|
|
Friday, October 19th, 2007
| |
4:38 am - Fuck, fuck, fuck: Arctic sea ice
|
|
| Wednesday, October 17th, 2007
| |
6:46 am - Bringing Up Baby
|
|
| Saturday, September 22nd, 2007
| |
10:05 pm - Real-time bus updates on the web
|
|
| Friday, September 21st, 2007
| |
1:55 am - in which I demonstrate my mad computering skillz some more
|
I love my scanner. I use it several times a week and I love it dearly. It's a big old letter-sized SCSI thing that I've had for ten years and works just as well as the day I got it (in Linux, no less). I haven't seen a modern scanner that can top it.
Well. Except that, over the past year, the glass in it has been progressively bowing downwards as the double-sided sticky tape (I shit you not) with which they stuck it to the box gives way. This has been bugging me for a while and interfering with my scanning joy, especially of late when I've had to stop at intervals to turn the case over so that the glass can weight itself back down.
This evening I sat down and started randomly unscrewing things to see if I could persuade the box apart. At first I tried the two screws underneath, the ones holding the sockets and electronics into the case. Big mistake; those don't need to come out. Hmmn. No screws in evidence.
Then I turned it over and lifted out the cover (the flap that goes up and down lifts away for easy scanning of bulky objects). Aha! Two big, easily removable screws underneath it. I undo them, then decide that, like a noob, I'm going to remove the base from the lid. Oh dear. That was a mistake. Gubbins everywhere. Oh shit oh shit oh shit.
I panic a little, then notice that, behold, with a bit of a push forward the lid (containing the misbehaving glass) comes away in my hand. Woot. I rearrange the gubbins, put the lid back on and do a panicky impromptu scan to see how badly I buggered it up. Apparently not at all; it still works. Good good. Good. Ahem.
I've had superglue on my shopping list for a while to fix said glass panel. In the hardware store a couple of days ago, we went to buy some. Except that super glue bonds everything up to and not including ... glass. Arsebiscuits. Bugger. I'm forcibly reminded of my glass crystal earrings, which had a crystal prism attached to a post, and continually popped off the post despite being repaired with superglue a lot. My mother never read the labels on things, which is why she did things like decorating the kitchen with flying curry and shards from an exploding pyrex pan, went to sleep in a burning bed which she had personally set on fire, and thought that taping an electrical cable to another one, plugging it in, draping it across the floor, then mopping the floor was a really clever thing to do.
In at least three ways, I am nothing like her.
An alternative was available which would bond both plastic and glass, but that came in two tubes and needed to be mixed and applied with a spatula and I just completely lost my nerve. I fear glue. I can't help thinking that it's a really bad idea.
So I was looking at the lid and the glass, and thinking "It's a shame I don't have a metal or plastic strip that would fit in there and attach with screws. Why, look, there are even convenient attachment points for screws to bore through on the underside of the lid, a convenient and well-balanced point from the glass". And I looked, and looked some more, and thought about it. And noticed that there was a 12-inch plastic ruler in one of my jars of pens[1]. Which I never use, or certainly not as often as I use my scanner.
I pick it up. I slot it into the far end of the scanner lid. It fits perfectly. Snug against the three sides of the lid, and overlapping the glass by a centimetre or more. And even conveniently bevelled where there's a risk that it's going to foul up the scanner head. Perfect!
Well, perfect except for the ruler not having holes where I need there to be holes. I try to screw the nails through the ruler; they laugh at me. I don't think my drill will work on this. And I don't have an awl. But I am not to be defeated; I pick up my nail scissors (always handy), mark the spots I need holes, and just keep on going. It's third-year geography all over again as I mutilate the poor, innocent ruler with whatever is closest to hand.
Ten minutes later, two nice small boreholes have appeared (coff) through the ruler, right over the guideholes for whatever Umax wanted to screw in there, but didn't. I make sure that I'm not going to come into contact with the glass and then have a go at screwing the ruler to the plastic lid. CRACK. Nothing doing: the holes aren't wide enough and the plastic of the ruler won't force through; it cracks. I make the holes wider and try again. Perfect.
The screws just keep on going through the plastic scanner lid and fasten the ruler firmly, very firmly, to the lid. They sit against each other with the glass in between them, and the two screws holding it all together. Admittedly, there are two one-inch steel points poking upwards from the surface of the thing, but other than that, what's the harm?
I probably ought to get a hacksaw and take them off. Soon. Very soon. Although it isn't like the lid doesn't cover them.
[1] I have one jar of writing pens, scissors, rulers and the like, and another jar of coloured felt-tip pens on my desk. Because real women write documents in at least fifteen colours.
current mood: accomplished
|
|
(comment on this)
|
| Thursday, September 20th, 2007
| |
2:44 am - dhcp woe and madness
|
I thought I was going to need more cable and another switch, but after approximately five hours of woe involving at least five machines on the network, tcpdump, subnetting, dummy devices, shouting at the router screaming "10.1.1.0 is not an invalid address to route to, you bitch", running out of trademarked caffeinated beverages, the router and my laptop[1] deciding they like each others' IP addresses much better and randomly switching places, the network routing DHCP but not IP like a girl, turning off my Internet-facing firewall, ping, ping and more ping, working out subnet addresses in binary with notepad, watching "Brass Eye" and S4C, I have persuaded my network that it wants to serve our IP block to the wired-in machines from the wireless router and 10/8 to everyone else from the wi-fi-free Linux server. This is, of course, RIPE's fault for not giving me a /24 of my very own.
And I did it all from the comfy sofa underneath blankies.
It's almost like being me, ten years ago.
[1] I have a laptop. Did I mention that I have a laptop? I have a laptop. It is shiny and silver and has a big wide screen and wi-fi and audio and a dvd rewriter, and (after another eight or so hours of work last night) it all works in Linux. I am fab.
|
|
(comment on this)
|
| Monday, September 17th, 2007
| |
6:12 pm - More Potter links
|
( spoilers ahoy )
In other news, I've done something to my back and can't do much more than lie on the sofa being a big potato. Hate, hate, hate, I say.
|
|
(comment on this)
|
| |
1:03 am - More Deathly Hallows musings
|
|
| Sunday, September 9th, 2007
| |
9:54 am - Do you recycle?
|
|
| Wednesday, September 5th, 2007
| |
3:01 pm - butterfly
|
This week I've seen two striking butterflies flying around - they had wings edged with white semicircles and big patches of bright red on the wings. I keep coming back to the red admiral, although it doesn't feel quite right. It wasn't a peacock.
(http://www.britishbutterflies.co.uk/ is a very good website).
Read a BBC HYS on climate change. Oh dear, oh dear, oh dear.
|
|
(comment on this)
|
| Tuesday, August 21st, 2007
| |
2:41 am - Sketching
|
|
| Thursday, August 16th, 2007
| |
4:52 pm - Trees
|
The plum tree has turned out to be two or three plum trees planted close together. We've also found a hazel tree not far away in St Mellons, and a hazel and an apple tree growing next to each other in Pentwyn (a suburb away on either side).
Went out for lunch today, came back nibbling blackberries from the hedgerows and gathered a handful of plums.
|
|
(comment on this)
|
| Sunday, August 12th, 2007
| |
11:56 am - trees
|
Yesterday we found a plum-looking tree, just growing there near a rabbit warren. The fruit was ripe. We picked one to bring home, and brought a leaf to check.
Then last night I dreamed we had an apple tree in our kitchen, growing up behind the cooker, its branches spreading across the ceiling, heavy with fruit.
This morning I looked up the tree. This picture has fruit and leaves like the ones on the tree. I cut open the fruit we brought home - it looked like plum, smelled like plum. Had a plum looking stone in the middle. I tasted it. Tasted like plum. Actually, it tasted wonderful. So then I ate the whole thing and saved the stone to take back out into the fields.
|
|
(comment on this)
|
| Tuesday, August 7th, 2007
| |
1:38 pm - A-level results clock
|
So we were searching around, desperately trying to find out what day the A-level results are released (which is a much harder piece of information to get than you might think), and we found this:
A-level Results Countdown.
|
|
(comment on this)
|
| |
1:02 pm - Migration [posted to LiveJournal]
|
I've been thinking about changing to another journalling server for a while, because of Six Apart's utter crapheadedness, and since it seems like Semagic works under Linux now (so I can post to multiple journals easily), there's nothing holding me on LiveJournal any more. Except, of course, for all of you. *smooch*
I will, hopefully, now be found at the following places:
Blurty.
GreatestJournal.
InsaneJournal.
JournalFen.
I will also be continuing to post on LiveJournal at least until my paid account runs out.
|
|
(comment on this)
|
| |
12:49 pm - More testing
|
|
| Saturday, October 18th, 2003
| |
9:39 pm
|
|
| Saturday, October 11th, 2003
| |
10:09 pm
|
I'm thinking that the minipill and I don't get on at all.
I've been on it less than a month, I've forgotten it twice, I'm spottier than I've been ... well, ever. And I think I'm gaining weight.
At least it's mostly stopped me bleeding, but I'm really getting a hate on for it.
|
|
(comment on this)
|
| |
10:09 pm
|
Oh, and we bought a cooker. A white split-grill and oven affair with a four-ring hob.
I wonder if I know anyone who wants a two-ring electric hob.
|
|
(comment on this)
|
| Wednesday, October 1st, 2003
| |
11:51 am - eek
|
It's a good job I don't have to go anywhere today. I look as if I spent all last night howling and bawling.
current mood: puffyeyed
|
|
(1 comment | comment on this)
|
| Tuesday, September 30th, 2003
| |
11:03 pm - Wishes and horses
|
Lord, make me stupid so that I no longer live with shattered ambitions,
Make me thoughtless so that I care nothing for the feelings of others,
Make me lazy so that I wish nothing more than to stay at home,
Make me ignorant so that I no longer need the company of others,
and hard so that I no longer miss those who don't need mine.
Teach me to be satisfied with what I have,
instead of what I was raised to have.
Teach me not to strive,
for things that can never be.
Teach me acceptance,
and let me live, finally, in peace.
amen.
|
|
(comment on this)
|
|
|
|
|
