yamahito

You may notice a new link to my flickr page

I’ve been meaning to put a selection of my better pictures on Flickr for a while: the photodump is just that, a dumping ground, diamonds and slag all together. Ian (Tindale aka Rods Tiger) has been using it for a while, and I’m impressed with the level of a lot of the photography on there.

So I’ve been having a little play, and my good impressions extend to the interface of flickr itself. I’ve even created a little “Drive By Shooting” group that any flickr users can pop their photos in once it takes off

I’ve just found Mark Wells‘ Showreel on Youtube:

Mark’s a friend of mine through my old housemate, and last I heard he was thinking of giving up on the acting. That would be a huge waste, so here’s hoping this means he’s putting himself out there again

Go Mark! (Oh, and nice lippy, but that’s not what I meant by putting yourself out there )

Uh, so since a lot of people I know use livejournal, I got an account to make comments, and it’s been sitting empty with a link that points to my personal blog/website…

But hey, if you can have your cake and eat it, right? I’m trying out a plugin that will crosspost from my wordpress-based site right into LJ. What I don’t know is whether comments will also cross-post - I suspect not, but we’ll have to see

So, let’s see if this works [ pushes big red shiny button ]

–edit

Works nicely

Editing, as you can see, auto-updates both entries (I wonder if editing old entries will put them into livejournal? - AWESOME, it does )

Commenting works by redirecting to yamahito.net - well, that’s not perfect for the LJers, but works well for me.

I seem to have bought an SLR film body…

Want a picture? Course you do:

Looks in fantastic nick, and looking at reviews, the price is a bargain. Of course, it’s an el cheapo body, but I’m OK with that: it’ll fit the lenses I have, and at the end of a day everything else in a camera is a fancy box. I’m fairly familiar with a lot of its shortcomings, as my el cheapo digital body (a 350D) has a number of them in common.

I was initially a bit wary that I wouldn’t be able to play about (as easily) in photoshop, which I enjoy and was really the reason I first got into photography, but having a second body can’t be a bad thing, and restrictions in photography often end up forcing you to overcompensate, and create some special shots. Plus it can do multiple exposures, and that’s something I quite fancy playing with.

We’ll see when it arrives next week!

Check out the Cardiff/Glasgow Photomarathon

What a fantastic idea! I think this would make a great drive-by-shooting day: unfortunately it’s not free.

£10 before May day
£15 after

Plus I need to find a 35mm film body for my lenses… or I could borrow one of St3f’s pentax ones I guess.

Anyway, I hope I can persuade some of you guys to come along!

Ballmer must go?

I have my doubts about any article which starts with a joke likening Microsoft to a country yokel and then proceeds, in the next paragraph, to deny that it’s ‘Microsoft knocking copy’

However, I have more serious doubts about a man who loses control of his emotions to the point where he throws chairs around. I’ve done that, but I was eight at the time.

Maybe they have a point?

just don’t strain yourself

The possible health drawbacks of owning a wii are pointed out above… I mean, it’s all a bit obvious, though, isn’t it? The risks are exactly the same as playing any exertive sport, plus a few from playing any console game on a TV.

Also, the article doesn’t seem to understand the difference between the Wii, and Wii sports, the free game that comes with the wii.

Still, it’s probably important to do more warm-up and stretching exercises. Personally, I’d see this as an opportunity if I worked in Nintendo: a warm-up channel would be a pretty simple addition to download to the wii itself, and a great PR exercise.

I mass-emailed this a while ago, but in case I missed anyone:

Drive By Shooting

My mate Stef (hi St3f) and I do this thing, occasionally with some other people, that we call Drive-By-Shooting.

The idea is pretty simple: it’s an excuse for those of us who don’t make enough time to go out and take photos, as well as a chance to share knowledge and ideas between some of you awesome photographers (hi st3f) and us talentless amateurs (hi me).

We’ve done a few shoots when I was living in Oxford, mainly location based, often just the two of us, but sometimes joined by a few others. Now that I’m settled (kinda) in Cardiff, I’m hoping that I can persuade a few more people to join in.

Anyone’s welcome to organise a drive-by anywhere in the country(ies) that you can persuade 1+ people to come along to. Currently I’m thinking of doing some beach photography on the Gower at some point in May…

If anyone’s interested, please let me know (either about joining in with the drive-by events, or in the May event). It’s supposed to be free and friendly, so anyone’s welcome, just bring a camera (or beg one off one of us)

I’m having problems today with a server that keeps on downloading corrupt service pack installers for Windows 2003. Not just service packs, either, but most compressed installers, particularly from Microsoft.

The problem I’m having isn’t Microsoft’s fault (I don’t think anyway - yet to get to the bottom of the cause), but their download center doesn’t make it any easier.

It’s all Http. There’s no mechanism for checksum or error checking that I can find. edit — other than tcp/ip itself, of course

I know it’s easy to blame all sorts of things on Microsoft because they’re large and successful. Very often they don’t get the reputation they deserve for what they have acheived, even from those of us who believe their ethos is somewhat flawed. Still, I can’t help but feel this is a bit… unprofessional from a software provider. Particularly one who charges for most of their products.

end rant.

I’m beginning to get obsessive about stationery.

I really like pilot V5 pens - but they’re expensive. I’m sure they don’t have to be.

The other week a student left this great pen in our office - comfortable to write (with a sensible triangular grip), nice thin clear lines, and looks cheap as chips.

I can find no reference anywhere on the (non-chinese) internet to the existence of this pen, despite knowing the name, manufacturer and model number. Shame, I could see myself buying four bulk packs in different colours…