No more knots

The Secret Laboratory is not just about invention - it's about learning too. The Secret Laboratory is happy to share learning.

Did you know that there is a strict definition that distinguishes a knot from a tangle? There are computer programs out there that can analyse random tosses of string (Grannies) and declare whether or not a knot is present. Just for the record, if you can fix both ends of the string, rope, cable, whatever, and still untangle the mess between, no knot was present, howsoever convoluted and difficult to sort out. The famous disappearing knot is not a knot at all.

When it comes to knots, I'm a minimalist. I know about seven knots (reef, sheet bend, fisherman's, double fisherman's, bowline, half hitch, alan) and these are great for most purposes. I know when and where to use them. I don't need or wish to learn the other few hundred variants on the theme. It's not for nothing I was never a Boy Scout, although I did accidentally become a First Biddulph Brownie Guide when I gave my vows to a Snowy Owl I got drunk with in Switzerland 28 years ago. I thought she was joking. Apparently not, as I discovered at breakfast next morning. No way back. Take the vows, do the time...

Am I rambling? Sorry, I intended to discuss my new knotless existence. Knots are weak, they lead to weaknesses in the rope (as illustrated by the break-knot, a knot that allows you to break any rope by the power of subsequently broken fingers alone). You need to leave knots behind and work with the very structure of rope by splicing.

I had always thought of splicing as some kind of ancient maritime excuse for not joining the Scouts (or the Brownies) and avoiding the task of learning hundreds of different kinds of knot. How wrong can one be? Now I will never use a knot where a splice will suffice.

Gaze upon this wonder:

Just an eye-splice on a three strand rope, my first attempt. Isn't it beautiful? These are the people who took me there.

WizzPod results

As promised, WizzPod was taken to the Acoustic Roots music festival at Linton. The trial was abandoned when it was discovered that the ground was too hard even for the stiff beer-line to penetrate.

Instead of plastic beer-line, WizzPod Mk II will be fitted with a metal pipe to facilitate insertion even in the most challenging of subterranean environments.

Watch this space!

WizzPod

Festival season being in full flow here in the Three Counties, my accomplice (Agent S) and I decided to turn the resources of the Secret Laboratory to the solution of an age-old festival problem:

You know how it is. You've had a great day listening to the music and quaffing the real ales and ciders. You've barbecued everything you managed to find in the cool bag and you've jammed until the wee hours around the illicit camp fire. At long last, it's time to hit the tent. Safe in your sleeping bag, it's not long before you hear the nearby sound of some poor soul answering the call of nature. It begins with a drawn-out, mournful Zzzzzzzip sound as a tent is prepared for exit. Scuffling sounds, then muffled thuds as the hapless tenant staggers towards an unforseen nettle patch or worse. You know that before dawn it will be your turn...

Unless, of course, you are the proud owner of a WizzPod, the Secret Laboratory's two-fingered flick in the face of Nature's call!



How does it work? The role of the funnel is obvious and should not require explanation. Suffice it to say that it is gender unspecific and both myself and Agent S anticipate no particular difficulties in use. The tube below the funnel is a section of beer line (that's right, the same kind of line used in pubs to connect the cellar to the serving area - kind of ironic, really). The beer line is stiff enough to be inserted into the ground within the privacy of the porch area of the tent. Holes drilled in the lower half of the beer line provide a soak-away feature well below the level of the pitch.



Above, note the holes drilled in the beer line, the sharp angle of the tip to facilitate insertion into the ground and the plug to prevent blocking of the line during insertion.

Agent S and I will be trialling the WizzPod at the Acoustic Roots festival this weekend - watch this space for results.

FAQ

Q. Why not call it the PeePod?
A. Loads of products out there called PeePod, not all to do with Pee.

Q. Why don't you take this to Dragon's Den?
A. Can you imagine their faces? Their withering comments? We invented the WizzPod in the interests of privacy and dignity, not National humiliation.

Q. How much can it hold?
A. We used a 12.5cm funnel. Given that volume V of a cone is 1/3 pi r^2 h, we find that our funnel holds about a pint - enough for most festival purposes, given that the soak-away tends to keep up anyway. Note: ground conditions and soil structure can affect performance of the soak-away.

Q. Can you poo in it?
A. No. There's a clue in the name.

Measure Twice, Cut Once...

