Get your gear on! Join photographer, author, and educator Tim Grey every Friday for insights on camera gear of all kinds. In Photo Gear Weekly, Tim shares tips for mastering your camera's advanced features, recommends accessories that will streamline your shooting and expand your creative options, and spotlights hot gear—new and vintage alike—that you'll want to know about.

Note: Because this is an ongoing series, viewers will not receive a certificate of completion.

They will critique your nachos.

Missing contact with fellow humans? How about a virtual happy hour? Now with date and time! Tuesday, April 7, at 7 PM. We can't really go to the 4th Avenue Pub, but let's pretend.

COVID-19 has thrown a wrench in my plan to have monthly NYC meetups. But perhaps we could get together virtually over drinks or dinner sometime? If you think this might be a good idea, please share your comments or suggestions! If it sounds like a terrible idea, feel free to let me know that too! (Non-NYC Mefites welcome too, of course!) I think we will use Zoom? Does that seem good? Or LiliaNic's WebEx account if we become a really large number of people? Looking forward to seeing y'all!

Tue April 7 at 7:00 PM, home

Hey y'all - let's have a virtual meetup! The theme is "Quarantine Hobbies" - let's share our tales of dead sourdough starter, failed crops, ugly sweaters, bad television!

My preference is to do this on a weekend closer to the evening. I don't have one of those fancy upgraded Zoom accounts that lets you go more than 40 minutes, so please share if you do. How does April 18th at 4:00 PM (Eastern) sound?

Sat April 18 at 4:00 PM,

It's easy to lose track, but Golden Week is upon us! Let's celebrate Golden Week's Greenery Day (Monday, May 4) together!. We can all reminisce about Greenery Day events through the ages, exchange Greenery Day trivia (surprisingly, Greenery Day has nothing to do with the American rock band called Green Day), and discuss how Greenery Day has affected our lives. Do you remember where you were the year that "GD" was moved from April 29 to May 4?

As usual we will be on Zoom, so download the Zoom client in advance for an optimal experience, and sign up here to receive an invitation to the event. We're scheduled for 8-10pm (roughly), Monday May 4. The following day is also a government holiday. Suggestions for non Greenery Day-related topics of discussion are also welcome. And does anyone want to play Trivial Pursuit?

Mon May 4 at 8:00 PM, Zoom Zoom Zoom

Excitement! Adventure! Zoom! Witty Banter!* Mefites beamed directly to your home! Sunday! Sunday! Sunday! (Monster truck voice intensifies) *wittiness of banter not guaranteed, offer void in Taito-ku, Saitama, and some parts of Aichi, consult your doctor if banter causes itchiness or swelling

We had a nice crowd on Monday, hopefully we can have a decent one this week, too. I'll send out the invites Sunday morning, hope to see you all there.

Pollinators are in decline, but the right selection of plants can draw bees, butterflies, and humming birds to your yard in search of food and shelter

From upright and airy to short and mounding, these grasses form the backbone of a prairie garden

These tough, fuss-free perennials and grasses have adapted to North American climates and lend to the rustic prairie charm

A reworked entry porch adds curb appeal and character to a no-frills facade

Dog-friendly flooring needs to be durable, easy to clean, and attractive too. Here's what you need to know if you have four on the floor

There are many differences in Christian church doctrines. Some are more important than others. If there is anything that is most essential to understand, it would be what God's Ten Commandments say. The Sabbath is one of the Commandments.

Everyone wants happiness. How do we find true, lasting happiness? Part 1 of 3

Everyone wants happiness. How do we find true, lasting happiness? Part 2 of 3

Everyone wants happiness. How do we find true, lasting happiness? Part 3 of 3

What are some keys to growing as a Christian? Part 1

The Keys To Christian Growth – Part 2

Angels are mentioned over 300 times in the Bible. They are God's 'ministering spirits' to guard, protect, and help us.

We are told to keep promises and vows, but what if you've made a big mistake when making that vow? God forgives sins!

