Randomrants

Seeing as TT and ACA are now at each others throats again, over who said what, didn’t say what and how much somewhat was going to get paid. ( Oh and the new ACA line of government conspiracies for silence )

I present to you the line up Image that ACA used.

Image the question: “for $50,000 look at these 6 photos and identify the client from 7 years ago please”

See also “  “The mystery hooker” for the 60k interview. ”

Tags: General // Add Comment »

So great GDP numbers come out today showing how well Australia is doing.

What is Joe “Numbers are Numbers” Hockey’s response, well apart from proving he is a Numberwang world champion opposition Treasurer…

“The scariest thing in Australia is Wayne Swan”

See I am not so sure…

So Joe what is the Scariest Thing in Australia

Of course we have killer sting rays, heat, deserts, bushfires, east coast lows, cyclones  as well not mention DROP BEARS and Yowies.

Not to mention Brave Sir Abbott running away from Thomson, who is obviously the scariest for Abbott as well.

I wonder if Joe is also afraid of the following numbers: Growth at 4.3%, Unemployment at %5 and inflation at 1.6%. I bet he is scared of them, seeing as they have not been this good since BEFORE Joe was born.

Leave a comment below… what else have I missed.

Tags: General // 1 Comment »

The Ballad of Brave Sir Abbott

Bravely bold Sir Abbott rode forth from Canberra.
He was not afraid to request a suspension of standing orders, O brave Sir Abbott!
He was not at all afraid to loose votes in nasty ways,
Brave, brave, brave, brave Sir Abbott!

Brave Sir Abbott ran away.
Bravely ran away, away!
When Thomson’s vote reared its ugly head,
He bravely turned his tail and fled.
Yes, brave Sir Abbott turned about
And gallantly he chickened out.
Bravely taking to his feet
He beat a very brave retreat,
Bravest of the brave, Sir Abbott!

He is packing it in and packing it up
And sneaking away and buggering up
And chickening out and pissing off to his office,
Yes, bravely he is throwing in the sponge…

(With apologies to Monty Python )

Seriously, this man thinks he is the alternative PM. He tried (and failed) to run out of Parliament like a coward, to prove some point. Sure Australia, vote for this if you want the rest of the world to think we are a joke.  Or stop and think if he runs away from this, what else would he run away from.  Abbott is a coward, nothing more. Only looking for the next media stunt, the next time to wear an orange vest and the next time to tell Clive or Gina what else can I do for you.

Tags: Annoyances // 2 Comments »

Just when you thought the whole Thomson saga couldn’t get any stranger, there are reports ( The Age with annoying autoplay video I won’t link to )  that ACA has paid up to 60k to interview a sex worker who claims to have slept with Thomson.  (Although the CC slips say Thompson! ) 60k for the interview happens to be 10x the amount that the mysterious “Thompson” put on the card for brothel visits.

I can’t remember all of my girl friends, or even what I had for dinner last week.  What chance does a sex worker have of remembering a client from 7 years ago.  Even presuming 1 client per night with 4 weeks annual leave.. that is a lot of faces to remember.

Unless he insisted she dressed as a map of Soviet Russia and he as a Stuka dive bomber credibility is being stretched here that anyone, even someone with an eidetic memory would remember him.

It makes as much sense as this guy being the person that ACA interview…  look at those stockings.

P.S Today Tonight… if you are willing to get me a D800 with a 24-70mm f/2.8 lens I am sure I can sign something about the affair Timson, or was it Tamson, or Thomson and I had 7 years ago.

[ update… oh everything is o.k, ACA haven’t paid someone YET, so it is not gutter journalism.  Not that ACA have denied the 60k figure, just that they haven’t paid YET, so in their eyes everything is just fine and dandy.]

[ update 2: “Quit for your own good, Abbott tells Thomson” seriously Abbott, do you want this country to be one that just does what the bully says”. ]

Tags: Annoyances, General // 3 Comments »

Every now and then, we all need to stop, take a breath, and realise what an amazing time we live in. Sure all those reading this blog have their fair share of #firstworldproblems but how often do we stop and realise just how cool things are.

Yesterday was one of those days for me. Heading home from work I saw a tweet from a friend saying that it was t-5min to the launch of the SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket. The launch of this rocket is 100 kinds of transformational in itself, with NASA handing over supply missions to the ISS to the private sector. But unlike even a few years ago I didn’t miss it.

Waiting for the bus, where I saw the tweet, I clicked on the link to the NASA site, fired up my browser and hit play. As the bus pulled in, I paid for my ticket with an electronic pass and watched the count down in 720HD video. As the bus moved slowly into the traffic, Falcon 9 took off. So there I was watching HD video of a space launch whilst on a moving vehicle.

The launch itself had multiple camera angles in real time HD showing me all the stage separations as well.  Once the launch was complete I could then share in real-time with my friends and followers on Twitter my excitement about the event I had just watched. Had I been at home, I would have the video on one monitor and Twitter on the second monitor.

Now, I can write a blog post and share it to the world, including a copy of the video.

I remember the first Shuttle launch, where I watched a rare live cross on TV. After the event I looked forward to catching up with a friend an hour later to discuss it. Then we waited 10 hours before the evening news to watch the footage again. We didn’t even have a VCR in our house in those days so I couldn’t even tape it.

So stop and smell the tech roses, the world is an amazing place.

Tags: General, Mobile // Add Comment »

I have lots of friends, yes shock I know, who are either scientists or “that way” inclined.

Most of which would agree with the quote “You can have your opinions but not your own facts” ( those that don’t agree, we will have to renegotiate the friendship agreement ).

But it turns out, not if you’re an Apple iPhone user, facts are actually not facts.

