Covers

Ridge Ride

Morning ride

Forest of Dean

Vortex at the planet Cenarth!

One of my photos was 'explored' again on Flickr!

Took this shot through one of the round holes in the bridge structure at Cenarth, but squint and it looks almost planetary! Total fluke, not contrived in any way. Only really noticed the effect once I downloaded it onto the Mac.

Here is one of the shots I took last year at the same location. I do love Cenarth. I love its history, its visual charm and its ever changing photo opportunities. See the rest of my Cenarth shots here. The shot of the two fisherman on 'flat rock' has had the most views of any photograph I've published, with a total of over 6,859 views on Flickr with 134 people 'favouriting' it. Very unexpected I have to say, but very satisfying.

A justification for challenging religion

Some people have, perfectly understandably, questioned my increasingly common criticisms of religion on the basis, as I see it, that religion deserves the same tolerance and respect as my atheism. In fact antitheism would be more accurate in my case! Besides, I'm not sure that that atheism, given it is an essentially neutral or close to neutral position, actual requires or demands tolerance or respect. In fact there is a sound argument that the word should not even exist.

To quote Sam Harris....

However, for simplicity and the sake of this blog I will continue to use it.

Some people I'm sure will think I should be a 'passive' atheist and not try to influence others in favour of atheism, in the same way as there are many "passive' religious folk who do not attempt to influence others in favour of their religion, and that atheists should adopt a "live and let live attitude" towards religion and theism. My view is that atheists should be more active critics of religion and theism, but this deserves at the very least an attempt at an explanation.

This will be no essay, but a selection of quotes and plagiarised text that I feel explains this view. They articulate it much better than me. So, why do I think religion is bad?

I think I could do worse than start with this quotation....

I used to be satisfied just smiling and nodding whenever anyone would begin on the topic of religion. After all, there’s no need to argue with someone over something as frivolous as their supernatural beliefs. I mean, it’s just not polite, is it?

But over time, I started to see what religion is doing to the world in which we live.

I will admit, at a basic level, it almost seems like a good idea; certainly, harmless enough. Religion provides a good deal of charity to communities, it offers support and guidance to those in need, and it fills advocacy roles which may be missed in government policies.

But at what price?

Let me be clear, it’s not my intention to pick on any one religion – most of them have the same attributes: 1) belief in the supernatural, 2) a moral code with supernatural origins, and 3) the need to spread their “truth” to the uninitiated.

The only religion that doesn’t fit the above three characteristics is buddhism. Buddhism’s spiritual leader, the Dalai Lama, is quoted as saying “Don’t become a Buddhist. The world doesn’t need more buddhists. Do practice compassion. The world needs more compassion.” Can you imagine the Pope saying don’t bother becoming a catholic?

Nevertheless,  christianity is the most pervasive and influential of all the religions, and their fundamentalist members are probably the biggest threat to civilised society. Islam is influential in that civilised society feels the need to tiptoe around their beliefs, and extremist muslims may appear prone to committing acts of violence, but muslims don’t hold the same amount of sway as christians do in the west.

So why is religion bad? Well, here’s the thing – it isn’t so much what a person believes, but what follows as their behaviour that is harmful.

After centuries of scientific advancement, there is a movement afoot to drag us backwards so a supernatural belief system can survive another few years before finally fading into obscurity. Religions are fighting back, recruiting the naive and the uneducated, and attempting to discredit the science and have their supernatural explanations taught alongside. For me, this is what makes religion so bad.

It would be a quaint notion, if it wasn’t for the fact that it’s affecting society as a whole: bans on condoms and abortions threaten families; bans on using stem cells holds back medical research; justifying sexism and homophobia create an atmosphere of hate and separation; and forced genital mutilation of children is just about the single most fucked-up, barbaric throw-back to the bronze age I can think of.

As religions attempt to remain relevant, they are – whether inadvertently or deliberately – actually hurting our society.

Richard Dawkins says “I am against religion because it teaches us to be satisfied with not understanding the world.”

Well that’s true, but I’m afraid religion is far more insidious than just wanting to stick their collective heads in the sand when it comes to the scientific evidence.

Religion is trying to remain relevant by discrediting scientific fact in order to dupe people into believing their lies. Religions are wrong, they are lying to you, and we can no longer afford to smile and nod politely.

ipernity v Flickr - a comparison of traffic

Don't get me wrong, I love ipernity. It gives me the simple, uncluttered interface I so loved on the old Flickr, in contrast to the horrible 'in your face' mess that is Flickr now. However, I noticed that despite administering my ipernity account as I did with Flickr - commenting on others photographs, fostering the right contacts, joining appropriate groups, I cannot get anything like the traffic I did on Flickr.

To give you an example. A photograph I uploaded to ipernity in early June, has (as I write) had 56 views, 4 comments and 9 'faves'

Yesterday, as an experiment, I uploaded the same photo to Flickr (and again, as I write) it has received 2,227 views, 13 comments and 66 'faves' and is #102 on Explored! That's in one day! 
In nearly 3 months on ipernity, my most viewed photograph has had only 88 views, my most popular, 12 'likes' and the most commented photo has 15 comments.

