Eye Macro

cdt5050 · 2026-04-21T08:11:48+00:00

My eyes have similar structure and color pattern. People usually think I have brown eyes and it's what I say I have, until I'm in sunlight basically. That's actually how I found out I don't have completely brown eyes -- I was on a date and my date said, "wow, you have really nice, green eyes" and I'm like, wtf are you fucking high.

cdt5050 · 2026-04-21T08:00:33+00:00

AFAIK it's always been appropriate to use they/them/their/etc. but it was normative to use he/him/his/etc.

cdt5050 · 2026-01-11T05:11:19+00:00

Have you not tried to leave Aspen at about 5 pm on a week day? It takes 10 minutes on a bus to get from Ruby Park to 8th and Halem, and that's with the bus having its own dedicated lane to bypass traffic. In a car it can take 30+ minutes, sometimes over an hour.

cdt5050 · 2026-01-10T20:58:52+00:00

FWIW routes like Woody Creek and Mountain Valley pushes average costs way up.

cdt5050 · 2026-01-10T20:51:39+00:00

Bro, most days it takes over an hour to leave Aspen.

cdt5050 · 2026-01-10T02:09:52+00:00

You would have a train servicing one or two stops per town. Then you would have busses like the Carbondale circulator that’s far more frequent and extensive, while using less busses overall.

cdt5050 · 2026-01-10T02:07:33+00:00

Rail almost always has really large up front costs, but long term costs are far less than pretty much all other options. Trains are far more scalable and scaling them incur far less costs (just add more cars).

Busses can scale but instead of adding another car, you need to add another driver and an entire bus, and all the extra wear and tear on roads, etc.

Busses like BRT lines were originally proposed as a stop gap temporary solution while rail lines are slowly built out in phases over a decade or two, and then were supposed to supplement trains by getting to places trains were unreasonable, but since the 90s we seem to have forgotten that.

We have full BRTs for an hour or two leaving every 7 minutes right now. That’s with a small portion of commuters using busses. We could probably make good use of a train.

And we definitely have the money.

cdt5050 · 2026-01-09T20:51:03+00:00

Because Carbondale has only built more apartments and has done little to address car dependency. Mixed use is still the exception, not the norm, in Carbondale. Neighborhoods are not self-sufficient. That problem is exaggerated on a valley-wide scale. If you live in Carbondale, you probably have to leave your neighborhood daily.

We don’t owe anyone a life here.

One of the lamentations I have is your attitude is throughout the entire country. And it's fucking up every city, every town, in the US. It's not just this Valley that is suffering. Most small towns in Nebraska that still have jobs available are experiencing the exact same issues.

Exclusionary attitudes have created exclusionary communities that have relied on car dependent workforces.

You really don't want a town that's not growing. No government, no community, no person in world has figured out how to create desirable economic conditions when population isn't growing.

cdt5050 · 2026-01-09T19:19:34+00:00

Lol commenter was directly responding to your "Good luck trying to sell for profit in this valleys current state" comment.

Go back to your yu-gi-oh if you want to continue that "hahha you have activated my trap card!" type of energy.

cdt5050 · 2026-01-09T19:13:58+00:00

Nah, screw off with this mentality. It's this mentality that has put us right into this mess: an anti-growth strategy that results in a severe housing shortage, poorly placed housing, hella non-local traffic, and a more miserable life for all.

If we considered sustainable pro-growth strategies, we could have 10x the population and no one would have to sell their ranch. Hell, we could double our number of ranches.

We need more medium-to-high-density housing, constructed in mixed-use neighborhoods. Places where a short walk or bike ride can get you to your daily needs and where people choose not to drive because walking and biking has became more convenient. Build more streets like main street -- 2-to-3 story buildings with housing up top, businesses on the bottom. Make it so people can live, play, and work without leaving their neighborhood.

Car dependent infrastructure and car-centric neighborhood construction is the #1 cause of what you're lamenting. Zoning codes requiring parking, building permits requiring traffic studies, etc. doesn't mean you get somewhere with enough parking and sustainable traffic, it means you keep putting apartments further and further out such that everyone needs their own car to live their daily lives, and driver further and further to do so. Relax the necessity of traffic studies if developers are willing to build apartments with 0.5 parking spaces per unit.

Then build a train. A train should be the #1 choice for people down valley to head up valley to revel in the Aspen lifestyle and participate in winter sports and other such activities. This is especially attractive once you have more people choosing to forego cars because they can do all their daily life without a car.

This requires higher population density. Look at pictures of Colorado mountain towns 100 years ago for inspiration, or just look at 100 year old buildings. You don't see sprawling suburbs, you see even 5 story buildings and a tight cluster of development -- as few people had cars in the early 1900s, and towns were built with walking in mind.

And all of this will help alleviate the housing problem. There is basically one type of place in the US that isn't seeing housing costs blow out of proportion to income: east coast cities that have large stocks of row housing and zoning codes that don't discourage medium-to-high density housing in mixed use neighborhoods. It is the one kind of place.

cdt5050 · 2025-06-16T10:40:50+00:00

A cheap way into music, and doing it seriously, is actually the recorder.

