Mr Bear

If you mean the side nearest the sea then the bushes and hedges are trimmed, but the grass is allowed to grow wild at this time of year "meadow style" deliberately. I really like it. The natural growth is varied and interesting. Having been in the park today I'd say it's looking fine.

It wasn't actually in the script. He just shook his head.

I once offered Inspector Rebus a doobie. OK, it was a fake doobie and I was playing the part of a thug, but in the magic world of TV it did actually happen.

Hmm, something royal is going down right now. I just thought I'd get the thread started early. So is it the Queen or her hubby? Are we about to get a new king?

Hold on, I've got a set of Tarot cards here... Ilap:- As the darkness of the winter months lifts, the loneliness you have felt will diminish and you will feel a new zest for life with a greater appreciation of your independence and the simplicity and freedom it brings.

A friend had a job on a live Tarot reading line for a while. They had a big book of phrases like those above and if the person didn't ask anything specific they just read on from where they had left off as they worked through the book. If they asked a specific question they turned to the part of the book with that theme, chose a sentence and read it. I guess it will be a computer database now. Mystic Derek :- You are experiencing a time of financial difficulty, but you must not clutch at straws in the hope that fortune may come your way. You must accept the challenge that has been given and seek a means of honest income that serves both you and society.

Beware if you are going to Disneyland as Pluto is pulling out of Saturn's ring and is about to slam into Uranus.

Oh no! Spain said no. Just Spain. Who aren't exactly a shining pinnacle of excellence in Europe. If Scotland does go the independent route, I wonder if it will be real independence. Not Manx style independence where you have a pretend government while ramming your tongue so far up the English government's ass that it comes out red. (Yes, I'm being shamelessly provocative.)

Having recently had proper Poutine I thought that the cheese curds made it less enjoyable than the traditional chips, cheese and gravy sold on the IOM. The grated cheese has better texture and more flavour than the curds.

The bit about China is interesting. Any time I access a Chinese manufacturers website to download a datasheet it takes ages for the connection to be established and then ages to download it. And it's not surprising one of the largest bitcoin miners is in China, where the technology and manpower to build the mining system is cheaper than anywhere else.

Bitcoin is not "f*cked". It'll be about for the foreseeable future. What is interesting is that it is a pioneering digital currency showing what obstacles can occur. That report was written by a disgruntled individual who is probably feeling the pinch because he was trying to make a career in Bitcoin and hasn't got his way.

I'd like to suggest a new currency called dick-coin where you pay with sexual favours. I'm going to call it a nymphocurrency and it will use an online control system called cock-blocks.

I'd say it's got a long way to go to catch up with the American dollar.

Part of me actually wants to accept Bitcoin for my sales of electronic kits. Bit in the past its volatility made that a bit shady as the value could plummet below the cost of the materials. But it does seem to be getting stable now. However... In the future with massive processing power and the necessary knowledge it could surely be possible to clone existing bitcoins and effectively steal them?

We could call them Pinecoins. You'd buy them and then wonder what the f*** had happened to your money. And then when you REALLY wanted your money back they would sell some more to someone else to pay you. Bitcoin is interesting, but still too volatile to use to sell real goods. It's fine for the coffee shops since they make something like 1000% mark-up ion their materials negating the fluctuation to a degree, but for actual real goods like electronic stuff it's not so viable.

Having tested lots of protection circuits dedicated to the task of protecting lithium cells from over discharge, they often go down to around 2.7V before the protection kicks in, whereupon the voltage does float up to around 3V again. I guess that's the absolute lower limit.. They do all however stop more or less dead on the upper limit of 4.2V. Just an update, there are now high voltage lipo cells that top out at 4.35V per cell, Hyperion is one brand name. A HV cell charged to 4.2V is at around 80% of its capacity if it was fully charged to 4.35V. If you get any HV cells you need a charger to suit them, many lipo chargers won't put in more than 4.2 V per cell, There's a possibility that I may actually have one of the new high voltage LiPo's in my current phone. I actually think I'd rather just forego the extra capacity and just charge it to 4.2V, which if the same rules for ordinary LiPo cells apply will result in a much longer useful life for the cell.

