Owlvark's Stump

Engineering

2012-02-14T12:10:00.000-05:00

Highlights from the life of Ralph H. Baer:

Escape from the Nazis to the US
Teach yourself to service radios in New York
Work for Military Intelligence in WWII and become handgun expert
Help train Allies in Europe to use foreign weapons
Return with eighteen tons of foreign small arms for use in exhibits
Receive the first Television Engineering degree
Become chief engineer at a defense contractor
While there, secretly invent and build the first television video game
Invent the light gun, the first video game peripheral
Invent the electronic Simon game
Donate all prototypes to the Smithsonian
Receive medal

Engineering doesn't seem like a boring profession now, eh?

Weather report

2012-02-02T11:05:00.001-05:00

"Six more weeks of Winter"
- Punxsutawney Phil, Seer of Seers, 126th Groundhog Day

Free data

2012-01-24T13:12:00.000-05:00

If you are at all interested in fair and easy access to government data, this guy will probably become one of your heroes. Be it patents, laws, books in the Library of Congress or just some simple tax information, he wants to have it available for free online so the people who paid for it, the tax-payers, can use it. The above linked speech is a little long; the takeaway is that good things will happen, and money will be saved, if only there was a policy of scanning everything. Just make the data available in bulk; internet volunteers will make sense of it.
He cites several historical bureaucratic leap-forwards which were not expensive, just backed by the will to do it right. He also mentions these IT horror stories, which nicely illustrate how bad things are:

The Electronic Records Archives (a general government archive) are handled by a meager 100Tb system that cost $250 million, a figure which does not include any backup or working internet connection. The servers are actually physically transported in a van to the various places that supply data and processing.
The IRS make nonprofit tax returns available only on DVDs. The files are not in searchable form, they are just millions of images. Many of these images contain social security numbers of school children because "A CIO at Treasury told me he thinks they're prohibited by law from redacting those numbers as that would be altering a government document."
There is a disturbing trend towards agencies being tricked by corporate lawyers when they do try to scan their archived data. Take the case of the Government Accountability Office; a corporation now owns the exclusive rights to the Federal Legislative History.

ac.uk

2012-01-13T10:24:00.000-05:00

I notice that there are mutterings about teaching programming in UK schools, which I think is a good thing. At the very least it will help people understand a little more about that thing you have to sit in front of in the office everyday. Fostering early programming interest is also important; I had to be obsessed enough to teach myself until I got formal instruction at college. At least home computers are ubiquitous now; I didn't own a PC till I was 19, and I had to build it myself (amazingly, I did use it for other things than playing Doom). The $25 PC could make a big difference to schools.

LotR Film

2011-12-20T16:05:00.000-05:00

Ok, there is a lot of list journalism at this time of year, but this effort is actually interesting: Things You Didn't Know About... The Fellowship of the Ring. Perhaps half of these things you actually do know, particularly if you are a Peter Jackson fan, but there are some good quotes like this one from Sir Ian:

If you are suddenly dropped by a helicopter on top of a mountain on which no man has ever walked before, which I was, and you're trudging in Gandalf's gear through two feet of snow, feeling like that Kiwi, Edmund Hillary, going up Everest, no acting is required...

Also, ponder this without your brain hurting - The Beatles apparently wanted to star in a version of Fellowship. Directed by Kubrick. o_O

Lightning

2011-12-01T11:26:00.001-05:00

Artificial lightning can be created in the lab with tesla coils, but apparently a much higher voltage than natural lightning is required. These guys think this is because existing tesla coils are not big enough, so they are going to build two 10-story high coils and send arcs across a football field. If you think this is great, then you can contribute to the project. They have also built a wirelessly-powered vehicle (a chair on wheels), which thankfully runs during "arc free" mode. True steampunk-style Mad Science!

Influential

2011-10-12T16:49:00.000-04:00

A games site just wrote an article about Why Quake Changed Games Forever. Quake is an old game that I used to play a lot; it looks terribly brown and pixelated now but that is not the point - the point was shooting at monsters/friends in a true 3d world, which was technology years ahead of its time. Also, because John Carmack wrote it, it was super-easy to mod, which we did instead of writing college assignments. I see Romero gets a bit defensive in the article; he has his reasons *cough Daikatana*. The most amusing part is the the fact that Quake code still survives in games today. How many games can claim that?

