With early morning temperatures dipping into negative numbers, it was a good day to spend indoors. I made use of the time to sort out all of the computer and phone tech issues in the house. This involved updating and optimizing five Apple computers, two of which I had to erase and reinstall the operating system, and two iPhones. I easily spent 8 hours involved with the work, with 80% of the time spent waiting for downloads or reboots to complete. Jeanine was the major beneficiary of the effort as she got a new desktop computer with a 34″ ultra-wide, curved screen display for her office.

In the evening, we joined another couple for a movie night to see Hamnet. If you are looking for a feel-good flick, this is not it. If you are in the mood for an emotional rollercoaster about love, loss, and redemption, then this is your ticket, a really well-crafted story with exceptional acting.

I spent the better part of the day setting up and migrating data to a new Mac Studio computer. My laptop has all but run out of its 4TB of storage, and I prefer to keep my entire photo collection on an internal drive. The new computer is configured with 8TB, which should last for some time. My laptop will now be used exclusively for consulting work and travel.

Earlier in the week, I experimented with some photo-to-sketch rendering software and was amazed by the results. It helps to start with a high-quality photo.

Note to Maya: I need to take an updated professional headshot of you.

When I learned that our good friends who live down the street would be returning from the airport at 1 AM, I joined a neighbor to clear the snow from their driveway. I worked the driveway with my snowblower while she handled the walkway with a shovel. Having cleared our own driveway in four passes over two days, this was my first encounter with the full accumulation of the last several days. It pushed my battery-powered machine to the max and left me feeling no need for a trip to the gym.

Strenuous physical activity has a way of motivating my kidney stones to depart their temporary residence in my bladder. This morning, I produced the seven dwarfs pictured above, ranging in size from 1mm to 5.5mm. Passing kidney stones is no fun, but I would much rather have them outside my body than growing larger inside.

Speaking of snow clearing, the last pass on our driveway was done by Jeanine, who wanted to learn how to operate the snowblower. She did a very good job.

Pictured above is the first piece of furniture I ever made, admittedly a rather ambitious project. I was guided by an article and plans I found in Fine Woodworking magazine. During the ensuing 25 years, I would be hard-pressed to single out anything quite so challenging to build.

Last week, my brother sent me the image below of a nearly identical table built by the father of professional photographer Chris Gotz (https://www.chrisgotzphotography.com/). Either he was the author of the article in Fine Woodworking or was similarly inspired by it. My brother made this connection when he purchased some used turning tools from him. What are the odds? His son’s photographs are phenomenal, and I encourage you to visit his website. It appears that we have travelled to virtually all of the same locations in search of natural beauty. As I looked at his photographs, I felt an unexplainable connection to a person whom I had never met. I believe we are kindred spirits and hope to one day make his acquaintance.

We woke up this morning to 14″ of fresh snow with two more expected this afternoon. The ruler placed in the snow mound on our outdoor bistro table indicates 18″, but there was already a 2″ base before this latest storm started. Clearing all the snow provided a great workout. Digging out both of the boys’ cars proved the most time-consuming part of the job.

Kyle, Nico, and Teddy sheltered in place with us this evening as snow fell throughout the day and night. We watched the Patriots beat Denver for a ticket to the Super Bowl. It is the first football game I have watched all season, and it was quite boring. By contrast, the later game between the Seahawks and Rams was very exciting.

When I was in high school, I did math on a slide ruler and personal computers did not exist yet. The conduit of design communication was an engineering drawing, commonly prepared on a drafting table with pen and ink on velum. Pictured above is the set of 12 pens of various sizes that I used for such drawings. When I came across them today while organizing some drawers in my shop, I was immediately transported to my 11th-grade drafting class, where I have fond memories of perfecting my drawing technique, a skill that still serves me well today.

I have decided to migrate my website to a new hosting service provider. The one I am currently using has been the source of untold technical aggravation over the last 20 years. I am hoping that the transition will go smoothly, but I think it is more likely that it will not.

I would appreciate your patience if I am unable to make new posts for a period of time or if the site becomes temporarily unreachable. In the words of Arnold, “I’ll be back!”

Volunteering as the aerial photographer for our local newspaper, The Concord Bridge, has been very satisfying. Today, my assignment included three locations in town: the Middle School, the West Concord Train Depot, and an area known as Heywood Meadow. Between travel, flying, and post-processing, this job consumes less than 2 hours per week, allowing me plenty of time for my paid consulting work, travel, and hobbies. Increasingly, I have been thinking about other ways I can volunteer, something I have done throughout my life.

