Author: Allan

Smartphone X-excitement

Spring has taken hold, with all longer days and the useful spring stuff happening: singing birds, blooming flowers and the first mowing of the lawn coming up.

That also means that the prime season of Android phone enthusiasts is coming to an end. The big trade shows CES and MWC are long over and most of the key players have announced their 2016 lineup. The only one waiting is HTC, who will (I hope) confirm the leaks and their own Twitter hype this Tuesday Apr 12. I have been looking forward  to this, since my current phone is up for replacement and I am particularly fond of their products. Of course, with all the leaks there isn’t  much left to be surprised about – the  only thing I still feel I need to know is whether there the camera has OIS or similar functionality.

Other than that (i.e. some details about the camera) there isn’t much about the specifications that gets me excited at this time. The hardware specs will be pretty much the same as all the other phones in that tier, since they all use the same components: The SoC will be from Qualcomm, the camera from Sony, the screen from either LG or Samsung. Gone are the days where the decision which model to buy could be made looking at specs alone; so if you don’t buy into marketing stuff of “life companion“-ship and  “Life is good when you play more“, then event’s aren’t really interesting. It is only when you hold the device in your hand that you Know.

I think it is a good thing, because it means that focus can shift away from tweaking specs and over to something that actually make a difference in every day us like ergonomics, call quality and battery life (and camera features, although the cameras on most new phones is probably good enough for most purposes, unless you are one of those who must have RAW images, and in that case it won’t be as good as the DSLR you want anyway).

Feeling this un-excited I also understand why smart phone sales are starting to decrease. The devices are still getting better, but not better in a way that makes a big difference, and if your current device is good enough, there is little reason to upgrade, except for security updates (or if you did like me and bought a device with less memory and worse camera than last years model had). For example, a relative of mine is happy with his 2011 HTC Sensation, which does everything he needs it to do (calls, calendar, SMS, mail checks and a few simple apps).

It is the same falling trend as seen with tablets and (because we still use our iPad the same way we did when we got them, so why update) and PCs. It is probably not a coincidence that smartphone sales are leveling out now that the specs of the high end phones are comparable to mainstream PCs (2 GHz Quad Core, 4 GB RAM…). After all, they are used for the same purposes, and while hardware architectures may be wildly different, an email client is an email client, and many web pages the same regardless where you view them.

The time has come for something new and shiny to be excited about. Probably Virtual Reality.

In the meantime, it is good to know that the smart phone that I have come to rely on for planning, news and communications is a mature and reliable devices without too many surprises.

Related Posts

The Declining PC Sales, Follow-up

PCs and Diversification?

New Fish – Severums

Got new fish yesterday: 6 Severum cichlids (and a Siamese algae eater).

This has bee a very long time coming. Not only have I been thinking of taking my tank in a new direction for the last couple of years, but trying to keep some of the larger cichlids is something I always wanted.

Going for Cichlids

Why? Well, if you know nothing about fish keeping but hear or read about it, you quickly note the cichlid hype: Large, beautiful fish with interesting behavior and lots of attitude. Generally not too demanding, as long as the tank is big enough and the water is clean. “Generally”, I write – there are some notable differences : )

So it is natural that keeping cichlids are on the bucket lists of many fish keepers (and to many it becomes the end of one bucket list and the beginning of a  new cichlid-centric one).

In my case I have been circling the issue for a long time, trying out various smaller species with varying degree of success (mostly low). A key challenge has been either a poor choice of species or water conditions. My tap water has pH 8 and hardness 22 dKH, which does not work well with South American fish, most of which come from acidy, soft waters. South American dwarfs like Apistogramma and Rams have had short, while kribs have fared better (even spawning twice in my large community tank). But my first feeling of succes was with the cupidos I have kept for the last four years. They are wild caught in Peru, but have  done quite well (I have lost some, and some may not have grown optimally due to periods of less-than optimal water conditions). The difference may be in the food. Before the cupidos I fed mostly flakes, while the cupidos have been fed alsmost exclusively frozen food. So I could have revisited the dwarf species once more. But then again, there are other things on my aquarium bucket list.

Why severums?

