Feel the cyclomaniacal power!

I’ve been pedalling around for a while now, feeling much looser-muscled but otherwise not particularly fit or fast, but the weather here for the past few days has been random, cold and wet so I’ve not had dry weather and the time to get out and about occur simultaneously.

Today, I made the time, replaced the brake shoes on the recently acquired $10 black beastie and took it for a short spin. It’s obviously built for someone much smaller than me, has a shorter pedal stroke, narrower gear spread and it’s very bent and rusty compared to the $10 FOSTFLG beastie, but it does go just fine.

On the way back home, I faced short but a steep hill that I normally would have walked it up, and decided that since I was already rolling, I’d have a go at riding it up anyway and see how far I got, which happened to be all the way, not exactly effortlessly but certainly easily and without the traditional huffing and the leaden feeling in my legs. It was very pleasing.

In other random news, Mark Greenaway mentioned Useless Loop. It’s a very pleasant and peaceful place, near Denham, Monkey Mia in the Shark Bay region, and I recommend a visit. It was apparently named by one of the Dutch Verenigde Oostindische Compagnie (East India Company) ships as “no use landing here, it is a useless loop”.

Comments

every-application-is-part-of-a-toolkit at work

I have a LibreOffice Impress slideshow that I wish to turn into a narrated video. 1. export the slideshow as PNG images (if that is partially broken — as at now — at higher resolutions, Export Directly as PDF then use ‘pdftoppm’ (from the poppler-utils package) to do the same). 2. write a small C program (63 lines including comments) to display those images one at a time, writing a config file entry for Imagination (default transition: ‘cross fade’) based on when the image-viewer application (‘display,’ from the GraphicsMagick suite) is closed on each one; run that, read each image aloud, then close each image in turn. 3. run ‘Imagination’ over the config file to produce a silent MP4 video with the correct timings. 4. run ‘Audacity’ to record speech while using ‘SMPlayer’ to display the silent video, then export that recording as a WAV file. 4a. optionally, use ‘TiMIDIty’ to convert a non-copyright-encumbered MIDI tune to WAV, then import that and blend it with the speech (as a quiet b

new life for an old (FTX) PSU, improved life for one human

the LEDs on this 5m strip happen to emit light centred on a red that does unexpectedly helpful things to (and surprisingly deeply within) a human routinely exposed to it. it has been soldered to a Molex connector, plugged into a TFX power supply from a (retired: the MoBo is cactus) Small Form Factor PC, the assorted PSU connectors (and loose end from the strip) have been taped over. the LED strip cost $10.24 including postage, the rest cost $0, the PSU is running at 12½% of capacity, consumes less power than a laptop plug-pack despite running a fan. trial runs begin today.

boundaries

pushing the actual boundaries of the physical (not extremes, the boundaries themselves) can often remove barriers not otherwise perceived. one can then often resolve an issue itself, rather than merely stonewalling at the physical consequences of the issue.

Plantagenet Penguinista

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