Mignon Battery

I’d never heard of a Mignon battery until the digital display on Jan’s Pfaff sewing machine showed “Batterie”.  The machine was purchased many years ago and I doubt we have a manual.  A quick check on Google stated the machine required two Mignon 1.5V cells.  More searching revealed the battery compartment was under the base.  I couldn’t check this as the machine actually works with flat batteries and Jan is currently using it to make my ‘sand flag’ from the orange Chinese HiViz vest.

The flag slowly takes shape

Imagine my surprise when I finally gained access to the battery compartment and discovered two standard AA sized batteries.

The batteries have “Made in Belgium” on them which leads me to assume they are the originals.  They’re also very corroded (along with the corresponding terminals in the battery compartment.

Now I know what a Mignon battery is!  Of course if I’d done some further internet searching I would have discovered this https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AA_battery.

The completed flag.

Now I need to fit the aerial mounting bracket to the vehicle.

Meanwhile, I noticed this interesting poster

I don’t have much respect for either man.  Assange is probably indirectly responsible for the deaths of a number of people through his disclosures.  And he wasn’t doing it for free….. there was money being made somewhere!  Zuckerberg is just another large corporate shark portraying himself as a genial harmless geek!  However; unlike Assange; he can at least claim his victims willingly gave him their personal data!  Well that last sentence is no longer true.  Both Google and Facebook employ facial recognition software and encourage users to add the names of the people in their photos.  So you don’t have to be a Facebook user for Facebook to collect your personal data (and sell it).  Moreover, even if I asked a Facebook user to delete one of their photos with me in it, Facebook doesn’t delete the photo.  They just hide it from viewers.  Data is power (and money). Facebook deletes nothing!