The Great Kindle Rip-Off ** Updated **

When Kindle first came out, I jumped in immediately, loving the simplicity and convenience of electronic reading. And main stream books were going for $9.99, which was well below the cost of a hardcover and even slightly below the cost of a softcover.

But the publishers were just baiting us … slowly but surely, the prices crept up. When they hit $14.99 for the Kindle edition, I decided to explore alternative authors and I found that there are many authors who publish interesting and amusing novels for a fraction of the cost of main-stream authors’ works.

I noticed today that my favourite series – Michael Connelly’s Harry Bosch – has a new entry. So I took a look at the cost and was flabbergasted that the cost is now $18.99 in Canada, which is less than 4 dollars cheaper than the hardcover and is actually more expensive than the softcover.



You have to remember that Kindle editions cost NOTHING in materials, so the profit margins are astronomical when compared with books. I have read lately that the Kindle format is waning in popularity, and you need only look at the above to see why.

I have purchased something like 300 or 400 books on Kindle and I still believe in the format. But I will not be buying or reading the new Harry Bosch novel. I have so much I could be reading for between $0 and $5 that these main stream authors can go “read” themselves … if you get my drift.

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Update 4 Jan 2017 -- The previous book in the series is also one I have not read, and it went on sale after Christmas for $2.99 cad. That's more like it and I purchased it immediately. So the trick with Kindle and best-selling authors is to buy their stuff a year later ...

Populism … It is here now, but where does it lead? *Updated Feb 2019*

Update 17 Feb 2019: It is far worse than I expected. I wonder how many saw coming the incredible chaos and indiscriminate flouting of all rules and norms (legislative and judicial). And also the spread to so many other nations.

Speaking of the spread … Canada is following similar tendencies to the rest of the world with the right wing (most of whom sound like alt right these days) unabashedly and even brazenly spouting their brand of racist and borderline fascist ideologies. The weaponization of social media is pretty much complete with all the “PROUD” sites (and similar) spouting alternate facts and outright lies to destroy Liberal politicians. It’s working (as the province of Ontario knows only too well).

In my opinion (and it is just that), history will judge Facebook and the like as a shameful scar on this decade.

Now … back to the original post …

Quite a few people chose to ignore the 2016 election in the USA or to cast waste their votes on those who had no chance. They then had the pleasure (?) of watching a populist eek out a narrow victory that was sealed by 3 swing states with margins of victory totaling fewer votes than a single alternate candidate garnered. (Actually, in two of them this is true, but in one of them the winner got a margin a bit higher than the leading alternate’s vote count). And all of this while losing the popular vote by a rather spectacular 3,000,000+ votes overall.

In other words, the victory was gifted by those who wasted their votes or held them back. (Note: The reasons are varied and nuanced, but the final result does come down to this simple act repeated many times.)

Since then, they have no doubt enjoyed watching the populist turn into a raging elitist and appoint a cabinet of billionaires with agendas. All this while ignoring the actual job in favor of pursuing adulation in rallies, minor forms of revenge (which will obviously escalate once power is fully assumed), blatant profiteering, and departmental agendas that will set the country back by a half century.

Having accomplished what they probably did not set out to do, they should now read the linked article to see the future fun (?) their collective choice may have queued up for their country. This is apparently how stories like 1984 can begin, and don’t think it cannot happen anywhere on earth because democracies have fallen many times in the past, and the very recent past in this case.

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2016/dec/15/truth-lost-game-turkey-europe-america-facts-values

Vincent Van Gogh

Are you one of those who is fascinated by Van Gogh and his famous ear? It's quite the story, and here is a site that is all things Vincent Van Gogh. Articles, images of his works ... the lot.

https://www.artsy.net/artist/vincent-van-gogh

Happy to be published again in the Ottawa Citizen …

Thanks go to Robbi Hay, editor of the Ourtown section of the Ottawa Citizen newspaper, for using my work once again.

Get your copy tomorrow (Thursday, 1 Dec) to see what’s shaking in our city and environs over the next week and beyond … the holiday season is approaching and we can all use the break :-)

By the way … I shot these squirrels at the Fletcher Wildlife Garden with my micro-four-thirds bodies and lenses.

Panasonic G6, G7 and GX85 Shootout in Low Light at 12800 ISO

I’ll be picking up the G85 shortly and selling off the G6 and the G7, since I am again consolidating down to a small set of cameras. Before I do that, though, I would like to see how different they really are at high ISO. I chose 12800 because that really stretches a sensor and is what you need to shoot in really dark venues.

This might actually be a little silly when you consider the size of the sensors, but I’ve never been shy about capturing images in the dark at extreme ISOs. I’d rather get one decent image in an evening than not try. And yes, I could just bounce a flash, but these three are all superb at lower ISOs, so there is little point in that exercise.

I crafted an animated GIF and I think it is clear that the G6 is the worst by quite a bit, yet not completely horrible. I think the G6 sensor – which is the most refined version of the GH2 sensor ever shipped in a camera – is amazing in good light and adequate in low light. Shadows are where it suffers, but nothing like the blue channel poison of the old GH2. It was a just horrid in shadows.

The G7, on the other hand, is much cleaner. The shadows are quite clean and the brighter areas (this is pretty low light) are very clean for such an elevated ISO.

The GX85 looks very similar to the G7. I think the G7 eeks out a slight victory, but it is hard to really see a difference, and the G7 should be very slightly softer, owing to its AA filter.

Anyway … you be the judge.

Note: Same settings in camera, same settings in Lightroom.

Super Moon

That great big glorious shining ball in the sky today is apparently a Super Moon. It is supposed to be the brightest moon we’ve had in 70 years.

Although I cannot confirm that for obvious reasons, I can confirm that the sky is very brightly lit tonight.

We were blessed today with a gloriously clear day and that has carried on into the evening. So here is my Super Moon image, shot on tripod with the Panasonic GX85 and Tamron 500mm Mirror lens. Manual focus and pretty close to a Luney 11 exposure, mine being 1/160s at f8 and 100 ISO.

I processed it in Lightroom along these lines …