November 2012

Oxford Under Water

Parts of Oxford have been flooded for the last few days, and apparently the worst is yet to come. I worked from home yesterday, intimidated by the available choices of traversing flooded roads or else taking the hilly 3+ mile diversion around the problem areas, but today: I decided that it was time to man up and cycle in to the office.

Kennington Road underwater. — Here’s where I forded Kennington Road. Yes, I just used the word “forded” to describe crossing the road.

Conveniently, we’ve somewhere along the way acquired a large pair of Wellington boots (we think they might have been Paul‘s, but as he’s now left Oxford without them, they’ve been sitting in our charity-shop-box). So I booted up and set out. I was yawning all the way:

Police direct traffic away from a waterlogged Abingdon Road.

I had to weave my way back and forth around the cyclepaths nearest my house, and – on a couple of ocassions – get off the bike and wade it through: I’d considered riding through some of the larger puddles – my mean pedal-ground clearance is about as high as the top of my boots, anyway – until I met a soaked cyclist coming the other way: he’d become disbalanced going over a submarine kerbstone and fallen into the freezing water. Seeing that quickly made me choose the safer strategy!

Flood defences erected near Hinksey Lake. — Near Hinksey Lake, serious flood defences have been hastily erected and pumping operations are underway to clear gardens and footpaths.

Alongside the lake was one of the most flood-damaged areas, but heavy barriers had been erected and pumping engines were working at returning the water to the “right” side of them. The lake bridge was completely closed off: it looked like it might be traversable, but if the water gets any higher, it won’t be.

In Hinksey Park, the playing fields and cycle path are completely underwater.

I took the cycle route through Hinksey Park in order to avoid the flooded parts of Abingdon Road, which runs parallel, but I’m not sure that it was much better. In the photo above, you’d be forgiven for thinking that you’re looking at the lake… but in actual fact, the lake is behind me: that’s the playing fields. You can just about make out the line down the middle of the cycle path, through the murky water.

Flooded garden and driveway. — Between Hinksey Lake and the Thames there are flooded driveways and gardens. The sign on the gate reads “No parking. Keep entrance clear at all times.”, in case anybody was thinking of parking in this waist-deep water.

Pressing on, I came to the Thames Path, which my route typically follows for a short distance to the footbridge into the city centre. And that’s when I realised quite how high the river really is.

To the right of the bush - the river. To the left - the footpath. You'd be forgiven if you can't tell the difference. — To the right of the bush – the river. To the left – the footpath. You’d be forgiven if you can’t tell the difference.

By the time I found myself on a footpath with a current, I realised that my route might need a little bit of a rethink. With the bridge I was aiming for just ahead, though, I was able to double-back and cut through an alleyway (between some seriously at-risk houses), duck under a couple of “footpath closed” barriers, and splash out to the bridgehead.

From the bridge, it's clear how much the waters have risen. — From the bridge, it’s clear how much the waters have risen. The path on the left continues to get deeper and deeper underwater: when I’m working in a different office or running training, that’s the route I take to work!

By the time I was on the higher, better-reinforced East bank for the river, things began to improve, and within a few minutes I was right in the city centre. There, you wouldn’t know that, only a short distance away, a significant number of streets were underwater. To sit in the dry, on Broad Street, in the middle of Oxford, it seems strange to think that on the edge of town, people are being evacuated from their homes.

Network Rail engineers near Redbridge Park & Ride sit in their van as it sinks into a field. I feel really sorry for them!

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The original link was: http://i.imgur.com/vKk6Wh.jpg

Doing my bit. Now if only I could persuade a few billion other men to do the same.

This self-post was originally posted to /r/overpopulation. See more things from Dan's Reddit account.

No children. My vasectomy’s next week. Took a little persuasion to get my doctor to sign off on the operation, but got there in the end.

My story (in a self-post because I don’t want to look like I’m reaping karma for doing something that billions of men should consider).

Thanks for helping to remind people why this kind of stuff is important, /r/overpopulation.

11 years, 11 days.

This article is a repost promoting content originally published elsewhere. See more things Dan's reposted.

