Back home for breakfast, but on the way Chris Bahlo intercepted me and told me that Jodie
from Bushmans was waiting for me on
the Ballarat-Colac
road. Off to pick him up and then delivered two water tanks to Chris' site and two to ours:
And by that time, Norm had moved the shed 2 m west. I couldn't complain about that: that's
the way it's on the plan, but not the way I wanted it. It'll take a corresponding amount
out of the garden south of the house.
Martin and friends, the plumbers, were also there finishing things off. It seems that the
solar hot water panels are smaller than we thought, only 1×2 m, so there was plenty of
space:
Time for breakfast? No, Martin needed more water, so off to get that for him and back
again. Only then back home and finally got some breakfast, and was just preparing to go
back again to meet up with Jim Lannen, the electrician, when Norm called up, finished, and
wanted money. Over to pay him, then waited 30 minutes beyond appointed time for Jim before
returning home again. Another half an hour and I was over there with Jim, where we didn't
get far beyond agreeing on the details of the wiring.
Back again in the evening to take the dogs for a walk. Seven journeys! It's only 2.8 km
each way, but with the delivery to Chris' place it made for a total of 48 km. What a day!
Into town for a blood test this morning, and also had a haircut. On the way passed the
building site, where the air conditioning people were busy. Looked in again on the way
back, where Jim Lannen was also putting in some fittings. By evening they had finished the
ducting for the air conditioners:
Gradually we're seeing some conflicts. Last week I discovered that we couldn't
put the external gas cylinder where I wanted it, because regulations had to keep them away
from windows. So we put it on the south side of the garage. Now we discover that the air
conditioner compressor, which is also on that wall, needs to be 1.5 m away from the gas
bottle, and that would put it in front of the fire-fighting tank. Yes, that can be done,
but it seems silly. The alternative would be to move the gas cylinder further east and put
the compressor where we had planned to put the gas. Not a big deal—except that the plumbers
left yesterday, and they won't be back until final fit.
What do to? Spoke to Duncan, who found that they will charge $200, mainly travel time, to
come and move it. Can we live with the air conditioner to the east? I haven't made up my
mind yet.
One of the conditions for our planning permit was imposed by the CFA: provide a 10,000 litre (neither more nor less)
steel or concrete tank with water reserved for fire fighting. Where can you get steel
tanks? Nobody in town has them, and they couldn't even tell me where to get them. While
trawling the web, found this
site, which carefully avoids mentioning prices, and also this PDF from the CFA explaining details. It contains this warning:
WARNING: Do not print and store a hard copy of this Fire Service Guideline. Online
version should always be used to ensure the Fire Service Guideline is the latest version.
What kind of nonsense is that? You find yourself in an emergency situation, power down, and
you have to go to a web site to download the document again? Sometimes I wonder how many of
these bureaucrats have ever been in a fire emergency.
It's been about 40 years since Australia converted to the metric system. Really? No, it's
just superficial. I've ranted in the past about how timber is sold in lengths that are a
multiple of 30 cm (for example, 1.8 m and 2.1 m, but not 2 m), a leftover from
the foot. And a typical bucket has a
volume of 9 litres (2 gallons), not 10.
Typical house water tanks are 22,500 litres (roughly 5,000 gallons). That irritates me.
When we bought our water tanks, I took a more logical option: 25,000 l. That also stores
more water, of course. But is it metric? This is what's written on the bottom of the
tanks:
Top left: “5500”. That's gallons, and it corresponds (according to units(1)) to 25003.497
litres. While they sell the tanks in metric units, they're clearly thinking in Imperial
units.