I was looking for fish that is

  • large enough to be the centerpiece(s) of a large tank – which rules out the dwarf cichlies: I want a fish I can watch from the sofa accorss the rtoom, although I don’t need a 50 cm wet pet.
  • one that that isn’t totally mainstream, ruling out Scalare and even discuss (so that visitors ask “whaht a beutiful fish, what is it?” instead of “oh, you have discus too, don’t they come in all sorts of colors?”)
  • one that is able to coexist with other fish and don’t necessarliy eat everything green – ruling out many otherwise beutiful and interesting species. Maybe later (the convict is on my list)

Out of those criteria came my list of usual suspects:

  • Firemouth
  • Blue acara
  • Severum
  • Nicaragua cichlid

all of which might fit my criteria, but reading sources on the internet I also know that milages vary. Regardless of the choice, the other fish in the tank may or may not be fine and the plants remain. There is only one way to find out.

In the end it came down to what was available in the local fish store. There were severums (H. nonatus and H. efasciatus (wild caught)), (Electric) Blue Acara and a couple of Nicaraguans. No Firemouths. Since I want a small school to start out with and am no big fan of culture forms like the Electric Blue Acara, and since my latest good results were with wild caught fish, the choice was clear:

6 Heros efasciatus ‘Rotkeil’ ‘Rio Yacali’

It will be interesting to see how that plays out, time will tell.

(As for the algae eater: Great fish for doing just that – highly recommended.)

Related Posts

About Fish

About Fish

As written in ‘about me‘ I like to care for my fish 1.

After a few years of low activity (little children…) I expect to gear up now, and expect there will be some stories worth sharing too. Therefore this introductory post, similar to my first about gardening.

My interest in aquariums goes back more than 30 years. I am not sure how it started. Perhaps a visit to the (now closed) Fyn’s Akvarium, perhaps a visit to a pet store or maybe seeing an aquarium at a friends house. I can’t be sure, but I remember being very excited – reading every book in the library and making scale drawings of the fish I would one day keep. Then I got my first tank,  set it up and got it overstocked with predictably bad outcome. My first computer arriving didn’t help. After a few years I gave up.

Still, the interest never vaned entirely, and in time realized how I might avoid the pitfalls that stopped me the first time: A bigger bucket for water changes, being able to go to the pet store on my own, better finances (not that aquariums ever need to be a costly hobby)…

Time passed, I kept thinking about it and in 2005 I finally decided to do something about it. I had just finished some years of evening school and my wife was going to work abroad for a while. I started with an 85L tank (because that was the size of my first tank, so I could reuse equipment), but soon I was hit by multiple tank syndrome and I soon had six tanks in a one bedroom apartment, breeding several species.. When my wife returned home the the breeding tanks were emptied, and when we moved into our new house they were filled again.

With a larger house there was both room for a larger main tank in the living room, as well as a proper fishroom for more experiments and more breeding. Since then the fishroom has been re-purposed for baby stuff, so I am once more down to one single tank, a 530L tank housing a planted South American community.

Volume: 530 liters (129 Gal)
LxHxW: 160x60x55 (63″x24″x22″)
Water: PH= 8; hardness 22 dKH

Stocking list (as of Mar 18, 2016):

  • 6 Biotodoma cupido
  • 5 Platys
  • 13 Rummy nose tetra (H. bleheri)
  • 6 Three-line corys (C. trilineatus)
  • 2 blue gouramis
  • 1 silvertip tetra
  • 1 black ghost knife fish

This has been a stable setup for a while and it is time for change.

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About Gardening

When Sally met Pascal

Valentine’s Day didn’t use to be a thing in Denmark, but it is becoming one, helped by florists, chocolatiers and everyone else eyeing opportunity. Fine with me – February is a cold and dark month that can do with a holiday (as is October and November, which is why I support reinstating All Hallows Eve as a public holiday, never mind the pumpkins and trick-or-treating).

This year, with two little kids and following a busy week we didn’t prepare a romantic evening, but once there was quiet, we watched Casablanca for the first time in many years, remembering it as one romantic movie. It still is, as well as many other things. It is a movie with many qualities, which must be the reason why it is still talked about. One particular quality that I noted this time was the tight script and story. It is a dramatic film full of love and emotion and the movie manages to tell that story without adding syrup.

