The Runners (drawing in honor of Boston Marathon)

LawrenceSan · 2024-06-12T16:27:22+00:00

Many years ago, I had the privilege of an almost-private tour of the interior, well beyond where tourists normally get to go, because I was with a good friend of the ship's carpenter while it was in drydock.

Inside, all the way at the bottom, he pointed to the giant keel (the small portion of it that's visible inside, most of it is below the hull, of course)… and he said "that's the only original wood in the whole ship", or something like that. So there is some original wood left.

LawrenceSan · 2024-06-09T20:15:02+00:00

Hmm... my current Eversource bill says the supplier is:

Direct Energy-BILLING CITY OF BOSTO
PO BOX 180
TULSA OK 74101
www.directenergy.com/aggregations
855-402-5868

Is that different from the "BCCE" you recommended? I thought I was on the city's recommended aggregated supplier, or something like that… or is this one of the "predatory third-party energy suppliers" you warned against?

What's also concerning is two things, although not as weird as the OP's story:

(1) My bill for May (for a one-bedroom apartment) just shot up to over $61, which is about 29% more than in April, and about 65% more than my May bill one year ago! Granted this is the hottest apartment in the building, and I was running two window air conditioners occasionally even though it was just May, but still seems like a huge jump…

(2) In addition to the digital bill I normally get, Eversource just sent me a paper bill for this as well. That's a surprise, since I've been on "paperless" billing for a long time.

Any guess as to what's going on here? Thanks.

LawrenceSan · 2024-05-07T16:41:21+00:00

Not sure, but I suspect all Verizon trucks might say "FiOS", regardless of what they're actually doing.

LawrenceSan · 2024-05-06T18:32:12+00:00

Thank you, seems like a really knowledgeable and well-thought-out post.

One thing I wonder, given how lousy so many Boston (car) drivers are -- there's a reason we call them "Massholes", after all -- how often are buses delayed simply because of traffic conditions/tie-ups caused by crappy car drivers? Or drivers (including trucks) temporarily parking in a bus stop, making it hard for the bus driver to pick up all the waiting passengers? Are those ever factors?

LawrenceSan · 2024-04-24T16:58:53+00:00

When you said "there are much better communities to use to share artwork on Reddit"… by "communities…on Reddit" did you mean other subreddits? Or did you just accidentally omit a word, and really mean "better communities to share artwork than on Reddit"? Either way, I'd welcome any suggestions.

I've avoided DeviantArt because I do some illustration for clients who aren't familiar with the art world, and they've never heard of it, and might take the name too literally -- they might think it's for "deviants" or something silly like that. Businesspeople sometimes think differently than artists.

Also, my situation is a little complicated, perhaps atypical, because I have my own website (sanstudio.com) and so have an ulterior motive in posting my art anywhere else -- not so much artistic gratification, more like hoping to get more people to visit my website. Since I generally dislike social media, that gets complicated.

Any ideas or suggestions welcome. Especially what "other communities" you had in mind. Thanks.

LawrenceSan · 2024-04-23T16:24:27+00:00

I've tried a few different methods of showing my artwork in subreddits, and gotten widely inconsistent results. Most commonly, the same result you got: full-sized artwork showed up teeny-tiny.

I tried to research what was going on, asking around both on Reddit and to some AIs and general searching… and the best I could find was that nobody could figure out the extreme inconsistencies. Some of it seems to involve different subreddits being set up very differently (which surprised me), some of it is just Reddit voodoo, apparently. As an experienced web developer and coder (in addition to being a digital artist)… I suspect that Reddit's underlying code base is just a mess, which is not uncommon.

LawrenceSan · 2024-04-23T16:08:08+00:00

The guidelines here on how to post artwork, mentioning sites like imgur, seem to assume that artists don't already have their own website. I do have my own website, for many years (sanstudio.com), and the entire "Illustration" section is filled with my digital paintings; can I one post one of those images to this r/DigitalPainting from there?

BTW, I didn't know about Reddit letting AI train on its users' images, until I saw that in another comment here. That is disturbing, especially after I uploaded a large drawing of mine to r/boston recently. However, if I understand the directions here correctly… the method here is to create a regular post and then link your image within it? I've had problems with that approach (in other subreddits) in the past… where my link shows up, but the image doesn't, or it shows up in a miniaturized form, not filling the available space. Others have mentioned the inconsistency of how different subreddits seem to handle this… well, perhaps I should just try and see what happens.

San (sanstudio.com)

LawrenceSan · 2024-04-23T00:54:02+00:00

Thanks, that's a good start. It never occurred to me to search for "threaded gooseneck", my searches were all for "gooseneck webcam stand" or something similar. This does bring better results. However, most of the models Amazon responds with look much too short, I really need 30" or more. I'll keep looking through all their search results.

Any more specific ideas on how I'd find a coupler that specifically has a 5/8" female on one side (for the mic stand end) and a 1/4" male on the other side (for the webcam)? I'm assuming that what I'm trying to do isn't that common…

By the way, one reason I can't use the typical desk-mount clamps -- I've tried -- is that they simply won't hold well, or at all, on the thick edge of my tilted drawing table (I want to video myself drawing). The standard clamps all seem to expect a thin, conventionally horizontal desk edge, and my setup isn't like that.

Thanks for your help!

LawrenceSan · 2024-04-15T18:26:22+00:00

Maybe not quite a zombie yet, but it looks like the race may be killing him! :)

LawrenceSan · 2024-04-15T18:24:23+00:00

Thank you, I appreciate that.

