Saturday 30 January 2010

Sagem DVR64250T-SL Updates and Xbox 360's

I am patiently waiting for the OAD (On Air Download) for the latest firmware for our DVR (Digital Video Recorder).... the last one had an epic fail and left lots of Sagem owners without a firmware to boot from.... but now I know how to choose previous and new firmwares on the remote control it's not much of an issue :) Hopefully it will fix a few problems with recording series and bumping other recordings off the list in an ad-hoc fashion as it does now....

Xbox boy shot himself in the foot the other day, I turn off his internet access for his Xbox during the day and close down Facebook and MSN access ......so it can't distract him from looking for a job ..... (it's for his own good) .... Anyway the other day I noticed his Xbox was re-enabled on the wifi during the day (after I had shut it down) ....

It didn't take me long to figure out how it had happened.... he's watched me re-enable it enough times.... but he had to use my PC to do it because it won't do it from another PC !!! ... I lost my rag with him.... he now has zero chance of getting back online with is Xbox because he has had the loaned wifi access point physically unplugged and removed from his room... his Xbox would need a very long cable to reach it now.... I did tell him that he is never having it back because he has breached my trust... what he probably doesn't realise is that I actually mean what I say.... he's 18 he should know better at his age......

Thursday 28 January 2010

E=MC^2

Quite possibly the most important discovery in decades is on the brink of being science fact....namely.... Fusion

In short the work at the National Ignition Facility

will target 192 laser beams focused through holes in a target container called a hohlraum. Inside the hohlraum is a tiny pellet containing an extremely cold, solid mixture of hydrogen isotopes Lasers strike the hohlraum's walls, which in turn radiate X-rays, X-rays strip material from the outer shell of the fuel pellet, heating it up to millions of degrees
If the compression of the fuel is high enough and uniform enough, nuclear fusion can result....

They are saying they could have a working Fusion reactor by the end of the decade which will mean limitless clean energy from abundant sources such as Hydrogen and Deuterium (sea water basically)

Siegfried Glenzer, the NIF plasma scientist, led a team to test that theory, smashing records along the way.

"We hit it with 669 kiloJoules - 20 times more than any previous laser facility," NIF's Siegfried Glenzer told BBC News.

That isn't that much total energy; it's about enough to boil a one-litre kettle twice over.

However, the beams delivered their energy in pulses lasting a little more than 10 billionths of a second.

By way of comparison, if that power could be maintained, it would boil the contents of more than 50 Olympic-sized swimming pools in a second.

Before those experiments can even begin, however, the target chamber must be prepared with shields that can block the copious neutrons that a fusion reaction would produce.

But Dr Glenzer is confident that with everything in place, ignition is on the horizon.

He added, quite simply, "It's going to happen this year."


Which basically means that when rather than if Fusion is possible ........all those bloody wind farms dotted around the country can go to the scrapyard and Swalec's profits will nose dive :)

Sunday 24 January 2010

No Claims Discount

I'm one of the those lucky people who have well over 9 years no claims discount and was particularly "chuffed" when our yearly insurance quote for our new car was only £126 fully comprehensive..... Yes it's sad but true "Duran Duran" is being retired.... So logically when we insured the new car we thought we would just let the insurance run its course with "Duran Duran" then SORN the old lady and decide what to do with her when the time came.....

Oh no..... not with our new insurance company culled from the GoCompare website..... Apparently even though I have over 9 years no claims discount they cannot accept the discount unless the original insurance policy which sports the 9 years NCD is cancelled !!! Furthermore if we don't cancel the policy and transfer the 9 years NCD our premiums will go up to £94 a month !!! or basically half of what it would cost a spotty 17 year old to insure his 13 year old Citreon Saxo chav mobile with Halfords speakers and body styling kit .... complete with go faster stripes....Or as it's known locally around here..."What's that car doing upside down in that field on that bend ?"

