[HN Gopher] Wizard with a Time Machine
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       Wizard with a Time Machine
        
       Author : walterbell
       Score  : 73 points
       Date   : 2022-08-07 05:56 UTC (1 days ago)
        
 (HTM) web link (microship.com)
 (TXT) w3m dump (microship.com)
        
       | overthemoon wrote:
       | This inspired me. I think this kind of work would be fascinating
       | and deeply satisfying.
        
         | soylentcola wrote:
         | There are services that will do this, but I would imagine that
         | many of them only handle formats where there's enough demand to
         | justify the necessary gear and setup. It's definitely the sort
         | of work where someone really into that specific thing can
         | devote more resources than your average video/film/etc
         | production and distribution house.
         | 
         | I've done a bit of this with personal material (friends,
         | family, my own stuff). Even then it's just when I have the
         | necessary equipment already. Currently it's just a flatbed
         | scanner, VCR, cassette deck, and capture card.
         | 
         | They don't get a ton of use, but when someone mentions having
         | old tapes they can't watch anymore, I usually try to give it a
         | go.
        
       | JediPig wrote:
       | rarely talk about this, there is another wizard that lived in
       | friday harbor.
       | 
       | I spent most of my youth and 20s with this man. He taught pain
       | alleviation and hypnosis. I spent 6 years learning from him, 2 as
       | an intern. When I left, the whole hypnosis community made me
       | sick. It is filled with false hoods and people lusting for power.
       | Tony Robbins hired my mentor, the guy the book Monster's and
       | magical sticks was about, "dave".
       | 
       | I occassionally saw patients with burns and cancer treatments.
       | While till this day, I have no real idea how I can allevate their
       | pain, they do. I stopped after an ass named wolf of wall street
       | jordan belfort, used a portion of it to scam people out of
       | millions.
       | 
       | My last phone call was with him, I asked him if he was going to
       | let his current "life mate" if she was going to told the last 2-3
       | missing pieces.. He laughed, and said no, it should go our
       | graves. I am conflicted , cause i want people to know he FOUND
       | the secret, but realized it was like a nuclear weapon of
       | communication. Politicians are already manipulative, but to make
       | an army of them that has near god like abilities... would be
       | socially resposible.
       | 
       | Thus I hide on the internet, rarely complain, and speak about the
       | other wizard in friday harbor.
       | 
       | may he rest in peace, and Ill take to my grave what he left out.
       | The night where I saw the magic he was trying to keep secret. He
       | grabbed me in the throat and made me swear not to tell. I kept my
       | promise old friend, my 2nd dad.
        
         | walterbell wrote:
         | Is there no defensive value? Would your/his position change if
         | it was already being used for offense? This is akin to the
         | zero-day debate.
        
         | carapace wrote:
         | Some secrets keep themselves.
         | 
         | "The history of mankind is the history of war between gangs of
         | hypnotists."
        
         | sleepybrett wrote:
         | The san juan's seem to both collect and produce wizards
        
       | abruzzi wrote:
       | My father shot thousands of slides when we lived in Nigeria in
       | the mid 70's. He still has them, but I have started scanning them
       | myself with Pentax DSLR, and macro bellows with slide copying
       | attachment. It been pretty fun--I was 5-6 at during this time, so
       | some of it lines up with my oldest memories. I've found that the
       | Kodachrome slides have have held up much better than the other
       | (mostly Ektachrome) slides. The colors on the Kodachrome look
       | like they were shot yesterday.
       | 
       | My father also has a bunch of super 8 shot by his parents, but I
       | really don't have anything to convert those well, so he sent them
       | off for conversion. Among other things it includes footage of
       | mygrandparents vacationing in Cuba before the revolution.
        
         | _tom_ wrote:
         | I have a similar situation, but no Pentax. I've been trying to
         | figure out how to scan thousands of my grandfathers slides. Too
         | expensive to send out for processing, I think. But there don't
         | seem to be any good auto-feed scanners and the thought of
         | scanning 5000 slides five at a time is daunting! It's annoying
         | that the slides are all in trays for automated playback with a
         | slide project, but there are no scanners that feed from trays!
         | 
         | I'm thinking of setting up a slide projector on auto play and
         | recording that output. At least that would batch by fifty.
         | 
         | Any suggestions?
        
