Without Prejudice

[Rajan Parrikar]

From: Christmas Eve in Goa.

Christmas spirits

[Rob C]

I remember when India was dry.

Rob C

[Rajan Parrikar]

I remember when India was dry.

Rob C

Yes, but we're talking Goa.  Captain Haddock would feel welcome here.

[Rob C]

Yes, but we're talking Goa.  Captain Haddock would feel welcome here.

Rajan, we're all kippered - it's the economy.

I've discovered the joys (?) of the mobile's camera. On the one hand, it looked as if it was going to make the perfect notebook machine - you know, take whatever you see and then worry about it later. And that was the first mistake: I can't even see what I'm trying to take and worry about later.

It has been suggested that viewfinderless cameras are the way to go. That must be the most crazy photo idea of all time!

Here's this morning's effort to both glorify the little car and compete with Haef's Detroit Dreams.

(The latter was t-i-c!)

See the 'hand' of Rob?

Rob C

[Rob C]

So, whose hand would you blame for this?

The story goes that the Frenchman who owns this thing had moored in a cove where local knowledge says you never do - much like the bay at Cala San Vicente, up here in the northern tip of the island, becuase though often beautiful and calm, a change in wind drives in rollers in a venturi effect. Nasty.

Anyway, seems that he tried to motor his way out, but a combination of underpowered engine and tiny prop defeated him. At least he's still alive, and now has a 24/7 hobby.

Rob C

P.S.  Can anybody tell me how to get apostrophies using the T tool in PS6 and, also, the © copyright sign? Used to get it (the latter) by using the right-hand set of numbers - 0169 - but it doesn't seem to do it anymore. At least, I think I did.

P.P.S. Oh yes it does - copyright - now! But not apostrophies!

[Riaan van Wyk]

At least he's still alive, and now has a 24/7 hobby.

Rob C

Link to the local newspaper   http://zululandobserver.co.za/Pages/wip1.html  to see what a boat fire looks like Rob. Fibreglass burns in a scary and fast way.

[Rob C]

Link to the local newspaper   http://zululandobserver.co.za/Pages/wip1.html  to see what a boat fire looks like Rob. Fibreglass burns in a scary and fast way.

The same has happened out at sea, here. Some think it an insurance scam - happens within radio and rescue distance. Of course, that might be the ones we know about, whose smoke we can see...

The guy in my wee pic was lucky: his boat's steel. Anything else, and it would have sunk like a stone, probably taking him with it. Boats can be scary things. My wife and I were out with another older couple in one of their boats and he was testing/playing with the auto-pilot from inside, and I was standing beside him. The two women were out on the forward sundeck. We were coming back to Puerto Pollensa from around the Formentor headland, not far off the very high cliffs, when the boat suddenly lurched to the right and shot straight for the cliff. I realised what was about to happen, but stood there with a stupid grin, paralysed. However, the old guy was quick: he cut both throttles at once, and the boat stopped pdq, maybe twenty-five yards off the rock. Deceleration is rapid on some boats; when the thing stopped, it seems his wife turned to mine out there in front and remarked: 'I never did like this lousy boat, anyway'. Cool. Maybe that's why folks drink so much out on the ocean.

Must be a moral there, could I but find it.

Rob C

[WalterEG]

Some time to rest and catch up with passions over the extended holidays:

Cheers,

Walter

[Rob C]

Some time to rest and catch up with passions over the extended holidays:

Cheers,

Walter

And here I was, Walter, imagining you to be cool, calm and detached!

Personally, I'm frozen. The wood fire we have has broken one of its doors - thirty years old now, and the makers in England informed me they no longer make that model of door... I had the thing repaired - three spots of weld along the top edge of the door where it had split asunder (I thought cast iron didn't do that - had no internal stresses) now hold it together. Problem is, the glass window within that frame might fall out if the metal gives way again, and the contents of the fire would fall onto the carpet and set the place alight. I know I have an admiration for the Viking Way, but that reqires a boat, not a bed.

As an ironic result (no pun, etc.), all the wood that a neighbour laboriously cut for me when he felled some trees now lies unusable both on the terrace and out in the garden, whilst I burn very expensive electricity. My daughter brought me a pair of those clever gloves with no fingertips a year or two ago - they help with the bad circulation when I play at keyboards - like now - but do nothing for the rest of me.

The problem, currently, post door-repair, is that I ordered a made-to-measure fireguard that is being held up by the festivities, and I don't fancy using the fire until I have both belt and braces in place. Fortunately, I have a ground-floor apartment, otherwise I'd be looking for a parachute, too.

Such is life when you live alone on an island in the middle of nowhere; not even a single striped model to be seen.

;-(

Rob C

[Eric Myrvaagnes]

Rob,

I hope both your fireguard and your striped model will be delivered to your doorstep post haste.
In the meantime, type faster on the keyboard to keep the fingers warm.

Eric

[Rob C]

Rob,

I hope both your fireguard and your striped model will be delivered to your doorstep post haste.
In the meantime, type faster on the keyboard to keep the fingers warm.

Eric

I had my doubts about the stripped striped model hope, but, being optimistic by nature - honestly, don't snigger - I did think I could at least be warmish... surprising how cold an indoor temperature of 67 degrees F can feel! It must be a product of the prevalent dampness that turns leather jackets black, even when they are blue. Again, not a pun, just dampness. I don't have that jacket any more (it was probably more of a greyish blue) but my hands seem to resemble it quite a lot now. Perhaps I shall start to wear sunglasses indoors again as antidote. Did that in 1966 for a couple of weeks on location in Mallorca... only at the end of it all did I realise that the guy I was accompanying, the client firm's foreign manager, who had the same stylistic shtick, was actually wearing prescription glasses. Oh well, at least I felt mysterious for a couple of weeks. Told you I was optimistic.

