Craig Sawyers

Have a great one Laura!

Is that another David Cameron initiation ritual?

That's a place called Port Isaac in Cornwall UK. Have holidayed there several times way back when our children were small (so maybe 25 years ago). Famous for being the setting for the sitcom Doc Martin, with Martin Clunes (created by Dominic Minghella, brother of the more famous the late Anthony). Also the place that has been major league flooded when apocalyptic rain put surges down the two valleys you can see, and prone to big seas too.

At least George Martin was 90 - so not a bad innings at all.

RIP Sir George Martin, record producer - the "fifth Beatle" http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-35761464

Happy birthday - have a great one!

Fingers firmly crossed for you! Dr Edipis sounds even more evil. Mwah ha ha.

And a rotten way to go - bloody cancer.

You have to be pretty determined to eavesdrop on emails in transit - Snowden blew the whistle on government-sponsored programmes to do this, but it is hard to do so. With Mouser, transactions are done via https, where public-key encryption is used to secure sensitive data. The likely routes are: 1. A member of staff at Mouser selling information 2. A hack of Mouser's computer system 3. A trojan on the local machine sending sensitive information to hackers 4. An unsecured port on the local machine that is open. 3 is unlikely because up to date virus software - which we all have, right? Port security can be checked by going to https://www.grc.com/intro.htm and running shields up to probe to first 1024 ports.

I shudder to think how they datamined the order number. Either Mouser has a massive leak, or what else?

Depends on the size of your ears

Here in tiny island Britain, this was a scary time. Very locally we had an airforce base called Greenham Common, where nuclear tipped cruise missiles were stored, as part of an agreement between Thatcher and Reagan. In the heat of the cold war (ie early 80s), launcher trucks with these on board were driven around the lanes locally to provide a moving target. All part of the Thatcher-Reagan era. There was a permanent Peace Camp there, staffed uniquely by women for decades. In US terms this is the equivalent of driving nuclear weapons around a thirty mile radius of, say Boston. If Boston was a few hundred miles from the USSR. Back in the real world, Greenham Common is a business incubator. But close (in UK terms, within 30 miles) to Greenham Common, near Reading, is AWRE - the Atomic Weapons Research Establishment. Plus ca change etc.

I'd forgotten that there was a kit. I've bought things from these guys before - and they are very cheap and exceptionally high quality. Multilayer 4 oz copper is kind of standard. And they do the lowest noise variant of the Jung super-regulators.

A DC offset on the mains can cause hum. Usually caused by a local industry pulling power out on half cycles, so either the top or the bottom of the mains waveform is flattened (but not both, or not equally). What happens is that the effective DC offset biasses the core of the transformer, and you hear harmonic distortion through magnetostriction in the core. There is a good article, and method to remove it here http://sound.westhost.com/articles/xfmr-dc.htm Basically two big electrolytics in opposed series, or back to back parallel, with diode clamps across them. In series with the live power. Worth a bash since some have silent transformers and others don't, which could well come down to local variation of mains quality.

Well the hum thing is pretty disappointing. Every transformer that Paul has wound for me is as silent as the grave - including the T2 ones. When he was head designer for Avel Lindberg in the 1980's through to mid 1990s he designed transformers for Krell and umpteen other high end and pro audio companies. If you are getting hum, seriously please take it up with Paul - he will be more than keen to sort it out. I'll mail him and let him know that there is a problem in advance.

Woah - apologies for the lateness - I was away celebrating my own birthday Nate - hope you had a great one!

A good mate called Bob Wightman, that I've done a lot of running with on the fells, did a lot of major league climbing when younger. Have a look at the picture galleries here http://bobwightman.co.uk/climb/climbing_gallery.php I was one of his pacers on his successful Bob Graham Round (67 miles and 29,000 feet of ascent in less than 24 hours) in 2005.

Ironically Frank Kelley died on the same day as Dermot Morgan (the guy who played Father Ted) 18 years ago. At least Kelley got to 77; Morgan died suddenly at age 45, which was what finished off the immensely enjoyable sitcom. Feck! Arse! Drink! Women!

Yup. But do a google image search for extreme ironing - there is a whole (very strange) subculture out there.

Extreme ironing

Thanks everyone! We've been away walking in Wales (and boozing etc) to celebrate the next age milestone - 60. Pass the walking frame..... We got all four seasons in four days. Driving sleet at 2C, glorious sunshine at 13C, snowstorm at freezing. Every sort of clothing needed - full weatherproofs, walking poles and gaiters to shirt sleeves. Great fun.

It is always nice when a problem is found, particularly if it is straightforward. When I built mine ages ago the damned thing blew up big time - sparks even - as a result of fake sand Took out most of the heatsink mounted transistors in one fell swoop.

Have a great one Naaman!

Here's a different and no less scary set of views