An exploration of the familiar [437]

Greetings from my shed...

Nov 10, 2023

A photo taken on a train. All the people in the carriage and outside on the platform are photographing something out of shot. As you were curious enough to read this I will tell you that they were capturing footage and photos of a building on fire.

Hello my inquisitive friends.

#TheAction

Since I last wrote I dodged a bunch of cancelled trains plus the remnants of flooding and ventured up to Durham. Arriving in the dark, I shared a small keg of beer with an old friend I’d not seen for 10 years. Then the following morning, I headed to The Bright Ideas Gathering.

I’d failed to grab a ticket the night before (nothing to do with the beer (I don’t think)) But event organisers Herb Kim and Emma Turnbull were more than accommodating and I got to enjoy the curation of Stefano Pecci.

A montage of I took of some of the speakers who appeared at the Bright Ideas Gathering. A full list can be found at https://www.brightideas.info/speakers-2023/

Although around since 2021, for me, this event has flown below the radar and I’m glad to have finally got to experience it. The moment I walked in I was met with hello’s and hugs from old friends and knew this was going to be another gathering with soul.

Sat at the front, I absorbed the bright ideas and took a few snaps along the way. Check out this link to find out more about the speakers. Durham County Council partnered with this event and the Gala was a great venue. I hope to return to the city and see what other inspiring artistic endeavours it has in the calendar. Sadly I’ll not make the Lumiere Festival between the 16-19 this year, but that’s certainly one for the wish list.

#ThePictures

This two day AI generated film competition has quite a few weird and wonderful entries for you to get stuck into. Some of them are a bit uncanny valley, some dark, others funny. All of them are just the beginning of a whole new genre of film making that I think will move a lot faster than we think. Thanks to Uchujin for the heads up.

Here is a random offering from the huge selection made of films with RunwayML.

#TheWords

Mmmm a long read with gadgets and cool schematics.

I’ve been thinking about sentences that get to the essence of things. Like the opening line of Leo Tolstoy's novel Anna Karenina: "All happy families are alike; each unhappy family is unhappy in its own way."

A favourite bit of an old 1997 journal I was writing up this week had this passage…

“It suddenly hit me earlier that I'm in India. It's amazing. I feel alive, and although everything in this part of town appears dirty and broken, it certainly has character. Speaking of which, the doctor guy had to rush to catch a train and gave me a chunk of opium. Nice guy. Nice place. When a doctor gives you opium, you must take it with gratitude and savour the moment. It may never happen again.”

#TheSound

Tales from the women-only hotel on Lexington Avenue - The Barbizon Hotel

Digital Human’s Permanence is one of those podcasts that really resonate with me. If you listen you’ll know why.

Gaza - Does history matter?

#TheConsumed

Snake pizza. Courtesy of PizaHut

Here are the faces of three friends happy to have come across a stash of free beer. And despite it being low alcohol we are still happy.

A photo of three white middle aged men with beards holding identical canes of fake beer called Impossibrew. Everyone is smiling. — Ross Dargan, Ian Smith and me.

Thanks to Mark Wong of Impossibrew we got to sample his creation. We were all genuinely impressed with how indistinguishable from full alcohol beer it tasted, and although we can’t all be sure we experienced our happiness because of the included nootropics, our moods were certainly enhanced in some way. Surprise… being together… having free stuff? Who knows?

After rescuing the Halloween pumpkin from the front door I chopped it in half, scooped out the seeds, filled it with chopped onion, mushrooms (other veg) passata, herbs and spices and then baked it. Oh I also melted cheese over the top. I think it was a sweet meat variety as it was truly delicious. I have a rushed and terrible photo of it somewhere so I’ll leave it to your imagination. We were all farting for days after, but it was worth it. I also slow baked the seeds with some spicy seasoning and am munching my way through them.

#TheThings

QuadLock still has 30% off everything. I have finally bagged the right mount for my motorbike. The waterproof (not weatherproof) one. There is a difference. This does not require USB and attaches straight to the battery. Bring on a wet winter.

Me holding the box containing the waterproof wireless charger. There are lots of fallen leaves on the ground that I really should clean up.

This will sit on the essential vibration dampener.

Photographers are constantly tempted by new gear. For me it’s the promise of improved image quality or better ergonomics and sharing features. I was very tempted by the Nikon Zf this week. It reminds me (as it’s designed to) of the FM2’s that I still have and enjoy.

The Nikon FM2 camera in a side by side comparison with the Nikon Zf

Amazing low light capabilities and an existing suite of lenses enticed me all the more. But thankfully it’s bigger that the FM2 and therefore not as portable as my X-Pro3. Currently the only cameras that still tempt me are the Fujifilm X100 Monochrome which doesn’t exist (yet?) and the Leica Q3 which is three times the price of the X-pro3 but in my opinion not three times the camera.

So at the moment I’m able to fend off temptation. As Jay Maisel said… "Gear is good, but vision is better."And Dorothea Lange"The camera is an instrument that teaches people how to see without a camera."

I will also add that my most used camera is the iPhone13 Pro and the X-Pro3 probably saved me £1200 as I was in no rush to get the iPhone 14 Pro. In fact I’d planned to finally get the 15 ProMax but outside of video capabilities I still think the X-Pro3 is a better camera when I want super high quality. So maybe it’s already paid for itself.

#TheThanks

A big thank you to those that pay a small amount a month to support my writing and curation here. If you are keen to support this email moving forward but can’t quite afford it, let me know, I’m flexible. [Insert photo of me doing the box splits].

It might be that you’ve just forgotten that supporting this dispatch is as easy as hitting the red button below. So here it is :-)

#TheWeb

This video will save me a few links. It also covers the hyped AI Pin and the amazing new sensor from Sony.
Hello new person from Twyning on the Documentally community map. I wonder who you are.
A tool that aims to keep terrorism off the internet.
How the Dutch used windmills for passive communication.
Some of my other places include Letterboxd, GoodReads, FarceBook, Flickr, Strava, Untappd, Diaspora, Vivino, LinkedIn, YouTube, Mastodon, a ham radio newsletter or search ‘Documentally’ on Wire, Birdsite or Bluesky.
Self checkouts dropped by Booths. The robots loose this round.
A fascinating rethink of wind turbine design.

#TheEnd

Thank you for reading. And clicking links. And commenting (if you did). It’s nice to know you are on the other side of the screen.

Next week is next week and i’m currently enjoying the now. Enjoy your now and let’s chat soon.

“Truth reveals itself to the inquisitive and runs away from the bigots and cynics”
~ Abhijit Naskar

Seek.

See you out there.

Over…

A cartoon explaining why one or two or three or even 15 bikes is not enough.

Two people are sat on a bus one is unhappy and uncomfortable and the other is happy and smiley. The unhappy one has the caption 'Showered and then pooped' The happy one has the caption 'Pooped then showered'.

A ❤️ is a high-five, a comment is a hug. A supporting subscription earns my undying love.

Taegan MacLean

The Runway films have this odd almost antiquated feel of a burgeoning medium. The content makers are using very new tools, and so the results remind me of films from the past more than the future, which I wasn’t expecting

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