My Solar Panels Are On The Roof
My solar panels are now on my large flat roof.
The installation was surprisingly painless, with the only work inside the house, the fitting of the control box near to my main consumer unit.
I have been monitoring all weekend on my laptop.
Could New Technology Help Save Steel Jobs?
One of my first jobs was in the instruments laboratory of Enfield Rolling Mills in the early 1960s. As someone with a mind like a sponge, I never missed storing away every piece of useful engineering and scientific information, I might encounter.
The company was involved in the rolling and the production of materials from non-ferrous metals, like copper, bronze, brass and aluminium. For instance, they did a lot of work with the continuous casting of metals like bronze and aluminium.
The company also used scrap metal as a source of raw material for their processing. One of their problems was identifying the scrap before processing and they had experimented with using a radioactive isotope to see, if it could give them an accurate opinion.
It probably wasn’t the best thing to do!
But since then technology has moved on.
I just wonder now, whether mass spectrometry could correctly identify the exact grade of a large piece of brass, bronze or steel!
If it could, I suspect that we could use our scrap metals to avoid refining new.
So I searched using “automatic steel scrap sorting” and found this page entitled Laser Methods For Automatic Scrap Metal Sorting.
And this page on the Oxford Instruments web site entitled Scrap Metal Analysis, Sorting and Recycling.
Who needs blast furnaces?
We just mine the scrap, rather than send it to China!
Shooting Down A US Heavy Helicopter
About twenty years ago, I heard a story, how an engineer at Cambridge University, programmed a computer to recognise the Duke of Edinburgh’s voice.
I have also read about smart mortars, that look for something big, metallic and making a lot of noise and if it appears to be a tank, they hit it.
Last night, I was woken by the distinctive noise of President Obama’s helicopter as it flew over East London from Stansted. The noise is just so distinctive.
How long will it be before someone parks a missile on a roof with a smart guidance system, looking for a distinctive noise signature in the sky?
Sorting Out IKEA
Ever since Summer 2015, I’ve been unable to purchase anything on-line from IKEA. It is very difficult trying to build a kitchen in phases to have to go to the store to buy or order everything. Especially, when you can’t drive. I am lucky, that I can get a 341 bus to IKEA from about two hundred metres away and can even catch a bus from closer, that uses the same stop as the 341 at Manor House station. So it might take about an hour, but it’s not an arduous journey.
I think that the reason for non-delivery, is that they don’t like my home address, as they use a system that checks it against a list of ones with a large number of problems in the past. These were long before I bought the house.
If this is the case, a friend who used to be the Compliance Director of a major finance house in the City, said make a request to see what they have on you, under the Data Protection Act. So I searched Google and found this page on the IKEA web site, entitled Privacy Policy.This is said.
For the purposes of the Data Protection Act 1998 IKEA Limited, is the “data controller” collecting your data. Our registered company address is: 500-600 Witan Gate House, Witan Gate West, Milton Keynes, Buckinghamshire, MK1 1SH. If you have any questions regarding this policy or in respect to data privacy, our contact details are;
IKEA, Customer Support, Kingston Park, Peterborough, Cambridgeshire, PE2 9ET
Telephone number: 0203 645 0000
e-mail:customer.service@ikea.com
So I sent this e-mail to the e-mail-address on Monday morning.
I will give you a bit of background.
In December 2010 I purchased and moved to XXX XXXXXXXXX XXXX, London N1 XXX, where I have lived by myself since.
The property was built new around 2000 and before I purchased the house, it was let out to a selection of tenants, most of whom seemed to have skipped without paying the bills for energy and lots of other purchases, judging by the number of bailiffs, who used to call.
From 2011 to July 2015, I bought more than several IKEA products on-line and they were all successfully delivered against xxxxx@xxxxxxxxxx.com to the N1 XXX address. I had started to rebuild the kitchen and currently it sits half-completed.
Order numbers include XXXXXXXXX, XXXXXXXXX, XXXXXXXXX and XXXXXXXXX
In October 2015, I tried to place some further orders and despite getting the initial confirmation e-mail several times, no product was ever delivered.
In the end, I took a taxi to Edmonton and ordered and paid for the products in the store. They were delivered OK, but I had to waste an afternoon travelling to Edmonton and pay extra for the taxis.
Because of the difficulty, I assumed it was an unsuspected problem with my credit history, so I joined Experian and when I looked last week, my credit score was 986, which according to a friend, who runs a financial business, is good.
But it doesn’t appear to be good enough to buy products on-line at IKEA!
I am now ready for the next phase of the kitchen. So as to test if the hiccups of last summer, were just a passing issue, I attempted to place a small order. Despite getting the order number of XXXXXXX and the first confirmation e-mail, no money has been taken from my credit card and I have not had the Delivery Advice e-mail advising me of the actual delivery date. On trying to track the order, it is not in your Order Tracking system.
Obviously, I would like to find out, why you can’t accept my orders and to that end, I want to obtain all the information you hold about myself and my address and e-mail address, under my rights as laid out by the Data Protection Act.
I understand there could be a charge for this.
Obviously, confidential information has been redacted.
So far, two days later I’ve not had a reply or even an acknowledgement to my e-mail.
Today, I will be sending a copy by post.
Another Suicide Bombing
This morning, this report on the BBC, is talking of another suicide bombing in Afghanistan.
Correct me if I’m wrong, but I can’t think of any suicide bombing, where the perpetrator wasn’t Muslim.
So why is this deadly practice an exclusively Muslim phenomena?
Jerry’s Wonderful Wiring
In sorting out my kitchen, I need to adjust the wall between the kitchen and the living area.
Jerry’s Wonderful Wiring
Jerry obviously thought he was a very competent electrician.
But my experienced Hungarian handyman and myself think otherwise.
Is A Rat A New Make Of Car?
I took this picture at Hillsborough yesterday.
Is A Rat A New Make Of Car?
I would assume that Burrows is a car dealership.
When I first read the one with a red background, the car make looked like a Rat.
A Small Cooking Spoon I Can Hang Up
There are two types,. of designers in the world; those like Kenneth Grange, who will never accept second best and then their are all the others.
I strive for perfection and only accept second best, when the best is impossible.
These pictures show my quest for a small cooking spoon that I can hang above my cooker. Where else is there to put the tools, you use to actually cook the food as opposed to prepare it.
My mother had a small wooden spoon, that was always used to stir beans or in a small milk saucepan.
I have been looking for one for myself for about ten years now and I’ve never found one, quite small enough.
I did find the red spoon, shown in the first picture, in John Lewis and I use it a lot. A small one like it, in blue, would be ideal, as it fits the IKEA hooks above my cooker.
So I decided to make it possible to hang the smallest wooden spoon, I’ve got alongside.
I just drilled a hole in it, with my trusty pocket drill and attached a cable clip.
It seems to work.
Farewell To BT Vision
I have not got rid of BT Vision and if I want to watch football that is shown on BT, I now watch it on Sky.
To say I’m pleased to be rid of BT Vision is an understatement.
- BT don’t seem to have any logical channel numbering, unlike Sky and Freeview and I could never remember where something would be shown.
- Often I had to resort to going through the channels one at a time, until I found what I wanted.
- Sky is logical, as all the Sports channels seem to be together and if I want an event, I can easily find what I want, stating from 405 or so.
- Regularly, I don’t watch a match, but listen to it on Radio 5. BT has this annoying habit of changing to a screen of programs that I might watch, if I had an IQ of about 12.
- Sky just gives me information with a useful clock.
Whoever, designed their system should be sent to manage the satellite station on St. Kilda.
The Anonymous Widower 