Ben's Questions and Answers

Safe Rodent Bait

2010-02-04T22:57:00.002-06:00

Someone asked me if there's a rodent bait that is safe to use around domestic animals including dogs and cats.It looks like Rode-trol may be the solution:"Manufactured from All-Natural and Environmentally-Safe Products! Rode-trol®, Ro-Con™ and Ro-cide™ are made from all natural, food-grade, corn byproducts. Finely milled and pelleted; molasses and corn oil concentrate are then added as an

Marriage License With Error Legal?

2010-02-04T22:50:00.000-06:00

Someone asked me if a marriage license with an error, e.g. their husband's birth date indicating that he was only 7 years old, is legally valid.If you want to get the error corrected then there should be no problem with filing a new marriage license and the cost is minimal.If you are trying to escape a marriage using a technicality then I recommend that you talk to a lawyer, which I am not.If you

Cicada Killer Wasp Sting Danger

2007-07-16T22:31:00.000-05:00

Someone asked if Cicada Killer Wasps ever sting or bite people and if they are a danger to people or pets.Apparently the Cicada Killer rarely stings unless they are disturbed. Although males are aggressive and territorial they have no sting. Females are difficult to provoke, but may sting if provoked. The sting descriptions range from mild, and dissipating within an hour, to medium, and

Do Toads Hibernate in Garages?

2007-07-11T21:34:00.000-05:00

Someone asked me if their pet toad will hibernate if kept in a garage during the cold winter months.If the garage is uninsulated and unheated then the temperature in the garage will be quite close to the outside temperature, although it would be a bit warmer, and so the toad will probably go into hibernation. Just ensure that it has plenty of food before hibernation time so it can make it

Katydid versus Cicada

2007-07-10T22:50:00.000-05:00

Someone asked what the difference between Katydids and Cicadas is. A Katydid is in the same general family (Tettigoniidae) as grasshoppers, crickets, and locusts. A Cicada is in an entirely different family (Cicadoidea).Here are some pictures of Katydids:Katydids in google imagesKatydids in FlickrHere are some pictures of Cicadas:Cicadas in google imagesCicadas in FlickrIf you have any comments

Red and Black Beafeater Uniform

2007-06-17T16:36:00.000-05:00

Someone asked me what the purpose of the red Beafeater, Yeoman Warder, uniforms is as opposed to the black uniform. They also wondered why Beafeaters carry an axe and what their duties are.The red ceremonial uniform is reserved for special/official occasions and the black undress uniform is the everyday version.The Yeoman Warders carry a pike, a long spear, the Chief Warder carries a staff

Music Bad for the Mind

2007-03-12T22:12:00.000-05:00

Someone asked me if music is bad for your mind; like anything else, it depends ;-)The creators of the Baby Einstein and Little Einsteins obviously believe that music is very beneficial to the brain and there was an article in Scientific American that was referenced by wikipedia that claims significantly beneficial brain differences caused by music, although there is an opposing side that may

OpenOffice boolean if function

2006-09-29T21:41:00.000-05:00

Someone asked me how they would use boolean statements in OpenOffice's Spreadsheet application, Calc.In my previous example showing how to calculate the number of days between 2 dates I set cells A1 and B1 to be dates and set C1 to be a formula that used the "DAYS" function to calculate the number of days between the two dates.If you wanted to only output the calculation if A1 and B1 were greater

OpenOffice Calculate Days Between

2006-09-29T08:31:00.000-05:00

Someone asked me how they could calculate the number of days between two dates using OpenOffice's Spreadsheet application, Calc.The answer is to use the "DAYS" function.Type a date in cell A1, set the format of the cell to be a date, type another date in cell B1, set that cells format to also be a date, then enter the following in cell C1:=DAYS(A1;B1)Cell C1 will now contain a number signifying

Fast Velcro Costume Change

2006-09-28T22:34:00.000-05:00

Someone just asked me how do performers make a clothes change so quickly on stage?Simple answer; Velcro.All those buttons are just for show, underneath it's just Velcro.If you have any comments please let me know and if you have any other questions which you'd like me to answer for free please send them to Ben Dash at ben.dash@gmail.com

