Some of my favourite computers require no PSU, no batteries, no RAM, no disks, no upgrades and they are 100% resistant to all known malware. No, I’m not talking about some newfangled Linux. I’m talking about good old fashioned sliderules. 🙂 Sliderules top to bottom… Top: Darmstadt 304. Despite its German-sounding name, this sliderule was…
Like in that old Kraftwerk song, I have a bit of a penchant for small pocket calculators. These are a few of my oldest examples. In fact the Sharp Elsimate dates back to 1973 and belonged to my late father. Related Images:
Discussion came up on a forum to which I belong whether it is better to use NAS (network attached storage) or external hard drives for backup. My answer is why not use both? Effectively I have three NAS servers. One is a media server. The others are purely backup – though they can quickly be…
OK, so we are still in coronavirus lockdown here in the UK and I have spent the afternoon playing! 🙂 I saw the basic idea on a web forum on a photography site, and decided to look around my garage and see if there was any thing suitable to produce something similar. I also took…
A few snaps of my old Roamer Ten kit radio in the garden and in the shed, on a bright sunny day. Well, it seemed a relatively enjoyable way to spend a sunny COVID-lockdown day. Related Images:
Freebies to beat those lockdown blues This is a collection of virtual backdrops and wallpapers that you may download, manipulate and enjoy, for free. These images were created by capturing and saving a large number snap-shots of an open source music visualisation application for GNU/Linux called ProjectM – not to be confused with a 2008…
A little thing like Covid was not going to prevent my Zsuzsi creating one of her Easter displays. We photographed the 2020 edition in the garden. Related Images:
It’s a beautiful spring day here in south east Hampshire. And it’s dead quiet thanks to the Coronavirus lockdown. And the northern sky that normally liberally criss-crossed with vapour trails is a perfect clear sky blue, with no aircraft within 50 km or more. Related Images:
I was 12 years old when I built my first multi-band shortwave radio – a Radio Exchange Roamer Ten kit – as pictured above. After many nights surreptitiously listening to it hidden under the bedclothes so my mum never found out, I soon realised just how insular and generally pisspoor most our media is in…
The lovely Alexa Allure wearing a cheongsam dress and listening to the world on a 1981 vintage Sony ICF 2001 multiband receiver. Back in the day, Sony used to be one of the market leaders in shortwave radios. Its big selling feature was the continuous AM band that covered all the standard LF, MF and…
Seems a lot of people are struggling working from home rather than going into the office. Some are suggesting that a daily routine helps them. Personally, I don’t really have a daily routine – providing I can start the day with a strong black coffee and have my daily “number two’s”, then I’m sorted. 🙂…
So here we are, first day of national lockdown here in the UK. How are things in your part of the world? Round here (South East Hampshire) things seem eerily quiet this morning. Our street is a sleepy little cul-de-sac and pretty quiet even at busy times. But we are 300 metres from the main…
Evil bastards exploit crisis in order to turn a fast buck Seems Facebook does not have a monopoly on coronavirus misinformation. Just checked a honeypot email account I keep active just to see what spam is currently doing the rounds. In addition to the usual plethora of luscious babes who are dying to have sex…
Left: complete installation including toilet, cistern, isolating valve hose, mounting bracket and the shattaf itself. Right: Close-up of shattaf. It is quite small, measuring approximately 11 cm long and about 6 cm front-to-back. As the coronavirus crisis deepens, seems we also have the deeply undignified spectacle of fully grown adults publicly fighting each other as…
They say “many a true word spoken in jest“. This seems particularly applicable to this short “honest government” video produced by Australia’s JuiceMedia… Background to the video JuiceMedia’s “Honest Government Ad” started life as satire. But its probably the most truthful representation where we are right now with COVID-19. This associated video podcast explains its…
The World Health Organization is arguably one of the planet’s foremost sources of accurate medical information. I have admired WHO for many years and its site is always worth a visit, even when there isn’t a global public health crisis. But its Daily Situation Reports are superb. Lots of information presented in a clear and…
In my early days of using GNU/Linux full time, we had an application called Gwenview. It was, and still is an excellent thumbnail viewer. But back then it also used to have an excellent set of plugins called KIPI. Sadly the really useful ones such as resizing and changing format completely disappeared when KDE 5…
Where’s Boris? By Zsuzsanna Dora Majlati Related Images:
An interesting question came up a little while back on one of the photography fora to which I belong “I’d be interested in knowing how you swapped the halogen bulbs for LEDs because I have the same problem and as you say those bulbs are hotter than hell, makes using modelling lights with a grid…
I recently treated myself to a laser gobo. The patterns it makes remind me of the speaker grille on my old Roamer Ten kit radio. So I thought it might be interesting to combine the two and capture a few snaps. Related Images:
Just bought an RGB laser gobo cheap on eBay. So I thought I’d have a little fun with it around the studio and garden. Related Images:
This morning I heard a strange commotion outside the studio window, From the corner of my eye, I could see that the transparent bird feeder appeared to be moving on its own. On close inspection I discovered that the incredibly boisterous and greedy young starlings we have round here had smashed the lid off the…
It appeared on the AP this morning and hasn’t hit the mainstream news yet, but the EU has just announced that ongoing Brexit negotiations have cost in excess of €1,500,000,000. Brussels has decided that the fairest way to recuperate this money is to tax those who actually voted for it. The current proposal is that…
A strange cloud formation in the northern sky round the back of our house. Related Images:
I had a bit of interest in my Linux media servers recently. In fact I recently completed four Linux media or Zoneminder builds. Here are a few snaps… The machines are based on basic Novatech business PC’s. Nothing special. The media server versions have KDE Neon GNU/Linux. This is a very attractive KDE based desktop…
