Mostly lemon based

Blog

  • Oh ah. (Dullness ahead)

    So, I’ve been working on my dissertation this morning, and will be back to it shortly for another couple of hours. I guess I’ve really got a bit over a month left, and then it’ll be submitted. I’m terrified. So, in the name of distraction, this is what’s going on elsewhere.

    I got my motorbike going!

    Taxed, tested and a tank of petrol... Who's a happy bike then. Just needs a name now!

    Thanks to John’s repairs, the previous owner’s really very neat repair to the clutch mechanism, and the GT550’s general hardiness it’s back up and running. It’s a little ‘lumpy’ and doesn’t idle perfectly, but given that it was sat for at least 2 years before I got it running again, that’s not too bad. The garage that MOT’d her and did the clutch (she needed a new clutch) say she could do with a carb clean, but to run her and see if they clean themselves. Which is my plan :)

    I filled her up with petrol yesterday… and took it for a little jaunt (about 9 miles) just across Bristol and back. It is a nice bike to ride, I can see why they were so popular. She just needs a name now, and I need some nice weather to take her out for runs…

    Having only ever ridden the svelt MZ’s, it’s a bit startlingly heavy, but she has a plantedness that the MZ’s never really had. I think the MZs, being so light, felt very much more throwable. Like they’d take on any landscape and fly. The Kwak feels more like a solid commuter. Hopefully I’ll get some miles under her belt before we depart and I sell ‘er.

    I’ve also finally gathered all the ebay bits required for Kathryn’s prezzie. Which is very pleasing. Hopefully I’ll get that done either whilst I’m waiting for the next round of feedback, or shortly after finishing the dissertation. I’ve also found both an anglepoise and an amplifier for the library, maybe, if the auction doesn’t go wildly out of my price range (I suspect it will, since my current maximum bid on the amp is 99p, and the anglepoise is currently at 99p, despite having an expected retail value substantially higher*).

    Oh, and I used the vinegar trick to make the taps in the bathroom and the kitchen tap much shinier again. Our hard water had applied enough scale that they were beginning to look a bit sad. A plastic bag filled with vinegar…

    Tonight is dedicated to the awesome cleaning power of vinegar.

    And the shininess is back.

    And the shininess is back. Sorta.

    Well, sorta. I need to attack them with my dad’s wrap-in-tissue-soaked-in-vinegar trick to get the rest of ’em looking shiny too, but that’s for laters.

    And that’s my wild world. The one really good thing about this dissertation? I am actually looking forward to renovating the house, and I’m really, really, really booked up with things to do in my spare time afterwards!

    * Irritatingly, I went looking for what we have from my dad, a knock-off 1960s anglepoise. I found vast numbers of ’70s originals, and then eventually became hooked on a 1950s Anglepoise original design. I’ve now spent a long time trying to find a ratty one that no-one wants for me to have.

  • Trials and tribulations (Albeit small ones)

    So, I’m back to work on monday, and should be further along with my dissertation. I lose all my points today, because having spent the morning cleaning the garage I was hot and tired, and not in the mood. I sat here and poked at it, but the niggling headache which has surrounded my dissertation the last few days came back, and I…being weak, and feeble, abandoned my dissertation and the heat and lay downstairs watching telly. I suck. Tomorrow shall be a better day. No telly. None. Not until 2000 words are on the damn page, at least. Promise. Nor any internet dinkage. Nor even e-mail. Tweet me not, the browser shall be closed tonight and unless I need a thesaurus, not reopened.

    However, whilst I dinked around I did find the solution to a minor problem. See, I had the best idea ever for a present for Kathryn. It is awesome. Well, I think it’s awesome. I’m so pleased with it I’ve been ridiculously over excited just thinking about it. Unfortunately it’s now getting on for 8 months late.

    See, I had this idea, and I wanted to make this thing, but it’s not the simplest thing in the world. Especially because I don’t have endless scads of money, nor time, nor the ability to hunt out exactly the components that would make it work perfectly.

