GAS Latest Shiny Things (non camera related)

Do they still have tiny bottles of red wine and Gauloise sigarettes in them?

Hehe, that must've been in the old days. I've never had wine or smokes in any of these boxes I've eaten over the last decade.
They're good eatin'! The only thing I dislike are the tins of fondue cheese. :D

Here's a link to what you can find in them. I've picked up a Menu No.8 and a No.12;
https://www.mreinfo.com/international-rations/french-rcir/
 
I used to love military rations (though I was never in the military). My dad use the bring them home or when I was allowed to stay at the military base in the summer.
My dad took me to a few military exercises as a whole regiment, tank target shooting and tank river crossing (the 2nd largest river in Romania, Mureș). I used to prefer the rations to the on site cooking though I did try the cooked portions which were quite amazing (the best cooks I ever know were all military cooks, including my mom).

I'm also one those "odd" ones who love hospital food too.
 
French soldiers were always going on about their Pinard (and Boudin Noir) of course, as the marching songs go.
I remember reading about other countries having wine in their rations as well. Might have been Canadian air force specifically.

I've eaten US and Dutch Army MREs and Dutch/French 24h combat/Morale rations a couple of times.
I've had a British one once during a week-long re-enactment trip.

Field cooking at events can be very good, though after the 3rd day of porridge for breakfast people were getting a little grumpy. ;)

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Received a 4" stencil set today. Going to refresh some markings on a Small Wall Tent.
 
Nothing new, but I finally found my 2 TB portable HDD with my images, documents etc on it.

I had carefully hidden it under my hankies in my handkerchief drawer before we went to Brisbane last October.

So dumped a copy of all the photos we took while away onto it yesterday. It's USBC, and data transfer was about 65 MBps, which is OK for a drive that's about 4-5 years old now.
 
The Dell's decent, Dion. And I do not like Apple products.
Well, my Dell had a battery problem that puffed and broke the keyboard - NATO won't fix it since it's an old model, so.... business trips also involved a keyboard, and a mouse. Way less portable! :)

It's cool to not like Apple products. I'm not a big fan of the company, but the industry supports them nicely. I'm sure a decent Android tablet has similar capability - or maybe a Surface device. It just needs to be rather beefy processor wise, and have a supported pen...
 
Well, my Dell had a battery problem that puffed and broke the keyboard - NATO won't fix it since it's an old model, so.... business trips also involved a keyboard, and a mouse. Way less portable! :)
Oh, bugger! That would not make it convenient, mate!
It's cool to not like Apple products. I'm not a big fan of the company, but the industry supports them nicely.
To a certain extent ...
I'm sure a decent Android tablet has similar capability - or maybe a Surface device. It just needs to be rather beefy processor wise, and have a supported pen...
My Lenovo 12" tablet has all that, but the 5521 is certainly a different class of machine.
 
Oh, bugger! That would not make it convenient, mate!

To a certain extent ...

My Lenovo 12" tablet has all that, but the 5521 is certainly a different class of machine.
Yeah, I don't think we're so dissimilar. When it comes to computers, I don't think there is any perfect solution anywhere... Both before and after I worked at MS, I had my Microsoft-hating days, when I would switch to Linux for a while, and then end up switching back - I'm a fan of commercial software. When people are getting paid to make great products, they're just on a different level.

For photography specifically, I don't think you can get much better industry support for the Mac. A lot of these things initiated on them, as they've always been the artsy cool machines. A common baseline for hardware allows developers to write very performant and compatible software. That's my main driver for macOS. Windows always has been the bridge builder - work on everything with everything, but that's a difficult dream for stability. I think things are changing, though. At least when I go to Adobe apps on Windows, they seem very much like the Mac versions. I find more incompatibilities between their own apps! (e.g. grouped photos appear as one item in Lightroom CC, but individual pictures in Lightroom Web!).

Apple as a company is a different story - if they really treat their employees like I've read that's not a place I'd ever want to work.

How is the Lightroom App on your tablet? Does the pen work well?
 
