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There could be something interesting to say about the whole US healthcare saga ... though I'm sure that others are covering it well elsewhere. I don't see a lot of meeting of minds so far in the blog comments I've seen - supporters of the NHS post in one place, detractors another (usually). Having had the UK decried on account of the NHS, the release of Megrahi seems to be the big bugbear at the moment. Apparently the plan is to stop drinking Whisky and visiting Scotland. Will they stop playing golf too?
I stumbled across another "great debate" in the last couple of days. The government is keen to encourage urban dwellers to take up beekeeping and I was interested to see what it involved. I've already been lent someone's daughter's school project(!) as an introduction but I've been looking around the web ... and this was where I stumbled across another controversy. I came across a couple of analyses) of the Vegan Society's position paper on honey(unfortunately references give a 404!). There were also numerous forum postings where people battle out whether beekeeping is necessarily exploitative. Presumably, if one kept hives to maintain populations and pollination, but threw away the excess honey[*] and didn't eat it, that wouldn't be exploitation?
I'm not vegan (I am vegetarian but now as a matter of habit/taste/discipline more than principle) so maybe it's not surprising that I've missed out on all theheated forum threads... Do I need heated discussions? Probably not!
[*] It appears that some amount of free space needs to be maintained in a hive to prevent the queen running out of cells in which to lay eggs - if the queen swarms the likelihood of the swarmed colony surviving long-term is lower.
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<181.15:35:00 DSS-63 BOT
181.15:40:00 DSS-63 TX ON
181.15:46:00 DSS-63 CMD MOD ON
181.15:50:00 Send time-tagged cmd with RX 1 on, 64BPS ENG, TX2/RX2 to LGA/R, TX1/RX1 to LGA/F (19:00 SCET)
181.15:55:00 Send time-tagged cmd with AOCS configuration, open LV 2, ME-2 on, SS gain to low, CE-1 off (18:45 SCET)
181.16:05:00 Switch off SIM HV (KET HV1 OFF)
181.16:06:00 Switch off SIM HV (KET HV2 to Step 0)
181.16:07:00 Switch off SIM HV (KET HV2 OFF)
181.16:15:00 Switch on the X Wing Heaters
181.16:20:00 Deschedule CONJ
181.16:25:00 Switch off DSU
181.16:30:00 Update PT and BT
181.17:00:00 Monitor BAM-I HV off (BY TT)
181.17:34:00 Monitor SIM HV off
181.17:44:00 Monitor X Wing Heaters on
181.17:49:00 Monitor CONJ descheduling
181.17:54:00 Monitor DSU switch off
181.17:59:00 Monitor the updating of PT and BT
181.19:30:00 Monitor AOCS configuration changes
181.19:45:00 Monitor RX 1 on, 64bps, some data collection at 64bps followed by RFDU reconfiguration
181.20:05:00 DSS-63 CMD MOD OFF
181.20:10:00 DSS-63 TX OFF
181.20:15:00 Monitor S/C TX 1 off (loss of carrier)
181.20:20:00 DSS-63 EOT
(In more detail than is often provided...): http://ulysses-ops.jpl.esa.int/ulsfct/the_odyssey_continues.html#12http://ulysses-ops.jpl.esa.int/ulsfct/ulysses-ops-blog.htmlhttp://ulysses-ops.jpl.esa.int/ulsfct/opsfiles/current_ops.html#end-of-mission
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In case you thought that everything had to be high-tech these days, especially in government...
This was sent to me by one of my colleagues. It is for an entirely serious matter, see http://www.ofcom.org.uk/radio/ifi/rbl/rsls/ramadanstations09/. How else do you pick them?
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...I received my rejection email from ESA today, though they do point me in the direction of their other careers. It shouldn't come as any great surprise that in cutting down from 8000-odd applicants to 700-1000 (the figure quoted for the next stage) they have to adopt a fairly strict regime. It's a disappointment but I have the good fortune to have a job that I really enjoy despite the lack of space focus or an amusing microgravity environment!
And last, but very certainly not least, our beloved Corky's health worsened significantly (and unexpectedly) over the weekend and he is no longer with us. We had to make the decision in the car back from Kutna Hora to Dobrovice on Sunday - we would have liked to have been there but under the circumstances it would have been unnecessary suffering to have waited the 24 hours until we were back from the Czech Republic. We miss him lots. Next time: a jollier entry?
