James Barlow

The UK Government's 2010 Heatwave Plan

JMB — Mon, 30 Aug 2010 21:08:20 +0000

Right, August Bank Holiday is over so that’s the summer dispensed with. Here’s one for the previous administration’s scrap book:

Heatwaves are forecast to increase in frequency in the coming years – this plan provides important guidance on how to reduce the impact they will have upon health and in doing so, will save lives. Climate change is increasingly acknowledged to be a serious threat to population health. These impacts are highlighted in the updated report Health Effects of Climate Change in the UK 2008.

The Climate Change Act 2008 now makes it a requirement for all statutory sectors, including the health sector, to have robust adaptation plans in place. The National Heatwave Plan is an important contribution to this work. Further information on climate change and health can be found in the Department of Health guidance document and summary, The Health Impact of Climate Change: Promoting Sustainable Communities.

Climate change means that heatwaves are likely to become more common in England. By the 2080s, it is predicted that an event similar to that experienced in England in 2003 will happen every year.

In Northern France in August 2003, unprecedentedly high day and nighttime temperatures for a period of three weeks resulted in 15,000 excess deaths [note – it’s so unprecedented the French coined a word for it in the 14th century: La Canicule]. The vast majority of these were among older people.

The full document:

UK Heatwave Plan (March 2010) Department of Health

The Eye of Argon – Chapter Two

JMB — Wed, 25 Aug 2010 19:02:41 +0000

What the hell, Chapter One was the most popular video I’ve put on You Tube (apart from Shirley, obviously), so for your amusement and horror, a dramatic reading of the second chapter of Jim Theis' magnum opus, The Eye of Argon.

(Chapter One: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ikM_Lh8Q0xo)

A particular fan favourite, chapter two includes the magnificent line:

"The paunchy noble's sagging round face flushed suddenly pale, then pastily lit up to a lustrous cherry red radiance."

Now it takes a writer of remarkable talent to come up with something like that. This chapter also includes what could be classed as a sex scene, if the writer had anything more than third-hand knowledge of female anatomy.

The Magic Screwdriver and Windows 7

JMB — Sun, 22 Aug 2010 20:36:34 +0000

My IT support career extends back just far enough to recall the first era of “big iron” – when men were real men, women were real women, and a proper computer had its own postal code.

Admittedly, by the time I started climbing down the rungs of the support career ladder most of these beasts were deactivated, derelict and otherwise defunct due to the rise of personal computers. But they still looked amazing, and were a useful source of 3-pin plugs, 13-amp fuses and similar consumables if you needed one in a hurry.

One anecdote I recall hearing from an old lag in the mainframes team was about the engineer from IBM with his “magic screwdriver”; let’s say your company had purchase a large and powerful machine back in the seventies (something with a tiny percentage of the computing power of a first generation iPhone for example) then IBM would arrive in a fleet of trucks, install it, negotiate with the local electricity board for power connections, arrange for a new substation to be installed, reinforce the floor, fit all the data cabling, fit some enormous air conditioning units and then leave you a signed off installation and a staggeringly large invoice.

If a year or two later your company needed an upgrade to a machine twice as powerful, then this time IBM would only send one engineer who would rotate a small switch ninety degrees clockwise using a flat headed screwdriver, and then leave the new upgraded installation, not forgetting the invoice which would be – and this is the clever bit – exactly the same staggeringly large value as the first one.

Elements of this are apocryphal (it may have been a Phillips head screwdriver ) but in-place upgrades that were actually the removal of previously installed limiters were a pretty common element of old data centre life. And as I was typing my upgrade code into a Windows 7 Home Premium installation today, and seeing – ten minutes, one reboot and £100 later - that it was now Windows 7 Ultimate, I realised that there are no new tricks in the world of IT marketing. But they have phased out the screwdriver.