Which brings me to what exactly is a No Claims Discount ??? ..... by the very make up of the words used in it's description, to me it was purely that the driver had made no claims to an insurance company for a period of years..... No it's not......it seems the NCD dies with the car unless you transfer it to another vehicle... Now correct me if I'm wrong here but most cars require a driver and it is the driver who controls the vehicle not the vehicle.... so surely the fact that a driver hasn't hit anything should be the deciding factor not if the car has ???? It's madness

So things are not looking good for "Duran Duran" she may be retired sooner than we thought she was going to be......it's ironic really we had just bought two new front tyres for it as well ......

The only other bit of news was a particularly vicious D&V bug first cultured and introduced by Freya who re-enacted this scene very admirably the other day in the front room.... then I succumbed to it last night except I only suffered the D bit not the V bit..... but it did feel as if I had emptied the contents of several car batteries into my stomach.... it's viciousness was only exceeded by the relatively short duration it lasted....and when you only have two Gaviscon tablets in the house ...you suffer horribly...... we shall see who it fells next..... I awoke this morning after a very bad night and felt as if I had been run over (several times) by a road roller .... but thankfully now all systems seem to be returning to normal and running nominally

Wednesday 20 January 2010

Well that's the tax return filed online

I have to admit it was pretty painless and far easier to fill it in online than the reams of paper you usually get in book form from HMRC. They had most of my details already filled in which saves a lot of writing and the good news is I've overpaid my tax in 2008 so we are due a refund :) it's all good....

The endless finding a job routine is still ongoing, I have noticed that there are a lot more openings appearing on the various websites I frequent and the job market is slowly creeping back to the outer reaches of Wales.... We will see..... maybe we are crawling out of recession faster than expected....

I've also declared all out war on the mouse population the death toll is rising and Roxy's dried food pack is remaining remarkable full these days albeit suspended above the toilet with strimmer cable to keep them off it, and a gauntlet of cunning and extremely hazardous traps laid for the unwitting rodents.... if the mouse traps don't get them the toilet bowl does .... Muah hahahahahaha.....

The only other thing I have got remotely excited about was the new version of Picasa from Google which now has face recognition built in :) basically you teach it who is who just once .....then when you import your pictures it recognises them and files them accordingly ..... it's quite clever really and it took up at least half an hour of my day yesterday ..... yawn

Tuesday 12 January 2010

Here comes round two

See that big splodge with the red centre.... that's heading right for us...it's the Met Office rainfall radar map for the UK..... I reckon it's going to hit us in about two hours and by the slow speed it's creeping across we will be snowed on for about 5 or 6 hours maybe more .......apparently it's going to bucket down with the snow when it hits.... Ahhh well bring it on...it can't get "much" colder...who knows maybe a bit of snow in the air will raise the temperature a bit

I'm getting pretty sick of this white stuff now... I haven't fallen on my backside yet but it's only a matter of time.... We are also supposed to be getting a heating oil delivery soon .... it had better be soon we are running the boiler on fumes and hope as it is and the house is hovering around igloo temperature as it is....

Saturday 9 January 2010

Our outside toilet is the beachy head of the mouse world

This is the third mouse to meet it's untimely end in our outside toilet... it looks as if it's alive with it's eyes wide open... but I can assure you it was as stiff as a board..... so off to the cesspit it went ..... either the mouse population is getting so desperate for a drink of water that they are throwing themselves into the toilet to quench their raging thirst OR and more likely they fall off the sink in the outside toilet which houses our dried dog food bounce on the rim of the toilet and splashdown into the freezing and inescapable toilet bowl....

By the looks of this one it didn't drown hence the fixed open eyed stare..... it simply just froze to death in the Arctic waters of our outside dunny .... and if you click on the picture to enlarge it you can see where several fleas have jumped ship ... only to drown themselves in the frigid water.... still like cute little mice do you ????




We are still in the grips of the big freeze here, as you can see with the picture above... we're that really white bit on the bottom left of the picture ;¬) and it seems we are going to get no let up....

