Caught up on some Marvel/DC comics this week

Caught up on some Marvel/DC #comics this week:

#JessicaJones got a nice send-off. Need to find time to watch season 2 of the show, looking forward to the comic returning after break.

#TheFlash still feels like they’re shaking things up every few issues just to shake things up, but it’s beginning to look like they might be going somewhere with it.

Dropping Titans. It had potential, but the team depends on character dynamics, and they’ve run those into the ground.

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Flashback to last summer: a red panda (sometimes called a fire fox)…

Flashback to last summer: a red panda (sometimes called a fire fox) at the San Diego Zoo. I made a point to look for them and the penguins on that trip. For reasons. 😉

#photography #photos #redpanda #firefox

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Sadly I didn’t get to see them doing much. There were several in the enclosure, maybe three or four, but the rest were either hiding in the tree or sleeping. This one was just sort of perched up there, looking around.

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I have a bad habit of starting blog posts, getting 90% done, and then never …

I have a bad habit of starting blog posts, getting 90% done, and then never finishing them. I’m trying to combat that by taking some advice I read* a while back:

Instead of saving a draft when you’re mostly done but not satisfied with the writing, schedule the post. If you really think of a way to make it better, you have time. If not, it was good enough *and* you actually got the piece out.

We’ll see how it goes…

*Sadly, I can’t remember *where* I read it.

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@Einahpets Yeah, it’s an impressive exploration of the many consequences of the tech & …

@Einahpets Yeah, it’s an impressive exploration of the many consequences of the tech & how people would use it. Both the threeps and the Agora, which I find myself seeing as a counterpoint to the Oasis.

I’m going to have to get out to the Festival of Books one of these days – I keep meaning to, but haven’t quite managed yet!

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If it works like the individual media galleries, i.e. clicking/tapping goes straight to …

@ambassador If it works like the individual media galleries, i.e. clicking/tapping goes straight to the original post, and it’s limited to images posted to this instance, yes. It would be a cool way to discover images that we’re deliberately sharing. There’s probably some fine tuning in terms of how to handle CWs and sensitive images.

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@salmon_cannon Thank you on both counts!And yeah, I’ve been really impressed with the …

@salmon_cannon Thank you on both counts!

And yeah, I’ve been really impressed with the Pixel 2 camera. Not just the daylight photos, but it does surprisingly well with night shots too. And it’s fast enough that the burst & motion modes don’t seem to sacrifice much.

I keep meaning to look for an alternate camera app that will let me do long exposures.

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I remember doing a bunch of experimenting when the camera was new…

@kemonine I remember doing a bunch of experimenting when the camera was new & settled on some best-for-most-cases settings. White balance is only available in some modes – it usually does a decent job on that, but I think it must have just detected the wrong type of light in this case.

Thanks for the tip on turning digital zoom off completely. I don’t use it very much, but figured it wouldn’t hurt to have available for when I do. Maybe it is?

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I guess I should do a new round of experiments with this camera & see what I can convince it to do!

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Yeah, I rarely have reason to use the digital zoom with that lens!

I used to figure if I needed to zoom past what the optics can do, I’d just crop it smaller. In most cases it’s still better than screen resolution anyway. But I’ve found that digital zoom has one advantage over cropping after the fact: the camera bases any automatic settings like exposure on the actual image you intend to take, not the wider view.

But yeah, might as well turn it off the rest of the time.

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How Los Angeles Could Source its Water Locally

Interesting article on ways Los Angeles can source more of its water locally in the future.

Stormwater capture is a big one. In the early 20th century, the area built a flood control system to deal with the massive deluges that hit every decade or so, but during off years (and especially during drought years) it only serves to flush water out to sea that we’d be better off using to replenish reservoirs or ground water.

How Los Angeles Could Source its Water Locally

A new report challenges the city to think bigger about its plans to source more water locally.

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@Einahpets Thanks! I’m not familiar with the series, but it looks interesting. I’m …

@Einahpets Thanks! I’m not familiar with the series, but it looks interesting. I’m trying to power through Les Mis (to the extent that I have time to power through books these days — though I do plan on breaking when Scalzi’s Head On comes out next month), but maybe after I’m done with it I’ll check them out.

