These are a few general observations that might be of interest to some people.
The subject of monopods was raised recently in a photographic forum to which I belong. As it happens, I was already flirting with the idea of using a walking stick as a monopod, to avoid the need to carry two sticks. I’m a lazy so-and-so at the best of times. I also have a habit…
Several people have contacted me privately and asked for information regarding how I actually mounted my 120-year-old Bausch & Lomb + Beck lens on my µ4/3 camera. I hope in this article to shed a little light on how one can make such an old lens and seemingly-incompatible lens actually stay on a modern mirrorless…
Regular readers may know that my 2023 Christmas project was to make this 120 year old Bausch & Lomb + Beck lens fit on my µ4/3 cameras and actually capture some pictures with it. Unfortunately, at the time, the weather was too wet to take the thing outdoors. Fortunately by early January the weather became…
Over Christmas I set myself a little task of trying to make a 120-year- old Bausch & Lomb + Beck lens fit on a fairly modern camera. The lens was given to me in the late 1980’s by one of my very first models. It was a nice thought but to be honest, I came…
Date Trial 2023-10-02 Start of Trump’s civil trial where AG Letitia James is seeking $250 million. 2023-10-23 Start of Kenneth Cheesebro’s and Sydney Powell’s joint trial 2024-01-15 Start of E Jean Carroll’s defamation trial 2024-01-29 Federal class-action trial against Trump 2024-03-04 Trump’s federal criminal trial in Washington DC 2024-03-25 Start of Alvin Bragg’s Stormy Daniels …
My experience of street photography is to make oneself looks as insignificant and unprofessional as possible – which comes rather too naturally to me, TBH! 🙂 Kit should be small, light and ideally somewhat battered looking – a “distressed” look that most of my kit usually acquires after a few weeks’ service. No expensive-looking kit…
Seems during the wee small hours of this morning, our little blue planet had a very near miss, as we narrowly avoided a collision with a speeding asteroid. At 2023-01-27 00:29 UTC, an asteroid codenamed “2023 BU” came within about 3,589 kilometres of the planet’s surface, around the southerly tip of South America. To put…
Merry Christmas 2022 from Garfnet, in a cold, damp, gloomy, strike-riddled, post-Brexit Britain. Seems we really are going back to the seventies this year. This is a Winter of Discontent that rivals that of 1978-79. In fact, there are so many strikes happening here at the moment that the Guardian newspaper has published a regularly…
Here on the central south coast of England, it is rare for temperatures to drop much below freezing. This cold snap we recorded -4.5 °C at night and barely rising above 0°C during the day. And thanks to economies we’re making due to the ridiculously high price of natural gas, the house itself seldom rose…
As Britain reels from the effects of Chancellor of the Exchequer Kwasi Kwarteng’s 2022-09-23 budget, and the pound plummets towards an all-time low against the US Dollar, Mr pie has a sweary but succinct analysis of the shitshow in which we now find ourselves, here in Old Blighty. A less sweary and less amusing analysis…
Today we say a final goodbye to our long reigning Queen. Elizabeth II (Elizabeth Alexandra Mary, 1926-04-21 ~ 2022-09-08) was Queen of the United Kingdom and fourteen other Commonwealth realms from 1952-02-06 until her death 2022-09-08 16:30 UTC. Her reign of 70 years and 214 days was the longest of any British monarch and the…
I have just been listening to Mr Trump and his supporters explaining the situation concerning all those crates of secret documents that the FBI found in is house at Mar-a Largo. Apparently, the documents were all planted at Mar-a-Lardo by the FBI, they were not at all important, and Mr Trump had declassified them all…
Puzzles me why Brexiteers still conflate use of International System of Units (SI) with the EU? Or why these people still think that the metric system is some how “not British” and kid themselves that they are being “patriotic” by refusing to use it? British Engineers and scientists have been pleading with various British governments…
Today we take a little trip back in time to one of the internet’s oldest and most famous memes: “All Your Base”. AKA “All your base are belong to us“, this internet meme was based on a badly translated phrase from the opening scene of a video game called “Zero Wing“. The phrase first appeared…
Seems that as London and the midlands – not to mention much of central Europe – sizzle in 40°C temperatures, our planet is to be hit with unusual weather of a different kind: a solar storm. Activity in the upper atmosphere of the sun, known as the ‘corona’, creates huge ‘solar flares’. These generate powerful…
I have been a tad distracted by some rather serious political events that have taken place here in Old Blighty during the last few days. Basically our Prime Minister has decided to “do a Trump” and stay in power even though over fifty members of his government have now resigned in protest over his various…
A few folks have asked me what I use to keep our various networking and internet connectivity kit neat and tidy, yet reasonably service friendly. Well, I have to admit that it was rather a muddle for a many years. That was until I decided to make a simple multistorey stainless steel router rack. Moreover,…
Some readers may remember that during lockdown, I wrote an article concerning the large stag beetle grubs I discovered round the back of my shed? Well, it seems the stag beetle grubs have grown up now – well some of them have anyway. I discovered quite a few adults in our garden lately. Yesterday, I…
“Hey, Hey, Rise-Up!” released on 2022-04-08, is Pink Floyd’s first new song since 1994. It will be used to raise funds for humanitarian causes associated with the warin Ukraine. It samples Andriy Khlyvnyuk, a member of one of Ukraine’s biggest bands, BoomBox, singing in Sofiyskaya Square in Kyiv, in a video clip that went viral….
According to Reuters, Britain is looking at whether it can use properties owned by sanctioned individuals in the country for humanitarian purposes. “I want to explore an option which would allow us to use the homes and properties of sanctioned individuals for as long as they are sanctioned for humanitarian and other purposes,” housing minister…
Social networking platforms come and go. Does anyone remember Myspace? or Bebo? Granted, Facebook has enjoyed a longer run than most. But today saw parent company Meta’s shares plummet by a staggering $226 billion. That’s the biggest one-day loss for any US company, ever. https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2022/feb/03/facebook-stock-shares-meta-mark-zuckerberg This comes on top of news last month that a…
Well, the weather has perked up a bit, But we can’t actually go out and do very much because of coronavirus lockdown. So I thought Id take a few springtime snaps around the old homestead.
I decided to a bit of work in the garden yesterday afternoon. As I was clearing away some of the dead wood from some old tree stumps round the back of my shed, I came across these wee beasties. They were massive. Unfortunately they were a tad camera-shy, but before they curled up, they were…
Here are a few snaps taken as we installed Weather Station Aercus Weathersleuth WH24 External Sensor Cluster. It really needed to be up as high as possible, yet reasonably easy to maintain. It also needed to be clear of obstructions. Well, as clear as our postage-stamp sized backyard will allow. The only viable place was…
A lot of folks complaining that they have to go buy yet another set of USB leads, thanks to this newfangled USB C plug that’s come along. So what’s it all about and why do practically all new smartphones come equipped with it? Main reason is that it allows suitably equipped mobile devices to charge…
