A rare photograph of invisible tape
I bought a roll of invisible tape today. Such fun. As I was paying for it I wanted to ask questions like “How do you know when you’ve run out of invisible tape” and “Do you do this in different invisible colours?”. But I didn’t. I’ve a horrible feeling I might be growing up.
I spent today writing code and didn’t take a single photograph.
It’s a lovely little device
It’s my birthday today. Yay! Above you can see my present to myself. It’s a Minox daylight developing tank. It lets me take film from my tiny spy camera and develop it without needing a darkroom. You put the film cassette inside the tank and the film is pulled out into the developing spiral. Then you add tiny amounts of developer and fixer and then you get your strip of developed negatives. At least, that’s the theory. I’m looking forward to trying it for real.
My birthday was great. Lots of cards and presents. And chocolates. And cake. Good times.
Start the icloud app and then clear all thse options for Photos
The title of the post says it all really. For a while I’ve been bothered by the way that the fan in my PC kept coming on when I wasn’t doing much. Then things seemed to slow down every now and then. A little detective work with Task Manager showed that the Apple iCloud Photo Sync process was grabbing 10% of my machine for no apparent reason. I’ve turned off photo sync. There’s no particular need for it on the PC and it has solved the problem.
I had a look at the Apple support for this problem and the suggested solution was to remove iCloud and install it again. Which wasn’t terribly impressive.
I have no idea what I’m going to do with it.
When I was around 12 years old I got a Meccano motor for Christmas. Not just any motor. It had a six ratio gearbox and it came with tiny plugs that I could use to connect it to my Minic Motorways transformer. It was awesome. I made all kinds of remote controlled moving things with it. Then I lost it.
A few years I ran across the same motor in an antique centre in Beverley. After a few weeks of dithering about whether or not to buy it the motor then vanished from the shelf. Oh well. Then this week it (or one like it) appeared again. So I pounced. It’s in the original box and it looks as if it hasn’t been used. I’ve not fired it up yet. I’ve got plans involving MOSFETs and low speed control.
One of my purchases was a set of illuminated clothes pegs for hanging up photos. They seem to work
We had to come home today. Back to England. Nothing like going abroad to give you a perspective on where you live. England is a bit like France. But in black and white. Or should that be grey and white. Everything looks smaller, meaner, unhappier and less well cared for. It wasn’t always like this, but over the last few years we’ve been managed by people who are more concerned with meaningless ideological stupidity than making sure that the place (and the people) are looked after properly. Oh well. Hopefully things will change soon.
Heading out on holiday soon. Spent ages putting cameras and lenses into a bag. Then a a few minutes lobbing clothes into a case…
We could have done with some clouds to make the sky more interesting..
Harrogate is a wonderful place. Not just because of Bettys, or the fantastic game shop but because of the amazing park that runs alongside the town. It has everything you might want for fun, especially if you are six years and six months old (or thereabouts). There’s a zipwire, crazy golf and somewhere that sells ice creams. Plus a padding pool if you’re feeling brave and have a towel with you. We had a very happy time there today. And we’ll be back.
There are a lot of different makes of trees in this picture
I’m selling stuff on eBay to fund my camera habit. The rule is that if I haven’t touched the device for a year it is fair game for sale. I guess the same rule will kick in when I’ve had the cameras I’m buying for a year or so……
Somebody has bought one of my music machines. So I carefully packed the device up in a box, stuck the labels on it and headed for the Post Office. To be told the box was too big for the service I wanted to use. The limit is 60cm. My box was 61. So, anyone out and about in our neighbourhood this lunchtime will have seen a tall, cross chap walking around with a large parcel muttering under his breath.
Of course, like most of my problems, it’s all down to my laziness. Rather than make the box fit the size of the thing being posted I instead used one which was too big and filled the space with packing material. I called this the “Amazon approach”. And laziness part 2 - not checking the maximum package size - guaranteed that I was going to be making multiple trips to the Post Office.
The solution was brutal and quick. I hacked the end off the box, cut out a chunk of cardboard and stuck it back on again. Size now down to 56cm. The box is now on its way, and I’ve got enough to pay for the cameras I shouldn’t have bought…..
The boiler is fixed. Wahay! Hot showers all round. The plumber came round and discovered a blockage in a drain pipe. The fix was a lot cheaper than I expected. So I’ve bought another camera to celebrate…..
No hot water this morning. Nothing says “welcome to the new day” like a cold shower. The boiler is showing a fault code, which in a way is a good thing for me because it means the problem is now out of my hands. And probably not my fault. Although it might of course be very expensive.
