It’s kind of a long-running joke. It started with bored English boarding school students creating the pseudo-latin phrase, “Illegitimi non carborundum”, which is very bad Latin ostensibly meaning “Don’t let the bastards wear you down.” It got to be kind of famous as a kind of intellectual joke.

Somebody later came along and translated it into much more proper Latin, “Noli nothis permittere te terere,” which is essentially right. “Nothis” is literally “illegitimate children” (nothus, second declension, dative case) which is not really the intended connotation of “bastards” in this case, but it gets the point across.

It would be pronounced:

NO-lee NO-teece per-mee-TAIR-ray TEH tuh-RAIR-ay

It would be nice to get this engraved on something…hmm!

Ohh, my sides still hurt! ROFLMAO at the IQ vs. hotness, where this equals actual hotness * ‘hotness multiplier factor’ resulting in perceived hotness!

I’ve added a few additions of my own…wish I could some how work ‘Spandex’ in there…

He insisted that since I had a ‘Google Nexus One’ that they did not have the settings and it would simply not work – it was deemed an incompatible handset…right!

Since I knew I had to get the GPRS/MMS information out of him, and I really couldn’t be bothered to call back to get someone else, I told him that I had an iPhone (which I do) and that I’ll shift the SIM across.

I managed to get the following details, and a few extra bits that were not needed – at least for my Nexus One.

APN: vivamms
MMSC: http://172.16.128.80:38090/was
MMS Proxy: 172.16.128.228
MMS Port: 8080

I simply named the APN ‘VIVA’ and enabled it. WiFi was active at the time, so as I disabled it, and browsed to Google – the 3G indicator popped up with arrows depicting the upstream and downstream transfer of data. Just superb!

The past two weeks involved copious amounts of champagne, wine, and scotch – six and seven course dinners and just lazying about in the Hilton. It was definitely hard work but someone had to do it :)

On a different note, this is some information I’ve been hanging onto for a while. The releases to expect from Montblanc this year include:

Patron of Arts Edition : Queen Elizabeth I
Writer’s Edition : Mark Twain
Music Edition : John Lennon

I also snapped these few photos randomly today,

Wishing you a wonderful New Year as well!

My hypothesis is based on the fact that the impeller-turbine shaft does not undergo any torsion, and within its suitable operating limits this should not be an issue. The turbocharger would require a third interfacing stage, so that the shaft drives an electrical generator.

Of course, the problem with this system is the added complexity and the fact that the impeller-turbine shaft will have to do work in turning the generator axle. Such a system does post an advantage though.

The research I have undertaken in this area suggests that most HEV designs operate around a singular energy store – from ultra capacitors to flywheels and the more “yet-to-be-viable” hydrogen fuel cells.

With regards to the operation of trains though, most of the ‘recharging’ if these energy sources is achieved during braking, and quite possibly, when running down slopes. Consider the use of the turbine attached generator above – in this scenario, it would be possible to deploy an independent energy store from those charged by the internal combustion engine itself. It would be possible to utilise this secondary energy store to provide extra horse power when needed, especially when the primary store depletes.

However, this idea may not be viable considering railway engines tend to utilise large displacement naturally aspirated engines running at low RPMs. Turbocharger efficiency is particularly poor at low RPMs as the exhaust gasses do not have sufficient energy to enough to overcome the inertia of the turbine to spool up. My idea requires the use of a turbocharger, as the diesel engine in HEVs tends to solely function as a means for driving the electric traction motors – the hot exhaust gasses are typically untapped as a secondary source of energy.

HEV design will most likely focus on smarter means of energy management, as there is a lot more room to make improvements in this aspect, whilst the usual advances in engineering and technology progresses.

The use of Solar powered trains is also quite limited considering there is much overhead obstruction in most cities, especially due to mountains and tunnels etc. Until we see “Terminator” type nuclear or hydrogen fuel cells in mass production, it might be a while till the HEV sector finds its silver bullet.

Top (rear) left to right: Remy Martin XO, Balvenie 15 yrs, Balvenie 12 yrs, Johnnie Walker Blue Label (almost finished), same unopened, rear decanter with Balvenie 21 yrs. Bottom right most decanter with Remy XO.

What I wanted from it was quite obviously my ability to be able to reproduce it legibly and have some flourishes to make it harder to be be forged.

This is what I’ve been able to come up with so far,

I tend to normally write my ‘d’ in the traditional fashion, whilst starting from its “belly”, and then working my way up; however, I found the method above not only flows nicely into the flourished tail of the ‘a’ but is also easier to actually write. It looks a bit like an abused ‘partial derivative’ symbol hehe!

