Last night we had our parents’ night at school for our girls. We raised this issue with her class teacher, who did get a little defensive, and suggest we talk with the headmistress, so we did. Our questions were:

1. When RE is discussed in class, is there any mention made of atheism as an option? If the only options ever discussed are religions a, b, or c, then the child gets a skewed perception of religion, thinking that everyone must believe in one of these?
2. Has the school ever had an atheist in to give a talk at assembly or in the class under the same auspices as the local religious leaders, say, a humanist celebrant?

The answer to both of the above was ‘no‘, but they’d look into it.

Interestingly, in the curriculum for excellence, the ‘experiences and outcomes‘ document doesn’t contain the word atheist or any variant thereof. The entire basis of RE and Moral education would appear to be that, only those of a religious belief can have a position on moral education, and in that education only the various religions will be discussed.

Atheism must be a dirty word.

Isn’t it about time that the church was fully separated from state, and RE in school expressed all options, including ‘none of the above’?

As it is, we’ll keep on talking to the kids about our non-belief, and how that in no way diminishes our lives, and one day they can make up their own mind, so long as the school system hasn’t acted as the church’s left hand and done the job of religious indoctrination for them.

The pro-union camp should *never* put Jim Wallace onto a platform again – he was a disgrace.  Not only was he full of bluster, but he started the whole debate with negativity, and used all the old scare tactics to keep the electorate in fear of what would happen with the fall of the union.  Here’s a transcription of the fun part:

And what valid barriers did wee Jim cite as examples?  None.  He flustered, waved his hands around, and behaved like a wee schoolboy who was caught cheating by the teacher.  He might as well have stuck his hands between his legs and pouted in a big huff.

Interestingly, towards the end of the debate, the following was observed by a member of the audience:

[points made on imperialism, illegal wars, weapons of mass destruction in Faslane - independence offers a new start free of these things which we have no say in] … just like the guy in the grey hair here: he looks like a relic and he talks like a relic, he doesn’t talk like young people of this country, and they want an end to all the things I mentioned.

It was quite interesting, and gave me a fair amount of heart, that members of the audience were quite astute in noting for themselves that the unionist camp members, to date, have not actually offered any arguments for the maintenance of the union, but instead are poking holes in the legality of the referendum, and trying to paint a negative picture of the SNP trying to do its own thing its own way.  When this was pointed out painfully clearly to the panel by a young man, they actually looked stunned, as if this wasn’t the reaction they expected.

After this debate I feel that the pro-union camp may have misunderstood the opinion polls; they seem to think that a majority polled saying ‘no’ to independence means that they’ve already won the argument and just have to poo-poo the idea of independence and they’ll win the referendum.  It appears to me that they could well lose the argument in exactly the same fashion that they lost the last election: not because they have an invalid point of view, but because they spectacularly failed to explain to the electorate what it is.

This referendum has no place for old school Westminster style negative campaigning; it didn’t work before, and it won’t work this time – the electorate are getting a bit more savvy.  Instead, make reasoned, logical, simple arguments as to why one position is better over the other: so far the SNP are winning that argument hands down, as they haven’t actually met any opposition – or could it be that there simply aren’t any good, logical, sound reasons why the union should be maintained, other than ‘because Westminster told us it should’, and if that’s the case – why?

The SNP have no ‘overwhelming mandate’ to govern with only 23% of the turnout.

Sorry – but they do.  Any government has an overwhelming mandate to govern if they hold an overall majority based on the number of votes cast at an election.  If the electorate failed to turn out, then they have no voice: they expressed their democratic choice not have have one.

On the same basis, by the way, the Tories only have 23% of the vote share for the UK as a whole.  Murdo Fraser: “I am getting rather tired of hearing about the SNP’s ‘overwhelming mandate’. It amounted to less than 23% of the voting population.”.  Best look a little closer to home before shouting that from the rooftops, Murdo.

Scotland couldn’t stand on her own two feet.

Right; the Unionists keep saying that the Union is stronger together, and arguing that Scotland couldn’t stand apart.  Now I like little logic thought games, and I have one that I’d like to be picked apart.  Consider: only one of these statements can be true:

1. Scotland cannot support herself and is a net receiver of funds from the Union.
2. Scotland can support herself and is a net contributor to the Union.
3. Scotland cannot support herself and is a net contributer to the Union.
4. Scotland can support herself and is a net receiver from the Union.
5. Scotland can support herself and the receipt from the Union is in balance.

