Twitter Updates for 07-08-2011

• *Apparently* Nando's #Enfield has been attacked/torched. Economy of area now buggered. Why's anyone going to go there now? No pics yet. 21:26:32, 2011-08-07
• The black "riot vans" are unnerving. Look American-made. Special-purpose? Maybe water-cannons? http://t.co/WYgpbGg #Enfield 21:28:43, 2011-08-07
• Apparently the riots are pre-planned. Does that make the rioters terrorists? #Enfield #TomorrowsTheSunHeadline 22:20:48, 2011-08-07
• @respros Means someone's pried off card-skimmers and/or anti-card-skimmers from the card slot lots and lots of times. in reply to respros 22:21:58, 2011-08-07
• @CaptainFabz Cheers, got it! in reply to CaptainFabz 22:24:02, 2011-08-07
• @clareyh Been told they're apparently "Jankels". Specialist riot-control vehicles. :/ in reply to clareyh 22:26:52, 2011-08-07
• The big black vehicles being deployed in #Enfield seem to be Jankel Guardian AMRVs
  http://t.co/Liv0lnw 22:30:19, 2011-08-07
• With talk of the #Enfield riots being pre-planned AND coordinated with others, not surprised if the police declare this a terrorist action. 22:32:52, 2011-08-07
• @clareyh You can download the brochure here: http://t.co/Liv0lnw in reply to clareyh 22:33:49, 2011-08-07
• @MattDupuy Just cross fingers they're kitted out with the riot-control kit, not the sniper-station kit. :P in reply to MattDupuy 22:35:19, 2011-08-07
• @EccentricWander Seeing how a lot of folk there are legitimately terrified, not far off, no. But would open gates for control powers. in reply to EccentricWander 22:36:33, 2011-08-07
• Anyone know how to use the Twitter API? Something to auto-filter retweets, old news and links from ongoing events could be handy. 22:38:11, 2011-08-07
• Reports of #Enfield riots having moved East toward Ponders End. (down A110?) Hoping the reservoirs stop the advance from reaching Chingford. 22:55:11, 2011-08-07
• IF #Enfield riots ARE moving down the A110, police should block Lea Valley Road. It's a 700m bottleneck. 3mile to pass reservoirs without. 22:59:06, 2011-08-07
• @clareyh LOL! If only! Sure they'll be making some sales after tonight! ;P in reply to clareyh 22:59:49, 2011-08-07
• Following #Enfield riot reports with Google maps. Seem to be advancing East about a mile per 20min now. Might be turning south now tho? 23:14:26, 2011-08-07
• So much rumour & lie going around. I'm looking for live webcam feeds to confirm. #Enfield #Walthamstow 23:20:18, 2011-08-07
• Can't confirm, but "riots" in #Walthamstow sound like teens taking advantage of police confusion to rob & vandalise shops. No riot. 23:27:33, 2011-08-07
• Oh no, Twitter reports that Satan himself has torn open #Walthamstow high street and has begun eating souls! Totally happening for real! 23:51:15, 2011-08-07
• @jackalesque Yeah, totally loving living less than a mile from people reporting violence & looting. :P in reply to jackalesque 23:56:01, 2011-08-07

Mirrored from The blog-hub for Peter "Sci" Turpin.

Enclosure arrived!

The enclosure found on ebay arrived today. My guestimates (since internal size wasn’t mentioned) look to have panned out, and it’ll contain all the parts quite nicely.

Fortunately I had a piece of aluminium plate left over from my grandfathers materials which will provide the needed backplate for the plastic box. It feels nice using something that was his in any of my projects.

The driver board will just about fit in, though I’ll need to be creative with mounting the power supply. I’ll be cutting some holes in the top access panel for the driver’s D-connectors, the IEC connector will probably go on the top or side where gravity shouldn’t let it fall out. Bottom is probably going to have the illuminated mains switch and the five 4-pin XLR connectors for the steppers and motor drive. The left-hand panel will have the filter-protected exhaust vent.

A fine wire filter grill will be going on the front panel to direct air onto the PSU, which will flow across the box and out the exhaust. The box should be kept at positive pressure. The box is far more environmentally sealed than I really need. All I really want to ensure is no dirt and spiders get in it.

Also found a few little 12v fans that should replace the defective one on the driver board. Got a 24v 80mm fan for the front that came off an old LaserJet printer. Not sure where to put the emergency stop yet. Got to be the soft-off interlock on the driver board I think, since cutting power might still leave steppers moving for a short time. Also might not want it on the enclosure itself, but remote.

Mounting the readout is also a puzzler, but can be done later.

Mirrored from The blog-hub for Peter "Sci" Turpin.

