North Korean web design

here's the website of the People's Democratic Republic (snort) of North Korea.

astute readers might like to view the HTML of the page.

make sure to scroll down.

apparently Strongbad is writing their code?

Archery bits

My new Easton X10 side rods arrived from the USA today, they are horribly difficult to get.  To my displeasure I have had to abandon the nice carbon fibre Soma v-bar I had, as it's only a 40° forward sweep which is a pain to shoot around, there's just not enough arm room.  I have therefore scrounged a nice Soma alloy bar.

(All photos are clickable for more biggerer).

Sexeh, eh?  My one remaining gripe is I'd still like the bars to sweep forward a little more, particularly the left one; this will allow some left weight bias to offset the scope without having to add dead weight, plus give a little more arm room.  I've got one of these on order, they're an Easton adjustable-everything v-bar and fiddler's delight.  $85 in Australia (I though Ned Kelly was dead), $45 shipped from the USA - go figure.

I have also fitted my new Beiter scope I have been hanging out for.  It's a 29mm black bodied unit, I really wanted the opaque body to increase the contrast of the dot.  I also got the centre-drilled lens and dot kit, there's a little set of various sized pins that can be pressed through the lens depending on what suits best.

The red ring around the outside is a little optional centring widget that snaps onto the rim of the scope body to give it both some thickness and colour highlight.

Now I just have to finish fletching my ACGs and I can go play out to 90 metres....

Ouch

Word of warning – if you unplug a Canon injet and immediately place your hand across the power cord pins, the transformer primary still has quite a bit of residual charge in it.

 

Bad language may now be used without penalty.

Aw, shame...

http://www.news.com.au/business/breaking-news/sacked-telstra-execs-get-little-sympathy/story-e6frfkur-1225895452896

http://www.heraldsun.com.au/news/national/telstra-to-chop-330-senior-staff/story-e6frf7l6-1225895483220

New arrow construction

Started putting my new compound carbons together this morning, which has NOTHING AT ALL to do with the fact that Calley has gone out shopping and doesn't know about them yet.

I decided to do a weight matching exercise to see how well matched I could get the batch.  Once the shafts were cut and deburred and the points cleaned, out came the grain scale.

Points (heaviest to lightest)
120.0

119.8
119.6
119.6
119.4
119.4
119.4
119.4
119.4
119.4
119.4
119.2
 
Shafts (lightest to heaviest)
247.6
247.6
247.8
247.8
247.8
248.0
248.0
248.2
248.2
248.4
248.4
248.4

So.... if we do some simple weight matching, this produces a combined point/shaft combination of:
367.2
367.4
367.4
367.4
367.4
367.4
367.6
367.6
367.6
367.6
367.8
367.8

That's 0.6gn variance across the batch, or +/-0.08% variance from average.  Quite happy with that.  I could dress a tiny bit off the ends of the heavier points to bring them in even closer, but since gluing in the points and fletching will introduce some further variations I will wait until then until final weight matching.

Score!

Just found a dude in Adelaide who can do bulk lots of American White Oak chips for about half home brew shop prices.  I have 2kg on the way, I will experiment with toasting some in the oven and some raw.  A little reading suggests about 4 hours @ 200° will do, in a double-walled alfoil pouch with a couple of pinpricked holes to let gases escape.

 

I am also getting better at cleaning my reflux still, it only takes about 20 minutes to knock everything down now.

8kg sugar wash run

Just stilled off my first 8kg sugar wash run.  Wow.

An 8kg batch is supposed to produce 25 litres of wash at 18% alcohol-by-volume (ABV).  25L is exactly what went into the still.

The still is rated to produce 93% ABV output (on a slow run) with 95% recovery efficiency, or extraction from the wash.  25L x 18% ABV x 95% efficiency is 4.275L output, I got 4.35L.  Hydrometer readings show 92% ABV so the 4.35L is actually 4.3L @ 93% – either I got slightly better than rated efficiency or the wash was nearer to 20% when it went it, or some of both.

4.35L x 92% = 4L @ 100%, so to cut to 40% drinking strength ABV I need 6L of water… resulting in 10L of drinkable product.  For $50.

Allow $3/L for wood chips for soaking, then $6/L for flavouring essence, and that’s $14/L for top shelf stuff.

Got to be happy with that.