tech

The Electrolux Trilobite is an automatic cleaner. It costs a grand.

Built-in suspension coupled with special brushes and a unique suction system enable the robot to clean effectively while manoeuvring over bumps, edges and cables.

news thing: Findory [via comment on Shifted Librarian]

links thing: del.icio.us, a social bookmarks manager with tags/subjects

NTK is Need To Know, a UK News digest, usually techy.

Skype - free calls using VOIP to anyone else on a PC or Mac, and international calls to ordinary phones at local rates!

New Barnet Fire Station

New Barnet Fire Station 4
Originally uploaded by jovike.

This picture is part of a photoset on Flickr.com.

New Barnet Fire Station was linked to nearby houses: apparently the homes of firemen had bells that would ring when the alarm went up.

The building is due to be knocked down in January and replaced by a block of flats, just like the four fine detached houses that have also been knocked down in Station Road, so if you want to see the old fire station, it's at the bottom of Leicester Road where it meets Lytton Road.

Two things that Barnet Council are doing wrong in one photo. They are knocking down the best of our built environment and forcing ugly turquoise signage on the residents at our expense!

Update: I've just read that demolition of the Red Lion Pub is planned. So Red Lion Hill will be called "Uninspired Three-Storey Block Hill" now.

Scientist Schtick: Lullaby to a Lab Coat

Hawkwind at the Astoria.

There was a riot on the previous night in the Astoria when Baby Shambles did not turn up and the audience smashed up the venue, so it must have been a bit fraught today for Hawkwind, setting up for tonight's gig. In the end it was a big success and I bet most people would not have known. 

Hawkwind fans are an anarchic bunch of malcontents now spanning three generations and I had no trouble picking them out from the ordinary public in Totty Court tube and along Charing Cross Road, even though very few of the fans dressed as aliens, clones or scientists which we were supposed to for tonight. 

Support groups often have a hard time with the Hawkwind audience so all credit to The Vs, an all-girl band who held the crowd with some solid guitar work, followed by Dumpy's Spacenutz which was him doing an extended solo to a driving backing. Hawkwind did an apocalyptic version of Psychedelic Warlords (Disappear in Smoke) and the usual old favourites like Brainbox Pollution, Spirit of the Age and - speaking of sex - new numbers Angela Android and Loving the Machine interpreted very well by the dancers: he gives her a flower and she responds, confused, with various programmed actions, eventually letting him fix the flower in her hair. Alan Davey presented a treatment of a newly-discovered Calvert tape with live music over Bob intoning his poem Ode to a Time Flower. Someone came on and did a very good reading of Bob's Ten Seconds of Forever. Hammering versions of Brainstorm, Angels of Death... all good stuff. Mini mosh pits opened at intervals. Dave Brock was enjoying himself, mostly playing guitar at the front of the stage and not hidden behind banks of synthesisers like he was in the 90s. Richard Chadwick on drums. Someone else on synthesisers. 35 years on, still great. I hope this gig was recorded! (flyer)

Hordes of the Things

Good to hear Hordes of the Things (RealPlayer required unless you have DAB radio) again, a beautifully produced satire of all that Tolkien crap with the great Patrick Magee chewing up the microphone as the narrator, from the people who gave us the original version of Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. Simon Callow is splendidly heroic.

Which reminds me, there is one buy link I keep meaning to press for ME at Christmas: something from Roberts Radio Ltd. (eight page history with lovely old photos) namely their Gemini 1 which can record DAB radio to SD card.

Apple Mac stuff

The iPod microphone iTalk has many possibilities:

When you've got a really fat teacher that mumbles during your lessons at college, but your parents don't believe you, record the fat teacher on your iPod. Its the only way to sort the problem out.

Wow, a whistleblower that didn't get in trouble.

You can unstall Linux on the iPod and then record for free or play Doom on an iPod.

One reason to look in at an Apple Store are the thirty inch Cinema HD Displays. These unfeasibly huge screens need two special new Geforce cards to drive their 4.1M pixels.

Apple at MoMA photoset

Newsfire is a very sexy RSS aggregator.

Audion is now free. 1. install. 2. register with free password. You can then copy playlists to it or access iPod files directly. And the story of why Audion is now free is fascinating.

iTunes LAME encoder. Many people prefer the sound quality of this mp3 encoder to the new m4a encoder in QuickTime/iTunes.

Game: Homeworld 2. Looks like it's time to upgrade my iMac. This is apparently like an interactive Chris Foss painting. Chris illustrated many sf book covers in the 1970s.

Keys:

CMD Shift I = inspector
ALT ESC = complete the word
CTRL EJECT = Shutdown
CMD OPT CTRL 8 = White on black

Problems logging in? Run Diablotin to check startup items.

Network problems? In system prefs, try setting Network, Ethernet, manual, MTU to 1458 because 1500 is too big for some ISPs. Restart to make sure the value has changed.

From MacFormat, October 2004:

If you can toggle Caps Lock, then it's a 'hang' not a 'freeze'. Hang is software (usually), freeze is hardware.