Back to England

One of my purchases was a set of illuminated clothes pegs for hanging up photos. They seem to work

We had to come home today. Back to England. Nothing like going abroad to give you a perspective on where you live. England is a bit like France. But in black and white. Or should that be grey and white. Everything looks smaller, meaner, unhappier and less well cared for. It wasn’t always like this, but over the last few years we’ve been managed by people who are more concerned with meaningless ideological stupidity than making sure that the place (and the people) are looked after properly. Oh well. Hopefully things will change soon.

Flea Market Time

It was never explained why there is a flying saucer in the middle of the market

Another must visit place for us was the Paris Flea Market. Although of course we never saw anyone selling fleas. There was a lot of very interesting stuff though. From very high end custom made furniture all the way to jumble sale junk. In between you can find records, video games, photographs, toys, and mountains of stuff. We didn’t spot any bargains, but we did find a really good camera shop. And had a really splendid lunch (one of many we’ve enjoyed on this trip).

A quick guide to the French language

1. People really like it if you start with a “Bonjour”, rather than diving straight into what you want. And while they can probably speak pretty good English, trying some French is a good idea. I can know a bit of French, but I must be careful that I don’t use all of it at once when opening the conversation: “Bonjour, je m’appelle Rob. Je avec les yeux blu and est tres tall. Je’aime l’ordinator…”

2. For best results when asking for things, put a specific number in front of what you want. Rather saying “Can I have a coffee, and orange juice and a water” you should say “One coffee, one orange juice and so on.” The French for one is “un”. This makes it sound like you’re asking for the reverse of what you want – “Can I have un-coffee, un-orange juice and so on” but it does work a lot better.

3. Do not, not, not think that anyone will understand you better if you speak in a French accent and wave your arms about a lot.

Paris shopping and stuff

I’d been looking forward to going to Antiq-photo since we arrived in Paris. They have a huge selection of old cameras and stuff and their shop is as much museum as saleroom. Today was the day that we headed in their direction. Of course they were shut. Paris tip: open hours are not necessarily open hours. Next time I go I’ll call ahead and make sure there is somebody around. Although, it probably saved me a fortune.

You could hire a little sailboat to play with on the pond

We had a great walk thorough the Jardin du Luxemburg, spent the afternoon exploring the Palais de Justice (historical note - the French Revolution was not a fun time) and made our way back to the hotel for a splendid dinner. Then, refreshed, we headed out again to the Arc de Triomphe. We got there just as the sun was setting and it was a lovely place to be.

I had to risk my life to get this picture

Then it was back to the hotel, a quick drink and then bed.

Bastille Day

Making a flypast look easy..

Bastille day is a big thing in France. It celebrates an important moment in the French revolution. there were parades and an amazing flypast. We didn’t see all of it, not having got up at some horribly early hour to get the best place to watch. But what we saw was awesome.

It’s easy to look cool from the back of a horse..

Once we’d had our fill of the parade we got on the Metro and headed to an amazing Science Museum. This is in an enormous park. There’s a planetarium and a submarine, and we saw both.

I managed to explore the submarine without banging my head. Go me.

After dinner it was time to head up to the centre of Paris again for the fireworks display. Forty years ago I managed to watch the display from the Champ de mars right next to the tower. This time we were a bit further away, but the spectacle was no less impressive.

Not bad for an iphone picture..

I didn’t think that you could make a firework display last half an hour, but they managed it. And it was all wonderful. We were on Pont Neuf, one of the bridges over the Seine. We had a great view of the top of the tower. Any closer and it would have been much harder to see. After the display we wandered back to the Metro station and were back at the hotel in twenty five minutes. Great stuff.

Japan Expo

I have no idea who these people are

I’ve been to a few Comicon exhibitions in Birmingham. They are great fun. The Japan Expo in Paris is like Comicon but bigger. Much bigger. It was so big that it was much more fun to be at. Comicon at the NEC in Birmingham is nice, but later in the day it seems to “fill up” so that there is no room around the stalls and you can’t find anywhere to sit once you’ve bought a drink. Japan Expo is much bigger but the space available is enormous. Things got busy but nothing seemed to completely clog up. Also (and this is a tip for the NEC folks) the bins were kept empty and the toilets were always clean, which adds a lot. We bought a few bits and bobs and had a whale of a time. I really, and I mean really, want to go back next year if they have another one.

A guide to Paris waiters:

1. They are amazing. Fast moving, polite and they never write anything down.

2. They may have lots of tattoos. But usually only on one arm. This is so that they can stand sideways at the entrance to the restaurant and wave at you to come in without looking too scary.

