Craig Sawyers

That was awesome. And apart from dirt roads back in 1903, you had to fix your bike if you had a mechanical. If you had assistance you were given a time penalty. There was a famous incident while descending the col de Tourmalet, recounted here https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eugène_Christophe when he walked 10km down the descent when his forks broke, found a forge, and set about brazing his bike back together. But he had the blacksmith's son pump the bellows. In spite of losing a massive amount of time, he was given a 10 minute penalty because he had assistance from having the forge pumped. He still finished in 7th place.

I've been thinking about this too. There is a good review of the various types on the Global Cycling Network (GCN) you tube channel. Actually for all things cycling it is excellent, run by a couple of ex-pro British cyclists. Turbo trainer vid Their training turbo training vids are a thing to behold - they reduce themselves to sweat pouring exhaustion. Heaven knows what power they are putting in. There are a number of different length and duration sessions to watch.

Another possibility as a 2SC3675 replacement is the BUL216. Vceo of 800V. Since it is a switching part rather than an amplifier part the specs are a bit sparse. Current part and cheap.

My only visits to Madrid went along the lines fly in to the stunning airport, have two days of meetings (at INTA), fly out. I had very little opportunity to enjoy Madrid itself, or really even see it in daylight hours. Other than get really hungry because the restaurants (remember those?) didn't open until 8pm.

It is truly amazing what dramatically reduced road use and no airplanes has made. It is a real shame that the cause of all this low pollution and clean air is a worldwide lockdown to combat the spread of Covid-19.

Somewhere I have a CERN report from the 1970 about a 13kA pulsed magnet power supply. That used 7,200 2N3055's as output devices driven by another 360 of them. All of those were in massive 19% racks mounted on cooling plates with forced water cooling. Might be interesting or relevant. This was for the 28GeV Synchrotron. Eventually that was used simply as the injector accelerator for the SPS (Super Proton Synchrotron), and of course that has been superceded by the Large Hadron Collider. The current acceleration scheme is Synchrotron - SPS - LHC to get 13TeV Found the power supply paper. Attached. CERN-70-20.pdf

Those casters don't look like the type that lock in place. What happens at full tilt when a kick drum happens - where do those monster JBL's end up?

Happy birthday!

I ate his liver ... oh hang on just a minute, thrash metal! Lockdown is clearly having an effect on 82 year old Sir Anthony

Nice - but musical instruments in the same room twanging away resonating to the music? Using a swept sine at decent volume soon finds things rattling and buzzing in a room. All happening in the background while you listen to music.

Happy Birthday!

I remember when Richard Hammond crashed his rocket car and suffered brain injury, Stirling Moss mentored him. Moss had had a horrific crash during his racing career and knew first hand what Hammond was going through. Moss kept his buckled steering wheel on the wall. He buckled that steering wheel with his head. RIP Stirling Moss - one of the racing greats.

What a fitting tribute by Joan Baez. Looking at her, you would not think that she is 79.

Alternatively coat a BMW with Vantablack

RIP Honor Blackman. At 94 a life well lived. As a dispatch rider in WW2:

Extrovert and Introvert cockatoos

Nelson Pass, along with running his very successful company, supports the DIY community with some landmark minimalist designs. This is not one of them. https://www.passdiy.com/project/speakers/the-kleinhorn-part-1

It was Ivor Tieffenbrun, founder of Linn, whose first product was the LP12. Still is after endless, increasingly expensive modifications and upgrades. When he toted the original LP12 it around HiFi dealers in the early 70's he was working hard to put forward his perspective that the sound source was the most important thing in an audio system. Up to that point, conventional wisdom was that the most important thing was the speakers. Tieffenbrun took the view that the source was the most important, because once the source was compromised, no matter how good the rest of the system was, you could not undo the sonic damage. Took a couple of years to gain traction, but then became the new wisdom which lasts to this day. Falcon is only about 10 miles from where I live, by the way. Great little company,

That sequence was quite emotional.

Last year the carers called in and could not find him. They looked up and down the street, and found him skip diving for a nice piece of timber in the bottom of the skip (he makes little windmills for charity). A real character.

Not sure where to put this, so it is going here. My wife is the CEO of the charity Brendoncare Foundation, which owns and runs residential care homes throughout the South of England. One of people in their care, Bob Weightman, is now the world's oldest man. He will be 112 on 29th March. He lives in his own flat, and carers pop in twice a day just to check he is OK. He has absolutely all his marbles intact. The video here is on his 111th birthday. https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-hampshire-51656545 Worth playing the interview. And this is a guy who was born 6 years before the start of WWI in 1908.

Thanks everyone! Had a day that involved a walk with Carole over what passes for paths in the UK at the moment (miles of extreme mud and standing water). Then we went out for a curry, which was exceptionally good, then to an excellent play adaption of Dickens' Bleak House https://www.creationtheatre.co.uk/whats-on/bleak-house/ .

Sure is. This is York. Settled 8000 years ago, resettled by the Romans as Eboracum in 71AD. And currently looks like this Same here. No snow or frost. So insect heaven. Gonna have to take care of ticks, which are becoming a real problem in the UK now. The UK Government said three days ago "use hand gel to clean your hands to protect against Coronavirus" so everyone in the UK went absolutely nuts, and the only remaining stocks are being sold for 10 times what they were at the end of last year. Even professional suppliers have run out - even the options of 5 liters (over a gallon) containers have run out. Yes - we had to stump up to buy some. Seller's market though, so it is what it is.