Asteroids

2011-09-26T15:03:00.000-04:00

A while ago there was a website I enjoyed using where you helped astronomers categorize galaxies, Galaxy Zoo. This site has now expanded to other projects, which are collectively called the Zooniverse (disappointingly, no, I don't think it is a Mighty Boosh reference). Now they not only have have projects that involve astronomical data from the moon, sun and Milky Way but there is also a weather one, and one based on transcribing old papyri. But my favorite at the moment is Ice Hunters, where you check highly-processed photos for possible asteroids (more technically "Kuiper Belt Objects"). Not for everyone, I'm sure, but it's kind of relaxing for me.

Music

2011-08-30T12:39:00.000-04:00

A lot has been said about how music is over-priced yet the artists only get a small cut; this is a case of under-pricing. This guy gives his music away for free. His name is General Fuzz and he makes, in his words, "lush melodic instrumental electronica". It's quality, listen-toable stuff with the occasional guest artist on sax or violin. I started with the album "Messy's Place", which includes the brilliant "unconscious alliance". If you only download one track, this is it. You can donate, but he also accepts nonfincancial support - spreading the word via blogs etc. Consider it done, Mr Fuzz.

Nanodiamond

2011-08-08T10:57:00.000-04:00

Could I resist reading a story with that title? No.
Researchers at Vanderbilt University are making electronics out of diamonds rather than silicon. The "nano" part is due to the very thin layer that is used; the process is inexpensive because of this, and also due to the use of industrial diamonds (or what should be called "reasonably-priced" diamond). Why do this when silicon seems to be adequate? Well, silicon has problems with high-energy particle interference, e.g when in space or in a nuclear reactor. These new-style transistors get around that by using an old-style concept: vacuum tubes. Yes, if they can cheaply pack these in a vacuum, we will have Super-efficient Nanodiamond Space Transistors. And who doesn't want one of those?

It's live

2011-07-12T15:48:00.000-04:00

The reason I have been quiet in recent weeks is now live:

MyLife Deals

It was a lot of work for our small team, but worth it. Our first deal is from an Indian restaurant called Tanzore, which is located in a "casual Beverly Hills locale". So if you happen to be in the area, grab the deal now before it ends today! :)

Guitarists

2011-05-31T11:11:00.000-04:00

While listening to Dire Straits recently I noticed some familiar sounds in Mark Knopfler's voice, and, sure enough when I looked up the information, he was raised in the North East (Blythe) and attended Leeds University. (He got an English degree and worked for the Yorkshire Evening Post). There is more interesting stuff on the wiki, but the main thing I'd like to point out is this comedy gem he appears in, from an early French and Saunders show.

Website News

2011-05-31T10:55:00.000-04:00

Quick update for those that don't know yet; CitizenLocal was bought by MyLife, a company that specializes in people search and various other web services. There is a lot of integration work to do, and things are looking good.

Future Tech

2011-04-14T10:29:00.000-04:00

I have collected a few links to tech stories and will now relay them here and tie them together using an increasingly-strained film-based theme. Ahem.

NASA is working on a plasma drive for spacecraft. This is good news for people who want to get to Mars in a reasonable time (39 days) instead of the months it takes with chemical rockets. Plus it looks like what drives the Millennium Falcon!
NASA is also looking into using a ground-based laser to get rid of orbiting space junk before it hits our satellites or causes chain-reaction chaos, aka Kessler syndrome. The graphics remind me of a certain moon-sized space station...
There's a company building a Rankine Cycle heat regenerative external combustion engine. This differs from normal car engines by being quieter, cooler and able to use a wide range of fuels. Also it needs no catalytic converter, muffler, oil lubrication or transmission. This is clearly an engine of the future, and, um, was probably used on one of those pod racers? Yeah.

DVD Player

2011-03-22T16:44:00.000-04:00

Sometimes, when you put a disk in your DVD player it grinds and clicks for a while and then grumpily says "No Disk", even when there clearly is a disk in there. Other disks don't work either. A Google search brings up various advice; from the optimistic "blow air into the tray" to the more helpful "clean the lens". Not being a fan of those Cleaning Disks (a CD with bristles attached), I opened up the case. There was some general fluff to remove and the lens looked clean, but I wiped it anyway with an alcoholled cotton swab. Disks still did not play. After puzzling for a while, I reasoned that the mechanism was working but the player was not receiving data from the disk, and the data should be coming out of the paper-thin ribbon cable that is attached to the laser assembly. On my player, this is attached with one of those slide-out-a-little plastic clips that grip the cable. After swab-cleaning and secure re-location into the socket, all was well. So I hope this shows up sometimes as an additional thing for tinkerers to try before reaching for the credit card.

