Modern technology failing

I know I’m not a regular blogger, but was hampered by one of the two events of the week that has caused me a lot of trouble. My computer kept crashing.

This is my ‘new’ computer, which has been in use for less than a year, although I have had it for somewhat longer. This was because due to the computer’s own firmware, I was unable to install linux on it for some time (until a later version of linux had code to overcome the issue).

The ‘new’ computer had started to crash with frequency but irregularity, for no obvious reason, other than possibly the use of a lot of memory at that moment. But nothing obvious I could use as a clue.

The result of this – the forth commissioning of the ‘old’ computer. The first recommissioning (the second commissioning) was done to this, already old and second-hand computer in 2002, when it became the ‘remote’ company computer at parents house when I was looking after my late Father while my Mother was in hospital. My Father had early-stage Alzheimer’s at the time, which is why someone had to be with him all the time, and it fell to me as the unmarried child.

The next commissioning was when the main SCSI computer’s main hard disk died, in about 2008. By that time, SCSI technology and been and gone, so there was nothing available to replace the dud disk, so the by this time already aged computer had another commissioning. It was supposely retired for the third time in March last year.

But it’s been brought back into service due to the failure of the ‘new’ computer (also referred to as the atomic doorstop, which is effectively what it has been for much of its life), and while no data has been lost, the age of this venerable computer means that installing all the relivent back-ups has taken a lot of time (and is still continuing – not ‘on-going’).

The next thing to go was my ‘new’ mobile phone – 15 months old. It has a touch screen, which I found useful for one purpose only – the qwerty keyboard it could produce for writing text messages. Without the working touch-screen, as I found out, the only thing that one could do with the phone was receive a call – and not even pick up voicemail.

So, can you guess, I recommissioned my ‘old’ – previous – mobile phone. This one had died once, prompting the emergency purchase of the ‘new’ one, but with a subsequent firmware upgrade via the internet, it sprang back into life, and was kept mainly as a camera, as its camera had flash. I have discovered that flash is rather a rarity on mobile phones, yet the things I want the camera on the phone for all so often require flash.

I even have an older mobile phone than that – the one I refer to must be at least ten years old now, which I keep in the car. Its great virtue is that it can be operated from standard ‘AA’ batteries, so I keep those in the car as
well. It’s just a pain that a brilliant (in more than on sense of the word) LED torch, that is worn on the forehead, and has already been used for one car repair in the dark – what a godsend it proved – uses ‘AAA’ batteries!

I’ve tagged this entry with ‘dumbing-down’ really on the basis of things not being made now as good as they used to be. This, more generally, has been a major bug-bear of late, but will be the topic of another entry – as will the consequences of this year’s snowbound South of England, which will also be tagged similarly!

Digital image manipulation (1); Kodak, old negatives and LNER Mallard

The news of the Eastman Kodak ‘filing for bankrupcy’ to use the American phrase, is being played out as the death of film photography – at least for the everyday user. I’ve not put a link in here on that at present, as most of them listed on Google seem ephemeral. It is certain that most people now have digital cameras. Even I haven’t taken a film photo for at least three years, and I’ve taken far more photos since I had a camera in a mobile phone than I did before. (Sadly, that camera seems to be beginning to fail).

Before all of this, I had decided to digitise my entire photo collection. I purchased a device that takes the negatives, converts them and stores the image on a memory stick with 9MB resolution – the highest I could find (as of the time of writing). I grabbed a set of old negatives, which were of the London North Eastern Railway (LNER) engine Mallard when it ran through my home town in the mid 1980s. Of course I have family ties with the LNER, so it was a special occasion for me. It stopped at the station, I had obtained a platform ticket (remember those?), and took some photos.

Anyway, I lined up the first strip of negatives, pushed it into this image device and had a shock. The small screen showed a familiar shot – that of the plate on the side of the engine about it’s record breaking run, as shown here:

However, in viewfinder, something I’d never seen on the print; reflected in the engine’s paintwork was the face of my late father. I’m unable at present to enhance the picture sufficiently, the best I can on this computer is the following image, which at least looks like a head and open-necked shirt.

Of course, looking back at the first image shown here, there is a shadow that, knowing what I know now, I recognise, but until that moment, I had not a clue. Believe me, in the viewfinder, the reflected image is unambiguous!