The escape is imminent. I am leaving Aberystwyth (with Jim soon to join me) for Gloucestershire. I am greatly looking forward to several things: Access to proper shopping More live music More comedy Multiscreen cinemas! Having disposable income Being nearer to some of my closest friends There are, of course, things that I’ll miss: The…

Claire Q

Claire and I broke up in 2009, and I left Aberystwyth shortly afterwards. It look her a little while to complete her PhD and be ready to leave, herself, when she made this blog post.

The Snip, Part 1

I’d like to start with a joke:

Is there a difference between men and women?

Yes! There’s a vas deferens.

What’s no joke, though, is the human population explosion. There’re just too damn many of us, as I explained last year. That’s the primary reason behind my decision, held for pretty-much the entirety of my adult life, to choose not to breed.

I’m fully aware that the conscious decision to not-breed by a single individual – especially in the developed world – makes virtually no difference to the global fate of humanity. I’m under no illusion that my efforts as a vegetarian are saving the world either. But just like the voter who casts a ballot for their party – even though they know it won’t make a difference to the outcome of the election – I understand that doing the right thing doesn’t necessarily have to have a directly quantifiable benefit.

That’s why I’m finally taking the next obvious step. Next month, after literally years of talking about it, I’m finally going to put my genitals where my mouth is (hmm… maybe that wasn’t the best choice of words)! Next week, I’m getting a vasectomy.

I first asked a doctor about the possibility of vasectomy about a decade ago. He remarked upon my age, and said – almost jokingly – “Come back in ten years if you still feel the same way!” I almost wish that I still had the same GP now, so that I could do exactly that. Instead, I spoke about a year ago to my (old) GP here in Oxford, who misled me into thinking that I would not be able to get the surgery on the NHS, and would have to have it done privately. Finally, a second doctor agreed to sign off their part of the consent form, and I was good to go. The secret, it seems, is persistence.

I suppose I'll be eligible for a Golden Snip Award. Click through for more information. — I suppose I’ll be eligible for a Golden Snip Award. Click through for more information.

I’m sure that this is a decision that won’t be without it’s controversies. And believe me: over the course of the most-of-my-life-so-far that I’ve hinted at or talked about doing this, I’m pretty sure I’ve heard all of the arguments. Still: I feel like I ought to pick up on some of the things I’ve heard most-often –

What if you change your mind?

Even despite medical advances in recent decades in vasectomy reversal, vasectomy should still be considered a “one way trip”. Especially when I was younger, people seemed concerned that I would someday change my mind, and then regret my decision not to spawn children.

I suppose that it’s conceivable – unlike my otherwise potential offspring – but it’s quite a stretch, to believe that I might someday regret not having children (at least not biologically: I have no problem with adopting, co-parenting, fostering, or any number of other options for being involved in the upbringing of kids). I honestly can’t see how that’d come about. But even if we do take that far-fetched idea: isn’t it equally possible that somebody might ultimately regret having children. We take risks in our lives with any choice that we make – maybe I’ll someday regret not having taken my degree in Law or Chemistry or Rural Studies. Well then: c’est la vie.

Do you just not like children?

Children are great, and I’d love to get the chance to be involved in raising some. However, I don’t define myself by that wish: if I never have the opportunity to look after any kids, ever, then that wouldn’t be the worst thing in the world: I’d just spend my years writing code in a house full of cats. I have no doubt that raising children is great (for many people), but just like there are plenty of people for whom it’s not great, there are also plenty of people – like me – who could be happy either way. No biggie!

There are those who have said that this laid-back “take it or leave it” approach, especially when coupled with the more-recent act of rendering myself infertile, will make me less attractive to women. Leaving aside the implicit sexism in that claim, wouldn’t a fair retort be to point out that a woman who is looking for monogamous breeding probably isn’t my “type” to begin with!

But you should be breeding?

This argument’s usually based on the idea that I’m somehow genetically superior and that my children wouldn’t be such a strain on the world as somebody else’s, or that mine would have a significantly better-than-average chance of curing cancer, solving world hunger, or something.