Over to the site round midday to talk to Karl Waldron about the location of the air
conditioner external unit. He took a screwdriver and moved the gas connection about 1.5 m
to the right:
We're taking the dogs to the Stones Road site for walking in the evening. Today Yvonne put the dogs in the car, but it took me a while to find
Zhivago:
Call from Walter Bonilla of the National Broadband
Network today, reminding me of the network installation for Stones Road tomorrow. I
had to remind him that we had already spoken, that there was
no wall to attach the NTD, and
that he was supposed to get the techies to call me. He volunteered the information that the
installer was called Adam, and yes, he would call me before they came out. Somehow this
organization sounds just as bureaucratic as all the others I have to deal with.
Over to the building site this morning to meet with Duncan and discuss the bleak situation
finding builders prepared to work over Christmas and the summer holidays. He was happy
enough about the relocation of the gas supply, so that's one less problem.
Jim Lannen was there too with his apprentice, and they got as far as putting in
the Cat 6 cable.
But still no power! Discussed with Jim and Duncan, who both agreed that a call to John
Willowhite of Powercor was in order. But
as I was leaving, I discovered an extension cable in front of the house, and sure enough:
Walter Bonilla of the National Broadband Network had promised me—twice—that Adam, the network installer would call me before attempting an
installation. The installation was due for this afternoon (starting at 13:00), but it
wasn't clear if they would show up, and I didn't want to spend the afternoon waiting for
them, so printed out a sign asking them to call me, and over to the site to put it next to
the door.
When I got back, Yvonne was on the phone with Jack, the real
NBN installer, who had just arrived. Back again and talked to them: no Adam, just Jack and
his red-headed mate who did our installation last year. They had no issues with
installing the equipment in a house with no walls:
Once again a complete disconnect between the bureaucrats and the people who do the work.
The only problem they had was that they didn't have an extension cable, so back home Yet
Again to get one.
This was the third installation I've experienced, and there's nothing much to say about it.
Signal strength was -86 dB, enough to drive all three signal strength lights on
the NTD. And no, the installers didn't
know what the LEDs really meant. This one is different: only the STATUS light
flashes, whereas on the other two I have seen it flash alternately with the ODU
light. Jack told me that nobody had been able to explain it to them either, not even the
manufacturer's representative, but from observation the flashing ODU light seemed to
depend on the exact antenna (“Outdoor Unit” or ODU) that they installed.
Back later in the afternoon with eucla, my ancient laptop, and connected up with no
further issues:
Now that we have a network connection, the obvious thing to do is to set
up VoIP to make up for the appalling mobile
coverage in the area (thanks, Wendy). All I
need is an ATA. After
last month's damage, I only
have one, with the other on order. But what's wrong with the defective one? No power
indication. Is it possible that there's a fuse in there somewhere? Took it apart and
examined the board:
Sure enough, there's a surface mount fuse just next to the power connector at top left.
Unfortunately, it wasn't blown. “For every problem, there is a solution that is simple,
elegant and wrong”
It's been
12 months since I got my
Olympus OM-D E-M1.
I've taken round 16,000 images with it. And I still don't understand it. How I wish it
came with documentation.
It's going to be a busy weekend for Yvonne: she's off
to Warrnambool for a horse “clinic”
with Robyn
Hood, and Margaret Swann arrived this afternoon to accompany her.
Today was the day that Simonds were due to
commence work on Chris Bahlo's house. How far did they get? Nowhere. But as I see it,
announcing the start date means that the clock is ticking, and according to the contract
Chris will be able to move in in 98 days, on (Friday) 13 March 2015.
Is that an omen?
Jim Lannen along with an invoice and the information that his apprentice was over there
putting in the wiring, so over there to talk to him about some minor details. Duncan has
told them that they have until the end of next week, and it seems that Jim is taking
advantage of that.
Yvonne and Margaret off
to Warrnambool early this morning,
midst pouring rain—in the 2½ hours it took them to get there, we had 7.8 mm rain. Hopefully
things were better in Warrnambool.
The weather was so bad that I had to stop my weekly photos after a single view, which I used
to compare HDR and normal exposures:
The first is clearly the HDR version. Run the cursor over either
image to compare with the partner. And it makes it clear that the HDR version
is worth the trouble. It's also interesting to note that the normally exposed version had
an exposure of 0.3 s; there was also a third with an exposure of 2.5 s, which contributed to
the shadow detail:
Another dreary, moist day, and somehow got nothing done. About the only thing of interest
was when Luigi Rizzo and his friend Valeria came for dinner. Spent some time showing them
some kangaroos which had obligingly appeared in the north paddock, then Yvonne and Margaret Swann returned
from Warrnambool, where the weather
had been better. Had dinner, and Luigi and Valeria were off again.
For some time we've had problems with the drain from the laundry, and also in the kitchen,
which feeds into the same drain. Last month Mari Hendriks came
to take a look, but he didn't have the tools to do the job. Since then it has got to the
point where the kitchen sink hardly drained at all.
Today I finally got round to doing something about it, and checked the web. The specialist
people have cameras they send down the drain to see what's wrong. After a bit of
consideration, called Ballarat Emergency Plumbing, who promised me a fixed price ($250!) and service by
14:00 today.
They arrived just before that time ran out and took a look at the laundry drain first:
Almost before I knew it, they had got rid of the blockage, which they say was near the
entrance to the septic tank, nowhere near where I had expected it. But the kitchen sink was
still as blocked as ever. It took them another 20 minutes to discover that it had a
separate entrance to the sewage, dig it up and clean it out:
As I had expected, it was full of fat. What a mess!
The total time they spent was less than half an hour. Was that worth $250? I think it was.
If Mari had done it, he might have had to dig up under the verandah, and it would have taken
him hours, for which he wouldn't have been any cheaper. One load off our minds, anyway.
Bram Gunn along this afternoon to arrange the sale of our present house. To my surprise, it has been nearly 2 years since we first talked to
him about selling the house. And in that period he hasn't changed his estimation of what we
will get for it.
Last week Norm Baker
promised to move the water tanks for me when he had finished the shed slab, so we left them
in front of the house. But he didn't move them, promising to do it when he scored the slab.
Gradually things are getting urgent, so I went over with Chris yesterday, but we couldn't
budge the things. Today called up CJ and arranged to meet him. I thought here, he thought
there, but I arrived there just as he was leaving. Still only two of us, but this time we
tried a different method, and finally got them on top of the slab, where Norm has had
thoroughly inappropriate grooves cut into the slab:
Our electric fence actuator is older than the hills. Well, older than our presence in
the Adelaide Hills. We bought it
second hand over 17 years ago, and it's no longer packing much of a punch.
It should be clear before looking further what the problem is: the electrolytic condenser.
In many ways, it's like an electronic flash gun. And since these devices cost a surprising
amount of money, it seems worthwhile replacing the condenser.
The unit is amazingly primitive. I suppose the inscription “solid state” gives an
idea of its age: at a time when transistors were something new. But even so, it's a mess:
The condenser itself is only 12 µF, but 600 V DC (also with an AC rating, which doesn't make
much sense here). But at rated voltage, that's only 7.2 mJ, a far cry from the claimed
ratings of modern units, 0.1 to 0.5 J.
Into town to get the results of my blood tests. Better than the last one, with the
exception of the Vitamin B12 values,
which are low. Funny, I've been taking vitamin tablets with 5 “mcg” (i.e. µg) B12 in them
for over a year now. But Majid says that it needs to be injected, so I'll be in for a few
monthly injections. Time to find more about the issues.
Horse Property on 20 Acres (approx) with Large, Period Home
This attractive property would ideally suit a serious horse enthusiast with a family. An
efficient bore is in place (1,800L/hr). The large house features: 4 bedrooms (ensuite and
WIR to master); 2 study/office areas; formal lounge; living room; dining room;
well-appointed kitchen with gas cooktop, electric oven and dishwasher; polished timber
floors in most of the living areas; 2 electric split systems; ducted LPG heating; wood
heater and open fire; solar/electric HWS and verandahs overlooking the extensive
gardens. The land is well fenced, has a large dam, numerous paddocks, horse shelters and
yards, assorted sheds, tack room. small hay shed, fresh-water tanks and a garden sprinkler
system. The cottage style gardens add to the serenity of this rural lifestyle property.