Apparently we are going to get snowed on again on Sunday.... I'm actually starting to get fed up of the snow now.... it will be nice to wake up to a dreary wet morning.... instead of a white out... I'm sure the mouse population will breath a sigh of relief.... although I have no objection to the toilet "offing" a few of them in this cold snap :)

Wednesday 6 January 2010

School's out ..... for Winter !!! (they wish)

<-- Andrea and Freya on the new Tesco value sledge .......(don't knock it, it goes like greased weasel poop)


Well the kids still haven't been back to school since the new year, Andrea had a brief spell back in school but it wasn't long after that the clouds dumped half of Greenland on us and she very nearly didn't make it home.... I managed a short trip out to the shops to get some essentials to tide us over but overnight it snowed again so we have about 4" outside which has now frozen solid...

but we had a good day sledging in our field on polythene and building snowmen and the deadliest of Daleks "Snovros".... We do have a massively steep field we can use but unfortunately the farmer put sheep in it, so we decided against whipping past a flock of sheep.... it would have taken sheep worrying to a whole new level ;¬) Freya wasn't too enamoured with her first day's sledging, probably because her wellies just didn't cut it frost and cold wise.... and we had to cut the visit short because of Freya's feet.... but undeterred we returned the next day and had Freya trussed up like a Formula one technician in a blue waterproof suit with more layers than an average onion... once she was warm enough (and practically nigh on impossible for her to walk....) it was hard to keep her in the house..... School of course was shut for another day ......


We have the heating up and it's just about coping with the cold snap..... you really appreciate it when you've been out sledging for a while and the warm blast hits you when you come in...... despite this Andrew still has a complete inability to shut any door behind him ... come to think of it wherever Andrew goes there is usually a trail of lights left on, Wii's, Computers, DSi's, plates, cups, sweet wrappers... but he is getting marginally better.... I'm convinced the beatings are working ;¬)

Anyway I'm off to flick the heating on for 5 minutes mainly to crack the frost on the radiators (copper pipe is expensive to replace if it bursts) ... and I can't stand the sound of kids crying themselves to sleep in the cold.... ;¬)

Monday 4 January 2010

Just when you think everything is ok

Our borehole has frozen up again this is the second time since we have been here... I'm beginning to suspect that Al Gore's anthropogenic global warming is a load of hot air..... surely if the planet was warming up then Carmarthen would equally warm up or is Carmarthen in some kind of deep crater where sunlight doesn't shine and liquid nitrogen is a solid ????

So there I was this morning with my beany hat on and my borrowed gloves which were three sizes too small for my hands, unscrewing a 1" water pipe which wasn't playing ball at all.....and with all the grunting and swearing at these non moving alkathene pipe fittings, I of course forgot that the enormously empty tank in the loft was calling for water from the borehole pump 80 metres below ground ... (where hopefully the frozen ground hadn't reached it) .... I was right and just as I uncoupled the pipe it let me know by spraying freezing cold water all over me..... you haven't seen me run so fast across the skating rink of a driveway with legs flying up in the air with water dripping from my eyebrows as I fell into the out house to turn off the bore hole power supply..... the gush eventually slowed to a trickle then stopped....

I then had the task of removing the pipe fittings off the existing alkthene piping .... I don't know if you've ever felt alkathene water pipe (it's blue) but even in the hottest of summers it's easier to bend a car door than a length of alkathene piping.... needless to say when it's a few degrees below freezing it takes on the properties of a steel pipe.... with the help of a screwdriver I managed to prise off the fittings and put them on the "warmer" replacement pipe... I now have a space heater in the out house warming the above ground pipe which is solid with ice....

I only found that out by connecting the ice free "emergency" water pipe to the existing above ground piping switching on the borehole again ......only to hear it hiss loudly then come apart with the explosive force of a small hand grenade and whipping my left thigh as it lashed back (some people pay good money for that kind of treatment).... that's when I found out the other piping was solid with ice.... Oh Joy !!!

Yes we may have free water 365 days a year.... but I bet most householders don't have to run an external pipe across their driveways when a snowflake falls on their roof !!!