The explosion of planet Earth. — Only sterilisation can prevent the detonation of the planet. Maybe.

And let’s face it, any child of mine would be just as likely to be the one to build a really big bomb. Or create a super-virus. Or just engineer the collapse the world’s economies into a prehistoric barter economy in a technophobic future anarchy. Attaboy.

In any case, I’m pretty sure that my personal contribution to the betterment of the world ought not to be a genetic one. I’d like to make a difference for the people who are around right now, rather than hypothetical people of the future, and I’d far rather leave ideas in my wake than a handful of genes. I’m sure that’s not the case for everybody, but then – it doesn’t have to be.

Or are there some arguments that I’ve missed? If you’re among the folks who feel really strongly about this, then you’ve got about seven days to make them, and then it’s off to the clinic for me! Just remember: what’s right for me isn’t necessarily what’s right for you, and vice-versa. Just because I use Emacs doesn’t mean that some other, inferior text editor might not be the right choice for you.

I wonder what my surgeon might say to the possibility of me live-tweeting the process? Would anybody be interested? (I promise not to include any photos.)

(with thanks to Nina Paley for permission to use the comics)

TIL that minutes before the Halifax Explosion (the largest ever non-nuclear, man-made explosion), a dispatcher named Vince Coleman returned to his station to send a warning telegram, saving 300 lives at the cost of his own.

This link was originally posted to /r/todayilearned. See more things from Dan's Reddit account.

The original link was: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vince_Coleman_(train_dispatcher)

Patrick Vincent Coleman

Patrick Vincent Coleman (13 March 1872 – 6 December 1917) was a train dispatcher for the Canadian Government Railways (formerly the ICR, Intercolonial Railway of Canada) who was killed in the Halifax Explosion, but not before he sent a message to an incoming passenger train to stop out of range of the explosion. Today he is remembered as one of the heroic figures from the disaster.

On the morning of 6 December 1917, the 45-year-old Coleman and Chief Clerk William Lovett were working in the Richmond station, surrounded by the railway yards near the foot of Richmond Street, only a few hundred feet from Pier 6. From there, trains were controlled on the main line into Halifax. The line ran along the western shore of Bedford Basin from Rockingham Station to the city’s passenger terminal at the North Street Station, located a mile to the south of Richmond Station. Coleman was an experienced dispatcher who had been commended a few years earlier for helping to safely stop a runaway train.

At approximately 8:45 a.m., there was a collision between SS Mont-Blanc, a French munitions ship carrying a cargo of high explosives, and a Norwegian vessel, SS Imo. Immediately thereafter Mont-Blanc caught fire, and the crew abandoned ship. The vessel drifted from near the mid-channel over to Pier 6 on the slack tide in a matter of minutes and beached herself. A sailor, believed to have been sent ashore by a naval officer, warned Coleman and Lovett of her cargo of high explosives. The overnight express train No. 10 from Saint John, New Brunswick, carrying nearly 300 passengers, was due to arrive at 8:55 a.m. Before leaving the office, Lovett called CGR terminal agent Henry Dustan to warn him of a burning ship laden with explosives that was heading for the pier. After sending Lovett’s message, Coleman and Lovett were said to have left the CGR depot. However, the dispatcher returned to the telegraph office and continued sending warning messages along the rail line as far as Truro to stop trains inbound for Halifax. An accepted version of Coleman’s Morse code message reads as follows:

“Hold up the train. Ammunition ship afire in harbour making for Pier 6 and will explode. Guess this will be my last message. Good-bye boys.”

The telegraphed warnings were apparently heeded, as the No. 10 passenger train was stopped just before the explosion occurred. The train was halted at Rockingham Station, on the western shore of Bedford Basin, approximately 6.4 kilometres (4.0 mi) from the downtown terminal. After the explosion, Coleman’s message, followed by other messages later sent by railway officials who made their way to Rockingham, passed word of the disaster to the rest of Canada. The railway quickly mobilized aid, sending a dozen relief trains with fire and medical help from towns in Nova Scotia and New Brunswick on the day of the disaster, followed two days later by help from other parts of Canada and from the United States, most notably Boston. Even though Lovett had left the station, both he and Coleman were killed in the explosion.

