Road Trip!

Road trip today...I'm off to Rochester to retrieve my computer. It was fixed by Apple under warranty. I'm also dropping off two of my old computers at Mac Ave to get them reconditioned for resale. It's going to be a long day.

But I've got a little amusement to pass along. Thanks to brian in a comment to the "Quixotic" post, I learned about a site called TypeLit.io that allows you to retype a famous novel as typing practice. So I put in my first hour and a half this morning. 

Guess what novel I've started to retype?

Don Quixote, of course. As the Scottish comedian Craig Ferguson says, made myself laugh and that's half the battle.

Mike

Gear o' The Week:

If I could shoot with any 50mm focal-length-equivalent lens, it would not be unobtanium: it would be the relatively modest, relatively older HD Pentax 35mm ƒ/2.8 DA Macro Limited on APS-C (it has recently been revised with new coatings). I don't know how it measures and couldn't care less. If you care first and foremost about pictures, especially prints, it is one beautiful lens. Luverly. As a normal too. This link is a portal to Amazon, through which most anything you purchase will be credited to TOP. As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases.

B&H Photo also has the Magic Macro, naturally.

Original contents copyright 2021 by Michael C. Johnston and/or the bylined author. All Rights Reserved. Links in this post may be to our affiliates; sales through affiliate links may benefit this site.

(To see all the comments, click on the "Comments" link below.)
Featured Comments from:

Jeff: "You might listen to a bit of Dvořák in the background." 

Mike replies: Great comment! And a good thing I wasn't drinking tea when I first read it.

mictter: "'En un lugar de La Mancha, de cuyo nombre no quiero acordarme....' because you are typing it from the Spanish original, aren't you?

Mike replies: Ha, no, the John Ormsby translation from the 1880s.

Patrick Perez: "Hunter S. Thompson claimed he used to type out The Great Gatsby every year so he could know what it was like to write a perfect novel (or classic, or whatever term he ascribed to it)."

Comments

[Jeff Damron]

You should be up to 120 words per minute by the time you finish that one.

[Zyni Moë]

Certainly you will be aware of Pierre Menard, Author of the Quixote.

He did not want to compose another Quixote – which is easy – but the Quixote itself. Needless to say, he never contemplated a mechanical transcription of the original; he did not propose to copy it. His admirable intention was to produce a few pages which would coincide – word for word and line for line – with those of Miguel de Cervantes.

[Chris White]

What you say about the demise of Olympus may be true and that would be unfortunate. The 4/3 format makes sense in so many ways. Naming it "micro" probably didn't help. The weak spot is, of course, the sensor and I thought maybe that problem was solved when I read about the organic sensor developed by panasonic that was to be used in a video camera. They were talking about a 2 stop increase in dynamic range, a stepless neutral density filter, and a global shutter that would eliminate video skew. I think that shutter would also enable one to expose for the sky and the shadows on the same exposure. Imagine having 14 or 15 stops of dynamic range and clean high iso in an Olympus Pen F, with maybe a pancake 20mm f2 lens. Would you need anything else for general photography? Even better if they could put one in a EM 10 and keep the price low enough for most of us to afford one. Unfortunately I haven't heard much about the sensor for quite some time. It will probably come eventually but maybe too late to save Olympus. Maybe in the Panasonic GH6. Let's keep our fingers crossed!

[Grant]

Given your perpetual quest to overcome as many obstacles as possible, I presume that you are typing Don Quixote in the original Early Modern Spanish?

[Mike Ferron]

Maybe reconsider the lowly 1 inch sensor? I have a Sony RX100 7 that goes everywhere with me. Image quality is certainly decent @ ISO 1600 with 25-200 available at a max of F4 in a true pocket camera. Other than tiny buttons there is really not a lot to dislike. And if you wanted to do wildlife on a budget the Sony RX10 4 would give one a lot of bang for the buck.

[c.d.embrey]

During your Road Trip! did you retrieve the computer? Is it up-and-running USBOverdrive?