Thing A Day 14 - Barnstaple
Last photo for Devon week is this shot of the River Taw in Barnstaple. Tomorrow, I’ll be posting a piece featuring all the photos from the last few days all about Devon’s north and south coasts.
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2008-02-14
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Oinks
Michael
Sam
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Oinks - quick thoughts and links. Like tweets, but here on PigPog, and sometimes a bit longer.
Sam’s talking out of her rump again
Starting off as I mean to go on by updating my Sizeable Rump blog, the home of my more in-depth weight loss blether.
In this new post I give thanks that I’ve found the right plan/club/group for me in Slimming World and share my resolutions for successful slimming in 2009.
UK-based Stobists
Any strobists in the UK will probably be wanting to pick up the latest Practical Photography magazine - their main feature is about strobes and strobists, including a chat with David Hobby.
Playing with Strobes at Home
While Sam is at work, I’ve been spending my time using her chair as a model, experimenting with my Nikon SB-800 and SB-600. I’ve learned a few things I didn’t know before:
- The Gorillapod makes a good flash holder, turning a chair, or the side of the sofa, into a light stand.
- Switching the camera to manual, leaving the aperture as it was, and pushing the shutter up to 1/200th kills the ambient from a light bulb quite effectively, and CLS seems to handle the exposure ok still.
- I can use two groups of strobes, and still control the built-in flash for some front fill.
- Switching all strobes to manual is quite easy - I had no trouble guessing output levels, then correcting within a couple of shots. The fact that it can all be done from the camera in a single menu makes it quick.
Sound of 2009 - The sound of being middle-aged
Just having a listen to the acts the beeb are tipping as contenders for the ‘Sound of 2009′ with colourful, teasing descriptions of what to expect..
… gritty beats, droning guitars, abstract effects and dreamy vocals to create a soundscape that is arty yet tuneful.
… cerebral electronica, combining layers of sunny vocals, warped samples, glitchy beats and euphoric effects with a sturdy rhythmic backbone.
… high-energy robopop in which fast neon beats jump out of ’80s-tinged tunes.
Out of the fifteen, only one track sounded remotely appealing. The others, I just didn’t get… which got me thinking about how I used to religiously watch the charts, and how I’d know every word to every song in the top ten. Nowadays I don’t have a clue who’s number one, and I don’t particularly care since all modern artists sound the same and you can’t make out what half of them are singing anyway.
*grump*
They don’t make ‘em like they used to. But I tell you what… the oldies stations… now they rock. But if you fancy chancing your ears with the music the young ‘uns are all listening to, you can check it out here:
More Light
When I got my new camera gear, I’d included a Nikon SB-600 flash. It worked well off-camera, and I really enjoyed using it. As soon as I did, though, I ran into situations where a second flash would be useful.
If the SB-600 worked out well, I’d always intended to add a second, bigger, light. The day came today. The SB-800 seems to be disappearing, replaced by the SB-900. The 900 is bigger, more expensive, and more powerful. A bit more than I need, though, I think. When Jessops in Taunton had an SB-800 at a reasonable price today, I grabbed it.
Even with the extra battery clipped on for faster charges, it fits into my camera bag nicely. Along with the SB-600, it makes a great kit. Stick the 600 where less work is needed, and both can recover quite quickly between shots.
Overall, a nice addition to the kit, and should make a certain assignment in January a bit easier.
Feed Without Oinks
If you’re following our RSS feed, and are getting irritated by these little ‘Oink’ posts (bits of mindless chatter), I’ve just made a version of the feed that skips them.
If you want us to shut up a bit, but still want to know when we’ve actually written something of a little more value, you can switch to this feed.
If you actually like the chatter, just stick with the normal feed.
Working Tabs
I had a bit of time at home today, while Sam was out at work, so I continued poking our custom theme. I managed to get the tabs working on the right, so there are five ‘pages’ of content always available.
All but the ‘Oinks’ tab are WordPress ’sidebars’, so they can contain widgets - makes it easy to change them from the WordPress Admin screen.
I’ve also got some ads back in there - fairly simply done, and reasonably subtle. We’ll see how they go, and add or modify if they don’t work reasonably well.
Some Fixes
I’ve got the comments displaying again here. That turned out to be the ‘Comment Mover’ plugin - I’ve disabled it for now.
I seem to have got jQuery working, and got some javaScript being called when the tabs in the sidebar are clicked - they don’t do anything yet, but I’m getting there. That’ll do it for today, though. Time for a beer, and another dinner…
Thanks for Comments
I just wanted to say a quick thank-you to the people who have commented recently. They aren’t showing up, but they’re not lost. We’re still seeing them fine here, and I’ll get the theme fixed soon so they’ll show up for everyone.
Thanks for the feedback on fonts, Peter - I’ll try to make it better soon!
Parker Vacumatic
After returning the Sheaffer PFM I bought on eBay, with a very helpful seller, I now have my first Parker Vacumatic. I like it a lot. Filling is easy, it writes nicely, and looks beautiful. I also got a Parker/Silver Crane ceramic desk tidy, in almost perfect condition.
A new pen meant new ink, so I got myself a bottle of Diamine Teal. Nice colour.
Michael Randall
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- Sam’s talking out of her rump again
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- Playing with Strobes at Home
- Sound of 2009 - The sound of being middle-aged
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- Working Tabs
- Some Fixes
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