This photo was taken by my step-daughter, Amanda. It was made using an iPhone 11. I scanned a photographic print in order to add it to flickr. I’ve cropped it a bit and applied RNI Films filtering. The photo was taken in our kitchen in Marietta, GA.

 

Edited in RNI Films with Fuji Superia 200 V.2 normalized

President Donald J. Trump meets with reporters to announce that Israel and Sudan have agreed to normalize relations Friday, Oct. 23, 2020, in the Oval Office of the White House. (Official White House Photo Tia Dufour)

Urbex Benelux -

 

In 1939 the factory was shut down due to a shortage of workers as a result of the second phase of the general mobilization for the Second World War . 72 percent of the personnel were requisitioned.

 

Between 1940 and 1945, the factory was badly damaged by bombing, which caused major fires in the paper and wood supplies. At the end of the war, only one machine was ready to use, but a law passed in October 1942 had to stop businesses with damage exceeding 25 percent.

 

After a slow start-up, the company worked back in 1947 with 140 employees and production had increased to four tons per year. It would take until 1949 before the supply could be normalized.

Saint-Petersburg, formerly known as Petrograd and later Leningrad. It is situated on the River Neva, at the head of the Gulf of Finland on the Baltic Sea. The city had a population of 5,601,911 residents as of 2021, with more than 6.4 million people living in the metropolitan area. Saint-Petersburg is the fourth-most populous city in Europe, the most populous city on the Baltic Sea, and the world's northernmost city of more than 1 million residents.

The Historic Centre of Saint Petersburg and Related Groups of Monuments constitute a UNESCO World Heritage Site. Saint Petersburg is home to the Hermitage, one of the largest art museums in the world, the Lakhta Center, the tallest skyscraper in Europe, and was one of the host cities of the 2018 FIFA World Cup and the UEFA Euro 2020.

The name day of Peter I falls on 29 June, when the Orthodox Church observes the memory of apostles Peter and Paul. The consecration of the small wooden church in their names (its construction began at the same time as the citadel) made them the heavenly patrons of the Peter and Paul Fortress, while Saint Peter at the same time became the eponym of the whole city. When in June 1703 Peter the Great renamed the site after Saint Peter, he did not issue a naming act that established an official spelling; even in his own letters he used diverse spellings, such as Санктьпетерсьбурк (Sanktpetersburk), emulating German Sankt Petersburg, and Сантпитербурх (Santpiterburkh), emulating Dutch Sint-Pietersburgh, as Peter was multilingual and a Hollandophile. The name was later normalized and russified to Санкт-Петербург (Saint-Petersburg).

The historic architecture of Saint-Petersburg's city centre, mostly Baroque and Neoclassical buildings of the 18th and 19th centuries, has been largely preserved; although a number of buildings were demolished after the Bolsheviks' seizure of power, during the Siege of Leningrad and in recent years. The oldest of the remaining building is a wooden house built for Peter I in 1703 on the shore of the Neva near Trinity Square. Since 1991 the Historic Centre of Saint Petersburg and Related Groups of Monuments in Saint Petersburg and Leningrad Oblast have been listed by UNESCO as a World Heritage Site.

Sony RX1 User Report.

 

I hesitate to write about gear. Tools are tools and the bitter truth is that a great craftsman rises above his tools to create a masterpiece whereas most of us try to improve our abominations by buying better or faster hammers to hit the same nails at the same awkward angles.

 

The internet is fairly flooded with reviews of this tiny marvel, and it isn’t my intention to compete with those articles. If you’re looking for a full-scale review of every feature or a down-to-Earth accounting of the RX1’s strengths and weaknesses, I recommend starting here.

 

Instead, I’d like to provide you with a flavor of how I’ve used the camera over the last six months. In short, this is a user report. To save yourself a few thousand words: I love the thing. As we go through this article, you’ll see this is a purpose built camera. The RX1 is not for everyone, but we will get to that and on the way, I’ll share a handful of images that I made with the camera.

 

It should be obvious to anyone reading this that I write this independently and have absolutely no relationship with Sony (other than having exchanged a large pile of cash for this camera at a retail outlet).

 

Before we get to anything else, I want to clear the air about two things: Price and Features

 

The Price

 

First things first: the price. The $2800+ cost of this camera is the elephant in the room and, given I purchased the thing, you may consider me a poor critic. That in mind, I want to offer you three thoughts:

 

Consumer goods cost what they cost, in the absence of a competitor (the Fuji X100s being the only one worth mention) there is no comparison and you simply have to decide for yourself if you are willing to pay or not.

Normalize the price per sensor area for all 35mm f/2 lens and camera alternatives and you’ll find the RX1 is an amazing value.

You are paying for the ability to take photographs, plain and simple. Ask yourself, “what are these photographs worth to me?”

 

In my case, #3 is very important. I have used the RX1 to take hundreds of photographs of my family that are immensely important to me. Moreover, I have made photographs (many appearing on this page) that are moving or beautiful and only happened because I had the RX1 in my bag or my pocket. Yes, of course I could have made these or very similar photographs with another camera, but that is immaterial.

 

35mm by 24mm by 35mm f/2

 

The killer feature of this camera is simple: it is a wafer of silicon 35mm by 24mm paired to a brilliantly, ridiculously, undeniably sharp, contrasty and bokehlicious 35mm f/2 Carl Zeiss lens. Image quality is king here and all other things take a back seat. This means the following: image quality is as good or better than your DSLR, but battery life, focus speed, and responsiveness are likely not as good as your DSLR. I say likely because, if you have an entry-level DSLR, the RX1 is comparable on these dimensions. If you want to change lenses, if you want an integrated viewfinder, if you want blindingly fast phase-detect autofocus then shoot with a DSLR. If you want the absolute best image quality in the smallest size possible, you’ve got it in the RX1.

 

While we are on the subject of interchangeable lenses and viewfinders...

 

I have an interchangeable lens DSLR and I love the thing. It’s basically a medium format camera in a 35mm camera body. It’s a powerhouse and it is the first camera I reach for when the goal is photography. For a long time, however, I’ve found myself in situations where photography was not the first goal, but where I nevertheless wanted to have a camera. I’m around the table with friends or at the park with my son and the DSLR is too big, too bulky, too intimidating. It comes between you and life. In this realm, mirrorless, interchangeable lens cameras seem to be king, but they have a major flaw: they are, for all intents and purposes, just little DSLRs.

 

As I mentioned above, I have an interchangeable lens system, why would I want another, smaller one? Clearly, I am not alone in feeling this way, as the market has produced a number of what I would call “professional point and shoots.” Here we are talking about the Fuji X100/X100s, Sigma DPm-series and the RX100 and RX1.

 

Design is about making choices

 

When the Fuji X100 came out, I was intrigued. Here was a cheap(er), baby Leica M. Quiet, small, unobtrusive. Had I waited to buy until the X100s had come out, perhaps this would be a different report. Perhaps, but probably not. I remember thinking to myself as I was looking at the X100, “I wish there was a digital Rollei 35, something with a fixed 28mm or 35mm lens that would fit in a coat pocket or a small bag.” Now of course, there is.

 

So, for those of you who said, “I would buy the RX1 if it had interchangeable lenses or an integrated viewfinder or faster autofocus,” I say the following: This is a purpose built camera. You would not want it as an interchangeable system, it can’t compete with DSLR speed. A viewfinder would make the thing bigger and ruin the magic ratio of body to sensor size—further, there is a 3-inch LCD viewfinder on the back! Autofocus is super fast, you just don’t realize it because the bar has been raised impossibly high by ultra-sonic magnet focusing rings on professional DSLR lenses. There’s a fantastic balance at work here between image quality and size—great tools are about the total experience, not about one or the other specification.

 

In short, design is about making choices. I think Sony has made some good ones with the RX1.

 

In use

 

So I’ve just written 1,000 words of a user report without, you know, reporting on use. In many ways the images on the page are my user report. These photographs, more than my words, should give you a flavor of what the RX1 is about. But, for the sake of variety, I intend to tell you a bit about the how and the why of shooting with the RX1.

 

Snapshots

 

As a beginning enthusiast, I often sneered at the idea of a snapshot. As I’ve matured, I’ve come to appreciate what a pocket camera and a snapshot can offer. The RX1 is the ultimate photographer’s snapshot camera.

 

I’ll pause here to properly define snapshot as a photograph taken quickly with a handheld camera.

 

To quote Ferris Bueller’s Day Off, “Life moves pretty fast. If you don't stop and look around once in a while, you could miss it.” So it is with photography. Beautiful photographs happen at the decisive moment—and to paraphrase Henri Cartier-Bresson further—the world is newly made and falling to pieces every instant. I think it is no coincidence that each revolution in the steady march of photography from the tortuously slow chemistry of tin-type and daguerreotype through 120 and 35mm formats to the hyper-sensitive CMOS of today has engendered new categories and concepts of photography.

 

Photography is a reflexive, reactionary activity. I see beautiful light or the unusual in an every day event and my reaction is a desire to make a photograph. It’s a bit like breathing and has been since I was a kid.

 

Rather than sneer at snapshots, nowadays I seek them out; and when I seek them out, I do so with the Sony RX1 in my hand.

 

How I shoot with the RX1

 

Despite much bluster from commenters on other reviews as to the price point and the purpose-built nature of this camera (see above), the RX1 is incredibly flexible. Have a peek at some of the linked reviews and you’ll see handheld portraits, long exposures, images taken with off-camera flash, etc.

 

Yet, I mentioned earlier that I reach for the D800 when photography is the primary goal and so the RX1 has become for me a handheld camera—something I use almost exclusively at f/2 (people, objects, shallow DoF) or f/8 (landscapes in abundant light, abstracts). The Auto-ISO setting allows the camera to choose in the range from ISO 50 and 6400 to reach a proper exposure at a given aperture with a 1/80 s shutter speed. I have found this shutter speed ensures a sharp image every time (although photographers with more jittery grips may wish there was the ability to select a different default shutter speed). This strategy works because the RX1 has a delightfully clicky exposure compensation dial just under your right thumb—allowing for fine adjustment to the camera’s metering decision.

 

So then, if you find me out with the RX1, you’re likely to see me on aperture priority, f/2 and auto ISO. Indeed, many of the photographs on this page were taken in that mode (including lots of the landscape shots!).

 

Working within constraints.

 

The RX1 is a wonderful camera to have when you have to work within constraints. When I say this, I mean it is great for photography within two different classes of constraints: 1) physical constraints of time and space and 2) intellectual/artistic constraints.

 

To speak to the first, as I said earlier, many of the photographs on this page were made possible by having a camera with me at a time that I otherwise would not have been lugging around a camera. For example, some of the images from the Grand Canyon you see were made in a pinch on my way to a Christmas dinner with my family. I didn’t have the larger camera with me and I just had a minute to make the image. Truth be told, these images could have been made with my cell phone, but that I could wring such great image quality out of something not much larger than my cell phone is just gravy. Be it jacket pocket, small bag, bike bag, saddle bag, even fannie pack—you have space for this camera anywhere you go.

 

Earlier I alluded to the obtrusiveness of a large camera. If you want to travel lightly and make photographs without announcing your presence, it’s easier to use a smaller camera. Here the RX1 excels. Moreover, the camera’s leaf shutter is virtually silent, so you can snap away without announcing your intention. In every sense, this camera is meant to work within physical constraints.

 

I cut my photographic teeth on film and I will always have an affection for it. There is a sense that one is playing within the rules when he uses film. That same feeling is here in the RX1. I never thought I’d say this about a camera, but I often like the JPEG images this thing produces more than I like what I can push with a RAW. Don’t get me wrong, for a landscape or a cityscape, the RAW processed carefully is FAR, FAR better than a JPEG.

 

But when I am taking snapshots or photos of friends and family, I find the JPEGs the camera produces (I’m shooting in RAW + JPEG) so beautiful. The camera’s computer corrects for the lens distortion and provides the perfect balance of contrast and saturation. The JPEG engine can be further tweaked to increase the amount of contrast, saturation or dynamic range optimization (shadow boost) used in writing those files. Add in the ability to rapidly compensate exposure or activate various creative modes and you’ve got this feeling you’re shooting film again. Instant, ultra-sensitive and customizable film.

 

Pro Tip: Focusing

 

Almost all cameras come shipped with what I consider to be the worst of the worst focus configurations. Even the Nikon D800 came to my hands set to focus when the shutter button was halfway depressed. This mode will ruin almost any photograph. Why? Because it requires you to perform legerdemain to place the autofocus point, depress the shutter halfway, recompose and press the shutter fully. In addition to the chance of accidentally refocusing after composing or missing the shot—this method absolutely ensures that one must focus before every single photograph. Absolutely impossible for action or portraiture.

 

Sensibly, most professional or prosumer cameras come with an AF-ON button near where the shooter’s right thumb rests. This separates the task of focusing and exposing, allowing the photographer to quickly focus and to capture the image even if focus is slightly off at the focus point. For portraits, kids, action, etc the camera has to have a hair-trigger. It has to be responsive. Manufacturer’s: stop shipping your cameras with this ham-fisted autofocus arrangement.

 

Now, the RX1 does not have an AF-ON button, but it does have an AEL button whose function can be changed to “MF/AF Control Hold” in the menu. Further, other buttons on the rear of the camera can also be programmed to toggle between AF and MF modes. What this all means is that you can work around the RX1’s buttons to make it’s focus work like a DSLR’s. (For those of you who are RX1 shooters, set the front switch to MF, the right control wheel button to MF/AF Toggle and the AEL button to MF/AF Control Hold and voila!) The end result is that, when powered on the camera is in manual focus mode, but the autofocus can be activated by pressing AEL, no matter what, however, the shutter is tripped by the shutter release. Want to switch to AF mode? Just push a button and you’re back to the standard modality.

 

Carrying.

 

I keep mine in a small, neoprene pouch with a semi-hard LCD cover and a circular polarizing filter on the front—perfect for buttoning up and throwing into a bag on my way out of the house. I have a soft release screwed into the threaded shutter release and a custom, red twill strap to replace the horrible plastic strap Sony provided. I plan to gaffer tape the top and the orange ring around the lens. Who knows, I may find an old Voigtlander optical viewfinder in future as well.

This graphic shows a comparison of different Solar System bodies as a log normalized ratio from the surface of the body.

 

Much like the old "How New Yorkers see the world" cartoon, this graphic looks from the surface of the body towards the core. Surface* features (to left) are deliberately over-emphasized, and core structure (at right) is under-emphasized.

 

The graphic is designed to compare the composition - phase state of materials that make up these particular solar system bodies.

 

For many of the bodies, detailed information is lacking, so a best guess was generated based on available data. Due to the log-scale emphasis on near-surface structure, unknowns near the surface have the highest error. (For example ice shell thickness of the ice covered Ocean Worlds of our Solar System.)

 

For planets with a variable surface covering (Earth, Titan), the bar is split in the relative areal% of that covering material.

 

*For gas and ice giants, the 'surface' is the 0.1 MPa level in the atmosphere.

 

Copyright @2017 Michael J. Malaska

My submission for week 14 of the 2014 photochallenge. The theme for the week is composition: rule of thirds.

 

Google

History

 

The church with the dowend tower

History of joy and suffering of an old christian time witness of Vienna

The Minoritenkirche in Vienna is one of the oldest and most valuable artistic churches of the city. It is therefore not surprising that it also experienced a very eventful history. In all probability, the Franciscans were - how the Friars Minor (Thomas of Celano: "Ordo Friars Minor" ) also called on account of its founders personality, called by the Babenberg Duke Leopold VI the Glorious, in 1230 into the country. Here he gave them a lot, probably with a church (probably dedicated to St. Catherine of Alexandria), before the walls of the city, between the Scots Monastery (Schottenstift) and the ducal residence. It was not until 1237, and in 1271 the entire area was included in the extended boundary wall. The Minorite Barnabas Strasser says in his chronicle from 1766 that Leopold had asked on his return from the Holy Land in 1219 Francis in Assisi to the relocation of some brothers to Vienna, which was then carried out 1224. The Franciscans, however, are detectable only in 1234 by a bull of Gregory IX . to Frederick the Warlike, the last reigning Babenberg, by the year 1239 there was already the Austrian province. The above-mentioned chapel near the present Minoritenkirche the brothers have now expanded and dedicated it to the Holy Cross ("Santa Croce"). In 1251 the dedication was by the Bishop Berthold of Passau. In addition, the friars began to build a monastery, the 1234 is mentioned in a document (the monastery comprised finally the Ballhausplatz, Minoritenplatz and parts of the Hofburg and the Public Garden) . Of the original Romanesque building stock nothing has been preserved. Especially the great fire of 1276 has cremated large parts of the Convention.

However, the strong growth of the Friars Minor now living in Vienna made ​​a new building of the church and monastery necessary. Already laid by King Otakar II of Bohemia in 1276 the foundation stone for the new building of that temple which was now already on the present site of the church, the monarch also promised tax exemption for all who had contributed to the building of the church.

First stage of construction (beginning in the third third of the 13th century.): So he decided to build new church and convent, but by the death in battle of Ottokar in 1278 at the March Field (Jedlespeigen close Dürnkrut) delayed the construction, thus only after the turn of the century it couldbe completed. The embalmed body of Ottokar remained 30 weeks in the chapter house of the monastery until it was transferred to Znojmo and finally to Prague. The king's heart is buried in the original Chapel of St. Catherine, which was now newly assigned this name because the appropriation should be reserved to the Holy Cross of Christ, the new church and the convent . This newly built house of God was given the shape of a two-aisled nave with zweijochigem (two-bay) long choir (chancel), which closed with the five sides of a decagon. This long choir, the one 1785/86 and changed into a five-storey residential building, was canceled in 1903. In connection with the subway construction (1984-86), although archaeological excavations took place, it also laid the foundations of the former free long-choir, but most of the foundations of the old presbytery were destroyed at the same time. - The first church had a rood screen, even at the turn of the 15th/16th Century the still resulting image of the Saint Francis was attached by an unknown artist. Just from this first phase, we know by the Baroque Minoritenchronik (chronicle) first mentioned the name of a builder, namely brother Hans Schimpffenpfeil .

Second stage of construction (after 1317-1328 ) Blanche (Blanche) of Valois, the wife of Duke Rudolf III . ( 1307) and daughter of Philip the Fair, in 1304 decreed in his will to build a chapel in honor of her grandfather, the Holy King Louis IX. of France (canonized in 1297) and introduced for this purpose in 1000 available books. However, the project was realized only under Isabella (Elizabeth ) of Aragon, wife of King Frederick the Fair (1330 ). The chapel dedicated to their relatives canonized in 1317, St . Louis of Anjou, son of Charles II of Naples, great-nephew of Louis IX . of France and Franciscan archbishop of Toulouse (1297 ); it was first a self- cultivation in the NE (north-east) of the two-aisled nave Minoritenkirche, until the third construction phase it was integrated into the nave (now the north aisle with Anthony's Chapel). In 1328 the chapel was apparently completed because in 1330 the founder - was buried in the chapel of Louis - in terms of her testamentary disposition. The tomb of Queen Isabella stood in the middle of the Kapellenjochs (chapel bay) in front of the apse. The tracery show similarity with those of the Albertine choir of St. Stephen (built by Duke Albrecht II [ 1358] ) as well as with that of the Sanctuary Strassengel near the Cistercian monastery Rein near Graz (around the middle of the 14th century.). Probably belonged to the tympanum with the donor portraits of Frederick the Fair and Isabella at the feet of the Mother of God, which was inserted in the third construction phase of the church in the secondary north portal, the original entrance to the Ludwig chapel. It must be mentioned that even the Duchess Blanche (1305 ) built around 1330 a high early gothic marble grave, which unfortunately disappeared in the course of the renovation of the church in the years 1784-86 by the court architect Johann Ferdinand Hetzendorf of Hohenberg. It would be in Vienna today the only work of art of this kind

Third stage of construction (from 1339 -1400): Construction of a three-aisled hall (originally nave chapel Ludwig). The north wall of the chapel was extended to the west and in the north portal installed a second yoke. In addition, it was built a new west facade, with especially the central portal - including was designed - with jamb - pompous like the French late Gothic - perhaps under South German mediation. In the obituary of the Friars Minor brother Jacob of Paris is called ( around 1340), the confessor Albrecht II as the creator of this work of art. The duke and his wife Johanna von Außenmauer MinoritenkirchePfirt have obviously significantly contributed to the emergence of Vienna undoubtedly unique late Gothic cathedrals three portal group, there is also a representation of Albrecht and his wife in the middle portal next to the cross of Christ. Together with the two for a rich Mendikantenkirche (Mendicity church) this equipment is also of French models (see Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris [after 1285] ) constructed in 1350-1370 with splendid rose windows (with "bright" and "rotating" tracery) to the south wall - unusually without a doubt. The workshop, which built the Ludwig chapel was also busy with the west facade ("Minoritenwerkstatt" (workshop)). 1350-60 or later today, finally, the bell tower was only partially built (as a builder is a lay brother Nicholas, 1385 or 1386 called ). The tower consists mainly of two parts, a lower part made ​​of stone blocks to the height of the nave, and an upper, octagonal section of mixed masonry. Its crown had because of damage - especially been renewed several times and was eventually removed - during the Turkish wars . The consecration of the enlarged Minoritenkirche must have taken place about the year 1390. So that the church had received its valid look for the next time.

In 1529, during the first siege of the monastery and the church even more extensive damage suffering (launch of the spire). Since the monastery of the Observant (Franciscans) had been destroyed by the Turks, these sought to supplant the Franciscans in their convent, where John Capistrano, the founder of the "brown Franciscan" (Observant) in Vienna, lived some time in the Franciscan monastery and in the Church had preached, but eventually instructed the Emperor Ferdinand I the now homeless Observant buildings on Singerschen Platz. In fact, the number of Wiener Friars Minor has then shrunk to seven, so that they felt compelled to call Fathers from Italy. But that but could not prevent that the church from 1569-1620 war a Protestant church. Interestingly, originate numerous coats of arms on the balcony of this period. At that time the Conventual were only in the possession of Louis Chapel and the Chapel of St. Catherine. Also during the second Turkish siege in 1683 the tower served as an observation tower and the Minoritenkirche was accordingly fired by the Turks and severely damaged. In 1733 the tower is adorned with a copper dome, but because of the danger of collapse eventually had to be removed. It brought the church to that low pointed tiled roof, which still exists today .

More and more, the bands developed in the Minoritenkirche, especially Ludwig chapel and cemetery, grave sites of the nobility. Besides Blanche of Valois and Isabella of Aragon and Margaret, the last country Duchess of Tyrol, was named Maultasch ( 1369 ), is buried here, as well as members of Lichtsteiner, Ditrichsteins, Puchaimer, Hojo, Stauffenberger, Greifensteiner; Piccolomini, Medici, Cavalcanti, Montaldi, Valperga, etc. (many of them are listed in the "Libro d'Oro of the "Congregation Italiana"). It should also be mentioned that the Franciscans since the end of the 14th Century took lively interest in teaching at the University of Vienna, especially of course in the subjects of theology, but also the jurisprudence. At the beginning of the 18th Century lived in the Vienna alsoin the Viennese Convention the Venetian cosmographer Br Vincenzo Coronelli, which the Emperor Charles VI. appointed to head the regulation of the Danube and its famous globes are now in the globe collection of the National Library in Vienna.

It is worthnoting, finally, the fact that around 1543 on the Ballhausplatz near the Imperial Palace from parts of the monastery a small hospital was donated and that the Franciscans for 13 years did all the counseling in this new Hofspital, at this time was the newly restored Chapel of St. Catherine Hospital Church. Another wing of the former minority monastery was home to the Imperial Court Library, 1558-1613.

