We Saw a Chicken …

Blog

  • my lappy is not well

    My ThinkPad T21 is dying. Well, its processor and interfaces are fine, but its backlight is erratic, the battery lasts about 20 minutes, and the case is badly cracked. Because it takes so long for the screen to come on, it’s almost no use as a portable computer.

    It’s a shame; it has been a nice machine. I’d prefer not to have to buy a new machine — it’s a toss-up between another used ThinkPad, or a new iBook — but this gets me very frustrated. Catherine has been complaining about how tetchy I am about it.

    I’ve probably been very bad at responding to e-mail over the last few weeks because of this. Apologies.

  • The demented mind of Adam Elliot

    a scene from Adam Elliot\'s Harvie Krumpet
    I like animation more than Catherine does, so last night while she was teaching, I rented Harvie Krumpet. It’s a series of shorts by Australian animator Adam Elliot. All of them are poignantly strange. The main feature follows Harvie from his birth in Poland in the 1920s to his dotage in Australia. Bad things happen to him, but he abides.

    If you can imagine Wallace & Gromit on mogadon, and imagine liking it, you’ll know how I feel about Adam Elliot’s work.

  • the ruglonian conspiracy

    Alex, who bags groceries at Denninger’s in Burlington commented on my Nairn’s oatcake purchase. Seems he’s from Rutherglen and environs too.

  • It’s pouring at Erie Shores

    Pouring a turbine foundation, Erie Shores Windfarm
    I was at Erie Shores on Wednesday, and this is the first turbine base of this size I’ve seen poured. They’re pretty big, but then, they do have to support a 77m diameter turbine on an 80m tower.

    The picture’s taken from here.

  • the missing

    Missing BikeShare bikes: #2 Taxi, #3 bumblebee, #4 Bike four, #5 Nico, #8 Blue Elephant, #10 Momentum, #15 Paw Print, #17 coffee & joy, #19 buddha, #20 Sulpher, #22 Ticket To Ride, #27 Tianamen, #30 Nimbus, #33 Turntable, #44 Napolean, #47 Matilduh, #49 Paris-Roubaix, #53 Cracked, #54 Frodo, #55 Che, #57 froggi eyes, #58 Penny Farthing, #60 Lemon, #68 north bay or bust, #70 Boulder, #75 morris, #77 DownTube, #80 Delta, #83 schep, #84 Sunshine, #88 Blue Heeler, #91 Stella by Starlight, #92 Clara the Shark, #94 Over the Hill Pinky, #95 Kushner, #101 Murphy, #103 Tulip, #106 Fly Grrl, #113 Moo Moo, #117 Art, #128 Phineas Foggs, #129 Slow Poke, #135 Darbellay, #142 Winterton Wendigen, #144 Tessa Kat, #148 Throckmorton, #153 Left and leaving, #163 Husky, #168 NoToryUs, #188 Troz Forster, #192 Shooting Star, #210 National Unity, #223 Mango, #225 Drew, #230 Purity Passion Revelry

  • CBC News: Canadian Blood Service drops restrictions on donors who lived in Britain and France

    I can give blood now: Canadian Blood Service drops restrictions on donors who lived in Britain and France. But is their donation system ready for me? Ah, no; it seems I still can’t, and maybe never will.

  • This is only funny if you’re Scottish …

    The Globe and Mail reports:

    Monday, August 15, 2005 Page A5

    Kingston — More than 11 million litres of liquid manure that spilled into a river in New York state is taking much longer than expected to enter Lake Ontario.

    The cow waste flowed into the Black River in northern New York, near the town of Lowville, after the wall of a holding lagoon at a dairy farm blew out late Wednesday or early Thursday.

    On Saturday, the manure seeped westward, heading toward Black River Bay, which flows into Lake Ontario. By yesterday, it still had not entered Black River Bay, said Jim Keech of Utilities Kingston. [CP]

  • I’ve seen ’em; have you?

    script fnord

    SVG Fnord

  • Something to warm the cockles of Big Dave H’s heart

    Bike rack on a TTC bus
    The TTC has a one year pilot program to put bike racks on buses.

  • velcro cable tie = bike parking brake

    belkin cable tie as parking brake
    I saw a bunch of Belkin Cable Ties, F8B024 being sold off at CPUsed, and they look like they’d make great parking brakes for when you’re taking your bike on the subway. Sure enough, they fit every brake lever we have.

    No more gorilla grips when taking a bike on the subway!

  • light anemometer

    I have a little Crookes radiometer twirling away on the front window sill. I’ve always wanted one of these, and when I met Catherine in North York on Friday evening, I couldn’t resist a trip to Efston Science beforehand.

  • $14.59 USD

    $14.59 USD is what I got from the In Re PayPal Litigation Settlement Fund.

  • cornflakes and cheez whiz

    That’s what the queue-jumper had; cornflakes and cheez whiz, nothing more. When he stepped up to the line next to mine, he plunked his goods on the conveyor as if by right. The bemused guy behind him looked as if he was just about to challenge him several times, but this is Canada. Queue-jumping guy just stod there rodentlike, chewing gum, looking round at everyone — everyone, that is, except Bemused Guy — to say, “You got a problem with this?”

    I guess if you lived on cornflakes and cheez whiz, that kind of behaviour would come naturally.

  • waiting for dogot

    waiting for dogot

  • it’s cold, it’s pointy, it’s 70°32’S 64°57’W!

    quickbird 2 image from the antarctic
    via the ever-wonderful Fourmilab‘s Earth and Moon Viewer, an image from QuickBird 2.

    For once, Google Maps’ version isn’t as pretty.

  • Smog City TO

    According to Toronto Public Health, we’ve had more than double the number of smog days in 2005 than the previous record year — and the year’s nowhere done yet!

    We had more smog days in June 2005 alone than we had in all of 2004! And it’s all because of Margaret’s right to drive an SUV.

  • failing to excel

    The MS Excel spreadsheet function for square root is called SQRT. The MS Excel VBA macro function for square root is called SQR.

    So a function you’ve tried out in your spreadsheet won’t work as a macro. What a bunch of shambling morons.

  • feedmap

    This is a bit clever; it locates the bloggers geographically near you:

    I think it was worth standing outside in the dark for five minutes trying to read my GPS, don’t you?

  • teh wide!

    Big TrainThe Wrong End of a Field Gun
    A couple of test images from my Sigma 10–20mm lens. You have to get really close to things; for example, the front element of the lens was about a hand’s breadth away from the muzzle of the field gun.

    The lens handles flare pretty well (the Super Wide Heliar 15mm sometimes went to pieces), and the D70 meters the wide lens accurately. I’m happy.

  • Begging the question

    Pet peeve: people who cite the link to the annoying Begging the question page when they see the expression used in the more common sense. Pedantic much? Language changes, and you probably bemoan the loss of the word gay, too …