    Eventually, a while ago, I settled on a solution that I wasn’t 100% keen on. I got the bits, but it never fired me up the same way that the original concept had, because, well… it wasn’t perfect. It wasn’t even as near to perfect as I reckoned I could get. I’ve hunted second hand shops, charity shops, e-bay (but didn’t want to leave a search running, as well, it might pop up while I was sat dinking on the laptop next to her). I tried the car-boot* sale at Bristol Fruit Market today – I’d allowed half an hour. It took maybe 15 minutes to walk the whole-sad-and-distressingly-pathetic thing. I think it’s because when I grew up these things would occupy entire abandoned airstrips and be filled with the most awesome stuff. Or perhaps that’s just the awesomeness of kid-vision. But I was kinda disappointed.

    Anyhow, I spent some time poking at the internet and found the answer. It’s not 100% the answer I’d like, but it’s pretty close. Part of it is 100% exactly what I was looking for and part of it hits, maybe 80%. So now I just wait for those bits to arrive, and I can make the belated present.

    After I finish this damn dissertation. Or maybe whilst it’s in for its second reading. Hrm.

    * USians – think garage-sale in a field, with lots of people’s garages. It’s kind of a trunk-sale. Only with tables. :)

  • Oh the humidity! (or Driving Miss Minor)

    Sorry.

    So, despite hideous tropical humidity, and the world (or at least the English bit of the world) being pretty awful to be working in (in a ugh – it’s really humid way), we put Rebecca in the garage today. With thanks to my awesome friends who came, helped me jumpstart her, and guided her into the garage. It was a hitch free move, thankfully, and surprisingly. And the rebuilt engine? Started easily – given that she’s been sat, unstarted for months.

    So yay.

    This is the second step in the EV conversion :)

  • Fixin’ to kludge, again. (Geekery)

    Dunno why I post the ‘geekery’ warning, I mean, it’s on here. It’s going to be house, car, computing or NHS. Music is relegated to DBJ, on the rare occasions I get enough time to do that. Well, honestly, if I did better with my time management there’d be plenty of time, I suppose. But anyhow.

    So, a few days back, the post arrived containing the very, very cheap drive I picked up to commence moving stuff to the media server. See, the pain of the number of CD-Roms and CD-R/Ws and DVD drives I’ve killed ripping media to the media server means that ripping media stays happily away from my laptop’s superdrive. No, this ‘Sony’ (Blu-Ray) external drive is as close as the disks are coming.

    And I set to, ripping. First up was a few Blu-Rays. Only teensy problem? They’re 32Gigs… which may tax the network, although I’ve not tested that yet. Going to, though. Did try and downconvert them using Handbrake to smaller files (say, 5 or 6 gig). Not so much of the happening, there. The laptop reported it was going to take 28 hours. So I ditched that idea and transferred the file to the media server, thinking, it can take as long as it likes, I’ll just queue the buggers up. Nope, because after reserving a bit over a gig of memory (the machine only has half a gig) and using….errr…all of it…and asking for more, Linux says ‘No way asshole’ and [Killed] it.

    Just fed the athlon xp a 32gig mkv blu-ray rip, not sure it's impressed.

    Still, it was only managing 0.4fps by that stage, which might take a while.

    Anyhow, ignoring that problem I ripped one of the newer DVDs… and then discovered a little bugget. The VMP74 says it’s playing the subtitles, but there’s a distinct lack of subtitley goodness kicking around. I’ve checked – the file plays fine on VLC, so the subtitles are there. I’ve tried ripping the subtitles to a separate (VobSub) file, which isn’t working either. I’m just trying converting the subtitles to .srt format, which I know has worked before (but is somewhat untidy, solution wise), but should actually be working (which is what I’m going to do now) so won’t know until later if that’s worked.

    One day I shall have a beautiful technological solution to these many little problems that shall not consist of sticking more duct tape over a number of other kludges. But not, it would seem, today.

  • Stand up and be counted

    So, the Android stand is done. The crappy cheap tablet now has a stand that makes the crappy cheap tablet look a hell of a lot better than it actually is…

    I started with the chunks of eucalyptus ‘type’ wood:

    Superpad stand precursor

    Made them look like a plane…

    I appear to accidentally have made an aeroplane

    And then finished up with this:

    Android tablet stand

    Android tablet stand

    You can clearly see that the curve is not perfect (and it’s not going to live permanently on the record deck), but hey, it cost 50p, some glue (that we already had) and some varnish (that we already had), so I’m not going to complain… :)

  • Spend all the monies.

