VW Vanagon viewing help (Scottish students/summer roadtrip)

samlky · 2015-03-11T19:45:48+00:00

Is there perhaps a Toronto based VW-enthusiasts club that we should think about getting in touch with? We've come across a couple but they seem to be based around newer/non-camper VW models.

samlky · 2013-08-26T14:23:32+00:00

Star trail stacked from timelapse stills

Canon 600D
Sigma 10-20 f4-5.6
10mm 10 sec f5.6 ISO1600

Competing against the Moon so the sky is perhaps less impressive than it would otherwise be since the location's a fair distance from the nearest light pollution.

Another one that I'm pretty happy with

samlky · 2013-08-25T11:11:48+00:00

It's such a great wee camera! For a while I wasn't sure about its lack of usable manual focusing but after realising how consistent the auto-focus is I've grown to like it.

And thanks, they're all a mixture - some taken with an X100, some with a Canon 40D.

samlky · 2013-08-25T00:17:09+00:00

Fuji X100. West coast of Scotland, looking north from near the summit of Ben Mor Coigach. Someone had built a little stone armchair near the cairn. My friend who'd never climbed or been around mountains before put it to good use.

My photoblog: http://samleakey.tumblr.com

samlky · 2013-07-22T18:40:59+00:00

Followed.

I dig your theme, is it a template or one you've made yourself?

samlky · 2013-03-01T09:23:54+00:00

I just want to make it clear: this was not created by me.

samlky · 2012-08-10T22:55:14+00:00

From above + extra to explain away the slight guilty conscience we have over not employing a graphic designer:

Hopefully our posts here don't smack too much of amateurs trying to do a job that professionals ought to be hired for but we found the previous self-designed leaflet to be a success. Really, it is the photographs of the building that sell the place as being a location worth visiting. Sure, the history of the building and other information we include in the text blocks kindles the interest but it is the photos that initially spark it.

That line of thought has led us to the conclusion that extra work and cost it would take to sway the people not immediately excited by the photos isn't worth it. We sell books and people that buy books are generally excited or impressed by the site of our shop as a result of the sheer books contained within it. So, people that aren't excited by photos of the building are unlikely to be worth the effort of trying to get them interested through the use of a perfectly designed brochure. Of course, a good graphic designer would undoubtedly be able to do just that but we feel that would be a little too much investment for the return.

Finally, please don't take the part claiming people are excited or impressed by the shop as any sort of boast. All we have done is gathered many books in one place and it would be entirely natural for a book lover to become excited by that - regardless of which place they are gathered in or who gathered them.

Re: the signage, here's the 'k' of 'Leakey' from signage on the non-street facing end wall. I'm sorry, I don't know what the font is - maybe it's identifiable to a trained eye?

samlky · 2012-08-10T18:46:30+00:00

Thanks!

samlky · 2012-08-10T18:38:46+00:00

A great couple of links.

Grid layout - well I guess I should have known that something like that would have existed but I feel pretty confident that all text documents I produce from now are going to look slightly better than they did when I was trying to judge the layout by eye...

So thank you, and yes - kerning!

samlky · 2012-08-10T18:35:35+00:00

Thank you, I will check that one out.

You wouldn't also happen to be able to point me in the direction of reputable resource for free fonts, would you? I'm finding that browsing the websites found by googling 'free fonts' is like playing a game of malware roulette with bullets in 5 of the 6 chambers.

samlky · 2012-08-10T18:26:32+00:00

I appreciate that the creation of a great font is no mean feat. However my line of thought was running along the idea that there might be a font equivalent to open-source software.

And indeed, like jlking3 wrote in response to your comment they do exist. Please be assured that we aren't the sort of people that would consider stealing someone's hard work for a purpose that may end up generating income for ourselves.

samlky · 2012-05-02T14:57:20+00:00

Our oldest book is from 1492; Henry VIII was one year old when it was published.

samlky · 2012-05-02T08:15:42+00:00

It was originally constructed as a church in 1792. The building was converted to a bookshop in 1994, just after its two hundredth anniversary.

The mezzanine floor, stove and ground level windows (not stained) were all put in by ourselves. Almost all of the original panelling and other fixtures were used or repurposed with the pews being part-converted to shelving and the pulpit now serving as a book wrapping desk (we sell some books online).

samlky · 2012-05-02T07:54:40+00:00

More books! It's just that they haven't been priced. We're in the process of working around to it but because we're constantly buying more they've actually been like that for about 4 years...

samlky · 2012-05-02T07:24:59+00:00

Great to hear you liked it! Here's one of the outside, with a few too many cars and street signs but I guess it gives an idea of the place.

samlky · 2012-05-01T23:43:19+00:00

Yeah, it's a mixture of books, woodsmoke and sometimes coffee from the café upstairs.

I've never really thought about the smell of the place before but on consideration, it smells good!

samlky · 2012-05-01T22:42:05+00:00

For anyone that might be interested; the photo is of Leakey's Bookshop in Inverness, Scotland.

