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About Me and My Web Site

Entry 2285, on 2023-08-08 at 21:06:31 (Rating 1, Comments)

A couple of people have asked me recently why I am so hung up on politics, and especially woke-ism. They suggest that maybe it's a bit unhealthy being so infatuated with bad politicians, bad managers, and bad ideologies. Well, that's a fair point, so I thought I might answer it here by showing that I have many other interests as well.

Maybe the problem is that people see my blog and assume that what I cover there is all that I am interested in, but that isn't true. The blog is just one part of my web site, and anyone who visits the greater part of the site will see several other major areas of interest as well. If you are interested, the URL is ojb.nz, and yes that is one of the shortest URLs I have seen! I'm pretty happy with that, because it should be easy to remember.

So go to that site (or don't, because I'm going to describe it here) and you will see several major content areas: aircraft, astronomy, photography, wine and beer, others, Macintosh, blog, and podcasts.

So let's go through those and I'll describe what is there, and why I am interested in that topic...

1. Aircraft. I like cool technology, and aircraft are one of the most interesting and exciting forms of technology. Since a major air show has been run at Wanaka, which is about 3 hours drive away, I have attended that most years. I also attended a similar show in Blenheim.

These shows mainly concentrate on military aircraft, especially from around World War II (at Wanaka) and World War I (at Blenheim), but more modern aircraft are also featured. Seeing real classic planes like Spitfires and Mustangs is pretty cool, and the more modern ones, like F/A-18s and F-111s are awesome.

So that section of my site reflects my interest in aviation, with a general information section, a list of aircraft, and reports from each show. These feature a lot of photos, movies, and sounds from these events.

2. Astronomy. This is maybe my oldest interest, because I have been an amateur astronomer for about 50 years! I used to be really involved with it, and was on the committee of the Dunedin Astronomical Society for years, as well as being the person who took people on tours around the observatory, showed them the sky, and taught general astronomy.

In addition to this, I was involved in a real research project, many years ago, using a photoelectric photometer to measure the light output of flare stars. Photometers were early devices for measuring weak light sources and used a photomultiplier tube supplied with high voltage. It's so much easier today using high sensitivity solid state devices!

My site has a general introduction and information section; a list of observations I have done, including diagrams, drawings, and photos; and a list of interesting objects to observe from the Southern Hemisphere, along with realistic representations of what you are likely to see.

3. Photography. This is another expensive hobby I have been involved with for years. I have owned many SLRs over the years (I use Canon) but a lot of what I do now is just using my iPhone. The quality of phone cameras has increased incredibly over the years, and I find the phone is almost as good as the SLR, as long as I don't encounter low light, the need for a lot of magnification, or the requirement for advanced control over aperture, shutter speed, etc.

I take a lot of photos, and keep the best examples in my computer's photo library, which currently has over 4000 photos in it. I store the extras (duplicates, poor quality examples, or stuff I have rejected for other reasons) on one of my servers.

Every photo in my library, and every photo on the web site, is carefully enhanced using photo editing software (originally Photoshop, but now mainly PixelMator Pro). I think of this as being part of the creative process, rather than "cheating" as some people might say. Many years ago I did do a bit of darkroom processing of film, and I see using the software as a far more convenient form of this.

The web site has a general information section on photography and cameras, a list of photos with descriptions of the subject and techniques used, and a section for what I call "stories" which are usually a list of related photos from a holiday or event.

4. Wine and Beer. In the distant past I did a wine course and got interested in the subject from there. I make notes of every new wine and beer I try, and concentrate on products from New Zealand. There are notes on almost 1000 wines and beers there, but I have many more I haven't rewritten properly to put on the web site yet.

The site has a general introduction section (you can see that the general structure of the different sections is similar) a list of wine styles with examples of each, a list of producers with notes on each wine, and a list of breweries with notes on their beers, as well as a section for my favourites, and a list of New Zealand wineries.

5. Others. The "others" section includes miscellaneous stuff, including: web sites, computers, cars, comments, and debates.

Web sites is just a list of useful sites, and to be honest it is probably quite out of date, so I usually ignore it. Computers list some information about computing in general, including my offices and computer gear, and some political items. Cars lists my comments as an owner and driver of various cars. Comments lists many items in the general areas of philosophy, skepticism, and politics. Finally, debates contains some of the more interesting debates (arguments, discussions) I have participated in on-line.

6. Macintosh. I have been interested in computers for a long time now, in fact since the early days of personal computers, and I work in IT. My first job was teaching computer use on Apple IIs, which lead to a job with the local Apple dealer. Then I moved to the university where I have worked ever since. I started off writing programs for corporate systems on super-minis and mainframes, then moved on to writing PC programs. Then I had a project writing Mac programs and, after discovering Apple again, I have been an Apple enthusiast ever since.

The site mainly includes technical information about Mac computers, and other Apple products. The sections are: my projects, tips, best apps, and info. My projects lists many of the programming and general computer projects I have worked on over many decades. Tips list some general tips on fixing problems on, and customising Mac computers. Best apps lists a few of my favourite apps and games. And info just lists some general information about computers.

7. Blog. Obviously this is the part of the site you will be reading now, if you are reading this on my server, ojb.nz, rather than on WordPress, where I also post.

I started the blog in 2003 (my 20th anniversary blogging was a couple of months back) and the early posts were fairly brief and tended to be about my activities. Since then I have written far more substantial stuff (too much so, according to some people) and tackled controversial subjects in politics, religion, science, and philosophy, as well as the more mundane reports on my work, general thoughts, and interests.

8. Podcasts. There are almost 200 podcasts which are mainly spoken versions of some of my favourite blog posts and web pages. I provide these so that people can listen instead of reading, and there is an RSS feed to setup a subscription in a podcast program.

So that's my web site, which reflects my general interests. The site is fed from databases which contain over 10,000 records, so theoretically there are a similar number of potential pages on the site. If you visit the site and need to find something which is not obvious by using the very simple and intuitive navigation, just click the search icon (magnifying glass) or "SITE INDEX" at the top of every page.

Many of the pages have a mechanism to leave feedback or a rating, so feel free to use that. Finally, the site is constantly being changed, and I use it to try out new ideas in web programming, so if you find any bugs, broken links, or poor display of content, please let me know. Thanks!

Comment 1 (7478) by Jim on 2023-08-15 at 12:46:00:

Just had a look. How much wine do you drink? That explains a lot!

Comment 2 (7479) by OJB on 2023-08-15 at 15:31:36:

Well, yes, it might look bad, but that's only about half the wines I have made notes on (the rest haven't been typed up properly) so its really far worse! But note that I have been making wine notes for many years, and only drink about 2 bottles per week (sounds bad, now that I mention it).

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