3. They will always try to carry one more plate than you think is possible. And they will succeed.

4. They make everything a performance. In England you are usually given your knife, fork, and napkin as one rolled package that you have to unpick yourself. In France each item will be individually positioned in front of you. We had to try very hard not to say “merci” for each item of cutlery as it was laid down with a flourish. Drinks are served in a similarly complicated manner.

5. Whatever you choose from the menu tends to be their favourite too, which is lovely.

Popping to the Louvre

It gets a whole wall to itself..

Who’d want to have their art displayed in the galleries that are on the path to the Mona Lisa? Nobody, that’s who. Everyone zooms past just looking for the next sign to tell them the way to the most over-hyped piece of art in the world. We took a look (well – it is a thing) but we also gave other works on the way a look too. There was some lovely stuff on display. Pro Louvre tip: look up. The ceilings are incredible.

And to think that we just put two coats of White Silk emulsion on ours…

We didn’t see it all of course. Nobody could in one day. Or even a week. I’ve no idea how they keep track of all the stuff they’ve got. We took a peek at the “Venus de Milo” because it’s another must-see item. Historical note: to make some of the more interesting sculptures the artists used a technique called “green marble” where the bits that were a bit hard to do (like a man with the legs of a horse for example) where done in green marble and then replaced with the correct figure in post-production by another sculptor.

Start of the Sphinx Grand PriX

The Louvre also contains big chunks of Napoleon’s home life, including his bedroom and dining room.

You could set at opposite ends of the table and have a talk at great length…

I can just imagine them inviting their chums around for dinner and then sitting and chatting afterwards:

Guest 1: “Where are you going for your holidays this year Napoleon?
Napoleon: “I was thinking about Russia…”
(orchestra plays a minor chord)

After the Louvre we thought we’d go on to see the other end of the art experience by heading up to the Pompidou centre. To me modern art seems a lot easier to make. It doesn’t have to look like anything (one artist hit upon the clever wheeze of making the canvas exactly the same colour as the wall behind it). I may be a bit of a philistine (said the old man) but any art that needs to be explained to me is probably not art at all. Then again, I am a sucker for bright lights and pretty colours so that was plenty to keep us occupied. And we had a coffee there which was very nice.

Not sure what it is. But I like it

On the way back home we stopped off at Chatalet Les Halls. A big shopping centre which contains a Fnac (yay!) and also a Lego store. I headed for the Lego store and the pick and mix. I made a Lego picture years ago and the white pieces have aged really badly. I was overjoyed to discover that the pick and mix had a bunch of the ones that I wanted, so I filled a bag with these. In the process I also scattered fair few around the place – which I felt rather bad about. I was really pleased until I got back to the hotel and worked out that I’d actually bought a very large number of the wrong kind of piece. Oh well, I’ll find a use for them.

To the tower!

Nice Day for it

Last time I was in Paris for a holiday was around 40 years ago. Things have changed a bit. The tower is now “fortress Eiffel”. In earlier, simpler, times you could just wander underneath the tower and find the entrances to the lifts or stairs to the top. Now there is an inevitable bag scan and a high fence all around the monument. And rather than just “going up the tower” we have the Eiffel experience. Where you go up the tower and have a plastic glass of champagne. It was very nice though.

If I’d been here a little earlier the Eiffel Tower shadow would have lined up exactly with the road….

For lunch we wandered over to the Printemps store. I’ve got very fond (and probably faulty) memories of a huge open cafeteria at the top of the store with cheap basic food and huge views. This is, of course, now also an “experience”– with prices to match. There were various different eating options (we went for pizza) and the views were as good, but I feel they’ve lost something of Paris here.

Travel tip: There are a few discount tickets for the Metro but the best value one requires you to add a photo ID to the card. You can pay 8 euros for a photo-booth, but you can also use black and white pictures that you can get from a Kiddizoom camera that you might have taken with you. This seemed to work a treat, although nobody ever actually asked to see them.

We spent a while in Fnac. It’s a lovely store. There are quite a few around Paris. They are a cross between a bookshop, game shop, camera shop, audio shop, computer shop and video shop. All very well done with keen prices. And busy too. Hopefully they can stay in business.

After lunch we had a wander back to the hotel, picking up a splendid meal on the way from one of the many restaurants they have around here. I really like Paris.

Heading to Paris

The train did get a lot more busy as we got close to London

We’re having a week away in Paris. We’ve been planning it for months. And that’s just choosing which camera to take. We’re going by train and using the tunnel. This is a bit more expensive than flying (which seems all kinds of wrong to me) but means we arrive right in the middle of Paris and the hotel is a short walk from the station. Pro tip: Hull Trains are lovely but they don’t have any on-board catering. Take any snacks you want to eat with you. The good news is that the journey is now shorter than I remember though.

