Snow or Bikes?

A tribe called montague and capulets

2007-03-08T22:53:00.000Z

I have acheived enlightenment. This is a monumental moment in my life. Let me explain:

About 10 years ago, I frequented a night club. In this night club they played rock, metal, rap, indie and so on. One song had a sample about 2 seconds long, 10 or so seconds from the end. I always liked the sample, but never knew where it was from. Every so often over the last 10 years, I'd hear something that reminded me of it and I'd try and work out what it was. The trouble is saying to people 'It's this sample, near the end of a song. I can't remember _at all_ how the song goes, but the sample goes Dun, DUN, dun, DUN' yields very poor results.

A few years ago I went to Alton Towers. While you're queuing for the ride, they play their theme tune which is "In the Hall of the Mountain King" which is quite similar to my holy grail sample. This re-kindled my desire to find out what the hell that sample was. I spoke to a few musos and some said 'Hmm yeah I recognise it' but I could get no more information.

This evening, I was faffing with my bicycle and my other half was watching TV. "Can I kick it?" by "A Tribe Called Quest" came on, and I saw a bit of the video. No bells were ringing, I knew the song. A few seconds from the end, THERE IT IS! THE SAMPLE! I nearly fainted. This was the song they played 10 years ago. Now I know where it's from and I've got a good basis to search the internet to find out where the sample is from.

Or so I thought. I spent an hour on google, wikipedia and iTunes searching fruitlessly for a list of samples used in the track. The track is actually the Boilerhouse remix, not the album original, the original doesn't have the sample in it. By this time, my other half is on the phone to her sister, who knows everything about music, and she reckoned it was from a ballet. I had a feeling it was Russian, so I searched iTunes for "Russian Ballet" and started listening to each track. The 4th search result was it. So, the sample is the opening bar from: Montagues and Capulets from Romeo and Juliet by Andrew Mogrelia.

The Tribe called Quest video is here: http://youtube.com/watch?v=9UlQM3jSaZk. The sample is at 2:53.

I'm disappointed that I couldn't find this information by searching google, etc. If you search google and include the answer in the search box, you find that there a few web pages that ask and answer the same question as I have been looking to answer for years. So, google has some room for improvement and I can now get on with my life. Next time you hear classical music BLARING from a car, it might be me, listening to this, on an endless loop, at volume 11.

Everyone is wrong, what do I do?

2007-02-27T16:28:00.000Z

Riding along on the motorbike, in the left hand lane, all the car drivers are staying in the right hand lane for no reason. I wave, I honk the horn, I ride in front of them and point to the left. They don't even notice I'm there. What am I supposed to do?

Seriously, what am I supposed to do? They're in the wrong. They are driving dangerously. Do I note down all 50 number plates of everyone I see doing it in a ten minute period and phone crimestoppers? Do I join the police force and stop everyone who is doing this? Do I start a petition to grant motorbike riders the right to carry guns and shoot highway code violators?

Or am I just supposed to ignore it and get on with life? Easy to say when you're sitting at your desk, but out on the road, you feel the need to kick people's wings in for making this grave mistake. Perhaps I'll get a scrolly sign attached to the back of the bike that points to the left and says 'Change lane you fool!'.

Undertaking

2007-02-09T22:06:00.000Z

According to Mr Clarkson, undertaking (overtaking on the left) is now a crime that can be punished by prison time. The problem is, for motorcyclists, undertaking is sometimes (often?) safer than the alternatives. Consider the following: When, in front, there are 10 cars in the outside lane, led by the front car doing 65MPH over taking a lorry in the inside lane doing 64MPH, where is the safest place for you to be? In fact, where does the highway code say you should be? In the left hand lane, right up until you are a safe distance behind the lorry, at which point you should look to overtake, if you feel it safe. Which means, undertaking some/all cars in the outside lane. If there is nothing to slow you down, you should be travelling at the speed limit (highway code says so, driving instructors will mark you down if you don't), which means undertaking.

Therefore, the drivers (as well you know) in the right hand lane are in the wrong, and you are in the right (on the left) when undertaking. Also by travelling in the left hand lane, you have a greater view and much larger stopping distance.

The highway code also states that you may undertake if the traffic in the other lane is travelling slower. Surely, it's always travelling slower when you're undertaking, otherwise they are overtaking you?

Personally, I feel it best to over/undertake on which ever side has least traffic. But then, I don't drive with my lights off in the dark while holding a coffee in one hand. I, actually, pay attention and ride like the wind. Also, riding slow means people can crash into the back of you. When you ride faster than the traffic, you can only crash into them. Filtering between 2 cars at speed is safer than overtaking, as the chances of one of the cars driving into the other is low, as most of the time the drivers know there's someone next to them in the other lane. When you come up behind a car and overtake at motorbike speeds, car driver's often don't have enough time to register your existence, so they may change lane without warning/indicating. Also note, lifesavers (shoulder checks) don't seem to be part of car driving lessons and the common car driver never uses them.

BMW

2007-02-09T21:53:00.000Z

I bought a new BMW System V Helmet last week. It's top notch, quieter and more comfortable than my old Shoei Z-One (which they no longer make). The Sys V one is flip top and is very handy as you don't have to take your glasses off to put the helmet on. The anti fog visor also actually works (they often don't).

Today I covered 200 odd miles to the dealer and back twice for the service. BMW staff and work were impeccable as always, but the price reflects that. :) On the way back it was heavy rain in rush hour traffic with 2 new tyres and new brake pads on the bike. The Sys V is good in the rain, only my glasses were misting up. But like all helmets, when you open the visor to demist your glasses, you get rain on both sides of the visor and visibility drops terribly. I think the only solution is to wear contact lenses.

System V likes: Comfort, vents that work, anti-fog visor, flip up front. Face stays warm as the built-in chin curtain is very effective. Neutral wind effect (your head doesn't get ripped off your shoulders when you look anywhere other than staight ahead).
Dislikes: You can't exhale downward and avoid steaming your glasses (this trick used to work fine in the Shoei). So in traffic when it's raining, you end up with the visor open, and you end up with rain on both sides of the visor and your glasses. I could remove the chin curtain, but then you end up with a freezing cold face.

