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• I've installed Lazarus 1.0 without mayhem, and have created a few simple programs with it. So far, no glitches. My recommendation is still cautious. Nonetheless, I'd be interested in hearing other people's experiences with the new release.
• Carmine Gallo wonders why more people aren't doing image-rich PowerPoint presentations. Um...it's because ( Read more... )

• I'm behind on a great many things, especially fiction writing and replying to email, so bear with me until I get dug out from under the pile. Exchanging offices within a house is precisely the same as moving two offices, and that means a lot of boxes and a lot of bother, exploding intercoms being the least of it.
• I didn't expect this wine to be as ( Read more... )

• Maybe it's some of the recent solar storms (the sunspots were not spectacularly high) but I heard both Guyana and the Cayman Islands on 17m the other day--the first time I've seen any significant life on that band in several years.
• I have yet to find an Android ebook reader app that will open and render an MS .lit file, of which I have several. No ( Read more... )

• Wired has a nice piece on the 1859 Carrington Event; basically, the strongest solar storm in the last 500 years, assuming ice core data is a reliable proxy for storm strength. Early landline telegraph operators actually disconnected their batteries and passed traffic solely on power induced in the lines by solar activity. Whew. Now that's QRP!
• Alas ( Read more... )

• From the Words-I-Didn't-Know-Until-Yesterday Department: mobula , a genus of fish in the general category of ray or skate. They can weigh as much as a ton, and get as high as two meters out of the water when they breach. (Thanks to Pete Albrecht for pointing it out.)
• From the same department: bodge , a UK-ism for a clumsy or ineffective repair. I'm ( Read more... )

Well, it's the end of a long March, either way you want to see it, and finally we're starting to get a little weather I'd consider springish. Old Dan Beard had this at the start of the kites chapter in his Outdoor Handy Book (1900):

Though marble time can't always last,
Though time for spinning tops is past,
The winds of March blow kite time here ( Read more... )

• I may be the last person to aggregate this, but if you haven't seen it yet, consider: The Sun being eclipsed simultaneously by the Moon...and the ISS! Thanks to Bill Higgins for pointing it out. (Talk about having to set up a shot!!!)
• And for further astronomical boggle-fodder, consider this: A ten-year-old girl discovered a supernova a few days ago ( Read more... )

(Note: This is a total ham radio geek-out entry, so if such things make your eyes glaze over, be advised that there's an extreme glaze warning in effect until at least tomorrow morning.)

Anyway. I stumbled on a band opening yesterday by accident: I scanned the 6 meter band, expecting its usual near-silence, and instead heard something like a ( Read more... )

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