Namibia: Street View

Posted on June 10, 2013 by Tom (Admin)

I don’t think we really have Google Street View in Namibia just yet.  In fact, I don’t believe they have worked out where the different house numbers are on the streets – GPS systems just get you to the right street, and the rest is up to you.

So I took a drive through Windhoek via one of its longest streets, Independence Avenue – starting from Ausspannplatz in the south-central part of the city, heading north, and all the way to the northwest corner.  After that, we did another run down Eveline Street, which is Katutura’s most “happening” place most days.  Both videos were taken on a Sunday afternoon, meaning it’s relatively quiet, traffic-wise.  Otherwise you’d see a lot more back ends of cars while standing still. The video is taken using the Timelapse HD app on an ipad, 16 fps, one frame every half second.

These are going to be used as part of a broader video I am making about Namibia, particularly Windhoek.  I think it’s important to have a feel for what it’s like driving around a city.

independence Avenue from Tom on Vimeo.

Eveline Street from Tom on Vimeo.

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Vintage Cameras in Cape Town

Posted on June 8, 2013 by Tom (Admin)

There’s a guy in Windhoek who teaches black-and-white photography who mentioned that there is a big vintage camera shop in Cape Town.  He didn’t remember the name of the place, but as we were headed down there we thought we’d check it out.  A bit of investigation on Google revealed this camera repair shop that has been around since the 1970s.  Noting the shop has moved a number of times in recent years, we drive all over Cape Town and end up in front of a truck repair shop, where they inform us the camera shop has moved yet again.  We finally end up calling the guy, and he directs us to a (somewhat questionable – sorry Tony) residential area where we tentatively knock at the door.  No answer, but another phone call and he opens up and urges us to quickly come inside.

We are asked to sit in the entryway, which has three old chairs and is piled up with boxes and paint buckets – in the room beyond the entryway a vacuum is running.  Tony is a big guy, white-haired and with a pony-tail, friendly enough, but the whole thing seems a bit weird as we were expecting a shop of some sort.  I ask about old cameras and he informs us that he’s had to continually move due to increasing rents, and his current location is not zoned as a retail area, but are we looking for anything in particular.  I tell him no, we were looking to browse, and he starts bringing plastic shopping bags of cameras in, two at a time, and while my family shifts uncomfortably in their seats I started to look through them.

As I’m still fairly new to the vintage camera collecting business, I pick up a couple that look interesting and appear to be functioning, and we work out a fair price.  One of them is this Kodak Vest Pocket Autographic, and the other is a Kodak Retina Type 118.  I regret not having looked more at the Retinas, because he had a number of them there, but it turns out I got pretty lucky in that the Type 118 is interesting from a historical perspective.  While the type 117 was the first daytime loading camera (i.e. it uses the same 35mm film we know today, in 1934 already!) the type 118 happens to be the very same camera (type) that Sir Edmund Hillary used to photograph Tenzing Norgay when they climbed Mount Everest.  Between 9,000 and 10,000 of these were manufactured waaay back in 1935, and now one of them was mine.

Of course, at the time, all I knew was that I had a camera that took 35mm film.  So I popped in a roll and started snapping shots – once I figured out how it worked.

Kodak Retina Type 118

The Kodak Retina Type 118 is a small camera whose lens pops out once you open the cover that protects it.  A small bellows (3 or 4 folds allows the lens to extend out from the film, and once it’s loaded you use one of the knobs on top to advance the film.  Since there’s no little red window in this camera to tell you when to stop winding for each exposure, I wondered how I’d know how far to wind – but the camera automatically knows when to stop you, and you have to slide a small  latch on the back of the camera to the right, in order for the film to be advanced again.  As you can see on the photo, speeds range from 1 second to 1/500 second, plus B and T, and most of the usual apertures are available.  On this particular camera, it seems that the spring that holds the shutter release tension has been broken, so you have to hold the shutter release in the top position to cock the shutter.  Once you have cocked the shutter, the release holds in place (but has a hair trigger!)

There is nothing to prevent you from making double exposures, however – so it’s best to get in a routine of always advancing the film after you take a picture.

For my first roll, most of the photos were a bit overexposed.  However, for an 80-year-old camera, I’d say it did fine.  Here’s how things turned out:

Cape Town Downtown

I like this shot of downtown Cape Town. This is one of the best photos on the roll.

Cape Towb Street

This is a bit more suburban scene – lots of little art shops here.

At the Mall

I thought the camera did well in low light, considering. This was inside a mall, and it wasn’t nearly this dark, but it made an interesting shot I think.

Double Exposure

Finally, I like how this double exposure – completely accidental – turned out.

For more photos from the Kodak Retina Type 118, check here.

Posted in Other Places, Vintage cameras | Tagged , , , , | 4 Comments

What is it with computer company customer service these days? (I’m talking about you, Toshiba and Dell!)

Posted on June 3, 2013 by Tom (Admin)

I’m seeing a lot of reports these days lamenting lagging computer sales, and theorizing why that might be.  I’m of the opinion that a big part of the reason is customer service.  These days, it seems that more and more, when you speak to computer companies’ customer service and sales departments, you’re confronted with people who are strictly tied to a specific formula they need to follow. And if you try to deviate from that because you have special circumstances as a customer which require the use of common sense, things will start to go horribly wrong.  And heaven forbid you ask to speak to a supervisor.  In Dell’s case, they’ll hang up on you before they let you talk to anyone else!

Awhile back, I finally took the plunge and shelled out nearly 1500 bucks for a Toshiba Qosmio.  Not because I’m a gamer, but because I’m into video editing and I got fed up with waiting for the computer to process my HD video in Adobe Premiere.  And it worked like a dream compared to what I was used to, for a few hundred less than its competitors.  Two hard drives for accessing video files from one, and running the software on the other, an eye-popping 1280p screen, and no more waiting for the video to catch up to my latest keystroke.  With earlier computers, I would have to reboot every few hours to purge the memory, and then again prior to rendering, to be sure it wouldn’t freeze up in the process.