Periodic Cyclic Cicadas

2006-09-28T22:06:00.000-05:00

Someone just asked me a few more cicada questions:1. What year will the cyclical cicada occur here in Illinois?2. Do both the annual and the cyclical occur at the same time?3. If the cyclical cicada egg takes 13/17 years to become a larva and emerge, how long is the annual underground? Is it a year?The answers are:1. Broods III, XIII, XIX, and XXIII will emerge in 2014, 2007, 2011, and 2015

Smallest MythTV Frontend

2006-09-22T07:42:00.000-05:00

Someone asked me if I knew of a really small, tiny, PC that could be used as a MythTV frontend. The eBox III 3800 has an 800mhz CPU and 256MB RAM so it should be adequate for a standard definition mythfrontend PC. It can boot from the LAN using PXE, which is great for a frontend, so the lack of hard drive shouldn't be an issue.You don't get much smaller than that, or do you?If you have any

Right Justified Everything

2006-04-04T16:14:00.000-05:00

Someone just asked me what they are doing that sometimes causes all their text in MS Notepad to become right justified and, more importantly, how do they change it back to being left justified?What's actually happening is windows is being told, by certain hotkeys being pressed, to switch from the typical Western left-to-right text orientation to a right-to-left text orientation used in Arabic and

Dead Toad Hibernation

2006-03-07T21:09:00.000-06:00

Someone asked me if it was normal for their pet toad to curl up and remain completely still at the onset of winter. "Is the toad dead?"Most likely not. Most toads hibernate in the winter and will often appear to be dead only to reanimate in the spring as the weather warms up. The best thing to do is to leave the toad alone and see what happens, hopefully your pet will awaken refreshed and

Lost Window

2005-10-26T11:10:00.000-05:00

Someone asked me if I knew how they could find a window which they'd lost in Windows XP. What happened was that they had been using their laptop in dual screen mode and then went to another location where they only had a single screen. When they ran one particular application it restored its window to the second, now non-existent, screen. Consequently, the window was not visible.The solution is

Poisoned Rats Dangerous

2005-10-21T20:10:00.000-05:00

Someone asked if poisoned rats are dangerous to cats and dogs and, if so, how to ensure that cats and dogs do not eat the poisoned rats. This is a followup question to an earlier answer about rat repellant:http://bensqanda.blogspot.com/2005/06/rat-repellent.htmlRat poison can certainly be very dangerous to domestic animals who eat the dead rats.Rat poisons come in 3 varieties:1) Anticoagulant

Portable Media

2005-10-12T15:31:00.000-05:00

Someone asked me if I knew of a device which would allow them to transport video which they recorded using MythTV and then play that video on a TV screen.It's possible to transport your audio and video media between PCs using a USB external Hard Disk Drive, however, if you want to display your media on a TV screen then the MediaGate MG-25 is what you need, available from Amazon here:The MediaGate

WL-HDD battery

2005-10-04T08:37:00.000-05:00

Someone asked me if I knew of an external battery for use with the WL-HDD 2.5 WiFi external hard drive.Do you know how some things are just meant to go together? Well I just found the Tekkeon myPower universal battery which just happens to be not only exactly the same size, shape and colour as the Asus WL-HDD 2.5 external WiFi hard drive enclosure, but it also provides the correct voltage to

Old PC CD Boot

2005-09-09T10:04:00.000-05:00

Someone asked if there was a way to make an old PC boot from a CD even though the BIOS only recognised floppy drive, A: or B: etc., and hard disk bootable drives.The answer is yes you can. The tool which allows you to boot from a CD, or indeed many other types of device, is Smart Boot Manager. More information and the download is available here:http://btmgr.webframe.org/I hope that that answers

Disable Form Auto Complete

2005-09-06T08:30:00.000-05:00

Someone asked me if it was possible to disable HTML form auto complete and if so how it is done.It is possible to disable HTML form auto complete, and it's very easy to do with no need for any complex javascript.Simply change:To:You can also set autocomplete using javascript:document.myForm.setAttribute('autocomplete',

