On Digital Cameras

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I’ve Been on the look out for a better camera to replace my Olympus TG-3 with it’s small sensor and in confession, rather frustratingly excessively heavy noise reduction (that you can’t disable)… something that is weather proof, can fit in my pocket, has a 1 inch sensor, acceptable low light performance, and has zoom.

After much searching, the conclusion that I’ve come to is that in the digital compact point and shoot camera market has almost completely stalled. Neither Olympus, Sony, Panasonic haven’t updated their Waterproof Camera line for something like 2-3 years, with the actual hardware itself hardly having shifted for the last perhaps five years (later models it seems simply predominantly had firmware updates and then sold as a new camera)

It appears Smart phones are eating up the space that was formerly occupied by compact point and shoot cameras.  The problem this presents is that the middle ground between commoners who simply take photos for social media and more professional consumers is sorely uncatered for.

  • Phone Cameras I feel are still lacking in the image quality department, while the likes of Samsung have done quite well, the others haven’t done so well. Additionally, They still lack optical zoom.
  • I’ve tried lugging around a DSLR, it just doesn’t work (for me), the case is too large and is always bouncing around against my body.
  • At the same time, the water proof compacts (the segment I’m looking at) seem to still be bundled with small sensors (unchanged from 5 years ago), rather over aggressive noise reduction you can’t turn off, and pictures that look all smudge except in the brightest of sunny days… Zoom in to this example here – and you will see what I mean

At the moment, In the absence of anything more suited to my present situation, will retain the TG-3, however, the camera is now well over 2 years old, has taken the best part of perhaps 30,000 snaps, and is already faulting out (Unable to Focus until power cycled / Crashes) on an increasingly regular basis, so am keen to find a possible replacement soon before it finally gives up the ghost completely.

On Digital Cameras

Intel HD Graphics IGFX Display driver crashes

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In my latest grief with my ASUS N550JV Laptop… Upon returning back home from my tramping (hiking) trip, I received “Display driver igfx stopped responding and has successfully recovered” (Event ID 4101) Over and over and over and over and over while trying to upload the photos from the aforementioned trip to my website.

“Display driver igfx stopped responding and has successfully recovered” Over and over and over ad Nauseum

Yes, the ASUS N550JV was giving me grief yet again. Though thankfully I think I’ve finally nailed this at least for the time being. In the end, it involved several hours of trying out many different drivers off of the Intel website and then testing whether or not the issue went away.

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Intel HD Graphics IGFX Display driver crashes

Urban Exploration Politicking

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There was talk of doing a Kaimai Ranges walk around Karangahake between a group of friends. The plan kind of then evolved to discussing doing Te Aroha Loop, Some discussions of Tui Mine and doing the tunnels there included.

I do a search about Tui Mines and end up at a thread on Game Planet Forums, then go searching for Tui Mines on Youtube… which then leads me to viewing some Urbex videos, where I then end up watching a YouTube video discussing “UrBex NZ” Q&A…

I then discover the video is laced with unusually abusive comments and a rather unusually high thumb down rating for a what appeared to be a fairly orderly video.

After more mindless surfing, it appears there are in effect two different Urban Exploration groups “Urbex Central” and “Urbex NZ” with the later being run by a guy named Nathan Harpur. The two have quite DIfferent ideologies… One is “Take only photos and leave only foot prints” and the other group appear to have openly admitted to tagging the places they visit (Urbex NZ). This I would see naturally concerns Urbex Central as potentially getting all UbEx’ers being tarred with the same tagger brush.

Now I at least know what’s happening, but blooming hell, Initially, these petty squabbles had completely no context to an outsider, or curious Joe public like myself (until I investigated).

Anyway, I don’t think I’m thrill seeking enough to do the sort of things they do. Will leave it to Urbexers to record and post videos of their visits. From there, will watch in the relative comfort of my chair.

