How Did We Get Here

Let me tell you a story about my early days working for the House of Commons in a non-partisan position serving all Members of Parliament and all Canadians. While we all had our own political opinions, that ranged from right to left, we all worked professionally and in a non- partisan manner to serve the House. And we all got along.

On one particular day we were on what could best be called a self-improvement course. I suppose there was money left in the professional development budget and somebody knew somebody, but that is a different discussion. This course veered into a particular direction that was critical of social programs and public health care suggesting they enabled the lazy. Many of us expressed our opposition to these seemingly American inspired ideas during the seminar. During our first break I was discussing this with a colleague, who happened to be the most right wing member of our staff from conservative Alberta, and I, from NDP stronghold Sudbury, was the most left wing staff member, and we both agreed the seminar was a waste of time and we both decided to go back to our desks and do real work for the rest of the seminar.

The point being that while we had different political outlooks we shared the same Canadian values that all our colleagues did.

There was a time, not really that long ago in the political history of our country, when people on the left respected, and even admired, right wing politicians like John Diefenbaker, Bill Davis, Flora MacDonald and Joe Clark and people on the right felt the same way about politicians like Tommy Douglas, Stanley Knowles and Ed Broadbent. There was a time when we held two Quebec referendums and national debates on Quebec separation in a respectful manner without the level of hatred that is expressed today. This was a time when Canadians had their party preferences but did not fear for their country if their favoured party lost.

I can think of a particular American multi-millionaire and another American billionaire that can share some of the blame for what is happening in Canada today. But the blame also lies with too many of us who have decided to use our ability to control the information we receive to only see what we have already chosen to believe and only listen to those we have chosen to listen to. Unfortunately this leaves too many people in a position to easily fall prey to disinformation and manipulation. But that still does not explain the level of real hatred we see expressed in our political discourse today, particularly against the current Prime Minister for everything from policy decisions to the colour of socks he might choose to wear.

How did we get here.

Postscript

It is blatantly obvious that the vast majority of the political hate (and bigotry) we are seeing today is coming from one end of the political spectrum. It is time for the centre right decide who their values better align with, the far right or the centre, and a time for them to decide who and what they want to be aligned with.

Annual Report on Kanata South Pathways Deterioration, Spring 2023

Another year has gone by and it is time to report again on the deterioration of the Bridlewood and Glen Cairn pathways in Kanata.

Bridlewood 

 

 

Glen Cairn

More Fun With Photo Editing

I imagine most people have a favourite photo editor that they use for all their photo editing. Sometimes I like to mix it up and use different software for the different abilities each has. I will usually save my photos as lossless PNGs when transferring between different programs to avoid compression degradation.

Original Photo Taken with Panasonic Lumix FZ100 Camera

Cropped to 16X9 with JPEGCrops 

Auto Optimized with Simply Good Pictures

Red Channel Enhanced with Photoshop Elements 2023

 

Kaleidoscope Effect Applied with Franzis Color Projects

 

Translating the Negativity of Today’s Right Wing into the Reality of Their Beliefs

Today’s right wing loves to express itself in terms of what they hate, seeming to lack any positive messages. When you turn their negativity into positive statements it expresses what they really believe in.

Anti woke:  Celebrating a lack of awareness and caring for others

Anti Political Correctness:  Never do the right thing

Anti science, intellectualism:  Pro ignorance

Anti BLM:  Believe only white lives matter, support white supremacists

Anti “community activists”:  Celebrating apathy and lack of community involvement

Against Antifa:  Pro Fascism

Anti vaccines, public health measures:  Pro death

Fuck Trudeau:  Nothing worthwhile to say

Object Removal with Adobe Photoshop Elements 2023 – The De-urbanization of a Pond

Back in the day, Inpaint used to be the standard for removing objects from digital photographs. Then I discovered Photo Stamp Remover which I found to be much better and easier to use. That all changed when I upgraded my Photoshop Elements 12 from 2013 to Photoshop Elements 2023. The interface has improved and the capabilities increased, not the least being it’s object removal capabilities, which are better than any other program I have tried. Photoshop Elements 2023 states “Adobe Sensei AI technology* and automated options do the heavy lifting so you can focus on the fun stuff”.

This project demonstrates the object removal capability of Photoshop Elements 2023.

The location of the photo used in this project was at the pond along Iber Road in Ottawa, Ontario, a block from the Trans-Canada trail.

Google Earth Aerial View of Site

The photo used in this project was one I took on November 14, 2012 with my Garmin GPSmap 62sc GPS camera which I had come across going through my GPS photos for my wallpaper project. I use my own photos for my Desktop PC wallpaper and change them weekly.

Original Photo

 

The original photo was cropped to 16X9 using JPEGCrops and then enhanced using Simply Good Pictures automatic optimization process.