So whilst I love ipernity's interface and community, It looks like Flickr is where I will get the most views (and we all like the praise, surely?), I don't know why this should be the case, unless of course, despite the large migration from Flickr after its unilateral interface redesign and membership changes debacle, its still has an overwhelming larger user base?

Said photograph.........
ipernity

View on Flickr

Goodbye Flickr! It's been a fantastic year, but with its new focus moving away from paying users toward ad-based revenue, it's time for me to take a break. To say I'm disappointed by last week's changes to the service would be an understatement. Despite tens of thousands of complaints on the Flickr feedback page dedicated to the changes, Flickr silence is deafening.

At least for now, I've moved my online presence to IPERNITY.  I may go back to Flickr if Yahoo decides to make some serious changes to their business model. But for the time being, I don't expect to be uploading anything more to my photostream.

I hope some of my contact on Flickr come over to join me on ipernity.

You can’t stand out if you’re trying to be like everyone else

"Last summer, the once-a-contender-but-fading-fast Yahoo! got itself Marissa Mayer to be its chief executive officer. (The imitation has gotten to where executives now must have the same first and last initials, it seems.) Marissa Mayer took office, issued an edict that all those Yahoo! people who were allowed to work at home must now work at the office or be fired, then said she would be going home now to have a baby. She had the baby, came back to work, and the baby is being raised in a nursery next to her office. I did not make any of that up.

Poor Marissa is doing the thing someone who isn't but desperately wants to be cool always does: imitate those who are the real thing. So she has decided to homogenize the various Yahoo! properties, and buy some more, and homogenize them, in a pitiful attempt to be like Facebook.

She spent $1.1 billion of other people's money to buy Tumblr, a cool-until-acquired-by-Yahoo! site made up in large part (though not entirely) of pornography copied from other sites. (It does have other stuff, and lots of it, but the porn is always nearby.) Without any warning to or consultation with its 80 million registered members (many of whom paid for the service), she converted Flickr, the Internet's premier photo display site, into a Facebook-ish, Tumblr-ish thing that resembles Windows 8 in both appearance and user backlash. People's carefully constructed sets and picture stories were all piled into one big lump, without their permission. Hello, Flick/Tumbl/r, one of the Internet's top-20 Facebook imitators.

And in case she had missed pissing off anyone, she announced at the big Flickr redesign rollout last week that "there's really no such thing as professional photographers anymore." No, just underage drinkers who want to post many fuzzy pieces of evidence that cell phones aren't very good cameras.

The nonexistent professional photographers fled en masse, many to a small but lovely site located in France called ipernity.com, whose staff of seven has been overwhelmed but has manged throughout to be calm, welcoming, friendly, and responsive, and they and their site are cool – in short, everything the new Yahoo! ain't. And the ipernity.com people will grow rich because they are who they are, not people trying to appear cool by trying to be something they're not.

That's the lesson, I think: imitation is an admission that you think you're behind, that you think whatever you are or have or produce isn't quite enough. And in the cases cited, the admission seems to be an accurate one.

You can't homogenize your way to success unless you're a dairy."

Old man, big kid note: Dennis E. Powell was an award-winning reporter in New York and elsewhere before moving to Ohio and becoming a full-time crackpot. His column appears on Mondays. You can reach him at dep@drippingwithirony.com

Margaret and I attended our second Tesco Wine Fair yesterday at Brunel's Old Station, Bristol. You can taste over 250 different wines from 14 different countries.

We tasted lots of wine, from the finest Champagne, sparkling wines and a whole host of red and white wines. We attended a workshop from the head of Tesco's Finest, where she explained the criteria they use to add wines to this range (with accompanying tastings!)

We enjoyed it thoroughly (again) and coupled with a nice meal at Bella Italia (courtesy of Tesco Rewards vouchers) we had an excellent afternoon and evening out.

It served to reinforce our choice of wine to quaff, one we discovered at last year's fair, from Tuscan producer Piccini, namely Memoro, a non-vintage wine blended from Italian grapes and regions from across the country.

The wine consists of 40% Primitivo (some of which is passito) from Puglia, 30% oak aged Montepulciano from Abruzzo, 20% Nero d'Avola from the island of Sicily and 10% Merlot from the Veneto in the north. Unusual on the nose too, it is a dead ringer for a Port with aromas of cherries and chocolate, woodsmoke and flowers, and a beguiling creaminess.

On the palate the unsual Port-like impression continues powerfully, with a slippery, silky texture, quite a lot of sweetness and abundant fruit. It is not fortified like Port, but the flavour and aromatic profile is so reminiscent. There is good acidity and a bit of tannin too, but this really needs some food to stand up to the onslaught of flavour and body -  £9.49, Tesco.

However, if you keep yours eyes open in-store or on-line, this great wine can be had for £4.90, which is all we've ever paid for it!

New camera

There have been several occasions recently when I wished I'd a better camera with me than my iPhone at those times where was impractical for me to carry my DSLR kit with me. This is particularly the case if I'm out on the mountain bike, but also if just out shopping in town.

I decided therefore to buy a compact digital camera, small enough to fit in my pocket, but without compromising on quality so it would supplement my DSLR photographs on Flickr.

After reading several reviews and seeing this particular model with a seriously reduced price in PC World, I opted for the Olympus SZ-11. Boasting 14 megapixels (only slightly less than my Nikon D3100 DSLR at 14.2) it also has an impressive 20x optical zoom which is the equivalent of a 25mm - 500mm telephoto on a 35mm camera!

Results to follow!

'Explored' on Flickr

Really pleased today! One of my photographs reached #19 on Flickr Explored! To put that into context, it was #19 out of the 1.5million photos uploaded every day! See more I more images on Flickr HERE

Here it is.............

Little Switzerland

View from Ridgeway, Newport, across Ynysyfro Reservoir towards Twmbarlwm. Taken on the ride back from Southerdown with the grandkids, just on the off-chance of a decent shot. The sun was shining through lots of 'pockets' between the clouds onto the fields.

Blog facelift

Finally managed to get this blog looking as close to my web site as possible. Clicking on the links above will take you to the web site (apart from the blog link of course!). Blogger is quite flexible as long as you are patient. Biggest problem was getting rid of those infernal shadow borders around images!

Built the new web site, because I can I suppose, but also as a means of showcasing my re-found hobby of photography. Recently bought a Nikon D3100 digital SLR after nearly 30 since owning an SLR. Great reviews for this entry level camera and I'm certainly pleased with it so far. Came with an 18mm - 55mm zoom lens.

Invested in a wireless remote shutter release (£11 eBay!) and a tripod (£7 eBay!)

This is one of my first photographs. Could certainly do with a longer zoom lens though!

Just for fun

I found a photograph recently taken outside where I lived in Yorkshire. I think it was probably taken around 1972. I thought it would be fun to update it. Despite it being over 40 years ago, I'm sure you'll agree I look no different ;-) 



I may have my hair cut shorter and wear a baggier shirt and look less gay though.

New summer tyres

Nexen N8000 205/45 R17 88W with rim protection

After taking off my winter tyres (what winter?!) I needed to buy 5 summer tyres having sold my Dunlop run-flats last year.

The thought of the cost of 5 new performance tyres was worrying me until these were recommended to me. Having read some reviews on-line, and THIS ONE in particular and then discovering the price, I went ahead and had five fitted. I've not been disappointed so far, and on the basis of the reviews have high hopes. These are Nexen’s flagship tyres.

I went through a similar process when I bought my winter tyres, and despite some people telling me to steer clear of any tyre from Taiwan (and some even Nankangs in particular) I have not been disappointed with the SV-2s purchased. So confident was I in their performance I even bought Jodi and Jaime sets for their cars.

A bit disappointed we haven't had the opportunity to try them out in snow and ice, but in all other respects they have performed well, and I see them lasting us another 3 or 4 winters, if not more. Again, at less than £60 a corner. The deciding factor for me was not how they compared when reviewed against premium winter tyres, but how they performed against the summer tyres I would probably have left on given the high cost of premium winter tyres (which also at the time were like rocking horse shit!)

More work in progress

Nice new monitor!

Getting there slowly. Just installed my new brushed aluminium 23" IPS monitor (AOC i2353). Excellent service from Ebuyer. Ordered on Sunday evening, delivered this morning, free deliver option! (supposed to be 5 working days)

Look! No cables to be seen! Pretty much everything out of sight on shelf under the desk (modem. router, mac Mini, external drives and all that associated spaghetti of cables!


More pics to follow as still more to do

Work in progress

Decided it was about time I modernised the study. It was looking very tired and cluttered. Stripped out all the old shelves and surfaces and constructed from new. Includes space and runners to take four IKEA storage trays underneath, A lot of varnishing to follow.  Pictures of finished room to follow (when finished!)

Rant

So the CEO of RBS thinks that making a thumping great £multi-million loss (twice that of last year) is a sign of success, and therefore justifies paying out even more in bonuses, despite the people that actually own the company (and take the risks) getting nothing. I suspect that if I approached them with a similar business model and requested a loan I would get shown the door?

Here's to the crazy ones...

I had forgotten this...

"

Here’s to the crazy ones. The misfits. The rebels. The troublemakers. The round pegs in the square holes. The ones who see things differently. They’re not fond of rules. And they have no respect for the status quo. You can quote them, disagree with them, glorify or vilify them. About the only thing you can’t do is ignore them. Because they change things. They push the human race forward. While some may see them as the crazy ones, we see genius. Because the people who are crazy enough to think they can change the world, are the ones who do.

"

I'm loving the book 'Steve Jobs'. (Thanks Marg XX) Some have said it's hard to like Steve Jobs after reading this book. I disagree. What is hard is not to thank him for caring so much about the products and experiences that Apple has enabled us to have. Thanks for for reality distortion field Steve.