Playing with a macro lens.. it’s a bee!
A fine fellow with a fascination with guy-liner presented me with a macro lens a while ago. Gave it a spin around a garden on a sunny day 
clicketty for bigger
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Ven
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Ven
AmeCon 2010 Snaps :D
As promised on the AmeCon forums here’s my pics from the weekend. Some ok snaps, lots of point-click-hope shots but hope they’re of interest to some folk
If anyone spots one of themselves they particularly want get in contact and I’ll send over the high-res version.
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Ven
Two iPhone 4 Tests In One Post
Very quick update testing both the WordPress app for the iPhone and the camera of the shiny fourth iteration of the beastie.
Thus far I’ve been very impressed. Still very much a fan of the Android system but the over all quality of the iPhone 4 is undeniable. It’s taken them a while but I think Apple may have finally gotten it right. Of course time will tell.
For now enjoy a dusk snap from a nearby park taken yesterday from the in-built camera
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Ven
The Grooveyest Groove
My housemate, while scouring a car boot sale, happens accross a most fine and worthy find. One of MC Hammer’s finest moments: The Addams Family Groove on 12″ vinyl single. First vinyl record I’ve gained in several years and quite possibly the finest – no small achievement considering Tubular Bells and The Beatles Red & Blue albums also feature
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Ven
Ducks Don’t Eat When It’s Not Sunny
I have a theory that ducks have developed the ability to draw nourishment from the very air when the sun is not shining brightly enough to entice folk to come throw them treats otherwise why else would people only go feeding them when it’s sunny?
Read on…. (More …)
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Ven
The Tale of Mr 70
While enjoying some time out on the town in Leeds there was a small mater of dispute between our gathered folk and a gentleman we later have come to affectionately know as Mr 70. To call it a territorial dispute would be, perhaps, an overstatement but none the less the Tale of Mr 70 takes many (few) twists and turns in an epic voyage of loss, rediscovery and abandonment…. read on. (More …)
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Ven
Music Sync and auto-convert (FLAC to Ogg)
Ever encountered the hassle of archiving music in one format but needing it in another for your portable music enjoyment? I have and spent this afternoon sussing out the most sensible way to do it (under Windows anyway). Read on you, like me, faff with things like FLAC but need something a little more robust for on the road… (More …)
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Ven
Lunchtime Musing: CD Is My Generation’s Vinyl
El Reg posted a piece yesterday on the surprising health of CD sales in the growing age of online music downloads and streaming services. It’s hanging on a lot better that was thought in the face of retailers closing and the easiness of buying through services like iTunes and zapping straight into your portable music player of choice *coughSansaFuzecough*. This got me to thinking that more so than occurred to me before the CD is my generation’s Vinyl. (More …)
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Ven
Reasons being a ‘grown up’ is awesome
Kinder Egg - Chocolate AND a toy!
1. You can buy a Kinder Egg whenever you want.
2. Ice cream is a valid foodstuff for any meal, any time of the year.
3. Getting new toys is no longer limited to Birthdays and Christmas
4. Staying up as late as you like incurs the wrath of no body (except Future You the following morning).
Throw me some other reasons – there must be more! Commenting, as ever, is freely open
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Ven
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Detective Mittens [Photo Post]
Anyone that says Kinder Eggs have gone rubbish need fear no more! For in a Kinder Eggs you might just find… Detective Mittens!
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Ven
To Camcord or not to Camcord
Shiny for £100?
When digital cameras made their baby-steps to mass market they were pretty good but a little light on some features and depth of quality. Now, of course, even a cheap digicam can take a snap that compensates for even the poorest lighting.
I’ve been musing over the idea of getting the video equivalent of early digicams – pocket HD video recorders popularised by devices like the Flip HD. I know this line of consumer technology is in it’s youth but given that pocket camcorders are now around the £100 (such as the Samsung U10 I’ve been eyeing up) I’m thinking it might be worth a punt to see if they’re up to the chatter I hear about them.
Figure worst case scenareo I’ll get a couple of YouTube giggles from it!
Thoughts, comments?
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Ven
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Macro Garden
Playing with some new macro lenses on a sunny afternoon (between turning burgers and sausages on a short-notice BBQ – with luck the first of many of the year!). The grass and a bush waiting for it’s foliage to return seemed like as good a thing as any to experiment with.