To Minoritenkirche the second half of the 18th Century brought drastic changes. This development was initiated by the fact that the naturalized Italians in Vienna founded an Italian congregation in 1625/26 under the guidance of the Jesuit priest and professor at the University of Vienna Wilhelm Lamormaini. By the year 1773, when the Jesuit Order was temporarily released their Italian trade fairs celebrated this "Congregation Italiana" in a chapel of the Jesuits at Bognergasse, near the old Jesuit church "Am Hof". But in 1773 that little church was by the imperial government requisited. Then the Italians found in St. Catherine Chapel at Ballhausplatz, which popularly still is referred as the Italian church - ie not only the Minoritenkirche - a new home. After a thorough restoration of the chapel was consecrated on 1 February 1775 ceremony in memory of the "Santa Maria Maggiore" to Rome in the name of "Madonna della Neve" (Mary Snow church'). The Holy Mass conducted Antonio Salieri (1750-1825), who was in 1774 chamber composer and conductor of the Italian opera in Vienna, from 1788-90 to 1824 Kapellmeister and Director of the Court Chapel. Pope Pius VI . visited during his stay in Vienna on Good Friday of 1782 the church "Maria Schnee" on the Ballhausplatz. But this state of the law was short-lived: in 1783 Emperor Joseph II shifted the Friars Minor in the former Trinitarian on Alserstrasse, and the Minoritenkirche was on the grounds that the chapel "p Maria della Neve" for about 7,000 Italians living in Vienna was too small, the Congregation italiana transferred to the condition that the Community had now to restore the Great Church (imperial decree of June 3, 1784). The richly decorated chapel "Madonna della Neve" went on an imperial property and was finally in the late 18th Century canceled. Also, the Franciscan monastery passed into state ownership: one is used for imperial and feudal law firms. The cemetery near the church was abandoned. With the greatest financial burdens now led the congregation from the imperial mission of the church renovation, the thorough repair of the church was entrusted to the court architect Johann Ferdinand Hetzendorf of Hohenberg (1784-1789). In order to cover the construction costs somewhat, were the old long choir (chancel) and the beginning of the 14th Century. (Consecrated in 1317 ) at the western end of the south side of the nave grown (and now defunct) St. John's Chapel (Chapel Puchaimische Kapelle ) converted into residences. The solemn consecration of the church under the name of "Madonna della Neve" took place on 16 April 1786, on Easter Sunday.

But soon was moving closer to the church the next hardship: In the years of the Napoleonic wars, the church should serve as a warehouse for straw, hay and for different equipment, so in 1809 also the forced evacuation of the building took place. Shortly after engaging the French eventually turned this into a provisions store. Two-thirds of the floor was smashed by the rolling of drums and by the retraction of cars. In the middle of the church a wide, tunnel-like cavity had been excavated and other parts of the floor destroyed a in God's house capped oven. Until 18 April 1810, the then Prefect of the Minoritenkirche received back the church keys. In 1825 died one of the most famous Kongregaten (congregats) of this century, namely, the composer Antonio Salieri, and on 22 June this year resounded in the Italian national church with the participation of the court chapel and the first Hofchores (court choir) the Verdi Requiem.

As the situation after the Napoleonic war turmoil in the mid-19th Century had normalized, Emperor Ferdinand the Good in 1845 donated to the "Congregation italiana" the according to the model of Leonardo da Vinci's famous fresco (1495-97) designed mosaic of the Last Supper, which the Roman Giacomo Raffaelli ​​of 12 panels with a total weight of 20 tons by Napoleon's orders had made in the years 1806-1814, and was eventually bought by Emperor Franz for the Belvedere Palace. To that gave Emperor Ferdinand a considerable amount (8000 guilders) to allow the mounting of the work of art in the Minoritenkirche. The inauguration of the altar took place on 26nd in March 1847. In 1852 Emperor Franz Joseph came and soon the Crown Prince Franz Ferdinand in the "Congregation ". The former paid each year mostly coming from out of town fast preachers for the Church, in return he regularly received at the Festival of Lights (2 February) as well as on Palm Sunday the sacred candle or the olive branch.

The last major change in the church took place in the years 1892-1905 at the restructuring of the Minoritenplatz. Now two new courses, namely the Ballhausplatz and Minoritenplatz emerged, the houses adjacent to the church (former Long John's Chapel Choir and) were demolished. The former Franciscan monastery had to give way to the House, Court and State Archives. Even the church was given a new face, although the plans of the architect Viktor Luntz due to financial reasons only could be realized partially, there were clearly visible changes: Most noticeable to the viewer is undoubtedly the Gothic passage on the south side of the walled grave stones originated partly from the bands, and part of the adjacent once cemetery, as well as the above installed "Minoritenhaus". 1907 were placed in the tower four new bells cast in Trento, which is, however - with the exception of one, St. Anthony ordained, Bell - 1914 confiscated. The solemn consecration of the church took place on 4 Held in May 1909 in the presence of Emperor Franz Joseph. Due to the highly cooperative attitude of the Congregation towards the transformation plans of the City of Vienna Lueger, the mayor promised that the court should never be installed directly behind the church.

More important restoration work was carried out 1960-1962 (church affairs), in the last decade, as the outer walls have been restored.

About Minoritenplatz finally should be mentioned that the pastoral care of Italians after 1786 by each rectors appointed by the Archbishop was, from 1808 to 1813 was also here Clemens Maria Hofbauer who died 1820 and later was canonized working as a church rector. Therefore, there is also his monument on the north side of the church. Since the year 1953, and officially by the order of the archbishop Ordinariate of 1 December 1957 is the Friars Minor transmitted the pastoral care of the Italian community again, firstly the Fathers belonging to the Order of Padua Province while they are under the Austrian province today. In the year 2003, ie 50 years after the adoption of the pastoral care of Italians in the Minoritenkirche by the Conventual, that Francis statue was made, nowadays, it is located on the north side of the church, next to the Baroque cultivation.

 

(Text by Dr. Manfred Zips , Ital. Congregation )

www.minoriten.at/inhalt/wo/Minoriten/minoritenkirche.htm

The most west of Big Tidung island tried to hunt the sunset,was chasing it by bicycle and still fortunate to have the color while normalizing my breathe :-).

Stu Kauffman just gave a fascinating talk at the Almaden Institute on Complexity.

 

I would bet that his discussion of cells and genetic signaling networks will also apply to the brain and synaptic networks. The evolution of evolution itself moves up a hierarchy of abstractions to act at the network topology level.

 

Here are my rough notes from Kauffman’s talk:

 

Cells are dynamically critical because being critical is the best way to coordinate complex behaviors. (critical meaning the edge between chaos and order)

 

We have been taught that natural selection is the only source of order. What if there was a law that governs all of biology? It would be profound and would alter our view of biology. There are organizing principles that biology “obeys” because it is selectively useful. It’s like finding one of Newton’s law of motion for cells.

 

Cells are very complex. Genetic regulatory nets:

Transcriptome in yeast regulates 6500 genes, Humans: 25K

Transcription factor -> promoter or enhancer. Protein signaling cascades.

Transcriptome+protein signaling network is a parallel processing non-linear stochastic dynamical system.

Huge web. Nobody knows structures and dynamics.

Systems biology is trying to look for general laws

10^8000 genome state space.

Percolate: order, all fixed states.

Derrida deconstructionist. Mafia+deconstructionist = make you an offer you can’t understand

Hamming distance. Fan-in of K=2 or less. Take a Random network. Take 60K logic gates at random. Each gate has 2 inputs. The system Behavior is simple. It spontaneously goes to ordered regime. Nearby states converge. Dt = Dt+1 is the critical line.

 

Being critical is very, very rare. If it exists, it must have been selected for over 3.8B years of evolution.

 

Why cells should be critical?

Cells must bin past discriminations to future reliable actions

• Order: convergence in state space forgets past distinctions. Info-lossy

• Chaotic: small noise yields divergence in state space trajectories precluding reliable action

• Critical: near parallel flow optimizes capacity to bind past and future

Bacteria: operons for different food and different enzymes

 

Critical Boolean networks maximize robustness to mutations

Cell types correspond to attractors

Critical networks maximize the probability that such mutations leave all existing attractors intact and occasionally add new attractors.

Thus, critical networks optimize robustness of cell types to mutations and the capacity to evolve new cell types.

 

Mutual information: correlation between 2 variables. Entropy of variable A + B – joint entropy. Between 0 and 1. 0 = no correlation.

Ways to go from order and chaos. Inputs: order until K=2, peak for criticality.

If k greater than 2, then put lots of 1’s in there. P-bias of .15

Model of floral development shows criticality.

 

E.Coli: apply random 1500 values on real network; also to Yeast medusa network, 200 regulatory genes in medusa head, rest are regulated 3500 genes (humans 2500 regulating genes in medusa head, 23K regulated). If apply random Boolean functions to the yeast network, why would it be critical? This is about the dynamics of the networks. Cells do thermodynamic work. Work is constrained release of energy in few degrees of freedom, but it takes work to create the constraints. Cells do this, but we don’t have concepts for it in physics.

 

Hela 48 hourly time point. Affy gene array data. Lempel-Ziv analysis. Cells clearly are not chaotic; they are either ordered or critical (data lie on top of each other)

Avalanche size distribution. Deletion – see how many other genes change. Log-log straight line power law. Slope -1.5 power law (critical branching process). 250 yeast deletions, measure how many alter their activity. Ilya’s work.

 

NCD: normalized compression distance. Analysis of toll-like receptors on surface of macrophage. Ideal compressor. Take random length n, concatenate 2 of them. Ideal compressor will compress to n. 2 random ones, won’t be able to compress it. The more you can compress, the more similar they are. Regression gives a diagonal line, indicating it is critical. Nature, Dec 2006 Max Planck. Binary and ternary discretization leads to line that is critical. It’s breathtaking.

 

This is self-organization in nature via natural selection. If this is right, it may be a general law, one of the few laws in biology (e.g., Darwin, a few in ecology and population genetics). We will create life anew in the next 15 years. My bet is that life anywhere in the universe will be critical because it is the best way to coordinate complex behaviors.

Post-Playtex Era Strong In Cullman

 

Chamber of Commerce weather greeted several dozen lactating women and their families at the Walmart Pavilion inside Heritage Park on Saturday morning.

 

The gathering celebrated the 4th annual BIG Latch On. This event ran from 10 am until noon.

 

Cullman County nursing mothers along with their husbands and other support members convened to breastfeed their babies in a supportive, lactation-friendly environment.

 

Ashley Wright, the lead organizer of this event, invited all area lactating moms as well as their friends, family, and community to come out and participate in the cause.

 

The BIG Latch On is an annual, global event that celebrates, promotes and supports breastfeeding.

 

The larger goal of the global BIG Latch On movement is to normalize breastfeeding.

 

There was a worldwide synchronization latch from 10:30 to 10:31 am Cullman time.

 

Groups of nursing moms and their supporters around the world either latched their babies, expressed milk or fed breast milk by spoon to their babies all at the same time across the world. It was a sacred, touching and profound moment at Heritage Park.

 

cullmantoday.com/2017/08/06/post-playtex-era-strong-in-cu...

 

12 hours of integration time:

 

Ha: 24 x 600 second exposures

Sii: 24 x 600 second exposures

Oiii: 24 x 600 second exposures

 

Bortle Class 4

 

Equipment: HEQ5 Pro | ASI Air Mini | William Optics Z61 w/ 61a field flattener | ZWO 533 MM Pro w/ 1.25” Filter Wheel | ZWO EAF | Optolong LRGB, Ha, Sii, and Oiii filters.

 

Processed in PixInsight: Combined channels in PixelMath. BlurXterminator (Correct only). Spectrophotometric Calibration to remove green cast.

 

BlurrXterminator again for sharpening. StarXterminator so I could edit the nebula and stars separately. Used SCNR on star image. Narrowband Normalization to change the pallet to SHO and made further color adjustments. Removed color noise and grain with NoiseXterminator.

 

Stretched both star and starless image with Histogram Transformation. Did some more with Curves Transformation.

 

Used Selective Color Correction for some more adjustments. Blended the star and starless image back together with PixelMath. Reduced star size with Star Reduction.

 

Summary of 2021

By Andrew Karagianis

Flickr version

 

If 2020 was a year of fear and panic, 2021 was a year of frustration. However, it wasn’t all bad.

 

Let’s get the COVID stuff out of the way first. People are still wearing masks below their noses, as though their nose and lungs aren’t connected – probably the same reason why it’s fine to breathe through your nose underwater as long as your mouth is closed.

 

Wait, what?

 

People are still socializing indoors with people who don’t live with them, without masks on, even though we know that the virus is airborne, not just spread via droplets. The government still hasn’t made a blanket travel ban or gone into another long-enough lockdown, because it values jobs over lives. And as I’ve realized more recently, mask mandates as they currently exist aren’t as helpful as they could be, because masks are not one-size-fits-all. I have yet to find a mask that doesn’t leave gaps – and the big honking industrial respirator I have that would offer the best protection isn’t allowed in a lot of settings because it has a valve that lets breath out.

 

And so here we are, with COVID cases skyrocketing like we’ve never seen before during the past few weeks due to this Omicron variant. The pandemic is nowhere near over, and our freedom to socialize like it’s 2019 without that nagging concern of “Am I going to be exposed to COVID by doing this?” is not on the horizon. Even the Q-anon confidiocy (confederacy + idiocy), who believe the world is out to get them, know deep down that maybe those large gatherings are risky for them personally. Vaccines prevent severe disease, but they don’t prevent infection, and that has been my justification for not seeing friends or family in person very much this year – because no level of face-to-face fun is worth finding out a few days later that someone’s been exposed to COVID.

 

But we’ve all spent enough time reading about the pandemic, so here’s how the rest of my year went. This year I’m going to separate the months by headers.

 

There were eight main events in 2021 that made it a significant year for me, which I will highlight as they come up in the chronology.

 

January:

Ally and I rang in the new year at home. Toronto was [still] on lockdown. We watched two episodes of Schitt’s Creek, and read our books.

 

In the first half of January, the provincial government announced a stay-at-home order effective January 14th, for everyone who could stay home. On January 14th, I got the word from my employer that I should try to work from home as much as possible. I texted our landlord, and he agreed to let me use NathAnne’s old apartment as a work space temporarily. On January 15th, I started working from home.

 

February:

February was cold.

 

I got my second FitBit – a Charge 4. I also started my GAIN Q3 training. As of December 24th, I still haven’t finished it due to lack of opportunities to do my practice interviews.

 

Also in February, my stocks on the investing app reached their peak. From that point on, my portfolio gradually decreased in value until July, when I reached the “break-even” point and sold it all off. Then I bought back a few shares in one company that consistently did well, and as of the end of 2021, I’m up about $70. Small gains as far as experienced investors are concerned, but it’s better than being in the hole!

 

March:

The first of the eight main events that influenced my experience of 2021 was that on March 20th, I got my first dose of the Pfizer-BioNtech COVID vaccine. Let me just say how amazing that is. Humans had never developed a coronavirus vaccine until 2020, and now, a little over a year into the pandemic, I’d been given one.

 

Unfortunately over the course of the year, we would come to realize that vaccinated people can still be infected and even hospitalized in some cases, so it’s not perfect, but I am certain that mass vaccination has prevented lots of deaths. When I wrote my summary of 2020, 4.9 million people had received one dose of the vaccine. As of December 22nd, 2021, 4.49 billion people have had at least one dose of the vaccine. So that’s great progress.

 

But more needs to be done to get vaccines to less-wealthy countries where the vaccination rates are much lower than they are here. Why? Not just to save their lives; that’s the moral argument, and I’m fine with that. But also because most of the variants of concern have come from less-wealthy countries. And unless air travel completely stops, those variants will all come to Toronto soon after they’re discovered. Oops; I got to talking about COVID again! Well, of course I am; this is the biggest thing since World War Two.

 

Anyway, also in March, Ally embarked on a mini-project to document the rivers buried underneath our neighborhood in Leslieville, and I meanwhile took pictures of the date stamps of some of the manhole covers and sidewalks to see how old they were. One was from 1929! Damn, we’re just fascinating, aren’t we?

 

Also in March, Terrance (our parrot) started having problems with what seemed to be his breathing. We took him to a few vets over what I think were several days… I remember Ally being out with him to the vet once while I was working from home, and looking at his empty cage and getting teary-eyed at the thought of Terrance dying. Fortunately, after a few weeks of medication, he was back to normal. Now he’s 16 years old!

 

The second (and most significant) event of 2021 for me (at least until November) was that on March 24th, I got a bloodtest, and stupidly looked up my results online that night. It’s not a death sentence, but it fucking might as well have been in my mind, for the first few weeks as I tried to make sense of it. It said my fasting blood glucose was 6.5, and the report said that it indicates prediabetes. Great, thought I – I’m destined to have a disease in which a) I can’t have sugar ever again, and b) I have to prick my needle-phobic skin every day. All of those trips to Bulk Barn in which I bought $30 worth of chocolate at a time had caught up with me, not as an overweight 60-something, but as a slim 35-year-old.

 

I didn’t hear from my doctor for close to a month though, and no news is good news when it comes to medical things, but I immediately stopped eating cookies and started looking into the glycemic index and figuring out what life-long staple foods I wouldn’t be able to eat anymore, and what I’d be left with.

 

April:

After I made an unrelated doctor’s appointment in April, the substitute doctor confirmed that I do tentatively have prediabetes. They would test me again in August, but in the meantime, the substitute doctor suggested I start talking to a dietitian, so I did. I woefully overhauled my entire diet over the spring. Gone were:

 

• Gigantic bowls of cereal – my first love and a daily staple for as long as I can remember.

• Cookies – I probably ate a few hundred calories’ worth of cookies on most days.

• Normal pasta (as opposed to whole wheat).

• Pizza

• Chocolate

• Pop

• White bread products (even though I’d already switched to whole grain bread for sandwiches a few years ago, despite being on my Hate List from 2010).

 

Needless to say, I started losing weight, and not because I wanted to. These foods constituted the majority of my diet. My Zoo friends circa 2008 were right – those foods I was eating every day back then (white bread, honey buns, pop, etc.) were bad for me. I knew at the time that they were probably right, and my teeth had been showing evidence ever since I was a kid, but since I never got fat, I just assumed this would happen to me much later in life.

 

I replaced my beloved boxed cereals with porridge; started eating junk chick peas (dried flavoured chickpea snacks), seeds, nuts, and yogurt, and made sure to include protein or “healthy fat” with every carb-based snack or meal. I had to do whatever I could to avoid getting the daily needle prick disease that also happens to have some other shitty effects.

 

I also started jogging [again] that spring. Let’s be clear – I’ve been pretty sedentary my whole life, with some bouts of medium-term exercise in between. I’d only jogged a few times, but I got into the habit of going out for a power walk or jog before working from home on weekday mornings, and eventually got to the point of being able to jog 0.975km without stopping, once. Unfortunately, I actually got worse at jogging as the year went on, and I’m not exactly sure why, but I think it might have to do with a) the summer humidity, and b) the mostly-downhill route I was taking around Greenwood Park in the spring.

 

On April 4th, I bought a Canon EOS IX Lite on eBay for $46 – an APS film SLR! I hadn’t really considered that APS film could be had with SLR technology until more recently, so I figured I could get some great film shots with it in combination with whatever lenses I had that would fit it. Two of them fit, but malheureusement, the pictures were grainier than the ones I took with the Kodak Advantix T500 point-and-shoot camera. Given that APS film is such a rarity, I’ve only used one roll in the EOS IX Lite because the T500 produces better-quality pics, but it could also have been related to the roll of film itself…anyway, it was neat to try, and I’ll try it again.

 

On April 24th, I’d lived in Ontario for 17 years.

 

On April 25th, Ally & I gave the landlord our notice to move out. After 7.5 years, we decided it was time to leave, as the stench of pot smoke from the basement tenants in the shared ventilation system was pissing us off, and the landlord had recently told us he was considering selling the house. We needed the guarantee of a second room for a private work-from-home space…and I knew that once a new landlord took over the house, I’d be kicked out of the second-floor apartment in short order. I was upset the whole weekend and cried about it three times that Sunday (yeah, that’s right; normalize men expressing emotions) while Ally was downstairs working.

 

I had gotten attached to the house, the view of the jungle (as I called it) out the third-floor windows, and the neighborhood itself, down to the routes I walked so often along the main roads for shopping or eating; TTC/walking commuting routes while working at Good Shepherd, and along the side streets that we’d wander on evening walks. We’d arranged a network of local services for us in that area over the years. But as I said to Ally, we had done that neighborhood to death. Our neighbors were dicks, and I was intellectually okay to live somewhere else even if I emotionally didn’t want to. We started looking for new apartments right away, and saw one that night. Whether virtually or in person, we saw 8 apartments within 7 days of giving our notice.

 

May:

On May 1st, Ally got her first dose of the Pfizer vaccine, and then we saw and put a deposit down for a two-bedroom apartment in Etobicoke.

 

Over the next few weeks, we filled my car full of boxes and other stuff and made at least 8 runs over to the new place in advance of the big moving day. We were lucky in that the landlady gave us a key a month before we moved in.

 

Around May 25th, I went to Mom’s house and she gave me a Kodak Retinette film camera that had belonged to Gramp, and was made between 1954 and 1958 – my fourth film camera, but the first that uses 35mm film! As of January 1st, 2022, I still haven’t used it though.

 

At the end of May, I created a 2021 version of my Hate List, and promptly forgot about it. Although there are still a lot of things that grind my gears, I’m a lot less focused on resentments than I was back in 2010 when I wrote the original Hate List. Also, before you make a comment about the existence of a hate list in the first place, you need to see what was on it. It doesn’t target things that people are born with.

 

June:

On Saturday June 5th, we moved to our new apartment. This was the culmination of the third big event that shaped my 2021. After 7 years, 7 months, and 22 days, it was time to leave the *****Haus (a name we didn’t use until the very end, when we needed a name to refer to it as part of our history). It was the last time I’d hear the roar of the GO train or the screeching from the subway yard in the background, or the chirping birds in the tree canopy outside our windows. We loaded up my car and took Terrance over to the new apartment, set him up, then drove back to the house one last time to meet the movers. We were 35 this time and decided to get someone else to do the heavy lifting down two narrow stairways and around tight corners.

 

It was insane how much stuff we had, even in this bigger new apartment. But eventually we sorted it out while listening to Elton John and George Harrison on Ally’s Spotify, and made it liveable. We ate Indian food and ice cream, and rejoiced about never having to see our old neighbors again.

 

Within two days of moving in, I found a new spot for taking pictures. I wanted to retain the habit of going for almost-daily walks, so I familiarized myself with the local streets pretty quickly.

 

On June 16th, I got my second dose of the Pfizer vaccine.

 

I spent most of my non-work time in the summer walking and riding my bike around our new neighborhood, which was more bike-friendly than the old one (Leslieville), even if the biking culture is different here. Less hipsters and more Lance Armstrong types, but at least the cycling infrastructure is better here. We rode to Tom Petty (Sam Smith) Park and east along the Martin Goodman Trail several times, and got to know that easterly trail route pretty well. Don’t get me wrong; Leslieville had some recreational trails nearby, but they were a lot farther away. Now the physically-protected bike trails are much closer.

 

During the first couple of months in our new home, we spent a lot of evenings sitting on the front porch, reading books or eating supper. It was just nice to be able to sit outside on one’s own property (even though we’re tenants) – for the previous 7.5 years, if we wanted to sit outside, free of judgement, we had to go to the park. As the summer went on, we spent less time on the front porch and more time in the back yard. This probably coincided with the upstairs tenants moving out in July; that apartment being vacant for a month, and new tenants moving in in August.

 

July:

On July 3rd, I got the Strava app as a way to map my bike rides. I also set up my drums in the new apartment in July; having thought I probably wouldn’t be able to in the new place since there were actually other tenants in the adjacent units here (we lived with two empty apartments between us and the basement tenants for almost four years at the *****Haus, so drumming there was never much of a concern).

 

August:

On August 1st, we headed to Emily Provincial Park for our second camping adventure together, which brings us to the fourth event that made 2021 significant for me – 2021 was the year of camping for us. It was the first year since 2014 that I didn’t leave the province, but camping was accessible enough for us to go a few times. We paddled along the Pigeon River, did some fishing and drone flying (outside of the park; I’m no scofflaw), and choked on the thick 24-hour campfire smoke – clearly some of the other campers didn’t get the memo that you don’t burn a campfire all day during the summer. But it was a nice trip overall.

 

After camping, I was brought back to working from the office more often, which increased further in September. I was on the fence about it. Working from office mixed up my day a bit, in that it gave me more variety, but it also gave me less time to exercise for diabetes prevention, not to mention putting 70km on my car per day. Which is still an improvement over the 98km per day I was doing when I lived at the *****Haus, but anyway.

 

In August I finally finished posting my honeymoon pictures on Flickr. It took me two and a half years. I was sad to finish that project, because I got to revisit bits and pieces of my honeymoon frequently over two and a half years. Travel for me is a very nostalgic thing, because although I may only spend a handful of days in a new place, I spend months or years posting pictures from it, so really, the trip feels a lot longer to me, which I like.

 

September:

In September, I started posting my Europe 2020 pictures, skipping over my trips from 2018 and 2019 in favor of the more-timely contrast of my Europe pictures, because they were taken just days before COVID-19 was declared a pandemic.

 

September was eventful. Ally bought a car around September 8th. I bought a JBL Bluetooth speaker, since the new apartment has these things called “rooms”, in which sound from my computer doesn’t carry as far. It arrived just in time for me to stream some of the ceremonies for the 20th anniversary of 9/11.

