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05:42 pm
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I know I'm going to regret this!
Just tried the Superhero team quiz.
If you thought ![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif) lucas_t_bear was an unlikely superhero I have some terrible news!
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02:51 pm
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Discworld Meme
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Which Discworld Character are you like (with pics)
created with QuizFarm.com |
| You scored as The Librarian You’re the Librarian! Once a wizard, now an Orang-utan (due to an unfortunate magical accident), you refuse to be turned back for a few reasons: In this form, it’s easier to reach the shelves and hold more books; having the strength of five men makes people return their books on time; life’s great philosophical questions boil down to “when do I get my next banana?‿ You say “ook‿ but are usually understood well enough.
The Librarian |
| 81% | Carrot Ironfounderson |
| 75% | Rincewind |
| 63% | Gytha (Nanny) Ogg |
| 63% | Lord Havelock Vetinari |
| 56% | Commander Samuel Vimes |
| 50% | Cohen The Barbarian |
| 44% | Greebo |
| 38% | Esmerelda (Granny) Weatherwax |
| 31% | Death |
| 25% |
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02:45 pm
[Link] |
Discworld meme
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Which Discworld Character are you like (with pics)
created with QuizFarm.com |
| You scored as The Librarian You’re the Librarian! Once a wizard, now an Orang-utan (due to an unfortunate magical accident), you refuse to be turned back for a few reasons: In this form, it’s easier to reach the shelves and hold more books; having the strength of five men makes people return their books on time; life’s great philosophical questions boil down to “when do I get my next banana?‿ You say “ook‿ but are usually understood well enough.
The Librarian |
| 69% | Lord Havelock Vetinari |
| 63% | Carrot Ironfounderson |
| 56% | Gytha (Nanny) Ogg |
| 56% | Rincewind |
| 50% | Commander Samuel Vimes |
| 50% | Death |
| 44% | Cohen The Barbarian |
| 44% | Esmerelda (Granny) Weatherwax |
| 44% | Greebo |
| 38% |
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06:32 pm
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Mystery carvings
A while ago frandowdsofa posted a link to a story about mysterious stone carvings appearing, Onthe BBC news site
appears to explain the mystery, while suggesting that there remain many more to be found as there are supposed to be more than fifty in total.
The related link at One to One Productions is interesting for those who wish to follow the story further.
So, my commiserations to frandowdsofa if one hasn't turned up by now I doubt it's going to happen.
Unfortunately the one to be found on aspodeline's page isn't one of them!
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07:02 pm
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The mysteries of ecomarketing
I know I don't update much - well asphodeline tends to put anything interesting up first!
Ok, some background ( Read more... )
Saturday we went DIY shopping for a couple of other items and stumbled across an insulation two for one sale.
Options
170mm thick 114 cm wide 7 m long combi roll £28.98
200mm thick 37cm wide 4m long plastic wrapped space blanket £13.98
200mm thick 37cm wide 4 m long Ecowool insulation £14.98
( Read more... )
Given that they make a point about the Ecowool being 85% recycled plastic and using 23kilowatt hours less energy to make per roll (actually it's 'enough energy saved to run a 60 watt light bulb for 16 days') it seems a bit much to charge a premium - particularly as, if you read the small print, the space blanket roll infill is made using 85% recycled glass. I didn't examine the combi roll as closely but as all three products come from the same manufacturer I'd say it's a reasonable assumption that that contains a similar proportion of recycled glass as well.
I'm afraid that when public (and possibly spurious) ecological ethics meets pure costs - Well we've bought sufficient of the combiroll to cover the whole loft in at least 10” for under 40% of the other alternatives.
Now we've just got to finish laying it!
Current Mood: geeky
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12:18 pm
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Cat kills mouse
Ok not exactly earth shattering.But the kittens have been getting far more adventurous.
I was at my desk when the male kitten (Basil) jumped in front of me with a mouse hanging by it's tail, he then proceeded to play with said mouse until I rescued it - unfortunately by this time life was extinct.
Anything odd about this? Only that the mouse in question was a wheel mouse!
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04:00 pm
[Link] | Let's try this
Well that works, funny it gives an error message in preview mode!
I have to say that it's asphodeline's fault! Pretty though.
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11:01 am
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Energy efficiency and diminishing returns
Ok, I've been a real geek here, ( waffle ) Call it a before and after snapshot of lighting costs ( details )This saves around three kwh per day. Replacing the bathroom lights is not a high priority from the energy pov as stripping out the existing setup and replacing with (say) a single fluorescent fitting would save maybe £0.02 per day. Oh we'll get around to it fairly soon but not for purely conservation reasons.
We've made a start on insulating the loft, but this has been more of a side effect of preparing a safe, floored area to store boxes of things we don't need immediately but want to keep. We will expand this area to make a base from which we can properly insulate the loft (and, in the fullness of time, tidy up the bathroom lighting!).
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08:59 pm
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Communications
While we haven't found the modem cables yet - and switching our broadband could take a couple of weeks we thought we had a telephone. ( Read more... )
Sometimes things work out for the best.
Tags: cable, luck, phone
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08:56 pm
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Welcome to the energy inefficient house.
Well we got the keys on Friday and spent the weekend cleaning and painting the ceilings white (originally a dense mid blue which took at least two coats of brilliant white to hide). I spent an educational day exploring the wiring and lighting setup (the former owner was a professional electrician - Glad he never did any work for me!) ( A detailed description follows )
Now for the good news, it is double glazed - mostly - for some reason known only to God the back bedroom is single glazed. The gas central heating radiators have thermostatic valves.
