100 Years ago today the inventor of the universal programmable computer was born, Alan Turing.
Category Archives: Tech
Playing with ImageMagick
For some Slow Scan TV (SSTV) experiments I want to be able to overlay text on images from the command line or within a script. The Swiss-army-knife of image manipulation is ImageMagick, so I’m using that. Starting with a a photograph I took a few years ago, I resized it to 320×256 pixels – that’s …
Bells
Something like thirty years ago, I was on a bus with my grandfather passing The Whitechapel Bell Foundry; he told me a little about the place and promised to take me for a visit when I was older. Three years ago, I bought a ticket for a tour the following year, then forgot to go. …
A darker than usual morning at this time of year
Going back to work on the 4th of January might be enough to darken anyone’s spirits, the mornings are dark enough, but come the 4th dawn will be even darker for us here in London. A partial eclipse will have the moon covering up the rising limb of the sun, the uncovered portion will still …
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X-rays
Now I have an xray machine to play with at work, I can take photographs of the insides of things. I shall make full use of this. Here’s an old transistor to start with. Image details : Mullard OC44 PNP Germanium transistor, glass envelope. 90kV polychromatic xrays, filtered with 1.5mm Al and 0.2 mm Cu. …