The Four Ages Of Sand

Very rare early photograph

Now this is something special: it's an example from the early days of portrait photography. Taken in the first part of the 19th century, this travelling community in rural Wales can be seen.....

Only kidding. It's actually Alan's family!

 

Alan says: Marilyn standing, then (left to right) cousin Jeffrey, me ol’ man, Melvin, Neville, and patch the dog in the front.

(Patch the dog? For real?!)

Alan's not in it because he hadn't been thought of yet, but he speculates that it was taken "on a happy day when the ol’ man’s got no money for beer." ;-)

Rubbish Ladybird takeoff

Since getting the high speed camera, I've been looking forward to capturing images of ladybirds taking off. Here's my first success:

  

And here's the vid. It's slowed down to 1/30th real time,filmed in Super Macro mode and sharpened, cropped and enhanced in Virtualdub. Actually it's a pretty rubbish takeoff. Uni M thinks it may be because its left wing is longer than its right.  Science question: do all ladybirds open one wing at a time, and is it always the right hand one? Research needed.

 

Question of the week 62: What are Thrupenny Bits good for?

While researching Honolulu pennies, I came across this post on a forum: Apart from being a good reminder about how crazy Old Money was, I was taken by the "3d bit as vibration meter" in the last line. i wonder if the Fat Capri's Fat Capri could be revved up and pass the test?

Also while looking up how to spell Thrupenny bits, I found that the first 5 hits on Google are about Thrupenny Bits Ltd. What do they sell? Take a look here!

I obviously have too much time on my hands

Terry Porritt

28-10-2003, 07:35 PM

Now this is the "value" of rote learning;

12 pence = 1 shilling
18 pence =1/6d
24 pence = 2 shillings (a floreign)
30 pence = 2/6d (half a crown)
40 pence = 3/4d
60 pence= 5 shillings (a "dollar" pre-war US$)
120 pence= 10 shillings
240 pence= £1

Now in the UK we had 12 sided brass theepenny bits, dont think you had them here.
They made useful vibration meters by standing them upright on a suitable part of ones motorbike crankcase.
Only the Vincent was smooth enough to be able to rev the engine without the 3d bit falling over........true...!!!

Horror story

This from Nick. It turns out that whole blogs can get deleted and are never recovered! Imagine the 4AoS treasure trove lost forever... Take a look at some of the comments from the poor people this happened to.  Boffins, I'll need help backing stuff up

http://www.peopleconnectionblog.com/2008/11/06/hometown-has-been-shutdown

Supertramp on the ukulele! (It had to happen eventually)

I've been looking for supertramp songs to practise with the ukulele but it turns out that fo all the millions of hours of vid onYoutube, there's only one single ukulele version of a Supertramp classic

and for culture lovers, here's another native Hawaiin making it look easy

Israel Kamakawiwo'Ole

Here's Israel Kamakawiwo'Ole singing his "original" version of Somewhere over the rainbow/wonderful world

Space Race continues

The Fat Capri continues to push the technology to take 4AoS into space! Here are some shots of mum and dad's house:

(bottom centre)

 

Bottom right corner

Answer to "What is it? 99"

Welcome back from the wilderness, Uni C!

 

Frozen Champagne

Posted by: UniC | April 27, 2009 at 01:18 PM

It's not actually champagne but it's what happens when you leave a perfectly decent "3 for a tenner Asda Special" screwtop in the freezer ready for a party then forget to take it out:

What is it? 99. Part 1

Part 2 at 3.00pm

Hovering hoverfly in Slo Mo

I've always wanted to get a decent photo/video of a hoverfly hovering (you gotta have dreams) and now with the High speed Casio, I've managed it.

It's not brilliant but considering the little blighters are almost impossible to focus on and refuse to stay still for longer than an instant, it's not bad either.

Filmed at 210 fps then slowed down a further 5X, giving a total of 1/35 real time speed: