2008 — 31 May: Saturday
Although Mark Lamarr has just embarked on a three-hour programme, I won't be along for the ride. It's 00:09 and I really need some rest for the eyeballs. G'night!
Busy, busy...
... as is now, it seems, becoming traditional, I'm listening to Brian Matthew. Just before the 09:00 news, he's chosen "Theme 1" which I'd never realised was a George Martin item. Anyway, the crockpot has already been stuffed for tonight and (I hope) is starting to simmer. Since then, I've been spending the last 40 minutes or so experimenting with a wholly different philosophical approach to the way I'm tinkering with the slides I've been scanning. Instead of doing all the "adjusting" as I perform the scan, I'm using Photoshop on the raw image — as scanned, that is — to see if I can do better.
So far, my conclusion is that it's easier to let the scanner software do the heavy lifting, but I can clearly see from the end result that (although I may like it) I am then left with no further adjustment capability. Whereas if I take the Photoshop approach (I'm tempted to say "by contrast") and use multiple layers, it seems I can always revert to earlier evolutionary stages and undo mistakes or wrong steps. But (of course!) it all takes rather longer until I get more used to what I'm doing. Here's a slide done in the "old" way:
Christa with her car, June 1974
Goodness! I'd forgotten the petrol filler was at the front. Of course, this Skoda coupé was left hand drive and rear-engined. (Basically, a clone of a Hillman Imp in some ways.)
My musical accompaniment to my breakfast is part, at least, of the "Purely Peel" three-hour special now going out on BBC7. But I need to do yet more foody shopping later this morning lest I run out (for example) of tea. That would never do. And I have a lunch date in Winchester, too. Is there no end to this whirl? As for keeping this online diary... I maintain it's therapeutic, even though I only began it for fun as a retirement hobby. But its counterpart — blogging — is "good for you", according to this:
Scientists (and writers) have long known about the therapeutic benefits of writing about personal experiences, thoughts and feelings. But besides serving as a stress-coping mechanism, expressive writing produces many physiological benefits...
I'm sure reading also has benefits. I enjoyed this interview with Gore Vidal, for example. Just hover over that URL for a synopsis! I don't know if you followed my recent link to that Freeman Dyson article in which he reviewed two "climate change" books. In one of them mention was made of "low-cost backstop" policy, based on as yet uninvented technology for removing carbon dioxide from the atmosphere. (Quote: This technology might include "low-cost solar power, geothermal energy, some nonintrusive climatic engineering, or genetically engineered carbon-eating trees.")
Today's Guardian carries some promising news of just such technology.
Dyslexia rules, KO
An old joke, I realise. But this tickled me:
Now, I'm all for the public understanding of science, and particularly advances in educational psychology, or I wouldn't be writing this blog.
However, publishing science by press-release to local papers first is Not On, particularly when said science could influence desperate people to hand over a lot of money to you in the hope of a 'cure'.
I hope she won't mind my fixing of a tiny typo. Brainduck is a psychology undergraduate at York with dyspraxia. I did not know what that is, by the way, but it certainly has no effect on her ability to write clearly.
That's telling 'em... dept.
HSBC shareholders are a bit miffed, it seems, over plans for obscenely large executive bonuses. "You have been paid a salary; your bonus is not for losing money, which you have consistently done," one shareholder told the chairman, Stephen Green. "You and the rest of the board have caused misery to millions of people and yet you are there with your hands out taking everything you can ... how much is enough?" (Source.)
I think Mark Lawson is a class act, and I nodded in agreement through this piece which bears somewhat on what I said back here.
Right! Time (11:56) I wasn't here, as it's time to set off for there.
He's back!
It's 17:57 and I had an enjoyable lunch1 in congenial company, the needful Photoshop tutorial, the even more needful foody shopping topup, a fifteen minute chat with the medical neighbour to help him assess my current level of either or both sanity and emotional stability(!), and have arrived safely home to a house that reminds me, from the direction of the crockpot (and its assault on my olfactory nerves) that all is well on the meal front for a while. Pity about the music currently on the radio, but — heck! — none of us necessarily gets everything we want in Life, do we, even with obscenely large executive bonuses?
Now, which came first, the chicken or the egg? Or (in other words) do I resume some slide scanning and Photoshopping or do I take Time out for a spin of the head by wrapping what's left of my brain around this peachy article? (It's almost worth it just for some of the artwork, if you're hesitant about clicking.)
Plus, more details of the Humax HD Freesat box have emerged. The bit that particularly piques my interest is the bullet in the spec that claims "YPrPb/RGB component analogue HD output." But what are the chances that anyone in the UK retail outlets (such as Argos) will have a clue what that means, and why it matters to me?
Tummy rumblings...
... are about to drag me from this PC. But here's a slide processed directly inside Photoshop without using any of the Nikon's "adjustments" with the exception of its ICE (which is a rather smart digital dust-removal system). The picture is from September 1975 — we'd been married for a year by then, and were renting a ramshackle flat in Old Windsor for a very reasonable £52 per month (but no rent book!) I now know, of course, why such places are called "lean-tos" — this was its entrance, and an athritic burglar could easily have leaned his way into it, but nobody ever did:
Christa in the entrance to our Old Windsor flat, September 1975
Although I've just realised I missed the second part of Laurie Taylor waffling on (enjoyably, no doubt) about the last sixty years of the BBC's Reith lectures, I found Suzi Quatro and Eric Burdon's amiable chatting and musical choices more to my taste. Life's a bit too short to monitor everything the BBC transmits.