Random Acts of Kindness

JMB — Sat, 21 Aug 2010 10:49:07 +0000

If you spot a backpacker or tourist who appears to be a bit lost, and has just climbed one of Bristol’s steeper hills, then here are a couple of cheap places to send them:

http://www.bristolbackpackers.co.uk/ (Bristol Backpackers Hostel) (+44 117 925 7900)

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http://www.fmbristol.co.uk/ (The Full Moon) (+44 117 9245 007)

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£20 Broadband Tax

JMB — Tue, 17 Aug 2010 18:34:24 +0000

Via Computer Weekly:

Non-BT networks will have to pay a £20 tax for every home they connect to a fibre-based next-generation network, according to proposals from the Valuation Office Agency (VOA).

This proposal could earn the government some £205m a year. This would be in addition to what it presently earns from business taxes on BT, Virgin Media, Global Crossing and other network operators that specialise in business networks.

The proposal is buried in an appendix to a guide for industryregarding next-generation access networks.

And even more irritatingly, apparently I’ve already paid a £7.50 tax for my Virgin broadband.

Here’s an idea:

Every social media pillock guru with an iPhone who can spell “XML” best of three times has been going on about digital inclusion for years. How about – and this is really controversial - rather than spending money on grants for marginal activities involving social entrepreneurs, fake charities and other oxygen thieves, the VOA/HMRC just choose not to levy a confusing and rather arbitrary tax on broadband cables that will only end up being passed on to customers in higher prices; a tax furthermore that is so confusing that it requires an extensive guidance document for telecoms investors.

Oi, Pickles: have a word with the Treasury and see about giving this lot the Audit Commission treatment, would you?

A Mosque at Ground Zero? Well, not really.

JMB — Mon, 16 Aug 2010 21:39:48 +0000

New York City does things on a grander scale than Bristol, but behind every great building is a planning office (the Department of City Planning), a local government body (The New York City Council), a planning committee and a few community groups to soak up the energy of local do-gooders (specifically Manhattan Community Board 1 in this case). And also a huge pile of planning and zoning applications.

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Proposals to create a mosque in an old coat factory in New York – previously “Cordoba House”, now the “Park 51 center” - have raised the expected heat and light in political and media circles due to its proximity to the site of the former World Trade Centres (Ground Zero). A particularly well-quoted poll purports that 64% of Americans think it is “wrong”, or that 34% say the group “don’t have the right”.

As with all polls: the trick it to ask the right question to get the required answer.

I suspect the following questions were not included asking:

Does a government have the right to stop the owner of a building using it for lawful purposes?
Is it wrong for the government to prevent a place of worship being opened?

As with all polls: ignore it, and look at the details.

One might think from what has been said in much of the press that this initiative is a plan to create a cubby hole for a store-front preacher. In fact the mosque is one tiny part of a $100 million property deal (the Cordoba Initiative) run by Soho Properties, a moderately successful developer backed by money from the Arab diaspora. So although one of the main backers, Imam Feisal Abdul Raif opting to make himself scarce, you can relax; this is all about Capitalism, not Islamism or indeed Terrorism. This bunch are no more likely to blow themselves up than is the Archbishop of Canterbury to strap on armour and smite unbelievers in the Holy Land.

This property deal is in the news due to the August 3rd decision of NYC’s Landmark Preservation Committee to not designate the Park Place building as a Landmark; more bureaucratically “to remove it from the Commission’s calendar”. The original proposal put to the commission (someone local needs to find the RFE form) was as follows:

45-47 PARK PLACE BUILDING, 45-47 Park Place (aka 45-51 Park Place)
Landmark Site: Borough of Manhattan Tax Map Block 126, Lot 9 in part, consisting of the portion of the lot bounded by a line beginning at the southeastern corner of the lot; running westerly along the southern lot line 54 feet 5 inches to the southwestern corner of the 45-47 Park Place Building; thence northerly along the exterior of the western wall of said building and parallel with the easterly side of West Broadway to the northern lot line; thence easterly along the northern lot line to the eastern lot line; thence southerly along the eastern lot line to the point of beginning.

But if you have a look at it:

(note – I’m working by comparison to this picture of the old coat factory which is approximately half of the block, rather than the Google Maps address)

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then surely as long as the developers re-use the marble columns, what’s the problem? Mind you, I may be biased due to my old world values; I’m pretty sure I can stand in the middle of Bristol blindfolded and confidently point at something older than New York.

Dell Mini 9 Battery–Not Recognised–How to Fix it

JMB — Sat, 14 Aug 2010 14:16:03 +0000

The Dell Mini 9 is a great little laptop, now sadly discontinued. But mine is still going strong, despite being repeatedly dropped, new memory, one dead SSD (7 days before the warranty expired, Ha Ha!), a big crack in the base and a bit of surgery to resolder a broken power connector. [see here for a great set of teardown pictures and a full disassembly guide.)

However, the one after-market modification that has caused me the biggest nightmare is what should have been the easiest: replacing the battery. Having purchased a 4400Mah extended battery to replace the standard W953G unit, as soon as it was plugged in, I got the dreaded alternate flashing lights on the front and the message:

WARNING: The battery cannot be identified.
The system will be unable to charge this battery.
Strike the F1 key to continue

Great.

The solution was not – as I originally hoped – to return the battery and get a new one, but in fact to downgrade my BIOS to A00. There’s a great community-created tool for creating a bootable USB key that contains everything you need to flash your Mini 9 to any BIOS level between A00 and A06. You can get it via BitTorrent, or dowload it directly from here: flashbiosv1.52.exe

Also - thanks to Birgit and the guys at www.laptopsandspares.com, who i would recommend for chargers, batteries and other accessories.

Canvases - Primed and Stretched + £5 off at Lidl (12th Aug 2010 - 15th August 2010)

JMB — Thu, 12 Aug 2010 14:09:14 +0000

Lidl have decided to go into the Artists Supply business, and are doing packs of Pre-primed, Pre-stretched Artists' Canvases. £3.99 per pack gets you:

1 x size (cm): 50 x 70
2 x size (cm) 40 x 40
3 x size (cm) 25 x 30

If you're buying in bulk, here's a bit of free money:

Lidl Evoucher - £5 off 12 Aug 10 to 15 Aug 10

Your Powers are weak, old man

JMB — Tue, 10 Aug 2010 13:10:16 +0000

Day One with the Remstar Auto M-Series CPAP (Continuous Positive Airway Pressure) system (and a Philips Respironics mask). Hopefully I'll finally get a good night's sleep, or at least stop snoring.

I just need one for the cat now, and we're sorted.

[UPDATE] One can always rely on family to be supportive. Thanks, Dad.

Copper of the Month: Inspector Mark Nicholson

JMB — Wed, 04 Aug 2010 12:13:14 +0000

Via Avon & Somerset Constabulary:

Shortly before 9.30pm on Saturday 24 July 2010 a bus was stopped in Magdalene Street, Glastonbury while the driver picked up a passenger. As he was taking the fare a laser was shone into the bus cab which hit his face and cause inflammation to one of his eyes.

A thoughtless act, for which the perpetrator is now facing charges of assault.

The press release about this incident includes a remarkably sensible and reasonable statement from Inspector Mark Nicholson.

"Laser pens are easily accessible and can be both useful and fun if used safely. However, they can also be dangerous if pointed at people and particularly if directed at their faces. They can cause blindness, that's how dangerous they are.”

"I would discourage people from using laser torches in public areas and warn people that we will act robustly if they are used to cause injury to people. I ask parents to warn their children of the potential dangers of these items and to be aware of what their children are up to. "

It would be easy for a police officer to leap into a statement calling for controls or bans of useful items with a potential criminal use, as seems to be the norm these days amongst public servants. But this statement highlights the utility of an item (in this case laser pointers), emphasises that it is the criminal use of said item that will gain the attention of the police rather than simple possession, and reminds parents of their duty to keep an eye on their offspring.

It’s a great template for any police officer required to publicly comment on an incident involving criminal use of an otherwise perfectly useful tool.