zarniwhoop

Colour me very surprised at the "interesting/thought-provoking" ratings - it makes me think I was less than clear about what I was doing. Most people will think what I'm doing is both exceptionally boring and probably of less than zero interest 🤣 When I was back at work after my injury, but too tired to work full-time, I took the opportunity to look at linux (I'd heard about it, but had not been on t'interweb and previously spent my time working and exercising). Looked at it, eventually got something working on a spare machine, got more involved. In the end decided that I didn't like a lot of the choices in the commonly-available distros (various versions of linux which groups or companies had put together). Got a free DVD-ROM on a magazine with Linux From Scratch (it's intended as an educational resource). In the end I became an editor there, although these days I mostly do testing to see if the parts I care about (particularly firefox and a different browser engine) hang together, and look after a few packages in the wider "Beyond Linux From Scratch" area. The (in my view 'infernal' - whitespace indentation matters ? really ?) python scripting language has had a lot of changes recently which led to changes all over the shop. One of my colleagues has looked at this, and at putting more detail on the python modules, and testing them where useful. From that, he pointed me to a web page which caused me to question a few things. After eventually running three rounds of testing in the past weeks, and making a suggestion, I've now "hacked" on the XML source of the book with a first attempt at adding a new page to better handle the certificates which are used for https:// activity in python. The 'hacking; is the diff file at https://www.linuxfromscratch.org/~ken/python-system-certs/ - I'm sure it is of zero interest to almost everyone here, but the resulting rendered versions of our two variants (put up for comment by my colleagues) are in the same directory - the new page is 'System Certificates for Python-3.11' in chapter 4. I'm not particularly happy about it, but it's a start. Meanwhile, the machine where I mostly run measurements (time factors, space) for what I update is nearing the end of its build - too much has changed in the last month for me to feel comfortable with using the 'old' system for measurements! Oh, and my normal-use systems are much different (extra hardening against some potential vulnerabilities). But you all are very welcome to say "boring" 😬

I noticed weird gaps on (I think) the Warley exhibition page on Friday, haven't noticed anything here - but I've mostly been hacking on some local stuff and building a new linux system on one of my machines..

The two orange ends on a hairy caterpillar ought to be distinctive, but googling didn't find anything like that (for me, search results seem to differ for individuals). Might help to know where the apple came from (if not British).

Yesterday, all my troubles seemed Start again, do it properly! Yesterday I was in the local JS and wanted to buy some red plonk. Before the b word which may not be spoken in civilized company, I usually bought French or Italian. Nowadays I want something not too strong (I envy those who can drink the water of life regularly, even at good times in my diabetes management it either screws up my blood sugars, and/or gives me a hangover, so I reserve it for special occasions), and preferably with a screw cap (tend to keep better if I spread it out over 4 days). So, with the reduced value of the £, and added overheads for importers, my choice is wider. Unfortunately, red wines from Oz, S. America and indeed mediterranean Europe tend to have more alcohol than I prefer. Anyway, I found something labelled 'Pinot Pinot' (yes, pinot noir) and only 12.5%. And from North Macedonia (glad to support them in some way, pleased they have come to an arrangement about what to call themselves with the Έλληνες). I guess this must be one of the many new trading opportunities (or maybe the only one) opened up by that word I will not speak.🙂 But wait, it seems it was imported in bulk (no problem with that, for plonk), but bottled in a place outside this septic isle, this other eden. For sensitive imperialists, I will name that place in a language they are unlikely to understand: baile átha Cliath So, not exactly a new trading opportunity :-(

On the subject of memories, in the past few days I've remembered a little (basically, the location, and what I was apparently doing) of a couple of (separate) dreams I've had in the past - one of them I had several times over a period of probably months, but I don't think I've had it for at least two years - and then while trying to get to sleep the other night, something triggered my recollection of it. Before that I did not remember it at all. And for the other, I've now again forgotten what it was about.

