I Finally Ditched Adobe Photoshop and Lightroom

I've been a user of Adobe Photoshop and Lightroom for more than 15 years when I bought my first DSLR, a Nikon D5200. I've since moved on to a Fujifilm X-S10 and a Pixel 8 Pro phone. When I started using Adobe's products the monthly subscription to Photoshop/Lightroom was a reasonable $10/moth. Eventually they raised it to around $15 and then last year to $25 (in Canadian dollar). 

That's a lot of money for a tool that I use only rarely. I have been shooting both RAW and JPEG on my Fujifim X-S10, (Fujifilm names them as RAF files) so using Adobe Camera RAW or Lightroom made sense. But Fujifilm's JPEGs are good enough that most editing can be done using JPEGs in free and simpler tools. 

I was also finding it harder to use Adobe's products. My vision has deteriorated over the last few years and I now find using Photoshop or Lightroom difficult because icons are too small and text and interface text lacks contrast. 

Last month I finally gave up after getting a renewal notice from Adobe. If I kept the subscription, I'd have to wait another year to cancel it or pay a substantial cancellation fee. So I cancelled my subscription. 

By that point, I had identified several free alternatives to Adobe's software.. Here I'm going to briefly describe several tools that I looked at. 

Adobe Express Photos (formerly Photoshop Express)

Adobe Express Photos offers a good selection of basic editing tools and limited AI functions including object removal. RAW files can be edited but have to be saved in another format, and there's no support for Fujifilm's film simulations. There is a mobile version. It's probably what I will use most for simple edits. 

Adobe Photos Express

Canva Affinity

Affinity has a similar interface to Photoshop and contains all of the tools I'm likely to need and more. However I find the interface difficult to use because of the small interface text and icons, although it's a bit better than Photoshop.  It can open and modify RAW files but the image has to be saved in a different format. I'm still going to play around with it, but it won't be my first choice of tools. 

Canva Affinity

Capture One Fujifilm RAW Converter

This is a free tool offered by Capture One to convert Fujifilm's RAF files to other formats. It offers a basic subset of the features in the full Capture One and support Fujifilm's film simulations. Unfortunately, the interface was unusable due to small text and icons. Finding no way to customize the interface for my needs, I uninstalled it. 

Fujifilm X RAW Studio

Fujifilm X RAW Studio is a bit of an odd duck as it uses your Fujifilm camera for processing RAW files with the camera connected to your computer by a USB cable. Processing is limited to whatever functions are built into the camera. The advantage of this approach is that it allows you to use film recipes (modified film simulations). For my purposes, it's easier to use Silkypix's converter. 

Microsoft Photos

Microsoft Photos is the built-in photo editor for Windows 11, offering the usual selection of basic editing tools, with a few extras like background selection and generative erase. There's a good selection of filters which also include a handy slider for controlling intensity. I find the icon-based interface awkward to use, given my vision. Still, it includes enough functionality that it may be all that many people may need. As for RAW files, you can open and edit them, but changes have to be saved in another format. 

Microsoft Photos

Pixlr Express

Pixlr Express is a web-based tool with free and paid subscription versions. Pixlr Express is a basic editor similar to Adobe Express Photos but with more features including some AI tools with 20 AI credits/month. (Subscription plans offer more AI credits). It won't open RAW files. 

Pixlr Express

Pixlr Editor

Pixlr Editor is a more advanced web-based tool with free and paid subscription versions. The interface uses a side panel and menus with a level of features comparable to Affinity or Photoshop. Given that it's web-based, I find easier to use. As with Pixlr Express, the free version includes 20 AI credits/month with subscription plans  offering more credits so you can use the advanced AI functions. It won't open RAW files. This will likely be my choice for more advanced editing of JPEGs. 

Pixlr Editpr

Silkypix RAW File Converter EX

Siklypix RAW File Converter EX is provided free to Fujifilm camera users. It's similar in features and functionality to Adobe Camera RAW. There's a full range of editing tools available and because it's made for Fujifilm cameras, you can access film simulations and modify camera settings. Changes to RAW files are saved in a separ .spd file. Skins are available for different monitor resolutions and I was able to find one that I could use. This will probably be my first choice for working directly with RAW files, although it's probably overkill for what I usually need to do.

Silkypix RAW File Converter EX

Summary

So to summarize:

• For simple editing of JPGs, Adobe Express Photos or Pixlr Express.
• For advanced editing of JPGs, Pixlr Editor or Affinity
• For direct editing or conversion of RAW/RAF files, Silkypix RAW File Converter EX

I may do more detailed write-ups on the programs mentioned above after I've had more time to use them.

Photo of the Week -- June 7, 2026

The photo this week is one I took a couple of years ago with my Fujifilm X-S10. I used Silkpix RAW File Converter to switch the film simulation from Velvia to Acros + G Filter, boost the contrast, and crop. I thought this one worked better in black and white than the original colour exposure. 

Fujifilm X-S10 with Fujinon 27mm/F2.8 WR at F8, 1/450 second, ISO 320, Acros + R Filter film simulation

Tree roots in black and white

For contrast, this is the JPG of the original image, straight out of the camera. Which do you think is better?

Tree roots in colour

Featured Links - April 22, 2026

Links to things I found interesting but didn't want to do a full blog post about.

