Hi! In case you are new around here, I am Chris. If you are new around here, here is something About Me and why you should read my newsletter. In this letter, I share what’s on my mind, my latest writings, articles worth reading from around the web, my recommendations & sometimes my photography.
The first edition of the newsletter is here, so thanks for subscribing! I'll try to keep it concise and interesting.
Did you know that one of the possible origins of the April Fool tradition goes back to 1500's France? When they switched calendars to celebrate the new year on January 1 instead of April 1, the spring equinox, a lot of people were slow to catch on or recognize the change. Those people were the butt of jokes and hoaxes because they still celebrated the new year on April 1st. These gags included having paper fish attached to their backs and called "April Fish." As in an easily caught fish or a gullible person.
I finished a novel called "Station Eleven" which is now a series on HBO. Following that up with "Sea of Tranquility" that sums up three distinct time periods but are somehow linked.
If you enjoy vintage sci-fi stories, there is a podcast called "Relic Radio" Sci-Fi that re-broadcasts radio dramatizations from the 1950's- 1960's. It is amazing that the same hopes and fears are realized back then and now. We haven't changed all that much.
Currently watching the Battlestar Galactica space drama remake. This is a brilliant series that touches every aspect of human ethics, emotions, religion, politics all while fleeing annihilation from the relentless, equally brilliant Cylon race...the machines that humans created.
Want to lose weight? Do what I do and walk every day. I've seen the pounds drop and am getting closer to my goal weight.
Just discovered this scene on one of my walks:
That's it for the first newsletter! Guaranteed to be ad-free, spam-free and easily digested.
Wallpaper Downloads
2023-04-03 03:29:59
I've had the opportunity to make a few backgrounds for the iDevices and wanted to share them at no cost if you are interested. Good for any device. Just click here to download and save to your screens. Let me know what you think and maybe even send a screenshot with them installed?
More on the way...
2023: Chapter 3
2023-04-08 15:58:10
Happy 4/4 day! It is April 4, 2023- time to start the second chapter for the new year's resolutions. In the past 10 years or so, I have attempted a variation of resolution themes in an attempt to hold myself accountable, and all of them have had limited success. The first few attempts were centered around my resolutions and a monthly check-in by way of accountability. For ten years I would focus on what I called Groundhog Day Resolutions. The kickoff would always start on February 2nd or 2/2. This was a little over a month after the western calendar of New Year's Day on January 1st.This year I want to do a variation of a monthly accountability check-in. I mentioned the “Groundhog Day Resolutions” and its limited success. While I believe the theory behind those initiatives were sound, the practice was not. So it's time to have a re-think about the process.
In 2023, I am writing a book on it. This year I am thinking of each month of this year as its own chapter in a book. I’ll do a chapter review on the same date that corresponds with the month.
Example: The book will start on February 2 (2/2) and will go on until March 3rd or 3/3. On 3/3 I will conduct a review of the previous month, and so on and so forth. With the chapter review, I’ll throw in some chapter highlights (in blue) of the previous month in hope that by the end of the year (11/11), I’ll have written a book I can be proud of.
Here is a quick list of things I want to do for the new year:
Learn Spanish
More meditation & yoga
Organize the photo Archive as a database
Minimalism/essentialism
Quit smoking
No alcohol
Lower BP
Lose 20 pounds
Learn Spanish
No es un buen mes para aprender espanol. My goal of properly learning Spanish kicked off on December 28, according to DuoLingo, my language app. After doing lessons 65 days in a row I burned out. The lessons are sporadic and when I have the time or desire to, say maybe twice a week.
💬
Chapter Three Highlight: tengo que hacerlo mejor en esto!
Meditation and yoga almost daily.
Fail. Not one yoga session all month so I have to get disciplined here.
🙏🏼
Chapter Three Highlight: I can feel the tension so its time to up my practice!
Yoga & Meditation programs with Apple Fitness+
Photography Goals
Non-existent. I have had zero time to photograph anything meaningful due to the day job. Sure, I still take daily pics during "snappy hour" when prompted but nothing to proudly display or print. Photo organization has mostly not even been on my mind.
📸
Chapter Three Highlight: The cameras are getting dusty.
Minimalism and essentialism
How have I been adding stuff and not removing it? Yes, the purchases were work essentials but nothing has gone out the door either.
🗑️
Chapter Three Highlight: Time to trash the place.
Quit smoking
What are you looking at?
🚭
Chapter Three Highlight: On hiatus.
No Alchohol
What are you looking at?
🍺
Chapter Three Highlight: On hiatus.
Lower Blood pressure
Priority one with results. I started taking BP medicine to help recuce the tension. Too soon to tell if it is having any effect but I am hoping. Less, salt. Less sugar. Less eating out. Increase my cardio with more walking, yoga. All of this should help me lower my weight and eventually those readings will come down.
❤️
Chapter Three Highlight: Lower blood pressure!
Lose 20 pounds
In the past few years, I maxed out at 217.4 pounds. That isn't great for a 5'7" frame. When starting this initiative last month (2/2), I was down to 204.4. Currently (3/3) I am down to 193. So glad to see some results and hope the remaining 12 pounds will not be too difficult. My goals is to get down to 185 pounds. 175 is better, but let's be realistic. The issue here is nutrition. The job has me out in the field for 8-10 hours daily and the temptation to eat out is strong. But the job is also a physical one so I should take advantage of all that lifting and walking.
👟
Chapter Three Highlight: 24 pounds lost so far. Mission accomplished but now I want to get down to 185. 8 more pounds to go!
It's time to get to writing a new chapter. See you on May 5th (5/5) for a review of Chapter 4.
Philosophical Intelligence
2023-04-11 14:15:26
Anyone wishing to explore artificial intelligence first needs to study philosophy.
Eastern works such as Tau, western works such as the meditations of Marcus Aurelius, the Bible, and other modern day thinkers.
To understand and explore artificial intelligence, we have to explore the implications or consequences for this understanding and knowledge of ethics, consciousness, epistemology, intelligent problem-solving and most importantly, free will.
While taking a couple of Stanford online courses on quantum theory, quantum computing and quantum mechanics, I was overwhelmed by the theories and possibilities. Quickly, those theories will become reality. An intelligent, conscious being driven by qubits and binary coding will exist. What would it's role be? Will it have a place among us? Will it have the same rights and freedoms that we do?
Something to think about because we can.
Analog + Digital
2023-04-19 01:03:44
When you buy a new vinyl record nowadays, it comes with a code to download the MP3 digital version too. Why can't we get a free e-book version when you buy a paper book?
I've Lost My Photo Mojo
2023-04-22 22:27:25
Once upon a time, there was a camera in my hand every weekend off to explore and shoot. The camera was my passport and I went everywhere with it, including dangerous places I wasn't "supposed" to go. I've noticed in the past year, however, that I just can't be bothered. This bothers me. There is always something to shoot and yet, around here, I've seen it all and captured it. The last time I was excited about photography was on a return trip to New Orleans last year with the new Sony A7 mirrorless camera. But once again, it was ho-hum. The city wasn't exciting as it used to be. The camera was just another camera.
For the past 365 days, I've tried shooting with only the Hipstamatic every day during "Snappy Hour"-- that last hour before sunset with the golden rich colors. Yeah, it was a project but looking back now to me it was...boring.
Popular camera magazines have turned their printers off. A major photography website has shut down after 25 years. Most photographers are tired of watching or reading the same format hyped by journalists regarding the.next.big.thing. When you read/watch reviews of cameras you always hear about megapixels, shutter speeds, battery life, blah, blah, but not what sort of images are produced. No soul, just technology. There is more to photography than a large sensor or post-production digital editing.
I miss the hours spent with the film camera process of loading the film, advancing the next exposure, creating negatives, selecting the best images out of only 36 exposures and then running the images through the chemical fixer. Ahh those darkroom chemical smells!
Hold on...just spilled some pipe tobacco on the MacBook. Okay, where was I? I miss portrait photography in the way I want to make it. No wait, that's for another post. Ahh yes, the wrap-up:
How do I get my mojo back? Do I go back to analog film photography and spend hundreds of dollars on film and film development? There is something to be said about the analog results- they have soul. Or do I sell most of my digital cameras and focus on just the one? Those brilliant but souless photos are more cost effective.
With the proper tools, anyone can make brilliant photos on the iPhone, but the computational photography takes a lot of the soul out of it too.
I am tired of the documentational photographs I've been shooting lately. I want to get back to making art. Maybe only then I can get my photo mojo back(?)
Synthography
2023-04-22 22:37:27
The new all-in-one website/mood board I built dedicated to my generative AI art creation and curation.
More Reading Hacks
2023-04-26 02:49:09
One of the biggest mistakes readers make is assuming that all books should be read from the first page to the last page in an unbroken sequence. For non-fiction books, learning is non-linear. Non-fiction books are for thinking, not reading, and context is king. Break out the highlighter and pen to take notes in the marginalia. Argue with the author. Fiction should be read linearly while non-fiction benefits from non-linear reading. Finally, it's important to engage with ideas messily and unpredictably, rather than assuming you need to have a rigid note-taking workflow.
ART::ificial
2023-04-29 02:12:44
In lieu of having enough time to go out and photograph something (anything!), I've been generating synthographs. Synthography is a method of generating digital media synthetically using machine learning. This is distinct from other graphic creation and editing methods in that synthography uses artifical intelligence text-to-image modeling to generate synthetic media. By using prompt engineering, text descriptions as input to creating a desired image. In simple terminology- type what you want to see and your artificially intelligent tools will create the image. Neat.
