Down the Road

Photographs and stories by Jim Grey

Since 2007

Recommended reading

Jim Grey
14 comments on Recommended reading
1 minute

💻 Did you know that an enormous chunk of the Internet runs on servers owned by Amazon? They have massive data centers all over the world. Such data centers generate a ton of heat. In Dublin, they’ve harnessed the heat from their Amazon data center to heat several buildings in the city. Charlie Metcalfe has the story. Read Heat from an Amazon Data Center Is Warming Dublin’s Buildings

Old McDonald's sign
Kodak EasyShare Z730, 2008

💻 Have you noticed how fast-food restaurants no longer have distinctive looks? They could just as well be dentist’s offices, by looking at them from the outside. Nick Gerlich looks at why. Read Boxed In

💻 When you travel Route 66, until now you’ve always had to rely on paper guides and maps. But now there’s an app for your phone that guides you with turn-by-turn directions based on your location. Denny Gibson reviews it. Read Product Review Route 66 Navigation by Touch Media

💻 My colleague Tim Hickle has started a consulting business to coach company leaders to success in maintaining a remote workforce. But in his latest article, he describes what a parasocial relationship is, and how to build them richly. Hint: you and I are in a parasocial relationship. Read What the hell does “Parasocial” mean, anyway?

📷 Jerome offers useful tips for not getting burned when buying old cameras on eBay. Read The Rules of Acquisition (eBay Edition)

📷 Mike Eckman has been finding obscure cameras lately for his review series. The latest is a German camera from Braun, the Paxette IIM. Pro tip: Germans pronounce “Braun” like “brown,” not “brawn.” Read Braun Paxette IIM (1953)

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Comments

14 responses to “Recommended reading”

  1. Cynthia Avatar
    Cynthia

    I would say the German pronounciation is between the two, but closer to ‘brawn’. The vowel sound is shorter, the ‘w’ twang not present.

    Reply
    1. Marc Beebe Avatar
      Marc Beebe

      Yes, a bit like ‘bron’. Although as with all languages there are regional and individual accents!

      Reply
    2. Jim Grey Avatar
      Jim Grey

      In German, “au” is prononuced like “ow” minus, as you say, the w twang. Augen (eyes) is ow-gen, traurig (sad) is trow-rig. Here’s a German Braun commercial for your listening pleasure!

      Reply
  2. Andy Umbo Avatar
    Andy Umbo

    Very interesting site on eBay buying, Jerome has certainly done a long hard think on buying on his site. I offer one more caveat after years of buying camera equipment: I no longer buy camera equipment from any non professional camera seller located east of the Mississippi and south of the Mason/Dixon line. I consider this to be the high humidity, fungus growing south, and avoid camera sellers like the plague. I’ve been sent lenses so full of fungus, described as clean and clear, that you couldn’t take a picture through them. No lens or camera survives sitting in anyone’s basement or garage for 15 years in Georgia, the Carolinas, or anywhere else in the Deep South east. The flip side of this, is much like rustless vintage cars, Arizona and New Mexico is unlikely to be the source of high fungus used lenses.

    Reply
    1. Jim Grey Avatar
      Jim Grey

      You live, you learn, for sure!

      Reply
    2. Kodachromeguy Avatar
      Kodachromeguy

      You are right about the fungus problem. When I looked for a Soviet Jupiter-8 a few years ago, I found one from a seller in Arizona. That increased the chance of it being clean, and sure enough, the coating was almost perfect.

      Reply
  3. Marc Beebe Avatar
    Marc Beebe

    egoBay solved the scam-sale problem for me – by locking me out without explanation. Honestly they could not do a worse job running their site even if Elon Musk owned it.

    Reply
    1. Jim Grey Avatar
      Jim Grey

      I read the other day about a guy who created his first eBay account, placed an item for sale, and found his account to be immediately locked. He contacted support and they could only tell him that the decision was final. WTH?

      Reply
  4. Kodachromeguy Avatar
    Kodachromeguy

    “I-don’t-know-anything-about-cameras.” This absolutely baffles me. Why would a seller write this even if it is true?

    Don’t bother me. I’m too lazy to spend 5 minutes on Google and figure out what I am trying to sell.
    Oh please, please, have mercy and don’t ask me difficult questions.
    I’m a scumbag and figure I can get away with the sale if I claim to not know anything about cameras. And I hope that you will be too frustrated to go to the trouble of trying to return it.
    Other sellers wrote the same lame comment, and I figured I may as well do the same because I don’t have enough imagination to think it through.
    If I don’t say this, then I may have to spend a few extra calories on the sale such as checking if a AA battery fits or if there is fungus in the lens.

    I usually steer clear of dim light bulb sellers like this.

    Reply
    1. Jim Grey Avatar
      Jim Grey

      I don’t get it either. But I’ve gotten some gems from those sellers when the price was low enough. I also have been burned, but again, when the price was low and it didn’t matter so much.

      Reply
  5. Jerome Avatar
    Jerome

    Jim, thanks for the mention! I spend too much time on eBay tracking down obscure Minolta gear. Finally, I decided to write the Rules of Acquisition because a definite set of patterns emerged. The IDKMAC group is particularly irritating.

    Reply
    1. Jim Grey Avatar
      Jim Grey

      I used to buy from that crowd when the price was right; I knew I was taking a risk but it paid off more often than it didn’t. Now I want cameras in much better condition and so I steer clear.

      Reply
    2. Kodachromeguy Avatar
      Kodachromeguy

      I forgot one other possibility for that crowd:

      ” If I write about the article and take decent well-lit pictures, I might get XX dollars for the sale. But if I claim I know nothing and just post the thing, I might get 0.5 XX. I’m such a lazy turd, I’ll take the 0.5 XX.”

      Reply
      1. Jerome Avatar
        Jerome

        Yep. Two images is not enough for my consideration.

        Reply

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