I've got nothing better to do, so here's just a few thoughts I have had on my mind for a while now. Please note, a good chunk of this is a rant, if you get offended by this, just remember I most likely don't have anything against you in partiuclar, in fact if you are offended directly by something I said here, I'm pretty sure you just misinterpreted the message.
I would like to know how many people (If any) have as much of a problem with charging Apple devices as I do. I exclusively use third-party lightning cables for charging my iPad Mini, and it causes quite a few problems. well, I guess not "quite a few" problems, but just one. They don't work. I can barely charge my iPad Mini because you plug in the cable and the iPad either reads "Not Charging" or nothing happens at all. You can still charge with those cables, but you have to leave the iPad OFF and plugged in for about 24 hours to get a full charge. And after all of that, I swear the battery meter goes down faster than it used to. It could be an improper charge, or it could be faulty battery. Who knows.
I mean really, we as technological society have come to accept that consumer electronics are born to die, and I've been told personally by an ex-Apple customer support technician that the average life expectancy of an iPhone is two years. Two years? This is actually okay‽ This isn't even an Apple exclusive problem, I'm curently running Windows 7 on a cheap hack job PC from 2014. Over the past four and a half years I have had two major components die on me, the power supply and the hard disk. I was able to salvage a compatiple power supply from an older desktop (From 2007 mind you) to get it running, but that hard disk had all of my data on it. Think of how many memes I lost! And this wasn't a software glitch, that drive died of mechanical failure. >:(
If anyone is reading this 20 or so years from now, keep this in mind. It's the year 2019 on my end and the average life span of an iPhone is two years. (And for the record, I have seen this prophecy fufiled enough times to believe it) Meanwhile, I have plenty of technology from the 1980s and 1990s that work just fine. And when the devices don't work properly, you can buy and install replacement parts yourself. For example, any self respecting piece of equipment that has has a motor to spin the media uses rubber belts to drive the motor that spins the tape. This applies to audio cassettes, VCRs, open reel recorders, record players and sometimes even transistor radios with an analogue tuner (For connecting the tuning fork to the dial). But with today's technology, you can't replace ANYTHING, mostly because everything has been miniturized so much there isn't a viable way to make the components repairable by human hands.
Whenever I shoot photos, I shoot film. Nonody around me seems to get why, and I can understand their reasoning. They're baffled by the idea of having to not only wait, but pay to get photos developed when I could just shoot digital and get instant results. But, the thing that I wish everyone could understand is that the Pentax K1000 you see me walking the streets with has survied more than 40 years, and counting. And what about my old point and shoot digital camera from 2004? Dead as a doornail.
And that brings me to another topic, why I shoot film. Aside from the older cameras being super reliable, there are some other reasons. People ask me why I would handicap myself so severly when photography is supposed to be fun. Well, to me the fun is the handicaps. I feel bad for anyone in the future who will have never experienced the joy of shooting film, I really do. It's an absolutely magical feeling to send my photos off to the lab and wait an entire week to see what they look like. The suspense is incredible, and it is so gratifying to get a photo back that turned out far better than you expected. I even go one step further: I never photoshop my images. Whatever appears on the negative, that's what I stick with.
I believe it's also worth mentioning the debate about whether or not film looks better than digital. You can look into that yourselves, but here's my opinion. Use what you want, aside from the ups and downs of the technology, they have two completely different looks from each other. With how drastic the looks are, there really isn't a right a wrong, it's all preference. I personally like the look of film better, it's just a lot more comfortable to my eyes. But it doesn't really matter because anyone who tries to declare the right opinion on whether film or digital looks better is literally trying to objectify art.
That's an important life lesson I think everyone should learn, not just with art but with anything, Not much in this world is truly objective, there will always be an alternate opinion to something. Obviously you don't have to agree to it, but I try to listen to the alternate opinion whenever I can. There have been multiple instances where even though my opinion hasn't been changed, I have looked at things differently afterwards.
Well, I suppose this went on for way too long. If you made it to this point without skipping or skimming, you must have way too much time on your hands. Or maybe you don't, who knows? Anyways, I'll leave off here. Take care, and carry on.
Argot
Page created: Friday, January 25th, 2019