We called the plumber and he came round this afternoon, took one look at the huge mess in the garage and told us that he couldn’t really do anything because he needed to be able to get close to the patient without having to hack his way through heaps of stuff. Fair comment. I’ve spent the afternoon clearing a path and sauntering down memory lane. He’s coming back tomorrow.
I took this with a camera I’ve just bought….
In a vain attempt to get in some cash to pay for all the cameras that I seem to have bought over the last six months I’ve put a few things on ebay. The way I see it, I’m getting paid to make space in the cupboards. Win win. Although I will miss some of them a bit.
Robots Wonder Pack (see above)
Cybiko Extreme (let’s see how much people really want this)
Cybiko (see above)
Broken Mamiya 645 body (it wasn’t me that did all the breaking of it)
Two pack of Ring Contact sensors (I overestimated the number of doors we have)
Ring Floodlight Camera (before you buy something - check that it can actually be mounted where you want to put it)
Roland VerseLab music machine (awesome but I haven’t got the skills to use it)
Every item will be perfectly packed and promptly posted.
If you are wondering why I’ve put a picture of York city centre in a post about earwax, you have to ask yourslef what you would rather have a picture of…
I’ve been deaf in one ear for the last couple of days. The problems started when I was proving my manliness by going on the big water slides while on holiday. As a result I got a lot of water in my ears. Normally this disappears after a while. You get a warm feeling down the side of your head as half a pint of chlorinated water runs out of your ear into your collar and you get your hearing back with a pop and a gurgle.
Not for me this time though. My left ear was completely broken. I think a sudden inrush of water had forced a bunch of wax up into the ear and blocked it. In the long term I suppose this would save money on headphones and give me the perfect way of ignoring things I didn’t want to hear (which I have apparently been doing for ages). But I really wanted to go back to the stereo lifestyle and so today I tootled down to a place in Cottingham to have someone look into the problem. The process started with an examination of the working ear, which was completely clear. The broken one however, was very blocked. Ear wax removal involves using a funky sucking thing to gently remove the wax. My wax was apparently very sticky and it took several goes, plus some rinsing with another funky device, to get it all out. The sounds I heard during this process were awesome.
I was tempted to ask if they would do the job for half price, what with them only having to work on one ear, but in the end I was so pleased to get my proper hearing back that I paid up and left very happy.
Another shot from Blackpool tower
We came back today. We would have been happy to stay for ages more, but there you are. We had all these plans to stop off an do shopping and whatnot on the journey back, but we were just too exhausted from having good times, so we went straight home and had cheese on toast for tea.
Good times.
I’ve on more piers in the last two days than I have in the last ten years.
Today finds us in Lytham St. Annes. It’s only a couple of miles from Blackpool (you can use the tram to get from one to the other) but it feels like a different world. The huge and wonderful beach is front and centre, although there are still piers and of course arcade machines. We did some kite flying, dug holes and buried bits of each other and all the other things you’re supposed to do on the beach. We even got to watch someone get their car stuck in the sand. Happy days.
The tide does go out a heck of a long way….
The most difficult part of holiday preparation (at least for me) was deciding which camera to take…
We’re having a few days away. Today we headed onto Blackpool’s Golden Mile. Everything you would expect from a British seaside resort. I managed to talk folks out of buying me a “Kiss me quick” hat. But we did have fish and chips for lunch and they were excellent. Then we went up the tower.
This is a view through glass, but I still think it looks pretty OK
Behind the golden Mile
Today we headed off for a few days away. Forgot my hat, which should mean we are in for some good weather.
We’re heading off for a few days away. I’ve tidied my room a bit so that when I get back I can tell whether or not we’ve been burgled.
This is much preferrable to having all the wires in one draw…
I’m between jobs at the moment. So this morning I spent a very happy hour doing the above. I’m very pleased about it but not sure I should be.
Took a bunch of stuff to the tip today. Going to the tip is becoming increasingly complicated. Now they have lots of different categories for rubbish. My pro-tip (which I will follow for next time) is to put different rubbish in different bags. Otherwise you will be standing there for ages pulling bits of cardboard out of a huge bag that you’ve just filled. Like I did. The other tip (at least where I go) is to go in the morning. The afternoons seem to be a lot busier.
One of the things that used to puzzle me back in the day was “How to you get rid of an old dustbin?”. If you leave it out for the dustman they just empty it and then move on. It turns out that the answer to this age old riddle is to take the bin to the tip and throw it into the skip by hand…
Rob Miles is technology author and educator who spent many years as a lecturer in Computer Science at the University of Hull. He is also a Microsoft Developer Technologies MVP. He is into technology, teaching and photography. He is the author of the World Famous C# Yellow Book and almost as handsome as he thinks he is.
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