 

It’s hard to believe 9/11 was 20 years ago, and that there are adults today who hadn’t been born yet on 9/11. But at the same time, it feels like it was 20 years ago, even though I remember images and conversations from that day like it was yesterday. I was a teenager then, just shy of my 16th birthday, living in St. John’s Newfoundland, still in high school, hopelessly single, with dreams of being a rock star (and working toward it, as only a naïve and modestly-talented teenager could). Now I’m 36, live in Toronto, married four years, and have been working as an addiction counsellor for nine years.

 

A few days later, I went for my follow-up bloodtest to either rule out or confirm prediabetes. Unfortunately, it was confirmed. My fasting blood glucose was actually a tiny bit worse, which was a drag because I’d been making so much effort to eat better and get more exercise during the previous six months. But my doctor told me not to be discouraged, so….we’ll see what the next test shows.

 

The next weekend we went camping again; this time to Point Farms Provincial Park for just one night. We concluded that we could go camping frequently if we went to relatively-nearby parks and were willing to go for just one night, to avoid the need to ask for time off work. It was a nice little journey to Lake Huron, which I had never seen (other than its offshoot, Georgian Bay). When we got back home, we decided to book another one-night camping trip.

 

For the federal election, I voted by mail like a communist. Just kidding; communist countries don’t have legitimate elections. We live in a democracy, but you don’t have unlimited rights to personal liberty. Canada isn’t America, and never was. Get used to it, snowflake.

 

On September 25th, I went for my longest-ever bike ride — 31km! My legs were shot by the end of it, but I was happy with myself.

 

October:

On October 2nd, we went camping for a third time; this time for a one-nighter in Algonquin Park, at the Canisbay Lake campground. Yes, one night is not much time for a trip to Algonquin, but I can’t stress how much of a pain in the ass it is to have to request time off work, especially in my job, where there are certain days each month that I can’t take off. My previous employer was very fast at approving such requests, but my current one is not. On this trip, we got rained out. But we did see a moose about 50 feet in front of us on the trail! And it was very scenic with all the deciduous tree leaves in bright fall colors.

 

On October 9th, I bought an iPad and put the old 2010 MacBook Pro into full retirement. It’s not dead yet, but it was time to get a device that I could consistently use to browse the internet, after the MBP kept being useless due to an erroneous clock/date error that I couldn’t fix.

 

On October 14th, I had my first colonoscopy. Yes, you needed to know that. This was the fifth event that made 2021 significant for me. The prep actually wasn’t too bad. I hardly felt hungry on the all-liquid diet the day before. But I opted to do the procedure without sedation, because being put to sleep is my second biggest fear (behind death itself). Let me just say that if you haven’t had a colonoscopy before…when it’s time, get the sedation. It was the worst pain I’ve ever felt in my life, like someone jabbing my stomach from the inside with a baseball bat. It felt like the kind of torture they might apply to extract information from an inmate at Guantanamo Bay.

 

But I was able to walk out of the clinic and go about my day without any assistance, so at least there was that!

 

After that, I was back to working from home 3 days a week, which I was fine with and which continued for most weeks until the end of the year.

 

If there was a theme to October itself, it was Ally’s mural project. We spent every weekend in October (except the camping weekend) plus a few weekday evenings painting a whale mural on a garage door near the Junction. A woman had seen Ally’s Bell Box mural from 2019 and commissioned a similar design. It was a nice way to spend time together, in spite of the alleyway channeling the cold wind like it was the Scarborough Town Centre bus terminal. If you look at the photo of the mural above, @creating_to_be_whole is Ally’s Instagram account.

 

November:

Ally and I got our flu shots on November 2nd. Never before had I been so gung-ho to get a flu shot.

 

On November 6th, a day that will live in infamy, I went to Mom’s house for a masked visit. We took Penny for a walk to Centennial Park and talked about prediabetes, and then went back and talked about various things in her living room. Elliot came over and joined the conversation. Then I drove home and got stuck in traffic on Lake Shore Blvd at Cherry Street, as they had demolished the onramp to the Gardiner near Logan Ave in September, and Lake Shore was down from three lanes to one, without sufficient signage. When I got home and parked in the driveway, I took a picture from inside my car of a person riding by on a bicycle with the sunset in the background, not knowing it was the last picture I would take before my world changed. I was going to go inside and tell Ally that I got stuck in traffic, which is why I took so long getting home.

 

Ally was standing in the kitchen, and she told me “I think I’m pregnant!”

 

Holy fuck!

 

* * * * *

 

This was the sixth event that made 2021 significant for me, and turned everything else on its head. For the first several days, I was pretty concerned. We’re doing okay, but we aren’t part of the wealthy Toronto homeowner class. How am I going to be able to afford a kid?!?

 

We both asked a lot of questions of ourselves and each other, but by the second half of November, we eventually settled on “If we have this opportunity to have a kid and we decide not to, we would probably regret it in the long run.”

 

So, most of November was spent deliberating about what we were going to do, all while not allowing ourselves to get advice from anyone else because we didn’t want to tell anyone else (other than Ally’s doctor) quite yet.

 

December:

On December 5th, we told our parents. They were over the moon!

 

I had the weeks of December 13th and 20th off work, so I recorded a bit of music and did some more walking, which was limited by the prevalence of ice on the sidewalks earlier in the month.

 

On December 16th, I went with Ally to get her second ultrasound. I heard the baby’s heartbeat and we got a printed picture, in which it definitely looked like a baby this time.

 

We went up to Dad’s house for a pre-Christmas visit on December 19th, knowing that we probably wouldn’t visit on Christmas Day now. I booked my COVID booster shot for February 1st once the government released the hounds, I mean appointments. Then I got word of another place with earlier appointments and I booked one for January 15th, and later found an even earlier appointment for December 30th. In fact, if there was a seventh theme for 2021 for me, it was the year of needles, which is significant because I fucking hate needles as I mentioned earlier:

 

• On March 20th I got my first dose of the COVID vaccine (Pfizer).

• On March 24th I got bloodwork.

• On June 16th I got my second dose of the COVID vaccine (Pfizer).

• On September 13th I got bloodwork.

• On October 14th I got two finger pricks to test my blood sugar before and after the colonoscopy (thankfully those were only 5.6, but I had been on a liquid diet).

• On November 2nd I got my flu shot.

• On December 22nd I got my tetanus/pertussis/diphtheria booster shot.

• And on December 30th I got third dose of the COVID vaccine; Moderna this time.

 

The Omicron variant had made its way to Ontario by early December, and by December 23rd the daily count of new COVID cases had broken the record set in April; over 5,000 (on December 31st, it was 16,713 cases). We decided that week that we were not going anywhere for Christmas this year. Not worth the risk.

 

On Christmas Day, Ally and I had a leisurely morning and opened our presents around 11:00am. We went for an afternoon walk, FaceTimed with my family who were at Dad’s house in the afternoon, and ate leftover lasagna for supper. A very low-risk Christmas for us. On Boxing Day, we took and posted a picture of us with the second ultrasound picture of our future child and Terrance photoshopped onto my shoulder. The likes and comments started pouring in! A lot of people were happy for us! Later that day, Ally recorded vocals and I recorded an intro guitar part for “Mr. Tambourine Man”, finishing our rendition of The Byrds’ version of the Bob Dylan classic.

 

Indeed, if there was an eighth theme of 2021 for me, it’s that I recorded more music in 2021 than in any previous year (except 2011, when I made more recordings of Adam & Evil songs). I also sang on at least three of them, which is a big step for me. I collaborated with Ally, Dad, Terrance, and the ambient sounds of Leslieville on some tracks, and made 48 recordings overall in 2021 (although I’m counting unfinished versions).

 

I did very little painting in 2021; just a couple of cards I think, but I did buy Procreate (how fitting, amirite) for iPad in December.

 

I was more active on Flickr in 2021. I posted 211 photos/videos in 2021, whereas I posted 103 in 2020, and only 62 in 2019 for comparison.

 

TV shows gotten into/watched/finished:

• The Beatles Get Back

• That’s it! With no Mandalorian or The Crown until 2022, 2021 was a minimal year for TV.

 

Memes/Instagram accounts I liked:

• Anakin and Padme in a field – so many possibilities!

• Middle Class Fancy/Rand & Nance - #relatable as a middle-class person.

• Townie Memes – this reminds me of my homeland.

• BlahTO – a spot-on satire of BlogTO.

• Jenny-Jinya – this account is a tear-jerker if you have pets.

 

Books read:

1. Finished A Promised Land by Barack Obama

2. Tried reading The Bedside Book of Birds by Graeme Gibson, but it involved a lot of bird abuse stories.

3. Is This Anything? by Jerry Seinfeld

4. Face The Music: A Life Exposed by Paul Stanley

5. A Journey Across the Island of Newfoundland in 1822 By W. E. Cormack

6. The Inconvenient Indian by Thomas King

7. Almost Feral by Gemma Hickey

8. Son of a Critch by Mark Critch

9. Started Homo Deus by Yuval Noah Harari

10. Started You’re going to be a dad!

 

A few songs I got into:

• “Two of Us” and “Don’t Let Me Down” by The Beatles

• “Saving Ourselves for Marriage” by Anal Cunt

• “Tomorrow” and “Under The Gun” by KISS

• “Living in Lightning” by City and Colour

 

I haven’t seen a movie in a theater since “The Rise of Skywalker” in 2019. I haven’t been to an indoor family meal since Christmas 2019. I haven’t eaten in a restaurant since March of 2020. Lots of people have taken a different approach, but this approach is what’s worked for me so far. We will get through this pandemic…remember, this isn’t just a hard year – as I said above, this is the biggest event to strike humanity since World War Two. Of course it’s hard. Of course we’re fed up with it. I’ve been lucky since my job is protected as being essential, and so I haven’t been on the rollercoaster of open/close, income/no income that some of you have experienced. I’ve also been lucky in that while I’m an essential worker, I’m not required to work with people who are known to have COVID, like hospital workers are. Those are the people I feel for. For them, this might as well be World War Three.

 

But clearly the virus isn’t done with us yet. No one person has the power to stop it, but collective action goes a long way.

 

Hang in there, and thanks for reading! Happy New Year!

 

Sources:

ourworldindata.org/covid-vaccinations

www.cbc.ca/news/world/coronavirus-covid19-canada-world-de...

   

Urbex Benelux -

 

In the early 1950s, a new crisis arose in the international paper market, causing both demand and prices for paper to drop sharply. From 1954 the market normalized and the De Naeyer factory was able to start growing again. New machines were purchased and a new hall built. During that period they received compensation for the measured war damage.

The LGBT community has always been a topic which has sparked my interest. Living in London has opened my eyes enough to become a more accepting individual. Our society ranges in different types of people and it is important for us to move away from older traditional views in order to allow society to flourish into the new generation that is more accepting today. London holds the biggest festival for the LGBT community in the UK and so I was lucky enough to be part of it. Filming my London video and experiencing a tough religious background from my national roots (Poland) had inspired me to make this video in order to capture the changing views and discrimination against LGBT in different parts of the world. Despite the positive role that the media play in encouraging people to be more accepting, there is still so much injustice in the world. I wanted to include parts of speeches which where both in favour and against the gay rights movement to show that maybe society is not moving forwards but moving backwards. Ellen DeGeneres and Matty Healy are two individuals who I find very inspiring in this area as they emphasise that couples of the same sex should not be seen any different than simply another couple. There is nothing different about liking the same sex and in my opinion labels should not exist as we should live life by simply existing to like another human being with no question. This topic has encouraged me to write up my own film which has played on my mind for over 10 years. For a long time I believed I would not be able to come out and live the life that I wanted to so I created a story in my mind where I could be who I wanted to be. Hiding my real personality felt like a huge weight on my chest and had detrimental effects to my behaviour. Therefore I used this story to split my personality into two characters; Sam and Riley. As time went on I was becoming more accepting of myself but felt the need to keep adding to this story. Since it has played such a huge role in my life, it has been the single most emotional inspiration to study the Film industry as it would be a dream to make this small idea a reality to help other individuals like myself. I decided to incorporate the idea of mental health into this as it links well with the discrimination that this community receives and the effect it has on particularly young teenagers. Similar to this film idea (The Issues of Overthinking) I decided to add clips, in between the homophobia, of regular same sex couples in order to normalize the idea of same sex marriage. Love is love and simply love, it has no definition but is simply an action between two people with no reference to gender and the sooner our community is able to realise that, not only with LGBT but other issues such as race, culture and religion, the easier it will be to reach a more just society.

www.nine9style.net/shop/step1.php?number=16141

 

Hello Hello;D How was your weekday?

 

I've brought new little bunnynine last week, and see what I've brought! New maple C!!!!

To tell the truth, we think about to show up her after our shutdown.

But she is not limited type, so we decide to update her before our shutdown day!

Her dress, Pearl dress set will be updated shortly, not just bunnynine size but MSD, SD13 and SD16 sizes too!

Please visit our shop and see more beautiful picture of hers!

 

And one more sad news;(

 

We announced our shutdown of bunnynine size, but we made our decision to shutdown all of our nine9style producing dolls from June 1st. Restarting date is scheduled in July 1st, but this may delay due to our produce line's status.

Shutdown is really painful for us in this big interests, but we made decision that customer's convenience is more important than our satisfaction. After producing line's normalization, we will reopen our doll orders. We ask customer's understanding.

 

We always appreciate for our customers about their big interests and loves.

 

Doll order is stopped, but we will produce all the new clothes consistently! So please look forward for our new clothes from now and forever!!XD

 

Oh I forgot to attach links of hers;3

Customers can select dress set in her option!

 

For Bunnynine maple C:

www.nine9style.net/shop/step1.php?number=16141

 

GUIDE AND SUPERVISION... Holistic Way, Super Vision, Eye Nutrition...pineal gland create inner light and super vision of your dreams...Lighting is a standout amongst the most imperative components in home stylistic layout. A decent lighting makes a feeling of warmth and inviting interest in the house. It likewise empowers you to perform every day errands well, makes you agreeable and above all outwardly upgrades the room.

 

Abstract: Sustainability has the potential to provide a holistic framework that can bridge the gap that is often found between socio-economic justice and environmental discourses. However, sustainability and sustainability education have typically accepted the prevailing socio-economic and cultural paradigm. It is my aim in this paper to demonstrate that a truly holistic and visionary sustainability (education) framework ought to demand radical and critical theories and solutions- based approaches to politicize and interrogate the premises, assumptions, and biases linked to the dominant notion of sustainability. If we are to envision and construe actual sustainable futures, we must first understand what brought us here, where the roots of the problems lie, and how the sustainability discourse and framework tackle—or fail to tackle—them. To do this is to politicize sustainability, to build a critical perspective of and about sustainability. It is an act of conscientização (or conscientization), to borrow Paulo Freire’s seminal term, of cultivating critical consciousness and conscience. In lieu of the standard articulation of politics as centralized state administration, ‘critical sustainability studies’ is based on a framing that gives prominence to a more organic, decentralized engagement of conscientious subjects in the creation of just, regenerative eco-social relations. It illuminates the ideological and material links between society, culture, and ecology by devoting particular attention to how knowledge and discourse around and across those realms are generated and articulated. I believe that future scholarship and activism in sustainability and sustainability-related fields would benefit immensely from dialoguing with this framework.

 

The assumption that what currently exists must necessarily exist is the acid that corrodes all visionary thinking.

 

– Murray Bookchin, The Meaning of Confederalism, 1990

   

Introduction: Why Sustainability (and Sustainability Education)?

 

Despite conflicting opinions over what the terms ‘sustainability’ and its variant ‘sustainable development’ actually mean, the framework of sustainability has gained a lot of traction in the last two decades. Its Western origins can be traced back to the writings of Western philosophers and seminal environmentalists like John Locke and Aldo Leopold (Spoon, 2013). Redclift (2005) asserts that sustainability as an idea was first used during the ‘limits to growth’ debates in the 1970s and the 1972 UN Stockholm Conference. Perhaps the most commonly quoted definition of sustainable development is that of the World Commission on Environment and Development (WCED) who states that “sustainable development is development that meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs” (WCED, 1987, p. 43).

 

Sustainability has the potential to provide a holistic framework that can bridge the gap that is often found between socio-economic justice and environmental discourses. After all, recent scholarship indicates that the issue of environmental quality is inevitably linked to that of human equity (Morello-Frosch, 1997; Torras & Boyce, 1998; see Agyeman, Bullard, & Evans, 2002), and thus they need to be thought about together. I hold that an actual sustainable society is one where wider matters of social and economic needs are intrinsically connected to the dynamic limits set by supporting ecosystems and environments.

 

Sustainability education has emerged as an effort to acknowledge and reinforce these interrelationships and to reorient and transform education along the lines of social and ecological well-being (Sterling, 2001). By being rooted in whole systems thinking, i.e. “the ability to collectively analyze complex systems across different domains (society, environment, and economy) and across different scales (local to global)” (Wiek, Withycombe, & Redman, 2011, p. 207), sustainability education strives to illuminate the complexities associated with the broad, problem-oriented, solution-driven nature of sustainability (Warren, Archambault, & Foley, 2014). If we are to devise cultural systems that are truly regenerative, this “novel” brand of education urges the teaching of the fundamental facts of life by stewarding learning communities that comprehend the adaptive qualities of ecological patterns and principles (Stone, 2012). Sustainability education highlights the centrality of ‘place’ as a unit of inquiry to devise reciprocal—and thus sustainable—relationships where one nourishes and is nourished by their surrounding social and ecological milieus (Williams & Brown, 2012).

 

Additionally, sustainability and, as a consequence, sustainability education are future- oriented and therefore demand ‘futures thinking’: the ability to assess and formulate nuanced pictures of the future vis-à-vis sustainability predicaments and sustainability problem-solving schemes (Wiek, et al., 2011). In a nutshell, futures thinking suggests that we need to imagine the potential ramifications of past and current human activities by critically analyzing them today if we are to conceive of new, more sustainable futures (Warren et al., 2014). Future studies can therefore help people to pursue their “ontological vocation” as history makers (Freire, 1993, p. 66) and to (re)claim their agency as a means of creating the world in which they wish to live (Inayatullah, 2007).

 

However, sustainability and sustainability education have typically accepted the prevailing socio-economic and cultural paradigm despite their apparent holistic intent and(theoretical) efforts to reconcile the three pillars of sustainability—equity, environment, and economy. Whether intentionally or not, they have promoted curative solutions instead of reflecting new, critical mindsets that can actually generate meaningful socio-cultural innovation by naming and discursively dismantling the systems and processes that are the root causes of the complex problems we face. And, as Albert Einstein once put it, “no problem can be solved from the same consciousness that created it.”

 

It is my aim in this paper to demonstrate that a truly holistic and visionary sustainability (education) framework ought to demand radical (of, relating to, or proceeding from a root) and critical (of, relating to, or being a turning point) theories and solutions-based approaches to politicize and interrogate the premises, assumptions, and biases linked to the dominant notion of sustainability.

 

Troubling (Monolithic) Sustainability

 

In order to be able to unveil and critically analyze the propositions and suppositions of what I call ‘the monolithic sustainability discourse,’ it is fundamental to start with the etymology of the word ‘sustainability’ itself. The operationalization of the term can be problematic for it implies prior judgments about what is deemed important or necessary to sustain. While some of these judgements might resonate with an array of environmentalists who perceive that the health of the planet and the well-being of our descendants are being—or are already—compromised by certain human activities, various other perilous premises and assumptions are generally left unacknowledged as a result of the depoliticized character of the dominant discourse of sustainability. Lele and Norgaard (1996) have put forward three questions that can help us to uncover and think more critically about these presuppositions in and across various contexts and scales: (a) what is to be sustained, at what scale, and in what form?; (b) over what time period, with what level of certainty?; (c) through what social process(es), and with what trade-offs against other social goals? (p. 355).

 

By building on these critical questions and clarifications, we can better understand the nuances of how the destructive and thus unsustainable ethos of dehumanization and socio- ecological exploitation may inform and permeate normative notions and articulations of sustainability. Yet, this is only plausible if sustainability is politicized. To politicize is to engage the existing state of socio-political affairs, to problematize that which is taken for granted, to make explicit the power relations that are an innate part of everyday life and experience (Bailey & Gayle, 2003). In an attempt to comprehend why sustainability is typically depoliticized we ought to examine briefly its discursive history.

 

The term ‘sustainable development’ became a part of the policy discourse and almost every day language following the release of the Brundtland Commission’s report on the global environment and development in 1987 (Redclift, 2005). While their definition included a very clear social directive, its human and political dimensions have been largely overlooked amongst references to sustainability, which, due to its environmental origins (Lele & Norgaard, 1996) and neoliberal focus on rights rather than needs (Redclift, 2005), have typically focused on bio- physical, ecological issues (Vallance, Perkins, & Dixon, 2011). Social sustainability, which has been conceptualized in response to the failure of the sustainability approach to engender substantial change (Vallance et al., 2011), is the least developed of the three realms and is frequently framed in relation to ecological and/or economic sustainability (Magis & Shinn, 2013). I assert that the reason for this is twofold: first and foremost, the sustainability agenda was conceived by international committees and NGO networks, think tanks, and governmental structures (Agyeman et al., 2002), which makes it a top-down approach and, consequently, less likely to recognize and address themes such as structural poverty, equity, and justice (Colantonio, 2009); and second, because social sustainability is made subservient to economics and the environment, it fails to examine the socio-political circumstances and elements that are needed to sustain a community of people (Magis & Shinn, 2013).

 

Sustainability, since its inception as a Western construct, has been progressively viewed as a crucial driver in economic development and environmental management worldwide. Nevertheless, as delineated above, its almost universal focus on reconciling the growth model of economics and the environment has served to covertly depoliticize the dominant discourse and therefore render it uncontentious if not intrinsically benign. It is worth further exploring the dynamics of depoliticization for I believe they are at the radicle of the issues sustainability attempts to address in the first place.

 

Bailey and Gayle (2003) identify a series of acts that can be associated with the dynamics of depoliticization, three of which can be observed when examining the monolithic sustainability discourse: (a) eschewing political discourse; (b) removing from the discourse the recognition that social advantages are given to certain constituent groups; (c) not disclosing underlying viewpoints or values. These processes are enmeshed with intricate ideological instances that help to mask the systemic and/or structural nature of a social or cultural matter (Bailey & Gayle, 2003). Further, as Foucault (1984) has stated, “power is everywhere” (p. 93) and it is embodied and enacted in discourse and knowledge. Hence, possessing the analytical tools to name and unpack these discursive ideological formations and power dynamics ought to be a prerequisite to the development of more holistic and critically conscious understandings and applications of sustainability.

 

Politicizing Sustainability

 

If we are to envision and construe actual sustainable futures, we must first understand what brought us here, where the roots of the problems lie, and how the sustainability discourse and framework tackle—or fail to tackle—them. To do this is to politicize sustainability, to build a critical perspective of and about sustainability. It is an act of conscientização (or conscientization), to borrow Paulo Freire’s seminal term, of cultivating critical consciousness and conscience (Freire, 1993). It is a call for the necessity to highlight, problematize, and disrupt what I have termed ‘the ethos of unsustainability’ and its interrelated ideologies of dehumanization and exploitation. Ultimately, to embrace a stance that fails to scrutinize the sources of degradation and exploitation is to uphold the power relations that sustain oppressive structures (Freire, 1993; Perry, 2001). I assert that only by delving into the origins of the ‘ethos of unsustainability’ can we really devise sustainability paradigms that are capable of promoting significant socio-cultural transformation.

 

To comprehend the contours of the predicaments that loom on our horizon as well as their premises and logics, we must go back over 500 years in history to 1492, the year that marks the beginning of the current colonial era and the globalization of the European colonial imaginary (Tuck and Yang, 2012). It is important to note that my intention in doing so is not to provide a sweeping, all-encompassing description of this genealogy/historical process, but rather, to simply name, connect, and emphasize the ideological systems and patterns that have been conceptualized and reconceptualized so as to sustain the ethos of unsustainability and its exploitative power structures. After all, as Freire (1993) has indicated, “to name the world is to change it” (p. 88).

 

(World) Capitalism: A Technology of European Colonialism

 

According to the Oxford English Dictionary (OED), the word ‘colonialism’ stems from the Roman word ‘colonia,’ which meant ‘settlement’ or ‘farm.’ The OED describes it as:

 

… a body of people who settle in a new locality, forming a community subject to or connected with their parent state; the community so formed, consisting of the original settlers and their descendants and successors, as long as the connection with the parent state is kept up.

