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…
I’m ashamed to admit that I managed to drop my camera c/w my favourite 14mm-150mm Tamron super-zoom lens yesterday. I failed to secure the camera correctly to the tripod and it fell crashing to the ground, lens-first. Fortunately the camera, a tiny µ4/3 Lumix DMC-GX7, seemed unharmed. Even more fortunate, I generally I use those…
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…
“I want to move to Linux, so where do I start?” or variants thereof, is one of those frequently asked questions that often land in my in-box and on various fora. Such questions usually come from disgruntled Microsoft Windows users who are fed up with the cost, the privacy breaches, the malware infections and the…
These days almost all digital cameras offer excellent light metering, The old fashioned “light meter” has become a “thing of the past” to a large extent. Nevertheless they do still have their uses. For those still wishing to flirt with light meters but who don’t want to fork-out to the £100 or so that a…
It was a lazy Bank Holiday Monday morning and we had just crawled out of bed, when we heard a bit of a splash outside. We opened the curtains and noticed the water in the pond was moving, But we didn’t know why. Fortunately Zoneminder captured the incident from one of our security cameras. So…
This is a remake of an earlier video, driving through the Hungarian M6 / E73 Tunnels, with the soundtrack written by Rob Weller.
How do I calculate the kWH on my studio flash heads? Do I use 300 watts of electricity each time I fire them?
For reasons I won’t bore you with now, my wife and I need to be rather careful regarding respiratory infections. I did my last model shoot 2020-03-08, shut everything down pro tem due to COVID. Amongst other projects, I used the time-out to undertake a fairly major refurbishment of my studio. I wanted to get…
Some interesting questions arose recently on a forum to which I belong. Members were comparing conventional broadcast TV with on-line video sites such as Youtube, and asking… What are people watching on YouTube? Are they watching new material ? Or are they watching old repeats that are be being shown in breach of copyright? Are…
Following on from my post about Szofi and Macus, seems people all over Europe are cheering for them. They’ve become storky superstars! 🙂 Meantime back here in old Blighty, storks’ 360,000 year archaeological relationship with Britain came to an end several centuries ago, when it seems they were hunted to extinction. However, there currently three sites…
“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….
My wife is Hungarian. Like many folks in central Europe, Hungarians have a particular affinity for white storks. Even during the soviet era, lampposts often had huge plinths welded to the top, so that these massive wild birds can build their nests. Throughout the various COVID lock-downs my wife started following various European stork nests…
One of the problems with modern life is the plethora of plug-in mains adaptors or “wall warts” as they call them on the other side of “The Pond”. Aside from the mess of wires, and the fact that often they are plugged into multi-gang power sockets an heaped on top of one another, building up…
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…
I belong to several online photography fora. One of the questions that repeatedly pops up is “what image editing software do you use?” and “what alternatives are there to Adobe Photoshop/Lightroom?” In this article, I hope to demonstrate that high quality image processing is perfectly possible using FOSS (free open source software). I will also…
Long Live Ukraine – a collection of Ukraine-related video-feeds, hyperlinks, newsfeeds, artwork and memes. Webcams Pictures A few of these are humorous memes. The rest serve as a painful reminder us of horrific human tragedy that is currently unfolding before our eyes. I plan to add to them as the conflict progresses. Links Links …
Just occasionally here in Britain we design and produce a product that is so simple, versatile and completely brilliant one wonders why no one thought of it before. The humble Benbo Trekker camera tripod is one such design. Whilst those expensive black plastic (aka “carbon fibre”) things everyone seems to be talking about look pretty…
As storm Eunice rages all around us here in Southern England, it seems my kid brother had a fairly narrow escape from disaster yesterday morning. He was driving north along the busy A34, where it splits with the A33, just north of Winchester, when a large tree blew down completely blocking the northbound carriageway. He…
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…
I had a pretty grim time recently trying to fix a “Flatpak public key error” on Ubuntu 20.04 LTS. Well KDE Neon to be more precise, but it’s underlying operating system is Ubuntu. I had been attempting a “user” mode installation of an application via Flatpak with no success. I installed Flatpak in the normal…
I recently purchased a new 20 TB Ultrastar hard disk that UK supplier Scan Computers has on special offer. The Ultrastar range is descended from IBM/Hitachi’s DeskStar series, has a five year warranty and it is considered a high-end high-spec product, intended for heavy server and NAS use. It is a helium filled disk and…
Coronavirus is still a big thing and the latest variant codenamed “omicron” is particularly infectious is causing clinicians great concern because of its rapid spread. We just managed to avoid another Christmas lock-down here in the UK. But another one is expected soon. So it seems Mr Goose may be stuck with loads more DIY…
