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Some months ago, I discovered water rockets while reading Make magazine's 5th issue. The idea is very simple: take a plastic soda bottle, fill it partly with water, add pressured air, and release. The practical difficulties are mainly the release mechanism and the recovery mechanism (i.e., releasing the parachute not too early and not too late). So two weeks ago I started to experiment with my brother-in-law, starting with the release mechanism and a simple bottle, as well as a standalone parachte. This (long) week-end, we built a full rocket, inclunding a nose holding the parachute and fins. It was painted red, because the transparent bottle was hard to spot in the sky, and even harder to find after landing in high grass.

Lauchpad Construction

The lauchpad is made of one PVC tube that goes into the rocket, plus one wider tube around the first one that is part of the release mechanism and holds the rocket while on the tube. Three screws placed on the grey tube at 120° from each other hold the white tube in the middle of the grey one.

An O-ring is placed on the thinner tube so that the neck of the bottle will go just around it.

Release mechanism

The release mechanism relies on the wide ring just below the bottle's neck. Once on place on the tube, a metal pin will go around the neck and above the ring, preventing the bottle from taking off. The closeups will show the ring, just visible through the slot in the grey tube.

A rope connected to the pin allows to pull it from a safe distance. The rope is attached to the pole so that the pin doesn't jump to the face of the person pulling it (it hurts).

Currently, the release mechanism is not very reliable, it gets jammed from time to time and the rocket doesn't take off vertically. Also, the seal around the launch tube is not tight enough, there is some amount of leaking.

The other end of the thinner tube is connected to the air compressor. Getting a tight enough connection here was not easy, but after several attempts we found one combination of rubber hoses and collars that works. More or less. It sometimes pops off.

Rocket Construction

Building the rocket was quite straightforward. One thing to remember: epoxy will hold the fins onto the rocket quite well, but it will break upon impact on the ground (understand: crash landing when the parachute doesn't open). Polyurethane glue (actually some kind of PU filling material) on the other hand will hold them in place and be flexible enough so that the bond won't break on impact. The aspect is pretty ugly, but it works. It just needs to dry overnight. Building a support for the bottle and the fins helps keeping them in place when drying. It's made of a cork screwed into a piece of wood of the proper height, and attached to a plank into which slots have beed sawn in order to hold the fins.

Parachute

The parachute is folded into the nose cone during the flight, and the nose is supposed to pop off when the rocket reaches its apogee. The problem was that more often than not, the cone didn't open, and the parachute didn't open at all. Finding the balance between a nose which is too tight on the rocket and a nose that falls off with a simple gust of wind before take off is very difficult. According to this website, I think the rocket should take off as vertically as possible, and the nose should hold only because of the force of the acceleration, and fall off as soon as the rocket is not in stable flight anymore. But the holes in the cone for decreaseing the pressure inside it is something to try, too.

Flight

This is the last flight of the week end, the only one that was more or less a success with the red rocket. The video was shot at 30 fps, therefore one frame below lasts 33 ms. One can see that the nose separates quite early from the body, probably because of the flight not being straight up.

The original video clip is also available.

Bad Landings

These bad landings where quite soft ones, because the parachute did open and slowed the rocket down.

There have been other bad landings where the nose of the rocket didn't fall off, and where the rocket fell down like a stone straight onto its nose. It's been bumped in many times, but it was still able to fly afterwards! The test bottle once crashed and had many bumps and creases, but it was possible to inflate it again, and the only tiny hole it had could be fixed with duct tape (blessed be the inventor of duct tape!)

“A traditional English ale, but cold-conditioned as a lager.”

Smells of yeast, tastes like a lager, a little bitter. Made of malted barley and wheat.

Daleside Brewery Limited, Yorkshire, England. 4.3% alcohol.

© Amazon.fr

Sixteenth volume in the Discworld series, Soul Music has been published in 1994 by Terry Pratchett.

Susan, a sixteen years old orphan is the adoptive granddaughter of Death. When Death decides to quit its job and try to understand the concept of forgeting, she inherits her grandfather's special abilities and feels compelled to replace him. At the same time, Imp y Celyn, a musiciam from Llamedos, arrives in Ankh-Morpork and meets Lias the troll and Glod the dwarf, musicians too. Since Imp's harp gor broken, they go to a mysterious music shop and Imp buys a mysterious guitar. Imp and his two new friends start playing in pubs for a handfull of dollars, trying to avoid the representatives of the Guild of Musicians who mercilessly track people who dare to play music without paying the guild's outrageously high fee. The guitar has a kind of magical influence on the band and makes them play a new kind of music that they describe as Music with Rocks in. Susan is present at the concert since Imp is supposed to die there, but for some reason, he doesn't. Later, Imp decides to change his name to Buddy (Imp = bud, celyn = holly) and Lias changes his to Cliff. They meet Dibbler, who becomes their manager and organises a concert tour to Pseudopolis, Sto Lat and Quirm. In exchange, Buddy demands a free music festival, because in his opinion, music should be free and people shouldn't have to pay for it. Dibbler finally accepts, after estimating how many sausages and other products he could sell the the audience, as well as with music recording boxes invented by Ponder Stibbons. During the tour, Buddy becomes more and more apathic, and it becomes clear that the guitar is playing the man during the concerts rather than the other way round. At the end of their concert they decide to flee on a cart, but they got an accident on the road. Death appears again, having learned that he cannot learn how to forget, and returns to his duty, explaining to Susan (who witnessed the accident) that Buddy died already long time ago, but only music was keeping him going, which broke the fabric of reality. With the accident, reality comes back and part of what happened ceases to exist, replaced with another of the possible alternate realities. Susan understands that Buddy/Imp is alive, somewhere, and she event learns eventually where he probably is.

