Music

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

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

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

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

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

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.

1. 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!
2. 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...
3. 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

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.