Flickr: The Candle In The Wind

Flickr announced recently that they're changing free accounts from having up to a full terabyte of data (along with some upload restrictions on file size and frequency) to a total limit of 1,000 photos. I've barely used Flickr in years and have 937 photos, which I could easily cull down to 900 if I felt especially picky. Maybe if I did more photography, I could justify the 50 per year for Pro. As subscriptions to web services go, I consider 50/year set-and-forget. That said, I have enough sets and forgets as is between Patreon and Playstation Plus, much less the handful of streaming services and storage apps I pay upkeep to. Flickr would just be one more on top of that pile. While the changes to Pro and Free accounts are essentially not going to affect me, I am a tad bummed that maybe some of my Favs will get axed. 
Typically when these kinds of throttles get rolled out for sites, there's a kind of grandfathering system. Your total number of uploads stays the same, but you can't add more until you get below the threshold. A free account could have 2,000 photos, and they will all stay up, but if one gets deleted, it's not going back in the photostream. 

While starting with the oldest makes sense (why would you cut new uploads?) I have to wonder how many people are going to go through their 1,000-plus and leave the first handful of uploads untouched. I also wonder how many people are going to be too late and find their early stuff gone. Hopefully they have it backed up somewhere. You can never have too many backups. As we all know, there's two kinds of backups: those that fail, and those that haven't failed yet. 

Inktober 2018 recap

Boy, this one post a month no matter what model is slipping through my fingers like the finest sand that's ever been sanded. My Wordpress page is a little better, but not by much. It's not for a lack of trying; there's no shortage of drafts and notes for entries. It's also not any sort of vanity issue; my perfectionism is firmly in check, along with any self doubt. It's simply been a matter of, "Eh, why bother?" combined with, "I don't really miss it." 

Anyway, Inktober was a runaway success compared to last year, though I think I misjudged the best platform. Last year, Instagram seemed to be the hoppin' and happenin' place to be in terms of where all the coolest stuff was going up. Instead, my favourites gallery on DeviantART got nice and full along with my watchlist. As for my Instagram posts, which got a fair response on par with last year, I'm happy to report I did not miss a single post. I was far more efficient about it than last year on top of doing two prompt lists at once. In fact, I made more than the 62 total drawings, though that's because the prompts "prick and prickly" which fell on the same day are essentially four panels of a comic. 

On the whole, the biggest hiccup or obstacle to overcome was my 53 Pencil sort of giving up the ghost and refusing to work with Paper. The tip finally wore out, and all of the replacements were so stiff I had to basically trick the tablet into connecting, and that was just so I could use the smudge tool. In the end, I decided to give in to the Apple ecosystem and buy their Pencil. I'm a little grumpy, but not compared to when a stylus I back on Kickstarter finally arrived and demonstrated to me in no uncertain terms that product designers should not do their own technical support. At least now I can say I have a crowdfunding horror story with my name on it; the other didn't reach its goal and the first worked out like gangbusters. 

In the grand scheme of things, whatever stylus works for you is the one that works for you. Thus far, I'll admit the Pencil has grown on me, but I am going to recommend getting a sleeve for it, namely one from Griffin. It's got a cap that effectively turns the butt of your Pencil into an eraser depending on how you set up the various drawing apps. 

Per last year, every Inktober post was uploaded to Artstation in a portfolio. 

Has kind of a nice "The New Yorker" vibe to it. Oh, but I can dream.