Cropped and Enhanced Version

The result was a very decent photo but the first thing I noticed was the tree in front of the pond was distracting, even if it was a natural feature. So I thought why not try removing it since I had already been surprised by the object removal capabilities of Photoshop Elements 2023. I did not expect great results, the tree with it’s many branches being unlike a straight hydro line or telephone poll. I used the auto select function and surprised that the results were not bad, though they needed some tweaking with the brush function. I then took my shadow from the photo and a couple of culverts and voila the finished product.

Object Removal Version 1

Then I looked at all the buildings along the pond and thought let’s see if we can get rid of those and make this look like it’s not in the middle of a city. The first attempt to remove them all with the auto select function was quite unsatisfactory. So then I tried doing smaller sections using the auto select and brush functions and success.

Object Removal Version 2

 

That was it I thought but then I realized the railing along the pond still gave it’s urban location away. However, I thought with all the lines from the individual railings this was going to be impossible to remove and still have the photo look natural. First attempt using auto select on the whole railing confirmed that. But using the brush function and going a little bit by bit resulted in a decent image. The only giveaway was the apparent pattern among some of the apparently cloned geese. Some pondering and further editing attempts resulted in my removing some of the geese to break up the pattern and create a natural looking photo.

Final Object Removal Version 3

 

The moral of the story being when it comes to photo editing don’t be afraid to try things you do not think will work, you might surprise yourself.

Why Mastodon

So why did I open a Mastodon account and why do I think Mastodon can replace Twitter.

I started looking for alternatives to Twitter soon after Elon Musk purchased it and sent it to hell in a hand basket.

Of course, Twitter’s problems started much earlier than that. As soon as Twitter realized that as a business it had to monetize it’s product an emphasis on profitability took over and it ceased to be a primarily community space. At that point many of us wished there was some sort of co-operative community based alternative. Many of us did not realize that one did exist, in the form of Mastodon, until we started looking harder after Elon Musk purchased Twitter as his personal vanity project.

Of course the purchase of Twitter by the world’s richest person could have been a positive thing, The new owner could afford to subsidize it as a project for the common good. But instead he decided to use if for self promotion and to pursue his own perverted concept of free speech, turning it into a haven for disinformation, conspiracy theories, the spewing of hatred and a platform for right wing extremists and white supremacists.

This has forced many from minority and vulnerable communities to leave the hatred for their own self-preservation. Those of us more privileged were able to use our ability to filter what we see to protect ourselves. The reason we remain is that so far no alternative has the audience reach that Twitter does. But many of us are looking at Mastodon as that potential alternative and replacement for Twitter.

Can Twitter be saved. Perhaps, but it’s business model means profit will always be put before community. Could an angel investor with deep pockets subsidize it for the common good. Perhaps, but there are very few people in that position and that would leave the Twitter community beholden to that person.

Can Mastodon realistically replace Twitter. The beauty of Mastodon is in it’s co-operative federated structure and volunteer moderation teams. What Mastodon would need to replace Twitter is a huge increase in server and bandwidth capacity. But it does not need a single angel investor. It could do that with thousands of individuals, organizations, and even corporations willing to provide for the cost of the server and bandwidth capacity necessary, in exchange for the goodwill that would create. As to the increase in moderation capacity needed, the strength of Mastodon is that it is scale-able, as it’s user base increases so does its potential volunteer base. So, yes, I do believe Mastodon can eventually replace Twitter.

The other benefit of Mastodon is that it will not attract the hateful elements that Twitter does. For example, these are the rules for the server I am on.

Some ground rules. These are set and enforced by the mstdn.ca moderators.

1.  No toxic and hateful speech.
2.  No incitement of violence and no promotion of misleading or violent ideologies.
3.  No harassment, dogpiling, or unwanted advances.
4.  No doxxing of other users.
5.  No content illegal in Canada or copyrighted content that you don't own rights to.
6.  Sexually explicit or violent media must be marked appropriately.
7.  No spamming. Excessive posting, boosting, advertising or mass-marketing posts will be   actioned accordingly and based on intent.
8. Be yourself. Accounts intended to impersonate or parody are not permitted, and those found to be directly misrepresenting themselves as another person or entity will be actioned accordingly.
9. Agree to the Terms of Service and Code of Conduct.

Put more briefly, this simply requires that users not be assholes and that they act like decent human beings while using Mastodon. However, this will keep the “anti-woke/anti-PC” crowd away as they see human decency as an affront to their right to free speech and would not want to be associated with such a “woke” service and will likely prefer “TruthSocial” anyway.

For now I will remain on Twitter, taking advantage of the greater reach it currently provides. As for Mastodon, I will likely be easing myself into participation there as I figure things out.

