andylockran’s blog

15th May - Panic Buy Carrots!!!

Posted by Andy under Facebook, Funny, Personal, Ubuntu, twitter

It’s a little bit funny. On facebook a couple of months ago, Freya Valentine started this group. It’s not the most exciting of ideas, but has generated a bit of a cult following. It’s been mentioned on Sky & the BBC’s Steve Wright Show.

I’d be interested to hear on how the Panic buying is getting along, therefore suggested setting up a twit-feed to monitor it - however, twitter has been down for the last couple of hours.

Just goes to show that a de-centralised system is needed. A free, open source, de-centralised mechanism for twittering.

Oh well, I’ll just have to remain ignorant, and enjoy my carrot soup.

Inspiring, or soul-destroying?

Posted by Andy under BCS, Control, Digital Freedom, Funny, Hypothesising, Language, Marketing, Music, Software, Tech Geek, Ubuntu

I recently was introduced to www.ted.com, a site which hosts a number of inspirational talks given at the TED conference each year.

TED has been happening for a few years now, and is touted as a chance for some of the greatest minds to get together and share something unique - their ideas.

I’m quite a fan of lay-science, and getting to know more about stuff that’s really advanced.  We all have very different backgrounds and skill-sets - and I think it’s the ability to appreciate these differences that makes things really special.  When I look at the wonderful invention of the StrandBeest by Theo Jansen, I can’t help but feel inspired.

It’s fantastic to see how people’s minds tick, and this site is likely to provide me with hours of distraction in the future.  The phrase ’standing on the shoulders of giants’ is something that can be overused.  However, in sharing these ideas, we’re given access to a wealth of information.  It’s precisely for these reasons that I advocate the use of Free/Libre Open Source Software.  Enjoy the site.

Devolo HomePlug

Posted by Andy under Digital Freedom, Funny, Marketing, Projects, Stupid, Tech Geek

Once in a while there is a fairly new and inventive solution to an old problem.

First we had networks.. then we had wireless networks.. and now we have wireless wired networks?

Ok, they’re not technically wireless - but install of having a central wireless access point in the centre of your home, you can now buy the Devolo HomePlug - and have networking points wherever you have electricity.

You see, electricity flows through your power cables at a certain frequency. The HomePlug sends your data through the wires at a different frequency. It’s quite simple really.

Anyway, you can but 14Mbps to 200+Mbps adapters for the HomePlug - and it’s n open standard, so you don’t need to just buy from devolo.

They also have wireless plugs, so instead of the plug interfacing to a network connection on your PC/laptop - you can plug in a devolo wireless homeplug adapter and get a low-range wireless base in your house too.

However, they are pretty expensive ~£80 for 2. They’re also very addictive. So much better than wifi that soon you’ll be buying them for all you computers (like I did…)

Oh well.. the more we buy the more the price will start to drop.. right?

So BUY!!!

I’m off on Holiday

Posted by Andy under Chaos, France, Funny, Insurance, Personal, Skiing, Tech Geek

Ah man.. It took some time to make this decision - but I’ve decided on my course of action.

I’m off on holiday from Saturday 9th, until Sunday 17th Feb.  I’m going skiing in the French Alps, and despite their being an internet connection - think it’s best if I don’t blog for the rest of the week.

Hopefully it’ll provide people with a nice break from my post on the relative planets - and hopefully wanting more when I return.

I’m really looking forward to my break, as I feel I need to go and recharge my batteries.  Working in the open source world isn’t a normal 9-5.  Many times I’ve been up past two doing random ‘generic’ FLOSS stuff - and it’s taken it’s toll.  I’ll probably have to start keeping timesheets for my general activities to stop me from going overboard.

If anyone has anything they’d like me to cover when I return - it’d be good to have some direction for when I get back.

I hope anyone else going on Holiday has a good time, and those of you at work - just wait until you’re on holiday and I’m not.

Peace.

Torsion Physics & BA038

Posted by Andy under Conspiracy Theory, Funny, Richard c. Hoagland, Space, Stupid, enterprisemission

*Disclaimer - this is a spoof article..

