Thursday Thoughts 05
Earlier this week I bought a Yashica MF-2 fixed-frame film camera. I wanted something basic for shooting on film, because I already have a mirrorless DSLR and my cell phone. I haven't shot with film in 20+ years (at least - might be longer, I can't remember when I got my first digital camera), so it took me a few minutes to remember how to load the film and get up and running. This camera has its quirks - it's an original 80s model and the flash is finnicky. However my intention is to shoot in daylight, so the flash is not so important. At the same time I would prefer to have it in working order.
It fires, but not every time...I have a lead on another, newer Konica1 that has zoom + autofocus for the same price, and I have a 30-day return window for the Yashica. I want to see how my first roll turns out (I know I have some terrible test photos in there, but I'm trying to get some proper shots going forward - going on a short photo walk at lunch today) to see if it's worth keeping the Yashica or not. If I can get the Konica I might return the Yashica anyway.
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If you're into film scores and looking for a good time, check out the score for Mission: Impossible (1996). It's by Danny Elfman, and it's one of my favourites. Before I knew it was Elfman, I would never have guessed. But once you know, you can hear his signature touches and bits of the score appear in expanded versions in later films (I'm thinking specifically of Spider-Man (2002)).
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This week has felt very long. A couple of late nights led to that, all of my own doing. Last night my wife and I babysat my nephews; my brother and his wife went out to a comedy show and didn't get back until ~11:20pm. So we didn't get home until closer to 12am, and as during the softball season, it takes us a little while to wind down and finally sleep. Woke up at 6:30 this morning and snoozed for 10 minutes. Feel like I could go for a nap, if only we had a nap room at the office!
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Since I increased my step goal a couple of weeks ago, I've been paying more attention to my watch when it tells me to get up and move. I believe between 9a-5p it nudges me every hour if I haven't moved in a long time. This leads me to get up and walk around the building, often taking a longer route. Even when I don't go out for a walk at lunchtime I am more than half-way to 7000 steps when it's time to go home.
But I've also gotten back into the habit of walking my dog in the mornings. I've been getting to work before 8am and there's no reason I need to be that early. Walking the dog takes up some extra time and delays my arrival to the office until after 8am. But not too late, parking here is hard to get after 8:30.
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I use Telegram to chat with my wife (I know...Signal is better, but I haven't been able to convince her to switch), and discovered today that there's an "AI" button that shows up after you've written 3 lines of text. It's meant to offer suggestions to make your message "better" in some nebulous way. I've searched through the settings (even the hidden debug menu!) and there's no sign of any way to turn it off.
To top it off, the highest search result for disabling the feature is a reddit post that has been removed by moderators. Hopefully in a future update the setting for disabling it will appear, but with the way companies love AI, I'm not holding my breath.
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As I type this - my work Outlook inbox is completely empty. It's been a long time since I've been able to claim that. Everything has either been deleted or filed to appropriate archive folders.
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"newer" in the sense that it's from the 90s and has more electronic components vs. the mechanic Yashica.↩