Boats at the marina waiting for summer

• Game of drones. "As the federal government spends billions on military modernization, Canadian drone innovators are vying to meet the moment in the sky, on land and in the water." Good coverage of a new industry with lots of photos. 
• Power imbalance. "James S.A. Corey on The Captives War, The Book of Daniel, and how the only way to survive an alien invasion might be appeasement." A fascinating interview with the authors of the wonderfu Expanse series. 
• What Discoveries Might Be Hiding in the Artemis 2 Images and Data? "NASA’s Artemis 2 mission produced a wealth of data that experts will be analyzing for years to come."
• They Are Killing Our People. "This past week, the Mikisew Cree First Nation of Alberta released a report on the massive cancer rates in their community. The Alberta government withheld key medical statistics, and the federal government dragged their feet. The Feds promised to fund a study that would take 10 years to complete. And so, the community paid for their own research." This is what happens when you live downstream from the biggest polluter in Canada. 
• 'For All Mankind' alternative timeline vs reality: How Apple TV's sci-fi show diverges from history.. "How do "For All Mankind"'s six decades of space exploration "history" compare with the real thing?" Spoiler warning for those who haven't watched the show,
• Why Medieval Bread Was A Superfood While Your Modern Bread Makes You Sick (YouTube). "There's a significant issue with the bread we consume today. While bread was once a fundamental part of civilizations, sustaining families and armies, modern bread often causes gut issues, blood sugar spikes, and leaves us feeling unsatisfied. This food history explores how the bread industry has changed, contrasting today's offerings with the traditional bread that nourished our ancestors. We conduct a food industry case study, examining how the history of bread, including ancient grains and sourdough, shows a stark difference from what we find on shelves now."
• The Making of Miles Davis' "Birth of the Cool".  A long essay on one of the true classics of 20th century music. 
• Facebook and Instagram Tighten Censorship Rules for Saying “Antifa”. 'Meta’s new rules let it ban users or suppress comments that include the word “antifa” alongside “content-level threat signals.”'
• How two mathematicians created an equation that quietly runs the planet. "The Diffie-Hellman key exchange secures everything from your text messages to government secrets." This article has the best explanation I've seen ofhow public key cryptography works. 
• Winner of top Sony World Photography Awards $25,000 prize revealed. "With nearly half a million entries, the judges must have had a tough job choosing the winners of this year’s Sony World Photography Awards. The competition is now in its 19th edition, and the overall Photographer of the Year 2026 title has been named as Citlali Fabián with the series ‘Bilha, Stories of My Sisters’."
• Inside the stunning fall of the Maple Leafs: Chaos, dysfunction and AI. For the (probably few) hockey fans reading this blog, a deep dive into the latest pathetic season of the Toronto Maple Leafs. I was in high school the last time this team won the Stanley Cup. The way they are playing, I may not live long enough to see them win one.
• How Ukraine became a drone factory and invented the future of war. "Ukraine has responded to a war it didn’t start by creating an industry it doesn’t want, but could the nation's drone expertise help it rebuild? To learn more, New Scientist gained exclusive access to the research labs, factories and military training schools behind Ukraine’s drones."

2026 World Press Photo Contest Winners

The winners of the 2026 World Press Photo Contest have been announced. They present "outstanding work from photojournalists and documentary photographers worldwide, connecting global audiences to the most pressing stories of our time."

I'll have to keep an eye out to see if they will be displayed in Toronto. I've seen a couple of the contest winners' exhibitions and it's definitely the best way to see them. 

Amateur Photographer has an article that displays some of the most striking photos in a larger format than the contest website. 

Featured Links - April 8, 2026

Links to things I found interesting but didn't want to do a full blog post about.