So, can a Unionist please explain to me why you want to hold on to Scotland?  If 1 or 4 is true, then you must surely be wanting shot of us.  If (2) is correct then we can stand alone, so your argument is gone – other than you actually want our taxes.  If 3 is correct, then there is a massive injustice going on within the Union, and you definitely don’t want anyone hearing about it.  If 5 is true, then no-one has anything to lose.

What I suspect is going on, in reality, is that Scotland could easily stand alone economically, but the politicians know that the economic driver is strong when it comes to voting.  If we were demonstrably better off independent, the vote would be a strong Yes, and conversely, No should we be likely to fail economically as an independent nation .  So it is in the interests of politicians to paint a bleak economic picture.

A second driver for wanting to hold the union is that fact that an independence Yes result in Scotland would hand England a Tory government for the foreseeable future.  Also, what place would there be for the Conservative and Labour parties in Scotland post-independence?  They would have to re-invent themselves with no more central control from Westminster.  This would be good for Scottish politics – the SNP need a cohesive, robust, opposition that equally reflects the needs of Scotland, not an English co-ordinated set of policies that dovetail with central HQ.  I suspect that, if the Conservatives had a Scottish party that was wholly independent from Westminster, that they might actually fare significantly better in an independent Scotland – surely a reason for the Scottish Conservatives to back independence?!

The SNP has no legal authority to hold a referendum.

I actually took the effort to read the 1998 Scotland Act (and believe me, reading acts of parliament takes effort); as a lay person, I can’t see anything in the act that explicitly forbids the SNP from holding a referendum without the UK government’s say so.  Section 30 covers the Reserved items of the act – ie a Scottish government cannot just pass an act within its parliament to secede from the Union, but doesn’t mention of limit the ability to hold a referendum – just that the outcome of the referendum wouldn’t be legally binding: that’s a different issue altogether.

No doubt as things progress with the referendum I will post more.

Screen setup

The initial screen setup for the Jetranger 206 is pretty poor.  You can’t see the instruments, and have no reference to the ground.  When you consider that most helo flight is going to be VFR, it’s pretty important to be able to see the ground underneath your feet.  This is especially important in landings, when good reference to ground level is crucial:

Default view of 206 (virtual cockpit)

The best immediate fix to this is to zoom out to 0.5 and change the point of view so that you can see the central console and the chin bubble (plexiglass between your feet):

Virtual cockpit of 206 at 0.5 zoom

I also have a dual monitor setup, so I would normally fly with the virtual cockpit setup as below – the left monitor angled slightly and flying from the right seat:

Dual monitor setup for 206

As per most fixed wing aircraft, the principal instruments are clustered together – and those highlighted are the ones I make most reference to (you can probably safely ignore Rotor and Turbine speed unless you plan to run some engine failures or practice autorotations).

Controls

Finally, the joystick sensitivities need to be setup for rotor wing flight.  In helicopter flight, especially the hover the aircraft is inherently unstable, and if the controls were braced in a fixed position it would still drift around and ascend/descend.  To combat this the pilot must make constant small adjustments.  To make life easier, you actually want the controls to, therefore, be as sensitive as possible, so set the sensitivity to maximum, and the null zone to minimum:

Control setup

If you have a flight yoke, good luck…

See my other posts for building helicopter controls, which do make life *much* easier and, of course, a little more realistic.

Have fun!

OK; I fell heir to a Belkin print server a while ago, and already had a HP PSC 1205 which I wanted to connect to it.  I’d also upgraded my PC from XP to windows 7.

Problem: Belkin don’t support their print server (model number F1UP0301) on Windows 7 – the software won’t install the port properly on the PC, so it appeared that it wouldn’t work properly.  However… on reading a most excellent post on a forum which pointed me to: http://kb.netgear.com/app/answers/detail/a_id/47/kw/printer/r_id/100109 it looked like it *might* be possible.  I followed those steps and, after a bit of dicking around with settings and spending time at the Microsoft site, arrived at the following setup – which works :D

• Port set to your IP address for the print server
• Set Protocol to LPR
• Queue name is lp1 for port 1 and lp2 for port 2 (the USB ports on the server)
• Check the box for LPR Byte Counting Enabled
• Uncheck the box for bidirectional support

Some wierd symptoms you might see when trying to get this to work are:

1. Printer prints most of the page then stops and parks the print head
2. Printer keeps printing multiple copies of the page until you kill the spooler

These were sorted by selecting the correct protocol and checkboxes.