           | _tom_ wrote:
           | I also have a few daguerreotypes to scan. Hard to find a
           | scanner that supports them!
        
       | egypturnash wrote:
       | Where does this wizard's money come from? I've read about his
       | bikes many times in the past but this is the first time I've ever
       | really stopped and thought about the price tags. "I rode around
       | the country on a 1.2 million dollar computerized bicycle",
       | sheesh. Then he shifted to a couple of computerized yachts. His
       | film/video digitizing setup discussed in this article is a _mere_
       | $10k.
       | 
       | (Wikipedia is a dead end, his computer bike is wikinotable but he
       | is not, so there's nothing to see there about where this money
       | might come from. Wealthy family? Wizardly levels of persuasion?
       | Crime? I dunno.)
        
         | boomboomsubban wrote:
         | https://computerhistory.org/profile/steven-k-roberts/
         | 
         | >Prior to Steve's life as a technomad, he owned a consulting
         | engineering business in the Midwest and published three books
         | on microprocessors and industrial control system design.
         | 
         | That alone could make you wealthy, if he also invested in the
         | field he could be super rich.
        
         | Syonyk wrote:
         | First, if you do a lot of the work yourself, "valued at" and
         | "What it cost to build" are two very, _very_ different numbers.
         | Never forget that news articles will tend to be lazy about
         | "Oh, XYZ cost that much new, OK, add that in..." when someone
         | like Steve is going to have a better line on used equipment at
         | a good price, or perhaps some sponsorship deals.
         | 
         | Second, he's a big fan of the "nickel generator" projects -
         | something that, once done, will generate some trickle of income
         | more or less indefinitely on minimal additional labor. And he's
         | got a _lot_ of those in various forms.
         | 
         | Third, he lives simply. Quite so. And he's been around for a
         | lot of years. All those add up to both a lot of connections,
         | and likely a decent stockpile of cash for projects.
         | 
         | I met him some years back. Great all around technowizard!
         | 
         | How much do people on HN regularly spend on a house/car?
        
       | 0x445442 wrote:
       | It's not a wheel, it's a time machine, a carousel...
       | https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rq3n2sJ43Hg
        
       | TedDoesntTalk wrote:
       | I emailed with the "Wizard" last year or earlier this year about
       | 5000 slides my father took of WW 1 forts and battlefields in the
       | 80s (most not on maps or accessible). His attention to detail is
       | insane, even by email.
       | 
       | I have not pulled the trigger yet because he tripped me up when
       | he asked if the slides are cataloged in any way. They are, but
       | the notes are scattered and it's going to take me a significant
       | effort to reconstruct which slides are of which location.
       | Ultimately I'm not sure I'll get to it and the slides will
       | probably remain as slides until I die.
        
       | iainmerrick wrote:
       | It's not even the main focus of the article, but I love how this
       | mentions in passing that Steve Roberts was the original digital
       | nomad! I remember seeing his custom recumbent bike with built-in
       | computer in a TV documentary decades ago. Amazing to hear that he
       | has continued to be a trailbreaking innovator.
        
         | walterbell wrote:
         | (bike) _Computing Across America_ , 1983-1987,
         | https://microship.com/category/caa/page/5/
         | 
         | (boat) _Building the Microship Trimaran_ ,
         | https://microship.com/microship/
         | 
         |  _> The Microship project spanned a decade, with three
         | different labs and multiple design revisions... at last
         | yielding an amphibian pedal /solar/sail micro-trimaran. This
         | massive project was fueled by about 160 corporate sponsors and
         | a team of brilliant geeks_.
         | 
         | His books, https://microship.com/product-category/publications/
        
         | wglb wrote:
         | I chatted with him at the Dayton Hamvention way back when his
         | first book came out. He had his bike there at the time, along
         | with his girlfriend.
        
         | larrywright wrote:
         | I probably saw the same documentary and found it fascinating. I
         | remember being excited when I found his blog many years later.
         | He's definitely an interesting guy.
        
       | misterprime wrote:
       | I'd love to know what you all think is a good method to store
       | these digital files at home in such a way that they can be: 1.
       | easily viewed at home. 2. easily passed to the next of kin. 3.
       | optionally: easily and selectively shared remotely with others as
       | the owner sees fit.
        
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       (page generated 2022-08-08 23:02 UTC)