Wednesday, July 31, 2002

The must have garden accessory (thanks to boingboing for finding it).
Mind you, when I was a kid, my dad built an experimental wind mill. It was made of two old oil drums, split in half. The halves were offset to act as scoops at 180 degrees to each other. The scoops were placed one on top of the other, at 90 degrees to each other (I hope this makes sense, I'm not drawing a diagram), so that no matter which way the wind came from, at least one scoop would catch it and begin turning.
It sort of worked. I don't think the dynamo it was supposed to run was much good so it never generated much electricity. The point of this little ramble is- I could sit inside one of the half barrels on the top and when things started moving, it was a lot like sitting in a very tight roundabout. I went too fast once and was terrified and ill.
We had to make our own fun in the old days, you know.
posted by Ian at 7:50 PM
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Oh yes, today's music-
Edie Brickell and the New Bohemians- Shooting Rubber Bands at the Stars (includes the original version of 'What I Am', which Baby Spice [does anyone talk about The Spice Girls any more?] covered so badly), Senseless Things- Singles, Pulp, Different Class, The Wiseguys- Executive Suite, Ska is the Limit.

posted by Ian at 6:45 PM
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And a little bit of Seeds-

At high sun, the light played off the glacier, sparkling on the melting ice. The old road bridge, closed now to all but official traffic, was the only vantage point Boran could find to watch his engineers as they marked fire points and laid remote mines. His office on the southern side of the fjord afforded a nice view of the rail marshalling yards and on the northern side the mass of the city was further to the west.
The twin cities of Cora and Munss, possessing the only bridges on the great fjord which split the continent west of the mountains, had been the first prize of the great thrust northwards. Common wisdom held that if the North were to attempt liberation, troops would stream down the glacier in tracks and powered sleds. They had come that way before, aiding the cities� battle for independence from the South.
Boran had been too young to remember the Glacier war. He did recall the smiling uncle who would take him up on the ice and keep him safe whilst he scoured the surface for wreckage. One time, when they had dared travel further than usual, they had come upon the truncated fuselage of a heavy bomber. The aeroplane had buried itself on impact, but the flow had finally thrust it back into the open. In the half enclosed cockpit the crew were crumpled over the controls. Uncle Hian had made the sign of the Silver Tower and flagged the wreck for recovery. Not long after, Boran�s favourite uncle and mother had died in the same house fire. Within days his father had everything in order and they had moved to the family home in the South.
And now he was back. The military had sought out the young engineer shortly before the cities were due to be attacked, and drafted him. It would have been a pleasure to be back in his old home, if there weren�t such a risk of being knifed or thrown over the cliffs should he stray out of the militarised areas.
The motor trike started on the third pull on its starter cord. Boran raced a gigantic lumber train, on the next bridge over, to the southern wall of the fjord. He had to get some joy in his head before his daily briefing with Commander Janssen.

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posted by Ian at 6:18 PM
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Tuesday, July 30, 2002

I haven't done this for a long time. Back when I had mostly tapes, I used to stack them all up and then go through them from the top to the bottom, listening to everything once. I decided to do it with my CDs. Today's, so far, have been-
NME- Album of the year 2001, James Robert Morrison- J.R., Pixies- Bossanova, White Stripes- White Blood Cells, Stone Roses- Stone Roses, Less Than Jake- Borders and Boundaries, Ten Benson- Hiss
posted by Ian at 7:30 PM
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So the Commonwealth weather broke, very spectacularly. The front door of my house is below the level of the road in the Close, so water can runn down and pool in front of the step. In a quarter hour period it rained so hard that the water was an inch and a quarter deep. Nowhere near flooding, but still quite spectacular. Eventually the downpour stopped being quite so torrential and the ground drainage managed to overtake the flow.
posted by Ian at 6:39 PM
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A fanfare if you please. Ladies and gentlemen, the return of Picture of the Day-



About bloody time as well, I hear you saying.
posted by Ian at 6:26 PM

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Monday, July 29, 2002

I finally have a working scanner, after trawling the web for drivers. It didn't help that it wasn't a Packard Bell, but a re-badged Mustek scanner.
Then, of course, my modem had to decide it couldn't get a dial tone and I've been sans Internet for two days. After testing every connection about three times, I've put back whichever one had pulled loose.
Tomorrow I scan. A lot.

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posted by Ian at 10:31 PM
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Saturday, July 27, 2002

Action Comics number 1 scanned in and presented in all its tattered glory. It's interesting to see the original origin of Superman dealt with in a page, with him brought up in an orphanage rather than on the Kent homestead and working at the Daily Star rather than Planet.
posted by Ian at 11:18 AM
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Friday, July 26, 2002

Well, I think I have everything from the site copied to my PC, and I found a driver for my scanner. I'm trying to build up all the tools I need from cover disks and freeware, but it can be annoying. How come, when I put the same e-mail info into Outlook Express (which I'd rather not use) and Eudora (by all accounts a top notch piece of kit), OE can get stuff off the server and Eudora can't?. Whatever I end up using, I'm going to take this opportunity to st