Cicada versus Tree Frogs

2005-08-25T10:47:00.000-05:00

Someone in Kansas asked me if the noise that they hear just before rain fall is Cicads, Locusts, or Tree Frogs.Just to clarify, the species of Locusts native to North America, the Rocky Mountain Locust, is thought to have become extinct by 1902, so we know that the noise was not made by Locusts. During the 1880s Laura Ingalls Wilder recounts her experiences in the book "On the Banks of Plum

American Fiscal Policy

2005-08-25T09:21:00.000-05:00

Someone asked me why the United States Government, under the leadership of President George W. Bush, seems to advocate Fiscal policy, i.e. reducing taxes, as a means to solve all problems while using legislation rather than Fiscal policy to dissuade consumption of products which are perceived as harmful such as cigarettes, alchol and gasoline/petrol.Taxes on products which are perceived to be

World's First Constitution

2005-08-16T09:55:00.000-05:00

Someone asked me if the Constitution of the United States of America, framed in 1787 and ratified in 1789, was the first constitution.The word constitution originates from the Latin word "constitutio" meaning system. The Roman Republic created their constitution in the year 509 B.C. so it certainly predates the U.S. constitution and actually played a significant role in the creation of the U.S.

Solbury Hill Location

2005-08-16T08:20:00.000-05:00

Someone asked me where the Solbury Hill in the Peter Gabriel song is located. First lets clarify the name of the place. Many people incorrectly spell the name of the hill in question "Solbury", however, it's actually Solsbury Hill:Climbing up on Solsbury HillI could see the city lightWind was blowing, time stood stillEagle flew out of the nightHe was something to observeCame in close, I heard a

Cicada Locust Differences

2005-08-13T21:42:00.000-05:00

Someone asked me what the difference is between a Cicada and a Locust. I was asked this a few weeks ago and had a very interesting time researching it. Rather than repeating my previous answer I will direct you directly to my previous answer here:Cicadas versus LocustsDo you have Cicadas where you live?I hope that that helps to clear up any confusion beween the two species of insect, if you

Logo Programming Language

2005-08-13T07:10:00.000-05:00

Someone asked me what the Logo Programming Language is. Many many many years ago, in the early 1980s, I was taught Logo at school. It's an ideal programming language for children because it's very simple and instantly rewarding. The reason why it's instantly rewarding is because it's generally taught using a Turtle.If you're not familiar with Logo you probably think that I just went insane

Ruby Programming Language

2005-08-12T21:42:00.000-05:00

Someone asked how they could learn the Ruby Programming Language. It's always best to learn through practical experience and, fortunately, that is easy because Ruby is free. Not only is it financially free but since it is distributed under the GPL license it also provides you the freedom to examine its source code and, if you desire, modify it in accordance with the GPL license.Once you have

Learning C

2005-08-10T22:21:00.000-05:00

Someone asked if I could recommend a good book for learning how to program in the C language. The definitive C book is "The C Programming Language" by the legendary K & R.What is your favorite C book?Once you have the basics under control I would recommend that you take a look at "Expert C Programming". I read this book in 1995 and it is full of useful C information.Have fun learning C, the

Tarantula Hawk Wasp

2005-08-08T22:00:00.000-05:00

Someone asked if I could help to identify a wasp which they found in their garden. The coloring was interesting in that it was completely black except for the wings, which were red. The wasp was approximately an inch and a half long and the wasp body was approximately half an inch wide.After searching various wasp sources I had come to the conclusion that this was probably a member of the

Online book publishing

2005-08-07T21:58:00.000-05:00

Someone asked me if there is a web site which allows you to print and sell books which you have written yourself. There are actually several online book publishers, or online self publishers, which you can upload your manuscript to who will handle the printing and the online bookstore sales for you.The online publishing house that I prefer is called LuLu (http://www.lulu.com), however, all of