As ever commenting is open
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Ven
Jam jam jam
I was really trying hard to resist heating up my soup now… so very hungry!It seems bowl of asda own-brand shreddies wasn’t enough this morning.Should have had jam on toast as well.I GOT JAM IN A SQUEEZY BOTTLE! It is AMAZING. -
Ven
Uncle Ben more popular that UK Broadband Tax
Of the two posts yesterday the coverage of my 2 minute Uncle Bens rice gathered 50% of the days traffic with my posting about the proposed UK Broadband tax gathering a mere 5%.
Speaks volumes to what The Internet holds important methinks
Comments, thoughts?
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Ven
UK Broadband Tax branded Unfair – rightly so
The BBC, among others, are reporting today that a proposed tax of 50p (0.5 GBP) per month to be levied against any (presumably residential) fixed telephone line has been deemed unfair by MPs.
Oddly it seems the MPs have gotten this one right, in my opinion at least. This tax would be used to fund ‘ultra-fast’ broadband along the lines that is already seen in more technologically advanced countries. Problem is that ISPs, along with all communications companies operating in the UK, are lazy and greedy. Why shell out for better infrastructure when they can still sell poor quality horrifyingly limited connections over copper-wire?
Better communications infrastructure is badly needed in the UK but tax is not the way to pay for it. Government intervention is needed to kick the ISPs up their ethernet and force them to pay to for the upgraded. ”BUT” I hear you cry “then they’ll pass on the charges to us!” – quite right! Problem is this: if the Government via tax were to foot the bill they’d still charge us more for their “improved and faster service, because we care about providing the best facilities possible”. So anyone paying for their internet connections will be stung – but if improvements were to be funded by tax we’d be stung twice >__<
Comments, thoughts?
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Ven
Uncle Ben vs Uncle Ben
Gotten very hungry but also pretty busy and lunch isn’t till around 1:30pm for me today… Uncle Ben to the rescue! I jot these words as his 2 minute rice delight spins in the microwave to bring warm happy food to my belly. Way better than Peter Parker’s Uncle Ben. All he ever did was give advice and get killed. Uncle Ben gives good rice.
*ping* Yush! Now to feast. Then to look forward to mixed grill times tonight. It’s a good food day.
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Ven
Great Places to Stay: The Piggery, North Yorkshire Dales
Old Goat Holidays covers three great little holiday hide-aways for a break in the Yorshire Dales. Great for some fresh air, quite, good walking, fantastic scenery. Not so great if you’re wanting an all-action loud-music chaos-a-thon holiday but who wants those all the time, I ask you! Certainly not me.
We stayed at The Piggery which has been kitted out with an amazing bed, a surprising array of facilities for it’s size, and a great shower. Had a great hamper of treats waiting for us on our arrival too – local cheese, sausages and bacon, home made jam and chutney, bliss! After a cosey night we spent a day walking to Aysgarth Falls (a long-winded not quite always on the path route
) and back for another cosey evening in.Combined with the brilliantly friendly and helpful owners it makes for a good break to get away, stop and relax for while.
The view from The Piggery
The Piggery
Awesome hamper times
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Ven
ShutterCookies is go! Also commenting is alive.
A new member of the ‘cookies family is up and kicking – ShutterCookies.co.uk
I’ll be using ShutterCookies to build a photography portfolio with only what I’d deem to be finished photos rather than general snapperings There shall still be photo postings of a more general nature on SpaceCookies all the same.Also I’ve been playing with some anti-spam WordPress plugins and am happy to say that commenting is alive and kicking on both SpaceCookies and ShutterCookies without the need to register or sign in
That’s all for now, ‘night
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Ven
Sounds I Like: SpaceCookies Music Digest Issue 1
Spotify has been a boon to me, giving me free access to all sorts of music I would otherwise have had to steal via Bit Torrent never heard. So on the off-chance that what I’ve stumbled upon or been recommended might also be of interest to others here’s some albums I’ve been enjoying recently. The links link to Spotify so click and listen away!
