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How Much Wood …

Posted on Posted in overnight notes, the fora, the meta

does it take for an expert to hold your attention.

When you overhear someone on a riddle-me- this, advice for the lost hobbyist forum, how much salt does it take to turn bullshit into stew.

A question was asked about contrast reduction masking making for RA-4 color negatives. They were told that their first thoughts were flawed. They were told this by someone that many, even the mods, consider an expert among them. How did he become that expert. Who gave him that mantle. Simple: there and them. They need to be expert; they satisfy this by believing in each others expertise.

Sometimes, some give very good, well reasoned answers — even correct ones. By correct I mean I would be able to get that to work as stated.

the person did what they should have done — try it.

it worked better than the Forumatti said was possible.

// hc 110, 1995 .. diluted for how many efforts. How much film as masks could someone run using a bottle of HC-110? I leave it as an exercise with these notes:

  • masks are best run singly in trays — one-shot
  • 250 ml solution per mask
  • HC-110 is exhausted at 5ml per 8×10 sheet of Kodak film
  • mask making is at great dilution — D or F

Adage from commercial labs: Mix for 4, use 3 .

The adage means use more developer than you calculate needing; this assures even thorough development.

an expert using 25 year old bottle of concentrate– proof that it stores well — not proof of it being used much.

How many prints does an expert printer make? In this case, not many. His expertise certainly didn’t come from working with this material. Neither the HC-110 for masking, nor the Fujiflex printing.

What does the expert say it takes? How much film? (see: p2.)

rolls of Fujiflex are long enough to make 50 finish prints (30×40).

Making a print a month doesn’t make a productive printer — this is much like the low-use developer expert.

Not much film; not many prints — say hello to the modern, online, snobby hobby expert.

Crafted in Stages

Posted on Posted in A Symbol Life, Criticism, the meta, The Post

fields share many elements, such as changing vocabularies, needs of skill distinction. As a technology -market ages, it crosses boundaries, unseen until appearing in the the rear-view.

software engineering needed to become, for some, for awhile, Craft.

New imperatives are constant during the changing — their decline means that the edge of the field has gotten into the commercial-culture complex to such a degree that it can be done by any enthusiast. For decades, software advanced through the actions and interests of drawing upon people form other fields — At one point, during early Object adoption, Borland keynotes featured a drag and drop build of a spreadsheet application. It was thought that software tools could be built that would make it so easy to write programs the market for applications would decay.

The front, the first way is always driven by optimists. Succeeding waves become more pessimistic.

We begin with one definition of a word, and end with another, perhaps an opposite meaning. It is the way of language change driven, modulated by the technical commercial complex. It is that way is photography as a chemical process, and certainly that way in imaging as a software system.

Engineers learn math as meaning. Artists learn meaning as math.

At successive stages of skill needs, words distinguish qualifications. Amateur is a keyword in knowing where a field is at.