Ceud Mìle Fàilte

Photography Nature Technology Food
Movies Music Politics

and life in the Highlands.

Fàilte

Thank you for dropping-by, I hope you enjoy your visit. The main content is to be found in the blog where I discuss everything and anything but topics including photography, nature, technology, food, movies, music and politics make regular appearances.

I commonly write reviews of movies (or films, if you prefer). Some movie reviews are short, others will be discussed in more detail. The scope covered will be mainly mainstream English language movies from the 1930s until the present day.

About me

My name is Iain MacDonald and I live in the Highlands of Scotland (although I have lived elsewhere in the past). I am a big fan of Free & Open Source Software which I use both professionally and at home.

Computing and technology tend to infuse themselves into my other interests, as once you learn some skills in one area it is convenient to use them to solve problems in other spheres.

When not tinkering with computers, I am likely to be found repairing things because living in the countryside you learn to be resourceful.

Of course, man doesn't live by SSH tunnels and kerosene vapour burners alone so food, as a subject, makes regular appearances too. Did I mention I used to work in hospitality?

Latest Life articles

My most recent ramblings.

  • Feeling sheepish

    I went for a walk along a forestry style track, yesterday. Ahead of me was a ewe, with two lambs. The ewe felt nervous about my approach, and started to trot away from me. The lambs were, of course, following her closely. However, the sheep didn't trot away uphill or ... [Read more...]

  • Regatta Hydrafort Matt Jacket

    I needed to buy a waterproof jacket for use when working. I also have a Gore-Tex jacket from Craghoppers, which is excellent, but I didn't want to ruin that jacket by using it for working every day. I have a few other Regatta products which are well made, so, for ... [Read more...]

  • Highland Life and the Coronavirus

    It is quite extraordinary, I've never experienced anything like it. We are now a couple of weeks away from Easter, which is normally the time when the summer tourist season starts. The roads would see increased traffic, and the tourist hotspots would start to be busy. Not this year. [Read more...]

  • New Manual Coffee Grinder

    I was without my vintage wooden Zassenhaus, so I rushed out and bought a new manual coffee grinder. The one I got is from Maison & White, and it is amazingly good. It is adjustable from very fine to coarse. Grinding is done with ceramic burrs, and the rest of ... [Read more...]

  • Push or Pull?

    A couple of days ago I saw these two boats coming up the canal towards us, as we were doing the daily dog walk. It was clear from a distance that the two boats were very close together, and I assumed the first boat was towing the second. [Read more...]

Click here to view the whole Life section.

My latest Mastodon posts

Mastodon is a microblogging app that is part of the decentralised web known as The Fediverse. See this article for more details.

Fitheach (@fitheach@mstdn.io)

Sun, 25 Oct 2020 19:23:13 +0000

This is my first ever published video, so, be gentle.

Except for the audio problems I really enjoyed the process. I'll certainly be making more videos in the future. My future videos will be a lot more snazzie.

Sun, 25 Oct 2020 19:16:55 +0000

I added the narration afterwards, as there was a huge storm outside when I filmed the video (lots of background noise).

It was only when I came to record the audio that I realised the microphone no longer worked on my laptop. I think this is software issue, not a hardware failure. However, I haven't resolved the problem, yet. I recorded the narration using my smartphone.

Sun, 25 Oct 2020 19:07:02 +0000

Excellent!

The video preview looks cool. Nothing to do with me, Peertube selected the frame automatically. The preview shows the stove, with lots of smoke coming out. The only thing missing is having some flames. I'm chuffed.

Sun, 25 Oct 2020 19:00:45 +0000

Making coffee with a wood-burning camping stove.

A demo of assembling & using a Voda branded camping stove, to boil water in a billy can. Once boiled the water is used to make coffee in an Aerobie AeroPress brewer.

devtube.dev-wiki.de/videos/wat

Sun, 25 Oct 2020 16:22:35 +0000

Queen's album Jazz hasn't arrived yet (which is frustrating).

In the meantime I've also ordered Status Quo's Greatest Hits.

Down, Down.

Sun, 25 Oct 2020 16:11:58 +0000

Oops!

Audacity, too.