Books

What I read so far in 2023

I set out to read a book a month …

January was 1177 B.C.: The Year Civilization Collapsed by Eric H. Cline. Interesting overview of the centuries before, during and after, but so much of it was “here are a bunch of reasons why this series of events occurred, but we don’t definitively know and, oh by the way, we should keep this in mind because modern society has become too complex.” 2000 was more complex and interrelated than 1950 and 1950 was more complex and interrelated than 1900, and 1900 … you get the idea. Still worth while reading especially for what archeology has been able to figure out.

February was Ducks: Two Years in the Oil Sands by Kate Beaton. A very thick graphic novel, but a very personal story by Beaton of Hark a Vagrant notoriety.

March was 1985 by György Dalos. A sequel of a sort to Orwell’s 1984. Thought it was going to be more surreal, but sadly it wasn’t. The revolution will be banal and the counter revolution more so.

In April, I finished Rückzug: The German Retreat from France, 1944 by Joachim Ludewig. My one critique was that the maps should have listed the paths of units better. When the author is talking about roman numeral corp hq A or three digit division Y, moving from town B to mountain Z, it helps if the maps show how things went. With a large margin of error of course. Otherwise, it was a good book that demonstrated that the allies were caught off guard by their rapid pace (good problem to have) and didn’t recognize the extent of their logistics difficulties until the German lines firmed up in Germany and the Netherlands. Anyone recommend a good book on Operation Bagration?

Since then, I started a few books, but haven’t finished any of them in the months between then and now.

This September, I again picked up Let This Radicalize You: Organizing and the Revolution of Reciprocal Care by Kelly Hayes and Mariame Kaba. I purchased my copy at Porter Square Books, but the publisher, Haymarket Books, has a sale on it. Hopefully, I will finish it in September, but if it goes over to October, so be it.

Privacy & Surveillance

Saturday: Fight back against government surveillance!

Reprinted from the Massachusetts Pirate Party.

This year is the 22nd anniversary of the signing of the PATRIOT Act made possible by the 9/11 attacks. Since then, government and corporate surveillance continues to expand. We will join Pirates nationwide to push back on the effort to surveill our public spaces by mapping the surveillance cameras in East Boston. Join us!

At noon on September 16th, we will meet at the East Boston Public Library at 365 Bremen Street, East Boston. It is an eight minute walk from the Airport MBTA Blue Line stop. The library has a link you can use to get directions there.

We will then divide up into teams and fan out to map cameras. We encourage everyone to wear a mask and social distance.

Register now so we know you are coming!

On Sunday, we hope you will join us in Acton for a relaxing afternoon talking, eating and, weather permitting, swimming in a pool. Register separately. Attendance at the East Boston outing is not required. It is potluck, so if you want to bring something, add to our etherpad.

We posted instructions for how to use several camera mapping apps on your phone so you can get ready. Check out what we have mapped so far at cctv.masspirates.org!

Miniatures, When Imagination Fails

Belated goodbye to gak8346

Last year, I learned that gak8346, the painter of most of my modern warship miniatures, died.

His name was Garry Allan Kinsey. We only chatted via eBay messages or blog comments, but he was always personable and dedicated to his craft and his fans/customers. Reading his obituary, he sounds like a modeler I and many others wished we could meet in person.

You can find more about him in his obituary. I sent my condolences the old fashioned way. He was a good man and his death will be difficult for his family. I hope the fond memories they have of him will carry them forward for years to come. If you wish, please post on his memorial wall.

He later found out about my archive of 1/2400 scale post-World War 2 ship photographs and I appreciate that he approved of my inclusion of his photographs. Here are a selection of posts that include his photographs. Just look for the ones photographed on a blue surface with white caps:

You can find more perusing the blog or my archive of 1/2400 scale post-World War 2 ship photographs. Just look for the ones with gak8346 in the file name.

Sorry it has taken me this long to post a remembrance, Garry. You shared your art with the world and will be sorely missed.

Photography

Don’t Get the Glorich EN-EL25 Power Adapter

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This post has been sitting here and since I don’t have another post ready, I will just publish it.

I occasionally live stream. My Nikon Z 50 allows me to turn off sleep mode, but changing batteries is a pain when live streaming. Unfortunately, Nikon decided that the Z 50’s USB port can only charge the battery, not power the camera. Unlike the Z 6/7 (which uses the D850 battery), there is no battery adapter to power the camera via external power, such as a wall outlet.

I needed something to deal with this, albeit minor, issue. So back in February, I ordered and received a Glorich Z50 AC power dummy battery adaptor from Amazon.

This is my review. TL;DR I sent it back.

It didn’t come with a manual. I connected it to my Z 50 and closed the battery door. I then plugged it into an outlet, and turned on the camera. The camera did not turn on.

I tried to unplug it from my surge protector. It didn’t want to unplug. It was stuck part way in. After some work, I was finally able to wrestle it out. I repeated the same process with a different outlet. Still did not turn on. Getting it out of the socket was still difficult. Inspecting the plugs showed scratches in them. Have never seen this behavior with a plug before, but it is likely due to the circular holes in the plugs catching on something in the power strip socket.

Tried plugging it into a wall outlet and inspected it for a secret “on” switch. Didn’t find one. The power box has a green light on it that seemed to have a faint glow, but the product still didn’t power my camera.

Getting the dummy battery out was a bit of an ordeal, but once I placed the Nikon battery back in and turned on the camera and it worked just fine.

I filed for my refund that day and returned it the next. I did not bother getting another one to try. If the first unit refuses to work, then it must be of such poor quality that a working unit would likely fail just after I can no longer return it.

At least it didn’t kill my camera.

I won’t bother with the other two models since I doubt their return policy will protect me if the product fails. Also, my guess is that the AliExpress product is the same as the Glorich product, based on the photos they show. The F1TP version is also likely the same as the Glorich product.

I ended choosing another solution I am satisfied with, but not happy with, but that is for another post.

Photography, War

Warship Wednesday: DDGs LBJ & Inouye

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Over the summer I planned to head up to Bath, Maine to photograph the USS Lyndon B. Johnson. I planned to take the Maine Maritime Museum’s Shipyards & Lighthouses Cruise just as I had when photographing the USS Monsoor.

Due to the pandemic that was not possible, so I instead rented the Sigma 150-600mm Sport lens from Hunt’s Photo Video. My son and I drove up and tried finding locations to photograph from. The land across from the Kennebec River is filled with private houses and offered no outlet from which to photograph the USS LBJ. We ended up starting on the US Route 1 bridge and traveling down to the Doubling Point Lighthouse:

Bath Maine

The Sigma 150-600mm Sport lens is a very heavy lens. Hand holding it seemed a recipe for blurry photos so I put it on a sturdy tripod. It worked well though the walkway to the Doubling Point Lighthouse vibrated when people walked on it.

From the US Route 1 bridge:

USS Lyndon B. Johnson USS Daniel Inouye

From the Doubling Point Lighthouse:

USS Lyndon B. Johnson USS Lyndon B. Johnson

From where on the Doubling Point Lighthouse I photographed the LBJ. Taken while on a previous boat cruise.

Bath Maine
Pirate Party, Speech

Attacks on Section 230

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Steve and I talked about the CDA Section 230 gutting SAFE TECH Act on the latest Pirate News livestream. You can read a redline version.

Some of the articles we reference:

We live stream Sundays at 7:30pm Eastern. You can find past recordings at MassPirates.org.

The musings of Jamie O'Keefe: pirate party activist, geek, father and gamer.