Yentl, you have the soul of a man?” “So why was I born a woman?” “Even heaven makes mistakes
Isaac Bashevis Singer - Yentle the Yeshiva Boy.
Barbara Ehrenreich speaking on the dangers of unreasoning positive thinking. She does some rather wonderful stuff to poke holes in the whole ‘The Secret’ type mindset that I really appreciate - as that whole thing makes me kinda sick tbh.
Time for George Osbourne to put his money where his mouth is
A channelge from the ‘Where’s the Benefit’ group to our chancellor - deliver on your rhetoric regarding the support of the sick and disabled. Stop scapegoating and start delivering on your promises to protect and support those who need it - becuse we haven’t seen anything of the sort yet.
'Sponge checks' for oesophageal cancer risk
Speaking as soneone with quite severe issues with bile Reflux (a fun, fun condition ¬.¬) This news makes me more than a little delighted. Endoscopies are already an effective noninvasive test for Barrett’s oesophagus, but the cost and staff required to run them makes justifying regular testing difficult.
The simple, effective test described above may one day save my life - something I’m really quite enthusiastic about ;)
MASG - Keyboard Ghosting Demo
This is a rather fascinating little app I recently used to test the ‘n key rollover’ capabilities of an ergonomic keyboard and a gaming keyboard - the results were quite curious and have lead directly to one of the best customer services experiences I’ve ever had (which I shall talk more about in awhile).
You might find it interesting to run your own input devices through this test - see what you’ve actually got :). You can read a little more about keyboard ghosting and blocking here, along with a rather good suggestion for how to block it completely at design level.
Amnesia: The Dark Descent reviewed at Rock, Paper, Shotgun
Frictional games newest horror masterpiece Amnesia drops tomorrow and it’s set to be the scariest thing. Not since sliced bread, not since anything else, just quite literally the scariest thing. They’ve taken the formula that worked in the Penumbra series, trimmed the fat from it and bolted in more delicious win to give us an experience that’s like being trapped in a call of cthulu game … except without any hope of fighting back whatsoever.
I was expecting this to be a unique experience; and judging by the comments from the RPS guys I was right - if you like things that make you go OHFUCKWHATOHGODARRGH in the right, get yourself a copy now.
The best advice. the BEST advice :P.
saves my nerves all.the.time.
(via art-or-porn)
Are you Straight? This is a video response to Michael Buckley’s ‘Are You Gay?’ (Submitted by fanfuckingtabulous)
This morning I have fallen in love with The XX thanks to the majesty that is Dan Poxton. The’ve got that slinky slightly minimalist feel that just does it for me - and multiple vocalists gives a contrasting texture I love the mosts.
They’ve apparantly just won the mercury music prize or something similar, but don’t hold that against them ;), go listen.
Space missions like Woah :). Trace our paths through the void and marvel, g’wan.
space missions (that we are told about)
An absolutely beautiful piece of high voltage geek material from itmustbelupe … who has the best taste in these things :).
So what’s going on here is actually pretty awesome. They’re testing a high voltage isolating switch
There is a 500kV long distance power transmission line off to the left. There is a large isolator switch in the middle to disconnect the wonderful little gizmo on the right. The gizmo on the right being a power factor corrector. It looks like, at the time they were doing the test, the transmission line was actually disconnected from load, so all the power factor corrector is doing is dealing with the capacitive effects from the line. Very little current flowing therefore.
If you look carefully at the video, you’ll see an arc skips across one of the horizontal tubes to the right of the switch as it starts to open. These two tubes are actually interrupters, filled with sulphur hexaflouride to quench the arc. They contain a pair of contacts which are moved apart to break the flow of current, drawing the arc as they do, until it’s extinguished by the dense gas filling the tube. There are two tubes on this switch, which operate simultaneously, in order to handle the high voltage.
Unfortunately, on this switch, one of the interrupters has a leak, and all the sulphur hexaflouride has leaked out. Ooops! That means when the contacts move apart, it just arcs internally, the ionised gas forming a near-zero resistance path for the current to flow along. That leaves the second interrupter all alone to break 500kV, which it does, except the distance along the outside, through the air, is too short for that to be effective, and it tracks along the surface instead. Again, ionising the air and forming a near-zero resistance path. You can see the arc extinguished after a short time, as the contacts close again, expecting the isolation to be in place.
Having suffered this complete failure of the interruptor, the isolator itself opens whilst one of the phases is still carrying current, forming this beautiful arc that climbs towards the sky as the heated air rises. Eventually, the line is isolated somewhere further upstream, cutting the display short.
Ever since stumbling into Minecraft and discovering something beautiful, I’ve been keeping half an eye on various indie scene things - this is Bastion. Looking at it, this will either be wonder or drudgery but either way; that level build mechanic is beautiful.
More on the other end of this link at Gaygamer.net
Casetteboy is the best filthy little edit merchant going :).
Pills Here!
These guys fill me with so much glee … and I can’t see this song as anything but Camp as all hell even knowing the original :).