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Pixel 2 vs. PowerShot SX710HS

Pixel 2 vs. PowerShot SX710HS.

I’m only a hobbyist photographer. I don’t have a really nice camera, just a point & shoot that I picked mainly for its optical zoom. And I’m still astonished that I can often get better pictures out of the tiny lens on my phone.

This is from #WonderCon over the weekend, my wife’s #cosplay as Whitney Frost from Agent Carter. The phone picture is so much sharper, and the Pixel 2 finally gets the color balance better too.

Album: https://www.flickr.com/photos/kelsonv/albums/72157694829944955

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This is pretty cool: Firefox has a new extension that isolates your Facebook session…

This is pretty cool: Firefox has a new extension that isolates your Facebook session from the rest of your browsing. That way Facebook isn’t able to track you as you visit every website that happens to have a Like button or embedded FB comments.

Facebook Container Extension

Facebook still knows what you do *on* FB, but this cuts down on their ability to track you elsewhere.

via @NETIZEN

introductions time!

#introductions time! I’m an LA-area programmer, #scifi / #comics / #fantasy fan & hobbyist photographer. I’ve been @kelsonv for a while, but I keep meaning to look for a more specific instance for fandom-related discussions. It looks like this might be it?

Watching #iZombie, #TheFlash & #TheMagicians, way behind on a bunch of other shows. Favorite comics ATM are #Saga & #AstroCity.

In the middle of re-reading all of #LesMiserables, currently on the chapters introducing Marius.

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It’s weird how it hides the instance name…my other accounts are on mastodon.social (my main one) and photog.social (my photography). Maybe I should’ve picked different usernames as well just for clarity?

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I’ve been meaning to do something similar, but aside from the photography…

@kemonine I’ve been meaning to do something similar, but aside from the photography, i’m still not sure how I want to divide it up. Probably one for the technical side of things, maybe one for pop culture/fandom, and another for the rest. But I need to decide first. Then I need to figure out where’s best suited for each…

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I’ve been thinking about this a lot, not just in terms of people abusing the network, but in terms of how much I use it, who I follow, what topics are discussed…

@kemonine I’ve been thinking about this a lot, not just in terms of people abusing the network, but in terms of how much I use it, who I follow, what topics are discussed… It’s still possible for a bunch of people to act in good faith without being toxic, but end up putting you in a worse mood. You have to curate your experience. And I think segmenting across instances helps with that, but I’m still figuring out that balance.

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@peter Yeah, we’ve both been using the mobile website since then, also. I’ll …

@peter Yeah, we’ve both been using the mobile website since then, also. I’ll have to check out the basic version for messages, that’s helpful.

I’ve been running an experiment since I replaced my phone last month to see how long I can go without using FB on it. Just over a month so far. Putting a roadblock in front of it so I have to be deliberate about getting on the site has helped me be more deliberate about using it.

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@peter My wife & I stopped using the FB app on our phones when it …

@peter My wife & I stopped using the FB app on our phones when it started asking for access to SMS (supposedly to confirm your #). It’s made for a number of missed messages from family & friends as FB drops more features from their mobile website.

Funny thing: A few years ago I made a point to only use FB on my phone b/c the desktop site was too addicting. Now it’s the other way around. I feel better logging into FB in a private window for 10 minutes or whatever & closing it.

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Nighttime fountain at the Anaheim Convention Center (full)

Nighttime fountain at the Anaheim Convention Center. This was a popular spot for cosplay photos even after sunset, but I managed to catch an angle that looked deserted.

#wondercon #photography #fountain #night

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My full gallery of photos from WonderCon is up on Flickr. Most of them are just cosplay snapshots. This ended up being the only artistic shot I took that came out really well.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/kelsonv/albums/72157694829944955

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Instagram has added the ability to link to hashtags & other users in your profile….

Instagram has added the ability to link to hashtags & other users in your profile.

But it’s not rolling out evenly. I’ve linked my main account to a topic specific one & back. Both accounts have shown me the announcement of the new feature, but only one of them is actually linking the name in the bio. (This is in the same install, on the same device.)

I guess it’ll fill in eventually.

It’d be nice if they were willing to let you link *out* of the silo, though.