We Saw a Chicken …

Blog

  • zeiss it ain’t

    fish sculpture

    For no good reason, I bought a very cheap ($20) mini digital camera at the airport. Its limitations make it quite fun to use:

    • has the astonishingly high resolution of 352 x 288
    • fixed-focus lens chock-full of chromatic and spherical aberration
    • no display, except for a cryptic 2-digit LCD
    • takes 20 images, then it has to be downloaded
    • grossly inaccurate viewfinder, which shifts when you press the shutter button
    • images have pronounced scan lines
    • refuses to take images in low light
    • weird non-standard USB connector

    It is very small, and can also work as a webcam. It also works as well as it could under OS X (use macam to download the pictures, or enable the webcam). Using the webcam does seem to delete the pictures, so make sure you download ’em first.

    I’ve made a minicam gallery, which I’ll add to until the novelty wears off.

  • AWEA06: by the river (or in it, nearly)

    by a river at AWEA06

    We’re not getting the best weather for the conference, but I hear that the coincidentally-running Three Rivers Arts Festival has had rain 18 out of the 20 years it has run, so noone’s surprised.

    Conference hasn’t quite started yet, but the preliminary swag is quite promising; yoyos and balsa aircraft.

    I spent the day in workshop run by KidWind, who have a school science kit for teaching the basics of wind turbine effectiveness. We got to build wind turbines, and test them. Here’s mine, big wean that I am:
    stewart's kidwind turbine

    I guess I got some losses near the hub there, but at least it worked. I was the only developer type there (there was a DoE person, and lots and lots of Pennsylvania teachers). I came away impressed, and hope I can work with Michael Arquin of KidWind to bring the project to Ontario.

    (This post has the worst GPS location ever; could only get a fix to within 100m, so that’s why the map location appears to be in the river.)

  • Pittsburgh: I’m only hea for AWEA

    In town for the AWEA 2006 Conference. Pittsburgh looks like it has some interesting topography, and has some huge buildings downtown. Trying to get a GPS signal for the map (amid a bemused high-school prom crowd) was hard.

  • I’ll be your terrorist for the evening…

    I’m at YYZ, and despite the Canadian passport, I’m still Mr Designated Searched Guy. Thought that the passport might’ve changed things, but no. Sigh…

    It does mean I no longer have to do those dumb visa waiver things, yay!

    And it didn’t help that part of one of the lighting panels started to fall off inside the cabin before takeoff, so we had to taxi back, get it fixed, and head back out an hour later. Gotta love Air Canada.

  • tee hee

    The Traveling Tiger: Beached SUV limo

  • Doug’s AppleScripts for iTunes ♫ Managing Track Info – CD Text to CD Info

    Doug’s AppleScripts for iTunes ♫ Managing Track Info fixes iTunes’ annoying lack of support for CD-Text.

  • what the tortoise taught us

    Just finished Timothy; or, Notes of an Abject Reptile, the fictional thoughts of Gilbert White‘s pet tortoise. Verlyn Klinkenborg has really captured the pace of the tortoise’s life.

    The tortoise/taught us rhyme doesn’t work if you’re Scottish; we pronounce it tor-toys, not taw-TUSS. Lewis Carroll didn’t think beyond the RP.

    In memory of Timothy, I’ve geotagged this post with the location of a bridge in a nearby ravine, near which a little turtle used to snooze in the sun.

  • Your source for “Atomkraft? Nej Tak” badges

    nuclear power? no thanks

    You can still buy these here: WISE – Nuclear issues information service. I just ordered a bunch.
    (The above image belongs to OOA and is used without their express permission.)

    Find out more at the smiling sun, nuclear power no thanks site.

  • Souvenir of Canada

    We saw Douglas Coupland’s Souvenir of Canada movie last night. We liked it a lot.

  • too many wind turbines in the UK? Hardly!

    Flying back from Denmark over the UK the other day, I hoped to see at least some wind farms. In a highly unscientific study, I peered out the window from approximately Nottingham to Iona. You know how many wind turbines I saw? Four. You know how many were working? One. Hardly something that’s taking over the landscape.

    And strangely, the one I saw working, at Chelker Reservoir, I used to drive past quite often on my way to Skipton. I’ve never seen more than a couple of those old WEG 300kW two-bladers running. I was frankly amazed there were any of them left. Even from 10000m, you could make out the herky-jerky rotation.

  • Ã…rhus, in the middle of our street

    And so our Danish Wind Odyssey draws to a close, after visiting Rinkøbing, Lem and Randers today. We’re up at an unsensible hour tomorrow to fly to Copenhagen. It was a great trip. Will post photies.

  • Happy Danish Sockets

    Am I losing it, or do Danish power sockets look like smileys?

    Two happy people:

    happy danish sockets 1

    Happy person with a chef’s hat (isometric view):

    happy danish sockets 2

    Do these remind you of anything?

  • But I’m not singing “At A Time Like This”, I’m singing …

    The Hut Sut Song, perhaps the most infectious earworm you’ll ever hear.

    … or if you want it a bit more accessible, here is an mp3 of The Hut Sut Song, converted from the same source.

  • A chilly evening in Søndervig

    Søndervig, looking SSW

    The concrete lump is a WW2 gun emplacement.

  • Danish Modern in Ringkøbing

    I’m currently checked into a hotel which reeks of 70s Danish modern — blonde wood, bare brick, smoked glass surfaces — and, like many places in Denmark, cigarette smoke. Being in the presence of an authentic Beocom phone makes up for it though:

    Beocom Phone

    Also, there’s a cute little wind farm outside; a few Vestas V27s (or smaller) on lattice towers at 56° 7′ 22.11″ N, 8° 13′ 48.94″ E:
    Little wind farm near Ringkøbing, Denmark

  • Herning: not just a gerund

    Morning in rainy Herning. Not much to say except we’re zooming off to see the wind turbine nacelle factory in Brande this morning.

  • from on high near Bøvlingbjerg

    View from the nacelle of a 2.3MW wind turbine

    (above thumbnail links to 2048×768 panoramic image.)

    It’s nice here at the Risø test centre, with a view of over 70 wind turbines across Jutland. I’m on top of a Siemens 2.3 MW turbine. There’s an elevator, before you ask how I got up an 80m tower.

  • big big blades

    Visiting Siemens’ factory in Aalborg, we saw the blade fabrication process. I was pleasantly surprised to discovered that a major component of their blades is balsa wood, which, when combined with clear glass fibre and epoxy, makes a lovely organic-looking surface. It’s a shame that they have to be painted, but environmental degradation will always get ya in the end.

    These blades are big:

    Siemens B45 blade being loaded on a truck

    The above is a 45m blade being loaded onto a truck.

    big blades in the yard

    Here is a bunch of 45m blades waiting to be finished and painted. You’ll note that there’s still some mould flash on the edge of the blade; that gets ground off. The submarine-like thing on the right is the truly colossal Siemens B52 blade (as a lifelong fan of Kate, Cindy, Ricky, Keith and Fred, the name alone made me happy, even if I knew it denoted a 52m blade). It was so large our entire party managed to stand inside the blade root, with no stooping required.

  • in Aalborg

    I like Aalborg. I think we’re staying in exactly the same hotel (the Scandic) as I stayed in 10 years ago with RES. We’re going to see some really big wind turbines tomorrow.

    Oh, and the Google Maps locations I picked off for this hotel are pretty darn accurate; the one I double-clicked on for this hotel is less than 50m from my room. I like.

  • so it is true!

    First-class airport lounges really do have free beer taps and open spirits gantries. It’s quite the opposite of the little shed that the Midwestern flights depart YYZ from.