23 Nov 2009
The decade is coming to an end in one month and 8 days and an apathetic wave of Noughties nostalgia seems to be sweeping over the country, a breath of relief after the tentative steps of a new millenium in which nothing broke (except the international banking system, respect for international law and modern socialism) if you will.
Musically I would describe the 00's as a bit of a low patch from my point of view, the first five years were almost entirely taken up with my Ph.D. , an activity involving the purchase of almost no new music and latterly i became 30 which I think pretty much disqualifies me from having a valid opinion on music, if I ever had one in the first place. Thie NME has just released their top 100 albums of the decade and it's time to compare notes.
Of the 100 albums on the list Ibought borrowed/bought/copied/stole the following:
* (100) MGMT Oracular Spectacular
* (97) Sigur Ros Agaetis Byrjun
* (87) Bon Iver For Emma, Forever Ago
* (83) Laura Marling Alas, I Cannot Swim
* (80) Danger Mouse The Grey Album
* (70) Glasvegas Glasvegas
* (65) Muse Black Holes And Revelations
* (60) Green Day American Idiot
* (46) Delgados The Great Eastern
* (33) Arcade Fire Neon Bible
* (28) Johnny Cash The Man Comes Around
* (24) The Libertines The Libertines
* (23) Klaxons Myths Of The Near Future
* (21) The Coral The Coral
* (19) The White Stripes White Blood Cells
* (18) The White Stripes Elephant
* (14) Radiohead Kid A
* (13) The Shins Wincing The Night Away
* (10) Radiohead In Rainbows
* (8) Interpol Turn On The Bright Lights
* (7) Arcade Fire Funeral
* (4) Arctic Monkeys Whatever People Say I Am, That's What I'm Not
* (1) The Strokes Is This It
23/100, hmm (not that comparing well to the NME is eactly something to be proud of); there are some in the list which I would certainly swap for things which I haven't bought and I'm not really sure I agree with the ordering (the strokes at #1?). Perhaps, if anything the list just goes to show that the 00s were largely a decade dominated by same-sounding moderate, intelligent(-sounding) indy and the absence of persistently good (the strokes??) and inventive acts.
Musically I would describe the 00's as a bit of a low patch from my point of view, the first five years were almost entirely taken up with my Ph.D. , an activity involving the purchase of almost no new music and latterly i became 30 which I think pretty much disqualifies me from having a valid opinion on music, if I ever had one in the first place. Thie NME has just released their top 100 albums of the decade and it's time to compare notes.
Of the 100 albums on the list I
* (100) MGMT Oracular Spectacular
* (97) Sigur Ros Agaetis Byrjun
* (87) Bon Iver For Emma, Forever Ago
* (83) Laura Marling Alas, I Cannot Swim
* (80) Danger Mouse The Grey Album
* (70) Glasvegas Glasvegas
* (65) Muse Black Holes And Revelations
* (60) Green Day American Idiot
* (46) Delgados The Great Eastern
* (33) Arcade Fire Neon Bible
* (28) Johnny Cash The Man Comes Around
* (24) The Libertines The Libertines
* (23) Klaxons Myths Of The Near Future
* (21) The Coral The Coral
* (19) The White Stripes White Blood Cells
* (18) The White Stripes Elephant
* (14) Radiohead Kid A
* (13) The Shins Wincing The Night Away
* (10) Radiohead In Rainbows
* (8) Interpol Turn On The Bright Lights
* (7) Arcade Fire Funeral
* (4) Arctic Monkeys Whatever People Say I Am, That's What I'm Not
* (1) The Strokes Is This It
23/100, hmm (not that comparing well to the NME is eactly something to be proud of); there are some in the list which I would certainly swap for things which I haven't bought and I'm not really sure I agree with the ordering (the strokes at #1?). Perhaps, if anything the list just goes to show that the 00s were largely a decade dominated by same-sounding moderate, intelligent(-sounding) indy and the absence of persistently good (the strokes??) and inventive acts.
20 Oct 2009
Whlie waiting for Hagen's thesis to print I did a little parametric design for my turtlebot chassis. It's done using GeoGebra. Stuff like the servo and battery dimensions are fixed but most of the other basic properties are variable or dependent thereon.
Now just need to figure out where to mount the brain and the lasers.
Now just need to figure out where to mount the brain and the lasers.
18 Sep 2009
I'm trying to get into the habit of working with my laptop at the right level and with keyboard and mouse at work as it seems to be better for my wrists/general state of "wellness".
A while ago I saw these guys selling laptop stands made of cardboard and many other people who had made them from scratch, so I decided to have a go at making my own. Some (100% recycled) laser jet paper boxes, a craft knife, parcel tape and about 1/2 an hour later I ended up with this:
The results turned out quite well if I say so myself (no religious connotations intended, it's just a very stable structure!).
A while ago I saw these guys selling laptop stands made of cardboard and many other people who had made them from scratch, so I decided to have a go at making my own. Some (100% recycled) laser jet paper boxes, a craft knife, parcel tape and about 1/2 an hour later I ended up with this:
 |
| laptop stand |
The results turned out quite well if I say so myself (no religious connotations intended, it's just a very stable structure!).
27 May 2009
Having stumbled through to my mid-twenties on a archaeic mix of personal music technologies such as "tapes", "minidiscs" and "listening to music through speakers in the privacy of my own home", about 5 years ago I got my first MP3 player. The play in question is a Cowon Iaudio X5 (which is very good by the way, especially with rockbox) but over time the battery has been dying and a year or so ago I managed to drop the mean time between intermittent failures on the disk to about 2 days by unceremoniously propelling it across the office in a cable-tripping-over incident. Instead of buying an iPod I decided to have a go at fixing it:
New battery (ebay) : £10.
32Gb CF card ( MyMemory) : £45 (it was on sale currently seems to be about £60).
CF- 1.8" Toshiba adaptor ( LinITX) : £10 .
Opened case, removed drive, de-soldered old battery, re-soldered new battery (make mental note, buy a new nib for soldering iron and some flux, curse EU for banning lead solder), reassemble.
Charge, test, play, woop.
New battery (ebay) : £10.
32Gb CF card ( MyMemory) : £45 (it was on sale currently seems to be about £60).
CF- 1.8" Toshiba adaptor ( LinITX) : £10 .
Opened case, removed drive, de-soldered old battery, re-soldered new battery (make mental note, buy a new nib for soldering iron and some flux, curse EU for banning lead solder), reassemble.
Charge, test, play, woop.
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