Things to do
1, Replace the light bulbs with energy efficient ones (replacing the dimmer switches as needed. Already done in the hall and landing; Bedroom and Lounge next on the list, also the cabinet work lights (there were new low wattage mini fluorescent lights in the garden shed will be fitting those soon!)
2, Remodel the bathroom lights to something less tropical.
3, Slightly further out, clear out and properly insulate the attic, and arrange reasonable loft storage.
Tags: energy
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08:53 pm
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Moving
Life is terribly hectic at the moment. We're part way into moving into our new house - and discovering various pluses and minuses more in a seperate post.
As we're half way between homes we don't have all our bits in one place And of course the modem cables to gain a dial up connection are currently missing and this post is courtesy of an unknown neighbour's generously wide open wireless network ~(there are actually five such wireless hotspots within range only two of which have any kind of security).
You don't realise quite how much 'stuff' you collect until you have to move it!
Tags: moving, wireless security
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02:01 pm
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Moving
Ok we're now moving house! fortunately it doesn't require a one day massive heave - which is good because there are several things which need doing before/ as we settle in. The sellor was a professional electrician of the sort who add things to his own home that he wouldn't (or oughtn't) countenance in any other circumstance!
Also both gas and electric are on prepayment meters with next to nothing on either, and we can't use the top up cards are they are registered to him! New cards are - hopefully- in the post We can't get the meters changed for at least a fortnight and even then it's do one then do the other otherwise the supplier charges a £75 fee to convert!
The upside is that I can retain my existing phone number and the transfer will take place in about an hour, the downside is that the Broadband is a seperate munit and I can't ask them to transfer until after the phone has been changed over, then it could be p to ten days of Dialup until we get broadband back.
Service will be erratic for a while.
Take care
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10:28 am
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spring and gardens
There's no way I could be described as a gardener. But I came across this
http://publicspace.ca/gardeners.htm and it sounds a better plan than yet more municipal concrete It's also one of Terry Pratchett's 'Anticrimes' alongside breaking and decorating (as practised by the tv makeover shows).
Go forth
Tags: anticrime, gardening
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06:37 pm
[Link] | It's been windy few days, but from the news, we've come out of this with minimal damage, One gust blew a section of roof off one of the dutch barns (complete with timber beams) but it missed our power cables. a couple of decent timbers and four large roofing sheets and a day or so and we should be as good as new - well nearly!
Tags: weather
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06:14 pm
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Life and people
There are all sorts of people, obvious I know, but there is a point.
For many years now I have had an arrangement with a local department store to retouch/repair where economic furniture about which they had a complaint (sometimes the manufacturer would replace the item). In recent times the amount of minor faults seems to have been increasing and several of the well known mid range firms (i.e. not MFI!) have been taken over/amalgamated, moved production offshore or switched to design only with the actual construction being farmed out to Thailand or, increasingly, China. ( Details )
Without seeing it I can't be sure, but I've handled furniture of the same design and it's probably something curable with a few light passes with a decent wax and a soft cloth, and for this I am to do a round trip of twenty to thirty miles!
Ah well I'll find out tomorrow.
Tags: furniture, repair, restoration
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06:31 pm
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Communications
The farm was outside of ADSL range of the local exchange until fairly recently,( Read more... )
This is new enough to us that several things strike me which a lot now take for granted like using the net as another extension to a local computer's data resources. Particularly since the always on nature of the connection means that you open up Firefox (or other browser) and submit your search term and get an answer back almost before you;ve finished framing the question. the speed of any download, I downloaded Open Office ~(approx 80Mb) in little over an hour.
And yet people don't stay satisfied for long, a near neigbour was bemoaning the paltry state of local broadband compared to the 8Mb or better available in the local city areas. and broadband of any description only reached us less than two years ago!
I means come on the ADSL link may be a 'paltry' 582Kbps downstream but it's better than ten times the best that dial up could offer. I know we live in an information age but bemoaning ADSL while living in the countryside when the solution (move next door to the exchange)exists is definitely a case of wanting his cake and eating it!
Tags: communications, computers, life
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07:20 pm
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The infamous Dolls house
As I've mentioned previously I was asked to make a dolls house for A feature in the Daily Mail.
The article is available online on the Daily Mail website
Article here
Unfortunately a picture of the dolls house didn't make it into the piece and if you blink you'll miss any reference to me!
A happy Christmas to all!
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08:07 pm
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Of Dolls houses,
Ok I mentioned that I'd been asked to make a dolls house for a newspaper feature. Well Igot an email from the feature's writer. The feature should be in this weekend's paper however due to assorted factors it doesn't actually appear!
( further details )
So for those who wanted to see part of what I've been up too I can only say "Not this time." I've got some pictures but they're not currently up anywhere. This is definitely another reason to do something with my website!
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10:24 pm
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Of life and dolls houses
Life is middling hectic at the moment, and so now is a great time to add a new challenge!
I've been asked to build a dolls house for a photo shoot.( background information, possibly boring )
So for my sins(!) I now have to finish the construction, paint, and do some (minor) decoration all in time for the shoot on Saturday. As a consequence I finished tonight shortly after eight and I'm only just coming round. and now it's time for bed
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08:47 pm
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Dell, and the wonders of online security
I'm almost more frustrated than angry. I've bought from Dell in the past (three years ago) and when I started looking for a replacement system I decided to visit their site.
( Read more... )
Well at least they finally told me! but it would have saved a lot of hassle if the 'account locked' warning had occurred earlier, or that their email password system actually worked! Ah well, back to the telephone tomorrow!
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