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What Motivates People to Justify Themselves?

Every once in a while, I take this blog totally off topic and just have a ponder about something. This is one of those posts. If you want pictures of something, today is not your day. See you in a couple of days or scroll down to some of the previous posts to get your fill!

This post was triggered by someone I vaguely know and who is a friend on Facebook. They posted a string of posts over a number of days about why they didn’t like soccer (football for the readers in any part of the world except the US). The posts laid out each reason why they thought “footie” was a load of crap and compared poorly to any sport they did like. Someone even chimed in with a comment about baseball having less action and got a response that seemed to be cognitive dissonance at its best.

Am I bothered that someone doesn’t like soccer? No – when it comes down to it I am not that bothered about it either. I played it endlessly as a kid and will still watch some of the major tournament games but fundamentally it really isn’t my thing any more. What I am perplexed about is why someone went to such great lengths to say they didn’t like it. Did it matter that much? Did they think that their damning indictment of the game was going to change the minds of a few billion people who would instantly see the light and cease to care about “the beautiful game”?

Instead, it seems to be another one of those times when people care far more about what their choices may mean in the eyes of others. This is a bit like the sort of brand loyalty debates you see. The Ford versus Chevy debate is one that constantly amuses me. It doesn’t matter whether one or the other is making good or bad products. You are a Ford or Chevy guy. (Unlucky Dodge!) There was even an ad during the Super Bowl that equated this to surviving the apocalypse! Bizarre.

In my little world of photography this is a common theme. Canon versus Nikon seems to be something that takes up an inordinate amount of time. If I bought one, maybe by showing how crap the other is I will somehow be a more valid person? What crap. Engaging in the discussion says far more about you of course. Supporting sports teams is even more of an example since someone can watch their team lose consistently for years and still declare them to be the best and their local rivals useless (despite them being two leagues higher!).

Politics has gone the same way recently. No longer can anyone disagree. Instead they are an enemy. You either agree or you are some sort of traitor/baby eating monster! This is nonsense. The team mentality also means you must concur with every point. Is it possible that any side can have a monopoly on being right? Sounds highly unlikely. However, once you have signed up to a side, you have to support every point irrespective of how much it might go against what you originally believed. This is a sad outlook for us all.

Am I falling into the same path here? I am writing this post trying to highlight what I believe about a topic. Am I no different to someone writing about why they hate soccer? Maybe I am. Maybe I am the one with a good case of cognitive dissonance. Oh well, I guess I am stuck with that. It’s like being too stupid to know you are stupid. Do you think it isn’t you or are you too unaware to know that it is you. You can never know the difference!

I promise I shall return to posting pictures after this. If you are still reading, thanks for indulging me. If not, it doesn’t matter what I write next since you won’t see it anyway!

How to Use Speakerphone

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Since my last post was a bit of a rant, I am on a roll so add another one today. Hopefully, having cleared my system a bit, I will return to the photography topics soon. Normal scheduled programming will resume!

I was waiting to board a flight the other day and the person next to me was on the phone. No great surprise there since the airport is full of people on the phone including me quite frequently. This person was doing something that I have noticed a few times of late. They were using the phone in speakerphone mode but holding it up to their head. They would speak directly into the phone and hold it back at an angle so that they could hear the message. Of course, that meant that the rest of us could hear it too.

Why would they not just hold the phone to their head and have a normal phone conversation in this situation? I readily accept that I may not have understood a set of circumstances that might make this the better way to use a phone but each time I have seen it I have been puzzled. It certainly is a nuisance to everyone else who has to hear the conversation whether they want to or not. Again, if you can explain this to me, please do leave a comment.

The One That Got Away

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No photo to show here. This is about one that didn’t happen. I was driving back towards the city just after sunset. The Kennedy Expressway runs east towards the city away from O’Hare for a while and the line of the freeway is the same as the approach path for one of O’Hare’s runways. As I drove down it, there was a line of aircraft on approach, each showing up with their landing lights on and with the closest aircraft showing clearly against the remnants of the light in the sky.

Add to this the enormous full moon that was almost perfectly in line with the planes and you had the sort of shot that you see online every once in a while and think how cool it looks and maybe it was faked. This wasn’t faked. however, my cameras were in the trunk and I was driving on the expressway so there was no way to get the shot. You will have to take my word for it. It was that good!

Technology That Won’t Die

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A moment for an odd rant today. I had an experience recently with a business (a big company, not some small operation) where they had got some information incorrect on something they sent to me. I contacted them to arrange for it to be updated. It related to taxes so getting it right seemed pretty important. First I should note, they were perfectly happy to fix the error. The thing that amused me was that they asked me to amend their document, add a covering note and fax it to them.

I asked whether it was possible to scan it and email it across but no, they required it to be faxed. I don’t have a fax machine, nor do I live in the 1990s any more. However, it turns out our building does have a fax machine so I could use that to complete my time traveling experience. This got me thinking. Why do fax machines still exist. They only produce a copy of something so there is no proof of something being genuine. I can create an electronic document, print it and fax it. It will be harder to check because the quality of fax is not brilliant. Making a PDF of the document and emailing it seems far more effective and, you can always resend or forward the file further if required. If anyone knows why fax still exists, please let me know in the comments. I would love to understand.

