Retired standards expert living in upstate NY. Photographer. Writer. Gardener. Syndicalist. Animist. Doomer. Occasional mystic. Member of The Things Network Ithaca. Proprietor of Medicine Spring LLC. Father of XML and UBL, but they left home a long time ago (ibiblio.org/bosak/cv). FCC Third Class Radiotelephone License (expired). Avatar: obscure George Herriman reference.
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npub1673danhrl8z8g5xg0umxlxkd2j4rtfyzfmjzq0rearecxrrnuuts9efx9t Profile Code
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2026-08-26T11:17:18Z Event JSON
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Last Notes npub1673danhrl8z8g5xg0umxlxkd2j4rtfyzfmjzq0rearecxrrnuuts9efx9t Jon Bosak #photography #filmphotography #retrobosak npub1673danhrl8z8g5xg0umxlxkd2j4rtfyzfmjzq0rearecxrrnuuts9efx9t Jon Bosak #photography #filmphotography #retrobosak npub1673danhrl8z8g5xg0umxlxkd2j4rtfyzfmjzq0rearecxrrnuuts9efx9t Jon Bosak #photography #filmphotography npub1673danhrl8z8g5xg0umxlxkd2j4rtfyzfmjzq0rearecxrrnuuts9efx9t Jon Bosak #photography #filmphotography npub1673danhrl8z8g5xg0umxlxkd2j4rtfyzfmjzq0rearecxrrnuuts9efx9t Jon Bosak #photography #filmphotography #retrobosak npub1673danhrl8z8g5xg0umxlxkd2j4rtfyzfmjzq0rearecxrrnuuts9efx9t Jon Bosak Here's another shot of me in action at this time, probably taken by the same yearbook photographer. This is actually a mirror image; the yearbook editor flopped the neg to suit the layout. npub1673danhrl8z8g5xg0umxlxkd2j4rtfyzfmjzq0rearecxrrnuuts9efx9t Jon Bosak #photography #filmphotography #retrobosak npub1673danhrl8z8g5xg0umxlxkd2j4rtfyzfmjzq0rearecxrrnuuts9efx9t Jon Bosak That aqua against that blue. Jeez. npub1673danhrl8z8g5xg0umxlxkd2j4rtfyzfmjzq0rearecxrrnuuts9efx9t Jon Bosak The family that I have left is just my daughter (and granddaughter, but she's only 3). When Clara was born in 1985 I switched to 35mm color negs for everything and just had them drugstore processed, so she has a couple of dozen big albums full of prints to look at already! npub1673danhrl8z8g5xg0umxlxkd2j4rtfyzfmjzq0rearecxrrnuuts9efx9t Jon Bosak #photography #filmphotography npub1673danhrl8z8g5xg0umxlxkd2j4rtfyzfmjzq0rearecxrrnuuts9efx9t Jon Bosak I'm increasingly convinced that the only way to prevent a downward spiral into complete idiocy is to institute schools in which access to LLMs for the completion of coursework is physically impossible. Technically, this would be trivial to implement. npub1673danhrl8z8g5xg0umxlxkd2j4rtfyzfmjzq0rearecxrrnuuts9efx9t Jon Bosak I know, it's really annoying. npub1673danhrl8z8g5xg0umxlxkd2j4rtfyzfmjzq0rearecxrrnuuts9efx9t Jon Bosak And all those culs-de-sac. Making it impossible to walk in a straight line anywhere. Trapped like flies in a bottle. I grew up in a suburban development built in 1945 just as dense as these, but I could easily walk to school and to the grocery store and the library. We are prisoners of our own device. npub1673danhrl8z8g5xg0umxlxkd2j4rtfyzfmjzq0rearecxrrnuuts9efx9t Jon Bosak It helps to remember that there was only one book explaining SGML (written by Charles), and it used angle brackets, so there they were for 500 unreadable pages. This is the book that Tim famously compared to the 25-page XML specification when he tossed a copy of that into an SGML audience and noted the devastation it would have made if he had tossed Charles's book