Although historians debate whether Coleman’s initial message actually contributed to stopping the No. 10 train, there is some documented evidence to indicate it did. No. 10’s Conductor Gillespie reported to the Moncton Transcript that although running on time, “his train was held for fifteen minutes by the dispatcher at Rockingham.”

Vince Coleman was also the subject of a Heritage Minute and was a prominent character in the CBC miniseries Shattered City: The Halifax Explosion. The Heritage Minute and other sources contain historical inaccuracies in that Coleman is shown warning others in the area surrounding the depot station of the impending explosion. In reality the Richmond Station was surrounded by freight yards. Another error is the exaggeration of the number of passengers aboard the Saint John train. The four-car overnight passenger train contained a maximum of 300 people, not 700 as claimed in the Heritage Minute. The warning message is also changed. Coleman’s telegraph key, watch and pen are on display in the Halifax Explosion exhibit at Halifax’s Maritime Museum of the Atlantic.

Coleman is interred at Mount Olivet Cemetery in Halifax, at the intersection of Mumford Road with Joseph Howe Drive. He was survived by his wife Frances, who lived until 1970. A street is named after him in the Clayton Park neighbourhood of Halifax, and in 2007 a section of Albert Street near his old home was renamed Vincent Street. A condominium near Mount Olivet Cemetery on Bayer’s Road is named The Vincent Coleman, also in his honour.

Coleman was inducted into the Canadian Railway Hall of Fame in 2004. A Halifax harbour ferry was named Vincent Coleman, by popular vote in the spring of 2017. The ferry was dedicated and officially entered service in a ceremony at the Halifax ferry terminal on March 14, 2018.

Wikipedia

Days Like Weeks

You know how when your life is busy time seems to creep by so slowly… you look back and say “do you remember the time… oh, that was just last week!” Well that’s what my life’s been like, of late.

Enjoying a beer at the launch of Milestone: Jethrik, the latest release of Three Rings.

There was Milestone: Jethrik and the Three Rings Conference, of course, which ate up a lot of my time but then paid off wonderfully – the conference was a wonderful success, and our announcements about formalising our non-profit nature and our plans for the future were well-received by the delegates. A slightly lower-than-anticipated turnout (not least because of this winter ‘flu that’s going around) didn’t prevent the delegates (who’d come from far and wide: Samaritans branches, Nightlines, and even a representative from a Community Library that uses the software) from saying wonderful things about the event. We’re hoping for some great feedback to the satisfaction surveys we’ve just sent out, too.

The Three Rings Birthday Cake. It boggles my mind how they've managed to make the icing look so much like plastic, on the phone part. — The Three Rings Birthday Cake. It boggles my mind how they’ve managed to make the icing look so much like plastic, on the phone part.

Hot on the heels of those volunteering activities came my latest taped assessment for my counselling course at Aylesbury College. Given the brief that I was “a volunteer counseller at a school, when the parent of a bullied child comes in, in tears”, I took part in an observed, recorded role-play scenario, which now I’m tasked with dissecting and writing an essay about. Which isn’t so bad, except that the whole thing went really well, so I can’t take my usual approach of picking holes in it and saying what I learned from it. Instead I’ll have to have a go at talking about what I did right and trying to apply elements of counselling theory to justify the way I worked. That’ll be fun, too, but it does of course mean that the busy lifestyle isn’t quite over yet.

My sister Sarah, with TAS managing director Adrian Grant, prepare to announce the winner of the Peter Huntley Memorial Award for Making Buses A Better Choice.

And then on Tuesday I was a guest at the UK Bus Awards, an annual event which my dad co-pioneered back in the mid-1990s. I’d been invited along by Transaid, the charity that my dad was supporting with his planned expedition to the North Pole before he was killed during an accident while training. I was there first and foremost to receive (posthumously, on his behalf) the first Peter Huntley Fundraising Award, which will be given each year to the person who – through a physical activity – raises the most money for Transaid. The award was first announced at my father’s funeral, by Gary Forster, the charity’s chief executive. Before he worked for the charity he volunteered with them for some time, including a significant amount of work in sub-Saharan Africa, so he and I spent a little while at the event discussing the quirks of the local cuisine, which I’d experienced some years earlier during my sponsored cycle around the country (with my dad).

