To the people of Greece

When your country needs as much business, tourism and good will as it can get, why are you calling a general transport strike tomorrow?

I cannot get home from my business meeting in your country any more, and at the moment feel like I won't be coming back if I can help it.

You're really not helping your cause!

Still, at least there's a pool and internet...

Sustainable public transport

We've heard it all before "rural bus service cuts". We'll it's happening in Elvington and it's all quite silly.

To give bit of background. We have a bus service (195) that runs a few times a day. The busiest times are at 7:30 to York and 5:15 from York. This service gets about 6-12 commuters from Elvington plus another 12 or so from other villages. So, it's hardly full, but it's keeping 24 cars off the road.

During the day, the other bus services (apparently subsidized by the council) have a "few" (3?) people on them.

Anyway, the morning and evening runs of the 195 will be stopped from 5th September 2011 because it's not financially viable (while the empty daytime runs continue).

The cynic in me thinks that the company would rather run an empty bus paid for by the council than one that's actually well used but doesn't have a bum on every seat.

I'm sure that the day time buses provide an irreplaceable service for the OAPS, and others who do not have a car to get into York! But stopping the morning/evening commuter services so that people end up buying a car to go to work seems completely at odds with the York City council's recently published strategy on transport! All 5 themes in the document are basically saying that it's important to stop people using the car to get to/around York.


A few suggestions:

• Think about the services that we subsidize.
  
• Plan timetables better: think about what services people will use, not what services happen to fall neatly within the bus company's schedule when they have a spare bus that's on its way back from somewhere else.
  
• Make it 30 minutes later in the morning (7:50 in York is a fraction early really for many commuters)
• Advertise it! According to the transport policy, we have to encourage behavioural change - so let's go out of our way to promote it, make it actually a viable service. Many, many people in Elvington work in York, why don't they take the bus. Who pays for the advertising? Council? Bus companies? Word of mouth? Elvington Parish Council? Actually all should play a part.

Stairs

Great idea!

Inflation again

Some time ago, I wrote about the relationship between mortgage and inflation.

Today, I came across an interesting article saying the same, but a bit better and more up to date, basically using inflation to get out of debt.

I thought it was interesting because I still get tempted to chip away at my mortgage if I ever get a bit of spare cash.

My First Shorthand Wiring

Shorthand

I have made two new year's resolutions this year.

1. More exercise (same as last year, but this time I mean it, again).

2. Learn shorthand.

And it's the second of these that this post is about. Let's start with the why.

My handwriting is terrible. It always has been. Completely illegible. It's not that I cannot write legibly (even reasonably neatly if I must), but that I don't. I have often blamed it on using computers all the time, but that's not really true - I do write too.

I have a note book that I use daily at work; each page is the same: there is a fairly neat title, then as we go beyond the first few words, I can barely decypher what it says. Actually, each word is like that too - I can only read the first letter.

I am beginning to understand the reason that I write like this: time. Once I get into the meeting/notes/whatever, my writing doesn't keep up with my thoughts, two characters into each word, and I'm needing to write the next one, so the rest of the word becomes an irrecoverable squiggle.

In fact what I end up doing is inventing a new shorthand as I write ("let's define this squiggle to mean 'upercalifragilisticexpialidocious'"). Of course, the lack of a systematic method means that by the time I come to read it, I've no idea what new shorthand notations I invented.

So, the proposed solution is is actually learn a shorthand method, one that someone else has worked out already, one that works, and one that is written down somewhere.

Types of shorthand.

So, this leaves me searching the internet for shorthand tutorials (it's a subject that's surprisingly scarce on the internet actually). The first question is "which shorthand?". There are many types, each with various merits. The two famous ones are called "Gregg" and "Pitman". Pitman requires you do do different weights/thicknesses of line, which would not be practical I think. Gregg seems more practical, very fast but very complicated - it's aim seems to be for super-fast writing, rather than ease of use.

In the end I've decided to go for a little known shorthand called "Alpha Shorthand" that has a couple of references on the internet, including a youtube video. Here's the teaching sheet: Alpha Shorthand.

Let's see how I get on...

Blowing in the wind

It used to be the case that on 'recycling day', as I walk to work on a windy day, I'd see lots of bags of recyleable materials blowing down the streets, onto the fields and generally causing more problems than putting them in landfill. After quitely grumbling about them for a year or so, I'm really pleased that the council has replaced them with good strong plastic boxes with lids for sorting and separating the recycling.

After a few weeks of using the boxes, I can say that they are excellent and far better then the old system. Horray!

All we need now is to switch from a 2-weekly landfill rubbish collection to a 3-weekly one, with recycling collected every week and I'll start to feel like recycling is really important.

It would be good too if it became cheaper for businesses to recycle than to landfill....

On another note, Elvington (and nearby) residents, have a look at this fantastic opportunity: Alpha in Elvington.

