Craig Sawyers

My wife at the time was the CEO of a residential care charity - Brendoncare https://www.brendoncare.org.uk/. When the government came up with the wheeze of sending thousands of recovering Covid patients from hospital to residential care homes Carole refused point blank, as did the Trustees, to do this. Turns out that this directive was in fact unlawful, and is something that will be a feature of the enquiry. As will the idiot policy of "Eat out to help out" in which the government, via Rishi Sunak (who was Chancellor then) stumped up a billion in subsidy to reduce the cost of going out for a meal. Many months before there was a vaccine. Not surprisingly with restaurants crowded there was a surge in infections and death as a result. And how come those in the government staff and ministers who were found to by guilty of parties during lockdown received a nominal £50 fine. But those of the public who did something similar have been financially ruined with fines of £10k plus. Still three years later being processed in the courts. Different rules for those in power. All this and much more will come out in the public enquiry.

Thanks guys. That is a good steer to transistors that I can buy! What about the driver transistors? I have a load of MJE340/350 that might fit the bill. Also very linear with flat beta vs Ic? Any thoughts?

I thought that was some sort of joke, until I looked at the Guardian - and those foul mouthed outtakes are all absolutely correct.

Or MJ11021 and MJ11022?

Here's a question. Has anyone tried replacing the discrete Darlingtons of Q5/7 and Q9/4 with power Darlingtons such as the MJ11015 and MJ11016? At least I can get my hands on them!

Well, because OnSemi are a bunch of fuckwits who seem to have forgotten how to make semiconductors Example from Mouser for the MJW21193 308 Expected 23-Aug-24 1,020 Expected 03-Mar-25 Farnell reckons 33 weeks, which is consistent with Mouser. FFS! Same with the high current version with TO3 power transistors. MJ15023 no problem but MJ15024 1,997 Expected 19-Mar-24 2,200 Expected 24-Jun-24

That is so truly awful. On many levels.

Happy Birthday Marc! (Blame time difference)

How did I miss this? Happy birthday Chalk man!

My son has two cats. Where has one of them gone? Has he got out onto the road? Is he lost? They eventually, after a good deal of panic, found him fast asleep in speaker wadding, having gained access through the reflex port of a very large bass guitar loudspeaker he has. I suggested he discourage this behaviour by firing up his 1kW bass amp and playing a few notes when the cat was in there. Meeeooow!

Alternatively https://neurochrome.com/products/guardian-86

This instant reaction to catch something is common. Back in the day my soldering iron was an Antex 25W yellow handled one. Astonishingly half a century on, they still make them https://www.antex.co.uk/products/precision-range-soldering-irons/xs25/ . Note there is no stand. So it sat on the table while I was building something - and then the mains power cable pulled it off the bench. Instant reaction - catch the hot stick. Number of times there was the smell of cooking meat when I grabbed the business end as it fell. More recently (couple of years ago) I was stripping ptfe sleeved wire with a scalpel, which skittered off the bench. So some hardwired reaction in the brain caused me to catch the falling scalpel between my legs. I then had the horrid job of pulling the scalpel out of my thigh into which it was embedded. Really makes you wonder why the brain's wiring causes us to do something so daft.

I bought a 8 inch thick, 6 foot long plank of London Plane from a guy, and asked if he could reduce the width so it would go through my planer. He fired up the scariest table saw I've ever seen. Three phase, 48" blade "it can take 60 inch" he chirped up, and massive riving knife to suit. It took a good 20-30 seconds to get up to howling speed. He took this monster plank, and it went through the 6 foot length like through butter. He walked away from the machine (still running with the plank in place), I thought to get a push stick. It was to get a wedge to hammer into the cut end to stop it gripping this howling blade and riving knife. The craziest thing is it got towards the end, and he pushed the last bit through with one hand on one side of the blade and one on the other. I could not watch this. I actually closed my eyes when I realised that is what he planned.

Happy birthday!

Happy birthday you tall ex pat Brit!

The horrors of Derna, with an estimated >20,000 dead as a result of two poorly maintained dams bursting, is alas a direct result of a state ruled over by two opposing political parties and inevitable lack of maintenance of infrastructure. That said, there have been apocalyptic storms battering central Europe and North Africa over the last month or so Madrid Spain https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/subway-train-lines-roads-closed-madrid-central-spain-after-heavy-rain-2023-09-04/ Greece https://floodlist.com/europe/greece-floods-september-2023 Bulgaria https://floodlist.com/europe/bulgaria-floods-september-2023-update Georgia https://floodlist.com/asia/georgia-floods-landslide-september-2023 Slovenia https://floodlist.com/europe/slovenia-floods-august-2023 Turkey https://floodlist.com/asia/turkey-black-sea-floods-july-2023 Russia https://floodlist.com/europe/russia-hundreds-evacuated-after-floods-damage-200-homes-in-sochi

I have a good friend who used to work on the security gate of a military airfield. They regularly would get some five star general, having waited in line, saying "Have you any idea who I am" to which the reply from the security team was to announce loudly "Excuse me everyone - this gentleman seems to be confused who he is. Can anyone help him?" At which point they would do a thorough security check on his vehicle "Can you take your luggage out of the boot sir. Can you open them" - you get the drift! Only the foolish fuck with security staff.

Oh yes he is. In an interview "I met my wife Jill at ESS — she was the Heil diaphragm tester — and she doesn’t have any problem with that. When I met her I had the Claw, a straight bass horn with a 50ft2 mouth and 9’ depth. Since then she has lived with the Kleinhorns (nearly as large, but stereo) and El Pipe-Os at 12’ high"

Nelson Pass's El Pipo transmission line speakers take some beating https://www.firstwatt.com/pdf/art_elpipeo.pdf The best quote from the article is "Funny things happen when your speakers are flat to 13Hz. You have to be careful about your tone arm, your windows, your neighbors, and your bowels"

Instability? Something in the circuit oscillating at beyond audio frequency?

That is a deep-pocket system for sure!

Reminds me of the Larkin poem They fuck you up, your mum and dad. They may not mean to, but they do. They fill you with the faults they had And add some extra, just for you. But they were fucked up in their turn By fools in old-style hats and coats, Who half the time were soppy-stern And half at one another’s throats. Man hands on misery to man. It deepens like a coastal shelf. Get out as early as you can, And don’t have any kids yourself.

I waged war with a family of rats that were under the garden shed. I bought a rat trap, put some chocolate on. Next morning trap snapped shut, chocolate gone, no rat. Tried cheese - same thing. So I bent the trigger so that if you sneezed it snapped. Chocolate on. Same damned thing. The darned things are really clever - must have been using a stick as a tool to trip the trap so they could eat the goodies. The neighbour bought a "humane" trap, and all he caught was a hedgehog. Then my cat got on the case, and worked here way through the lot. Came in each time looking a bit battered (rats fight back), tail high and proud. On the deck a half eaten rat. Repeat four times. Rat problem gone

Or theatres, or restaurants.