Remembering PRESTAGS

Could have been embarrassing ...

got up for Mass in a hurry, pulled on my pants.

About to go out the door, and my rear end feels very airy ...

Huge hole in seat of pants. Explains why it was feeling a little airy last night.

Better at home than at Mass though ...

Integration

 

Pride

 

System

 

Inevitability

 

Aggregation

 

 

Wisdom

Rejection

 

Comfort

 

 

Despair

 

Security

 

Serenity

Emptiness

 

Resolve

 

Uncertainty

 

Persistence

Up

down

Up

FUQn down

One more

Unresolved

Sanguinity

Contentment

Contemplation two

This photo also seeks a title that speaks of the despair of a man who hears "FMW", "FMW", "FMW", yet knows that none is organised!

Contemplation

Old and Fat but Happy

I wonder why?

I had a fantastic birthday.

Good Friday

Crux fidelis inter omnes arbor una noblis

Nulla silva talem profert, fronde, flore, germine

Dulce lignum, dulce clavos, dulce pondus sustinet

Faithful Cross above all other, one and only noble tree.

None in foliage, none in blossom, none in fruit thy peer may be.

Sweetest wood, sweetest iron, sweetest weight is hung on thee.

(Venantius Fortunatus, d 609 AD)

 

Ecce lignum crucis

Venite adoremus

 

The timing of the Good Friday Liturgy in this Church generally gifts us the illumination of the cross with beautiful autumn afternoon light, as if heaven shines on the commemoration of Our Lord's passion and the cross which is now our trophy.

Coleman Lakeside 4

the two lakeside 4 tents.

cream & blue

 

green and green

Steering Wheel Shake - the Movie

First multi-media post (2nd attempt cos I pushed the wrong button and lost my opus magnus and had to start again)

And I can't work out how to embed a video but hopefully the files are uploaded and you can download them.

so I know you guys think the shake in my White Camry's steering wheel is just in my head.

But swapping between cars, I am convinced it is real, and it leaves my fingers tingling.

Googling has given some possible causes but also indicated that such phenomena are not paranormal.

There is a field of academic study for it (see below)

From googling, my hypothesis is engine mount(s). I also found a neat way to provide a visualisation of the vibration - with the help of a bottle of water.

So this afternoon I did the experiment. Red Camry = control, White Camry = experiment.

 

 

A Frequency Weighting for the Evaluation of Steering Wheel Rotational Vibration J. Giacomin F et al https://core.ac.uk/download/pdf/1440891.pdf 

Frequency dependence of perceived intensity of steering wheel vibration: effect of grip force https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/document/4145150

Driver estimation of steering wheel vibration intensity: questionnaire-based survey http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/download?doi=10.1.1.426.2931&rep=rep1&type=pdf 

Dinner Monday - ol'timer's disease

Running multiple lines of food preparation on Monday night ...

Thought I had served them all up.

Then part way through dinner, I could smell burning ...

AAGH! The wedges were still in the oven ...

Monday Morning Breakfast

Back to the fine meats at the Lebanese Restaurant next to the surgery. Not at work, eating meats, surrounded by women in scarves, I thought I must have died during the op and gone to Muslim heaven!

Dinner tonight

Who is Maypис Maнeши?

What can possibly be in this package?

Why is there a black van parked outside my home?

Friendships and Lemons

When you want fruitful relationships, you have to engage in some tough love! I got a good crop of Lemons this year, but not an excellent one.

My mandarin tree was similarly not very fruitful three years back, so I gave it a good prune. I appears to have forgiven me.

This year it is the turn of the lemon tree. It had a lot of leaves in spring.

Lets see if this helps.

Next weekend I might catch up with my unfruitful mates. I shall bring my pruners.

Life Finds A Way

The Marigold flower in the pot did not survive the hot Australian summer while we were in Europe.

Five months later, and winter in Australia, it has emerged from the ground next to the pot.

Life finds a way.

The pot is the current state of Ireland. Let's hope the future brings life and not death.

Did Paul cancel his S&T subscription too early?

The other possibility is that she-who-must-be-obeyed advised him that he did not need any more American Civil War games. It is possible that a man can have enough American Civil War games? What if a man is no longer a man? Is this the game that finally reveals the unstoppable spirit of the south?

The force pools look pretty equal. The map looks pretty comprehensive. It also works with a bottle of single malt scotch!

It could be that the scope of play is more than Paul can imagine:

Perhaps Paul does not believe there is anything more to say on the American Civil War after S&T #43, or that Joseph Miranda cannot design a wargame.

Of course the true answer is that Paul does not like games where the Union wins by losing some battles at the start!

If work actually does suck, perhaps Paul needs a reward; a light. But more likely, he now prefers the punishment of work against the ambiguity of an unowned wargame!

