Miscellany

[ewt]

Morning! and pancakes. The people who went out clubbing are hanging about, half-asleep, but fed. My work here is done.

Today I learned it is possible to grow loofah. They're related to cucumbers. The seeds are quite inexpensive.

Bearcat kept me company half the night. Such a lovely animalperson. I want a cat so much! Perhaps after I finish my degree...

I really need some headphones. I'm starting to do okay on the 'finding music' front but I really hate making noise that might disturb others, or having other people know what I'm listening to. Must. Get. Headphones. Really. Preferably noise-cancelling ones of some description, although it is tempting just to go for the "modify a pair of industrial ear defenders so that they contain headphones" option. I'll see what I end up with; not spending any money at the moment.

I wonder whether a one of these would be anywhere near as effective as my lightbox is. They're certainly cheaper. Also I wonder about hooking up several of them to timers and making one of those wakey-uppy clock things... this would probably require some electronics, I think I'd have to bypass teh existing switches somehow to make it work. But by the time I ahve four or five of them hooked up I'm looking at more money than just buying a sunrise alarm clock. Boo. On the other hand... battery powered, batteries lasting about 8 hours, sounds like a useful thing to me. I could go 3 days without having to be near an electrical socket when I'm awake. I wonder if the 12V charger would let itself be charged with the solar panel; I don't see why not. Le sigh. See above: not spending any money at the moment. And I definitely need the headphones more.

Still thinking about YourMusicHouse. I need to sit with paper and design some sort of interface, I think. I'll need one for people browsing, and also one for contributing artists wishing to, er, contribute... it would be good if they could just upload things to a queue, but to begin with I'll probably have them e-mail me. I can't do the programming, but it will be difficult to even write spec if I can't think straight about how people need to navigate the site. I guess I could even do some simplified mock-ups and stick them in my own webspace for people to look at and comment on...

I also still need to figure out how to approach people (even the ones I know) to ask them to participate in the project. I mean, blathering on about it here is all well and good but none of you who play in a band have piped up and said anything, probably because I write so much drivel. That's fine. I just have to figure out how to actually ask for stuff. I guess first of all I need to understand Creative Commons licensing on a more detailed level, since we want to use that, and I'll probably be explaining it to a lot of people.

Comments

[feanelwa.livejournal.com]

A warnign: noise cancelling headphones don't cancel high-frequency noise, only low frequency. Thus, the sound of a train is quite well cancelled, but the following are not:
-Squealing children
-Screeching teenagers
-People who bite their nails at work
and similar sounds.

[pseudomonas.livejournal.com]

I wonder whether a one of these would be anywhere near as effective as my lightbox is. They're certainly cheaper.

I'm guessing, but I'd suspect that things sold as lightboxes have had more QC to check that they don't put out too much UV in a form that's liable to damage your eyes if you stare at them for too long.

On the headphones, I've heard good things about the sort that sit right inside your ear canal, in terms of them blocking out all external noise and allowing you to play music very quietly. Unfortunately they cost a bit more than standard in-ear ones, though a quick google suggests there are cheap models out there - don't know what the quality is like.

[pungoose.livejournal.com]

headphones: noise-cancelling, or the ones that sit right in your ear and block everything else out, are particularly good for listening on tube, aircraft, buses etc. Quite possibly not worth the bother in a lower-noise environment. I have some (cheapish, sennheiser, about 50quid I think) ones which now sit at work and I use them there on occasion. The noise cancelling removes stray white noise from a/c, pooters etc, and seems to reduce conversation noise too. I gave up with them for tube use, because they couldn't really cope with the noise, were relatively complicated to carry, and just occasionally berserked and made REALLY LOUD screeching noises in response to track noise on the Victoria line. It HURT. Proabably very bad for ears.

Alarm clock/waking up thing: nooo. Dawn simulator clocks need to fade in gradually, apparently; it's the turning from dark to light over about half an hour that leaps on your body clock's reset button like an annoyed and energetic cat. It doesn't need to be very bright, it just needs to "dawn" gradually. That's doable, but you'd need more l33t l3ctr1c sk1lz than, say, I have.

Brightlights, on the other hand, mostly need to be bright (and ideally daylight spectrum, but I don't think that's the main thing). I suspect lightbox sellers sell them at something of a premium, and building your own may be sensible.

[cabd.livejournal.com]

Loofahs tend to grow dirty great big viney plants with no fruit or pathetic little fruit; for best results grow somewhere hot, under glass, and spray the flowers when they're open to aid pollination. Good luck!