Then, just as happened with my previous laptop 9 months prior, someone decided to steal it from my home in Windhoek, Namibia.  Once again, the whole drill of changing passwords, filling out police reports, and postponing video editing projects.  It was especially frustrating because my employer, the US government, had a prohibition against the shipment of anything containing a lithium battery to our overseas location (via a US shipping address).

But then they lifted the prohibition on lithium batteries just as the insurance payment came, and when I was pretty sure the Namibian police were not going to make any more headway in trying to recover the laptop, I contacted Toshiba to order a replacement.  And waited the three weeks it takes mail to reach me (we get ours on Mondays.  And nothing.  So I checked Toshiba’s “track your shipment” feature and discovered that Toshiba had cancelled my order and not bothered to tell anyone.

So after some time on the phone with Filipino-accented tech staff whose job it is to act as a buffer between the customer and the company’s decision makers, we determined that a single digit in the phone number they had on record was the culprit.  So we ordered again.  This time they decided to charge Virginia sales tax (I don’t live in Virginia, and the State Department has an agreement with the Commonwealth of Virginia that we are exempt, depite our mailing address).  A few more calls back and forth, because they consulted the state of Virginia and were strangely told that the Dulles Virginia address is reserved for foreign diplomats stationed abroad.  I can imagine the sheepish grin when Toshiba received my email explaining that, no, there is no such thing as a Dulles Virginia mail service for foreign diplomats.  Anyway, they agreed about the sales tax, but I would have to phone in my order again. (Thank goodness for Skype!)  So at this point, they know where I live and what my deal is, and they’re happy to take my money.

So on June 3, I got my brand new Toshiba, but I had a bad feeling about it.  I let it sit on my bed for 3 hours before I finally decided to fire it up.  And the screen read, “NO BOOTABLE DEVICE”.  Yes, my new laptop, now nearly 2 months after we started the odyssey, was dead on arrival.

So again we call Toshiba.  This time we’re told we will receive mailing instructions and a label, we should return via FedEx.  Only this is not possible from Africa, by way of Dulles, VA.  So I have to pay to ship it back myself.  Because Toshiba “can only use FedEx.”  Here’s how it works, guys – you log on to the US Postal Service website and they will take it from there.  That’s what I do.  Only now I have to pay another 60 bucks out of pocket because Toshiba shipped me a non-working $1400 computer.

So I get my shipping information and useless FedEx shipping label (I assume this will still end up costing Toshiba money even though I can never use it, but I could be wrong) and the instructions tell me the return authorization is only good for ten days.  Only the mail doesn’t go out until Thursday, and from there it will take at least two more weeks for the computer to get to Toshiba.  Fortunately there is an email address (“customerservice@toshiba.com”) where I can get clarification.  But do you think they will respond?  So far, after two tries, they have not. [Update: after three days, they extended the return authorization to the end of June] Needless to say, the computer went out today regardless – I don’t want to get dinged for hanging on to it too long, either *crosses fingers*

So anyway, back to the phone call.  They tell me a few days after they receive it, they will ship me a replacement.  “Why can’t you ship me a replacement now?” I ask.  “I paid for it 3 weeks ago” (for the second time).  This is how it works, I’m told.  I guess there’s always a chance I might suddenly decide to keep the replacement without shipping the doorstop I currently have back.  So it seems that in six weeks I’ll have the computer I tried to order back in April.

So of course I just went ahead and paid for another one right then.  I thought they might throw in overnight shipping, but no dice.  Free gaming mouse though.  And I thought about the transaction some more.

They must really think I’m stupid, I thought.  And I did some googling and comparing and thought some more, and called them back.  “I’d like to cancel my order” I told them.  In a Filipino accent I was asked, “You no longer need a Toshiba Qosmio?”  I smiled, “Actually I still do, but given the frustration I’ve experienced, I decided to order from one of your competitors.”  I was thanked, and he wished me a nice day.

At this point, I thought I was out of the woods, and was looking forward to an Alienware M17x to be waiting for me when I return to the States from our 2-year overseas tour next month.  But – *sigh* – it was too early to celebrate just yet.

It turns out that Dell will frequently call the phone number you give them just to check that everything is kosher with the order.  Which is a good thing – if someone with a Dulles address orders a computer to be shipped to Oregon, that can be a fraud indicator.  We associate a relative’s phone number with our credit card, since it’s not possible to give an overseas number when your billing address is in Dulles, VA.  So I get an email from Dell telling me my order is cancelled (no reason) and I should call sales.  Sales tells me to call the verification department.  When I do that, they ask for the order number (which had already been given via the automated phone answerer) and without explanation, transfer me back to sales.

This little game went on for awhile, and finally “Roy” at verification tells me he has called the number I gave them and the person at the other end has no idea who I am, that I should start a completely new order.  Except I already knew that my mother-in-law had received no such call.  At this point, no amount of “can I please speak to your supervisor” or “can you call my bank to verify” will get Roy to deviate from his script.  Finally he hangs up on me.

To cut to the chase, after four more painful calls to Dell via my iPad’s skype (remember, I’m in Africa) I finally get “Lupe” (Guadalupe Monroy) on the phone.  He actually listens to my situation and takes into account the special circumstances, and works with me right there on the phone to make things work.  Actually uses his brain.

So thanks, Lupe, for making it possible for me to give Dell Computer $2,000 in exchange for their product, and for standing out among a growing number of poor customer service reps.  I’ll let you know how things work out when I get back to the States.

Did I mention that computer sales have been dropping?

 

 

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Digitally enhancing analog photos – is it cheating?