into the front rows instead. npub1673danhrl8z8g5xg0umxlxkd2j4rtfyzfmjzq0rearecxrrnuuts9efx9t Jon Bosak I don't know for sure how angle brackets became the canonical SGML example, but I very strongly suspect that the choice was made by Charles Goldfarb, who was an IBM lawyer. And I would guess that he chose angle brackets because they caused the least amount of conflict with the characters found in technical prose, the structuring of which is of course what SGML was invented for. npub1673danhrl8z8g5xg0umxlxkd2j4rtfyzfmjzq0rearecxrrnuuts9efx9t Jon Bosak HTML has angle brackets because it was originally formed by adding the <A> tag to the CERN SGML Starter Set, which was a simple example of markup for SGML beginners created by Anders Berglund. npub1673danhrl8z8g5xg0umxlxkd2j4rtfyzfmjzq0rearecxrrnuuts9efx9t Jon Bosak The angle brackets come from SGML, which became an ISO standard in 1986. But they were just there as an example; SGML allows you declare any delimiter you like for this role. Or to eliminate visible delimiters by writing the DTD to make their existence necessarily implied. It was features like these that made SGML so f*cking hard to implement, and XML was created by eliminating them. npub1673danhrl8z8g5xg0umxlxkd2j4rtfyzfmjzq0rearecxrrnuuts9efx9t Jon Bosak And then we just develop computers that understand the English natively and do the correct thing, right? npub1673danhrl8z8g5xg0umxlxkd2j4rtfyzfmjzq0rearecxrrnuuts9efx9t Jon Bosak 1/ npub1673danhrl8z8g5xg0umxlxkd2j4rtfyzfmjzq0rearecxrrnuuts9efx9t Jon Bosak Possibly the first David Brooks article that didn't make me cringe. But where does this organization come from, and who gets to lead it? npub1673danhrl8z8g5xg0umxlxkd2j4rtfyzfmjzq0rearecxrrnuuts9efx9t Jon Bosak #gardening npub1673danhrl8z8g5xg0umxlxkd2j4rtfyzfmjzq0rearecxrrnuuts9efx9t Jon Bosak A big impediment to actually growing enough food to make it worth your time is trying to do everything right. I achieved enlightenment a few years ago at a seminar on effective farming when the presenter pointed out that you will be time and money ahead by just leaving your tools out in the rain. Making it work hinges on knowing what to let go and where to put the limited time that you have available. npub1673danhrl8z8g5xg0umxlxkd2j4rtfyzfmjzq0rearecxrrnuuts9efx9t Jon Bosak I used to have one of those big drum composters on a stand. Turned it and measured the temperature every day. Very careful about the proportions of the "greens" and the "browns." Now I just toss everything (including egg shells and meat scraps) in a big square bin and let the worms deal with it. Works fine. npub1673danhrl8z8g5xg0umxlxkd2j4rtfyzfmjzq0rearecxrrnuuts9efx9t Jon Bosak Thanks for reminding me about the blanket! npub1673danhrl8z8g5xg0umxlxkd2j4rtfyzfmjzq0rearecxrrnuuts9efx9t Jon Bosak Five: Seen peacoats a million times, right? But official U.S. Navy issue? npub1673danhrl8z8g5xg0umxlxkd2j4rtfyzfmjzq0rearecxrrnuuts9efx9t Jon Bosak Four: Taping a KUCR news interview. I have shots of the same guy on another roll, but not a clue as to who he was. npub1673danhrl8z8g5xg0umxlxkd2j4rtfyzfmjzq0rearecxrrnuuts9efx9t Jon Bosak Three: A set of marginally acceptable photos taken in very bad light in the Pub. npub1673danhrl8z8g5xg0umxlxkd2j4rtfyzfmjzq0rearecxrrnuuts9efx9t Jon Bosak Two: In the Pub. npub1673danhrl8z8g5xg0umxlxkd2j4rtfyzfmjzq0rearecxrrnuuts9efx9t Jon