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We possess a venerable scanner, that I'm sure cost £200 when we bought it quite a number of years ago - it was bought somewhat at the last minute to scan photos for the first issue of Dark Times in 1996. I had not been going out with ![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif) cally_tmk for very long back then...
So we bought it to attach to my PC - then a P75 dual-booting between Windows 95 and Linux (0.99.15 followed shortly after by 1.2.13). The scanner is a SCSI scanner so it comes with an ISA card to drive it. Well, the scanner is still used on the oldest PC we have working here now (the P133 that replaced Cally_tmk's Dell 386) whose sole purpose now is to drive the scanner. Of course, typically, the network lead I found for it was faulty and Win95 is not very forthcoming with diagnostics on the networking front.
We accept we probably ought to get a new scanner sometime - we do actually have a couple of USB ones sitting on the floor here that might be worth a try...
Anyway, the medical certificate from the last entry ago has been scanned and dispatched. I await a confirmation email...
In other news of rather more modern technology, I have come to the conclusion that it is probably best to use computers for decompressing audio files. I have spent the best part of 8 hours (across two days, it would be too much otherwise) getting to grips with mpeg audio (layer 2 so it is a bit old fashioned). I reckon once you got up to speed it would only take a couple of hours per 24ms frame to decompress by hand... In case you're wondering I have been asked to explain why one audio file works and the other doesn't...
The real revelation was that it is quite hard work tracking down bit-stream level documentation of MPEG formats - it does exist, but the actual codec implementations are not fabulously well commented - and it seems pretty clear that most people would rather just use codecs as black boxes (sensible!) and don't necessarily understand how the bytes in an audio file (or on DAB or Digital TV - same audio format) get decompressed. That bit is left for geeks like me to babble about bit allocation and scale factor selection.
Just as well I do audio - I reckon video is probably lots worse!
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Well, I went for the promised medical. Aside from the serious diagnostics, it seems that quite a number of things are tested less formally...
( More tedious details )
Thanks for all your interesting comments about sight - I shan't rush into any unusual eye exercises...
Oh, and you have probably all seen LOLCatBible and heard of LOLCode - now also available as a language for PostgreSQL - Real Example
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... I had an eye test today - the first time since I had an over-the-top-thorough eye test in 1993 (when I needed one to confirm the state of my sight in case I subsequently ruined it with a big laser and sued). That test involved peripheral vision testing and retinal photography, and was at least in part an exercise for optometry students to practice!
Today's test was a more basic affair...
( Tedious optometric details )
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After a moment, it stopped walking into my wall, and turned to stare at me. - obviously if you get fond of your patch in Second Life, the robot menace may be a bit much,
There's a lot of stuff to say about game engines for exploring archaeology. And I really must write something about the "systems game" concept.
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[x]
(and if that didn't work:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6EJ8r9Rhfw8
(Found via the presenter's wife's blog: http://www.giagia.co.uk/?p=248 along with other outtakes indicating a little "surfer dude producer vs. particle physicist" creative tension!)
"I want to know what a ripple in spacetime would mean to this sandwich"
(Whole programme (not containing that quote, it's from an outtake) can be found for the next few days at http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b008w9kp [y] )
[x] evilmattikinz started it round here...
[y] These are permanent URLs i.e. for ever for every episode of every programme. They now link to Flash iPlayer where available.
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Orbital Debris Quarterly News - well someone was bound to write such a thing. (Warning: contains details of gross irresponsibility on the part of the People's Republic of China and a bullet-wound to a shuttle)
Strange game Looks like the kind of thing that evilmattikinz would get up to...
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An interesting article on what space mission patches for classified US satellites tell you. (found via www.nasaspaceflight.com)
This reminded me of Richard Lamont's Capenhurst investigation where the purpose of the "Radio Introduction Unit" was somewhat given away by the description of their coat of arms!
I also note that elsewhere on his site, Richard Lamont has been requesting (via FoIA) details of the BBC network radio problems last August. It has been redacted so that you don't know where circuits go or where exactly the faulty air-conditioning unit was... I can confess to having seen the unredacted version of one of these (always funny to see things turn up "on the outside"), but it's not worth torturing me for the details because I can't remember any of them anyway.
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You all must know how I love geeky stuff, so when evilmattikinz sent me a note about a couple of old OS photos with an enquiry about what they meant.... and I couldn't resist, and replied...
