Audio illusion

We recently got a Yoda toy from Macdonalds with one of their children’s meals, and it has a strange audio illusion. Most of the time when I listen to it, I hear “May the thwee be with you”. EB hears this all the time. But under some conditions that I have not been able to identify, I start hearing “May the force be with you.” I recorded this and when I play back the recording I hear “force” even when EB hears “thwee”. I did something else for a while and came back to it, and heard “thwee” again. Then after another break, the recording was back to sounding like “force”.

Amazing. Is this an intentional illusion on Macdonalds’ part?

A chap has posted a video recording of “May the thwee be with you” on Youtube.

Logitech G7 failure

After being quite happy with a G5 mouse on my own PC, I got a G7 wireless mouse for John’s PC. Today it goes to the trash. It turns out that it’s not uncommon for these mice to freeze for a few seconds at a time, and that the problem is irreparable.

The worst part of it is that for a few months when John was complaining that the mouse wasn’t working, I didn’t believe it, instead choosing to believe that there was a problem with the Flash games he plays.

From jigger

That’s the G7 on the right, next to my old G5. John now has one of the newer model G5s with the crackly blue skin.

Speaking of technology failure, the mousepad under these mice is the only bit of SteelSeries technology that has survived for me.

Casanova’s Alibi and Other Stories (Rafael Sabatini)

This compilation of Rafael Sabatini stories about Casanova has been posted to Project Gutenberg Australia (text, zip). I was surprised to get this typed up and proofed relatively quickly, as I found Casanova unlikeable.

The stories are:

The Alibi
The Augmentation of Mercury
The Priest of Mars
The Oracle
Under the Leads
The Night of Escape
The Rooks and the Hawk
The Polish Duel
The Alabaster Hand

The Plague of Ghosts and Other Stories (Rafael Sabatini)

It has taken me months to get around to finishing this text, but I finally finished proofreading it recently and it has been posted to Project Gutenberg Australia (text, zip). It is a collection of short stories by Rafael Sabatini.

My favourites are the ones featuring Capoulade. The stories are:

The Risen Dead
The Bargain
The Opportunist
The Plague of Ghosts
Brancaleone’s Terms
The Poachers
The Sentimentalist
Duroc
Kynaston’s Reckoning
Jack O’Lantern

Cellphones

My Sharp 903SH phone, which was imported from HK a couple of years ago, has stumbled into purgatory over the last few weeks. I had hoped that a new battery would fix it, and there is still a chance that reflashing the phone might get it working again, but I’ve had to get a new phone for immediate use. Or rather, Emma has gone out to Dick Smith’s and gotten one. It’s a Nokia N95, and so far I am impressed with it. It can plug into the PC directly with a USB cable, whereas with the Sharp I had to use its memory card with a card reader, it can access the web through the wireless connection on our ADSL router, it can use mp3s for ringtones without the DRM hassle that the Sharp had with mp4s, and in general it’s snappier and seems more open. On the other hand, the Sharp has more gravitas.

The Sharp is on the left, the Nokia is on the, uh, right.

From jigger