Urban Exploration Politicking

Short Saint Heliers Walking loop

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21st December 2016 – Photos from a nice and easy short little walk around St Heliers with the Auckland Hiking Meetup Group Wednesday walks series. Hosted and led by Ruth Donde whom gave excellent commentary on the history of the area throughout.  Walk concluded with an excellent public performance by the Auckland City Brass

Archilles Point, Looking back towards the CBD
Announcing a brief Historical overview about the area
Looking out towards Rangitoto Island from Archilles Point
Churchill Park
Churchill Park
Totem Poles at Archilles Point
Pop up Orchestra – Auckland City Brass
Pop up Orchestra – Auckland City Brass
Short Saint Heliers Walking loop

Nice Views of Solid Gray Scenery Ahoy

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Update 4th January 2017 – Happy to announce that the “mega rage face” status can now be retracted. The weather on the trip turned out to be kind enough to open up a few hours after arriving at Okaka hut, rewarding our climb with views including a spectacular sunset on top of Humpridge Track.  Thankfully the Computer modeled weather forecasts did not eventuate in their entirety!

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Yargh… Earlier in the week, saw the Tuesday 27th forecast appear around the corner and thought hopefully that it will go away.  Looking again today and much to my chagrin, I get presented with this…

It would be perhaps fair to remark “It probably doesn’t get much worse than this”.  (if weather conditions got worse, the operator would likely cancel the trip, refund us the monies and we go on our merry way to do something else)

Will pack my blue raincoat (the Swazi one) which seems to have an interesting ability to repel Rainy weather /s (as well as the regular poncho)

Rain itself I don’t mind (being rain falling on me), but simply going down there and climbing up 900m to simply see solid white / grey will likely drive me silently bonkers as it did when I did Waikaremoana and walked up the bluff only to see Stark White.

Yeah, If weather turns out to be shite and all I get is solid gray to see, I fully intend to go back down again at some later date (i.e before Christmas next year) and take up the chopper option up to the top, walk down and and do the River to Lake Jet boat (if they offer that activity combination as an option).

I’ve already forfeited my Farm Stay / Hunting Trip invite (from another circle of good friends) to attend the Humpty walk and it would be extremely disrespectful to fellow group companions to pull out. Here’s hoping that the computer modeled forecasts are wrong.

Nice Views of Solid Gray Scenery Ahoy

Site Photobox

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Finally bit the bullet and replaced the Jetpack Photo Carousel on both peak.nz and nui.nz with the one from dFactory.  The dFactory one after a little bit of testing offers a number of advantages …

  • More Mobile Friendly.  Pictures can be made to display at Maximum Screen extents, better utilizing the real estate of a small screen.  The older carousel had some challenges where by the picture would appear very small.
  • Support for zooming in on both Mobile Devices and Desktop.  Users Can now pinch zoom natively. (Using one of their pay plugins)
  • Browser Back Button behaviour is more intuitive.  In the old Carousel, once you finished sliding through all the pictures, closed the carousel light box, and hit the back button (to go back to the front page / album listing), it would instead relaunch the carousel and show you the last picture.  Continue hitting the back button, it would go back through the photos you had just viewed (in reverse).  The dFactory lightbox eliminates this (at least on most browsers I’ve tested this plugin with)

So far, everything appears to be working pretty well. Will probably deactivate and remove jetpack in due course. Jetpack (as a whole) is good for certain sites, though probably too fully featured and some components of it too heavy for personal homepages like this one, I feel.

Site Photobox

Tarawera Terrace St Heliers

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Tarawera Terrace, St Heliers, joint (clan) acquisition. Pictures before it gets lived in. Much of my liquidity is now gone. Undoubtedly we’ve bought at the top of the market.

