A new patent, an old beer, and AI boogaloo
A Stout Beginning to a New Year
The Perfecting Equilibrium Digest, Dec 18, 2024-Jan 13, 2025
So I stop in the local bar, you know, people
I go to the bar, I ring my coat, I call the bartender
Said, "Look, man, come down here"
He got down there, "So what you want?"
One bourbon, one scotch, and one beer
Comment of the Week
Steve Ross on Sturgeon! Emergency! And other bad Feola behavior: Hah! That other editorial organization was the American Society of Newspaper Editors. In those days, there were 80,000 newspaper reporters, editors, graphics folks and librarians. Today there are about 30,000. Sigh. Newspapers were earning record profits and spending (literally) zero on R&D, despite your best efforts. The API building was in place long before you got there, but yeah, any industry whose leaders commissioned and approved it was probably doomed to failure.
I do note that your son and daughters are all terrific, though. Your batting average is solid, and worth a beer. Or two. Or three. Regards to them all.
You are too kind, sir: thank you. The oldest still won’t drink stout under any circumstances, by the by.
John Cole on Sturgeon! Emergency! And other bad Feola behavior:
Chris, one of the many things I love about you is your strangeness!
Thanks John! When I was young I took to heart Hunter Thompson’s adage: When the going gets weird, the weird turn pro. And no one can argue the fact that we live in a weird, weird world.
Perfecting Equilibrium Stories
Feola Elsewhere on the Internet
The Pentax 17 racks up more rewards
Can Pentax keep rolling in 2025?
By cjfeola in Photo Industry News on Jan 14, 2025
Pentax’s 2024 momentum has rolled right into the new year as Gear Patrol named the Pentax 17 to the Tech category of “The 100 Most Important Products of 2024.” And the 17 won a 2025 German Design Award for Excellent Product Design - Computer and Communication category. The awards came after a year when parent company Ricoh repeatedly singled out the camera business for sales, revenue and profit growth.
Easter Eggs
My brain is a peculiar place; it likes to play word association, and then play back songs with those words. Here are the songs playing in my mind as I wrote these articles.
Next on Perfecting Equilibrium
Friday January 17th - Foto.Feola.Friday
Sunday, January 19th — AI Boogaloo: The 2024 Election was Irrelevant, Part Deux December saw a bipartisan 1,500-plus-page spending bill pop up less than 100 hours before a final vote. We’ll have to pass it to see what’s in it, was the bipartisan congress-critter consensus. Hold our beers, replied an army of internet nerds as they fired up Grok, ChatGPT and battalions of AI tools. Less than 24 hours later the bill was dead, torn apart by revelations of non-emergency spending such as Congressional raises and censorship funding. The world has changed, regardless of who was elected.