Geek
A true visionary
“He didn’t invent iron ore and blast furnaces, did he?”
“Who?”
“Rearden. He didn’t invent smelting and chemistry and air compression. He couldn’t have invented his Metal but for thousands and thousands of other people. His Metal! Why does he think it’s his? Why does he think it’s his invention? Everybody uses the work of everybody else. Nobody ever invents anything.”
— Ayn Rand, 1957
If you were successful, somebody along the line gave you some help. There was a great teacher somewhere in your life. Somebody helped to create this unbelievable American system that we have that allowed you to thrive. Somebody invested in roads and bridges. If you’ve got a business, you didn’t build that. Somebody else made that happen,The Internet didn’t get invented on its own. Government research created the Internet so that all the companies could make money off the Internet.
It’s been too long since I’ve waded through Atlas Shrugged.
Thanks for jogging the memory, Jennifer.
Kitchendle
It’s the 21st Century, baby!
Creamy smoked chicken, bacon and mushroom fettuccine
Ingredients
1 small onion, finely diced
2 cloves garlic, crushed
One pack (400 gr) bacon, cut in small pieces
One punnet mushrooms, halved or quartered
2 tablespoons fresh basil, chopped
1 tablespoon fresh rosemary, chopped
375ml Light & Creamy evaporated milk
1 tablespoon flour
1 x 400g packet fresh egg or tri-colour fettuccine
olive oil, to drizzle
2 smoked chicken breasts, cut in 1cm cubes
Instructions
1. Heat oil in a frying pan. Gently fry onion and garlic. Add bacon. Cook for 2 minutes. Add mushrooms. Cook for 2 more minutes.
2. Add basil, rosemary, evaporated milk and flour to pan mixture. Bring to a light boil, stirring regularly, so it doesn’t stick to pan. Allow to simmer until it thickens.
3. Cook fettuccine following packet directions. Drain. Drizzle with a little olive oil and set aside.
4. Add smoked chicken to pan. Cook for 1-2 minutes. Add cooked fettuccine to coat in creamy mixture. Cook for about 1 minute until food is heated through.
RIP Ray Bradbury
Not safe for work or kids. Unless they already know the One Word which is the Nine Part of Speech.*
* Ours do. I have managed to escape the blame for this. So far.
Seriously?
It’s not as sinister as it looks. Dealer sorted out the problem in one day.
But I thought it might cue discussions of the “Now we know why people don’t talk about Glocks giving trouble” type.
Arena
Sometimes I manage to impress myself bigtime.
A while ago, I left a comment on Jimmy’s page on Robot War, about Arena, which is basically* Robot War for the PC. This morning I received an email from Core War fundi John Metcalf, saying that he’s never heard of Arena, and would like to know more.
So I thought about it for about half a cup of coffee, remembered which box it was most likely to be, retrieved the box from behind the Puma, and the disk I was looking for was about the tenth disk down (this was the lucky bit — there are about 200 disks in there I guess).
The key point here is that I last used these disks on my father’s PC (the one before the one before the one he has now — it was a 386 on one of those motherboards that still took a 287 coprocessor) back in the early nineties. Call it twenty years plus tax.
The fact that I can’t find a notebook battery that I had in my hand day before yesterday is not relevant to the story.
So then I had to fire up the third machine on my desktop**, click the KVM over, and copy the files to something my main machine can read.
Now I know for a fact that the vast majority of my readers (both of them) are suffering MEGO with a side of TMI. So here’s a cut line for you. It gets geeky on the other side.
* Bad pun. Should be assemblerly. You don’t get it. Don’t worry. I’ll explain it.
** Primary machine is a Windoze 2K box. #2 is my Linux box, and #3 is a 486 (or maybe an early Pentium) which mostly boots DOS (with Windows 3.1 if I really need to do that) and runs my Expro.
(no, those were footnotes. And only a bit geeky. Here’s the cutline)
Repairs
This is the 6871W1S113E control board from our LG MG-604W microwave. The transformer primary went open circuit when the supply hit 300V or thereabouts. I know that these things often incorporate some kind of protection circuitry, so I desoldered the transformer.
Sure enough, it’s a 1A 130C fuse.
Fixed (yea, this solution doesn’t have thermal protection. I can live with it).
Of course, now that I know the layout I know that one can add a fuse or a jumper to the PCB without having to desolder the transformer. Again, you’ll lose thermal protection.
The transformer primary is between the left and middle pins, and the fuse runs from the righthand pin to the lefthand pin.
I was not so lucky with the Sakyno SK-1000 clock radio. In this case the transformer primary was the protection device, and the magic smoke leaked out.
The Philips AJ3121 clock radio transformer has a fuse as well, the wire leading down on the right hand side goes over to the other side, where there’s a square 125C thermal fuse wrapped up against the winding.
It’s at the left hand side under the red tape under the plastic.
Unfortunately I stuffed it up, I jiggled the wire too much and the primary winding, which is cat-hair-thin, broke off from the fuse lead. I tried resoldering it but it’s just too finicky.
So we bought two new clock radios. But at least the microwave works.
OK, this just plain rocks
Via MetaFi, a collection of modern interpretations of classic art at Tor.
My favourites?
and 
Go to the Tor page for more, and comparison with the originals.
A bunch of old cranks.
A colleague told me they’d be doing a run today, so we went off to Kalk Bay for breakfast (Waffles. With ice cream. And ice cream coffee. My poor sinuses) to watch them come past.
They couldn’t have chosen a nicer day for their drive (through Muizenberg and Kalk Bay via Cape Point to Scarborough for lunch).
1901 Benz Ideal, co-piloted by my colleague Harvey.
Wolseley. Number plate says “1905” but this website* calls it a 1902.
They tell me this is the only remaining 1905 De Dietrich. Gorgeous big four cylinder engine which barely ticks over at Muizenberg / Fish Hoek Main Road speed.
The only known surviving Nordenfelt car, a 1907 model. Nordenfelt is better known for its multiple-barrel machine gun, a predecessor of the Maxim.
* Evil website. They have a 1971 Citroen Safari for sale. Don’t tell my father. Hell, don’t tell me, I’m sorely tempted. Oh, and a 1961 Mercedes Ponton. Don’t tell my brother.
