Webcam”selfie”

Bought a Logitech C920s webcam, and I can recommend it. It has nice colours, works just “plug & play” under Linux, and here’s a “selfie” from a program called “Cheese”, in 960×720 pixel resolution (the camera is FullHD, but this is enough for me):

“Selfie” with Webcam
Logitech C920s

P.S.: here’s another one from this evening, with artificial (room) light. Not the ideal lighting, but you could work with this if needed:

Webcam”selfie” with artificial (room) light

As always, thanks for viewing.

Two photos of Wilma

Both with my camera set to black & white:

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The second before the attack, Mörfelden-Walldorf 2021
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Holding still for a second, Mörfelden-Walldorf 2021

As always, thanks for viewing. Not easy to catch that small whirlwind of a neighbours’ cat…

Dear Honda company,

please consider making an electric version of your Super Cub – and please make it less than 100kg, and with a removable battery which people could charge from within their homes. Could/Should sell a few more million motorcycles… thanks.

P.S.: for those of our readers who haven’t seen a scooter with a removable battery pack yet, look at the Spanish Silence company and its products. You can buy their S01 model rebranded as a “Seat Mó” from Seat car dealers as well.

Oh, and in Germany and some other countries (this German Wikipedia page lists the UK, Spain, Italy, France), you may ride these with your car licence plus – if you’re younger – some additional theory and practice lessons, no tests needed. See or search for EU licence regulations in class B196 if needed, or ask your local driving school.

Fuel consumption

This:

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3.9l/100km or 72.4mpg (imperial) or 60.3mpg (US)

I saw 3.8 liters on 100 kilometers a moment before, but then the petrol engine started again, probably to keep me warm, so it shows 3.9 here.

An hour after that I went to pick up Zuleikha and two of her class mates from school and had an average of 4.4 liters / 100km on that trip. With four people in the car, and part of the way going 100km/h on the country road.

Not too bad for a car, is it? Better even than my motorcycle which also takes around 4.5 liters on average…

A composite of ~ 70 photos

Six years ago I took some pictures of the moon and the stars – now here’s a composite of some. The background was made of about 50 images using a normal 25mm lens, with my camera riding piggyback on a large telescope in Darmstadt. The moon itself was composed of 21 images without using any lens, my camera was attached directly to my own 750mm telescope which I had to track manually.

I cropped and scaled this to 1920×1200 pixels to use it as a screen background or “wallpaper” on my monitor:

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The Moon and the Stars

You can download it from Flickr as well, it’s a free image. Thanks for viewing, and for reading.

New car. Used of course.

Our car needs to be repaired. This time it’s the crank shaft sensor which has to be changed, and Mitchie decided that it’s not cost-effective to keep hanging on to that vehicle any longer; it’s now well over 19 years old and needs to be repaired more frequently lately, so she wants a new one.

No, not this one which Zuleikha saw and loved in our car dealers’ shop lately:

Toyota Yaris 4th generation in “mangan bronze”

That’s almost the same they had given us last time, and about which I’ve written here already. Super car, but we wouldn’t like to spend 20k€+ on a new car right now.

So we decided to look for its last predecessor, which is the second facelift of the third generation of the Toyota Yaris line, and we’ve found a really nice one in a trim that Toyota calls the “Style Selection”. Here’s a photo taken from the dealer who had it on offer:

Toyota Yaris Hybrid Style Selection, from 2017

This one also has a 1.5l fuel engine, but a four cylinder instead of the three cylinders in the newer version. Plus, like all full hybrids, an electrical engine and a CVT – a continuous variable transmission, meaning: no gears. No clutch, no starter, alternator, no drive shaft as well. It has a combined power output of 100hp, three more than we have now, but the top speed is limited to 165km/h (more than enough in this day and age IMO). This “Style Selection” comes with two colours as you can see, and with 16 inch wheels, a bit bigger than what we have now.

The used car market is pretty empty at the moment, and it’s understandable why: people are thinking about getting full electrical cars, but most of us who live in urban areas don’t yet have the possibility to charge these at home, or on the working place. So no electrical, no plugin hybrid, but a full hybrid like this makes the most sense at the moment, and because everyone thinks that this time will pass as well, people are buying more used than new at the moment. Understandable in my opinion.

Bob from Ireland thinks the same, namely “that it makes a lot of sense” to get a car like these:

Quick review of the Toyota Yaris Hybrid 2017

He’s driving the exact same car in red & black, and with the wheel at the other side of course, but beside of that, the same.

And here’s another (bit longer and) nice presentation from a German car dealer where Josephine also talks about the differences between her own and that slightly higher specced “Style Selection” model (in German of course):

Toyota Yaris (Modelljahr 2017) – Fahrzeugvorstellung + Probefahrt | Review/Sitzprobe

I’ve driven “ours” (which is paid, but we don’t have it registered yet), and we’re very happy with what it is and what it does. I assume that we’ll get it in a few days, then I’ll report more, and have our old one repaired, maybe somewhere locally (and a bit cheaper than at an official Toyota repair shop?). Then we’ll have to see to whom this one will go…

Oh, and this “new” car doesn’t only take less fuel than our old one (I managed to get it to 4.8l/100km on our short test drive, the old one takes a bit more than 6 litres), it also takes “E10” which can be produced a bit more environment-friendly, and which costs 6 cents less per litre than the 95 octane “Super” we need now…

As always, thanks for reading, viewing, and watching. Also thanks to Bob and to Josephine, as well as to the people at our car dealers’. Be well and stay safe everyone.