Ely Cathedral  2008  © PJ Croft 2020

Another byoot day, 24.4deg and virtually no wind. Lovely.

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    It defies belief, how nasty, awful, horrible donald trump is. Former Secretary of State Colin Powell, also a former chief of defence staff, in other words pretty well qualified, has said what everyone knows, that trump is not qualified to be president and he won’t be voting for him in November. And Powell is a Republican.

So what does trump do? He acts exactly like a child. “Oooh, he said nasty things about me so I’m going to say nasty things about him.” This idiot just attacks anyone who criticises him, just like a schoolboy in the yard. He’s a child!

Yet the Republican Party, that venerable US political party of old, usually referred to as the GOP which stands for Grand Old Party (it took me years to work that out in the days before the internet), sits back and stays silent. They don’t care how bad their candidate’s performance is, all they care about is being re-elected in November.

How can nearly half of Americans support this clown? His performance in office just gets worse and worse, week by week, yet nothing shakes their faith in him.

It’s long been my belief that support for the liberal, progressive side of politics (that’s small l, not Liberal) is directly related to intelligence. The more intelligent you are, the more likely you will support progressive parties and policies. Conversely, the less intelligent, the more likely you are to support the conservative side, the less progressive, the ones who oppose change. In fact if you look at the bell curve of IQ, I’ll bet that voting intentions line up with conservative voters on the left, low IQ side, and the progressive voters will occupy the right, high IQ side. I’ll do some research on this, I think.

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Paris 2008    © PJ Croft 2020

I’ve spent a lot of time working with a new program I’ve found to build a web site. I suppose it’s a bit surprising that I’ve never had my own web site and to be honest it’s because I’ve never known how to do it. I’m not bad with most software but I don’t know everything and web sites have always been a mystery to me.

Anyway, this new software (new to me) is called Wix, http://www.wix.com. It’s an Israeli company and it’s all drag and drop, no coding needed. It’s free if you have your own domain (hosting site) but they’ll host it for you for a basic cost of US$10 per month, or more realistically US$14 per month for a few extras.

It looks quite good with lots of templates to choose from, and it’s fairly easy so far, but it doesn’t take long to get bogged down. I started trying to build folders of my images but I seem to be endlessly changing things to the way I want them, then finding it doesn’t look right and having to lose the work I’ve done, then doing it again and so on. No doubt a teenager could do it in his sleep, but I’m not sure it’s the software for me. I’ll post progress if it happens.

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Nottingham, UK.  ©  PJ Croft 2020

I’m using a lot of software from a UK company called Serif these days. They’re based in Nottingham. Serif of Nottingham, geddit?

They used to sell fairly mid-range software but a few years ago they decided to go big time and compete with Abobe, the US 500Kg gorilla that produces Adobe Photoshop which they only rent for a monthly fee. In other words you go on paying and paying.

So Serif have produced three main programs under their Affinity brand, — Affinity Photo, Affinity Designer and Affinity Publisher. Unlike Adobe, you can buy the software for a very reasonable once-off price (usually A$50 approx.) and it’s yours to use as long as you want. You get upgrades within versions but if you are happy to stay, that’s all you pay.

I’ve bought all three programs and the Designer was half price during the lockdown period, about $25. Bargain! Recommended.

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I do actually have a website – it’s this one. Although the host is WordPress.com, I pay $30 per year for my own domain name which is http://www.bullsroar.me  The “.me” means “me, myself, I” if you follow me. But I can’t display my images except in-line and I want to do more than that.

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Having got rid of that old Sony TV, I’ve been doing some tidying up in that room and bingo, I’ve found something that I’ve been looking for for more than a year. It’s a JVC car radio that I bought in 2012, a double-DIN Bluetooth unit, AM/FM and CD of course. I wanted to put it into the Magna before I sold it, but damned if I could find it. I found it in a box that was hidden below other stuff.

Now, what to do with it? I have a nice Kenwood DAB+ radio/CD/USB/Bluetooth in the cupboard as well. In the Honda I have a JVC double-DIN touch screen AV unit, plus the original Honda 6 disc CD changer that I took out.

The Mazda has a Sony Bluetooth/USB/phone single DIN that was in the car, so that’s OK. (But I can’t get it out of demo mode!)

In the Verada I have the original Mitsubishi 6 disc changer in the dash, but there’s a disc inside and I can’t get it to eject. I have a “new” second hand JVC DAB+ A/V double-DIN touch screen unit which I want to install.

So, got that? That makes a total of five, or is it six, between three cars. Ridiculous. If I could only get started.