Last evening, I went through most of the MBs in my pen box and the one nib to offer the natural line variance you can see above, was quite surprisingly from the Shaw. While I was testing my ideas in a moleskine, the Fitzgerald put down a really thick line, with almost no variance – at least on this paper. Something with ridges, like the Verge de France, G. Lalo paper should bring out its characteristics and I plan to perform a few more tests today.

Google have finally realised Chrome for Mac. I first tried it out on my MBP and found it to be really snappy; right now I’m running side-by-side with FireFox on my Mac Pro. It’s that good, however, not without a caveat – it does not render some sites, and it does not seem Java is playing nicely with it either. It is a definite step forward, although I am not ready to completely shift over considering FireFox great support for extensions.

iPhone 3G

On the iPhone 3G front I would like to state that I have been living life as caveman! It has been over a month since I pwned it to v3.1.2 but did not know about SBSettings till my friend Fahad mentioned it to me today!

It is a must install for owners of jailbroken iPhone’s; just make sure you restart your phone after the install from Cydia.

The second update is to do with Ultrasn0w. The iPhone Dev team finally sorted out the missing carrier name. All this while I used ‘Faked Carrier’ but one can imagine how annoying that would be whilst roaming etc. Here’s their report:

Today we released an ultrasn0w update that fixes an issue for those running firmware 3.1.x with the 04.26 baseband. That specific combination resulted in a missing carrier name in the upper left-hand corner of your home screen. Today’s ultrasn0w update from 0.91 to 0.92 fixes that problem (which was an important issue for roaming). You should see the update available if you have http://repo666.ultrasn0w.com as a Cydia source. Enjoy!

MacBook inhabits a Linksys router

This is one of those rare mods that should go down in the annals of computing history; pure genius really – although I must agree with the bulk of the opinions, “Why oh why a Linksys router?”. More photos and details are posted in the project log, with a plethora of images.

In other news…

I’ve been focussing a great deal on my research writing and just completed a really interesting piece just today on Turbocharger Matching with Diesel Engines. The final report was over 30 pages, with 5,000 words, 70 equations and the complete derivation of Winkler’s method, as well as the solution to a turbocharger matching project.

So, four days later and I’m a little bit wiser; definitely more appreciative of ‘turbodiesels’ for sure, and seem to be lusting over the BorgWarner VGT inside the 997 Porsche 911 Turbo! Here are some sexy images to whet your appetite…

You should watch this for some great laughs, it’s really good!

Not only does it keep me busy but it is quite rewarding, personally. However, this is has put some of my projects such as the arms installation of my PG Strike on hold.

Movie Update
Today I got the chance to watch District 9 for the second time. During the initial moments a thought occurred to both myself and my cousin – could the Prawns have been humans a while back? It seems like far too much of a coincidence that Wikus perfectly under went metamorphosis into a Prawn and that the human DNA could be re-written into that of a Prawn so easily. But that is just a thought.

Inky Thoughts
With 2010 right around the corner, and not many pages left in my Moleskine 12 month Notebook diary left, I’ve been giving its successor some thought.

This is the Panoramic diary from Moleskine, a new product for 2010 in a soft flexible cover.

I’ve put this on reserve as well as one in the older format in case I am not impressed in person. However, the new format seems like it would be more productive and I can easily organise my actual “notes” into another dedicated ’skine.

Along the same topic, I have drastically restructured operation of my fountain pen collection. Both my Father’s Parker Duofold Centennial and the Waterman Edson have been flushed and put away in the top layer of the pen box. Right now, six FPs are in the top layer: Mozart FP in Gold, 146 in Plat, CdA Leman, Pelikan M1000, Parker Duofold, and the Edson.

In my display cabinet I have the Montblanc ink well back on display (no longer in use, per say) along with the Leonardo sketch pen and Mozart mechanical pencil in Platinum trim. I found I was wasting more ink the long run with the ink well and that over a long period the ink would be dehydrated. It is far more fresher straight out of the bottle.

Another interesting point is that I’ve discovered that modern bottles of Montblanc ink have a sticker right underneath them with the expiry date; all of mine have a 2013 date of expiration and should be well depleted by then.

I also ended up flushing the 149 with the OBB nib and refilled it with MB blue-black. The double-broad nib is unique enough to give inks a different tone, as it spreads the ink over a larger surface area. For example, MB racing green appears to be a far more khaki like olive-green rather than the deep black-green it normally appears to be when written with the 149 B or M nibs.

I also found this great image on flickr, from a fellow TFPN member.

I am completely loving the blue-black in my OBB and look forward to many more months of writing with it.

Family
One of my Uncles was gifted a grand piano by my Aunt for his Birthday, just yesterday, and I am really looking forward to witnessing him play. It is really quite a splendid gift for someone with a special touch.