"Give not over thy soul to sorrow; and afflict not thyself in thy own counsel. Gladness of heart is

[ewt]

Had a bit of a lie-down and feel somewhat better, though my back hurts a lot and I still generally feel like roadkill. Also, if the head of Student Services can type, my meeting is on Friday, not today; but I've got busking booked for that time. Hmm. If it comes to it I'll have to miss the busking, but I'm loathe to do so.

Worth reading, discusses anger and temper and stuff. Not a lot of the 'how' but big on the 'why'.

Also this post by feanelwa.

Oh, hell. It's turning into another links post. Here we go:

International Bamboo Building Design Competition. Can't think of it without thinking of the lived-in ginormous bamboo in Red Mars (or was it Green Mars that had the bamboo houses? Same story anyway). Also, pretty! I'd really like to grow some bamboo in order to experiment with doing some small-scale building, but I don't know enough about which varieties are suitable for building, which varieties are suitable for growing in England, whether these overlap and so on. I know there is some very tall bamboo 'round the corner from here that would be quite useful for some things.

$200 Machine Shop. Don't know what this would cost in the UK, and I don't have the space or the time, but yum!

More shiny. Light-up poi, with a difference. These would be SO FUN. Might even add these ones to my wishlist, if I ever get around to updating the thing; I'm sure there are some of you out there with access to the right equipment to do something like this if I never get around to it.

LED array bulb replacements have come to ThinkGeek! That means they're nearly mainstream, or sommat. I have one of these (only mine is 240V on account of me being in, you know, the UK), and while it isn't great for area lighting - still a bit too directional - it makes a wonderful work lamp. These things would work a treat to replace heat-wasting halogen bulbs, or as outdoor security lights or whatever. Also, it's worth noting that my lightbox is an array of 72 very bright white LEDs, and is fucking expensive. Possibly the "Spotlight" bulb replacement available from ThinkGeek would be suitable as a lightbox for some people; I'm not sure if it would have the right spectrum but I think white LEDs are made with blue and stuff, maybe an electronics/physics geek would know more...

While I'm at ThinkGeek, I do wonder how these glowsticks compare to the Krill lamps I know and love (and keep losing). They look very pretty, a little more compact and elegant than Krill, but are A23 batteries rechargeable? I've tried using Krill lamps in glow poi and it doesn't quite work, because like many other flashlights they have a spring contact and so when you spin them around that gets squished and the circuit gets broken.

An alternative to Freecycle. I've not checked it out properly, but thought I'd record it anyway.

subway systems of the world, presented on the same scale. I think it would be really neat to interpolate these with data on population density (both residential and at various times, eg peak business hours). I'm not doing it.

Read this article without scratching. Go on. I don't recommend using organophosphates on your kidlets, though; try a healthfood shop for some natural remedies first. I'm sure teh internets is full of advice on the subject, and some of it hasn't even made it to snopes or quackwatch.

Cute kitten. As if we actually needed Kitten DDR, but... cute! cute! mstevens, can we have a kitten? PLEASE?

Comments

[mstevens.livejournal.com]

If we can have a catflap.

[martling.livejournal.com]

This (http://www.litebook.com/research/displayresearch.asp?id=27) on the Litebook site suggests 446-477nm (i.e. generally blue) is the crucial wavelength, also supported by this (http://www.litebook.com/research/displayresearch.asp?id=58). I can probably get the full text of those papers through the university libraries if you're interested, actually.

The LEDs in the bulb replacement units are white, i.e. they do emit blue but also the rest of the spectrum. (The combination of semiconductor materials required to do this is pretty nifty, in fact). So they're better than a tungsten or fluorescent bulb at emulating daylight, but I don't know if they kick out enough in the blue region to be effective as a lightbox. Probably, though. They are pretty bright and I've always perceived ultrabright white LEDs as a bit blue-tinged.

Incidentally this (http://uk.farnell.com/jsp/endecaSearch/searchPage2.jsp?Ntt=&N=401%201005532%20196194%20196195%20196196%20196197%20196198%20196199%20196200%20196201%20196202%20196203%20196204%20196205%20196206%20196207%20176804&Ntk=&&&showImages=true&comSearch=true&paramSearch=true&viewType=param&specialorder=off&Nso=0&Ns=PRICE_PLS_006_PRICE1#results) link should in theory take you to a parts search with Farnell, one of the large electronics suppliers, for LEDs in those wavelengths, compliant with the recent EU directive on hazardous substances in electronics, and sorted by price with the cheapest first. They start from 30-40p each.

[mirrorshard.livejournal.com]

One of the reasons ultrabright white LEDs look blue-tinged to us is that we're used to yellow- or even brown-tinged light normally - we never see white under normal circumstances. You can get a similar effect - or rather the opposite one - by sitting under daylight bulbs at night for a few hours, then trying to find your way around the rest of the house, lit by standard spectrum UCFs.

Having just come back from the ABTT tradeshow, I'm thinking seriously about making a lightbox or equivalent for myself.