The first time I volunteered, I was in my early twenties. It was for the Special Olympics as a Hugger, possibly the best job ever, even if it has likely been retired in light of modern sensibilities. I would hug athletes of all ages and abilities as they finished their events. I wish I had saved my official shirt that had the word HUGGER printed on the front and back. Next, I did construction with Habitat for Humanity. Although I love building things, I enjoyed this less because I did not like taking direction from people who knew less about what they were asking me to do than I did. I moved on to volunteering as a soccer coach, first for an over-18 women’s team (6 years), and then for the youth soccer teams for all three kids.

On the professional front, I was a mentor for the MIT Gordon Engineering Leadership program and Vice Chairman of the Video Electronics Standards Association.

Most of my recent volunteering has been centered on photography for non-profits, including Open Table, the Bionic Project, and the American Amputee Soccer Association, where I also served on the Board of Directors.

Hopefully, readers of this blog will have recognized yesterday’s photograph as artificially generated. I provided the photo above and a two-sentence description of the scene I wanted. Three minutes later, I had “created” Moto Maya.

We now live in an era when virtually anyone can create a photorealistic image, limited only by their imagination. Although it takes more processing power and time, the same is true for audio and video. As with all new tools and technologies, this will have beneficial applications. My fear, however, is that the range of negative and unintended consequences is far more consequential and potentially destabilizing to society.

• Non-Consensual Imagery: There has been a massive surge in AI-generated child sexual abuse material and “deepfake” pornography, causing devastating psychological trauma, dehumanization, and reputational damage to victims.
• Democratic Instability: Hyper-realistic synthetic media are used in sophisticated disinformation campaigns to manipulate voter behavior, incite social unrest, and erode public trust in elections and objective truth.
• Financial Fraud: Cybercriminals employ AI video and voice cloning for “vishing,” romance scams, and elaborate corporate fraud, such as impersonating executives to authorize illicit payments.
• Institutional Crises: The “liar’s dividend” allows bad actors to dismiss genuine evidence of misconduct as fake, while fake clinical data and AI-generated doctors promote dangerous medical scams.
• Harassment and Surveillance: Advanced tools enable at-scale harassment, stalking, and “nudifying” individuals without consent, often disproportionately targeting women and minors.
• Economic and Legal Risks: The proliferation of synthetic content threatens to displace human creative labor, while widespread copyright infringement in AI training data has sparked extensive litigation.
• Psychological Impacts: Continuous exposure to indistinguishable fakes can lead to chronic distrust in media and a “crisis of knowing,” where individuals can no longer rely on visual evidence. 

They say a picture is worth a thousand words; now, ten words can create an image for which no words can remedy the harm.

Every time I look at this image of Maya, I am bothered by the fact that she is not wearing a helmet. Riding a motorcycle is dangerous enough. Doing so on a winding road next to a sheer cliff only adds to the risk. Failure to wear a helmet is where we cross the boundary into recklessness and questionable intelligence. On a positive note, the leather suit and gloves are a good choice.

UPDATE: Make sure to tune in tomorrow for an explanation of this image.

I woke up to the first proper snow of the winter. Overnight, we received four inches, adding to the two inches that fell earlier in the week. After clearing the driveway, I ventured out for a second day of photography. Second only to fall foliage, snowscapes are one of my favorite things to shoot.

Essentially by accident, I may have discovered a pleasing photographic perspective on downtown Concord. I managed to capture three churches, two cemetaries, the town flagpole and rotary, the post office, and several of the quaint shops and restaurants that make up the place.

Jeanine and Lauren got an early start on their drive to Burlington, VT, where they will spend the next couple of days visiting with their sister. Closer to home, we had a dusting of snow that was enough to get me out of the house for some photography. I managed a blurry shot of a Bald Eagle that was perched right in front of the house; he flew off before I could get my camera properly stabilized, and I took advantage of the nice reflections off the river to get a winter scene of the house with my drone.

In the evening, I attended a winter solstice party at our neighbors’ just up the street. It was originally scheduled for the celestially correct night last December, but had to be postponed due to the illness of one of the hosts. The evening included an outdoor fire lighting ceremony and sing-along. I retreated to the back of the circle, performing a thoughtful public service by ensuring my “singing” remained a strictly personal experience.

My recent auto-upgrade to the Tahoe operating system left my MacBook seriously compromised and me supremely irritated. I spent several hours backing up my nearly full 4TB disk, doing a full reset and clean install, followed by restoring all my files and applications. It is not the way I like to spend a Saturday afternoon.

Much more to my liking was a visit to Maya’s new apartment located close to Inman Square in Cambridge with her Aunt Lauren, Jeanine, and Kyle. Later, we walked to a nearby Portuguese restaurant where we enjoyed a delightful meal together.