(no subject)

[olivermoss]

* 10 days to more Stranger Things. At a point I was worried that I'd get distracted and lose track of time mid-month. But I see multiple reminders daily. I am not off-schedule... but I was too whomped by Pride to work over the weekend and today I have a headache. I'll get some writing done tonight, but not much.

* I found my glorified iPod! I have an old iPhone without a sim card that I use for my walks. It has music, time, etc, but no signal. Apple still puts all my aps and logins on it whether or not I want it to. That being missing while I was having login problems was stressing me out even though A) I knew it was somewhere in my office. I'd used it since the last time it was out with me and B) It was clearly a problem on Discord's end. Being stressed was illogical, and yet....

When I am out photowalking I am AFK. No social medias, no nothing. I am offline. Still, losing my glorified iPod would be similar to losing my phone. Also, I need it because my actual iPhone is weird and fussy about taking screen caps. So, it's dumb and old but also a device I need to do things.

* I'm going for a walk to see if it breaks up my headache.

Comments

[mistressofmuses]

I hope the headache improves and that writing happened but wasn't a struggle.

And glad you found your "iPod". I wonder if any of my old phones would function decently for a similar purpose?

[olivermoss]

I find having a second phone device really useful. They can do a lot of things and I like to photowalk like it's 1999.

[mistressofmuses]

I very deeply love my little iPod classic, as clunky as a non-touchscreen interface feels these days! Unfortunately, its battery is pretty bad these days, and I'm sure it's only a matter of time before between it and my ancient laptop, something refuses to play nice.

I've got a couple old phones that might be worth playing around with to see if they'd work as just music storage, though some refuse to work without a SIM card, and I haven't found out how these ones will behave.

[olivermoss]

That's annoying that some wont play nice without a sim card. Phones are pretty advanced little computers with lots of good tech. They should behave and be useful!

That said my old iPhone only behaves because Apple got into trouble for depreciating old tech. At a point the camera was deliberately messing up on me, but now it behaves.

[mistressofmuses]

Right? I hate that mostly newer phones won't do much of anything once the SIM card is out. It used to be that pretty much any cell phone would still function on wifi, even without a current phone plan, and it sucks that the functionality has been mostly taken away.

I have a super shitty blackberry that still works on wifi, and I kept the thing SOLELY for that reason, lol.

I do remember the class action stuff against Apple and how they were deliberately screwing up phone batteries and cameras and things when a new phone was coming out. Shady shit.

[olivermoss]

If you own a device you should be able to use it. It's so frustrating that it's not the case. It's also annoying that not everyone agrees that people should be able to get full use out of items they own.

[mistressofmuses]

EXACTLY. I have very strong feelings about ownership (including digital ownership) and right-to-repair and things like that. Purchasing something should grant you the right to use it for as long as you have that object. You should be allowed to fix it and replace hardware if needed. Much like if you purchase a digital file, you should retain access to that file, not risk a company somewhere wiping your data. I definitely dislike that that isn't a universal opinion, haha.

[olivermoss]

Yup, agreed. Early in the pandemic I joined a weekly discussion group started by a pro photog who uses the same gear I do. He threw *such* shade at people who wont upgrade to the subscription version of Lightroom and use an old, fully owned copy. Our 'childishness' was meaning we were left out of how photography was evolving.

I also hate the idea that corporations 'need' to make things obsolete because growth or something. The idea that we need to create tons of e-waste and cost users tons of money just so some people can get their 'omg slightly better camera' fix yearly is disgusting.

[mistressofmuses]

Lmaooooo that is some garbage from that guy. Ah, corporate-style bootlicking. I LOATHE how many programs have gone to a subscription model rather than being something you can own and use forever. It's super shitty for almost any type of program, and really doesn't have ANY benefit to the user, unless there are CONSTANT upgrades to functionality (and even that seems like it would be frustrating as opposed to desirable.) It's 100% profit-motivated, and the idea that that's "the future of art" or the "evolution of photography" is pretty awful, lol.
(I'm not opposed to paying for an ongoing SERVICE - like DW, or someplace providing storage, etc. - but that's not what these programs are.)

And absolutely. Planned obsolescence is just fucking... morally atrocious in every way.

[olivermoss]

The hot thing in photography is using other people's presets, which you can only do via their cloud version. I do not use presets, much less anyone else's. I do the adjustments myself.

Part of the problem with subscription stuff is that they could change at any time. They could stop supporting certain filetypes or nuke a feature. When I got this computer I could no longer preview raw images for years because MS was going 'Olympus too small a company to make a deal with us, we are going to pretend we can't see their files!' There is now a plug in for it, but there was no way for years. I hate paying money to just allow companies to mess with me or depreciate my hardware,

[mistressofmuses]

...that kind of baffles me, lol. I'd think the idea of doing all your own adjustments would be considered the better way to do it! (I certainly understand why you'd prefer that, anyway, especially with how finicky some of your shooting conditions are.) Maybe a good set of presets makes sense if you're *definitely* shooting under the same conditions they were, but that still seems weird to me.

And yes. Subscription stuff means that you have NO guarantee that the thing you're paying for will remain available to you. Especially if your subscription lapses, you can lose necessary access to things for the work you've already done... but even if you stay current on the subscription, they could completely hose certain features that you relied on.
Ugh, that's pretty garbage - the whole "gosh, we just don't know what these files are anymore because they don't pay us to" thing. Ugh. Definitely up there in the "this is morally awful" category.

[olivermoss]

I get presets if you have a studio, but anything else? I don't get it. I mean, I make the same adjusts to pretty much each image, toning down how High Dynamic Range they are, but I do so very carefully. I guess you can make your local forest have the same tones as a pro photog shooting somewhere else? Doing that is so fundamentally opposite to everything about how I shoot.

Hardware and software need to be put in their place as tools for us to use instead of allowing these bloated monetization avenues.

[mistressofmuses]

Right? It makes sense if you're in a set environment and you don't want to mess with what you've found works the best. But otherwise, shooting situations are so variable! If you're anywhere outdoors, you've got constant variety in the amount of sun vs. shade vs. cloud cover, not even taking into account the angle of the sun or any other variable. If you're shooting indoors, you're dealing with whatever lighting they have... idk, that sounds like such a weird attitude to have! I'm not a photographer, but like... I don't understand why you WOULDN'T do your own adjustments based on what you're *actually* shooting? Weird.

100% co-signed. Hardware and software are ABSOLUTELY tools to be used, and turning them into monetization schemes is bullshit.