A few weeks ago I was passing through London and thought I’d take the opportunity to visit the flagship Leica store of the UK - London Mayfair. If you’ve played Monopoly, you’ll know this is the expensive part of town! It was quite the store. Display cabinets with all the cameras and lenses - M, SL, Q. There was a gallery and various display cabinets. I could’ve spent hours there, but unfortunately I only had about 20 minutes between trains.
The Queen is travelling from Balmoral Castle to Edinburgh, and goes along the main road that’s a 10 minute walk from our house. Couldn’t really be easier to go. There were, unsurprisingly, a lot of people. There were also a lot of police stationed every 100 metres or so just to keep people on the pavements. The road wasn’t closed the whole time, and so people were still trying to drive around but it would’ve been a nightmare.
I was going to call this a review but it’s not that official. Kosmo Foto Mono is a 100-ISO panchromatic black-and-white film. I think I bought it as I liked the box design more than any meticulous research that I undertook. I think it’s made by Fomapan, but I think it’s quite different to the Fomapan line. They suggest you can pull it to 50 and push it to 400, which I think is unusal for a panchromatic film.
My Leica M2 was made in 1962, according to the serial number, and it works just as well today as it did when it was first made. It’s my most favourite camera. I love the rangefinder focusing, and the feel and quality of it are outstanding. With a little care and maintenance this camera will last me another 60 years and beyond. My grandfather was a keen photographer and took many photos in his life.
I like big oranges. Navel or winter or Jaffa or whatever they’re called at various points of the year. They’re always big. Bigger than clementines or satsumas (what is the difference?) or other citrus fruit of that colour but which are smaller. They’re satisfying to eat, they fill you up somewhat, generally juicy, and a good size. They can be a pudding or a snack and you’re not looking around for another or something else.
I’ve looked at them a few times over the years but never bought one. They are pretty expensive - I guess from import duties etc. from Japan - and, you know, it’s just a notebook. However, I saw that the 2H 2022 ones were up for pre-order at a local online store and so I went for it. Being half the year means that it was maybe half the price.
Whilst I’d love to get a Leica Q2 or even a GRIII, they’re quite expensive (quite being the understatement on the Q2). I’m interested in getting a compact camera to just take anywhere without it being a big deal. My Fuji isn’t huge but it’s not something that fits in the pocket or near enough. These last two statements don’t really support the Q2 whatsoever - it’s not that compact and given its price, it’ll always be a big deal - but I still want one.
As much as I love computers, it does turn out that you can have too many. A while back I decided that we needed another computer in the office for when two people wanted to use a computer at the same time. Sounds logically right? I managed to pick up a good deal on a Mac Mini. It was a 2012 model but top spec and still very performant today. The only bad thing is that it’s stuck on an older version of macOS.
It’s been a long time since I last built a new keyboard. I think it was Christmas time 2018 when I bought the Iris keyboard as the store had a sale on. Funnily enough that was a split keyboard. I keep meaning to write up a post about all my mechanical keyboards (there’s been quite a few over the past nine years) and I’d enjoy going back and remembering what I had.
If you visit the Fujifilm House of Photography in London, somewhere on the walls you’ll find a photograph that I took. Afraid it’s been taken down now, and lives at home with me! I had some friends who were keen to go astrophotography shooting and invited me along one evening. We drove out to the mountains and tried several places to take pictures. Prior to going I’d done a little research into how you actually take photos of the sky at night.
A while back I decided I needed (yes, needed) another laptop. I do have a Thinkpad T450s already but my daughter has pretty much taken it completely and uses it for school work. So I went on the hunt for a new one. I wanted it to have USB-C so that I could use my existing dock and setup at home that I have from working at home with my work laptop.
For my Meditations Tiddlywiki, I wanted to make each statement an individual tiddler. Whilst it doesn’t add a great deal to the site right now (beyond just viewing the minimum amount, the random tiddler button, and following the tiddlywiki mantra), I think it’ll be useful later on. Over time I’d like to add my own thoughts or interpretations to them, or maybe categorise favourite ones with new tags. Plus they might be useful for other people who can export tiddlers or download the file.
There are quite a few blogs that show you how to do Monte Carlo simulations using python. A very accessible one is from Practical Business Python. Always a great site for python in the workplace for non-devs. However, I couldn’t find one that did just what I wanted, namely, take a model I’d already built in Excel and then apply some randomness and plot the S-curve (cumulative distribution function). Maybe if I’d searched more I’d find one but instead I just got on with it.
Yes, I'm very fond of tea. Like all favourites the real favourite always depends. It depends on the intent, at least for me. I suppose you could do a “of all time” or “best overall” style favourite. I think a common distinction is form over function. There are a lot of things that look great but are practically useless, even if - like a teapot - they should be used, they still may remain annoying.
⚠️ This guide is considerably old. However, the concept will still work but likely the configuration is now different. ::: My version of getting started with beancount. Introduction The aim of this post is to walk you through my setup of how I manage my personal finances. I’ve read similar posts like these and found them useful to get ideas about what to do myself. Hopefully in turn, by presenting my setup it’ll give you some ideas too.
A blog by Alex Johnstone.