Rockets

2011-02-10T13:02:00.000-05:00

Sci-fi author Neal Stephenson (Snow Crash, The Diamond Age) has written an article about why we use rockets to get into space. To begin, he shows how inter-continental rocketry was invented ahead of its time, due mainly to WWII and the threat of a Third. These hyper-expensive things were then re-purposed when it was realized that satellites were so damned useful. He then discusses why we are now locked-in to using them as the default way to get into orbit, even though they are expensive and dangerous. The reasons are not just regulatory and managerial - there is accountancy (launch insurance) and international law (permission to fly over countries). We have made rockets "as close to perfect as they're ever going to get", yet we don't try alternative, better technologies.

He does not give any answers, but one of the advisers he credits gives away an interesting detail; he works for LaserMotive, world leaders in power-beaming. This technology just happens to be the best way to power a space elevator. Could this be hint for what features in his next novel?

Forecast

2011-02-02T16:16:00.000-05:00

"Spring is around the corner"
- Punxsutawney Phil, Prognosticator of Prognosticators

John Barry, RIP

2011-01-31T17:56:00.000-05:00

A soundtracking genius - whether it was tv (The Persuaders) or film (Midnight Cowboy, Out of Africa) his distinctive sound always gave the final product an extra boost of class. The producers of James Bond owe him a pint not only for keeping their monster series afloat, but for inventing Cold War Spy Music in the classic film The Ipcress File. The man could not be cooler unless he had his own jazz band and shared a house with Michael Caine. Oh wait, he did. RIP.

Computer

2011-01-16T15:00:00.000-05:00

I have recently been reading up about the EDSAC, the first practical stored-program computer. This is because a replica has been commissioned to be built at Bletchley Park. Of course, it was one of those room-sized beasts, tended to by blokes in overalls and thick, round spectacles. Reading the specs, I see that it used 3000 valves/tubes, and therefore used 12kW of power. Seen as though an electric fire uses just 1kW, it is going to get pretty hot in that room. I'm thinking they should maybe build one for show that has pretend valves lit with LEDs, and have someone sitting inside it with the transistor equivalent in a shoebox on his lap.

Website Update

2010-12-02T12:32:00.000-05:00

Dealometer is now CitizenLocal. This is just a standard re-branding, we weren't taken over or anything like that. The deals will still be as good as before - the current one is for half-price local beer. If anyone spots a reference to Dealometer on the site (except "Dealometer Inc." at the bottom), please inform me and I will rush over to my computer workstation and fix it.

Game

2010-10-20T18:00:00.000-04:00

So Deus Ex 3 should be coming out early-ish next year, and I'm looking forward to it. Who could resist being again allowed to skulk around in the conspiracy-filled near future as a genetically-enhanced secret agent? The original game was a classic and still one of the best PC games ever. The sequel had better graphics but was not quite as tight somehow. The new one (a prequel) promises the same actions-have-consequences role-play with quality looks. There even seems to be a return to the greatness in the music department, if the trailer is anything to go by. After all, the composer won awards for scoring other top games.

Wait, what?

2010-10-06T18:57:00.000-04:00

So when did it become October? I suppose it was last week sometime. I dunno. Anyway that is the month, apparently, and I'll have to accept it. But I will not stand for this "Daylight Savings" nonsense - it saves nothing and just confuses people, animals and computers. Especially computers. Scrap it now! Ok, enough of that. In other news, Dealometer opened a second market in South Bay/Redondo Beach, a nice seaside town in California, there. Also I recently had a dream about Arnold Schwarzenegger making a sculpture of one of his arms, painting it bright red and hanging it on the wall. I don't know what it means and I don't want to know what it means.

