davidd's A DOLL A DAY 2024

[davidd]

... but if you have the DSLR then why not make use of it?

I tried some pics of the same scene with my DSLR camera yesterday, and they turned out as grainy as the iPad photos. What th' heck? Am I doing something wrong on my computer? Is the computer no longer working properly when I import pix?

Then I ended up having trouble importing pictures. They show up on the camera, but when I put the card in the reader in the computer or in a reader attached to the computer, the pictures don't show up... unless I reformat the SD card each time I put it back in the camera. Weird. Maybe I need a new card.

I finally thought to check the ISO setting on the camera. I figured out how... that took some digging. It was set to "auto" with an upper end limit of ISO 16000. Not 1600, but 16000.  I cranked the top end limit down to 800, and the pictures showed less digital grain... but more motion blur, because I'm out of practice hand-holding those 1/5-second ex-posures.

What ISO range do you use for your digital photos?

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12 March - A Doll A Day 2024:

VAMPIRA'S LITERARY LOUNGE

Extremely Online (2023) by Taylor Lorenz

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Extremely Online: the Untold Story of Fame, Influence, and Power on the Internet (2023) by Taylor Lorenz.

Non-fiction history of the emergence of social media influencers from about 1997 to 2022.

Quick summary: A lot of (mostly very young) people made, and continue to make, buckets of money, millions, providing content for online platforms, yet the author takes the position that the reader should feel sorry for them because they have to work so hard and put in so many hours to keep the money flowing while the big mean nasty corporate juggernauts do little or nothing to support them (other than giving many of them MORE MONEY IN A YEAR THAN MOST OF US EARN IN A LIFETIME).

Additional remarks (please ignore):

What I learned: the author self-identifies as "medically fragile" and supports everyone continuing to wear masks everywhere and forever to protect her, and she supports online platforms limiting or removing "COVID disinformation" (which is broadly defined as anything that does not support the COVID mask-and-vax agenda).

Not a word, not one, about the revelations that much of the COVID "disinformation" was actually accurate, and that "stopping disinformation" was largely about ensuring compliance and hiding the potential negative side-effects of the inadequately tested, and questionably effective, vaccines.

Oh, and... any criticism leveled at a woman or a girl is, by default, "misogynist." I lost count of the times that word appeared in the book. And even though a lot of the criticism of online female "influencers" comes from the female audience, apparently that, too, is somehow "misogynist."

Other than that, the rest of the book was pretty interesting... although somewhat vague on specifics. The book did not delve in to where the money came from when growing social media companies "valued" at hundreds of millions, even billions, of dollars, several of which ended up collapsing, offered lucrative "creator contracts" to online "stars" who attracted large user followings. How can a company that loses tens and even hundreds of millions of dollars a year keep going? How can it keep spending?

The "misogynist" and the COVID-masking "medically fragile" stuff was annoying. The big money the early YouTubers and Vine stars and Instagrammers were making was interesting, albeit almost beyond comprehension. The source of the staggering sums of money the tech companies have burned through over the past two decades without turning a profit is never ex-plored. Overall, an interesting read, but I would have found it more interesting if it had gone in to a little more depth on the business side, and if the rise of online media stars had also been ex-amined from the perspective of the audience and fans: why do the fans follow certain people? Why do the fans lose interest in, or even turn against, former favorites?



12 March - A Doll A Day 2024
NECA Toys "Toony Terrors" Vampira figure