’t forget to grab your copy of the paper to see what’s going on in the city over the coming weeks …