Proteus Prescot

From LJ archive: 01/30/2008 13:56:00

So, weird dream last night. All in the style of a short film. Here it is, retouched a very small amount for consistancy.

Starring Simon Pegg. “Proteus Prescot”.

So Pegg exits a florists carrying a massive collection of bunchs of flowers, each with a barcode label hanging off it, next shot he enters an office block with the flowers. Next shot he leaves looking annoyed with the bunch much reduced.
Dumping the remaining flowers in a bin, he picks up his mobile and dials as someone races out of the building after him, looking disheveled. Pegg calls for a taxi and it imediatly bleeps back “You have been assigned auto-taxi 52″. While this happens though the guy from the office starts franticly telling him it ment nothing, presumably with Pegg’s girlfriend. Pegg yells at him and storms up to the taxi pulling in. The taxi has the number 42 on the rear, but because of the yelling he’s misheard the number so gets right in. The android at the wheel turns to him and does the stilted “where to?”
“The usual.” Pegg answers, still annoyed and gives the guy outside the finger as the taxi drives off.

A bump wakes him. The sun has gone down and Pegg dropped off in the back seat. Outside the taxi is driving down a country dirt track, surrounded by high hedgerows on each side, no streetlights anywhere.
“Where are we??” He asks the android driver, sudenly worried. “Almost there.” says the android as the track opens out to the front of a small cottage with warm yellow lights in the windows.
“No, this ins’t my home. You’re not my cab, are you?” He demands, pressing his phone against some sort of reader in the back of the drivers seat. The driver pauses for a momment. “I’m sorry sir, there is currently no signel to authenticate your ID. Please call the help line to obtain an override code.”
So Pegg gets out of the cab and wanders around abit with his phone, unable to get a signel. He walks up to the door of the cottage.
The door flys open and a crazy large 60yo-or-so woman in a folk-music style hat with bells on is on the other side. She manhandles him into the room. “Ah! There you are! Ahah! Come, come sit!”
She pushes Pegg down onto a wooden stool and goes back to sitting right next to a huge old wooden-case TV set with Inspector Morse showing on it. Beside her laying on a chaise-longe is a 50 or so year-old man with a bushy greying beard, and on the other side of the TV a dull-witted looking man with a shorter beard and huge beergut sits up to the navel in a tin bath, aparently naked. The man on the sofa starts jabbing the lady with various pointed objects, to which she alternatly replies, “Yes, that hurts, no that feels good, that one too..” all while not looking away from the TV.
Pegg sits there speachless, struck dumb, crouched up to avoid touching anything.
The man in the tub gets up and simply states, “I need to go have a bath”, walking across in front of Pegg and into another room to his right. The man is indeed utterly naked, but his gut covers his crotch at the front. At the rear though the man has a tail. As if a pigs tail had begun to grow, then carried on in the style of the the occasional genetic throwbacks, giving it an unpleasent broken look.
As Pegg can’t help but let his eyes follow the man out of the room, he spots an old cork noticeboard beside the door covered in newscuttings, but most prominantly is a faded red activists poster. As he stares at it, the camera zooms in on portion of the text. Something like, “these changes to be implimented by Prescot in the handling of genetic materials are feared could lead to escape and contamination of the local genomes, leading to dangerous mutations”.
He turns back to the ‘couple’ and sees the man is now pressing a jagged chunk of ice into the womans spine. “No, that’s good, good, no actually it hurts. It hurts. IT HUUURTS!!” She works up to a scream. Pegg stands and edges toward the door as she cries out again, “Well, was nice to meet you, I’ll see myself out.” he says to the mutants. The old woman looks up to him cheerfully and says, “Oh, take care deary.. oh no, wait.. DON’T LET HIM GET AWAY!!”
Pegg bolts for the door as the man stands up and a violent splash is heard from the next room.
He sprints across the small lawn and into the back of the cab, yelling, “Go, go, go!!”
“Please enter the override code.” The android cabbie replies calmly.
“I don’t have it, this is an emergency, just get us out of here!”
The engine starts and the lights come on, but the two men are out of the house. The huge naked man is on the bonnet and the other is at Pegg’s door, rocking the car violently as he locks it. “A person is blocking the way. We cannot move until they have safely disengaged the vehicle.” The driver answers, adding sadly, “Sorry about this. It’s my programming, you see.”
As Pegg claws open the seperator between the driver and passenger compartment, climbing through and trying to pull the android out of his seat, we see him look up as the old man aproaches with a concrete flowerpot above his head. As Pegg screams, still trying to pullie the robo-cabbie free, the last thing we see is the flowerpot being thrown at the windscreen. It cuts to black with the sound of smashing glass.

Mirrored from The blog-hub for Peter "Sci" Turpin.