It'll be interesting to see how that pans out. Last time, almost exactly 8 years ago, I tried to tell the estate agents what to do. I don't think
that was to anybody's advantage, and this time I'm leaving it entirely to Bram (20 acres?
What's that? It's 8 ha!).
Call from Karl Waldron today about the wiring for the air conditioner controls. He had
asked Jim Lannen to do it, but without giving him (or me) enough information to understand
what was to be done. There are two different sets of control cabling: one between the
internal and external units, a single
pair STP cable,
and the cables to the temperature controllers, which
are Cat 5E. For some reason
Karl is happy to lay the latter, but not the former. He sent me the wiring diagram, which
of course doesn't show the physical location of the connectors, nor the nature of the plugs.
Called up Actron and spoke to Vijay, who
put me through to Luke. Yes, it's standard STP, and apart from a metal P clip for the braid
at one end, it's screwed directly into the units. A lot easier than
putting RJ45 connectors
on the Cat 5. Why doesn't Karl want to do that?
It's interesting to note how many beer cans we find on the road when walking the dogs. And
although I wouldn't spoil a good story by sticking too accurately to the facts, it's really
true that so far all the empty beer cans I've found are from Fosters breweries, who now seem to be calling
themselves Carlton & United Breweries again.
25 µF? The capacitor I took out was 12 µF, and that's what the replacement is. Why? The
whole board looks as if it might have been modified. Can this board still handle a 25 µF
capacitor? To be considered.
Called up Duncan about that, and he says he'll put them in tomorrow.
Jim has now finished the preliminary wiring, including a surprisingly
thick STP control
cable for the air conditioning. Where are
the Cat 5E cables? That's Karl
Waldron's responsibility. Called him up and he told me that he would install them ”later”,
presumably when he installs the equipment. Why? It seems he has the cables on order,
apparently pre-terminated, and they haven't arrived yet. Somehow cabling seems to be more
of an issue than makes sense.
Since we sold Tanya we've only had three dogs
to walk, and that has been a handful. But since Chris Bahlo's dog Vito died last month, the other dog, Nina, has
been getting closer to our dogs, and for the past few days she has been coming on walks with
us. At least she listens when Yvonne calls her, so she's not
that much of a burden. But we can see the differences:
Chris received a message from Nicole at Simonds today: it seems that the storm water calculations are so complicated that
they've been working on them for two weeks.
What kind of nonsense is that? Firstly, there's nothing complicated about Chris' property.
If it takes their designers 2 weeks, that's their problem, not Chris'. I hope they're not
going to use that as an excuse to delay the completion date. That would be worthy of a
complaint to the ACCC.
Nikolai continues to be a problem: when we
let him off the leash in the open, he doesn't come back until he wants to. Fortunately he
usually does want to, but we want to be able to rely on him. We can let him loose in the
Stones Road property, which is properly fenced—except that he has taken to chasing the
horses. We're planning a couple of sessions with Chris Bahlo and a stockwhip, which should
solve the problem, but in the meantime he's on the leash most of the time.
This morning, while walking the dogs, Yvonne suggested I let
him off the leash. Off he went into the bracken, not fast but far. And we didn't see him
again. Calling didn't help, and we went home without him. I then set off in the car and
found him only a couple of hundred metres from the house; he couldn't have been more than a
minute behind us. Does that count as a runner or a lack of patience on our part?
A year ago today my network
problems were solved with the installation of National Broadband Network fixed wireless. What a relief it was. It still is, and
that's why we had the second installation done in Stones Road last week.
Why so early? I don't trust the current government not to kill off new installations on the
NBN. With good reason, it seems, if this article is to be believed.