A choppy bay

• The Next Coup Attempt. "And How to Stop It." An unsettling post from historian Timothy Snyder. 
• The Artemis Earth photo is incredible – but the one thing that nobody is telling you about it will blow your mind. 'The famous "Hello, World" photo by astronaut Reid Wiseman isn’t quite what you think.' I didn't figure it out until I read the article.
• How to Find Thunderbird Profile Location in Windows 11, 10, 8, 8.1, 7. I needed to figure this out because Thunderbird moved the profile folder on my wife's laptop and my backup program couldn't find it. This is a useful article for anyone using Thunderbird on Windows.
• The Lancet: Long COVID and Risk of Incident Cardiovascular Disease. "A recent study (see PLoS Med.: Association Between COVID-19 Vaccination and Sudden Death in Apparently Healthy Younger Individuals) found no evidence that COVID-19 vaccines increase the risk of sudden cardiac death in young healthy adults, but they did find a strong link between recent COVID infection and an increased risk of sudden cardiac death." 
• Data Centres Are on Track to Wreck the Planet. Can We Stop Them? "They will guzzle more water and power than the world can afford—for an AI video of your cat as an astronaut."
• Any USB drive or cable you plug in might be a silent killer. "As if we didn’t already have enough malware to worry about, malicious hackers and state-sponsored cybercrime teams are turning ordinary-looking USB drives and cables into weapons that can infect or fry — within a single second — any computer or electronic component you plug them into."
• Experiments refute dark matter claim. "The results of her analysis, which have excluded the dark matter explanation with greater confidence, were published in Physics Review Letters ...". 
• Canadian couple shows how a $40 weekly food budget is possible. "Michelle Nijdam, 31, has been gaining a following online after she started sharing how she sticks to a strict $160 monthly budget (or $40 weekly budget) while living in Vancouver — one of the most expensive cities in Canada. On her YouTube channel, @MichellesHomemaking, she talks about the ups and downs of having a tight budget while sharing some handy tips."
• Gambling on War and Death. "Polymarket allows anonymous accounts to bet on everything — but with increasing attention to war. Will a tanker be seized? When will the next drone strike occur? Gamblers can even look at maps of Ukrainian villages and play the odds on which neighbourhood of innocent civilians will be hit. It is literally about making a killing on killing. And it is also about manipulating the market in frightening ways."
• The 51st State Fantasy Is Over: How King Charles and Mark Carney Put An End To Trump's Desire To Invade Canada. "How Trump’s annexation campaign collapsed against 200 years of history, one king, and a prime minister who played the long game."
• Art UK. "Connecting you to art. Art UK is a unique digital experience that connects everyone with the UK's public art collections. We digitally unite one million artworks from 3,500 institutions – museums, libraries, town halls, hospitals – as well as public art in our streets such as sculptures and murals."
• Why U.S. Gatling Guns Are Not Stopping Iran’s Shahed Drones. "In any discussion of drone defense, Gatling-type guns are often presented as a trump card. These rapid-fire weapons, originally developed to defend U.S. warships against sea-skimming missiles, can easily down bigger and faster threats than a 120 mph Shahed drone. On paper they look devastatingly effective, and news reports speak enthusiastically of their “shredding Iranian drones.” But they are not a magic wand to make all drones disappear, and some Shaheds are getting through."
• America forgot how to make a classified nuclear warhead ingredient. "The U.S. government forgot how to make a classified component of its own nuclear warheads, then spent $92 million figuring it out again. The material is called Fogbank, and almost everything about it is classified — its composition, its purpose, and how it's manufactured." Just think of all the money they could have saved if they'd had a documentation library,

Featured Links - March 25, 2026

Things I was interested in but didn't want to do a full blog post about.

Bluffer's Park on a cloudy day

• Inside the fiery, deadly crashes involving the Tesla Cybertruck. "Cybertrucks have locked passengers inside and burned so hot they’ve disintegrated drivers’ bones. Victims’ families blame what they say is the faulty design of a truck Elon Musk calls ‘apocalypse-proof’" Just in case you need another reason to not buy a Cybertruck. 
• No Pills or Needles, Just Paper: How Deadly Drugs Are Changing (gift link). "Lab-made drugs soaked into the pages of letters, books and even legal documents are being smuggled behind bars, killing inmates and frustrating investigators."
• Inside the Dirty, Dystopian World of AI Data Centers (archive link). "The race to power AI is already remaking the physical world."
  
• Resisting the superbugs (archive link). "Canadian researcher Gerry Wright is searching for the next generation of life-saving antibiotics." Unfortunately, discovering a new antibiotic is easier than getting it to market. 
  
• Record-torching March heat ‘virtually impossible’ without climate change. "Friday’s spring equinox may seem like a quaint notion to those already enduring furnace-like 90-110°F summer heat." In this part of the country, we've had a cold winter with more snow than usual in recent years.
• The Trap Always Closes. "Donald Trump, Lyndon Johnson, and wars we can’t win." History shows that Trump can't win this war. His only way out is to stop, and he won't.
• Ryugu asteroid samples contain all DNA and RNA building blocks, bolstering origin-of-life theories. "We are stardust, we are golden ...".
• The World Factbook. "The community-maintained successor to the CIA World Factbook. Comprehensive data on 254 countries and territories." The CIA killed the CIA World Factbook in February and that this site is maintaining the information. 
• Canada wants to build up its long-neglected Arctic. The hard question is how. "Ottawa wants to modernize a region in the north that’s about six times the size of Texas, ‘just like in the 1800s’"
• As SpaceX Launches its 10,000th Satellite, A Photographer Captures the Impact on the Night Sky, "This week SpaceX passed an eye-watering milestone: it launched its 10,000th satellite into low-Earth orbit. The sheer scale of the devices whizzing around above humanity is unimaginable, but photographer Joshua Rozells is helping people see. Rozells’ image, Swamped Skies, is a composite of 343 photos that all contain at least one satellite streak. The Australian photographer didn’t set out to make the image; he originally wanted to capture star trails."
• Project Hail Mary is packed with hard science. An astrophysicist breaks it down. '"Project Hail Mary" is more than just an epic adventure film with beautiful visuals. It's a story that reminds us how important our world is—and how vital science is to our continued existence on it.'
• When Hyperglobalization Meets Chaos. "Choke points are everywhere you look." The crisis over the strait of Hormuz is only the beginning. 
• Historians Say They’ve Discovered a Long-Lost Page From the Archimedes Palimpsest, a Treasure Trove of Rare Ancient Mathematical Treatises. "Three leaves had been missing for more than a century. Researchers found one of them when they decided on a whim to check the archives of a French museum."

Featured Links - November 4, 2025

Links to things I found interesting but didn't want to do a full blog post about.

Autumn Leaves

My Non-Fossil Car Experience. "Very few EV drivers ever go back." Our next car will probably be a hybrid. I don't think we're ready for a full EV yet. 

Photoshop's biggest rival is now free, with one big exception. I'm going to have to download Affinity and have a good, hard look at it. I don't need the (mostly AI) subscription features for the limited editing I do. 