 

In Colonialism/Postcolonialism, Ania Loomba (2001) points out that this definition fails to link the word ‘colonialism’ to its ideologies of conquest and domination as it eschews any testimonial about those peoples who were already living in the places where the colonies were formalized. She offers another, more nuanced definition that hints to the processes of conquest and control of other peoples’ land and resources (Loomba, 2001, p. 2):

 

The process of ‘forming a community’ in the new land necessarily meant unforming or re-forming the communities that existed there already, and involved a wide range of practices including trade, plunder, negotiation, warfare, genocide, slavement and rebellions.

 

Loomba (2001) illuminates that while European colonialisms from the late fifteenth century onwards included a miscellany of patterns of domination and exploitation, it was a combination of these patterns that generated the economic disparity required for the maturation and expansion of European capitalism and industrial civilization; thus, capitalism demands the maintenance of colonial expansion in order to flourish. In spite of colonialism not being a monopoly of capitalism because it could be—and has been—utilized by so-called ‘socialist’ or ‘communist’ states as well (Dirlik, 2002), capitalism is a technology of colonialism that has been developed and re-structured over time as a means of advancing European colonial projects (Tuck and Yang, 2012). Colonialism was the instrument through which capitalism was able to reach its status as a global, master frame (Loomba, 2001).

 

A distinction between the three historical modes of colonialism might help to further elucidate the interrelationships between capitalism and colonialism.

 

Theories of coloniality as well as postcolonial theories typically acknowledge two brands of colonialism: external colonialism, which involves the appropriation of elements of Indigenous worlds in order to build the wealth and the power of the colonizers—the first world—, and internal colonialism, the bio- and geo-political management of people and land within the borders of a particular nation-state (Tuck and Yang, 2012). A third form, settler colonialism, is more suitable to describe the operationalization of colonialisms in which the colonizers arrive and make a new home on the land (Tuck and Yang, 2012). The settler objective of gaining control over land and resources by removing the local, Indigenous communities is an ongoing structure that relies on private property schemes and coercive systems of labor (Glenn, 2015).

 

In these processes of colonialism, land is conceived primarily if not exclusively as commodity and property, and human relationships to the land are only legitimized in terms of economic ownership (Tuck and Yang, 2012). These combined colonialist ideologies of commodification and private property are at the core of the various political economies of capitalism that are found in today’s globalized world (O’Sullivan, 2005). By relying on the appropriation of land and commodities through the “elimination of the Native” (Wolfe, 2006, p. 387), European colonialisms wind up restructuring non-capitalist economies so as to fuel European capitalism (Loomba, 2001). The globalization of the world is thereby the pinnacle of a process that started with the formation of the United States of America as the epitome of a Euro- centered, settler colonialist world power (Quijano, 2000).

 

Inspired by the European colonial imaginary, which transforms differences and diversity into a hierarchy of values (Mignolo, 2000) as well as by economic liberalism, which erases the production and labor contexts from the economy (Straume, 2011), the capitalist imaginary constitutes a broad depoliticization that disconnects its ‘social imaginary significations’ from the political sphere (Straume, 2011). Given that capitalism is imbued with European diffusionist constructs (Blaut, 1989), namely ‘progress,’ ‘development,’ and ‘modernity,’ the depoliticization of this now globalized imaginary is required not only to maintain the resilience of capitalism as a master frame (Straume, 2011), but also to camouflage its interconnectedness to European colonial systems.

 

Antonio Gramsci’s (1971) study and articulation of the conceptualization and operation of ideologies proves fruitful in terms of understanding how the capitalist imaginary has been used to facilitate processes of globalization that benefit European colonialisms. He argued that ideologies are invaluable when manufacturing consent as they are the means through which certain ideas and meanings are not only transmitted, but held to be true (Gramsci, 1971). Hence, hegemony, the power garnered through a combination of ideologies and coercion, is attained by playing with people’s common sense (Gramsci, 1971) and their lived system of meanings and values (Williams, 1976; see Loomba, 2001). Since subjectivity and ideology are key to the expansionist capitalist endeavor and its interrelated logics of commodification and domination (Gramsci, 1971), it becomes necessary to summon and dissect the colonial ideas and belief systems that have served and continue to serve as its conduits. This can in turn help us to interrogate the value systems and mental models that directly and/or indirectly inform the dominant notion of sustainability (education).

 

White Supremacist, Heteropatriarchal State Capitalism

 

As devised and practiced by Europeans and, later, by other Euro-centered powers such as the United States, colonial ideologies of race and racial structures smooth the way for capitalist production (Wolfe, 2006). The Eurocentric construct of race as “a system of discrimination, hierarchy and power” (Olson, 2004, xvii, p. 127-128) conveys colonial experience and infuses the most essential realms of world power and its hierarchies (Quijano, 2000). The state and its many institutions are particularly pivotal in sustaining these racialized ideologies that are obligatory for the development and continuance of capitalism (Loomba, 2001).

 

Slavery, as the foundation of notions of race and capitalist empire and one of the pillars of white supremacy, marks the concepts of ‘progress’ and ‘development’ as white (Painter, 2010) and renders black people as innately enslaveable, as nothing more than private property (Smith, 2010a). Within the context of the United States, the forms of slavery can and, indeed, have changed—from chattel slavery, to sharecropping, and more recently, to the prison industrial complex, which is still grounded in the premise that black bodies are an indefinite property of the state (Smith, 2010a)—yet, slavery as a logic of white supremacy has persisted (Smith, 2010a). The other two pillars of white supremacy are genocide, which expresses the need for Indigenous Peoples to always be disappearing, and orientalism, which builds on Edward Said’s influential term to explain how certain peoples and/or nations are coded as inferior and, therefore, a constant threat to the security and longevity of imperial states (Smith, 2010a).

 

The pillars of white supremacy may vary according to historical and geographical contexts (Smith, 2010a). Nonetheless, the centering of whiteness is generally what defines a colonial project. The formation of whiteness, or white identity, as a racialized class orientation stems from political efforts by capitalist elites and lawmakers to divide and conquer large masses of workers (Battalora, 2013). White identity is perhaps one of the most successful colonial and capitalist inventions since it “operates as a kind of property … with effects on social confidence and performance that can be empirically documented” (Alcoff, 2015, p. 23). It is a very dynamic category that can be enlarged to extend its privileges to others when white supremacist social and economic relations are jeopardized (Painter, 2010). It sustains itself, at least partially, by evading scrutiny and shifting the discursive focus to ‘non-whites’ (Silva, 2007). Whiteness is to be made invisible by remaining the norm, the standard, that which ought not to be questioned.

 

Capitalism therefore depends on and magnifies these racial hierarchies centered on whiteness. And, since race is imbricated and constructed simultaneously with gender, sexuality, ability, and other colonial categories—a conceptualization that serves to obscure white supremacy in state discourses and interventions (Kandaswamy, 2012)—, it is crucial to investigate the other ideologies that also shape class formation processes.

 

Heteropatriarchy, the combination of patriarchal and heterosexual control based on rigid and dichotomous gender identities—man and woman—and sexual orientations—heterosexual and homosexual—where one identity or orientation dominates the other, is another building block of colonialism. Patriarchy is employed to naturalize hierarchical relations within families and at a larger, societal level (Smith, 2010b). Similarly, heteronormativity paints heterosexual nuclear-domestic arrangements as normative (Arvin, Tuck, and Morrill, 2013) and is thus the bedrock of the colonial nation-state (Smith, 2010b). These social and cultural systems that configure heteropatriarchy are then apprehended as normal and natural whereas other arrangements or proclivities are demonized and perceived as repulsive and abnormal (Arvin et al., 2013). Heteropatriarchy is directly linked to colonial racial relations as it portrays white manhood as supreme and entitled to control over private property and to political sovereignty (Glenn, 2015). This indicates that the process of producing and managing gender frequently functions as a racial project that normalizes whiteness (Kandaswamy, 2012).

 

The laws and policies that were designed to institutionalize the formation of whiteness and white supremacy demonstrate that race, class, and gender are intertwined systems that uphold, constitute, and reconstitute each other (Battalora, 2013). The state and its ideological institutions are therefore major sites of racial struggle (Kandaswamy, 2012); they are responsible for devising and constantly revising the rationale that guides a white supremacist, heteropatriarchal settler colonialism grounded in the need to manufacture collective consent. These discourses are rooted in a pervasive state process that combines coercive state arbitration with societal consent by articulating the ideologies that link racial structure and representation as an effort to reorganize and distribute resources according to specific racial lines (Ferguson, 2012).

 

Despite increasing globalizing neoliberal urges toward deregulation and privatization, capitalism is still enabled and supported by the state. Its ‘ideological apparatuses,’ the state institutions and ideologies that enable and support the classist structure of capitalist societies (Althusser, 1989), is still fundamental to the expansion of capitalist enterprises; the nation-state is capitalism’s atomic component. The neoliberal state has utilized innovations in methods of social discipline and control along with legal practices to facilitate the process of economic globalization (Gill, 1995). Yet, all these schemes that involve retention of power through dominance and manufactured consent are rooted in divide and conquer strategies that cause those in subservient positions in society to engage in conflicts with one another (Hagopian, 2015). The interlinked logics and ideologies of white supremacy and heteropatriarchy conceived by state capitalism serve to spur dissent between potential opponents and thereby further stratify socio-economic classes. This prevents them from building a unified basis that can present a tangible threat to the status quo (Hagopian, 2015). Colonial and neocolonial powers have repeatedly deployed this stratagem to not only increase their geographical reach, but also to normalize and standardize the economic growth model of capitalism.

 

Colonialism is hence not just an ancient, bygone incident. The ideologies and processes delineated above demonstrate that it has remained very much in effect within contemporary capitalist and neoliberal frameworks (Preston, 2013). It then becomes critical to investigate how the dominant sustainability discourse may or may not collude in these schemes so that we may conceive of holistic blueprints that beget positive socio-ecological transformation.

 

Sustainability and Colonialism: Contradiction or Conscious Ideological Maneuver?

 

By unearthing what I believe are the roots of the predicament that sustainability attempts to heal, namely the ethos of dehumanization and exploitation rooted in divide and conquer systems, it becomes easier to analyze how the colonial political economy of capitalism may conserve hegemonic ideologies that pervade social relations and knowledge generating processes.

 

Yet, these ideologies and knowledge schemes have been given minimal attention in sustainability (education) scholarship. Even though some academics have contributed to the generation of a more critical comprehension of the interrelationships between capitalism, environmental degradation, and socio-economic justice (see Cachelin, Rose, & Paisley, 2015; Martusewicz, Edmundson, & Lupinacci, 2011; Pellow & Brulle, 2005), this major blindspot in linking sustainability to the colonial imaginary and its legacies prompts the following questions:(awhy are critiques of colonialism and capitalism so infrequent in the sustainability literature?: (a) why are critiques of colonialism and capitalism so infrequent in the sustainability literature?; and (b) how does that impact the discourse of sustainability?

 

I assert that, in spite of calls for paradigm shifts, the dominant disancourse of sustainability in the West embodies a transnational, globalized standard of economic growth. The promise that economic development can eradicate or at least alleviate poverty and hunger in a sustainable way reflects some of the same goals and values of the optimistic ‘ecological modernization’ concept and perspective, which suggest that the development and modernization of liberal capitalism result in improvements in ecological outcomes (Buttel, 2000). The neoliberal, capitalist overtones of sustainable development not only expose the contradiction inherent in the term, but they also serve to further commodify nature (Cock, 2011). This neoliberalization of nature, which has recently gained a lot of attention in the corporate world and academia under the lexicon of ‘ecosystem services,’ alienates people from their physical surroundings and therefore reinforces the society-nature divide. In short, the sustainability discourse has been appropriated by the capitalist master frame and has transformed most if not all social and ecological relations into financial ones. In lieu of addressing social and environmental justice issues, this form of “green” or “natural” capitalism is responsible for deepening both social and environmental inequalities (Cock, 2011).

 

Since sustainability (education) is (supposed to be) a praxis-oriented framework that symbiotically combines thought and action for transformative, liberatory ends, it ought to embrace this critique of colonial capitalism and the subsequent neoliberalization of the political economy if it is to oppose and resist hegemonic ideologies in its multiple and diverse manifestations. After all, whether intentionally or not, what matters in the end is that those discourses of sustainability that do not take a stance against colonialism and capitalism only serve to preserve them and the status quo. An understanding of these interdependent systems allows for the development of critical sustainability dialogues and actions that can actually promote the paradigmatic shifts required to redress the socio-cultural problems that are at the heart of the environmental crises. Thus, sustainability can and should be reframed to suggest a process of personal, social, and cultural conscientization that is environmentally sound, i.e. one that follows ecological principles and patterns, instead of upholding the dehumanizing, exploitative, and paradoxical ‘development as growth’ standard of global capitalism.

 

The following section combines the analyses and critiques presented in the preceding (sub)sections into a single, cohesive, and holistic framework, and further elucidates the distinctions between monolithic sustainability and critical sustainabilities.

 

The Framework of Critical Sustainability Studies

 

[T]he political cannot be restricted to a certain type of institution, or envisioned as constituting a specific sphere or level of society. It must be conceived as a dimension that is inherent to every human society and that determines our very ontological condition.

 

- Chantal Mouffe, The Return of the Political, 2005

 

‘Critical sustainability studies,’ while not exactly novel in the sense that it draws on principles, concepts, and positions that are foundational to other frameworks and fields—more specifically, critical Indigenous and ethnic studies, postcolonial theory, queer theory, feminist theory, crip theory, social ecology, political ecology, and cultural studies—, presents itself as an alternative to the sustainability theories and conceptualizations that have failed to engage a truly intersectional analysis of dominant sustainability and environmental discourses, policies, and practices. Its primary objective is to rearticulate sustainability as it has the potential to provide a more holistic conception of conscientization that can bridge the gap between social and economic justice and environmental sustainability.

 

The framework indicates a crucial double political intervention: to put sustainability and critical theory in conversation; to embed sustainability and ecology into critical theory and vice- versa. As I discussed in the previous section, sustainability has, for the most part, become a hegemonic and, therefore, highly problematic discourse that refuses to transform the complex ideologies and systems that undergird the ethos of unsustainability and the current socio- ecological crises. On the other hand, critical theory, which seeks to extend the consciousness of the human self as a social being within the context of dominant power structures and their knowledge management operations (Kincheloe, 2005), could benefit from incorporating ecological principles and the sustainability notion of ‘place’ into its analytical toolbox. After all, I am as interested in localizing critical knowledge—without disconnecting it from global matters and realities—as I am in putting forth more critical and radical views of sustainability. Hence, this framework brings together what I believe are some of the most robust and cutting edge theories and methodologies to facilitate the deconstruction of the questionable ideologies that guide Western epistemologies like (hegemonic) sustainability.

 

Critical sustainability studies encourages sustainability scholars and/or educators to move from a defined methodology of problem-solving to the more critical moment of calling something into question (Freire, 1993). By rooting it in conscientization, I propose an orientation to sustainability and sustainable development that politicizes and reveals it as an agenda, discourse, and knowledge system that ought to be contested and rearticulated so that it can incorporate and critically engage with emancipatory understandings of power and power relations. Furthermore, by problematizing and closing the culture-nature divide, it can lay down the groundwork for the paradigmatic changes necessary to heal widespread colonialist alienation from the wider ecological community and to create visions of deep sustainabilities that can engender ecologically sound socio-cultural transformation.

 

I stress that the notion of sustainabilities is necessary if we have the intention of opposing and displacing the monolithic, top-down and now universalized sustainability agenda, which I refer to as ‘big S Sustainability.’ After all, much like science (Parry, 2006), sustainability is not the property of any one culture or language. There are different ways of seeing and knowing sustainability, so it is time to pluralize it in the literature and discourse. This simple act is an extraordinary intervention in itself because within the colonial imaginary “sustainability” means “Western sustainability.” By centering “novel” understandings of sustainability that are concerned with the specificities of geo-political, cultural, and historical contexts and power relations, sustainability scholars and educators can create theories and visions of sustainability that can lead to the development of more just, place-based cultures and social ecologies.

 

Critical sustainability studies as I envision it is a consciousness-raising exercise that is particularly useful in educational settings. It indicates methodology as much as content. This praxis-oriented framework can help teachers and students alike to develop consciousness of freedom and to acknowledge authoritarian socio-cultural tendencies that have toxic environmental ramifications. The next section provides an overview of its tenets, the educational philosophy that underpins it, as well as the four preliminary methodological principles and examples of related pedagogical interventions that directly inform the framework and its liberatory, decolonizing ambitions.

 

Epistemological Position, Preliminary Methodological Principles, and Pedagogical Interventions for Conscientization

 

The epistemological, methodological, and pedagogical implications of critical sustainability studies are rooted in an ethical and political vision, one that is found in the vast majority of social ecology and political ecology projects: that “the domination of nature by man [sic] stems from the very real domination of human by human” (Bookchin, 2005, p. 1). In other words, we cannot overcome the ecological crisis unless we rid ourselves of the colonial ideologies of domination and hierarchy that permeate all forms of systemic and systematic exploitation and dehumanization. While much easier said than done, critical sustainability studies seeks to conceptualize this vision by building on the following tenets:

 

That sustainability and sustainability education are not neutral, they either advance or regress justice and Critical sustainability studies strives to promote justice and ecological regeneration.

That an analysis of power is central to understanding and engendering positive socio-cultural Critical sustainability studies strives to be conscious of power relations and to identify power inequalities and their implications.

That it is crucial to foreground the sociocultural identities and experiences of those who have been (most) oppressed – people of color, people with disabilities, queer and transgender people, the working class and the economically poor, undocumented immigrants, Critical sustainability studies acknowledges that just, healthy cultures and societies can only be cultivated if we examine the circumstances that cause and maintain socio-economic marginalization.

That positive socio-cultural transformation comes from the bottom up. Critical sustainability studies emphasizes and advocates a collective and decentralized approach to sustainable change.

And, finally, that the human community is inherently a part of rather than apart from the wider ecological world. Critical sustainability studies affirms that this relational ethos serves as the epistemological foundation of novel, dynamic worlds where healing and justice are at the front and center of our cultural and ecological identities.

In addition to delineating critical sustainability studies as a praxis that is founded on the above tenets, the framework is guided by a critical constructivist epistemological position. Strongly influenced by Freirean pedagogies and the Frankfurt school of thought, critical constructivism endeavors to dissect the processes by which knowledge is socially constructed; in other words, what we know about the worlds we live in always demands a knower and that which is to be known, a contextual and dialectical process that informs what we conceive of as reality (Kincheloe, 2005). This epistemological position problematizes and extends constructivism by illuminating the need for both teachers and students to develop a critical awareness of self, their perspectives, and ways their consciousness have been shaped and/or reshaped by society (Watts, Jofili, & Bezerra, 1997). Critical constructivists attempt to comprehend the forces that construe consciousness and the ways of seeing and being of the subjects who inhabit it (Kincheloe, 1993, as cited in Watts et al., 1997). This political, counter- Cartesianism, and anti-objectivist philosophy (Kincheloe, 2005) is central to an emancipatory approach to sustainability and sustainability education, and is, therefore, at the root of the critical sustainability studies conception of holistic conscientization.

 

www.susted.com/wordpress/content/critical-sustainability-...

Health Authorities declared that the epidemy was going down so they decided to put Mexico City back to work again. When, on Monday, all students return to school, activities will be normalized 100%. The Health Emergency is over.

Mexico City goes back to Normal Status: Crowded streets, impossible traffic jams, facemasks and litter on the sidewalks... welcome back.

---------------

Las autoridades sanitarias han declarado que la epidemia se terminó así que decidieron normalizar todas las actividades.

Cuando, el próximo Lunes, todos los estudiantes regresen a clases, la Ciudad volverá a ser 100% operacional. La Emergencia terminó.

El DF vuelve a la normalidad: amontonamiento en las calles, tráfico imposible, basura y cubrebocas en las aceras... Bienvenidos

  

Thanks for passing by during the Emergency

Gracias por visitar mi flickr durante la emergencia.

 

A good song to roll the credits at the end of the state of emergency.

  

Over.

 

We just returned from a week in southern Spain to see our family and friends. It felt good to get out of our London home and get a change of scenery, I think we all needed it! On this trip, we stayed in the fishing town of Santa Pola, usually quite touristy in the summer, but not this year. We felt safe as everyone was wearing a mask and took social distancing seriously. I made this photo in the port area at sunset. The fishing activity is back to normal, and all the restaurants are serving some amazing fresh seafood dishes. I'm really hoping that everything will normalize soon and we can get back to traveling, but it looks like we might have to wait a while longer...

 

© 2020 Alex Stoen, All rights reserved.

 

No Group Invites/Graphics Please.

 

www.alexstoen.com

 

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Sony RX1 User Report.

 

I hesitate to write about gear. Tools are tools and the bitter truth is that a great craftsman rises above his tools to create a masterpiece whereas most of us try to improve our abominations by buying better or faster hammers to hit the same nails at the same awkward angles.

 

The internet is fairly flooded with reviews of this tiny marvel, and it isn’t my intention to compete with those articles. If you’re looking for a full-scale review of every feature or a down-to-Earth accounting of the RX1’s strengths and weaknesses, I recommend starting here.

 

Instead, I’d like to provide you with a flavor of how I’ve used the camera over the last six months. In short, this is a user report. To save yourself a few thousand words: I love the thing. As we go through this article, you’ll see this is a purpose built camera. The RX1 is not for everyone, but we will get to that and on the way, I’ll share a handful of images that I made with the camera.

 

It should be obvious to anyone reading this that I write this independently and have absolutely no relationship with Sony (other than having exchanged a large pile of cash for this camera at a retail outlet).

 

Before we get to anything else, I want to clear the air about two things: Price and Features

 

The Price

 

First things first: the price. The $2800+ cost of this camera is the elephant in the room and, given I purchased the thing, you may consider me a poor critic. That in mind, I want to offer you three thoughts:

 

Consumer goods cost what they cost, in the absence of a competitor (the Fuji X100s being the only one worth mention) there is no comparison and you simply have to decide for yourself if you are willing to pay or not.

Normalize the price per sensor area for all 35mm f/2 lens and camera alternatives and you’ll find the RX1 is an amazing value.

You are paying for the ability to take photographs, plain and simple. Ask yourself, “what are these photographs worth to me?”

 

In my case, #3 is very important. I have used the RX1 to take hundreds of photographs of my family that are immensely important to me. Moreover, I have made photographs (many appearing on this page) that are moving or beautiful and only happened because I had the RX1 in my bag or my pocket. Yes, of course I could have made these or very similar photographs with another camera, but that is immaterial.

 

35mm by 24mm by 35mm f/2

 

The killer feature of this camera is simple: it is a wafer of silicon 35mm by 24mm paired to a brilliantly, ridiculously, undeniably sharp, contrasty and bokehlicious 35mm f/2 Carl Zeiss lens. Image quality is king here and all other things take a back seat. This means the following: image quality is as good or better than your DSLR, but battery life, focus speed, and responsiveness are likely not as good as your DSLR. I say likely because, if you have an entry-level DSLR, the RX1 is comparable on these dimensions. If you want to change lenses, if you want an integrated viewfinder, if you want blindingly fast phase-detect autofocus then shoot with a DSLR. If you want the absolute best image quality in the smallest size possible, you’ve got it in the RX1.

 

While we are on the subject of interchangeable lenses and viewfinders...

 

I have an interchangeable lens DSLR and I love the thing. It’s basically a medium format camera in a 35mm camera body. It’s a powerhouse and it is the first camera I reach for when the goal is photography. For a long time, however, I’ve found myself in situations where photography was not the first goal, but where I nevertheless wanted to have a camera. I’m around the table with friends or at the park with my son and the DSLR is too big, too bulky, too intimidating. It comes between you and life. In this realm, mirrorless, interchangeable lens cameras seem to be king, but they have a major flaw: they are, for all intents and purposes, just little DSLRs.

 

As I mentioned above, I have an interchangeable lens system, why would I want another, smaller one? Clearly, I am not alone in feeling this way, as the market has produced a number of what I would call “professional point and shoots.” Here we are talking about the Fuji X100/X100s, Sigma DPm-series and the RX100 and RX1.

 

Design is about making choices

 

When the Fuji X100 came out, I was intrigued. Here was a cheap(er), baby Leica M. Quiet, small, unobtrusive. Had I waited to buy until the X100s had come out, perhaps this would be a different report. Perhaps, but probably not. I remember thinking to myself as I was looking at the X100, “I wish there was a digital Rollei 35, something with a fixed 28mm or 35mm lens that would fit in a coat pocket or a small bag.” Now of course, there is.

