I’m currently on holiday in Russia. I wrote this post last Saturday night and made my bloggy software not display it until today (Monday).
If my plane crashed and I died then this post will be a bit disconcerting. I probably went to hell, but don’t worry: all my friends will be here one day. Could someone please feed the cats.
I’ve got a couple of camera bags. They are the best bags I could find and came at rather a hefty price. It seems most of that money went on the manufacture of little rubber logo adornments positioned at every possible viewing angle. The same goes for my camera which has the manufacturer’s logo on the lens cap, on the body above the lens and in big yellow lettering on the strap. This is bad enough for someone wishing to avoid a violent mugging but to a hateful anti-corporate slob (such as I), this is just intolerable. I purchase stuff because it’s good for what I want, not because I need strangers to know I’ve got money to spend.
Cutting the logos off is not always a good answer. I can’t cut the metal embossed logos off my camera. I could cut the embossed rubber ones off my bags, but risk damaging the bag. The best solution I’ve found is simple and can be expressed in 3 steps.
Purchase little tin of thick non-water-based paint. I bought some hammer-style paint. It needs to be thick enough to fill embossed logos. In my case, the paint is black, as my camera and bags are black.
Apply paint over logos. More than one coat may be necessary if the embossing is deep. Wait a few hours in between coats.
No more logos. You are now less of a twat.
It works fine on fabric logos too as you only need to apply a thin layer, so it doesn’t harden solid and crack. Dab it on like you’re a kid in art class with a sponge.
Of course, the best solution is not to buy things with logos on, but you’ll find this difficult. And some logo-obsessed companies make (comparatively) good products. Or just make your own camera bag. Or don’t buy a camera in the first place, just remember what stuff looks like. Or learn to draw.
UPDATE: It obviously also works well on trainers. Ask adbusters.
We set off to Russia on Monday so expect lots of new photography uploads when I get back (though I already have a big backlog).
Throughout his politcal career Robin Cook repeatedly attacked the opposition for their inhumane foreign policy, yet perpertrated the same crimes the moment his party took power. He has an about turn at the last minute, resigning over the illegal war in Iraq, then dies and suddenly he’s remembered as an angel of integrity. The guy was no better than the rest of them: catering to power and profit at the expense of human rights and lives.
I’ve now licensed the text of this blog under a Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivs 2.5 License. This means everyone is free to copy, distribute and display it but they must attribute it to me. They can even make commercial use of the work.
They can’t alter or transform any of it though. It is mostly just my opinions anyway, I don’t think it would be useful for people to change what I think willy-nilly (they should at least have to invest in a large network of propaganda devices to do this (Hi Tony))
All of my photography is now licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 2.5 License, which means anyone can pretty much do what they like with it, but they much attribute it to me.
My explanations of these licenses are just a rough summary, they are not legally binding in any way. Follow the links for a more complete summary, and from there the full legal crap.
You can read more about free culture at the Creative Commons website. You can even use the nice wizard thing to choose which license you want.
I went along to the Leeds Unity Day in Hyde Park on Saturday. It looked as if it wasn’t worth leaving the house as it had been raining all day, but it stopped around 1700hrs and the clouds dispersed and the sun came out. We were only there for an hour or so but I managed to snap a few photos. The light wasn’t ideal so they weren’t so great, but I managed to salvage a few with a good bit of post-processing using The Gimp.
As usual I’ve made them available in my photography folder.
I also submitted some smaller versions to IndyMedia.
At around 0350 this (Sunday) morning I half awoke to a very strange sound. It was loud and sounded to be coming from out on the street. I looked at the clock and misread it as 3150, so assumed I was having a lucid dream. Louisa woke too and I mentioned the dream noise, and she told me she heard it too, so I decided that I was definitely awake. At this point, the sound repeated itself. It was an metallicy almost alien noise. I don’t think I’ve ever heard anything like it. It was ungodly. It sounded perhaps like 5 road sweepers with metal brushes driving close to a row of parked cars. Or the Terminator having rough sex with a robotic pig. It repeated a few times, sounding very much like the source of it was moving around the estate, away from us.
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On my way over to the park near where I work this lunchtime, I noticed something dart into the bushes. Stopping to look I noticed it was a mouse. Another mouse a few feet down was less self-concious and was gnawing on a nut or something. So I crouched down to watch. Living with four cats it’s rare to crouch down next to a mouse that hasn’t had all its limbs chewed off and its intestines spread around.
It was at this point, with me crouched next to the bushes close to the entrance at work, that my boss, and his boss, and some important visitors walked by. They later told me they just explained I did stuff with Linux security and the visitors understood completely.
They asked me later what I was up to, but I was worried that if I told them that they’d assume we had an infestation and call some professional rodent murders (as apposed to hobbyist rodent murders like our cats) so I lied. I told them I was checking for child wireless network hackers.
We put down pringle can traps.
I always thought my first computer was a Texas Instruments TI99 computer (cassette *and* cartridge loaded). It was with that I learnt how to code basic when I was 7 or 8 or something. Well after seeing The Journey Robot I realized that BigTrak was actually my first computer.
You could program BigTrak with up to 16 instructions before setting it off, and it would execute them. Say forward for 5 seconds, turn, forward for 10 seconds, fire phasers etc. (or something like that, I don’t remember it fully). I’d love to play with it again, but they are rather rare now I hear.
We saw Half Man Half Biscuit last night at the Cockpit in Leeds. Great stuff. It’s wonderful to hear NON-American cultural references that I don’t understand for a change. Incomplete unordered set list follows:
And as Louisa said, I too liked that their stage “costumes” looked like they had all been bought at Matalan.
We’re back from our weekend in Dumfries and Galloway, Scotland. It wasn’t very sunny until today, but it was warm and at least it didn’t rain. I took some photos, which I’ll share soon in a gallery. For now here is a few selections in the form of a photo blog. Just to clarify though, Scotland is not home to a large Meerkat and Macaw population. As far as we could see, they do not roam the small towns and villiages digging holes and chirping “hello”s respectively. There are just nice photos I took at Galloway wildlife park in Kirkcudbright.
Also, I purchased a new extreme wide angle lens (fish eye). You’ve probably seen them used to take photos of skateboarders and, um, perhaps rollerbladers. I plan to use it to do more interesting things, mainly as I don’t know any skateboarders. As a first start I present to you the following sample shot taken in Scotland.