My Mastodon user name is @the5thColumnist@mstdn.ca and my Mastodon main page is located at https://mstdn.ca/@the5thColumnist

You can learn more about Mastodon here https://joinmastodon.org/

To join mstdn.ca go here Sign up - Mastodon Canada (mstdn.ca)

COVID-19 Pandemic Reflections and The Next Pandemic

Well the pandemic is over, at least according to most governments, science and medicine not so much. So now it is time to look back, and to look forward.

Perhaps my biggest reflection is that governments, at least in Canada, did not receive the rational criticism for their failures that they should have. The media was intent on concentrating on the irrational response of the anti-science, anti-public health, anti-vaxer crew who were co-opted by the far right white supremacist convoy types in Canada. The left, on the other hand, felt so strongly the need to defend the principle of governments acting to protect Canadians from this deadly pandemic that they failed to properly criticize governments failures in doing so. Not that there was no rational criticism, but what there was was overwhelmed by the Freedumb Convoy Shitshow.

The biggest failure was in not being prepared, even though scientists and public health officials had predicted that pandemics would be commonplace in the future, along with not following the precautionary principle and treating it as airborne until that could be completely ruled out.

But the most egregious, and I would say unforgivable decision, was to not utilize the front line of our health care system, but rather shutting down the vast majority of family physicians’ offices pushing an even greater workload onto the overwhelmed hospital system. This was either complete negligence on the part of the health care system or a clear indication we don’t actually have a health care system but just a bunch of disconnected parts.

As far as messaging goes, we had the use of the language “social distancing” rather than “physical distancing” at a time when maintaining social connections was critical to people’s mental health. Along with that error in messaging was the message to stay inside, rather than stay away from other people, at a time when getting outdoors (with appropriate precautions) could be critical people’s mental health.

However, in the long run, if only coincidental, there is some truth to the arguments for “no more lockdowns” and “we have to learn to live with the pandemic”.

If and when pandemics become a normal part of our reality we will indeed have to learn to live with them and it will not be sustainable to completely shut down our economy and society everytime they occur. Shutdowns or lockdowns, whatever you want to call them, will have to only occur rarely and for short periods when necessary to get an initial grasp of what is happening. And they will of necessity have to be political decisions.

But living with pandemics does not mean ignoring them. It means taking necessary precautions, such as physical distancing, masking with high quality masks, extensive vaccination programs, and, at times, restricting the highest risk activities such as large indoor gatherings of people packed closely together for long periods, methods that have been proven to work and reduce the incidence and seriousness of the outbreaks and most of all save lives.

But most importantly it means being prepared beforehand.

The first step in being prepared is having a primary care system where everyone has access to a primary care physician. In Ontario everyone does not have access to a primary care physician so we urgently need to drain more family doctors, fast track the approval of foreign trained doctors to work in Ontario and increase immigration and training of doctors from abroad, along with increasing the number of nurse practitioners available. And, of course, not shutting the primary care system down during a public health emergency.

We also need to have a hospital system that is not running at over 100% of capacity during the best of times. How do we build in excess capacity without it being inefficient. By using that excess capacity. As it is now so-called elective surgery is ridiculously backlogged. But this elective surgery is not elective at all. What we call elective surgery is surgery for non-life threatening conditions. Knee and hip replacements, eye surgery and many other so called elective surgeries may not be life saving but they certainly can be life changing for many patients for whom they make life worth living again. We can then, in the case of a public health emergency, divert that capacity to save more lives during a future pandemic. Purpose built publicly funded and operated specialty clinics can be part of that solution, and can be used to treat pandemic patients separate from hospitals, reducing the risk of infecting patients in the general hospital population.

And, though it need not be said, when the problem is the lack of doctors and nurses adding profit into the system is not going to solve the problem, only add unnecessary costs.

It also should not have to be said that the lives of vulnerable elderly persons should not be routinely sacrificed to ensure the profit margins of private long-term care facilities, creating a situation where those needless deaths increase exponentially during a pandemic. Being prepared for future pandemics requires that all health care should be publicly funded and operated. Private profit has no place in health care because that profit always has to come at the expense of patient care.

The other need for preparedness is economic. During the COVID pandemic the government scrambled to implement makeshift assistance programs for those economically impacted by the pandemic, and though it helped many it was a very messy solution. What we need is a permanent solution that will not only deal with public health emergencies but also with the economic disruptions of a transition from a fossil fuels based economy to a sustainable energy based economy. What we need is a guaranteed basic income along with a fair progressive taxation system.

There is no justification for not being prepared for the next pandemic.

Photo Versions Created with Franzis Black & White Projects

Back in the day, not my day but the day, cameras were not an app on your phone but bulky and heavy apparatus with explosive flash powder that could only take monochrome photos. We have advanced a long way to today’s sophisticated DSLRs and prosumer cameras such as my Panasonic Lumix DMC-FZ100 .

