Scott Bradford: Off on a Tangent

Pope Francis Dead at 88

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Pope Francis (Quirinale.it)
Pope Francis (Quirinale.it)

Pope Francis has died. He was eighty-eight years old.

Francis was born Jorge Mario Bergoglio in 1936 in Buenos Aires, Argentina. His father was an Italian immigrant to Argentina whose family had escaped fascism under Benito Mussolini; his mother was born in Argentina and was also of Italian descent. Bergoglio was the eldest of five children, and initially pursued a career in chemistry. When he was twenty-one years old, he contracted life-threatening pneumonia with cysts and had a portion of one of his lungs removed.

After three years of study at the Immaculate Conception Seminary in Buenos Aires, Bergoglio entered the Society of Jesus (the Jesuits) as a novice in 1958. In 1960 he made his vows of poverty, chastity, and obedience to formally enter the order as a religious brother. He taught literature and psychology at the College of the Immaculate Conception in Santa Fe, Argentina, and later at the College of the Savior, a private primary and secondary school in Buenos Aires.

Bergoglio entered theological study at San Miguel, a Jesuit seminary in Buenos Aires, in 1967. He was ordained a priest in 1969, then completed his Jesuit spiritual training and took his final vow of obedience to mission in 1973. He was the provincial superior of the Jesuits in Argentina from 1973 to 1979, rector of the Philosophical and Theological Faculty of San Miguel—one of his alma maters—from 1980 to 1986, and confessor and spiritual director to Jesuits in Córdoba, Argentina, from 1986 to 1992.

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April Fools: Optical Equity Initiative

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For April Fools Day 2025, Off on a Tangent was a little blurry. Here’s why:

I’m pleased to announce that Off on a Tangent will be participating in an important new program: the Optical Equity Initiative.

About sixty percent of Americans are forced to wear glasses or contacts. This is a troubling example of deeply ingrained ideas of optonormity. By medicalizing people with nearer or farther focus points as “myopic” and “hypermetropic,” and people with other special eye abilities as “astigmatic” or “presbyopic,” we reinforce these damaging attitudes.

It’s critical that we begin to address these inequities. Effective immediately, Off on a Tangent will be presented with an optical offset. All viewers—cis-focus or not—will have a similar experience. If you wish, you can adjust your virtual glasses using the buttons at the bottom of the screen.

You can see how it looked here.

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The modern conflict between Russia and Ukraine started in February 2014 with the Russian annexation of Crimea and the Ukrainian civil war in the Donbas region—the oblasts (provinces) of Donetsk and Luhansk. It developed into a full-blown war when Russia invaded Ukraine, including areas far beyond the Donbas, in February 2022. This conflict is rooted in centuries of history, and a post about that is coming soon . . . but, in short, the situation is more complex and nuanced than most casual observers assume. It is not as simple as screaming, “Ukraine good, Russia bad!”

Russian President Vladimir Putin (United Russia) is the aggressor; this is clear. He wants to reclaim Russia’s (or the Soviet Union’s) past glories and is now fully committed to totalitarian jingoism and self-sure belligerence. That does not mean that Russia is entirely in the wrong; it has legitimate grievances, especially about its deep historical, cultural, moral, and practical claims to the Crimean Peninsula. Acknowledging this does not make me a Putin puppet or apologist.

Even when there are clear “good guys” (Ukraine) and “bad guys” (Russia), it is rare that the good guys are 100% good or the bad guys are 100% bad. And anyway, we must look at the situation pragmatically. Good guy or bad, right or wrong, what matters now is ending the war in a way that everybody can live with.

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Photography is one of my main hobbies. Of course I take most of my pictures with my phone now—just like everybody else—but when I want to do some serious shooting, I use cameras and lenses in the Sony E-mount mirrorless system.

One of the nice things about mirrorless cameras is that they have a much shorter flange focal distance than their single-lens-reflex (SLR) predecessors. The practical benefit is you can get equivalent optics in much smaller, lighter camera bodies and lenses. A secondary benefit for hobbyists and enthusiasts is that you can use all sorts of cool vintage lenses. Almost any SLR lens with manual controls can be adapted and used on a mirrorless body. Just grab an adapter from Fotodiox or one of its competitors and you’re good-to-go.

This can be a big money-saver if you’re strategic about it. For example, I wanted a macro lens for close-up work, but I don’t do enough of it to warrant spending a lot of money. Sony’s 50mm ƒ/2.8 full-frame macro lens retails for $549.99, and third-party options from companies like AstrHori, Samyang, Tokina, and TTArtisan still run between about $250 and $400. But I didn’t need something new . . . any decent macro lens with good glass would work.

So I poked around on eBay and found a used Nippon Kōgaku (Nikon) Micro-Nikkor 55mm ƒ/3.5 from 1966 that was in great condition and had an original M2 extension tube. The whole kit—including taxes, shipping, and the Fotodiox mount adapter—cost less than $124.09. That’s a 77% discount from Sony’s first-party option, but I got something that looks cooler and still does what I need it to do.

But today I want to tell you about a very different lens. Come with me on a completely pointless journey into an obscure, forgotten, and mostly-irrelevant corner of the history of consumer photography.

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New IAD Runway Dedicated

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On January 19, 2024, Southern Airways Express flight 246 departed Washington Dulles International Airport (IAD) bound for Lancaster Airport (LNS) in Pennsylvania. The aircraft operating the flight was a small, single-engine Cessna 208B commuter plane. It carried five passengers and two crew.

Shortly after takeoff from Dulles’s runway 30, the engine started losing power. The crew declared an emergency but could not maintain enough altitude to return to the airport. They landed on a nearby highway—Loudoun County Parkway (state route 606) in Arcola, Virginia. The aircraft slid into a guardrail which damaged the prop and landing gear, but was otherwise intact. It came to rest adjacent to an IHOP restaurant. Nobody was hurt.

Officials at the Metropolitan Washington Airports Authority (MWAA), in coordination with the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA), have now established an “emergency breakfast zone” west of the main airport, and the part of Loudoun County Parkway where flight 246 landed is now designated runway 2/20. It is available for aircraft with wingspans up-to sixty feet when the crew or passengers are experiencing urgent pancake needs.

The FAA has updated the airport diagram for Dulles accordingly (see below).

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Scott Bradford is a writer and technologist who has been putting his opinions online since 1995. He believes in three inviolable human rights: life, liberty, and property. He is a Catholic Christian who worships the trinitarian God described in the Nicene Creed. Scott is a husband, nerd, pet lover, and AMC/Jeep enthusiast with a B.S. degree in public administration from George Mason University.