Ever-Curious Geek

Aerial Lift Bridge On Watercolor Fog

Duluth Minnesota's famous Aerial Lift Bridge at Canal Park, rendered in a digital watercolor painting against springtime fog.

Windswept Door County Winter

While the tourists are away, Door County sleeps in a windswept blanket of snow. Anderson Barn, one of Wisconsin's most eclectic sights, stands brightly colored as always despite a grey snowy winter day.

Day Breaks Over The Sturgeon Bay Lighthouse

Another beautiful Door County day is in motion as the sun rises over the famous lighthouse at Sturgeon Bay's ship canal. Golden daylight washes over the weather pier and glistens through the windows weathered by the waters of Lake Michigan.

Unboxing the Columbia Classics 4K Ultra HD Collection Volume 1 from Sony!

Unboxing the Star Wars Skywalker Saga 4K Ultra HD Blu-ray Box Set from Best Buy

Apple AirPods: The Best Way To Clean and Restore Lost Volume

My easy paint thinner clean-up routine for Bob Ross oil painting

This video is a follow up to a video I posted a couple years ago about building my own Bob Ross oil painting easel. In this video, I go through my clean-up routine with odorless paint thinner - specifically what type to use (not the expensive art store stuff but much cheaper hardware store stuff), how to recycle it and how to keep perfectly-sized jars of it ready to go for any weeknight's painting session. 

 All that's required is a gallon-size pickle jar, 3 or 4 quart-size Ball or Mason jars, Sherwin-Williams straining paint funnels, and an empty gallon paint can from the hardware store. 

Unboxing the Jim Henson Funko Pop - Target Exclusive with Ernie

The new 2019 Speak N Spell | Unboxing and First Impressions

Back in my younger years, Speak N Spell was one of my absolute favorite toys. I took it everywhere and wore it out pretty quickly. Now a parent myself, I've been looking for a Speak N Spell to share with my second grade daughter, but used units on eBay are either expensive or in poor condition. 

Now a retro toy company called Basic Fun has released an updated, but novelty, Speak N Spell. This new 2019 Speak N Spell sells at Target for about $25 and promises the same voice and play experience as the classic 80's Texas Instruments electronic toy. 

An evening ride on the Bay Beach west end train

Bay Beach Amusement Park in Green Bay, Wisconsin is one of the hidden gems of Northeast Wisconsin. It's an ever-expanding classic amusement park with rides for kids (and adults) of all ages, and the ride tickets are still just a quarter apiece! 

In 2018, Bay Beach debuted its second train line, the West End Train, which came to the park from a private donation. It compliments the existing train line which has been in operation for decades. It weaves its way between the Bay of Green Bay and the Zippin Pippin roller coaster, and actually runs underneath it as well. It's a really great scenic trip around the west end of the park, especially on beautiful sunset evenings, and it's a great way to take a relaxing break from the thrill rides. 

On this evening, me and my daughter had the train all to ourselves, so we thought we'd share a ride with you. 

FilmStruck closing, Criterion Channel on the horizon, UltraViolet shutting down, and Disney+ among many conglomerates’ individual streaming services taking shape. It’s a pretty fractious time to be a streaming consumer.

It’s never been a better time to be a DVD hoarder or Blu-ray junkie. I’ve seen the writing on the wall for some time myself, but all these recent developments are further reinforcing my desire to create my own Netflix of sorts, stocked only with the titles I like – available any time I like for as long as they don’t physically burst into flames.

Engadget perfectly summed up the futility of reliance on streaming platforms and digital movie storefronts:

The lesson to take away from UltraViolet’s demise is that we can’t rely on digital platforms, because the landlord always has final say. There seems to be no (legal) digital locker that can’t be pulled in an instant if an executive demands it. So, if you care about something, the smart thing to do is to keep it alive in your own home. — Read on www.engadget.com/2019/02/06/ultraviolet-closure-digital-media-dvds/

When I was young and flush with cash and no responsibility, I amassed a rather large VHS collection while working at a video store. Over the years I collected more and more titles as I exposed myself to new titles I liked and old goodies I discovered, and I transitioned many of those crusty, time-worn VHS tapes to DVDs and Blu-rays. As adulthood set in, I had to sell off most of my collection.