Posted on June 3, 2013 by Tom (Admin)

The whole “back to basics” photography movement, with its return to analog film and (in some cases) cheap plastic lenses has a kind of purity about it that doesn’t mesh well with all of the computer-aided post-processing of photos we have come to take for granted. We have computer programs that know how to automatically enhance our photos, or we can deliberately alter photos to add someone who may have been absent on a particular day, remove wrinkles and blemishes, darken skies and lighten shadows. We even have programs we can use to make modern digital photos look old. But with analog photography, it just feels like cheating. Especially when you’re shooting in black and white!

With digital photography, it’s easy to go too far – I try to limit – ok, fine, justify – my own post-processing with photoshop and its cousin by insisting that I’m only trying to compensate for the shortcomings of the camera, and am just trying to restore the digital image to what my eyes witnessed. This even works to an extent with HDR photography, where you’re compensating for the opening and closing of your pupils as your eyes move across a scene.

But with analog photos – especially when you’re taking them with a vintage camera – no one expects the photos to look like you remember the scene from real life. In fact, what’s so cool is the inaccurate way they reproduce colors, yet due to our own hazy memories of that time, somehow manage to accurately reproduce, say, 1973. (Or was the sky really white back then, with grass a weird shade of olive?). When you take it a step further and photograph in black and white, there’s no longer any pretense of trying to make it look “real”. Unless you’re using cameras from before 1950, when the world really existed in black and white… Little joke.

Anyway, I felt the contrast in my latest photos wasn’t quite up to par, so I played around a bit with the correction software because the digital scans I was given (so I could share them with you!) didn’t quite have the same feel as the prints I was sent in the mail. So is this cheating? Can I justify this as making up for someone else’s faulty developing techniques, or a cheap scanner?

Examples are below – original scan first, followed by the modified – um, “corrected” version.

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First photos from an 80-year-old box camera

Posted on May 31, 2013 by Tom (Admin)

Some time ago my oldest daughter picked up an old Kodak box camera at a yard sale, and it sat ignored on a shelf for years until I decided to get my hands on some 120 film and an old 620 film spool and see what kind of pictures the old camera might deliver.  While the results aren’t stellar, I did learn a thing or two about using this camera that may lead me to try again in the future.

The first roll illustrates a couple of problems you can easily run into with these old cameras:  accidental double exposure.  Until you get into a routine, you find yourself asking, “Did I advance the film or not?”  And since there are only eight exposures on a roll, it’s tempting to err on the side of not having advanced the film, and then you get two photos for the price of one.  Or maybe I got that backward…

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A phone booth (also an antique?) in central Windhoek.  Taken from two angles.

Below is a second problem we discovered.  With the old box cameras, you can often set them so that the shutter opens when you move the release – a simple metal lever – down, and then closes when you move it back up.  Alternately, you can have it open and close immediately (about 1/40 of a second).  So when we operated the shutter release, moving the lever downward, we thought somehow that you would have to move it back upward to finish the process.  What actually happens is that you end up taking the same picture twice – the shutter opens each time – resulting in another double exposure.  In the case of the photo below of the van Eck power plant in Windhoek, the effect is kind of cool, if unplanned.

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A third problem you can run into is the problem of aiming.  Although there is a kind of finder you can look through when you hold the camera at waist level, it’s often difficult to see through the tiny window what the camera is pointing at.   So you end up aiming the box in approximately the right direction.  This could have been a great photo of the Christuskirche in central Windhoek – instead, it’s a photo of the lawn at Parliament gardens (mostly).

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Finally, a photo where things pretty much turned out alright.  Soon, I’ll need to respool another roll of film and give this another shot with what I’ve learned.

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Found Film: the Fun Begins

Posted on May 24, 2013 by Tom (Admin)

So in all of this business of acquiring really old cameras, here’s something I recently learned.  There are lots of old cameras lying around in peoples’ attics that still have film in them.  And frequently they end up on eBay or in collectible shops, without anyone checking if there is still film inside.  This happened to me recently when I bought a lot of 8 used cameras on eBay:

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The Ansco on the bottom left in the photo had a roll of Ansco All-Weather film in it that had been fully exposed and forgotten – here’s what it looked like:

ansco

 

Considering the Ansco B2 Cadet was manufactured in 1937/8 and the film was manufactured in the 1950s, this is a roll of film that is anywhere from 65 to 75 years old.  What secrets might it contain?  Well, that’s what I hope to find out this weekend, as I’m told it is often possible to get usable images from old film – even this old.

While you wait for the film to be developed, why not have a look at this advertisement for Ansco film?

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Diptic: The Coolest Photo App Ever (With a Mediocre Name)

Posted on May 12, 2013 by Tom (Admin)

Ever want to share a bunch of photos, but couldn’t make up your mind which? Whether you post on Facebook or attach them to an email, it would be great to combine a bunch of related shots into a single image.

The app, “Diptic” (available on Apple devices and Android) lets you do exactly that.  Even cooler, you don’t have to put all the photos you want to combine on the device – you can pull the photos from a number of different places, including all the obvious ones – Flickr, Facebook, or snap a quick photo with the device.  You get nearly 200 layouts to choose from (and more you can download), although honestly I can’t figure out why you’d want to use some of the more ornate ones.  But you get plenty for what you need.

Once you’ve imported your photos, you can rotate, edit, reposition or apply a number of different filters to the photos, as well as different textures to the borders.  Personally, I like using a plain black border best. You can even add text! Once your collage is complete, you can save it, email it, create an electronic postcard, or upload it to Twitter, Facebook, Flickr, Tumbler, or other apps you may have on your computer (such as Adobe Revel, for instance).

I think the only thing missing is a good, descriptive name.  But maybe I’ve missed the point on that and someone can explain it to me.

Here’s an example or two of what you can do with the app, illustrating examples of the simple and the fancy layouts:

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Diptic

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Camera Lucida – Get Yours Now!

Posted on May 11, 2013 by Tom (Admin)

What if you could use a simple device with a prism to “trace” an object on paper that was actually in front of you.  Would this revolutionize how we do art?

It turns out that according to theory, that’s exactly how many of the 19th Century masters created their great works of art.  And a hundred years passed, and we forgot all about it – to the point that it now feels like “cheating.”

