Ransen's Blog

I find myself having the same thoughts again and again. It probably happens a lot, but I notice it most when driving. Here are the top three: Recurrent thought number 1 : On my way to work there is a traffic policeman or police woman at a cross-roads. (I like to emphasise the fact that in the West we have female traffic police, it seems a good indicator/measure of our civilization. End of aside.) Anyway. Back to the cross-roads. The cross-roads have automatic traffic lights, but during the rush hour the police person takes over. Presumably to ease the traffic. But my reccurrent thought is (and I just can't stop thinking it): Surely the traffic police person is the last person in the world who should be in charge at the traffic lights. Why? because they have no overall vision of the traffic flow. They can see maybe 500 meters in 4 directions, but beyond that nothing. Traffic control needs a more global overview surely? Recurrent thought number 2 : When exit...

On the morning of last day of the year I fixed a friend's audio amplifier, a Luxman L30. The right channel had gone. We'd bought the replacement transistors on E-Bay. They arrived on the 30th. I'd previously looked inside the amplifier and thought "buggar me this is going to be awkward. I'm going to have to desolder four heavy duty power duty transistors just to get at the circuit board." But I'd said I'd do it and thought I'd better have a go. I was slightly worried about the job and it even disturbed my sleep. In the holiday morning though I uncharacteristically decided to stop watching TV and get on with it. I found the solution, did the job, and got the amplifier working again. (See the end of this blog entry for details). I was so happy when I heard music coming out of both speakers. The evening of last day of the year. The food was nice, the wine was fine, the company pleasant, but after the first hour I was bored o...