Does that include the lost days from the change to the Gregorian calendar ? 😀

Bumping this topic to announce that I've finally put my butterfly pics online. Various pics from 2001 (film scans) to 2011 and yes, it has taken me a looong time to work out how best to "process" some of them to get the most-useful result, and to become semi-comfortable with how I'm identifying some of them. A few from Sussex and Surrey, most from Switzerland (Grisons), Austria, some from southern France. One or two are "somewhat ropey" but I wanted to include those for various reasons. Most are ok at the size I've chosen (1024x768 pix), a few will stand being viewed at larger sizes. Of course, one of the big problems in identification is variation within species, so some of my naming is probably wrong. https://www.flickr.com/photos/61907329@N03/albums/72177720303949633/ ĸen

At 8 a.m. I could barely see out through the rain. By the time I went out at 10:10 for a blood test I had to wear sunglasses. I certainly didn't expect that in November.🙂

Hope everything went well for @Grizz at Barcombe on Saturday, and that neither he and his family, nor those they know, were affected by the road accident https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-sussex-63694203

Those of on carb-limited or calorie-limited diets, coeliacs, and those who dislike alcohol should omit this post or continue at their own risk. One of the things I really miss from going to the Valtellina (Livigno, in my case) is Pizzocherri. (pasta noodles made from buckwheat and wheat flours, with (waxy) potatoes, onion, the local greens and (for those like me who splash out on holiday) porcini. Served with the local Chiavennasca (nebbiolo) wine. On my last two holidays in the Engadine (11 and 17 years ago) I also had their variant of this dish (finished under a grill) and brought back a couple of bottles of the wine and a pack of dried pizzocherri from the big (Co-op?) supermarket in St. Moritz (I got hotel deals in St. Moritz Bad, which is *considerably* cheaper than the main resort). But I miss this, and from time to time I've tried home-made fresh pizzocherri, with poor results. Last week I thought about this dish. Looked at suppliers of dried pasta, but with carriage it ain't cheap and I'm reluctant to order things which might get left outside if they don't fit through my letterbox. I also looked for the wine - there seems to be a place in (I think it was) Winchester which might have one of the variants at about £20 each for a box of six (maybe plus delivery). Again, reluctant to fix up the delivery unless I think I'm going to be awake. Anyway, at the back end of last week I was looking for some wine in the local Sainsbury's and looked for one of the low-end Piemontese nebbiolos - nothing, but one bottle of Barolo was left at at £20. Bought it, starting to think about trying Pizzocheri again. On Saturday I read Ottolenghi in Grauniad Feast https://www.theguardian.com/food/2022/nov/05/pizzoccheri-pasta-recipes-buckwheat-cabbage-spring-onions-cheese-butter-lemon-sage-yotam-ottolenghi - with some major reduction in the quantity (to leave room for the potatoes and bread) and cooking with onion, refreshed dried porcini, garlic, charlotte potatoes, chopped kale, and adding some butter (essential) and in this case gorgonzola (two pans - start by frying some of the onion, add the porcini and garlic, move to simmering ring, add kale, top up with soaking water, boil greens and onions, move to simmering pan, add more soaking water as necessary, boil the pasta for somewhat longer than in his recipes, transfer to simmering pan, add cheese and garlic) I got there. To my surprise, the pasta worked fairly well (I used wholemeal flour instead of 00, but I think the important things were kneading it (without getting too wet a dough), and rolling it out on a little buckwheat flour. The barolo was only "adequate", but they went together very well. If anyone is tempted to try something like this, I should mention that making tiny amounts of bread, or pasta, dough is hard - very easy to add more water than necessary if it isn't holding together. Of course, for those who don't care about the amount of carbohydrate, just add more flour.

I remember reading an article by Rowleigh Leigh in the FT weekend several years ago, where a French lady, apparently reknowned in cheffy or foodie circles, had served him LDC , which he had never come across before. ISTR she was astounded, because "it's English" (or words to that effect). Can't confirm that memory now, because of the FT paywall, but if anyone subscribes to the FT it's probably at https://www.ft.com/content/d1a935f8-abf6-11e4-b05a-00144feab7de

The forum was down for a while a few hours ago.

I haven't ridden a bike for over 20 years, but the construction of the tyre can make a big difference to the rolling resistance. Many 'City Bike' tyres probably prioritise fewer punctures (glass, bumping up and down kerbs, potholes) over ride quality. People in the wheeltappers 'Cycling chat' thread can probably say more about that.

Charged it up before bedtime, took a reading to determine what, if anything, to eat. Turned on low alarm. Came back some while later, red indication (that normally means it is charging), warning about alarm not available. Phone apparently has two battery-saver modes, I thought I'd overridden something from the monitoring software, but it was actually intending me to go into system settings - fixed that. Got an alert at maybe 2:00, scanned (4.5mmol which is "ok"), tried to read the message (something about 'low'), puzzled. Ate anyway (level had plunged from earlier), then remembered I'd been advised to try 4.5 as level for low warnings, to have time to react. Slept. Got another warning, this time for 4.2. Those were both with 'loss of signal alert' set to off. Ate rather more, with the result that the level was higher than desired when I eventually woke up. Summary: luser error in this case :-( But the bluetooth is eating battery charge. Running with alerts off while I'm at home.

