Pictures of Miscellaneous Stuff & Things

[steve99f]

Very interesting tools you are showing Joe. Thanks!

[FRJ]

Thank you, Steve.
I'm glad you like them.

[zp4ja]

Agree with all the others Joe. I also have a admiration for old tools.
I have my Dad’s diagonal cutters from when he became a Navy mechanic. That was 1948’. They are in my safe if that says anything about how much I value them.

In today’s disposable society, I just enjoy seeing those old used but well cared for tools. I’ll have dig some out someday and take some pics.

Thanks for sharing.

Jerry

[zp4ja]

Only in Mexico. Seen many bizarre things over the years working here.

What a charming and inticing name for a food joint...

Jerry

[doglegg]

A recently hatched Kingbird. The momma sat on a fence about two hundred feet away. Then spotting some insect she would fly off, catch it, and bring it to the youngun. Unfortunately, I did not get a good photo of the feeding. The photos enlarge with a left click.

P1020494.JPGP1020495.JPGP1020496.JPG

QS I always enjoy watching Kingbirds. Boy can they be protective of their offspring. And they can be very territorial as well, and not bullied by other birds. Fun to watch.

[Quick Steel]

Agreed. I've seen them pursuing hawks. Birds that do so are usually in a flock as they drive the hawk or crow away. But even solo, the Kingbirds are fearless; Kingbirds were abundant in the suburbs, golf courses and fields around Chicago, at least they were. But this was the first I've seen in years and first in KY so it was a pleasure.

[Mumbleypeg]

It was hot here this afternoon. 101 in the shade. It was hot in the shop, so I moved the project I was working on to a table under a big oak tree outside the shop to take better advantage of the breeze. A short time later I heard the Guinea fowl raising a ruckus about something, so I went to see what was going on. When I came around the corner of the shop I saw them all looking toward the south and cackling up a storm. Here's what they were excited about.

Red-tail Hawk

Sorry the picture is a little out of focus. I took it with my phone from about 50 yards away. Tried to get closer but when I did it flew away. The fence post he is sitting on is 5 1/2 ft high, so you can get an idea of size of the rascal. I suspect it was checking out the chickens!

Ken

[treefarmer]

A week ago we had a hawk knock out our power for a couple of hours, this week one happened to show up on a game camera. Usually we see them on the edges of fields where they must be keeping watch for mice, rats and such, this picture is in some deep woods where a couple of game trails intersect an old woods road.
What variety of hawk is this one? Click on the pic, it should get bigger.

Treefarmer

[FRJ]

Love the pictures of the hawks.
That trail cam is pretty cool.

I found some more tools ..........

[FRJ]

And you know what they say about clamps ..............

[doglegg]

It was hot here this afternoon. 101 in the shade. It was hot in the shop, so I moved the project I was working on to a table under a big oak tree outside the shop to take better advantage of the breeze. A short time later I heard the Guinea fowl raising a ruckus about something, so I went to see what was going on. When I came around the corner of the shop I saw them all looking toward the south and cackling up a storm. Here's what they were excited about.

image.jpeg
Sorry the picture is a little out of focus. I took it with my phone from about 50 yards away. Tried to get closer but when I did it flew away. The fence post he is sitting on is 5 1/2 ft high, so you can get an idea of size of the rascal. I suspect it was checking out the chickens!

Ken

That one is big, must be a female. Had one that size that hung around our equipment yard when I worked for the City of Grand Prairie. She tolerated no other red tails in her jurisdiction.

[FRJ]

Sorry the picture is a little out of focus. I took it with my phone from about 50 yards away.

Ken, does your phone allow you to take closeups?
I didn't know mine did until recently.

[Mumbleypeg]

It does, but it's a digital close up, not optical like you get with a true telephoto camera lens. What that means is its not a true optical close up. Instead there's an algorithm in the phone's computer that digitally expands the pixels captured by the camera lens. Up to a certain point the human eye can't tell the difference. Beyond that point the picture begins to look out of focus.

Most phones (all of them as far as I know) use that technique. Otherwise they would have to incorporate a true telephoto lens into the phone.

Ken

[TwoFlowersLuggage]

Ken is correct - there have been a couple of phones that had true optical zoom, but they are very, very rare - all the rest use a "digital zoom". A digital zoom is nothing more than software that uses the high resolution pixels of the native camera sensor to assign multiple pixels to each native pixel, and then it throws out the pixels at the edge. So, let's say your camera's native sensor is "8 megapixels". That means it is probably a sensor that has 3264 x 2448 pixels (or something close to that). Now, let's say the hawk in your picture is in a small area at the center of your picture. The "hawk part" of the picture might only be actually composed of 200x300 pixels. So, what they do is take every one of those 200x300 pixels and assign several pixels from the total 8 megapixels to each of the hawk pixels. Now, that 200x300 hawk might be 1400x2100 pixels. The hawk just got much bigger on your screen! Of course, the downside is that the quality of that 1400x2100 images is really only as good as the 200x300 image. All you did was effectively make each of the 200x300 pixels seven times bigger. The image is going to look blocky and fuzzy. The camera software has tricks to try to fool the human eye into thinking the picture looks better, but it will never be as good as a really good optical zoom lens that is able to use the entire 8 megapixels in the zoomed image.

A digital zoom is the same thing as zooming in to a picture using the picture viewer on your computer. Zoom in far enough, and it will look like this:

Edit: Sorry for the unsolicited lecture - I spend a good part of every day explaining to people how tech geek stuff works and why it doesn't work the way they think it does. It's hard to turn it off...

[Quick Steel]

FRJ, I particularly like the backlighting on the lower shot. And I appreciate learning the technical info from Ken and TFL.

[Eustace]

Wednesday 27.06, Group F, Third Round of the FIFA World Cup Russia 2018:
South Korea - Germany 2-0

[steve99f]

I could care less about soccer but that right there is a riot! I think I exhaled some coffee.

[jerryd6818]

Georgi, that right there is funny.

[doglegg]

Eustace, there is a lot of crying in Germany today. Very funny picture.

[Eustace]

Yeah, it has always been difficult for the Germans in Russia.
I like the German football team. They were a world champion in 2014, after removing Brazil with 7-1 in the semi-final and Argentina with 1-0 in the final. But they are now very far from their usual high class.

[mrwatch]

garage sale find. $1.00 knife sharpener.

[FRJ]

I found some more old tools .............

[FRJ]

And .......
Quite small lead shot cast. Only 5 5/8" long. Steel ball shown is 1/2 " diameter which is obviously too big.
38 cal. or 32 cal.? Who knows ..........

[FRJ]

And ........
A neat old "bone" rule.

[FRJ]

Some steel tapes.