Measure twice, cut once - great advice from my mate Rob. Great, that is, if you measure correctly on the two occasions in question. If you get it wrong twice then you're into the realm of contingency-driven lateral engineering (or bodging, as it was formerly known).

How is it possible, after months of planning and careful consideration, to cut holes in the wrong location on the smart housing one has selected for one's project? Some people have suggested that ale is to blame. I prefer to think that I am keeping in touch with my feminine side :-)

Anyway, once the holes were cut, it was easier (and less embarrassing) to re-design the innards of the thing to fit the holes rather than to move the holes to fit the innards. After all, who is ever going to challenge me to open it up and reveal the mess that lies within? It works, that's all that matters.

What are we talking about? Why, the Musician's Friend, the Universal Belt-Mounted Signal-Boosting Gadget Thingy. Here it is:

Based on the LM358 chip, this cute little fag-packet-sized device sits between your instrument and whatever lies beyond, be it a PA, a mixing desk or whatever, outputting a strong, clean signal. Just for fun, I built in Phantom Power as well, to satisfy those folks with quirky pickups (that's what the second switch is for).

Cost? Around £15 (plus a lot of swearing during construction).

Another one-off work of genius from the Secret Laboratory!

Moving on...

OK, so the quest for invisible white light ended when I discovered that human skin drinks IR. It didn't seem to matter how hot I drove the giant IR array, nothing bounced off my face unless I wore the special make-up. I'm fine, really. I can deal with failure. Don't mail me...
Moving on, what I want to talk about this evening is PE-HD (High Density Polyethylene to the uninitiated). What an amazing material! I can't believe that I've been consigning so many tons of it to recycle (Council euphemism for landfill) for so many years. I'll never throw a scrap away again, I promise!
So where do you get this wonderful material? For a ready supply, check your fridge. PE-HD is what your typical plastic milk cartons are made of. Next time you are about to throw away a plastic milk carton, try this instead: Wash it and cut out as many flat panels as you can. Now think what you can do with this stock. You can bend or fold it and it doesn't crack. You can cut or staple it and it doesn't tear. It doesn't like conventional "glues" but it is happy with double-sided adhesive tape and sticky fixers, etc.
What led me to this personal discovery was the need to devise a helmet-mounted harness for my mobile phone. I'm doing a sponsored abseil for the Severn Area Rescue Association this weekend and I thought it might be a good idea to grab some 3GP video on the way down. The milk-carton PE-HD was the perfect solution. It was so easy to make a stong and secure custom phone case with PE-HD and a few staples. It's everything Origami should have been but never was.
What can you do with yours?

The quest for Invisible White Light continues...

In a recent comment concerning this investigation, Dr. Alcock correctly pointed out that I was in need of some beer and a lie down. However, he later forwarded me a photograph of his own TV remote control taken with his camera phone, demonstrating (a) the variation in response of different imaging elements to invisible radiation, and (b) that Dr. Alcock himself was in need of some beer and a lie down.

As I had just completed repairs to my large array of IR LEDs (see last post), I decided to compare what my camera could see with what my phone could see.

Below: A photo of the array taken with my camera - green, as expected. Still not very bright though. It appears the green sensors are only marginally receptive to IR and the red and blue sensors scarcely at all.

Below: My phone appears highly sensitive to IR, the red and blue sensors more so than the green.

And they say the camera never lies...

Progress with Invisible White Light

The story so far...

I needed to get some measurements on the response of my camera to invisible light radiation. Here I took a photo of myself (in a mirror) illuminated by ultraviolet light. I could not actually see the light myself but the camera could, as you may see. If you grab a sample of my face and run it through a colour histogram tool (e.g. in PaintShop Pro) you will see that red and blue are very much in evidence and green scarcely at all (the tiny amount of green present is due to ambient light interference - I really should have done this experiment in the dark). So there you have it. That's what I call Ultra Magenta - the red and blue sensors in the imaging chip responding inappropriately but usefully to ultra violet light.

That's the red and blue sorted out. What about the green? That's where I need to infill with the infra red, which looks green to the camera.

I have tried but I cannot illuminate my face sufficiently using even a score of old TV remote control handsets. Here's the solution:

A large array of IR LEDs. Got to get it working first. Watch this space...