A Review of Grokipedia, Using Myself as Test Subject. John Scalzi explains why you shouldn't trust Grokipedia and LLMs in general. 

Why time feels like it’s speeding up, and how to slow the pace. "You’re not wrong to think time is running away from you. Experts explain the strange phenomenon and what to do about it." 

We’re Number Two! "How Trump ceded the future to China." In less than one year, the Trump regime has set the US into a decline that may take a generation to recover from, if recovery is possible at all. 

Please stop using NotebookLM as a note-taking app. "At its core, NotebookLM is a research assistant. Not a note-taking tool." Here's a contrast POV to the article I linked to last week. 

Can You Use a High-End TV as a Computer Monitor? "A high-end TV can be an affordable way to get more display real estate for your computer setup—but there are some essential considerations before you replace your monitor with a massive OLED or QD OLED TV."

Featured Links - October 29, 2025

Things I found interesting but didn't want to do a full blog post about.

Autumn colours in the park

• Catalog of Dark Patterns. "Discover a variety of dark pattern examples, sorted by category, to better understand deceptive design practices."
• Electronic Eye Implant Restored Vision in Patients With Age-Related Macular Degeneration. '"The device could be a boon for millions with vision loss from advancing age." They still have a long way to go before this technology becomes widely available and effective. 
• I tried using NotebookLM as a personal journal (and it worked better than I expected). If you keep a personal journal, this might be worth looking at. 
• This free video editor replaced everything I used to pay for in Adobe Premiere. "Here’s why Lightworks is a solid Adobe contender…" I don't do enough video editing to need anything more than Clipchamp but I do need to find an alternative to Photoshop. 
• GlassWorm: First Self-Propagating Worm Using Invisible Code Hits OpenVSX Marketplace. " It's using stealth techniques we've never seen before in the wild - invisible Unicode characters that make malicious code literally disappear from code editors. Combine that with blockchain-based C2 infrastructure that can't be taken down, Google Calendar as a backup command server, and a full remote access trojan that turns every infected developer into a criminal proxy node." This is a security nightmare.
• OpenAI admits AI hallucinations are mathematically inevitable, not just engineering flaws. "In a landmark study, OpenAI researchers reveal that large language models will always produce plausible but false outputs, even with perfect data, due to fundamental statistical and computational limits." 
• The Pivot. "I'm calling this the pivotal year of our times, just as 1968 was the pivotal year of the post-1945 system, for a number of reasons." A thought-provoking article from SF author, Charlie Stross. 
• 5 undeniable, truthful facts about dark matter. "Dark matter has never been directly detected, but the astronomical evidence for its existence is overwhelming. Here’s what to know." This is the most convincing article I've seen yet for the existence of dark matter as opposed to other theories. 

Featured Links - October 14, 2025

Links to things I found interesting but didn't want to do a full blog post about.

A grey Lake Ontario

• Toronto vs Chicago: Transit Moving Masses Through The Metropolises. On the map, it looks like Chicago has a more extensive transit network than Toronto, but the reality on the street is very different. 
• A digital dark age? The people rescuing forgotten knowledge trapped on old floppy disks. "From lectures by Stephen Hawking to the letters of British politician Neil Kinnock – it's a race against time to save the historical treasures locked away on old floppy disks." This was a real eye-opener and really interesting. 
• How can a blind photographer take such great photos? Find out here. As a photographer and a person with low vision, I found this both interesting and  inspiring.  
• The Village and the Stars. "Science Fiction, Greenwich Village, and the American Counterculture." An article by Robert Charles Wilson. 
• Regular Expressions, and AI. Using ChatGPT to help construct useful regex expressions is something that would have been a great timesaver in my last job. 
• Engineers create first artificial neurons that could directly communicate with living cells. "A team of engineers at the University of Massachusetts Amherst has announced the creation of an artificial neuron with electrical functions that closely mirror those of biological ones."
• The Destruction in Gaza Is What the Future of AI Warfare Looks Like. "American tech companies have given highly consequential support to Israel's campaign."
• Another mid-M7 earthquake in the Drake Passage. "The third large earthquake to strike between South America and Antarctica this year." 
• Have We Reached a Space-Junk Tipping Point? "In some orbits, the Kessler syndrome is already underway." This is rather disquieting. 

Featured Links - June 30, 2025

Links to things I found interesting but didn't want to do a full blog post about.

This week's post is shorter than usual. We have a kitchen reno coming up in a week and I'm pretty busy right now. And there's a yard and garden to take care of. So posts here are going to be shorter and/or sparser than usual for a while.

Birds in the hydro marsh

• Are these the world’s oldest rocks? Fresh data confirm contested claim. "Scientists debate age of ancient Canadian crust as Inuit leaders work to preserve the location."
• Photographer Captures the Terrifying Things Humans Have Done to the Planet.  "Photographer Edward Burtynsky has dedicated his life’s work to documenting the impact humans have on the planet, producing stunning photographs that evoke both awe and concern. This week has marked the start of a career-spanning exhibit of Burtynsky’s work at the International Center of Photography (ICP) in New York." I have seen several exhibitions of Burtynsky's photographs and if you can get to see this show in person, do so, as they have much more impact in a gallery setting.
• Could the Semicolon Die Out? Recent Analysis Finds a Decline in Its Usage in British Literature and Confusion Among U.K. Students. "Not only are semicolons evidently becoming more rare, but young people are less aware of how to use them, according to a survey."
• Why We Need Horror Authors in the Fight For the Freedom to Read. "Please note: this speech was directed at Horror authors, but I hope all of my readers use it as a template to speak to their community members about the importance of speaking out for the freedom to read and use the "how-to" component in the speech to give them the tools they need to take action."
• The Concorde-and-Caviar Era of Condé Nast, When Magazines Ruled the Earth. "Opulent days are over at Vogue, Vanity Fair and other once-powerful glossies. Anna Wintour is giving up (some) control. Now that everyone’s a gatekeeper, why do we keep recreating their status-obsessed world?"

