camera

Is it that important ?

/ Tony / 2 Comments

I was driving back from picking up a parcel from Argos. The road is a single carriageway and whilst not like a switch-back, there are some tightish bends. The majority of the time, the speed limit it 50mph, but for a stretch of about 2 – 2½ miles, the limit is 40mph. Many people ignore this limit as you would expect. So I was motoring along in 50mph zone when I noticed in my mirror that an Audi was tailgating me. Honestly, he was that close, I could almost smell his aftershave. He kept moving nearer the centre of the road to try and pass, but the traffic on the other side was to busy. Of course, when drivers do that to me, I tend to slow down. So now I’m travelling at 42/43mph and I can see he is getting irritated as he now has to slow down. Soon we get to a stretch of road that is a long bend. It is not tight, and he sees his chance to get past. I’m now up to the correct speed, so he has to go at least 65mph to pass me. Which of course he does.

When you get to the end of the bend, and the road begins to straighten, there is a layby and that is where the mobile speed camera usually sits. Not every day, but most days. Today was one those days. A mile further up the road and my Audi friend is waived into the next layby by the waiting police patrol car. I tried not to laugh.

So is his journey so important that he has to drive in that manner?

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Over the past year or so, I have had the tendency to ‘follow back’ most who followed my blog. But it had got the stage where I was following over 200 sites. Many of these were commercial sites trying to sell me something and many hadn’t posted anything for some time. So this morning, before I went out, I sat down and went through all those that follow me and ‘un-followed’ anyone who had not posted for more than a month. There was one follower that had not posted since 2016! I have an idea that most will not even notice and the majority of those that do notice, will not care. I’m now down to a more reasonable 103.

So if you are one of the above, it’s nothing personal.

Waste of 40 minutes …

/ Tony / Leave a comment

Not quite 40 minutes but it seemed like it. So what was the waste? I have been wondering about adding a vlog post to this blog. Do not know what I want from it yet, but thought it could be another string to my bow. Ladies and gentlemen, I have to announce that “It’s not going to anytime happen soon folks!” Firstly for want of a better word, the camera on this laptop is dire. In fact, it is probably worse than dire. It was grainy with the poorest sound reproduction ever. It took most of the said 40 minutes to work out how to start the recording. Then after viewing the video I began to wish I had not found out how to!

So then, onto the iPad. Much better camera, better resolution (although still very grainy), but I found myself looking at the screen rather than the camera itself. Result was that I seemed to be looking to the right all the time. Not good at all.

Next I tried my smartphone. This has a great camera. The resolution was much better but again can’t quite train myself to look at the camera.  Hence on that video I appeared to be looking at my feet most of the time.

In conclusion, unless I can get a better camera set-up, I think my days as a VLogger have to be put out to pasture. I might try and rig up my Panasonic Lumix Camera as a web-cam. I seem to remember seeing that it can connect to a computer using a HDMI cable. I also have one of those Flip cameras, but that only has one capture lens.

Is there a ghost?

/ Tony / Leave a comment

Firstly, at the risk of advertising my age, I am no David Bailey when it comes to photograpy.

Now that’s out of the way, I took this picture some time ago. It was captured in the churchyard of All Saints Church in Bramham. It was quite a bright sunny day, so the original looked quite bland and boring, even in monochrome. Before anyone says ‘Photoshop’ it was edited in Google Picasa. It was taken with a Panasonic Lumix camera, but I won’t bore anyone with any more camera specifics. As I say, it started life as a black and white, or monochrome image. It was then edited to make it sepia and look aged. Still not looking great I applied a few special effects. First one was to enhance the highlights of the image, which made the central headstone a lot brighter. I then used a soft focus filter to soften the edges added a bit of film grain effect and there we have it. Spooky!

This my first real attempt at using a photograph to stimulate or inspire me to write a post and I think, at this early stage that it works up to a point. It’s a photo and I’ve written something, so job done. Now I need to decide whether I write about the image/photo or just use it as a reference for the rest of the words I write. I’m still not sure which would be the best way to go, if in fact I carry one with this. I’ll stop now, as I may be on the point of rambling.

Is a lie, a deterrent ?

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     A strange question you may ask, but bear with me. At the end of the village, there are two bottle banks. The City Council is responsible for emptying them and I would say they do a satisfactory job for most of the time. The problem arises when the banks get full. People want to ‘do their bit’ but are not prepared to come back another day, if the banks are full. They just leave them at the side of the banks, in the vain hope that when they get emptied, the contractor will put their bottles in for them. At best, they just get smashed by kids, as behind the bottle bank, is an area that some kids tend to use as a den. It is about three metre square and has a hedge, backing onto a field, which is how the kids get in. It is an ideal place for them to drink their cheap cider and smoke whatever they are smoking these days. Basically get involved in anti-social behaviour.

     Now, how does the Council overcome this. Do they make sure the kids cannot get to the back of the bottle banks? Do they ask the Police to patrol more in that area? Do they write to the parents, telling them what some kids are getting up to. None of those, and this is where my post title comes in. The Council has put a sign up advising everyone that CCTV is in operation !! Well, you might say, that would be a deterrent. It would, if there was a CCTV camera in place. As it is, there is nowhere to put a camera. What would it show? All it would show, is people putting bottles into a bottle bank. As the kids get into their ‘den’ from the field behind, it would not pick them up. So, is a lie a deterrent ? Not in my book is isn’t.

Fathers day …. and the point is ?

/ Tony / Leave a comment

     I really am against Fathers Day as a celebration day. A day that is thrust down everyone’s throat. It is in all the newspapers, imageon the radio, television, internet, although Google has struggled to come up with a iconic logo. It is commercialism at its worst.