    So I booked the bike in for an MOT and Service. This is because she now runs, and so we need to do MOT and service for the purpose of making her road-legal. And then riding her on the few summer days we have like today (because we’ve broken the planet). It, like the Minor’s 1275 are relics of a bygone time, or they will be soon, when burning oil was considered a reasonable way to move yourself around. Anyhow, the Kawasaki’s engine is, certainly, within the bounds of things I could service. It’s just something I have little interest in doing. Bikes are small, fiddly, and generally a pain in the ass to maintain. The K’wak is a toy, really. If the government get their way and we end up with regional pay, I may end up commuting around the country on her, but otherwise, she’s a summer toy. Yes, I am a bad and naughty person.

    Annnyhow, then yesterday I got a nice reminder that Rebecca Mog’s tax disk is due to expire. Since currently tax disk and MOT are the same date, I have endeavoured to book some friends for the ‘moving the minor into the garage’ day. Because whilst Rebeccamog may just simply drive round there, there’s also the possibility that the diff will die completely, and we’ll get to partially disassemble her on the gravel drive to get her into the garage. No fun if I’m here just with Kathryn, we may want more people. This is fine, it shouldn’t really incur any expenses I don’t already know about. I’m slightly tempted to take Chester around first, because then if Rebecca dies she can be dragged on the gravel. Yes, I really am a bit paranoid about this whole experience.

    Then today I got the reminder that the Volvo’s tax disk is….due to expire the end of the month. Which means the MOT expires…err… in 6 days time. ACK! So now the Volvo (with it’s illustrious history of smoothly passing MOTs) is due to to go in for an MOT. I fear for the monies. All the monies. August’s a pain in the ass.

    Gack.

  • FTW

    So, continuing my run of actually fixing things that I’ve been intending to fix, I decided to attack Kathryn’s typewriter. See, a while back I obtained a Remington Compact Portable – from somewhere between 1932 and 1938, apparently. I was under the impression that this was the typewriter Hemmingway used. I was wrong. But it’s still a very nice typewriter :)

    The poor beastie was somewhat foxed when it arrived – and the carriage return string was broken*. So I spent a little time today with fishing line and guesswork, and worked out where the path of the wire was, and how to retension the spring, and how taut to make it, and playing “no please don’t wind yourself around that”.

    Success was eventually obtained (5th attempt I got the tension right, I got the adjustment right on the spring and it didn’t manage to wind itself underneath the spring/returnwheel/thingie**). However, then I spent an age trying to work out why the ratchet mechanism wasn’t engaging. I could see the lever that should operate it, but it seemed wedged in a position that was… unhelpful. And then, with seconds until I was due to leave to collect Kathryn I realised that if I pressed in a pin, which I have no idea what it’s meant to do, the lever would be freed. I had no idea that this pin even moved until that moment. The ratchet engaged, and lo, the typewriter works.

    Sadly I didn’t have time to switch to the new ribbon before collecting Kathryn, but after she got home I spent some time getting down-and-dirty with the old ribbon and the new (two colour) ribbon. So, it’s just a bit of lubrication required (it’s a bit sticky, so tends to not move the carriage very reliably) – although that might just work out with some use, anyhow. But I can now, finally, say that I gave my beloved a portable typewriter :)

    Exploded ink

    * As with my valve radio’s tuner thread which broke shortly after it arrived in the house.
    ** Highly technical term, that is.

  • Ah, sunshine

    So, since it was sunny, and because I wanted to I tried out the rebuilt Raleigh today. Well, repaired, renovated, re-working’d. Something like that. I decided that I wanted a hunk of wood and that a nice little trundle down the river to BWRP would be just ideal for testing the bike.

    I was mentally prepared for a looong walk back after something broke, or sheared, or fell off, or exploded, or failed. I was envisaging no brakes by the time I got there. I was preparing mentally for disaster.

