“Learning is the only thing the mind never exhausts, never fears, and never regrets” – Leonardo da Vinci
Greetings from the Doona Hermit Worldwide HQ.
Once again we find ourselves in a lockdown.
I suspect that most of us were hoping it would not happen again, but at the same time dreading that the inevitable would surface like a rogue submarine to waste havoc on our best plans.
The quote from Leonardo was sent to me by my new friend, William, at Wacom Customer Support.
William and I have been busy the past week or so, trying to get the Driver installed for my new Wacom Pen/Tablet.
At first I was a bit bemused, but as each day, and each attempt only made things more exasperating, my mood, I have to confess changed.
The long story is Mac’s Catalina and above Operating System will really only recognise software downloaded from the Temple of All Things Apple,(TATA) and only it it has been blessed or approved by the Apple High Priest of Software Accreditation. (AHPSA)
So give William his credit, like some heretic without a cause, he kept feeding bits of ‘code’ that eventually cracked open the door to the Vault of Software Consciousness (VSC). That is after more restarts of the machine than its had in the 3 years I’ve owned it.
Reminded of a universe so far away and an Apple Macintosh SE, that required deleting something called plist every-time a new device was attached. 🙂
So now my sparkling new Red Wacom tablet and its attendant pen ‘talk’ to the computer and my days of ‘mousing’ around might be entering their own Twilight Zone.
All this because my current photo management software, (Capture One 21) has such a cool interface with pen/tablets, but that as they say is another story.
Just before Dan Stalin introduced his sweeping Lockdown Rules and unleashed his “Fine ’em at any cost’ Troopers, we had made an early morning run to see the Great Crested Grebe family.
Out of Five eggs, it seems that one didn’t hatch, and the family is down to three young. Perhaps the fourth one was too weak to survive. After all they can only look after so many, and the strong will take preference.
So back to the Doona.
Good luck to all my fellow detainees.
(and PS, I think Dan has made the right call just in case I get branded as a dissident and I find burning crosses on the front lawn.)
Birds as Poetry —— Just because I WANDER - --doesn't mean I'm LOST 
A wonderful image and interesting discussion. One day all ‘brands’ will talk to each other without fuss! Or perhaps I should heed Darryl Kerrigan (The Castle) “Tell him he’s dreaming!”
Hopefully the five days time out will suffice, three days of home schooling will be enough for now!
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I gotta tell you, “You’re Dreamin’”. I’ve built boxes to have one thing talk to another, turned analogue to digital and back, wrote code to by pass PABX in hotels, so you’d think a piddly little driver for a pen would be simple enough. It probably is until it confronts the behemoth that is apple’s plan to secure their universe from the prying eyes of governments, criminally intent hackers and 14 year olds in their bedrooms at 3:00 am 🙂
And now the weather gods have given us 3 days of fine light. Go figure.
Remain
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I love that photo David it almost looks like both parents are smiling with satisfaction and pride in their new brood. It looks like a drawing from a story book. Glad you conquered your new computer gadget installation, they can be very frustrating, as it is learning coding to do my website when things don’t work the way they are supposed to. So lovely to see the growth of this new family. The stripy babies remind me of baby emus who look similar. Hope you don’t have to go through this lock down again. I saw photos of people who were not wearing PPE when they were servicing the hotel Quarantine. Sadly the Eureka Stockade spirit lives on in your state. We are enjoying a moment of normality for a at least today. I say that realising that tomorrow can be very different in these uncertain times. It has been like winter here cold and wet all day the last few days, so I guess the dooner might not be too bad a place to be. Stay safe and enjoy the next few days as best you can with your new toy. 🙂
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Hi Ashley. All Good.
The tiny ones when clinging to Mum’s back look a little frog or turtle like.
I think I’m more annoyed with myself for bowing to the pressure to “own” the pad, rather than “need” it
Makes some photo jobs easier, but I really do little “serious” post processing so it more a toy than a tool for me. Just the new interface on Capture One is keyboard shortcut friendly to the tablet and can save a bit of time. Like at the moment, under the doona, it’s not like I am suddenly timepoor.
Too hard to know if this iteration of the lockdown is simply due to bad luck, or dreadful mismanagement. Either way, it is important to bring it back under control
We’ll see.
Remain
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Hi David. I have been watching grebe families also. I think survival of the fittest plays a big role in these families. One chick was much larger than the other two. It learnt to dive off mums back when dad arrived with food. It was also a bully and was constantly pecking the other two and pushing them off mum’s back. The other two are no longer there. There was also a single mum with three chicks. Even though she was constantly diving and feeding them, they all survived. Now there is another new family to watch when lockdown is over.
Cheers Nina
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Hi Nina, Lucky you to have several pairs to follow. This pair are a bit of an anomaly, I think this is their first clutch.
I have some other shots that show one of the chicks is substantially larger than the others, although the parents do seem to be tending them reasonably evenly.
I know that Australasian Grebe young quickly reduce in numbers, (a bit like Pac Ducks), and it must be a parenting thing.
Hope you have lots of good sightings of them as they grow.
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This is such a beautiful image. It looks like an illustration to some fairy tale about the Family Grebe. I’m glad you’ve managed to get there and the birds knew you’re coming.
The lockdown came rather unexpectedly, yet this is what it is in these times.
I’ve got a card full of images from the last hours of freedom so maybe it’s the time to learn a bit more about processing in my DxO program.
The weather is getting better every day so it won’t be easy,
Stay safe and let us see more of your great photos.
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G,day Adam, I chose this image as I rather liked the male stretching out with the young ones looking on in awe.
We don’t have a lot of other action happening at present, so a week at home won’t really lose us much.
I have been using DxO for the past 12 months or more, and the major reason for changing was simply the database management. I keep DxO on hand as the fab Sharpening and Noise Reduction is so far out in front of the pack, Topaz is incredible, but I find so many artifacts that most time is better to perservere with the others. Also I am not a great high ISO person, so noise reduction is not my main fallback position,.
No light, go home, that’s me.
Hopefully you’ll be back among the birds quickly,
Good luck,
Remain
The Doona Hermit
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Love the image!
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All good thank you for the kind comment
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A wonderful image of the Grebe family, David. The light, the colours and the overall crispness are beautiful. Your images always make me feel I should switch to Nikon, but somehow I think there’s a bit more to it than just the hardware!
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Hi Eleanor, it was indeed one of those “magic” mornings. Light t cloud, sunny breaks, no wind. My dear Mum always said when I held the precious box camera, “Keep the sun over your left shoulder, dear.”
Was good advice then still good today. GdOnyaMum!
I’d have to look but I think these were shot with the Sigma Lens, so no Nikon Points there. Checked, tis true and this with the 1.4 Teleconverter as well 😄
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