     There a number of reason why I have a problem with this day, and also Mothers Day!! Firstly, whilst there is a large section of the population that can celebrate, there are a large number that cannot. Those people, who for whatever reason cannot become fathers. Those children, whose fathers are no longer around and equally, those fathers whose children are no longer around. The same applies to mothers. Secondly, it is just another American import, that does little to boost the economy of this country. Okay, so many shops will sell cards, and gifts and make a little profit. But it is not Britain/England that is making these gifts and cards. They are usually made in some Pan-Asian country that pays its workers a pittance. I also feel it can be divisive. Those couple who are lucky enough to have both fathers around have the dilemma, of who to celebrate the day with. not so bad if both fathers live within a reasonable distance, you can see both. I know at least two couple, whose parents live in different parts of the country. Very difficult if you have 200 miles between families!!

Rant over !!!!

     Good old Danny Alexander. Looks like the puppet telling the puppet master how to dance. http://tinyurl.com/66pqn7y Can the Lib Dems not see, that they are only there to make up the numbers, and not the policy. Are we are going to see this kind of thing a lot ? It will just give ammunition to the hard right in the Tory party, to attack the Trades Unions (it is Trades not Trade) It makes it look like the Government is pandering to the Unions and not negotiating with them.

         New camera seems to be working well. I’m beginning to get the hang of it. I’m not sure what format and size will be the best to use. I get the choice of 4:3 – 14mp, 4:3 – 5mp, 4:3 – 0.3mp, 3:2 12.5mp, 16:9 – 10.5mp and 1:1 – 10.5mp. From what I understand, each size is for a different picture use, and it is that that I am finding difficult to decide. For my use, I am tempted to use the 1:1 size, but the 4:3 – 0.3mp would be better for email and stuff !! I think, I am going to have to print out the full manual. May have to use the print save option (note to self – need more ink).

New Camera and things

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     Quiz-nite, last night was fun. R*** is on respite, so Mrs H was allowed out. Didn’t win either the quiz or the bingo, but one of our ‘team’ won the football card, so not a total washout. There was some wine left, when we got home, so Mrs H drank that and I had a couple or three whiskies. My head was a bit thick this morning !!!!

     Work plods on as usual. The person I, and the rest of the office, have issues with is still the same. They are trying to cause trouble for someone, and they don’t care who gets trampled on the way. Well it’s not going to be me !!!! I said before, that I don’t hold grudges, but in this case, I may make an exception.

New Camera - Panasonic Lumix TZ20      I got a new camera on Monday. It is a bit more complicated than my last one. The only problem with the old one, was that the LCD display had failed. Now I could have just used the viewfinder, but the problem with that is that the digital zoom Old Camera - Canon Powershot A80only shows in the LCD screen. So a new camera was the way to go. I did intend spending about £50.00, but Mrs H twisted my arm, and the one I got was nearer £250.00. There is a lot to learn with this one, but I’m getting there. It has a 16x optical zoom plus a 4x digital zoom, up to 14mp and it came with a 4gb memory card. Been looking to get a case for it, but it is proving to be a bit of a challenge. I don’t need anything flash, just something to stop it getting scratched.

… start with a question ….

/ Tony / 3 Comments

Why do boxer shorts have buttons ? How the hell are you supposed to unbutton the damn things, through 4 inches of zip ? Any ideas !!

A mostly uneventful day today. Youngest, despite what I said, was not up early. However his ‘anger’ has continued almost hourly, all day. You could set your clock by it. Again, no obvious triggers, unless it is his ‘unfinished business’ from the night before. Who knows. He seems to have quietened down a lot this evening. Although he is still a bit edgy, and snappy at the slightest thing.

No phone call from the eldest. Again Mrs H is a bit saddened about that. I did not expect him to ring, and to be honest, it it was me, I don’t think I would be ringing home every other night either. I did not when I got married. We will see if he rings tomorrow.

I have just found out that my animated profile picture on MSN worked. J**** said it freaked her out a little. I have to agree there. It was not what I expected. I’ve juggled my PC desk a little, so now I can get my camera on top of the monitor, where it belongs. I should be able to get better pictures now.

That’s just about it I think. Sundays are quite mediocre.

It’s still only Monday ……

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Well, it has been a reasonable day, in parts, for a Monday (I think). I managed to get all the IT kit set up for Wednesday. The scanner is working, although I must remember which TWAIN drivers are best. ActiveSync 4.5 was already loaded, which came as a surprise. It is not usually preloaded with XP, unless BK did when setting up. It was unusual with the cameras though. The Panasonic is seen as a separate Windows drive, whereas the other camera (and for the life of me, I cannot remember the make) appears as a camera. I fully expected to have to install drivers. I will have to write down, the process for installing Enterprise Manager, or more to the point, registering the SQL server. I always forget.

Eldest is playing the “I’m grown up and know everything and can do everything myself” game. I know we were all the same at that age, but I now know what my Mum and Dad went through with me, when I was at that phase. I felt like a taxi driver this morning. When I dropped them off, I almost looked over my shoulder and asked for the fare !!! I don’t mind really, but it means that I don’t get to work until around nine and it really messes up my flexi-time.

I bought my new wheel trims today. I lost one somehow, but I don’t now where. I have an idea, it was either when I caught the kerb in the village, or when I caught the kerb down at East End Park. Either way, it’s gone. I looked at both locations, but it was not there. I have just reserved a couple of tribal graphics for my car. It says online, that they are only £1.00 each, but I thought they were a lot more that that. I’ll take the confirmation email, with the price on. They are side graphics, but I think I may put them on the bonnet. Mrs H does not approve !!!!