Wednesday, May 15, 2013

Data Fatigue

And Retired SD Cards

View from the Treehouse

In this modern world of digital photography, images taken with the camera are stored on removable SD cards. For the Lumix FZ8 , FZ35, and the Vivitar HD video camera, I like to use 8GB SD cards because they seem to have just the right capacity for hundreds of high quality stills, and video clips. That size is will hold a manageable pile of material I can edit comfortably.

Layered composition

Today, I discovered that heat can shorten the life of these SD cards. I can usually expect  that loading and extracting images by the thousands each month will wear out an 8GB card in about 2 years. However, I now know that if one leaves the camera in the car for 20 minutes while food shopping and it is a sunny 100 degrees in Redding, it can shorten the life of these cards considerably.

View from “A” building at the Treehouse

When I saw the card error message in the viewfinder, after taking about two hundred pictures and videos at a Treehouse event, I didn’t consider that the heat might have damaged the card beyond repair. It was only after several attempts to retrieve the data that I realized there wasn’t any data to retrieve.

Orange Daylilies

I reformatted the card and went around the grounds taking a couple hundred pictures to test the card. It failed.

Like any experienced digital photographer, I have extra SD cards. I popped in a spare 4GB and took another spin around the Treehouse and photographed the flowers, mountains, and even the same mockingbird for the third time on Tuesday.

Treehouse western mockingbird

This little guy, (California western mockingbird), is friendly and seems to enjoy my company. When he sees me taking pictures in his area of the property, he will follow me around and we can ‘talk’ to each other. I can whistle a short phrase that he will repeat, then he will sing an altered version to me which I repeat, (if I can). He will do this with our assistant manager, Erma, too. What a treat.

“Bring gloom, down to the minimum”  Photo - Margaret Miller

I went to the library yesterday, to pick up a book that they were holding for me. I mentioned the ‘hold’ list that the library provides for those of us who have nearly exhausted the library’s collection of books that we enjoy reading. We can increase our chance of reading the latest books by authors we know, by adding our names to the lists for each new book. One can do this easily from home on the computer.

When they reach my name on the list, they notify me by email. I like it.

Sterling rose cluster

So it was that I went to the library to pick up a book they were holding for me. While I was there, I checked the rack with new arrivals, (usually they get there after all the people on the hold list have read them), just in case there were any books I would like that I hadn’t already read. There were three additional books to add to my catch of the day.

Sometimes I start reading a book I have brought home only to discover that I have already read it. One of the reasons for this is I get books from several sources. I won’t see it on the list of books I have checked out from the library, (another handy service they provide when one visits their account online), and that’s one way I end up with books I have already read.

Yellow rose in the 7pm sun

Once I got the book home that they had held for me, I opened it to find it was a large print edition. I shall have to return it. For me, the large print makes reading cumbersome and slow. I find large print annoying to the point that I tire of the process before I have read 2 pages of giant letters that force me to read a sentence, one syllable at a time.

I might find large print to be helpful in some future circumstance, but for now I prefer to absorb the information as a sentence or paragraph at a time so that the words flow at the speed of comprehension.
(More about new books in my life coming soon)

Today’s Light Video;

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Life’s A Beach Sometimes

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