Trying Google App Engine

I decided to see what Google App Engine is like.  I know, it's not as fashionable as EC2 instances, but you can't really compare an app to a whole virtual machine.  Which is to say, I really don't feel like administering yet another CentOS 5 box .. I'd like to just play with some Python code.  So far, I've just said hello, world.

Sekonic Elmatic 8

This is the Sekonic Elmatic 8 motion picture camera.  It was a couple bucks at a swap meet.  The mechanical stuff all seems to run fine, so I've shot a roll of regular 8 mm film on it.  It's tricky to get this format developed, (Yale is widely recommended.) so it'll be a little time before I get to see if the ugly beast is actually functional.

Come to think of it, I'm going to need a projector.  This could be interesting.

Tru-Vue Junior 3-Dimension Viewer

I picked up this Tru-Vue stereo image viewer at a photography swap meet event.  It was dirt cheap.  It's for image pairs laid-out in a rectangular format, where you slide a card up and down to see different images in a sequence.

My thought is that I can print up Sputnik image pairs on transparency paper, in the right layout to work with this viewer.   It might also come in handy for looking at "proofs" of viewmaster shots, somehow.  A quick scan and print, and it'd be much easier to "preview" my shots without having to actually punch 'em out and stuff 'em into a real reel.

Apple's Missing "Insert" Key

The extended Apple keyboard lacks an "insert" key.  If you're running Windows in a virtual machine, there are some apps where that key would be very useful.  Well, it turns out that a Windows virtual machine sees your keyboard a little differently than MacOS does.  Press the "clear" button, and you're actually toggling the "numlock" setting.  Once out of numlock mode, pressing the zero key is actually hitting the "insert" key.