Not a bad place to be

All the train connections worked, the walk the the hotel was easy and we ended up in the hotel garden sipping well deserved (we thought) beers. The fun starts tomorrow with a trip up the Eiffel Tower.

From HSB to RGB with ChatGPT

Next I need to add some style to the page

Yesterday I was building the web page used to set the colour of my remote controlled light. At first I went with three sliders to set the amount of red, green and blue (RGB) in the required colour. Then I decided that it might be use Hue, Saturation and Brightness (HSB) as a way of setting the colour. RGB is great, but if you want to change the overall brightness of a light it is a bit of a pain because you have to adjust all three sliders. This is much easier with HSB because you can adjust the brightness directly.

Adding the three new sliders to the web page was easy, but then I was faced with the problem of converting RGB to HSB and back. I wanted the display to be updated so that if you change the Hue the settings of the RGB values change to keep track. So I needed some conversion functions. I thought I’d ask ChatGPT to lend a hand. This is how I would expect the tool to be used. You’ve got a strong idea of what you want to do, experience with the tools and techniques you’re using and you just want the code.

ChatGPT was very happy to drop out JavaScript that it said would work. But it didn’t. Turns out that both Blue and Brightness begin with B. So all the single letter variables in the functions clashed with the parameters. I explained this problem and ChatGPT then dropped out some code that worked.

For me the interesting about this was that I found ChatGPT useful, but I needed to add my programming smarts to solve problems in the code that it produced. This gives me a tiny bit of hope for the future. It doesn’t look like I’m going to be completely replaced by ChatCPT. At least for now…

Ready to travel

Heading out on holiday soon. Spent ages putting cameras and lenses into a bag. Then a a few minutes lobbing clothes into a case…

MVP Renewed - with Parrot

I’ve been waiting for ages for a reason to get this…

Very pleased to be able to report that I’ve been renewed as an MVP for another year. That makes it 20 years. I’ve spent nearly a third of my life as an MVP! Thanks very much Microsoft.

I got my self a parrot kit to celebrate. As you do.

Remote Controlled Lights Working

This is the prototype light display

I’ve got the code for the remote controlled flash light just about working. It turns out to be a fairly simple matter to get a web site host running on a PICO and then get it to respond to incoming requests.

This is the interface to set the colour of the lights

I’m waiting for my super-bright led to arrive and then I’ll get the hardware built. Great fun. I’ll put all the code and designs onto GitHub when its finished.

Harrogate is wonderful

We could have done with some clouds to make the sky more interesting..

Harrogate is a wonderful place. Not just because of Bettys, or the fantastic game shop but because of the amazing park that runs alongside the town. It has everything you might want for fun, especially if you are six years and six months old (or thereabouts). There’s a zipwire, crazy golf and somewhere that sells ice creams. Plus a padding pool if you’re feeling brave and have a towel with you. We had a very happy time there today. And we’ll be back.

There are a lot of different makes of trees in this picture

Fun with a Flash Gun

Nothing like having an Auto Thyristor in your flash gun

We were out and about at Cottingham Day this weekend. I took loads of pictures using my Minox B on very old film. That didn’t end well. Which is why I have no pictures of the event at all.

While we were out I picked up this flash gun on a second hand stall. I fancied having another flash gun, particularly for two quid. Of course it doesn’t work. To be honest, I wasn’t expecting it to. These things don’t age particularly well and Cobra is not a name known for quality and longevity. In fact I until I found the flash gun I didn’t think it had anything to do with photography at all.

I’m not bothered though. I plan to take out the internals and replace them with a PICO-W to create a remote controlled light. I can use the battery compartment, reflector and even the flash zoom lens and my plan is to keep it looking as much like the original as possible.

The big grey thing is the capacitor. Need to be careful with that bit as it might have residual charge in it.

I’ve got the flashgun to pieces. Turned out to be quite easy. The main part is held together with little metal clips. The circuit boards are almost exactly the same size as PICO, which has got to mean something. Next step is to work out how to fit some lights inside.

Everyone should get a Minox Camera

The pen and the dust on the camera are there for scale….

The Minox camera is very interesting. A while back; if you were caught carrying one you were assumed to be a spy. Because you probably were. The camera model above even made an appearance in a Bond film. In “On Her Majesty’s Secret Service” James is seen using one to take clandestine shots to a background of suitably tense music. The chain attached to the camera has little lumps in it (you can see them above) which correspond to distance settings on the super sharp lens. One of the lumps is pre-set to take perfectly focused pictures of A4 documents if you hold the camera that distance from the page. However, you can also use the camera to take pictures of less secret things and they come out surprisingly well. I’ve just added a Minox to my camera collection because I’ve always fancied one and I look great in a tuxedo.

