Escape to Sussex

Microphone placement problem

2009-09-22T22:42:00.006+01:00

When covering an auditorium to listen to the congregation the rule of thumb is that the distance between microphone is 3 times the distance from the sound source.

This ensure a 12db level difference between adjacent microphones and thus eliminates phase cancellation distortion problems.

If two microphones are picking up the same sound source from different locations, some phase cancellation or summing may be occurring.

Phase cancellation happens when two microphones are receiving the same soundwave but with opposite pressure zones (that is,180 degrees out of phase).

microphones

The areas coloured above will suffer degradation due to the soundwaves being out of phase.

The solution is to have the microphones spaced wider, or closer to the sound source depending on what is most practical for the circumstances.

Please do not ask me how I am.

2009-03-23T19:03:00.002Z

Please do not ask me how I am.

Life is hard,
It has been a struggle to be with you today,
Please do not ask me how I am.

Say it is good to see me,
Ask me how I like to meeting, but
Please do not ask me how I am.

If I think about how I am
I will remember
and retreat back into my shell, so
Please do not ask me how I am.

Loch Garry Communications Installation, Project Cancelled?

2008-05-21T09:03:00.008+01:00

The ELF (Extremely Low Frequency) facility in America, which became operational in 1989, was a means of communicating with a submerged submarine. Due to the wavelength being so low it uses the subsoil as the antenna.

In order for the UK to maintain it's independent nuclear deterrent, it would need a system independent of other governments.

UK ground based ELF transmitting antenna would need to be in areas with geological remnants of long gone, eroded mountain ranges, like in Scotland.
GlenGarry Forrest in Scotland was intended as a location for a Royal Navy ELF transmitter for communication with the Trident nuclear submarines.

It was reported to be using 72hz, this must have been a deception as this frequency would clash with the American system and would be unusable.
To be technical here: the USA system is listed as being on 76hz, but in reality it uses 80hz for a data '0' and 72hz for a data'1'.

This project was canceled as the expenses contra efficiency was too high and after a political debate was the Glen Garry ELF communication station turned into history. Or so they said.

Having found the frequency 'error' in what little documentation that I could find I started to wonder if there was some kind of coverup.

Then I came across the part of a report shown below.

This seems to add credence to the existence of the Glen Garry installation.
As can be seen on the capture below.
There is room for the USA at 72-80hz, the Russian ZEV version at 81-84hz, and the UK centered on 87hz , perhaps Glen Garry lives.

This is all supposition for now, some checking with my ELF receiver and spectrum analyser is the next step.

A visit to LochGarry would be interesting, but the antenna feeds would look like power distribution lines, with the ground terminations looking like more power equipment.

Rising from the ashes of obsoletism

2008-05-13T08:52:00.003+01:00

My dear old PC, 1998 vintage Aptiva, has been suffering under the weight of Windows XP.
She take a long time to load and is slow.
The latest software update from Microsoft has taken its toll, we now have continuous BIOS restarts.
Apparently a problem of compatibility with my aging BIOS.

So what can a boy do, I have already upgrade the memory to the max, a glorious 256Mb.

I have been aware of the Open Source software of Linux, tried before but could not understand enough to get it going.

This time I found Ubuntu 8.04 (Hardy Heron), it says that everything is on the CD, and it is free.

Downloaded the disk to another PC, then after saving my lifes work to a memory stick, I ran format /s on the Aptiva hard drive, loaded the CD, and installed without any problems.

Firefox is included, plus some other Open Source office type stuff.
Other versions, like Edubuntu, contains a large number of educational applications.
And Xubuntu is intended for users with less-powerful computers.

So the old Aptiva has risen from the ashes of obsoletism to live another day.

Purple

2008-03-25T10:43:00.002Z

As part of a bible study I took a tangential look at purple.

In the New Testament there is mention of Lydia who was a seller in purple dye, obviously rich as she had a house big enough to hold Christian meetings.

Where did this wealth come from?