New Blog on Embedded Timing

At work, we're launching a new blog on on-target timing analysis.

Topics will include anything related to embedded software verification, timing analysis, software optimization or other topics that come up from time to time.

You might even find an article or two written my me on there.

http://www.RapitaSystems.com/blog

New computer

After months of looking for a new phone to replace my much loved miniature Panasonic mobile phone, I have finally made a choice. I started looking for something small that makes phone calls and ended up buying a new computer that also has communication facilities.

I thought of getting an iPhone, but the impracticality of programming it freely would probably drive away the last remnants of my technical background. My new computer is Android based so it should be properly programmable!

So, I'm getting used to my nice new HTC Desire. The device came wrapped in plastic bearing a warning me to remove it from my pants before sitting down. Not a good start!

Anyway, I've got the essentials working (wifi, ssh, http, smtp, radio 4), and a few non-essentials (social networking) but I've still not actually made a phonecall. That's probably for advanced users only. 

If only I could find the command line I might be totally comfortable using it. 

Still no HTML

Many years ago, there were some standards set out for the language of the web: "HTML".

The idea is simple: if you define the language then everyone who writes it and everyone who reads it will understand each other. 

There were several good tools (mostly released free of charge) written to at least check that the HTML that you write is at least syntactically correct. That is, in non-technical language, when computers talk to each other, the computers use the same words and sentence structures so that they can understand each other.

So, why then in 2010 do big banks, with their massive budgets still skip the simplest of requirements+tests on their on-line banking and not stick to the standards, littering their HTML with obvious errors that are apparent on any browser (except perhaps the one that the web programmer happened to use)?

Doggy Bag

There's a lovely little bit of woodland near my office, with a footpath through it. I make a point of waking through it when going to and from the office - a bit of piece and quiet between the fast pace at work and home.

Lots of other people walk through that strip of Eden too; it's a regular for people walking dogs or simply taking a short-cut.

Unfortunately, there seem to be a lot of plastic bags in it...nothing too unusual about that perhaps, but these plastic bags are full of dog poo!

Why oh why does [at least one of] the regular dog walkers "scoop" and then leave the plastic bag of dejecta on the path? It's not like there isn't a suitable bin at the end of the footpath, only 30 metres away from the growing pile!

What possible reason can there be for it? If you're man enough to do the hard bit and pick it up, surely you can carry it?

Collatz Conjecture

Today was a very low productivity day in the IT industry. 

All around the world, computer scientists, engineers, mathematicians and every other kind of geek simultaneously stopped work in a flawed attempt to prove one of the most confusing, troubling, and hard problems - the Collatz Conjecture - all because of a cartoon on the internet.

I was going to end with an estimate of the number of hours spent (twice as many as yesterday and third as much as tomorrow, blah blah blah), but quite frankly, I felt lonely.

Stone age banking

For some reason, you can't do payments or transfers from our business Euro account using internet banking.

"Well, it would have been really useful...it's on the feedback form that we gave you years ago."

...

"At least we can do telephone banking..."

"err, actually that won't work either."

"Well, then I suppose we'll have to continue walking two directors/signatories down to the bank at lunchtime...Can I have the form to fill in in our office, so that we don't have do deal with all the account details down the details at the counter? Hey we might even be able to get all the signatures done in the office too!

"You don't have a form for that? I see.

"Oh and you've changed your policy. If we want to do that then we have to go into the main branch in York...I see.

"So, we've got all that money in our account and cannot get it out without driving two directors into the city?"

"You could always write a letter to the bank asking them to make a payment for you. That should work."

Anyone else feel like we're going backwards CBSH?

Milk of kindness gone stale

In the communal fridge at work, there is an unopened bottle of milk with a "use by" date of 2 weeks ago. Attached to the bottle is a note "Sorry, one of my visitors used your milk by mistake so I replaced it".

What a kind caring place we work in.

It's just a pity that they didn't write which company's milk they were replacing. No one has dared to touch the new bottle in case it wasn't their milk.

It tickled me, that's all.

Bells and bees

This afternoon, I spent a happy few hours cleaning a belfry. It's a very tiny tower, only about 3 or 4 square metres. There are four floors including the ground floor. I only managed to clean the ringing room (first floor) today, and a little bit of tidy up of the clock chamber (2nd floor). It was really quire filthy. I feel like I've vacuum cleaned away hundreds of years of cobwebs, sandstone dust and bees...

Most of the mess happened to be thousands upon thousands of dead bees. Apparently, some years they swarm into the top of the tower, live there for a bit then die during the winter. I'm not looking forward doing any maintenance in the bell chamber (top floor) during the summer.

So, now we have a belfry that people can go in without overalls. So, what's the next step? Ringable bells?

Smell Gas?

I've reported four (suspected) gas leaks in the road/pavement recently.  

