Down the Road

Photographs and stories by Jim Grey

Since 2007

Recommended reading

Jim Grey
9 comments on Recommended reading
1 minute

💻 Steve Blank is a Silicon Valley pioneer who’s seen some society-transforming technologies emerge in his time. He thinks ChatGPT is one, and that it will have “equivalent impact on society of explosives, mass communication, computers, recombinant DNA/CRISPR and nuclear weapons – all rolled into one.” Read Playing With Fire – ChatGPT

Dept. of Coffee
Olympus XA, Kodak T-Max 400, 2020

💻 I grew up during the Cold War, when we lived with the threat of nuclear annihilation. But I was born after the fallout shelter fad ended. The Vintage America blog has some fascinating shelter photos. Read In the 1950s and 1960s, Fallout Shelters Came to Be a Safety Feature in Many Homes in America

💻 I blog for a whole bunch of reasons that I’ve written about from time to time here. It’s nice to see another blogger who shares many of my reasons for blogging! Danny Guo shares his reasons. Read Why I Blog

📷 Kodak Aerocolor IV is an ISO 125 color film meant for making aerial imagery. Several companies currently buy it in bulk and spool it into 35mm cartridges for sale. I have a roll of this stuff in camera right now to see how it performs. Bill Smith beat me to it. Read Second Roll of Aerocolor IV (Flic Film Elektra 100)

📷 Mike Eckman reviews an oddball but historically significant early digital SLR that was a joint venture between Fuji and Nikon. Read Nikon E2Ns (1996)

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Comments

9 responses to “Recommended reading”

  1. brandib1977 Avatar
    brandib1977

    The story about the fallout shelter is excellent and those pictures are incredible. I would love to see inside an abandoned one someday. Our county courthouse still has up the sign but they have used it for storage for years. At this point, it’s just a cool reminder of the past and a conversation piece for those of us too young to remember.

    I do an informal annual review of my blog as I determine if it’s something I want to continue doing. It has lasted way longer than I expected but the key for me seems to be that I do it for me as much as for anyone else. Some days it’s just a writing exercise and some days it’s an exercise in creativity because I think I have nothing to say. Sometimes it’s to enlighten others and tell them about their world or to entertain the armchair traveler. Much of the time, it’s to figure out what I think. My blogging skills aren’t that great compared to most people but it has sharpened my writing skills for my day job where I write a lot.

    Lots to think about today!! Thanks Jim!

    Reply
    1. Jim Grey Avatar
      Jim Grey

      A blog is a useful thing for sure for keeping the creative muscle strong. I’m doing that with my Wednesday series right now — pick a photo and write something inspired by it. Anything. Some days it’s easy and some days it’s not.

      Check out this video for a song popular in the 80s that features a fallout shelter:

      Reply
      1. brandib1977 Avatar
        brandib1977

        How cool!! I know the song but had never seen the video.

        I rarely have the time to write the messages I would like to share but settle for the shorter messages out of necessity. It works out!

        Reply
  2. dmitrizzle Avatar
    dmitrizzle

    Aerocolor is fantastic film, really easy to scan (if you don’t rely on the scanners’ black-box automagic too much). Although I find that the colours that it produces could be a little odd at times (i.e., it can make water appear turquise in a certain light). Regardless, I’m very happy a few brands took on respooling it as it appears that we’re about to loose a major colour film manufacturer (Fujifilm).

    Love the “Why I Blog” piece also. I was never into writing until I started blogging; my grammar and style was “offensive” to my wife who helped me with the early entries. Today it’s a skill I use everywhere; even writing code for work feels like a literary challenge.

    Thanks for compiling those, Jim!

    Reply
    1. Jim Grey Avatar
      Jim Grey

      I started my tech career as a technical writer, because at that time coding jobs were scarce and that was the best I could do. I learned that I loved to write! I didn’t know. I moved into QA after some time and really wanted to scratch the writing itch, so I started this blog.

      I haven’t coded in years but I do remember how satisfying it was not only when what I wrote worked, but when what I wrote expressed things elegantly.

      Reply
  3. Steve Mitchell Avatar
    Steve Mitchell

    I fear that AI will increasingly make it difficult for many people to discern truth from fiction – both in the written word and in imagery. On the plus side, it may help secure the place of film photography as a means of gathering and preserving evidence and an historic record, as the negative or transparency will show exactly what was there at the time!

    Reply
    1. Jim Grey Avatar
      Jim Grey

      That’s what I was thinking, too: it’s impossible to deepfake a negative.

      Reply
  4. J P Avatar
    J P

    The AI piece is interesting reading and, if anything, undersates the concerns. I remember the rosy predictions of what the internet could do for us. Nobody mentioned how vulnerable we would become to scams and other bad behaviors.

    Reply
    1. Jim Grey Avatar
      Jim Grey

      I watched the series Victoria about Queen Victoria. In it was a thread about the changes the Industrial Revolution wrought. Just like the Internet, just like AI, things were chaotic. We all know that we adapted to the Industrial Revolution. I expect we will adapt to these changes as well — but maybe not in our lifetimes.

      Reply

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