I managed to get my CurrentCost thingy to submit data to Google PowerMeter, thanks to the tweet-a-watt hack.
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 I have 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.
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.
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:
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| laptop stand |
The results turned out quite well if I say so myself (no religious connotations intended, it’s just a very stable structure!).
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