f-log

Maybe I should mentioned that one of the screws in the rocket launcher is a rivet and I spent the most time carefully pulling the barrel apart very carefully.
Slow and steady one the race with the plastic bending rather than shattering and then going back quite nicely afterwards.
The screws them selves were VERY tough to turn, so may the toque be with you.

Servers were down at work so I offered to fix my colleagues USB rocket launcher.
At first I thought it was software so I tried Sharp Launcher but it had the same problem, would move but would not fire.
So I got permission to disassemble the unit looking for loose wires ( I had found one in a non-functioning Classic grey USB missile launchers and a quick solder had fixed it).
32 screws came out 27 went back in, but I did find the culprit, a mini motor deep in the firing mechanism (highlighted in last image).
A quick twiddle (technical term for twisting it for no good reason other than there was nothing else to try) and it was fixed. Surprisingly quick to put back together.

You may have seen the banner

that accompanies my flog postings, what you might not realise is that I created it sometime ago and the site currently receives an average of 600 unique IP hits a month.
(I was unaware of the statistics until) I got an odd email from the hosting company 1and1.co.uk who I had found very good.
The email noted I had received a £25 affiliate referral for a single order placed via the link at the bottom of the page!
So not only are 1and1 cheap, easy to use, have great online management and statistical tools but you can make money FROM them!

It is as badly put together as previous years but the yearly summary is ready and the archives have been updated.
/flog/archive.html
/flog/year2007.html
(mainly for my reference)

<rant>I got a few http://www.whsmith.co.uk/ vouchers for xmas and could not find anything I wanted, no DVDs and Mario Galaxy is not out yet.
Oh, and you can not use the vouchers on line even though they are in the form of magnetic card(i.e. unique ID).
But then I found " name a star "
Gift Pack Contents: Welcome letter, An explanation of the gift, Star naming instructions, Unique information about your star, A guide on how to locate your star, Star & astronomy booklet, Presentation certificate, Personalisation pen, Presented in a luxury metal gift tin.
So keeps referring to "your star" even though you never own it other than in this Gift Republic database.
Naming your star is easy; you can either complete the process online or fill in and return the lower section of your Star Registration Form. You are required to enter your star name, your contact and delivery details. This is then entered into the Star Registry and you are sent a certificate confirming your star registration. This information will then be periodically submitted to the British Library.
The "Star registry"! wow and the British library, sounds all official. Except the "Star registry" is not official and is only for Gift Republic's use. Oh and British library bit, all publications are held by the British library.
Your gift code expires 12 months after the date of purchase so you have 12 months in which to register your gift.
This is only hint that this item is a novelty item.
Only a small number of stars in our sky actually have names allocated to them; the majority are nameless and are distinguished by their catalogue number only.
And its going to stay that way, no astronoma wants to refer to "Aunt Bea's star".more
Thats the information on http://www.whsmith.co.uk/ but a bit of searching gets you the company behind this
http://www.giftrepublic.co.uk/Product.aspx?ProdID=STARGIFTPACK
This touching gift gives the recipient the opportunity to choose a name for one of these nameless stars. Once registered, their star name will be submitted to the British Library.
Translation: we will save your submitted name to our database and print a long list of its contents which periodically gets sent to the British library.
Only a small number of stars in our sky actually have names allocated to them; the majority are nameless and are distinguished by their catalogue number only.
And only International Astronomical Union has any official capacity to name them !
Your gift box contains the details of one of these unnamed stars that is ready for naming by you.
Translation: By unnamed we mean not saved in out personal database but could be named in any other database.
    * A touching gift idea 'a star named after you for eternity'
But only because the British library is keeping every publication as it is a Legal deposit library, they receive over 3 million publications a year.
FAQ's
Can I call my star anything I choose?
Yes, there are no restrictions with star name choice.
Translation: Our database can accept any characters you send us, [even SQL injections ?!]
So no where do they make clear this is Novelty item ONLY and not in ANY shape or form official.
SCAM SCAM SCAM!
I understand that some people if informed this was a novelty gift ONLY would not mind, but I am sure many many are disappointed that no stars are ever named after them.
http://www.wired.com/techbiz/media/news/2001/12/49345
http://www.iau.org/
http://www.iau.org/BUYING_STAR_NAMES.244.0.html
http://enzerink.net/peter/astronomy/starfaq/
Oh and hate to disappoint you but that moon and mars mineral rights certificate is worth less than the paper it was printed on.
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2006/12/08/nasa_real_estate/
The information in this article is presented so that the public will have the knowledge needed to make an informed choice. We have tried to present the facts clearly. Where we have presented our opinions about the facts, it should be clear that this is what we are doing. We've also tried to present a balanced view. The opinions expressed here are not necessarily those of our employers. We claim full protection under the First Amendment of the Constitution of the United States as we speak out about this practice. Read it at: http://lcweb2.loc.gov/const/bor.html
SCAM SCAM SCAM! </rant> WHSmith and Gift Republic are resitered trademarks of there respective owners. Quoted content was taken in part to highlight specific points and may not represent what is currently made available to public by the companies involved at the time Janurary 2008.

I may be failing to complete a few other tasks, but flog now has <<<< previous and >>>> next links on every page !
No small feat considering there is no database running flog just loads of static files.
I considered writing a perl or C# program to do the work but in the end it was a collecting of bash scripts that processed every flog page and added the links.
Now to do the archive, yearly summary, linux pub quiz 2 and normal flogging...

was going to note how my email trash folder had 101101 unread items but clicking on it downloaded another 8(8 auto trashed emails in 4 minutes).
Total Trash emails is 112593 with spam assassin claiming another 53677, unsurprisingly clicking on either folder locks kmail up or a few mins.
Time for a clear out me thinks.
I get about 150 emails a day that are not auto filtered either by my black lists or spam assassin but most end up in my "likely to be spam folder".

Happy new YEAR!
no blogging due to even more illness/nesses, none of them mine.
Still I got what I wanted for Christmas, just like the common Xmas carol goes "All I want for Christmas is light saber, light saber, light saber"
mmmm red
Plus various other stuff, but it all pales in comparison to a light saber I can finally call my own.
Many have questioned the practicality of owning a light saber, even a red one, but what do they know !?
http://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=lightsaber+replica&search=Search