Launch

2010-08-27T13:39:00.000-04:00

The reason I not not been very communicative recently is my work, but this will change now. This is because we have finally launched our website, Dealometer. It's a place to buy excellent-value vouchers/coupons for local businesses across the US, but as the link indicates, we are starting in Erie first. Then probably some places in CA. So have a look around, especially my friends who can actually get to Erie. And help a fledgling company by buying a voucher or two. If you find anything broken, email me. Then I can fix it before the boss notices :)

Something Good on the Telly

2010-07-15T22:15:00.000-04:00

I have been enjoying the new season of Wipeout. For those that don't know, it's an outdoor obstacle-course game-show. But unlike most game-shows this is literally LOL funny; even the hosts are amusing as they nickname and gently mock the contestants as they, once again, get boosted though the air into water by another foam-padded fiendish contraption. And unlike those home-video shows it's totally ok to laugh because these people volunteered to get punched in the head with a boxing glove on a pole into a mud-bath or bounce repeatedly off giant red inflatable spheres into a pool (the famous "Big Balls"). That stuff just never gets old.

Website

2010-04-14T11:51:00.000-04:00

I have just finished helping a friend create a website for one of his many model-making exploits: Antheads. As you can see, he makes heads and other accessories for 1/6^th scale model soldiers. He has some excellent photos of some of his finished figures in the Gallery. It is hosted on the free Google Sites platform which means there are no fancy animations and hover effects, just straight pictures and text. However, this also means he can continue to edit the site himself using the rather good web-based editing tools.

Beer (updated)

2010-01-27T16:37:00.004-05:00

I have been meaning to test the local brews for some time now, so I started the other day by buying a variety pack of bottled beers from Erie Brewing Company. You get 6 each of Railbender Ale, Presque Isle Pilsner, Misery Bay IPA and Mad Anthony's APA.

First, I tried the IPA (India Pale Ale) to see if it compared to one of my favourites (Deuchars IPA). It was pretty good; quite strong (6.5%) but with the distinctive grapefruity IPA aftertaste. I tried the APA (American Pale Ale) next and it was very good. The bitterness is toned down slightly in favour of more malt. But not too much. And at 4.2%, very drinkable.

Railbender Ale has been brewed in a Scottish style; it is the darkest and strongest beer (6.8%). The high malt content gives it a big flavour, so I'd recommend drinking this with curry rather than, say, fish. The final beer, Presque Isle Pilsner, is the lightest in colour and not too strong (4.2%). Crisp and refreshing, it reminds me of a local brew I had in Munich, when I went to Germany to install software on the grinding machines in the Ford factory. The hotel had the best tomato soup ever.

2010

2010-01-03T10:43:00.003-05:00

Yes, this is the new number that you have to get used to writing on your checks/cheques. It is also the name of a sci-fi film that people will be curious to watch to see if the predictions are accurate. My advice: watch the superior original (if you didn't already, nine years ago). Or read the book it's based. It's not that the film is badly made (though Kubrick is a very hard act to follow). It's just a major plot point was changed that severely dates the film back to the 80s, and it wasn't the hair styles. Let this be a lesson to producers who try to make a futuristic film 'more relevant' - you end up looking silly on the actual date when you could have appeared visionary. Leave predictions to the professionals. Happy new year.

Mr. Power Source

2009-11-25T17:06:00.002-05:00

The 6.3v tube filament line on the tabletop Stromberg wasn't working so I acquired a replacement from eBay. The seller said it came from an electric organ and had been powering about 25 tubes, so it's more than beefy enough to light up the 14 or so in the radio. First I tested it at low voltage, mainly to see which end was which as there were no markings on the casing. I then hooked it up to the radio; there was a faint signal there briefly before a loud sputtering swamped it. The noise was unaffected by the volume control so I have to assume it is the fault once again of the power transformer, this time the high voltage line. This line goes directly to the rectifier tube, a 5U4G. I looked online for some circuit diagrams that include this tube to confirm what transformer I need to hunt down on eBay. On my travels I found this Japanese company's site which had some very good info, as well as a very charming explanation of a tube power amp:

"Mr. Amp is told like "Hey I am going to send you the audio signal" after the power is on to replay music. Mr. Power Source says "Ok then let's work! First I will make rice!" Mr. Amplifier says "The signal is small, so let's make it bigger". Then Mr. Output is like "Oh OK OK. Here I can shake Mr. Speaker by pulling out power! Here we go! Tada! Look! It's a good sound, isn't it?"

