The long, slow, death of a Pebble Watch

My watch is dying. It looks ok on the outside but it’s internal organs have gone to a purchaser of body parts. The organisation that was Pebble is no more - sold to Fitbit for chump-change. Going too, are all the online services that kept the Pebble watch functioning day to day. It’ll keep working through 2017 we are told, but I have my doubts: Three times this week my usually ultra-reliable Pebble has restarted itself, once losing data. Undoubtedly symptoms of a more serious and terminal disease.

I’m sad. This was my second Pebble watch and I, like many others, thought that Pebble were one of the few companies that got the balance between form, function and price, just about right. Most observers seem to be blaming the ‘lacklustre smartwatch market’ but, that sounds like blaming someone (anyone) else for your own failure. At the end of the day, Pebble were simply underfunded, over expensed or a bit of both. No doubt the legendary optimism of engineers had a part to play; by their own admission, the Pebble Time took twice as long to develop as they originally thought. Technical product development might be exciting, but bringing a product to market is never an easy road.

So, around 2 million Pebble watches are now on life-support. Life with a Pebble watch will just get more and more difficult as 2017 rolls on. So, what do I do next for a smartwatch? Time is running out … tic, tic, tic.

The hidden world of infrared

Holy Innocents Anglican Church, Amberley

When processing infrared pictures, I'm as guilty as anyone of brushing aside the copper/blue colours captured by a properly white-balanced infrared camera. Either I take away the colours to go black and white or I rush into swapping colour channels so that I can get back to a familiar blue sky. This last month, I have been trying to do my colour infrared processing only in Lightroom, using just the tools that Lightroom provides out the box and retaining the captured colours.

Maybe I've been looking at these colours for too long, but they have grown on me - do they work for you too? Let me know.

An uncertain living

Flying supplies north from Amberley

For the first 39 of my years, earthquakes were not a part of my experience. Then I moved to live in New Zealand. My first real experience of an earthquake was around 1990 on the 13th floor of a Wellington office building. To find a concrete building swaying from side to side like a young sapling in a gale was disconcerting, perhaps even a little frightening. But all was well and everyone evacuated the building safely.

The 2010 and 2011 quakes in Christchurch were a different kettle of fish - buildings collapsed, people died. Five years later, the effects on the city are still plainly evident in the many vacant city blocks. Now, in 2016, we have another massive quake and, while it’s centre was not near a big city, it has left devastation in its magnitude 7.5 wake.

There has been structural damage in central Wellington even though the initial quake was centred in North Canterbury. Some Wellington buildings will have to be demolished - though not on the scale of Christchurch. More significantly, transport routes in the north of the South Island have been completely cut. One estimate is that there are over 200 significant land slips blocking both road and rail links. In at least one case, the rail line and sleepers are now a buckled mess sitting on the adjacent highway.

The town of Kaikoura is completely cut off and those needing evacuation are being ferried out by air and sea. It is thought that it will be at least a week before a twisty inland route to Kaikoura can be reopened. The main road and rail links north and south of Kaikoura will take months to reopen, such is the extent of the damage. At a smaller scale, many individuals in North Canterbury and Marlborough are now homeless, and some communities are without power, water or sewerage services. The area impacted by this earthquake is huge, covering the eastern side of the country from Cheviot in the South Island north to Wellington.

And yet, this is not the overdue ‘big one’ - a rupture of the Alpine Fault which, we are told, will produce a magnitude 8+ quake when it happens. That’s life in New Zealand; our noisy neighbour is the earthquake. Other places have different risks, like tornadoes, flooding, drought, famine or war. Put in context, earthquakes are not such a high price to pay for a beautiful country, and I have the feeling that the earthquakes make this land and its people more beautiful than they would otherwise be.

Kia kaha.

Airwheel A3 'road' test

After a week of waiting and a misdirected delivery, the new Airwheel arrived on Friday. The A3 (sit down and orange) joins the S3 (stand up and blue) which we have had for eighteen months. The S3 has done over 600km around Oxford and has proved both reliable and fun to ride. It's even done duty as a video dolly. The S3 is currently available for NZ$1,795 while the A3 is fantastic value at $1,295 -  available in New Zealand from www.airwheels.co.nz

Bethany had only been on the A3 about 5 minutes when I shot this clip of her outrunning Annette on the S3. (Apologies for the video quality - Google seem to have butchered it during the upload)

And here is a short, hand-held video taken while riding the S3 at the "Spring into Oxford" show. At slow speed, the S3 produces a much smoother video than walking. Now all I need is a gimble setup and it will all be sweet.

