Friday 10 November 2023

I Had A Busy Morning,

our refrigerator decided to make the refrigerator part of it a freezer!


 

so a new fridge/freezer it was, I should point out that I am only making one post a day over the next few days, as today not only will our refrigerator/freezer be arriving but also first thing the window guys will be calling by, to ease 2 of the windows that have become shut solid, back to Thursday, we started looking for a new appliance, only to find that we had 2 choices, go for a cheap no-name brand, or go for a name we knew of, actually the choice was made for us, all of the no-name ones we wanted were either out of stock or 10 to 14 days delivery, it appeared only the major brands were in stock and available for delivery next day, so that was that, we also took out a 5 year warrantee, the quote to renew our less than three year old LG television screen for £2,200 was still fresh in our memories, all of that took most of the morning, in the afternoon Diana had a few ZZZZZ's after her early morning start, so I had some free time in the afternoon, so another short video, I started on part 16 of the trip Neil and myself made to India, looking for new species of fish for the aquatic trade, we visited Assam, Meghalaya and Arunachal Pradesh, all in the top north eastern part of India,

 
in this video we are in India but looking across the border to Bangladesh, after a drive we found a small tributary, where some of the villagers were washing clothes, it was at this point I realised why so many of my shirt buttons were missing or broken! we watched one of the locals cross the river and cast his net, quite successfully, a few stills from the video below,
 
the river we looked in, 
 
me hard at work, 
 
Neil was working too, 
 
a large tadpole, locally called the RAF tadpole, because of the round circle on both sides of it, 
 
for both of us it was important to have a record of the fish we thought was a new species, 
 
I had slightly more hair then!
 
and here he is, alas, it was just a regional variety of a known specie, next I decided to play with a infrared photograph, 
 
the photograph came from our last day in Penzance, in 2020, above myself with the double camera set up, both cameras the same except one has had its sensor replaced with a infrared one,
 
the photograph from the normal camera, 
 
and the one from the infrared camera,
 
I swapped the colour in photoshop, in a faux colour swap that I had downloaded into it,

and started adding colour in the NIK Collection of tools that you can also download into it,
 
just a matter of trial by error, 

this looked nice, for me that is, infrared photography is not to everyone's taste,
 
a tad lighter, 
 
 
then a little colour out and back in again, 

before I was happy with this result, 
 
I tried again in NIK for a antique look, then I decide on a bit of fun, take this wildly way over the top infrared photograph, but put a normal sky in, 
 
and here it is, if you are interested in infrared photography we have a site with just IR photographs here, and a look at how I play with IR photographs is here
 
as it happens only last week I changed the photographs in the 12 frames we have on one of the living room walls to all IR photographs, 
 
 
here are a few of them, church, Santorini, Greece,

steps in Coombe Woods, South Croydon, UK  

the weir at Bath, UK if you want to look at the rest of them they are here, by now Diana was back from the Land of Nod, after our evening meal it was time for a BattleBots, followed by an Endeavour, then on to ITVX for a Midsomer Murder, before we were off to bed.


 

2 comments:

jpo5626 said...

Dear Stan and Diana
Appliances! Now they are within planned obsolescence products! A few years ago all appliances in the USA were covered by a 10 year manufacture's warranty. Then, all brands, dealers switched to a one year warranty. This corresponded with two items:
1. massive consolidation of parts to more of a universal part for all brands being supplied by CHINA instead of original origins.
2. USA government set up the " Energy Star" office in Washington to monitor and rate all items that use electric power. They place an "Energy Star" on those products that use low energy. PROBLEM: they do not consider the energy to manufacture or ship the items as replacements as now all appliances are programed to stop working at 5 years and two months after manufacturing. They all have "mother boards" that have a programed burn out time.
So "energy Star" is another worthless government program that only dumb people follow as they do not know or consider the huge amount of expense to replace & dispose of their planned obsolescence appliance.
Many now seek out used appliances that are 15 years old or more, all steel workings and have an unlimited lifespan vs the new appliances that have a burn out feature.
Meanwhile, where are the government protectors of consumers. They are political folks who get donations and favors by the big brands, so don't want to rock the boat.
Another side of this is that after the warranties moved to one year, manufacturers worked with dealers to get 3rd party insurance companies to offer long term warranties. So most here cost about $ 100 for a policy to cover the appliance for 5 years, only to have it burn out just past the warranty period. All by design.
THE KEY ABOUT WARRANTIES IS MOST PEOPLE FORGET THEY HAVE THEM OR HAVE LOST THE PAPERWORK TO EMPLOY THEM WHEN THINGS GO BAD. THEY JUST CALL THE REPAIR MAN AND FIND OUT THAT THE APPLIANCE IS TOAST. THE REPAIRMAN THEN OFFERS A $ 100 COUPON OFF TO REPLACE THE APPLIANCE. THE FOLKS THEN GO AND START THE PROCESS AGAIN. A GREAT CON BY THE FOLKS LIKE GE, SAMSUNG ETC
Well, there you have it-the golden era of good appliances is gone and replaced by shotty crap that is all plastic and built in China. So much for conserving resources. This is another program that damages the environment more that anyone knows.
The Biden answer is to push EV cars. All a big joke. I could go on but you already know how Big Brother has ruined the entire quality of life for most, while allowing various groups to become rich. All part of the grand plan to control the sheep.
Stan and Diana-great Christmas decor again this year-Happy Holidays to you both!
John and Alley

PattayaStan said...

Dear John and Alley, we have the same problems with appliances here, which is why we went with Hotpoint, which is a British brand of domestic appliances. Ownership of the brand is split between American company Whirlpool, which has the rights in Europe, and Chinese company Haier, which has the rights in the Americas through its purchase of GE Appliances in 2016, it was as near to a UK company that we could get! But I agree, built in obsolescence is a fact of life, but remembering our LG screen we thought it advisable to go with the 5 year insurance, as with all of our purchase like this I have above file with everything in that we have bought since we returned to the UK as for EV's what a joke, at everyone's expense, still Christmas is only 44 days away so the troubles of the world forgotten for a few days, Merry Christmas, Stan and Diana.