STEAM Café ski run 1
At the STEAM café, we now have a Lego ski run. This is made from Lego, which forms the bulk of the model.
The actual ski run parts appears to be just plastic, however the rest is Lego, and is quite heavy, white to represent snow, and green represents grass or other plants.
I took this photo on the way to work, later in the day the model is now complete, so I will take and share a 2nd photo, and share here and on Mastodon.
One of the uses of this will be to demonstrate the relationships between friction and surfaces.
Tags
#Model,#Lego,#Skirun
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Why regime change is bad
The current situation in Iran seems almost like history is repeating. It is clear that there is an end game here, to remove the current Iranian regime, as with the ILLEGAL Iraq war in 2003 no actual plan to replace it with anything.
The USA, with help from the UK changed the regime in Iran before, setting off a chain of events, that has led to the current situation.
The west really can't be trusted, it has caused chaos in Afghanistan, the UK's actions led to the situation in Israel / Gaza / West bank.
This is what happens when the WEST, who think they know best, interfere with things and then walk away when the going gets tough. The UK is under a delusion it is the best in the world.
I have highlighted this article before
Time for a new strategy, KEEP OUT OF OTHER PEOPLES AFFAIRS.
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STEAM Bots
At the STEAM café, there is another project on the go, we are looking at doing STEAM bots, these are robots built with Lego and Lego Mindstorms. However, as part of this, there is a plan for people to build their own and take on friends.
We have obtained proper arena for this as used on a UK tour a few years ago. So this is purpose built.
More details will come soon, so it is best to talk to the Mike at STEAM for more details.
In the meantime, the STEAM team are busy checking the pre-built robots over, replacing parts and checking everything works.
Tags
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LaTeX updated
Just linking to the latest LaTeX newsletter
Writing
Tags
#TeXLive,#LaTeX,#Release,#Writing,#CTAN,#ProjectUpdate
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Understanding the Atmospheric Effects of Spacecraft Re-entry
This was posted to the Fediverse. The original post from COSPAR, The Committee on Space Research (COSPAR): can be found here
This is an upcoming workshop looking at the environmental impact of spacecraft reentry in to the Earths Atmosphere.
This workshop will address the impact of spacecraft re-entry on the atmosphere. The aim is to bring together atmospheric chemists and physicists, material experts, the space industry, and international space research related organizations to highlight the gaps in our understanding of the modelling and how we can improve testing to obtain relevant data and suggest appropriate mitigation and regulatory measures.
This sounds like a fascinating area of research and discussion, as any exploration of space needs to take into account any environmental impacts.
Understanding the Atmospheric Effects of Spacecraft Re-entry (10-11 January 2024): Overview · Indico at ESA / ESTEC
Workshop information
It will be interesting to learn about the findings and conclusions from this, as it will open up further discussion on the topic(s) raised.
Update June 25
Links
Tags
#Space,#Conference,#SpaceCraft,,#Reentry,#Atmosphere,#Science,#Satellite
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Collapse of key Atlantic current
So, further to my previous post on this topic, Professor Stefan Rahmstorf has written an article for Livescience suggesting that the collapse is no longer a low probability. You can read the article here
Take from this what you want, but it is imperative do something, the recent floods in Valancia Spain highlight extreme weather.
Update
Terms
Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation (AMOC),
TAGS
#Science,#Climate,#AMOC,#Atlantic,#Currents,#AtlanticCurrent,#Collapse,#ClimateSciance,#ScienceandTechnology #ClimateChange #EarthSciences #AcademicResearch #EnvironmentalImpact #JanoGibson
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Logging the weather
I have modified the script that runs every 10 minutes to record the output from the ansiweather utility, This still saves the output to a file but adds the current date to the file name.
now=$(date +"%m_%d_%Y")
echo "Filename : /nas/backup_$weather.csv"
echo $(date "+ %D, %T"), $(ansiweather -l Paignton -a false) >> weather_$now.csv
So the output looks like
Humidity: 71% - Pressure: 1023 hPa
06/09/25, 14:20:01, Weather in Paignton: 18 °C - UVI: 7.03 - Wind: 1.79 m/s WSW - Humidity: 69% - Pressure: 1024 hPa
06/09/25, 14:30:01, Weather in Paignton: 18 °C - UVI: 7.03 - Wind: 2.24 m/s SW - Humidity: 70% - Pressure: 1023 hPa
06/09/25, 14:40:01, Weather in Paignton: 18 °C - UVI: 7.03 - Wind: 3.13 m/s W - Humidity: 69% - Pressure: 1023 hPa
06/09/25, 14:50:01, Weather in Paignton: 18 °C - UVI: 7.03 - Wind: 1.79 m/s SW - Humidity: 69% - Pressure: 1023 hPa
06/09/25, 15:00:01, Weather in Paignton: 18 °C - UVI: 7.03 - Wind: 1.79 m/s WSW - Humidity: 71% - Pressure: 1023 hPa
06/09/25, 15:10:01, Weather in Paignton: 18 °C - UVI: 7.03 - Wind: 1.34 m/s SSW - Humidity: 71% - Pressure: 1024 hPa
As this runs on a headless pi4, I can login and copy the data files locally before uploading to my gopherspace (Look it up)
gopher://vern.cc/1/~zleap
Tags
#Bash,#BashScripting,#Data,#Logging,#Gopher,#RaspberryPi,
#Weather
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MS Windows – End of Life support
October 14, 2025, sees the End of support for Windows 10.
This leaves users with Several choices
Upgrade to Windows 11 on current hardware. This may or may not work and will only work if your current hardware meets with Windows 11 requirements.
Option 1, Replace Windows with something Like Linux Mint, you can keep working, use Firefox, LibreOffice, cloud services e.g. Nextcloud (even Windows drive) etc.
Option 2. Keep using Windows 10 without support, updates etc
Option 3. buy new hardware just so you can run Windows 11.
Linux Mint is Free (as in freedom) software, but does have some closed source components to make things work, this is fine, at least from my view point as most users, just want things to work out of the box.
There is an active support community on the Open Communications platform Matrix [3].
Links
- MS WIndows End of Life
- LinuxMint
- Matrix
- End of 10 – get help with installing a Linux distro
- Article on The Register
- End of 10: The Open Source alternative to forced obsolescence
- KDE for Windows 10 Exiles
Tags
#MSWindows,'#EndofLife,#Linux,#LinuxMint,#FreeSoftware,
#NextCloud,#Cloud,#EndOf10
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Mission Libre
I am supporting this initiative so making this post to promote
We're Mission:Libre, a new project for teens that love free software!
We aim to get teens excited about software freedom and help them learn skills they'll need as they become tomorrow's free software contributors and activists.
We'll be spreading the word about free software to young people, building supportive communities where teens can explore technology with others, helping young people defend their right to use free software and encouraging them to take their interests further in higher education.
Updates
30/5/2025
Petition to ask Qualcom to release full free software drivers for wifi hardware, visit
Links
Tags
#Education,#Teens,#FreeSoftware,#Freedom,#Software,
#Use,#Modify,#Share,#Study
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