So far as I know, the boiler certificate for Mallard has expired, and she currently resides in the National Railway museum at York as a static exhibit. For those who want to see the detail, I’ve separated out that plate:

This engine, with an official speed measuring truck in tow, managed to reach 126mph for just long enough to count as the world record holder. A record that still stands to this day.
—–

This is item one of this topic. One should not be surprised that I take some time to compose some blog entries, for they require a fair bit of research, for all their lack of references. One of the entries that I will make on this topic is already in a fair state of preparation, but I have to scan in images, work on them (sic) to highlight the issues I want to discuss. Another topic will be the lifetime of digital imagery, as opposed to those of negatives.

Cymbidium in bloom

The South of England is having it’s first real cold snap of this winter. Nothing like last winter, of course, I remember snow laying on the ground in November, all that we’ve had so far are a few frosts.

Such is the cost of electricity, I’m keeping a careful eye on the greenhouse. My method of one fan blowing all the time, and another that comes on just to supply heat, just to keep the greenhouse frost free seems to be working at present. The minimum temperature recorded on the bench was 1.1C, the fan heaters are beneath the bench and blow away from it. And the plants themselves don’t seem to be suffering – four different Geraniums (one still in flower, just), and three cacti (one died last summer for unknown reasons) are OK, while the Cymbidium has opened the first of its buds.

If we were in for a real cold snap like December 2010, when the average temperature for the month was -1C, I’d be putting a lot of bubble-wrap insulation in the greenhouse, but while its not to bad, and I’ve an awful lot of other ‘real’ work to do, that job is rather lower down on the ‘to-do’ list.

While I have been the sole user for the past few years, this year is really the first time for decades that I’ll actually be able to do anything serious in what is now fully and completely, no question about it, MY greenhouse. Although there is the continuing war with the Ivy to deal with, and to a rather lesser extent, bindweed (Convolvulus arvensis). The other thing to deal with are all the broken panes. Some of these breakages are due to the Ivy.

Old Rotring Pencil spotted in an unusual place.

The Waitrose chain of supermarkets has, for almost the past two years, put out a weekly newspaper called Waitrose Weekend. Recipes from Delia Smith and Heston Blumenthal were very much in evidence to start with, less so now, and other people that you have heard of (not necessarily for food) also write columns. Some pages are pointless for me, for example TV listings, and their giving an review of the omnibus of ‘The Archers’ – almost a week late – was thankfully soon dropped.

Anyway, the paper is free, so I get a copy, as occasionally there is something worthwhile in it. What I did not expect was the following picture. This picture has been scanned from the paper, at high resolution, then shrunk in an attempt to make it at least – I was about to write ‘readable’, you know what I mean, ‘visible’ does not exactly have the same meaning. So apologies for the relatively poor picture.

Illustration from Waitrose Weekend, 5th Jan 2012

What was it that caught my eye? Not the Hellibore, but a series 1 Rotring Tikky pencil (the top impliment on top of the garden plan). Even without the comparison of later models, in this picture the pencil just looks sleek, a precision tool, a detail lost in the later incarnations of this pencil. It has just occurred to me that the metal collar above the taper to the point holder may in part help give this impression, although they are all the one piece of metal. One can also argue that the angle of the taper itself helps give the precision tool impression as well.

Now this must be a stock photo from somewhere, although I could not see any credit for it, partly as it is hard to see how Waitrose would have the staff and the time to put together such photographs, and secondly, where they would get hold of what is now a relatively old, and almost unobtainable pencil, especially when more modern Rotrings (and all other makes) are readily available for a pound or two.

End of the New Year Holiday

So ‘back to work’ tomorrow. Well, I was working for a few hours today, and ruing the fact that I’d promised a despatch tomorrow, the first true working day of the year.

There has not that much been done over the holiday period, and it’s hard to know where the time has gone. Certainly some work, although never as much as I’d hope for at the start of the holiday season. Replacing a tap mechanism, and finding out that the old was leaking for the same reason the new one immediately started leaking was not good news, but was fixed by putting two washers in, one on top of the other. A better solution to be made soon (and replacing the whole tap is currently out of the question).

As well as the remote sensor system in the greenhouse, there is currently a power monitor on the circuit, I see from which the blower consumes about 20W,and when the heater comes in, the combined total is about 1080W. It’s used about 10kWh in a week, a significant amount, and it has been mild. It is worth noting that the background 20W usage equates to about 3.3kWh a week, or a cost of just under £7 a calendar quarter, but I’m sure it saves much more in that keeping the air circulating means less heat is required from the heater.

