Yes, I can haz live_gerbils :-)

(But it's going to get annoying logging in and out of the two LJ accounts. Maybe I could get them their own computer?)

This year, I actually remembered that the time to switch over to boots is not when there's snow on the ground, it's when there are slippery wet leaves on the ground and I need the extra grip. Go me.

Former second database curator is interested in the possibility of coming back to work for us part-time and will be meeting us next week to talk about options. Insert mighty exhalation of relief here.

Election results are at least not notably worse than they were before, overall.

Writing tonight; I think I am going to take a look at The Perfection and see how doing more of that grabs me.

She reads and reads on Farthing.

Bellinghman on Ha'Penny.

And a whole lot of people on Half a Crown:
Mark Bernstein, Germerson, Bellinghman, The Rap Sheet Mrissa.

I'm after a new printer. It'll be used both for documents (e.g. Naath's OU homework) and for photographs; though if I want particularly high-quality photos I'm happy to go get them done specially rather than buy/feed an unusually expensive printer.

It'd be attached to a Linux server and driven from Mac/Linux/Windows clients (presumably via CUPS) so it'd better be something that can be driven that way (ideally without endless pain but this is printers we're talking about...)

My old printer is an Epson Stylus Color 660 and appears to have unfixably clogged some of the black jets. So I'd prefer something that either inherently doesn't clog up or has the printhead built into the ink cartridge.

Recommendations for/against?

If anyone wants my spare ink cartridges (4 black and 4 color, non-branded), let me know.

Yours truly, to client's client's embedded device: Upgrade yourself, please.
Device: OK
Time passes. The device visibly contemplates its navel, by flashing the LED thereon a couple of times.
D: Waaaah, I can't find my libc *sulk*
YT: WTF?
* YT begins to investigate. Time passes ...
YT: Dear little box, it's because your libc is a symlink pointing at a file on your flash filesystem, which you just unmounted yourself in your own upgrade script. And now you have the gumption to fail to upgrade yourself because the program which grabs the upgrade image over the network needs to have a libc present!
* YT shakes head, sighing deeply.

On the Current Financial Crisis

'Greed is good!' the bankers cried,
Their coffers filled with paper gold.
Pensioners and the workers sighed.

The protests on their lips had died
As for twice their worth their homes were sold;
'Greed is good!' the bankers cried.

The accountants and their lawyers lied
As bankers' plans were over-bold;
Pensioners and the workers sighed.

The poorest were given a poor guide:
'You needn't live in houses dull and old.'
'Greed is good!' the bankers cried.

They bought their homes and had their incomes tied
And then the market started to go cold.
Pensionsers and the workers sighed.

Then came the day when bankers's hopes were fried:
The poor would spend the winter in the cold.
'Greed is good!' the bankers cried;
Pensioners and the workers sighed.

I thought I'd ask for ideas for meals. I always prepare the meal fresh each time (rather than having a casserole in the fridge, although I'm open to doing that) for dinner and weekend lunches. Sometimes the leftovers go into Mike's lunchbox, or else he gets pasta or sandwiches.

The standard options that we will have on the weekly menu include:
( Click here to find out what we eat )

So, um, that's what we eat.

New ideas are welcome. The provisos are that they:

* must be vegetarian
* must be easily achievable in a maximum of 30 mins from starting to serving, including sitting to rest for 5 minutes between stages, unless I get a really long sit down in the middle (e.g. when spuds are baking)
* mustn't use too many pans, bowls etc. - when cooking veg I prefer to use one pan for the lot and scoop different veg in and out as required, and I like recipes that can be chucked into one bowl and then either served or cooked without any faff on the side
* must not include aubergine
* must not involve the cooking of any vegetable which could be enjoyed raw instead, except mushroom. So cooked pepper is out. [Bother! I've just realised carrot is an exception to this rule - I like carrot raw AND cooked.]
* must not be spicy hot - I like spicy flavours but my stomach doesn't

I've tried various other things, such as Simon Rimmer's stuffed filo parcels and a Ramsay mushroom lasagne, but these took up too much time, involved too much standing in one go, and produced too much washing up. They were tasty, but I'm looking for new additions to the regular menu, which I will be able to make after a day's work.