Blanket versus Duvet

2005-08-05T08:24:00.000-05:00

Someone asked me why I prefer a duvet rather than a blanket when it comes to bed linens. The reason is partly because, being English, that is what my family and I have always used, and partly because it just makes more sense to me.If you use a blanket then you always have a problem when the time comes to wash the blanket. Generally, you can either have one thick blanket which is too large for

Cheap Micro Mini DV camera

2005-08-04T01:30:00.000-05:00

In the midst of the CVS pharmacy disposable digital video camera being hacked someone asked me if there are any other reasonably priced small digital video cameras.Just the other day I was mentioning the Philips GoGear and that really is about as small as they come. The only problem with the GoGear is that it only has 128MB RAM and no way to increase it. Consequently you're limited to only

Veruca or Verruca

2005-08-03T10:41:00.000-05:00

Someone asked me if "Verruca" has one "R" or two. The answer is two.As I mentioned before in my post "Plantar Wart or Verruca", Amazon has several treatments available for Verrucas, or Plantar Warts, here.The condition is very easy to treat, if you have any comments please let me know and if you have any other questions which you'd like me to answer for free please send them to Ben Dash at

Plantar Wart or Verruca

2005-08-03T10:31:00.000-05:00

Someone asked me what the difference is between a Plantar Wart and a Verruca. There is no difference, they are the same. Basically it's an area of skin on the foot which grows faster than the surrounding skin and is caused by the Papilloma virus. The infection is usually contracted by walking barefoot on ground that has been exposed to the virus previously.Amazon has several treatments

BitTorrent Easter Eggs

2005-08-02T09:54:00.000-05:00

Someone asked me if the use of BitTorrent would have any effect on his ability to create Easter Eggs in video. The Easter Eggs which we are talking about have nothing to do with BitTorrent. Easter Eggs refer to anything that's hidden within something else, for example, MS Excel has an Easter Egg Flight Simulator game. BitTorrent is a means of transmitting data over the internet using a swarm

Saudi Royal Line

2005-08-02T09:11:00.000-05:00

Someone asked me who was next in line to the Saudi Arabian Throne now that King Fahd, Fahd bin Abd al-Aziz bin Abd al-Rahman Al Saud, has died.The next in line to the throne was Crown Prince Abdullah, now King Abdullah or Abdullah bin Abd al-Aziz bin Abd al-Rahman Al Saud. Prince Sultan has now become Crown Prince Sultan. If you would like more details of the Saudi Royal line I found this site

Natasha and Daniel Bedingfield

2005-08-01T09:29:00.000-05:00

Someone asked me if Natasha and Daniel Bedingfield are related.The answer is; "Yes". He is her brother.Amazon has several of Natasha Bedingfield's CDs here and several of Daniel Bedingfield's CDs here.Do you know of any other music siblings new to the scene?There must be a lot of competition in a family where several siblings are in the same business, if you have any comments please let me know

Natasha Bedingfield Video Meaning

2005-08-01T09:22:00.000-05:00

Someone asked me what all those cartoon stereos were about in Natasha Bedingfield's "These Words" USA video. It seems that someone thought that it was a cool idea although the general consensus is that the US music video is much worse than the original UK video, at least the lyrics to the song are the same. Amazon has several of Natasha's CDs here.Take a look at the UK video for yourself:http:/

Tiny USB Camcorder

2005-07-30T14:08:00.000-05:00

Someone asked me if there was a USB mass storage device video camera that was small enough that they could carry it on a key ring. The Philips GoGear Wearable Digital Camcorder is just that and also works as a still camera and MP3 player. You can find more details and reviews about it at amazon.It's not going to replace a real digital camcorder but if you want something small enough to fit on a

Convert SVG to PNG Without Antialiasing

2005-07-27T10:15:00.000-05:00

Someone on Slashdot asked if there was any way to convert SVG vector graphics files to PNG raster graphics files without having fixed width lines blurred through the use of antialiasing.The ImageMagick convert untility provides many useful image conversion tools and will convert from SVG to PNG. The way that convert deals with antialiasing is a little confusing however. The person who asked the