First up: Rotersand: Random Is Resistance. Hailing from Germany this chunk of EBM (Electronic Body Music) has a great beat, heavy bass, fantastic synth melodies and good lead male vocals. If you liked the more melodic Trance music of old it’s well worth a listen. Not as heavy and indiscriminately noisy-for-the-sake-of-noise as some EBM so… I like it ^_^
Hadouken: For The Masses makes the second highlight for today. Rule of thumb: If you like The Prodigy you’ll like this. A kind of rave – guitars – rock mash up. Powerful, pacey, GREAT driving music (pay attention to your speedo if you do listen while driving). Full of adrenalin.
Last up for today is Does It Offend You Yeah?: You Have No Idea What You’re Getting Yourself Into. Spotify recommended this to me after listening to Hadouken but it’s far more varied than their brand of electro-rave. While still fundamentally electronic there is a greater use of real-world instruments and vocals. For example, We Are Rockstars is messy dirty electronica in contrast to Dawn Of The Dead being more of a radio-friendly song.
Varied and nice anyway, bit calmer than the above two albums in places so can be a good change of pace.
Thoughts? Opinions? Suggestions of your own? Let me know
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Ven
I dreamt it rained last night…
…then when I woke up it was raining outside! See, who says dreams don’t come true
Some might say I dreamt about the raining because I heard it in my sleep but what if the rain happened because it heard ME dreamining about it? Posted by Wordmobi
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Ven
Save the planet, don’t print your email! Um… wut?
I get a lot of emails with long-winded speeches in the footer about how terrible it is to print the email that’s just been sent – think of the trees wasted! There’s two problems with this (ignoring that wasting paper is actually good for the environment – higher demand for paper = more trees planted to meet demand):
Firstly that adding all this at the bottom of the email wastes more paper in the event that the message *is* printed.
Secondly that adding all this to the base of each email adds to the amount of hard drive space required to store the message on mail servers. Hard drives use power to run, the more data there is to be stored the more hard drives are required. The more hard drives that are required the more power will be used.
On a side point all this including the body of the email you’re replying to has the same impact.
I know it seems petty but if people are going whine about printing emails at least be brief about it!
Thoughts, comments?
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Ven
Photos – Yet more snow!
A little more snow appeared over night – still impeding many methods of transport, but the day appears to have calmed a little as it’s worn on. Despite what the weather folk say I expect the snow to be less of a problem the next few days. Shall retract that if I’m wrong
Anyway guess what! I took more photos! What a surprise! A house over the road made for a nice sunset pic as Sol beat it’s retreat.
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Ven
Photos: Comparison, the snow got thicker!
A few posts ago I threw up a photo of the clothes line at the back of my place with some ice on it and a fence with some pretty dustings on it. Well, here’s an update to how snowed under those same two scenes are today along with a couple of other generic pretty snow-scenes.
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Ven
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January Snow Lakeside
A nearby lake suffered some snow and ice – it’s residents looked like they needed some company
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Ven
The snow continues! Photo-evidence included.
There was a very real risk that the snow, pretty though it is, was going to scupper my Christmas movement plots. Thankfully I was able to escape my street and make it to the clearer less-iced-over main roads
Have had a couple of, how shall I put it…, interesting driving moments – mostly involving hills and Science. More specifically the aspects of Science dealing with gravity, momentum and friction (or lack-thereof). Anyway, bygones. None of my motion-based missions have resulted in slipping and falling or myself or myself contained within a car so all it well I’m where I’m supposed to be for Christmas now so time to chill. In celebration of this I post up three more pics from the snowy time all from today.
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Ven
December Snow
It’s been wonderfully snowy the last few days. Good times! It’s involved a couple of terrifying driving moments though. The hill at the end of road here is kinda steep but suddenly gets even steeper right at the top. Lost traction for a few mortifying moments earlier today. Think I’ll be leaving well alone next time it’s like that. Could make getting work tomorrow (well, this morning as I’ve scheduled this post to go live tomorrow) interesting O_0 Anyway here’s some photos of the nice snow and ice times.
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Ven
Snow Morning
Behold! Snow morning Shiny sunrise too today. Managed to brave the elements to get to work (thanks to Fish’s excellent driving services).Clickety click the teeny picture there to see the full-size version.
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