When I first started using the internet I came across a site called www.enterprisemission.com. Despite being quite a reputable source for conspiracy theories, something always made me go back and look over the site. I used to check it regularly as it had some good photos of the mars explorer mission back in ‘98 and some interesting takes on the millennium celebrations. Luckily the world hasn’t yet fallen into enemy hands (as predicted).

For some reason, unbeknown to me, I found myself back on the site this week. It’s changed from being a collection of articles to Richard C. Hoagland pushing as much merchandise as possible. Whereas before you could read a nice article - now you can only get a nice DVD. Progress. I scrolled down and found there was actually an article there I was able to read. This one. I’ll summarise to save you having to go there.

The article covers the anomalous sensors in the Shuttle Fuel Tanks. The big orange tanks contain supercooled hydrogen. There are four sensors in the bottom of the tank that tell the tank to detach when the fuel gets below a certain level, to prevent it blowing up whilst still attached to the rocket. NASA had noticed that regularly a sensor would fail - however, they’d also come back up randomly. Despite literally millions of dollars of engineering checks, the same anomalous results still occured when the supercooled fuel was in the tank.

Richard C. Hoagland cited some ancient maths know as torsion physics to explain the situation. Most of his work comes from applying ancient techniques. This one is from Soviet Experiments. At least the fundamentals have roots there anyway. However, this latest one is quite interesting. I quote:

“”"There is a REAL fifth force — the so-called “torsion field.”

The theoretical foundation of this new science was laid out by Einstein and Cartan over eighty years ago. In the original theory, these fields were ’static,’ meaning they could not move from point A to point B — only appearing as the basic ’spin forces’ within the atom.

Other Relativity theoreticians later proposed the possible existence of dynamic torsion fields — meaning that these ’spin forces’ can propagate through space, creating “action at a distance” effects.

Soviet laboratory experiments in the 1950s, conducted by the pioneering scientist Dr. Nikolai Kozyrev, found irrefutable proof of these ‘dynamic torsion fields’ in action.

Kozyrev, and others after him, found that the “torsion field” can indeed affect electrical phenomena under certain circumstances. Electrical resistors can experience substantial changes in how conductive they are, especially when made of denser metals such as tungsten. Quartz crystal oscillators can have notable changes in their vibrational frequency. Photocells demonstrate measurable discrepancies in how much ‘work’ they can perform.

Electrical anomalies are a classic sign of torsion-field interference, as can be routinely seen in the well over 10,000 published scientific papers on the subject. This appears to be due to a unique coupling of electromagnetic energy and torsion fields — hidden away in Sir Edmund Whittaker’s original 200-plus “scalar potentials” before Heaviside eviscerated them down to the four we now use.

Given this scientific background, when we see disruptions in the electrical currents flowing through a platinum-based “ECO sensor,” buried at the bottom of a tank filled with super-cold liquid hydrogen, we have to expand our investigation.

Here’s the critical point: the shuttle’s almost equally-cold liquid OXYGEN tank “ECO sensors” have been TOTALLY UNAFFECTED by “whatever” this recurring problem is!

This indicates that it may be, in fact, some type of “torsion phenomenon” — uniquely associated with “ultra-cold, liquid HYDROGEN.”

Super-cooled hydrogen is already known to mysteriously crawl up the sides of a test-tube in a laboratory. This may be another anomaly explained by torsion-field activity. The utterly simplistic structure of the hydrogen atom, with just one “proton” and one “electron” — plus the lack of molecular vibration (temperature) in a super-cooled environment — may present the perfect antenna or conduit for torsion fields to move through.”"”

Now surely if the Air Engineers can’t work out which sensors caused the engine thrust to fail - and there’s no proof.. it could be torsion physics to blame..

The thing that caught my attention was in a BBC article entitled “The Mystery of Flight BA0318” where the journalist notes:

“But they will also be examining the fuel. It might have been contaminated. Or fuel ‘waxing’ may have occurred. This results from partial freezing, and pilots say the outside air temperature at some altitudes en route to the UK was down to minus 70 degrees that day - some of the coldest readings they could remember.”

Fascinating stuff I think you’ll agree. It could just be a coincidence.