Lightning in a Blizzard

2005-07-22T11:31:00.000-05:00

Someone asked me if it was possible to have lightning in a blizzard. My initial thought was that thunder and lightning would need a mix of warm and cold air that would not be compatible with snow formation. Having never heard of lightning in a blizzard I was intrigued and looked into it in a bit more depth.It seems that there have been documented cases of thunder and lightning snow storms

Measure Body Fat

2005-07-20T09:56:00.000-05:00

Someone asked me how I was able to estimate my bodyfat on my Ben's Workouts blog. There are many ways to measure bodyfat, one of the most accurate being the use of underwater weighing scales. Since this is impractical for everyday use the next most accurate, and slightly more practical, is the use of body fat measuring calipers.I opt for the most convenient option, in my mind, without losing

Track Website Traffic

2005-07-17T12:17:00.000-05:00

Someone asked me how they could track who was vistiting their website and where they were coming from.There are many many solutions which provide web tracking, many are even free. My favorite is StatCounter, which I have used for quite a while and have been very happy with:http://www.statcounter.comIf you want to buy a book with additional advice on how to increase of manage your website traffic

Cicada versus Locust

2005-07-14T22:02:00.000-05:00

Someone asked me what the difference is between a cicada and a locust. Initially I was surprised by the question, as I have always seen them to be two completely different species of insects, however, it seems that many people refer to cicadas as locusts.Since there is obviously some question about what a Locust is let's first settle that. A locust is a type of grasshopper, more specifically, a

Focus RS8

2005-07-14T09:56:00.000-05:00

Someone asked me if a hot hatch could beat an Italian Supercar on the race track. The answer is "Yes" if the hot hatch is a Ford Focus RS8 and the Italian Supercar is a Lambo Gallardo.The Ford Focus RS8 is a European Ford Focus RS with the Cammer V8 engine crammed into the space where the 4 cylinder engine used to be. This V8 puts out 450 horsepower in its RS8 incarnation which propels the

Share Linux Data

2005-07-13T09:18:00.000-05:00

Someone asked how they would go about sharing a directory in Linux with multiple PCs. Since all the computers would be running Linux the obvious answer is to use NFS. Had any of the computers been running MS Windows then the answer would have been ti use Samba.In order to share a directory using NFS you must first ensure that you have NFS installed and running. I won't go into the deatils as

Baby Haircut Myth

2005-07-10T13:53:00.000-05:00

Someone asked if it was true that you could shave a baby's head in order to encourage the hair to grow back thicker.After much research where I found accounts of many people claiming that this really does work I established that this is just an old wives tale. When the head, or anywhere else for that matter, is shaved it does not cause extra hair to grow to replace the hair that has fallen out.

WiFi External Hard Drive

2005-07-10T09:58:00.000-05:00

Someone asked if I knew of a WiFi external hard drive which works just like a USB external hard drive except for that that it's WiFi.A few months ago I had asked myself the exact same question, as a solution to the limited internal storage capacity of the Zipit Wireless Linux WiFi IM device, available from amazon here. The problem with the Zipit, if you want to run your own customised version of

Giant Burrowing Wasp

2005-07-08T09:55:00.000-05:00

Someone was wondering what species a giant wasp-like insect was that they had seen around their house in Texas. The insect was about an inch and a quarter long, the diameter of the abdomen was almost as wide as their little finger and colored in a yellow and black stripe pattern. Also, the creature appeared to be digging a burrow.Cicada Killer Wasp Pictures on Flickr.comThis insect is most

EVDO VOIP

2005-07-07T10:44:00.000-05:00

Someone asked if VOIP, Voice Over IP, is possible using an EVDO cellular/mobile phone data network.The answer is yes, there is a WAV file sample of a demonstration telephone conversation available on the internet using Vonage with the compression setting dialed down to 50Kbps. Note that 1xRTT does not provide sufficient bandwidth for VOIP. The same site which tested VOIP over EVDO also