Then came the siren song of little red envelopes filled with any DVD I wanted in my mailbox, followed by a virtually-limitless video store at my fingertips with Netflix streaming. I traded ownership for monthly fees to access everything I loved. Every month, new things started appearing, but in the last couple years, things started coming and going at random. Searches for things I wanted to watch at a moment’s notice came up empty, as they appeared on other streaming platforms I didn’t subscribe to at the time. The cracks in the streaming Shangri-La increasingly evident.

So in the past year, I’ve been getting the band back together. I’ve been on an insatiable hunt for all the movies I know and love, acquiring them in the best formats possible – something not always easy as studios have gotten lax on bringing older, possibly-obscure catalog titles to modern formats. I strive for Blu-ray or better yet 4K, but some titles (like the criminally under appreciated Wonder Boys) find their best possible format in an HD stream from Google Play.

Why do I love physical media so much? It comes down to a kind of Cameron Crowe-like reverence to the experience. Much like vinyl collectors coo over liner notes and the warmth of a turntable’s sound, the experience of owning a movie collection and maximizing the theater experience in one’s own home holds the same kind of self-satisfaction factor. It commands the same kind of attention as a record – the requirement of being in a place designated for the enjoyment of movies, and setting aside the time to devote your attention to a piece of art from beginning to end. After years of watching movies in the background – as a kind of medicating noise – it’s fulfilling on a whole other level.

Then there’s the whole “Blu-rays look better than stream” thing, which is, of course, entirely true. A good Blu-ray with a competent lossless surround sound mix blows a Hulu movie out of the water any day. I can’t even imagine how I enjoyed watching movies for so long with those micro-sized, tinny iPhone speakers for so long, compared to my – admittedly modest – Dolby Atmos home theater setup. Call me a zealot, but there really is no comparison. Movies really do need to be experienced rather than just watched – even the bad ones. The film grain brought out by proficient Blu-ray and 4K masters really brings out the organic nature of film that makes it so magical. That’s something the blocky compression that streaming obscures.

First Impressions of "Won't You Be My Neighbor?" - The Mr. Rogers Documentary

How I Store My DVDs & Blu-rays With Target's Cube Storage Shelves

I wanted to find a way to store my growing DVD and Blu-ray collection around my small home theater setup, so I decided to adapt some existing Room Essentials cube storage shelves from Target for storing my movies. 

Cube storage shelves are, by themselves, not great for storing movies. The cubes themselves are typically 11 inches square, so it's hard to keep movies up front and viewable in the shelves, and there's a lot of wasted space because the cubes are taller than the disc cases. 

Review: Ardisam Earthquake DK43 lawn dethatcher kit

I've owned an Ardisam Earthquake MC43 2-cycle gas tiller for a few years now and it's been a scrappy little workhorse around my garden, but today I'm trying out the Ardisam Earthquake DK43 dethatcher kit for dethatching a lawn. I've been in my house for about nine years and have never done much to my front lawn other than mowing it, fertilizing it with Milorganite and occasionally trying to overseed it. I can see a heavy layer of thatch and also some moss, so it's obvious that not all the sunlight, water and fertilizer isn't penetrating as well as it should. So I thought I'd give this a try. 

VUDU removes Disc-To-Digital scanning from iOS app

Disc To Digital conversion is one of the highlights of VUDU - a Walmart digital movie service. And scanning bar codes of your physical movies on an iPhone or iPad was a really super convenient way to add digital copies of your physical DVDs and Blu-rays to your VUDU and Movies Anywhere digital lockers. 

But with a recent update, VUDU has removed mobile disc-to-digital scanning from its iOS app. It apparently is still available on Android. They have replaced it with a clunkier, but still functional, in-browser scanning feature. Now, instead of scanning directly with an app using your iPhone camera, you snap pictures of the barcodes one at a time and upload them for VUDU to recognize. 

