Skip to main content

Feeling the heat

This little lump of rock is getting quite toasty. With about 70,000 people at risk (Mayon has been known to toss hot stuff about 10km into the air), Indonesia is recommending that farmers evacuate — in fact, it appears to be ready to force people out if they don’t go by themselves.

I’d be quite uncomfortable both with the prospect of abandoning my property — which was going to get toasted — & with the obvious cost of staying there during the toasting. Call me fussy, if you will...

Sometimes, I quietly wonder what similar-scope disasters are aimed this way; I don’t expect a volcano in Perth, exactly, but who knows what else could come past? Massive water shortages? Tsunami? Disease? RedBack plague? Invasion? Who knows?

I don’t sit here worrying about each or any of these so you’d notice, but I do wonder from time to time how I’d get on if something catastrophic did arrive.

My most recent personal catastrophe was completely unexpected, so I figure that an occasional gentle trip towards pessimism by way of preparation won’t be the end of the universe for me.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

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
1 comment
Read more

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.
Post a Comment
Read more

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.
Post a Comment
Read more