If you've got nothing to hide what's the problem, as long as it is carried out in a friendly non confrontational basis. If it catches the bad guys I'm all for it.

I have carried a Lithium jump starter ever since arriving back from 6 weeks in New Zealand and finding my car battery flat in the airport car park at midnight!! Apparently modern cars with all their electronic alarms, immobilisers and trackers etc, can flatten a battery if left more than 3 weeks.
The small glass hammers, with a seat belt cutting tool on the other end, are a wise investment. They do say that if you get in deep flood water open the windows immediately before the electrics trip out.

I can't speak for Sony but my Canon cameras either have an easily changeable internal battery or a capacitor which is kept charged up by the main battery.

I enjoy building my own PCs and usually upgrade every 5 years or so. However a computer is only as fast as it's slowest component. For that reason I wouldn't recommend changing the processor alone.
Also today I would be looking for a motherboard with more than one M2 connection so I can include a second M2 SSD. They are so much faster than SATA SSDs.
I'm not fully.up to date with the current market but the above comments cover my general thoughts.
Good luck.

I have recently had my first cataract operation and will shortly be having the other eye done.

I have chosen single vision distance lenses. Having worn glasses for the last 65 years I didn't feel I would look right without, so have had a new varifocal lens in my glasses merging from plain glass for distance to my prescription for my reading requirements.

That has worked really well in all ways, including my photography.

I guess if you want to avoid glasses all together varifocal for your eye lens replacement makes sense.

On our UK NHS and on my private health insurance the varifocal lenses aren't covered. My surgeon also advised that a number of people do have issues with them.

All the best with your operation. I couldn't believe how simple it was. Absolutely no pain, I couldn't even feel what he was doing. He warned me I would hear a little vacuum sucking out the old lens and I heard him asking a nurse to hand him the new lens. That was it.

I remember one speaker at our photographic society back in the early 2000s asking for a show of hands from those using legal versions of PS. It was well under 20%. I don’t believe our club was untypical. Not proud of it, but discs were shared before Adobe firstly used the Internet connection to check the software and then created the subscription model.

The change to subscription by Adobe was driven by the dishonesty of the vast majority of hobby users who were using pirated copies of the software. However the subscription is much cheaper than buying and updating the old versions. I have never understood the resistance to subscription by Hoggers who would have spent freely on film in the old days. Many also enjoy relating the huge sums of money they spend on numerous bodies, lenses, etc. Adobe CS subscription is surely the cheapest.part.of our hobby.

Of course they won't cover it if it was left unlocked. She should have read the small print.

So am I not allowed to agree with my fellow Hoggers. Remove all agreement/duplication and there wouldn't be much left.

I learnt my photography back in the 1960s when it was defined as the capture of an image. You saw something and you captured a picture of it. To be different from others photographing the same subject, you chose a different angle, maybe converted it to monochrome, used different lenses altering depth of field, foreshortening the distances in a view etc. etc. etc. There were numerous options but YOU CAPTURED (NOT CREATED) the image.
I fail to understand how any photographer can get pleasure from using AI. Even if you mislead others into believing that it is your own photography, you will know that it is a deception. It never existed. It is a fake. Someone else's software created it. You are deserving of no credit whatsoever.

Now if you move from photography and take up Creative Art at least you will be operating within the definition of that hobby. But you will still know that the credit for it belongs to a computer software producer somewhere, not you.

Let's not abandon our years of learning the skills of true photography to become fakes passing off software creations as our own.

Since photography went digital we have needed a means to transfer our skills onto a computer screen. Adobe, Serif, GIMP etc. have given us software to transfer our skills onto the computer screen and into a computer file. I have no issue with that. But when AI allows us to ask our computer to create something entirely in our mind with next to no personal input from us, and no pretence of being real, that is a mighty step too far for me.

Now if you are in advertising where the end result is all your client cares about, fair enough. But that is a totally different situation to being an amateur photographer showing off your photos as your own work, and enjoying other people's feedback and appreciation for how well you have captured a particular scene/item/sport etc.

If you do that you are using all the most expensive parts of the car, engine, gear box, differential etc. If you stick to brakes you can replace pads, and even discs, for a fraction of the cost of any transmission repair. I was taught that as a part of police driving training back in the 60's. And yes brake lights warn those behind you.
However I agree that lifting off early by anticipating well is the best way to save fuel.

One's choices can also be influenced by historic performance. Back in the 70s and 80s I owned a number of ??? products with no connection to digital photography. Those products were without exception dreadful and all failed me, generally just outside warranty. I remember a customer of mine at the time worked in their repair department and passed on his experience of the huge numbers of repairs.
Now that is all distant history and did not include any cameras, lenses etc.
However, I swore that I would never buy another ??? product again and 40/50 years on I have kept to that decision. They may well have improved over the years but I'm not willing to take the risk again.
I'm just adding past history and customer experience to the list of factors which can influence current purchasing decisions, particularly by those who have been around long enough to remember past times.

What are "checks", or "cheques" as we would write in the UK. Can't remember when I last saw one. I even have cash in my phone wallet that has been there since before Covid. Many businesses are now refusing cash too. Up to £100 we use Contactless and above that need both the bank card and PIN.

I thought we were usually behind the US on such matters. Haven't visited in last six years but hoping for New England and Fall Colours next year.

Brilliant advice. Thanks.