“In English pubs, Bodingtons is served using the traditional hand-pulled method”

Very smooth taste that reminded me of violet or marshmallow, with a distinctive yeast taste. Almost no bitterness. Made of malted barley and wheat.

Inbev UK Limited, Luton, England. 4.7% alcohol.

Very geeky, quite funny.

xkcd.com (CC-by-nc)

“In fact, draw all your rotational matrices sideways. Your professors will love it! And then they'll go home and shrink.”

xkcd.com (CC-by-nc)

“That cat has some serious periodic components.”

xkcd.com (CC-by-nc)

“This one is from the Red Belt collection, of 'medium' difficulty.”

© IMPAwards.com

Lau Xing just stole from the Bank of England a jade Buddha recently stolen from his village in China. Trying to escape the police, he enters at the service of Phileas Fogg under the made-up name of Passepartout. Fogg is an inventor who is ridiculled by Lord Kelvin, the head of the Royal Academy of Science. He then makes a wager with Lord Kelvin where the stakes are Lord Kelvins position against Fogg's giving up tinkering and inventing. The wager is about going around the world in 80 days (the idea being discretely suggested by Passepartout, who needs to bring the buddha back to China). They soon leave for France, where they meet Monique La Roche, a painter who wants to travel across the world to get inspiration. They are also followed by chinese bandits who try to recover the Buddha (it had been stolen by their leader, who is an accomplice of Lord Kelvin, who wants to colonize a part of China). They are also followed by Inspector Fix, a corrupt policeman, paid by Lord Kelvin to stop them, under the pretense that Fogg is the thief. Because of the bandits, they missede the Orient Express, but manage to catch it later using a hot air balloon. In Turkey they are “invited” by a local prince who then wants to keep Monique as his seventh wife. They manage to escape and go to India (whre they fight some Chinese thugs and Fix), then to China where Passepartout returns the Buddha (and fights some thugs). Fogg discovers that he has been cheated by both his valet and Monique, and decides to go on alone. He arrives in San Francisco, but gets robbed of all his money and clothes. He ends up as a beggar, until Passepartout and Monique find hime again. Together, they cross the desert, meet the Wright brothers, then arrive in New York, where they fight the Chinese thugs and their leader again. They defeat them, but miss their boat to England, and hire a small boat to attempt to cross the ocean. Lacking coal, the boat must resort to using sails, but it won't be fast enough. Fogg then builts a flying machine, inspired by the plans the Wright brothers had shown him. They at last arrive in London, crashing their plane in front of the Royal Academy, but Kelvin attempts to prevent them to enter the hall before noon, which was the time and place where they were supposed to end their trip. They are saved by Queen Victoria, who reminds them that because of their traveling east, they actually are one day earlier than they thought. They finally enter the building and Fogg wins the wager and Kelvin's position as Ministry of Science.

© Allocine.fr

Le mur d'une cellule d'un monastère lorrain se met à saigner lorsqu'un novice y plante un crucifix. Un maçon y est retrouvé emmuré, mur qu'il avait aidé à réparer quelques semaines plus tôt. Le commissaire Niémans mène l'enquêtei aidé du capitaine Reda. Un peu plus tard, un homme ressemblant étrangement à Jesus est retrouvé blessé par balle par la police, et un prêtre à la force surhumaine tente de l'assassiner à l'hôpital où il a été conduit. Puis un douanier et deux joaillers sont assassinés, suivis par l'administrateur d'un supermarché et quatre pêcheurs sont retrouvés noyés. Ces personnes étaient au nombre de douze, portaient les mêmes noms et pratiquaient les mêmes professions que les douze apôtres, et étaient des disciples de Jésus. Ce dernier, dans son délire, parle de l'apocalypse et des septs sceaux qui sont brisés un à un. L'enquête de Niémans le mène à une section de la ligne Maginot, qui a été occupée par les allemands et modifiée par ces derniers pendant la guerre. Avec l'aide d'une spécialiste des religions, Niémans apprend que les mystérieux assassins sont à la recherche du livre écrit des mains de Dieu, qui pourra être lu par celui qui brisera le dernier sceau. Ce livre avait été un trésor du Vatican et volé par Lothaire II puis enfoui dans un tombeau secret. La clé du tombeau, le sceau de Lothaire II, est en possession du douzième « apôtre », un prêtre, qui l'a récemment volé. Niémans tente de récupérer le sceau, mais les prêtres le devancent. Le tombeau avait été découvert par un officier allemand, Heinrich von Garten, pendant la guerre, durant des travaux dans les galeries de la ligne Maginot. Il tente maintenant de prendre possession du livre afin de créer une nouvelle Europe, blanche et chrétienne, en passant par la ligne Maginot. L'entrée originale du tombeau se trouvant dans le monastère, Niémans et Reda y pénètrent et tentent d'arrêter von Garten. Le socle sur lequel repose le livre est piégé, les galeries se remplissent d'eau et seuls Niémans et Reda parviennent à s'échapper. Le livre est détruit par l'eau.

