Oggi per la serie "Esperimenti da non fare" vi insegno come creare una candela utilizzando rimasugli vari di altre candele, utilizzando semplicemente strumenti che trovate in cucina.

Ingredienti: pezzetti di candela, possibilmente dello stesso colore, e un cordino qualunque da usare come stoppino. Qualita' e tipo dello stoppino non sono importanti per questo esperimento - in effetti potreste anche non averlo, ehm... -. Sarebbe utile avere una seconda persona che filmi tutto il procedimento, io sono molto pentito di non averlo fatto.

Ok, pronti? Avete tutto? Seguitemi in questi dieci semplici passi:

1. mettete i rimasugli di candela in un bicchierino Ikea per candela. La cera liquida ha poco piu' volume di quella solida, quindi fate i vostri conti. Non vorreste mai che trabordasse.
2. posizionate il bicchierino Ikea per candela al centro di una piastra elettrica. La resistenza e' nel cerchio esterno, quindi il bicchierino non subira' un calore eccessivo.
3. accendete la piastra su 1 e aspettate pazientemente che la cera si sciolga. Se i pezzi hanno forme strane, state attenti che ammorbidendosi non cadano fuori dal bicchierino.
4. mettete la piastra su 6 che si sbriga a scaldare. (*)
5. osservate inermi il bicchierino Ikea che si spacca e la cera bollente che esce e allaga la piastra.
6. spegnete la piastra velocemente. La cera liquida se ne sta' li felice, non fa' neanche fumo.
7. raffreddate la cera piu' velocemente! versateci sopra un po' d'acqua! (*)
8. osservate inermi l'acqua sopra la cera che inizia a bollire.
9. soffiate velocemente sulle fiamme gialle alte 50-60cm che si sviluppano come per magia e stanno avvolgendo la cucina. Soffiate alla base, non e' difficile spegnerle.
10. aprite veloci le finestre per eliminare il fumo nero, prima che scatti l'allarme anti-incendio o sveniate per probabili sostanze tossiche sviluppate dall'incendio casalingo.

[*] Questa fase necessita di una mente superiore.

A questo punto avete un bicchierino Ikea rotto e fumante (e molto caldo, ma lo scoprirete da soli), cera ovunque e avete decorato la cappa sopra la cucina con splendidi disegni nero fume'. Avete ancora lo stoppino in mano e l'eventuale amico con telecamera si sta' piegando dal ridere. Peggio per lui, le risate goffe e strozzate rimarranno nel filmato. Peccato fossi da solo :-|

L'idea e' buona ma datemi retta: NON ci provate. Dimenticavo, c'e' anche un punto 11: “appena tutto si raffretta, pulire la cucina e la cappa originariamente bianche, ora coperte di nero”. Sara' meglio che lo faccia in fretta...

P.S. Sono quasi certo che l'esperimento sia fallito perche' in nessuno dei punti viene utilizzato il Blu-tack.

P.P.S. Ellois suggerisce le nuove "candele senza rimasugli Ikea", che portano ad una diminuzione degli incidenti casalinghi dovuti ad esperimenti malati del 100%.

Again I moved north for a while, where the sun tries to set at 10pm without much success, only to rise again around 4am.

Yesterday I heard a new sound, one of those sounds you could read in books or hear in movies, but not something you are actually ready to hear. Moreover, the enviroment was not the right one: that was not the sound you would expect to hear when everything is quite, the trees are green, the sky is clear, and the sun hot on my spring-pale skin.

But it started, suddenly. A bit like a car horn but louder, and instead of coming from the nearby street, it was everywhere. A few seconds, then silence; again the only things you could hear were wind, leaves and birds. Then this loud siren again, coming from every direction, goosebump rising on my arms defiant of the warm sun. It's the catastrophe alarm.

