Greg's diary, recent entries

Wednesday, 14 October 2026	Dereel → Ballarat → Dereel
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Goodbye 47 Kleins Road

Topic: general, opinion

Link here

Off to town this morning, taking a detour round Kleins Road to see how our old house was going. It wasn't going. It was gone:

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This is roughly the same view as part of this photo, taken on 3 May 2015, just before we moved out:

Can't find dimensions for 'driveway-nw-detail.jpeg'

It's difficult to see a similarity. Sic transit gloria mundi.

Still almost nothing at Fruit Shack

Topic: general, food and drink, opinion

Link here

In town for a haircut, then the most expensive fill of petrol I have ever had, at least in Australia: $135.15. And that was the cheapest I could find. Elsewhere I could have paid $15 more. Thank you, Donald Trump, not just for that.

To the Fruit Shack, as usual. I'm finding fewer and fewer things that they have in stock. Of the 12 items I had on my list, I found only two. Are things getting worse, or is it just random fluctuation?

Parking race condition

Topic: general

Link here

Leaving the parking space outside the Fruit Shack, I heard a bang. I had backed into a car stopped behind me.

How could that happen? Of course I had looked behind me before backing out. The driver of the car was very apologetic, though clearly it was my fault. My guess is that she must have driven behind my car when I had started to back out, and that she had to stop because somebody was in front of her. It still wouldn't have happened if I had kept looking the whole time. It didn't help that the car is silver grey and blended into the background.

Not much harm done, but enough:

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Hopefully that won't require replacing the panels, and that I can get it done without the pain of dealing with the insurance.

Buying booze at Dan Murphy

Topic: food and drink, general, opinion

Link here

I'm nearly out of beer, time to buy some more. Brave the Dan Murphy's web site and order. They have a 10% off offer!

Ha ha, only joking. The left hand gives, the right hand takes away:

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And try as I might, I can't get them to contact me by SMS, as promised. They have my phone number on record (and send me repeated irritating 2FAs), but they choose another one to inform me, and I can't find a way round it. Never mind, once again I was able to pick up the drinks without any kind of identification.

And Google Maps got in on the game, offering me the worst possible way out of the maze that is Delacombe Town Centre:

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The correct way is the road to the right containing the point marked “Delecombe Town C”.

Thursday, 15 October 2026	Dereel
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Ducks? Cormorants!

Topic: animals, photography, opinion

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Walked the dogs towards Bliss Road again today, past the dam where we saw the birds on Tuesday. This time I came prepared, with my OM System M.Zuiko Digital 150-600 mm and OM System MC-14. I was in luck:

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And as I had guessed, these are almost certainly little black cormorants, which are apparently very common here. Yvonne tells me that she has seen some round “our” dam (the one on the Spiteri's property to which we have almost exclusive access). I must take a look.

Photo image quality

Topic: photography, technology, opinion

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I'm not overly happy with the quality of the photos that I took today of the little black cormorants. The ones above are acceptable, but not spectacular—not surprising for equivalent focal lengths over 2000 mm. But others are not. This one is clearly out of focus:

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The Exif data tells me that it was set for bird focus, and that the shot was in focus. Clearly it lied.

And then there's this one:

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That's ridiculously cropped, of course, an equivalent focal length of 22,700 mm. But there's clear chromatic aberration to be seen. Could I improve that with a newer version of DxO PhotoLab? The one I have doesn't know the lens, and since the correction module format has changed, I can't use the new one.

But somehow I'm left wondering whether the camera isn't lying. One thing that doesn't appear to be happening is camera shake. Following my old 1/focal length rule, these shots should have been taken at no lower a speed than 1/2000 s, when in fact they were taken at 1/160 s. And even the extreme crop shows no signs of shake. The image stabilization really does seem to work.

Goodbye LinkedIn

Topic: technology, general, opinion

Link here

I have had an “account” with LinkedIn for decades now. I think I must have joined round 2003, though I have no record of that. I did find them annoying enough to leave in September 2004, only to join again in May 2005. I can't recall the details, but I think somebody convinced me that there was some merit in it.

Over twenty years later, I still can't see it. I get offered jobs that are completely unrelated to my skills, along with silly things like playing games:

39 N + 29-09-2026 To Greg Lehey LinkedIn (1382) N + Someone at Capabilities Limited you may know 78 N + 29-09-2026 To Greg Lehey LinkedIn (1083) N + 1 new Member openings at Commonwealth Treasury 909 N + 30-09-2026 To Greg Lehey LinkedIn ( 413) N + FreeBSD teammates have a Zip invite waiting for you. 1269 N + 09-10-2026 To Greg Lehey LinkedIn (1043) N + Member: Coles Group hired near you 307 N + 13-10-2026 To Greg Lehey LinkedIn (1092) N + Member: CPA Australia and Randstad Australia are hiring 745 N + 14-10-2026 To Greg Lehey LinkedIn (1113) N + View Ifadir Mohamed’s post and your next steps 754 N + 14-10-2026 To Greg Lehey LinkedIn ( 412) N + Your coworker at FreeBSD already played. Just FYI

Part of the problem, of course, is that I'm not looking for work, so most of their focus doesn't apply to me. And to read any of this stuff I have to jump through hoops. My “next steps”? Somehow that phrase irritates me. I'll only take one step: cancel again.