Minox cameras first appeared in the 1930s and continued to be made up until just after the turn of the century. The Minox B (the one above) has a mechanical shutter and a little light meter you can use to set the exposure. Later ones had battery powered meters and shutters. It might look a very exclusive and expensive thing, but you can pick the cameras up quite cheaply because they were made over many years and there are lots about. Taking pictures is fun, you open and close the camera to wind the film on, and the shutter makes a very satisfying whirring sound when you press the tiny release button.

The camera takes tiny pictures onto film loaded into a cartridge that fits inside. My camera came with a roll of 20 year old film which I took out on Sunday to take some shots. Every single one came out completely black, which I hope is a comment on the age of the film and not on the camera or my technique. To process the pictures I printed a spiral film holder for use in my developing tank at home.

I also printed a piece of “test film” that I could use to practice loading the spiral

Minox film isn’t made any more. But there are folks out there who are refilling cartridges and selling them. I’ve ordered a bunch of films from here. They also do processing and scanning if you just want to live out your spy dreams and not spend any time in the darkroom.

I really like the camera. I find the whole design ethic and the way it is used very pleasing. You get the impression that the designer (a chap with the wonderful name of Walter Zapp) thought extremely hard about the best way of doing everything when he set out to make it. I know that the pictures it makes will not be super high quality (even when I manage to get some that come out) and I’ll have to set the exposure and focus myself. But that adds to the appeal to me. The shots will be plenty good enough for small prints and screen viewing. There is a huge range of accessories available, including an awesome home developing tank and a lovely little tripod.

If you like owning devices that are just nice to have around, actually do something and have a properly interesting history you should try to find a way to get yourself a Minox. If you shop around it won’t cost you much more than a triple A video game and I think you’ll find it very pleasing. One tip if you do decide to splash out: the selenium light meters in the B model degrade, particularly if the camera has spent a lot of time in the light. So if you are making a purchase you should make sure that you have a working one.

Blue Chord Keyboard now in Hackspace Magazine

If you use both left handed and right handed keyboards at the same time you can channel your inner Rick Wakeman….

Issue 68 of HackSpace magazine is now out. On page 70 you can find my article that tells you how to create a Bluetooth connected chord keyboard using a PICO-W. There are lots of other great articles too. Well worth a read.

3D Printing Rule 0

This is the most important rule for anyone with a 3D printer.

Never start to think of your 3D printer as an appliance.

My printer has been behaving very well of late. So well that I’ve started thinking it is something I can switch on and it will just work. Silly me. This morning I started a print and it promptly embedded the print head in the bed - necessitating a bunch of re-alignment and fiddling to get it back working again. Lesson learned.

Friendly Calculator...

I’ve forgotten how to turn it into a proper calculator…

While I was clearing a path for the plumber in our untidy garage I came across the above. I used to keep it in my office at work, in case anyone ever asked if I had a calculator they could borrow. It looks completely normal until you try to use it to do sums, at which point it displays one of a range of different insults. Snag is that in the days of spreadsheets and smartphones nobody ever asked to use it..

Too big to post

I’m selling stuff on eBay to fund my camera habit. The rule is that if I haven’t touched the device for a year it is fair game for sale. I guess the same rule will kick in when I’ve had the cameras I’m buying for a year or so……

Somebody has bought one of my music machines. So I carefully packed the device up in a box, stuck the labels on it and headed for the Post Office. To be told the box was too big for the service I wanted to use. The limit is 60cm. My box was 61. So, anyone out and about in our neighbourhood this lunchtime will have seen a tall, cross chap walking around with a large parcel muttering under his breath.

Of course, like most of my problems, it’s all down to my laziness. Rather than make the box fit the size of the thing being posted I instead used one which was too big and filled the space with packing material. I called this the “Amazon approach”. And laziness part 2 - not checking the maximum package size - guaranteed that I was going to be making multiple trips to the Post Office.

The solution was brutal and quick. I hacked the end off the box, cut out a chunk of cardboard and stuck it back on again. Size now down to 56cm. The box is now on its way, and I’ve got enough to pay for the cameras I shouldn’t have bought…..

Boiler Fixed

The boiler is fixed. Wahay! Hot showers all round. The plumber came round and discovered a blockage in a drain pipe. The fix was a lot cheaper than I expected. So I’ve bought another camera to celebrate…..