Google Album Archive is shutting down

In case you missed the email from Google about Album Archive:

Download your content from the Google Album Archive

After July 19, 2023, the Google Album Archive won’t be available. Until then, you can use Takeout to download a copy of your Album Archive data.

So, I wanted to see what happens if I upload a new image now.

[Update] No warning messages or anything.  It's a little unclear from the above whether images that have been uploaded through Blogger for posting on a blog are going to vanish.  I don't think so, but I'm going to download them all anyway, and then see what happens on July 20.

(original source)

PSA: missing images on this blog

Most of the images on this blog were once hosted by Photobucket, from back in the day when they offered a free tier for hosting.  They no longer do, so you're not going to see a lot of what used to be here.

Sorry about that.  It just didn't seem worth paying for a service to continue serving up images that likely have not been viewed in years. 

I do have all of those images archived locally, so if there's something you want to see, please send me an email, or @ me on Twitter or Facebook, with the URL of the post in question.  I will be more than happy to update the post asap.

Thanks.

Wow. A company I never heard of owns everything I ever have.

Skimming some compsec headlines offered by Troy Hunt and ... whoa! It's almost not hyperbolic to say that a company (that apparently suffered a serious breach, recently) that I never heard of owns everything I ever have.

So much for brand loyalty, in other words:

Luxottica is the world’s largest eyewear company, glasses, and prescription frames maker, and the owner of popular brands like Ray-Ban, Oakley, Chanel, Prada, Versace, Dolce and Gabbana, Burberry, Giorgio Armani, Michael Kors, and many other. The company also operates Eyemed, a vision insurance company in the US.

Double-checking with Wikipedia:

Luxottica Group S.p.A. is an Italian eyewear conglomerate and the world's largest company in the eyewear industry.^[3][4] It is based in Milan, Italy.^[5] Its best known brands are Costa, Ray-Ban, Persol, Oliver Peoples and Oakley.

Luxottica is a vertically integrated company which has been described as a monopoly. It designs, manufactures, distributes, and retails its eyewear brands through companies that it owns such as LensCrafters, Sunglass Hut, Apex by Sunglass Hut, Pearle Vision, Target Optical, and Glasses.com. It also owns EyeMed, one of the largest vision health insurance providers. Luxottica's market power has allowed it to charge price markups of 1000%.

Luxottica also makes sunglasses and prescription frames for designer brands such as Chanel, Prada, Giorgio Armani, Burberry, Versace, Dolce and Gabbana, Michael Kors, Coach, Miu Miu and Tory Burch.^[6][7][8][5]

 

I am fortunate enough not to have to rely on sunglasses to get through the day. I have a pair of no-namers in my car, just in case. If memory serves, I bought them on a whim, from a stand on Venice Beach, because they reminded me of the shades worn by one of the stars in a favorite movie that I had just seen. [T2 image here] [or link] So, I'm not exactly plugged.

However, knowing humans as I do, I can't help but wonder if people get as tribalistic about the logo on their sunglasses as they do, about, say, Adidas vs Nike, or Ram vs F-150, or Makita vs DeWalt. Or which airline is the worst.