© Amazon.fr

Fifteenth volume in the Discworld series, Men at Arms has been published in 1993 by Terry Pratchett.

An explosion happens at the assassin's guild. A clown from the neighbour Fool's guild is found dead in the Ankh. A dwarf is found dead in his weaponmaking workshop with a hole instead of his chest. The Night Watch is investigating the case, augmented by three new members, representative of ethnic minorities: Detritus (a troll), Cuddy (a dwarf) and Angua (a woman, and a werewolf). And captain Sam Vimes is depressed because he's going to get married in a couple of days, forced to retire, and in top of that, Vetinari forbids him to investigate the deaths of the dwarf and the clown. The guards soon discover that something labeled “Gonne” has been stolen from the Assassin's Guild museum, that the dead clown has been seen leaving the Guild one day after his death, that the document found in the dwarf's workshop is the formula for a firework powder. While Cuddy and Detritus are investigating together, they are attacked by someone they couldn't see and trapped into a warehouse of future porks which is very cold, and makes Detritus much smarter than usual. Meanwhile, the maid of the head of the Beggar's Guild is killed by the same weapon as the dwarf. Later, Cuddy and Detritus, escaping an angry mob of dwarves and trolls, get lost in the sewers of the city and discover the body of the clown (except that it is not the clown but the thief of the gonne, wearing the same makeup as the clown's). At the same time, Carrot falls in love with Angua (although she's a werewolf and he hates the undead), and Vimes is completely depressed; the Watch then starts to rely on Carrot to take decisions, and since the Day Watch got the order to dismantle the Night Watch, Carrot organises a milicia and starts hiring many new recruits. The next day, Vimes is getting married, and but as the men of the milicia are guarding the surroundings. When the Patrician arrives to the wedding, he's attacked by the holder of the gonne who is shooting from the top of the Tower of the Arts. Cuddy, who had been sent to watch that place, is killed by the shooter. Vimes puzzles out that the killer is Dr. Cruces, the head of the Assassin's Guild (although the dwarf and the clown have been killed by Edward d'Eath, an assassin who wanted to restore the monarchy in Ankh-Morpork and kill all the heads of the guilds. He also discovered that Carrot is the heir of the royal family, whose last king had been killed by an ancestor of Vimes. He had taken the gonne from d'Eath and had been overpowered by the gonne's will to kill everyone). Carrot and Vimes finally meet Cruces in his office, and Carrot eventually kills him. Vimes gets married and becomes Commander of the Watch, Carrot is promoted Captain and the Night Watch is expanded and becomes the only Watch.

© DVDToile.com

The MI6 has just obtained a fake Fabergé egg in East-Germany from the hands of a dying 009, and decide to investigate the murder. They discover that the real egg is going to be auctioned soon at Sotheby's, from an unknown origin. Bond goes to the auction and manages to replace the real egg with the copy and notice the buyer, Kamal Khan, who is usually a seller rather than a buyer. Bond follows him to his palace in India, where he meets him and lures him with the real egg, equiped with a transmitter. The egg gets stolen by Khan's girlfriend Magda and Bond is kidnapped and taken to Khan's palace where he remains a prisoner. Khan presents the egg to the mysterious Octopussy, who lives on an island populated only by women and who makes a living from smuggling jewels. Later, in Khan's palace, Bond manages to witness a dialog between Khan and rogue Red Army General Orlov, about making copies of a lot of Russian historical treasures and about an attack that will taking place in Karl-Marx-Stadt. Bond then escapes and pays a visit to Octopussy, where he discovers that she owns a circus that is currently in Karl-Marx-Stadt. Going there, he learns that the circus is going next to West-Germany on a U.S. military base, and that the jewels are hidden on the circus'train. The wagon hiding the jewels is however secretely switched with another one, identical the the first one, except that it holds an nuclear bomb instead of the jewels. Bond discovers that Orlov's plan is to detonate the bomb in the U.S. base, to make it look like an accident and discredit the U.S. presence on German territory. Once the americans would have left, Europe would be vulnerable enough to be invaded by the Soviet Union. Bond manages to disamorce the bomb and to follow Khan back to India where he is preparing to flight. With the help of Octopussy's troops (who have been betrayed by Khan) he attacks Khan's palace, chases him to his airplane, saves Octpussy who had been made prisoner during the attack and get rid of Kahn.