Shop

2009-10-31T12:14:00.002-04:00

It's time once again to plug Duamuteffe's Etsy Store. No, there is nothing particularly Halloweeny on sale, unless you are dressing as a Pirate Queen and want a spiffy necklace of gold freshwater pearls. Since my last update there has been the inclusion of several jewelry pieces in addition to some more cute sock animals. The crystal earrings are particularly nice. Go and have a look!

Radio working

2009-09-30T17:08:00.002-04:00

Thanks to a fresh shipment of parts, I have resurrected the aformentioned Star Roamer radio. I replaced the large electrolytic caps in the power supply section with nice modern ones which don't dry out. I also bypassed the old selenium rectifier in there, as although it was still rectifying, I read reports of them failing by releasing nasty fumes at you. The modern equivalent is a silicon diode, which can cost upwards of 4 cents each.

The other items that had stopped working since the 60s were all the slide switches that operate things like Auto Noise Limiting, On/Off etc. There were four of them, and they all had intermittant connections; it's weird why such a simple device would fail like this. Perhaps I'll autopsy one of them. Anyway, they still make them, and now it has four new ones.

I rigged up an antenna wire, made from old network cable, around the ceiling and switched on. After waiting a short while for the tubes to warm up I heard a light crackle. I had the band on AM and expected to get something, but the were no stations coming in. But when I switched to one of the three(!) shortwave bands I could hear all sorts of stuff; Canadian, South American, even Italian and Russian programs. I think I heard Chinese once. On later investigation, I found the problem with AM - there was a short on the tuning coil. So all I need to complete this radio now is a replacement signal strength meter, which was missing from the kit, and was probably used to fix another radio...

Animal Shop

2009-08-28T11:13:00.005-04:00

Since she got a book about it, over the past few weeks Duamuteffe has been making cute animals from highly colored socks. We can't keep 'em all, so she set up an online store though Etsy. Go have a look; the pics are adorable:)

Radio update

2009-08-02T20:54:00.005-04:00

A few weeks ago I was given a 60s shortwave radio kit. It is a Knight Kit Star Roamer and was partially assembled - I was tasked to finish it, and let the owner mess with it for a week or two. The instructions were very clear and 3/4 was done already; I just had to find a few spare capacitors and a diode (it was made at the time semiconductors were being introduced - vacuum tubes are still used for amplification). Unfortunately when I applied power, there was a loud 60Hz hum - I thought I could get away without replacing the electrolytics, but no...
In other radio news, the small Stromberg needs a new transformer (6v 10amp) and the big Stromberg needs at least one new 1/2 watt resistor. They didn't mess around with low power stuff in those days.

Big Radio

2009-06-29T21:11:00.006-04:00

There is a small antique store down the road, and they had this radio at the back.

I put off buying it for a few weeks, but when we went in again I caved. It is a Stromberg Carlson Model 420 and I think I got a bargain. Most of that cabinet is solid wood, possibly maple. The four holes are where I took the knobs off; they were a little melty (old plastic), but I think I'll be able to get some repros. The insides were untouched, so there's a good chance it will work when it's been re-capped. I can't wait to see the special tuning indicator working - the hole in the centre of the dial houses an end-on tube that glows progressively greener when the signal is good!

Mouse

2009-05-23T12:45:00.004-04:00

Mice come into our house occasionally, but they can't resist the peanut butter in our humane trap (basically a perspex box with a one-way lid).

It being 80 degrees during the day here, we decided to wait until late afternoon to go down the lake and get a bit of fishing in (it has been too long since August). While there, we released our peanutty friend. The funny thing was that once we got settled, our rods propped in Y-shaped sticks, we heard some rustling in the undergrowth next to us. It was Mr Mouse, cleaning himself up. Not really bothered too much about flash photography either, it seems!

Turtle

2009-04-27T14:10:00.004-04:00

Nice, sunny weather at the mo so we went for a walk to the lake. On the way we found this little fellow on the grass verge next to a parking lot.

Although he was covered in mud, we could still see his bright orange underside and head stripes. We carried him to the lake and found him a nice rock pool out of the way. When we got back home we looked up what he was likely to be: current thoughts are towards him being a Painted Turtle.