Bosak #photography #filmphotography #retrobosak npub1673danhrl8z8g5xg0umxlxkd2j4rtfyzfmjzq0rearecxrrnuuts9efx9t Jon Bosak #philosophy #consciousness npub1673danhrl8z8g5xg0umxlxkd2j4rtfyzfmjzq0rearecxrrnuuts9efx9t Jon Bosak You must have covered this somewhere in the past, but I missed it, so I have to ask: how can you be showing a different place every day? Are you just constantly traveling? npub1673danhrl8z8g5xg0umxlxkd2j4rtfyzfmjzq0rearecxrrnuuts9efx9t Jon Bosak 4/ npub1673danhrl8z8g5xg0umxlxkd2j4rtfyzfmjzq0rearecxrrnuuts9efx9t Jon Bosak 3/ npub1673danhrl8z8g5xg0umxlxkd2j4rtfyzfmjzq0rearecxrrnuuts9efx9t Jon Bosak 2/ npub1673danhrl8z8g5xg0umxlxkd2j4rtfyzfmjzq0rearecxrrnuuts9efx9t Jon Bosak #retrobosak #memoir npub1673danhrl8z8g5xg0umxlxkd2j4rtfyzfmjzq0rearecxrrnuuts9efx9t Jon Bosak Yes, I am running and moderating an instance of my own on a commercial service (masto.host) that I pay for. What's wrong with this? npub1673danhrl8z8g5xg0umxlxkd2j4rtfyzfmjzq0rearecxrrnuuts9efx9t Jon Bosak Where is the category for "instances you run yourself on a commercial service that you pay for"? npub1673danhrl8z8g5xg0umxlxkd2j4rtfyzfmjzq0rearecxrrnuuts9efx9t Jon Bosak These photos would be a lot more interesting if you told us what we are looking at. npub1673danhrl8z8g5xg0umxlxkd2j4rtfyzfmjzq0rearecxrrnuuts9efx9t Jon Bosak Perfect classic winding-road composition. Nice. npub1673danhrl8z8g5xg0umxlxkd2j4rtfyzfmjzq0rearecxrrnuuts9efx9t Jon Bosak Oh, I didn't realize it was that small! Sorry for the silly guess. npub1673danhrl8z8g5xg0umxlxkd2j4rtfyzfmjzq0rearecxrrnuuts9efx9t Jon Bosak If you found this across a road or path, it's a cattle guard. npub1673danhrl8z8g5xg0umxlxkd2j4rtfyzfmjzq0rearecxrrnuuts9efx9t Jon Bosak Two: Green Room shots. npub1673danhrl8z8g5xg0umxlxkd2j4rtfyzfmjzq0rearecxrrnuuts9efx9t Jon Bosak #photography #filmphotography #retrobosak npub1673danhrl8z8g5xg0umxlxkd2j4rtfyzfmjzq0rearecxrrnuuts9efx9t Jon Bosak The Mamiya is a "travel camera" if you're traveling with a brass band. Inconspicuous it is not, and lightweight it is not. But casual use with the camera kept in your car is a different matter. Parking in one place and walking around with it can be a great experience, and despite its size, the camera (like all TLRs) is almost silent in operation. npub1673danhrl8z8g5xg0umxlxkd2j4rtfyzfmjzq0rearecxrrnuuts9efx9t Jon Bosak Yes, AFAIK all the lenses for the C series are interchangeable. HOWEVER, older lenses made for the bodies without autococking (like the C220) don't play well with the ones that have it (like the C33 and C330). In your case, nothing to worry about, and it looks like you have one of the later generation of lenses anyway. I have the 55mm f/4.5 and the 135mm f/4.5 and can recommend both of them. npub1673danhrl8z8g5xg0umxlxkd2j4rtfyzfmjzq0rearecxrrnuuts9efx9t Jon Bosak Thanks! The Horseman really is a baby view camera. I'm so pleased that the scanner I bought years ago specifically for my (long delayed) retrospective turned out to be able to handle 6x9, which wasn't on my mind when I got it. I would never have gotten back into this without that capability. npub1673danhrl8z8g5xg0umxlxkd2j4rtfyzfmjzq0rearecxrrnuuts9efx9t Jon Bosak Fourth: Same subject, different perspective. 