Very fruity, the taste reminded me strongly of ananas, followed by a taste of white wine (Riesling, maybe). The aftertaste is terribly bitter, though. Made of malted barley.

Morland Brewing, Bury St. Edmunds, Suffolk, England. 6.5% alcohol.

“Chocolate malt and dark chocolate are combined with Young's award winning rich, full flavoured dark beer…”

It smells like hot chocolate, and its taste is both sweet and bitter, like a very rich hot chocolate, only cold and fizzy. The chocolate taste dominates completely the one of the stout. I would also guess that the chocolate has been made with Criollos or maybe Trinitarios cocoa beans. It's not sweet enough to go well with chocolate, though. Made of malted barley and oats.

Young & Co's Brewery P.L.C. The Ram Brewery, Wandsworth, London, England. 5.2% alcohol.

© Imdb.com

This documentary features Al Gore (the same ex-next president of the U.S.) lecturing about global warming, interspersed with pictures and clips from different locations and various topics. Gore basically tries to convice americans that global warming is actually hapenning despite the claims of the current government, and shows various scientific proofs (CO₂ levels in the atmosphere in the past 650,000 years, temperature levels over the same period…). He also explains the consequences of global warming on the natural disasters such as hurricanes (getting more powerful when passing over warmer sea) and drought (caused by higher evaporation due to higher temperatures), on the desynchronisation of the birth of baby birds and of caterpilars, their usual food, as well as the influence of the melting of ice crusts in Groenland and Antarctica on sea currents (especially the Gulf Stream), which could disappear if the sea gets colder because of more intensive melting of the ice. He also accuses the big corporations to try to hide the scientific results proving the existence of global warming, the same way the tobacco industry tried in the past to deny and hide the existence of a link between smoking and lung cancer. Finally, he gives some hints to the audience about what to do in order to produce less CO₂, showing that the technologies are available but the U.S. refuse to use them, putting the country behind most other countries in the world on that matter, including China.

The movie was interesting, well built and easy to understand. I wonder though if Gore has a political agenda, because he's so many times pointing fingers at the current administration and its supporters.

Food pairing is fun, because it looks absurd at first sight. Then you think about it, and it still seems improbable. Then you taste it, and… sometimes it's good, sometimes it's not ;)

This second edition of They Go Really Well Together started by Martin at khymos.org is now hosted by Tara at Should You Eat That?. This time, the goal is to associate banana with parsley. I did it with an obvious parsley enhanced banana milk shake.

Ingredients

• 2 ripe bananas
• 100g vanilla ice cream
• about 5 dL milk
• 5 cL fresh parsley

Preparation

Peel and slice the bananas into a blender. Add the ice cream cut into small parcels (otherwise you might clog the blender) and the milk. Mix until smooth.

In a small and fast blender, chop the parsley. Add about 2 dL of milk shake, and mix until smooth.

Comment

It's foamy and creamy like any banana milk shake, but definitely much more green! The first attempt smelled and tasted obviously of banana and vanilla, with a hint of something else you can't recognize. The parsley then bursts out in the aftertaste.

In the second attempt I put a little less parsley (the leftovers of the bouquet, actually), and whereas it looked the same and tasted fine, the aftertaste was absent. I suppose numerous experiment and a precision scale (for weighing the parsley) would be necessary to be able to reproduce the recipe.

“aromatic, dry, fruity flavour.”

The smell is fruity, but I can't put a name on it. It tastes very fruity, maybe of peach, with a very slightly bitter aftertaste. Made of malted barley, bottle conditioned.

Young & Co's Brewery P.L.C. The Ram Brewery, Wandsworth, London, England. 6.4% alcohol.

“For centuries, the soldiers of the Highlands and the Lowlands of Scotland have been familiarly referred to as Jocks – powerful fighting men who have enjoyed strong beers in their off-duty hours.

Old Jock is a classic Scottish Strong Ale. Dark and strongly flavoured it should be drunk at room temperature and savoured like a fine wine.

Highly recommended as accompaniment to cheese and meat dishes.”

Smells slightly like beef stock, but the taste is sweet and the after taste reminds me slightly of chocolate. Made of malted barley.

Broughton Ales limited, Broughton Biggar, Scotland. 6.7% alcohol.

I dug again into my hacked blosxom to find more ugliness, such as opening files for all the stories, including the ones that are not going to be displayed. This divided the time spent in blosxom::generate by 3.