The device that makes it possible is called a camera lucida, and it’s been well over a hundred years since they have been produced commercially.  You can get them on eBay for 350 bucks or so.

But now Pablo Garcia and Golan Levin, a couple of university art professors, are running a Kickstarter project that will change all of that.  They designed a modern camera lucida, dubbed a NeoLucida, and asked for $15,000 to produce 2,500 of them.  They reached that within a couple of hours.  The next day, they had reached $100,000 and all the NeoLucidas were spoken for.  About 3,000 of us signed up to be kept informed (with a $1 or $2 pledge) if plans for more became available.

On May 9, they announced that an additional 5,000 would be produced (in addition to 500 “tinkerer kits”), and you could watch the pledges roll in on the Kickstarter page – it took less than 15 minutes for the pledges to double to $200,000.  Another 24 hours have passed, and the pledges are still rolling in at $325,000 and over 8,000 supporters.  Bear in mind this was a $15,000 project!

There are still 29 days to go and nearly all the rewards are gone.  I expect we haven’t seen the last of the reward offerings though.  Watch this Kickstarter campaign – it’s sure to make the news in the coming month.  And if you don’t believe me, you’d better sign up before they’re all gone!

Here’s the video for the campaign – check it out:

 

 

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Lomography: Remembering the 70s with a Ricoh Kr-5

Posted on May 11, 2013 by Tom (Admin)

I just got back the first set of photos from my “newest old camera”, a Ricoh Kr-5 dating from around 1975.  It’s a thing of beauty, especially when I think of the cameras I personally owned in the late 1970s and the 1980s.  It was a steal on eBay, coming with a “1970s brown” nylon bag, a clip-on flash unit, a 3x telephoto converter, a wire shutter release, and the manual for under 20 bucks including shipping.

For those of you who lived through the 70s, the photos came back looking just as I remember them – a bit washed out and weird.  I always thought that’s how the 70s looked – turns out it was just the film!

The one thing I can’t seem to get working right is the exposure meter – new batteries didn’t seem to make a difference.  The exposure indicators in the viewfinder don’t seem to react at all to light changes; however, the camera seems to be pretty forgiving (or I just got lucky) as most of the issues with the photos I took came from focus problems, not overexposure.

Anyway, here are some samples.  I think even some of the pics that are technically flawed still end up looking kind of cool.

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000023 These guys on the roof are captured with the 3x tele.  Seems to be an odd tilt-shift effect going on.

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Odd that the background washes out so quickly.  There are other plants and rocks about 7 meters beyond the lemon tree.

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Seems that using a tripod with the tele converter would not be a bad idea!

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I find this to be an interesting set. The only difference should be the f-stop setting. I wish I knew what I had used! One of the advantages of digital photography…

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0.8 meters is as close as the camera is able to focus. This must have been about 0.75 m!

 

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Check out Namibia’s ‘Shishani’

Posted on May 10, 2013 by Tom (Admin)

One of Namibia’s rising young talents needs your help!

Namibian musicians have a hard time “breaking out” – primarily as a result of Namibia’s small population – just over two million, around the same size as the city of Houston!  Namibia also has one of the biggest income disparities in the world, which means that many of those two million people may not be able to afford supporting a struggling young musician by buying music or attending shows.  Even in the case of Namibia’s biggest music talents, I haven’t found music available on iTunes or otherwise internationally available.

So it’s always great to come across someone with the talent to possibly cross that threshold.  Despite less than 10% of Namibians having access to the internet, Shishani has turned to Indiegogo for help in recording her debut album.  Check it out!

In case you’re interested in hearing some of her work (and seeing a bit of Windhoek), you can also check out the video below.  Also find Shishani on ReverbNation.

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Um…is that an accent I hear?

Posted on May 9, 2013 by Tom (Admin)

map

Ever come across a North American accent you couldn’t quite place?  Well now, there’s an easy chart to figure it out.  Someone has gone to the trouble of mapping it all out, using things like, do they pronounce “pin” and “pen” the same way…  It includes audio samples to help better understand the accent descriptions.  For the fully functional version, go to this website.

Posted in Random Thoughts, Observations and Weird Stuff | Tagged , | Leave a comment

Drones to Be Deployed in South Africa. Beer Drones.

Posted on May 3, 2013 by Tom (Admin)

Last week, I posted a few examples of the creative ways drones can be used to make life better (see “Got Drones” and “Build Your Own Plant Host Drone”).  Now there’s one that tops them all, because it combines things many men love: loud live music, remote control vehicles, and beer.

The Oppikoppi Festival in South Africa has announced that they will be deploying flying “octocopter” drones to deliver beer to customers who will order them by mobile phone.  They say they are using remote control now, but the idea is to eventually use GPS.  The idea seems fraught with possible pitfalls and PR missteps.  I mean, let’s bear in mind that there will be a fair number of concertgoers who will have imbibed more than their fair share of beer.  Now there’s a device with whirring blades over their heads dropping 16 ounce packages according to GPS instructions that should get them within a meter or two.  Hopefully.  Fly too high and someone gets conked on the noggin.  Fly too low and someone may get an unexpected haircut.

But I’m definitely intrigued.

The company is still in its testing phase and the promise updates.  Here’s where they’re at right now:


 

 

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Found memories…and a lost roll of film

Posted on May 1, 2013 by Tom (Admin)

Here’s a fun mystery to try and solve.

For my (recent) birthday, my kids went down to Otto’s, the local “junk and curiosities” dealer and picked out for me the newest additions to my growing vintage camera collection.  In addition, my youngest was excited to have found an original box for the Agfa Billy Compur – produced between 1934 and 1942, and one of the first vintage cameras I acquired.  Inside that box was a roll of 35mm film, two additional negatives of an unknown size (127 film?), and a hand-written note listing which of those negatives the owner wanted to get printed and/or enlarged.