Featured Links - June 16, 2025

Links to things I found interesting but didn't want to do a full blog post about.

A bearded iris in our garden

Imperial ouroboros. "Andor's second season is a powerful look at the fragility of oppressive ideologies." This is the best article I've read about the series and reveals just how remarkable an achievement it was. There's a master's thesis waiting for someone who wants to explore the revolutionary themes in Andor, The Expanse, and Babylon 5. 

This 1999 email from a tech pioneer helped me think about Apple’s WWDC. "Jef Raskin instigated the Mac project in 1979. Twenty years later, he was dismayed with the state of personal computing. What would he think today?"

RIP to the almost future of computing: Apple just turned the iPad into a Mac. "We didn’t need 15 years to get back to where we started." I will probably not use the new interface on my iPad Mini, but may on the bigger iPad Air. 

Teachers Are Not OK. 'AI, ChatGPT, and LLMs "have absolutely blown up what I try to accomplish with my teaching."'

432 Chinese robots moved an entire 7,500-ton neighborhood before returning it to its original spot to build a subway. Metrolinx, are you paying attention to what's going on elsewhere in the world?

50 Rare Vintage Pictures Showing The Everyday Grit Of Working Class Americans Back In The Day. This is a fascinating collection. I wonder what an equivalent series of photos would show today.

Neanderthals Spread Across Asia With Surprising Speed—and Now We Know How. "A new study suggests our prehistoric cousins likely traveled through the Ural Mountains and southern Siberia."

The Core of Fermat’s Last Theorem Just Got Superpowered. "By extending the scope of the key insight behind Fermat’s Last Theorem, four mathematicians have made great strides toward building a “grand unified theory” of math."

What It Took to Build the Death Star. "We know so much about the theft of its plans, and its final destruction over the Yavin system—but building the Death Star was a project decades in the making." Taking Star Wars seriously. 

20 hidden features in Apple’s upcoming 26-branded software. "Everything from iOS 26 to watchOS 26 is getting fun new features." I'm looking forward to trying out the new iPadOS later this year.

The semicolon defended by its advocates. I remember arguments about semicolons in my university English classes more than 50 years ago. 

Cart Cartoon Network Trolls Homophobes Hard For Melting Down Over Pride Month Fan Art. "The cable channel's Instagram account share oon Network Trolls Homophobes Hard For Melting Down Over Pride Month Fan Art. "The cable channel's Instagram account shared several pieces of fan art depicting characters from beloved shows to celebrate Pride Month—and trolled several homophobes who sounded off in the comments." Good. 

What the Fastest-Growing Christian Group Reveals About America. (archive link) "Instead of killing off faith, modernity has supercharged some of its most dramatic manifestations."

Featured Links - February 10, 2025

Links to things I found interesting but didn't want to do a full blog post about. After last week's blast of political stories, this week's articles are mostly politics-free. 

A winter farm

• The Batbible. The series bible for DC's Batman comics, written by Dennis O'Neil and updated by Scott Petersen. 
• Why Kodak is ‘Cracking Down’ on Respooled Motion Picture Film. "This week, Reflx Lab announced that it would soon no longer be able to offer some of its respooled 35mm motion picture stock because Kodak is more strictly “crack[ing] down” on respoolers. So, why is Kodak forfeiting the extra money made by selling to brands like Reflx Lab?"
• When Doctors With A.I. Are Outperformed by A.I. Alone. "A series of recent studies compared the performance of doctors with A.I. versus A.I. alone, spanning medical scans, diagnostic accuracy, and management reasoning. Surprisingly, in many cases, A.I. systems working independently performed better than when combined with physician input." 
• The rise of ‘influencer voice’: Why this TikTok creator accent is taking over the internet and maybe the world. "Was that a question? Online platforms have long influenced how we speak. Now a new generation of TikTok creators are fueling the latest variant."
• Video Game History Foundation to release scans of 1,500 vintage gaming magazines. "The VGHF's digital archive will be fully searchable, allowing researchers and enthusiasts to track the first mentions of influential games, developers, and gaming concepts."
• An Exoplanet Menagerie for SciFi Writers. "What would it be like to stand on an alien planet? Here's a quick tour of recent discoveries."
• NASA’s Historic Asteroid Sample Holds Clues to Life’s Origins. "The discovery is a capstone achievement for NASA, which went to great lengths to secure and deliver asteroid samples from asteroid Bennu in 2020."
• In Seattle, a Convergence of 5,444 Mathematical Minds (gift link). "Participants at this year’s Joint Mathematics Meetings explored everything from the role of A.I. to the hyperbolic design of a patchwork denim skirt."
• SpaceX has reshaped the landscape around Boca Chica, Texas. "The Starbase rocket testing facility is permanently changing the landscape of southern Texas."
• Why North England is poor. Some of the reasons discussed in this article would also apply to Northern Ontario.
• American Medical Association YouTube channel. Now that the CDC isn't doing updates about infectious diseases, the AMA has stepped up. 

Featured Links - January 27, 2025

Links to things I found interesting but didn't want to do a full blog post about.

Swans on a foggy bay

• Cultivating fandoms. "Charles Stross's A Conventional Boy is a solid reminder that fandoms aren't bodies of people a company can count on for marketing a franchise."
• The U.S. withdrawal from the WHO. "What it means and why it matters." When we have another pandemic, this will hurt both the US and the rest of the world. 
• Donald Trump Wants You to Die. "The attack on public health begins." The graphic about vaccination rates in the US is truly telling. Canadians who visit the US should be very selective about which places they visit. 
• The Potential Environmental (Airborne) Spread of H5N1. "And we're going to see more human cases related to that. The poultry industry is doomed to have challenge after challenge if they don't change the way they house these birds. They're going to have to find a way to have airtight buildings with only HEPA filter air coming in the intake and HEPA filter air being sent out the backside." I very much doubt that that is ever going to happen, given the current political and economic climate. 
• Is the aurora borealis really that mind-blowing? Or is it just your cellphone photos? TL; DR: It's the camera. 
• How to turn off Copilot in Microsoft 365 Family and Personal subscriptions. Done!
• ICE Watch Programs Can Protect Immigrants in Your Neighborhood — Here’s What to Know. "This op-ed explains how to start an ICE Watch neighborhood program in your community." A public service announcement for my US readers.
• A sprawling megacity of multi-level madness: why Chongqing in China is my wonder of the world. "This megacity is like Hong Kong on steroids – a vertically sprawling, astonishing urban phenomenon that can only be understood in three dimensions."
• Canadian authors warn readers that AI dupes of their books are popping up on Amazon. "Getting fake books taken down is ‘a game of whack-a-mole,' says writers’ union." This isn't just happening to Canadian authors; it's become widespread.

Featured Links - November 4, 2024

Links to things I found interesting but didn't want to do a full blog post about.

The future if Trump wins

• Guns. Knives. Bats. Hammers. Hatchets. Spears. "As incidents of road rage escalate across the country, aggressive drivers in Texas try to understand what triggers anger." A good article about something that is all too common. 
• Kingdom Uncovered. "New documentary reveals that 21,000 laborers have died working on Saudi Vision 2030, which includes NEOM, since construction began."
• See a giant ‘ghost particle’ detector and more — October’s best science images. "The month’s sharpest science shots, selected by Nature’s photo team."
• Reinventing the world’s favorite building material (archive link). "Concrete, the second-most-used material on Earth, generates about four times more CO2 emissions than planes." And one of the solutions might be slag; I hope someone at Algoma Steel reads this article. 
• The 2024 Grateful Dead Almanac. The year in the world of the Grateful Dead.
• The Strongman Fantasy. "And Dictatorship in Real Life". An historian on life under a dictator. 
• A fearful nation. "Jeremy Dauber's American Scary argues that America's horror genre are intrinsically linked to our horrific pasts–and present."
• Thousands Turn Out For Nonexistent Halloween Parade Promoted By AI Listing. The perils spreading disinformation created and enhanced by AI. 
• How The New York Times is using generative AI as a reporting tool. "LLMs help reporters transcribe and sort through hundreds of hours of leaked audio." AI can be useful, if it's handled responsibly and with understanding of its limitations.
• Why Are Liberals Infuriated with the Media? "From sanewashing to false equivalence, many readers have had it with their favorite news publications. Editors would do well to listen."

Featured Links - October 7, 2024

Links to things I found interesting but didn't want to do a full blog post about.

The Scarborough bluffs

• Prime's enshittified advertising. "Prime's gonna add more ads. They brought in ads in January, and people didn't cancel their Prime subscriptions, so Amazon figures that they can make Prime even worse and make more money." From Cory Doctorow. 
• ‘Everything is dead’: Ukraine rushes to stem ecocide after river poisoning. "Russia is suspected of deliberately leaking chemical waste into a river, with deadly consequences for wildlife."
• Escalating contest over South China Sea disrupts international cable system (gift link). "China’s effort to dominate the disputed waterway is taking a toll on the network of underwater cables that provide essential internet connectivity in Asia."
• College students used Meta’s smart glasses to dox people in real time. "The demo highlights the dark side of AR glasses."
• Mark Shapiro doesn’t even talk a good game. "The Blue Jays are a disaster. And the boss has to go (gift link)." As usual, Rosie DiMano doesn't pull any punches.
• License Plate Readers Are Creating a US-Wide Database of More Than Just Cars. "From Trump campaign signs to Planned Parenthood bumper stickers, license plate readers around the US are creating searchable databases that reveal Americans’ political leanings and more."
• The 1912 War On Fake Photos. "Concern about deceptively edited photos feels like a very modern anxiety, yet a century ago similar worries were being litigated."
• Enough, already: why humanity must get on board with the concept of ‘sufficiency’. "It’s a policy approach gaining momentum around the world. It aims to avoid demand for energy, materials, land and water, and ensure wellbeing for all humans, while staying within planetary boundaries."