Surprisingly, replacing the look-behind assertions in interpolate_fancy::__ANON__'s regexps didn't made as big a difference as in textrite::rite (1.11 ms against 0.813 ms), probably because there wasn't that many of them and weren't called that often

Profiling results are now like this:

Total Elapsed Time = 1.236275 Seconds
  User+System Time = 1.066275 Seconds
Exclusive Times
 %Time ExclSec CumulS  #Calls sec/call Csec/c Name
  10.2   0.109 0.127     134   0.0008 0.0010 interpolate_fancy::__ANON__
  7.50   0.080 0.178      13   0.0061 0.0137 blosxom::BEGIN
  5.06   0.054 0.428       1   0.0540 0.4283 blosxom::generate
  4.41   0.047 0.098     368   0.0001 0.0003 entries_index::__ANON__
  3.75   0.040 0.040       7   0.0057 0.0057 CGI::_compile
  3.75   0.040 0.054       9   0.0044 0.0061 CGI::import
  3.75   0.040 0.040      40   0.0010 0.0010 textrite::rite
  3.66   0.039 0.039     690   0.0001 0.0001 File::Basename::fileparse
  2.81   0.030 0.060       8   0.0037 0.0074 Net::SMTP::BEGIN
  2.81   0.030 -0.000     62   0.0005      -  Exporter::import
  2.81   0.030 0.030      40   0.0007 0.0007 magiclink::story
  1.88   0.020 0.020       5   0.0040 0.0040 autotrack::BEGIN
  1.88   0.020 0.030       7   0.0029 0.0042 IO::File::BEGIN
  1.88   0.020 0.089       8   0.0025 0.0111 writeback::BEGIN
  1.88   0.020 0.020      41   0.0005 0.0005 writeback::real_path

The User+System Time is lower, but for some reason the Total Elapsed Time is about the same.

Profiling results for the new blog engine (main page):

Total Elapsed Time = 1.245757 Seconds
  User+System Time = 1.235757 Seconds
Exclusive Times
 %Time ExclSec CumulS  #Calls sec/call Csec/c Name
  14.9   0.185 0.586       1   0.1851 0.5857 blosxom::generate
  12.0   0.149 0.187     134   0.0011 0.0014 interpolate_fancy::__ANON__
  6.47   0.080 0.158      14   0.0057 0.0113 blosxom::BEGIN
  5.66   0.070 0.070      40   0.0017 0.0017 textrite::rite
  4.53   0.056 0.095     367   0.0002 0.0003 entries_index::__ANON__
  4.05   0.050 0.059       8   0.0062 0.0074 Net::SMTP::BEGIN
  3.24   0.040 0.108       8   0.0050 0.0135 writeback::BEGIN
  2.43   0.030 0.030       7   0.0043 0.0043 CGI::_compile
  2.43   0.030 0.043       9   0.0033 0.0048 CGI::import
  2.27   0.028 0.037     317   0.0001 0.0001 interpolate_fancy::_resolve_nested
  1.62   0.020 0.020       1   0.0200 0.0200 archives::filter
  1.62   0.020 0.019       4   0.0050 0.0048 entries_index::BEGIN
  1.62   0.020 0.030       5   0.0040 0.0060 autotrack::BEGIN
  1.62   0.020 0.020      27   0.0007 0.0007 vars::import
  1.62   0.020 0.010      62   0.0003 0.0002 Exporter::import

The problem in textrite::rite came from the use of look-behind assertions in Perl regexp. I've changed all of them so that look-behind is not needed anymore. The same problem occurs in interpolate_fancy::__ANON__, but I'm not going to look into it yet.

The other problem was that textrite::rite was called for all the stories, including the ones that were not displayed (which was most of them). I changed the internal structure of the main script so that the processing of the story happens after discarding the non-displayed ones.

Un litre d'essence produit 2,4 kg de CO₂, donc ma voiture qui a consommé en moyenne 6,8 L/100 km ces deux dernières années produit environ 16,3 kg de CO₂ pour 100 km.

Et un humain alors ? Si on considère qu'une inspiration-expiration échange 0,5 L d'air, que l'air inspiré contient 21% d'O₂, que l'air expiré en contient 16% et qu'on respire environ 20 fois par minute, on trouve qu'un homme produit 1,3 kg de CO₂ par jour. Sachant qu'un homme peut marcher 40 km/j, il faut 2,5 jours pour parcourir 100 km, d'où une production de 3,3 kg de CO₂/100 km. Sur cette distance, la voiture peut transporter 4 personnes sans produire considérablement plus de CO₂, donc 4 personnes marchant 100 km produiront 13,2 kg de CO₂, ce qui finalement n'est pas tellement moins (19%) que ma voiture.

La différence, évidemment, c'est que nos quatre marcheurs ne consomment pas de l'énergie fossile mais de la biomasse, donc le CO₂ qu'ils produisent a déjà été extrait de l'atmosphère.

“Brewed using a cool, slowly fermentation process together with the finest quality Maris Otter barley and Fuggles & Goldings hops”

It smells a bit like vegetable stock. The taste is quite sweet, fruity with a hint of melon. Made of malted barley.

Marston's Brewery, Burton upon Trent, England. 6.2% alcohol.

