Flexi-curve memories

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When I was learning physics I found my flexi-curve invaluable. Every now and then I did an experiment to prove something or other. Proof of a successful outcome was usually a straight line of readings plotted on a graph. Of course, this hardly ever happened to me. But by bending my flexi-curve carefully through my points and drawing a nice thick line I could give the impression of something mostly straight and that was usually good enough.

I was reminded of my flexi-curve today as I was writing something about bSpline curves which do this kind of line bending for you. I had a look around and it turns out you can still buy flexi-curves. Although this particular product doesn’t have a very good review (but the review is worth reading for a giggle).

MOT Test Terrors

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When I was much younger the annual Ministry of Transport (MOT) test was a big thing. I’d take my decaying Mini down to a garage and watch them chip paint and rust off it, test the lights, steering and the brakes and give the seatbelts a good tug. Then they’d tell me about about the worn bearings, loose steering kingpins and other things I’d been happily motoring around on for the last year. They didn’t mind about the hole in floor though, because apparently that wasn’t structural.

One time I was telling dad about what had gone wrong (in this case the bushes on the rear radius arms that hold on the rear wheels).He looked up from his paper and told me it sounded like a big job, so I should probably find somewhere to get them fixed. At which point I was forced to tell him that my car was in his garage with the rear suspension missing. He shuddered and went back to his paper. I had to go around all the local car dealers until I found someone who could drill out the radius arms and put in replacement bushes.

I got it fixed that time but the following year, when I took it for a test just after I’d replaced the silencer (muffler) because it fell off on the way to a party, I was forced to admit defeat (subframe mounts) and throw the car away. Oh well, at least it had the newest silencer in the scrapyard.

I was reminded of all this yesterday because my car was due for it’s annual test. It seems a lot more relaxing these days. I think cars are just better made (and painted) than they used to be. All I needed was a couple of tyres and a rear windscreen wiper. Good times.

Goodbye to Beverly Camera Centre

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Beverley Camera Centre is no more. It closed today. I bought a couple of things and the retiring owner (if you see what I mean) was kind enough to give me a tiny digital camera which he has had lying around for a while. Tiny digital cameras are all the rage at the moment so I’m going to have a go at getting it to work. The good news is that it is powered by an AAA battery. The bad news is that it needs custom USB drivers to make it work. Should be fun.

I’m going to miss the camera centre though, it has been part of my weekly routine to drop buy there and almost never except sometimes buy something.

Spitfire in Hull

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I’m not sure if it is a real one, but it looks pretty real to me

They had a Spitfire outside Hull Minster when we went up town today. It’s a lovely looking plane. Essentially the pilot sits in behind an enormous engine which is connected to a great big fan right at the front and there whole thing flies along several thousand feet up at several hundred miles an hour under fire from the enemy. No wonder it’s called “the right stuff”. They also had a rather nice MG car from the same era.

I don’t think this car has satnav that keeps whining about needing a map update.

I love the way they have a handle on the dashboard for the passenger to cling onto

..and a very british hamper on the back

Weekend Scrapes

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Notice how I’ve left off the Number scale on the side

I’m not the kind of person who obsesses over their blog traffic (or am I?) but I’ve noticed over the last few weeks that I get peaks in traffic over the weekend. Very strange. I don’t think it is people going “At last-it’s the end of the week and I can spend my leisure time catching up with Rob”. I think it is more likely that the net might be a bit quieter during the weekend and so that’s when systems go out and scrape it for words to train their large language models. My blog contains quite a few words, so I get a lot of hits on my pages.

This does mean, of course, that my writings are all being stolen without my knowledge or permission, and they will be incorporated into random systems to make them appear ever so slightly more human. Or, at least more Rob. I don’t mind this too much though, if this means that my gift to posterity is devices that sound a bit like me, then I’m OK with that. And, what that in mind, here’s my latest grate thort:

I’ve started wearing high-visibility clothing because my wardrobe is very dark inside.