Posts Tagged photographs

Posted on Travel

Dealing with photos

There’s nothing worse than traveling with a smartphone. Sure, you might not have to worry about a few inconveniences (getting lost, printing things like tickets or booking confirmations, or knowing what time it is), but you assuredly come back with way too many photos—sometimes numbering in the thousands. And then you have to sort through them all. I’m not even talking about good photos.

No, there’s nothing worse than traveling with a smartphone (actually maybe hiccups).

At some point—I think around May 2023—I found myself in this exact position once again, and honestly, I should have known better. But there I was with a million1 or so photos from France, and so that’s when I finally gave up, and just made a program to help me sort them.

I warn you now: it is ugly and unpolished, but for my purposes it gets the job done.

That’s right, I didn’t bother changing the form’s title from Form1. So what??

You can select the parent folder to look through. It will load in any metadata its already saved and detect the folder structure, which it’ll use to overwrite any contradictory metadata (which I’ll explain more in a bit).

The scale tags are set, but you can select which one(s) you currently want to view. As you move through the photos (with the left and right arrow keys) you can click up to raise the photo’s scale, or down to lower it. So I can quickly toggle through all the photos and mark the blurry ones as terrible.

Then I can go through the the remainder and decide if I like them or not.

I can also add custom tags and apply them to photos, which I did this for my photos from France.

This one is tagged with best (a scale tag), as well as eze and wildlife (custom tags)

You can update an image’s tags by right-clicking on it.

A photo can only have a single scale tag associated with it because… that’s kind of just how scale works

The Save button saves the current metadata to a JSON file, but Bake scale bakes the scale into the folder structure. This creates directories in your folder for each scale tag that currently has images associated with it, and moves those photos into that subdirectory. Which means I don’t have to rely on being able to find this program later to know which photos were okay. Which is great because I lost it once already. Well, first I completely forgot it existed, but when I realized and went looking for it I couldn’t find it anywhere.

But I have found it now, and I guess I should use it to organize my photos from Germany. Ugh.

Posted on Travel

Whew 2020 was a busy year!

And I didn’t post a single time during it. But it wasn’t because nothing happened—things happened! So many things that I didn’t feel comfortable setting aside the time to stop and blog.

I got back from a month in Europe, which was really cool and, it turns out, convenient. Europe is neat, and I lucked out in a lot of ways. Traveling is fun, but the actual process of traveling itself is kind of grueling, especially when you’re tall. I haven’t really left my apartment in almost a year now, and I’ve found that I don’t really mind it. But maybe that’s just because I’ve been too busy to really notice.

As loyal readers (hey, that’s me!) will surely know, I do computer programming, and in 2020 I was successfully lured into accepting a job – I’m an employee for the first time in twelve years – and it’s been interesting and strange. To think that this is what it’s like for people, getting paid on a set and immobile schedule.

My Snapmaker 2.0 arrived, and it is awesome. I’ve used it to 3D print some things, and done some CNCing. I haven’t tested the laser cutter yet.

As you also know, I am prone to challenging myself to do ridiculous things just to see if I can, and in most cases, stubbornly following through. To that end, I wrote a terrible novel in a month. It wasn’t enjoyable, forcing myself to spew out ~1700 words a day, but it turns out doing things poorly is isn’t as difficult as you might think.

I started listening to Spout Lore, a podcast. Which makes me an official podcaster. Or a podcastee. Or a podcatcher. I don’t know how it works; whichever one listens to podcasts. I also wrote a Spout Lore fanfic, and made a new website for them. Check it out if you like cool podcasts.

I programmed the website for a neat Vodka Soda company, which had some interesting technical challenges that I’d like to break down at some point. It was designed by Sheldon Rennie, who is a cool designer that you should use if you need cool designs.

I joined a D&D game that lasted like nine months. It just ended. For the first few, after each session, I wrote out what happened from my character’s perspective. I stopped doing that somewhere around 45,000 words, but I would like to tell you a bit more about him if only so I can use it as easy reference. A new campaign is starting soon.

