Sunday, July 31, 2011

Distinction

Distinction by TomRaven
Distinction, a photo by TomRaven on Flickr.

"In dreams you don't need to make any distinctions between things. Not at all. Boundaries don't exist. So in dreams there are hardly ever collisions. Even if there are, they don't hurt. Reality is different. Reality bites. Reality, reality."
Haruki Murakami (Sputnik Sweetheart)

* Pentax K20D + Samsung 50-200mm Lens - 3 Shot HDR

Saturday, July 30, 2011

When Phones Were Phones!

Do you ever pine for the days when mobile phones were just that, phones you could carry with you? Simple small, light single purpose devices that did a couple of things really well... make and receive phone calls and send and receive txt messages.

Not these expensive multi-purpose phone cum computer cum email cum TV cum DVD player cum Camcorder cum Camera cum Hi-Fi System cum everything devices. Not these mega expensive, mobile connected, everything, everywhere portable computing devices that also happen to do phone calls… and also happen to track your every move!!!

Pine for a world were word processing, voice recording, video recording and playing, music making and shopping and constant email contact didn't follow you everywhere you go? A world where you could walk down the street without bumping into people stumbling aimlessly around head buried in their 'Mobile Device'? A world where you didn't have to put up with white ear bud wearing, inanely smiling people living in a world of their own laughing at some in joke email or personal video message, or something, whatever!

Well I got fed-up of the multi-touch, multi-media world lately and decided to go back to the good old days of only 10 or so years ago. To my favorite mobile phones that I have owned over the last 30 years (and I have owned a lot and always had the latest)... the Ericsson T28 and the Ericsson R320.

Lovely phones, small, light, long battery life and great for voice calls and txting. Both have voice activated calling and great reception and the T28 is a brilliant and totally classic piece of design that has never been replicated. A button activated flip out mic and auto voice calling and just so small and light when compared to the expensive and relatively fragile iBricks most people carry around these days. A mere 83gms and 97 x 50 x 15 mm with 4 0r 5 hours of talk time and a massive 65 hours of standby time. These things don't need charging everyday like those multi-media iBricks tend to.

Picked them both up really cheap on eBay and their in great condition. Perfect to throw in the pocket and forget about until you need to call or txt someone and then to know that you will always have good reception and don't have to worry about holding them in a particular way or standing  close to the window or something equally daft that we have come to take for granted with those expensive multi-media mobile devices.

Maybe I'm just turning into a grumpy old man but I really don't know what the latest tech is adding to the world... maybe its just a tech addiction that feeds corporate coffers and has us throwing perfectly good devices away just so we can have the newest, greatest and latest Android or iPhone. I remember some technology wag saying many years ago that the only thing sure about the future was that the phone companies would make a lot of money... you only have to look at the high street proliferation of mobile phone shops and who are the global giants to see how right they were.

So I thought it was time to go back to the future and get rid of my iDevices and invest in some proper mobile tech. So I thought about which were my favorite phones of all time given I had been an early adopter and always had both personal and work provided mobiles upadted very regularly. The Nokia 8110 was good and the Motorola Razr to, but the Ericsson phones of the late 90's early 2000's were the best ever.

I think mobile phones reached an apogee at the Millennium and it has been all down hill since then.

The Ericsson R320 is actually my favorite ever phone, I had one one they came out in 2000 and kept it for years. It even has an infrared port (remember those :-) and can be configured for email and simple WAP browsing etc... but who needs those things. I just want a good reliable sturdy phone that is going to do the job it's designed for and both these classic retro Ericsson phones do the job, brilliantly!

The T28 has got to be the retro classic and in my opinion has yet to be bettered as a small, light basic mobile phone. Very Star Trek, actually! Born in 1999 it will live long and prosper :-)

I now use both and always carry the T28 when I go anywhere. Long live the real mobile phones from the time when phones were phones were phones...

Enjoy!, Tom

ps: I recently picked up a job lot of T28's, some T28 World, T28s and T28sc models and plan to refurbish them, so if any of you fancy a great little classic 'retro' phone that does what a good mobile phone should then just drop me an email at tom@ravenred.net or call me on my R320 at 07519 839 604
... going cheap to good homes :-)

Floodlights at Dawn

Floodlights at Dawn by TomRaven
Floodlights at Dawn, a photo by TomRaven on Flickr.

Life is what happens to you while you're busy making other plans.
John Lennon (1940 - 1980), "Beautiful Boy"

So far this has been a year of new beginnings for me, starting with this stunning sunrise over Tilbury Docks. Feels like there is more to come :-)

A Year of New Beginnings
Series #1

* Pentax K20D + Pentax 18-55mm Lens - Single Shot

Sunday, July 24, 2011

deGull in the Orange Sky

deGull in the Orange Sky by TomRaven
deGull in the Orange Sky, a photo by TomRaven on Flickr.

"The gull sees farthest who flies highest"
Richard Bach (Jonathan Livingston Seagull)

deGull, he follows me everywhere :-)

Wednesday, July 20, 2011

Return to Rainbow's End

Return to Rainbow's End by TomRaven
Return to Rainbow's End, a photo by TomRaven on Flickr.

