TECH: OSX - sleep shortcut not working - the fix!

After installing the 10.4.9 update to OSX recently I was annoyed to find the usual alt+option+eject shortcut (which puts the computer to sleep) no longer did anything. It meant I had to then use the menu bar to activate the sleep mode. A small but annoying problem.

Well it turns out the shortcut does still work, you just have to hold the eject key down. So the function now behaves less like an instant OSX tranquilising dart and more like a Neil McKenna 'look into my eyes...' hypnosis.

Still, anything to avoid the 'oh so tiring' menu based point and click method...

GENERAL: How coffee is decaffeinated

Since moving to decaf recently (many people were moaning about my incessant wittering so I knew the time was right) I started to wonder just how coffee is decaffeinated. Well, here is the answer...

General Chemistry Online

Full info above but this is my favourite bit...

Supercritical fluid CO₂ extraction

When a sealed vial containing both gaseous and liquid carbon dioxide under high pressure is heated, the liquid density drops while the gas density rises. If the pressure is above 72.8 atm, and the temperature rises above 304.2 K, the density of the liquid and the density of the gas become identical. The meniscus between the liquid and gas phases vanishes. The carbon dioxide becomes a supercritical fluid which has both gaslike and liquidlike properties. The fluid fills the container like a gas, but can dissolve substances like a liquid. Supercritical fluid carbon dioxide is an excellent nonpolar solvent for many organic compounds, including caffeine.

The extraction process is simple. Supercritical carbon dioxide is forced through green coffee beans. Its gaslike behavior allows it to penetrate deep into the beans, and it dissolves 97-99% of the caffeine present.

Coffee manufacturers recover the caffeine and resell it for use in soft drinks and medicines. The caffeine-laden CO₂ is sprayed with high pressure water and caffeine is then isolated by a variety of methods, including charcoal adsorption, distillation, recrystallization, or reverse osmosis.

RANT: TV - Help! My dog is fatter than me!

BBC3 this one I think. It was basically about owners of dogs that feed them so much they are overweight.

There is simply no excuse for this. If you are feeding an animal that much, that it can barely move, has trouble breathing - you may as well be kicking it about or stubbing your cigarettes out on it...

If you see some great trundling behemoth of a dog while you are out walking yours be sure to stop the owner and tell them what a mindless, cruel bully they are. It is a laziness of the worst kind. A complete lack of self discipline. It should not be tolerated.

If people saw a starved dog, its ribs showing, frail and cold being walked by an owner no one would have much of a problem telling the owner how wrong they are. However, for some reason, if its fat we don't have quite the same social conscious. Why?

RANT: Most annoying advert?

You know the one I mean? Halifax. Those BLOODY irritating songs. It started, in a mildly amusing fashion with Halifax 'poster boy' Howard, in his bottle top glasses singing along to a well known ditty.

But now - NO! Enough is enough. I mean, just how irritating is the latest? That iceberg shaped girl doing that 'black woman' style head wobble as she judders up the road with that faux attitude...

NO. NO. NO.

TECH: Dodgy RSS feed from Blogger - workaround

In case anyone else is having a problem with the RSS feeds...

Blogger has suddenly, and without warning, switched its RSS feeds back to Atom formatting. If, like me, you parse your feed into headlines on other pages (e.g. www.benfrain.com/writing.php) or specific feed readers require RSS you may have a problem.

Blogger have been made aware of the issue by many users but in the meantime, for an RSS version of your feed use the following link where the number is the Blogger ID of the Blog you want to link to...

http://www2.blogger.com/feeds/5893689020155462044/posts/default?alt=rss (the numbered part is my own blog id - substitute it with your own)

TV/POLITICS: The Great Global Warming Swindle

For many months I have been a little worried at the accepted 'story' for global warming. By this I mean the almost evangelical crusades of seemingly all and sundry telling the populace that Global Warming is the product of man. Or, more specifically his carbon emissions.

The propoganda surrounding this theory is so wide and heavily enforced that we enjoy a political climate (no pun intended) whereby any failure to tow the line is greeted with derision and any opposing suggestion by differing members of the scientific community is met with fierce objection.

It would seem at times that we (and I can only speak for the UK here) seem so subservient to the ideologies peddled by the media and government we have lost any degree of objectivity. The bleating from the brainwashed masses is becoming reminiscent of the lower classes in George Orwell's 'Animal Farm'.

However, one shining beacon, offering some glimpse of hope and breadcrumb of kudos to opposing ideas comes in the form of a film on Channel 4 this Thursday evening entitled 'The Great Global Warming Swindle'. I have not seen the film but the description given in the TV guides indicates it argues the case for the alternative theories in this arena.

That doesn't necessarily mean they are right but we must surely support Channel 4 for having the even handedness to offer an alternative view on the subject. Especially at a time when our so called 'British Broadcasting Corporation' seems so institutionally biased as to border on becoming an Orwellian Bog Brother.

Let's not become victims of the carbon emissions zealots, with all the political agendas their cause now encompasses (air line fuel tax, road tolls, pay per mile etc) without at least giving some time to the flip side of the story...

Click the link below for more info on the programme.

The Great Global Warming Swindle, Channel4, Thursday 8th March