To the people driving in rush hour, in heavy rain and in the dark: thanks for leaving your lights off. Much appreciated. To the person driving the new VW beetle: thanks for changing lanes 6 feet in front of me without indicating. To the taxi driver in P'boro who pulled out RIGHT in front of me on a roundabout: I hope I didn't interrupt your mobile phone call. To the guy driving in the outside lane at 60MPH: put down the coffee cup and concentrate. To the truck driver who made room for me to filter: ta!

It's no wonder there's an accident every single day on the A14, the people who drive on it are idiots. None of the above is an exaggeration. The general populous of East Anglia cannot drive safely, they would fail a driving test driving like that.

Littlewoods spam part 2

2007-01-29T15:54:00.000Z

"Dear Customer, we have now removed your email address from our records. If you wish to be removed from our Direct Mail, please write to.... We hope this meets with your approval."

No, it does not meet with my approval! My email address was never the problem. Again, I email littlewoods and request them to remove me from their Direct Marketing (postal) list. I'm not writing a letter just to remove myself from a spam list.

Littlewoods spam

2007-01-29T09:55:00.000Z

I received a snail mail spam from Littlewoods, to my name, even though I've never done business with them. I emailed them and explained that they really don't want to do that. I got an automated reply whereby I have to write them a letter to get myself removed from their database. Erm, how about get fucked? I emailed them back and explained that they will remove me immediately and failure to do so will result in legal action.

I can't stand postal mail, even legitimate items. It's shit, I have to file the paperwork away and it always gets lost. Is there no way to exist without a postal address at home? Or some way to have it filtered? I don't need another acknowledgement from my ISP each month by post that I have indeed paid the bill by direct debit. And I really don't need directed spamming from anyone.

Design Change

2007-01-26T12:02:00.000Z

Yes, this new template look is awful, but it's one of the very few templates that actually lets you display 80 column wide plain text. If I can't do that, then some stuff is unreadable.

Someone find me a nice looking template that can display long line plain text.

Gritish Bass

2007-01-26T09:45:00.000Z

In the past week I've received 5 letters from British Gas to 'The Occupier', billing for electricity use. Which is all well and good, but why send 5 letters and why not address them to me as I wrote to them when I moved in and gave them my details. So I emailed them and explained that they should be direct debiting my account, as before and could they please sort it out?

The reply this morning was: "Having checked our records it appears British Gas does not supply the address for the electricity." Now apart from the bad grammar, this is madness. If they don't supply the electricity then why have they sent 5 letters in a week asking for payment? I have documented proof that they supply the electricity. But if they don't want my money...

Apple making OSX worse and worse

2006-11-21T13:54:00.000Z

Mail on my mac is obscenely slow at accessing imap. It takes about 30 seconds to load up new emails. This has been going on for months and I've tried all sorts. A mailbox rebuild never finishes (I left it overnight and it was still going next morning). Yet I can access the same imap server at lightning speeds from any other mail client.

X11 1.1.3 is dangerously broken. I have it open all the time for a few different apps, one of which I launch every few months. Today I launched it (a java app running from a remote linux box) and X11 crashed and when I restarted it, the entire machine froze and I had to use the big red button. After it came back up, I tried again and the whole machine locked up again. How the fuck can a remote java app lockup the entire machine?

Can anyone recommend an alternative to Apple's X11?

Strange individuals

2006-11-01T10:53:00.000Z

There's a mailing list at work, where you send an email listing things for sale. One person has decided to sell some junk, but as it's not selling, they're resending the email every day. After 21 emails, I emailed her back to say "21 emails listing this item! It ain't selling! Stop spamming us". To which, she replied:

"WELL DELETE IT THEN"

Followed by, (and I quote):

"IT,S A FOR-SALE E.MAIL. THATS WHAT IT,S FOR
HAVE A NICE DAY"

What is wrong with these people? To me, she looks seriously disturbed. I'm quite happy to get told 'Sod off', but all-caps and made up punctuation is a sure sign of a serial killer rapist with a fetish for amputees, surely?

Anyway, I've decided this may be my new slogan/mantra: "IT,S A FOR-SALE E.MAIL. THATS WHAT IT,S FOR HAVE A NICE DAY"

BT know nothing of security.

2006-10-24T10:58:00.000+01:00

Look at this URL:

http://digitalvault.bt.com/gemini/login?userName=scootash&password=MyClearTextPassword&redirect=/sharedspace/index.jsp?login=true%26rememberMe%3Dtrue

Now shake your head sadly. They're selling this service as a 'Secure Vault' for your files. Now, given most people have a proxy server somewhere in their internet connection (ie, all NTL customers), you now have your username and password stored in plaintext, accessible by any random old sysadmin looking at the proxy server logs.

What's wrong with OSX?

2006-10-20T14:52:00.000+01:00

My Mac Mini seems to always run at a very high load, but is never actually doing anything. Take for example, the output of top -o cpu: (apologies that the text runs over itself, blame blogger).

Processes:  108 total, 6 running, 1 stuck, 101 sleeping... 286 threads 14:44:42
Load Avg:  5.96, 3.91, 2.49     CPU usage:  67.5% user, 32.5% sys, 0.0% idle
SharedLibs: num =  233, resident = 38.2M code, 3.50M data, 5.66M LinkEdit
MemRegions: num = 16591, resident =  500M + 9.80M private,  151M shared
PhysMem:   116M wired,  589M active,  305M inactive, 1011M used, 12.3M free
VM: 7.38G +  144M   697909(0) pageins, 704007(2) pageouts

  PID COMMAND      %CPU   TIME   #TH #PRTS #MREGS RPRVT  RSHRD  RSIZE  VSIZE
 6063 Safari      29.4% 49:03.46  11   330  2420   191M+ 25.7M   138M+  634M 
  395 Xquartz     21.7%  2:15:00   4   141   249  33.2M  24.5M  48.1M   182M 
 5262 ssh         13.4%  5:18.37   1    22    42  2.81M-  924K  2.74M- 29.8M-
 6529 top          7.0%  0:00.67   1    18    22   608K   380K  1.03M  26.9M 
    0 kernel_tas   5.8%  2:38:23  46     2  3155  21.7M     0K   101M   907M 
 6519 SyncServer   4.2%  0:56.57   3    56   102  46.8M  2.93M  48.6M  88.2M
 5381 Activity M   3.5%  1:50:06   2    75   176  2.38M  9.56M  6.80M+  121M 
   94 WindowServ   2.3%  8:52:59   2   870  1633  7.65M+ 99.6M   100M+  275M+
 5382 pmTool       1.9% 63:10.96   1    23    24   480K  1.05M   676K  36.5M 
  296 Terminal     0.6% 54:41.32  13   115   226  4.65M  10.6M  10.2M   177M
  293 UniversalA   0.4%  9:25.40   1    65   114   660K  3.34M  3.80M   109M
 3121 iTunes       0.2%  2:07:23   5   242   410  12.1M  12.9M  13.4M   173M
  183 mds          0.1% 27:06.62   8   103   132  5.81M  1.93M  7.82M  47.6M
  390 VirtueDesk   0.1% 55:31.03   4    92   228  4.13M  41.3M  8.62M   157M

How does that possibly give a load of over 5? It should be a load of about 0.8. What gives? The output of activity monitor agrees with the output of top, yet the machine is slowing to a crawl and nudging the load up.

It's a 1.25GHz mac mini G4 with 1GB RAM.

Let's Offroad!

2006-09-23T23:12:00.000+01:00

Went green laning today with a mate of mine and his big orange Stage 1 V8 (3.5L) Land Rover. I was navigating from a roadbook from Total Off Road magazine and checking off the mileage on my Garmin Quest GPS. Had some great fun down some green lanes - deep mud and ruts meant we were mildly sideways a couple of times. Most of the lanes are seasonal, so closed from 1st of October until April, so I'll probably go back in that time on the mountain bike.

Couple of photos and a short video from inside the landie.

Would you buy from these guys?

2006-09-18T22:15:00.000+01:00

I'm in the market for a full suspension mountain bike. I'm really after a Marin Rift Zone. Only problem is the Marin website repeatedly crashes Safari and their website is out of date. They've launched the 2007 bikes (other websites have some details), but their own site is still in 2006. Why do some companies have such a ridiculous web presence? Would you buy from a company whose website was so broken you couldn't actually use it?

Sweating Bullets

2006-09-15T16:05:00.000+01:00

I'm desperate for some new music, and after an hour of listening to random music on allofmp3 and iTunes Store, I've bought Countdown to Extinction by Megadeth from 1992. The sad thing is, Megadeth is terrible and Dave Mustaine's always been someone I've considered lame since he got kicked out of Metallica. (I feel like I'm 14 and arguing 'Metallica could kick your ass' while drinking snake bite and black.) They don't make music like they used to, and I only seem to like the old stuff. Allofmp3 recommended six albums based on my previous purchases and I've got them all, stuff like the first Rage Against the Machine, Dimmu Borgir, Sepultura....

(And yes, Blogger seem to have broken the template I use so this page looks super odd)

.mac mail

2006-09-08T10:14:00.000+01:00

I've had a .mac account for just over a year - it renewed earlier this week. Yesterday, .mac decide to block all mail forwarded to my .mac account from a certain IP (another email address). I've been doing this for the past year as .mac's spam filtering is pretty good, but now I can't.

So, I go back to reading my old email address directly, rather than it going through .mac. This is rather annoying, as I get 100 spams in a 24 hour period.

I've spoken to .mac support and they say that yes, they have indeed blocked this IP as it's sending loads of spam (my spam) to me. I can get it unblocked, but it'll get blocked again if it keeps sending this amount of spam.

Understanding Music

2006-08-10T12:06:00.000+01:00

I've just stumbled across a page on Amazon with some forum discussion thing on it. The page is about Rage Against the Machine, and there are two things that really bought my eye:

"I dont understand music where the singer screams all the time?"

"I am a massage therapist searching out new music to play during sessions..."

The substitution of the word caught for bought is done on purpose: "Your advert really bought my eye", "What a silly bunt".

Ill Communication

2006-07-27T15:19:00.000+01:00

It really pisses me off when you have to submit a query via a website, they reply via email, you reply to the email and it bounces, or even worse, falls into a black hole, as they don't allow emails to that address. So you have to go back to the website and submit and new query and they have no idea what you're talking about.

Then when you do get somewhere, they advise you to do all the things you've already done and explained in your email. ie:

Hi! My account named 'Scootash' no longer works with my password. I haven't forgotten it, it's just stopped working. I tried to reset it using the password reset page but it failed saying 'crappy-broken database error in foobar.asp'. Please can you reset it for me and send me a new password.'
The reply: 'Please use the password reset page'.
At which point I have to try very hard not to say 'I HAVE DONE THAT AND IT DOES NOT WORK, AS I SAID IN MY AWWRIDGEEENAIL EEMMMAIILL, SOCKCUCKER!'.

Bargains! Bargains! Much cheapness!

2006-07-13T10:28:00.000+01:00

In case you can't read it, yes that does say 5010 pounds. Oh please, let me buy the Redstar Insurance Cover! As a point of reference, my renewal quote is 550 quid.

Timber!

2006-07-10T19:57:00.000+01:00

10mph across diesel on a wet road, bike went down on its right hand side. The only real damage is the crash bar and right ~~cylinder head~~ rocker cover (tiny blemishes on rear pillion peg and hand guards). It seems the BMW crash bars don't do the job, so I've ordered some Motech ones, which have an extra bar going across the rocker cover. The damaged cover can be sanded and re-painted and will be as good as new. Without the BMW crash bars, I reckon it'd've done more serious damage. As it was, it's just cosmetic, and mild at that.

EDIT:It's a rocker cover, not a cylinder head. They're 89+VAT each new, apparently.

Pure madness.

2006-07-05T14:43:00.000+01:00

Sun insist on sending replacement parts out, then when you don't return them within 45 milliseconds, phone you up and start demanding the DHL shipping number from the box. Now, seeing as they sent the item to me, they must know the number. Also, why does it matter?

DS Games

2006-07-04T15:05:00.000+01:00

New Super Mario Bros is excellent. It's all the tricks and fun from SMB 1 and 3, with more. Bit disappointed that the minigames are the same as on Super Mario 64 DS. If you like Mario games, buy NSMB.

DS Lite

2006-06-26T18:06:00.000+01:00

Bought a DS lite. It's cool! Get RSI a bit quickly though.

Found out that you can get Super Mario Bros 3 and Super Mario World for the GBA, (the DS plays GBA games), which means I don't have to buy a SNES and Super Mario All Stars now! Why did no one tell me before that they re-released these games for the GBA? I'd have bought a GBA YEARS ago!

Scratched glasses

2006-06-21T09:12:00.000+01:00

How do you stop/fix your glasses from having scratched lenses? I only clean mine with the special soft cloth they give you, yet 6 months after getting these ones, with the scratch resistant coating, I have a big scratch on the left lense. What can I do, apart from spend hundreds more pounds on new glasses? Is there a scratch repair they can do?

Initial City Link won't leave me alone

2006-06-16T21:27:00.000+01:00

You may recall from previous postings that I was getting random mis-sent faxes from Initial City Link. A while ago my fax machine ran out of paper. This evening, I put a new roll in. The faxes I'd received in the mean time were stored in memory and I can't see a way to delete them. So, 3.5 metres of expensive fax paper later, it stops printing.

I have written 2 lettters (snail mail) sent numerous faxes and emails to them and left voicemail messages and they won't stop sending me confidential information by fax. I've run out of ideas, so:

FUCK OFF INITIAL CITY LINK YOU WANKERS!

I'm going to the police tomorrow.

You know you've been driving well when...

2006-06-16T10:51:00.000+01:00

the garage phones up and says 'You need new front coils as these two are broken, new front pads and new front tyres'. I knew about the tyres and presumed the pads, but I had new front springs about 18 months ago. Automatics eat brake pads as you have no engine braking and the engine is always pushing the wheels even when braking. I blame all the speed bumps for the springs needing replaced though.

At least the work is cheap as it's being done by our local mechanic and not a dealer.

More on bulletproof tyres

2006-06-11T22:11:00.000+01:00

Went to Thetford Forest today and cycled the black route and the red route in 28 degree heat. 3/4 of the way round the red route, I noticed I had a slow puncture, in my so far bulletproof Armadillos! There was nothing stuck in the tyre, but a decent sized object (4-5mm) had obviously gone through the tyre and mildly perforated the inner tube. Fixed it no problem by the side of the trail. These Super Patches are excellent. Don't leave home on a bicycle without them!

Apocalyptica do Metallica, with cellos.

2006-06-01T14:34:00.000+01:00

Apocalyptica play Metallica, with 4 cellos. This album is ten years old, but I'd never heard about it before. It's highly entertaining. Oh and buy it quick before allofmp3 get shutdown and you have to pay real money for 8 cover songs.

-1, Egg.

2006-05-31T17:16:00.000+01:00

I decided to faff about with some finance software (it's all crap. Including GNUCash) and most of them seem to support Quicken Interchange Format. My bank lets me download my statements in QIF, but Egg don't. When I asked them about this, they say they don't support quicken format, but perhaps I could cut and paste the webpage into Microsoft Word!

So, I took a look at QIF format. It's plain text, and VERY easy to use. So, I'm currently write a shell script to convert cut-and-pasted Egg statements into QIF format.

Therefore, -1 to Egg for being stupid and lazy. My bank with a crap website can do it, why can't you?

More about QIF

Ave Satani is not O Fortuna

2006-05-31T12:59:00.000+01:00

On one side:
Ave Satani, by Goldsmith - as heard in The Old Spice adverts and The Omen. (or not, as the case may be)

On the other:
Carmina Burana, O Fortuna - as sung in the Channel 4 advert for some upcoming programme about getting schemies to sing classical music.

I spent 10 minutes on the channel 4 website trying to find any reference to it and found nothing. So I _think_ they're singing O Fortuna, but I can't find out. Damn useless websites!
Update: Erm. Ave Satani sounds completely unlike O Fortuna. The internet is full of LIES!

Update 2: I couldn't find it on the channel 4 website, because it's a channel *5* thing. I wish we lived in a country where no public services are privatised, then at least I could go to the BBC website and find what I wanted. Instead I have to remember things and I thought the whole point of government was that they did my thinking for me!

At last! Survey results that I agree with.

2006-05-12T15:17:00.001+01:00

Normally when I see the results of a survey, they are wildly different from my own experiences and opinions. But now, apparently allofmp3.com is second only to iTunes in terms of buying music online, according to The Register.

Also, The Register still need to employ a sub-editor and haven't done so yet, despite my repeated requests. Or if they have, he needs firing.

Odd scam/spam

2006-05-11T17:10:00.000+01:00

I keep getting emails from Dubai asking for quotes for lengths of pipe. There's no URL to click in the email, so I don't see how this can be a scam, unless they expect me to ship them some pipe and then they don't pay. But it's most odd and I get 2-3 of these a week. Anyone shed any light?

I can spot a scam a mile off

2006-05-11T12:35:00.000+01:00

I don't speak French, and neither does my spam filter, but I'm pretty sure this is a scam:

"Cher Ami,

Je sais que vous serez étonnez de recevoir mon mail et je vous comprends mais voyez vous cher monsieur, apres mure réflexion, je me décide enfin, mais avant, je tiens a me présenter a vous. Je me rejoui que vous avyez enfin pri contact avec moi. Mon nom est madame Villaran Nenita,je suis une citoyenne philippienne a part entiere et la veuve du défunt ministre des finances philippien qui est mort le 15 mai 2002.

Mon mari est tombé gravement malade est a donc été conduit en Europe pour des soins intensifs, mais plus tard il est décédé des suites de sa maladie et a été enterré. J’ai donc hérité de mon défunt mari la somme de 12.000.000 de dollars américains (douze millions de dollars américains)."

Rockingham Thunder Sunday

2006-05-08T14:29:00.000+01:00

http://scootash.smugmug.com/gallery/1436496

Went to Rockingham Thunder Sunday yesterday. They had ASCAR races, pickup truck races, Formula 3 and some other stuff. The 1800BHP Ford powered MG SV (pictured above) was impressive. The pictures speak for themselves.

http://www.rockinghamthundersundays.com.

What's in a name, Part Two!

2006-04-28T14:46:00.000+01:00

http://www.penny-arcade.com/images/2006/20060428.jpg

Everytime I read some stupid product name/description I'm going to think of that.

The other night on CSI, Warrick Brown said 'It's creosote. It's used to preserve timber, fence posts....'. I feel shocked and angered that they have to explain what creosote is. Perhaps they should say 'I've found some sugar here. It's used to make tea taste sweet, and in the making of cakes. Also, I can see some blood, it's used to keep humans alive and contains haemoglobins and pumps round the body.'

Elaine Dickinson: You got a letter from headquarters this morning.
Ted Striker: What is it?
Elaine Dickinson: It's a big building where generals meet, but that's not important.

What's in a name?

2006-04-27T15:28:00.000+01:00

Want a snappy domain name that expresses what you're all about in one short word? How about: http://www.historic-military-vehicle-brake-carburettor-fuelpump-spares-kit.com/? Distinct and uniquely different from www.historic-military-vehicle-brake-injection-fuelpump-spares-kit.com.

Not so puncture resistant

2006-04-23T17:59:00.000+01:00

2 miles.

I got 2 miles on my new 'Puncture Resistant' tyres before thinking 'that feels a bit odd', glanced down and saw the rear completely flat. Wheeled the bike home, whipped off the tyre and inner tube and took a peek. One ruddy great thorn straight through the tread. Total amount of puncture resisted: 0%. I'll be taking them back to the shop tomorrow and ordering some Specialized Armadillos from Wiggle.

Excuse the quality of the photos, I couldn't be bothered with macro mode.

Update: Ordered a pair of Specialized Crossroads EX Armadillo Hybrid 06 tyres from Wiggle. Will see how these live up to their claim of puncture resistance.

Accessorising

2006-04-23T15:44:00.000+01:00

Bought a cycle helmet, water bottle and some gloves - the gloves make a big difference to the comfort level of holding the handlebars. Also got a flat tyre - fixed it today and rode into town and bought some puncture resistant road tyres. They're Continental ones, guaranteed for a year: if you get a puncture in that time, they'll replace the tyre and the inner tube. They were £20 each with an inner tube, but they should be worth it. Not sure what I'll do for tyres for proper off roading, might just use the existing non puncture proof ones and see how I get on, as I can swap a pair of tyres in under an hour without much effort...

A proper skype wifi phone

2006-04-21T11:39:00.000+01:00

http://tools.netgear.com/skype/default.aspx. Netgear have made a proper skype wifi phone that doesn't require a PC. Amazon are taking pre-orders at $ 249.99.

Egg

2006-04-20T14:04:00.000+01:00

Just filled in an online survey for Egg. One of the questions was "Which of the following were you aware that Egg offered". The options included Car Insurance, Home Insurance and Current Account. But they don't offer current accounts - I rechecked the website there and then - no mention of current accounts (Egg Money is not a current account). When asked what Egg could offer, I put 'A current account, which your survey implies you offer, yet your website doesn't mention'.

So, Egg, are you about to offer current accounts? Go on. You know you want to.

New kind of bike.

2006-04-19T19:50:00.000+01:00

Bought a mountain bike, rode about 22 miles on Monday round Thetford Forest. The black route is a good ride, with The Beast providing entertaining switchbacks.

Even the most intelligent of people sometimes make mistakes. I saw the results today of someone ironing thermal paper to 'make it flat' as it was curled from coming out of the fax machine.

Spam spam everywhere but not a drop to eat

2006-04-12T21:27:00.000+01:00

Initial City Link seem to think my fax number is the fax number for everyone in the UK. They keep faxing my number with a nice printed letter saying "We're dealing with your claim reference number:......", with different names and addresses on the letter each time. I suspect a feckless temp can't work the fax machine, but God knows how they got my number. We're up to six faxes now over two weeks and despite two voicemails left for them (they don't leave an email address on the fax) they don't stop. I'm sending them a bill for the fax paper.

Or should I phone the intended recipient and say "Yes, this is Bill from Initial City Link, I've been authorised to give you a refund, please let me know your credit card number and I'll get the refund issued"? Muhahaha!

New (tax) year's resolution

2006-04-11T18:56:00.000+01:00

1920x1200. 24 inches of viewing pleasure, courtesy of Dell. 5 inputs (VGA, DVI, Svideo, Composite, RGB) and you can view 2 inputs at the same time. Also for extra silliness, rotate the monitor 90 degrees (the stand allows this), rotate the display in your video card settings, and hey presto, an old school DTP setup. Or an easy way to look at photos of tall buildings. Pictures to follow.

Vorsprung Durch Technik

2006-04-11T14:26:00.000+01:00

as some people, will never say.
I rode past a broken down VW passat estate this morning. The driver had the bonnet open and was on his mobile. As he was slowing the traffic down, by blocking one line, I had time to shout "If only everything in life was as reliable as a Volkswagen", but I don't think he heard me.

Bastard Apple

2006-04-06T17:46:00.000+01:00

The OSX 10.4.6 update really doesn't work on my mini. I'm stuck at 10.4.5 and .mac sync has gone screwy. My mac is rapidly becoming Windows in terms of problems.
I still can't find out how to force line wraps in Mail, as I'm composing an email, at 72 columns. So each email I send ends up being wrapped and looking crap as the last word of each line is on a line by itself.
I still can't copy and paste between X11 and Terminal.
Applications randomly go slow/beach ball, yet when I look at the load, it's 0.46 or something equally low.

I've just read the list of supported devices in iSync 2.2. The bastards at Apple have added support for the 6230, after just a few months ago I bought a 3230 as I was sick of the 6230 being impossible to sync (and I assumed, would never be supported).

Edit: OK, safari is beach-balling and switching to other applications currently takes about 2 seconds. Typing in a terminal window is very slow. The load on the system: "18:10 up 2 days, 5:49, 4 users, load averages: 0.41 0.45 0.34". What is it doing?! Use the hardware to the MAX, damnit! If my machine is running slow, I want to see a load of 3.5, or at least 1, not 0.41.

Poker

2006-04-05T21:41:00.000+01:00

Just finished a poker evening at work - 2 rounds of 45 minutes then the final table. 20 people in the tournament. I won. Won the first and second rounds on my tables (5 people per table), then onto the final table with 6 people. Cleared the final table and I take home two Easter eggs as prizes.

Mac OSX Terminal Carriage Returns

2006-04-04T16:23:00.000+01:00

Seeing as Google finds no answer to this and it was driving me insane, here is how you make it possible to copy and paste things from Terminal with normal behaviour: ie, keep carriage returns so when you paste it doesn't all end up as one line. Stupidest default behaviour ever.

In Terminal, select Window Settings, then choose Emulation from the drop down list. Tick the option that reads "Paste newlines as carriage returns". Simple.

Yes, this is probably the stupidest guide/fix/help ever, but it was driving me crazy. Yes, I'm blind. Yes, I'm an idiot.

Ragdoll Physics

2006-04-03T18:13:00.000+01:00

Ragdoll Physics 2

Click and drag the body. Highly entertaining.

Scary Scammers

2006-04-03T11:47:00.000+01:00

Just received a 'Barclays International' Urgent Barclays Security Message. Was just about to hit the 'junk' button in my mail client when I noticed they had my full address in the email. Quick scan of the html source shows the link goes to http://ibank.internationalbanking.barclays.co.uk.ebanksecure.ru/.

So it seems they have a copy of the electoral register and have tied it to web searches or something, to get my email address.

Money and Numbers

2006-03-27T21:50:00.000+01:00

Went Sainbsury's this evening - they have a coinstar machine that takes your loose change, takes a 7.9% cut and then gives you a voucher for the rest which you can use against shopping or get cash for. Did some shopping, paid at the till with the voucher and they wouldn't accept it because the voucher was worth more than the shopping. Even though it says specifically on the voucher that they'll give change. So I paid with a card and took the voucher for a full cash switch at the customer services desk. Daft.

All this got me thinking about banks. I bank with the Bank Of Scotland and for numerous reasons, don't want to change banks (Cool account number, memorable bank address). This means that living in England, there are no banks I can walk into and do banky things. Like paying large bags of loose change into my account. Hence the visit to Sainsbury's. Note: I have a lot of loose change. I don't naturally spend change, I pay with pounds coins and notes. I've been waiting for card payments of small amounts for about 15 years now. When they showed the Mondex card on Tomorrow's World (back when all this were fields), I wanted one, and I still want one, but it never happened.

I would have an Egg Current Account, as I already have an Egg credit card, Egg Savings Account and an Egg loan, but they don't do current accounts. So with BoS I stay.

So, what's this 'cool account number'? Well, I have a thing for numbers; I remember an awful lot of them. My BoS account number is: 00151617, which is very handy for reading out over the phone. I have my credit card number memorised, along with my passport number (which I needed to write down every time I flew in out and of Malta when I lived there) and other handy things. I can still remember my phone number from the house I last lived in when I was 4. I can remember my compuserve account number from 10 years ago. I can rattle of IP addresses of a lot of different machines all over the internet. (I was upset when Demon stopped allowing public DNS queries from 158.152.1.58).

I was going to make a point but I've forgotten what it was and prison break is just starting.

Backups? No probs. Recoveries? Now that's a different matter...

2006-03-08T22:23:00.000Z

Got the Mac Mini back last night. Apple store phoned and said it was ready for collection, so I drove down and got it. While in the store, I took a look at their external disks, so I could do RAID with the internal one. After speaking to a sales assistant, I learned that none of them have anything more than a one year warranty. 139 quid for an 80GB disk with 1 year warranty? No thanks.

So, today I boot up the Mini and it's running 10.3. My 10.4 DVD is somewhere hidden at home, so I thought I'd press on anyway. I do daily .Mac Backups, so I thought I'd restore all my Documents and Settings which were backed up on 10.4 and restore them on 10.3. A sure recipe for failure, especially if you read other people's write-ups of recoveries using Apple Backup.

So, a Full backup was done in November 2005, with incrementals every day since. Those of you who know anything about normal backup software at this point are sucking your teeth, myself included. But, that's the only way Apple Backup works. So, to get back to the stage I was at when the disk died means restoring the Full from November and applying 120+ incrementals, over the internet, from the Apple iDisk server (which is always disappointingly slow).

Short Story: It worked. A restore of 120+ incrementals from 10.4.5 to 10.3.9 worked as well as could be expected (Mail's changed quite a bit since 10.3).
Details to follow.

This evening I upgraded to 10.4 and downloaded the updates to get me back to 10.4.5. Sync'ed with .Mac, re-added my Nokia 3230 to iSync and downloaded the latest version of Omnigraffle and I'm basically back to where I was before the disk died. Safari even has my old cookies back, keychain has all my passwords and Mail has all my accounts and rules.

Zen and the art of motorcycle emptiness

2006-03-05T15:59:00.000Z

Took a look at the GN 125 this afternoon. It's not been running for a few months and has recently been leaking petrol. Took the tank off, took out the airbox and the carb. The airbox was about 1/2 an inch deep in petrol/oil mix and the drain plug was closed, hence it wasn't draining anywhere. The carb looks fine, mint condition in fact. Note: Carbs will piss petrol no matter what way up you hold them.

Put it all back together but it still won't run. Fuelling is fine, so I suspect ignition is the problem. I managed to get a couple of hic-cough fires out of it but nothing more. The fuel is old and partially contaminated and so I'm going to get some fresh unleaded and put in a new spark plug and see what happens.

A use for dashboard!

2006-03-03T08:49:00.000Z

Finally! A use for dashboard. http://www.google.com/macwidgets/

Broken Mac Mini HDD

2006-02-28T22:05:00.000Z

This afternoon the HDD in my Mini died. I phoned Apple and got put through to some call centre in Bangalore, where a very talkative man said I could pay 135 quid, 35 quid, or fix it myself. Unimpressed, I phoned the 'local' Apple store and they said 'Sure, no probs, book in with Concierge'. So I went to the Bluewater Concierge page, booked in and sped off to get there for the last appointment with the Geniuses of the day.

I've never been to a Apple Store before. They're SHINY! I walk in at precisely the time of my appointment and walk up to the Genius Desk. The guy behind the counter is standing in front of a huge LCD that has my name at the top and he checks my name, takes a look at the Mini, agrees with my diagnosis and books it in for a new HDD under warranty. Should get it back in 5-10 days (but they reckon much sooner than that.) Top quality service.

Autosupport that isn't.

2006-02-27T17:05:00.000Z

I'm in charge of a piece of kit at work, it's used for part of our backup system. It's disk based, and when a disk fails, it emails me and the manufacturer, who provide the support. The manufacturer then completely ignores the email and does nothing. I then have to manually open a case and paste the details of the email into the case notes. They then get around to fixing the problem.

Other manufacturers who have autosupport actually open the case for you and ship you the disk (ala Netapp) without you having to lift a finger. But not these guys.

Words. Random meaning and usage.

2006-02-23T09:24:00.000Z

"As you've probably now by now..." begins the email I've just received. It was sent to everyone in the building. Some people just don't get the whole 'proof reading' thing.

Snow Mobile Bikes

2006-02-21T21:49:00.000Z

View All

Edit: I seem to be able to post photos by way of splashblog, but not text, and then that gets posted here, if I wish. So I can now blog (photos at least) to blogger from my phone while on the move!
Yes, that is a pointless photo of part of my stacks of DVDs. I needed something to photograph to test the mobile photo blogging.

New Phone - Nokia 3230

2006-02-20T14:07:00.000Z

Got a new mobile phone - a Nokia 3230. Got it second hand, but in mint condition. Most important thing: It syncs with iSync on the mac, so my calendars and conacts are all in sync across 2 macs, my palm and now my phone.

Also, as it's a series 60, you can get all sorts of useless toys and tools for it. Mini Opera looks fabulous on it.

Green Travel Awareness Day

2006-02-16T09:05:00.000Z

At work, we sometimes have these Green Travel Awareness Days. Basically, if you arrive by bicycle, bus, car-share, walk or (most importantly) motorbike, you get entered into a free competition to win some small prizes. You're supposed to stop at the main gate on the way in and collect a ticket or give your name or something.

So this morning, I arrive at the main gate, and there's 2 guys with clipboards. I stop beside one and say 'I'll have a bacon double cheese burger and an Egg McMuffin please'. He smiles, the barrier opens, and I ride off. I realise 30 seconds later that I was supposed to give my name to enter the competition. I had pure forgetten about the whole thing.

Can you smell petrol?

2006-02-15T20:12:00.000Z

I can. Mainly because there's a pool of it on the garage floor underneath the 125 motorbike. I put a small container underneath the engine this morning as there were a few drops on the floor. This evening, the container is half full (I'm an optimist) and petrol is dripping out at a fair speed of 1 drop every 3 seconds.

Upon closer inspection, it becomes clear that the carb overflow is pissing petrol out. I've turned the petrol tap to OFF, which should help, and also inverted the overflow pipe so that gravity doesn't suck all the petrol out. Will see how it looks tomorrow. Anyone know why the carb would start doing this?

Where do you take old/contaminated petrol? The local dump only takes used oil...

Who needs digital paper?

2006-02-14T15:02:00.000Z

I was looking the other day for a 'digital pen' - a way to take notes on paper and then have them uploaded to the computer so that they're accessible from anywhere. Gave up on that idea. Today I get an HP Photo Scanner 1000 for a fiver - it appears as a USB drive on the mac, and when you press scan on the device, your scanned item appears as a jpg on the disk. Simple!

So, take two scans (top and bottom) of your A5 notepad and join them together with some software, et voila!

A Not quite SLR

2006-02-09T13:57:00.000Z

Panasonic DMC FZ30. Want. 12x Zoom!

My fear of owning an SLR is getting dust on the CCD or in the lense somwhere. This panasonic has a fixed lense, hence stopping that problem...

Dodgy PSU

2006-02-07T21:01:00.000Z

I plugged in the iBook this evening and it wouldn't charge. Cue plenty of faffing, un-plugging, pushing, fuse changing and power cycling of laptop and no luck. As a last resort, phone a good mate of mine who has 2 mac laptops and who might be able to lend me a power adaptor until I can get a replacement. As I'm speaking to him, I kick the PSU and it starts working!

I was hoping it was going to be proper broken so I could talk myself into buying a Macbook Pro (no point spending 80 quid or so on a new PSU for a 2 year old laptop). Oh well...

Amazon Marketplace

2006-02-06T10:30:00.000Z

I bought Hidden and Dangerous 2: Courage under fire from Amazon Marketplace. Instead of paying 29.99, I paid 1.97. I thought it was just an add-on pack. It turns out it's the original game, PLUS the add-on pack! Not bad for under 2 quid, shrink-wrapped.

BMWs - part 2

2006-02-03T21:37:00.000Z

Bike alarms are nothing but trouble. The RT has a Spyball fitted and I set the alarm off 6 times while getting on the bike. Then I stopped for petrol and the bike wouldn't start. After a few minutes I managed some combination of button pressing, disabled the immobiliser and the thing started. Continuing the journey, I found the heated grips do work, the switch is on in the off position. The ABS fixed itself, well, at least the lights stopped flashing.

Got my GS back from the dealer and they've performed an ABS check - the computer in the bike gives the following information:

Mileage: 5702.2
Operating Time: 91h 56m 00s
Braking Time (front): 8h 30m 50s
Braking Time (rear): 12h 36m 45s
ABS activation time (front): 14s
ABS activation time (rear): 1m 32s

So, in 5702 miles, I've had the ABS kicking in on the front wheel for a total of 14 seconds. The GS is known for being quite eager to kick the ABS in (hard braking over a lumpy road will kick it in on both wheels), and I often lock the back wheel to see how much grip is available, especially when green laning.

According to the GF's calculations, my average speed is 62.27MPH. Make of that what you will, given the operating time is whenever the engine is on.

More boring statistics: cost of service: 320 quid, with new rear tyre. A little more than I expected, but there you go. This works out (calculated on the A14 in rush hour in the dark) to 5p a mile in servicing costs. With 10p a mile for petrol (~180 miles to a tank, 18 quid), this makes for 15p a mile running costs. Apparently it's 25p a mile for a Peugeot 106. Motoring is expensive!

BMWs

2006-02-03T12:58:00.000Z

Took the GS to Peterborough for a service. For a courtesy bike I had a choice of an R1100RT (R Reg) or an R850R. Bigger is always better, and I've had an R850R before, so I took the RT. It's got 50k miles on the clock and it's 9 years old and it's in pretty good nick. I'll be chuffed if my GS is looking this good in 9 years.

But. The heated grips don't work. The ABS lights flash constantly for the entire length of the journey. An indicator bulb has blown. The gearbox gives occasional false neutals. But I love it. The air temperature is about 0c and banging along at some mumble miles an hour, it's pretty damn cold. The adjustable electric windscreen is good fun, the seat is big and soft. The suspension is spot on, making motorway miles very pleasureable. Be nice to try out a new R1200RT.

Got another 100 miles to do today, half-ish on the RT and then the rest on my newly serviced GS. Wouldn't drive the car if I was paid. There's something that says "I am better than you" blatting along at high speed in the freezing cold winter weather on a bike as the cagers fumble with maps, swerve across lanes and generally act like a 5 year old with an attention problem. On the bike, I'm making perfect lines, spot on apexes and pre-guessing people's moves perfectly. In the car I'd be stuck behind an artic doing 56 MPH staring at it's number plate as it looms closer and closer...

According to my wind chill calculations, it's technically -54c and colder when I'm riding along. No wonder I felt cold.

Cunnilinzies

2006-01-12T14:27:00.000Z

A lively young damsel named Menzies
Inquired: "Do you know what this thenzies?"
Her aunt, with a gasp,
Replied: "It's a wasp,
And you're holding the end where the stenzies."

Google Earth

2005-12-16T14:59:00.000Z

I just got a copy of Google Earth for the mac. It's awesome. I saw the Windows version from afar a while back, but now they've got a load new satellite pictures and MUCH higher res pictures than maps.google.co.uk. I can see my old motorbike parked outside my house on Google Earth!

Really must write 'HELLO GOOGLE!' on my roof.

My name? J. R. Hartley.

2005-12-16T11:06:00.000Z

And the package arrives addressed to G H Sparkley.

We have a few different suppliers at work who regularly ship us parts under warranty. They have our address on file when we open a case. It shows you your address and you can confirm it. So, when a package arrives from them with a completely made up address, it doesn't get delivered to me, it stays at security until someone comes along and says 'Yes, I'm J R Hartley, I'm looking for a parcel, what you got?'.

I don't understand how these companies come up with the wrong address. Surely the computer prints the label or they read the address from the screen and write it down. But no. The most amazing thing is, without fail, they change the post town in the address. We are NOT IN ESSEX! The Essex border is South of here. We are in Cambridgeshire, hence why it says Cambridge in the address and we have a CB postcode. But no, they put Saffron Walden on. But how?! Saffron Walden has never been mentioned to them!

I suspect there's some database these people use that converts a postcode into a postal address and the database is WAY wrong, yet these companies follow it like the gospel, even when the address I want is given to them.

Also, spelling my name is wrong is a crime against humanity.

How's that for service?

2005-12-13T10:34:00.000Z

At the weekend, I swung by the BMW dealer to try out a piece of funky new BMW clothing. Except they didn't have any, or even know what I was talking about. In true modern style, I whinged on the relevant forums.

Today I get an email from the dealer saying "I saw your post on the forums, please let me know your size and we'll order one in and you can try it on, no obligation".

My faith has been restored! Now I just have to find out what size I am...

Apple Fanboy

2005-12-08T19:04:00.000Z

Left to right: XServe, G5 iMac 20" with iSight built in, Mac mini, Sun Ray 170. My Evaluation 20" iMac G5 and XServe arrived today. Got a month to play with the new toys and decide if we're going to do Apple support at work. The G5 is awesome.

Ranting. I am right!

2005-12-07T09:49:00.000Z

I'm getting bored of idiots. Specifically people driving in the right hand lane when the left hand one is empty, and driving with a mobile phone held to their ear. What's most infuriating is that even if I beep the horn and wave my fist at them, most of the time there's no reaction. It's like they're looking straight past me and can't see me.

To resolve the situation, I'm ordering a 136DB Siebel Horn for the bike. Everyone that is driving wrongly will be subject to a loud blast. Yes, I am right.

This is, of course, a temporary measure until I get my megaphone for Christmas. Then I can shout 'GET OFF THE PHONE YOU SOCKCUCKER!' and they _will_ hear me.

Productive Afternoon

2005-12-06T16:26:00.000Z

It's been a productive afternoon, as you can see. Thanks to http://blog.neoteny.com/eno/archives/008875.html. I'll do a colour one later. :)

There's only so much oil in the ground.

2005-12-06T13:55:00.000Z

Colleague came to me asking if he thought this machine he had would work. I said 'try it and see'. If it works he's adding it to his cluster, 'My tower of power' as he says. 'There's only so much oil...' I said.

Blank looks all round. 'Tower of Power. Oil. Ground. Funk. Bass Sax?'. The iTunes music store came to my rescue, so I burnt a single track audio CD and gave it to him. Allofmp3 don't have the track in question in their collection.

Still confused? http://www.towerofpower.com/.

Useless

2005-12-02T10:14:00.000Z

A company that shall remain anonymous, (but their name rhymes with Bun and they make computers) are becoming unbelievably useless. Their support used to be top notch, but now, well: They take 3 days to get an engineer just to email me back. He quotes some instructions which are wrong: they refer to downloading some files, but the contents are different to what the instructions want. The email ends with him saying he's on holiday now for a month and I should speak to someone else. Why did he bother?

Doorbell in the middle of the night.

2005-12-01T14:59:00.000Z

Two nights ago, I'm woken at 2.30am by the sound of the doorbell. Now, when someone rings my doorbell at 2.30 in the morning, I assume it's reasonably important, so I answer it. There's a guy standing there and he says something like this:

"Hi, I'm wondering if you can help me. My car's broken down, just round the corner and it won't start. I've run out of petrol but I've got 83p and I'm wondering if you can help. I've got a jerry can and if you've got any spare petrol in a can, that'd be great. I've also got a fiver and my mate's on his way to help me out."

I struggled to understand what he was after. He had a car, money, a jerry can and we live about a mile from a petrol station. So I said "No, no, no." and closed the door.

After returning to bed, I could hear him walking about and knocking on other people's doors and engaging in conversation.

Most odd.

Security. We've heard of it.

2005-12-01T14:35:00.000Z

A colleague of mine has just bought a 2nd hand car. It's the same make and model as mine, but a few years older. To open the car, you can use the remote control 'blipper'. The one for this car is Infrared. With some TV remote software for a Palm or Windows PDA, you can capture the IR code and unlock the car and disable the immobiliser! The blippers don't cycle through codes. I'll be checking my car this evening, but I suspect it'll work.

First Post!

2005-12-01T14:24:00.000Z

Blog. Expected contents: Rants, mostly. Motorbikes, computers, snow.