What do you miss when you miss church? Can we be saved if we don't attend church?

As Christians we need to have both a practical and a biblical perspective on what is going on in the world. Most importantly, God does not want us to live in fear. We have an unprecedented opportunity to show people where to find peace and the Prince of Peace.

God is our safe shelter in the last days. We don't have to be afraid. God loves us and He will welcome us and protect us.

"Iron Mike" lässt wieder die Fäuste fliegen, bisher nur im Training. Nach Berichten könnte es aber ein Box-Comeback von Mike Tyson gegen Rugby-Spieler Sonny Bill Williams geben.

Binnen einer Halbzeit zerlegt Bremen vor 16 Jahren den Rekordmeister und krönt eine großartige Saison. „Wir haben gefeiert, bis es nicht mehr ging“, erinnert sich Ivan Klasnic an den Coup. Nationalkeeper Kahn mag davon nichts mehr wissen.

While Kelly Lytle Hernández was growing up in San Diego near the U.S.-Mexico border in the late 1980s and early '90s, she watched as people from her community, friends and neighbors, disappeared: Black youths disappeared into the prison system; Mexican immigrants disappeared through deportations. These experiences affected her deeply. "It was growing up in that environment that forced me to want to understand what was happening to us and why it seemed legitimate," Lytle Hernández tells All Things Considered . "And I wanted to disrupt that legitimacy." For answers to those questions, Lytle Hernández turned to the past. A historian and expert on immigration, race and mass incarceration, she is now a professor at the University of California, Los Angeles, and is one of this year's 26 MacArthur Fellows . "History is a narrative of the past. It is based upon the sources that we regard as relevant or that we can find," she says. And so her work includes tracking down records that reflect

The nearly four-minute campaign ad begins with scenery of a small town sheriff's race in the South. A camouflage fishing boat winds down a picturesque waterway. The talk from a front porch rocking chair is of hunting, Christian values and guns. Then, more than halfway through the video, Craig Stivender, a Republican candidate for sheriff in Colleton County, S.C., reveals a picture of himself in blackface with his arm around an African American woman. "To those of you who may be upset, I understand your disappointment," he says in the video. Stivender, who is currently a fireman in the rural community just west of Charleston, goes on to explain the photograph was taken at a Halloween party for law enforcement nearly a decade ago. He says he released the picture to begin his campaign with full transparency. The election is in November 2020. "Basically if I'm going to run on honesty and integrity, I'm willing to put out things bad about me," he said in a telephone interview. Stivender

Updated at 8:11 p.m. ET The interim chief of the Fort Worth Police Department apologized on Tuesday to the family of Atatiana Jefferson in the aftermath of her fatal shooting by a police officer while she was in her home. "This incident has eroded the trust that we have built with our community and we must now work even harder to ensure that trust is restored," said Interim Police Chief Ed Kraus. Aaron Dean, the officer who shot Jefferson, resigned from the department and has been charged with murder . Kraus said that there is "absolutely no excuse" for the incident and that Dean will be held responsible for his actions. He asked the Fort Worth community to not allow the incident to reflect poorly on the entire police department. "The officers are hurting," he said. "They try hard every day to try to make this city better." Jefferson's family is calling for an independent investigation so that the Fort Worth Police Department is not investigating itself. The mayor told NPR she

A days-long tense standoff between protesters and police is grinding on at Hong Kong Polytechnic University. The numbers of protesters barricaded inside the school has dwindled to about 100, and their food supplies are rapidly depleting after police surrounded the campus on Sunday. The situation is growing so desperate for the remaining protesters that several of them unsuccessfully attempted to escape the police siege by climbing through sewer drains, according to local media . Police say they've arrested about 1,100 people in the past day. At a Tuesday news conference , officers accused the protesters of crimes such as taking part in riots and possessing dangerous weapons. Authorities have threatened to use live ammunition against the demonstrators, though they say that level of force is a last resort. Protesters are pleading for help. A video posted by protest leader Joshua Wong features a message from a masked woman who is identified as a student at Polytechnic University. "We have

