Ask Paul: February 19 (Premium)

Happy Friday! Here’s an excellent collection of reader questions to kick off the weekend. No promises on the quality of the answers.
Photo scanning
erich82 asks:

Hello Paul, happy Friday. I’m in the process of digitizing my paper photos. I’ve enjoyed what I’ve read in your series on this topic, and unlike you, I have hundreds and hundreds of photos as opposed to thousand and thousands.  I’m using my iphone SE 2020 along with the Google Photos scanning app, and overall it’s surprisingly good. I then modify the metadata directly in Google Photos. In your experience does a photo scanner produce a higher quality scan, or would a photo scanner only be faster and more efficient?

There are obviously different levels of quality to be had between the different ways of scanning photos (and negatives), but also levels of complexity when it comes to things like cropping, editing, and adding metadata. And you need to consider the volume of photos you wish to scan. In my case, it made sense to go with a pretty decent non-flatbed scanner, and I was very happy with how efficient it was.

But if the scanning app is working for you, I’d just stick with that. My previous scanning efforts involved using various flatbed scanners, and some of the earlier scans aren’t very high quality. I’d probably get better results scanning now via a phone. I’m not surprised to hear this works well for you.
Space, the final frontier
bschnatt asks:

If Elon Musk or Richard Branson offered you a FREE vacation to the international space station, would you go? (Yes, you would be allowed to take your XBox with you... ;) )

One million years ago---OK, it was 1997---I went to COMDEX in Las Vegas with some coworkers/friends. Among the things we did that week was go to the top of the Stratosphere and rode the “Big Shot,” which catapults you 160 feet straight up to the top of the tower at 45 miles per hour in just a few seconds, triggering a disconcerting moment of near weightlessness. At least that’s what it felt like. Documentary evidence at the top of the article. :)

This was the scariest thing I’ve ever done, period. It is the highest point in Las Vegas, obviously, it was a perfectly clear day with 360-degree views, and I realized at that moment that I could never be an astronaut.

Point being, if the experience of going to the space station would require a rocket and that kind of straight, upwards explosion of movement, no, I could never do that. If it was more like a plane, somehow, sure, I’d love to see the earth from space. Absolutely.
.NET and the Mac
JaseCutler asks:

The .NET 6 Preview announcement (link) has under the Support section a call out for “Mac and Mac Catalyst, for x64 and Apple Silicon ‘M1’.” Curious your thoughts on this. You've covered for a long time how Microsoft does so much work on giving great developer tools, as well as now meeting customers where they are, so it seems per the course that the...

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