That's from The Register, not exactly
the most neutral of publications. What's behind it? Should a country nationalize Internet
topology? Australia has a particular problem because, although it's a highly developed
country, the population density is very low, which makes it expensive to provide fair
network access to people outside the towns. But probably the real reason was that past
governments have
allowed Telecom
AustraliaTelstra to provide both
network infrastructure and also end user services, an obvious conflict of interest.
The clear solution then would have been to split Telstra into two different companies, so
that the network infrastructure provider would not favour the end user service provider. But
the last government decided instead to implement the NBN. It seems to contradict the
concept of internetworking. But it works, and given the inability of all governments to
implement a fair and functional network infrastructure, it might be the best way.
Bram has a prospect for our house already. They'll be coming on Monday. Sounds like good
news, but it means that we're going to have to tidy up the incredible mess that the house is
in. What a pain!
Craig Mayor over this morning to help tidy up the house in preparation for sale. He got a
lot of things done, while I got relatively little done inside. At the end of the day,
though, things looked a lot better.
The new house looked no different than on Thursday, though: the ceiling insulation still
hasn't been installed, and the noggings for the TV are still missing:
Kassler for dinner again today. My
cooking time page suggests 75 minutes per
kilogram, but normally a roast is quite small. Today it weighed 555 g. So 42 minutes?
Yes, although the diameter was quite small, that worked out. I still don't understand why
it takes so long.
Craig and Leah Major over today to help tidy up the house in preparation for the inspection
tomorrow. They stayed all day, and the difference was obvious. I spent most of the day
tidying up the incredible mess on the dining room table. I didn't finish, but by the end of
the day the table was clear, so once again we could eat there, just in time for Chris
Bahlo's birthday dinner.
The stormwater drains, shown at bottom left, run parallel to the house front and directly
under the bricks. That's exactly what Mari and Warrick were worried about: put a heavy
weight on top of the freshly laid drains and damage them. How do we know if they've been
damaged or not? It could take years to find out.
Over with Chris Bahlo and the dogs to the Stones Road property today. Chris brought her
stockwhip and waited for the dogs to chase the horses. Crack! And suddenly the dogs
weren't interested any more. Admittedly, it made a lot of noise, more like a pistol going
off. Clearly a success—Nikolai even came to
me immediately when I called him.
On the way home, Chris was examining her whip. Needs a new cracker: this one isn't loud
enough.
Over to Stones Road in mid-morning to find Duncan attaching two pieces of wood to the wall
of the “media” room to attach the TV. They don't look very even:
Yes, the meter box is in the way, but do the columns have to be at such an angle? It's a
good thing none of this will be visible when the house is finished.
The insulation is now finished, so they tell me. No insulation at all in the inner walls,
probably a throwback to the days when Australian houses were heated from one room only. And
for some reason there's no insulation behind part of the bath:
Middle of the month again, time for garden flower photos. We're gradually coming to the end of this garden, and this
year didn't look very different from last year. About the only things of interest are the continued recovery of
the Tree fern and the vigour of
the Clematis:
This morning a relatively mild case of hostage taking in
a Sydney cafe finished after over 16
hours. A mentally disturbed
man with a shotgun took 17 people hostage in the middle of Sydney. In the course of
freeing the hostages, two of them died: the manager of the cafe, Tori Johnson, was shot, and
Katrina Dawson died of a heart attack. The perpetrator was also shot dead by police. The
exact details are still sketchy, as is the reason for the incident.
That's really unusual in Australia. In the USA, it seems that mentally disturbed people
shoot people all the time, to the point that they don't all get reported. But the
world-wide reaction was immediate. The perpetrator had a black flag with
the shahāda hoisted in the
window. The incident happened—probably not by chance—immediately opposite
the Seven Network newsroom, so
there was plenty of TV coverage, clearly reporting
the ISIL
flag. Muslim terrorists!
