November 2017
Monday, 18 December 2017 17:43![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
iguana
In November, on top of walks on Dartmoor (pictured), I visited the JET fusion reactor tokamak, walked in Christmas Common, beat the Maioc Crisis escape room at Mission Escape Exeter, played board games in Exeter's board game cafe, and signalled Morse Code with a torch across more than a kilometre.
Fusion Reactor
The Culham Centre for Fusion Energy has free tours around the research facilities for fusion energy, showing the chamber (or, at least, the outside of it) where fusion occurs; which is shaped like a horizontally-compressed doughnut called a tokamak.
Fusion power is, as always, at least ten years away, but the JET reactor shows promising results, and there was some information about the newer European tokamak called ITER which is currently being built and is expected to be capable of a net output of power.
What surprised me was how small the reactor was! (Though apparently the staff hear that it is both larger and smaller than various people expected). It was only five or six metres across, if that. The supporting cooling systems added somewhat more volume though.
The Culham Centre for Fusion Energy has free tours around the research facilities for fusion energy, showing the chamber (or, at least, the outside of it) where fusion occurs; which is shaped like a horizontally-compressed doughnut called a tokamak.
Fusion power is, as always, at least ten years away, but the JET reactor shows promising results, and there was some information about the newer European tokamak called ITER which is currently being built and is expected to be capable of a net output of power.
What surprised me was how small the reactor was! (Though apparently the staff hear that it is both larger and smaller than various people expected). It was only five or six metres across, if that. The supporting cooling systems added somewhat more volume though.
Haldon Belvedere
Pete and Matt visited the nearby Haldon Belvedere to stay in the apartment there, so Emily, Tim, Pete, Matt and I had a weekend of fun in Exeter.
Firstly we went to Mission Escape, one of Exeter's escape rooms, and played the Maioc Crisis room, beating it in about 45 minutes (despite failing to open one suitcase, which, it turned out, contained head torches!)
We had a quick meal in a pub and then went on to Board, a board games cafe, where we played Codenames (excellent, though I was terrible at it) and Kodama (I made the prettiest tree, but it didn't have much else going for it). Regarding the food there, my notes for this month's entry just state "holy crap the waffles" which I think is sufficiently descriptive.
In the evening, given that just about everywhere in the area can see Haldon Belvedere, we decided to try signalling to it in morse code. Amazingly, over more than a kilometre, a cheap LED torch was sufficient.
Emily went to the Belvedere with Pete and Matt, while Tim and I received their message:
We replied:
From somewhere in-between, a house flashed its lights a couple of times; I imagine this was the morse code equivalent of "get off my lawn you damn kids".
On Sunday, we played tabletop games (mostly Jaipur and Lost Cities) and watched Disney's Moana with the living room fire making the whole room very cosy.
Pete and Matt visited the nearby Haldon Belvedere to stay in the apartment there, so Emily, Tim, Pete, Matt and I had a weekend of fun in Exeter.
Firstly we went to Mission Escape, one of Exeter's escape rooms, and played the Maioc Crisis room, beating it in about 45 minutes (despite failing to open one suitcase, which, it turned out, contained head torches!)
We had a quick meal in a pub and then went on to Board, a board games cafe, where we played Codenames (excellent, though I was terrible at it) and Kodama (I made the prettiest tree, but it didn't have much else going for it). Regarding the food there, my notes for this month's entry just state "holy crap the waffles" which I think is sufficiently descriptive.
In the evening, given that just about everywhere in the area can see Haldon Belvedere, we decided to try signalling to it in morse code. Amazingly, over more than a kilometre, a cheap LED torch was sufficient.
Emily went to the Belvedere with Pete and Matt, while Tim and I received their message:
.-- .. .-.. .-.. .. . ...
We replied:
-... --- - - --- -- ...
From somewhere in-between, a house flashed its lights a couple of times; I imagine this was the morse code equivalent of "get off my lawn you damn kids".
On Sunday, we played tabletop games (mostly Jaipur and Lost Cities) and watched Disney's Moana with the living room fire making the whole room very cosy.
