Diary Of An ADI

Archive for May, 2009

I just had to post this!

If you use WordPress you get a Random Hot Post link every time you refresh your admin page. I have a look if the title attracts me, and this one did.

Baby Pygmy Marmoset

Is it cute or what?

You can read more at the original site: Science News at WordPress.com. I’ve added the site to my blogroll as I couldn’t contact the author to ask permission to use this photo – I hope he doesn’t mind.

Have you seen those ads on the TV – the ones which enthusiastically encourage you to trade in your old mobile for a cash sum?

…up to £150 for your old phone…

What they don’t mention is that in order to get £150, your “old” phone will be something which hasn’t been invented yet and which would be “old technology” on the Starship Enterprise!

I’ve got several old mobiles. A small Nokia 3310 (worth less than £5 when I checked it out), A Nokia 6600 (£10), and my last phone – an HTC Touch – which is still current and high-end, and which weighs in at £47.

So don’t hand in your notice at work just because you upgraded your phone!

OK. This ongoing project for a DIY kneeling chair is well on its way now. Here’s the schematic of the parts I’m using and the relevant dimensions. You could call it ‘plans’ or ‘blueprint’, but I’m not making any claims in that area!

Also refer to the next article (Part #3) here.

EDIT: Please note the dimension in yellow… this corrects an error I discovered when I put the seating section together (it originally said 110mm).

Kneeling Chair - Updated Parts List

Schematic Kneeling Chair (labelled)

Basically, there are two seat struts (A) parallel to each other, and two knee struts (B) the same. The seat struts are closer together and fit inside the knee struts in a distorted X shape. I’ll use the spacers to make sure that the struts are the right distance apart.

You can see how those seat support struts (Aa) I mentioned in Part #1 will work. The original chair didn’t have these, so you can imagine how weak it would have been. In order to accommodate these struts I increased the size of the seat plate from the original, though the hole spacings will be the same. At a later stage I’m going to build my own upholstered seat and knee pads, but for the time being I’ll just transfer the ones off this existing chair (hence the hole spacings).

Anyway, I ended up using a good old hacksaw to cut the 45º angles. It was far less hassle then I’d imagined (from metalwork days back in school). I must confess I used the angle grinder and a coarse grinding wheel to trim the ends, though. I finished/squared these off with a metal file.

EDIT: If you came to this page from a search engine, don’t forget to look for Kneeling Chair Project parts (#1), #2, #3, and #4 (plus a couple of updates) using the site search facility. This project is now complete and there are drawing/blueprints in the other parts.

Just saw on the local news that a local charity is saying the number of Great Danes (that’s a breed of dog, by the way) being abandoned is on the increase.

The dumbed-down BBC presenter chirped:

Join us later to find out why this might be.

I’ll be out. So, I’ll just go with huge dog, costs a lot to feed, and we’re in a recession.

Well, as I suggested might happen a few months ago, Lord Shearer didn’t make it and Newcastle go down. It was something of a foregone conclusion, really  - Newcastle just aren’t good enough, and it isn’t Shearer’s (or Keegan’s) fault.

In the end, football is just a game, but it always makes me smile when I see the faces of the fans in the crowd when relegation is either avoided or confirmed. West Brom were relegated last week, but Middlesborough join Newcastle for one of the last two drop spots. The Sunderland fans were jubilant, seeing both the survival of their own team and the demise of their local enemies. Newcastle fans – big Geordies – were in tears.

At least Arsenal finished with a win against Stoke.

Back in March – just after Michael Jackson announced his marathon Summer tour – I commented that I couldn’t really see someone as fragile as him managing to complete such a punishing schedule. I mean: 50 years old, 50 dates, not toured in donkey’s years, not a full shilling? Come on!

Well, it’s started already!

One betting company is already giving odds on him cancelling more gigs than he performs. And there is this story which suggests he can’t actually perform that many gigs for contractual reasons. There are already health concerns, and he has been advised not to go ahead with the tour (or at least not all of it: he has 50 nights planned).

But this week, alleged problems with the venue have caused some dates to be postponed.

Fans are spitting feathers! Typical fans of Michael Jackson weren’t apparently at the front of the queue when brains were handed out, and those who sat for hours and hours by the phone in order to get tickets suddenly find themselves being mucked about. This is a particular issue for those fans who live on the other side of the world and who have booked flights and accommodation for the first gigs. Airline companies tend to be a little unforgiving when it comes to changing flights, so these fans are likely to end up out of pocket. And, of course, those who would have been able to boast of seeing Jacko first now won’t be seeing him until well into the proposed schedule (assuming either he or they are able to turn up on those recheduled dates).