If you follow me on YouTube – and at this point, I really, really REALLY need you to! – you probably know I have strong feelings about their recent changes to the YouTube Partner Program. Specifically, I’m talking about demonetizing channels with less than 1,000 subscribers and less than 4,000 watch hours in a 365 day period. The night the word first came down, I made a stream-of-consciousness video about it (watch it below).

As a YouTube creator with an admittedly “niche” channel, this affects me. While I’ve been slowly but confidently building a base of subscribers over the past several years, many of my views come from web searches. My most popular stuff has been how-to videos, and my most popular video (with over 200,000 views) is a top Google hit for a particular automotive search. I’m not a car guy, but one little video of mine has gotten that many views because it was helpful and well-made. I’ve been getting tens of thousands of views on another video on gardening, even though that’s not the focus of my channel. I put up things that interest me, and up until now people have found my stuff and responded to it.

YouTube moved the goalposts on me just as I was nearing 500 subs, a milestone I had never thought possible when I started putting up some of these random videos. It was also a threshold that took a damn long time, because I am a very niche creator. I don’t have – or imagine I’ll ever get – a massive following, and that’s never been the goal. I’ve just enjoyed putting up stuff and getting good feedback on it (and of course the occasional troll). The ad revenue wasn’t huge, but considering how small the channel is, I’ve been pleasantly surprised by it. The fact that I made $10 a month every month on one automotive tip video I made several years ago was a boon to keep going. The tiny pittance I made off ad revenue on my videos gets plowed back directly into the videos – new flash cards, new lights or mics, and so on. The fact that YouTube doesn’t think I’ll miss that money is a pretty big slap in the face.

Recently, on the heels of backlash from me and other small YouTube creators, YouTube sent out a (rather lengthy) survey on the platform and their relationship with creators. I’ve since calmed down a bit on the matter, but the survey came while the sting of demonetization was still very raw with me. I had forgotten until today that I copied and pasted a few of my essay-length answers to that survey to Notepad, so I thought I’d share them here.

Why do you disagree with the following statement: YouTube is the best place for creators?

I do not feel YouTube supports smaller creators, as evidenced by the recent change to its partner program. I feel smaller creators like myself who are trying to build an audience and grow their channel have now been unfairly penalized for the actions of bad actors on the platform, by being denied the opportunity to monetize their channel as they had before. While I realize that many smaller channels do not generate much in revenue, there are ones like mine that generate many views despite a low subscriber number (~500 subs). I believe the new policy and demonetization unfairly disadvantage channels with very niche subjects. We may not be “personalities” but we strive to provide helpful, meaningful content. You may not think that $15-20 a month means much to smaller up-and-coming creators, but that’s a new microphone, better equipment or even the simple prospect of reward for a job well done. Taking that away so abruptly for what I feel is no good reason – these new policies will do little to discourage the bad actors – is a huge slap in the face and discouragement for small creators.

Why do you disagree with the following statement: YouTube provides me the best opportunity to make revenue as a creator?

When you’re a creator with niche content, building an audience is an uphill battle. I’ve been on YouTube for a few years now and before the recent policy change announcement, I was elated to be within reach of 500 subscribers. Since the policy change, I’ve been extremely discouraged as a YouTube creator. I was making probably a little more than other smaller creators as some of my content is the kind of content people search for rather than subscribe for. I was starting to make some traction at building an audience, and now I feel like the goalposts have been moved as a punishment for Logan Paul and other bad actors on the platform. There are undoubtedly changes that need to be made to the platform and many improvements that could be made, but punishing smaller creators who work hard and play by the rules seems unnecessarily cruel and misguided. I now feel like I have to look elsewhere for opportunities to earn revenue for the work I do and love.

Why do you disagree with the following statement: YouTube compensates me fairly?

As of this month, YouTube will no longer compensate me at all, even though I’m sure ads will continue to run on my videos.

Is there anything else you want us to know?