Featured Links - September 30. 2024

Links to things I found interesting but didn't want to do a full blog post about.

Seagulls at the beach

• iPhone, Android Users Warned After 50,000 Message Email Bomb Attack. It doesn't sound like a common problem, but it could be really messy if you get hit by it.
• The Internet Archive’s Fight to Save Itself. "The web’s collective memory is stored in the servers of the Internet Archive. Legal battles threaten to wipe it all away." I am appalled at the way big business is attacking the Internet Archive. 
• Physicists Reveal a Quantum Geometry That Exists Outside of Space and Time. 'A decade after the discovery of the “amplituhedron,” physicists have excavated more of the timeless geometry underlying the standard picture of how particles move.'
• "The fall of Kodak wasn't because of digital cameras" says History in the Dark.  "The once-mighty camera giant was actually an early pioneer of digital tech, and if it wasn't for the iPhone things could have been so different."
• The Tragically Hip: The small-town band that united Canada. If you don't know about The Hip, you are missing something special. The new documentary about them on Amazon Prime is wonderful.
• Marvel and DC lose trademark on "superhero". "Marvel and DC have jointly held the trademark for the word "superhero" since 1980, but no longer. The United States Patent and Trademark Office, in response to a petition from Superbabies, Limited, has canceled the trademark. Anyone can now produce works using "superhero" without fear of a lawsuit from either of the entertainment behemoths." Another blow against the evil empire.
• 45 years ago CompuServe connected the world before the World Wide Web. CompuServe was my introduction to online life, sometime in 1985. 
• Canada’s Leaders Must Reject Overbroad Age Verification Bill. "Canadian lawmakers are considering a bill, S-210, that’s meant to benefit children, but would sacrifice the security, privacy, and free speech of all internet users." It seems that legislative ignorance and stupidity about the internet is not limited to the US and Britain.
• Paralyzed Jockey Loses Ability To Walk After Manufacturer Refuses To Fix Battery For His $100,000 Exoskeleton. "traight's experience is a nightmare scenario that highlights what happens when companies decide to stop supporting their products and do not actively support independent repair. It's also what happens without the protection of right to repair legislation that requires manufacturers to make repair parts, guides, and tools available to the general public."

Featured Links - July 15, 2024

Links to things I found interesting but didn't want to do a full blog post about.

Farming a hill

•  Just a Category 1 hurricane? Don't be fooled by a number—It could be more devastating than a Cat 5. "The circumference of a storm, how fast it's moving and the amount of rain it delivers are all factors that matter, as is the place where it hits: its geography, its population and the quality of its infrastructure. Also, it's important to remember that tornadoes can form regardless of a storm's size."
• Google is making it easier to see if your info is on the dark web — here’s how. "Dark web reports will soon be available for free to all Google users."
• Word Navigation Pane tricks and hidden options. The Navigation Pane is a great part of Word for Windows and Mac. Don’t miss on the hidden features because there’s more in that side-pane than the obvious."
• FTC study finds ‘dark patterns’ used by a majority of subscription apps and websites. "The U.S. Federal Trade Commission (FTC), along with two other international consumer protection networks, announced on Thursday the results of a study into the use of “dark patterns” — or manipulative design techniques — that can put users’ privacy at risk or push them to buy products or services or take other actions they otherwise wouldn’t have."
• A NASA Astronaut is Taking Beautiful and Creative Photos Onboard the ISS. "A NASA astronaut onboard the International Space Station (ISS) is taking a series of epic photographs and sharing the techniques behind them. Matthew Dominick has captured clever selfies of himself zooming through the Destiny module, creative off-camera flash portraits of the crew, and epic photos of the Italian peninsula." He may be the best photographer of any of the astronauts so far.
• Phil A. McBride: Another way that Canadian cops (and banks) have surrendered. "Apparently, a crime in progress is only worth responding to if a lot — a lot! — of money is lost." Our police and banks need to do better. 
• How NASA Fixed Voyager 1 From 15 Billion Miles Away. "Fixing the issue wasn't as simple as uploading a software update for a smartphone app. The Voyager 1 was launched in 1977, and now the engineers had to work with its half-century old technology." This was a remarkable technical achievement, especially considering the limited resources, the time lag, and age of Voyager's computers. 
• Who needs warships when you’ve got drones? Russia loses control over Black Sea. "This February attack, in which a big, expensive warship was taken down by Ukraine’s cheap, remote-controlled pack hunter drones like the Magura, is just one of many illustrations of how the full-scale war has been, in a word, asymmetrical. While Russians have made gains on land, they may as well have lost their dominance and security in the Black Sea for the foreseeable future." 
• How ghost cities in the Amazon are rewriting the story of civilisation. (archive link) "Remote sensing, including lidar, reveals that the Amazon was once home to millions of people. The emerging picture of how they lived challenges ideas of human cultural evolution."

Featured Links - June 10, 2024

 Links to things I found interesting but didn't want to do a full blog post about.

