Knuckledragger

The base model M4 Mini is basically the best deal in computing right now. It's so good that it has more or less killed the used Mac market. Except for a few exotics, it's difficult to sell Intel based Macs at all. I'm seeing them pile up on the MV Stuff 4 Sale group. No one is selling Apple Silicon models.

Things have been so chaotic recently that I'm not sure I mentioned this or not: My M1 lappy had a major problem. First one of the TB ports stopped working, then the keyboard began to fail. I lost use of left arrow key, which was a nightmare. I am constantly using arrow keys to highlight text. I began to get the "MacOS doesn't recognize this keyboard" messages ...on a laptop. I had the option to renew my AppleCare this past February and didn't. Big mistake. It cost me three times that to get this machine fixed. With that said, when one gives APPL nine hundred fucking dollars, they really deliver. They sent me a super neat box to ship it out and got the machine back to me within 5 business days. Here's the punchline. It's an entirely/mostly new machine with my SSD in it. I am on this laptop more or less constantly. The only objects I own where I know the nicks and scratches better are things like my Canon EF 50mm F/1.8 Mk I that I've had for 20 years. Apple is a weird as shit company and I could write a book about them. It'd be titled "Why Apple Sucks Balls, But I Swear On Steve Jobs' Smug Grin, Windows And Android Are Worse At Every Fucking Turn."

Still trying to make sense of Sunny's murder and failing to do so. I knew her for just under 30 years. I actually remember the day I met her. It was August 31st, 1997, my first day at Bradford College. Also the day Princess Diana died. I've been a photographer for two decades at this point, but I have precious few photos of Sunshine. I had been meaning to catch up with her for years, but as tragically is so often the case, I kept putting it off. The last conversation I had with her was two years ago when her father passed. I sent her this photo: I look it in 2012 with the never-not-shit EF-75-300mm. I ran it though the Silver FX Pro plugin, which I favored at the time. Mark (Sunny's dad) was ...a piece of work, but certainly a character. In this shot he's a man in his element. The only photos I have of Sunny herself are from 2007 and 2008. I took this one on my back porch in October of 2007. When I remember is she had to leave early. That fall was marked by two things: some of the best foliage colors I've ever witnessed in scenic western MA, and the absolute peak of dubstep. Not brostep fart noises, but the original very sparse minimal reggae tinged sound that started in say 2003 and was dead by 2009. There was a big dubstep party that happned about two days after Sunny left. I did the lights and if memory serves, I DJ'd at the after party. Initially Sunny wanted to attend, but business in Maine called her back. Sunny was possibly the biggest extrovery I ever knew. She had no shortage of self confience. Yet she did not like having her picture taken. This shot and the following one are from July of 2008, just shy of 17 years ago. She wasn't pleased that I was pointing my SLR at her. As I have said many times, I always prefer portraits where the subject is reacting to anything but the camera. I mentioned the Silfer FX Pro plugin earlier. Prior to that, I used to make heavy use to two Photoshop scripts I found in the mid 00s. One was "holgafy" and the other was "lomofy." Both were more than a bit heavy handed, but I taught myself to reverse engineer and wrangle them a bit. I did to passes with said scripts on a photo of Sunny in 2007, but never published the edits. I found them yesterday while looking for photos of her. I don't particularly like either edit, but he lo-fi effects of the scripts take on an entirely new meaning in light of Sunny's passing. At the risk of repeating myself, if you have someone you haven't spoken to in entirely too long, do it today. There may not be a tomorrow.

Holy shit. One of my closest friends from college was murdered not far from where she lived. Sunny was one of the toughest people I've ever met. I can scarcely process this.

Ukraine accuses Putin of humiliating Trump with devastating attack on Kyiv. Russia launches record number of drones and ballistic missiles in seven-hour assault shortly after its leader spoke to US president.

File under: Exceeding the attention span of nearly everyone. Five hours of Gamers Nexus explaining why chaotic tariffs are a dumb idea and how they ruin everything. I watched the first installment over a couple evenings while grinding loot in an RPG. I haven't watched the second one yet.

In the parlance of our times, RIP Bozo. Televangelist Jimmy Swaggart, whose ministry was toppled by prostitution scandals, dies at 90.

A guy I've known on Discogs since like 2002 picked up some dream speakers. Kid for scale.

That's an expensive cat warmer.

ABC of AFX.

Iran says it launched attack on US forces at Qatar’s Al Udeid Air Base.

More room porn than anything else. Via this real estate listing and /r/audiophile.

There's a web comic called beanytuesday. Way back in 2018 (almost 7 years ago to the day), he did a series of intentionally poorly drawn 2018 election candidates. One of them has had an enduring legacy. No, not ol' Hills. Gen Z loves to meme this one. It's newly relevant.

Today is the 50th anniversary of Jaws. It's kind of a big deal around here.