Naturally, I immediately took the film down to get it scanned.  Meanwhile, I wondered what had interrupted the previous film owner’s trip to the photo processing shop.  Had he gotten his film enlarged, but then absent-mindedly stored the negatives in the old camera box to keep them safe?  Or had some untimely disaster struck, just as he was about to get to the photo shop?  And who was he?  When were the photos taken?

In any other country, identifying the owner of the film would be impossible.  But in Namibia, everybody knows everybody.  This is a country of 2.2 million people, of which anywhere from 75,000 (according to the City of Windhoek) to 150,000 at most are white.  Windhoek’s population is 320,000, and if the population is distributed evenly, that’s anywhere from 10,000 to 20,000 whites in Windhoek.

Now rewind to 1950.  The entire population of Namibia at that time was less than 500,000!  And Windhoek was only home to 20,000.  The odds that an older white Namibian who grew up in Windhoek knew our photographer start to look very good indeed.

What are our other clues? These were the two individual negatives.  I initially thought they were nuns, but I believe these are pre-1950s nursing uniforms.  I’m not sure what the epaulets are supposed to indicate.

Update, 3 May:  An office colleague identified the venue for the photo below as the Windhoek State Hospital.  The nurses in front are registered nurses, the two in the back are trainees.  Here’s an article that appeared today on the same hospital.

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The 35mm roll gets interesting – it’s a man who apparently wanted to document his woodworking project.  He is assisted by another man.  To me, it is not clear from the photos whether this is a pre-apartheid (1948 and afterward) photo – but their clothing makes me think it’s from before 1950.  How many Namibians owned a camera before 1950?  How many owned two cameras?  More on that later.

Update, 3 May – it turns out there were only two carpenters in Windhoek back then.  Both have been identified, and emails have gone out to their kids.  We’re close!!

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This is not our photographer, but this is who wanted the pictures to be taken, and who probably ordered the enlargements.  Was his sister or wife a nurse?  What kind of camera is he holding?  It turns out there have been thousands of cameras produced.  I started looking through old Agfa cameras, and the lens/shutter mechanism looks to be from 1930-1955.  It uses roll film, probably 120.  But the biggest clue is the writing on the lens: Voigtlander.  It could have just been the lens producer, but after some googling I narrowed it down to Voigtlander as the manufacturer, and in very little time, tentatively identified his camera as a Voigtlander Vito.  The Vito was manufactured in Germany from 1939-1940, and again from 1947-1950.  Of course he could have been holding a 30-year-old camera at the time this photo was taken, but he looks kind of proud of his camera, don’t you think?

And does this mean that these photos were taken with an Agfa Billy Compur (the box the film came in)?

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We don’t know much about this machine – but it’s probably a significant clue.  The note enclosed with the film identified nearly all the photos for 6 x 9 (cm) reprints.  However, the photo above, the one below, and the second-to-last photo were to be printed as 8-by-10s!

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The one above is MY favorite.  At first I thought the film was damaged, but it’s the flying sawdust that creates a cool motion effect.

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The proud craftsman.

Now to print some of the photos and start asking around town…

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How to Get “Likes” on Facebook

Posted on April 28, 2013 by Tom (Admin)

All you need to do is make a viral video.  I know, you’re saying there’s no way to make a “viral video” – all you can do is make a video and hope it goes viral.  But there is an easy formula – you just need to include a few key elements in order to guarantee that your video, will be guaranteed to go viral.

These key elements include kittens, or cats (at least 1); a fluffy yellow bird, some sort of shark or fish costume, and a robot.  This is one example of combining all those elements:

Then, all you do is ask people to “like” your facebook page and wait for the magic to happen.

Update: It seems that the owners of the above Facebook page forgot one small detail: make sure the video in question is yours. Remember that box you check when you upload a video to Facebook? It pays to read it.

It appears that the video originally appeared on YouTube. So the title of this post should have been “how to get a million views on YouTube”:

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Build Your Own Plant Host Drone

Posted on April 27, 2013 by Tom (Admin)

I recently posted about drones and how they’re being used. Here’s a much more humble drone – one that simply moves plants around your house to take advantage of changing sunlight. 

For the cost of $10-$15 (and a bit of know-how, which is of course priceless) you too can own one of these.  Find the instructions for the Plant Host Drone here.

This is how the thing looks when it’s built:

Now imagine all your houseplants outfitted with these, moving in unison around your house while you’re away at work!  Now add a cat to the picture….

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Got Drones?

Posted on April 26, 2013 by Tom (Admin)

Lately there has been increasing mention of the use of Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) for  unexpected purposes.  For example, both India and Namibia have been experimenting with the use of UAVs to control poaching, thanks to a $5 million grant given by Google to the WWF.  Here’s a video showing how it works in Namibia (here’s the view from the air). 

Commonly called drones, UAVs are part of a broader emerging class of vehicles which could include your friendly Roomba, robots that float on or travel under the sea, or land-based robots.  And they’re about to take over.

Drones have gotten a bad rap – essentially we’re talking about remote-controlled vehicles, often with cameras attached.  Which would be a really cool toy to have for making videos.  Not realistic, you say?  Actually, they are amazingly cheap.  You can use sites like DIYDrones to learn how to make your own aerial drones, or, via links on the same site, buy a pretty sophisticated drone with all the trimmings for under $1,000.

Of course, you can pick something up for a few hundred or less at your local electronics shop.  The difference between a “UAV” and a toy RC aircraft is that the UAVs don’t crash when they stray outside your fairly limited transmitter range – they have an autopilot mode.  They’re often a bit bigger and can carry other types of fairly sophisticated electronics.

The growing interest in unmanned aircraft and its possible uses is promising for the field of commercial aviation – and is an area where U.S. companies might have a current advantage against overseas competitors.  However, the field is not without its detractors.  Besides the ongoing debate about overseas drone attacks, there is also growing concern about issues such as privacy or airspace safety in the use of drones at home.  Others worry about more nefarious ends, likening the use of drones to “Big Brother”.