Picked a pupil up for her test this morning and she was very nervous. She hadn’t slept all night, and at one point when she made a small mistake (straightening too early on Parallel Park) she was almost in tears. Her driving was excellent – just the odd part where she was a bit late indicating or didn’t check her mirrors when slowing down.

But she passed with just 2 driver faults. Well done SG.

A couple of weeks ago a new pupil started having lessons with me. The first lesson went fine – she was a good driver, she was happy with me and my teaching, and she booked lessons for the next 2-3 weeks (paid in advance).

Last Monday was her second lesson. I got a text message less than 6 hours before the lesson saying that she had a boiler problem and was waiting for the man to come and fix it, so she couldn’t do a lesson that day. “No problem“, I said. She said she’d be OK for the next booking, on the Wednesday.

On Wednesday I get a text asking me to call her (less than 4 hours before the lesson). She’s still got boiler problems and the man is still due to call to fix it. “No problem“, I said. She said she’d be OK for the next lesson (which was today).

Yesterday I texted her to confirm she was still OK for the lesson. She texted back this morning that she was. So I turn up and there’s no sign of her. I send a text, leave a message on her voicemail, and wait for half an hour (doing some paperwork and making some calls). Still no show. So I send her a text saying I’d waited, and drove off.

An hour later I get a text: “I fell asleep“.

I can smell trouble, so I’m charging for today (I didn’t for the two last week) and she can get another instructor to teach her.

And also yesterday, another pupil had a 2 hour lesson booked. Last week, he’d phoned me in the middle of a lesson with the pupil who had the slot before him that he couldn’t do it because he had a hangover. This was at 5pm, you understand. He booked this 2 hour lesson instead. In previous weeks he had had to stop lessons because of financial problems.

I get to his house yesterday and he doesn’t show. I wait for 15 minutes and then text him to say that we had a lesson. A little later I get a reply saying he “thought it was tomorrow”. He adds “I can do an hour now if you’re still around”.

I wasn’t. And I won’t be again. He, too, can find another instructor.

These two, between them, have cost me well over £200 lost income in under two weeks – and that isn’t taking into account the fact I could have used the slots they had if I’d have known, since other pupils were crying out for lessons.

You get to know after a while, but hanging on to these people for too long is financially very bad. I get rid early on these days.

You have to hand it to The Sun – they do like a bit of hype.

Monkey Lemur Fossil

Take a look at this story about a fossil that’s been uncovered. Here’s the photo The Sun has used.

It’s described as a ‘monkey lemur’.

The thing that struck me first of all is that it has to be the most perfect fossil I have ever seen. You’d be hard pushed to find a skeleton that good inside a live mammal, let alone one which is supposedly 47 million years old. No doubt, in due course, that black outline will be gleefully described as its ‘skin and fur’. And what’s the betting they find a fossilised flea or something in there as well?

It has ‘HOAX’ written all over it.

But let’s not forget the real reason for all this:

Researchers say proof of this transitional species finally confirms Charles Darwin’s theory of evolution…

…Sir David Attenborough declared Darwin “would have been thrilled” to have seen the fossil.

He said it tells us who we are and where we came from.

Yes, once again it is the evolutionists trying to confirm that they have proof for something which is beyond being proven one way or the other… and as I suggested above, I wouldn’t be surprised if this was a hoax.

All we need now is Richard Dawkins’ opinion telling us how dumb we all are not to be baptised members of his religion and it’ll be complete.

Well, further to what I said a week or so ago, the Swine Flu situation needs to be resummarised:

• the Foreign Office tells us we can travel to Mexico again
• to date, Britain has recorded just over a hundred cases…
• …and they all recovered (some even able to do radio interviews on the day they were diagnosed)
• Around 8,500 cases have been reported across 40 countries

I suppose it’s also worth adding:

• the World hasn’t ended

Still, WHO and others are trying to talk the whole thing up into a bigger thing than it is. And this is in spite of medics telling us it wasn’t as bad as they thought (with one report even saying something like “it [the virus] seems to be not as serious outside Mexico“).

Keep at it, guys. If you throw in some stuff about oil price increases you might start a panic there, so at least you’ll have achieved something.