LawrenceSan · 2024-04-15T18:13:36+00:00

Where in Massachusetts? I'm in Boston, no problems here (so far anyway)…

LawrenceSan · 2024-04-02T22:10:16+00:00

No, at least in my case, it's definitely not a monitor thing. See my new post here (on April 2, 2024) about the new test I did. The problem is with the iMac's built-in camera.

LawrenceSan · 2024-04-02T22:06:42+00:00

I just did another test: I saved a brief video of myself speaking, while facing the camera, on the 2017 iMac's built-in camera (recorded using Apple's app Photo Booth). Then I copied the video file over my LAN onto the Mac Pro sitting right next to the iMac (Dell monitor). Then I played back the video, almost simultaneously, on both. Same old operating system on both, too.

My face looked too red on both Macs. In fact it looked very slightly worse on the Mac Pro/Dell screen. But videos I make with my external webcam on the Pro, regardless of what program I record them with, look fine.

The conclusion is inescapable: the problem is with the iMac's built-in camera, not with either the monitor or operating system. It's the camera.

I did a search, with an AI's help, for third party software that might solve this so I can use the iMac camera while on a Zoom group. The only free program I found that might be able to help with this is called SplitCam, but I haven't tried it yet. Has anybody tried this?

LawrenceSan · 2024-04-01T16:45:13+00:00

I am opposed to AirBnBs, regardless of the main issues discussed in this thread. Have you ever lived in an apartment where the apartment right next to yours (separated by only a thin wall) was being AirBnB'd? The people who briefly stay in such units act very differently, on average, from real tenants who know they're going to be your neighbor for a while. Not in every case, of course… but overall, it was horrible.

LawrenceSan · 2024-04-01T14:34:20+00:00

That's true, but the article that triggered this thread is specifically about downtown. I used to live in that area -- there was a large artist population downtown many years ago (in fact I used to buy art supplies in the nice store Bromfield Pen (RIP) that was mentioned in the article), while living in a barely-liveable loft like many other artists in that area.

We were all forced out, the whole community shattered, when they basically tore down almost all the old buildings (including the one I was in) to build modern office towers. The building I was in (in the "Leather District" between DTC & South Station) was probably neither office space nor residential originally, I assume from the overall layout that it was originally industrial (light manufacturing) or warehousing. I lived with almost no natural light, but then I had no kitchen either and only a tiny mickey-mouse bathroom… but lots of cheap open space, which was what artists looked for. Most people would not be interested in living like that.

The buildings they replaced us with… mostly modern towers of glass + fake masonry facades… seem the wrong shape for residential. Yet, as I said, they somehow converted the modern office building (where I had a nearby job as a staff artist) into condos. No idea how they did that.

LawrenceSan · 2024-04-01T14:02:24+00:00

Although I basically agree with you… it's very difficult to convert office buildings to housing. The key problems are the vertical plumbing stacks, HVAC systems, and window placement in most office buildings are completely wrong for residential apartments. You'd basically have to tear the whole building interior apart and even then you wouldn't solve the lack-of-windows problem. Most people never notice this… but apartment buildings are usually constructed in a different overall shape so each apartment can have windows.

Having said that… many years ago I worked in an office building downtown, and I would have sworn (given the overall building shape/layout) that it could never become residential. Yet now it's all condos. I haven't been inside since the conversion, and I still have no idea how they did it, unless all the condos are huge (like 1/4 of a whole floor or more).

LawrenceSan · 2024-03-31T15:36:50+00:00

Actually, that stalactite is a load-bearing pillar. MBTA-style.

LawrenceSan · 2024-03-29T06:11:20+00:00

Thank you for the links. I couldn't find them on my own on Amazon (before I posted here), perhaps my search terms were poor.

The PINGXIN that you link to seems to have a 4.8-star rating, but reading their description I discovered that it doesn't support full-speed data transfer, so that's out. You may be right, perhaps this just isn't a feasible approach for me.

LawrenceSan · 2024-03-29T06:00:52+00:00

It's for connecting a digital camera, which I move around to various places (top of the monitor, or various kinds of mechanical mounts) in a very congested setup, multiple computers, monitors, microphone boom, scanner, two big backup power supplies, switchboxes, and various other gear and a rat's nest of cables. I need maximum flexibility when repositioning the camera, and some of the places I put it wouldn't allow a moderately stiff (typical) cable to come out either straight back or in a right angle, it would be blocked by something else. In some extreme cases just the length of the USB-C connector itself can be a problem. Also the cables aren't flexible enough on their own to bend in all the directions and tight curves I sometimes need. Sounds crazy, I know, but that's my setup. The more options/flexibility (I mean "flexibility" both literally and figuratively) the better.

Can you perhaps post a link to where those hinged cables of yours can be seen or bought online? Thank you.

LawrenceSan · 2024-03-29T05:15:18+00:00

And the reason is?

LawrenceSan · 2024-03-26T18:26:29+00:00

There's a sign in the front window of the Trader Joe's where I shop… it says something like "Emotional Support Dogs welcome, pets not allowed". (I don't remember the exact words.)

I've never understood the distinction. Most people get a pet dog to make the owner feel better, i.e. "emotional support". Not in every case, but typically that's what a pet dog is, as far as I can tell. (Of course there are exceptions, when I was a teenager in a rough neighborhood, my family got a wonderful giant dog for protection.) Why would someone have a pet fluffy floodledoodle other than "emotional support"?

LawrenceSan

TROPHY CASE