I did have some success making spaghetti in tomato sauce with falafel balls - I must try that again. I stirred the balls in too early and they broke up - but otherwise quite successful.

Paper accepted this morning.

*subdued bounce*

She dances golden, in a drift of leaves,
she dances stark, skeletal, in the dark,
she dances in a cloud of solid green,
she dances with her branch and leaf and bark.

She dances with the birds, the wind, the street,
with child in stroller, with a hurrying nun,
with gardners, shoppers, lovers as they meet,
she dances, as we dance, around the sun.

She photosynthesises and she grows,
drinking the twirling sun to build her shade,
that cools our heads in summer, makes a show,
weaves nature through the place that we have made.

We dance with trees, we dance with people, we
dance through our days, interconnectedly.

(For wildirises and baldanders)

I'm a little confused by this report, about a man who has apparently committed suicide when on bail after some pretty violent assaults, up to attempted murder.

"He was also accused of assaulting his mother, Elizabeth Jordan, his wife Laura and his wife's aunt, Karen Mimms."

"he was conditionally bailed to stay with his parents and made the subject of a curfew."

"He was also banned from having any contact with his wife and other people connected with the case."

He's being ordered to stay with his parents, yet one of those parents is presumably his mother, one of the victims of his assault and therefore connected with the case. How was he supposed to satisfy the conditions imposed upon him?

(Apart from suicide.)

I recently bought some samples of rare-earth elements from elementsales.com - gadolinium, terbium and dysprosium - to play with their magnetic properties. They're supplied as coins inside plastic discs, since they're reasonably reactive.

The gadolinium behaves roughly as I was expecting it to; it's quite strongly attracted to a magnet when cold, and less so when hot. I thought the Curie point was a sharp phase transition and the material would be non-magnetic above 19C, but the material sticks to a magnet even if I've freshly taken it out of hot water. I've been a bit wary since the Curie point of NdFeB magnets is only about 80C; I should get hold of a more-robust magnet. eBay has a very limited range of SmCo2 magnets (most hits for samarium-cobalt are guitar pickups); possibly I just want a large iron bar magnet, but I'm not quite sure where to buy those in the real world.

The terbium and dysprosium, however, are also attracted to the magnet (the Dy less so than the Tb) at room temperature. It's a fairly fearsome magnet, so I suppose that the Tb and Dy have some traces of Gd left in them and that's what's being picked up; in which case I should try boiling them and seeing how the magnetism goes away. I need to think more about how to measure the forces here; I can't think of a setup with magnet, element, spring-balance and bits of string where I can just read off the force, and a model where I pull on a spring balance until the element comes free of the magnet seems impossible to get good readings from.

I imagine a note to the element supplier saying that they are supplying inferior gadolinium-laced terbium would not be useful; separating adjacent rare earth elements is proverbially hard.

Any advice on better magnets, better terbium, or better experimental setup?

Happy Open Access Day!

Today I am mostly waiting on dialup for the email telling me my broadband has been activated.

Yesterday I didn't get to the gym: ( weightlifting numbers )

A question: there is a petrol can in the garage, a proper fit-for-purpose plastic one, about 1/5 full. It's been there for more than a year. It seems to be bulging, very taut - is this its normal shape? The lid is on so firmly I cannot remove it.

After I finished work last Friday I got in Fenchurch and drove south on the motorway for over six hours to get to wibble_puppy's house. The trip was well worth it; I wish I could do it all again! ;)

Our main objective for the weekend was to make some progress on Wibble's Morris Minor van, which is nearing the end of a three-year restoration. I think we did pretty well on that front. The brakes proved rather tricky to get working but we got there in the end. Here is a video of the triumphal moment as wibble_puppy drove the van out of the garage for the first time:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vrR6w_LA5EE
(Click on "Watch in high quality" to see it at a higher resolution)

The thing that really made the weekend worthwhile for me was simply spending time with Wibble again. It felt slightly odd not driving for hours every day and staying in a different place every night! We watched DVDs, ate pizza, went for walks in the countryside, and chatted about future rally plans. Good times. :)

My new userpic shows Wibble's newly-drivable van parked next to Fenchurch.

part 3: 22,457 words
total: 72,116 words.

part 3 done. yay.