Pulp Fiction

/ General

It was my Dad who first introduced me to Science Fiction, lending me books he had got from the library – in particular he introduced me to the likes of Robert Heinlein, Edgar Rice Boroughs and EE “Doc” Smith and I developed a taste for the big space opera and pulp fiction sci-fi story.

Today with the internet I consume vast amounts of material, listening to StarShipSofa and Escape Pod and reading stories from a large number of sites including Project Gutenberg where much of the 1930s and 1940s pulp fiction is ending up.

I was looking for a few cover images to add to my Calibre Library when I came across this site – http://www.philsp.com/ – all you ever wanted to know about Pulp Fiction Magazines including a vast collection of covers. Now when I was looking for a book I would always be attracted to book with the exciting laser beam weilding space suited hero and heroine rather then the series all yellow covered book – I know you shouldn’t judge a book by its cover – but that saying was only thought up by boring do gooders, give me crashing spaceships and dinosaurs any day.

Have a look on the site above there are some real classic covers.

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Caffé 19

/ Business / ,

I have been using a new cafe for business and staff meetings – Caffé 19. Good prices, plenty of choice (including a variety of all day breakfast options) and a warm welcome from the staff.

As the cafe is part of The Lincoln Golf Centre there is plenty of free parking – and it is well located for the A46 and the Lincoln bypass.

The only thing missing is wifi internet access – to solve that Octagon Technology is installing a wifi access point there next week. Buy a coffee (don’t be mean buy a cake or sandwich as well) and Sue, behind the bar, will give you the code.

If you go there mention this post to Sue.

Sorry it is now closed 🙁

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Great Web Page

/ General

Last night I watched a programme about the Drake Equation – a mathematical way to “estimate” the number of planets in the universe which may have life, capable of transmitting a radio signal we could receive here on Earth.

N=R*•fp•ne•fl•fi•fc•L             (source SETI Institute)

For more details look here or look on Wikipedia.

After the programme had finished, whilst looking on the internet for further reading on the Drake Equation I came across this page,

Astronomy Picture of the Day

Wow was what I thought – that day it was a panoramic composite shot, from the Phoenix Lander on Mars – go and look and see what is there today.

I added it to my browser bookmark bar and added it to the browser on my iPhone so I would remember to go and look at the next spectacular image.

 

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Camping Supplies

/ Walking / , ,

We went to Tesco at the weekend for the family shop but I also picked up some stores for the forth coming camping season.

Our favourite spice for camping is smoked sweet paprika – and it was get three for £1.20, a real bargain.

With pancake day coming up there was Betty Crocker Pancake Mix, just add water to the mix in the bottle and shake. It will be easy to make at camp, so the plan is to have bacon, pancakes and honey for breakfast at Easter.

We often use bread sauce as a starch with ham and tinned carrots or our favourite jarred petit pois and baby carrots. It is a useful way to use up milk and a very compact ingredient to have in the camp kitchen box so I bought two packets.

My son and I like to cook when camping, various meals from fresh ingredients, lots of chopping, adding of herbs and spices, and stirring, but sometimes we need quick and convenient, if the weather turns bad, we get back late or we just want quick! There are a good range of wet pack meals available from camping shops but they can be expensive. On a recommendation from the UKBushcraft forum we tried a Chicken Korma in a bag with a pack of micro wave rice all cooked in a sauce pan. If we had added some bread, extra vegetables or a dessert it would be a hood meal for two. We were very pleased with the taste and quality of the sauce and quantity of tender chicken. So next week when I good shopping I will buy some of this curry for the Easter trip.

I’ll post some photos of the curry and other supplies after next weeks shop (I have already thrown the Korma pack away).

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iPhone 4 SMTP Servers

/ Business, Technology / ,

Whilst changing my email account from POP to IMAP I discovered multiple smtp servers listed in the account settings. Most of them were turned off but to keep things neat I wanted to delete the unwanted servers, however when I opened the servers the expected red “delete” button was not there.

These SMTP servers are inherited from other email accounts on the iPhone – and if the selected account send server fails, the email client will try to use an alternate server from the other accounts (an excellent feature as it allows the iPhone to seamlessly send email whether connected via 3G or wifi). But if like me you use your iPhone to test accounts for clients then you soon accumulate a selection of SMTP servers.

So after puzzling for a few minutes on “no delete button” I hit on the idea of editing the smtp server to something more relevant to me – however saving the information after editing with an error in the name meant if failed the verification, I continued and saved the details, on reopening the information the delete button was back. So following that fortunate error I had a plan.

Go to Settings – Mail, Contacts, Calendars
Select an email account where the server you want to delete is not the default send server
Open the account and tap on SMTP Server
Under Other SMTP Servers choose the server you want to delete
Turn the server off
Edit the Host Name to anything
Click Done
On the error message click Save
Close the account – when it is re-opened the Delete Server button will be there

On deleting servers check that all your email accounts still have valid SMTP servers.

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