The Mercedes proved harder to get into the back yard driven forward than expected, being rather longer than Mother’s car that was the last one to be parked there. I’ve moved things around to get it in because the road is about to be dug up for utility pipe renewal, so roadside parking spaces will be at a premium for the month of January.

Pocket knives

While I have never been a Boy Scout, I do try and uphold their motto “Be Prepared”. Or perhaps in some other wordings of such an attitude to life, such as “Expect the Unexpected” (from Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy), a wording that has on occasion saved great embarassement or worse.

This is the reason for my Out Bag, and that, so far as I can remember, I have continuously carried a pocket knife since schooldays. I cannot remember what age I was regularly carring one, I assume it was school age at some point (that would not be allowed today). I’ve only lost one – and I certainly believe lost not stolen – at University. I rememeber having it, which room but a day or so later I realised it had gone, and despite quite a search (I was also leaving, so was packing up), never found it. That still irritates.

The other lost knife, another one that irritates, is the two blade Swiss Army knife I purchased for my father. I know when I last saw it, after his death, and it is one of the things that ‘disappeared’ from Mother’s house while she was
there and had carers come in to keep an eye on her.

More recently, issues such as trouser pockets not being so strong as before, the need to carry many more keys with me, needing something to cut finger nails (with growing age, my nails tend to break more easily, and hence need to be trimmed ‘on the go’). So I picked upon the standard ‘vanity’ Swiss Army (Victorinox) type. I use the word ‘vanity’ in that it is for cutting fingernails etc, as the primary function, although it was the Classic SD Mini knife. This knife lasted well, but apart from some design features, below, my tendancy of dropping my keys meant the red plastic sides – ‘scales’ – were breaking.

For a short time after that, I carried a larger Swiss Army knife, but basically it proved to be too big – much though I liked, and used, the extra blades, the corkscrew proved to be the most useful additional part.

Not so common: Victorinox (L) and Wegner 'vanity' knives

So we come to the recent knives. Having had the side plastic – ‘scales’ break, I looked for an alternative, and found a special Victorinox version of their Classic Mini with knurled alox handles. Notibly more expensive even though it had fewer features, it was the metal sides I was interested in. There was also the Wegner equivalent of the Victorinox Classic, which had the larger plastic scales, although in this case profiled for better gripping. I should note both of these knives took some time to find, they certainly were not available in high-street shops whenever I looked.

The knurled alox handle is much slimmer than the standard plastic 'scales'

For various reasons, having the knife on my keyring became a requirement, and here the two knives show their relative merits and problems.

The (in this case orange) knurled alox handles make for a much smaller physical knife, for the same size blade. But the design means that operating the knife means having the rest of the keyring attached half way down the knife – the Wegner knife has it at the other end. Due to its slim design, this particular Victorinox knife does not have the toothpick or tweezers (the Wegner does – and internally mounted, not externally as per the standard Victorinox ‘vanity’ knife with the red plastic scales).

It is interesting to look at what knives were actually issued to the Swiss Army. From the 1960s until recently, they had knurled alox handles. The most recent model has “polymer texturized non-slip inlays incorporated in the nylon grip shells” (from Wiki), but it is designed to be keyring mounted – and the keyring is at the opposite end to the opened knife!

A modern 'Soldatenmesser' Army knife - note the keyring location. (Wiki photo)

So I guess my ideal knife for this purpose would be of the general Victorinox knurled alox design. but with the Wegner keyring location, and even possibly the internally mounted tweezers like the Wegner. But (and here is the dumbing down), why did Victorinox design a knife with the keyring in such a stupid position in the first place?

While I do use the knife for the ‘vanity’ purposes that I alude to, I’ve used it to re-wire a mains plug (actually, that is an illegal act now…), cut paper, wood… But I’m not so popular now as when I had a corkscrew on the knife.

Preparing for Winter

Not for the first time in recent years, has there been a mild October and November – although I believe this year was record breaking.  A few years ago, when we were having a new roof put on the block of flats, the roofer disappeared for weeks, during that fine, mild autumn, and when he then complained about trying to finish the work in a cold wet December – he finished on 24th(!) – I pointed out the weeks of one of the best Autumns for years when he was away [doing other jobs, no doubt] – he pretended not to hear me.

