Arcanacon XXIV - Swashbuckling, Exploration and Adventure

For this Australia Day long weekend I am off to Arcanacon. Over the last few days we traveled down the south coast (of NSW) visiting relatives and staying at Narooma and Bega. There are some somewhat uninspiring videos for: Bega cheese, Husskisson, nsw, Bega breakfast, Narooma boat tour.

Bushfire Smoke

Well maybe those Yanks want to change the language to call it wildfire, but here the outback is called the bush and when there is a fire, it is a bushfire. I was at no risk here, stopped on the Hume Highway. The smoke was from fires over 100km away. But much of the mountains were on fire and the air pollution level had reached a level where they said you needed to wear a mask if outside. The smoke was present for all 800+ km from Sydney to Melbourne, but the worst was around Benalla in Victoria.

View more at www.deviantart.com/devi...

deviantART: The Lounge Room by ~yewenyi

A great tradition is the Lounge Room. People customize them to meet their needs and aspirations.

Every year I go down to visit my relatives and visit this lounge room. This year I have not yet visited and will not be there for a few weeks.

See more images at www.deviantart.com/devi...

Getting a good play list on the iPod

I have spent some time getting my ipod playlists to do what I want. Here is my current configuration and I suppose, until Apple add some more features, it will stay that way. I have a 3G iPod. This method was first covered in much less detail at my page on Totally Gourdgeous & Penelope Swales.

The intent of this play list is to make the ipod play the tunes I like more, more often.

To start I use all 6 options for my rating - no stars through to 5 stars.

No Stars is used for new items which I have loaded in from my CD collection or from a podcast.
1 star is used for music which is not to be stored on the ipod.
2 stars is used for radio shows which are only to play once.
3 to 5 stars are used for all the music. Music starts off at 3 stars and then if I like the song while listening to it on the ipod I increase the rating. Sometimes I grow weary of songs and decrease the rating.

To do this you need lots of play lists.

First there are 4 smart playlists. I call mine 2 capped, though to 5 capped. They have the following settings:

• my rating is set to the number of stars equal to the play list number.
• play count is less than a number. For 2 capped this number is 1. For the others the number varies over time. I will include a table later of the numeric progression I use.
• The play list is set up to play the lease often played first, though this has no outcome on the final lists below.
• Live updating is on.
• Match is set to all.
  

I then create two play lists, one which includes the radio shows and one which does not. The play list is made up of the other play lists. 3+ capped is the first playlist.

• playlist (1) is 3 capped
• playlist (2) is 4 capped
• playlist (3) is 5 capped
• Limit to 99,999 songs so you can set the playlist to random.
  
• Live updating is on.
  
• Match is set to any.

To create the 3+ radio plat list just add a fourth playlist - 2 capped.

When the songs are playing I will move them up and down in star rating while they are playing. The only thing to consider here is not to use zero and 2 start ratings as they have special meanings. So the songs can slide up or down the scale 1-3-4-5 stars.

There are some drawbacks and side effects of this arrangement.

• It relies on the play lists constantly restarting. This is normally true as I regularly update the podcasts.
• New songs play more often than old ones.

The number sequence I use is below. I increment the numbers from time-to-time to keep a minimum number of songs in the playlist, equal to 1/3 of all my songs. I have shown the first cycle of the sequence. After this it repeats.

2 capped	3 capped	4 capped	5 capped
1	3	6	12
1	3	6	13
1	3	6	14
1	3	7	14
1	3	7	15
1	3	7	16
1	3	8	16
1	4	8	16

Holiday Parts 1 to 9 - A holiday in England

When I went on this holiday, I did not intend to make any movies. Rather I was just taking holiday snapshots and the odd short movie as a record of where I had been. The movies are good because I could get in a panorama. When I returned, I thougt of making a slide show, for the family, in the tradition of my grandfather who always gave us great slide nights. I quickly relaised that I had enough material to make a documentary. I count those american civil war documentaries as my inspiration. So with the limited material I had available I produced these short snippets. They are in multiple parts primarily becuase this was about the limit that my computer at the time could handle without slowing to a crawl.

Part 1 - Getting There (15MB)

This is about the journey from Westmead to St Lenard's on Sea via Osaka.