But soon, the drone may be a normal feature of American households.  For example, how about your very own drone scarecrow?  I’m told the garden gnome drone would retail for about $200, which apparently is not quite “commercially viable” for the purpose of scaring away crows.  But it’s only a matter of time before these things come to a garden near you!

Here’s a short video on drones and the ways they’re being increasingly used.

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“Pooh” Creator AA Milne’s Secret Life in Propaganda

Posted on April 25, 2013 by Tom (Admin)

So it seems that childhood favorite author AA Milne, who created all of the wonderful “Winnie the Pooh” stories (along with some of my favorite childhood poems), also spent some time in World War I writing propaganda for a secret British military intelligence unit.  And that this is only known to us because Milne broke the rules and brought his work home, where it escaped destruction after the war.  This has apparently upset a number of people, as it also upset Milne at the time.  Some of the articles appearing over the last few days are branding him a “spy” for this work – which is technically incorrect.

In today’s parlance, he’d have been referred to as a “defense contractor.”  As in today’s hearts-and-minds campaigns in Afghanistan and elsewhere (think mine awareness and weapons amnesty programs in the former Yugoslavia), most modern militaries conduct some form of “influence” activities, by creating culturally appropriate media content to elicit desirable attitudes and behavior.  Entire companies have been created to support such efforts in Afghanistan and Iraq, and despite granting access to secret military programs, no one ever called them “spies.”  Well, maybe the Taliban have.  But they call everyone spies.

The real difference between what Milne and his colleagues did in WWI and what we do today is that most Western militaries limit their influence efforts to “adversary” audiences.  And it’s usually very transparent – in NATO, for example, it is obligatory to disclose the author or sponsor of the material being disseminated – making it little more than what we would call marketing.  In the U.S. military, for a number of years it was forbidden to use the internet for information operations, because the primary consumer at the time was likely to be a U.S. citizen.

In Milne’s time, it was common to employ the same tactics to boost morale among one’s own troops.  In addition, there were concerns at the time that mounting casualties would increase war fatigue, leading to secret efforts to paint a rosier picture than existed on the ground.  For these reasons, apparently, a number of the propagandists employed in this effort felt immense guilt at having sent their young countrymen to their deaths.

To learn more about AA Milne’s World War I propaganda efforts, check out this article.

Update:  Even better, order the illustrated e-book, now available on Amazon for the Kindle (thanks to the author Jeremy Arter, who pointed it out to me via Twitter!)

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B&W Photos from an Old Agfa

Posted on April 10, 2013 by Tom (Admin)

My latest hobby is drawing some ire from the “head of household” but it seems harmless enough – scouring eBay for deals on vintage cameras, and, for those for which film is still available, experimenting with photographs to see if I can master this ancient art which is quickly being lost in the age of digital photography. Rather than “spray and pray” endless gigabytes of digital exposures in the hopes of getting a handful of decent ones, with these old cameras, you get 8 chances to get it right. Then wait until the prints come back and try and remember the conditions and settings with which you took the snaps to begin with – because there is no metadata file.

The latest feedback I’ve received from the film processors had to come all the way from the U.S. – five weeks’ round trip for a roll of film handcarried by someone who happened to be headed stateside, and then the prints they mailed back to me – because there’s no one to process black and white 120 film. The photos were taken on a camera I got a great deal on at eBay – an Agfa Billy Compur, pictured below, manufactured between 1934 and 1942.

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The top print on the stack was the one below, which I think is remarkable for an 80-year-old camera.

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Then there is this photo I took from the balcony, which is a little dark but turned out the way I’d expect a photo from 1934 to look.  I had taken a previous roll with this camera, and oddly, they all came out blurry.  The color version of the same shot is featured below the black and white – from the same balcony but aimed slightly to the left:

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On the way home from swim coaching, I stopped at a gas station and took the shot above, which could have been better.  And below, the classic problem I’ve had with these old cameras – a double exposure caused by forgetting to advance the film.  Done in the right way, this could produce an interesting effect.  I’ll have to wait for the next rolls of 120 film to come in the mail before I can try that.

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An Oshikandela, by any other name…

Posted on April 5, 2013 by Tom (Admin)

In our local grocery shop you can buy a couple of different varieties of yoghurt drink.  Two popular kinds sit right next to each other on the shelf.  I’m not a big breakfast eater; as I did when I lived in Europe, I like to take a drinkable yoghurt to work in the morning.  I prefer the Drinki – the Oshikandela looks a bit foreign to me; for whatever reason, I imagine it will be a bit sour, or somehow not what I am used to.  Once, when they were out of Drinki, I picked up a few of the Oshis, and my suspicions were confirmed – the taste was a bit “off” from what I was used to.

DSC04449Except here’s the thing.  They are exactly the same product.  For marketing reasons, Namibia Dairies has chosen to market exactly the same product to two different groups (Namibians of African extraction, versus those of European extraction) using different packaging.  Presumably they have highly paid, crack marketing teams who have been paid to figure this out.  Even stranger, the products sell for different prices in the same store.  Oshikandela goes for N$6.99 at our local Spar; Drinki sells for N$7.49.  At this point, I remind you that they sit right next to each other, on the same shelf in the dairy section.  Is this a case of the store charging “what the market will bear.”  Can we assume that white Namibians will shell out an additional 50 (Namibian) cents for the exact same product, just packaged differently?  Has someone done a study to figure out that they are willing to spend the extra cash for the product that doesn’t have an African-sounding name and cartoon drawings of traditional huts?

I personally found it strange that either the packaging, or perhaps some unknown cultural baggage, affected my sense of taste.  Could it have been the more realistic looking strawberry that made the Drinki “taste better”?  or the odd combination of yellow and pink that made the Oshi “taste worse”?

