Some nice photos from Snowdonia…

There’s a family who calls their Youtube channel “Hold my lens cap!“, and they were out comparing their usual Sony A7 camera system with a used Olympus which they had on loan from MPB. They tried what they liked to do best, namely landscapes and portraits, and the result was like expected, at least for me. But look at their nice landscape shots from Northern Wales, their cute son, and some pretty model shots if you’re into that:

An unfair battle: Micro Four Thirds vs Full Frame (Olympus vs Sony)

Without spoiling the fun, one of the commenters said something like: “of course that was unfair for the poor Sony” 😉 In fact, it’s not that easy, like in so many cases there can’t be a clear “winner”. But anyway, have fun while watching it 🙂

Thanks to Alyssa and her family for the fun, and thanks to you for watching (and leave them a ‘like’ as well).

And God created Cat

Found on the Flickr stream of Eva S. – please click on the photo to visit her Flickr collection:

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Für Katzenliebhaber, from Eva S. (not her text as she wrote)

Thanks Eva! Made my day… 🙂

Debian FTW

Read about a machine running Debian from 1993 (version Debian Linux 0.93R5) until today, running Bullseye (Debian 11, that’s what I’m typing on). It’s chiark, a webserver with some other tasks like mail, IRC, Usenet groups, and so on. Found on The Register.

So yes, you can upgrade Debian, no need to reinstall. I’ve done it myself several times. But still, congrats and thumbs-ups to former DPL (Debian project leader) Ian Jackson.

IndyBest lists and tests

I like The Independent amongst other magazines like The Guardian. And the Independent also has some cool lists and tests on what they call ‘IndyBest’. Here are a few examples:

There are more lists, not all of them tech-related like my examples here. Oh, and I don’t get anything from recommending these, it’s just that *I* like them, and when I see some interesting headlines, I’ll have a look even if I’m not interested in buying anything wireless, or a new laptop or phone and so on. But like most people, I’m not immune, that I’ll have to admit. 🙂

So in case you’re shopping for something, and want The Independent’s view on some products, go and have a look. You can still read more reviews later.

As always, thanks for reading.

Goodbye “Castle”

Sold, a few minutes ago: our trusty old Corolla which served us really well for about 13 years. It was 7 years old when we bought it, so the real age is almost 20. Still runs like a charm, and purrs like a kitten:

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My last photo of “Castle” as my girls called it, Mörfelden-Walldorf 2022

So farewell “Castle” – I’ll miss you…

Oh, and meet “Castle”‘s younger cousin “Yuki”, which is about 15 years younger than its slightly bigger predecessor. This photo is from last Friday in Groß-Gerau:

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One of the first photos of “Yuki” as my girls call it, Groß-Gerau 2022
(another nickname is “Tardis”, because it’s bigger on the inside – and yes it is blue) 😉

As always, thanks for viewing.

When going slow

Yesterday I went to Cologne to visit my brother, and this was a premiere using the new used car with its hybrid gasoline / electric engine drivetrain.

First thing I noticed when trying to use the cruise control (and yes, ours has one) was that the car tried to keep to the set speed ‘at all costs’, so its energy-efficiency meter went almost all the way up into ‘power mode’ when going uphill, just to keep the car at whatever you had set it to.

If you don’t use cruise control and try to keep it in the green ‘eco’ friendly part, you’re definitely more oriented at lorry / truck speeds than at those on the left lane overtaking each other. So you’re going slow – this car somehow manages to teach you how to do that.

On the way back from my brother I didn’t care, and went those roundabout 200 kilometers more or less at lorry and truck speeds, only overtaking them uphill when they got really slow. So on flat roads I kept the speed at around 110km/h, trying to also spend most of the time in that green area, only entering mid of ‘power’ mode on some uphill places. This was the result after arriving back home:

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Fuel consumption average after going slow from Cologne back to our place (some 200km)

On the way to Cologne I had an average of about 90km/h until arriving at the big city where you had to go slow, on the way back I didn’t look at that, but here it shows 74km/h overall, so including city traffic (mostly 50 or even 30km/h). As I said, lorry and truck speeds, they mostly go around 90km/h.

Real fuel consumption on average (at the gas station) was slightly under 5l/100km last time, but that included many short-distance drives in winter, so instead of going electric the car often used the petrol engine just to fill up its battery, and to keep us warm.

Have to get used to this. It’s definitely a different way of driving, but it’s good that a car like this makes you at least think about these things.

As always, thanks for reading.

P.S.: this time when fuelling up the car I had an average fuel consumption of about 4.7l/100km which is about 50 US or 60 British mpg. Cool.

RIP Captain Sir Tom Moore

Oh my – like his daughters reported, Tom didn’t make it. I read it in Tagesschau Online first, and here is an obituary from Thomas Spickhofen from our ARD studios in London:

Thank you Tom, for everything you did – you won’t be forgotten. My thoughts are with your family, and with your friends.

P.S., from Feb. 3rd, 2021:

The interest in Captain Sir Tom Moore is world-wide, even sites in Malaysia are reporting the sad news. You can find lots of images of him, and I myself left a short tribute on a news site in Wales

Here’s the report of our biggest TV news from yesterday evening:

And here’s the BBC about him.

As always, thanks for reading, and for viewing.

Rest in peace, Clayton

Another good one left us – and one of ‘BigDaddyCee’s’ last reactions on Wikiloops was a nice comment on this remix on one of his tracks:

Thank you my friend – jamming with you has been an honour and a pleasure.

His friend for over 40 years, David Knight, can tell you more about Clay

Edit: according to David, Clayton died on June 15th, just four days before his 58th birthday.