The Greek word for her occupation is porphuropolis from a compound of porphura (the purple fish, a species of shell fish or mussel ) and poleo (to barter, to sell)

This snail lives in the central and western parts of the Mediterranean Sea. It was known since ancient times as a source for purple dye and also as a popular food “Tyrian Purple,” the purple dye of the ancients mentioned in texts dating back to about 1600 B.C., was produced from the mucus of the hypobranchial gland of various species of marine mollusks, notably Murex. It took some 12,000 shellfish to extract 1.5 grams of the pure dye. One gram of pure purple dye was worth ten or twenty grams of gold.

Legend credits its discovery to Tyrian Herakles, or rather to his dog, whose mouth was stained purple from chewing on snails along the Levantine coast.
Tyrian Heracles and the nymph Tyrus were walking along the beach when Heracles' dog, who was accompanying them, devoured a murex snail and gained a beautiful purple color around its mouth.
Tyrus told Heracles she would never accept him as her lover until he gave her a robe of that same colour.
So Heracles gathered many murex shells, extracted the dye from them, and dyed the first garment of the colour later called Tyrian purple.
The murex shell appears on the very earliest Tyrian coins and then reappears again on coins in Imperial Roman times.
These marine snails still live along Tyre's shores deep among the rocks and sunken archeological remains.

According to Aristotle and Pliny the Elder, the snails were gathered at the beginning of autumn or winter and kept alive in basket-work containers until a huge quantity had been collected, as each shell only produced a single drop of dye.
Το extract the dye the smaller shells were crushed with stones; the larger ones were pierced and a tiny gland (known as the anthos or flower) was removed from the neck of the mollusc.
The milky fluid from this was put into brine, a little vinegar was added and it was left in the sun where the colour gradually changed from yellowish to a deep purplish red. It was then either diluted or concentrated further by boiling it down.

Dye extraction is no longer a viable commercial venture in this way, dyes are made by chemical means.

It took how long?

2008-03-03T19:18:00.002Z

"I have found the fittings for that old wooden curtain pole, will you fit it over the lounge door please?" She asked.
Six screws, how long can that take I thought, easy. "Of course I will dear." I replied.
So out came the tape measure, "How high dear?" well after some thought 90inches was too high so we settled on 84inches plus the width of the pole.
So I measured and then measured again to get it right, even got out the long spirit level.
Found some wall plugs, 6mm drill it said.
I will use my big electric drill, Walter I call it, (DeWalt DW566K), that won't wobble and I will get a good clean hole.
Drilled the first hole, I use a little blue thingy to stop the dust going everywhere, that was easy I thought, I will be drinking coffee in 10minutes time.
The fittings need 3 holes each side, so I drilled the other 5.
Now for the plugs. Oh dear! They were loose, very loose and getting looser, I had drilled into some very soft mortar.
Find some fatter plugs, of I went to hunt for them, eventually found some in a box in my bedroom of all places, but they were still loose also.
I know I have some special impregnated pads for jobs like this, so went off to find them.
Found them in a box out in the workshop, soon to be the utility room (where will I go then?).
So I soaked the pads and fitted the larger plugs, screwed in the six screws.
Then I fitted the pole and it looks good.
But 2hours for six screws! It had better stay there or it will be fire wood.

Déjà vu and the spiral of time

2008-01-20T16:18:00.000Z

I believe it was Charles Dickens who said:
"We have all some experience of a feeling, that comes over us occasionally, of what we are saying and doing having been said and done before, in a remote time – of our having been surrounded, dim ages ago, by the same faces, objects, and circumstances – of our knowing perfectly what will be said next, as if we suddenly remember it!"

I was pondering the idea of seeing the future and was reminded of what my old friend said to me.
"Think of our travel through time as a spiral, like the grooves of a record. We may see across to other grooves, but time ways they are far off."
As we can see forward and backward, as we see across grooves maybe we get a feeling of déjà vu. Life may look like a set of furrow in a field, but as a spiral they are connected.

Further we may have the same vision again and again as the record rotates, and depending on the angle of view we can see more or less of the detail in each furrow, and the time order can be distorted as we look over our shoulder at an inner furrow.
As we get closer to the centre what do we see? Is it more of the future, or just more.

Maybe life is a spiral such that we may get tantalizingly close but never meet, or maybe we will.

And then one has to ask if a traumatic event can force a jump to the next groove or possibly a bounce back.

So should we look? Should we seek coincidences? And what will we gain?

