http://bort.blogsome.com A bit of tech stuff, a bit of driving, some interesting videos I've found. Wed, 06 Aug 2008 12:16:52 +0000 http://backend.userland.com/rss092 en Just under a year ago I purchased a Mains Power meter, as described in a previous post. It did cause me a little concern, because the voltage reading was quite high - up to 270-290 volts sometimes, instead of 240 or so, which meant it was way out of calibration. ... http://bort.blogsome.com/2008/08/06/measuring-power-consumption-of-appliances-update/ Recently at the train station near my work, the following billboard has gone up: What the hell? OK, it’s for a Sony Vaio laptop. Quite what it promotes about said laptop, is a mystery to me. It is used by women with too much makeup? When you open it, three pictures ... http://bort.blogsome.com/2008/04/25/stupid-billboard/ For a number of years now, my PC has never sat idle. Its every operating moment has been spent running flat out, looking for a possible cure for cancer, Alzheimer’s disease, Parkinson’s disease and many others. This has been done by running the Folding@Home program. It sits in the background, ... http://bort.blogsome.com/2008/04/14/foldinghome-performance-fix-for-ubuntu/ Lately I had been having trouble on flash-based websites where things just wouldn’t display properly - sometimes a screen would come up with the flash content, then just go blank. I was a little puzzled, but thought it more of the usual ‘not tested on linux/firefox’ issues from the web ... http://bort.blogsome.com/2008/02/24/new-linux-flash-player-9-update-a-dud/ In my time clicking around in YouTube, I have come across some good comedy from Japanese TV. I can’t speak or read Japanese, but I know what’s funny. Most of these are pretty old now, so you may have seen them, but for those who haven’t, here are some samples… Game ... http://bort.blogsome.com/2008/01/11/funny-japanese-tv/ Over the last weekend I had a sudden attack of nostalgia for the Commodore 64. I have fond memories of the thing, having one for my first computer. I remembered how there was an operating system available for it that was able to show a graphical desktop, with icons and ... http://bort.blogsome.com/2007/11/20/desktop-os-in-64k-geos/ You see it nearly every time there is a car crash where someone gets killed, particularly a young driver. Some kneejerk reaction from politicians or motoring organisations (or in Australia, that clown Harold Scruby who won’t be happy till there are no cars on the road at all) calling for ... http://bort.blogsome.com/2007/10/14/possibly-the-only-way-to-reduce-road-deaths/ After slaving over a hot keyboard for quite a few weekends, I have finally finished the log of my trip across the country, driving from Melbourne to Perth, and back again. 8700 kilometres, three states, four time zones, twelve southern right whales, five emus, two dingoes, four hundred kangaroos (6 ... http://bort.blogsome.com/2007/09/30/crossing-the-nullarbor-section-now-complete/ Just a reminder that September 19 is International Talk Like a Pirate Day, so be sure to inform the rest of the landlubbers. Yarr. http://bort.blogsome.com/2007/09/18/talk-like-a-pirate-day-tomorrow/ UPDATED August 6, 2008: I have re-measured some of these values with a new meter, and also measured the power usage of a Core 2 Quad PC built to replace the Athlon box described below. See this post for more. Today I bought a Mains Power Meter, model MS6115 from Jaycar ... http://bort.blogsome.com/2007/09/17/measuring-power-consumption-of-appliances/