A couple of weeks ago I got my gorgeous Micro-Nikkor 55mm f2.8 serviced so that the diaphragm works again. A.J.Johnstone in Glasgow did a really nice service. I used to use this lens a lot for plant portrait work on Fuji Velvia. Some people say that 55mm is too short…
Mindful Portrait Photography – A Manifesto
I would like to reconnect with my photography but I would like to do it in a way that is informed by my Buddhist practice and that becomes part of that practice. This topic has been in the back of my mind for some time but has now crystallized into…
China 1994
These are the photos of my trip to China way back in 1994 that are hosted on Flickr. [AFG_gallery id=’1′]
Stumbled on this and really liked it: The opposite of love is not hate, it’s indifference. The opposite of art is not ugliness, it’s indifference. The opposite of faith is not heresy, it’s indifference. And the opposite of life is not death, it’s indifference. Elie Wiesel (1986) This chimes with…
Cycling: Same as it ever was!
This graph, taken from an article on the BBC News site, says it all for me. People go on about cycling being popular and cycle sales going up. They paint lots of lines on the road. They have campaigns. But for a real cyclist it just feels like it…
Biodiversity Informatics
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A Great Day For Science?
Well maybe it won’t rock science to its foundations but it is nice to have our paper finally published after delays with the proofs. Hyam, R.D., Drinkwater, R.E. & Harris, D.J. Stable citations for herbarium specimens on the internet: an illustration from a taxonomic revision of Duboscia (Malvaceae) Phytotaxa 73:…
Some Bar Steward Stole My Bike
My attempts at only blogging the positive are never going to take off! Somebody stole my bike from the stairwell of our flat last night. Yes it was well locked to the wall. Best bike I ever had. Not terribly expensive or anything just functional. Specialized Crosstrail Sport Disc. Numbers…
Same Conversations 80 Years Later!
I took a picture of this cartoon stuck in the window of Hatchard & Daughters, a book shop in Howarth, Yorkshire (Where the Brontës used to live and write). It made me laugh because it is exactly the same conversations that are going on today but, as you can see…
Why The Four ONS Happiness Questions Suck
Sometimes I just can’t let go of a subject even though it is outside my power to do anything about it. In these situations my blog serves as a way for me to draw a line under it and move on. On 25th November 2010 David Cameron gave a speech…
General Functions of a Collections Management System
I am busy writing a summary of our information resources at RBGE and as part of this I am asking people to list what the high level ‘uses’ of their databases are. I am just after a power point or two worth of information. Most of these databases are catalogues…
More badly reported science on obesity
The BBC report a study on fitness in obese people: People can be fat yet fit, research suggests in which they say: People can be obese yet physically healthy and fit and at no greater risk of heart disease or cancer than normal weight people, say researchers. A quick look…
Wealth and Well-being
I recently had a couple of exchanges on the ONS StatsUser Discussion Forum on measuring Well-Being particularly on the relationship between wealth and well-being. This is really stuff of blog posting not forum contribution. I should write a blog and link to it from the forum not the other way…
I just don’t get Economic Growth
I have been trying to understand Economic Growth for quite a while and I think I have reached the point where I give up. There are a lot of people on the radio who talk about how important it is and they can’t all be wrong so maybe it is…
DataCite.org Analysis
I have been seeing DataCite.org mentioned quite a lot so I thought I’d take a look at what they were up to. They have an OAI-PMH provider so you can simply go to the List Records page and see how many records they have. Try it for yourself now. At…
Time Warped Addendum: Mindfulness
I just finished reading Claudia Hammond‘s latest book “Time Warped“. Claudia is a psychologist who presents programmes on health (particularly mental health) on BBC Radio 4 and BBC World Service. Chief amongst these is All in the Mind and my favourite Mind Changers. Time Warped is a fun read. I…
More Cycling Stupidity
If more people cycled then the city would flow more freely, people would be fitter and life would be better. Generally you would think that it would be in the council’s interest to favour anything that promoted cycling that didn’t cost anything or get in anyone else’s way. But then…
Why I don’t buy Scottish Newspapers
Yesterday we all got on our bikes to Pedal on Parliament and protest at the disproportionate cuts to the active travel budgets. Basically everyone admits that Scotland would be a better place if we built our roads so that it was safer to cycle but it is very difficult to…
Anātman as a Telephone Conversation
I was trying to explain the Buddhist notion of not-self or anātman to a friend and found myself using a new metaphor that I haven’t heard before – the self as telephone conversation. Hinduism has the notion of Ātman. Jainism has a similar notion (same word) and, of course, the…
Goenka Vipassana Washes Whiter
I have just returned from a ten day Goenka Vipassana retreat at Damma Dipa in Herefordshire. It was a challenging, rewarding and inspiring experience and I am finding it something of a challenge to write a blog about it. Firstly a description of what a ten day Goenka Vipassana retreat…
Remember This Post
I recently read a moving post on memory by Dawn Foster that set me thinking. Dawn has epilepsy which means that 20-40 times each day she misses a few seconds of what is going on – yet nobody notices. She finds it disturbing especially when compared to the experiences she…
Brief Intro To Mindfulness Now Available on Kindle Store
My pamphlet “A Brief Introduction to Mindfulness Meditation” is now available on the Kindle store worldwide. There has to be a nominal charge for it but it does make it available to a wide audience. Visit the UK or US Amazon stores to purchase. In other territories you will have…
A Brief Introduction To Mindfulness Meditation
Today I launch the first version of my “A Brief Introduction To Mindfulness Meditation” pamphlet with a massive print run of fourteen! Plus availability on-line and the possibility of printing as many as needed of course. Download a digital copy to read and freely distribute from the downloads page. Near…
Hierarchies Make Monographs Obsolete. Fact Sheets Are The Future.
Whilst I have been working on digitizing the Rhododendron monographs I have also been providing some technical help for Stuart Lindsay who is producing a series of fact sheets for the Ferns of Thailand. This has helped crystallize my thoughts regarding monographs and how we migrate them into the digital…
Square Peg Into A Round Hole?
I’ve had my head down work wise for the past few weeks trying to get the Rhododendron monograph markup finished. I now have a little database with some 821 species accounts in it plus a few hundred images – mainly of herbarium specimens. The workflow has been quiet simple but…
Time Lapse – First Attempt
I spent several evenings last week trying to make an interval timer for shooting time lapse movies out of a Lego Mindstorms robotics kit. This involved several trips to Maplin and some soldering as well as learning to program in the weird drag and drop enviroment. I’d nearly finished when…
Blipfoto.com – Looks Like Fun
I have just been introduced to blipfoto.com. A photo journal where you upload an image a day. It has re-kindled my desire to take photos. It will be interesting to see how long it keeps my interest. There appear to be quite a few people who are addicted! I have…
Remembrance not Remembering
We took the camper van to France in the summer and, as we were passing, decided to visit the grave of my uncle Eric. I say my uncle but I feel uneasy calling him an uncle. He died a good twenty years before I was born and would have had…
Full Moon
Full moon. Low in the sky on 10th November 2011. Taken with 110mm modified cassegrain and Nikon D80.
First Moon Photo
This is the first photo of the moon with my 6″ newtonian reflector. Taken 6th November 2011.