Via Fairfax: “Apple has leapt to repair an embarrassing bug that last week caused the personal assistant app Siri to declare that the Nokia Lumia 900 was the best smartphone ever.

The article says that Siri pulls “Facts” from Wolfram|Alpha ( The article actually states WolphramAlpha, but we know that Fairfax outsourced sub-editing anyway ).

However if you were to ask Siri what is the best phone is, fact is not something that would be returned.  What is returned is opinion.

Are Fact verse Opinion clearly delineated when you get a result? Of course they aren’t.

Most people would think this is a small issue. What does it matter that that Apple would “fix” their software to support themselves.

Shades of the future via the Simpsons comes to mind

“Troy: Now turn to the next problem.  If you have three Pepsis and drink one, how much more refreshed are you?  You,the redhead in the Chicago school system?
Girl: Pepsi?
Troy: partial credit!”

We let companies get away with this, after all facts are such trivial things.

My question immediately is what other facts simply became collateral damage.

Where does the line get drawn. Perhaps we are already so far passed it, there is no turning back.

Tags: Annoyances, apple, nokia // 4 Comments »

Breaking News….

I have managed to find a copy of the flow chart Hockey/Abbott will use for the Budget Reply.

…. I’ll wait till see if I am wrong.

Using history as I guide, I don’t think I am.

( Note: this graph can be used for any Coalition statements )

Tags: Annoyances, Funny // 1 Comment »

Between a rushed trip to NZ to deal with issues arising from Grandparents moving into a home, to working 5 jobs. Well 1 day job and looking after the #wolfcatcubs and being really crook for the last week, the poor blog has been somewhat lacking in updates.

So here is a quick one, looking at one of the shots from the #wolfcatnz trip.

This was Dawn over Golden Bay. I am also more impressed that I was even up that early given the large percentage of a bottle of Bushmill’s Black Bush that my Grandfather and I manged to drink the night before.

Given my lack of predilection to being up at this hour, the shot was taken in Auto No Flash Mode.

The following are the screen shots for the “Developing” I did in Lightroom 3.6.

This was about 5 min of work in total.

( Each of these images opens in a new window to Flickr, where you can view the full size screen grab )

As with most of my photography, I’d like to give a big shout out to the location for making the shot possible.

Stage 1 – The Raw File


Stage 2 – Auto Tone ( can be handy to see what needs to be corrected, although I find it tends to over expose to my taste )

Stage 3 – Lens Correction.  Having these built in saves so much time.  In this case, it was for my good old Sigma 18-200mm.

Stage 4 – Camera Profile – Vivid.  To bring out the richness of the tones I was looking for in the image. ( ah shooting Raw I do love thee )

Stage 5 – Clarity/Saturation/Vibrance – Tweeks to make the image sing that little bit more.

Stage 6 – The all important crop.  Bring the image down to where I wanted it.  Not so top heavy for starters.

Stage 7 – Graduated Filter. With the sun quite high in the sky and focal points being on the shadowed hills, the sky was a touch over blown.  ( and while yes a set of Grad Filters is on my to buy list, I don’t have them yet. )

Stage 8 – I often refer to this stage as the … oh didn’t see that till I uploaded it to Flickr Stage.  In this case, Stage 8 involved a small correction to the crop angle and I removed one spot of reflection from a building.  When looking at the image large, the sun hotspot reflection draws your eye in the wrong direction.

I hope you are as happy with the final image as I am.  Five min in lightroom can be well worth your time.

And the EXIF Data.

And of course… Here is what the Framed version looks like if you were to buy it via RedBubble ( go on click it…. 🙂 🙂 )

Tags: D7000, Missing from the Exif, Photos, Redbubble // Add Comment »

I wonder if I can claim something as lost before it has even hit the stores…

or see this blog post This Photo is worth $̶U̶S̶D̶5̶9̶9̶9̶ ̶R̶R̶P̶ ( Now $USD 3300 RRP )as another way to help me get my D800

Tags: Funny, General // 1 Comment »

So I ended up choosing to get a Kenko 2x Teleplus Pro 300 DGX for my latest camera toy.

A few quick impressions.  Yes the Sigma 150-500mm will try and auto-focus with this converter…. but and it is a big one.. it won’t be very successful.  In bright light you can get focus but it requires a tripod and a lot of luck at the long end of the range.  So you are better off switching to manual focus.  In fully auto mode I found the d7000 tended to over compensate for the F stop which pushed out to f13 at 500mm, and so the ISO jumps to 1600.  So, once again push to manual. Even my Nikkor 18-105mm does autofocus with this teleconverter.

It is going to take me a while to get the hang of this new teleconverter, but first impressions they say are the ones that count.  My impressions are nice.  Yes images aren’t as sharp, there are issues with focus.  But the EXIF data is all correct, the Kenko works with my Sigma perfectly.

Part of the major issue with focus is that most of my lenses don’t hard stop at infinity.  Which means looking through the view finder to get the image as sharp as possible. Quiet hard to do when a mm movement will reduce sharpness dramatically.

And if you have ANY dust devils on your sensor… you will notice them straight away.  I am going to have to get the D7000 cleaned before the Point Cook Airshow, at f13 the shots are full of dust.

So here are two moon shots the settings in camera and are copied from one shot to the other in lightroom3 so are identical. These are the uncropped versions, click on the images for the bigger versions on Flickr. ( But I did do a dust clean up on them )

The Moon at 500mm

The Moon at 1000mm


The Set up:

Enjoy.

( See also 11mm to 1000mm a slideshow showing shots from one location zooming in on the complete focal range I have access to. )

This shot is from 8.5km away…

Tags: D7000, Missing from the Exif, Photos // 2 Comments »