© Imdb.com

Sophie, une jeune femme, a été victime d'un sort jeté par la sorcière des terres perdues : elle est devenue vieille. Elle décide de quitter la ville et de partir à la recherche de la sorcière pour lui demander d'annuler le sort. Le chemin est ardu, et elle finit par trouver refuge dans le château ambulant de Howl, où elle fait connaisance de Calcifer, le démon de feu qui fait fonctionner le château et l'empêche de s'effondrer, et de Michael, l'apprenti de Howl, et de Howl lui-même, qui est sous l'emprise d'un terrible maléfice. Devant le désordre et la crasse du château, elle se proclame femme de ménage et entreprend de nettoyer le château. Au fil du temps qui passe, elle fait davantage connaisance avec les habitants du château. Un jour, la guerre éclate et le roi fait demander à Howl de se battre pour le royaume. Howl est un couard, et Sophie se propose de se faire passer pour sa mère et d'aller expliquer à la reine qu'il ne peut pas se battre parce qu'il a trop peur. Sur le chemin du palais royal, Sophie rencontre la sorcière des terres perdues et lui demande d'annuler le sort. La sorcière prétend ne plus se souvenir comment l'annuler. Tandis que Sophie explique son cas à la reine, la sorcière est victime d'un sort anti-magie protégeant le palais et perd toute sa magie ; elle devient vieille, montrant son age véritable, et passablement gaga. Sophie la prend en pitié et l'emmène habiter avec elle chez Howl. Howl est tombé amoureux de Sophie (il a d'ailleurs remarque que lorsqu'elle dort ou exprime ses sentiments, elle redevient temporairement jeune) et redécore le château par magie pour donner davantage de place à ses nouveaux habitants. Il se confie aussi à Sophie qui apprend qu'il a perdu son âme, volée par Calcifer, lorsqu'il était enfant, en échange d'une grande puissance magique. Lorsque la guerre se rapproche du château et menace de le détruire, Sophie évacue tout le monde, y compris Calcifer, ce qui provoque la destruction du château. La sorcière tente de s'emparer de l'âme de Howl en prenant Calcifer pour la garder pour elle, mais Sophie réussit à rendre son âme à Howl et à libérer Calcifer du contrat qui le liait au sorcier.

Je croyais que Chihiro était passablement délirant, mais ce film là est encore pire. Le seul vrai reproche que je lui ferai c'est le scénario trop touffu et le manque d'explications par endroit, qui fait nettement ressentir qu'il s'agit d'une adaptation d'une ½uvre beaucoup plus complexe (un roman de Diana Wynne Jones). Le pire est probablement l'épouvantail qui, d'un baiser de Sophie, se transforme en Prince Charmant et annonce qu'il est justement le Prince du pays voisin et qu'il va rentrer chez lui pour arrêter la guerre. Ça tombe vraiment comme un cheveu sur la soupe.

“dark in colour, full of body with a smooth velvet finish”

Smells like beef stock an metal, tastes bitter like a Guinness, and reminds me very vaguely of coffee. Made of malted barley and wheat.

Daleside Brewery Ltd., Harrogate, Yorkshire, England. 4.4% alcohol.

© Imdb.com

A truck containing an unknown toxic explodes on the motorway, killing numerous people from an unknown disease. Faye, hunting another pery, manages to catch a glimpse from the driver of the truck, who then disapears mysteriously. Later, her and Spike learn that the driver is worth a huge bounty. Spike and Fay investigate separately. Spike discovers that the mysterious disease is actually caused by a bioweapon made of nanomachines hidden in lymphocyts. The bioweapon is secretely manufactured by a pharmaceutical lab which tries to hide the existence of the weapon and its vaccine. Meanwhile, Faye manages to find the lair of the mysterious truck driver, but she's made prisoner by him. Helped by Electra, a security agent from the pharmaceutical laboratory who has learned too much about it employer and has been disavowed. They are thrown in a cell, but manage to escape and take with them numerous doses of vaccine that they are going to spread over the city on Halloween night, which is the time and place chosen by the truck driver to contaminate all the inhabitants. His plan fails, and he is confronted by Spike. He then tells Spike that he was a soldier sent to Titan as a guinea pig to test the bioweapon. He was the only survivor, and he's very angry about the whole world. Spike defeats him, and everything ends well, more or less.

“floral ale brewed with a blend of three English hops…”

Just another ale, not very bitter. Made of malted barly and wheat.

Daleside Brewery Ltd., Harrogate, Yorkshire, England. 4.5% alcohol.