Part 2 - Sussex, England the Normans and Anglo-Saxons (40MB)

Sussex is where several of my ancestors lived. The Norman descended ancestors, who connected into the family in Australia only a few generations back. The Anglo-Saxon ancestors are from the Cramp side. My Marks side members also come from Sussex, but Marks is a Jewish name. We do not know if they were Jews.
Also featuring in the video is the town of Bexhill and Arundel, and Bodiam castles.

Part 3 - London to Dublin (28M)

Arriving in Shooter's Hill I visit the site, now a War Hospital of the 80 room mansion called Hazelwood House, which belonged to the father George Harley, father of Elizabeth Harley (1765-1842). They are Great...Grandparents.

I then meet up with Wendy who has arrived from Europe. We visit Harrods. On the Thames I visit the HMS Belfast. We then drive to Monk's Barn. Then onto Holyhead and over the Irish Sea to Dublin.

Part 4 - Dublin and surrounds (26M)

A few days in Dublin. We stay at the Parliament Hotel, because we never realized that this was the weekend of the Hurling grand final. On the first full day I go to Glendalough. On the second day we go to Knowth and Newgrange. Finally we visit Dublin Castle.

Part 5 – Bridgnorth (41M)

We leave the ferry at Holyhead and travel to Bridgnorth so that Wendy can research her ancestors. We stay at the Parlors Hall Hotel. I visit Iron Bridge, the home of the Industrial Revolution. I then spend the day at Bridgnorth, visiting the Funicular, St Leonard's Church and the Severn River Railway.

Part 5A – The Normans (47M)

The Harley's live in Brampton Bryan Castle and have their old family castle as a ornament in the front yard. Lord Robert Harley is my ancestor here. This is the most disputed connection in the tree. I then travel to Wigmore Castle to see the home of my grand uncle – Earl Robert De Mortimer, who tried to seize the English throne. I also visit the towns of Abberley, Ombersley and Broadwas.

Part 6 – The Lakes District (10M)

We stop of in Lancaster on the way to Ambleside on the high road, through the lakes district.

Part 7 – Scotland (50M)

We start in Edinburgh. Duncan I and Malcolm III are great-grandparents. I then head for Aberdeenshire, visiting Scone on the way and heading over the Grampians. The Balgowan and Shand family branches come from around Rhynie, Clatt, Gartley, Lumden and Drumblade.

I then travel back to Edinburgh via Dunnottar and Glamis Castles. The next day I do a bus tour. We go to Linlithgow Palace, Stirling Castle, Loch Lomond.

Part 8 – Midlands (20M)

We leave Scotland had head to boroughbridge near York. We visit Fountain's Abbey, inhabited by Mysterious Monks. We visit Catherine in Stanton-by-Bridge. We have dinner in Melbourne. And return to London.

Part 9 – London (30M)

Hordes of protest marches, the Cutty Sark, and a day trip to Oxford. With some ancestors from Oxford, including John, King of England. Back in London I spend half a day at work and then visit Wesley Chapel and the British National Museum. The final day is spent wandering around London. We stop off to see Twelfth Night and the Globe.

aus nsw Newcastle swans dsc04881 edit 3 poster

aus nsw Newcastle swans dsc04881 edit 3 poster
Originally uploaded by yewenyi.

At the end of the day, geocaching, we found ourselves in Blackbutt park in Newcastle. Here there are many animals and birds. The swans are the lucky ones and have their freedom.

I am not normally one for major distortions. So this is an early experiment in this technique. I used the grid distortion tool in PSP-X to expand the center, it is quite crude in application. I have also squashed the image vertically to make the resulting swans appear more realistically proportioned. They had become quite tall after the first application.

Full size version

And the original photo.

Inside the phone

Watch the video

This is test of sending a blog from my mobile phone via my video blogging site. The video is of Bethaney on Hogmanay. Does she think that she is simultaneously inside and outside the phone?

Also I have joined the commercial world and added a Google account. You'll see the adds above. The site just seems to put them there. Well maybe I'll earn enough at a few cents a click to actually get a check by the time I retire and will be able to spend my gains in one hit. I'll also add this to my genealogy site as it actually generates quite a bit of traffic. You never know, but I somehow doubt being able to be as wealthy as the likes of Bill Gates.