Preparations this year are different and it is probably worth giving some detail as it gives an idea of the current situation chezes (sic) moi.  For I have three places to look after, still.

The Greenhouse is tricky, for the second heater appears to have developed an erratic thermostat.  Not that I thought much of the thermostat, or indeed the heater as a whole, to start with.  Using the remote sensor system, as previously blogged about, I’ve gone out late at night on more than one occasion to try and adjust the heater down, for it was holding the temperature too high.  It’s not that it really needs the heat yet (even this late in the year), but I want it working correctly for when the frost/snow does finally arrive, especially if I’m not around to fine-tune (or even, coarsely adjust) the heater.  Or get yet another heater.

As for the last two years, the old heater, just acting as a blower, is on all the time, to keep the air circulating.

If necessary, I do have a lot of bubble-wrap that I could use to make a smaller ‘greenhouse’ within the main one, and put all the valuable plants into that.

As well as moving the summer pelargoniums in last week, the Cymbidium again is in bud.  I fear that neighbours 60′ trees now overshadow the garden so much as to limit summer growth.  Unfortunately the Pleonies were killed off by the cold last winter.

This year's Cymbidium flower bud - only one so far.

One new problem is that I find I cannot reverse the Mercedes into the ‘back yard’ at Mother’s – it just will not go, and how I’ve tried.  I could get it into the garage, poking its nose out, but I’d have to clear the garage (again, it gets cleared and filled with monotonous regularity), take the doors off, and while the car’s there, not have access to anything in the car or the garage.  The reason for this is that the car needs some work to stop the rust now, before it gets serious, but it is the sort of job that could take more than a week (especially at this time of the year), as paint dried, and I cannot block neighbour’s access to his hardstanding for that long.

For the second year, I face winter with no gas central heating – a long running legal battle.  The tenants in the flat below used to be profilgate in keeping their heating on (which helped keep me warm), but I guess they’ve either moved out without telling their landlord, or else the fuel price has finally forced some economy in their living standards.  I’m really not sure which of the two it is!

Fruits of a (late) Autumn

A couple of days ago I took a late Autumn walk up a favourate hill.  In part it was a valedictory run out in my MB, which goes off the road in a couple of days while I try and get the parts to repair it, and then get an MOT for it.

The old girl recently broke down, but within walking distance of Mother’s, so it doesn’t count as a ‘leaving me in the lurch’ breakdown that my old Saab specialised in.  Luckily I had a spare MB at Mother’s to help me out.  Having finally repaired the MB by the side of the road, (who would suspect two or more spark plugs failing at the same moment?), and using parts from the other, to get it running and thus back-to-base (and there is much more to this than I report here, believe me) this was a run out before the MOT expired.  I know the work that needs doing to the old thing, I just have not had the chance to get it done this year.

Anyway, on what is one of my favourate walks, I was struck by the fluoresent pink ‘flowers’ – or rather fruit coverings – of a plant I’ve never seen before.  The upper branches were bare, the lower had a few leaves plus these ‘fruits’.

This does not look like a native plant to me.

And here is a photo of a leaf, with a rather unusual insect.

And so onto the hill.  And what I noticed most was the ‘fruit’ so often associated with the time before the first frost – Fungi.  I found one that I knew was edible – a puffball, but sadly I’ve forgotten more than many people know about identification of fungi (similarly with wild flowers) so I stare at it, knowing full well I used to know what it was, edible or poisonous etc, but not a clue now.  Oh how cruel the 50th year is.

In the walk, I was surprised as the hare that I surprised, in that I surprised it in the first place.  Humans, with mobile phones, and broadcast inane conversations (which suggested they had not a clue where they were, or did I just mishear that) annoyed me far more.

It was almost dark by the time I got back to the old car.  Too late to pick some rose hips (far too late for brambles despite a bramble flower I’d noticed up the hill).

Apple harvest 2011 (2)

Not much more time on this today – work and some of the jobs I didn’t do yesterday because I had to work yesterday.

I made a comment previously that the two bi-annual cropping apple trees were both fruiting heavily.  True, to a point.  The Adam’s Pearmain is fruiting heavily, for a year when it normally would not.  But so far I’ve got one tray picked from the tree, one tray of windfalls.  This is rather fewer than I had expected from looking at the tree, although other comments about the size of some of the fruit still stands.  5 more trays of Mutsu (in addition to the 12 gallon containers from yesterday), loads more Mutsu on the tree, but rather fewer Adam’s Pearmain still visible.  One of the unknowns has a large number of fruit, but are beginning to fall.

