Author Archives: danijel

Not good

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The global astral feels like a lunatic asylum; there’s a palimpsest of all kinds of issues and feedback loops, for instance the state of the global astral makes all kinds of people crazy/evil/violent more than usual, and when they act on it they make the global astral worse, and so on. I think the Internet made everything worse, and the social networks magnified the problem by an order of magnitude, because everybody tends to get synced up with the same bullshit. It’s like having Dropbox on five computers, and when a file is corrupted on one, it propagates across all devices.

Additionally, the news sources are all corrupted by either financial inputs from ideologically interested parties, intelligence services, and educational system which feeds neomarxist activists into guess what – places where they feel they can “change the world”, such as NGOs, news and politics. After a few decades of feedback loops of this kind, the public sphere has been completely contaminated by neomarxist ideologies.

Science has also been corrupted by a combination of ideologically motivated financial feedback loops, big corporations that treat science as a paid machine for product PR, leftist ideologues who treat science as some kind of a Church that provides official dogma rather than a method of inquiry, and so on. Also, after enough feedback cycles, everything from measurements to conclusions has been corrupted, and at this point it should all be thrown away and started anew, because none of it is trustworthy anymore.

The level of degradation across multiple dimensions of the system is so severe, that I can’t imagine it being fixed. This is a total civilizational breakdown. People forgot why the world they live in works, and thus undermined its foundations. After sufficient iterations, we now have a situation that’s basically on a free fall trajectory. People like Trump who are trying to fix it are in fact only exacerbating the problem, by destroying all kinds of layers of deception and lies that were introduced by other groups in attempt to hold the thing together.

 

Suffering

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Something from the comment section that deserves to be its own article:

My problem with Buddhism used to be that its scripture is basically stupid. There’s a combination of reliance on the intellect and, simultaneously, trivial dogmatic conclusions that intellect is supposed to lead to – oh, things of the world produce suffering, you need to remove yourself from that. That’s just stupid, not to mention weak. Sure, suffering is bad, but there are worse things. What kind of a eunuch would avoid suffering that leads to some magnificent goal – for instance, the evolutionary vipassana method implies suffering as a method of transforming karma and growing one’s spiritual body. Should one avoid suffering implicit in the process and thus choose spiritual stagnation?
Sacrifice of Jesus is said to have produced great spiritual outcomes. It included a great deal of suffering. Should this suffering have been avoided as well? So Buddhism has that fundamental problem that it expects everybody to shit themselves at the mention of suffering like abject cowards, and yet expects disciples to patiently and calmly face and endure suffering in the process of karmic purification and evolution. To me, the argument that there’s suffering and one should thus renounce the world always looked idiotic, which it in fact is. Suffering is not the problem, it’s the symptom, the way pain is not the problem, but symptom. The problem is the design of the world which inhibits the perception of God’s presence, and removes all kinds of normal states of spiritual sovereignty and autonomy of the soul. It also introduces ignorance, by blocking spiritual insight which is otherwise normal, and so on. So, let’s see why the beings suffer. Some suffer because they are separated from God by the world. Some suffer because they are separated from their loved ones by death. Some suffer because the world makes them feel powerless and ignorant. And, also, all suffer because their body in this world is prone to sickness, injury and degradation. However, the true question is that of a worthy goal. If there’s no worthy goal to be achieved here, then the suffering is meaningless and pointless. If there’s a false perception of a worthy goal, then suffering is propagated by voluntary decision to partake in this. So there are all kinds of valid questions, and one could attack this problem from those positions, but buddhist texts as a rule don’t, and instead they endlessly spam you with “oh, the suffering; I better renounce the world”.

To elaborate on that, I prefer how both Hinduism and Christianity view suffering. In Hinduism, bliss is one of the essential aspects of God, and suffering – well, it means you’re not there. Other than that, sure: pleasure, or kama, is seen as a worthy goal… unless it stands in the way of artha (financial benefit), or dharma (righteousness, or correct action), or moksha (liberation from the world illusion), essentially putting it on the bottom of the ladder of values. This, essentially, means that suffering should be accepted instead of pleasure if anything of value is to be attained. If liberation is to be attained, hardships imposed by yoga and renunciation are to be accepted. If righteousness is at stake, one should always be ready to sacrifice oneself and endure hardship rather than commit sin. Even if financial benefit is at stake, one should prefer hard work and hardship in general if it is beneficial. In essence, Buddhism tries to appeal to frustrated hedonists, who try to obtain pleasure from the world, fail, and then tuck tail between their legs and exit whining like defeated dogs. Hinduism, on the other hand, feels very much like Christianity: if liberation, righteousness, or even financial benefit are at stake, calmly endure hardship and even get yourself crucified if the goal is worthy enough; choose to endure suffering willingly, because we’re not here for the fun and games. Sure, if fun and games are available, you have nothing better to do, it doesn’t harm anyone, and it doesn’t stand in the way of your spiritual practice, by all means, enjoy yourself and avoid pointless suffering. But the argument of Buddhism that tries to convince people to accept it – “oh, the suffering!” – will result in laughter or incredulity if used on a Hindu or a Christian, or any kind of a wise person in general. A worthy argument would be “The all-magnificent and wonderful God is all around us, and we fail to perceive it because we are deluded, and this is absolutely unacceptable”, and this would recruit every worthy person. Or, “injustice is inflicted upon the innocent, and we need to defend God’s children from evil” – that would also recruit virtuous people to the cause. But “there is suffering in the world, and that’s terrible”, that’s the argument for recruiting eunuchs.

 

Image quality

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There are all sorts of misconceptions about image quality in digital photography. For instance, people commonly believe that the resolution, or the number of megapixels, define image quality.

I’ll illustrate this with a screenshot from dpreview’s comparometer:

As you can tell, the top left image is from Sony A7II, the one I’ve been using since 2016. The bottom left is from the one I just ordered, the Sony A7RV. The top right is from the Canon 5d, the camera I’ve been using since 2006 and which Biljana was using until very recently. The bottom right is from the Pentax 645Z, the medium format camera.

As you can tell, other than some white balance differences, they are all basically the same image with different amounts of magnification. This means that the difference in resolution determines how big you can print the image without perceivable loss of fine detail.

This means that doubling of the resolution means that the image is printable on double the paper size, and we happen to have a standard of paper size measurements, in fact two, A and B:

Basically, every larger size (smaller number) is produced by mirroring the smaller size along the longer side, thus doubling the surface.

If, for example, a 12.7MP image from Canon 5d can produce a high quality B2 print (which I have done), an image of double the resolution, 24-26MP, can produce a B1 print of same apparent quality. This, of course, assumes that everything else, like noise and the amount of actual resolution measured in line pairs, scales equally.

Other than printability on large paper sizes, image quality is not affected by sensor resolution. There are, however, several other factors that determine image quality: noise, color depth, and dynamic range. Noise is obvious – it can degrade the image in appearance if it is excessive. Dynamic range is also easy to understand – it’s the ability to resolve greater number of brightness levels. In essence, one ev (exposure value, or aperture value) is twice the amount of light. With every ev of dynamic range, there’s a 100% increase in the level of brightness. This means that the dynamic range is 2 to the power of n, the same way binary numbers are defined by the bit depth of the variable type; 8-bit means 256 possible values, 16-bit means 65536 and so on. Today’s sensors can resolve over 14 ev of dynamic range, where slide film resolved 5 ev, and best BW and color negative emulsions resolved 10 ev. This means that everything above 10 ev is excellent, but using it in a real picture might require tonal compression in processing.

Color depth, however, is somewhat less clear as parameters of image quality go, but I would define it the same way I would dynamic range, because it’s the same thing: the ability to define gradient of primary colors, where every pixel is defined by three binary components of certain bit depth, for red, green and blue. 8-bit color depth means a color gradient of 256 shades for each of the 3 components. 16-bit color depth means 65536 shades for each of the 3 components, and so on; again, it’s the 2 to the n-th power. Of course, the ability to convert a signal from the sensor into a n-bit format doesn’t mean there’s actuall n-bits of data in the source, assuming the analog to digital converter doesn’t introduce its own issues. You can read the analog data from a small smartphone sensor into the 16-bit numberspace, but there won’t be 16 bits of color data in there. So, the ability to define discrete shades of colors across the large dynamic range is what differentiates between sensors with “thin” and “thick” colors. The difference in color depth is visible at any image size and is much more important for the perception of image quality than resolution, which only becomes relevant when you enlarge the image. So, the luminance and chrominance dynamic range is what defines the number of brightness levels and color tones a sensor can capture. When we introduce the noise, which contaminates both luminance and chrominance data, we get all the parameters of image quality.

So, what does this mean, translated to the world of actual cameras? It means that the pictures from my current A7II and A7RV will look exactly the same, unless I decide to print over a meter wide, in which case the A7RV images will look more detailed if you come so close that you no longer perceive the whole picture. As for the color depth and dynamic range, there will be no perceivable difference, because both cameras are extremely capable.

The difference is that the autofocus on the new A7RV is extremely capable, while the autofocus on the A7II is rudimentary and unable to deal with things that move. Also, the viewfinder on the A7II is adequate, while the viewfinder on the A7RV is excellent, which contributes nothing to the image quality, but should reduce my eye strain significantly, which matters to me since my eyes are not what they used to be. Also, the fact that A7RV has 60 MP resolution means that it has 26MP of resolution within the APS-C circle, which means I can magnify the telephoto range by the factor of 1.5x and still retain the same print size that I have on the A7II, which is a much more tangible functional difference than the ability to print larger than a meter in width, which I almost never do. The ability to turn 400mm of range into 600mm is extremely useful.

Now for the drawbacks. The old camera is free since I already own it, while the new camera cost 3500 € used. This is a significant cost, since all of my lenses probably cost less than that; alternatively, I could get several GM grade lenses for that amount of money. This means that I needed to have very good reasons for the upgrade. Also, the new camera produces bigger files, and more of them because it’s faster, which means greater requirements on memory cards and storage drives, not to mention computer processing power. My computers and storage drives are already adequate, but I had to buy an extremely expensive cf-express memory card, which is a NVMe gen-3 1 lane drive. Yes, they now have memory cards that are NVMe drives, because apparently you need that in order to record video and clear the buffer quickly. In essence, all the drawbacks are a matter of money, while all the benefits are a matter of user comfort and the ability to actually get the kind images that I otherwise wouldn’t be able to get, for instance by turning a 400mm 35mm system into a 600mm APS-C system temporarily and tracking a bird in flight so accurately that its closer eye is continuously kept in focus.

Reasons

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One could rightfully ask why the hell am I buying almost 6000 € of photographic equipment, on top of 2000 € of stuff I’ve already bought recently, if I expect serious disasters that will end the world as we know it.

One could ask with equal right why I’m mowing my lawn, or brushing my teeth, or servicing the car. It all assumes the kind of continuity I don’t, in fact, believe in. However, I don’t know the timing, which means I have to behave as if the things are going to outlive me, and on the other hand be ready to leave today if God calls. This means that I function in a way that is both detached, and involved. I’m performing all kinds of duties on a daily basis, and yet I’m ready to leave every single second.

The reason why I ordered the equipment is actually detached from any expectation to use it; I merely decided to pay respect to my photographic art and skill. It is more of a sacrificial offering than anything else, because in this world one needs to support things that he sees as valuable, because what you don’t support dies of neglect by default. So, it’s a matter of philosophical consistency, rather than some investment in the future or what not. No; rather, it’s a respect to what is and was. Biljana got new stuff for the same reason. It is important to pay respect to that which is good and valuable, the same way it’s important to keep uprooting the weeds.

Warning

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There has been an increase of seismic and volcanic activity around the world, including recent precursors that usually indicate strong earthquakes; magnitude of 8 on the momentum magnitude tensor scale in the Mediterranean basin is realistic within days. Prepare accordingly.

Also, the earthquake swarm near the Santorini volcano is increasing in magnitude, and something appears to be imminent.

There is a correlation between this increased seismicity and volcanism and the current solar maximum, but the correlation might not necessarily mean causation – for instance, both might have the common cause in the major planetary conjunction that’s going on, meaning that the same tidal force is squeezing the Sun, causing increasing activity, and the Earth, causing increasing tidal forces in the magma, resulting in increasing seismic and volcanic activity. There might, however, be a different explanation, where the planetary conjunction causes increased activity in the Sun, and some type of neutrino is increasingly produced, that causes some minor increase in the radioactive decay, which actually causes the interior of the Earth to remain molten, and even a minor increase can cause major events on the human scale of things. In any case, the whole thing is poorly explored.

In any case, I would avoid travel and have supplies sufficient for two weeks of autonomy in the entire mediterranean basin, just as a precaution. The recommended minimum of 3 days of food and water is probably sufficient if you’re not really close to the areas most likely to be afflicted – Greece, Turkey, Italy, and so on. I would treat this as a serious enough threat to act on it. Also, it’s not a distant threat, since electromagnetic precursors of strong earthquakes, usually indicating a big one within 96 hours, were detected 2-3 days ago.