The right place for the catastrophe alarm would be a D-Day movie, that is why it makes you look in the sky, expecting to see silhouettes of B-17s. But I am not in Germany, this is Sweden right now and the siren alerts people to stay inside and close the windows - more information will be broadcasted on the radio. Fire, chemical stuff flying around, melt-down. The sound is repeated for a few minutes, and every neighbourhood in the city has at least a building with a siren on the roof - wonder what controls it... -. A single, longer sound means that the emergency is over.

Anyway, yesterday afternoon I was enjoying the warmth of these nice days of June, when the catastrophe alarm echoed in the air: system test, every three months, the first Monday of the month, 3 o'clock. But if you don't know, you get a nice scare :-)

Today, for a change, I wrote a serious and log post about spammish websites, but it's centered on Italy. I could translate all that stuff, but it won't make much sense and it wouldn't be interesting for who lives abroad. And maybe I'm lazy :-)

I could write something alternative here, but then it would be missing in the other language. So, I'll just skip this - there will be only an italian post for today.

Two months of electronic begging and panhandling. This is the easies way to shrink February and March in a sentence, when I was patiently waiting for Boss Maintenance (they have a horrible website) to fix my laptop. It took them 14 days to open the box I sent them and 4 more days only to read the letter I had put in there, so it's not that bad, you see. While I was waiting I had time to travel north again and see metres of snow at the sides of the streets and huge snowflakes; meanwhile my work was following me on a USB stick, and I could use only portable software.

Now I have a new motherboard and a new harddisk, a fresh installation that took me a couple of long days. More or less like it was before, the only thing that is missing is those 30GB of files I didn't backup: three years of programs, data and source code blown jsut because I bought a crippled IDE converter. Now those files are hidden in the dark of my wardrobe, protected by soft bubbles, waiting for magical recovery techniques. Should I freeze myself aswell, and wait next to them in the wardrobe ?

I tried everything for my poor drive, even science-fiction and surgeon gloves, but results where not appealing. One day I'll try something else, I'm not down yet. In the wardrobe, next to my harddrive, lies also Victim (R.I.P. 20 Feb - 22 Feb 2006), twin disk, bought only to rip off spare parts without love. In its short life it held only one file, I don't really know why, but it won't be forgotten.

Now I have a lot of text and code to rewrite, but I'm not sure to remember everything. Moreover, now I need to study new evil backup and replication systems, not to let this happen again. Somehow I'm happy to have some work to do, in different fields. Two works and this home maintenance. And soon it will be Easter, with holidays that I'm sure will make me happy :-)

The end of January is drawing closer and for once it was full of interesting events. Of course, I didn't have time to write about them, since I was busy living. I spent the first twelve days on holiday, without doing anything big or special. I was just relaxing, doing many little things, spending my time with a special person :-) They I had to get serious: I got a job. It's small, part-time and limited, but I don't want to start working seriously all at the same time - I'm a bit afraid of that.

My job is for a big company but I can work from home and the pay is quite good. I can't really say what I'm doing because the NDA was so long I'd would rather take a silence vow than read it again. However, I'm not even sure why I'm doing what I'm doing: it may have something to do with some updates, but it's just a speculation of mine. For the moment what I'm doing seems interesting, a bit repetitive, sometimes challenging - probably like every other job out there. What makes me happy is the fact I can work wherever I am and that it will be over before I can get tired of it :-)

Instead, the last days of this month are reserved for swearing. My notebook has given up living, probably tired of the recent cold and of being carried around. Ok, I'm not that clever going around while everyone else is home, but it's to late. Not it doesn't turn on: I can switch it on, the fan starts spinning but it hangs before the BIOS. Not even the screen turns on. I suppose the IDE controller died trying to power a frozen hard drive, but maybe it's too much.

What was on the laptop? luckily nothing about my job, so I can still work; but I had everything else there, and I can't use it for the moment. And I'm not sure if the hard disk is fine or not yet, because I don't have anything else where I can fit a 2.5" disk. Grrrrrrrr...