The next movie we watched was When Harry met Sally… (we got inspired by watching Casablanca, which is referenced several times in When Harry… I really liked that movie and back in the 90s it was among my favorites because of its great, entertaining dialogue. Watching it again after many years’ pause was great. The dialogue is as sharp as ever (and it is also a great movie to recall New York). Every word matters, and not a word said that isn’t necessary.

It is great contrast to another recent movie memory of mine: the Hobbit trilogy. Those are movies with a different sort of script, where it seems that extra content has been entered to make a relatively short book fill up 8 hours of movie trilogy. Maybe I just wasn’t in the right mood when watching it – I actually felt bored (but I have great memories with other Peter Jackson movies: for example, some of his earlier movies like Bad Taste and Heavenly Creatures were eye openers when I first saw them – in each their own way).

There are many ways to write a good script. When Harry Met Sally’s won the 1989 BAFTA and was nominated for an Academy award (the winner was Dead Poet’s Society) and Casablanca won the 1942 Oscar for screenplay; whereas Peter Jackson and Fran Walsh won both BAFTA and Oscar for best adapted screenplay with The Return of the King (script less bloated than the Hobbit movies). Of course, original and adapted screenplays are two different things – means to different ends – and should be compared as much as apples and bananas should – just like different movies have different purposes and audiences and shouldn’t be compared either. (It is worth noting that Peter Jackson and Fran Walsh also received an academy award nomination for best original screenplay in 1994 with Heavenly Creatures).

I like the idea of crisp writing and recognize it take effort to write. Like mathematician Blaise Pascal wrote about a letter: “I have made this [letter] longer than usual because I have not had time to make it shorter (link). Or, anyone can stand up and speak about some topic for an hour without preparation, whereas speaking about it for a few minutes only, requires thought and preparation (link).

Another script I recently enjoyed for being crisp and not dragging things out unnecessarily was Rambo, First Blood Part 2 – that one also avoids unnecessary talk and gets the plot underway fast. Of course, Sylvester Stallone may not have been thinking along the lines of Blaise Pascal when writing that script, but instead focused on telling a story of a hero doing heroic things (and rehabilitating Vietnam war veterans). Actually, the script won a Razzie award for worst screenplay, while receiving an academy award nomination for best sound editing (the 3rd Hobbit movie got nominated in that category too)

There are many ways to enjoy a movie. Great special effects, breathtaking action, deep emotions. There are different movies for different moods, and sometimes it is just as enjoyable to watch how a movie is made, as actually watching the movie itself.

For the next while I will pay extra attention to the script of the movies I watch. Is it crisp? Dialogue or scenery focused? I will stay with Peter Jackson – next up is Meet the Feebles.

Sowing the Seeds of 2016

Update May 6: Chilies and tomatoes ready for the greenhouse.

It is still February but the days have already grown much longer and there is daylight when I go to work and when I come home. That means it is also time to start thinking about what is going to happen in the garden this year and in particular what goes into the greenhouse, because now is the time to sow anything you want to sow yourself.

One good thing about writing this up systematically is that it helps capture thoughts and decisions about what to sow. We usually have some good ideas for new things to try when we order the seeds, but forget them once we have sown and so we end up with a result like last year and the year before that and… Now, this year we will write down objectives for ourselves so that we remember (occupational hazard). Also, while we usually take some time every fall to think about what went well and what didn’t, those lessons learned have not been captured. Until now, that is (occupation hazard, again).

Objectives:

  1. Try out some milder chili sorts, e.g., Habanero Dulce, Trinidad Perfume or Vicente’s Sweet Habanero (will buy plants since we don’t have seeds already) 2
  2. Try some of Gartneri Toftegaard‘s own tomato cultivars (every year we note down the best at the  every year at the tasting day, and this time we will use them 3
  3. Successfully preserve chilies (we didn’t succeed the last couple of years)

Lessons Learned:

  • Capillary boxes worked really well – we are doing that again
  • We had trouble with lice on the chilies last year, probably because the plants were standing too close to each other and there was insufficient air circulation
  • Chilies may have been sown too late, the tomatoes too early
  • Chilies should be dried in a warm place like a sunny windowsill and not on the top of a cupboard (but we just weren’t ready to place chilies within easy reach of a toddler)

Last year we tried capillary boxes for the first time and were very pleased with the result: Reduced maintenance and improved growth, which also means that there will not be room for as many different plants as we used to have.