There are two brands, the one I have lasts 14 days per sensor. FWIW, I'm now suspecting that the infernal bluetooth (aka "eats battery charge") might have been turned off although I'd selected an option over the weekend that claimed to turn it on - some suggestions it needs to be on when the sensor is initialized, and that alarms for loss of signal require it. Currently running with bluetooth on and alarm for low reading set, but alarm for loss of signal turned off. Not sure if that will work (currently nowhere near a low reading).

Had a 'webinar' this morning for freestyle libre2 (continuous glucose monitor). Sounded as if it was a good thing , webinar was very good. Then I fitted it, scanned it with my phone to start it, waited an hour, got a reading. Decided to set up low and high alerts, those come with a 'loss of signal' alert (out of range for some minutes). Sensor on right arm, phone in left pocket. Cooking, loss of signal alert. Scanned sensor. Eating meal, loss of signal alert, scanned sensor. Phoned local diabetes people to ask about this, the lady I spoke to said to see if it happens again in next half hour, and if so phone the company, sensor might be faulty. 25 minutes later, happened again. Phoned, could not make out what the lady I spoke to was saying, beyond telling me to call back and get a different person (it's a freephone on landline). Did that, had partial success in speaking to a guy, but he eventually said I needed to speak to someone who could phone and hear what I was saying, suggested trying a pharmacy (details logged). Got an alert during that, had to take my shirt off to get the sensor to scan. Not a happy bunny. Turned off alerts. Then googled - found a link at the diabetes.co.uk forum, it seems to be a not-uncommon problem. Have tried powering off the phone and then powering up and scanning. Will maybe try alerts overnight.

Well that was the quietest 5th November I can remember. For the past few years I've usually gone out and driven around locally, looking at the fireworks in the air, then come home and seen some amount of distant rockets. Last year I recall there was much less. This year I looked at the weather forecasts and thought "*#!@ that for a game of soldiers", so I got my messages yesterday (that's "did my shopping" in English). Looks like the weather wasn't actually as wet as forecast, but a somewhat misty/damp evening. And I saw zero fireworks. There were a couple of distant sounds that might have been bangers, but nothing visible. Oddly, a week ago there was an amount of local fireworks just after 8pm. I was sat at a computer and heard some bangs, then looked out and the whole (short) street was intermittently lit from overhead, but I never managed to work out where they were coming from. Not sure if tonight's lack of fireworks was because everyone is just too poor, or because of fears about climate change.

I use metaflac to add / change the tags, but then I'm happy to use command-line tools on linux. And in the expectation that people on this thread will laugh at me, I'll note that when I was using reasonable loudspeakers (currently only using cheap headphones through a PC) I found that 24-bit flac usually sounded much better than 16-bit.

Ogg tends to be lossy, but usually sounds better than mp3. Wav is lossless but has no standards to tags - flac is generally the way to go (lossless, supports tags which can include the cover image if your player supports it).

Just been watching the "Tour de France" Prudential Criterium (laps of a short circuit) from Singapore - France must have grown a bit 😀. Good to see two of my heroes (Cav and 'The Shark' - Nibali) riding there. But two things @jjb1970 seems not to have mentioned about Singapore (sorry if I'm wrong and missed them): 1. They have double decker busses. Anyone would think it was blighty! 2. Some of those skyscrapers around the circuit ("landmark" office blocks, I guess) are among the ugliest skyscrapers I've ever seen - even worse than what I've seen in recent pictures of London.

I remember going on a weekend cross-country course somewhere in England (rollerskis, a tiny artificial track to practice team relays, probably mostly stressing how to train off-snow) , and one of the organisers was a guy who now comments on Eurosport XC and Biathlon. He recounted a tale of taking the army XC skiers down an ungroomed alpine black run in Germany, so I think the first promise was probably also kept.

Steam is now coming out of my ears. I have to submit tax returns every year because my affairs are complex. A few weeks ago I had trouble logging in to hmrc's online system and seemed to have taken a wrong turning somewhere, got into trying, and failing, to prove who I am. After wasting a long time on phone calls, tried again and somehow managed to get in and change my password. I've now used software to prepare my return, but when I tried to submit it there was a rejection, one or more of user ID, reference, password was wrong. I had a note of all three, and the password was saved in firefox on this machine (but of course only visible as a series of dots). Logged in, changed the password to something else, logged out. Got an email to say the password had changed, and to contact hmrc if it wasn't me. Fine. Tried a test submission with the new password (other details were correct), failed again. Stepping away from their systems before I start to smash things up.

Man, that looks steep! Reminds me of my first trip abroad after my accident - looked at a Rough Guide to the Netherlands, found a place on (I think) the banks of the Meuse near the sea. In the guidebook it was a ferry port across the river, but by the time I got there it was very quiet and the road tunneled under the river a few Km upstream. Anyway, the steps up to the rooms (built as flats, I think - breakfast in the neighbouring building) were steep and I had to descend them backwards. A nice place, but that sort of steepness should be reserved for polybears. Oh, and if anyone is tempted to go there (it was a nice area, lots of windmills and canals nearby) - do not do it as a single person in a new car - customs at the chunnel took all the interior of my car out, assuming I was smuggling waccy baccy or similar.

Today I have mostly been ... indulging my GAS (that's Gear acquisition syndrome in this case, not Guitar). Went over to Eastbourne (the nearest music shop where I can park), bought a Boss RC-10R looper/rhythm (i.e. with drums), a Fender Champion 20 amp, and some rotosound strings with a wound third to try detuning my old danelectro to maybe use it as a bass - I think gibson scale length is already too long for my fat stiff fingers, don't want anything bass-size (the dano is 25").[1] I tried buying a lesser/cheaper looper with rhythm some months ago, assuming it would be good enough for my efforts, but those are permanently on back order (can't get the chips). Looked at reviews of this one over the past few months, couldn't find anything which gave a demo of all the drum patterns (there are a lot) and some of the reviews were very 'meh'. Then I found a Dave Simpson youtube video about how he prepares his backing tracks - usually using one of these. Good enough for what I will ever hope to do. But I have not even RTFM yet. Started by fitting the strings on my old danelectro (probably dates from 2001 to 2003, I lost those notes when an old AMD K5 computer self-destructed) which has the "original" rosewood bridge, so intonation is probably off. But I will now liken the packaging of these strings to a female dog - colour coded ball ends but in pairs of similar colours (or three - I assume a spare top E string, because it must be easy to break 13 thou top E strings). No doubt in high-power lighting the colours are distinct, but in my low-power domestic LCD lighting the red / brown and blue / green (?) look identical. Almost psyched myself up for a petit rantette there. Then removed my JMP1C (1 watt, valves - tubes for 'mercans) and installed the Champion 20. When I tried this in the shop to see if I could use it quietly, no problem. But in my spare bedroom it is easy to go loud, even with the controls turned to a lot less than 11. The great things about this are: smaller and lighter than the Marshall, doesn't need me to replace the valves (in the JMP1C they have become microphonic and easily feed back - and valve supplies are hampered as a result of the war in Ukraine), and crucially it has a headphone socket. I knew the "emulations" and built in effects were lowish quality - but it is cheap, can make some reasonable sounds emulating fender amps (tweeds, blackfaces) and can give me almost uncontrollable feedback (even in headphones) on the "British 70s" settings, so for me at the moment it is good enough. Yes, I might one day trade it in for a Blackstar Silverline Standard (20W, with lower-power settings andheadphone socket, but maybe too much low-end) or one of the Fender Tonemasters (lower-power settings, online videos sound excellent, but not headphones). However, one rant about it - Fender describe the headphone socket as 1/8" in all the documentation I can find. I was assured it is a standard 3.5mm socket and my 'phones with a 3.5mm plug work well - so why the 'mercan fascination with imperial measurements ? It's like an article on setting the pickup heights on gibsons - all measurements were in multiples of 1/64". 1. For guitar Iwant to play root+5th / 6th / 7th / 6th blues shuffle, at the moment I can only play root+5th / 6th / root+5th / 6th which is fine for some Jimmy Reed stuff, but a bit too restrictive. Working on it, but it will take time and until then it sounds horrid.

For dirty track, a track rubber (I think mine is from Gaugemaster) and from memory it leaves less debris than the Peco rubber. There have been other abrasive suggestions here over the years, I think someone mentioned hardboard. That is all for when there is dirt on the top of the rails. After that I use track magic. For the points, maybe use a scraper of some sort (e.g. blade of a fine screwdriver?), but go gently.