 

So, for those of you who said, “I would buy the RX1 if it had interchangeable lenses or an integrated viewfinder or faster autofocus,” I say the following: This is a purpose built camera. You would not want it as an interchangeable system, it can’t compete with DSLR speed. A viewfinder would make the thing bigger and ruin the magic ratio of body to sensor size—further, there is a 3-inch LCD viewfinder on the back! Autofocus is super fast, you just don’t realize it because the bar has been raised impossibly high by ultra-sonic magnet focusing rings on professional DSLR lenses. There’s a fantastic balance at work here between image quality and size—great tools are about the total experience, not about one or the other specification.

 

In short, design is about making choices. I think Sony has made some good ones with the RX1.

 

In use

 

So I’ve just written 1,000 words of a user report without, you know, reporting on use. In many ways the images on the page are my user report. These photographs, more than my words, should give you a flavor of what the RX1 is about. But, for the sake of variety, I intend to tell you a bit about the how and the why of shooting with the RX1.

 

Snapshots

 

As a beginning enthusiast, I often sneered at the idea of a snapshot. As I’ve matured, I’ve come to appreciate what a pocket camera and a snapshot can offer. The RX1 is the ultimate photographer’s snapshot camera.

 

I’ll pause here to properly define snapshot as a photograph taken quickly with a handheld camera.

 

To quote Ferris Bueller’s Day Off, “Life moves pretty fast. If you don't stop and look around once in a while, you could miss it.” So it is with photography. Beautiful photographs happen at the decisive moment—and to paraphrase Henri Cartier-Bresson further—the world is newly made and falling to pieces every instant. I think it is no coincidence that each revolution in the steady march of photography from the tortuously slow chemistry of tin-type and daguerreotype through 120 and 35mm formats to the hyper-sensitive CMOS of today has engendered new categories and concepts of photography.

 

Photography is a reflexive, reactionary activity. I see beautiful light or the unusual in an every day event and my reaction is a desire to make a photograph. It’s a bit like breathing and has been since I was a kid.

 

Rather than sneer at snapshots, nowadays I seek them out; and when I seek them out, I do so with the Sony RX1 in my hand.

 

How I shoot with the RX1

 

Despite much bluster from commenters on other reviews as to the price point and the purpose-built nature of this camera (see above), the RX1 is incredibly flexible. Have a peek at some of the linked reviews and you’ll see handheld portraits, long exposures, images taken with off-camera flash, etc.

 

Yet, I mentioned earlier that I reach for the D800 when photography is the primary goal and so the RX1 has become for me a handheld camera—something I use almost exclusively at f/2 (people, objects, shallow DoF) or f/8 (landscapes in abundant light, abstracts). The Auto-ISO setting allows the camera to choose in the range from ISO 50 and 6400 to reach a proper exposure at a given aperture with a 1/80 s shutter speed. I have found this shutter speed ensures a sharp image every time (although photographers with more jittery grips may wish there was the ability to select a different default shutter speed). This strategy works because the RX1 has a delightfully clicky exposure compensation dial just under your right thumb—allowing for fine adjustment to the camera’s metering decision.

 

So then, if you find me out with the RX1, you’re likely to see me on aperture priority, f/2 and auto ISO. Indeed, many of the photographs on this page were taken in that mode (including lots of the landscape shots!).

 

Working within constraints.

 

The RX1 is a wonderful camera to have when you have to work within constraints. When I say this, I mean it is great for photography within two different classes of constraints: 1) physical constraints of time and space and 2) intellectual/artistic constraints.

 

To speak to the first, as I said earlier, many of the photographs on this page were made possible by having a camera with me at a time that I otherwise would not have been lugging around a camera. For example, some of the images from the Grand Canyon you see were made in a pinch on my way to a Christmas dinner with my family. I didn’t have the larger camera with me and I just had a minute to make the image. Truth be told, these images could have been made with my cell phone, but that I could wring such great image quality out of something not much larger than my cell phone is just gravy. Be it jacket pocket, small bag, bike bag, saddle bag, even fannie pack—you have space for this camera anywhere you go.

 

Earlier I alluded to the obtrusiveness of a large camera. If you want to travel lightly and make photographs without announcing your presence, it’s easier to use a smaller camera. Here the RX1 excels. Moreover, the camera’s leaf shutter is virtually silent, so you can snap away without announcing your intention. In every sense, this camera is meant to work within physical constraints.

 

I cut my photographic teeth on film and I will always have an affection for it. There is a sense that one is playing within the rules when he uses film. That same feeling is here in the RX1. I never thought I’d say this about a camera, but I often like the JPEG images this thing produces more than I like what I can push with a RAW. Don’t get me wrong, for a landscape or a cityscape, the RAW processed carefully is FAR, FAR better than a JPEG.

 

But when I am taking snapshots or photos of friends and family, I find the JPEGs the camera produces (I’m shooting in RAW + JPEG) so beautiful. The camera’s computer corrects for the lens distortion and provides the perfect balance of contrast and saturation. The JPEG engine can be further tweaked to increase the amount of contrast, saturation or dynamic range optimization (shadow boost) used in writing those files. Add in the ability to rapidly compensate exposure or activate various creative modes and you’ve got this feeling you’re shooting film again. Instant, ultra-sensitive and customizable film.

 

Pro Tip: Focusing

 

Almost all cameras come shipped with what I consider to be the worst of the worst focus configurations. Even the Nikon D800 came to my hands set to focus when the shutter button was halfway depressed. This mode will ruin almost any photograph. Why? Because it requires you to perform legerdemain to place the autofocus point, depress the shutter halfway, recompose and press the shutter fully. In addition to the chance of accidentally refocusing after composing or missing the shot—this method absolutely ensures that one must focus before every single photograph. Absolutely impossible for action or portraiture.

 

Sensibly, most professional or prosumer cameras come with an AF-ON button near where the shooter’s right thumb rests. This separates the task of focusing and exposing, allowing the photographer to quickly focus and to capture the image even if focus is slightly off at the focus point. For portraits, kids, action, etc the camera has to have a hair-trigger. It has to be responsive. Manufacturer’s: stop shipping your cameras with this ham-fisted autofocus arrangement.

 

Now, the RX1 does not have an AF-ON button, but it does have an AEL button whose function can be changed to “MF/AF Control Hold” in the menu. Further, other buttons on the rear of the camera can also be programmed to toggle between AF and MF modes. What this all means is that you can work around the RX1’s buttons to make it’s focus work like a DSLR’s. (For those of you who are RX1 shooters, set the front switch to MF, the right control wheel button to MF/AF Toggle and the AEL button to MF/AF Control Hold and voila!) The end result is that, when powered on the camera is in manual focus mode, but the autofocus can be activated by pressing AEL, no matter what, however, the shutter is tripped by the shutter release. Want to switch to AF mode? Just push a button and you’re back to the standard modality.

 

Carrying.

 

I keep mine in a small, neoprene pouch with a semi-hard LCD cover and a circular polarizing filter on the front—perfect for buttoning up and throwing into a bag on my way out of the house. I have a soft release screwed into the threaded shutter release and a custom, red twill strap to replace the horrible plastic strap Sony provided. I plan to gaffer tape the top and the orange ring around the lens. Who knows, I may find an old Voigtlander optical viewfinder in future as well.

Post-Playtex Era Strong In Cullman

 

Chamber of Commerce weather greeted several dozen lactating women and their families at the Walmart Pavilion inside Heritage Park on Saturday morning.

 

The gathering celebrated the 4th annual BIG Latch On. This event ran from 10 am until noon.

 

Cullman County nursing mothers along with their husbands and other support members convened to breastfeed their babies in a supportive, lactation-friendly environment.

 

Ashley Wright, the lead organizer of this event, invited all area lactating moms as well as their friends, family, and community to come out and participate in the cause.

 

The BIG Latch On is an annual, global event that celebrates, promotes and supports breastfeeding.

 

The larger goal of the global BIG Latch On movement is to normalize breastfeeding.

 

There was a worldwide synchronization latch from 10:30 to 10:31 am Cullman time.

 

Groups of nursing moms and their supporters around the world either latched their babies, expressed milk or fed breast milk by spoon to their babies all at the same time across the world. It was a sacred, touching and profound moment at Heritage Park.

 

cullmantoday.com/2017/08/06/post-playtex-era-strong-in-cu...

 

"Connecticut Hall (formerly South Middle College) is a Georgian building on the Old Campus of Yale University. Completed in 1752, it was originally a student dormitory, a function it retained for 200 years. Part of the first floor became home to the Yale College Dean's Office after 1905, and the full building was converted to departmental offices in the mid-twentieth century. It is currently used by the Department of Philosophy, and its third story contains a room for meetings of the Yale Faculty of Arts & Sciences, the academic faculty of Yale College and the Graduate School.

 

Connecticut Hall is the third-oldest of only seven surviving American colonial-era college buildings, and the second-oldest structure built for Yale College in New Haven. It was built, in part, by enslaved laborers. The first building in a campus plan known as Old Brick Row that stood from 1750 to 1870, it is the only survivor of a demolition campaign that created the modern Old Campus quadrangle. It was designated a National Historic Landmark in 1965.

 

Yale University is a private Ivy League research university in New Haven, Connecticut. Founded in 1701 as the Collegiate School, it is the third-oldest institution of higher education in the United States and among the most prestigious in the world.

 

Chartered by the Connecticut Colony, the Collegiate School was established in 1701 by clergy to educate Congregational ministers before moving to New Haven in 1716. Originally restricted to theology and sacred languages, the curriculum began to incorporate humanities and sciences by the time of the American Revolution. In the 19th century, the college expanded into graduate and professional instruction, awarding the first PhD in the United States in 1861 and organizing as a university in 1887. Yale's faculty and student populations grew after 1890 with rapid expansion of the physical campus and scientific research.

 

Yale is organized into fourteen constituent schools: the original undergraduate college, the Yale Graduate School of Arts and Sciences and twelve professional schools. While the university is governed by the Yale Corporation, each school's faculty oversees its curriculum and degree programs. In addition to a central campus in downtown New Haven, the university owns athletic facilities in western New Haven, a campus in West Haven, and forests and nature preserves throughout New England. As of 2021, the university's endowment was valued at $42.3 billion, the second largest of any educational institution. The Yale University Library, serving all constituent schools, holds more than 15 million volumes and is the third-largest academic library in the United States. Students compete in intercollegiate sports as the Yale Bulldogs in the NCAA Division I – Ivy League.

 

As of October 2020, 65 Nobel laureates, five Fields Medalists, four Abel Prize laureates, and three Turing Award winners have been affiliated with Yale University. In addition, Yale has graduated many notable alumni, including five U.S. presidents, 10 Founding Fathers, 19 U.S. Supreme Court Justices, 31 living billionaires, 54 College founders and presidents, many heads of state, cabinet members and governors. Hundreds of members of Congress and many U.S. diplomats, 78 MacArthur Fellows, 252 Rhodes Scholars, 123 Marshall Scholars, 102 Guggenheim Fellows and nine Mitchell Scholars have been affiliated with the university. Yale is a member of the Big Three. Yale's current faculty include 67 members of the National Academy of Sciences, 55 members of the National Academy of Medicine, 8 members of the National Academy of Engineering, and 187 members of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. The college is, after normalization for institution size, the tenth-largest baccalaureate source of doctoral degree recipients in the United States, and the largest such source within the Ivy League. It also is a top 10 (ranked seventh), after normalization for the number of graduates, baccalaureate source of some of the most notable scientists (Nobel, Fields, Turing prizes, or membership in National Academy of Sciences, National Academy of Medicine, or National Academy of Engineering).

 

New Haven is a city in the U.S. state of Connecticut. It is located on New Haven Harbor on the northern shore of Long Island Sound in New Haven County, Connecticut, and is part of the New York City metropolitan area. With a population of 134,023 as determined by the 2020 United States Census, New Haven is the 3rd largest city in Connecticut after Bridgeport and Stamford and the principal municipality of Greater New Haven, which had a total population of 864,835.

 

New Haven was one of the first planned cities in America. A year after its founding by English Puritans in 1638, eight streets were laid out in a four-by-four grid, creating the "Nine Square Plan". The central common block is the New Haven Green, a 16-acre (6 ha) square at the center of Downtown New Haven. The Green is now a National Historic Landmark, and the "Nine Square Plan" is recognized by the American Planning Association as a National Planning Landmark.

 

New Haven is the home of Yale University, New Haven's biggest taxpayer and employer, and an integral part of the city's economy. Health care, professional and financial services and retail trade also contribute to the city's economic activity.

 

The city served as co-capital of Connecticut from 1701 until 1873, when sole governance was transferred to the more centrally located city of Hartford. New Haven has since billed itself as the "Cultural Capital of Connecticut" for its supply of established theaters, museums, and music venues. New Haven had the first public tree planting program in America, producing a canopy of mature trees (including some large elms) that gave the city the nickname "The Elm City"." - info from Wikipedia.

 

The fall of 2022 I did my 3rd major cycling tour. I began my adventure in Montreal, Canada and finished in Savannah, GA. This tour took me through the oldest parts of Quebec and the 13 original US states. During this adventure I cycled 7,126 km over the course of 2.5 months and took more than 68,000 photos. As with my previous tours, a major focus was to photograph historic architecture.

 

Now on Instagram.

 

Become a patron to my photography on Patreon.

Western Veil and Pickering's are part of the Cygnus Loop, a large supernova remnant (SNR) in the constellation Cygnus.

This nebula is located aroud 2400 light years from Earth 😮

 

Full resolution on www.astrobin.com/77ml6b/0/

Résolution: 18496x12071 -> 223MP

Ha= 64x300s

Oii= 62x300s

R=15x30s

G=12x30s

B=12x30s

 

Total time : 10h49'

 

-Pre Processing-

Image Calibration

Cosmetic Correction

Debayer

Subframe Selector

Star Alignement

Local Normalization

Image Integration

Drizzle x2

 

-Processing-

 

Star Alignment

Dynamic Crop

Dynamic Background Extractor

Linear Fit Oii to Ha

 

___L layer___Ha

BlurXterminator

NoiseXterminator

EZ Soft Stretch

 

___RGB layer___SHO

EZ Soft Stretch Oiii

Combine Ha and Oiii in Pixel Math (ForaxX palette)

R=(Oiii^~Oiii)*Sii + ~(Oiii^~Oiii)*Ha

G=((Oiii*Ha)^~(Oiii*Ha))*Ha + ~((Oiii*Ha)^~(Oiii*Ha))*Oiii

B=Oiii

CurveTransformation

Color Saturation

Final Curves

NoiseXterminator

Save as JPEG

 

Clear skies !

Starless of flic.kr/p/2nGTZbs

 

-Equipment-

Scope: TS-Optics 94/414 EPDH (414mm focal)

Camera: ZWO ASI533MC Pro at -5°C gain 101 offset 49

Guiding: ZWO OAG

Guiding camera: ZWO ASI 120MM

Mount: Skywatcher AZ-EQ6

Filter: Optolong L-eXtreme

 

-Acquisition-

Light : 128x300s

Total integration time 10,6h

Dark: 100x300s Flat-50 Bias-100

Date : 20,21,23,24,25 August 2022

Location : France-Alsace Bortle 4/5

 

-Software-

Carte du Ciel, N.I.N.A, Phd2 , PoleMaster and PixInsight

Ez Processing Suite from darkarcon

darkarcon website : darkarchon.internet-box.ch:8443/

 

-Pre Processing in PixInsight-

Image Calibration

Cosmetic Correction

Debayer

Subframe Selector

Star Alignement

Local Normalization

Image Integration

Drizzle x2

Dynamic crop

 

-Processing

 

DBE MasterLRGB

 

___RGB layer___HOO

Split RGB channels to build Ha and Oiii

Ha=R Oiii= B*0.3+G*0.7

EZ_Soft Stretch

HOO combination with Foraxx formula

R=Ha

G=((Oiii*Ha)^~(Oiii*Ha))*Ha + ~((Oiii*Ha)^~(Oiii*Ha))*Oiii

B=Oiii

 

___L layer___

Ez_Deconvolution

Ez_Soft Stretch

Local Histogram Equalization with nebula mask

UnsharpedMask with nebula mask

 

___LRGB___

Ez_Denoise

Curve Transformation

StarNet2

Save as PNG

 

Clear skies !

 

NGC 6820 is an emission nebula located 6000 light years away in the constellation Cygnus. This nebula is approximately 65 light years wide

 

Crop: flic.kr/p/2nD8z1K

 

-Equipment-

Scope: TS-Optics 94/414 EPDH (414mm focal)

Camera: ZWO ASI533MC Pro at -5°C gain 101 offset 49

Guiding: ZWO OAG

Guiding camera: ZWO ASI 120MM

Mount: Skywatcher AZ-EQ6

Filter: Optolong L-eXtreme

 

-Acquisition-

Light : 75x300s

Total integration time 6,3h

Dark: 100x300s Flat-50 Bias-100

Date : 7,8 August 2022

Location : France-Alsace Bortle 4/5

 

-Software-

Carte du Ciel, N.I.N.A, Phd2 , PoleMaster and PixInsight

Ez Processing Suite from darkarcon

darkarcon website : darkarchon.internet-box.ch:8443/

 

-Pre Processing in PixInsight-

Image Calibration

Cosmetic Correction

Debayer

Subframe Selector

Star Alignement

Local Normalization

Image Integration

Drizzle x2

Dynamic crop

 

-Processing

 

DBE MasterLRGB

 

___RGB layer___HOO

Split RGB channels to build Ha and Oiii

Ha=R Oiii= B*0.3+G*0.7

EZ_Soft Stretch

HOO combination with Foraxx formula

R=Ha

G=((Oiii*Ha)^~(Oiii*Ha))*Ha + ~((Oiii*Ha)^~(Oiii*Ha))*Oiii

B=Oiii

SCNR

 

___L layer___

Ez_Deconvolution

Ez_Soft Stretch

Local Histogram Equalization with nebula mask

UnsharpedMask with nebula mask

 

___LRGB___

Ez_Denoise

Curve Transformation

Annotation

Save as JPG

 

Clear skies !

 

The resurfacing of the moon was quite impressive and required a constant changing of the settings (as it was getting significantly brighter). Thought it was worthwhile to stack it together afterwards with a kind of "normalized" lighting.

Located within the park Seldensate remains the foundations and some rising wall work of the last castle. Those foundations are reached via the driveway and the restored gatehouse with pigeon tower. This gatehouse consists of two one-story angled wings, of which the actual gate has a gabled roof. The smaller wing has a stepped gable, but no roof. At the corner formed by the two wings, the pigeon tower is attached. This is an irregular, hexagonal tower with ditto slate spire. The house itself is a ruin. Dove tower and gatehouse have been restored. Of the castle, only the foundations remain. Whether these are actually the foundations of the castle that stood here before 1631 is not known to me.

 

Construction history:

The castle probably built between 1440 and 1468; that is when there is mention of a farmstead and a stone playhouse. In 1596 it was a walled stone building. Shortly afterwards, the dovecote tower was built. After the Peace of Munster, the building fell into disrepair. Restoration began in 1893. The house was largely demolished and rebuilt. Furthermore, the house and gatehouse were expanded and modernized. In 1920, Seldensate was abandoned and decay set in again. This process was accelerated by normalization of the Aa, which caused large differences in groundwater. World War II also left its mark. Demolition followed in 1961. In 1973 the ruin was purchased by the municipality. Between 1976 and 1980, the gatehouse and pigeon tower were restored. Furthermore, there are plans to rebuild the house.

Property history:

In 1304 there is mention of a farmstead, property of jonker Geerlingh van den Bossche. The Rycoutss family sold the property in 1440 to Goossen Toelinc, priest in 's-Hertogenbosch. He built the castle and left it to his niece Mechteld in 1481. Through inheritance through the female line it came into the hands of the Prouninck family of Deventer. After the death of the last descendant, Seldensate was sold in 1596. Those who bought the house resold it to Count Adolph van den Bergh in 1608. It then passed into the hands of the counts of East Friesland, lords of Heeswijk. Joost van Hedickhuijsen, drossaard of Berlicum and Middelrode settled on Seldensate, and in 1631 it became his property. His daughter had to sell the house 1679 due to financial problems. The next series of owners were seldom on the property and left it neglected, until in 1833 Johannes Cornelis Bosch inherited the property and took up residence there himself. His son Valerius Andringa Bosch restored the castle. Daughter Constantia, married to squire Christiaan Laman Trip inherited the estate. After their divorce in 1920, he and their daughter Valerie continued to live at Seldensate. In 1973, Valerie Russell-Laman Trip sold the dilapidated estate to the municipality of Berlicum, which had it largely demolished.

el Nopalero... (or is it Pancho Villa ?) (((; ....... crating the harvest of Nopal cactus leaves to be weight and packed for EXPORT !

 

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Here is some INFO on the HEALTH BENEFITS OF NOPAL cactus - taken from the Chosen Foods - Ancient Nutrition website:

 

What is Nopal?

Nopal is a cactus native to Mexico, botanically classified as Opuntia ficus-indica. The Genus Opuntia describes over 200 cactus species growing worldwide, all of which share the common Mexican ancestor O. ficus-indica The success of Nopal as a food and medicine has kept it an icon of health food in Mexico where more than 700,000 metric tons are consumed annually.

 

More recently clinical research has found Nopal to be an ancient nutrition for modern illness because of its unique ability to normalize blood sugar, improve digestive health, and protect against inflammation and oxidative stress.

www.chosen-foods.com/aztecnopal_about.asp

 

History of Nopal:

 

Archaeological evidence shows Nopal as a staple and medicine for the cultures which have thrived in Meso Americ (Mexico) dating back at least 12,000 years including the Olmec, Toltec and most recently Aztec. Indeed Aztec folklore describes a prophetic vision of an eagle holding a serpent in its talons while perched on a Nopal cactus plant, where providence dictated they build their city. The Aztec’s referred to Nopal as “Nochtli” in their native Nahuatl language, thus naming their divinely inspired city Tenochtitlan, or City of the Nopal; today’s location of Mexico City. Explorers visiting that area in the 15th Century were fascinated by Nopal’s shelf life and ability to protect against scurvy, which we now know is due to its high Vitamin C content. Thus Nopal became a popular seafaring food and eventually made its way around the globe.

 

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Copyright© Ute Hagen - All my photos and art images are protected under International Copyright laws and may not be downloaded, reproduced, copied, transmitted or manipulated without my explit permission. If you want to use any of my images please contact me here through flickr mail or at: uteart@gmail.com

 

Place: Nangan, Matsu Islands

 

The Matsu islands are a minor archipelago of 36 islands and islets in the East China Sea and administered by the Republic of China (Taiwan). The Matsu islands together form the county of Lienchiang, but most of Liangjiang County (same name, different spelling) is under control of the People's Republic of China. Linear distance from mainland China is less than 20 km.

 

Mainlanders from Fujian and Zhejiang started migrating to the islands during the Yuan Dynasty. The popular net fishing industry had established the base for development of Fuao settlement and industrial development of the region over several hundred years.

 

During the early Qing Dynasty, pirates gathered here and the residents left temporarily. In contrast with Taiwan and Penghu, the Matsu Islands were not ceded to the Japanese Empire via the Treaty of Shimonoseki in 1895. Neither were they occupied by Japanese troops during World War II because they were not important militarily. Due to its strategic location for the only route for spice road, the British established the Dongyong Lighthouse in Dongyin Island in 1912 to facilitate ships navigation.

 

In 1911, the Qing Dynasty was toppled after the Xinhai Revolution on 10 October 1911 and the Republic of China (ROC) was established on 1 January 1912. Matsu Islands was subsequently governed under the administration of Fukien Province of the ROC. On 1 August 1927, the Nanchang Uprising broke out between the ruling Nationalist Party of China (KMT) and Communist Party of China (CPC) which marked the beginning of Chinese Civil War. After years of war, the CPC finally managed to take over mainland China from KMT and established the People's Republic of China (PRC) on 1 October 1949 which also covers the Lianjiang County of Fujian. The KMT subsequently retreated from mainland China to Taiwan in end of 1949.

 

After their retreat, the KMT retained the offshore part from the original Lianjiang County located on Matsu Islands, and also all of Kinmen County. In July 1958 the PRC began massing forces opposite the two islands and began bombarding them on 23 August, triggering the Second Taiwan Strait Crisis. On 4 September 1958, the PRC announced the extension of its territorial waters by 20 kilometres (12 mi) to include the two islands. However, after talks were held between the USA and PRC in Warsaw, Poland later that month, a ceasefire was agreed and the status quo reaffirmed.