I've got a space heater in the out house now warming up the room..... I've also had the hair dryer in there in close contact with the pipe.... it's still creaking with ice ..... ah well time and several thousand kilowatts of electric heating will sort it out...... bugger ......that's another penguin fallen off it's melting ice perch in Antarctica .......

(20 minutes later)......

I've just come back from turning the bore hole back on and WHOOSH !!! the ice plug flew up the pipe and sploshed into the water tank RESULT !! running water... I've just got to keep it running now or the pipe will freeze again overnight !!!

The joys of living out in the sticks eh ?


Saturday 2 January 2010

How do you make a Welshman go "WOOF!" ?

Well you start by having a plentiful supply of cardboard boxes and other burnable rubbish left over from Christmas and a small amount of petrol and a fleece .......

I am incredibly careful with petrol when starting a fire, it's a respect that I've learned over the years.... but apparently today I completely forgot about fumes and merrily poured about a cupful of petrol inside a cardboard box and carried it and the rubbish bag to our back garden... I usually dip a stick in petrol and light it then throw it on the petrol soaked combustibles.... not this time....

When I got down there I realised that I didn't have petrol to dip a stick in, so thought (stupidly) that I could light it and it would merely make a small "woof" and start the fire..... WRONG !!! the fumes had been building up inside the box whilst I walked down to the bottom of our side garden, building up nicely... waiting for that fateful spark of ignition....

I also hadn't figured on the petrol fumes infusing the right arm of my fleece so when I struck the death lighter and it didn't go "woof" I ventured in a little closer (as you do) and struck it again... THAT WORKED !!! and my sleeve did it's own mini woof.... I recoiled at great speed before the main wall of blue flame hit me..... but immediately felt my arm stinging..... I had singed off practically half of my forearm hair in one blast of lit hydrocarbon fuel.... you get that immediate "You idiot" feeling creep over you.... I'm not horribly disfigured (although some would argue that point.....), I'm not even blistered but my skin on my arm has definitely taken a fair few joules of heat today and it stings like hell !! I think I my skin is wavering on the shall I blister or shan't I ?... nothing so far... thank God it snowed last night.... I dived my forearm into the snow like Kwai Chang Caine from "Kung Fu"


Plus the smell of burning human hair is not THE most attractive smell this side of the Boots perfume counter.... coupled with the fact that the sleeve of my fleece was made by Standard fireworks by the looks of it..... it went up like blue touch paper.... ahhh well you live and learn (eventually).....

That'll teach me .... until the next time ;¬)

Sea-lions and Earthquakes

It seems that San Franscisco's sea-lions on pier 39 have all but upped sticks and left... They arrived after the 1989 quake and have been a bit of a tourist attraction since the late 1980's.... If I lived in San Francisco which happens to lie on the San Andreas fault line..... I would be seriously considering moving...

Animals seem to have an inbuilt sense that something isn't right a bit like when I visited Bergen-Belsen concentration camp many years ago when I lived in West Germany..... not a bird could be heard inside the camp....but outside the camp they could be heard plain as day.... go figure... and Sea lions deserting the safe haven of Pier 39 in San Franscisco in preference for the company of Great White sharks and Killer Whales (their natural predators) leaves me more than a bit suspicious.....

We've had a very light dusting of snow last night ... only an inch or so and the sun is already melting it off the tree's.... Freya was extremely excited about it as this is her first play in the snow.... all she could say was "SNOW ! SNOW ! SNOW !" and giggling uncontrollably ... we've got some more to come apparently.

Friday 1 January 2010

Well my first post

Of the new decade or is that next year ? either way it's way better than the last post.....

We didn't have a very exciting new year we stayed at home drank sensibly, had a chocolate fondue (very 70's) and generally watched utter crap on the televisual instrument situated in the corner.... The firework display in London was pretty damn spectacular and was no doubt even more spectacular if you were actually there..... but considering how bloody cold it was..... waiting since 4pm or earlier this morning would not be my thing blahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh
hhhhh