Recent content by Swamp Thing

TIL about Operation London Bridge. The idea of a bowler-hatted official solemnly intoning "London Bridge is down" seemed to be not without its comedic possibilities, so I requested AI to come up with a Monty Python style script on this premise. Here is AI's effort:

Sort of like the Ig being a gateway drug for the real thing.

TIL that the name "Meccano" was supposed to suggest "make and know", apart from the obvious mechanical concept. For non-British members, this was a model construction set similar to the US Erector Set, with which it completed for a few years before withdrawing from the American market.

TIL that Ian Fleming created Napoleon Solo (The man from U.N.C.L.E.). He worked briefly on the series before leaving due to health and legal reasons.

Next a snail staggers in, trips and goes sprawling on the floor. "Hey, are you OK?"

"What do you call a deer with no eyes?" "No idea". "What do you call a deer with no eyes and no legs?" "Still no idea".

A pump with no moving parts, able to lift water above its source, quietly serving a hillside fortress centuries ago. It is clever, effective, and, all these years later, mostly unknown today.

AI-Drafted Police Report Said Officer Turned into A Frog...

A different approach to compass design — a liquid-free baseplate compass that uses induction (eddy-current) damping instead of fluid, but can also be made transparent to allow looking at a map through it.

I did get the mixed content warning, not the other two. Since it doesn't affect your rendering, it may not be related to my problem. I will try on another computer later and other browsers as well.

Images lower down in this page ... https://johncarlosbaez.wordpress.com/2025/12/26/the-mathematics-of-tuning-systems/ ... don't load in my browser. I have verified that their URLs are valid and I can view them in a new tab using Dev Tools. How can I force the browser to load all images? Or to...

I am using an old ISP-provided fiber router as a secondary router to extend the WiFi range on my newer fiber router. I have a LAN cable running from the LAN1 port on the secondary router to the LAN1 port on the current ISP's fiber router. Devices on the secondary router are able to access the...

After some online research I enabled DHCP on both routers, setting up non-overlapping pools of addresses. So devices can get connected via either router. However, the secondary router still doesn't know how to forward IPV4 internet traffic to the first one. (IPV6 somehow works magically, maybe...

I have connected a second router to my ISP's router using a LAN cable in order to cover areas that the ISP's WiFi doesn't reach too well. The first router's IP is 192.168.xy.1, and I set the second router to be 192.168.xy.7. Now if I connect to the second router's WiFi I can use the internet...