( If wild guesses offend, look away now... )
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I have this feeling I'm going grumpy. I'm turning into an arch-skeptic before my time. Or maybe I'm not getting enough sleep...
( An essay )
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It is typical of life that while I was suffering a cold that led to me sleeping most of Thursday and a bit of Friday; that lots of those who live near the (obvious now though I never knew before) entertainment hub which is Huntingdon were riding their horses and having swordfights and all the kind of derring-do that my dashing friends get up to.
My vague sense of missing out on things was rather heightened last night. I have a tendency to wander my way round the web and after various random[ ] sources of information[!] and ended up reading something about national anthems. Amongst this I spotted the results of a poll for a suitable anthem for Scotland - the top two entries (Flower of Scotland and Scotland the Brave["]) were familiar, but the third one was "Highland Cathedral" which I had never heard of. Apparently it's been used all over the place and is quite well known.
( Hong Kong Story )
[ ] Am I trying to overwrite secret information?
[!] Last nights' top hit was the Shuttle DPS (Data Processing System) Console Operators Handbook rev F. - the quite chatty documentation of GPC error 43 (Data bus MIA XMIT-ENA register disagree) and the wrong things that might have happened before they fixed a bug... Yes, you can all sigh and roll your eyes!
["] The argument against it is that no-one knows the words. Ever since my mum told me that as a child (in Ayrshire) who occasionally went up to Glasgow, her contemporaries would sing "Wha's seen the tattie howkers(x3)/Coming up the Broomielaw" to the tune[#]. This may make sense to Scottish readers :)
[#] I know there is also a song "Wha saw the tattie howkers".
[$] If I'd written this entry in June or July I could have claimed that it was timed for the anniversary. I don't even manage that!
[%] Later events were to show that privilege and rank meant nothing. Someone held an umbrella over Cherie Blair at the handover ceremony, but Patten and Prince Charles just had to deliver their speeches soaking wet.
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Fed up with off-the-shelf light-up clothing? Why not combine your sewing skills with electronics and make your own?(Lots of projects including some DIY instructions). SparkFun are now selling a range of components with holes big enough to stich through...
( Hacking stories )
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Nice description of he implications of disposing of things in orbit:
SuitSat trajectory
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I discover somewhat to my surprise, that new designs of milkfloat are still being developed[a].
Also, from the same site, "A serviceable, second-hand milk float, with half-decent batteries, will set you back around 500 pounds. A float in good condition with good batteries may cost more than twice that."
Is that all?
[a] And I thought they were going to ship them to Kathmandu to solve pollution problems, but apparently the drive system is rather old-fashioned.
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We have, as some of you will know, been working our way through Adam Adamant Lives and tonight's episode was "The Village of Evil" - aside from the increasing frequency with which hooded ceremonies seem to be appearing[1], there was one other thing that really surprised me.
( Mild spoiler )
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While all this talk of high-tech repair in space is going on, I have been fitting a new shower "enclosure" (I'm sure they were cubicles when I was a child, though cubicle means something different now[1]). After much consideration about whether the instruction to bed the shower tray in cement was really necessary to support it - or just a way of making it much more difficult to fix leaks later - I decided against. The metal bit is built the tray is plumbed in, the walls aren't square... so out comes the magic sticky foam.
I dispensed in cleanly round the shower, then suddenly got the idea that it might help to seal our leaky roof[2]. In the process I managed to get some of it on my hands (yes, there were instructions about wearing gloves, I know) and as I've just discovered, my elbow... it's stopped being sticky now at least ("tack free in 20 minutes!").
At least it might stop the drips.
[1] The BBC used the term "Studio" for a room with microphones in; a room in which a programme was mixed (containing a mixing desk etc.) was a cubicle. The old terminology in local radio was that their central (and only) studio was "Studio 1" and they had Cubicles 1A and 1B either side. They don't do this now, they just call them studio 1, 2, 3 etc. and "talks studio" if they do the old-fashioned thing.
[2] The wrong sort of tiles for a roof with as shallow a pitch as ours[4]. I was surprised, peering through the hole in our bedroom ceiling[3] that I could see daylight.
[3] We had water dripping through the sodden/sodding plasterboard and the loft is about 12 inches high at that point so I cut a whole in the ceiling to get to the underside of the roof.
[4] About 30 degrees,12 m by 8m facing sue south... which would make it good for solar power if we ever get round to it.
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satisfied
tired
melancholy