Airwheel A3 'road' test

After a week of waiting and a misdirected delivery, the new Airwheel arrived on Friday. The A3 (sit down and orange) joins the S3 (stand up and blue) which we have had for eighteen months. The S3 has done over 600km around Oxford and has proved both reliable and fun to ride. It's even done duty as a video dolly. The S3 is currently available for NZ$1,795 while the A3 is fantastic value at $1,295 -  available in New Zealand from www.airwheels.co.nz

Bethany had only been on the A3 about 5 minutes when I shot this clip of her outrunning Annette on the S3. (Apologies for the video quality - Google seem to have butchered it during the upload)

And here is a short, hand-held video taken while riding the S3 at the "Spring into Oxford" show. At slow speed, the S3 produces a much smoother video than walking. Now all I need is a gimble setup and it will all be sweet.

A Mountain and a Car

Another one from the infra-red department - this time a false colour IR picture. This was taken in the field behind our house and, though it is Spring here, I chose blue and orange tones to give an almost Autumn look. False colour IR can often look a bit bland but I'm quite pleased with the way this one turned out with a range of colours and tones - a change from the usual B&W IR anyway.

Mt. Oxford - false colour IR, Canon A590IS

Over two months since the last post, so I'll try to do a little better next time. But to catch up, two weeks ago was the annual "Spring into Oxford" fair, which has grown steadily over the last few years. This year there were about 250 cars on show including this lovely red BMW Isetta 300 - almost exactly the same as my first car - right down to the colour. Though, from memory, I think mine had a conventional chrome bumper running side to side.

BMW Isetta 300

How many people can you get in one of these and still drive? Well, I think it managed five - three across the bench and another two on the parcel shelf with their heads sticking through the roof - those were the days...

Like a toy

I was 17 years old when the spirograph was first brought out as a toy, so my introduction must have been with nieces and nephews. Nevertheless, I recall it as being an enormous source of fun and, in a similar vein, I found the cycloid drawing machine to be equally fascinating. I'm pretty sure that there is something similar going on with the fractals, but I only made the connection while working on the Royal Dragon Boat:

Royal Dragon Boat

I guess it was all those repetitive swirls and curves that brought the spirograph to mind. But a fractal does have that same repetitive, mathematical, self-similar nature as a spirograph so it shouldn't be a surprise; I just wish that Apophysis was as easy to use as a spirograph used to be. Anyway, eventually, the dragon boat appeared and after a short trip to Photoshop it was soon emerging silently from a cloud-bank into the moonlight.

Four days of fractals

We have just come through the coldest weekend of winter - which isn't saying much, in what has turned out to be a quite balmy winter this year. Anyway, it was cold enough to spend most of the time indoors stoking the fire and generating some fractals. Click on each picture to view it large - there's lots of detail.

Clock Work

Clock Work is a pure fractal - generated in Apothysis and polished in Photoshop. Red shift is a fractal with some additional elements and work in Photoshop.

Red Shift

Finally, Shelob's Lair, is a fractal combined with images of the Waimakariri Gorge and a spider.  A rather dark theme and a dark picture, again best viewed large.

Shelob's Lair

Making fractals on the new PC is a world of difference from my old machine. So much faster that I find myself actually spending longer working on a single piece simply because it's not so frustratingly slow.

Breakout

The purist in me says this is neither photography nor painting and, if it can't make up its mind what to be, then it's just a bastard child trying on names it doesn't deserve. Maybe.

But the truth is I like it; in places the camera shows through and in others, details are brushed aside in a smear of colour. I find the net result quite compelling as though the idea of the landscape is trying to break out into its own reality.

Sleeping in a silo

 Whether it's the prairies of Alberta or the 'metropolis' of Little River, silos have long been recognised as a potential place to take shelter - provided that is, no one is about to empty or fill your selected silo. There is no chance of that happening with the Little River silos - they have been kitted out specifically for the traveller. This last weekend we spent our first night in a silo.

Downstairs

Upstairs

As a fun place for a stop-over,  the silos are well worth a visit but I thought them somewhat impractical for a longer stay. Nevertheless, they were well maintained, clean and tidy, and there is a well-stocked cafe is right next door, run by the same people who also run the art gallery.

No, the silos aren't bent - all taken with a fisheye lens - quirky, just like the silos.