TiVo Caller ID OSD

2005-07-06T11:00:00.000-05:00

Someone asked if there's a way that they can add a telephone Caller ID OSD, On Screen Display, using their TiVo. The answer; is "Yes".The full details how to do this are specified in a book written by ExtremeTech called "Hacking TiVo" available from Amazon.Good luck adding features to your TiVo, if you have any comments please let me know and if you have any other questions which you'd like me

PVR Caller ID

2005-07-06T10:56:00.000-05:00

Someone asked if there was a PVR available with the ability to display telephone Caller ID information on the TV when someone calls your phone. The answer is; "Yes, and the PVR is called MythTV".The way that this works is though an OSD, On Screen Display, overlay which appears on the various MythTV frontends on each TV in your house. The easiest way to set this up is to use it in parallel with

Shooting Star Meteorite Composition

2005-07-05T16:02:00.000-05:00

Someone asked me what shooting stars are made of. The scientific term for Shooting Star is Meteor or Meteorite. Meteors come in various shapes, sizes and origins. The origin of a meteor can be calculated based upon its composition, i.e. what it is made of.In general meteors originate within our own solar system and are often composed of material similar to either the earth, the moon, the

Strobe LED wheel lights

2005-07-01T10:05:00.000-05:00

Someone asked me if you can buy a kit which uses a strobe effect with an LED to create the illusion that your car wheels were moving at a different speed than they were really moving.I found a patent for this idea, so I'm sure that many people have thought about doing it, however, the only commercial implementation that I have found is hokeyspokes for bicycle wheels although MHT wheels had an

Word Document Opening Problems

2005-06-29T14:12:00.000-05:00

Someone asked me if there was anything that they could do if they created a Word document, sent it to someone else who edited it, that other person then sent it back, and then the creator couldn't open the document.Unfortunately this is quite a common situation when using MS Word as Word is notorious for having poor backwards compatibility. This problem is only made worse when a user attempts to

Audio SSH forwarding

2005-06-29T09:43:00.000-05:00

Someone asked if it is possible to forward audio through SSH in the same way that SSH allows you to forward X sessions.The answer is yes and the means to make it happen is called the Enlightened Sound Daemon, or eSounD. Just google for "eSounD" for more information about forwarding audio over SSH and if you want to forward audio to your Windows machine then google for "eSounD cygwin".I hope that

Open Source UML

2005-06-28T16:48:00.000-05:00

Someone asked how I draw UML diagrams, since I use Free Open Source Software I use a FOSS UML diagramming tool.I've tried many many UML tools over the years including Rational Rose, ArgoUML, Poseidon, MS Word Paint, Kivio and finally Dia. The reason why I settled on Dia is because it's a Gnome application, and I prefer Gnome over KDE, and also because of Dia2code, which does a good job of auto

nCurses Applications

2005-06-27T14:36:00.000-05:00

Someone asked where they could find a good list of curses applications. Being a fan of gentoo I thought I'd have a search in the Gentoo Portage tree for "curses" and found the following:http://packages.gentoo.org/search/?sstring=cursesThis isn't an exhausive list of all console based application that you could use from your Zipit Wireless device, it doesn't include mutt, but it's a start.If you

Zipit Wireless IM problems

2005-06-27T12:02:00.000-05:00

Someone asked, on the Zipit Wireless Yahoo Group, why their Zipit was having problems connecting to Yahoo Imstant Messenger. The zipit is an 802.11b instant messaging device available from Amazon.The problem is that the Zipit comes preinstalled as a multi-protocol IM client in a world where IM servers are continually changing their IM protocols. The IM servers continually change the protocols

Poison Toads

2005-06-27T09:46:00.000-05:00

Someone asked me if toads are poisonous. Although all toads have glands in their skin which secrete toxins some are more toxic than others. The most dangerous is the Marine, Giant, or Cane Toad whose toxin is powerful enough to kill small dogs and cats.Have you ever had any problems with toads?It's probably a good rule of thumb to not to touch toads in general, but if you have any comments