    Apart from 1st gear being a little tricksy (it’ll occasionally slip out of gear, I think I need someone more experienced with Sturmey Archer’s to get it set up a bit better, that and a new cable) the ride was hitchless. Smooth (in so far as she’s smooth. There’s some clattery-clicky noises coming from inside the chain guard – so smooth isn’t quite the right word).

    Test run.

    I was impressed though, when I turned up at the Bristol Wood Recycling Project the lass there popped out and instantly proclaimed “Nice bike! Rod braked, isn’t it…” and then we had a brief chat, during which she correctly identified it’s lineage – saying “It’s a raleigh, isn’t it?” (despite it being completely free of identifiers apart from a sprayed over badge on the front). She, apparently, is a rod-bike afficionado, but abandoned them because she now cycles all over Brizzle, and Brizzle’s a bit hilly for 3 speeds (or 2½ speeds as the case may be). After wandering around for a bit & realising that’s the place to get the pallets from for building the deck, I went back to pondering a variety of solutions to the Superpad Problem.

    The Superpad problem is, basically, that the Superpad 2 needs a portrait mode stand with its cables attached and, ideally, hidden. This is because I wish to use it as an audio player. And so it needs an audio cable, and frankly, it needs to be on charge. I have (as I said yesterday updated the firmware to get it a bit more flexible. Tests have proven that it’s a bit crap, but adequate. And so, now I want a stand.

    So, while I was there I meandered around and stared at hunks of uncut timber, offcuts, random bits of willow tree… and finally settled on some ‘eucalyptus type wood’, which I’m planning to make into something that looks less like I’ve taken chunks of timber and randomly stuck them together:

    Superpad stand precursor

    And more like a gracefully sculpted T-shape that’ll support the pad vertically and have the cables running through-and-then under it. That’s the *plan*.

    If there are more photos, you know it worked. If not, you know I spent 50p on some firewood.

  • Brrrm

    So, today in a spate of productivity I summarised 4 papers ready for inclusion in my dissertation (2 more to go); I updated the ‘Superpad 2’* to the hacked firmware courtesy of Tim, I think. This has made it work better, be a bit faster, have functioning marketplace support (although irritatingly, I still can’t install a working VNC server on it). I’m faintly hoping for the Ubuntu Linux distro to be installable on it in the not too distant future. I might do a little video review of it at some point (I keep threatening that).

    Here's hoping I've not instigated a bricking.

    It does now work ‘sufficiently’ that I’ll consider using it as an audio player, properly, until a Slimp3 finds its way into my grubby little mitts. It also has a much prettier start up swooshing android logo going on. That, actually, is probably the most exciting thing. The keyboard’s better, it’s rooted. But despite the fact I can now install paid apps, the free one (slow though it is) is sufficient for the moment. I’ll consider the pay-for uPnP client if I get sick of the freebie one.

    I collected a garden wood chipper, which I got from gumtree, which should mean we can clear the patch of garden that’s been covered with dead wood since…err…let’s not discuss that too much.

    But most excitingly, I made this happen:

    It did settle down after a few minutes, and I then bought some insurance, booked an MOT and a service, and am trying to decide whether to install a GPS/Alarm on it. I’m guessing that GT550s are still reasonably stealable. This sudden enthusiasm is partially because Kathryn informed me that if she’s not used her bike gear within the next 6 months, she’ll have to sell it/give it away. So it’s vitally important that I get back riding :)

    * BarelyAdequatePad2

  • A few small things

    So, today has been another day of tidying and cleaning. We’re not bad at cleaning per-se, just disorganised about it. Having done the kitchen and lounge fairly thoroughly last week, we tackled the bedroom and bathroom today. It was mainly just failure to tidy away clothes when they’re clean (which is, to be honest, a mixture of both of us not being great about it (they get folded and taken upstairs… and then it falls apart; but also it’s too many clothes / not enough space). We had a fair old cull of clothing, I’ve got a whole bunch of ‘work’ clothes sitting in the ‘work clothing laundry pile’ which I need to cull fairly spectacularly, too. I hate throwing clothing away until it’s completely knackered, but the new policy of making rags from old clothing makes me feel less bad about retiring stuff with holes in.
    (more…)