Igenlode Wordsmith

Camera card

Wed, 10 Jul 2024 16:41:27 GMT

I wiped the new SD card on my camera for the first time today (it took a worryingly long time for the camera to complete the process of deleting 700-odd pictures -- I should probably have just gone for the 'reformat' option!) So a 512Mb card lasts me for eight months' worth of photography -- I did delete a few unusable out-of-focus photos along the way but left all my other multiple attempts untouched.

The Gypsophila elegans is in full flower.

So is one rather tatty rudbeckia -- the others have yet to open fully, though they have been on the brink for a week or more. The surviving pink poppies (thinned down to only half a dozen or so in a still inadequate pot) are in bloom also -- four months from sowing, although the self-sown ones that took root in other pots are far larger and flowered much earlier! Ironically the pink poppy pot has been rather crowded out by a self-sown mesembryanthemum, which I allowed to stay and which is now far more vigorous than any of the poppies...

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Pen gone

Wed, 05 Jun 2024 22:03:00 GMT

My current (I think I am now on my second or third replacement) Parker 25 pen broke in the most unexpected way this afternoon.

I was holding it between finger and thumb on my left hand after coming in from my latest walking trip (during which I had achieved the grand total of half a sentence of Roland de Céligny in the space of about ten minutes) while I fumbled to get out and use the door-key with my other hand, and it just went weirdly wobbly. I don't think I was putting all that much pressure on it, but when I managed to get indoors and put down my bag, violin, etc. and take a proper look I found that the plastic nib unit had snapped right through at the point where it screws into the metal barrel. In fact I had some difficulty in extracting the remaining stub, which was still firmly screwed in and flush with the end of the barrel!

In forty years I've never seen a pen fail like *that* -- I'm afraid I think it must have fractured at some point when dropped on an earlier occasion (I do remember dropping it fairly recently, although it was firmly capped at the time and has always been fine when that happened before).

I still have the old nib from the previous pen, so have switched back to that for the moment (I now have quite a graveyard of barrels and caps in varying states of batteredness), but it is pretty scratchy :(

( Camera battery )

( Cycle computer )

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New parts: cycle computer and camera

Wed, 25 Oct 2023 18:15:29 GMT

The cycle computer had been giving extremely erratic results (speed obviously under-registering, recorded mileage about half what it should have been) for some time, despite repeated attempts on my part to reposition the transmitter unit correctly and make sure the sensor was close but not actually physically striking it in passing.

I eventually decided that the problem must be due to battery expiry in one or other of the units, and that the balance of probabilities favoured the wireless transmitter down on the front fork rather than the actual cycle computer on the handlebars, given that all the other functions on that appeared to be working. I managed to get the battery cover off again with the unit still in situ, although it's a fiddle, and was pleasantly surprised to find that the necessary small-but-not-watch batteries were available over the counter at the local hardware shop, and that replacing this battery did in fact seem to have cured the problems. (So this unit has a battery lifespan of only a year or so under relatively light use -- not great!)

( Read more... )

I have also been having a lot of trouble with my digital camera, an HP PhotoSmart R607, which was a very nice piece of equipment when it was new (circa 2004), and perfect for my needs when I first acquired it second-hand ten years or so ago. ( SD card )

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