I think to marvel at how we can perceive such things is fascination enough in itself.

Spirituality, mysticism and me, continuing.

2007-12-15T17:10:00.000Z

In my last post I said:
The Christian practice of "laying on of hands" is equivalent in some ways to Reiki.

Here is a little more to aid understanding.

I am not an initiate of Reiki, but I understand that it is not a belief system, and it attunes to "Universal energy".
It uses some 20 or so hand positions in order to exchange energy, or can be performed at a distance. With just the simple intent to share healing.

Whereas the Christian healer uses spiritual energy imparted to them by their God. Hence the need to believe. Usually only touching a persons shoulder or head accompanied by a simple prayer. Sometimes with not touching at all and even at distance. Followed, sometimes, by some inspired words they feel that their Lord would have them pass on to the recipient.
In my experience too long a prayer demonstrates a lack of faith. We do not have to explain to God how to heal, He made us and sees all things.
The use of oil for annointing is purely symbolic, the oil is not magic, in bible times it would have been what ever was in the house. Poor people would have had low quality olive oil, whereas the richer would probably have had almond oil available.

Biblical accounts vary, but it is clear to me that the examples given were intended to show a flexibility of application.

Spirituality, mysticism and me, continuing.

2007-12-15T09:45:00.000Z

Years later and in a diferent type of church, I found that I was gaining little insights into what can only be described as other peoples worlds.

For example I was at church, a meeting of about 200 folk, and I felt prompted that the were certain illnesses amongst the congregation that should be prayed for.
I spoke to the church elders, who then allowed me to name the illnesses out loud in the meeting.

Three illnesses were name, and three people came to me after for prayer, exactly as foretold.
A little while later someone said to me, "that was brave", I considered this but at the time my main concern was whether it was acceptable behaviour in that kind of church.

The Christian practice of "laying on of hands" is equivalent in some ways to Reiki. It often has a bad press, but none the less healing by spiritual means has been around for years.

We are complex creature; Body, Soul and Spirit. To treat one part without treating the others seems to me to be only doing half a job.

Am I depressed because I am ill, or am I ill because I am depressed. Similarly, am I oppressed because I am ill, or am I ill because I am oppressed?

So my world grew, dismissed by some, but such things by their nature go unseen, faith is a tricky thing.

Spirituality, mysticism and me.

2007-12-14T04:55:00.000Z

People have often asked me, "what do you believe?"
So in an attempt to answer this and put my stake in the ground as it were, here are some thoughts.

Looking back over my life I can remember one evening having a floating feeling, floating up to the ceiling and looking down at my room, I had not been near any hallucinogenic drugs, but I do recall that this was following having "hands laid on me" during a service at our Methodist chapel. The church had very little teaching on such things, so I was left to ponder.

The laying on of hands for a Christian is the way in which a gifted person spiritually imparts to another. More on this later.

At I grew older I began to have the feeling that my life was being guided, rather than myself consciously choosing a path, it became clear that there was a kind of leading.
Being a Christian I chose to prayed, enquiring; "why?" The answer was like a parent to a young child, "because".

Now for the tricky bit, how does one receive an answer to prayer?
We have to make the assumption that if one is praying to a spiritual entity then you believe there will a reply and you are looking for a reply.
I have found that responses come in many forms, here are a few:
An overheard word, not just once and from different sources.
A word or sentence seems to have an unusual promenance on a page.
Or maybe a visual incidence than appears out of context.

These and other co-incidences begin to build a picture or impression as to what the reply might be. Sometime further clarification is needed.

This is where one can start to build up a relationship, in a similar manner to that which one builds with a lover, you pick up on little signs, you seem to develop your own special ways, your own special language, you know your lover deeper and deeper.

The inside and outside of my head.

2007-12-11T19:46:00.000Z

After my first wife died I thought that being a longstanding Christian, strong in faith, Spirit filled and any other cliché you could think of, well I thought that I would cope with the loss quiet easily.
I was under that impression until one day, whilst shopping in Debenhams, I had a stress, I sat on a step and protested that I did not need the coat that my new lady was trying to buy me.
That and other events caused my new lady to name me her grumpy gnome.