ISIL is enough of a problem already, but they had nothing to do with the incident. This
kind of incident and reporting
discredits Islam. All relevant Muslim
representatives unequivocally condemned the incident, of course, but the damage could be
done. And it's just too easy for mentally disturbed people to perpetrate this kind of
atrocity.
I don't have an answer to the problem—who does? But today Yvonne told me that she had heard from Jenny McArdle, now
in New Zealand, who apparently has
worked both at the cafe and at the chambers where Katrina Dawson worked, and she knew both
the victims. How much closer does that bring the matter? It certainly changes the
perspective.
A year ago today we
committed to buying the new house. At the time we were expecting to move in in September,
and we found that slow. And what do we have to show for it now? A frame with a few bricks
around it?
It'll still be March before we can move in, and I wouldn't hold my breath about that. But
the brickies are making progress, and for some reason today they put a fence around it. I
wonder why.
Fortunately it wasn't damaged, but it's clearly time to put the tanks in place and get some
water into them.
Craig Mayor and his mate Bill along today to look at the plans for the shed. Sure, no
problem, they can build it. But not until the New Year! I could have sworn that Craig had
said something about next week, though of course the first day of Christmas falls pretty
much in the middle of the week. Somehow this shed is much more pain than I had expected.
On IRC, Gregory Orange was talking
about sourdough. He had found a
web site with instructions.
I've been there before, and I still
find it complete nonsense. Pointed people at it, and on Peter Jeremy's suggestion collected
the diary entries into a rant.
The grey cards I ordered some weeks ago are now here. I wanted to use them to understand
flash exposure. First, though, understand any kind of exposure. If I take a correctly
exposed photo of a grey card, what should the resultant image look like? My first
assumption was that the pixel values in
a JPEG (range 0-255) would all be 128. But
is that right? This page refers
to a 12% grey card (most, like mine, are 18%), but suggests generating a “centred value”,
presumably in the histogram, for an 18% card, or maybe measuring the 18% card and then
opening ½ stop. But then this page by the same author shows a histogram with the pixel values closer to 110, so maybe what
he's saying is that an 18% card will be underexposed.
This page goes into more
technical detail, but his calculations in obsolete units cause my eyes to glaze over. He
does, however, claim that camera meters are calibrated for 12% grey cards, and that
measurements of a grey card will be ½ stop underexposed.
OK, we can test that. I did some test shots just of the card, illuminated by the modelling
light of one of my studio flashes, to see what camera and hand-held meter made of it. I
used the E-30, the
E-M1 and the
E-PM2, in each
case with the same lens, the Zuiko Digital ED
12-60mm F2.8-4.0 SWD, using both centre-weighted and spot measuring modes, as well as
the Sekonic L-308S exposure meter in incident and reflected modes. The results
in EV, corrected for the same
sensitivity (I had accidentally left the E-PM2, Yvonne's
camera, set to Auto ISO):
Device
Centre-weighted
Spot
E-30
6.0
6.0
E-M1
5.7
6.0
E-PM2
5.7
5.7
Incident
Reflected
L-308S
6.2
6.1
Given that the resolution of exposure in the cameras is ⅓ EV, that's quite a good
correlation. And it refutes the claim that exposure meters will show different values for
reflected and incident light.
How do the images look? How do you tell? Every raw converter worth its salt makes
assumptions that aren't helpful here. So I took the images in JPEG as well. The results,
though relatively consistent, weren't quite what I expected. Here from left to right the
DxO Optics “Pro” histograms for the E-M1, the E-PM2 and the E-30:
The E-M1 and E-PM2 produce almost identical results, while the E-30 shows higher values.