Rat Repellent

2005-06-24T12:10:00.000-05:00

Someone asked me if I knew a good way that they could get rid of the rats, and other vermin, in their attic. I've had rats myself and found that it is really not a big problem, certainly not generally worth paying a professional for.As with any problem there are two aspects of the solution; prevention and cure. The cure for an ongoing rat problem is to get the rats out of your house. The

Water Cool CPU

2005-05-22T16:07:00.000-05:00

Someone asked me if it is now feasible to water cool their computer's CPU. It's certainly been possible for many years, but not really very practical for the average person since water cooling a CPU would generally require a significant amount of effort to achieve.The main advantages of water cooling are that the thermal dissipation potential of water cooling is greater than that of air cooling

Origin of Collie Dog Breed

2005-05-04T16:11:00.000-05:00

Someone asked me where the name for the Collie dog breed comes from. After a little research it seems that the most likely origin is from the fact that they were Scottish sheep dogs, and the word collie may be derived from the work coaley referring to the black faced sheep common in Scotland.Do you have any interesting Collie stories?If you have any other ideas please leave a comment and if you

French and Spanish Vocabulary Gender

2005-05-03T14:25:00.000-05:00

Someone asked me if there are any words in French and Spanish which are different genders. I incorrectly answered that cat is different; la chat in French and el Gato in Spanish.It seems that cat in French, chat, is actually masculine, i.e. le chat. la chat means "the chat" or "the informal conversation", I believe.So I haven't found any examples of any words with opposite gender in Spanish and

Beefeater Origin

2005-05-03T14:15:00.000-05:00

Someone just asked me why The Yeoman Warders at the Tower of London are called beefeaters; "Do they eat a lot of Beef?".Basically yes, the Beefeaters did get what was seen, by others, as a unfairly large ration of meat, for example, in 1813 the 30 Beefeaters were allotted 18lbs of mutton, 16lbs of veal, and 24lbs of beef, per day. Beefeaters were usually one of the last to experience reduced

Free Questions and Answers - How?

2005-05-03T09:53:00.000-05:00

Someone just asked me the what, when, where and why regarding Ben's Questions and Answers, so here's the answer, as always for free:What?Ben's Questions and Answers ( http://bensqanda.blogspot.com ) is the name of a Blog which I created to serve as a forum where people could ask me questions and I could display their respective answers.When?I've been thinking of a free Questions and Answers forum

Case Sensitive vfat Thumbdrive

2005-05-02T16:15:00.000-05:00

A couple of years ago I had some fun trying to figure out why a Thumbdrive would show filenames in the wrong case when mounted on a Linux machine. The question came up again today and is likely to be something which many people have been frustrated with in the past since all manner of USB hard drive devices use vfat as their partition type, the answer is:When you mount the Thumbdrive as vfat you

Computerised Pool Trainer

2005-05-02T09:38:00.000-05:00

I was talking to someone on the weekend about how he had come up with an idea for a computerised pool trainer which would use a laser to project the pool balls' path on the pool table. This sounds like a great idea but has it been done before?Unfortunately for him it already exists and there's even video of the "Automatic Pool Trainer" in action at a demonstration in Denmark:http://cpk.auc.dk/

What Is The Default Printer

2005-04-29T15:17:00.000-05:00

I was just asked a question about how to get the default printer name in windows.The answer is that you call GetDefaultPrinter()Please leave a comment if you think that there's anything which I've missed and if you have any other questions which you'd like me to answer please send an email to Ben Dash at ben.dash@gmail.com

Software Crab Fishing Style

2005-04-29T10:00:00.000-05:00

I saw a couple of episodes of a reality TV show about the people who are involved in the Snow Crab fishing industry in Alaska, in particular in the Bering sea. The programme was very interesting and I have to admit that I was certainly feeling tempted to try it and had considered the idea briefly back in College. As a result I began to ask myself; "What is so appealing about Alaska Snow Crab