 

The phrase "Quemoy and Matsu" became part of American political language in the 1960 U.S. presidential election. During the debates, both candidates, Vice-President Richard Nixon and Senator John F. Kennedy, pledged to use American forces if necessary to protect Taiwan from invasion by the PRC, which the United States did not recognize as a legitimate government. But the two candidates had different opinions about whether to use American forces to protect Taiwan's forward positions, Quemoy and Matsu, also. In fact, Senator Kennedy stated that these islands - as little as 9 kilometres (5.5 mi) off the coast of China and as much as 170 kilometres (106 mi) from Taiwan - were strategically indefensible and were not essential to the defense of Taiwan. On the contrary, Vice-President Nixon maintained that since Quemoy and Matsu were in the "area of freedom," they should not be surrendered to the Communists as a matter of "principle."

 

Self governance of the county resumed in 1992 after the normalization of the political warfare with the mainland and the abolishment of Battle Field Administration on 7 November 1992. Afterwards, the local constructions progressed tremendously. In 1999, the islands were designated under Matsu National Scenic Area Administration. In January 2001, direct cargo and passenger shipping started between Matsu and Fujian Province of the PRC. Since 1 January 2015, tourists from mainland China could directly apply the Exit and Entry Permit upon arrival in Matsu Islands. This privilege also applies to Penghu and Kinmen as means to boost tourism in the outlying islands of Taiwan.

 

Source: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Matsu_Islands

 

In 2013 I had the opportunity to visit the largest of the Matsu islands, Nangan, as a friend of mine is a teacher at a primary school on the island.

To answer this question, we must stop examining the supply side of the equation, and instead look to the demanders.

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.......***** All images are copyrighted by their respective authors ......

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... message header for Rolling Stones Politics

 

The problems are many. Too many. Our eyes get fixed upon one among them, and our passions get devoted to fixing that one. In that focus, however, we fail to see the thread that ties them all together.

 

We are, to steal from Thoreau, the “thousand[s] hacking at the branches of evil,” with “[n]one striking at the root.”

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.....item 1).... Rolling Stone Politics .... www.rollingstone.com/politics ... Lawrence Lessig on How We Lost Our Democracy

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img code photo....

 

assets.rollingstone.com/assets/images/blog_entry/1000x306...

 

'Republic, Lost: How Money Corrupts Congress – and a Plan to Stop It' by Lawrence Lessig

 

Courtesy of Twelve/Hachette Book Group

 

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POSTED: October 5, 3:25 PM ET | By Lawrence Lessig

 

www.rollingstone.com/politics/blogs/national-affairs/lawr...

 

The following is an excerpt from Republic, Lost: How Money Corrupts Congress – and a Plan to Stop It by Lawrence Lessig.

 

Introduction

 

There is a feeling today among too many Americans that we might not make it. Not that the end is near, or that doom is around the corner, but that a distinctly American feeling of inevitability, of greatness—​culturally, economically, politically—​is gone. That we have become Britain. Or Rome. Or Greece. A generation ago Ronald Reagan rallied the nation to deny a similar charge: Jimmy Carter’s worry that our nation had fallen into a state of “malaise.” I was one of those so rallied, and I still believe that Reagan was right. But the feeling I am talking about today is different: not that we, as a people, have lost anything of our potential, but that we, as a republic, have. That our capacity for governing—​the product, in part, of a Constitution we have revered for more than two centuries—​has come to an end. That the thing that we were once most proud of—​this, our republic—​is the one thing that we have all learned to ignore. Government is an embarrassment. It has lost the capacity to make the most essential decisions. And slowly it begins to dawn upon us: a ship that can’t be steered is a ship that will sink.

 

We didn’t always feel this way. There were times when we were genuinely proud—​as a people, and as a republic—​and when we proudly boasted to the world about the Framers’ (flawed but still) ingenious design. No doubt, we still speak of the founding with reverence. But we seem to miss that the mess that is our government today grew out of the genius that the Framers crafted two centuries ago. That, however much we condemn what government has become, we forget it is the heir to something we still believe divine. We inherited an extraordinary estate. On our watch, we have let it fall to ruin.

 

The clue that something is very wrong is the endless list of troubles that sit on our collective plate but that never get resolved: bloated and inefficient bureaucracies; an invisible climate policy; a tax code that would embarrass Dickens; health care policies that have little to do with health; regulations designed to protect inefficiency; environmental policies that exempt the producers of the greatest environmental harms; food that is too expensive (since protected); food that is unsafe (since unregulated); a financial system that has already caused great harm, has been left unreformed, and is primed and certain to cause great harm again.

 

The problems are many. Too many. Our eyes get fixed upon one among them, and our passions get devoted to fixing that one. In that focus, however, we fail to see the thread that ties them all together.

 

We are, to steal from Thoreau, the “thousand[s] hacking at the branches of evil,” with “[n]one striking at the root.”

 

This book names that root. It aims to inspire “rootstrikers.” The root—​not the single cause of everything that ails us, not the one reform that would make democracy hum, but instead, the root, the thing that feeds the other ills, and the thing that we must kill first. The cure that would be generative—​the single, if impossibly difficult, intervention that would give us the chance to repair the rest.

 

For we have no choice but to try to repair the rest. Republicans and Democrats alike insist we are on a collision course with history. Our government has made fiscal promises it cannot keep. Yet we ignore them. Our planet spins furiously to a radically changed climate, certain to impose catastrophic costs on a huge portion of the world’s population. We ignore this, too. Everything our government -touches—​from health care to Social Security to the monopoly rights we call patents and copyright—​it poisons. Yet our leaders seem oblivious to the thought that there’s anything that needs fixing. They preen about, ignoring the elephant in the room. They act as if Ben Franklin would be proud.

 

Ben Franklin would weep. The republic that he helped birth is lost. The 89 percent of Americans who have no confidence in Congress (as reported by the latest Gallup poll) are not idiots. They are not even wrong. Yet they fail to recognize just why this government doesn’t deserve our confidence. Most of us get distracted. Most of us ignore the root.

 

We were here at least once before.

 

One hundred years ago America had an extraordinary political choice. The election of 1912 gave voters an unprecedented range of candidates for president of the United States.

 

On the far Right was the “stand pat,” first-​term Republican William Howard Taft, who had served as Teddy Roosevelt’s secretary of war, but who had not carried forward the revolution on the Right that Roosevelt thought he had started.

 

On the far Left was the most successful socialist candidate for president in American history, Eugene Debs, who had run for president twice before, and who would run again, from prison, in 1920 and win the largest popular vote that any socialist has ever received in a national American election.

 

In the middle were two “Progressives”: the immensely popular former president Teddy Roosevelt, who had imposed upon himself a two-​term limit, but then found the ideals of reform that he had launched languishing within the Republican Party; and New Jersey’s governor and former Princeton University president Woodrow Wilson, who promised the political machine–​-bound Democratic Party the kind of reform that Roosevelt had begun within the Republican Party.

 

These two self-described Progressives were very different. Roosevelt was a big-government reformer. Wilson, at least before the First World War, was a small​-government, pro-​federalist reformer. Each saw the same overwhelming threat to America’s democracy—​the capture of government by powerful special interests—​even if each envisioned a very different remedy for that capture. Roosevelt wanted a government large enough to match the concentrated economic power that was then growing in America; Wilson, following Louis Brandeis, wanted stronger laws limiting the size of the concentrated economic power then growing in America.

 

Presidential reelection campaigns are not supposed to be bloody political battles. But Taft had proven himself to be a particularly inept politician (he was later a much better chief justice of the Supreme Court), and after Roosevelt’s term ended, business interests had reasserted their dominant control of the Republican Party. Yet even though dissent was growing across the political spectrum, few seemed to doubt that the president would be reelected. Certainly Roosevelt felt certain enough of that to delay any suggestion that he would enter the race to challenge his own hand-​picked successor.

 

A Wisconsin Republican changed all that. In January 1911, Senator Robert La Follette and his followers launched the National Progressive Republican League. Soon after, La Follette announced his own campaign for the presidency. Declaring that “popular government in America has been thwarted . . . ​by the special interests,” the League advocated five core reforms, all of which attacked problems of process, not substance. The first four demanded changes to strengthen popular control of government (the election of senators, direct primaries, direct election of delegates to presidential conventions, and the spread of the state initiative process). The last reform demanded “a thoroughgoing corrupt practices act.”

 

La Follette’s campaign initially drew excitement and important support. It faltered, however, when he seemed to suffer a mental breakdown during a speech at a press dinner in Philadelphia. But the campaign outed, and increasingly embarrassed, the “stand pat” Republicans. As Roosevelt would charge in April 1912:

 

The Republican party is now facing a great crisis. It is to decide whether it will be, as in the days of Lincoln, the party of the plain people, the party of progress, the party of social and industrial justice; or whether it will be the party of privilege and of special interests, the heir to those who were Lincoln’s most bitter opponents, the party that represents the great interests within and without Wall Street which desire through their control over the servants of the public to be kept immune from punishment when they do wrong and to be given privileges to which they are not entitled.

 

The term progressive is a confused and much misunderstood moniker for perhaps the most important political movement at the turn of the last century. We confuse it today with liberals, but back then there were progressives of every political stripe in America—on the Left and on the Right, and with dimensional spins in the middle (the Prohibitionists, for example). Yet one common thread that united these different strands of reform was the recognition that democratic government in America had been captured. Journalists and writers at the turn of the twentieth century taught America “that business corrupts politics,” as Richard McCormick put it. Corruption of the grossest forms—​the sort that would make convicted lobbyist Jack Abramoff wince—​was increasingly seen to be the norm throughout too much of American government. Democracy, as in rule of the people, was a joke. As historian George Thayer wrote, describing the “golden age of boodle” (1876–​-1926): “Never has the American political process been so corrupt. No office was too high to purchase, no man too pure to bribe, no principle too sacred to destroy, no law too fundamental to break.”

 

Or again, Teddy Roosevelt (1910): “Exactly as the special interests of cotton and slavery threatened our political integrity before the Civil War, so now the great special business interests too often control and corrupt the men and methods of government for their own profit.”

 

To respond to this “corruption,” Progressives launched a series of reforms to reclaim government. Many of these reforms were hopeless disasters (the ballot initiative and elected judges), and some were both disasters and evil (Prohibition and eugenics, to name just two). But mistakes notwithstanding, the Progressive Era represents an unprecedented moment of experimentation and engagement, all motivated by a common recognition that the idea of popular sovereignty in America had been sold. The problem was not, as McCormick describes, a “product of misbehavior by ‘bad’ men,” but was instead now seen as the predictable “outcome of identifiable economic and political forces.”

 

That recognition manifested itself powerfully on November 5, 1912: The incumbent Republican placed third (23.2 percent) in the -four-​-man race; the socialist, a distant fourth (6 percent); and Teddy Roosevelt (27.4 percent) got bested by the “new” Democrat, Woodrow Wilson (41.8 percent).

 

Yet only when you add together these two self-​identified Pro-gressives do you get a clear sense of the significance of 1912: almost 70 percent of America had voted for a “progressive.” Seventy percent of America had said, “This democracy is corrupted; we demand it be fixed.” Seventy percent refused to “stand pat.”

 

A century later we suffer the same struggle, but without anything like the same clarity. A “fierce discontent,” as Roosevelt described America in 1906, is once again raging throughout the republic. Now, as then, it gets expressed as “agitation” against “evil,” and a “firm determination to punish the authors of evil, whether in industry or politics.” We look to a collapsed economy, to raging deficits, to a Wall Street not yet held to account, and we feel entitled to our anger. And so extreme is that entitlement that it makes even violence seem sensible, if only to the predictably insane extremes in any modern society.

 

Roosevelt was encouraged by this agitation against evil. It was, he said, a “feeling that is to be heartily welcomed.” It was “a sign,” he promised, “of healthy life.”

 

Yet today such agitation is not a sign of healthy life. It is a symptom of ignorance. For though the challenge we face is again the battle against a democracy deflected by special interests, our struggle is not against “evil,” or even the “authors of evil.” Our struggle is against something much more banal. Not the banal in the now-​overused sense of Hannah Arendt’s The Banality of Evil—​of ordinary people enabling unmatched evil (Hitler’s Germany). Our banality is one step more, well, banal.

 

For the enemy we face is not Hitler. Neither is it the good Germans who would enable a Hitler. Our enemy is the good Germans (us) who would enable a harm infinitely less profound, yet economically and politically catastrophic nonetheless. A harm caused by a kind of corruption. But not the corruption engendered by evil souls. Indeed, strange as this might sound, a corruption crafted by good souls. By decent men. And women. And if we’re to do anything about this corruption, we must learn to agitate against more than evil. We must remember that harm sometimes comes from timid, even pathetic souls. That the enemy doesn’t always march. Sometimes it simply shuffles.

 

The great threat to our republic today comes not from the hidden bribery of the Gilded Age, when cash was secreted among members of Congress to buy privilege and secure wealth. The great threat today is instead in plain sight. It is the economy of influence now transparent to all, which has normalized a process that draws our democracy away from the will of the people. A process that distorts our democracy from ends sought by both the Left and the Right: For the single most salient feature of the government that we have evolved is not that it discriminates in favor of one side and against the other. The single most salient feature is that it discriminates against all sides to favor itself. We have created an engine of influence that seeks not some particular strand of political or economic ideology, whether Marx or Hayek. We have created instead an engine of influence that seeks simply to make those most connected rich.

 

As a former young Republican—-indeed, Pennsylvania’s state chairman of the Teen Age Republicans—​I don’t mean to rally anyone against the rich. But I do mean to rally Republicans and Democrats alike against a certain kind of rich that no theorist on the Right or the Left has ever sought seriously to defend: The rich whose power comes not from hard work, creativity, innovation, or the creation of wealth. The rich who instead secure their wealth through the manipulation of government and politicians. The great evil that we as Americans face is the banal evil of second-​rate minds who can’t make it in the private sector and who therefore turn to the massive wealth directed by our government as the means to securing wealth for themselves. The enemy is not evil. The enemy is well dressed.

 

Theorists of corruption don’t typically talk much about decent souls. Their focus is upon criminals—​the venally corrupt, who bribe to buy privilege, or the systematically corrupt, who make the people (or, better, the rich) dependent upon the government to ensure that the people (or, better, the rich) protect the government.

 

So, too, when we speak of politicians and our current system of governance, many of us think of our government as little more than criminal, or as crime barely hidden—​from Jack Abramoff (“I was participating in a system of legalized bribery. All of it is bribery, every bit of it”) to Judge Richard Posner (“the legislative system [is] one of quasi-​bribery”) to Carlyle Group co‑founder David Rubenstein (“legalized bribery”) to former congressman and CIA director Leon Panetta (“legalized bribery has become part of the culture of how this place operates”) to one of the Senate’s most important figures, Russell B. Long (D-La.; 1949-1987) (“Almost a hairline’s difference separates bribes and contributions”).

 

But in this crude form, in America at least, such crimes are rare. At the federal level, bribery is almost extinct. There are a handful of pathologically stupid souls bartering government favors for private kickbacks, but very few. And at both the federal and the state levels, the kind of Zimbabwean control over economic activity is just not within our DNA. So if only the criminal are corrupt, then ours is not a corrupt government.

 

The aim of this book, however, is to convince you that a much more virulent, if much less crude, corruption does indeed wreck our democracy. Not a corruption caused by a gaggle of evil souls. On the contrary, a corruption practiced by decent people, people we should respect, people working extremely hard to do what they believe is right, yet decent people working with a system that has evolved the most elaborate and costly bending of democratic government in our history. There are good people here, yet extraordinary bad gets done.

 

This corruption has two elements, each of which feeds the other. The first element is bad governance, which means simply that our government doesn’t track the expressed will of the people, whether on the Left or on the Right. Instead, the government tracks a different interest, one not directly affected by votes or voters. Democracy, on this account, seems a show or a ruse; power rests elsewhere.

 

The second element is lost trust: when democracy seems a charade, we lose faith in its process. That doesn’t matter to some of us—​we will vote and participate regardless. But to more rational souls, the charade is a signal: spend your time elsewhere, because this game is not for real. Participation thus declines, especially among the sensible middle. Policy gets driven by the extremists at both ends.

 

In the first three parts of what follows, I show how these elements of corruption fit together. I want you to understand the way they connect, and how they feed on each other. In the book’s final part, I explore how we might do something about them.

 

The prognosis is not good. The disease we face is not one that nations cure, or, at least, cure easily. But we should understand the options. For few who work to understand what has gone wrong will be willing to accept defeat—​without a fight.

 

From the book Republic, Lost. Copyright (c) 2011 by Lawrence Lessig. Reprinted by permission of Twelve/Hachette Book Group, New York, NY. All rights reserved.

 

Related

• How Money Corrupts Congress: Interview with Lawrence Lessig

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.....item 2).... Teddy Roosevelt (1910): “Exactly as the special interests of cotton and slavery threatened our political integrity before the Civil War, so now the great special business interests too often control and corrupt the men and methods of government for their own profit.”

 

Read more: www.rollingstone.com/politics/blogs/national-affairs/lawr...

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.....item 3).... So, too, when we speak of politicians and our current system of governance, many of us think of our government as little more than criminal, or as crime barely hidden—​from Jack Abramoff (“I was participating in a system of legalized bribery. All of it is bribery, every bit of it”) to Judge Richard Posner (“the legislative system [is] one of quasi-​bribery”) to Carlyle Group co‑founder David Rubenstein (“legalized bribery”) to former congressman and CIA director Leon Panetta (“legalized bribery has become part of the culture of how this place operates”) to one of the Senate’s most important figures, Russell B. Long (D-La.; 1949-1987) (“Almost a hairline’s difference separates bribes and contributions”).

 

Read more: www.rollingstone.com/politics/blogs/national-affairs/lawr...

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.....item 4).... FSU News ... www.fsunews.com ...

 

The demanding side of the political equation

10:25 PM, Oct. 24, 2012 |

 

Written by

Chad Squitieri

Senior Staff Writer

 

FILED UNDER

FSU News

FSU News Chad Squitieri

 

www.fsunews.com/article/20121025/FSVIEW0305/121024023/The...|newswell|text|frontpage|s

 

Now that the presidential debates are over, I find myself as an onlooker being left without a satisfaction. A debate is an opportunity for two candidates to engage in a thought provoking discussion that highlights their differences from one another. What we often end up with in debates is little more than sidestepping and finger pointing.

 

Looking forward to debates to come, my wish is that they will consist of more substance, and fewer talking points. This wish of course can easily be shrugged off as little more than the naïve daydream of a college student; a thought destined to never materialize. The way to see this apparent pipedream become reality, however, is more in the hands of the voter than one might expect.

 

Political debates have never been known for their politeness, and this election cycle stayed true to form. While it may be accurate that politics in this country have always been highly contested matters with the ability to bring out plenty of emotions, it is also true that the mechanics of politics have seemed to stay in step with the rest of our society. It seems that in today’s political realm, it is becoming more and more “cool” to be rude to your opponent. The rationale behind this action is explained by the fact that candidates feel they can rally their bases in opposition to the other candidate by acting in ways we have witnessed over this debate cycle.

 

Actions such as talking over one another, name calling and finger pointing come to mind. The bigger question, though, is why do candidates feel they can better rally their bases by acting in a way that seems to turn the discussion into little more than a spectacle as compared to a way that better gets a candidate’s core message to voters. To answer this question, we must stop examining the supply side of the equation, and instead look to the demanders.

 

The demanders in any election are the voters. It is the voters that make up the political market, and it is this market that the suppliers, the candidates, bring their ideas. It is the nature of politicians to behave in ways the public wants them to behave. Having this thought in mind, it becomes easily identifiable why our politicians would act in ways that would otherwise seem counterproductive to the political process. It is because that is what we ask for.

 

If as a whole we demand to see politics turned into a spectacle consisting of little more than name calling and snarky, eight-second clips intended to make the front side of the evening news, then that is what our candidates will supply us with. If we instead insist on a more thought-provoking discussion which gets at the fundamentals, then candidates will have the incentive to provide just that.

 

As the next generation, we will have the ability to steer the course of the political process in this country. Whether we choose to end up with more political gridlock and wordplay, or instead choose straightforwardness and seek results is to be determined.

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.....item 5).... youtube video ... Jimi Hendrix - Are you Experienced (full album) UK ... 60:21 minutes

 

www.youtube.com/watch?v=0tlRYLP8GOU

 

Published on Nov 16, 2012 by gunsgifts galleries

 

1. "Foxy Lady" 0:00

2. "Manic Depression" 3:22

3. "Red House" 7:08

4. "Can You See Me" 11:01

5. "Love or Confusion" 13:19

6. "I Don't Live Today" 16:33

 

Side two

 

No. Title Length

 

1. "May This Be Love" 20:51

2. "Fire" 24:05

3. "Third Stone from the Sun" 26:52

4. "Remember" 33:42

5. "Are You Experienced?" 36:35

 

1997 Experience Hendrix reissue bonus tracks

 

No. Title Length

 

1. "Hey Joe" (Billy Roberts) 40:05

2. "Stone Free" 43:35

3. "Purple Haze" 47:18

4. "51st Anniversary" 50:02

5. "The Wind Cries Mary" 53:17

6. "Highway Chile" 56:37

 

Category:

Music

 

License:

Standard YouTube License

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President Donald J. Trump listens as U.S. Ambassador to Israel David M. Friedman addresses his remarks Friday, Sept. 11, 2020 in the Oval Office, at the announcement that the Kingdom of Bahrain is joining the United Arab Emirates (UAE) in normalizing relations with Israel. (Official White House Photo by Tia Dufour)

Place: Nangan, Matsu Islands

 

The Matsu islands are a minor archipelago of 36 islands and islets in the East China Sea and administered by the Republic of China (Taiwan). The Matsu islands together form the county of Lienchiang, but most of Liangjiang County (same name, different spelling) is under control of the People's Republic of China. Linear distance from mainland China is less than 20 km.

 

Mainlanders from Fujian and Zhejiang started migrating to the islands during the Yuan Dynasty. The popular net fishing industry had established the base for development of Fuao settlement and industrial development of the region over several hundred years.

 

During the early Qing Dynasty, pirates gathered here and the residents left temporarily. In contrast with Taiwan and Penghu, the Matsu Islands were not ceded to the Japanese Empire via the Treaty of Shimonoseki in 1895. Neither were they occupied by Japanese troops during World War II because they were not important militarily. Due to its strategic location for the only route for spice road, the British established the Dongyong Lighthouse in Dongyin Island in 1912 to facilitate ships navigation.

 

In 1911, the Qing Dynasty was toppled after the Xinhai Revolution on 10 October 1911 and the Republic of China (ROC) was established on 1 January 1912. Matsu Islands was subsequently governed under the administration of Fukien Province of the ROC. On 1 August 1927, the Nanchang Uprising broke out between the ruling Nationalist Party of China (KMT) and Communist Party of China (CPC) which marked the beginning of Chinese Civil War. After years of war, the CPC finally managed to take over mainland China from KMT and established the People's Republic of China (PRC) on 1 October 1949 which also covers the Lianjiang County of Fujian. The KMT subsequently retreated from mainland China to Taiwan in end of 1949.

 

After their retreat, the KMT retained the offshore part from the original Lianjiang County located on Matsu Islands, and also all of Kinmen County. In July 1958 the PRC began massing forces opposite the two islands and began bombarding them on 23 August, triggering the Second Taiwan Strait Crisis. On 4 September 1958, the PRC announced the extension of its territorial waters by 20 kilometres (12 mi) to include the two islands. However, after talks were held between the USA and PRC in Warsaw, Poland later that month, a ceasefire was agreed and the status quo reaffirmed.

 

The phrase "Quemoy and Matsu" became part of American political language in the 1960 U.S. presidential election. During the debates, both candidates, Vice-President Richard Nixon and Senator John F. Kennedy, pledged to use American forces if necessary to protect Taiwan from invasion by the PRC, which the United States did not recognize as a legitimate government. But the two candidates had different opinions about whether to use American forces to protect Taiwan's forward positions, Quemoy and Matsu, also. In fact, Senator Kennedy stated that these islands - as little as 9 kilometres (5.5 mi) off the coast of China and as much as 170 kilometres (106 mi) from Taiwan - were strategically indefensible and were not essential to the defense of Taiwan. On the contrary, Vice-President Nixon maintained that since Quemoy and Matsu were in the "area of freedom," they should not be surrendered to the Communists as a matter of "principle."

 

Self governance of the county resumed in 1992 after the normalization of the political warfare with the mainland and the abolishment of Battle Field Administration on 7 November 1992. Afterwards, the local constructions progressed tremendously. In 1999, the islands were designated under Matsu National Scenic Area Administration. In January 2001, direct cargo and passenger shipping started between Matsu and Fujian Province of the PRC. Since 1 January 2015, tourists from mainland China could directly apply the Exit and Entry Permit upon arrival in Matsu Islands. This privilege also applies to Penghu and Kinmen as means to boost tourism in the outlying islands of Taiwan.

