500mH

So, a note from Dickie claiming that kettles are not slow in US, and a note from Mr Cat6 saying they are. I have lived with 110V supplies and I have to say that I think kettles are slower, but we always had an instant hot water machine, also described by Mr Cat6, so maybe I'm not able to make the judgement. I don't think it's possible to get the hot water machines here in UK. I have no idea why. Incidentally Dickie, I too have a drier with no exhaust pipe. It has an elegant little condenser system instead.

I have just worked out some values for the RF filter element of my Tesla coil. I think I need two inductors with a value of 500 mH. That sounds super enormous to me. I now have to work out how to calculate the inductance of homemade coils. The capacitance on the other hand, I think I can deal with.

I've asked my parents to come down on Saturday to look after the little soldier while I take the dragon out for an hour or two. I might have mentioned that the Chinese State Circus is coming to town. They have pitched their tent at the end of our road, and I shall purchase tickets on the way home. I'm terribly excited. The dragon seems less so, but she did of course grow up with this type of thing. I may see if I can get some footage to show you all.

Those Chinese have finally blown up their temporary damn holding back the waters of the Yanksee river. It was quite a sight to behold, judging by the footage I saw on the BBC news this morning. The Seven Gorges Damn itself is now operational and providing energy for squillions of Chinese people. It's been a contraversial project, but one has to be impressed. I almost went to see it, but couldn't get the time off work. I feel it was a missed opportunity.

I was going to bring you awesome news of the Chinese baby born with 3 arms who has just had surgery to remove one, but sadly my service provider is being a pain in the arse and I can't get much out of the internet. In fact, I may have to wait until tomorrow to post this entry.

I see also that the music industry has said it will turn a blind eye to people copying CDs they have bought, to portable players. Are we supposed to be pleased about that? I mean, were they really expecting anyone to be grateful for this magnanimus gesture that means we now don't have to pay extortionate prices twice for the same music. Like they could stop it anyway.