And So It Goes

Google Books: Less Useful Than Ever!

Google Books now has a new look: shiny!

For all the spiffy, shiny new pseudo-social networking features in Google Books, they seem to have left off something pretty basic: SEARCHING.

One of their features is called "My Library", where Google account holders can add books from their own library. I did that, basically so I could Google's search engine to search within the content of my books, which is easier than pulling down books from the shelf and leafing through them until I find what I want.

Now, in their "update", that functionality to search within one's own library has vanished. Have they decided to give up on the whole "search engine" thing in favor of Facebookesque social networking?

I don't need another Facebook; I need a search engine. If they're not going to be an actual search engine, what the hell good are they?

Another Simple Plan

Yet another simple plan that mutated. This one cost me ¥32,000, and we'll see if it's worth it.

The simple plan was the notion that I should, in case my digital camera became inoperative (due to dead/unavailable battery, full-to-capacity Memory Sticks, equipment failure, theft) bring a film camera as a back-up. I had in mind something like a disposable camera or two, but...

1) ...while shopping at Yodobashi Camera, I stumbled over their hobbyist film section. Slide film, black-and-white print film, large-format film, papers, developing chemicals -- all the sort of stuff I hadn't seen since high school. I remembered my feeble efforts to emulate Ansel Adams, and my particular fondness for Ilford black-and-white film.

2) Somewhere in a box at home, I still had my old Canon FTb  SLR camera, which my dad bought sometime during the Nixon administration. Primitive by today's standards -- all metal construction, no electronics except for the light meter, and manual focus -- it's been absolute brick of a camera, in performance and -- sadly -- weight.

3) So I bought a couple of rolls of Ilford black-and-white film, dug the Canon out of a box in the back of the closet, and loaded her up. Years of neglected maintenance took their toll on the camera: it took one shot, then immediately jammed.

4) And of course, I still had that idea stuck in my head of taking black-and-white photos with a film camera. So I was susceptible, while browsing in Yodobashi Camera with Liz, when I encountered an in-store special: a Pentax MZ-60 35mm SLR body, with two Tokina lenses (28-80 mm and 100-300 mm zoom) for ¥31,900, tax included.

5) Which I bought, along with a dozen assorted rolls of film (Ilford XP-2, HP-5, and FP-4; Kodak Kodachrome 64 and 200).  Liz was also tempted, but she called her husband, who managed to talk her out it.

So I managed to go, in only a few easy steps, from pondering a disposable back-up camera to an entire retro-technology system and the requisite retraining. Now I have a couple weeks to relearn basic photography principles and how to operate this camera. I did quickly learn to stop flicking my thumb onto the non-existent film-advance lever, a habit ingrained by years of using my old-fashioned Canon. Let's see if I can figure out the rest before I leave.