Seasonal Weather

2009-04-08T13:12:00.003-04:00

It was spring a couple of days ago; the brown grass was getting green and some crocuses had popped up their little heads. Then it started to snow, and has been for the past two days. We got about four inches and the roads had to be ploughed again. I was warned April was going to be varied in weather, but I didn't expect a mini winter. To be fair, this is apparently more snow than is normal, on average, for this part of the world, a part that seems to blame a lot of the weather on the "effect" of the lake. I'm sure there won't be any "lake effect" hurricanes, though.

New Old Radio

2009-03-10T14:10:00.003-04:00

Yes, I got another one cheap off of eBay. This one had no back or power cord and was a little filthy from being in an attic. It can all be cleaned, though, and the circuit "re-capping" is already in progress by myself, the wood restoration is being handled by another dept (my wife). This one has an attractive roll-top to cover the dial when not in use, and apparently was portable - if you had a 90v battery! Some people say you could make one out of ten 9v, but I am not sure it is worth it. Will report again when I apply normal mains voltage.

Galactic

2009-02-18T18:58:00.003-05:00

Because I participated in their first experiment, I just got an email announcing Galaxy Zoo 2. A while back, some astronomers set up a robot camera that surveyed the sky for galaxies, creating a huge picture database. They need them all to be classified; elliptical, spiral, mergers etc. It turns out that humans are still better than machines for this, so that is where the random People of the Web come in - yes, you too can be a scientist for half an hour. So I hereby encourage you to sign up and get classifying. No expertise req'd; just read the help, and don't worry about making mistakes as the same pic is shown to multiple people and some magical maths corrects all the errors.

Radio Update

2009-02-05T18:40:00.004-05:00

After a bit of fiddling around, I'm getting a few faint stations from the poor old thing. There's still a fair amount of background noise, but at least this means that the tubes are still working. I cleaned the carbon tracks on the volume/tone variable resistors to reduce some of the crackling, and replaced some of the wires that connect the various in-cabinet aerials. I even made a makeshift secondary AM antenna using a spool of wire and a small square cardboard box, but the hissing remains. A bit of web-wandering revealed that there is a calibration procedure that can be done (someone had actually scanned-in some old Philco repair manuals). However, this is a fairly involved process and needs things like a signal generator, which I don't think I can lay my hands on at the mo. All-in-all I'm pleased with the result, and shall probably document my experiences and put them online in the near future.

Radio Times

2009-01-27T01:14:00.006-05:00

Over the past few days I have been tinkering with an old 40s radio. I was mostly soldering in new wires where the old rubber ones had crumbled, and replacing the foil-and-paper capacitors (which are susceptible to moisture). Tonight I finally got to a stage where I could plug it in and try it:

The controls light up, which looks cool, but I'm only getting faint static at the moment. I'm very pleased that it actually turns on - that means the transformer is ok. Tomorrow I shall rig up an improvised aerial.

Ideas

2009-01-14T12:39:00.002-05:00

Here is an interesting list of things to do with the "economic stimulus" money. My favorite is of course the Open Source software grants; and, as one of the comments says, this should be combined with a policy of a full adoption of open software for anything that is publicly funded - it's cheaper and historically more accessible. Plus more paid holiday time can't be bad.

Mmmmm

2009-01-02T18:56:00.002-05:00

Today we tried out the Raj Mahal Indian Restaurant, which is apparently the only curry house in town at the moment. It was lunchtime so the buffet was in operation; an unusual (to me) "all-you-can-eat" arrangement. The food was lovely - a fair choice of beef, chicken and veg curries with rice and naan. For afters we had some aromatic Indian rice pudding and some of those sugar-coated fennel seeds. The guy we went with said it was unusually busy, but we didn't mind as that means business is good, and they will certainly get more business from us.

NaN

2008-12-21T14:12:00.002-05:00

While decorating the tree the other day, I was reminded of a 60s tv program, The Prisoner. I was hanging a bauble with a penny-farthing on it, one of the many icons used in the show's distinctive style. The main character is a spy who resigns, but is drugged and abducted before he can put his feet up. He wakes up in a strange village; he has been provided with a cottage, and the villagers are friendly enough, but there is a sinister undertone. There is constant surveillance, the "villagers" are only referred to by numbers and there is an impenetrable perimeter – it is in fact a prison. Some of the older inmates have accepted their fate, but not our man – he causes trouble every week by trying to escape or embarrassing the "governor", who is using increasingly bizarre methods of interrogation. Now this situation could be in any prison drama except there is an extra dimension this time; his captors may not be "the Enemy" but could actually be his former employers who have decided he knows too many of their secrets. This is one of those tv programs that makes you think – how much privacy should be sacrificed for security? Can information be extracted humanely? How can we guarantee lives that are free? And most importantly it teaches us to question the motives of the people who tell us to do things... even if they appear to be on our side.

