Brew Dog

Last night we took part in a Brew Dog beer tasting at the Whisky Society. I've had a few of their beers before and while I find them a bit too bitter to drink a lot off, they're very nice to have a couple of bottles of, of an evening.

Co-founder James took us through the beers and gave us a bit of history about the company. He knows his stuff and is very passionate about what they do, but I'm not sure I agree with everything he said (especially his disdane for all other UK beers).

Overall, we got to taste 7 beers, 5 of which I hadn't had before. First up was Punk IPA which I was pretty familiar with. Beer No. 2 was 5 a.m Saint which I hadn't had before and really enjoyed, will be looking out for that one in the shops. Next up was Hardcore IPA which was very nice as well, at 9.2% it's pretty strong but it doesn't taste as strong as it is.

After some dinner we got to try two Paradox's, Imperial Stout aged in an Arran whisky cask and an Islay Smokehead cask. I'd had the Arran Paradox before, but not the Smokehead one. When I'd first tried the Arran one, I found it a bit much, at 10% it's pretty strong, but last night I really enjoyed them both, maybe you need to build up to a beer like that.

Next up was the controversial Tokyo, at 18% it's a beast, but it's also very nice. Our table of 8 had 2 bottles to share between us and we were served it in whisky snifters. It's definitely one I fancy getting another bottle of, especially since Rosie enjoyed it too, so we can share a bottle.

Last up was the ice-distilled Tactical Nuclear Penguin. At 32% it's more like a spirit than a beer. We each got served a shot, again in a whisky glass and I have to say I wasn't convinced. It was no match for a nice whisky, but too much like a spirit to work as a beer. I can only imagine what the even stronger ones are like.

Overall, an enjoyable night, some nice beers and some interesting chat.

Headset Maintenance

The rust coloured stain which would come out the bottom of my headset after riding in the rain and the fact that sometimes it would seize up and need a few twists to loosen off properly should have been a warning sign, but after last week's trip to Glentress and a ride back from work in the rain the day before, my headset was sounding even worse. There was a distinct grinding feeling when moving the handlebars and on my commute, the bike sometimes wanted to keep going straight on and required a bit more effort than normal to turn.

So I had a go at removing the forks to see if I could improve the problem. Step one is to undo the cap at the top and remove the stem by undoing the two bolts on the side, then you just have to remove the spacers and you're ready to take the forks off. Most of the websites I read said the forks should just drop out, or a sharp knock with a mallet would loosen things, but this didn't seem to be happening for me, even after hitting the steerer tube as hard as I was willing to. I later discovered that there is a rubber wedge in the top of the headset which keeps everything down, prying it up a bit with a screwdriver meant that the forks could drop out easily.

A little too easily it turned out, I ended up holding the forks in one hand and the frame in the other, a situation which could have been remedied if I had a workstand, or if I had taken the wheel off first. There's not really anywhere you can stand a set of forks with a wheel on the bottom and I couldn't but either part down to sort things out. To make matters worse, the bottom bearings had fallen out and a few were now rolling about on the floor. After a quick call to Rosie I managed to sort myself out and take the wheel off. Then I just needed to find the bearings.

Problem was, there was one missing ... after a good bit of searching I realised that the bearing retainer had been bent and there wasn't one missing at all, there was just one jammed somewhere it shouldn't be, I assume that's what the grinding noise was!

Changing the who headset sounded like a bit of a worrying task and buying individual bearings doesn't seem to be possible (added to the fact that the headset on my bike doesn't seem to be available for sale anywhere) I resorted to trying to bend the retainer back into place. This was quite easily accomplished by getting Rosie to bend the retainer back into place with a pair of small pliers. I then degreased the bearings to remove most of the rust, put it all back together with a liberal amount of grease and took it out for a spin.

Everything seemed to work fine (after I tightened up some loose parts) and it's still working now. Definitely needs replacing sometime soon, but for the moment it's doing the job. I hope everything is ok for tomorrow when I hope to head back down to Glentress.

Arduino board

Arduino board, originally uploaded by chored.

I had seen these little boards before and Neil and I had been talking about the possibilities, but I hadn't really thought of any project to justify buying one, but last week Neil mentioned that the Sony Alpha shutter release trigger is activated quite simply by shorting two wires and so it's possible to set up timelapse/sound triggers quite easily.

So ... I had a look about for some way of controlling electronics easily from a PC. This is pretty much what two thirds of my fourth year disseration was at uni, but at the time, the easiest way to interface with the PC was via the parallel port, which has died a death in the years since. So after looking for some solutions on line, it became clear that one of these little microprocessor boards would be ideal and would also give me a little more flexibility.

I went for Arduino simply because I had seen it before and knew it was open source and had seen some cool projects.

I got the board in a starters kit from oomlout.co.uk/, which comes with the board, a breadboard for prototyping, and some basic components (LEDs, resistors, switches, potentiometers and a photo resistor). Oomlout shipped the device the same day and I had it yesterday morning.

Downloading the software is simple enough and the development environment is easy to use and easy to sync with the board and also includes some examples to get you started. There are some annoying things about the code editor, but they're not major.

After playing with the blinking LED programs and getting the switches to trigger events, I had run out of stuff to do with the limited set of components I had. I had also been unsuccessful in finding the right bits and bobs to connect the camera up to test the shutter release cable, but hopefully I'll get some more components next week and be able to do some more things with it.

I have managed to knock up a little game which pits two players against each other in a test of responses. It involves waiting for a light to come on after a random interval and then having to press your button, the first to press the button wins. It's pretty easy to make, with 4 LEDs connected to for of the Arduino's digital pins and two switches connected up as well.

Source Code if anyone's interested. Hopefully with some more parts I can make something a bit more interesting.