I see no need to get political about this post and have it sent to The Attic.

I had never heard the term "excess deaths" before, but Dr. Campbell (in England) used that term about statistics in England.

Yesterday, I saw an article in the Washington Post about excess deaths in the US during the pandemic. Over 910,000 people died from Covid, but the excess deaths totaled over 1,000,000, and they can be attributed to the pandemic. I don't mean someone who fell down the stairs or got hit by a car, but many people died as a result of Covid without getting the disease.

You should be able to read this article from a Google search without a subscription. As a test, I sent it to a friend, and he could read it.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/health/2022/02/15/1-million-excess-deaths-in-pandemic/

Listen Up- there is NO Shame in upgrading your camera equipment even if only for GAS! If you want it and you can afford it then go for it. You don't need anyone's permission here to do that. You don't need anyone here setting limits on what you buy or how often you buy or if you should buy. If you have a closet full of unused equipment that is your business.

Will it make you a better photographer? Maybe or maybe not. But it will be fun to find out. New equipment will often push you forward to becoming better by the technical advances. It may help you see improvement which may be the catalyst for more improvement.

Why is it there is honor in using outdated equipment? It is often said here that my (really old) equipment works just fine. Well that's fine for you but don't use it as a measure of why someone else should not buy new.

It use to be fun here seeing members say "The Brown Truck is coming and then it fell out of favor followed by other members denigrating the purchase of new equipment. (yes- I have been on this forum for a long time) Why- why taint new equipment purchase with underlying negative judgement? There are real advances in new cameras now that can achieve results that older cameras can't- ISO improvement, focus, reduced size and weight, focus stacking, interval and video results and many other advances.

So let's not treat our members as children but as thinking adults. We should be responding to the implied question of what did you gain by updating not should I update. And GAS is ok.

OK, I've been using PC's a long time. There's probably an easy way to do this, but I'm scratching my head. Look at the attached diagram and consider the (Windows) directory shown in the "Before" portion. How can I delete what's called Middle Directory without deleting the two Bottom Directories? Before you answer too quickly, assume that there's actually a thousand Bottom Directories, instead of two as shown. If you simply delete Middle Directory, you also delete its subdirectories. I'm thinking that there's either a command-line command or a free utility out there somewhere that can do this. Thanks!