Life is a strange thing.

 Reminiscence  No Responses »
May 212008

Just chatting to the sister on Google chat about the pictures she uploaded to the gallery of our mother as a young girl. It made me think just how ‘sad’ life is in general. Perhaps sad isn’t the right word, but it’s how I felt.

In mum’s pictures she’s there as a young girl with her entire future ahead of her with not a clue about her future… just enjoying her life as it was with no understanding it would, or could, ever change. And now here we are more than 50 years older than she was then…. and looking back at the pictures of our own youth.

The sister said it’s as well sometimes we *don’t* know what’s ahead of us which is true of course. We might decide not to bother if we did. But then… it would pinch out the loop because if we could avoid doing what our ‘future’ said we *would* do then it wasn’t really a true picture of unfolding events! :)

That diversion apart, it just makes you think about life… the universe… everything. Life is a strange, strange thing to go through. I just wish there was some point to it all.

Posted by Welsh Dog at 8:22 am  Tagged with: , , ,

Traveler DV-5040 versus The Flip

 General Ramblings, I.T and similar  No Responses »
May 202008

I saw an advert today for The Flip which is billing itself as ‘The World’s Simplest Video Camera’. Well of course this is all marketing hype par excellence.

The basic features of “The Flip” are very similar to another tiny video camera… which of course I bought a year or more ago… called The Traveler DV-5040.

Ok the form factor of the Traveler is slightly bulkier but it comes with a 2″ flip out screen, can act as an MP3/MP4 player, can take stills with it’s 5Mp lens, and has a 1-  8 times digital zoom. The real winning factors though are threefold:

1. Flexibility: whilst the Flip must be connected directly to a PC through a USB port to download the pictures, the Traveler uses SD cards. This means the Traveler is **far** more flexible in use because you can carry a pocketful of cards to take movies whilst the Flip only has its inbuilt storage and must be emptied before more can be taken

2. Macro: the Traveler has a ‘close up’ facility to allow you to adjust the focus to take small objects near at hand.

3. Price: The nearest equivalent Flip model (not that the specs it comes anywhere close) costs US$180. I bought my Traveler at the local Aldi for AU$100… less than half the price.

Game, set match to Traveler I think.

If the manufacturers of The Flip ever produce a model with an optical zoom and an SD card facility I might look again but for now… nah… I’ll leave it thanks. The Traveler DV-5040 will do me for now.

Posted by Welsh Dog at 9:12 pm  Tagged with: , , , , , , , ,

Rape of the fair country.

 General Ramblings, Health  No Responses »
May 202008

Despite Kevin Rudd’s government having excellent environmental credentials, it seems that Cape Alumina, a mining company might get mining rights to hack a huge hole in the area Steve Irwin bought as a permanent wildlife reserve.

Seems there is bauxite under the ground and in Australia whilst you might own the surface you bizarrely have no rights to whatever is *underneath* your land and if the government gives the rights to the material to someone then they have the right to ruin your land in the search for profit.

Of course in this case they are not just going to destroy any old piece of land… but a piece of wilderness specifically bought and set aside because of its environmental value… it’s unspoiled wilderness value.

Again this is a rallying call for us ordinary folk to show we care and make a stand. People outside Australia should do what they can to raise awareness overseas about what is about to happen. Those here need to lobby their MP’s to make them understand the need for *them* to take action on our behalf before it’s too late and another pristine area is wrecked forever.

Source: news.com.au

Posted by Welsh Dog at 7:52 pm  Tagged with: , , , , , , , ,

That’s Safari…

 Gripes, I.T and similar  2 Responses »
May 202008

For preference I use Firefox as my browser of choice. It’s fast, easy to use and filled with features some other browsers don’t have. However, because I play with web pages I have to have the other major browsers available to ‘test’ that all I do looks similar in all of them.

The newest kid on the Windows block is Apple’s ‘Safari’ browser and very nice it is too… well let’s say it’s getting better. The current version is a different beast to the one that was released initially… still I digress. The point is just that I occasionally use Safari.

It does have it’s weird points. The one that I find most intensely frustrating is its insistence on sending me to google.com.au when I’ve told it to go to google.com. Now this may not seem like much of an inconvenience, but it *can* be, If I wanted to go to Google Australia then that’s where I’d point the browser. Likewise, if I want to go to Google USA… then that is where I point the browser.

What I *do not* want is for the thing to repeatedly tack on the ‘.au’ three times in succession when I have deleted it twice!! It’s made all the more frustrating because on the entry page, there large as life is the option to go to Google USA… grrrr!!!

No doubt there is somewhere in its guts an ‘options box’ I can tick to make it do what I want it to do and not what it thinks I want to do… but I can’t be faffed looking for it!

Anyone got any suggestions where this magic option might be?

Posted by Welsh Dog at 3:16 pm  Tagged with: , , , , , , , ,

Boy, do I do some strange things.

 Health  1 Response »
May 202008

In other place I was just rambling on about some of the symptoms, well the effects, of Asperger’s but left off just as I got to ‘inter-personal’ relationships because the post was getting too long.

However, I can come up with a very concrete and personal example of how embarrassing it can be… that’s embarrassing *now*. At the time I was blissfully unaware of saying or doing anything ‘strange’ at all.

What happened was that I’d bought a really huge crappy old Wang computer with a disk drive as big as a filing cabinet. This was back in London by the way either near the end of my psychology degree or not long after finishing it. Knowing that ‘The Phantom‘ was interested in computers I gave him a call, told him about it, and insisted he came down to look at it.

