Neil's News

Lava Lamp

3 March 2009

Lots of things in the air, but nothing is currently in a finished state.

  • Last week's turbine is out of order. I switched it on, there was a horrendous shower of dried play-dough, followed by a turbine blade being ejected at high speed from the business end. Not good. Fortunately I have several spare fans. I've disassembled the turbine and am in the process of replacing the play-dough with plumber's putty and adding shims to reduce back-flow.
  • The earlier air compressor has now has a speed controller and has been joined by the new robotic bagpipe chanter. Still working on air leakage issues around the fingers. Will post an MP3 once it is hitting the lower notes properly.
  • MobWrite is going through successive upgrades. A set of command-line tools and a Python library are being rolled out which will allow better connectivity with 3rd party applications.

I'm off to Canada for a week. Below is a quick time-lapse video I made of a lava lamp I'm bringing with me (I don't think my grandmother has ever seen a lava lamp). The music is "Fourth Dimension" by the BBC Radiophonic Workshop (1973).

Update: Well that didn't work. The lava lamp was confiscated by airport security. Boo.

As usual, if my webserver goes down for some reason, it will stay down until I get back.

In the mean time, don't forget to vote for 'Serenity' as the official name for Node 3. Shiny!

< Previous | Next >

 
-------------------------------------
Legal yada yada: My views do not necessarily represent those of my employer or my goldfish.