Thanks. And now all I can hear is “BRUSH brush ~brush brush~ FLOSS floss ~floss floss~.”

My partner and I are both well into our 50s. When on land, our bed is on the floor, and we snap out of bed. We usually live on our sailboat; getting in and out of our berth is more akin to spelunking than getting out of bed.

I (think I) understand the point you’re trying to make: this shit gets harder with some age. Do I have that correctly?

I can’t emphasize this enough: take care of the hardware. Yoga, Pilates, weight training, cardio, core strength, stretching, attention to posture, etc. I have coworkers and friends 10 to 20 years younger than I with half the mobility, strength, and speed. And I have all kinds of issues from abusing my body in my youth. But some basic care keeps things usable.

If anyone’s curious, here are some good starting points for keeping your mobility or restoring physical capacity lost to age:

• “Ten Golden Exercises” by Daniel Philpot
• Mackenzie Method physical therapy — Robin Mackenzie was a serious innovator in PT; “Bob & Brad,” the YouTube channel, are Mackenzie Method therapists
• Yoga with Adrienne YT channel — she has some great starter videos for all kinds of mobility levels
• any floor method Pilates that doesn’t require machines, for example YT channel “Move with Nicole”

All that is a lot of words to say: the dreaded middle aged decline doesn’t have to be inevitable. But you do have to put in the preventative maintenance.

Holy balls. I used to be an instructor in the career retraining field, so I believed your numbers. Trust, but verify: https://www.thenationalliteracyinstitute.com/post/literacy-statistics-2024-2025-where-we-are-now

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But where is “Damn, I just suck at this game?” You know how some people are utterly amazing at games? That’s not me. At all.

They were acquired by Opta Group in 2023. Since then, the quality has declined while prices increased. And around the time of their acquisition, they started doing some shady stuff when claiming USB-IF compliance. The cables were blatantly not USB-IF compliant.

Another example: I personally love my Anker GaN Prime power bricks and 737. Unfortunately, among my friends and peers, I am the exception. The Prime chargers are known for incorrectly reading cable eMarkers and then failing to deliver the correct power. This has so far been an issue for me twice, but was able to be worked around.

This is absolutely by design. The corporate raider playbook is well-read. See: Sears, Fluke, DeWalt, Boeing, HP, Intel, Anker, any company purchased by Vista (RIP Smartsheet, we barely knew ye), and so on. Find a brand with an excellent reputation, gut it, strip mine that goodwill, abandon the husk on a golden parachute, and make sure to not be the one holding the bag.

“It’s what … I do?”

Okay, I just recorded some h.265 footage with a Pixel 7a. I haven’t had a chance to pull the video into Resolve (another Blackmagic product). Using Camera 2 is intuitive* and powerful. Quick, intuitive controls for focus, exposure, and white balance locks. Easy focus and exposure, easy access to the controls I need on the fly. I didn’t see a RAW video option, but the gamut looks reasonable enough to be able to apply a LUT and still get the final effect I want. YMMV, however I think this results in video that I can use when I’m shooting in situations where I don’t want to use my bigger video camera. This is now my go-to for quick shoots and conditions when I don’t want to use the bigger, more expensive cameras.

So, thanks OP for this post!

*Gawd, I hate that word for software, but it fits here.

Halo effect warning. I own/use some other Blackmagic camera, controls, and software; they’re industrial strength. I was irrationally avoiding them for reasons I can’t even recall now. Probably some BS “Who are they? They can’t possibly be any good.” So I’m excited to try this out, but my knee jerk reaction is: FINALLY! Blackmagic’s products IMO have so much attention to things pros need, that even if this is only so-so, it could easily evolve into making Android phones a semi-proper video camera competitor to iOS ProRes.

Yeah, that doesn’t really answer your question, but hopefully adds some context to something something cinnamon toast crunch.

Got a source on that? According to Backblaze, Seagate seems to be doing okay (Backblaze Drive Stats for Q1 2024 https://www.backblaze.com/blog/backblaze-drive-stats-for-q1-2024/), especially given how many models are in operation.

Heat-Assisted Magnetic Recording. It uses a laser to heat the drive platter, allowing for higher areal density and increased capacity.

I am ignorant on the CMR/SMR differences in performance

Pssh… call me when they’re dipping in McD Szechuan sauce. That’s the real sign of intelligence.

My misguided, ignorant younger self would absolutely assume self-blame.

Now I’ve got engineering powers and skillz! I can rationalize… errrr, I mean EXPLAIN my missteps with root cause analyses and preventative actions! 😆