St. Louis' first black prosecutor, Kim Gardner, has sued the city, its police union and five others for what she calls a racist effort to block her reform agenda. "Gardner was elected in 2016 on a promise to redress the scourge of historical inequality and rebuild trust in the criminal justice system among communities of color," reads the lawsuit filed Monday in federal court. "Unfortunately, entrenched interests in St. Louis ... have mobilized to thwart these efforts through a broad campaign of collusive conduct" to protect the status quo and remove Gardner from office. Jacob Long, a spokesman for Mayor Lyda Krewson, said the city "vehemently denied what it considers to be meritless allegations levied against it" and expected to be "fully vindicated." Jeff Roorda, a police union official named in the suit, called it "the last act of a desperate woman." The suit has its roots in the 2018 prosecution of then-Missouri Gov. Eric Greitens. Gardner hired an outside investigator to look into

Cybercrime is booming, and victims are often at a loss about where to get help. In theory, Americans should report the crimes to the FBI, via its Internet Crime Complaint Center . In practice, the feds get hundreds of thousands of complaints a year, and have to focus on the biggest cases. But the other option, calling the police, can seem even less promising. "They didn't even respond," says Gregg Bennett, whose loss of 100 Bitcoin was described in an earlier NPR story about SIM-swap scams . He says he called his city's police department soon after discovering the theft, but concluded it was a dead end. "They have no ability to look up something like this," Bennett says. "It certainly is not local — this is not a local issue." It's conventional wisdom that cybercrime is too technical and too international for local police to handle. But as daily life becomes more digital, so does everyday crime, and some police say they can no longer avoid wading into the world of phone spoofers,

Emily Ligawiec has to sign in visitors to the recovery program she attends in a grand Victorian house in Holyoke, Mass. She can't bring people to her room. She only recently earned phone and car privileges. "We get 24, 48, 72-hour passes every weekend," she said. But Ligawiec doesn't mind the restrictions. The 29-year-old is grateful she's alive to follow them, after a decade of addiction — first to prescription painkillers, then pills she bought in the street, then heroin. "I had gone down a pretty dark path," she said. What finally turned her around was a 911 call last winter. She had gotten high on heroin and stolen her mother's car. When she returned it a few hours later, Officer John Cacela of Ware, Mass., was waiting in the driveway. In the past, Cacela might have immediately read Ligawiec her rights, "because for the longest time, the whole idea was — arrest, arrest," he said. Instead, he tapped on the car window and assured her she wasn't in trouble. "I closed the window on him

The Trump administration has revived the debate over "end-to-end encryption" — systems so secure that the tech companies themselves aren't able to read the messages, even when police present them with a warrant. "It is hard to overstate how perilous this is," U.S. Attorney General William Barr said in a speech last fall. "By enabling dangerous criminals to cloak their communications and activities behind an essentially impenetrable digital shield, the deployment of warrant-proof encryption is already imposing huge costs on society." Barr has been concerned about this for years, but he has become more vocal recently as encryption goes mainstream. It's now built into popular services such as Skype and WhatsApp, and even Facebook may soon be encrypted . Republican senator and Trump ally Lindsey Graham recently floated legislation that would strip tech companies of their liability protection under Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act unless they comply with as-of-yet undefined

A powerful Senate Democrat is asking the Federal Trade Commission to investigate Zoom for deceptive practices, adding to the growing chorus of concerns over the popular video chat software's privacy and security flaws . Several state attorneys general are also probing Zoom, after users, including government officials, reported harassment, known as "Zoombombing," on the platform. Ohio Sen. Sherrod Brown, the ranking member of the Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs Committee, sent a letter Friday to the FTC. In the letter , obtained by NPR, Brown said Zoom had made "deceptive" claims to users that their communications would remain private. Brown said Zoom incorrectly suggested its service offered end-to-end data encryption, which means that communications couldn't be accessed by anyone other than the sender and the recipient at any point. Zoom walked back on Wednesday its claim of end-to-end encryption. In a statement, it said, "While we never intended to deceive any of our customers, we

