Category: learning curve

Weekend photos (sort of)

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I found somewhere else with a monitor that actually works, and noted that I need to repair my monitor this evening. Or maybe it’s the video card. I need to repair something, anyway.

The photos are uploaded, but because of the seemingly haphazard and random methods I used to get them onto Flickr, they are in a seemingly haphazard and random order on there. Still, they do represent collections of pixels what I have made, so I guess that they still count.

This one, Saturday’s sunset while we were actually trying to spot the Space Station pass (we did, but it was less impressive than the sunset) is a favourite, but it’s this rather dark one which excites me most.

I wrote here about my desire to improve my photography a bit, and it was through a link to this webpage and a fair bit of tinkering in the icy cold darkness of Suiderstrand over the weekend that I managed to get that shot. It represents a 25 minute exposure, having played around with a million settings to get that far.
Given that it was so very, very cold and I was only bolstered by a sweatshirt and a couple of glasses of brandy, I’d love to have taken things further, but didn’t. With hindsight, I probably should have stuck it out and gone again for something longer. It was an incredibly clear, crisp night, with close of zero light pollution. There will be others though.

But this horribly imperfect image (it’s actually a lot more perfect than the several test shots that went before it) lays down a baseline for future efforts. As that helpful webpage says:

Like anything in photography, but the best way to learn anything is through trial and error and learning through your mistakes… Play around and experiment, it’s the only way to learn, at the end of the day there’s no harm in taking duds, that’s what the delete button is for.

I did this. I followed all the instructions. I tweaked to make the light shots darker, the dark shots lighter, and in the end I got something to build on. Watch this space, but equally, don’t hold your breath.

They’re stars, by the way. Stars.

50 years ago today…

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As a powerful cold front with gale force northwesterly winds hits Cape Town again, here’s a flashback to 50 years ago when the same thing happened and the 156m long, 8100 tonne SS Seafarer, en route from Glasgow to Beira, ran aground at Mouille Point in Cape Town.

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Yes, just like that.

Seafarer was carrying a cargo of highly dangerous tetra-ethyl-lead and 12 passengers. She was advised to stay outside but decided to enter Cape Town Harbour in rough weather and ran aground off Green Point.

“Oops”

Fortunately, all the crew and passengers were rescued by helicopter after attempts to get a rocket line from the shore failed.

She broke her back and became a constructive total loss. She was broken up in situ.

As I have previously mentioned, my mother-in-law, living in Mouille Point at the time, was one of the crowd which gathered to watch the developments and is likely one of the people you can see in the photo above.

History, hey? It’s closer than you think.

Dead Pod

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Worrying times here at Chez 6000. I took Colin to the vet yesterday evening, and when I got back into the car at the surgery, we were (Colin was) so busy chatting about how good it was to be out of the vet with everything apparently still intact that I quite forgot to restart the soothing music which had accompanied our journey there. And then when we got back to the house, we were (Colin was) so excited to be back home with all four legs and a tail that I quite forgot to take my iPod out of my car.

This morning, when I came to play some music on the way to work, I no longer had an iPod.
I had a Dead Pod. RIP SnoopyToo.

My first thought was that I had left it playing through the extensive collection of tunes and that the battery had given up. I have done that before, but it usually saves just enough battery power to tell me that it has no battery power. This time it was completely dead.

My second thought was that I was going to have to listen to 5fm.

I shed a tear, which immediately froze on my cheek. I may have mentioned that the current climatic conditions in Cape Town are somewhat chilly.
“Hmm,” I thought. “I wonder if that has something to do with it?”

Once at work, I plugged the iPod in, but there was still no sign of life. And so, while I left it plugged in, I did some extensive research (I googled), and apparently, chilly iPod problems are a thing:

When I got in my car on Saturday morning there was still ice all over my car and the iPod was dead, as if the battery was zilch. I put it near a heater vent to warm up while I drove, and still nothing when hooked up to the charger adapter.

I should point out here that my iPod was in a car, in a garage, on a night that only really got down to about 4.5ºC, so we were some distance off the “ice all over my car” scenario. But the symptoms were exactly the same.

Apple says that the operating temperature range of its iPod Classic is -20°C to 45°C. At no point is Cape Town going to trouble the lower end of that scale, although summer will easily top the high end. However, last night did neither.

The good news is that my iPod now seems to be fine. It wasn’t a battery issue (it’s come back to life with a near full battery), so I’m guessing that it was temperature related, despite Apple’s claims.

There’s some good advice on that thread I linked to:

Think back to those warnings you used to see on the back of 5.25″ floppy disks. “If it’s comfortable enough for you, then it’s good enough for your disk,” or something like that. Your iPod just needs to warm up, most likely.

And no. I wouldn’t have wanted to have spent last night in my car.

Welcome back, Snoopy Too.

No Lily

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After a million* broken promises and several (or more) independent warnings of doom and, indeed, gloom, I have finally run out of patience and goodwill and cancelled my Lily order. Their “support” team’s pathetic reply to my email on the shipping fiasco was the final straw.

Essentially, what has happened is that I have given the Lily developers a 13-month long interest-free loan. That would suck a huge, huge amount, were it not for the fact that I paid in US dollars and, thanks to JZ’s ridiculous shenanigans in the intervening period, I will have made a healthy profit in Rand terms.

Everyone wins then, save for the developers (who lose a sale), me (who gets no Lily) and the South African economy, which is up Kak Creek with no paddle in sight.

I’m now saving up for a DJI Phantom 4. It may take some time**.

 

* conservative estimate
** conservative estimate