Online Supermarket Grocery Store Status

2005-04-28T11:13:00.000-05:00

Someone just asked me:"Do online supermarkets and online grocery stores still exist in the US or were they just a fad that went extinct?"The answer is that online supermarkets and online grocery stores certainly do still exist although in a scaled down version from when the concept originally exploded into the marketplace soon to fizzle and almost die althogether. Some online supermarkets include

Learning Languages, i.e. Spanish and French

2005-04-28T10:21:00.000-05:00

I spent many years learning various languages in school, as I'm sure almost everyone else has. My success rate was relatively good, however, I had little motivation to really apply myself. Now that I am living in the US I am far more immersed in alternate cultures, which speak alternate langauges other than English, namely Spanish and French.I am currently receiving at least three Spanish

Are Callbacks A Bad Idea?

2005-04-27T10:55:00.000-05:00

Someone was asking me yesterday why I think that Callbacks are such a bad idea. Firstly let's define exactly what a Callback is in terms of computer programming in C, C++, or Java.Many people use callbacks as a form of RPC. The user implements an abstract interface, in the OOP world, or a function pointer in the non-OOP world. When the underlying API needs to notify the calling application of an

Insert Mapquest Map into Word Doc

2005-04-26T11:56:00.000-05:00

I just had a question though email asking how you insert a map from mapquest into a Microsoft Word document. The way that I did it was actually very simple. Using the Firefox web browser I went to mapquest, entered the address which I wanted a map for, and then right clicked on the map and selected the "Save image as" menu item. Since the image is in the GIF format I made sure to name the files

US Cars versus EU Cars

2005-04-25T16:05:00.000-05:00

Several people were amazed when I told them that my parents are just about to buy a gasoline engined car, which isn't a gasoline electric hybrid, that has 5 doors, seats 5 people, and gets over 60 miles per gallon (mpg). Why? Because the closest non hybrid car would be a diesel VW Golf and it doesn't get any more than 46mpg. Surely this 60mpg car must be a 5 door rickshaw? No, not at all, it

US Trucks versus EU Trucks

2005-04-25T08:39:00.000-05:00

My father in law is a truck driver here in the US. He just got a new Volvo VT 880:http://www.volvo.com/trucks/global/en-gb/trucks/volvo-vt/volvo_vn.htmand we were wondering why all the trucks in Europe are cabover instead of the traditional US style with the log hood/bonnet.Volvo is obviously a European company and certainly builds cabover trucks:http://www.volvo.com/trucks/global/en-gb/trucks/

Regular Expressions

2005-04-25T08:13:00.000-05:00

Someone asked me if I could help them with some Regular Expressions on Friday. I ran across several turorials but A.M Kuchling's Howto seems to be one of the better ones, available here:http://www.amk.ca/python/howto/regex/As an example, this is the regular expression for a standard 8.3 DOS file name, assuming that file names' case is recorded even though the case is ignored:[\w]{1,8}.[/w]{1,3}

Alternative Commuting Methods

2005-04-22T08:02:00.000-05:00

I've been thinking about getting more exercise, as is reflected in my personal blog, Ben's Daily Thoughts and Ben's Workouts, and so was looking into options for commuting to work by bicycle instead of by car.I have several bikes already, each for a specific purpose; a mountain bike, a road bike, a unicycle. The purpose of the unicycle is "because I've always wanted to be able to ride a unicycle"

Can large companies be effectively reorganised

2005-04-21T08:14:00.000-05:00

Yesterday I was discussing whether large companies can become so large and tangled in their own webs that they are irrevocably broken Business Process wise. Certainly there have been plenty of examples of large companies reorganising with great results, Tesco being a prime example having just released news of record earnings in the UK. However, is Tesco merely an example of a company that went

The future prospects for human memory

2005-04-20T10:45:00.000-05:00

The other day someone asked me about the potential impact that the internet will have on mankind in the coming decades. Already, at even this early stage, the internet has largely eliminated the need for people to spend time memorizing information. As illustrated in the film "National Treasure" the star's almost super human memory merely enables him to be one step ahead of the villain. The