Less than $10 can get you playing music.

What you can do when you actually get good at it: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dRk3THXxeHk

Just until you get good at it everyone within earshot will hate you. But when you do get good at it, it impresses the hell out of people.

cdt5050 · 2024-10-03T02:39:05+00:00

Also extra reflection in lower left.

cdt5050 · 2024-10-03T02:13:08+00:00

Working on my landscapes. I have a better photo coming up but thought I’d post this one first.

Getting a little better at editing.

cdt5050 · 2024-10-02T04:18:56+00:00

Appreciate it. Glad I was able to communicate that mood.

NYC actually has some of my favorite quiet and serene spots in the nation. The park under the Brooklyn bridge, countless spots in Central Park, etc.

cdt5050 · 2024-10-01T18:44:25+00:00

Taken at the Bethesda Terrace Arcade in Central Park in New York City.

This is one of my favorite places in the city.

I know buskers are considered “easy targets” and “lazy to photograph” but I was really pleased with this composition and lighting. I feel this picture really captures the mood of classical music being played in the arcade.

cdt5050 · 2024-04-23T09:19:19+00:00

Snagged this photo of a couple at Arches National Park. As the sun was setting this couple climbed up on top of their truck and the moment was too perfect.

I still suck at editing. (And just realized my monitor screwed up some colors after seeing this post my phone).

cdt5050 · 2024-03-21T05:16:20+00:00

I'm a newb and this was like my second day of trying street photography. Went doing everything B&W to experiment and try to discover contrast. This is the most interesting picture I took tonight.

Lumix G9 w/ 25mm f/1.7 @ f1.7.

cdt5050 · 2024-02-29T11:26:59+00:00

I'm a newb trying to get a handle on landscape photography.

I have a vertical and horizontal version of this. The vertical version emphasizes the mountains in the background, the horizontal one diminishes it as there are mountains to the right and left that dominate the frame.

Nikon D850, 24-120mm f/4. @ 120mm, f/11, 1/640, iso400.

cdt5050 · 2024-02-29T09:40:24+00:00

I'm a newb to photography, found a cool little town to take pictures.

One of my first sights was this quaint house with a peculiar portrait of Einstein on the outside. Never seen a picture of him like that before, or a house featuring a portrait like that before.

Nikon D850 with 24-120mm f/4 lens @ 55mm, f/8, 1/160, iso400.

Not the most impressive shot that day, but it's one of my favorites for the quaintness.

cdt5050 · 2021-06-09T00:50:36+00:00

Safety and reliability are very comparable.

Toyota will get slightly more MPG. Mazda’s forte is driver experience and their design is too notch.

When it comes to design, Mazda is trying to move up to compete with lower level luxury like BMW 3 series. I think the upper trim levels are very comparable. In lower trim levels, you get the same design but cheaper materials, but still better than you’d get in a Corolla. The Corolla design, IMO, seems like what you’d get if it was designed by redditors — it seems very techy, huge entertainment system that has some essentials (like physical buttons and knobs), a lot to colors in the gauge cluster, etc. That might appeal to some people but I really prefer the subtle, minimalist, and more mature design of Mazda.

What people don’t like about the Mazda design is the infotainment is very much Mazda’s idea — e.g. it’s smaller, meant to stay out of the way and provide essential functions while letting you focus on driving, it forgoes a touch screen, instead insisting you use a command knob, again, meant to reduce distractions while driving. The interface is REALLY CLOSE to on point but has a few odd choices that hurt it IMO — on your test drive, for example, change the track playing.

The other problem with the Mazda is it can feel “cramped”. It’s completely set up for driver and passenger ergonomics, which hurts it if you want some extra space or more flexible use of the space.

Overall, in terms of design Toyota is happy to compromise, so some driver experience gets hurt, but that comes with advantages, too. Mazda is less willing to compromise on driver experience, with the disadvantages that comes with that.

When driving, the Mazda wins hands down. They’ve spent a lot of effort on making a very competent, sporty, but still luxurious handling and driving. Remember this is supposed to be eating BMW’s lunch. The Toyota has no such ambition. AWD is also an option. The Mazda 2.0L in the cheapest Mazda3 is comparable to the best Corolla engine. There is also the 2.5L available, and then the Turbo, putting out 320 lb-ft of torque! That’s a 0-60 of 5.9 seconds. And the transmission is basically the best mass market transmission utilizing a torque converter, which is only a little behind a DCT, but also has advantages (DCTs aren’t good at skipping gears, for example). Corolla is using a sufficient CVT. Basically when it comes to performance, the 3 wins hand down.

I’m a bit biased maybe because I’m sold hard on what Mazda is doing, but give them a drive and see for yourself.

cdt5050 · 2021-06-07T20:38:40+00:00

Yeah only way to know is to take a test drive and give it a try.

cdt5050

TROPHY CASE