Profiling results for the blog engine (main page):

Total Elapsed Time =     3.74 Seconds
         User Time =     2.99 Seconds
Exclusive Times
 %Time ExclSec CumulS  #Calls sec/call Csec/c Name
  26.0   0.780 0.780     253   0.0031 0.0031 textrite::rite
  18.0   0.540 0.800     876   0.0006 0.0009 interpolate_fancy::__ANON__
  9.03   0.270 2.540       1   0.2700 2.5400 blosxom::generate
  7.02   0.210 0.260    1911   0.0001 0.0001 interpolate_fancy::_resolve_nested
  3.68   0.110 0.110    3663   0.0000 0.0000 IO::File::open
  2.34   0.070 0.160      11   0.0064 0.0145 blosxom::BEGIN
  2.34   0.070 0.070   11867   0.0000 0.0000 UNIVERSAL::can
  2.34   0.070 0.140     741   0.0001 0.0002 lang::__ANON__
  2.34   0.070 0.290     253   0.0003 0.0011 writeback::story
  1.67   0.050 0.070     253   0.0002 0.0003 magiclink::story
  1.34   0.040 0.070       9   0.0044 0.0078 CGI::import
  1.34   0.040 0.040     254   0.0002 0.0002 writeback::real_path
  1.34   0.040 0.040     253   0.0002 0.0002 translate::story
  1.00   0.030 0.030    1052   0.0000 0.0000 UNIVERSAL::isa
  1.00   0.030 0.080       8   0.0037 0.0100 writeback::BEGIN

That's what you get when you abuse of Perl regexp. Maybe caching of the HTMLized stories would help a bit?

I installed yesterday Firefox 2.0.0 on my desktop computer, which is a silent, low consumption computer based on a Via C3 processor (1GHz, 256 MB RAM). Guess what? When scrolling down a long page (the main page of this blog), Firefox was slower than Mozilla 1.7.5 which I have used for years. Mozilla was scrolling down more or less smoothly, using up to 70% of the CPU time, whereas Firefox was not smooth at all, using 100% of the CPU most of the time. Firefox maybe an advanced browser, but definitely not a lightweight one whatever some people may claim. I think I'll stick to plain old Mozilla for still some time.

Français

• Maman lapin peut pi pas faire dodo = Maman Lapin ne peut pas faire dodo

Suomi

• minä pelästyttää = minä pelkään
• jälkiluoka läätelö (meillä ei syödä jäätelöä koko aijan!)
• sitä tulee minulla villasukat
• tämä menee vasempaan ja tämä menee oikeanpaan
• Emma tutkii ruispalan ulkopintaa: “Tässä taatsessa on tämmöseitä jauhetta”

J'ai un gros rhume depuis jeudi dernier, et depuis quelques jours je n'ai plus d'odorat (ça s'appelle anosmie, un mot à retenir pour briller dans les salons où l'on cause). Le résultat, c'est que plus rien n'a de goût : le jus d'orange ressemble à de l'eau acide et vaguement sucrée, les tartines sont fades, le saucisson est simplement salé. J'ai même accepté de manger de la soupe ce soir, c'est dire ! Jusqu'à hier, j'aurais pu penser que la perte d'odorat était due au nez bouché, mais depuis aujourd'hui je peux respirer à peu près librement par le nez, et l'anosmie persiste. Même la rétro-olfaction ne fonctionne pas, sauf à me moucher très fort, et encore les odeurs perçues sont faibles (je suppose que la pression de l'air sur la paroi du nez a à voir avec l'odorat).

© QuizFarm.com

You scored as Carrot Ironfounderson. You are Captain Carrot Ironfounderson of the City Watch in the greatest city on the Disc: Ankh-Morprok! A truly good natured, honest guy, who knows everyone, and is liked by all. Technically a dwarf, but only by adoption. You'd rather not be reminded that you are the true heir to the throne, but that does explain why people naturally follow your orders…

• Carrot Ironfounderson: 50%
• Gytha (Nanny) Ogg: 50%
• Esmerelda (Granny) Weatherwax: 38%
• The Librarian: 38%
• Lord Havelock Vetinari: 38%
• Cohen The Barbarian: 25%
• Commander Samuel Vimes: 25%
• Death: 19%
• Rincewind: 13%
• Greebo: 13%

Thank you Samuel

“… a unique blend of pale, crystal, brown and chocolate malts. These malts give the beer a wonderful chocolatey flavour, while the Fuggle hops ensure that the beer has a smooth finish, making London Porter a perfect accompaniment to a chocolate pudding or on its own as an after-dinner drink.”

The smell reminds me a bit of coffee, as well as some kind of ham which is coated with spices or something like that before cooking. The taste is a bit sweet and slightly bitter. With imagination, it can taste like chocolate, too. Made of malted barley.

Fuller, Smith & Turner, London, England. 5.4% alcohol.

“…first brewed in 1995 to commemorate the 150th anniversary of Fuller, Smith and Turner.

Bottle conditioning, where a small amount of yeast is allowed to ferment gently in the bottle, gives 1845 the fresh, natural flavour of real ale. A blend of amber malt and Golding hops result in a fruit cake aroma, full bodied malt and dry hoppy finish.”

Sweet, with a strong taste of I'm-not-sure-what-exactly, and only slightly bitter. Made of malted barley.