Especially so if it's on fire. Under those circumstances one could only hope that someone was filming the incident for YouTube.

I think most people secretly want a go on one. In fact, on Xmas afternoon I almost expect the flat area of ground on Mooragh Promenade to have a few adults doing spectacular faceplants on it. Nobles will probably have to open a special department for hover-board injuries.

I actually want one. (to take to bits of course) but alas my larger than average size exceeds the weight limit of them. I'd probably need one for each foot. If anyone in Ramsey has a dubious one that Amazon has flippantly told you to "get rid of" then I'd be interested in getting hold of it to make a YouTube technical teardown video on to ascertain its electrical quality. Given how many of these have been sold, it's a bit tacky that Amazon have expected the buyers to dispose of the units themselves, especially as being crushed in a bin lorry could cause a fire in the lorry. The only way to properly dispose of these is to deliver them to a suitable recycling point for controlled disassembly. I get the feeling that what Amazon really meant was "Here's your money back, we suggest you get rid of the unit and that means we are now no longer liable for any injury caused when you decide to keep it."

If it was a large lithium backup pack for an industrial application then I'd definitely want to stop well short of the very lowest limit. I'd also want to stop short of the upper charge limit at about 4V to make the packs last longer at the expense of some of their capacity. It's worth mentioning that LiPo rechargeable cells don't actually contain any metallic lithium at all. Just lithium ions in various forms. The deliberate lithium explosions that are so popular on YouTube are caused by the sudden release of energy and the combustible nature of the electrolyte and its plastic separator/suspension film.

To be fair, that could be added to the list of roller-blades, skate boards, heelies, running shoes, high-heels, bicycles, tricycles and even Segways for "Things you can drive in front of a bus with.".

Having tested lots of protection circuits dedicated to the task of protecting lithium cells from over discharge, they often go down to around 2.7V before the protection kicks in, whereupon the voltage does float up to around 3V again. I guess that's the absolute lower limit.. They do all however stop more or less dead on the upper limit of 4.2V.

I see the press has moved into full-on hysteria frenzy mode about these modern toys, so I thought I'd just put in some technical input. If you have bought one then it's probably not going to explode. OK, it's not actually going to "hover" either, but that's a minor technicality. There are lots of kids buzzing around on these things and they are doing what they are supposed to do. The main problem with these seems to be regarding the charging circuitry for the lithium batteries that power it. This type of battery is very fussy about not being over-charged or over-discharged and if the charger tries to keep charging it then it will potentially fail and do so by suddenly dumping all its energy in a vigorous and very exciting manner involving flames. Keep in mind this is the battery that can power this toy for a modest distance with a human riding on it, so it has a fair amount of energy capacity. This is the same battery technology in your laptop, ipad, phone etc. In general it's a safe technology. With the huge surge of popularity of these devices it's inevitable that less capable Chinese manufacturers have jumped on the bandwagon and banged out cheap units faster than they can safely do, to cash in on the current high sales. The snag is, that you can't really tell which unit is a good one and which is a bad one unless you have the technical skills to do some visual and electrical tests on the circuitry, and even then you can't determine the quality of the battery itself. Another issue seems to be the supply of a mains plug with no fuse in it. It's worth checking to see if the supplied plug is a moulded type and has the facility for a fuse. There are some very minimalist unfused plugs supplied by dubious Chinese suppliers. So it all comes down to common sense. Never leave the unit unattended while it's charging, and always unplug it after it has charged. If possible charge it somewhere that its spontaneous combustion won't burn down your home, but also keep it out the rain. If something weird happens like smoke or bad electrical smells then immediately throw it outside into the garden.

So one of the most criminal organisations in the world, which puts its own wealth so far ahead of the people it was supposed to serve that it causes widespread death, exploitation and misery is being defrauded of money that it would pretty much have shovelled into its already bulging pockets? That makes me feel sad. (Not really)