Sat 2008-05-24 The Eurovision Song Contest is on television this evening. As an antidote, here are The Fall playing Reformation at St George's Hall, Blackburn, back in March 2007. Mark E. Smith stuggling to make himself heard over the two bass guitars. Don't try to make out the lyrics; to understand the mind of MES is to go insane.
Sat 2008-05-24 Earlier this afternoon, I was sitting reading on the sofa in our living room. The window was open and the sunshine was streaming in. The book I was reading was The Master and Margarita by Mikhail Bulgakov. I had to get up once to guide a bluebottle fly out out of the window, but soon got back into the book. A bit later I slowly became aware of a buzzing sound, like that of a wasp, but not quite right: too even in volume. Then I realized: not a single wasp but lots of them! I jumped up to look out the window. There were thousands of wasps in the air, orbiting each other like a cloud of giant midges. I rushed round the flat closing all the windows (probably unnecessarily, as they didn't seem to be interested in coming indoors). Slowly, they rose up and moved over our flat roof, and I watched from the kitchen window as they drifted off towards a tree near the main road. The swarm was about 3 to 5 metres in diameter, with occasional members much further away. I last saw them above the path beside the road. Strangely enough, people walking along the path didn't seem to notice them at all.
Fri 2008-05-16 About a month ago our main PC started showing some worrying symptoms. It would wait about two minutes following power-on before its lights came on and it began start-up. Once started, the PC would then run normally, and could even be even shut-down and restarted again, without any problems, so long as the power was not switched off at the wall. It was as if the PC needed to soak up a certain amount of power before it could begin start up.
I recognized this as probable partial failure of the PC's power-supply unit (PSU) but, as it was only a minor nuisance rather than a catastrophe, I put off doing anything about it for several weeks. However, recently the delay between power-on and start-up had grown to over ten minutes, so I thought it was time to do something about it.
I opened up the PC and read the label on the PSU. It said: "ATX 12V. With PFC. Ball Bearing Fan. CHIEFTEC Model HPC-360-202. AC Input: 115V 8A, 230V 5A. Frequency 50-60Hz. Max Load 360W." I also used a ruler to measure the dimensions of the PSU: height 8.6cm, width 15cm, depth 14cm.
A quick search on the PCWorld web-site revealed that they could supply a suitable replacement: a "JEANTECH ATX 400W Power Supply Unit", of the same dimensions, for £50. After a quick walk over to their local store (only 2km away), I was back with the replacement in my hands in just over an hour.
I carefully read the WikiHow page on How to Diagnose and Replace a Failed PC Power Supply. I didn't have a power supply tester nor an anti-static wrist-band, as recommended in that article, but I was fairly sure it was the power supply, and, after the walk I was too sweaty to generate much static.
Removing the old PSU and fitting the new one was a bit fiddly, especially unplugging the various cables without breaking anything. I had to use narrow pliers to remove one particularly awkward plug. I also made a note of what I had unplugged from where so I knew where the new plugs had to go. I also took care to tie up any loose cable and plugs, so they don't snag any of the fans. After everything was done, and before I put the PC cover back on, I powered-up and switched the PC on on. It started first time. I checked all the drives and fans were working and then put the cover on.
Sat 2008-05-10 
Yesterday, at work, I was creating a couple of structure diagrams for a document I was producing, and it occurred to me that it would be nice if there was a web-site you could go to to get palettes of colours that look good together. Well there is: COLOURlovers. It does for colour combinations s what Flickr does for photos.