Where have the Quelch Icy Poles gone? & observations on the 21st century.

Quelch freezable icy poles made by Berri have not been available at Woolies or Coles for a couple of weeks now. No signs on the shelves, just disappeared.

They are a 'staple' for Carl. They were the only ones made from fruit juice. The other options are about 15% sugar. Some of them are made in China (go figure!).

So I tried to find out what's going on online - nothing.

Sent emails to Coles and Woolies via there websites.

Found the website of the home company of Berri.

Guess what? Although they have a website, there is no online mechanism to contact the company - post and phone are the only options provided:

I find that hard to believe for a firm in Australia in the 21st century - surely if you have a web presence you have to be able to receive customer feedback via the web?

Lent is upon us

 The blessed palms from last year's Palm Sunday are burned on Shrove Tuesday to make the ashes.

 

 

The Putting on of Ashes From the Initial "M" in the Introit of the Mass of Ashes on Ash Wednesday From the Missal à l'usage de Saint-Didier d'Avignon  c. 1370  

 

 

           

 

For many centuries, the Roman Liturgy on Ash Wednesday took as the Gospel reading Mk 6:1-6, 16-18, which presents Jesus’ teaching on the inseparable elements of  almsgiving (mercy), prayer and fasting

 

In one of his Discourses, Saint Peter Chrysologus wrote:

""These three things, prayer, fasting and mercy, are a single thing, each drawing life from the others. Fasting is the soul of prayer and mercy the life of fasting. Let no one divide them, because alone they do not survive" (Saint Peter Chrysologus, Discourse 43: PL 52, 320).

some text and missal image borrowed from http://idlespeculations-terryprest.blogspot.com.au/2012/02/memento-homo-quia-pulvis-es-et-in.html 

Anticipation of endorphins - Steam status

Just one more turn. Game or addiction?

So, Thygo is sitting here, checking his email, and checking it again, and again, and again.

"There are no new emails"

Now he's checking Steam to see if Python is online ...  'Offline for 12 hours'

Yes, Thygo is addicted to the internet, and PBEM games in particular.

And this is obviously not a unique situation judging by the number of images that came up on a search for 'just one more turn'.

Almost human ...

Cockatoos eating apples on the neighbour's carport.

 

An unexpected visitor

So, tonight I'm sitting alone at my laptop, radio's on behind me, when I hear a sound from near the front door.

The sound is sort of familiar but I think 'noone here but me'

Then more of the sound - the memory clicks - sounds like a dog breathing/panting/snuffling.

And lo, standing at the front (screen) door is a dog, looking a bit lost. No collar on.

Very gentle old boy, he comes in, wanders about a bit. He seems deaf and I suspect the cloudiness of his eyes mean he is partly blind too. I find a halter and lead and try to take him for a walk to see if he leads me home. That doesn't show much promise, and people a few doors up haven't seen him before, so I come back.

Puddle around on the RSPCA website. Discover the lost and found postings are on Facebook (only grrrrrrrr). I take a photo of the dog. I muck about a bit longer, joining Facebook. Then can't work out how to post anything. Give that up as a bad joke.

Have another look in the shed for Banjo's collar. Find that and think - I'll just see if the cafe owner across at the shops has seen him before. Nope.

then a lady is walking down the street with a torch - and Deo gratias, it is her dog.

And it turns out she lives across the road from the people who hadn't seen him, about 40 metres away from me. I hadn't seen him before either (or if I have it hasn't registered - probably he's never out the front). She thinks he got out after one of their cats stepped on the garage door remote ...

A nice happy ending. And, yes, I miss the idea of having a dog. But in the present circumstances that probably isn't a good idea.

Viewfinders - the good old days and the pluses and minuses of technological advance

Python asked about autofocus vs manual focus of the moon shot.

Old-school film SLRs tended to have fabulous, large, bright optical ('analogue') viewfinders - the bump on them is just for the prism. The bump on dSLRs also has a pop up flash crammed in there.

(The optical viewfinder is like a periscope that allows you to 'see' what the lens sees because of the mirror, which flips out of the way when the shot is taken. Other styles of cameras with optical viewfinders would view the scene but never in perfect alignment because the angle would almost certainly vary, even if ever so slightly.)

this pic shows the relative sizes (ie views) through different camera viewfinders. Generally for FX cameras - ie sensor the same size as a 35mm negative - the viewfinders are bigger. For DX cameras they are correspondingly smaller.

I was shocked when I did a side by side comparison of my then still in use Pentax ME-Super with my brand new Nikon D60 (DX) - the Pentax viewfinder was enormous by comparison. Basically giving 1:1 apparent view with the standard 50mm lens. I think the view on my Pentax is similar to that on the celebrated and venerable Olympus OM-1 (also film camera). The entry level Nikons (D3x00, 5x00) are smaller than the D90. Even the large brick top of the line FX Canons and Nikons still have smaller viewfinders than some of their old film predecessors.

