The General Chat Thread (2016-2022)

[Yorky]

It's 18:30 and still 33 degC here............

 

[Yorky]

Personally, I disagree with this. I feel I should have the right to edit my own photography without asking permission. If I can do it for up to a year, it seems odd to say that anything older should be left.

I cannot even imagine that I could remember anything older than a fortnight, let alone a year!

 

[Lullabelle]

The sun has gone in, wind picked up and rather chilly.

 

[sidevalve]

The sun has gone in, wind picked up and rather chilly.

Been downright cold all day up here - still it hasn't rained so I suppose the drought is back on

 

[Morning Glory]

I cannot even imagine that I could remember anything older than a fortnight, let alone a year!

Oh its not that I'm remembering anything - all the posts I ever made are listed here.... as are yours. I just think that if I have a better image of a dish it is preferable to display that one as its more illustrative and clearer. A blurry bad image doesn't really help anyone who might be attempting to make the dish. Your images are all of a high standard so it probably isn't a concern for you - but in my case some early attempts were pretty bad!

 

[Cinisajoy]

They do neither [except to the benefit of the company of course] and they can be 'hacked' . It is and always will be possible to simply 'loop out' the meter [although doing so is a dangerous procedure]. They are being sold over here as allowing you to see what you are using but I still can't see the point. After all if you don't need something switched on why have it on and if you do need it then you still need it whatever it's costing. Electricity is not like water - it doesn't leak through a hole in the wire, you are either using something or you are not.

I never said it cut cost to the consumer but I did say it cut costs to the company. (Which may or may not be passed on to the consumer. ). I also never said they couldn't be hacked but I am assuming it would be much harder than just turning the meter a different direction.
So you are saying that there is no way to cut your electricity costs if you know how much an appliance uses?
So you can't turn your thermostat up or down? You couldn't change your refrigerator temperature?
You can't do less loads of laundry? You can't switch out your lightbulbs? You can't change your cooking style to use less electricity? You can't show your kids they need to turn off appliances when they aren't using them? If my kids lived here I would be grateful for the smart meter so I could charge them for their usage.
I could probably think of more ways to save electricity if I knew what something was using.

Oh and on the lightbulbs, I would have a hard time using less watts because I am using the lowest (9) watts possible. Yes, that made a big difference in the electric bill. I was using 23 watt bulbs.

 

[classic33]

I cannot even imagine that I could remember anything older than a fortnight, let alone a year!

Easy enough.

 

[classic33]

I never said it cut cost to the consumer but I did say it cut costs to the company. (Which may or may not be passed on to the consumer. ). I also never said they couldn't be hacked but I am assuming it would be much harder than just turning the meter a different direction.
So you are saying that there is no way to cut your electricity costs if you know how much an appliance uses?
So you can't turn your thermostat up or down? You couldn't change your refrigerator temperature?
You can't do less loads of laundry? You can't switch out your lightbulbs? You can't change your cooking style to use less electricity? You can't show your kids they need to turn off appliances when they aren't using them? If my kids lived here I would be grateful for the smart meter so I could charge them for their usage.
I could probably think of more ways to save electricity if I knew what something was using.

Oh and on the lightbulbs, I would have a hard time using less watts because I am using the lowest (9) watts possible. Yes, that made a big difference in the electric bill. I was using 23 watt bulbs.

Light bulbs are a bit of a red herring, both in cost and use. Jamie & Adam(Mythbusters) showed it was more economical to leave them switched on. Modern bulbs(tubes included) requiring their peak usage of electric when being switched on. Switching on & off also shortens their life.

You want to use less electric with your fridge? Don't open the door as much, or for as long. It's really that simple.

Your new smart meter is more vumerable than the old sort. No hacking required. What you will have to do however is have an appliance free zone near it. The motors affect them.

 

[classic33]

I've often edited recipes when I've looked back at them and realised I missed out a step - or an ingredient. On occasion members have contacted me to point this out!



Personally, I disagree with this. I feel I should have the right to edit my own photography without asking permission. If I can do it for up to a year, it seems odd to say that anything older should be left.

Some places take copyright once it's posted, so it wouldn't in some cases be your picture/wording that is being edited. That's why some don't allow any editing after posting.

That isn't the case here, but a line has to be drawn somewhere. There's a lot going on that's never seen, it just happens!!

On a practical note, why would you not want to be able to look back and see that your work/skill has improved. "Before & After" if you like.

 

[creative]

Personally, I disagree with this. I feel I should have the right to edit my own photography without asking permission. If I can do it for up to a year, it seems odd to say that anything older should be left.

Yes I agree. In my case, it wasn't about showing off better photography (since I was editing the original anyway) but about correcting the darkness so that the food items could be more easily seen.

