Author Archives: essiep

Last day of 40

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1 to 4°C, cloudy, NW wind developing
All domestic today. We have a new central heating system. the new boiler that is of a type that can heat the water tap as well as the radiators. It’s part of some new extension with new radiators to churm out heat to parts of the house that we don’t spend much time in. It seems wasteful to me.
It’s abit late in the day to pick up that painting, and I have some report grades to process..
Anyway, this is a bit boring so I am going.

It’s unsafe

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6°C, patches of dense fog
The roads I mean, so commuting by car. the roads are slimey, and in places patches that look like black ice.
 
Here’s a useful site if you have the time & patience to fiddle with Windows ( if indeed you use Windows). Good if you have any networking problems, or features don’t do what you want- it’s surprising how much you can change.
The picture below shows a closeup of the most recent painting in it’s finished state. The is updates the previous picture that is a full frame view. It took some fiddling with in photoshop to get rid of various blemishes in the picture but it’s ok now to show here.

On exercise addiction

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-1 to 7°C,, some ice
Someone suggested last week that I’m addicted to exercise. This is why I think I am not:
  • exercise is a physical need like drinking water or breathing, those who don’t get it tend to develop long chronic phyisical illnesses. 
  • Exercise is natural, we are evolved to do it
  • I exercise less than people who have physical jobs, farm labourers, builders etc. No-one accuses them of being addicated to work.
  • Lack of physical exercise is a health risk, it has to be balanced with the risk of injury,
  • Talking of balance, it’s an aspect of life that should be in balance with the rest,
  • It seems that only sedentary people would suggest such a thing
  • when I am out cycling: I see fields of blokes playing footaball; wind surfers; canoists; runners;
  • exercise makes everyone feel better

No specific cause

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-2 to +2°C &

There seems to be a  "repairing" theme in the last week’s entries. Breakage and loss. I lost my USB memory plug this week. Today, I took a wheel hub to built up at a cycle shop. The computer is running better even though one of the new componants can’t be used. the car needs a few things. New derrailleur has arrived along with brakes.
 
Updated yesterday’s entry converting the results of RAM tribulations into a table. It doesn’t narrow down into a specific componant, basic incompatibility looks most likely now. I give up for now, pending expert advice.
 
Look below for my car this morning in close-up.
What a day- full of colour, atmosphere & space. And all this with no time for painting.
Hats off to the lady in Tamworth who had a poodle wearing a coat- on it was written " Take no notice of this dog". I didn’t tho’, it was such a nice dog, not pulling on the lead like mine do. I did notice it. sorry…

Another mystery…

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That RAM!
the replacement for the faulty RAM (see previous) is not problem free.
It’s like this- there are 4 RAM slots to plug it in. To run the faster Dual Pipe mode, you need to install the first 2 cards into slot 1 & 3 & that has given 1024MB RAM:
DIMM slots (Double-sided in BOLD)
Slot 1
Slot 2
Slot 3
Slot 4
Equals (POST)
512
0
512
0
1024
Original
512
512
512
0
1572
Ok for now
512
512
512
512
512
No use
512
512
0
0
1048
No dual pipe
512
512
512
0
fail
 boot failure
512
512
512
512
2048
Ideal, but unstable
2nd try: re-ordered the Single-sided & double-sided  DIMMs in the slots.
It was DS+SS+DS+SS, but this one worked:
DS+DS+SS+SS. Only for a few minutes, then blue-screen & warning bleeps. Now I think maybe one of the new RAM cards is also faulty.
 
For a bigger picture look
There’s no "em" dash in this blog! Oh well, at least I worked out how to insert a table.
 

Things arriving through the door

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+4°C,
There are things that appear in the house that weren’t here before. They arrive through the door in the mornings. They were put there by a man I don’t know. Today, it was two sticks of 512Mb RAM for this computer. The letter enclosed said the last pair of chips I was sent were both faulty. Tomorrow I can try these out instead. If they are virtuous- then this machine will have 2GB of RAM. that is a good thing.
Other things: the silvery rear derraileur that is so well illustrated a few entries ago. It’s even more shiney in real life. A bulb too, so I can cycle in the dark safely, and know what I am about to hit. It makes a lot of light. These new roads are very black with a slight lustre. CDs come through the door often too. Now I await a book.
 
Things.
No painting for a week now. oh!

-4 and still cycling

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-4 to 6°C +
Very cold, compared to what we’ve got used to. The temperature has dropped 20° in the last month. However there is no ice about because it’s so dry, there’s no water to freeze. I decided to cycle the 10 miles to work as usual, with a little trepidation, today. Tomorrow may be worse- the fog will be freezing, leaving a glassy layer of invisible ice on the road. On two wheels that is a bad thing, sometimes the wheels decide to try going in different directions. When they do that- I get dumped onto the road.
So, therefore, I will drive tomorrow. I don’t want to be dropping on the road in front of some driver who’s on their mobile, or like I saw this morning- peering through frosted windows unable to see. Mobile phone drivers are the biggest killers on the road today, worse than drunk drivers, maybe worse than teenage boy-racers even. They don’t seem to value their own lives.
 
It’s been a beautiful day though.
Important stuff in the news: Uzbekistan and; Andijon. It’s that forgotten massacre I talked of some time back. a worryingly underreported story.

revenge on a sparrow

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8°C, clear & cold, big frost tonight

Associated Press in Amsterdam
Wednesday November 16, 2005
The Guardian

A sparrow that knocked over 23,000 dominoes set up for a world record attempt was shot dead. The Dutch animal protection agency began investigating the claim yesterday.

The bird flew into an exhibition centre on Monday and, after disturbing the event, was chased into a corner and shot dead. It was a common house sparrow, an endangered species. The agency plans to submit the case to prosecutors.

Endemol, the TV firm which organised the event, defended the killing, saying more than 100 people had worked for more than a month setting up the dominoes.

It’s a true story apparently, just check ths link. Revenge is such an ugly thing, if the dominos were down, isn’t it a bit late? What further danger was the poor little bird posing? A sad story.

 

 

November

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November

No shadow
No stars
No moon
No care
November
It only believes
In a pile of dead leaves
And a moon
That’s the color of bone

No prayers for November
To linger longer
Stick your spoon in the wall
We’ll slaughter them all

November has tied me
To an old dead tree
Get word to April
To rescue me
November’s cold chain

Made of wet boots and rain
And shiny black ravens
On chimney smoke lanes
November seems odd
You’re my firing squad
November

With my hair slicked back
With carrion shellac
With the blood from a pheasant
And the bone from a hare

Tied to the branches
Of a roebuck stag
Left to wave in the timber
Like a buck shot flag

Go away you rainsnout
Go away, blow your brains out
November

Tom Waits

thanks for reminding me!

Watched

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9°C, clear & dry
"observed" by one of the bosses yesterday in an IT lesson. Finally rated as "Good" in Ofstead terminology. that’s the second highest rating so here’s greatly relieved. the group were great- Y10 GCSE, so thanks guys!
 
Lots of online shopping recently. Many shiney things, lights for the bike to prevent a violent death on the way home. Gears for the racing bike which look very shiney indeed in the advert. Look!- Just look how shiney it is.

The racing frame has the thread of the bolt left in the hangar, I expect it’s going to be a devil of a job getting that out. the bike shop explained that it should work with 8-speed gears with no problem, not even a narrow chain is necessary- *waits to see*.

It’s slightly unethical though, getting advice from a shop then buying online.. I promise not to do it again santa. Can you tell that I’m a bit stuck on what to write today. November is a dull month. Not even my birthday can save it.