I’m already running out of storage for the fruit – and they are not well stored as it is now.  Let alone finding somewhere cool.

I’ve also spent a fair bit of time trying to find ways of preserving the apples to last.  Apple puree (mixed with blackberries, rosehips and/or spices for variants) would be a good idea if I had a working empty freezer, and that’s an expensive option.  Many of these puree/preserve recipes also require straining the mix at some point, another set of equipment I don’t have or the time to produce an alternative.

Crab apples are also falling at present, and I know of a few good trees.  I love crab apple jelly – although it is a pain to make because of the straining issue (above).  Why other apples don’t make a similar quality jelly I don’t know.

 

 

Apple harvest 2011

The Food Programme (BBC Radio 4) pointed out that this year is a bumper year for tree fruit.  As if I did not know, from the orchard at what was parent’s house, and which I am inheritor-presumptive (awaiting probate)

I had no chance to pick the fruit until today, when I only had half an hour, and despite the recent windy weather, most of the fruit is on the trees.  There are quite a number of windfalls.  On occasion I’ve gone out, picked up a windfall,  and baked the apple.  I made the interesting discovery that Adam’s Pearmain turns into an apple froth when baked, just as Bramley apples (‘cookers’ to those who don’t know any more) famously do.   Another (unknown) variety does not.

The photo above shows how heavily laden the Mutsu tree is.  In the half hour, I picked two tubs of 25 liquid litres (~6 gallons) just from a few branches so laden they were pickable by just standing under the tree.  I know I’ve only taken a small percentage of that tree, and there are others I’ve not yet started on.  It is ironic that father was so critical of ‘Golden Delicious’, yet it is one of the parents of Mutsu, which obviously has Japanese parentage as well, from its name.

The orchard has four apple and one pear tree surviving.  Even the pear tree cropped this year, neighbours picked 60% of the crop early – it overhangs their land, (they gave me a slice of the pudding they made from it), but the rest rotted before it was ripe.  The Pear tree was seriously ill, I thought it would die, but in the past couple of years it has slowly started to recover. Two years ago I managed to rescue one pear before it rotted – it was, as I remembered, delicious.  Variety Pitmaston Duchess.  Two other pear trees, Conference and one so long ago I now forget have died, whereas all the apples have survived.  It has just occurred to me as to whether the pear tree is self fertile (which is questionable), or if not, where the nearest pear tree is.

The apples clearly fertalise each other, for all the complexities of apple fertility (di and tri varieties).

There are two apple trees that had been in alternate bi-annual cropping, but both are heavily laden this year – Adam’s Pearmain and Mutsu (aka Crispin).  The other two are a mix.  One has Discovery plus something else unknown, the other is a different unknown.  ‘Unknown’ means that the trees are not as advertised when purchased – one was supposed to be Lord Lambourne, I forget what the other was supposed to be.  It may be that the trees are just the rootstocks, the budding having failed.  So maybe the fruit is ‘M19′ or other rootstock variety.  The Discovery was something my father and myself added (he was showing me how to do it), budding this variety onto the existing tree.

The Adam’s Pearmain is sometimes referred to as a Cider variety, although I’ve never seen it used for that.  The tree is a bud on a dwarfing rootstock from a tree at my paternal grandparents, and the story ran as follows.

They planted a tree, probably a Cox’s Orange, but it died.  The next year, there were shoots, from the rootstock.  It soon started fruiting.  My grandfather sent off some of the fruit to the RHS, who identified it as Adam’s Pearmain.  I vaguely remember the tree as being an enormous glory – shaped just as a child would draw a tree – at the bottom of grandparent’s
garden.   The house still exists, but there appears to be a factory built over where the tree used to stand (the garden is much shorter – albeit as viewed from the road).

Some of the Adam’s Pearmain this year are enormous – I cannot remember seeing these apples this large before.  The Mutsu I do remember was an enormous fruit in any case, although this year are smaller in general, I guess due to the sheer number.

One reason to pick the fruit is because the trees over hang the greenhouse these days, and I don’t need yet more broken glass to have to replace (it’s a tricky job).  But everything is in shadow at this time of year to the sycamores literally inches beyond the end of the garden, and even put the ground floor of the house (30 yards or more away) in shade during the day when the sun passes behind them.