@Cloudscout Your post about minidiscs inspired me to make a blog post: https://pointinthecloud.com/2026-03-27-134200.html
shortcolin
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I'm in Edinburgh. I like designing simple technology and riding my solar e-bike - which even works in Scotland!
The Omni Centre in Edinburgh had slight cyberpunk vibes today. Such a terrible shame I couldn't be advertised to.....
Retro computing enthusiasts in Edinburgh: there is a Bush CRT TV with SCART input dumped by a bin in Rankeillor St, near the university. I know these things are becoming desirable for the proper period feel in case anyone wants one!
Was browsing photos in William Patrick Library, Kirkintilloch at the weekend. Discovered the Lion Foundry made these panels for Lothian House at Tollcross, Edinburgh. Trades of Edinburgh: "Printing, Engineering, Brewing, Building"
I knew the Lion Foundary for red phone boxes, but they made all sorts of things - e.g. the giant window surround at Constitución railway station, Buenos Aires
https://www.edlc.co.uk/heritage-arts/exhibitions/online-exhibitions/the-lion-foundry/
Have started noticing panels in other places now - e.g. Fountainbridge library
As an experiment @cicely Soldered a MEMS microphone onto a pi pico, and we got it to classify bats using the https://github.com/macaodha/batdetect2 model. Exciting to hear the bat chirps when playing the WAV file slowed down. Will have to write a blog post soon to explain what we did but for now it is getting dark - which means more bats to spy on!
At 5am both the birds and me are awake and the first detections on BirdNet Pi have been made, which is exciting.
Using an Adafruit PDM Microphone and ARM USB microphone library to make a USB Microphone from a Pi Pico, connected to a Pi400: https://github.com/ArmDeveloperEcosystem/microphone-library-for-pico.
There are some weirdnesses still to be investigated but it is nice to see it detecting something.
Discovered this mysterious old radio aerial/antenna during our Pentland Hills walk yesterday. The information board says it was used to receive signals from South Africa during WW2 but it feels too small and unlikely a location for this. Found a blog which believes it was used by Edinburgh university electrical engineering dept in the 1960s for ionospheric research: https://boghall-radio-masts.blogspot.com/2017/
I'm posting masts on Mastodon!
The newly restored gas holder in Granton was looking great in the sun today. It has been turned into a park.
I woke up early so decided to be all smug and go to the gym while watching all the lazy people sleeping with their curtains closed. Got there a bit after 8am and there was a class full of people doing aerobics, or something: jumping around with lots of music. They were both there earlier than me and being more energetic than me: meh.
I decided that being smug was futile so watched the swans (which disappeared by the time I took this photo) instead. It has a lovely view.
Lesson: don't be smug.
Heard a lovely clicking sound while standing outside the St James shopping centre. Looked up and there were around 100 birds in the trees.
I suppose pied wagtails must like having clothes shopping and a food court nearby.