Fuller, Smith & Turner, London, England. 6.3% alcohol.

“Ruddles County is famed for its dry, bitter flavour, which comes from using the rare Bramling Cross hops. Many liken the flavour to burnt toffee and caramel… Ruddles County has a light aroma of soft fruits and hops, and is a deep brown colour with warm, reddish tones.”

It actually smells a bit like burnt toffee, but I don't recognise fruits in the taste. The aftertaste, however, is very bitter. Made of malted barley.

Ruddles Brewing, Bury St. Edmunds, Suffolk, England. 4.7% alcohol.

I found a nerd test on Tinou's blog, so of course, I had to take it. Looks like I'm quite a nerd…

Damn, they had a geek test on the same page, so of course, I had to take it too.

Wez Furlong suggests to use RBL to reject blog spam.

I submitted my collection of spam to Spamhaus's Zen service, but only 40% of my spammer's IP addresses were recognized. Checking for the existence of the URLs in these spams takes much more time, since most of them don't exist anymore and you waste time waiting for DNS to timeout. Testing with the last 40 ones didn't return any match, maybe they are too recent to be already in the RBL.

Stéphane, auteur du blog Teamasters, a récemment acquis une théière en argent massif. Au vu de nombreuses personnes dubitatives quant à l'intérêt réel d'une théière de ce type, il a étudié le refroidissement de l'eau que l'on verse dans la théière, comparant argent, terre cuite et porcelaine. J'ai tenté aujourd'hui de reproduire l'expérience. Comme je n'ai pas de théière en argent (je ne suis pas encore fanatique à ce point), j'ai utilisé un gobelet en argent massif, un gaiwan blanc en porcelaine et un récipient gradué en inox. Les mesures sont faites sans couvercle.

Conditions initiales

• température de la pièce (et donc des récipents) : 22 °C
• température de l'eau au sortir de la bouilloire : 98 °C
• volume d'eau : 1 dL

Résultats

Pour chaque récipient, on donne le matériau dans lequel il est fabriqué, la masse du-dit récipient, la chaleur massique du matériau, puis la température de l'eau au bout de 10 secondes, une minute et cinq minutes.

Discussion

Le thermomètre utilisé refroidit assez vite, mais se réchauffe plus lentement. Obtenir une mesure précise à 10 secondes est plutôt hasardeux s'il est plus froid que l'eau que l'on verse. J'ai donc décidé de le réchauffer dans la bouilloire (ce qui permet aussi de prendre la températude de l'eau « bouillante »), de le transférer rapidement dans le récipient, puis de verser l'eau par dessus. Par ailleurs, dix secondes est un laps de temps très proche de celui nécessaire au versement de l'eau, donc l'instant zéro est plutôt mal défini (sans compter que je n'ai que deux mains, donc tenir la bouilloire, le thermomètre et lancer le chronomètre en même temps est difficile).

On voit cependant dans les chiffres que l'acier inoxydable semble être un meilleur matériau que l'argent, mais la diffrérence importante de masse entre les deux récipients rend la comparaison assez difficile, étant donné qu'il faut aussi estimer la vitesse du transfert de chaleur entre l'eau et les différents matériaux, qui dépend des matériaux et de la surface d'échange entre eux. De plus, les récipients ayant des tailles différentes, il y a pour chacun une partie qui n'est pas en contact avec l'eau, mais qui va aussi absorber de la chaleur par conduction thermique, la vitesse d'absorption dépendant alors entre autres de l'épaisseur de la paroi du récipient.

Cela dit, si la chaleur massique du matériau est effectivemnt la clé du problème du refroidissement de l'eau dans la théière, alors une théière en or massif serait encore mieux adaptée, puisque sa chaleur massique est environ moitié de celle de l'argent. Elle serait en revanche extrêmement sensible aux chocs…

Sources

Chaleur massique: http://www.alyon.org/InfosTechniques/chimie/chaleur_massique_diverses_substances.html, pedagogie.ac-toulouse.fr/biotech-sante-envir/STHE_Equipements_partie_1.pdf page 14.

The first sip tastes like fresh bread. It has a sweet taste and the flavour reminds me a little bit of beef broth. Made of malted barley, wheat and maize.

Newcastle Federation Breweries Ltd, Dunston, England.

In the kitchen next to my office, there is a giant flatscreen TV. Below it, there is the TV's cardboard box, throwing to my unconsenting eyes cool new technology acronyms such as 40 LCD, HD Ready, HDMI, Dolby Surround and BBE Digital.

I wonder if other people are as offended as I am by the advertisement of consumer-alienation technologies as above. Then I decided to design my own set of cool acronyms to add to these devices. It could be something like Enhanced EPC (Electrical Power Consumption), AO (Already Obsolete) Ready, UYA (Up Your Ass) Connector, RCR (Restricted Consumer Rights) Technology, PPP (Pay! Pay! Pay!) Enabled. I'm pretty sure I could sell stuff bearing these.

Acronyms are so cool.