Old camera lenses are awesome. I've got some steel and glass rokkors that are beautiful. They render in such a wonderful way too, so painterly. They have thorium in the glass! Not enough to be sketchy to use but something that obviously isn't done anymore. Bonus points that they can be fixed with a hammer.

Old camera stuff in general is subjectively cooler. The leaf shutters in my 4x5 lenses are incredible little machines. Film in general is cooler than whatever sensor the latest and greatest has. Actual bits of silver suspended in emulsion, with colour filters and dye couplers that react in development. There's a great three part video on YouTube breaking down Kodak's manufacturing process. It's mind boggling that stuff even works. Ohhhh and actually darkroom optical prints! Don't get me started there!

I'm going to develop some rolls I think. Got me in the mood.

Knocking on the door of 40. I spent this week moving into my own new place after a decade of toxicity, so this one resonates with me as well.

And still is. I shoot a fair bit of black and white film. It's cheaper, I can develop it at home, it produces a silver negative that will last centuries. The medium itself had been around for a century, so it imparts a sense of timelessness. I appreciate a good photo that you can't tell if it's 1924 or 2024 until you notice some dude with a cellphone in the background.

I'm an architect. It's nice having the project I'm actively working on always active on one screen, with design sketches, marked up revisions, email with comments from client, renderer etc. active on the other. Sure it only saves a second not having to tab back and forth, but if you're doing it non stop all day it makes a big difference. Also just less effort.

"gluteal crease" that's a new one for me, well done.

I think this is a huge part of the problem. Rental property owners are just a liability buffer for the banks. There should be mortgages at a 1% down payment for first time buyers with a proven track record of making rent payments on time. Maybe the rates are a little higher, with the extra interest giving the banks motivation for taking on the extra risk. Then after the first term the owner can renew with a normal rate.

Doesn't help with the demand issue, but maybe all the rentals will flood the market after nobody is being punished for not having $100k laying around because they're busy paying someone else's carrying costs.

It's not a distraction so much as it's the bait. Gas cooking gets the utility serviced to the building, which enables the gas furnace vs electric heat pump conversation. Gas furnace is cheaper up front, so that's what goes into suburbia.

Builders and developers will always do the absolutely cheapest thing possible to stay competitive, and will only do better when they're either legislated to or consumers demand it. Home builders associations lobby to keep minimum requirements ... minimal, and most consumers just see pretty showers and big kitchen islands, so this is why we still build houses like it's 1980.

Always amuses me how many people care about gas mileage on a $50k car but couldn't give two shits if their $2m home is efficient.

Source: I'm a home designer who frequently has this conversation and that's usually how it goes down.

Photography, mostly landscapes. Something satisfying about capturing the essence of a beautiful view and being able to share it with others who couldn't be there to savour the moment. Sometimes a fancy digital camera, sometimes old timey film cameras my grandpa got me into. I'm also into backpacking, climbing, splitboarding, and otherwise just spending time in the mountains so there's no shortage of views to capture.

Don't let this discourage anyone from trying. Yes it sounds absurd when put that way, and yes the costs are getting out of hand at most major resorts, but it can be an absolutely amazing sport/hobby/passion/lifestyle.

The first few times add up cost wise, hard to get around that, but once you figure out what you're doing and make the decision the sport is for you then it gets better. With a season pass and my own gear I'm <$30cad a day on the hill, and that's at a major BC resort.

Still a big wad of cash for gear and a pass up front, and definitely coming from a privileged lens to say that it's affordable, but lots of people spend way more than that on take out, coffee, booze, streaming services, etc. All about priorities!

So a water source heat pump tapping into mine shafts, neat. Run the heat pump off wind or solar, have a decent thermal envelope to lower overall demand, voila emission free heating and cooling. Sounds promising to me.

Film photography. With smartphones having taken over the roll of point and shoots and covering the majority of people's photography needs, it's quite a different experience breaking out a half century old camera. Everything is more tactile, your shots are finite, and the result is a 100% determined by your decisions. Different films produce different results, and if you get into developing your own film you get to play mad chemist in the bathroom.

There's a learning curve, but if you're already into photography and understand the basics it's really not that hard. Labs still exist to develop for you if you'd rather not go down that rabbit hole. The results may surprise you!

Wildfires had my place on evacuation alert, the garbage dump was on fire with 800+ AQI index, so I said fuck this and got out of town for the weekend. Two hours later I got the Amazon delivery notification. World was burning and couldn't breathe, but Amazon finds a way.