 

[Morning Glory]

That isn't the case here, but a line has to be drawn somewhere. There's a lot going on that's never seen, it just happens!!

On a practical note, why would you not want to be able to look back and see that your work/skill has improved. "Before & After" if you like.

I'm not sure why a line has to be drawn. If I can edit images up to a year old, does it make much difference if I edit one a bit earlier? I mean, if its a case of showing how photography skills improve (which I don't believe is a primary purpose of the forum), then if I updated all my photos from the last year as permitted, it could look like I had suddenly made an amazing leap in skills a year ago. But I really do doubt that any members care in the slightest about my progress as a photographer - well certainly not enough to go and look at all my past efforts to compare! My view is that better food photography is more likely to attract members to the forum rather than put them off.

For me to see the 'before and after' is easy, as I have all the images dated on my computer - I don't need to look back at them on the forum.

 

[creative]

For a semi recluse (by choice), I had an uncharacteristically VERY busy day out today!

In the morning I went to a huge car boot sale (coming away with nothing, which is often the case so I will make a mental note of that!) Then on to the booked dinner. I had planned on having a Sunday roast but, what with the warm weather and my plan to go on somewhere afterwards (entailing lots of walking) I opted for a starter instead - buffalo wings and garlic bread. It was a very generous helping of wings and, thankfully, not oversweet i.e. could taste the vinegar....suspiciously akin to HP sauce! The garlic bread was disappointing .... very faintly garlic and not with french bread/baguette but horrid white fluffly slices of bread...ugh! It being a good bistro pub though it came with a welcomed finger bowl with lemon.

Then I went on to a newly discovered art/craft market. I was disappointed by how small it was and that it was 25% food stalls which didn't interest me (on a full stomach!). Some of the art was inspiring e.g. the decoupage on furniture (cut out pictures pasted on and varnished).

 

[Morning Glory]

Yes I agree. In my case, it wasn't about showing off better photography (since I was editing the original anyway) but about correcting the darkness so that the food items could be more easily seen.

This is partly my point. As it happens I've done exactly this with some photos I posted ages back - I've corrected the colour balance etc. At the time I took the photos I didn't have the on-board tools I have now, to do that.

 

[Cinisajoy]

Light bulbs are a bit of a red herring, both in cost and use. Jamie & Adam(Mythbusters) showed it was more economical to leave them switched on. Modern bulbs(tubes included) requiring their peak usage of electric when being switched on. Switching on & off also shortens their life.

You want to use less electric with your fridge? Don't open the door as much, or for as long. It's really that simple.

Your new smart meter is more vumerable than the old sort. No hacking required. What you will have to do however is have an appliance free zone near it. The motors affect them.

Side note: Motors can affect the new (cheap) digital antennas too. I accidentally put one between the refrigerator and the TV. When the refrigerator kicked in, the signal kicked out. Amusing thing was, it was at the exact same time every day.

On the light bulbs you are partially correct. Yes on the CFL's but LED's don't need that much starting power. Ours are now LED though since they use so little power, except for the 5 light one, I tend to leave the kitchen lights on. I rarely turn any other lights on during the day.

 

[sidevalve]

So you are saying that there is no way to cut your electricity costs if you know how much an appliance uses?
So you can't turn your thermostat up or down? You couldn't change your refrigerator temperature?
You can't do less loads of laundry? You can't switch out your lightbulbs? You can't change your cooking style to use less electricity? You can't show your kids they need to turn off appliances when they aren't using them? If my kids lived here I would be grateful for the smart meter so I could charge them for their usage.
I could probably think of more ways to save electricity if I knew what something was using.

Oh and on the lightbulbs, I would have a hard time using less watts because I am using the lowest (9) watts possible. Yes, that made a big difference in the electric bill. I was using 23 watt bulbs.

You either need it or you don't. You know your heating uses power - if you can turn it down you do - if not knowing how much it uses won't make it cheaper. It's like taking the bus to work, you know how much the bus fare is but if you have to use the bus then you still have to use it. The point is you know that all the things you mention use power. If you need to cut your bills then you know you have to use less. I didn't say there was no way to use less only that once you have reached your minimum [or the minimum you are prepared to accept] then that is as low as you can go whatever the meter says. As for the amount something uses then it's not hard to work out that something burning 100 watts uses ten times the power of something using 10 watts ie using one for one hour = using the other for ten hours, Your bill is too high - don't need a meter to tell you that. You must cut down on power usage - don't need a meter to tell you that. You need to do all the things you said - use the oven/cooker more efficiently cut down the heating , turn off unwanted lights, but you know that anyway the meter can't tell you what to do.
Electricity is [at least here] measured in Kw hours [ie 1000w for 1 hour] = unit = the units stated on the bill. So a 10w bulb costs 0.01 of a unit per hour