Author Archive

LeJOS PIDController not working, output is zero

Wednesday, June 5th, 2013

This problem had me baffled for more than a few minutes: I wrote a leJOS PIDController loop for a LEGO NXT project that used one motor's rotation encoder as the input to control another motor's set point. It didn't work: the output from the PIDController's doPID(int) was reliably zero. My ...

Save on winter heating with cheap DIY four poster.

Monday, December 31st, 2012

[caption id="attachment_1508" align="alignright" width="293"] With the sides knotted up during the day[/caption] I'm not keen on central heating but I don't like feeling cold in bed. The house we're currently renting never seems to get very warm: turning up the heating seems only to increase the bills and the 'musty old ...

London most polluted capital in EU. 1952 Great Smog. A child dies.

Wednesday, December 5th, 2012

I was surprised to see in an article at the BBC today that London has the worst air pollution in the EU. I remember working in the Square Mile in the mid 80s and having permanently black bogies and a sore throat which only abated when I went on holiday. ...

Twitter status search / retweet with twitter4j at movethefuckon.org

Thursday, November 29th, 2012

Just a quickie - I spotted a recurring comment on the web, usually shortly after someone expressed upset at some past event (I think the recent examples were outrage that Mitt Romney lost the US presidential election and / or that Obama won). Readers were apparently convinced that sufficient time ...

Vodafone topup, html character entity problem, proxy error

Monday, November 19th, 2012

What do you do when you can't communicate with a web-based organisation using their own 'Contact Us' method? It's frustrating, so I'm going to copy this here. I've just topped up my prepaid mobile phone using a debit card on Vodafone's website. I got a confirmation text saying Thank you for ...