Craig Sawyers

I'd second that. Just did the same with the failing heated front screen in my Ford one frosty morning recently to give the (Ford) garage no way to go with "no fault found". As a result of the evidence there was no messing around. New screen to be fitted next Friday. Under guarantee, fortunately.

Ice testicles

Those early 911's were widow makers. Porche hadn't got the balance right, and above a certain speed the front wheels lost traction - and as soon as you hit anything other than straight you were toast. It took an iteration or three before Porsche got it right in that regard and later ones through to the modern day stick to the road like glue. The first series 911's in good condition are now considerably north of 100k (of most currencies - they all seem close to unity exchange now). I guess because there aren't many left that weren't wrapped round trees.

RIP Mr Cernan, the last moon man. One RIP I missed was Leo Beranek, who died in August '16. I missed it because it looked like the guy would live for ever - he made 102 and worked right to the wire. It is sobering to think that he was born the year the first world war broke out. He wrote the definitive book on acoustics in 1954, called Acoustics which every practitioner of the subject has (I have). Harvard, MIT, chairman of the Boston Symphony Orchestra, adviser to General Radio. He was also a concert grade pianist. He also wrote a major text in 1962 called Music, Acoustics, and Architecture, which analyzes the acoustics of 55 of the prime concert halls around the world. He revised and updated it in 2004 at the age of 90 to include 100 halls. I have a personally signed copy of that. RIP Leo Beranek

It never crossed their mind to find out where the battery was, disconnect it, get the bike off and then reconnect the battery? They must (ought to) have a spanner or multitool in their toolkit? Last year an idiot farmer terminated the end of the fence onto a steel kissing gate on a right of way. That was quite exciting getting though!

Happy birthday Grahame!

There are dozens of vids of this genius of vocal mime on you-tube

Any audio signal level transformer has a resonant peak at some frequency, hopefully outside the audio bandwidth, caused by leakage inductance resonating with distributed winding capacitance. The RC network on the output is chosen to damp that resonant peak. But if you put a cable after it, which has some capacitance, it screws with the damping. The catchall of using less than two feet of cable comes from that consideration.

I particularly like the heatshrink sleeving over the braid. That is really tough to do without melting the braid.

Taint really relevant other than earworms. David Lloyd George was a UK politician and was Prime Minister in the first decades of the 1900's. He had a major reputation as a womaniser, and was given the name "The Goat" by his cabinet colleagues. Kitchener was concerned about politicians telling secrets to their wives, other than Lloyd George "who would tell other peoples' wives". Apparently he also had a truly heroically dimensioned gentelman's sausage. The earworm is to repeat "Lloyd George knew my father, father knew Lloyd George" to the tune of "Onward Christian Soldiers".

Surprising how many snake oil merchants invoke the word "quantum" without the blindest understanding what it means. In the UK the Bybee equivalent is Peter Belt http://www.pwbelectronics.co.uk/pwb-price-list Anyone for "Gold Message Foil", "Quantum Clip Film", "Morphic Green Cream" or even "“Friendly” Four legged stance device" - Belt has them all, and much more strange and wonderful nonsense beside.

I say to Mrs S, who speaks a little Spanish "what gender is Agua?" "Feminine" "so what article is used with it" "El". OK - so now I'm flummoxed "OK - drop the boot; why does it use masculine El with feminine Agua" "Because it begins with an A" I gave up at that point.

I'm mistrustful of DSP processing too. Take an analogue signal, AD, DSP, DA to analogue signal. What? Yup - I'm a luddite.

I've experienced -40 in Helsinki. What made that trip most surreal is that I flew from Israel where it was +25C. So that flight took me through a delta T of 65C. Then our local marketer took me to a sauna at +100C. That was 12 hours of extreme temperature transitions that I have no real wish to repeat. But -40 is no-ones idea of a good time - the same temperature as a biotechnology freezer.

You'd make a killing selling those in China

Apparently this is a lifesaver. So your ship goes down or plane crashes the sea. You get into the bubble rather than using a buoyancy aid. Oddly I kind of get this - it is common to put something similar to that in the bottom of your pack when walking in the wilderness. When the weather turns nasty you pull the thing out and get into it (personal versions and larger ones for up to ten). The idea is to keep the wind and water/snow off you, and are essential in case of injury.. I have both. They pack really small. They are brightly coloured so emergency rescue can find you. Similar problem in the water - the bubble would go a long way to prevent hypothermia. Some of the other ones above - I have absolutely no idea at all!

A few patent landmarks

I like that this guy is still alive. I have no idea how or why that should be the case.

Took me a while to understand the perspective, then I realised that it was a view from the *top* of Raven Crag looking roughly North down Thirlmere (note - not Lake Thirlmere, because a mere is a lake. So it is simply Thirlmere. Pedantic mode = off). So on the left are the slopes of the Helvellyn range. In the left middle distance is Seat Sandal (and above it the shoulder of if Stone Arthur and Great Rigg. And facing Seat Sandal on the right (with the concave shape) is Steel Fell. In the gap between the two is a low pass called Dunmail Raise (Dunmail was an local chieftan). Just to the right of the view point is Bleaberry Fell and High Seat. In the far distance you can see Loughrigg Fell - the subject of another of Knuck's postings. Incidentally, it is one of those trick questions - how many Lakes are in the Lake District? Answer - one. Bassenthwaite Lake. All the remaining fifteen bodies of water in the Lake District are Meres, Waters and Tarns.

Apparently "In the United States, the record reached #61 on the Cash Box Top 100 Singles. The single also peaked at #70 on the Billboard Hot 100 that May". So it was never a blockbuster in the US, but did OK.

Bit of a one-hit guy - but what a hit! RIP Peter Sarstedt. Too young at 75. That single song was a real part of my youth.

Liked the image from Loughrigg (pronounced Luff-rigg) Fell, a small (1000 foot) but worthwhile hill above the town of Ambleside, Been up several times. Currently been up 74 of the Lakeland fells over the years to October 2016.

Happy birthday Jacob - good to see you back.

Happy birthday!

Oh bloody hell. Mother and daughter in a few days. RIP Debbie Reynolds. I went through an on-line photo album of those that we have lost in 2016, because of the sheer number who have gone you lose track - and it is a roll-call of the great and the good. Quite a depressing year in that regard.