Chart

2008-12-13T15:32:00.002-05:00

Just a quick (non-Excel!) comedy chart, which was particularly well done I thought, and not from the usual source. And it made me hungry.

Pandora

2008-12-04T20:04:00.002-05:00

Have just been using this internet-based music radio in the past few days, and I like it. It's like a radio station that only plays stuff you like. Just give it a favourite band and set it going, playing that and similar things. You can indicate anything you don't like with the thumbs down button (though I have only had to use this once as yet). It will be hard to go back to normal radio...

T-Day

2008-11-27T21:12:00.003-05:00

So I've just been to not one but two Thanksgiving parties, and I am full of turkey, ham, stuffing, sweetcorn and gravy. Also brownies and pumpkin pie. All very tasty, and just what you need when there's snow and icicles outside. After helping to fix a printer, we played a game of Apples to Apples which was noisy and hilarious, as usual. Big thank-yous to Nojim and his family for inviting us!

Proper engineer's tv

2008-11-21T00:54:00.005-05:00

I was watching an episode of Mythbusters where they were testing the strength of CDs to destruction and I was reminded of a show I used to watch as a teenager; Tim Hunkin's Secret Life of Machines. He used to explain how everyday appliances worked but in a very entertaining way; usually by sawing them in half. I taped them all to VHS, ready to one day digitize them, but it looks like someone's done that for me. I've watched the first series already - in the final episode he set fire to a tower of working televisions. I've always said it should be mandatory to show it in schools.

Perfect Pud

2008-11-14T21:52:00.002-05:00

It is my duty as someone born in York to share this
important new scientific research.
The liquid amount is a bit vague, but they are right about making sure the fat is hot; get it in the oven as fast as you can.

OK

2008-11-13T00:24:00.002-05:00

This weekend I helped split firewood for the grandparents.
There were golden leaves all over the field, it was lightly snowing and I had a large axe. I almost felt like a lumberjack; after all, I did sleep all night after working all day.

And now the completely different something is a man who does watercolors of ninjas attacking sushi.

And the link-posts begin...

2008-11-07T00:55:00.003-05:00

Today's link is about a facinating link between physics and hard-core number theory. Readers of Douglas Adams will be pleasantly amused as well.

Short Dream Interlude

2008-10-25T14:22:00.002-04:00

So I'm apparently in some cafe with Allison.
We look at the menu and I see something called a Beef and Yellow Blood sandwich.
I ask the waitress about it and she explains that it is made of egg yolks and cashews.
I choose a different sandwich.

An Evening in Akron

2008-10-20T18:24:00.001-04:00

There is not much to add to Duamuteffe's quality account except to confirm I had a great time. I got some more good driving practice in - it was mostly highway apart from a fruitless midnight narrow-gauge shortcut. Devo were on-form, as always. I'm going to suggest that the performance was a little better than Manchester, possibly due to the home crowd. And their parents being present:)
Seeing Ms Hynde was a bonus, she has a great voice. Apparently her local restaurant is doing well also. The wind-down chatting in Luigi's was very welcome, as was the food. I can definitely recommend their award-winning pizza.

Picture Test

2008-10-18T14:13:00.005-04:00

The trees around the lake have turned a lovely color.

Pseudo post

2008-10-16T17:38:00.003-04:00

Ok, this'll do for now. I had fun editing the CSS, but I found if you mess with the expanded widget templates you get serious errors, as I'm sure everyone knows.
Had a nice walk today to see the golden leaves of Autumn, I mean Fall. Yes.
Right, going to a concert tomorrow - perhaps there will be a proper blog-post then.

Test Post 1

2008-10-13T13:29:00.000-04:00

This is a small postlet, for display purposes only, while I get this unappetizing orangey blog template knocked into shape.