House
“A glimpse of the sea”
Kitchen
Unusual Curtain Rail
Interesting looking lights
One of the bathrooms
Exterior of the house
Kitchen

Semi related posts…

 

Tarawera Terrace St Heliers

Generalizations

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Tony Alexander, while a well respected and highly regarded Auckland housing market commentator (and perhaps champion of) in his 1st December 2016 Weekly Overview does not speak for me individually in this regard…

Young people probably don’t want space for three chainsaws. They have grown up amusing themselves indoors with technology and its progression rather than seeking open spaces and adventures outdoors which physically and spatially challenge them. They have looked down their noses at outside work and hut building and seem to want an adult life quite different from what earlier generations aspired to. Older people bemoan the lack of new houses with big sections. Young people and probably most immigrants instead want something low maintenance and handy to transport routes. If that means small then so be it. Creation of lots of tightly packed small houses/townhouses does not imply the societal dystopia many older people fear. Get with the times.

I regularly get cheek for my rather slow adoption of new consumer technology, despite working as a computer geek as a day job. Will admit, that I now finally have a Faceborg account (going on 1½ months)… After much shirt tail tugging and escalating annoyance at me from friends at my lack there of.

As an aside. Noticed that the Weekly Overview it self seems has perhaps gone from reasonable and broad economic commentary to predominantly commentary focusing on Auckland’s housing market and dare I say, Bubble denial (I sense a possibly dangerous level of over confidence based on how his columns are worded), with economics merely becoming a side snippet. Not really my cup of tea I have to admit (have decided to unsubscribe). If he gets back to a more broad based economic commentary, will decide to resubscribe then and there.

Generalizations

Gills Scenic Reserve

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A little, very short stroll around GIlls Scenic Reserve in Albany.  Pics uploaded to nui.nz

Started from the Lower end of the reserve at GIlls Road entrance and did a figure eight type of loop. There’s a possibility to enter the park at the Carol Lee Place end instead though car park when I walked past seemed to be full, however for some strange reason, I didn’t encounter anyone else in the reserve while I was there.

Apparently there’s some board walk section to this reserve, however, didn’t manage to find it.

Gills Scenic Reserve
Gills Scenic Reservie

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Gills Scenic Reserve

Domain History

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History of these domain names (being both peak.nz and nui.nz) is that they were acquired for a personal project to create an online space (Forum, private social network, or other web CMS) for organizing outings and events informally and casually between a small group of friends away from relying on Centralized and Commercialized Networks such as Facebook and Meetup

Part of the prescription was that this new “space” had to be accessible via Mobile, the domain names needed to be easily typed in to a mobile device and in this case, shorter the better. Appears with the .nz domains names not being as recognisable or respected as the .co.nz ones, both of the aforementioned domain names were freely available for registration at the time (and had been for several months after the DNC Preferential Rights of Registration period had ended),

However, the project, apart from setting up multiple props for evaluation, in effect never took off and it was at this stage, the allure of facebook was found / assessed to be nigh impossible to break for the social circle that it was intended for (the same social circle, which originally suggested creating an alternative), and I have since decided to pick up and use these domains myself for my own personal use.

Domain History

Spontaneous Pararaha Stream Day Walk

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Did a spontaneous walk along Pararaha… Heck I wasn’t actually going to go all the way, (was going to stop at the log jam then head back) but continued on anyway.  Weather conditions were showery initially while I was walking down Buck Taylor track, but later cleared up once I embarked on the Pararaha Stream (after the Pararaha Campsite)

Grippy footwear really is a must for this.    You will most probably get your feet wet.  Dry bags for your more sensitive gear (e.g. Non-Waterproof electronics) is highly advisable.

Log Jam can be a little daunting, particularly the bit where you get through past the logs and then climb up a moderately sloped rock. Thankfully the rock is fairly grippy

While it is technically possible (after the log jam) to continue directly up the stream, there are 3 (or may be 4 Points) where it may be better to scramble up the side of a cliff for those who wish to avoid a full immersion swim. The cliff routes are failry well worn in, it’s just a matter of finding them… If you find that a section of stream is deeper than chest height, then there’s most probably an alternative cliff trail somewhere.

