technology – Page 2

Some things never change

Recently this old west cartoon was published regarding the Pony Express. By the way, the pony express only lasted 18 months – from April 1860 to October 1861. It went bankrupt in that short time, and by then the telegraph was being used which made it obsolete.

I like to do these “living the dream” cartoons once in awhile – it’s usually regarding something that was ultra modern back in the day and we laugh about now. I’ve done old tv sets that were new at the time – getting a whole three channels on a big 12 inch screen; and I’ve done cavemen all confused about the new fangled tech device called fire.

I often think of those times – 100 years ago, 1000 years ago, whatever. Even today, we think we are living in the most modern of times, but think of 100 years from now, how so many of the things we think are the highest of tech will be laughed at as being primative.

I may have goofed with this old west cartoon because people are joking about that being post office is today, only they really aren’t joking.

I ordered a book not long ago which was shipped from California on the same day I purchased it. It got to Florida exactly one month later. One month to the day.

There was a time during election time where I was selling a bunch of election stuff on etsy – a lot was selling, but I had to discontinue because the items which normally take 3 days or less in shipping time, were taking a month or more!

Some of the comments I got from readers regarding the this “living the dream/pony express cartoon,” are:

“It’s still 12 days, with all our automation and computers, only 163 years later.”

“Looks like we need to go back to the pony express.”

“Takes that long to mail something from one house to the neighbors now.”

“Some things never change!”

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How to take pictures of the moon with an iphone

**All three photos taken with an iphone.**

I got a great picture of May’s Flower Moon. It’s reddish, lit by the sun at night.

I took pics on Friday night, but they were not so clear, I was never able to get a clear picture of the moon in the past. But a friend posted a beautiful image she took the same night.

I said to her, “You always take such great moon pictures.” She said she took it with her iphone and she’ll show me how to do it.

Having no patience to wait for her to show me, I googled it and I found out how to take a picture of the moon with an iphone or any night shot for that matter. And on Saturday night, I got the image I was always trying to get. A beautiful moon image.

If you don’t have patience, like me, and don’t care about how to do it, just skip the rest of this below and just enjoy the pics here!

You need to use the 1x Wide lens or the 2x Telephoto lens if using the latest iphone. For some reason, the 0.5x lens doesn’t work for night images. There is a night vision icon (a moon) at the upper left when looking at the phone/camera. The icon usually pops on by itself, but if not, it will be white. Just tap it to put the night mode on.

I had seen that working the night before, it does a count down, holding the shutter open, but I didn’t know what it meant and I kept stopping it from doing it’s thing.

But that’s what you want – it will count down the seconds it needs to capture the night image – usually 3 to 5 seconds. Maybe more in a very dark space.

After that, you need to play with the editing feature on the phone. Edit the image to get rid of all the light and bring up the brightness of the image itself. Make the sky around it black.

Save it. And after saving it, you may see a halo around the moon. Open the image again, and darken it.

So you’re going to edit it twice – first time using everything you can to bring out the brightness and clarity. Second time, getting rid of the by darkening the background.

Hopefully that works for you.

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All you gotta do is answer the phone

Years ago, maybe 20 years ago, I asked a neighbor how she worked in New Hampshire and Miami – she and her husband, both lawyers, went back and forth between the two places. She told me, “Tom, all you have to do is answer the phone, the client/customer doesn’t have to know where you are, they are just happy that you answered the phone.” And I’ve always remembered that.

It’s so easy these days with all the digital things we have – iphones, ipads, etc. I’ve worked on planes, trains and at the beach.

Years ago, I think I mentioned, I was a printing broker and I handled school newspapers. I literally worked an hour or two a day. I picked up the newspaper ready for print at the schools and dropped them off at the printer and that was it. In between, I stopped at the office, but by 10 am, I was usually free the rest of the day. And this was before cell phones.

I was unreachable after 10 am. I don’t know how I managed to do this for 20 years, but I ran a very good business like this. Teachers occasionally would leave me voice messages on my home answering machine, but basically, that was it. I was free from 10 am until 8 am the next day. No fuss, no muss.

When cell phones came into play and websites and things like that, I seemed to be more tied to the office than when I was a printing brokers with no way of reaching me.

It’s always amazing to think and wonder how things got done in the past without being tied to our cell things 24/7.

I blogged about this one time – the fact that I would meet up with friends while traveling and we would just meet up at the appointed time and place without being able to text back and forth 100 times to arrange it all. I would tell friends I would be in NY on such and such date and if they happened to be there visiting, too, we would arrange to meet.

But how did we do it? I don’t remember. Did we say on such and such date at such and such time we would meet in front of this place and that was it? We always managed to meet up and we were always there at the appointed date and time.

Sometimes life was much easier and less stressful when we weren’t tied to wifi all day and night.

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There’s no personal service anymore

There’s a lot of talk about AI (artificial intelligence) and things like that lately. And it all seems interesting. I’ve always been pro-technology. I build websites, I draw digitally, rather than with pen and paper, for 15 years I published our local news online, and I’ve run an online business for years, so I’m all up for that, but lately, a couple of things have bothered me.

I had a doctor’s appointment recently and it was all done digitally, except for the doctor’s appointment, which now that I think about it, could have been through Zoom. But what I mean is I had to make the appointment online, then they texted me things and emailed me forms. I had to fill out forms online before showing up for the appointment, then I had to fill in insurance forms online and and answer questions, personal things, including what religion I am.

Then weeks before the appointment, they either emailed me, texted me or called me daily. And I mean one of those three options daily! When I have a doctor’s appointment, I like to not think about it until the day of the appointment, not be reminded about it every day until the day of the appointment.

When I showed up for the appointment, I had to check in myself on a computer. And then a wrist band came out of the machine which I had to wear, you know the type you would get if you were in a hospital? And it was all mechanized and I felt like a number from there on.

The other day I saw a condo online that I am interested in. It’s in a building I lived in some years back. I rented back then and now I have the opportunity to purchase. I love the area and love the building and I decided to make an appointment to see the unit, I think it’s to mostly get it out of my system, rather than possibly buy it, but who knows. I have a friend who is my realtor, but since I don’t want to waste his time, I thought meeting with the listing agent for the first time would be best.

But I can’t get a live listing agent on the phone, so . . . .