jamie92208

A quick good evening from a house where French has been the main language since yesterday lunchtime as our longest known French friends are staying. We've known them since 1996.  Last night's digestif was the last of the Glengoyne cask strength tonights was a good Glenlivet. 

Jamie

9 hours ago, Barry O said:

Was it from the Karachi ( or K) by any chance?

 

Baz

Not sure but a distinct possibility.  It was green from memory and the Station Sgt objected to it being in the fridge in the office used to store blood samples until the proprietor arrived to identify it.  The silly thing was that the villain had purchased the curry and paid for it before throwing a brick through the window..

Jamie

Sadly Peter I don't have such a picture.   However I can concur with Dave's comments about the apparent silent progress of the Spinner at Rainhill.  Here is the proof.

Jamie

After domestic and garden duties have been completed prior to visitors arriving I've got chance to sit down and upload another episode.

Next up was this with three locos. One live the other two dead in train.  We think this is so that they can act as last mile power at the destination.  27069 followed by 60096 and then 75443.   All three cops for Any and I.

The 75 was followed by some tankers.

American viewers will be familiar with the owner of the tank cars.

This was followed by another 27 with a long string of Millet rail stone hoppers.

Then a lovely beast, one of my favourite diseasals an E4000, 4043,  another line in the book for me.  Took me to 48% of the class.

The 4000 was pulling a long string of container wagons.

It was turning into a really good trip out.   Last few tomorrow.

Jamie

8 hours ago, SM42 said:

AUUI  great pains ate taken in The Netherlands to keep water levels down, but also keep them up. 

 

Letting the land dry out too much will allow the wooden piles that many buildings are constructed upon to rot. 

 

When we stayed near Sneek, there was a very  nice little house for sale near the farm we stayed at. 

 

Unfortunately the underpinning piles had got too dry and it had a distinct gradient from the middle down to each end

 

Andy

In 1916 the Southern Pacific built a wooden trestle right across the Great Salt Lake.  This was eventually replaced by an embankment with a couple of bridges in it.  The trestle had to be dismantled and the wood was in excellent condition and IIRC the demolition company made a lot of money selling the wood. 

Jamie

44 minutes ago, woodenhead said:

Most companies are fully aware of the dangers of AI LLM using personal or sensitive data for training the models so take steps to obtain locked copies of the LLM that sit within firewalls so the main source LLM cannot train of it.  Companies who want to consume AI products want to be sure their data is safe and those selling reputable AI products who know that security of data is paramount and have to invest in locked LLM models that will not be training other LLMs using someone else's data.

 

In terms of redundancy, the scary bit is that most CEO and senior people think they can dispose of developers as the LLM will be able to do that job instead and make no bones about it, which is great for me listening to senior leaders in my company talking about this in front of me.  The talk is all about enriching everyone else's work experience not redundancy, but really it comes down to doing more with less people, they just don't talk about 'automation' in the same language anymore but it's still the same.

 

Microsoft is now promoting a product that will actually replace the developer, manna from heaven for any CEO, but the question then comes what happens when the LLM/AI develops it's own language to do stuff because it's more efficient and the few developers left cannot fathom how it does stuff - i.e. who fixes it when it breaks.

 

There are some good uses for LLM/AI, not going to deny it, but to make out it is going to do everything and our lives are going to be so enriched is typical bluster.  The one thing I learnt recently and this is from an LLM/AI guru - don't trust the output, you need to check everything, and how do you do that, you have to check that it's references are real because LLM/AI make things up to justify their findings - really it makes stuff up.  We are doomed!!!

What pray is LLM

Confused of Saleignes. 

Jamie

8 minutes ago, Ohmisterporter said:

We were on holiday in Tenerife when a company rep said how she disliked men referring to their spouse as "the wife". So I said I would never dream of calling our lass "the wife". I kept a straight face.

 

You may have to be northern to understand this.

That's a personal hate of the boss that I dare not use. 

Jamie

Good moaning from a distinctly cool but dry Charente.  Some more photos from Tuesdays expedition to Angouleme.  A s mentioned, once the works train had headed off back to Ruffec things started happening.  After the freight this light engine appeared on the regular infra working.

An 81xxx had come in from the Saintes direction and was waiting to head back there on our platform line.

Meanwhile the tamper was having some attention after being parked up for the night.

I suspect that it's a specialised switch and crossing tamper.1

Then one of the few remaining Atlantique sets appeared on a working to Paris. About 20 minites late.

Then an 51xxx came in on the northbound working to Chatellarault via Poitiers.  These straight electrics are usually working around Bordeaux and don't head up our way very often.

Then another came south.

Plenty of activity after the very quiet start to the visit.

More tomorrow.

Jamie

An interesting video from HS2 about the crossing of the A43 near Brackley. 

Jamie

Good evening from a sunny Charente.   Andy and I have had a couple of afternoons out since my last post.

on 10th April I headed for Juille on my own and Andy joined me later.  There still wasn't a lot of traffic but a couple of freight arrived after 4.30pm.   The main ne of interest was this.

27008 on a solid train of Ambrogio wagons.   Possibly diverted from the normal route via Modane.

Then on Tuesday afternoon and Evening we were both allowed to play out and headed down to Angouleme after lunch hoping to see the cement train.   On arrival this olf friend was playing near the pointwork at the north of the station.