Regarding Still Gully, (According to the map posted to Auckland Hiking Group meetup, it seems they are planning to go up this). In short, It’s easy to miss, which may not be a bad thing because it’s difficult to go up it.  There’s a small stream and lots of thick bush and according to the Topo Map, it gets quite steep.  Tried for about a 100m then gave up.  There doesn’t appear to be much to see there (except dense vegetation).  I believe you are better to continue up Pararaha stream till you get to intersection of Odins TImber Trail and then turn left on to it to Odens TImber Trail and head back to the car park from there.

Will shortly upload photos to nui.nz

Spontaneous Pararaha Stream Day Walk

Celebrity Worship and The Widening Wealth Gap

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The following appeared in NZ Herald’s letter to the editor dated 3rd November 2016

Obscene deal

Wow, this $142 million deal is great for Steven Adams and I congratulate him. I guess he will now be a contender for the Halberg Awards? No doubt there will be in a movie about him one day, too. A script writer’s dream. One of 14 children from at Rotorua to a super star in the US. Not only will this deal do wonders for basketball in this country but it will help put New Zealand on the map in USA perhaps?
Sadly, though, this deal also highlights all that is wrong in the world and especially in America. Let’s be honest and say it like it really is. Is “obscene” the right word or is “absurd” a better description? For any sports person to be paid $820,000 an hour for bouncing a basketball around a court is just ludicrous. To think the top surgeons who are saving people’s lives are getting a fraction of this is the real obscenity. Only in America.

Glen Stanton, Mairangi Bay.

To be brutally blunt, While I echo much of sentiments expressed in this letter (Except the “Only in America” bit), the scenario is perhaps only going to get more pronounced as time goes on.

It’s really our own collective / combined actions (as commoners) that ball games players are getting the figures they do. Aside from the Rags to Riches / Fooled by randomness story. The feeling I get on the street is that the majority are generally hungry for Entertainment, Distractions, Escapism and Vicarious living, while perhaps ignoring  more pressing issues affecting the world in general, and the longer term implications of our actions ultimately on ourselves as individuals in the long run.

Bread and circuses I call it.  Only this time, we’re falling head over heels to pay the entertainment elite (for lack of a better term) to perhaps distract us, and help us escape from the realities of living our otherwise meagre lives and in a perverse kind of way, further deepening the divide.  The rich get richer as a result of the majority’s demand for diversions and we get even more desperate to escape or engage in some vicarious living further entrenching and accelerating the transfer of power from the Ourselves as commoners to the few.

Have to admit, I struggle to understand the level at the public’s fascination and obsession of some Public figures, may be my Celebrity Worship brain circuitry is fried, also gone is my ability to live vicariously. The ability was there when I was young, so not sure when It went, but goes at least some way to explaining why I am having trouble understanding mass psychology and why masses do what they do at times.

I may regard highly, the abilities of a given public figure, but frankly, unable to conjure up any sort of implied relationship (faux or otherwise) with them, unless I’ve met them in person, shook hands and engaged in a conversation with the said person.  Otherwise, it’s this… I don’t know them personally and they don’t know me. Having had a cursory trawl through the Internet, it looks like there is even a test for Celebrity Worship Syndrome [PDF here] to which I confess, I’m very perplexed at the level at which this is occurring at… Have we ceased thinking?

 

Celebrity Worship and The Widening Wealth Gap

Faceborg Assimilated

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As as I said in an earlier post, I have recently had to capitulate and join Facebook (proper) amid much escalating and heated (“Angry” and “Shouty”) protestation from different, quite distinct (Separate) circle of friends and acquaintances for not being contactable via facebook.

To my friends, I just wish to say, I really appreciate having you all as friends. I really do, however on a personal level, I have difficulties with supporting a company like facebook considering their past and present behaviour and have concerns that we are collectively allowing a single for-profit minded company too much power over our lives collectively.

Anyway, as of writing this, 10 people have discovered my profile and have since “friended” me on my regular faceborg profile. if I know you and you want to try and dissuade me from leaving the faceborg collective for a 3rd time, now’s a good time to go to profile and “friend” me. (ugh, hate using the verb in that context)

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See Also…

Faceborg Assimilated