It's quite easy to report them (after you have plucked up the courage to ring the "Gas Emergency Services" on a number ending in 999). What if they weren't really gas leaks...I hope there's no such charge as "wasting gasboard's time".

Outside, gas disperses so easily that the smell is quite faint. I wasn't sure if the smell was gas, or just a pretty flower or exhaust fumes.

I saw that they did dig up the road in at least one of the places I reported it, but that's the only feedback I got. It would be nice if they would give me a ring or write to just say "you were right, they were really gas leaks, oh and thanks". The lack of response makes me wonder if my nose is imagining things.

All four leaks were in busy streets and must have been passed by thousands of people. I've been noticing a faint smell of gas for months myself before reporting it.

If the gas companies really do care about gas leaks, there are two simple things they could do:

1. In their marketing for the gas "emergency" number, make it clear that you can call this number to report a leak, even if you don't think it's a life threatening emergency. 
2. Tell the people that report the leaks whether or not the leak was confirmed. Just tell me whether the smell was real or my imagination!

This is of course in contrast to Yorkshire water who did phone me up after reporting a water leak to confirm that it was a leak and thank me for reporting it.

Social Network

I have never tweeted, yet I have stacked up 40 followers. When you can't be bothered to even log in to block/delete the ones that are spam/pron ..it is time to close the account. I'm sure that the 37 won't miss me.

I log into facebook about once a month. I feel out of the loop.

I still use RSS lots; I keep up with some good blogs that way.

I might write here more frequently. A timely resolution.

Any the bathroom is about finished. Only the floor to tidy up and the hallway wall to fix.

Down tools

As we prepare for an influx of relatives this weekend on account of a first birthday party, I've taken the drastic step of tidying away the tools, screws and general mess from the bathroom and hallway.

It's not that the work is finished (still....) but that it's harder to cover up for the fact in it's taking so long when the walk from the bedroom to the shower in the morning is a bit like playing Indiana Jones.

Anyway, we're nearly there. The remaining jobs are:

• sort out the ceiling, which is the original artex supplemented with a splattering of tile adhesive
• get the grout off the floor, which stuck to the non-polished tiles....doh
• fit the extractor fan
• fit mirror, toilet roll holder etc
• perhaps fit a new cupboard to make more storage space.

Have I forgotten anything? 

I took the old bath to the tip today. It went into the landfill skip. I felt so guilty. I'd tried leaving on the drive (no one stole it, although they took the sink) and advertising on freecycle (no replies).

What else can you do with an old acrylic/fibreglass bath?

Nearly there

I didn't do any work on the bathroom tonight. Instead, I seem to be addicted to failblog.org. I sit here laughing at page after page of people getting things wrong in the stupidest ways possible. 

I suppose the fact that I could be finished with this long overdue project in a few evenings,  if only I could face getting the tile cutter out again to do that one last bit of tiling, is something of a FAIL.

Darkness

Today was the first day of the year when I actually had to get up when it was still dark. On the upside, I suppose I'm making efficient use of the available daylight. But I didn't mind the darkness because I used the new shower for the first time!

Why wait so long after fitting it? Because there seems to be a shortage of shower curtain rails. Would you believe it!

I looked in B&Q - the only suitable one (i.e with brackets, rather then the weak-looking friction-fit job) was £60, which was more than I wanted to pay and it didn't look that good anyway because it looked like the curtain would fall off the hooks. I looked in Screwfix, they had exactly the same one as B&Q at £25. (Yes less than half the price - B&Q is so expensive for such things) but were out of stock. In fact they had no stock available for any that I liked. Even ebay had nothing, for once. 

Finally I found one on the internet, which arrived yesterday and was fitted immediately.

Also last night, I tackled the problem in the sink. After being away for a couple of days on a trip, it was not a pleasant job. Wearing latex gloves I tackled the smelly mess.

The problem was of my own making (in two senses of the word). Having been bitten once trying to reuse an old waste trap, I made sure that I bought a new one for the sink. Knowing that space was tight, I bought a nice tidy compact trap.

However, last week, when fitting the front of the sink unit is on, it became clear that there would not be enough room even for this trap: the semi recessed sink sits so that the waste hole is so close to the front of the unit. So I tempted fate and put the old trap on the sink, which was a simple U-bend in the form of a P-trap.

Of course, it was a bad idea.

When I fitted it, it dripped slightly, so I ended up over tightening it onto the waste. This, in itself caused no problems, but when I want to remove it, of course it was stuck tight. Turning harder (which is pretty hard because you cannot really get a spanner to it once the sink is fitted into the unit) just managed to unseat the waste unit itself.

In fact, the trap was stuck so tight that I had to resort to a saw to remove it. 90 minutes later and I had the waste and trap out. 10 minutes after that I had the waste re-seated and sealed, and a new P-trap fitted.

With a sigh of relief, I soaked the few tools that I had used in bleach - I really don't want any chance of a repeat of the events of last weekend.