There’s a bunch of work stuff that I can’t really talk about, but I also got a pull request accepted into Apache Superset. Now you can do RLS (row level security) with it!

Yeah I’ve been to Edinburgh so what
Posted on Travel

The other side of the world: photographs of albums (or maybe the other way)

The Gold Coast & Brisbane

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The other side of the world - 001

The Gold Coast & Sydney

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The other side of the world - 002

Sydney & Katoomba/Blue Mountains

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The other side of the world - 003

Melbourne, Katoomba/Blue Mountains, & Hobart

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The other side of the world - 004

Hobard/Mt. Wellington

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The other side of the world - 005

Hobart & Orford/Maria Island

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The other side of the world - 006

Launceston

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The other side of the world - 007

Manly

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The other side of the world - 008

Christchurch/Sumner

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The other side of the world - 009

Posted on Travel

Surfers Paradise

A flood of Schoolies fills Surfers and its surrounding towns. Shops convert, selling clothing and sporting posters celebrating them. Nights are subject to their screams. Balconies are packed with their creepy, little bodies.

The hostel we were in soaked up so many as to have no room for us. Ryan and Paul moved to Southport, and then back and into their apartment, just as English as when they left.

I migrated north to Surf’n Sun Something Backpackers Something Beachside. This blog being public, I’ve decided that it would be ill-advised to post my opinions and thoughts regarding those that I meet. Hmmm. That makes it less interesting. Some filtered observations might be acceptable.

I met Kay. He liked to talk [to people]. Still Japanese, he left a few days later. Three others took that opportunity to fill the room. Two were sisters, and the other was someone’s sister, I’m sure.

Theresa killed a cockroach and hates bats. She didn’t like me at all.

Anna thought bats were cute and liked horror movies. She did not appreciate the gifts left by her bed bugs.

Natalie gave her two weeks notice to the strip club for which she waited.

Having never purchased beers in Australia, I enlisted the advice of an employee at the liquor store. I was led to a room that was eerily cold. My first thought that I’d followed him to my doom.

He proceeded to point out varieties of beer, and list their attributes. I selected a brand based solely on a commercial I’d seen some days before.

I bought six. I drank two. Four sit in my fridge, alone but for some moldy cheese.

I went to the beach a few times. Looking upward, I was mesmerized. I watched the clouds as they intermingled. They were not dense and opaque and boring. They were layered and veined and they moved not as a single mass.

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I learned that I have a derisive smile. It has been claimed that judgment is marked by my smile. I would have described it as mischievous.

I have an apartment (payed for for three months). I moved in, leaving the three as Swedish as I found them. It is not a nice place, but if it were mine I believe that I could make it decent. It is decorated with a billion different styles. They work together to form whatever is the visual equivalent of cacophony. Thankfully, the great number of bugs serve to distract my eyes. There are two varieties that I’ve yet to note, but there are many of each.

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Having an apartment means that I finally get to cook. Can I finally escape the strangely bland food that Australia thus far has provided?

In my search for a pasta sauce that isn’t gross I consulted the internet for sauce ratings. I bought two different types.

I’ve tried one, so far. I give it a four point five out of nine (4.5/9).

I’ve spent a ridiculous amount of money this week. Hopefully I can find a way to replenish my diminishing funds without resorting to renting my body to the elderly. Their wrinkled flesh leathery from years of sun. Their teeth yellowed from the accumulated smoke of a thousand cigarettes. Those hacking-laughs haunt my dreams.

Of course, that might be easier if I could get internet access. Apparently, they are very busy. Their only service to me thus far has been the endless and looping serenade of music while on hold.

Things I’ve learned about Australia

  • Cheddar cheese is white in Australia. Also moldy.
  • Australian money is always in such good condition. I feel like I ruin it ever time i put it in my pocket.
  • The people here are crazy at crossing roads.
  • I feel strangely at home when they append Ss to words (coffees, maths, fishes, etc) and also when they pronounce the word fillet as I would.