Also, we will sow chilies early and tomatoes later. Looking in our records, I see we have done this before:

2015: Mar 19

2014: Mar 2

2012: Mar 17 and Apr 1

2010: Feb 28 (Chilies), Mar 21 (Tomatoes & Chilies)

Time will tell if this gives us a better result this year than last, and we can record the outcome in new lessons and revisit the year’s objectives.

Here is what was sown:

Chilies 2016

Because we use capillary boxes we only expect to have seven chili plants this year. Since we will buy the milder chili plants, we only sow five different sorts this year.

  1. Habanero
  2. Habanero
  3. Lemon Drop
  4. Lemon Drop
  5. Jalapeno
  6. Jalapeno
  7. Friars Hat
  8. Friars Hat
  9. Friars Hat
  10. Cayenne Long Slim
  11. Cayenne Long Slim
  12. Cayenne Long Slim

Chilies sown on Feb 22, all seeds from 2015

Tomatoes 2016

Goal is to have 12 plants in green house and maybe some outdoor bush tomatoes, so depending on the outcome we may use 2 of each plant, or maybe buy some other sorts from a nursery.

  1. Rosadel
  2. Rosadel
  3. Tangidel
  4. Tangidel
  5. Sungold
  6. Black Cherry
  7. Black Cherry
  8. Bloody Butcher
  9. Bloody Butcher
  10. Gardeners Delight
  11. First in the Field (bush)
  12. Tumbler (bush)

Tomatoes sown on Mar 27, all seeds from 2015

Mar 2

Checked under the canopy today – several seeds have already sprouted, with seedlings more than 2 cm long. Cayenne Long Slim has come the farthest, Lemon Drop is just about to break though and Habanero isn’t there yet.

Chilies - 10 days after sowing
Chilies – 10 days after sowing

Mar 6

The canopy comes off

Mar 14

The longest sprouts or about 7 centimeters long. The Lemon Drops are still small, but may turn out all right, whereas I have no hope for the Habaneros.

Chilies - 26 days after sowing
Chilies on Mar 19 – 26 days after sowing

Mar 27

Time to move the best chili sprouts into pots and sow tomatoes.

Outcome of the different chili seeds were:
(#seeds/#sprouts/#re-potted)

  • Habanero: 10/0/0
  • Lemon Drop: 10/4/3 (two of them significantly weaker)
  • Jalapeno: 10/6/4
  • Friar’s Hat: 15/10/5
  • Cayenne Long Slim: 15/8/3
Class of 2016 graduates from the Chiliversity (34 days after sowing).
Class of 2016 graduates from the Chiliversity – 34 days after sowing

Also bought potatoes to to lay in our own little patch. one very early sort (Frieslander) and an early sort (Hansa). We are avoiding later sorts to avoid sickness later in the season.

Apr 2

Canopy comes off the tomatoes – sproutlings are alredy 5 cm long.

Apr 10

Some of the tomato sprouts are already more than 10 centimeters long, so time to move the best sprouts into their own pots.

Outcome of the different tomato seeds were:
(#seeds/#sprouts/#re-potted)

  • Rosadel: 10/7/3
  • Tangidel: 10/4/3
  • Sungold: 5/5/3
  • Black Cherry: 10/6/5
  • Bloody Butcher: 10/2/2
  • Gardeners Delight: 5/3/2
  • First in the Field (bush): 5/0/0
  • Tumbler (bush): 5/4/2

Looking at the plants after repotting, I wonder if I was out to early – time will tell.

20160417 Tomatoes
Tomatoes on Apr 17; 7 days after being re-potted, 20 days after sowing.

Also: The first chili flowers are showing.

May 6

The plants are ready for the greenhouse – just need to clean it.

20160505 Chilies and Tomatoes
Chilies and Tomatoes on May 5, almost ready to be planted out.

May 7

Laid the potatoes out and prepared the greenhouse.

May 8

Chilies and tomatoes planted in the greenhouse.

It is still early to draw conclusions, but I suspect one lesson learned this year will be that the tomatoes could easily have been sowed a week later, but let’s see how it play out in the greenhouse.

Related posts

Sowing the Seeds of 2015

Garden Diary 2016

Growing the Seeds of 2016