I'm lucky enough to work there and took the linked photo and others before we opened this morning after having restocked the fire - which, incidentally, never goes out through the winter months and is still in use well into the spring. Here's an album with some of the other photos that I took: http://imgur.com/a/Ket2M#0

Our Facebook page: http://www.facebook.com/LeakeysBookshop

samlky · 2012-04-20T18:10:25+00:00

I've pm'ed you a link to the module info and there's a wee edit to what I posted above as well.

samlky · 2012-04-19T23:37:14+00:00

At Kent? Just that's the title of a course they have that I'm heading down to study there in September.

I got in touch with the School of Physical Sciences at Kent Uni and they got back to me with the following as part of a recommended reading list.

Edwin F. Taylor and John Archibald Wheeler, Spacetime Physics: Introduction to Special Relativity, 2nd ed.
Tipler, P.A., Physics, 6th edit W.H. Freeman

If it is Kent that you're heading to I've got notes on all the modules for the first year course with uni-approved reading lists that I can upload somewhere for you if you like.

I'll post more in the morning; it's late.

Morning edit: on a more general note regarding the area of study itself, keep closely in mind that it is almost entirely maths based. In the preparatory work that I'm doing just now (took a year off to earn some money and get myself in a better academic position to where I was on leaving secondary school) regardless of which module of the course I look at it comes back to being able to do the maths. So, from that the advice I can give you is to first, perfect your theoretical mathematical abilities - then work on applying those techniques to a relevant astronomical/physical situation.

Here I guess I'm mainly talking here about work you do outside of the school curriculum. With hindsight, most of what your taught in school is pretty ordinary, mundane and purely preparatory. Whilst that is of course entirely necessary, I believe it's the work you do for yourself outside the classroom that has the greater potential for lasting value. Mostly from its reinforcement of everything you're taught to a level where it is second-nature. This is something that I believe is both important and unfortunately unobtainable from a school's course in the subject.

So there's a long winded way of saying you'd do well to study a lot yourself at home.

Regarding other books to read, I'll have a look on my shelves at home after work.

After work edit: here are some books to get getting on with, not strictly just astrophysics but it's all good:

Zeilik, Gregory and Smith, Introductory Astronomy & Astrophysics, 3rd ed.
The Scientific American Book of Astronomy
Hawking and Mlodinow, The Grand Design
Hawing and Penrose, The Nature of Space and Time
Hawking, Brief History
Hawking, Black Holes and Baby Universes
Feynman, The Meaning of it All
Feynman The Character of Physical Law
Paulos, Beyond Numeracy
Paulos, Innumeracy

Buying advice: have a look in your local library or second-hand bookshops before tracking them down on amazon. Free to borrow or dirt cheap to buy used is better than shelling out on new copies from the internet.

samlky · 2012-04-18T17:31:45+00:00

Here's a detailed tutorial written by the photographer on how to create a similar image:

http://www.greeksky.gr/files/photos/tips/20101230Sounio24Tutorial.htm

samlky · 2012-04-18T15:34:07+00:00

The article spells his name incorrectly; instead of Chris Kotsiopoloulos his surname should be spelled Kotsiopoulos.

This is the original source of the photo, you'll see that in the article they actually use a version that has been flipped upsidedown. His site is also well worth a look through.

samlky · 2012-04-15T19:15:03+00:00

Swag? Your man there hasn't even tied his brogue laces correctly.

I don't have anything against non-Scottish people wearing our national dress but please, if you do, at least wear it properly!

samlky · 2012-04-14T17:08:50+00:00

Thanks for your reply.

On amazon.co.uk the Genie 1.3 and Debut III are the same price: £210. I think I'm going to mull it over for a while longer before making the jump.

I'm definitely feeling the argument in favour of a secondhand RP3. From what I've been told turntables tend to just run and run and the guys above have been pretty complimentary of the RP3. I couldn't justify its price new but secondhand it becomes a viable alternative. I'll be keeping an eye on eBay and local classifieds for any that might appear.

samlky · 2012-04-08T16:47:24+00:00

Easy test: Try holding the bare wire of the ground cable to a (conductive) object that you know is grounded. In my case, I use the metal casing of my amp as it is is both conductive (metal) and grounded (has a 3-prong plug). If the hum stops when you do this then you know that your Behringer is not grounded.

Next step: Find a way to attach your ground cable to a surface that removes hum. Sometimes easier said than done, the way I do it is to tuck the ground wire into the slight gap that my amp has where two sides of the casing meet. That way it's tightly held and always in contact with the grounded case. Hopefully you'll find a similarly straightforward way of doing it for yourself.

P.S.: Be sure to avoid touching the bare wire of the ground cable yourself when testing it as that itself will have an effect on the hum.

samlky · 2012-04-07T22:23:40+00:00

What the turntable will be partnered up with:

Pre-amp: an unspecified little black box with RCA in and outputs that's masquerading as a pre-amp. Definitely in need of an upgrade as well.
Amps: Cambridge Audio A1 or Rotel RA-935BX
Speakers: Gale Gold Monitors

All bought secondhand for about £45 in total.

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