I have it under good authority (thanks Mat) that http://www.wellingtongrey.net/miscellanea/ could be a challenger for the crown currently held by http://www.xkcd.com/

I look forward to figuring it out for myself.

Given my fun with long distance wifi links the truth about wifi certainly made me chortle.

Many (many) yeasr ago I was lucky enough to take a trip to New York with a friend of mine - it was just after a massive blizzard had paralised the city, and we were one of the first flights in - having spent a couple of days in Detroit but that’s another story.

So the city’s practically empty - we were first to go to most of the attraction when they reopened, and had a great time. I was heavily into b&w photography, and shot off so many rolls of film over the week that we were there that doing something with the images has been a job I’ve always meant to get roud to - at the time I had a darkroom - now I’ve got a scanner.

It’s a wet and windy bank holiday weekend and I’m doing many things that I’ve been meaning to get round to, so I thought I’d have a go at scanning some of the old negatives in and see what happens. Can I get as much enjoyment playing with images as I used to have in the darkroom?

First problem - figuring out how to scan negatives, how to tweak contrast, what resolution to scan at etc. First image has been moderately successful and I’m feeling encouraged to keep going.

I’ll post a link to the Flickr set when I’ve done them all - now there’s optimism for you!

Postscript: 1200 dpi is ample for 35mm negatives - ends up with 3400×2250 px images, and if you play with the scanners exposure settings you can have almost as much control over the final image as you could in a darkroom, if you know what you’re doing.

However - it’s not the same. In a darkroom it’s very tactile, takes time, and seems to be much more of a human, creative process. All this digital stuff somehow removes you from the final result. It seems too easy, yet it isn’t.

Given a choice, I think if I were really trying to exert my creativity I’d roll my sleeves up and do it the old fashioned way.

And I must learn to take better care of my negatives!

I finally decided I had to take the plunge, and migrate from SimplePHPBlog which has done sterling service for me up to now, moving on to Wordpress.

Why? Well SimplePHPBlog is just that - simple. It does a job, but I was wanting more, and getting frustrated with it. We’ve been blogging at work (internally for now although I’m trying to get buy-in for a public facing Company blog) and Wordpress was the natural choice for a multi-user platform and it’s working great.

So why didn’t I put Wordpress on my blog in the first place? No idea now. I think it just looked like a bit too much of a sledgehammer and not needed for what I wanted.

Well my view now is that if your serious about blogging, you need serious software, and Wordpress is it for me.

Thanks sphpblog, it’s been fun.

I know I catch onto these things late, but these cats are hilarious!

Another film that made me go ‘wow!’

Not a clue what was going on from start to finish but what a ride - absolutely fantastic. And the Stones track at the end - definitely a film to see before you die!

There have been so many disappointing comic inspired movies recently - I was mortally offended by Spiderman 3 the other day for instance - but this one was great. Pays reference to many other films and genres, but the whole thing is unique. I’m so glad I made the effort to find it and see it.