Monday, May 8, 2006

Making stuff out of glass

by Suw on May 8, 2006

So T'Other and I had a shitty week last week – if you want to know why, then just read this post at Strange Attractor for an insight. We really needed a break by the time Friday came, so after a lovely dinner out with Michael Tippett from NowPublic (which apparently still gets people visiting via the link I gave 'em when they launched in February last year!), we packed to go down to Hampshire to see Kate.
Aaaaah, just what we needed. Walks in the bluebell woods. Tea at a nearby stately home. A nice gin and tonic in Kate and Steve's conservatory. A play with the neighbour's cat. Lovely.
But the most fun thing was that I got to play with the Vicar. Not a real vicar, you understand, but Kate's kiln, which she's named Vicar, after the Vicar of Dibley.

Here's me preparing to start making a glass bowl. What you can do, you see, is to arrange the glass in a cunning way and then heat it up until it melts, or 'slumps', and then it all fuses together and you have a… heap of fused glass.
My idea was to make like a little wall of glass, and put a sheet on top of it and the whole thing would slump and make a bowl. So this is what it looked like before we fired it.

I was a bit worried we'd end up with just a huge mess, but it worked. Not, perhaps, perfectly but well enough for a first try.

Unfortunately, it was mid-afternoon on Sunday by the time we put the kiln on, and it takes several hours to heat up to 1400F, and even longer to cool down again, so I didn't get to bring it home with me, but it does look rather cool, if a little misshapen.
I also use this stuff called 'frit', which is like chips of glass, or a glass powder, which you can use to decorate the glass you're fusing. I ended up doing this very rough sort of picture thing, which may make an interesting coaster. Or something.

Anyway, I can't wait to get back to Kate's so I can play more! This whole glass thing is fun. I could really get into it. Trouble is, now I want a kiln and there really isn't anywhere to put it. And I think T'Other would be a little perturbed if I went out and spent that much money on something so big before we get our nice new flatscreen monitor for watching DVDs on. Still… gives me an excuse to go down and play with the Vicar again.

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Be sy'n digwydd ar y We Gymraeg?

by Suw on May 8, 2006

O'n i'n meddwl am yr iaith Gymraeg wythnos diwetha. O'n i'n siarad â'r pobl Global Voices, ac o'n i'n mwddwl bod rhaid inni wneud mwy efo'r we ar gyfer iaith. Ond dwi'm yn gwybod beth sydd ar gael nawr. Felly dw i wedi dechrau tudalen newydd ar fy wici CMC i gasglu gwefannau defynddiol i siaradwyr Cymraeg. Plîs golygwch!
(Nodyn: Mae'r wici'n agor, felly sdim rhaid i logio i fewn.)

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Blog-City killed my old blog

by Suw on May 8, 2006

Blog-City, the blog host I used for the second incarnation of Chocolate and Vodka (after Blogger went all crap) have summarily killed my archives. I have the data, but no way to import it into Blogware, or to make it publicly available, so I am a bit peeved that a chunk of my online past can just vanish.
I think this is a real shame. Storage is cheap, and I personally feel a bit like blogs should be forever unless the owner decides to delete, but obviously Blog-City wanted to clear off some space on their servers and I am sure that they would take the line that as I was no longer paying for the service (I paid for the last two years, even though I wasn't using it), and as the blog was dormant they have the right to delete it. I guess they probably tried to contact me but didn't get a response. Who knows. I never got the email, which may just mean that an old address was on file. Probably all my fault.
Still.
Ok… so any geeks here wanna take a stab at converting the old Blog-City archives into something that's importable by Blogware?

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