Indian police have the unenviable task of enforcing the world's biggest coronavirus lockdown . But last weekend, they handed down a punishment more common in a middle-school classroom than a police station. Ten foreign tourists caught flouting India's coronavirus restrictions Saturday were made to write the phrase "I did not follow the rules of lockdown. I am very sorry" 500 times and submit the paper to police. The incident happened at a sandy beach along the Ganges River near Rishikesh, a tourist hub in northern India famous for yoga retreats and hippie hangouts. It's where the Beatles made a spiritual pilgrimage in 1968. An officer who answered the phone Monday at the Muni Ki Reti police station near Rishikesh confirmed details to NPR, but declined an interview. The tourists were reportedly from Israel, Mexico, Australia and Austria, and were walking along the river when Indian police intervened. Under India's lockdown, all nonessential outings are banned. Video shared online by

For police, the new coronavirus poses a dilemma: How do you apprehend a suspect in the era of social distancing? In India, they've come up with a way to lengthen the long arms of the law: giant tongs. In what looks more like a scene from a cops-and-robbers cartoon, this week police in the northern city of Chandigarh tweeted a video of an officer demonstrating how to use a 6-foot pole with a two-pronged claw at the end to detain a suspect. The officer, wearing a surgical mask, clamps the device around a man's waist and forces him into a pickup truck. "We call it a 'social distancing clamp' or a 'lockdown-breaker catcher,' " head constable Gurdeep Singh told NPR by phone from Chandigarh Police headquarters. "This is especially used in instances where we suspect that someone has the coronavirus and they are not cooperating with us." Chandigarh, the joint capital of the Indian states of Haryana and Punjab, has been declared a containment zone , with a high concentration of COVID-19 cases.

Werner Gatzer gehört zu den mächtigsten Regierungsbeamten. Seit 15 Jahren hütet er die Staatskasse, nie musste er mehr Geld gewähren als in dieser Krise. Gleichzeitig muss er die Deutschen nun das Sparen lehren. Zum Glück hat er einen Joker in der Hinterhand.

I've been working on a musical collaboration with a fellow musician friend of mine during these crazy coronavirus times, in hopes of generating something fun and creative while we have all this spare time not working or gigging. Here's the first song from that collaboration. It's timely that we've finally finished the song this past weekend, because yesterday I received some dreadful news: a dear friend of mine from college passed away due to complications related to COVID-19. She was a brilliant writer, and funny as hell, and the world is undoubtedly worse off without her in it. She and I met in a creative writing class, where she and I were were two the only four students of color in that class and had to endure micro-aggression upon micro-aggression (and sometimes outright aggression) from the white students whenever it came time for our writing to be workshopped. We always made sure to have each others' backs in that classroom, and even though we've all scattered across the country since college I've always felt like we formed a lifelong bond having gone through that experience with each other. I originally set out to record this cover because over the past five years I have struggled mightily when it comes to loving my own self, and as a result have also done a very poor job of loving those I do love the most in the world. The Indigo Girls meant this song to be a reflection on the idea of literal reincarnation from the lives of those long gone, but to me, especially after having gone through a lot of hard, intensive work over the past few months to better myself so I can be better to myself and my loved ones, this song is about the possibility of a personal reincarnation, of being reborn from a past version of myself that only knew hurt and how to hurt instead of how to love honestly and truthfully. As one of us four in that class put it last night on Facebook, we all loved each other hard in that class because we had to, and so I want to dedicate this song to Kimmy's memory, because I never want to forget the importance and the sustaining power of taking care of ourselves by taking care of each other. I'll miss you a lot, girl. Thank you for always holding me up (and always cracking me up).