Handy to know

To kill the print spool, clear it out, and re-start it:

1. Click Start.
2. Type Command.
3. Right-click Command Prompt and select Run as administrator.
4. Type net stop spooler then press Enter.
5. Type del %systemroot%\System32\spool\printers\* /Q then press Enter (this just deletes all files in that folder, in case you’re leery around command line actions you don’t understand).
6. Type net start spooler then press Enter.

Your printer will now be free of hung print jobs.

Installing the printer

Forget the CD that came with the printer, Windows 7 will install a driver for you.  Just plug the printer into a USB port first and let the OS take care of the rest.  Once the printer is installed, unplug from the USB port on the PC and plug it into the USB port on the print server before continuing.

Next task will be to wire up the collective switches and pot and test, then build and assemble the collective housing.  I might change the pot for a steel shaft (the one I have is nylon, and it actually bends a bit under pressure from the grub screw, but not much – we’ll see…)

I need a plan.  I’m a plan sort of chap.  Here’s my plan:

Good ole’ sketchup.  The original joystick handle will be recycled onto a rod, using the thumb buttons and triggers for engine start, governor, landing light assignments etc.  Whatever makes the most sense.  The handle spindle diameter was 14mm and, as luck would have it, I had an old tent pole (old as in 12 months – lightweight steel alloy) with a 14mm inside diameter.  It neatly also has double wall thickness just where I want to drill and mount it.  Here’s how they went together:

(excuse the crappy quality on the last one – this was taken on my crappy iPhone)

Next: need to trim the plastic around the base of the handle and wire it up.  I have on order two potentiometers – one linear and one rotational 100k (linear) each, to see how best I’m going to mount the lever; at present there are two options: mount the lever using a plain axle mounted into skateboard bearings, linked to a linear potentiometer, or use the rotational pot as the axle, but with possible problems of how to securely mount it to the lever so that it actually rotates.

I’m also investigating damping options, and will post once I know what I’m going to do there, damping may end up being an old bicycle pump choked off to give some air resistance…

The collective housing is likely to be leftovers of MDF of 22mm ply that I have in the shed, just whatever comes to hand :)

My biggest grips is that I love to fly helicopters.  Given a few £10,000, I’d take lessons and do it for real.  I’d love someone to pay it for me, and I can career shift.  However, in the real world I’m stuck in FS, and the availability of off-the-shelf controls is woeful, and bloody expensive.  My problem is that, whilst my joystick is fine for messing around (Logitech extreme 3D pro), all the controls are bunched together right in front of you.  Half the battle with learning to fly irl, apparently, is learning how to co-ordinate all controls at once, when they’re spread around you.  So my aim is to explode one joystick out to have separate collective, cyclic, and anti-torque.

PCL-JS200

Still with me?  Right; I chatted about this at work for a bit, and one suggestion was: “buy a cheapo joystick on fleabay and cannibalise it”.  *lightbulb* moment (and a genius idea to boot – thanks Ian).  A quick scan of eBay shows a bunch of joysticks on the go, and one looked to suit my purposes precisely: a cheap, non branded, USB plug’n'play joystick. Perfect.  £0.99 of happy bidding, plus £6P&P and it was mine:

My intention with this is to keep my Logitech as my cyclic (for now) and use this for collective and anti-torque.  I’ll work on throttle another time.  On receipt I plugged in and tested, and Windows 7 found it just dandy and I was able to calibrate it and demonstrate that it works just fine.  I also tested it in FSX, assigning the collective to its y-axis only, and that also worked just fine. So then the fun begins.  The order of events to date has been:

Remove base

Left side is the back of the joystick. Just remove every screw you can see. Next:

Remove handle assembly

4 off screws hold the handle to the handle spindle, which mounts on the two bosses at the centre of the handle.  At this point the wiring loom for the handle switches had to be cut so that it can be removed completely.  Close-up of switches:

Next step:

Remove throttle axle

This is dampened by some seriously sticky grease-like substance underneath the axle saddles.  Remove the screws and the axle not attached to the potentiometer.  To remove the other side you have to loosen the nut around the pot’s neck and lift it out, then the pot and axle separate nicely.

Disassemble handle base

Remove the 4 screws holding the base plate on, then the sliders which control the x and y axes.  The handle spindle can then be withdrawn, and the axes exposed.

Remove x and y axes

The linear potentiometers are held into place by two small screws; remove these and gently lift the pots out.  Note that the wiring loom will be held into place by a mixture of glue-gun blobs and plastic soldered pins.  Just gently break these open and the wires will be freed up.  What you end up with is:

Close up of controller:

The controller.

Note that the wiring loom connects to the controller via a 14 pin micro connector block.  The wiring assignments for these are:

In the next installment I’ll look at how I’m going to build-up the collective control.

Dear Candidates

It’s that time of the political cycle again, and the dreadful charade of a General Election is upon us. We’re one week into the campaign and already I’ve had enough of listening to an endless stream of soothing platitudes from potential MPs, eager to recite the party manifesto.

I’ve come across this, most excellent, service that allows me to email you all with a couple of questions. Miles: we’ve met before on the street, Menzies: we’ve also met, though in the quad at St Andrews – you’ve also received letters and emails from me, though your office failed to return a telephone call on the issue of the DE Bill (which I note you failed to vote on). Mike: we’ve never had the pleasure.

Allow me to state from the off that I am a card carrying member of the Libertarian Party. I come from a position of libertarian ideals and, were LPUK big enough at this time, I’d be voting for them. However, in this un-ideal world, I have you, my local hopefuls, to vote for, and my vote is up-for-grabs.

There are a couple of issues I would like answers to. I trust that you can find the time to answer them, rather than an office member. I’m not voting for them. These are simple questions, and I’d appreciate an honest response. Remember why you entered politics in the first place. Tell me what you believe in. Show me some passion for your constituency and your country.

1) Where do you stand on the issue of shrinking the state. At present, and under Labour, the state has grown and grown. The legislature has swollen 50% faster than under Thatcher, and many of these acts form an extreme erosion of our civil liberties. Do you agree that government should be shrunk in size, unneccessary laws repealed, and laws infringing on civil liberties repealed?

2) Economy and the EU. It’s a biggie. As things currently stand, our deficit is racking up at £5,000 per second. Our membership of the EU costs us £55bn per year. It’s a pretty simple looking calculation to me, though I’m not an economist, but why are we in the EU? I’ve failed to have a good, sound, solid argument put to me by anyone as to why we should remain in the EU. What are your views on membership of the EU?

3) Local government. As per point (1), I’d welcome a shrinking of central government; actually, let’s get central government as small as it possibly can be, and move budgets and decision making to local authorities. The tory party have made overtones towards this, but in a very paternalistic ‘the state still needs to look after you all’ way. Let Fife fix its problems, the problems it needs to fix (flooding anyone?) rather than arbitrarily set government targets/plans. What are your views on localisation?

4) Welfare reform. Living in Cupar, I am acutely aware, and welcome, the EU immigrants who work in the surrounding area. I am fed up hearing the argument that they are ‘taking british jobs’, since british workers now seem to be afraid of hard work and wouldn’t take these jobs, in fact didn’t take these jobs, when offered. I argue that this is because the welfare state has made it far too easy for those unemployed to enjoy a good standard of living without having to go out and actually do hard work. Welfare should be a safety net for the most needy, not a lifestyle choice. The labour model of making things ‘fair for everyone’ actually is deeply unfair to everyone, and removes the motivation for hard work by everyone. Where do you stand on welfare reform?

I could go on, but to be honest I’m dubious that I’m going to get a reply from anyone, and I’ve not even started on healthcare or education. However, should you feel up to responding and having a chat about these and other issue, please do. If you’d like to pop in for a chat and a cup of tea, you’ll find me at home most evenings from 5.30pm at <my address>. I look forward to speaking with you in the coming weeks.

Yours sincerely
Gary Thompson

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