Rob C

[Rob C]

If you could exchange BEER with CLINIC, you might encourage her to make her New Year's resolution come true...

Funny thing: I stopped in '66 despite being one of those idiots who smoked in the darkroom, burning lips as well as creating hours of spotting problems for myself, and now I hate even the stench of the stuff. My wife never did smoke - don't know how she put up with me for all those early years of stinking curtains, foul car, ruined fine cuisine etc. etc.

Fine cuisine: I wonder if we could expand that into something like the dumb arguments about fine art? Let's face it - prices get similar...

Rob C

[popnfresh]

If you could exchange BEER with CLINIC, you might encourage her to make her New Year's resolution come true...

Aren't many denizens of Bourbon Street interested in working on New Year's resolutions!   

[Rob C]

Aren't many denizens of Bourbon Street interested in working on New Year's resolutions!   

Not surprising, really, if they all have the blues.

Rob C

[Rob C]

Another mobile shot from this morning's exercise chore...

Oddly, as John Smith mentioned in another post about his train driver's face, this one doesn't seem to translate from PS-seen jpeg to transmitted jpeg all that accurately either. There's a sort of loss of tonal separation I can't quite put into words, even to myself! When I put the two files up together in PS, they look identical; it's the sending them into the void that causes the change... I even tried switching from computer to computer (PS-only one, and then to the transmitted image on the computer on which the Internet is allowed) as rapidly as the two permit, but it was too slow for visual memory to hold. My opinion here is based on how the image looks on an e-mail sent to my daughter; perhaps it'll fare better on LuLa...? Yep, it's better than on the e-mail. I wonder why?

Rob C


Oh yeah - though I'd call it Quaking Aspens...

[Rob C]

Happy New Year!

http://youtu.be/tkuMs-WYDdY


Rob C

[Rob C]

Went for the first walk of the year, bushy tailed and ready to snap. Putting the cellphone back into my pocket, I managed to let it fall between pocket and body, and onto the concrete. I exchanged a fee shortish words with myself, but since the thing lives within a thick, stiff leather jacket of its own that I bought as an optional extra at the time, not a scratch, not a blip! Ah the value of investment in belts and braces.

I'd been thinking of some way of overcoming the waving arms problem when holding the camera cell, and came up with Velcro on the photo machine and on a plate fitted to a small tripod. Then the second thought arrived: what the hell's the point of doing that with a camera that's not a camera? May as well carry a proper one if all that hassle is to be contemplated. Well, at least I don't have to do anything since that second idea arrived. The power of a diligent mind.

As a third thought: wouldn't it be nice if Samsung had also thought an extra little thought and fitted a release button on the side of the cell and saved the hopeless pushing of finger against screen!

Rob C

P.S. Had yet another blinding flash: why not make a box-like thing out of cardboard and stick it to the back of the cell, just like the hood on a camera? Of course, it would make touching the screen button a little difficult, but at least you'd then be able to see the subject that you couldn't shoot...

[Eric Myrvaagnes]

P.S. Had yet another blinding flash: why not make a box-like thing out of cardboard and stick it to the back of the cell, just like the hood on a camera? Of course, it would make touching the screen button a little difficult, but at least you'd then be able to see the subject that you couldn't shoot...

Rob,

I think you just hit on exactly why I'm not a fan of so-called "live" view.

Eric

[Riaan van Wyk]

As a third thought: wouldn't it be nice if Samsung had also thought an extra little thought and fitted a release button on the side of the cell and saved the hopeless pushing of finger against screen!

Rob C

I miss my Nokia N95, had a dedicated shutter release on the side with prefocus. Also wish it had a remote detonation function, I would dearly like to give the people who stole it some serious ear problems.

[Rob C]

Hi Riaan - Happy New Year.

I didn't realise that such a system had already been available - but then, I didn't ever have a cellphone camera before this one. I'm getting a bit tired of mine, though. I washed the car this morning because it wasn't that brilliant, and the lack of sunshine allowed me to get it dry without the hard-water streaking the sun loves to create. So, when it got bright again after lunch, I thought I'd wait until later in the evening and try a few more cellpix of the car near sunset. Which I tried to do. Frankly  the overexposure was terrible, and I saw no way of cutting back.  Because of my position, I could actually see the image on the screen this time, and the frustration of not being able to change exposure was making me go slightly mad. A lot of wasted driving, then.

I then went off to do some shopping, and have a coffee. After the coffee I went back to the carpark which, by this time, was in shade. So, out came the cell once more, and two quick shots. When I got home, having completely forgotten to do the shopping, I was a little more pleased with the exposure, but then I discovered another problem: the lens is so wide-angled that even stepping back a bit and cropping doesn't really avoid awful distortion. One shot, which I've done a little bit of work with, reveals this fault quite well: a side view of the car from just a little bit off-centre makes the thing look like it's bent in the middle - the two wheels are so noticeably different in scale that it looks ridiculous!

If I can get it finished this evening I'll add it to this post as an attachment just to show the problem. Okay - that's done; added some clone and blur to lose a few vans etc. but that doesn't change the problems!

Frankly, I think the bother with these instruments is more than the experiments are worth.

;-(

Rob C