Educator and Administrator. Loves baseball, ND, Star Wars, pop culture, politics, and my family. Tweets are my own and do not represent any organization.
Only one chance in this lifetime…
Like watching sunset at the beach from the most foreign seat in the cosmos, I couldn’t resist a cell phone video of Earthset. You can hear the shutter on the Nikon as @Astro_Christina is hammering away on 3-shot brackets and capturing those exceptional Earthset photos through the 400mm lens. @AstroVicGlover was in window 3 watching with @Astro_Jeremy next to him.
I could barely see the Moon through the docking hatch window but the iPhone was the perfect size to catch the view…this is uncropped, uncut with 8x zoom which is quite comparable to the view of the human eye. Enjoy.
The studios decided they are tech companies. They chased after Netflix or more importantly, Netflix's stock valuation. They purposely blew up the theatrical window to promote their streaming apps. They knew they were sacrificing theatrical profit for streaming position and they had to do it very fast. Since covid, they have trained the audience to believe the thing they are selling, portions of time, should be a close to free experience. They tried to hook the audience on their streaming apps by pushing their biggest movies at unreasonably low subscription cost, which was just a drug dealer trying to hook a customer. It was at the expense of the artists who make these movies, who depend on distribution revenue.
The product is only as valuable as the rarity of it. The studios are traditionally in the "distribution" business, controlling the windows of rarity and setting the value of access. What has happened is distribution is not the primary business now, subscription is. The studios are in the app business. They are no longer selling movies, they are selling apps. The movies are there to advertise the apps.
The audience loves movies. They do value theatrical experience. It's a fundamental part of humans to share stories in a communal space. You're not killing concerts, or churches, sporting events, political rallies, bars, clubs, or movie theaters. But you can train an audience to devalue any of these things if you make them believe sitting alone at home is the best way to experience anything. That is what studios are telling everybody by cutting the theatrical window short as possible to get the app in your phone.
If the studios reanalyze what they are, realizing the distribution is as important as the app, they would widen the windows. I think it's already happening by the way. They need a Hail Mary.
This is the shot you can’t get from the press site. This camera was sitting a few football fields from the SLS rocket at Pad 39B for days before launch, baking in the Florida sun, surviving rain, humidity, and whatever else the Cape threw at it. No photographer behind the viewfinder. Just a camera, a sound trigger, and a bet.
The way pad remotes work: you set your camera up days in advance, dial in your composition, lock everything down, and walk away. You don’t touch it again until after the launch. The shutter fires on sound activation
with a @MiopsTrigger smart+ trigger. With SLS, the four RS-25 engines ignite six seconds before the solid rocket boosters, so the camera is already firing before the vehicle even leaves the pad. You get home, pull the card, and find out if you nailed it or if a bird landed on your lens two days ago and left your a present and you got 400 photos of soemthing crappy.
There’s no formula for protecting your gear this close. Some photographers build wooden boxes with doors that pop open. Some use plastic bags and tape. Some do plastic or metal barn door rigs on hinges. I tend to leave mine open just in plastic rain covers because boxes limit my composition and setup time, but that means your cameras are more exposed to the elements and whatever energy and debris comes off the pad. You’re basically gambling a camera body every time you set one.
That’s what I love about this genre. There’s no playbook. You make it up as you go. Every time is an adventure.
📸 credit: me for @SuperclusterHQ - Artemis II pad remote | ~1,000 ft from Pad 39B | Kennedy Space Center
Passengers on a commercial flight captured the launch of Artemis II on camera
The plane happened to pass near the launch trajectory at the exact moment of liftoff, giving passengers a rare view of the rocket launch right from their windows.
🧵James Madison Was Wrong About Factions
It took 249 years, but Madison's "multiplicity of factions" is failing
When I taught American Politics to undergrads, I always loved the early weeks. There I was—fresh-faced, excited to nerd out—walking into a classroom of mostly tuned out 18- and 19-year-olds and saying, “Folks, you think the United States Constitution has always been here? Nope.”
Anakin Skywalker and Mace Windu walk into the movies together…
Last night, Hayden Christensen and Samuel L. Jackson surprised fans celebrating the 20th anniversary of Star Wars: Revenge of the Sith. https://t.co/R2ebrmrJ2F
Had breakfast at the town diner. Glad it's still around. Places like that are disappearing.
It's what I'd call a "western" diner. Not a doo-wop ice cream diner. And definitely not a greek diner--that's not a thing in my part of the country.
There's nothing pretentious about this place. As our town had gotten gentrified it's been surrounded by cute little boutiques selling cute little boutique things.
But this place is still here--selling greasy unpretentious food.
The ladies who work there are lovely. That is, lovely personalities.
I wouldn't call them pretty, but they're pleasant and nice. They all have big saggy boobs which are covered by big baggy graphic t-shirts that say things like "That sounds like a bad idea... when are you off work?" Baggy denim shorts complete the look.
They close to the public at 1pm--but they're still serving. Because 1pm is when the hobos show up. They feed the town's homeless.
Right at the crack of 1 o'clock, a bunch of unwashed and unshaved guys with backpacks walk in. They sit down and they're treated like any other customer--except there's no charge.
All the ladies stick around after their shifts and help.
The homeless guys are all well behaved--even tho there's not much left inside their minds. These are the guys who, in a gentler age, would be in mental institutions. But now they're free to roam to world--even tho they're incapable of taking care of themselves.
These are rough guys, but I've never seen one of them act out. Not in the cafe anyway. I've seen the same guys act out on the street, but they keep it together in the cafe.
Most restaurants would tell you all about how they like to feed the homeless. There's be a little sign on the table in a plastic holder to tell you all about their "Helping Hands" program. Or maybe they'd get a grant from the county or the state--and they'd tell you about that too.
But these people don't do that.
They don't even talk about it.
I had to ask the owner to find out about it. I asked the owner what was up with the all the homeless guys coming in at closing time.
She was reluctant to talk about it, but she told me. Just matter of fact: we feed the homeless. She does it 7 days a week.
And she didn't have a drawn out explanation about God or Jesus or morality. She just does it. Because it's the right thing to do.
And there's no need to brag about it.
Heart beat on a THOUSAND right now...❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️
#GoIrish
@OurLancerNation Congratulations to our Girls Swim Team for winning the 4A State Championship! What an incredible accomplishment. Every point mattered and the team put on the gas at the end. #GoLancers