shinyhappyrainbows

I'm a sucker for shiny metal. Polished aluminium, stylishly painted steel, a leather saddle, spoked wheels - just love it! So this BBC 4 "doco" ("reality tv"?), wherein Rob Penn, the global cycle tourist and media personality, had me at the first mention of a "dream bicycle." BBC 4's "Ride of My Life." (Not sure why Youtube has given Portland's "tits out" artist the thumbnail... Apart from the fact that Rob was, when this was made, clearly better paid than I was working for Australia's national broadcaster, he places just a little too much emphasis on the machine rather than what makes a great ride, great people with you and great locations. Thankfully, we meet some people in his quest for parts for his custom built bicycle, that are people I'd happily ride with, not least, Rob himself! He's a velo-obsessed tragic to make me look "normal." It's not a new show, it's from Boris Johnson's er...

Ask any modern historian and, while they might disagree to the extent, the "settlement" of what we now know as Australia, was a military invasion. There was genocide, too. These are recorded historical facts. Genocide doesn't have to "successfully" wipe out a people, only the intent and violence needs to be in place for it to be genocide. For example, it is accepted that the Nazis actions against the Jewish people was genocide, even though the Jewish community is strong these days because of those who survived or escaped. In short to even attempt total genocide is genocidal. The British invasion which began at Botany Bay was, from start to finish, genocidal. In intent and act. Even modern legal definitions of how one "proves" their "heritage" hold remnants of those genocidal laws of taking the children away, the "black drives," the actions of police throughout Australian history of settlement. (The latter, even today, in the violen...

OK, that was a bit clicky-baity. You can, just not at a Bunnings, Habour Freight, Amazon, etc. What you can buy is some stainless steel capilliary tube of, say, 100mm of OD 5mm x ID 3mm and a 120mm length of 3mm stainless steel rod. Spray a bit of silicone lube down the bore of the tube, slip the tube over the nail you need to drive out then pull and whack the top of the rod with a hammer. Et voila! Exactly the same job done for under AU$15 (what I've just spent) that currently needs a $300 air tool and an equally expensive air compressor! Let me backup and explain. I love pallet wood. You know, pull apart shipping pallets with a jemmy bar, remove the nails and make stuff. That second stage is more PITA than bread! By the time you wrench plank from rail, the nails are bent up and you just know the bastard will bend rather than drive through. You might straighten them with pliers, but they'll still bend when you hit the pointy end. I was just doing this on Wednesday. It's...

All you need to know is in the title but, just to make myself abundantly clear, it's not that there wouldn't be a load of paranoia between a half Russian, half American crew of the ISS if WWIII broke out, it's that, from the space agency disasters and near misses I've seen play out in the news in real life since the end of the cold war, the whole world pitches in with all the science likely to help. Sure, the militaries of each nation might order transmissions to take over the station, but I reckon they'd have to do it gang-handed and at gunpoint to get it sent then, once the goons leave, both Kennedy Space Centre and Baikonur would be working hand over fist to get the 'nauts home alive. If both sites had been eradicated, ESA would be on the case. Scientists would consult, they'd use science and engineering to solve the crisis facing the 'nauts, and they'd risk their own safety to safely rescue those stranded. Then there's the "burning l...

I never knew such a thing existed until a few nights ago, but there's an open-source housing project called WikiHouse , described as, "Simple, beautiful, zero-carbon building, for everyone." It's not a perfect open source project, the CAD file formats are mostly commercial, online and industrial grade, although there is a FreeCAD tutorial on how to convert wikihouse cad files to the open source FreeCAD application, it's still complex and largely inaccessible to those not trained in industrial design software. Switch house, source WikiHouse.cc As yet, there are no PDFs for those with an electric jigsaw and a pallet load of ply sheets, a truly accessible format, but the WikiHouse is an example of the idea of open source being a way to drive a socialist economy, without a top down management system. The principle of the whole WikiHouse concept, as I see it, is that housing is a human right, not something that is to be exploited by renting out hoarded property to t...

A friend's brother was giving away their drill stand, my friend put their hand up with me in mind, I scored. Giving away. No money! It's not perfect, a broken worktable lifting crank, but I can probably print a replacement, probably a crank wheel, rather than a crank handle, for finer control. It may need new belts. This is a proper workshop tool, not a handyman piece of junk. This lifts my capabilities to some basic milling jobs, like slot holes for making adjustable brackets or facing/rebating aluminium bar and rod. The work height range is huge - I'll need a new rolling bench, but I'll be able to build that from a 1200x1200 ply sheet with material spare. Christmas has come early!

Meccano is a Gen X (and older) boyhood right of passage. My innocent days were that cusp of Boomer to X, the latter being how I identify, despite most picking me as a boomer. I remember a toybox under my bed, full of Lego and Meccano. My train set, a Hornby, of course, was for most of its useful life on a table that was hinged to the wall to rest on my bed posts. My dad was ingenious like that. And then we grow up... I never have, by conventional wisdom. I've had lego most of my life, still do. So it was that my 63rd birthday was a haul of Lego and, for the first time since the 70s, Meccano. It's not an English brand, anymore, French, I think, but it's true to its roots, while well modernised and updated. So, seeing as my major public project is a robotic drum kit, and the hardest part of the design and prototyping has been figuring out how to do hi-hat control, my new Meccano's first task was to roughly model the "dual de-clutched" lever mechanism to lift th...