The hydro marsh from Alex Robertson park

• 10 ways to turn off Windows’ worst ads. "Windows will let you use your PC in relative peace. You just have to flip the right switches." I would say that not using Edge is one of the best ways of beating the ads. Don't try to clean it up; just don't use it.
• High fidelity. "What makes an adaptation work well?" A good discussion of adaptations of both books and games.
• Here comes the sun(screen). "Nuances in effectiveness, safety, and more."
• Excel gets Regular Expression functions. "Excel 365 is getting new functions that bring the power of Regular Expressions (RegEx) into spreadsheets.  It’s HUGE news and a big step forward for Excel." I used regular expressions frequently when I was working in Word and they are indeed useful, especially for complex searches. 
• Scientists map one of Earth’s top hazards in the Pacific Northwest (gift link). "A catastrophic earthquake and tsunami will one day hit the Pacific Northwest as tectonic plates slip at the Cascadia subduction zone."
• Oliver Nelson: The Blues and the Abstract Truth. An appreciation of a jazz classic from a master composer and arranger. As much as I like this album, I think his arranging on the two Wes Montgomery and Jimmy Smith collaborations is his best work.
• I finally tried the Meta AI in my Ray-Ban smart glasses thanks to an accidental UK launch – and it's by far the best AI wearable. 'Look and Ask' is flawed, but surprisingly useful" If they keep improving these, I might consider it in a couple of years. It could be genuinely useful for people like me with low vision. 
• Colorado’s Bold New Approach to Highways — Not Building Them. "The state has made it harder to widen highways, and transportation officials are turning their eyes to transit." Ontario, and its highway-crazy premier, could learn something from Colorado.
• Smartphone Cameras Owe Their Power to Astronomy. "The next time you snap a selfie, consider thanking an astronomer for your phone’s camera."

Featured Links - May 27, 2024

Links to things I found interesting but didn't want to do a full blog post about.

Flower basket

• The Dawn of the Hypercane. "Category 6 hurricanes are here and more are coming."
• Indian Voters Are Being Bombarded With Millions of Deepfakes. Political Candidates Approve. "India’s elections are a glimpse of the AI-driven future of democracy. Politicians are using audio and video deepfakes of themselves to reach voters—who may have no idea they’ve been talking to a clone."
• New study provides the "definitive answer on masks." They work. "In case you still have the patience to try to convince a mask skeptic—or even a rabid anti-masker—that masks *do* actually work, here's a great, brand-new, peer-reviewed study to share with them. The paper, which is based on a narrative review and meta-analysis research project, was written by an international team of 13 researchers from universities including University of Oxford (UK), University of New South Wales (Sydney, Australia), University of Toronto (Canada), University of Otago (Wellington, New Zealand), and University of Calgary (Alberta, Canada)." Nancy and I are still masking in most public indoor situations and we are still COVID-free. 
• Government report warns of dire disruptions coming in the next decade. "The report details things like ecosystem collapse and AI running wild, and even the possibility of world war."
• In Hamilton, film photography is having a comeback. "New film drop box at a Hamilton shop is filling an analogue need in a digital world." I don't think I would be interested in trying film again unless I could get a used medium-format camera (like the Pentax 6x7) cheap. 

Photography Links - April 19, 2024

Here are some links to articles about photography that I found interesting or useful.

Spring trees

“Beyond Physics.” How Google Pushes Phone Photography Past Its Limits. "We visited Google’s top-secret Pixel design studio to talk to Isaac Reynolds, the man in charge of building cameras for Pixel devices." Six months in, I continue to be impressed by the quality of the photos I am getting with my Pixel 8 Pro. 

Fujifilm Launches New Service in Canada to Digitize Old Media. "Fujifilm has launched a service through its Printlife branding called Capture Canada, which offers consumers there the opportunity to digitize prints, film, slides, and videotapes by mailing them in." I may use this at some point. 

Scientists reveal SUV-sized camera that will change our grasp of space. "The United States' SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory is finishing the over 5.5-foot-tall, 6,200-pound (1.65-meter and 2,800-kilogram) LSST Camera, which will snap cosmic images at the much-anticipated Vera C. Rubin Observatory located in the lofty Chilean mountains. The lab posted new images online showing the over 12-foot-long (3.7 m) camera, with its imposing lens, in a clean room."

Long Before Photoshop, the Soviets Mastered the Art of Erasing People from Photographs — and History Too. "Like their counterparts in Hollywood, photographic retouchers in Soviet Russia spent long hours smoothing out the blemishes of imperfect complexions, helping the camera to falsify reality,” writes David King in the introduction to his book The Commissar Vanishes: The Falsification of Photographs and Art in Stalin’s Russia. “Stalin’s pockmarked face, in particular, demanded exceptional skills with the airbrush. But it was during the Great Purges, which raged in the late 1930s, that a new form of falsification emerged. The physical eradication of Stalin’s political opponents at the hands of the secret police was swiftly followed by their obliteration from all forms of pictorial existence."

World Photography Organisation announces professional finalists for Sony World Photography Awards 2024. "This year over 395,000 images from more than 220 countries and territories were submitted to professional categories, a new record for the 17-year-old competition. Organizers have whittled those entries down to three finalists and an assortment of shortlisted images in each of 10 categories: Architecture & Design, Creative, Documentary Projects, Environment, Landscape, Portfolio, Portraiture, Sport, Still Life and Wildlife & Nature."

Top tips on how to take great vertical landscape photos. "Landscapes can be portraits too. Our inspired vertical landscape photographer gives some wonderful insights into how."

How to Fill the Frame for Stunning Photos (A Quick Guide). "Photography is an art form where every detail counts, and one of the most powerful techniques at your disposal is filling the frame – that is, ensuring that your main subject takes up the majority of your photo."