Oshikandela gets its own Facebook page – with over 5,000 “likes” – huge, by Namibian standards.  On that page, Oshikandela is linked to “childhood memories:” A quality drinking yoghurt produced by Namibia Dairies, every sip of Oshikandela brings back the happiest of childhood memories, while creating some new ones for a fresh generation of Oshikandela lovers. It’s made from the best Namibian rBST free milk.  A search for “drinki” returns nothing other than a list of articles on drinking.  So I suspect the marketers at Namibia Dairies asked themselves one day, “How can we get white Namibians to buy more Oshikandela?” and not “how can we get more black Namibians to buy Drinki?” Unless they just made up the whole Oshikandela childhood memories thing.  And if I stay in Windhoek long enough, I may eventually run into someone who got a promotion for coming up with the Drinki design.  And maybe, over a beer, he or she will explain they decided not to include the “easy drink cup” graphic on the Drinki, but instead just show a picture of a straw and lipstick.  Meanwhile, I know where I can get “Drinki” for 50 cents less.

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Namibian Fairy Circles Mystery Solved AGAIN!

Posted on April 4, 2013 by Tom (Admin)

It’s fun to ponder those unsolved mysteries of nature we’ve all heard about from childhood onward. Last March I blogged that one of those “nature’s unsolved mysteries” was unsolved no more – Namibia’s “fairy circles.”

Of course, depending on where you grew up, this may be the first time you’ve ever heard of them.  The “fairy circles” are an odd phenomenon in southern Africa – especially in Namibia – whereby vegetation refuses to grow inside a circle of anywhere from 3 to 10 meters in diameter.  The circles are dynamic – apparently they grow and “die”, to be filled in by grasses.  While they are active, seedlings will sometimes take root inside the circle, but they eventually wither and die.  (Here’s the photo again; click here for a video and scroll to 6:40)

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In my previous post, I talked about a solution to the mystery that had been proposed, whereby the circles were caused by hydrocarbon gas seepage from far underground, which displaces the oxygen in the sand within a certain radius and prevents plant growth.

But now a new solution has been proposed by German scientist Norbert Juergens.  The culprit?  Psammotermes allocerus!  Burrowing sand termites, that is…  Despite this theory having been previously debunked (“we dug a couple of them up.  No termites.”) it seems that Juergens has sifted through scores of fairy circles and consistently found these termites.  He theorizes that they kill all vegetation within a certain area because the sand conserves water, already scarce, when there are no plants to suck it up.  And that consequently the grass grows better along the perimeter of the rings (less competition from other plants), which then serves as a food source for the termites.

Though Juergens published his findings in Science magazine, I first read about his work on the website of The Gondwana Collection, a chain of Namibian desert lodges.  Other articles talk about skeptics, and Juergens admits his explanation isn’t airtight – no one has actually observed the termites killing the grass.  The BBC posted a stunning photo of fairy circles in which a lone tree has made a fairy circle of sorts on its own, posing a chicken-vs-egg question, as it relates to the absence of vegetation, allowing for increased water retention, which allows for an increase in vegetation?  Presumably the termites don’t like the taste of wood?

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My Destination’s “Biggest Baddest Bucket List” and Namibia

Posted on March 29, 2013 by Tom (Admin)

Here’s a great idea for a video contest:  make a 3 minute video about a favorite destination, write a few hundred words about travel, and send three photos.  What can you win?  a six-month, all-expense-paid trip around the world, and fifty grand in cash when it’s all over (presumably to make up for lost salary?)

Sound too good to be true?  My Destination is sponsoring just such a video contest.  And you’ve got three days left to enter!  No, I didn’t wait until now to tell you because I entered myself – I just heard about this too.  But what piqued my interest was the entry by a Namibian. Check out his video where he tries to portray Namibia as the “ultimate destination” (it’s certainly a contender!)  And then check out all the other really great travel destinations out there.  This will keep you busy – as of this writing, I count 711 videos.  Oh, and don’t forget to vote for your favorite!

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Namibia’s Dwindling Historical Archives

Posted on March 28, 2013 by Tom (Admin)

At 23 years and 8 days old, Namibia is starting to face the very real possibility that its historical archives – the artifacts and memories documenting the country’s long fight to achieve nationhood and defeat apartheid – may be lost forever.

Most of Namibia’s original revolutionaries are now in their 70s, and when you search the internet for example, it’s often challenging to find any evidence that efforts have been made to preserve and share the stories, memories and oral histories of those who participated in that 40-year struggle.  I’m hopeful that the National Archives have a good collection, but sometimes I hear stories that make me worry that much of what they have collected lacks the proper context.  There’s a book here and there.

Namibia has an “independence museum” – an odd structure I hear people increasingly refer to as the “giant coffee maker”.  Here’s an image of the Independence Museum:

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But it doesn’t actually look like this.  In reality, it’s surrounded by a chain-link fence, and there are no tourists loitering on its steps.  It was conceived of in 2003 or so, and built between 2009 and 2011 by a North Korean construction company (apparently the North Koreans are good at building large, imposing edifices, as they also built Namibia’s State House), the thing now stands empty.  Why?  Rumor has it that those in possession of historic materials that would be worthy of showing in the museum are not willing to part with those items – at least not on terms agreeable to both parties.  How do you decide fair compensation for something like that?

The latest sign to emerge that time is running out is a recent story in the Afrikaans-language Die Republikein.  According to the article, twenty photographs from independence struggle photographer John Liebenberg were sold to European and American collectors for N$ 504,450 (US$ 54,000).  The article points out that the photographer had attempted to sell them for a modest price to the national archives, for eventual display in the museum, but the expectation had been that he would donate the photos.  “I can’t be expected to give away my life’s work for free,” he said.  He noted the proceeds from the sale were desperately needed to pay for hip surgery.

At a certain point it’s necessary to ask who really owns these things.  How was it possible for all of the Smithsonian institutions in the United States to amass the 137 million items in their possession?  It started with a rich philanthropist named Smithson who left a small fortune to get things started.  The U.S. government took it from there, and many of the museum’s holdings were donated.