So why black & white photography today when the technology has moved so far beyond it. One can be overwhelmed by the colour in a colour photograph and miss the complexities of light and contrast and even the composition. A black & white photograph can put the emphasis on the other aspects of the photo rather than the colour. But for me it often has more to do with the subject. For historical, or even industrial photos, there is a certain authenticity that a black & white image provides, It is like the photo was taken back in the day.

The photos in this project were taken with my Konica Autoreflex T-3 35 mm camera using 100 ASA colour slide film. They were scanned with my CanoScan 4400F scanner at 600 DP with low compression. The colour images were enhanced with Simply Good Pictures 5 and converted to black & white using Franzis Black & White Projects 6 Professional.

The Natural High Quality setting on Franzis Black & White projects provides high quality black & white versions of the colour images. There are also a large number of other presets available to provide other versions, some with subtle differences and some with much greater differences, including a number of artistic settings. All of the presets have an unlimited number of individual adjustments that can be made to them. This project displays a number of the different photo versions that are available with Franzis Black & White Projects.

King’s Landing Historical Settlement, New Brunswick, August 8, 1982

Original Scanned Slide (1636)

 

Enhanced Colour Image

 

Black & White Version - Natural High Quality

 

Black & White Version – Toning Butter Cream

 

Black & White Version – FX Snapshot

 

King’s Landing Historical Settlement, New Brunswick, August 8, 1982

Original Scanned Slide (1638)

 

Enhanced Colour Image

 

Black & White Version - Natural High Quality

 

Black & White Version – Toning Photo Paper Warm

 

Black & White Version – FX Memories

 

Vanscoy, Saskatchewan, July 3, 1983

Original Scanned Slide (2016)

 

Enhanced Colour Image

 

Black & White Version - Natural High Quality

 

Black & White Version – Natural Structure Dark

 

Black & White Version – Landscape Light Beams

Towards Murray Mine, Sudbury, Ontario, August 17, 1984

Original Scanned Slide (2196)

 

Enhanced Colour Image

 

Black & White Version - Natural High Quality

 

Black & White Version – Surreal Prismatic

 

Black & White Version – Landscape Infrared

 

King’s Landing Historical Settlement, New Brunswick, July 9, 1998

Original Scanned Slide (3760)

 

Enhanced Colour Image

 

Black & White Version - Natural High Quality

 

Black & White Version – Artistic Old School

 

Black & White Version – Landscape Dreamy

 

Photo Versions Created with Franzis Color Projects

Way back in the day when I used to be a member of the Camera Club of Ottawa and we met at the NRC building on Sussex Drive the most usual criticism of my photos was that they were “good record shots”. I did not see that as much of a criticism at the time because then I mostly thought of photography as capturing what was there, rather than as artistic expression, and that composition was the main skill required. At that time I was using a Konica Autoreflex T3 35 mm camera shooting mostly Fujichrome 100.

When I got into digital photography and realized what one could do with photo software I began to see photography more as an art form, Of course even back in the days of film one’s choice of film to use and settings to use, not to mention darkroom work, meant that photography was always an art form.

Currently I do All my photography with digital cameras, my main go to camera being my Panasonic Lumix DMC-FZ100. However the photo used in this blog post was taken with my Panasonic Lumix TS5 compact waterproof and shock resistant sports camera that I can easily carry in my small bike pouch at the front or in the pocket of my PFD when kayaking.

So far the best single click photo optimizer I have discovered is Simply Good Pictures 5 .For all around photo editing (and for display map creation) I tend to use Adobe Photoshop Elements 2023. However more often than not I am using Franzis Color Projects 6 Professional for the interesting effects it can create. For conversion to Black and White my choice is Franzis Black & White Projects 6 Professional with it’s large selection of options.

Franzis Color Projects provides an extremely large number of preset effects, some that just enhance the quality of the photo, but also many that provide artistic effects that create a whole new look to the photo. Each preset choice can be further refined within the program. The program can also emulate many specific types of film.

For this demonstration project the original photo, taken on the Old Quarry Trail in the Ottawa Greenbelt, was shot with my Lumix TS-5 and then auto enhanced with Simply Good Pictures and then the individual effects were applied with Franzis Color Projects Professional 6. 

Original from Panasonic Lumix TS5

 Interim Phase - Simply Good Pictures Auto Enhancement

 

 Franzis Color Projects Edited Versions

 Natural Structure Dark

Natural Colour shift 1

 Natural Colour shift 3

Surreal shifted

Landscape Blue filter

Architecture Monochrome

Architecture Sketch

Portrait Low key

Artistic Water mirroring

 Painting Bright sketch