But the white balance is completely out of whack! Why? It was set to Auto, and you'd
expect it to treat a uniformly coloured surface as grey. Back to the drawing
boardtripod with the E-M1 and first set custom white balance. That looked better:
But now the peaks are to the right of centre. Why? It's not the exposure, which is
unchanged. It was, however, shot in aperture priority mode at round f/8, while the previous
ones were shot in P mode at f/4. Many lenses don't deliver their advertised maximum
aperture and thus underexpose in these circumstances. Is the lens getting in the way of the
measurement?
At the end of the day I'm not much closer. One thing's clear: with my cameras I can't
really get much closer than ⅓ EV to the correct exposure, because that's the granularity of
their settings. Never mind if the exposure meter tells me f/4.1 or f/4.2 (the latter being
decimals of an EV), I can't set that. And then there's an obvious discrepancy between the
E-30 and the other two, suggesting that it's roughly ½ EV more sensitive than the other two.
DxOMark disagrees and finds that all three sensors are very close together (click on
“Measurements” to see the graph reproduced below), and that they're roughly 1 EV less
sensitive than claimed:
So what's the answer? There are too many variables, and fortunately it's not usually
necessary to go to this level of measurement. But it means that my flash measurements will
be even less useful.
Last winter we had
issues with biodiversity offsets, apparently because of the kinds of grass we had on the
property. At the time there was almost nothing to go by. Not so now:
The grass is about 50 cm high. But what is it? It's neither Kangaroo grass,
Wallaby grass nor Achnatherum
calamagrostis, which is probably what they mean by “Spear grass”. I still can't find a
reliable illustration of “Blue devil”, but it seems to
be Eryngium fontanum, related to
the Eryngium bourgatii that we
have in the garden:
Into Ballarat today armed with 3
ampoules of Hydroxocobalamin, a
form of Vitamin B12. I've been diagnosed with Vitamin B12
deficiency, a surprisingly scary condition, and I'm getting the ampoules injected over
the next 2 months. The good news is that that should be sufficient Vitamin B12
for the next three years, so I'm not in danger, but how did it happen? Most of the causes
don't apply to me, so we're doing yet more blood tests, looking for levels
of homocysteine, gastric parietal
cells and “intrinsic factors”, whatever that may mean. Isn't growing old fun?
In passing, Cobalamin is a strange
substance. It contains cobalt, not a
typical element in living tissue, and even the 0.1% solution is bright red:
Bram Gunn along with a couple interested in buying our old house today. We had to vacate
the place, but we saw him afterwards, and it seems they're interested enough to want to come
back on Monday and take another look.
It's coming up for Christmas, time for our annual Christmas letter to our friends. Last
year we wrote that we expected to be in the new house by now, so we thought it
appropriate to take this year's photo there:
This wasn't the only photo we took, but none of them were better. Why? This year we had to
get three dogs to stand still instead of only one year, but a big issue was controlling the
camera:
The camera no
longer has an infrared remote control: instead you control it via
an 802.11 link. The claim of networking
was one of the reasons I bought the camera, but it doesn't support networking, just the
single 802.11 link to a smart phone.
If that weren't enough, the app is typical Android: it seems to have
been written in a different universe. It changes camera settings (insists on storing
a JPEG image that I can then throw away),
displays the taken image even when the camera settings tell it not to, and does it so slowly
that the camera, which normally can take up to 10 photos per second, can't manage more than
about 0.2 photos per second with remote control. And of course there's no tactile feedback
when you press the shutter release area on the screen, and the camera is so quiet that you
don't know whether you've taken a photo or not without looking at the phone.
That's nothing new: last
year I had exactly the same problem. It's a crying shame that they can't do better.
The brickies are still working on the house, but there are only two of them, and I don't see
them being finished before the first week in January. They've managed to dislodge some of
the wall insulation above the fuse box:
According to Simonds, they were due to
start building Chris Bahlo's house on 5 December. They have a guaranteed
build time of 14 weeks, but
they ran into trouble because their engineers didn't know how to design drains. In the end,
after they had drained the water in the wrong direction, Chris gave up. But now it's
Christmas time, and the current state of play is:
