Sussex reset
(Kim) On your way down there could you do Crawley? An amorphous blot. Is Brighton really all that bad? I haven't been there for a few years. The prime candidate must be Basingstoke, so they say.
Mornin' all
I have just made a new year resolution. Having just carted a 40Kg package of set-due-to-humidity-premixed-concrete from the workshop to the front of my premises (OK, it's a 1-in-4 slope about 50 or 60' long) and the concrete no doubt now includes a bit of water . . . yes, I'm rationalising . . . ) and dump it into a bin out the front, the lip of which is probablly 4'6" off the ground, I'm embarrassed. I needed the help of my super fit wife.
Exercise is what I need and will do. Probably, perhaps.
Exercise is what I need and will do. Probably, perhaps.
(Dujon) Forty kilos is a lot easier where you are than it is here because you're upside down, which must help.
Floating on air
[Rosie] You are, as usual, correct. That was the problem. I had to get the wife to hang off my ankles. Even though I've lived on the southern hemisphere for 50-odd years I still haven't got the hang of keeping my feet on the ground. Ah well, it's got to be better than living on the equator.
Australity and boreality
(Dujon) And the sun goes round the wrong way, and the weather charts are all arse-about-face and Christmas day's in the height of summer. If you came back here you'd be totally confused. Loads of rain here, BTW, 129 mm in December and some thunder earlier today, most unusual for this time of year here. I see that rather ominously your drought is set to continue due to El Niño.
Sounds like the cricketers can blame the whether, with no rain expected no chance of a draw in the last test, just a white wash.
First day back and up late after a half hour lie in. It all seems funny peculiar the roads in were as clear as a bell and the office is slightly muted.
[Duj] Apols for introducing a note of sense into the conversation, but fit or not, you should get help lifting something that heavy and that awkward to that height. If you got your muscles fit, then did your back in hefting something awkward, you'd really want to kick yourself. (Although again obviously it's better to get someone else to kick you instead.)
Sensibilites
[Rosie] How dare you! Australian bore indeed. ;-)
[SM] Yes, but too late. I did my back in years ago. The doctor's advice? "Give it some exercise". Hmmmm. Sounds like some sort of miracle cure for a broken arm: "Give it a bit of a bend each day". Of course he was right - as far as I know my problem is only muscular and not a spinal disc matter. Right, back to my sit-ups.
[SM] Yes, but too late. I did my back in years ago. The doctor's advice? "Give it some exercise". Hmmmm. Sounds like some sort of miracle cure for a broken arm: "Give it a bit of a bend each day". Of course he was right - as far as I know my problem is only muscular and not a spinal disc matter. Right, back to my sit-ups.
(Duj) Sorry, old bean, it was an occident.
Windows
[rab] Terrific pictures, and it looks like a nice place to... wait a minute... in the earlier picture that man across the road is arguing with his wife... then the sun is lower in the sky and you can see him carrying out a box... wait, he's looking up. He's seen me! He's coming across the road! Damn this wheelchair, if I try to get out he'll just catch me on the landing!
*Wonders if it's possible to go back in time and unkill the conversation*
*hears the conversation rustling a bit and realises it's not quite dead yet*
Just making sure it really is dead
<desperation>Whatever you've read in the papers no-one can possibly know whether 2007 will be the warmest year ever in the UK but globally it might well be so.</desperation>
B.S.F.
[rab] You'll be happy to know that your Windows page is already the number one Google result for a certain three word name for a thing what helps keep windows shut. (Don't want to name it here and skew the results the next time this page is spidered.)
Wow!
I hope that's what they are actually called - it's what it said on the quote, and the chap who measured up referred to them as such (I could hardly keep a straight face).
What on earth possessed you to look, anyway?
I guess I'm just kinky for ironmongery. Or brassmongery. Or whatever they monger to make these things. I thought it was an interesting fastener and I wondered if it was just a UK thing so I went looking around.
BSF
[Dan] Wouldn't it be more accurate to say this is the only site that calls them [the name that must not be mentioned]? Not trolling, but all the other hits I got in Google called them something slightly different (but with the same initials). By the way, I loved your "Rear Window" bit. It provided a moment of cheer in an otherwise lousy Friday.
[SM] It's possible that it's local dialect.
[rab] Good point. I am a long way from where I was brought up and occasionally, when I'm not concentrating or when I'm tired, say something "regional" that has people looking at me weirdly. I told some Canadians that I would "put the snack on" a Yale lock so they could come and go without a key. No-one understood what I was talking about.
I seem to have killed the conversation. Sorry rab.
Turning gently
Your mother is a big hippo.
Sierra Mike] It's always been a "sn*b" for me
media frenzy
There has been a fair amount in the press and tv amout the goings on the the BB house. I feel part of the problem is that swathes society in Britain encouraged by the media has lost respect for itself and civility towards others. The mantra is ‘you are no better thatn me no matter who you are’ whether that is a doctor, priest, police, MP, prince or Queen. It is a matter of bringing everyone down to the tabloid level. Are those we are to look up to the highly paid footballer and their WAGs, the instant celeb or winning pop idol.Is it possible that headlines of cultural intolerance and ignorance really do reflect the essence large sections Britain today.
The behaviour in BB is what you'd expect from forcing pretty stupid, ignorant attention-seeking people together. Naturally they bring out the worst in each other. The racism, though we could certainly do without it, is fairly routine and widespread among certain types and makes one wonder what rarified parts of the atmosphere the media inhabit. There are pages about it today's Guardian, for instance. The more disturbing aspect of BB is that it is broadcast at all and is regarded as entertainment by large numbers. How edifying to watch dimwits getting on each others' tits! The participants abase themselves simply to be on TV but they shouldn't be exploited in this manner.
[Rosie] The first series of BB was interesting, IMHO, as the participants were derived of most luxuries. They never quite had enough alcohol to get drunk. They didn't have pencils or paper. They had no clocks. They really struggled to get by. Hence, it was fascinating to watch how people interacted when derived of so many things that they would normally use to pass the time. These days, it has become more of a circus, with the blame lying on the shoulders of the producers for promoting ratings-grabbers to enter the house, in the knowledge that their behaviour is likley to cause headline-making outrage.
The behaviour that I have (albeit very briefly) witnessed recently on BB is, as you say, the norm in a large sector of British society. That the media causes an outcry over it is utterly hypocritical (as ever); that people are shocked and outraged by it is merely bandwagon-jumping. What needs to be addressed is the fact that, presuming most people in the world are racist to an extent, placing remarkably dim people in an environment where they are going to expose their deepest "instincts" (not sure that's the right word) is irresponsible, particularly considering how sensitively balanced the world is at present with regard to extremism - on all sides. I'd love it if everyone just relaxed a bit, frankly.
The behaviour that I have (albeit very briefly) witnessed recently on BB is, as you say, the norm in a large sector of British society. That the media causes an outcry over it is utterly hypocritical (as ever); that people are shocked and outraged by it is merely bandwagon-jumping. What needs to be addressed is the fact that, presuming most people in the world are racist to an extent, placing remarkably dim people in an environment where they are going to expose their deepest "instincts" (not sure that's the right word) is irresponsible, particularly considering how sensitively balanced the world is at present with regard to extremism - on all sides. I'd love it if everyone just relaxed a bit, frankly.
(Phil) I'll go along with all of that except possibly your last sentence. If you mean we should stop pretending to be shocked by some of the behaviour then I agree wholeheartedly but I don't think we should be relaxed about allowing this stuff on TV, certainly in its present form. It's no better than bear-baiting or cock-fighting, i.e. a distasteful spectator sport. My own instinct is to say to the contestants "You're on telly. Stop behaving like a complete arse, even if you are one" but that's hopelessly old-fashioned.
For Jade Goody-Nude to get on Celebrity BB by having been on BB in the past says something about the show. Probably involving the words "vanishing" and "own *rsehole". How about Religious Big Brother, involving a Protestant, a Catholic, a Shia Moslem, a Sunni Moslem, an Orthodox Jew, a Reform Jew, a Dawkins-esque atheist, a Hindu, a Buddhist, a Rastafarian, and a Bahai?
Relax!
[Rosie] No, that's not what I meant at all, although I see how it looks like that. And I agree wholeheartedly with your bear-baiting analogy. What I meant was that if people such as Jade Goody relaxed a bit, she'd probably enjoy her life a lot more, and this whole issue wouldn't have arisen.
[Raak] Throw in a satanist, and you might be onto something :-)
[Raak] Throw in a satanist, and you might be onto something :-)
quoted from BBC News...
"Goody insisted on the show that she 'didn't say Shilpa Poppadom in a racial way'".
So that's all right, then.
So that's all right, then.
(Phil) Jade Goody, despite her wealth, has little to be relaxed about. She's from the bottom of the pile and knows it and this is her chance to get back at the world in general. There are many like her and the problem is exacerbated by our class-consciousness though ironically India, with its caste system, is probably even worse.
Not Goody Two shoes
I actually don't think that Stupid Jade is racist. I think she's just ignorant and a bully. Remember the first time she was on she didn't even know where Cambridge was and thought East Anglia was another country. She's picked on Shilpa cos she's pretty and an unknown quantity. Jade's head got far too big with fame and she wasn't clever enough to cope with it, and when she was insecure she attacked those outside her comfort zone.
Where will they be?
I sometimes wonder, "where will this person be when they're 60?" Jade Goody at 60...
Thinking also of "where are they now?", today I chanced across this picture, which looks like a very ordinary businessman or politician. I was quite startled to realise who it was. The URL gives a small clue.
That is a bit of a surprise. I had to Google for the picture to find out who it was, though!
[Raak, Darren] Was just reading his "dangerous idea" at Edge. Profound knowledge of the philosophical implications of quantum mechanics or windy hallucinogenic rhetoric?
[Projoy] The dangerous idea was asking him the question in the first place.
Well, who is it then?
[Rosie] I'm sorry, but due to the indeterminacy principle it's not possible to know the URL of his picture and his identity simultaneously.
Yeah, that picture startled me when I saw it a few years ago. It's a portrait for a board he sat on. He's always been something of a hero of mine. He's the one who's not Zappa. Or IS HE??? You can see him a little better in this. There's a story about how he turned up for his audition carrying his laundry, the idea being that as long as he was going out he might as well get his laundry done so it wouldn't be a wasted trip either way. The pragmatic insouciance of this apparently impressed the casting director quite a bit.
Oh, just found the "dangerous idea" on Edge. I'm half inclined to believe he's having them on -- it would be very like him -- but there's just enough consistent substance peeking out of it to make me wonder. Which, again, may be the idea.
(Projoy) It is now. This is very disturbing.
[Projoy] I incline towards either "windy rhetoric" or "leg-pull", especially compared with the other contributions there.
In fairness to others, here it is. It made more sense the second time I read it; at least think I saw about two thirds of what he was driving at. Unfortunately he tries to distill it down a little too far and leaves out about 90% of the exposition it would need to lift it out of Time Cube territory, with the result that it does read a bit like somebody trying to drag some subjectively experienced great insight back from an altered mental state by scribbling the key concepts on a notepad on the nightstand before the memory fades. I can't even say he's wrong, just that he doesn't really give you anything to analyze or dispute; he's reduced it to an overly simple set of vague declaratives, so even if you want to give him a hearing you just end up going, "um. Okay."
Scrolling down, I see that Laurence Krauss has a project for Darren:
The ultimate goal of physics, as it is often described, is to have a "theory of everything", in which all the fundamental laws that describe nature can neatly be written down on the front of a T-shirt (even if the T-shirt can only exist in 10 dimensions!).
The ultimate goal of physics, as it is often described, is to have a "theory of everything", in which all the fundamental laws that describe nature can neatly be written down on the front of a T-shirt (even if the T-shirt can only exist in 10 dimensions!).
ONe week later...
I'm mucking out the house today. How does it get so much stuff in it?
Stuff
The naughty stuff fairies cart it in in the middle of the night. If you make a present to them by leaving binbags full of stuff by the edge of the road once a week, you should find the amount of stuff eventually decreases.
(Raak) No, the foxes get it. So the fairies don't get their presents and just keep up the pressure.
[Irouléguy] I thought I'd posted this response immediately after your post, but still... when the physicists fulfil their part of the bargain, I'll do mine.
Darren] T-shirts seem to be real conversation killers.
*mimes t-shirt silence*
(pen) Now do it with the words.
and through the square window
Had a look around the Vista web pages last night and the Vista Advisor. It looks like it will not be a simple upgrade from XP. There are many programmes it highlights that there may be problems or issues with but has big problems with Realtek and Kaspersky virus, both need to be uninstalled then reinstalled after. Some of the things it has problems with came preloaded on the PC suprised there were so many. The promo on the site looks good but that is the top end version not the basic Home version, so will be waiting a bit before taking the plunge.
hmmmm
I think I am being constructively dismissed. I have taken legal advice. More on this later.
Bloody hell!
[pen] You're doing the right thing. Keep us posted, and good luck!
[Pen] Ouch! A horrid situation however it pans out. It's too long since I was a union convenor and kept up with employment law, but make sure you follow all the procedures properly yourself such as following up internal channels even if you know in advance it won't make any difference. You should also keep records of everything, including as verbatim as possible notes of conversations. Best of luck.
[pen] oo-er. Stay strong.
[pen] eek! what Chalky and INJ said.
[pen] EEk! Oh no! Good luck.
[pen] Just been reading around the subject and it sounds pretty f'king horrible. Sympathies.
[pen] Loads of sympathy and good luck.
[pen] What rab said.
pen] Good luck!
[pen]Good luck with the lawyers.
I'm not familiar with the term "Constructive Dismissal" so I looked it up. Am I to understand penelope is being harrassed by her supervisors to the point she will quit?
Regardless, please add my best wishes that things resolve well for you, penelope.
Regardless, please add my best wishes that things resolve well for you, penelope.
At the risk of interrupting something serious with frivolity, I am amused by the fact that on some paperwork we have, the cost of registering a marriage is quoted per person. One wonders how many marriages between one, three or seventeen people take place.
well...
After two conversations with a lawyer and some advice from my brother in law, three meetings, some steely bargaining (on my part) and a little compromise, I have a solution. For now. It's a big relief.
phew
[pen] Glad to hear it.
Here (AU), since last year, businesses with fewer than 100 employees (99% of public sector firms) are exempt from unfair dismissal laws, and those with over 100 employees are able to dismiss anyone any time if they claim that part of the reason for the dismissal was for the "operational requirements" of the business. Being sacked on the basis of race, sex, age, pregnancy or family responsibility is still technically illegal, but pretty easy to get around.
and
(actually, the "operational requirementes/reasons" clause is available for all sizes of employer)
[flerdle] Well thank goodness I live in a country where working for a small firm isn't a discrimination in itself.
[pen] Indeed.
[flerdle] Isn't it the same in some parts of the US? There was an early "King of the Hill" episode where Hank's company had trouble firing an employee for drug use because of a similar law. In the end, Hank resigned and then they were able to fire the addict because they had few enough employees to be exempt from the law.
I have no idea what the USA does, but our PM is the ... nevermind.
Another trick is to make all your employees "contractors", or keep them as a succession of short-term casuals. Then they don't count towards your total, and they aren't covered by the unfair dismissal laws anyway.
own up...
Right. I need to know. Who has stolen the snow I've been promised? On tuesday I defrosted my car four times!!! (00:10 leaving work, 11:00 leaving to get home from sleeping venue, 19:00 leaving for pub and 23:25 leaving cinema). Today I wake up and there's no frost or snow. Are you hoarding it down south? Give it a shove up Manchester way please.
[Lib] You're very welcome to have all mine. Unwanted gift. Buyer collects.
West Midlands weather update
Tons of the white stuff here guys. Enough to keep thousands of students amused, it seems.
I was supposed to be going to a meeting in Birmingham, but cancelled due to a wide range of boring reasons; quite glad I did now, cos I don't think I'd be getting back...
Snow
3" here this morning (Surrey/Gt London border, 600 ft). Rainfall equivalent 6.8 mm and a pain-in-the-arse to measure because some of it sticks in the gauge funnel and has to be melted (saucepan on the gas stove) without evaporating too much of it. It's now raining, making millions of pinholes in what's left of the snow. Tremendous excitement on the uk.sci.weather newsgroup, which has a number of semi-literate snow freaks. Definately. Its the tempreture anomoly. there saddo's.
uk.sci.weather
[Rosie] I read that as uk.ski.weather. Time I was on the piste.
[Projoy] Thanks for the offer, but I was kinda hoping someone would bring it to my.
To my? what am I going on about? To me, I mean.
White stuff
I was wondering how you were all coping, particularly those of you south of Watford Pass. The BBC was reporting that the country was grinding to a standstill. 4" (max) brings the whole country to a shuddering halt? I'm . . . well . . . gobsmacked. Surely that must be journalistic hyperbole?
col
How about Watford Gap then?
(Dujon) Watford Gap is not a gap, pass, col, gorge or anything so dramatic. It's just another dreary motorway service station about 80 miles NW of London, in pretty flat country. It's nowhere near Watford, which is on the NW edge of London. The original phrase used contemptuously by Londoners to denote provinciality was "North of Watford", ie outside London, and in particular to the north of it. When Watford Gap service station on the M1 was built people started talking about "north of Watford Gap" thus changing the meaning, then it became "north of the Watford Gap", which ain't there, as I said. This is how place-names and language in general changes; misunderstanding by stupid people. One reason the country grinds to a halt is that many roads are at full capacity, more or less, which means that the slightest hazard slows everything down and in no time at all the whole thing congeals. Another reason is that we are now the soppiest country in the world.
Watford Gap
Actually, as Herr Bratsche pointed out when this last arose about 5 years ago, there is a geographical significance to Watford Gap as the attached map shows. Within about 400 metres you have a railway line, a roman road (Watling Street - now the A5), and a canal all passing through the same minor low point. The motorway just follows the rest, showing that the romans knew a thing or two about roads. When you drive through on the motorway the surrounding geography is not evident.
The forecast last night was for a dollop of fog, but it is snowing again here in SN4.
What gap?
[INJ] Ah - seem to remember my late father saying as much way back in the 60s when we travelled north regularly, so thanks for that map ref for Watford Gap. I would so hate to be one of Rosie's 'stupid people' who misunderstand the term :-)
Watford Gap
Isn't Watford Gap next door to Watford H&M?
(Chalky) Heaven forbid, m'dear. But somebody started it. (Inkspot) A bit more to come, mostly sleet. Then milder. Nothing here in CR6.
Errors of ways
Thanks for setting me straight, good people, your points have been noted. Any road, I know now that I'm one of them 'stupid people'. It's ever so nice to keep track of your station in life. I'm sure that my to-ing and fro-ing would be easier if I had a good staff but continual ups and downs and constant changes confuse me no end. One of my relatives keeps telling me "get a grip, Dujon". To that end I have bought myself a sand box. If it doesn't work as planned then at least I can stick my head in it.
[Duj the not-so-stupid] So what is the real purpose of a sand box?
Technicalities
[Chalky] 'Morning.
The 'sand box', and I'm sure that Rosie and others can explain it better than I, is a box full of sand or grit of some kind or other. In olden days steam engines used the contents of such, as and when necessary, to increase the friction between wheels and rails. This was effected by dribbling the contents of the sand box onto the rails in front or over the driving wheels. Naturally (and obviously) you are far too young to have seen or heard this highly technological process in action.
The 'sand box', and I'm sure that Rosie and others can explain it better than I, is a box full of sand or grit of some kind or other. In olden days steam engines used the contents of such, as and when necessary, to increase the friction between wheels and rails. This was effected by dribbling the contents of the sand box onto the rails in front or over the driving wheels. Naturally (and obviously) you are far too young to have seen or heard this highly technological process in action.
I'll tell you the real purpose later. As a clue: Have you ever owned a cat?
(Dujon) Ah! Things are now clearer because I didn't know you drove a steam engine. Even I don't do that. Sand is useful and may have prevented this, the slip to end all slips. Click on the bottom recording, marked "60532". The quality is rather poor. The loco slips a bit on starting (quite usual) but the mayhem begins after 1m 50s. After another 15 seconds or so you can hear the water being carried over to the cylinders, which caused the real damage. All 3 connecting rods and the coupling rods and valve gear were bent so that was the end of that little day out. Why didn't the driver just shut off steam? He couldn't. The big handle wouldn't move against the huge volume of steam and water going through the main valve. He had about one second and missed it. No more driving for him, at least of that loco, which cost £80,000 to repair.
Patience
At the risk of seeming insensitive given pen's recent difficulties, I've finally been offered a permanent position at Edinburgh Uni. Woo!
A bit of a long and torturous story this one... back in July, I was offered a similar position in Manchester, but there were various reasons why we didn't want to move back then - not least the fact that we'd bought a flat in Edinburgh exactly one week previously. Turning that offer down was one of the trickiest decisions I'd ever made. Anyway, the gamble paid off in the end, and I'm now very relieved and pleased.
[Rosie] That was an interesting sound recording. I don't really know all that much about steam engines (I had to look up what water being carried over to the cylinders meant) but it's quite an impressive sound. Were you actually present when it happened?
Hurrah!
[rab] excellent - good news, congratualtions. And I'm fine - I got offered less money for working to a higher target, but with bigger bonuses than I was on before once I got beyond the target. And it was done without consultation, that was all... I could have sued, I was told, but I think it would look dreadful on a CV. And I will change, eventually, but I will leap, I will not be pushed. And I have a hot date tonight so frankly, i don't care any more. :o)
Congratulations rab! And to pen, if that's a sufficiently positive outcome to warrant it. Did you get them to make things better than they were trying to?
[Rosie] Thanks for the link. The sounds bring back a few memories. £80,000! The mind boggles. I used to be a keen 'train spotter' as a youngster but the interest waned when girls and cars came along. I had a relative who was a signalman. Occasionally my elder brother and myself would visit him at work in his signal box. Exciting times for a lad.
[rab and penelope] Congratulations on your results. Great news.
[rab and penelope] Congratulations on your results. Great news.
(Darren) There's only about a quarter of an inch clearance when the piston is right at the end of its stroke and any excess water either knocks the cylinder cover off or bends the connecting rod. Major damage. There are drain cocks which are often opened for the first few puffs when an engine starts out and they blow huge quantities of wet steam ahead of the engine, ruining photos but very necessary. I wasn't there for that recording. I've seen loads of engines slipping on starting but quickly brought under control. It's a rather fearsome sound for a small boy a few feet away on the end of a platform, or for anyone, come to that. (pen) If you're happy so am I. Nothing worse than work worries even they are now behind me.
(Dujon) The wheels only stopped spinning because the valve gear got bent and no longer allowed steam into the cylinders at the right time, rather like a car with a bent camshaft. Interesting that right at the end of the recording the safety valves lift. I'm surprised there was any fire left given the tremendous pull of the exhaust on it. What a mess! I gave up collecting numbers very early but have never lost interest, you could say, but as you imply, there is much else in life.
The juice
When is a power cut not a power cut? When they restore the connection at about half the normal voltage. Very dim orangey lights, computer won't start (but monitor OK), TV but no video, kettle wouldn't boil ether let alone water, old Acorn computer OK but not the monitor, strangely. They'd got the full voltage next door but Mrs-next-door-but-one (in her curlers) had the same problem as had an old lady walking her dog. Obviously one of the phases was faulty but I thought you got the full whack or nothing. It seems you may not.
long absence
Hello, all. Some of you may remember me from long ago, on other servers. A strange thing happened recently. I discovered that, having moved from Sydney to Edinburgh, and not having played MC for years on account of a Thesis, I happened by complete accident to end up working down the corridor from rab. What do you know? Well, probably that MC is responsible for effects that are not quite normal, for one.
Oddness
...and when "kt" appeared I had this very odd feeling that we'd met before (although it was only virtually, and - I think - under a different moniker). Anyhoo, welcome back!
I recognize that moniker
[kt] Welcome back.
[kt] Hello, I'd wondered where you'd gotten to (having met you in Sydney, if you're who I think you are!). Enjoy Edinburgh!
[Rosie] It used to happen all the time in India (and probably still does). Just shrug and say "Volt is down" like the locals did.
[Rosie] The phenomenon is referred to as a 'brown out' - at least here it is. The description is obvious when you think about the affect on your light globes. In the last house I owned I had two phases connected and, on a number of occasions, could have full voltage and current available on some internal circuits and not on others. This of course also applied to total power cuts where only one phase was down. The reason for the variation in equipment functions is simply that some items will run on a range of, say, 180 volts to 260 volts while others need the full pressure (usually 230V +).
(flerdle) It's the first time I've ever seen it, and there were power cuts galore when I was a small child (say late 40's). The voltage here is allowed by statute to vary 10% (up 4 and down 6) but this was down 50%, at a guess. (Dujon) Can't be that, because everyone here is on single phase except industrial premises which have all 3. There were 2 more cuts early this evening. When the first (over an hour) ended it came back on (full voltage) for less than a minute, just enough time to put the candles out before going off again for another 40 minutes or so. Loud, pointed and profane were my exclamations to no-one in particular.
ex-kt
[rab] That's right, I'd forgotten that I changed from kt to Kathryn. That's how long ago it was.
Hi, flerdle! Sorry I dropped out of contact for a while there. Are you still in the middle east? Edinburgh's rather nice, actually, with more sun than I had imagined.
And hello Simons Mith also. It's amazing how stable the MC community is...
Hi, flerdle! Sorry I dropped out of contact for a while there. Are you still in the middle east? Edinburgh's rather nice, actually, with more sun than I had imagined.
And hello Simons Mith also. It's amazing how stable the MC community is...
[kathryn] Welcome back - I'm an irregular visitor myself these days.
doin' the continental shuffle
[kathryn] No, am now in Melbourne, and thesising too, fool that I am. But Melbourne is very pleasant.
Thesis mightier than the sword
Incredible the %age of MCers who have done or are doing theses. I have no plans to go within a million miles of one meself, but have a lot of respect for those who have the inclination.
Stability
(kathryn) Collectively, maybe.
[ISP] Ten years after my undergrad degree, I'm doing an MA. Think I might be ready to do the big one in another ten years! :)
Education Education Education
[Projoy] Well, I worked five years between school and Uni, then another eight between BA and MSc, now I'm (avoiding) studying for my Oracle exams. Doing very well - been avoiding studying for two and a half years and counting.
Wibble flib
Stable?? Us?
Hmm... I waited ten years between under-gradding and post-gradding, and have now resolved to study nothing but happy things that interest me, which is mostly food, conservation, art and historical stuff, not science or authoring. If all goes to plan, I'm off to Rotterdam next month to work for a day on a conserved windmill. And also to see a very nice man who happens to be the Miller. :o)
Well then, enjoy your Miller time :-)
[Rosie] Dad was an industrial electronics guru during that period. The reason for the power cuts was to avoid brown outs according to him. The national grid had been so badly compromised during WWII that power was in short supply. It was deemed safer to cut the power altogether than tolerate a severe voltage drop. They used to sound sirens around ten minutes before the power cuts in the local factories apparently, so that the machine shops could shut down gracefully. The good old days.
[blamelewis] hello!
[flerdle] Melbourne is indeed pleasant, despite lacking a proper harbour.
[ISP] There may well be a connection between people who put themselves through a thesis and people who take pleasure in playing a game like MC. An unusual relationship with reality could well be one of them.
[pen] How about the science of food (e.g. courtesy of Harold McGee)? That's definitely a happy thing!
[flerdle] Melbourne is indeed pleasant, despite lacking a proper harbour.
[ISP] There may well be a connection between people who put themselves through a thesis and people who take pleasure in playing a game like MC. An unusual relationship with reality could well be one of them.
[pen] How about the science of food (e.g. courtesy of Harold McGee)? That's definitely a happy thing!
[penelope] Watch out for clog-wearing mice in that windmill. The staircases are infested with them from all accounts.
post-grad? sounds hard to me
I did have a plan last year to take an A-level every year for the next ten years. I think I've missed the deadline to enter for French this year, so maybe I'll start the mission next year and do two (to catch up). The plan is that if someone says to my daughter when she's 18, "oh, I've got 7 A-levels", she can reply, "well, my dad's got 14." The only extra proviso for this is that I don't attend any lessons/lectures in order to gain the qualifications - I'll rely on reading what the syllabus is, and a bit of common sense in terms of background reading. And, yes I've checked, there are still exam boards that do not require coursework :-)
The juice
(SM) Mine must have been a purely local problem due to malfunctioning switches or transformers and not insufficient supply. This was just one phase down or out over about a square mile.
clogged up
[Sierra Mike] I have my own clogs for stamping on said mice - they came as a present from the Miller last weekend. Luckily they were filled with chocolate as a sweetener...
Miller
Hope there's good ventilation, in case he's 
Windy.
Windy.yes, yes, I know...
[IS,P!] Hmmph. He's a Dutch Miller. Have you got a pic of one of those?
[Darren] Still, he does well, considering he died 15 years ago.
I thought he seemed a bit quiet. Just my luck :o(
HELLO MORNIVERSE! I'M NIGHTS BLESSED!
AND I'VE SCARED EVERYONE OFF, IT SEEMS! CHORTLE CHORTLE!
not me
Hello nights. It takes a bit more than emboldened shouting to scare me off! How are you? I've got a post holiday cold. Grump.
Where is everyone today? Not very chatty? Cheer up. Its almost the weekend!
Nothing at all
Hello all. It's a long time since I've been in here. Very smart.
Mouth full
Sorry Lib - I was enjoying a bacon sandwich...
[UK] I'd have thought you'd have a bit of a sore head!
[Lib] Well, fortunately it hadn't been cooked too fiercely. But getting the grease out of my hair is going to be a bind...
It doesn't matter how sh*tty the week has been , Friday always lifts the mood, doesn't it? Anyone know of any nice jobs going for someone bossy, intelligent and good at news writing? CV available on request. And The Dutch Miller is coming over again next weekend, :o)
Oh, and a lovely bit of spamming, which is a natural glow-worm or something: "ON fenugreek do maladroit.."
[pen] I think the next line is "beware the Jabberwock, my son!"
Morniverse seems slow today, or am I just toooooooo bored at work?
(UK) Not just today, either. The place seems infected with a kind of ennui. It'll pass, no doubt.
[Rosie] Well, I was hoping that someone might guess my AVMA before I left the office today, as I may well not be back online until Monday morning.
It's always very slow on Fridays. In fact I recall it being even less busy last Friday. Not that I check in here obsessively the whole time, of course.
Saturday was a non-starter.
There was an article in the paper a day or two ago about how boring and irksome working life has become even for people in well-paid professional jobs, what with vast amounts of form-filling and other pointless paperwork, meetings, meetings about meetings etc, etc. The way this place livens up during working hours shows how true that is.
working time directive
The local authority I (used to) work for transferred our dept to Capita at the begining of Feb. I have had to drastically cut back to a minimum amount of browsing during work time. Before there was a woolly policy about internet use. However, my new employer begins their internet use and email policy with the phrase "You have no right to privacy"
I'm glad that my Brian Blessed impression didn't freak EVERYONE out. I'm well, thanks. Final semester. Argh. And I've been getting some lovely poetry in my spam too. But even better is the amount of recipes I get for Spam, being a GMail user.
Crapita
(Inkspot) In that case don't do any more work than you absolutely have to. I hope at least you've retained your salary level.
MCIOS went down at 2.54 am today.
For about 5 minutes. You'd think a guy could take a server down for maintenance at 3 am in the user base's time zone.
FWIW, the timestamps on old moves from the first half of 1998 are now correct.
(Dan) Thanks for your efforts, as ever. Like Michael Howard, I am a creature of the night.
Harrumph
No problem, I didn't mean it the way it probably sounded. Anyway I've just noticed that this so-called asiago cheese I've been munching on was made in Wisconsin. Now a bit of research shows that asiago is Denominazione di Origine Protetta, so they shouldn't be calling it that and I'd be surprised if they could even sell it in the EU under that name. Still, it's a good cheese, but now I have to go and find the real thing so I know the difference.
BTW, I'm off to New Mexico for a week, so this may be the last you hear from me till next Monday. The server will almost surely fall over in about 2-3 hours time. Expect reboots only during office hours in New Zealand. ttfn.
Read on its own, that last message really really looks like rab's part of some international espionage.
[Tuj] What? You mean you're not... one of us?
SHHH!
It is very dark for the time of year.
Incidentally, I'm staying in room 404 which I'm having difficulty locating, for some reason.
[rab] Have you tried leaving the hotel and then coming back in again?
[rab] or trying an alternative door?
[Rab] Clear out all your cash, I guess in the hotel bar...
8 words game
I tried to translate Nights' post with an online translat-y-thing and it came up with "Ave druse! I ÷óñòâóþ as i no clever"
...although ÷óñòâóþ was actually an untranslated russian word, not nonsense.
That's actually pretty close to the mark. It reads "Hello friends! I rather think I'm not clever."
As indeed I appear not to be. Plans for the weekend, anyone?
I'm going to a masquerade ball! Very exciting. What are you up to?
Doing a workshop with actors, for which the freshly-written script still hasn't arrived from the States as yet! Also, writing a sample song from Lolita! - the musical as a college exercise.
Weekend plans
Working. What else? Not getting enough done, though. :-(
doing absolutely nothing
.. well - nothing worth mentioning. It's kinda nice. :-)
housework until this evening, then I shall be waiting for a certain Dutch Windy Miller to step off the plane :o)
My weekend is taken up with work - beer festival time again, this time only 16 beers, but plent y flive music keeping us entertained. Dunnno how I'm going to get up for 6am delivery tomorrow morning, but i'll cross that bridge later. For now,I need to write a quiz by 9pm.
[rab] New elopement menu?
I spent the weekend in the library, emerging only on Saturday night to get extremely drunk extremely quickly. It's coursework season in sunny Bath, and we are all working hard to meet arbitrary deadlines, smoking for all we're worth and drinking ourselves into the ground every Saturday night in a vain attempt to flee the horrific situation we find ourselves in once again. Also, why does everyone else in this library, all five floors of it, seem to be a complete idiot? Just asking. Is Library Rage something admissible in court?
I think I'm a bit depressed.
I think I'm a bit depressed.
[IS,P!] Yes, that sounds like just the thing that Niall would think of.
Pardon me, unplanned outage at mcios. I called the data center about another issue and they asked me if it was okay to physically move the server, and I told them to go ahead. It will, I hope, be out for less than an hour.
(Dan) It was alright at midnight (GMT). Thanks again.
[Rosie] Who's GMT?
I am.
[GMT] Do you have the time?
As it happens, I may well have ..
Leaning
Well, I've got the inclination...
[GMT] Not for much longer!
It's just struck me that as a Mornington Crescent server, we have no game of MC running. Anyone interested? I'd like to give the new 2007 ruleset a go as it's shortly to be published...
2007beta
[nights] Blimey, that's a bit radical, innit? MC on an MC website? Not sure I can cope. Besides, I've barely got used to HP2000. Do they think they've sorted the new version's DRM issues now, eh?
[SM] Last I heard, most of the national MC bodies had ratified it, with the exceptions of Monaco and East Cornwall. And I think the DRM nightmare will be with us for a while - last I heard, they were trying to make sure you only striled three times, then all your podumes would be deleted without warning. Perhaps better to wait a bit, hm?
Three striles and you're out
All your podume are belong to us.
shiny new things
I'd play the 2007 ruleset. Though my copy hasn't arrived from Amazon so I may make some bad moves (but I'm no stranger to that to be honest!).
Mornington Crescent on the front cover of The Times today (somewhat gratuitously).
Aigh!!
Where is MCiOS?? Or rather, where are all the games? The archive is also empty. I tried to create a new game and got Giant Ant Error. Is it time to panic??
It was there before 9.00AM this morning then it suddenly disappeared in the middle of my move! I guess its been hacked again.
MCiOS
Bloody hell! If anyone's got Dan's e-mail, give him a shout, quick!
MCiOS
It has rather shrunk.. I hope the games haven't been lost!
I've sent Dan a message about it already. 9:30 am in London is 2:30 am in Portland though, so I don't suppose he's up and about.
Yes, the middle of the night problem. We'll just have to wait. Hope it's ok...
MC in The Times
[Tuj] Did you guess the ruleset?
[Kim] No, do tell ;)
Ah. Very odd. I'll take a look.
Well done, Dan - no idea what you did, but you fixed it! :-)
It may be a serious problem. Stay tuned.
It's not behaving very well. I've asked the crew at the facility to cycle the power. I have last night's nightly backup here -- it's automatically fetched on a schedule, so nothing will be lost. But as I say, there may be a hardware problem so things might be iffy for a while.
Okay, it's going to be out of service for a while, as in multiple days, I think. I'm going to need to reconfigure my mail to point somewhere else, too. Very annoying.
(thank you, rab, for allowing me to use your server as a bulletin board.)
[Dan] Nae worries. As you know, I've hardware problems of my own.
BTW if anyone wants to email me -- though I'll be pointing my usual email at another server within a day or so -- there's always my last name at gmail dot com. Normally I don't check it very often but I'm using it now.
Get Well Soon MCiOS!
MCiOS thanks you. It would only take a moment to restart it at my home server and point the domain name at it (though it'd be a day or so before that change propagated through the intarweb), but the site gets a LOT of hits, including various kinds of attacks, and it would be a bad idea to inflict that on my home router for several reasons. Anyway, I'm going to have the machine professionally serviced, which will probably bring us into next week. This feels weird. It hasn't been down for more than a few hours since I launched it. I may give up on this colocation lark and go back to a virtual server of some kind; there are better and easier options for rapid failover when you do it that way.
[Dan] Indeed, there can't have been many days since last century when I didn't at least check in and look around at MCiOS. Still, I'm viewing it as a test of character!
Yeah, I still find myself typing "p" into the address bar as a shortcut to MCiOS. ("d" goes to Orange, "r" goes to here. Obvious reasons. But I'm so used to those shortcuts, if I use another computer it knocks me sideways for a minute.)
[Darren] Same with me! Except I use "pa", "du" and "ra".
shortcuts
How do you do that then? I just got 'em in me favourites.
shortcuts
Sounds like do-re-mi.
Do-re-mi
Nono, do is domaintools.com, re is resource-zone.com and mi is usually nothing, but right now it's mikael.jansson.be/rydis.html.
That's got to be an application for Web 3.0. Opening a webpage by whistling a merry tune.
Sign
Another reboot required this morning. I shall try and move to a different host this week.
I thought I couldn't get in last night.
The Tube
For those who are able to access it - tonight [Sunday] sees a series of programmes on BBC TV 4 beginning at 2100, which are all related to the London Underground. Includes the 'Design Classics' prog about the LU map.
[rab] With server farms you tend to get what you pay for -- decent reliable dedicated servers run at least a hundred a month in dollars and not very much less in pounds. If you want to pay a lot less than that and want top quality hardware and good service, you might consider a Xen host instead. The decent providers use very good hardware and they maintain it with a lot of care because if it goes down, more customers are affected than just you. And you can't tell the difference in terms of availability and performance; if anything it'll be much better than a cheap colo because most of the time the (often very muscular) CPU is way underutilized. You never get less than the share you're paying for and more often than not you get much more when you need it. And it's spectacularly easy to fail over to another machine -- a good provider will be able to switch you to new hardware in a matter of minutes if smoke starts pouring out of the box you're on. Frankly I'm seriously considering going back to that my self, mainly for that last reason.
Some links
xensource's list and hostingfu's. Both list UK providers, though you have to scroll down to find them in the latter.
Oh, for three years I ran mcios and several other sites, both http and https, an SMTP server, a jabber server with several transports, mysql, pop3 and imap, the homebrew chat server of course and a variety of other services that came and went over the years ... all in 64MB instance of User Mode Linux; a poor man's Xen. It was a little swappy but completely responsive and reliable. It was on good hardware though. A 256M Xen host would be an Aston Martin by comparison.
[Dan] Thanks for that - I was considering a 128MB Xen Vps but was slightly concerned it might not be up to the job of serving this site, which gets something like 5k hits a day.
[rab] How about hosting in Edinburgh? Though you'd probably want to traceroute them to find out if it's really close to you in terms of network hops; I'm three miles but 12 hops and 85ms from mine because of a lack of local peering between carriers, but your situation is likely to be different. Very low latency could be handy for maintenance; you could just mount drives remotely.
(Though it's not clear from their site that they offer Xen in their Embra facility, you'd have to phone to find out. And I'm not vouching for them as a provider -- I know nothing about them.)
[Dan] That company was on my shortlist of two. Haven't got round to emailing them yet, but I'll ask if they host Xen in (or, if my hunch as to the actual location is correct, near) Edinburgh.
128 should be fine. I run an identical setup at home on 128MB Xen server, and by far the biggest memory hog is mysql. Here's the memory footprint, 12 days since the last reboot:
dan@flint:~$ free total used free shared buffers cached
Mem: 131252 110836 20416 0 4632 38480
-/+ buffers/cache: 67724 63528
Swap: 131064 2228 128836
Those are pretty healthy numbers -- just enough swapping to indicate that it doesn't have more memory than it needs, without being significant.
Yikes, looks like you're discarding newlines. Okay, look in the chat game on mcios.
Whoops, had forgotten there would be instances where white-space would be significant. Hmm, looks like I need a PRE-tag handler.
But thanks for that info - as you (probably) know this thing hangs off a mysql database and although I've tried to minimise the number of queries needed to display any particular page, when it comes down to it you've still got to through a few Mb of tables around.
s/through/throw/. Another thing I want to add is a "whoops" feature that lets you correct typos in your previous move.
Typos
The Banter Page (this page) is wider than the others at the moment, so I have to scroll right to get to the 'up' and 'next' options.
Although it might revert when Dan's post has disappeared offscreen.
Ah, it doesn't do that on Firefox.
I wouldn't object if you modified or replaced it.
BTW, the web host for xtrahost.net appears to be located in the Scotland facility, if node names are anything to go by. I'd be tempted to relocate there myself and damn the exchange rate, but unfortunately I get 160ms ping times to it from my colo and 200ms from my home. That's fine for web stuff but I'd be unhappy with shell access and any other activity involving lots of small round trips.
Not to beat it to death but according to their FAQ the Xen hosting in Scolocate, which according to Google maps is within a reasonable definition of Edinburgh; perhaps 5 miles from the big rock with the funny house on top.
I'll get onto it - work's been a bit crazy today, but this machine just dropped off the internet completely for a bit - was a bit worried cos I'd be poking around with some of the security settings earlier and thought it had been a hack. Ho hum, we all still seem to be here, and the mysql tables are all still up and running.
Geil!
The Gyle, eh? Who'da thought it. A bit closer than Bush, which was guess #1. Definitely worth looking into!
Right
A VPS has been ordered, although I managed to lock myself out of my own online banking service in the process... Anyway, it should be with us over the next few days, so I hope to be able to migrate in the next week or so. Which is just as well, cos this machine needed another reboot last night. And my internet at home has stopped working, which is the next thing to try and sort out.
It's arrived... installing stuff as we speak, but since my internet at home seems to be fubar it'll probably take longer to get sorted than it would normally.
rab's computer woes
VPS? I'm trying to follow this talk of hosting and hardware because I would like to understand how it all goes together, but it's mostly greek to me unfortunately. I read it that the computer that this site is kept on is playing up and so a new one is needed. If you've a mind to explain, rab, I'd love to know whether you own the faulty computer or lease space on someone else's? Please excuse any howlers caused by my ignorance of the technology behind the web.
Also, please excuse howlers caused by my inability to proof read my own punctuation. Sorry.
Tis ok. This should probably all be in 'Let me check my notes' but it seems appropriate here as this will be the last post before shutting down to move elsewhere.
The hosting of this site has a long and chequered history, mostly due to my trying to do it as cheaply as possible. It started off in a user account on a shared linux machine, rented out at 30quid a year. It got hacked into about three times, and the whole thing demolished, which led to downtime and me having to spend a lot of time reconstructing from various "back-ups", including (on one memorable occasion) the Google cache. After the third of these incidents, Nik kindly stepped in and offered - free of charge - disk space and bandwidth on a linux box sitting in his front room and running on his DSL connection, and there things ran happily for a while. But it was not to be forever, and (for various reasons) a new home was needed.
At this time, my good friend Andy informed me he had bought a dedicated server - cheap because it was on old hardware. At the time we thought that old would just mean slow, but the fact that it needs rebooting twice a week indicates that old means crap. We've been trying to get it sorted out, but Andy's been migrating to VPSes, and I was looking into it when Dan gave me the filip I needed to sort it out once and for all.
And with that, I shall begin the process of moving this to there. It should be working in an hour or so - but you may not see it for a couple of days because the DNS will have to propagate. I also won't be on hand over the weekend to sort out any problems because there's a fault on my broadband line and BT are coming round on Monday to look at (and hopefully fix) it.
And here we are...
Who knows if this works or not.
Are we there yet?
good luck - and thanks with all efforts, rab. I shall be migrating to south Holland this weekend, to clean the windows of a windmill and to spend some time with my lovely Dutchman, so I\\\'ll be back on Monday too :o)
Ah, the slassher\'s back
Bani'shed?
Yay! I always forget about that little gotcha. And penelope - congratulations on being the first to see the new place - some people might not get in for a couple of days.
[rab] Thanks, as ever.
[pen] This Dutchman is starting to sound serious...
[pen] This Dutchman is starting to sound serious...
Heard the one about the windmill?
[Cdm] Yes, he is. Do you know any rib-cracking windmill-based jokes that might make him smile a bit more?
Why to windmills make the best shops? Because they've always got a sail on.
[pen] I hope you get a bunch of flours.
(pen) Don't know any windmill jokes but you could try call him clever clogs. Is he called Wim? One scours the place for names like that. ATB, BTW.
Marvellous
This place is still up and running.
rab the genius
A most wonderful migration, one can hardly see the join. Well done, rab!
[Darren, Projoy] Good efforts.
[Rosie] Nope, he's called Jan - equally typical. I think 'Clever Clogs' is a mainly British expression, innit? He actually brought me klompen the first time he visited. They're unfortunately too big, and might go on ebay next week!;o)
[Rosie] Nope, he's called Jan - equally typical. I think 'Clever Clogs' is a mainly British expression, innit? He actually brought me klompen the first time he visited. They're unfortunately too big, and might go on ebay next week!;o)
[rab] Thanks for a quick flit. I can see the new place from this part of .ac.uk now.
[rab] Hadn't even noticed the change! Guess that's good praise.
Wow. It's fewer network hops from my house to here than it is to my server. A lot fewer. Farther in terms of latency though, geography won't be completely ignored. And the fact that the route from my house to my server has to go through Los Angeles and San Francisco for what I'm sure are not very good reasons has a lot to do with it. [rab] Out of curiosity, what sort of ping times are you getting?
(pen) I suspect "clever clogs" is simply light-hearted British alliteration but the Dutch are so good at English he might even geddit. (rab) I'm with Tuj, q.v.
I'm finding the site a lot more responsive now.
[Projoy] There was a slow period this morning but that doesn't seem to have happened again since - suspect someone else on the machine was using the CPU time.
[Dan] Ping time from JANET is about 24ms, not sure if that's good or bad. It's a direct hop from JANET to the xtrahost network, but this seems to take place in London rather than Edinburgh... so there you go.
[rab] pssht. 24ms is less than the distance to my DSLAM from my router. (Which I really, really don't understand.) Good enough for pretty much anything. Though I imagine in the UK low latency is probably fairly normal.
[Dan] I am quoting the right figure: "64 bytes from rab.org.uk: icmp_seq=0 ttl=54 time=24.1ms"? www.google.com comes in at about 21.6ms, and www.bbc.co.uk at 11.0ms by the same measure.
[rab] Yep. Pity you don't have local peering, but that looks more than good enough. You'll have to check from home as well, if that's where you do your maintenance. I'm really jealous. Xtrahost looks great. They even have an SLA, which a lot of consumer-level VPS providers don't.
Anyway, I'm more than persuaded that virtualization is the coming thing. The idea of a server being physically implemented on a corresponding hunk of hardware already seems a little quaint. The amount of versatility and control you get from decoupling those concepts and essentially commoditizing CPU and memory along with bandwidth and storage is almost inarguably compelling. MS is putting up a fight as they always do when a shift occurs that challenges their business model. It's amazing to me that they stay in business when every good thing that happens is a threat to them rather than an opportunity.
(Though it must be said that a 99.9% uptime service level agreement means they're allowed to be down for 8 hours a year, which some categories of business would consider unacceptable. Still, it's much better than you or I have managed lately.) (And god, how I love Google sometimes. I just typed "0.1 % in hours per year" into the search field and up it comes.)
[Dan] I like the fact you can do things like "Current local time in New Zealand" too.
Well, the last place was down for 8 hours a week so 8 hours a year should be at least a 12-fold improvement. I'm not getting too excited about these people yet - all my previous providers (bar Nik) had certain shortcomings. But I was very impressed with the quick set-up (within an hour of my funds hitting their account) and am comforted by the fact that it's not infeasible to pop round and speak to them in person if things go horribly wrong.
rab] Congratulations!
downtime
I was disappointed to read that SABRE (the global airline res. system) is to be taken off mainframes running TPF. They used to quote ridiculous donwtime costs (something like USD1m per minute), due to the fact that they handled up to 9000 transactions per second. They're porting the system to Compaq NonStop, of which I (currently) know nothing, but I'll be looking into it. A few thousand TPF apps and ops programmers could be re-training in a few year, methinks.
Happy BST!
Hmm, PHP doesn't seem to have realised.