Airfoil rocks my world
Ok.
So, I don't often post about techical things. Not really. I love my mac and all things mac and occaisonally wish I knew more about them than I do. I'm more of a geek-wannabe than a true geek, which is a sad admission.
However.
I have a 15 inch G4 Powerbook. I run Tiger. I have equipped myself with airport extreme and I use airtunes, which is great fun. It has often occured to me that I would very much like to transmit other sounds from my laptop to my airtunes speakers. DVD sound not least, but also online radio and schtuff.
Enter, to triumphant fanfare,
Airfoil . Hahaha, I laugh, it does everything I want it to and very, very easily. At a mere £18 ($25) it seems a bargain to me. It will happily play all system sound on remote speakers, so that you can annoy your neighbours with all your beeps and whistles, or will "hijack" sounds from any specific application and play that exclusively. This means it can, if you have multiple remote speakers, play different things in different rooms. Hoorah.
Now, I had a brief panic a moment ago, because playing anything on airtunes involves a delay between transmission and playback, due to encryption or somesuch malarky. This means that when you play a dvd, the sound lags behind the video, by a good 5 seconds. Which is crap and annoying. There are, however, ways to fix this, and patient tinkering with
these instructions (and a download of the latest version of
VLC ) has made it work like a dream.
Joy joy joy. Lots of sounds.
Hail Eris
Today, oh avid readers, I present myself hungover.
I guess it's down to my rapidly decelerating metabolism, but my hangovers are becoming increasingly disproportionate in their severity. In all honesty, do I deserve to feel this pants just because I spent some time with a chum, drinking beer and trying to explain (patiently) that maybe he needs a hobby and that no, insisting that every woman he sees wants to sleep with him is not a hobby, it's the horn? I suggested he try stamp collecting instead.
Anyway.
So I just went to get lunch. I ordered a large capuccino. I was handed a large moccha. I don't like mochha very much (hot chocolate or coffee, make a cocking choice) but couldn't be arsed to complain, especially since the man had spent so long preparing the quantum beverage. I wandered back to work thinking about how I was going to post about how I wanted a capuccino and got a mocha and about how that seemed to be fairly indicative of how today is destined to proceed. It was going to begin, "so, it's one of those days...".
It is with great surprise, then, that I can now report that the accidental mocha was perhaps the best accident ever. Ye gods of the stochastic process, oh great oxymorons, I salute you. I would prostrate myself before you but I'd never get up again. I feel invigorated by the caffeine, calmed by the chocolate and pleasantly soothed by the whole experience. Hoorah.
So, I'm no longer sure what sort of a day it is, but it's one where I didn't get the coffee I wanted only to have my accidental coffee far surpass what I was dissapointed to be missing.
You know, one of those days...
Snow on the tracks.
Hello everyone.
It's 9.39 in the morning.
I have paid the electricity bill.
The sheriff's office is calm and I'm getting forms from the council.
That's two things sorted.
So preoccupied with money was I yesterday, however, that I neglected to mention that the face-eating bacterium is attempting a resurgence. Great.
Two down, one more to deal with.
Ah well. Let's just hope that light at the end of the tunnel ain't no choo-choo.
Things which suck...
1. The local council don't believe that me and my flatmate are students and have enlisted the help of the sheriff (yes, the sheriff) to send us threatening letters about sending men round to take stuff. £1,157.
2. Scottish Power are instigating legal proceedings against us for an unpaid bill. £217
3. The university is making unhappy noises about moneys they think I owe them and over which I suspect we are about to fall out. £756
4. I have nowhere to live next year yet. The place I want to live in, which is an amazingly cheap and lovely cottage for one person, is unlikely to be available for 6 months after I want it.
Ah well. Family Guy's on TV in a second.
Run away. Run fast.
Busily putting abstracts together for a conference in June, got to submit them today. My supervisor looked them over yesterday and seems to think they're alrighty. One poster (fine fine) and one talk (scary-pants-bejesus).
I mean, I have to give a talk to the department once a year and I get worked up enough about that (although actually quite enjoyed last years'). Standing up in front of the luminaries of the Human Behaviour and Evolution Society. Meh. It scares me. The idea that most people I'll be referencing will actually be in the audience. I mean, holy crapsticks.
So, London was great fun. Apart from the funeral, and the infection in my face that turned out to be 'staph'. Never get staph, it is no fun. Basically, bacteria that happily lives on your skin, doing fuck all gets under your skin and gets really goddamn angry. Bits of your face start to come off and go sort of red and... crusty.
Which is nice.
Common in children, the doctor told me, and can appear in the beard of men. Great. Anyway, a quick course of penicillin and I'm all better. Beautiful again.
Anyway, enough of that. Funeral, yes. Sad event. Rest of London sojourn very nice. I've decided I really miss London now. I've been away for just too long. Boo. Stuck in Scotland where it is cold and grey.
Ah well. Only a year and a half to go.
In other news, did anyone else know that there are
social spiders? Eusocial insects, I knew about. The hymenoptera and all that; ants, termites blah. Fascinating things as well. I've often said that if I didn't do people, I'd do social insects. Hmm. Anyway. SOCIAL SPIDERS? Hello? Who's crazy idea was that? They weave massive great hammock-style webs in the rainforest that can, apparently, last upwards of a year. They sit on their webs and pulse around, scuttling about in sort of synchronous movement. They pounce, as one, on anything that lands in their web and carry it off. They. Are. Repulsive.
I think I'm becoming more arachnophobic as I age. I saw the social bastards on the tv last night. After they'd made my skin crawl, they showed me an orb spider. A female orb spider (more than 100 x bigger than a male). Huge. Nightmarish. I was transfixed. I also went foetal. And then I started to cry a little.
I was gonna put pictures of the relevant arachnids in this post, but the process of searching for images got too stressful.
Help me.
Fun with science
Hello. I'm at home in London at the moment, thrilling over the mild staph infection in my face. Yey. More shall follow on my activities down here.
In the mean time. Fancy helping a guy out?
I've got a new experiment up and running. Clicky
here and rate some personal statements for me. G'wan.
Please?