 

Source: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Matsu_Islands

 

In 2013 I had the opportunity to visit the largest of the Matsu islands, Nangan, as a friend of mine is a teacher at a primary school on the island.

The grid is the square of urban planning, it will determine the movement and shape of cities. The similarity between red blood cells and the cars carrying people is a metaphor for understanding why the human body works so well, and the block squared cities have become infarction or huge traffic jams.The ideal city is an orbital corpus and finds its ideal in the Palestinian cities of Abdelrahman in Spain, Charlemagne was his great friend and developed this idea in northern Europe.The Jesuit cities are inspired by Xian or Beijing, they can be found in America, throughout Africa and in many development plans designed to simplify the work of surveyors and decision-makers. The result is normalization of people and formatting.The circle is a meeting point. The magic paving stone of the chessboard has been a failure for a long time but few urban planners accept this fact. The system of a grid city is imposed as a simple way to enlarge or create a city from a lane, at the extreme certain city exists only on a lane composed of boxes with car parks to facilitate access.Thus, many neighborhoods resemble chess boards with commercial zones on the old market gardening areas, agricultural production being managed at regional or national level.

The city and the importance of its geometry, the journeys of urban dwellers in a quadrangular city and the absence or failure of shops in these neighbourhoods should be better studied.

Equipment:

- Nikon D90

- Sigma 300mm prime lens

- Sky-Watcher Star Adventurer

- Star Adventurer Tripod

- Bahintov Mask

- Intervalometer

- DIY diffraction spikes

- Stellarium

- All Sky Plate Solver

- Sharpcap

- Laptop

 

Acquisition:

- Bortle 2-4

- Iso 800

- F4

- 8/04/2021 – North Panel

- 122 x 2′ light frames

- 100 bias

- 34 dark

- 43 usable flats

- 0/06/2021 – South Panel

- 106 x 2′ light frames

- no bias

- 29 dark

- 50 flats

 

Processing:

- Calibrate with WBPP

- Blink to discard bad frames

- Generate normalization data with NormalizeScaleGradient

- Image integrate

- CFA drizzle scale 1

- Crop

- DBE each panel

- Photometric mosiac

- TGV noise reduction

- EZ soft stretch

- MMT + Curves

- curves transformation

 

Instagram: www.instagram.com/

Website: theastroenthusiast.com/

George Segal (November 26, 1924 , New York - June 9, 2000, New Brunswick, New Jersey) was an American painter and sculptor associated with the Pop Art movement. He was presented with a National Medal of Arts in 1999.

 

Love transcends our artificially-created barriers. We are all children of God, whatever form that God may take. In time, in the United States, we will change - and correct - the discriminatory laws that have been unjustly been imposed on various groups of people within our population.

 

About the sculpture "Gay Liberation":

 

In 1979, pop sculptor Segal was commissioned by the Mildred Andrews Fund, a private Cleveland-based foundation that supports public art, to create a work that would commemorate New York City's Stonewall Rebellion, the 1969 riot that conveniently (if somewhat simplistically) marks the beginning of the modern gay liberation movement.

 

The result was the first piece of public art commemorating the struggle of glbtq people for equality, predating Amsterdam's "Homomonument" by some seven years.

 

Tellingly, Segal's sculpture has, from the very beginning, been at the center of controversy and suffered the kinds of assaults and bashings that glbtq people themselves have all too often experienced. The sculpture has been attacked frequently (both physically and esthetically) as well as having been moved around. Since 1992, it has stood very comfortably, however, in Sheridan Park, New York, the site of the Stonewall Inn

 

The sculpture, a life-like, life-size bronze group, painted white, depicts four figures: a standing male couple and a seated female couple. One of the men holds the shoulder of his partner; one of the seated women gently touches her friend's thigh. The poses are non-dramatic, but quietly powerful, suggesting depths of love and companionship.

 

Segal's aim in his depiction of the couples was to normalize and domesticize homosexual relationships, rescuing them from the sensationalized, over-sexualized images so common in the popular media. At the same time, however, Segal emphasizes the physical element of relationships. The partners' soulful gazing into each other's eyes symbolizes commitment and communion, but their touching represents physical intimacy.

 

As David Lindsey has observed, "'Gay Liberation' is all about touch and tender, affirmative embrace."

 

The artist himself remarked, "The sculpture concentrates on tenderness, gentleness and sensitivity as expressed in gesture. It makes the delicate point that gay people are as feeling as anyone else."

 

The political significance of the mundane reality of loving couples is suggested by the title, "Gay Liberation."

 

Segal's choice to define gay liberation in terms of ordinary, committed relationships is itself profoundly political. It quietly but unmistakably affirms the unexceptionable observation that the aspirations of gay men and lesbians are no different from those of heterosexual couples. The personal is made political in this case not by the artist or by the couples, but by the social and legal prohibitions against the most basic of human needs, the need to love and be loved.

 

Some critics complained that the figures appear too sad, but the complex interior life the figures display expresses, at least in part, the ambiguous place gay men and lesbians occupy in the American public consciousness, surely cause enough for sadness.

 

sources: wiki and glbtq online encyclopedia. see: www.glbtq.com/arts/george_1s.html

May 13, 2023 - USAID Administrator Samantha Power met the President of the Republic of Kosovo Dr. Vjosa Osmani. Administrator Power emphasized the U.S. Government’s commitment to supporting Kosovo’s European and Euro-Atlantic integration and discussed the importance of normalization of relations between Kosovo and Serbia. The Administrator and President Osmani also discussed the longstanding USAID partnership with Kosovo on shared priorities including good governance and rule of law, women’s empowerment, advancing clean energy, and fostering inclusive economic growth. The meeting took place in Pristina, Kosovo.

  

Place: Nangan, Matsu Islands

 

The Matsu islands are a minor archipelago of 36 islands and islets in the East China Sea and administered by the Republic of China (Taiwan). The Matsu islands together form the county of Lienchiang, but most of Liangjiang County (same name, different spelling) is under control of the People's Republic of China. Linear distance from mainland China is less than 20 km.

 

Mainlanders from Fujian and Zhejiang started migrating to the islands during the Yuan Dynasty. The popular net fishing industry had established the base for development of Fuao settlement and industrial development of the region over several hundred years.

 

During the early Qing Dynasty, pirates gathered here and the residents left temporarily. In contrast with Taiwan and Penghu, the Matsu Islands were not ceded to the Japanese Empire via the Treaty of Shimonoseki in 1895. Neither were they occupied by Japanese troops during World War II because they were not important militarily. Due to its strategic location for the only route for spice road, the British established the Dongyong Lighthouse in Dongyin Island in 1912 to facilitate ships navigation.

 

In 1911, the Qing Dynasty was toppled after the Xinhai Revolution on 10 October 1911 and the Republic of China (ROC) was established on 1 January 1912. Matsu Islands was subsequently governed under the administration of Fukien Province of the ROC. On 1 August 1927, the Nanchang Uprising broke out between the ruling Nationalist Party of China (KMT) and Communist Party of China (CPC) which marked the beginning of Chinese Civil War. After years of war, the CPC finally managed to take over mainland China from KMT and established the People's Republic of China (PRC) on 1 October 1949 which also covers the Lianjiang County of Fujian. The KMT subsequently retreated from mainland China to Taiwan in end of 1949.

 

After their retreat, the KMT retained the offshore part from the original Lianjiang County located on Matsu Islands, and also all of Kinmen County. In July 1958 the PRC began massing forces opposite the two islands and began bombarding them on 23 August, triggering the Second Taiwan Strait Crisis. On 4 September 1958, the PRC announced the extension of its territorial waters by 20 kilometres (12 mi) to include the two islands. However, after talks were held between the USA and PRC in Warsaw, Poland later that month, a ceasefire was agreed and the status quo reaffirmed.

 

The phrase "Quemoy and Matsu" became part of American political language in the 1960 U.S. presidential election. During the debates, both candidates, Vice-President Richard Nixon and Senator John F. Kennedy, pledged to use American forces if necessary to protect Taiwan from invasion by the PRC, which the United States did not recognize as a legitimate government. But the two candidates had different opinions about whether to use American forces to protect Taiwan's forward positions, Quemoy and Matsu, also. In fact, Senator Kennedy stated that these islands - as little as 9 kilometres (5.5 mi) off the coast of China and as much as 170 kilometres (106 mi) from Taiwan - were strategically indefensible and were not essential to the defense of Taiwan. On the contrary, Vice-President Nixon maintained that since Quemoy and Matsu were in the "area of freedom," they should not be surrendered to the Communists as a matter of "principle."

 

Self governance of the county resumed in 1992 after the normalization of the political warfare with the mainland and the abolishment of Battle Field Administration on 7 November 1992. Afterwards, the local constructions progressed tremendously. In 1999, the islands were designated under Matsu National Scenic Area Administration. In January 2001, direct cargo and passenger shipping started between Matsu and Fujian Province of the PRC. Since 1 January 2015, tourists from mainland China could directly apply the Exit and Entry Permit upon arrival in Matsu Islands. This privilege also applies to Penghu and Kinmen as means to boost tourism in the outlying islands of Taiwan.

 

Source: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Matsu_Islands

 

In 2013 I had the opportunity to visit the largest of the Matsu islands, Nangan, as a friend of mine is a teacher at a primary school on the island.

 

The statue of the goddess Mazu, just completed in October 2009, is 28.8 meters tall, making it world’s tallest statue of Mazu according to the promotional website.

 

Mazu is a Chinese sea goddess. She is the deified form of the purported historical Lin Mo or Lin Moniang, a Fujianese shamaness whose life span is traditionally dated from 960 to 987. Revered after her death as a tutelary deity of seafarers, including fishermen and sailors, her worship spread throughout China's coastal regions and overseas Chinese communities throughout Southeast Asia. She was thought to roam the seas, protecting her believers through miraculous interventions. She is now generally regarded by her believers as a powerful and benevolent Queen of Heaven.

640

480

pixel

  

-1373129222

314

3

270

  

0.421

0.256

normalized

0.428

0.342

 

Face

Mosaic done by USGS : see details on these links :

astrogeology.usgs.gov/search/map/cerberus_hemisphere_unen...

astrogeology.usgs.gov/search/map/schiaparelli_hemisphere_...

 

Cerberus : Mosaic of the Cerberus hemisphere of Mars projected into point perspective, a view similar to that which one would see from a spacecraft. This mosaic is composed of 104 Viking Orbiter images acquired on February 11, 1980. At that time, it was early northern summer on Mars. The center of the image is at latitude 3 degrees, longitude 185 degrees.

 

Schiaparelli: Mosaic of the Schiaparelli hemisphere of Mars projected into point perspective, a view similar to that which one would see from a spacecraft. The images were acquired in 1980 during early northern summer on Mars. The center of this image is near the impact crater Schiaparelli (latitude -3, longitude 343) The limits of this mosaic are approximately latitude -60 to 60 and longitude 260 to 30. The color variations have been enhanced by a factor of two, and the large-scale brightness normalized by large-scale filtering.

 

I processed unenhanced images to enhance it.

 

Credit : NASA/USGS

Enhancement : Thomas Thomopoulos

  

Rather different artwork from my normal: experimenting with PovRay, my favoured ray-tracing software since the late 90s, to construct a scene of various germs and things emerging from a warped background covered in the genome sequence for SARS-Coronavirus-2.

 

Redbubble, the site I use for fulfilling print and other sales orders, have recently started offering face-masks as a product on which to display one's art: see their announcement at blog.redbubble.com/2020/04/product-news-masks-are-coming-...

 

My initial reaction was that art is a luxury, so profiting off it would be highly distateful.

However, Redbubble are matching every mask sold by donating one to a charity (Heart to Heart International); a friend pointed out that if masks are to become normalized in society then making them artistic is certainly a way forward.

 

Accordingly, I have started offering some existing and new photographic work in this form; however, I've set my profit margin to 0 for masks in the process.

 

ShinyPhoto: Face Masks

 

Povray sources for this image are available on github: The Lurgy.

 

Sony RX1 User Report.

 

I hesitate to write about gear. Tools are tools and the bitter truth is that a great craftsman rises above his tools to create a masterpiece whereas most of us try to improve our abominations by buying better or faster hammers to hit the same nails at the same awkward angles.

 

The internet is fairly flooded with reviews of this tiny marvel, and it isn’t my intention to compete with those articles. If you’re looking for a full-scale review of every feature or a down-to-Earth accounting of the RX1’s strengths and weaknesses, I recommend starting here.

 

Instead, I’d like to provide you with a flavor of how I’ve used the camera over the last six months. In short, this is a user report. To save yourself a few thousand words: I love the thing. As we go through this article, you’ll see this is a purpose built camera. The RX1 is not for everyone, but we will get to that and on the way, I’ll share a handful of images that I made with the camera.

 

It should be obvious to anyone reading this that I write this independently and have absolutely no relationship with Sony (other than having exchanged a large pile of cash for this camera at a retail outlet).

 

Before we get to anything else, I want to clear the air about two things: Price and Features

 

The Price

 

First things first: the price. The $2800+ cost of this camera is the elephant in the room and, given I purchased the thing, you may consider me a poor critic. That in mind, I want to offer you three thoughts:

 

Consumer goods cost what they cost, in the absence of a competitor (the Fuji X100s being the only one worth mention) there is no comparison and you simply have to decide for yourself if you are willing to pay or not.

Normalize the price per sensor area for all 35mm f/2 lens and camera alternatives and you’ll find the RX1 is an amazing value.

You are paying for the ability to take photographs, plain and simple. Ask yourself, “what are these photographs worth to me?”

 

In my case, #3 is very important. I have used the RX1 to take hundreds of photographs of my family that are immensely important to me. Moreover, I have made photographs (many appearing on this page) that are moving or beautiful and only happened because I had the RX1 in my bag or my pocket. Yes, of course I could have made these or very similar photographs with another camera, but that is immaterial.

 

35mm by 24mm by 35mm f/2

 

The killer feature of this camera is simple: it is a wafer of silicon 35mm by 24mm paired to a brilliantly, ridiculously, undeniably sharp, contrasty and bokehlicious 35mm f/2 Carl Zeiss lens. Image quality is king here and all other things take a back seat. This means the following: image quality is as good or better than your DSLR, but battery life, focus speed, and responsiveness are likely not as good as your DSLR. I say likely because, if you have an entry-level DSLR, the RX1 is comparable on these dimensions. If you want to change lenses, if you want an integrated viewfinder, if you want blindingly fast phase-detect autofocus then shoot with a DSLR. If you want the absolute best image quality in the smallest size possible, you’ve got it in the RX1.

 

While we are on the subject of interchangeable lenses and viewfinders...

 

I have an interchangeable lens DSLR and I love the thing. It’s basically a medium format camera in a 35mm camera body. It’s a powerhouse and it is the first camera I reach for when the goal is photography. For a long time, however, I’ve found myself in situations where photography was not the first goal, but where I nevertheless wanted to have a camera. I’m around the table with friends or at the park with my son and the DSLR is too big, too bulky, too intimidating. It comes between you and life. In this realm, mirrorless, interchangeable lens cameras seem to be king, but they have a major flaw: they are, for all intents and purposes, just little DSLRs.

 

As I mentioned above, I have an interchangeable lens system, why would I want another, smaller one? Clearly, I am not alone in feeling this way, as the market has produced a number of what I would call “professional point and shoots.” Here we are talking about the Fuji X100/X100s, Sigma DPm-series and the RX100 and RX1.

 

Design is about making choices

 

When the Fuji X100 came out, I was intrigued. Here was a cheap(er), baby Leica M. Quiet, small, unobtrusive. Had I waited to buy until the X100s had come out, perhaps this would be a different report. Perhaps, but probably not. I remember thinking to myself as I was looking at the X100, “I wish there was a digital Rollei 35, something with a fixed 28mm or 35mm lens that would fit in a coat pocket or a small bag.” Now of course, there is.

 

So, for those of you who said, “I would buy the RX1 if it had interchangeable lenses or an integrated viewfinder or faster autofocus,” I say the following: This is a purpose built camera. You would not want it as an interchangeable system, it can’t compete with DSLR speed. A viewfinder would make the thing bigger and ruin the magic ratio of body to sensor size—further, there is a 3-inch LCD viewfinder on the back! Autofocus is super fast, you just don’t realize it because the bar has been raised impossibly high by ultra-sonic magnet focusing rings on professional DSLR lenses. There’s a fantastic balance at work here between image quality and size—great tools are about the total experience, not about one or the other specification.

 

In short, design is about making choices. I think Sony has made some good ones with the RX1.

 

In use

 

So I’ve just written 1,000 words of a user report without, you know, reporting on use. In many ways the images on the page are my user report. These photographs, more than my words, should give you a flavor of what the RX1 is about. But, for the sake of variety, I intend to tell you a bit about the how and the why of shooting with the RX1.

 

Snapshots

 

As a beginning enthusiast, I often sneered at the idea of a snapshot. As I’ve matured, I’ve come to appreciate what a pocket camera and a snapshot can offer. The RX1 is the ultimate photographer’s snapshot camera.

 

I’ll pause here to properly define snapshot as a photograph taken quickly with a handheld camera.

 

To quote Ferris Bueller’s Day Off, “Life moves pretty fast. If you don't stop and look around once in a while, you could miss it.” So it is with photography. Beautiful photographs happen at the decisive moment—and to paraphrase Henri Cartier-Bresson further—the world is newly made and falling to pieces every instant. I think it is no coincidence that each revolution in the steady march of photography from the tortuously slow chemistry of tin-type and daguerreotype through 120 and 35mm formats to the hyper-sensitive CMOS of today has engendered new categories and concepts of photography.

 

Photography is a reflexive, reactionary activity. I see beautiful light or the unusual in an every day event and my reaction is a desire to make a photograph. It’s a bit like breathing and has been since I was a kid.

 

Rather than sneer at snapshots, nowadays I seek them out; and when I seek them out, I do so with the Sony RX1 in my hand.

 

How I shoot with the RX1

 

Despite much bluster from commenters on other reviews as to the price point and the purpose-built nature of this camera (see above), the RX1 is incredibly flexible. Have a peek at some of the linked reviews and you’ll see handheld portraits, long exposures, images taken with off-camera flash, etc.

 

Yet, I mentioned earlier that I reach for the D800 when photography is the primary goal and so the RX1 has become for me a handheld camera—something I use almost exclusively at f/2 (people, objects, shallow DoF) or f/8 (landscapes in abundant light, abstracts). The Auto-ISO setting allows the camera to choose in the range from ISO 50 and 6400 to reach a proper exposure at a given aperture with a 1/80 s shutter speed. I have found this shutter speed ensures a sharp image every time (although photographers with more jittery grips may wish there was the ability to select a different default shutter speed). This strategy works because the RX1 has a delightfully clicky exposure compensation dial just under your right thumb—allowing for fine adjustment to the camera’s metering decision.

 

So then, if you find me out with the RX1, you’re likely to see me on aperture priority, f/2 and auto ISO. Indeed, many of the photographs on this page were taken in that mode (including lots of the landscape shots!).

 

Working within constraints.

 

The RX1 is a wonderful camera to have when you have to work within constraints. When I say this, I mean it is great for photography within two different classes of constraints: 1) physical constraints of time and space and 2) intellectual/artistic constraints.

 

To speak to the first, as I said earlier, many of the photographs on this page were made possible by having a camera with me at a time that I otherwise would not have been lugging around a camera. For example, some of the images from the Grand Canyon you see were made in a pinch on my way to a Christmas dinner with my family. I didn’t have the larger camera with me and I just had a minute to make the image. Truth be told, these images could have been made with my cell phone, but that I could wring such great image quality out of something not much larger than my cell phone is just gravy. Be it jacket pocket, small bag, bike bag, saddle bag, even fannie pack—you have space for this camera anywhere you go.

 

Earlier I alluded to the obtrusiveness of a large camera. If you want to travel lightly and make photographs without announcing your presence, it’s easier to use a smaller camera. Here the RX1 excels. Moreover, the camera’s leaf shutter is virtually silent, so you can snap away without announcing your intention. In every sense, this camera is meant to work within physical constraints.

 

I cut my photographic teeth on film and I will always have an affection for it. There is a sense that one is playing within the rules when he uses film. That same feeling is here in the RX1. I never thought I’d say this about a camera, but I often like the JPEG images this thing produces more than I like what I can push with a RAW. Don’t get me wrong, for a landscape or a cityscape, the RAW processed carefully is FAR, FAR better than a JPEG.

 

But when I am taking snapshots or photos of friends and family, I find the JPEGs the camera produces (I’m shooting in RAW + JPEG) so beautiful. The camera’s computer corrects for the lens distortion and provides the perfect balance of contrast and saturation. The JPEG engine can be further tweaked to increase the amount of contrast, saturation or dynamic range optimization (shadow boost) used in writing those files. Add in the ability to rapidly compensate exposure or activate various creative modes and you’ve got this feeling you’re shooting film again. Instant, ultra-sensitive and customizable film.

 

Pro Tip: Focusing

 

Almost all cameras come shipped with what I consider to be the worst of the worst focus configurations. Even the Nikon D800 came to my hands set to focus when the shutter button was halfway depressed. This mode will ruin almost any photograph. Why? Because it requires you to perform legerdemain to place the autofocus point, depress the shutter halfway, recompose and press the shutter fully. In addition to the chance of accidentally refocusing after composing or missing the shot—this method absolutely ensures that one must focus before every single photograph. Absolutely impossible for action or portraiture.

 

Sensibly, most professional or prosumer cameras come with an AF-ON button near where the shooter’s right thumb rests. This separates the task of focusing and exposing, allowing the photographer to quickly focus and to capture the image even if focus is slightly off at the focus point. For portraits, kids, action, etc the camera has to have a hair-trigger. It has to be responsive. Manufacturer’s: stop shipping your cameras with this ham-fisted autofocus arrangement.

 

Now, the RX1 does not have an AF-ON button, but it does have an AEL button whose function can be changed to “MF/AF Control Hold” in the menu. Further, other buttons on the rear of the camera can also be programmed to toggle between AF and MF modes. What this all means is that you can work around the RX1’s buttons to make it’s focus work like a DSLR’s. (For those of you who are RX1 shooters, set the front switch to MF, the right control wheel button to MF/AF Toggle and the AEL button to MF/AF Control Hold and voila!) The end result is that, when powered on the camera is in manual focus mode, but the autofocus can be activated by pressing AEL, no matter what, however, the shutter is tripped by the shutter release. Want to switch to AF mode? Just push a button and you’re back to the standard modality.

 

Carrying.

 

I keep mine in a small, neoprene pouch with a semi-hard LCD cover and a circular polarizing filter on the front—perfect for buttoning up and throwing into a bag on my way out of the house. I have a soft release screwed into the threaded shutter release and a custom, red twill strap to replace the horrible plastic strap Sony provided. I plan to gaffer tape the top and the orange ring around the lens. Who knows, I may find an old Voigtlander optical viewfinder in future as well.

One of our spa quality herbal products!

 

These cost a fortune in spas, but they are so simple at home. And the results are visible immediately!

 

Just pop the muslin bag into a large pot of boiling water. Move the pot off the stove and onto another surface where you can easily put your face over it, and drape a towel over your head to catch the steam. When the pot begins to cool and there is less steam, return the pot to boiling and repeat. I don't recommend doing this for more than 20 minutes all tolled, and the steam should never burn you. However, a slight tingling sensation of circulation can be felt that will fade as your skin normalizes. For best results, facial steams are recommended once a week, and the effect is cumulative.

 

And the bonuses don't stop after the steam! The herbs I use are beneficial for all skin types, and especially the eyes. Use the spent bags as a treatment for baggy, puffy eyes or for any other problem areas.

 

All ingredients organic where possible. I designed this product to work with any other regime. I made this originally for myself, as I couldn't find it on the market made with quality ingredients as well as reasonably priced. You'll see these in boutiques and spas for four times the amount! Environmentally friendly with all natural, biodegradable ingredients.

 

Price is for three packets. $2 off shipping with the purchase of two items. Three or more and shipping is free! To save on packaging and shipping, as well as the burden on the Earth, I do not ship these in singles. Three bags for $7 or one bag can be sent with the purchase of another product for $3.

 

Herbs can vary according to availability.

A batch of Gifts of Nature Facial Steams may contain:

 

Fennel: Wrinkle remover. Fragrance herb.

White Willow: Moisturizing. Healing wash for eruptions and sores.

Nettle. Astringent, tonic, improves skin. Very high in vitamins and minerals.

