Cookies

Holy cookies!

Rodents

You zee, zis time eez var!

Ok, rodents are now officially annoying me. Not a little, a lot. And before you say "but they're cute" you come over here and clean up their poo they helpfully leave all over the place.

So far I've tried an ultrasonic anti-pest device. This hasn't deterred them, so they don't work. So now it's war. I have a 'Trip Trap', a humane trap rather than killer. It's designed to detain not de-life, so I can then rehouse my helpful rodent over 1/4 mile away to annoy someone else. This has been baited with half a chunk of Cadbury Fruit & Nut (Recommended bait with the Trip trap is chocolate, raisins or butter) and is next to my wardrobe, I think in pointing to where they come in.

I'm also about to try a Rat Zapper - an electrifying trap. I need bait for that (apparently dry pet food is best) and some batteries (rechargables don't work as they don't have enough volts being only 1.2 usually).

More on that tomorrow, perhaps, if the Trip Trap is not effective tonight. It'll probably wake me up or the little buggers'll trip it before getting in.

Wagamama

I may have mentioned some time ago that the name of the restaurant Wagamama was a little rude. Well, here's what I found (and it matches with my recollection):


"Wagamama means selfish, willful; in a culture where personal sacrifice is the highest virtue, the connotation is far harsher."


From http://www.farfilm.com/peggy/articles/parasites.htm which also mostly fits in with my experience of Japanese culture, though while I was there in 1992 it was in the early stages.

Bluetooth

Business gets into toothing with Bluetooth proximity dating

Blonde

Blonde moment.


While trying to work out some velocities in my head, I uttered the phrase "speed of sound in a vacuum" to myself.


Duh.

Walk

On Friday I walked from Baker Street to Victoria, taking some pictures a few of which I really like. Met a friend for a coffee in The Chocolate Society, then later met up with Alan, Bruce, Steve and Rob in Don Fernandos in Richmond and had a great time.

After using a mouse trap for it's intended design purpose, why not try this?

Mouse trap

Mouse trap


We have had trouble with a mouse for a while in my flat. I used an empty green Ikea plastic bin and put some bird seed in it. I didn't think it would work but it was worth a shot.


I came home today and was startled by a sound from next to the wardrobe where I had left the bin. Looking for plastic behind the bin found nothing. Then I noticed a small furry thing in the bin.


Now what do I do with it? Perhaps some mouse gibbet to discourage others? Mousapult?


Here is the little fellow. And yes, it's only a baby, about a quarter the size of the other one, that's doing the most damage. The little one can jump straight up distance over 5 or 6 times it's body length.

USB Wierdness

I've had a USB flash memory drive for over a year and never had a problem. Until this morning. The error was "The installation failed because a function driver was not specified for this device instance".

Nice. Lots of advice on how to fix it on various places from editing or deleting the offending driver file to checking the BIOS. In the end, unplugging it and replacing it after 5 seconds fixed it, without changing a thing.

Wireless networking



on a plane?

Thirty-nine

Adj

1. being nine more than thirty

Not kidding. It an entry in a pocket dictionary I have.

A door on a train was sticking. Three men individually tried to open it at separate stations, only to use their arms to pull the two sliding portions apart. A woman just kept her hand on the open button which worked equally well.

Study:

This week's topic is Wireless technology - and one of those is Location Aware computing.

For once something I'm actually interested in and know something about. Wheee!

Solar system simulator including Voyager, Pioneer and other objects.

Astrology

My question about astrology, is if it works, does it work by predevination or by a method of either creating the possibility in someone or by creating an environment through quantum means?

If there is predevination, the vast bulk of it's use seems to be vague and undirected. All the better for plying a trade by maximizing the available market.

For creating possibilities, this is possibly more effective as brains are often highly suggestible and take the fairly generic advice and apply it in an almost random way to it's situation. Then creation of the idea of whatever may happen follows, invariably positive (though who would want a negative prediction).

Using quantum methods could actually consolidate the various possibilities that exist by inference. See "What the bleep do we know".

I wonder how Paul is getting on in Oz.

Boobies

I first heard the track mentioned here 17 September 2004 (that's the date of the recording I made when I heard this thing) while I was driving somewhere in the van for work. Since then tracking it down, mainly to believe my ears, has not been easy though I didn't try to hard before.

What the bleep

I just watched a copy of "What the bleep do we know?". The premise is a mix of quantum science, theology and biochemistry with other things in between.


You'll have to watch it to make up your own mind. It fits in quite nicely with what I know of the universe.

Gadget

A nifty little gadget for charging things like PDAs and mobiles. Nice but at this stage I don't think I'd use it.

Ipodder

http://www.ipodder.org/ Interesting.