O’Hare Excursion

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Another benefit of the recent trip to O’Hare was getting into a conversation with some guys who know the area better than I. One of them suggested a location I hadn’t tried before. It is on the west side of the field so gets better light as the day wears on. Moreover, the departure routes were favorable on this day and the sun was proving very cooperative so I decided to check it out.

The location is very good. If the aircraft turn out towards you, the angles are very good. Some of the local crews are quite aggressive on their turns and come very close overhead. Even the aircraft heading out or turning away look good. You do have a view of them on the runway but the combination of power lines and foreground junk mean these shots are not too valuable. All of this got better and better as the sun went lower and the light got warmer. Then, to top it all off, the moon rose in the background. What a great end to the shoot. Thanks guys.

Getting up someone’s nose

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I have shot many times at O’Hare over the years. There are a few locations that provide opportunities but they do depend on the time of day and the approaches the jets are making. I was out there recently and wanted to try something different. I didn’t know how well it would work out but wanted to experiment. I checked out what was due in and found a time in the schedule when nothing unusual was coming in. Without the need to make sure I got something that was uncommon, I could risk not getting anything at all for a while.

I wanted to get more directly under the approach path. This is something that I have done before at Washington National but I have had less success at O’Hare. I went out a little further on the approach. The jets were a little higher but I wanted to see what I could get. You end up with both a slightly more head on shot and also get to look right up as they pass overhead. I like the view which is slightly less conventional. Winter is probably a good time to do this since the sun is lower in the sky and the snow on the ground provides a bit more light on the underside avoiding the silhouettes more common in the summer.

Arghh!! Technology Hates Me!

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Time for a quick vent. It seems I have brought down upon myself the curse of technology. Being a techie type, there are plenty of forms of technology in my life. Recently, they have been conspiring against me. I am not a superstitious type of person. The world has more than enough of those so it doesn’t need me to add to the list. However, even a rational person could begin to wonder.

First, the TiVo packed up. It had been misbehaving for a while. Finally, it gave up and could not be restarted. It just kept running through the beginning of the start cycle but never got any further. Time for a new TiVo. I had been pondering an upgrade for a while so a repair did not seem the way to go. Plus, I wanted to have TV back quicker than the repair would manage. While working on this, I go to the computer to look something up and it is off. It shouldn’t have been. A reboot brings up a warning about the CPU fan failure. Crap! That is a lot cheaper to fix but still, CRAP!

Next day a new TiVo and a new CPU fan are in my possession. I need cablecards for the TiVo and have two from the previous unit. Only one is needed for the new one but it has to be the M-Card, not the S-Card. I start thinking this is going to be the next problem. I must have the old card type rather than the one I need. A quick Google on my card tells me it is an M-Card. Hurrah! Plug it in and the TiVo is not so convinced. I need an M-Card. Quick cal to cable company says no problem. Place isn’t open until tomorrow but it is an easy swap. Meanwhile, I can replace the CPU fan.

Next day, a quick swap is performed and I have an M-Card. The TiVo likes it. I get some details and call to activate. Done. No picture yet but I’m sure it takes a while. Later on, still no picture. A call to cable company and we run through some stuff. Should be working they say. It isn’t. All tricks tried. No luck. We’ll send out a guy – tomorrow. Okay.

Next day guy arrives, tries all I tried and no luck. He is confused. Calls the office and they un-pair the card and my account and then re-pair them. Bingo! We have pictures and sound. Something is working. Shame we couldn’t have tried that yesterday but never mind. Is everything working now. Appears to be until, oops, a couple of days later, the website – this website – seems to have vanished. A little tech support from the hosting company and it turns out the database password has miraculously changed to something different in one of the website config files and it is nothing like the password I set up years ago when I created the site. (This is a password I have not needed since so do you think I know what it is supposed to be?? Of course not.)

All of these things are now fixed. The question now is, what’s next? Place your bets on the next thing to go wrong…

New American Livery – Not That Bad

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Having heard a lot of comments about people’s views of the new livery American Airlines has adopted, I was reserving judgement until I had seen it myself. When I first saw images online, I was not bowled over with it but I was not appalled as some people seem to have been. Given the boring nature of many liveries these days, I thought it was a little different from the norm and certainly not cause for offense. Of course, there were plenty who thought the exact opposite.

I have now had my first chance to see it for myself and I have to say my opinion is much the same. I was lucky in this instance that I got to photograph it just before the sun went down so it was bathed in some very favorable light. Even so, I think it looked okay. You will make your own decision of course. In time, we will forget this discussion ever took place!

And the First Piece is Away!

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As I mentioned before, the first piece was free. I hadn’t planned for a time lapse. I had no idea I was going to time my visit for when this happened, nor that it was going to happen so soon. However, I was there with the camera on a tripod so I manually shot a sequence and cut it together. It is short but you get the idea. I left town shortly after this so missed the new section being put in place. I shall hope to be around when the second span is worked on.

Cutting Through the Night

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I headed back to the work site later the same day to see how things were progressing. I wanted to know how fast things were moving but I also wanted to see the work at night. The cutting torches they are using provide a great shower of sparks but, during the day, it is hard to make that impression since they are not very conspicuous. If they were cutting at night, I figured the effect would be more pronounced. That certainly was the case.

Moreover, they had got a lot further than I had expected. The section was almost totally cut free. It was now rest on the barge ready to be moved when the final cuts were made. As you can see from above, it wasn’t long before this happened. They really had made swift work of the first stage of the task.