150mm f/5.6 Topcor with #15 filter, 1/15 sec. at f/22. npub1673danhrl8z8g5xg0umxlxkd2j4rtfyzfmjzq0rearecxrrnuuts9efx9t Jon Bosak Third: The switch engine pulls some loaded cars forward. Same data as the previous one. npub1673danhrl8z8g5xg0umxlxkd2j4rtfyzfmjzq0rearecxrrnuuts9efx9t Jon Bosak Second: Same lens, but with Wratten #15 (deep yellow) filter, 1/15 sec. at f/22. npub1673danhrl8z8g5xg0umxlxkd2j4rtfyzfmjzq0rearecxrrnuuts9efx9t Jon Bosak #photography #filmphotography npub1673danhrl8z8g5xg0umxlxkd2j4rtfyzfmjzq0rearecxrrnuuts9efx9t Jon Bosak I'm curious about how you correct the verticals in these shots. In post, right? npub1673danhrl8z8g5xg0umxlxkd2j4rtfyzfmjzq0rearecxrrnuuts9efx9t Jon Bosak These negs are half a century old and not kept under the best conditions. And I believe that a lot of the spots aren't dust at all but rather particles from the original rinse water lodged in the emulsion; they are rounder and smaller than actual dust motes and can't be cleaned off. And they are mostly too small to be obvious online. I'm just being compulsive in needing to get rid of them. So a tool that could be that compulsive on my behalf would be most welcome. npub1673danhrl8z8g5xg0umxlxkd2j4rtfyzfmjzq0rearecxrrnuuts9efx9t Jon Bosak The equivalent in AP works great, but removing the little devils one at a time can take me half an hour per shot. The resolution of my oh-so-great scanner reveals a lot more than I was ever aware of in silver prints, and ancient habit requires me to get rid of all of them. Not quite as bad as opaquing litho negs processed with fine-line developer, but close. npub1673danhrl8z8g5xg0umxlxkd2j4rtfyzfmjzq0rearecxrrnuuts9efx9t Jon Bosak I could use a tool that did a perfect job of removing dust spots. I would even pay to have that as an add-on to what I'm currently using (Affinity Photo). Beyond that, no. npub1673danhrl8z8g5xg0umxlxkd2j4rtfyzfmjzq0rearecxrrnuuts9efx9t Jon Bosak If we're looking to be exact, that's incorrect. In fact, 16C equals 60.8F, and 28C equals 82.4F. npub1673danhrl8z8g5xg0umxlxkd2j4rtfyzfmjzq0rearecxrrnuuts9efx9t Jon Bosak #photography #filmphotography npub1673danhrl8z8g5xg0umxlxkd2j4rtfyzfmjzq0rearecxrrnuuts9efx9t Jon Bosak #photography #filmphotography #retrobosak npub1673danhrl8z8g5xg0umxlxkd2j4rtfyzfmjzq0rearecxrrnuuts9efx9t Jon Bosak Very interested to note that this will have a 5-element lens. I was expecting the generic f2.8 Tessar design that afflicted many small film cameras. These were "acceptable" at f8-f11 and disappointing wider open. (Not so in f3.5 form with 6x6 and larger, e.g., Rolleicord, where f8-f11 will yield quite good results, or on LF, where some of the best were Tessars.) I'll be eager to see the results. npub1673danhrl8z8g5xg0umxlxkd2j4rtfyzfmjzq0rearecxrrnuuts9efx9t Jon Bosak 'In its free, harmonious expression of human powers, art is a prototype of what it is to live well. It is radical not so much because of what it says as because of what it is. It is an image of non-alienated labour in a world in which men and women fail to recognise themselves in what they create.' npub1673danhrl8z8g5xg0umxlxkd2j4rtfyzfmjzq0rearecxrrnuuts9efx9t Jon Bosak 'Unlike most realists, #Marx does not see #art as precious because it reflects reality. On the contrary, it is most relevant to humanity when it is an end in itself. Art is a critique of instrumental reason. John Milton sold Paradise Lost to a publisher for five pounds, but he produced it "for the same reason that a silkworm produces silk. It was an activity wholly natural to him."