i guess you would call this my quarantine album - i call it solskifte, which means sun division - and in a lot of ways, not just seasonal, that's what seems to be going on - much more inside on march 31, i got an email announcing that there was going to be an rpm challenge for april, in addition to the one in feb they have every year and i do albums for every year on march 24, i had to leave work early because after lunch i felt like i was going to drop - i had been feeling some slightly annoying sinus trouble that i had thought was allergies, but i realized i had something worse i didn't know if i was running a fever or not - i made a quick trip to the med center - i called first - and after a brief exam, i was told i had a low grade fever and was instructed to quarantine for 14 days - this was also something my company's new covid-19 policy demands, so there's no problem here and i even get partial compensation so i spent the next few days trying to feel better - it wasn't until sunday that i was starting to feel that maybe i didn't have this bad thing - or that maybe in spite of being 62 with a few medical problems i was going to make it meanwhile, my poor kid's stuck with me in the apartment and not real happy well, this is long - but on april 1st, i decided to try coming up with new music and ended up writing some songs that are about how i felt about being in my apartment, sick, and wondering what would happen next sometimes it's been warm enough to open up my window for a bit - and this is what i felt about that calling on the wind to give me back my name remembering an old world that used to seem tame clouds outside my window never give us rain i used to go out there but i won't do that again in the cruelest month the birds eat seedlings in the cruelest month i dare not confess my feelings in the cruelest month the world is awry tossing out its life like trash thrown aside staring at the glass and wondering what i am sense the blood within my body - still wondering what i am my thoughts are like birds, but they never rise above my feet are nailed onto the earth and i do not know love in the cruelest month the birds eat seedlings in the cruelest month i dare not confess my feelings in the cruelest month the world is awry tossing out its life like trash thrown aside

in the northern part of the world, the sun takes a while to be given a bigger share of our sky - which also can stand for a metaphor for a lot of things these days circle round the river, make a place for sun hold your hand out to the field when day is done night chills still in spring, night looks back days still hint at weakness, the trees stay black this is our portion even through the equinox solskifte is slow to undo locks these are the days when we are unsure where to go solskifte gives up the sun so slow circle round the ashes that fall from the sky heartless and invisible to our careless eye circle round the hearts that drive the grasping hand say a prayer for those who are married to this land this is our portion even through the equinox solskifte is slow to undo locks these are the days when we are unsure where to go solskifte gives up the sun so slow

When I heard the news of John Prine's hospitalization on March 30, I was, of course, saddened. His music has meant so much to me over the decades. On that day, I recorded this cover of one of my favorites from Prine's early output, a political song cleverly disguised as a broken-hearted love ballad. There's a video I posted to YouTube of this very same performance, which also includes some spoken introduction, about how I was feeling upon getting the news of John's contracting the coronavirus, and so forth. So, if you'd like to hear that, and see the song performed, it's here. I did a little bit of work on the audio for this MeFiMu upload, though, so I think it might sound a little better here than on the video. Anyway, rest in peace, John Prine, rest in peace.

my daughter has a treefull of crows outside her window and she's convinced they're as interested in her as she is in them she's sure they are her friends i've tried to tell her that i'm not sure they're really all that interested in her, but i don't really think that's getting through to her - and i don't know whether she really understands the current situation - why she has to stay home, why her dad had to stay in quarantine for 14 days just because he was a little sick, why her dad was worried about what was going to happen i guess this song is about all that i can't tell you if the crows like you even though you believe they talk to you they were created for another world but maybe we pretend that it's not our world too fly around and looking for a meal fly around and looking for a summer deal but it's april and where we live everything takes so long to happen well, it's not much fun, wondering if i'll be gone i can't even go for a walk on the lawn the days all count to the last fade away but then again, it's always really been that way do you think the crows don't think about all that? somehow i think they do - the way they gather at their friend lying there, complaining everything more or less has to happen but with any luck, it will warm up a little and i think my hourglass isn't ready to settle we can go out and watch the crows once again and you can tell me that they are your friends one day we'll get to walk out and feel free and not think about the things that could be we can be like crows and bluff our way through all the things, good and bad, that happen and the secret to life, so i've been told is you keep lucking out and then you find yourself old and you wonder, what the hell did i do with all that time? and it didn't make much sense, and it didn't even rhyme and if i gave you a ring for surety some crow would go and grab it and hide it in a tree and forget about it - that crow and you and me just more of those things that happen