 The new SLT and mirrorless cameras don't have an optical viewfinder but an eyepiece looking at a digital viewfinder. These are generally much larger, comparatively, even for small (DX and smaller) sensor sizes. The technology is improving and these now apparently are quite good, overcoming original problems of the processor keeping the image refreshed without jerking eg when following movement.

In the old days, before autofocus cameras (implemented on later film cameras, my Pentax is manual focus only), manual focus was aided by a split ring etched on the viewfinder prism.

when the image is in focus the hatching around the outside disappears and the internal halves should line up perfectly.

This works well if you have a long line to 'cut and join' or contrasting items. If you are trying to focus on something small it is still tricky.

Most dSLR lenses,especially zooms and even more expensive ones, are set up for AF and although they have focus rings they tend not to have a lot of fine adjustment. Prime lenses (single focal length) have more travel.

You can get replacement focussing screens for dSLRs with a split ring etched on them. 

I have toyed with getting one but I have wondered how well it will work given my poor vision and the already small viewfinder size of my cameras.

But that was part of the romantic attraction of the film SLR - 50mm lens only and split ring manual focus - to get composition and focus the shooter had to do it themself.

 

this post would not have been possible (practicable anyway) without the digital technology aids of Dr Google and the Snipping Tool.

Exposure and high contrast scenes

From a discussion I was having with Paul, I played around a little with high contrast scenes. He has some images where the straight out of camera jpeg has not brought up the detail in a dark area (eg a dark statue) against a strong back lit background.

On Nikon dSLRs, a setting called 'active D lighting' became available for application in shooting (as opposed to post processing, whether in camera or on downloaded files).

So, I was taking some shots of the fowls with the D40x - it doesn't have ADL option for shooting but it can be applied in camera after the shot. A couple are below, and it shows how powerful this (software) application is, and also illustrates the problems that any photographic medium has in capturing a whole scene the way our eyes see it, or more accurately as our brains post-process the incoming light to 'pull up' shadow detail.

So, below  a couple of comparison shots - / + ADL. I suspect that in Paul's Lumix FZ1000 there is a setting analagous to ADL, probably with different levels of application. [He might have to resort to reading the manual >:-o).

OK, the examples

but

The photo medium can only capture the light that is there. If you take the film medium, the sensitivity to light is uniform across the film negative - and adjusting exposure will affect the whole area uniformly. That is, a whole exposure adjustment can only be applied uniformly to the whole exposure - if the qualitative and quantitative difference in amount of light between to parts of a scene is too great, the physics per se doesn't allow for getting both parts perfectly exposed for detail.

But our brains do this all the time - segements of our field of view get post-processed to enable us to see both the full lit and the shadow with acuity. Computers can, thanks to clever programmers like Python, detect the contrast areas and locally adjust the exposure. In the old film days, you could do this in the dark room with simple physical tricks such as waving a piece of paper over an overexposed area as the negative was being processed ie between the light coming through the negative and the photographic paper being exposed to get the print.

 

 

Another way of getting at this is where you 'tell' the camera to 'meter' the light to inform the exposure it will apply - shutter speed, aperture (and with digital, ISO). The standard default is 'matrix' or 'averaged' metering - the light meter / software tries to balance all of the incoming light. Then there is 'centre weighted' - the light meter / software takes more account of the area where the light level is read (typically the focus point - I guess face recognition will have some priority - my dSLRs don't have it or I don't turn it on). Then there is 'spot' metering - the light meter / software meters just on the small focus area. Spot allows a small subject to be exposed 'correctly' even if the surrounding scene is very dark or very bright. But, as above, the metering is a physical adjustment affecting the amount of light hitting the sensor or film, not a software interpretation of the incoming light.

Yet another way is 'exposure compensation' - often has a dedicated button with a +/- decal on it - you can dial in how many 'stops' (more precisely electron volts, EV) more or less than the camera's meter thinks the 'correct' exposure is - how much light gets let in. Generally goes in 1/3 EV steps - eg +0.3, +0.7 etc.

On my cameras, choosing metering area and exposure compensation are NOT available in the AUTO modes - needs to be in Manual (I rarely use, except for moon shots), Aperture priority (I use most - set the 'f stop' - how wide open is the lens, how much light gets let in, also affects depth of field), Shutter priority (how long the shutter is open, I use when I want to ensure a fast shutter to freeze motion and/or avoid effects of camera shake), Program mode (I don't use this much but its a bit like A and S).

And having mentioned moon shots, this is a classic example of needing to balance a really bright object in a really dark background - if you don't meter on the moon you generally just get a 'white out'.

So, the moral of this story is: