Scattered Thoughts . . .

A s I was taking my first of four doses of medications this morning, I was scrolling through Facebook to see if anything was new with my friends.  As usual, I saw nothing from my friends but I did come across an image from a guy in one of my photography groups that caught my eye.   This image that caught my eye was shot in infrared.  There is nothing unusual about an infrared image...  I shoot them often with a camera I had converted to infrared...  but this photo on Facebook was captured using a cellphone which is very unusual. He wrote that he shot this image using his iPhone with an R72 filter and it was an image of kids walking to school.  What I found interesting and what immediately caught my eye was the fact that using an R72 filter will normally require very long shutter speeds which would blur kids walking to school.  Cameras typically would block infrared light (more on that below).  This image in infrared, however, was sharp. ...

I really dislike cellphones and I probably mention that far too often in this blog but I recently upgraded my cellphone so felt it was time for a blog entry about "smart" devices.  How often I mention this dislike of cellphones here should be an indication of how much I truly dislike these things and especially in regard to how people can't seem to put them down.   I used cellphones during my career through the 1990s along with radios and landlines but effective and immediate communication was truly essential in my job.  I'm retired now and have absolutely no desire to be attached to a phone all the time.  In fact, my cellphone is set to "Do Not Disturb" almost always  unless I am waiting on an important phone call.  I have absolutely no desire to be fielding telephone calls at all times and I especially have no desire to be fielding any type of text messaging which is almost always poorly communicated, hence, I actually do prefer a phone call over t...