Where is Namibia’s Smithson?  I think he needs to be found soon.

 

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Another Wonderful Namibian Timelapse

Posted on March 25, 2013 by Tom (Admin)

While this one appears to be a commercial promo, it still does an amazing job capturing the photographer’s paradise that Namibia is, and can be for those willing to come and explore the country. Enjoy!

NAMIBIA from Rufus Blackwell on Vimeo.

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MySpace Resurrected, Photoshop to Close

Posted on March 15, 2013 by Tom (Admin)

I know, right?  MySpace is back.  I just got my invitation to join the new MySpace and decided to go and check it out.  Based on what I’ve seen so far, I’m not too optimistic – though the younger crowd that’s into music and music vids may appreciate it.  I’m hopeful it will be a useful way to discover new music – but so far it’s mainly just been a place where you can listen to 30-second snippets of anything moderately popular, and full-length versions of everything else.  You can catch the latest music videos and follow celebrity buzz.  Yawn.  Maybe for some people.  The “friending” mechanism is more like Twitter, and less like Facebook – you can “connect” with anyone you want, and they can either choose to connect with you or not.  Look me up if you decide to check it out – I’m only connected to a couple of people.  And neither of them is “Tom”.

But then the bad news came – Adobe sent me an email that Photoshop.com will no longer function as a photo sharing site.  Which is a bummer, because not only do they have an attractive interface, but you can also do quite a bit of photo editing online.  You can choose to share some or all of your photos publicly on a customized page, with a user ID, share to other social media sites and Flickr, as well as share links to photos and to slideshows, and get the embed code for slideshows.  So it’s handy for blogging, or for sharing with a large group of friends on Facebook, without actually uploading the photos to Facebook itself (and giving Facebook the rights to use your photos for whatever they want).

But I guess Adobe wants to transition over to Adobe Revel, which apparently was briefly called Carousel.  It’s a platform optimized for mobile devices and/or Macs, which allows you (via an app) to access your pictures across mobile devices.  You can also seamlessly share with social media, or use the app to email photos, as well as some photo editing, but I don’t think it’s as slick as the (online) photoshop software is/was.  Longtime Photoshop.com users will have the option of transferring their photos (JPEG only!) over to Revel, or can opt out and download everything (which is pretty easy) to their computer.  To smooth the transition, Adobe is giving one year of Premium (i.e. unlimited uploads) access and a free Photoshop Elements 11 upgrade, but after that you either pay $5.99 a month or 60 bucks a year to be able to upload more than 50 photos per month.  Which is actually a reasonable amount if you are just uploading your best pics.  In mid-June, if you haven’t taken action, all your files will go poof!

*sigh*.  I guess I was one of relatively few people who used and liked photoshop.com’s photo storage setup.  The new app doesn’t really offer anything that isn’t already offered by other photo sharing sites and apps, especially the redesigned Flickr app.  I’m thinking next year this time, both MySpace and Revel will be doing roughly the same.  But I wish them luck.

Meanwhile, if you want, you can check out my Photoshop site while it’s still around.  At some point I’ll need to go back and see how many blog embeds get messed up as a result of this change.

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Female Entrepreneur Launches Indiegogo Crowdfunding Campaign for Township Bicycle Touring Company

Posted on March 14, 2013 by Tom (Admin)

Here in Namibia, where income disparity is one of the highest in the world (THE highest, depending on whose figures you use) and unemployment hovers around 34 percent, small entrepreneurs in both the formal and informal sector are likely to be the biggest drivers of Namibia’s economy in the near future.

This is something young Namibians have recognized, because it seems like everywhere you look, someone has started a small business from their home to make ends meet.  The majority of these businesses end up being very similar – a small fruit stand, a brick-making business, a “shebeen”, or small bar; hair salons, car washes, clothing manufacturing, car repair – that sort of thing.  In these sectors, competition is cut-throat, and the prospects for growth are unfortunately quite limited.  But you can earn a basic living, so people keep doing it.

But every now and then I come across an idea that is especially innovative, and worth mentioning.  Enter “Katu Tours”, a small company launched by female entrepreneur Anna Mafwila.  Unlike many of her peers who look to downtown Windhoek as a business venue, Ms. Mafwila has opted to stay at home in Katutura.  Not only that, she has chosen to celebrate the township created during apartheid – 1961, to be exact, and given as a name (in Otjiherero) “the place where we do not want to live” by inviting tourists to learn about the location’s history and culture.  But with a twist:  with Katutours, visitors to Namibians (and even Namibians themselves who want to learn more about their own history) don safety vests and helmets and ride one of Mafwila’s fleet of bicycles, and go on a leisurely ride to take in the sights, smells, sounds – and tastes – of Katutura’s rich and vibrant culture.

As a young business, Katutours has already received some international attention and is listed on TripAdvisor.com, and the business was also runner-up in a recent “Meet the Lions” entrepreneurship competition.  One of Mafwila’s key challenges, however, is that most of her clients are in downtown Windhoek, and her venue – located along the scenic Goreangab Dam – can be a bit tricky to find for out-of-towners.  What Mafwila could really use to take her unique and innovative business to the “next level” is a way to pick up her customers from places like Windhoek’s swanky new Hilton Hotel, orcozy local guesthouses, bring them to Katutura, and return them after their tour is complete.

To that end, she has launched a campaign on the crowdfunding site Indiegogo (we told you she’s innovative – she may be the first “crowdfunder” in Namibia!).  On her Indiegogo page, she explains her goal of “bringing the city to the township” in greater detail.  And unlike other crowdsourcing sites like “Kickstarter”, she doesn’t have to meet a minimum target – everything that’s contributed, she gets to invest in her business (minus Indiegogo’s share).

Take a look at the video below, and be sure and check out Katutours’ Indiegogo page to find out more about how you can support an innovative entrepreneur in Windhoek, Namibia – and make a difference in a vulnerable community.  Details below.

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