There was a tamper visible as well and they are obviously installing new pointwork by the signal box there.

We went onto the station and it was deserted with only a few units coming in from the south from  La Rochelle and Royan.

Then the orange army headed off and this appeared from the north, creeping over the newly ballasted points.

We were sitting well up Platform 2 on one of the glass waiting shelters which kept the rather cool breeze off us.  

We were able to see signals in both directions and the first freight f the afternoon appeared.

Heading north with a rake of steel wagons.

More tomorrow.

Jamie

As promised a photo or two.

Here is the verandah.

As you can see it has a lovely view over the septic tank and it's outlet grid.

  It faces south east and gets the morning sun.

This is one of the completed pillars.  Th e hole will be filled with concrete.

This is the remains of the foot of that pillar which looked solid externally.

This is the end pillar that had a lot of rot in it that I will have to splice.

And these are the remains of the bottom six inches.

This is the next six inch length showing just how much the rot had extended up.

Not much good timber left, the rot goes right through.

And here a much happier subject a 186 southbound at Angouleme on Tuesday evening.

Jamie

3 hours ago, Dave Hunt said:

A friend of ours is fanatical about closing the loo lid before flushing as she claims that otherwise there are zillions of widdle and/or poo particles ejected into the atmosphere.

 

Dave

So is one of our friends and I am always accused of leaving the lid up when we visit.  I have thought about insisting that she leaves the lid up when she visits our house. 

Jamie

Domestic engineering © Gwiwer, completed then our French tax return so that's a good mornings work. 

Jamie

4 hours ago, Winslow Boy said:

Good heavens Jamie that sounds like very hard work and I'm just reading it. I hope you had some assistance. You definitely deserved your 'treat' at the end.

Thanks, yes it was quite heavy work. Fortunately a friend was doi g much of it but my shoulders and knees are complaining today. 

3 hours ago, TheQ said:

Strangely walking to the MRC AGM a couple of nights ago, I saw someone's front porch was being held up by pied de poteaux, this is as built comparatively recently. However I don't think it is much good, the cup holding the foot of the beam above , had signs of water and soggyness into the wood..

Like this but with an adjustable threaded support rod. Nice water trap..

The ones I've used are like the ones in the lower photo.  I think that damp is the main problem.  They were set on concrete but the patio had been tiled with the tiles surrounding the bases so water has obviously run into the bottom inch. On the worst one the steel spigot had expanded and split the timber as it rusted.  I'll take a couple of photos. 

Jamie

Good moaning from the Charente.  Whose stolen the sun.    I've had to skip a few pages as stuff got in the way. However I had a very good evening trainspotting on Tuesday. Yesterday was spent fitting steel replacement feet to the 6" square wooden supports for the verandah roof.  Much rot was found but work is in progress.  I even learned a new word.  Pied de poteaux regulaible which means an adjustable pillar foot.  

Today is much cleaning day as we're are having friends to stay over the weekend. 

Regards to all. 

Jamie

Good moaning from the Grey and overcast Charente. I didn't get chance to visit yesterday so have skipped a page.  However we had fun trying to fit new feet to the four  big pieces of timber that support the verandah at the front. These are 6 to 7 inches square and were rotting at the base. The roof is an extension of the house roof and is heavy.   Acrow props were used to prop each one up at a time. Then the base sawn off and a steel foot inserted. Sounds simple.  

First discovery, there was a steel spigot sticking up the centre of each so the cut off piece had to be chiseled apart then the spigot cutoff with a cutting disk. 

Problem 2 was that there was rot in three of them and in one this extends over 2 feet up.  All good fun.  3 of the pied de poteaux regulaible, (adjustable pillar feet)  are now in place and the fourth is sitting on a temporary pillar of breeze blocks and timber.  I am going to have to source a suitable piece of timber to replace and splice in the lower metre of that one.  

Anyway after that Beth and I went out for a nice meal at some friends.  

Jamie

Wander g Northerner has posted another video progress on the two viaducts in the Wendover area. Wendover Dean and Small Dean.  It's welshot but could do with a couple of subtitles when he jumps from one viaduct to the other.  However it shows real progress. l Wendover Dean looks as if it is nearly ready for the next big push to launch over the next four piers.  Albut the final abutment seem tbeonearly complete. 

Jamie

Page12951 is a repeat of 12950

Jamie

39 minutes ago, Hroth said:

 

 

No need to - it came to me in a blinding flash of light....

 

Ahbut have the scales fallen from your eyes yet. 

Jamie

Good moaning from the Charente, where the temperature dropped by ten degrees yesterday.  However the weed patches got mowed.  The French word for weeds is great,  mauvais herbe, literally bad grass.  Then in the evening we went to some friends for supper and ended up playing Uno Stacko, a cross between Uno and Jenga Great fun. 

Shopping this morning the after lunch I'm off for aafternoon/evening,trainspotting with Andy.  A good day in prospect.

Jamie

4 hours ago, jjb1970 said:

The Trump case will be a nightmare for jury selection and the judge will be walking on eggshells in terms of the potential for a mistral given his notoriety, the strong emotions he invokes and some of the media/commentariat stuff around it all. 

When the George Davis is Innocent crowd, from London, dug up the Headingley test wicket, they had to move the trial to Birkenhead to get an unbiased jury. 

Jamie