I've spent an agonizing 11 days dialing this one to perfection. Another bumper that hearkens back to my high school days, when a song couldn't possibly have enough rhythm tracks. Suitable for all your living-room silent discos.

Rock song about a pizza buffet Notify Dave Grohl's next of kin.

this is about just sitting at home, waiting to see if i got better or not - spoiler - i did get better i have been keeping warm i have been keeping warm the sun has not been keeping warm i have been keeping warm outside the world goes gray outside the children play not everyone follows the soul of the day outside the world goes gray the wheels of the carts are turning but not today for me the stars are coldly burning but not today for me i wake up with nothing resolved nothing done and nothing resolved the world wears a mask of glass for me i look out there and there's nothing's resolved i'm getting soft on memory i do not want what could be time drips seconds carelessly too slow and too fast to please me and i understand the revelation is here and no one wanted to look at it, no one wanted fear and i understand i can claim another day and i have no ideas but to let it slip away

this guy - well, he always gets his way, eventually i've got it, you know i've really got it everything you could really want all the music you listened to all the booze you drank all the friends you slept with all the friends you didn't they're just shadows, so are you but you know what you're going to do come with me for a cadillac ride open the earth and see what's inside don't you cry about murder don't you cry about the carelessness of man your problem is, you just don't see there was never any other plan but take this glass of rum from my bony hand give me a toast, let me tip my top hat come on baby, come on into my house i'll give you this and i'll give you that come with me for a cadillac ride open the earth and see what's inside say hello to president kennedy say hello to fu manchu say hello to the 36 wise men yes, they've been staying with me, too the bishop said god could sort them out well, i've been waiting for many years here's that party pal you've been dreaming of now let's not see any tears come with me for a cadillac ride open the earth and see what's inside

A very silly rendition of this well-known piece with the beat on the wrong note. It kinda works!? Also available on youtube if you want to see the score.

A bit of a collab that happened via an ill-formed idea for a twitch stream. User Carrot Adventure is in the mix. Can you guess where.

the thing is that all that is offered is futility ... i could make you run to the sky says the great keeper of the lie i am the reason why you medicate i am the reason why you hate turn away and find something small to occupy your time turn away and find something small to occupy your mind i could give you vast kingdoms i could give you the song of the sea i could give you the heart of the crane i could give you eternity turn away and find something small to occupy your time turn away and find something small to occupy your mind there's no sense in standing on that rock there's no sense in praying to the clock there's no sense in counting all the stripes there's no sense believing all the hypes turn away and find something small to occupy your time turn away and find something small to occupy your mind

I've always hated this song. But digging through my old sheet music I found a midcentury piano treatment that made it much more melancholy and interesting, so I decided to give the tune a synthesizer treatment and marry it up to the vocals to see if I couldn't do some damage. Also my first attempt at using Ableton, sorry for any production missteps.

hoping that some of the things we like, which seem to be shallow comforts until we're deprived of them, will manage to come back sometime soon time to go walking - time to go singing time to go loving - that's what i want to just wander supermarkets of desire and see what's mine there - that's what i want there is nothing on the wind that doesn't blow away something will be saved there is nothing on the wind that doesn't blow away something will be saved maybe be wiser - maybe be foolish maybe there is room where we can be both maybe live a little sweeter knowing we can win or lose maybe there is room where we can do both there is nothing on the wind that doesn't blow away something will be saved there is nothing on the wind that doesn't blow away something will be saved