For him to ‘come down’ meant abandoning anything he was doing at the time, about which I made no enquiries, travelling on the tube for 15 minutes and then walking 10 more to get to our flat. Eventually he agreed to come and look, and made the journey. This was ‘mid-afternoon’.

He arrived. About 30 minutes later, I looked at the clock, and realised that the wife was on her way home. As we weren’t far from the tube station I used to take the old dog with me and wait for her – no mobiles in those days so if I missed her, hard luck. Had to go, had to go, had to go…..

So what did I do? Well despite having asked The Phantom to come down, and despite his having only been at the flat a short while, and despite he and his good lady having fed us numerous times… I quite calmly told him he’d have to leave to go home as I had to go meet the wife! Had to go, had to go, had to go…..

I think the look of shock on his face should have told me *something*, but didn’t. He didn’t say anything which says more for him than me… and off we went. I don’t even recall apologising for having dragged him all the way across London for nothing!!

It’s odd how that little incident has been buried away for all these years… and for which I now humbly apologise. What it shows is how completely insensitive ‘we’ *can* be without really meaning to give offence… sometimes… often… it just happens.

In retrospect I now find it excruciatingly embarrassing to admit to, but it happened so no matter how I feel it’s part of my history. Steve, if you’re still visiting the pages. Sorry mate!! But at least you know what was happening now… if not then!

Maybe I wasn’t quite as rude at the time as it feels today that I was… well I can hope can’t I?? :D

Posted by Welsh Dog at 1:58 pm  Tagged with: , ,

How peculiar!

 General Ramblings  No Responses »
May 202008

I changed the settings as said, so that now anyone going to lewmat.com or lewmat.com/forum is sent to the forum site regardless… and all works as it should.

Except… when I try to access it using the *laptop* – it says it can’t find it!! Why is this peculiar? Because in the  Firefox, Safari and Opera browsers, it all works perfectly – the browser goes to the site and up pops the logon page for the directory. In Internet Explorer… zilch!

This IE problem seems to be specific to the laptop as it works well enough on the main machine, but still, if any of you *do* get any issues let me know and we’ll try yet another tack! :D

Posted by Welsh Dog at 12:55 pm  

Lily Allen – again?

 Entertainment  No Responses »
May 202008

I see Little Lily Allen is back in the news and not for her singing. Yet again the silly girl has given the photographers a field day by (unintentionally?) letting them take photos of her ‘going commando’, i.e. sans underwear. Stripping her top off in a pool was one thing. In these new shots she’s having what you might call a ‘Britney Spears’ moment. :)

As nice looking as she is, she’s rapidly getting a reputation in the same league as Britney Spears… and that ain’t good!

Lily Allen looking 'happy.Ok she’s 25, just lost a child and a boyfriend in rapid succession and must be hurting inside, but it seems she’s going to pieces so fast it’s only a matter of time before someone gets hurt by the shrapnel! It’s sad enough when it’s done ‘in private’ but when it’s done in the full glare of the media spotlight someone needs to step in to provide protection. In this case her father was there with her but seemed unable to help.

I think she’s drop dead gorgeous fully dressed or not, and it might be she’s just having fun… in which case good on her. Trouble is if it’s all a cover for something more serious going on in her head then she might well look back on these photos with acute embarrassment.

And no I’m not going to publish them here… or the url where I saw them. If you’re than interested I’m sure you’ll be able to find them easily enough.

Posted by Welsh Dog at 9:57 am  Tagged with: , ,

A bridge too far?

 General Ramblings  No Responses »
May 202008

The forum bridge to the gallery seems to be causing trouble so I’m thinking maybe we remove it and if there are a few photos we want to show each other but not the world, we upload them directly to the forum instead?

So what I’m considering is this. Currently if you go to the main site you get a bare directory list. You have to click on a directory to get to the site you want to visit (gallery or forum). I can make everyone who visits the main site go to the forum directory first and have to log in. That way the gallery site becomes invisible to anyone who doesn’t know it’s there.

The gallery *will* still be available if you access it directly, as we all can, but casual visitors won’t find it as easily.

So, I’ll take off the bridge to the forum so access will be ‘as before’, and make a file to force visitors to try log into the site if they don’t know where the gallery is.

Since it’s easier to do all this than to explain I’ll go do it and if there are problems let me know. :)

Comment?

Posted by Welsh Dog at 7:40 am  

There’s a nip in the air

 General Ramblings  No Responses »
May 202008

This morning we went off to the bus and the air was definitely chilly. Not because we were quarreling, but because the temperature was showing as 3ºC… and this when it’s not quite winter.

Just for good measure the air conditioner in the car seems to have developed a ‘delay’ setting, perhaps *because* it’s so cold and we were almost at the bus stop before the thing kicked in and started heating.

I hope this isn’t a sign of things to come, we didn’t have much of a summer, I’d hate to have a worse winter! :(

Posted by Welsh Dog at 7:08 am  

Members only!

 Home and Hearth  No Responses »
May 192008

Forum is up and working… if you want to join ask Carol for login details and how to ‘join’ – I’m off to bed :)

I’ll add more themes tomorrow… I like the ‘Lord of the Rings’ one but it might not be to everyone’s tastes I suppose… tho I think all but Dad have read it several times! :D

Posted by Welsh Dog at 9:57 pm  
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