Obviously lots of social media stuff about the Borealis version on the internet today.
Bucket list stuff in your back garden. I think the biggest losers in all this are the Norwegian Tourist Board.
Apparently, the Australis one might be out and about again tonight.
I might try to stay up and have a look.
(I might not.)
Let’s do a quick recap.
My legs. They still work. And football was a lot of fun, despite the result. I’m giving myself a day off gym and other exercise today, but I’m both happy and mildly surprised to say that I could probably actually possibly do stuff if I wanted to*.
Talking of football, I’ll just repeat myself on this one:
Never bet against Real Madrid in the Champions League*.
An amazing game last night, which I almost ditched in favour of bed with 10 minutes to go, but then (wisely) chose not to. Because you never bet against Real Madrid in the Champions League*.
And, I have to say, VAR even added to the drama. [oi – stop throwing things at me!]
Incredible tension when that second goal went in and was disallowed.
Incredible scenes when that second goal was confirmed…
I added this song to my 2024 Spotify playlist:
Maximo Park meets The Enemy meets The Maccabees, maybe?
Raging, but controlled. Ferociously introspective, but dealing with things. Just.
And a reminder that all my Spotify playlists are here for your enjoyment, free of charge*.
It’s a beautiful day outside, but wow, it’s chilly this morning. It looks like it will be dropping into single figures this weekend after another cold front due tomorrow. The last one didn’t really deliver on its promises, with just 6mm of rain. Still, taking no chances, I have checked all the gutters are clear and I’ve got the firewood ready.
Also, for the first time this year: socks. [Audience gasps]
Anger at Adobe. Anger at James Popsys.
Wow. Photographers can get angry. But it’s justified this time, I think.
Adobe, who charge us many, many Rands for the use of their software (which is obviously fair enough – it’s my choice to subscribe), are embracing AI to the point where they actually use the term “Skip the photoshoot” on their Generative Background menu.
Yeah. Why bother employing a ‘tog?
In a world where AI is replacing many jobs, not least in the creative sector, this feel like a real kick in the teeth.
And photography Youtubers are at it too. James Popsys released a video sponsored by AI photo development tool Luminar Neo. In this video – and I hope you’re sitting down for this revelation – he extolled the virtues of the AI photo development tool Luminar Neo.
This did not go down well with his viewers. There were comments like:
James a couple of weeks ago – embrace imperfections in photos.
James now he’s being paid – use AI to remove power lines.
and:
Yay, a new video from James….. oh, it’s a 12 minute ad for AI 🙁
and:
Why not just sell your camera and start making photos with an AI image generator?
Which is exactly what Adobe seem to be suggesting above.
Look, there’s likely a place for AI in many aspects of our lives*. And there’s definitely a place for it in photography. But to go in this heavy-handed (and I’m looking at you both, Adobe and James Popsys), well, that’s not the way to put it out there.
* T&Cs apply
Spotted online recently:
I haven’t been living in the UK for 20 years now. And I certainly wasn’t there this April.
But I am aware of several (or more) people who were. Among their number, apparently, were some people working for the Met Office, one of the world’s leading weather services, providing forecasts and climate data for almost 170 years, and Paul Cox, a right-wing comedian of whom I had never heard before seeing his tweet above.
Obviously, Paul wouldn’t want to hear that April had been (just) warmer than average, given that this sort of news doesn’t suit the GB News agenda. But then equally, I doubt that the Met Office really cares about the GB News agenda. And I don’t think that the Met Office would deliberately sully its image by just tossing out incorrect information to make Paul and his opinion-orientated cronies grumpy.
Presumably, Paul thinks it’s been colder than the Met Office data suggests and thus doesn’t agree with the Met Office’s statement, but then he’s likely relying on anecdotal evidence like it feeling a bit chilly when he went to pick up some fags at the Spar that Tuesday morning, rather than their more than 200 weather stations across the UK measuring:
…a large variety of different meteorological parameters, including air temperature; atmospheric pressure; rainfall; wind speed and direction, humidity; cloud height and visibility.
No axe to grind here, but I know whose data I think might be more accurate on how just warm April was.
But then Paul goes weirdly off-message and tries to compare the UK’s average temperature in April to:
A polar bears [sic] ball bag
I presume that by “ball bag”, he is using the colloquial term for scrotum.
The thing is though, the UK’s mean temperature for April was 8.3o, and a polar bear, being a mammal, has a body temperature of around 37o. Even allowing for the slightly cooler temperature required for effective spermatogenesis, the seasonal nature of this biological process in polar bears, their bouts of swimming in icy waters, and their light hibernation during the winter, the average temperature of a polar bear’s ball bag will still comfortably remain somewhere in the mid-30os.
This is clearly way higher than the UK in April – or any other month.
What on earth were you thinking about, Paul?
There is absolutely no chance that the average temperature calculated by the Met Office in April is warmer than a polar bears ball bag.
Now if only he’d suggested the bottom of a penguin’s foot…
I had to call an ambulance for someone this week. Obviously, that’s never a good thing, but sometimes accidents happen and you have to deal with them. This injury was thankfully not life-threatening, but it did need an ambulance. And so I dialled 082 911 and I got through to Netcare.
The lady on the other end of the line was generally very helpful, and dispatched the ambulance promptly.
I only had two minor gripes. One was the amount of detail that they needed regarding the patient’s medical aid. And yes, I get that they need it, but there’s a time and a place and this was neither.
Honestly, once we had established that the patient had medical aid, I really just needed to get back to her and do my best to look after her, rather than asking her difficult questions about her specific plan and membership number. I told the operator that I needed to go and we could sort out the admin later.
The only other little thing was their SMS telling me that I could track the ambulance as it came through to us. This is a great idea and would be very helpful. Reassuring for the casualty and everyone else there. Except…
Click the link in the SMS and it asks you to download their app.
Download their app and it asks you to create an account.
Name, Cell number, Email address, ID number, Username, Password – no, a stronger one than that, and you’ll need a $p3cial character, and an UPPER CASE letter – ah, there we go.
I’ll send you an OTP now.
But it didn’t. Twice.
And I didn’t have time for this.
Can you imagine if this had have been a life-threatening injury?
In the end I had to call back on their emergency number to find out how far away the ambulance was from us. With hindsight, this would have been the better option from the start.
Anyway, I wanted to get those gripes out of the way because once their guys turned up (within the timeframe we were given), they were amazing.
Truth be told, there wasn’t actually much first aid to be done: just the usual checks for anything properly serious, and making sure that the patient was safe and comfortable, but I was actually impressed with how well my scene management stuff from my first aid courses came back to me.
Once we’d handed over to the paramedics though, it really was absolutely seamless, more like a demonstration of best practice, rather than an actual case with all its variables and difficulties. 25 minutes of friendly, efficient stabilising of the patient and administering some pain relief for the stretcher trip to the ambulance and the drive to the hospital; and then they made the stretcher trip to the ambulance, and the drive to the hospital.
Surgery that afternoon was apparently successful and we’re all hoping for a quick recovery.
All’s well that ends well.
Although I still haven’t got an OTP.
The song being the one I shared a few weeks ago.
What a way to start a Monday morning.
Same subject, different angle. Rather than wax lyrical (quite literally) about the damage we are doing to the planet, there are some really good – and by “good”, I mean “horrifying” – studies and projects being done to illustrate it.
One of the biggest issues seems to be defining the Anthropocene geological epoch. But while geologists fight about whether it began in the 1950s with the first test of the thermonuclear bomb, we’re still ruining what’s left of the earth anyway.
It’s a pretty depressing subject, but there are some very interesting and beautifully ugly images to enjoy or endure on these two links, detailing the work of photographer Edward Burtynsky and his colleagues.