From the distant past to the immediate present.
A return to rainbow's end
All things come full circle and I
Find myself back here again


Tom Raven 18th Juy 2011 Newport, South Wales

Bryngwyn Views #1

* Pentax K20D + Pentax 18-55mm Lens - 3 shot HDR

Friday, July 15, 2011

Heaviness & Light

Heaviness & Light by TomRaven
Heaviness & Light, a photo by TomRaven on Flickr.

"for there is nothing heavier than compassion. Not even one's own pain weighs so heavy as the pain one feels with someone, for someone, a pain intensified by the imagination and prolonged by a hundred echoes."
Milan Kundera (The Unbearable Lightness of Being)

* Samsung EX1 - 3 shot HDR

Monday, July 11, 2011

Disruptive Patterns

Disruptive Patterns by TomRaven
Disruptive Patterns, a photo by TomRaven on Flickr.

11 7 11

Normally my two blogs don't overlap. A Raven Image - the passions of my heart (photography & beauty) and Tom's Mog - the passions of my mind (geopolitics & conspiracy) usually inhabit separate realities, but today they cross-over...

...creating interference or Disruptive Patterns

hopefully thought provoking ones of beauty :-)

Check out my latest post on Tom's Mog - Nanotech is Now! - Hidden Technologies

Sunday, July 10, 2011

Magical Mountain Sunset

Magical Mountain Sunset by TomRaven
Magical Mountain Sunset, a photo by TomRaven on Flickr.

"Anyone who has chanced like me to roam through desolate mountains and studied at length their fantastic shapes and drunk the invigorating air of their valleys can understand why I wish to describe and depict these magic scenes for others."
Mikhail Lermontov (Un Heros de Notre Temps)

In September 1887 the sacred mountain peaks, Ruapehu, Ngauruhoe and Tongariro were gifted to the people of New Zealand by the Paramount Chief of Ngati Tuwharetoa, Horonuku Te Heu Heu Tukino, thus ensuring their protection for all people for all time. This gift formed the nucleus of Tongariro National Park, New Zealand's First National Park and a dual World Heritage Area.

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Favorite Places/Sacred Spaces Series #3
Sacred Mountain Ruapehu Series #1
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* Pentax K20D + Pentax 18-55mm Lens - 3 Shot HDR

Wednesday, July 6, 2011

Skies of Glory

Skies of Glory by TomRaven
Skies of Glory, a photo by TomRaven on Flickr.

"Dark clouds are smouldering into red
While down the craters morning burns.
The dying soldier shifts his head
To watch the glory that returns:
He lifts his fingers toward the skies
Where holy brightness breaks in flame;
Radiance reflected in his eyes,
And on his lips a whispered name."

Siegfried Sassoon (The War Poems)

Otaki Beach, Kapiti Island and the Tasman Sea, New Zealand
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Favorite Places/Sacred Spaces Series #2
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* Pentax K20D + Pentax 18-55mm Lens - Single Shot

Tuesday, July 5, 2011

Creatures of Stone

Creatures of Stone by TomRaven
Creatures of Stone, a photo by TomRaven on Flickr.

A surprising number of human beings are without purpose, though it is probable that they are performing some function unknown to themselves.
Marion in Picnic at Hanging Rock the 1975 Peter Weir film.

Hanging Rock, the location of the 1967 novel Picnic at Hanging Rock by Joan Lindsay and the brilliant 1975 film Picnic at Hanging Rock by Peter Weir. - just watched the Blu-Ray version... excellent!! :-)

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Favorite Places/Sacred Spaces Series #1
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* Pentax K20D + Pentax 18-55mm Lens - 3 Shot HDR

Monday, July 4, 2011

Colours of Life

Colours of Life by TomRaven
Colours of Life, a photo by TomRaven on Flickr.

"One should absorb the colour of life, but one should never remember its details. Details are always vulgar."
Oscar Wilde
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Summer Abstractions Series #3
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* Pentax K20D + Samsung 50-200mm Lens - Single Shot

Sunday, July 3, 2011

Apis Digitalis Fugo

Apis Digitalis Fugo by TomRaven
Apis Digitalis Fugo, a photo by TomRaven on Flickr.

"Books are the bees which carry the quickening pollen from one to another mind."
James Russell Lowell

just finished re-reading Queen City Jazz by Kathleen Ann Goonan... great book, great series!

You can find me here on GoodReads

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Summer Abstractions Series #2
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* Pentax K20D + Samsung 50-200mm Lens - Single Shot

Friday, July 1, 2011

Beyond the Leaves of Green

Beyond the Leaves of Green by TomRaven
Beyond the Leaves of Green, a photo by TomRaven on Flickr.

"Out beyond ideas of wrongdoing
and rightdoing there is a field.
I'll meet you there.

When the soul lies down in that grass
the world is too full to talk about."

Rumi

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Summer Abstractions Series #1
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* Pentax K20D + Samsung 50-200mm Lens - Single Shot