天空вℓσи∂ @skyblond@qoto.org

I asked the teller (I should use teller instead of officer. I naively though the people works in the office will be officer) if she wants to check the content, she said there is no need to do that. I can just seal it.

So I pull out my stamp and the paste. I saw a flash of shock on her face when I stamped the seal.

Looks like China Post has their own understanding about their own rules in different areas.

Today I went to the post office to send registered mail. And in Beijing, it's fairly smooth. Didn't encounter any problems. But from what I read from other posts, in some places they will ask you to open the letter so they can check what in it. They shouldn't read what you write on the paper, but they will check what you have other than paper. Technically speaking, the law gives the officer the right to check the content, but in my humble opinion, if you can't sneak a bomb into a flat 11cm by 22cm envelope, then you shouldn't bother others. Most of the time, they just bother you not because of you, but simply because they can. And that's probably why I choose to stick with Beijing.

In Beijing, they won't bother you not solely because they are better people, but also because I can ride another 20 minutes and go to the HQ of China Post and send a complaint if they bothered me.

The power of supervision :)

抽象

@fulkrum 黄油一直是这样的。之前每次用黄油开酥，做完之后无论怎么洗手，之后的一两天总是会手有余香。

Maybe it's not that complex. But it is the most complex one I have ever seen in my life. Considering I'm still 20+ years old and most of the time I don't even (need to) use develop branch for my personal projects.

Me trying to remember what I did on Friday and what I should do today. Then I instantly recall the work when I saw this git graph.

There are two different remotes with each got a develop and master branch. And I pull changes from upstream to downstream.

Maybe I should ask earlier before I already implemented the solution. But still, this is a valid git usage right? Right?
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Now a quick entertainment for you: guess which heads are the upstream repo and which ones are the downstream. Also which ones are develop branches and which ones are master branches.

Excuse me? Why does the same thing cost 4400 EUR in the Chinese official store while the listed price on their official website is only less than 3000 EUR?

One of my major flaws is that I always have a curiosity about various things and then feel the urge to buy equipment. Over the years, I have discovered a good technique: when I want to buy something, unless it is obviously useful (like a charging cable or a RAM module), I will add it to the shopping cart and then wait for a few months to see if I still really want it. If at that time I still want it, then I start doing research to see if this thing can meet my expectations.

In many hobbies that require purchasing equipment, I see many people advocating for a gradual progression: starting with entry-level equipment and continuously upgrading based on your needs. But I believe that this approach is not widely applicable. Take camping as an example, if you are going camping on foot, every gram of weight is important, and entry-level equipment will not meet your needs. In this case, buying entry-level equipment is simply a waste of money. However, if you are driving to the campsite, entry-level equipment doesn't need to be considered for weight and you only need to focus on functionality. Photography is similar, if you are only taking portraits, any camera other than those from the early Nokia era will suffice. But if you are into astrophotography, you may need to spend more money on a telescope rather than the camera itself. However, for bird-watching, both the lens and camera are equally important. Your camera needs to be sensitive enough to capture clean photos in low-light conditions, while your lens needs to provide sufficient quality light.

And one good thing from that flaw is I learnt how to gather information from different sources and how to make evaluations based on them. And nowadays, if I did my homework adequately, I generally get what I expected. And one general experience I learnt from those decision-making processes is that: You don't always get what you paid, but you have to pay first before you will get it. And you don't always pay money. For example, a good second-hand gear is cheaper in price, but you need to pay an extra amount of time to learn what to watch for and finally pick up what might fix your need. And with brand new gear, you pay a lot of money.

So when I said my new monocular is not as good as kowa or swarovski, I don't mean it's bad, instead, it's a feature for this price range, and I know it when I buy it.

But anyway, the future me might have a new homework to do, for swarovski, and possibly for cameras and lens too.

Great. Wandering around on the internet, and ended up to this company.

Not the first time visit, but now it will be my ultimate goal for telescopes.

Although I did recently purchase some cheap (compared to top brands) telescopes in this year and have no plan to replace them very soon, but I do spot a few things that correspond to this price range. It's ok for now, I'll classify myself as an amateur hobbyist, so don't gonna go super critical on those downsides. So maybe in two years or so I'll save some money, and if I still love watching birds and night sky, then I'll inevitably buy some good gear.

Bless my wallet.

Also, that's why I hate Adobe's subscription: I do take photos and process them. But I don't often do that. Maybe several times a year, then why do I have to pay 10 USD a month?

Although Affinity Photo 2 is not that great to use compared to lightroom, it is functionally capable. And I don't need to subscribe to it. I just pay once and use whenever I want to, no extra fee.
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Maybe spending like 40 or 50 USD per year is much cheaper than paying for a full royalty-free software pack. But if you think in that way, then there is much cheaper software out there, like affinity photo 2. I like Photoshop and Lightroom because of the features and functionality. I can take the price since I know I can use it whenever I want after I buy it. But now Adobe is forcing everyone to switch to their subscription model and revoke the licenses they sold, even with such brilliant software, I don't trust the company.

Weirdly, the screenshot didn't show the difference between the JPG and DNG. On my screen it looks more vivid compared to DNG. The DNG photo is a bit pale.

My main screen is DCI-P3 calibrated. However, the screenshot is taken on a cheap HP monitor which has no comments on color accuracy.

Maybe it's windows' fault? I should convert DNG to JPG with no additional processing in order to compair them.

P1: My preference of post-processing, based on the DNG file
P2: My phone's preference of post-processing, aka the JPG file. It got the JPG file first, then got the DNG file. I assume this JPG file is what you get when you use the stock camera app.
P3: The unprocessed DNG file displayed by the default app to view photos in Windows 10.
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In terms of "my preference", I don't mean my style. I don't know photography very well, so I just messing around with the slider and see if I like it. So each photo I produce, it got a different style😂 I'm just starting learning it, don't be too mean on me.

The photo is too big, so I open it and take a screenshot of it so I can uploaded here.

Anyway, if you look close, you can tell this bird is not properly focused. That's a very common problem with my setup.

First of all, the auto focus from Samsung is absolutely shit. Everytime it focuses on a branch either behind or in front of the bird. It always failed to focus on the bird itself. So I use manual focus. But then the screen is very small, with direct sunlight, I can't tell if the bird is crystal clear or not. I placed an order from fuji to see if it looks better on a 4R photo paper. But even if it looks ok, I still want to try if I can get a perfect focus with my phone.

One possible way to solve it is to carry a HDMI screen. Samsung's camera app can output a HDMI preview when connected to an external monitor. But I wonder how I'm gonna take a picture of bird with such chunky devices.

@AmpBenzScientist I think samsung's expert raw app did a fairly decent job to capture raw. But the real cameras are still worth its price, in terms of pixel counts and the size of cmos, compare to a smart phone