So it’s all been “go, go, go,” again, and I apologise to those whose emails and texts I’ve neglected. Or maybe I haven’t neglected them so much as I think: after all – if you emailed me last week, right now that feels like months ago.

Long tongue! [x-post /r/funny]

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The original link was: http://i.imgur.com/RzBit.jpg

Conference Preparations

Right now, Three Rings seems to be eating up virtually all of my time. It’s hardly the first time – I complained about being incredibly busy with Three Rings stuff just a couple of years ago, but somehow right now it’s busier than ever. There’s been the Milestone: Jethrik release, some complications with our uptime when our DNS servers were hit by a DDoS attack, and – the big one – planning for this weekend’s conference.

The Three Rings 10th Birthday Conference is this weekend, and I’ve somehow volunteered myself to not only run the opening plenary but to run two presentations (one on the history of Three Rings, which I suppose I’m the best person to talk about, and one on being an awesome Three Rings Administrator) and a problem-solving workshop. My mind’s been on overdrive for weeks, and I’m pretty sure I’m not even the one working the hardest (that honour would have to go to poor JTA).

Still: all this work will pay off, I’m sure, and Saturday will be an event to remember. I’m looking forward to it… although right now I’d equally happily spend a week or two curled up in bed under a blanket with a nice book and a mug of herbal tea, thanks.

In other news: Matt P‘s hanging out on Earth at the moment, (on his best behaviour I think) while Ruth, JTA and I decide if we’d like to live with him for a while. So far, I think he’s making a convincing argument. He’s proven himself to be house trained (he hasn’t pooped on the carpet even once) and everything.

Maybe I’m just being a whole-wit, but I don’t understand this Double Earth thing. ELI10.

This self-post was originally posted to /r/DoubleWorldProblems. See more things from Dan's Reddit account.

It’s that time of year again when I like to decorate eggs. Because fuck you, calendar.

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The original link was: http://www.torange.us/photo/10/13/Easter-Egg-colors-1324285273_77.jpg

Craziest Internet Explorer Bug Ever?

As web developers, we’re used to working around the bugs in Microsoft Internet Explorer. The older versions are worst, and I’m certainly glad to not have to write code that works in Internet Explorer 6 (or, increasingly, Internet Explorer 7) any more: even Microsoft are glad to see Internet Explorer 6 dying out, but even IE8 is pretty ropey too. And despite what Microsoft claim, I’m afraid IE9 isn’t really a “modern” browser either (although it is a huge step forwards over its predecessors).

But imagine my surprise when I this week found what I suspect might be a previously undiscovered bug in Internet Explorer 8 and below. Surely they’ve all been found (and some of them even fixed), but now? But no. It takes a very specific set of circumstances for the bug to manifest itself, but it’s not completely unbelievable – I ran into it by accident while refactoring parts of Three Rings.

A completely useless Internet Explorer error message. Thanks, IE.

Here’s the crux of it: if you’re –

Using Internet Explorer 8 or lower, and
You’re on a HTTPS (secure) website, and
You’re downloding one of a specific set of file types: Bitmap files, for example, are a problem, but JPEG files aren’t (Content-Type: image/bmp), and
The web server indicates that the file you’re downloading should be treated as something to be “saved”, rather than something to be viewed in your browser (Content-Disposition: attachment), and
The web server passes a particular header to ask that Internet Explorer does not cache a copy of the file (Cache-Control: no-cache),

Then you’ll see a dialog box like the one shown above. Switching any of the prerequisites in that list out makes the problem go away: even switching the header from a strict “no-cache” to a more-permissive “private” makes all the difference.

I’ve set up a test environment where you can see this for yourself: HTTP version; HTTPS version. The source code of my experiment (PHP) is also available. Of course, if you try it in a functional, normal web browser, it’ll all work fine. But if you’ve got access to a copy of Internet Explorer 8 on some old Windows XP box somewhere (IE8 is the last version of the browser made available for XP), then try it in that and see for yourself what a strange error you get.

On This Day In 1999

Looking Back

On this day in 1999 I sent out the twenty-eighth of my Cool Thing Of The Day To Do In Aberystwyth emails. I wasn’t blogging at the time (although I did have a blog previously), but these messages-back-home served a similar purpose, if only for a select audience. You can read more about them in my last On This Day to discuss them or the one before.

For technical reasons, this particular Cool Things Of The Day appears to have been sent on 27th October, but in actual fact I know that the events it describes took place on 5th November 1999. The obvious clue? The fireworks! I knew that Cool Thing Of The Day as shown here on my blog was out-of-sync with reality, but this particular entry gives a great indication of exactly how much it’s out by. And no, I can’t be bothered to correct it.

Back in 1999 I started as a student at the University of Wales, Aberystwyth (now Aberystwyth University), moved away from home, and had a fantastic time. One bonfire night, I called up two new friends of mine – Rory and Sandra – and persuaded them that we should wander over to nearby Trefechan and climb the hill (Pen Dinas) there to watch the fireworks. It was a wild and windy night, and certainly not the conditions to climb an unknown and occasionally-treacherous hill, but we weren’t dissuaded: we set out!

You know those films or sitcoms where the protagonist (usually through their own stupidity) ends up on a date with two people at the same time, trying to keep each unaware of the other? That’s what I felt like at the time: because (though neither of them knew this at the time) I had an incredible crush on both of them. Of course: back then I was far shyer and far less-good at expressing myself, so this remained the case for a little while longer. Still: my inexperienced younger self still manged to make it feel to me like a precarious situation that I could easily balls-up. Perhaps I should have better thought-out the folks I invited out that night…

A storm blew in furiously, and the fireworks launched from the town scattered around, buffeted and shaken and only occasionally still flying upwards when they exploded. The rain lashed down and soaked us through our coats. We later found ourselves huddled around a radiator in The Fountain (under its old, old ownership), where the barman and the regulars couldn’t believe that we’d been up Pen Denis in the

Looking Forward

A little later, I got to have a ludicrously brief fling with one of the pair, but I was fickle and confused and ballsed it up pretty quickly. Instead, I fell into a relationship with my old friend-with-benefits Reb, which in the long run turned out to be a very bad chapter of my life.

Trefechan – exotically across the river from the rest of Aberystwyth – didn’t seem so far away after a few more years in Aberystwyth… only a stone’s throw from Rummers! But for three new students, just a couple of months into their new home, lost and drunk and fumbling their way using an outdated map and seeing by firework-light, it was an exciting adventure. In 2004, SmartData (my employer at that time) moved into their new premises, right over the road from The Fountain and in the shadow of Pen Denis. The Technium turned out to be a pretty good place for SmartData, and it suited me, too. Some days in the summer, when it was warm and sunny, I’d leave work and take a walk up Pen Dinas. It wasn’t the same without the fireworks, the company, or the mystery of being somewhere for the very first time, but it’s still a great walk.

Sometimes I’d go up there in the rain, too.

This blog post is part of the On This Day series, in which Dan periodically looks back on years gone by.

A Broken Oath

As part of the ongoing challenges that came about as part of the problems with my dad’s Will, I was required the other week to find myself a local solicitor so that they could witness me affirm a statement (or swear an oath, for those of you who are that-way inclined). Sounds easy, right?

Well: it turns out that the solicitor I chose did it wrong. How is it even possible to incorrectly witness an affirmation? I wouldn’t have thought it so. But apparently they did. So now I have to hunt down the same solicitor and try again. It has to be the same one “because they did it partially right”, or else I have to start the current part of the process all over again. But moreover, I’ll be visiting the same solicitor because I want my damn money back!

I’ll spare you the nitty-gritty. Suffice to say that this is a surprising annoyance in an already all-too-drawn-out process. It’s enough to make you swear. Curse words, I mean: not an oath.