Lavender flowers: Soothing. Stimulates circulation. Toning. Anti-microbial and topical antiseptic. Healing for cuts, burns. Fragrance.

Rose petals: Wrinkle removing, moisturizing. Fragrance. Sacred in Western Europe.

Linden: Softening, healing. Wrinkle removing, antiseptic, mildly bleaching. Fragrance.

St. John's Wort: Anti-microbial. Healing for skin ulcerations and severe conditions.

Red Clover: Skin conditions of all types. Purifier. Blood cleanser.

Yarrow: Astringent and healing, especially for cuts and gashes.

Elderflowers: Tonic. Clears and softens skin, smoothes wrinkles and bleaches freckles.

Calendula: Treats inflammation, wounds, irritations, and sores.

Chaparral: Treats severe skin conditions, including serious infections.

Sony RX1 User Report.

 

I hesitate to write about gear. Tools are tools and the bitter truth is that a great craftsman rises above his tools to create a masterpiece whereas most of us try to improve our abominations by buying better or faster hammers to hit the same nails at the same awkward angles.

 

The internet is fairly flooded with reviews of this tiny marvel, and it isn’t my intention to compete with those articles. If you’re looking for a full-scale review of every feature or a down-to-Earth accounting of the RX1’s strengths and weaknesses, I recommend starting here.

 

Instead, I’d like to provide you with a flavor of how I’ve used the camera over the last six months. In short, this is a user report. To save yourself a few thousand words: I love the thing. As we go through this article, you’ll see this is a purpose built camera. The RX1 is not for everyone, but we will get to that and on the way, I’ll share a handful of images that I made with the camera.

 

It should be obvious to anyone reading this that I write this independently and have absolutely no relationship with Sony (other than having exchanged a large pile of cash for this camera at a retail outlet).

 

Before we get to anything else, I want to clear the air about two things: Price and Features

 

The Price

 

First things first: the price. The $2800+ cost of this camera is the elephant in the room and, given I purchased the thing, you may consider me a poor critic. That in mind, I want to offer you three thoughts:

 

Consumer goods cost what they cost, in the absence of a competitor (the Fuji X100s being the only one worth mention) there is no comparison and you simply have to decide for yourself if you are willing to pay or not.

Normalize the price per sensor area for all 35mm f/2 lens and camera alternatives and you’ll find the RX1 is an amazing value.

You are paying for the ability to take photographs, plain and simple. Ask yourself, “what are these photographs worth to me?”

 

In my case, #3 is very important. I have used the RX1 to take hundreds of photographs of my family that are immensely important to me. Moreover, I have made photographs (many appearing on this page) that are moving or beautiful and only happened because I had the RX1 in my bag or my pocket. Yes, of course I could have made these or very similar photographs with another camera, but that is immaterial.

 

35mm by 24mm by 35mm f/2

 

The killer feature of this camera is simple: it is a wafer of silicon 35mm by 24mm paired to a brilliantly, ridiculously, undeniably sharp, contrasty and bokehlicious 35mm f/2 Carl Zeiss lens. Image quality is king here and all other things take a back seat. This means the following: image quality is as good or better than your DSLR, but battery life, focus speed, and responsiveness are likely not as good as your DSLR. I say likely because, if you have an entry-level DSLR, the RX1 is comparable on these dimensions. If you want to change lenses, if you want an integrated viewfinder, if you want blindingly fast phase-detect autofocus then shoot with a DSLR. If you want the absolute best image quality in the smallest size possible, you’ve got it in the RX1.

 

While we are on the subject of interchangeable lenses and viewfinders...

 

I have an interchangeable lens DSLR and I love the thing. It’s basically a medium format camera in a 35mm camera body. It’s a powerhouse and it is the first camera I reach for when the goal is photography. For a long time, however, I’ve found myself in situations where photography was not the first goal, but where I nevertheless wanted to have a camera. I’m around the table with friends or at the park with my son and the DSLR is too big, too bulky, too intimidating. It comes between you and life. In this realm, mirrorless, interchangeable lens cameras seem to be king, but they have a major flaw: they are, for all intents and purposes, just little DSLRs.

 

As I mentioned above, I have an interchangeable lens system, why would I want another, smaller one? Clearly, I am not alone in feeling this way, as the market has produced a number of what I would call “professional point and shoots.” Here we are talking about the Fuji X100/X100s, Sigma DPm-series and the RX100 and RX1.

 

Design is about making choices

 

When the Fuji X100 came out, I was intrigued. Here was a cheap(er), baby Leica M. Quiet, small, unobtrusive. Had I waited to buy until the X100s had come out, perhaps this would be a different report. Perhaps, but probably not. I remember thinking to myself as I was looking at the X100, “I wish there was a digital Rollei 35, something with a fixed 28mm or 35mm lens that would fit in a coat pocket or a small bag.” Now of course, there is.

 

So, for those of you who said, “I would buy the RX1 if it had interchangeable lenses or an integrated viewfinder or faster autofocus,” I say the following: This is a purpose built camera. You would not want it as an interchangeable system, it can’t compete with DSLR speed. A viewfinder would make the thing bigger and ruin the magic ratio of body to sensor size—further, there is a 3-inch LCD viewfinder on the back! Autofocus is super fast, you just don’t realize it because the bar has been raised impossibly high by ultra-sonic magnet focusing rings on professional DSLR lenses. There’s a fantastic balance at work here between image quality and size—great tools are about the total experience, not about one or the other specification.

 

In short, design is about making choices. I think Sony has made some good ones with the RX1.

 

In use

 

So I’ve just written 1,000 words of a user report without, you know, reporting on use. In many ways the images on the page are my user report. These photographs, more than my words, should give you a flavor of what the RX1 is about. But, for the sake of variety, I intend to tell you a bit about the how and the why of shooting with the RX1.

 

Snapshots

 

As a beginning enthusiast, I often sneered at the idea of a snapshot. As I’ve matured, I’ve come to appreciate what a pocket camera and a snapshot can offer. The RX1 is the ultimate photographer’s snapshot camera.

 

I’ll pause here to properly define snapshot as a photograph taken quickly with a handheld camera.

 

To quote Ferris Bueller’s Day Off, “Life moves pretty fast. If you don't stop and look around once in a while, you could miss it.” So it is with photography. Beautiful photographs happen at the decisive moment—and to paraphrase Henri Cartier-Bresson further—the world is newly made and falling to pieces every instant. I think it is no coincidence that each revolution in the steady march of photography from the tortuously slow chemistry of tin-type and daguerreotype through 120 and 35mm formats to the hyper-sensitive CMOS of today has engendered new categories and concepts of photography.

 

Photography is a reflexive, reactionary activity. I see beautiful light or the unusual in an every day event and my reaction is a desire to make a photograph. It’s a bit like breathing and has been since I was a kid.

 

Rather than sneer at snapshots, nowadays I seek them out; and when I seek them out, I do so with the Sony RX1 in my hand.

 

How I shoot with the RX1

 

Despite much bluster from commenters on other reviews as to the price point and the purpose-built nature of this camera (see above), the RX1 is incredibly flexible. Have a peek at some of the linked reviews and you’ll see handheld portraits, long exposures, images taken with off-camera flash, etc.

 

Yet, I mentioned earlier that I reach for the D800 when photography is the primary goal and so the RX1 has become for me a handheld camera—something I use almost exclusively at f/2 (people, objects, shallow DoF) or f/8 (landscapes in abundant light, abstracts). The Auto-ISO setting allows the camera to choose in the range from ISO 50 and 6400 to reach a proper exposure at a given aperture with a 1/80 s shutter speed. I have found this shutter speed ensures a sharp image every time (although photographers with more jittery grips may wish there was the ability to select a different default shutter speed). This strategy works because the RX1 has a delightfully clicky exposure compensation dial just under your right thumb—allowing for fine adjustment to the camera’s metering decision.

 

So then, if you find me out with the RX1, you’re likely to see me on aperture priority, f/2 and auto ISO. Indeed, many of the photographs on this page were taken in that mode (including lots of the landscape shots!).

 

Working within constraints.

 

The RX1 is a wonderful camera to have when you have to work within constraints. When I say this, I mean it is great for photography within two different classes of constraints: 1) physical constraints of time and space and 2) intellectual/artistic constraints.

 

To speak to the first, as I said earlier, many of the photographs on this page were made possible by having a camera with me at a time that I otherwise would not have been lugging around a camera. For example, some of the images from the Grand Canyon you see were made in a pinch on my way to a Christmas dinner with my family. I didn’t have the larger camera with me and I just had a minute to make the image. Truth be told, these images could have been made with my cell phone, but that I could wring such great image quality out of something not much larger than my cell phone is just gravy. Be it jacket pocket, small bag, bike bag, saddle bag, even fannie pack—you have space for this camera anywhere you go.

 

Earlier I alluded to the obtrusiveness of a large camera. If you want to travel lightly and make photographs without announcing your presence, it’s easier to use a smaller camera. Here the RX1 excels. Moreover, the camera’s leaf shutter is virtually silent, so you can snap away without announcing your intention. In every sense, this camera is meant to work within physical constraints.

 

I cut my photographic teeth on film and I will always have an affection for it. There is a sense that one is playing within the rules when he uses film. That same feeling is here in the RX1. I never thought I’d say this about a camera, but I often like the JPEG images this thing produces more than I like what I can push with a RAW. Don’t get me wrong, for a landscape or a cityscape, the RAW processed carefully is FAR, FAR better than a JPEG.

 

But when I am taking snapshots or photos of friends and family, I find the JPEGs the camera produces (I’m shooting in RAW + JPEG) so beautiful. The camera’s computer corrects for the lens distortion and provides the perfect balance of contrast and saturation. The JPEG engine can be further tweaked to increase the amount of contrast, saturation or dynamic range optimization (shadow boost) used in writing those files. Add in the ability to rapidly compensate exposure or activate various creative modes and you’ve got this feeling you’re shooting film again. Instant, ultra-sensitive and customizable film.

 

Pro Tip: Focusing

 

Almost all cameras come shipped with what I consider to be the worst of the worst focus configurations. Even the Nikon D800 came to my hands set to focus when the shutter button was halfway depressed. This mode will ruin almost any photograph. Why? Because it requires you to perform legerdemain to place the autofocus point, depress the shutter halfway, recompose and press the shutter fully. In addition to the chance of accidentally refocusing after composing or missing the shot—this method absolutely ensures that one must focus before every single photograph. Absolutely impossible for action or portraiture.

 

Sensibly, most professional or prosumer cameras come with an AF-ON button near where the shooter’s right thumb rests. This separates the task of focusing and exposing, allowing the photographer to quickly focus and to capture the image even if focus is slightly off at the focus point. For portraits, kids, action, etc the camera has to have a hair-trigger. It has to be responsive. Manufacturer’s: stop shipping your cameras with this ham-fisted autofocus arrangement.

 

Now, the RX1 does not have an AF-ON button, but it does have an AEL button whose function can be changed to “MF/AF Control Hold” in the menu. Further, other buttons on the rear of the camera can also be programmed to toggle between AF and MF modes. What this all means is that you can work around the RX1’s buttons to make it’s focus work like a DSLR’s. (For those of you who are RX1 shooters, set the front switch to MF, the right control wheel button to MF/AF Toggle and the AEL button to MF/AF Control Hold and voila!) The end result is that, when powered on the camera is in manual focus mode, but the autofocus can be activated by pressing AEL, no matter what, however, the shutter is tripped by the shutter release. Want to switch to AF mode? Just push a button and you’re back to the standard modality.

 

Carrying.

 

I keep mine in a small, neoprene pouch with a semi-hard LCD cover and a circular polarizing filter on the front—perfect for buttoning up and throwing into a bag on my way out of the house. I have a soft release screwed into the threaded shutter release and a custom, red twill strap to replace the horrible plastic strap Sony provided. I plan to gaffer tape the top and the orange ring around the lens. Who knows, I may find an old Voigtlander optical viewfinder in future as well.

Sony RX1 User Report.

 

I hesitate to write about gear. Tools are tools and the bitter truth is that a great craftsman rises above his tools to create a masterpiece whereas most of us try to improve our abominations by buying better or faster hammers to hit the same nails at the same awkward angles.

 

The internet is fairly flooded with reviews of this tiny marvel, and it isn’t my intention to compete with those articles. If you’re looking for a full-scale review of every feature or a down-to-Earth accounting of the RX1’s strengths and weaknesses, I recommend starting here.

 

Instead, I’d like to provide you with a flavor of how I’ve used the camera over the last six months. In short, this is a user report. To save yourself a few thousand words: I love the thing. As we go through this article, you’ll see this is a purpose built camera. The RX1 is not for everyone, but we will get to that and on the way, I’ll share a handful of images that I made with the camera.

 

It should be obvious to anyone reading this that I write this independently and have absolutely no relationship with Sony (other than having exchanged a large pile of cash for this camera at a retail outlet).

 

Before we get to anything else, I want to clear the air about two things: Price and Features

 

The Price

 

First things first: the price. The $2800+ cost of this camera is the elephant in the room and, given I purchased the thing, you may consider me a poor critic. That in mind, I want to offer you three thoughts:

 

Consumer goods cost what they cost, in the absence of a competitor (the Fuji X100s being the only one worth mention) there is no comparison and you simply have to decide for yourself if you are willing to pay or not.

Normalize the price per sensor area for all 35mm f/2 lens and camera alternatives and you’ll find the RX1 is an amazing value.

You are paying for the ability to take photographs, plain and simple. Ask yourself, “what are these photographs worth to me?”

 

In my case, #3 is very important. I have used the RX1 to take hundreds of photographs of my family that are immensely important to me. Moreover, I have made photographs (many appearing on this page) that are moving or beautiful and only happened because I had the RX1 in my bag or my pocket. Yes, of course I could have made these or very similar photographs with another camera, but that is immaterial.

 

35mm by 24mm by 35mm f/2

 

The killer feature of this camera is simple: it is a wafer of silicon 35mm by 24mm paired to a brilliantly, ridiculously, undeniably sharp, contrasty and bokehlicious 35mm f/2 Carl Zeiss lens. Image quality is king here and all other things take a back seat. This means the following: image quality is as good or better than your DSLR, but battery life, focus speed, and responsiveness are likely not as good as your DSLR. I say likely because, if you have an entry-level DSLR, the RX1 is comparable on these dimensions. If you want to change lenses, if you want an integrated viewfinder, if you want blindingly fast phase-detect autofocus then shoot with a DSLR. If you want the absolute best image quality in the smallest size possible, you’ve got it in the RX1.

 

While we are on the subject of interchangeable lenses and viewfinders...

 

I have an interchangeable lens DSLR and I love the thing. It’s basically a medium format camera in a 35mm camera body. It’s a powerhouse and it is the first camera I reach for when the goal is photography. For a long time, however, I’ve found myself in situations where photography was not the first goal, but where I nevertheless wanted to have a camera. I’m around the table with friends or at the park with my son and the DSLR is too big, too bulky, too intimidating. It comes between you and life. In this realm, mirrorless, interchangeable lens cameras seem to be king, but they have a major flaw: they are, for all intents and purposes, just little DSLRs.

 

As I mentioned above, I have an interchangeable lens system, why would I want another, smaller one? Clearly, I am not alone in feeling this way, as the market has produced a number of what I would call “professional point and shoots.” Here we are talking about the Fuji X100/X100s, Sigma DPm-series and the RX100 and RX1.

 

Design is about making choices

 

When the Fuji X100 came out, I was intrigued. Here was a cheap(er), baby Leica M. Quiet, small, unobtrusive. Had I waited to buy until the X100s had come out, perhaps this would be a different report. Perhaps, but probably not. I remember thinking to myself as I was looking at the X100, “I wish there was a digital Rollei 35, something with a fixed 28mm or 35mm lens that would fit in a coat pocket or a small bag.” Now of course, there is.

 

So, for those of you who said, “I would buy the RX1 if it had interchangeable lenses or an integrated viewfinder or faster autofocus,” I say the following: This is a purpose built camera. You would not want it as an interchangeable system, it can’t compete with DSLR speed. A viewfinder would make the thing bigger and ruin the magic ratio of body to sensor size—further, there is a 3-inch LCD viewfinder on the back! Autofocus is super fast, you just don’t realize it because the bar has been raised impossibly high by ultra-sonic magnet focusing rings on professional DSLR lenses. There’s a fantastic balance at work here between image quality and size—great tools are about the total experience, not about one or the other specification.

 

In short, design is about making choices. I think Sony has made some good ones with the RX1.

 

In use

 

So I’ve just written 1,000 words of a user report without, you know, reporting on use. In many ways the images on the page are my user report. These photographs, more than my words, should give you a flavor of what the RX1 is about. But, for the sake of variety, I intend to tell you a bit about the how and the why of shooting with the RX1.

 

Snapshots

 

As a beginning enthusiast, I often sneered at the idea of a snapshot. As I’ve matured, I’ve come to appreciate what a pocket camera and a snapshot can offer. The RX1 is the ultimate photographer’s snapshot camera.

 

I’ll pause here to properly define snapshot as a photograph taken quickly with a handheld camera.

 

To quote Ferris Bueller’s Day Off, “Life moves pretty fast. If you don't stop and look around once in a while, you could miss it.” So it is with photography. Beautiful photographs happen at the decisive moment—and to paraphrase Henri Cartier-Bresson further—the world is newly made and falling to pieces every instant. I think it is no coincidence that each revolution in the steady march of photography from the tortuously slow chemistry of tin-type and daguerreotype through 120 and 35mm formats to the hyper-sensitive CMOS of today has engendered new categories and concepts of photography.

 

Photography is a reflexive, reactionary activity. I see beautiful light or the unusual in an every day event and my reaction is a desire to make a photograph. It’s a bit like breathing and has been since I was a kid.

 

Rather than sneer at snapshots, nowadays I seek them out; and when I seek them out, I do so with the Sony RX1 in my hand.

 

How I shoot with the RX1

 

Despite much bluster from commenters on other reviews as to the price point and the purpose-built nature of this camera (see above), the RX1 is incredibly flexible. Have a peek at some of the linked reviews and you’ll see handheld portraits, long exposures, images taken with off-camera flash, etc.

 

Yet, I mentioned earlier that I reach for the D800 when photography is the primary goal and so the RX1 has become for me a handheld camera—something I use almost exclusively at f/2 (people, objects, shallow DoF) or f/8 (landscapes in abundant light, abstracts). The Auto-ISO setting allows the camera to choose in the range from ISO 50 and 6400 to reach a proper exposure at a given aperture with a 1/80 s shutter speed. I have found this shutter speed ensures a sharp image every time (although photographers with more jittery grips may wish there was the ability to select a different default shutter speed). This strategy works because the RX1 has a delightfully clicky exposure compensation dial just under your right thumb—allowing for fine adjustment to the camera’s metering decision.

 

So then, if you find me out with the RX1, you’re likely to see me on aperture priority, f/2 and auto ISO. Indeed, many of the photographs on this page were taken in that mode (including lots of the landscape shots!).

 

Working within constraints.

 

The RX1 is a wonderful camera to have when you have to work within constraints. When I say this, I mean it is great for photography within two different classes of constraints: 1) physical constraints of time and space and 2) intellectual/artistic constraints.

 

To speak to the first, as I said earlier, many of the photographs on this page were made possible by having a camera with me at a time that I otherwise would not have been lugging around a camera. For example, some of the images from the Grand Canyon you see were made in a pinch on my way to a Christmas dinner with my family. I didn’t have the larger camera with me and I just had a minute to make the image. Truth be told, these images could have been made with my cell phone, but that I could wring such great image quality out of something not much larger than my cell phone is just gravy. Be it jacket pocket, small bag, bike bag, saddle bag, even fannie pack—you have space for this camera anywhere you go.

 

Earlier I alluded to the obtrusiveness of a large camera. If you want to travel lightly and make photographs without announcing your presence, it’s easier to use a smaller camera. Here the RX1 excels. Moreover, the camera’s leaf shutter is virtually silent, so you can snap away without announcing your intention. In every sense, this camera is meant to work within physical constraints.

 

I cut my photographic teeth on film and I will always have an affection for it. There is a sense that one is playing within the rules when he uses film. That same feeling is here in the RX1. I never thought I’d say this about a camera, but I often like the JPEG images this thing produces more than I like what I can push with a RAW. Don’t get me wrong, for a landscape or a cityscape, the RAW processed carefully is FAR, FAR better than a JPEG.

 

But when I am taking snapshots or photos of friends and family, I find the JPEGs the camera produces (I’m shooting in RAW + JPEG) so beautiful. The camera’s computer corrects for the lens distortion and provides the perfect balance of contrast and saturation. The JPEG engine can be further tweaked to increase the amount of contrast, saturation or dynamic range optimization (shadow boost) used in writing those files. Add in the ability to rapidly compensate exposure or activate various creative modes and you’ve got this feeling you’re shooting film again. Instant, ultra-sensitive and customizable film.

 

Pro Tip: Focusing

 

Almost all cameras come shipped with what I consider to be the worst of the worst focus configurations. Even the Nikon D800 came to my hands set to focus when the shutter button was halfway depressed. This mode will ruin almost any photograph. Why? Because it requires you to perform legerdemain to place the autofocus point, depress the shutter halfway, recompose and press the shutter fully. In addition to the chance of accidentally refocusing after composing or missing the shot—this method absolutely ensures that one must focus before every single photograph. Absolutely impossible for action or portraiture.

 

Sensibly, most professional or prosumer cameras come with an AF-ON button near where the shooter’s right thumb rests. This separates the task of focusing and exposing, allowing the photographer to quickly focus and to capture the image even if focus is slightly off at the focus point. For portraits, kids, action, etc the camera has to have a hair-trigger. It has to be responsive. Manufacturer’s: stop shipping your cameras with this ham-fisted autofocus arrangement.

 

Now, the RX1 does not have an AF-ON button, but it does have an AEL button whose function can be changed to “MF/AF Control Hold” in the menu. Further, other buttons on the rear of the camera can also be programmed to toggle between AF and MF modes. What this all means is that you can work around the RX1’s buttons to make it’s focus work like a DSLR’s. (For those of you who are RX1 shooters, set the front switch to MF, the right control wheel button to MF/AF Toggle and the AEL button to MF/AF Control Hold and voila!) The end result is that, when powered on the camera is in manual focus mode, but the autofocus can be activated by pressing AEL, no matter what, however, the shutter is tripped by the shutter release. Want to switch to AF mode? Just push a button and you’re back to the standard modality.

 

Carrying.

 

I keep mine in a small, neoprene pouch with a semi-hard LCD cover and a circular polarizing filter on the front—perfect for buttoning up and throwing into a bag on my way out of the house. I have a soft release screwed into the threaded shutter release and a custom, red twill strap to replace the horrible plastic strap Sony provided. I plan to gaffer tape the top and the orange ring around the lens. Who knows, I may find an old Voigtlander optical viewfinder in future as well.

The Asahiflex IA was established in 1953 as successor of the Asahiflex I, Japan's first SLR. It had a mirror coupled to the shutter button.

When the shutter button is pressed the mirror goes up, when released the mirror moves down again. This quick-but-not-yet-instant return mirror was a nice feature for the early 1950s, when most SLRs had to be wound on to get the mirror down again.

Tha Asahiflex´s waist level finder is non-interchangeable. To solve the inconvenience of a mirror-inversed image on the ground glass and to make eye-level use possible, a small optical viewfinder was on top of the camera.

The angle of view for this finder was the same as for the 50mm standard lens. The standard lens for this camera was a Takumar 50/3.5 objective with click-stop aperture (see below). Lenses can only be used with pre-set aperture.

 

Compared to the Asahiflex I the IA had a number of modifications: the shutter speed numbers have been "normalized" to a series of B, 1/25, 1/50, 1/100, 1/200 and 1/500.

A second flash connector (X sync) was added above the first one.

Production number of the IA: about 11,500 made.

My fashion articles for ‘Transliving International’ have garnered praise for reclaiming such edgy fabrics as Latex and PVC, rescuing them from the exclusive world of fetish attire, and bringing them into the fashion mainstream. This is a theme I want to explore much further in the coming months. I am planning a photo-shoot (or even a series of shoots) entitled “Fur-Rubber-Tweed”. It will bring these fascinatingly tactile fabrics into close contact with each other – and with everything modelled in everyday, public situations.

 

The image you see here is AI generated, though based on a real image of me that you can see here on Flickr. I love the way this pic normalizes latex in the most everyday context: a filing station. Look out for more images like this in the coming months: images created in public and in-camera, without any AI jiggery-pokery!!

 

Love and Kisses to All!

Xxxxxx

Rebecca