Archive for 2008
Bass-ic error
LMAO when I heard about this on the radio this morning.
I know, it really isn't funny at all for the students, but the people that supposedly check these exam papers deserve to be laughed at.
Read the reactions of some of the affected here.
The irony is that "OCR" also stands for Optical Character Recognition.
Doh!
Ever wondered…
... what the 3-way lovechild of a HAL 9000, Stephen Hawking's E Z Keys/VoiceText combi and Brian Cobby's UK Speaking Clock would sound like?
No?
Me neither.
Well, not until I hopped over to LondonBackpacker's blog and hit one of the odiogo "listen now" buttons at the top of his blog posts.
Top stuff!
I might be tempted to install it on here, if they can come up with a different voice. Jack Dee, perhaps? Or maybe Homer Simpson? Definitely NOT Brian Blessed, though.
Estovers
In the true spirit of recycling, I had an afternoon at the local common exercising the old right of estovers (the right to take sufficient wood for the commoner's house or agriculture; usually limited to smaller trees and fallen branches). OK, I've probably stretched my rights a bit far, as I've used the wood for edging the lawn, but at least I've used a carbon-neutral resource and done a little bit more to save the planet.
While I was there, I took a few pics of the woods and the seasonal flora. Click any of the following to access all of them.
Observing Report 07-08 May 2008 (Flares are back in fashion)
After a neat bit of negotiation, I managed to blag an evening of observation away from home at the location discovered here.
The main purpose of the session was to use the webcam to grab a load of .avi data of Saturn before it gets too late in the year. OK, the seeing wasn't too good after such a warm day, but I managed to reel off over 30 minutes of data before the target sank too low into the surrounding orange glow. I'm still trying to find time to process the stuff, it takes a while to deal with over 27,000 frames of varying quality, and I'm part-way through two major tasks at the moment (on dry days I'm levelling the ground and laying turf to extend the lawn, on wet days I'm installing a new bathroom suite). When I've got something reasonable out of the Saturn data, I'll let you know.
Anyway, while the scope and webcam were chugging away, I had the D50 set up on a separate tripod taking a few long-exposure widefields. One of them was a 5-minute shot trying to get some pictures of circumpolar star-trails, it looks like I've managed to capture an Iridium flare on there too. I took a few pics of some of the more obvious constellations too, before it was time to pack away.
Circumpolar star-trails with Iridium flare
Leo with Saturn
Ursa Major (The Plough), showing Mizar as a double-star
Cassiopeia rising above the glow of light-pollution
Summer’s here
Despite polite and firm requests to them to stop burning items such as foam-filled furniture, plastics, food waste (including bones, which stink when burned) and other such materials, yesterday evening the neighbours lit yet another fire (without prior warning), and yet again we had a house full of revolting smoke and fumes before we could close the doors and windows. Our laundry, which was out on the line, now needs to be washed and dried again (a job that I don't relish at the best of times). It was a hot night and we could not have the windows open because of the smoke and the awful smell. It's also worth pointing out that yesterday was wheelie-bin collection day - their full bin was emptied during the day, but there was still plenty of rubbish left over to burn later on. Maybe they have just too much rubbish and need a larger bin?
We have had to contend with three such fires in the last 3 weeks (all 3 have been on warm, still evenings when the smoke does not disperse) and my patience with these people is running out. There's no way that we can sit out in our garden and enjoy ourselves when this happens. If last summer was anything to go by, there will be an average of one fire per week between now and September. I regard this as completely unacceptable, and hope that the relevant authorities at the local Council can find the time to investigate this matter.
I don't have a problem with anyone burning their garden rubbish, but this is different, this is domestic rubbish. I regard these fires as a statutory nuisance under the Environmental Protection Act (EPA) 1990, as there is 'smoke, fumes, or gases emitted from premises, so as to be prejudicial to health or a nuisance'. I fear for the health of my children when our house fills with acrid fumes as it did last night, and my wife's asthma has been triggered again.
Evidence of the fires is there for all to see - large scorched patches in the overgrown garden, just past the abandoned white-goods, the dilapidated drainage system and the pile of broken glass.
Sometimes I wish that one of the fires next door would spread to their house, but, on second thoughts, seeing as our house and theirs are semi-detached, maybe that's not such a good thing to have on the wish-list.
Quite how that family of three (all adults) manage to hang on to a 3-bedroom council house when there are more needy families of 2 adults and 2 or more kids being crammed into smaller properties is well beyond my comprehension.
Now I understand why the previous owners of our property bought it under the RTB scheme and then sold it to us at such a favourable price. They couldn't stand the madness either.