Yeah, I don't think we're so dissimilar. When it comes to computers, I don't think there is any perfect solution anywhere... Both before and after I worked at MS, I had my Microsoft-hating days, when I would switch to Linux for a while, and then end up switching back - I'm a fan of commercial software. When people are getting paid to make great products, they're just on a different level.
Agreed. W7 Pro is the best that MS have made lately IMNSHO.
For photography specifically, I don't think you can get much better industry support for the Mac. A lot of these things initiated on them, as they've always been the artsy cool machines. A common baseline for hardware allows developers to write very performant and compatible software. That's my main driver for macOS.
No support for FastStone Viewer, PIE Studio, etc on Apple. It's their way or the highway ...
Windows always has been the bridge builder - work on everything with everything, but that's a difficult dream for stability. I think things are changing, though. At least when I go to Adobe apps on Windows, they seem very much like the Mac versions. I find more incompatibilities between their own apps! (e.g. grouped photos appear as one item in Lightroom CC, but individual pictures in Lightroom Web!).
Agree.
Apple as a company is a different story - if they really treat their employees like I've read that's not a place I'd ever want to work.
It's their lack of integrity and morality that bugs me the most.
How is the Lightroom App on your tablet? Does the pen work well?
Dion, I have never got my head around Lightroom, not since the first version. I use Bridge - ACR - Photoshop on my computers, and Photoshop Express on my tablet. Among a multitude of other software, of course.

I like to do things my way, not the "Apple Way". I don't really like modern cars (post about 2012) that want to drive for you, or Windows 10 or 11 Pro either. I'm still using MS Office 2003 Pro and the original Outlook desktop client.
 
Agreed. W7 Pro is the best that MS have made lately IMNSHO.
Well, to me Windows is still Windows :) I suppose I can agree with you on gradations of bad though.

No support for FastStone Viewer, PIE Studio, etc on Apple. It's their way or the highway ...
Oh sure. But MacOS doesn't "support" those because the developer chose not to make a Mac version. I suspect there are some in the reverse direction too. Certainly, all of the photo editors routinely mentioned here (PhotoShop, Lightroom Classic, DXO, Capture One, DarkTable, Affinity, etc.) do, and the O/S natively supports RAW format images. I would argue that's good support.

LightRoom CC I primarily use for workflow, and it looks like PIE Studio is your answer for that - someday I'd like to transition from Adobe products, so how well does that work for you? I may be able to run that through WINE.

Agree.

It's their lack of integrity and morality that bugs me the most.
Yeah, me too. It wasn't one of the primary reasons I left, but I had a similar experience at Microsoft, and it probably colors my perception with them as well. Not that there wasn't good too. But I respect people that stand firm in their convictions. You'll always be good in my book for that, even if we come to some different conclusions :)

Dion, I have never got my head around Lightroom, not since the first version. I use Bridge - ACR - Photoshop on my computers, and Photoshop Express on my tablet. Among a multitude of other software, of course.

I like to do things my way, not the "Apple Way". I don't really like modern cars (post about 2012) that want to drive for you, or Windows 10 or 11 Pro either. I'm still using MS Office 2003 Pro and the original Outlook desktop client.
Great way to end this one :) I use Lightroom CC (which I wish they would name something else - it is nothing like Lightroom "Classic") because it is easy. It is simple to import pictures, do simple edits, create albums, links to those albums (so you don't have to send pictures through the internet), find photos (with pretty good AI), and everything is visible everywhere. Trying to retouch photos with a mouse is painful (sometimes literally), so a pen is easy. Adobe is expensive, and I don't think any better a company than Apple or Microsoft. I get a discount as a student, but I'm always on the look out for better.

And my ride is 2010 Ford Ranger almost like this one, but nowhere near so pretty. Bought her new, she doesn't even have a CD player let alone power windows. Unfortunately, I'm going to have to sell her when I leave Sicily.. :(

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@dionhouston Dion, I only use PIE Studio for examining, and modifying EXIF data. A whole lot of my cameras didn't specifically identify the lens used in their EXIF data, and PIE Studio looked to me like the best GUI front end for Phil Harvey's EXIFtool.

It allows many manipulations of this data, including printing it on the front/rear of prints, printing proof sheets, batch processing, etc.

However, I use Bridge for serious browsing and keywording, and FastStone Viewer for speed browsing, or very fast editing, where ultimate quality is unimportant.

HTH.

BTW, it seems that the 7490 is a very much less powerful laptop than the 5521, but with a very superior screen! However, the 5521 came with about 4 different panels, and I don't know which one mine has, being (supposedly) a refurb, which I find difficult to believe.

It was also equipped with a powerful CPU, separate graphics card and 32 GB RAM. So I find it hard to believe that it was made with one of the cheaper displays. The display also looks far better than I would expect any of the cheaper displays to look.

Dell are now out of stock of all 5521 laptops, so adds some weight to my thoughts that they were all just brand new, but old stock.
 
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