I came to realise that from the inside of my mind I was fine, but from the outside it was another story entirely.
This apparent duplicity can often be mis-understood as just being out of control, dificult and unpredictable.

Having spent time talking to folk who have Psychotic problems, I realise that from the inside of their minds they are reasonable, they are just trying to express the frustrations of their position, but from the outside they are unpredictable and explosive. They are not trying to be difficult, they are trying to be "normal".

To dope such people up with anger management drugs does not solve the inner frustrations, it does in some cases make them worse as they are nolonger able to "vent their anger" and move on. Drugs may correct perceived behavioural issues and in the short term aid concentration and learning, but it is storing up problems for the future.
These turns and twists of the mind need to be handled by the patient with the support of others.

As in my simple circumstances, those around tolerated my behaviour as I readjusted, but for those who are in more serious condition the answer is not that easy.

Mental health problems rarely have quick simple answers, and to rely only on drugs, I believe is very dangerous.

The spiritual side of me, part 1

2007-12-11T16:17:00.000Z

When my first wife died, I felt that her spirit remained nearby until I had the closure of burying her ashes. I now have my memories.

That got me thinking of things spiritual.
Soul and spirit, the Greeks regarded them as separate, "psuche" for soul and "pneuma" for spirit.
The Christian bible talks of the the soul and spirit being separable like joint and marrow.
I believe we can host many spirits, but only have the one soul.
And the Christian baptism of Holy Spirit and Fire is like sorting out the undesirable bits.

It is all a bit guess work, we may find out the truth one day.

Some Christians use what they call: tongues and interpretation of what the bible calls an enigma, a mystery of our relationship with things spiritual.

But a puzzle it is, and some put a lot of effort into trying to understand, maybe one day all will be revealed.

As for relationships on this earth, some still has difficulty accepting my first wifes death after 10+years and that rubs off on others, comes across as being distant and difficult and getting the hump.

Sometimes such are called psychotic behaviour, but it is just folk wrestling with their inner emotions, emotions that they do not understand, emotions they would love to resolve.
Maybe the spirit trying to resolve its new relationship now something is missing.

Maybe the soul and spirit do understand, I wish they would let us all in on the secret sometimes.

Meanwhile I can only ponder the mysteries, is this a battle between soul and spirit, or within the spiritual realm?

If we accept that soul and spirit can be separated, then we can assume that this separation would lead an out of body experience.
The spirit being the higher levels of "intellect" would lead to an experience away from the confines of poorly functioning bits.

The Christian bible uses the allegory of "joint and marrow", to our modern understanding this would indicate that the spirit is within the soul, but if we consider the knowledge of anatomy available during the first centry we get a different picture.
In the first centry the body was bones and everything else, bone being a support structure and "muelos" being everything else.

This gives us the parallel that the soul is a support structure and the spirit is the life giving entity.

If we accept this analogy, then without spirit then the soul is, well, I don't know, I think I will come back to that.

If we then consider the re-joining, perhaps any errors in the union could be corrected at this point.
This would add credence to the practice of the spiritual healer.

But to have a too narrower definition of such things is dangerous and a gross underestimation of the complexities of the human makeup.

Now moving to communication betwixt earthly life and spiritual entity.

The Christian bible gives examples of such communication, it just warns against witchcraft, some Christians believe that if the spirit of a deceased person instigate communication, rather than communication being saught from us then that is OK. But none the less such paths are viable.
I must admit I have not been directly used in that way.

Looking at the whole Christian bible, there are lots of examples of communications between man and the spirit world, some which G-d approves of and some that come with a warning. And continuing today communication continues.

My own experiences as a Christian are through what we call the prophetic gifts. Explaining the past, helping in the present, and preparing one for the future. Maybe I will include some examples in a later blog.

Enough, I think for the first bit of blog, a little flavour of a side of me.

Escape to Sussex

Microphone placement problem

Please do not ask me how I am.

Loch Garry Communications Installation, Project Cancelled?

Rising from the ashes of obsoletism

Purple

It took how long?

Déjà vu and the spiral of time

Spirituality, mysticism and me, continuing.

Spirituality, mysticism and me, continuing.

Spirituality, mysticism and me.

More questions than answers.

The inside and outside of my head.

The spiritual side of me, part 1