Disconnected Jottings from Alsace

From Dogpile to Duckduckgo...

2012-02-12T16:14:00.000+01:00

After treating my PC to a slimming course with Lubuntu & a bit of muscle-building with extra RAM, I felt up to giving it an internal spring-clean.

Not that it is spring here yet - 12 nights in a row with temperatures between -8°C & -13°C.

One of the areas obviously needing a clear-out was browser bookmarks.
My bookmarks are well organised, but who needs 3500 bookmarks?

Like clearing out the attic, this exercise brings back long-forgotten memories & it is only too easy to get side-tracked into re-opening chapters from way back when.

One area I didn't expect to reminisce over was the folder of Search Engines.
For the last 5-10 years (seems like always) I have almost exclusively used Google & had forgotten what came before.
But in my folder, I found all my previous favourites, like Copernic, NorthernLight, AltaVista, Lycos, LookSmart, Webcrawler, WiseNut, AllTheWeb, Go, MetaCrawler and of course the inelegantly named but effective DogPile.
More surprising was to find that most of these are still working, though probably just as fronts for Google, Yahoo &/or Bing.

I still find the performance of Google, particularly, to be amazing.
But I get more & more uneasy about their ubiquity.
I suspect their excellent motto "Don't be Evil" may be going the same way as Ubuntu's "It Just Works"...

I use Google's Blogger & Picasa photo-handler & Google Maps because they meet my needs best, but I don't really want to live in a Google bubble any more than I wanted an AOL bubble years ago.
So I am now using the ludicrously-named Duckduckgo as my main search engine.
http://duckduckgo.com/
The comments about "track" & "bubble" on their front page, maybe over-done, do give food for thought.

But Google is only a click away - for the tricky stuff, where it is still best.

Parting thot: "It's better to be uninformed than ill-informed." - Keith Duckworth

Lubuntu

2012-02-05T21:47:00.002+01:00

My "new" PC dates back to 2004, when it proudly boasted Windows XP, an AMD Athlon XP processor running at 2.15GHz, 256MB RAM & a 120GB hard drive.

If you are not totally gripped by the opening line, you should really just skip this post - see you later, I hope!

After a couple of years, I started to dabble in Linux, using Ubuntu which is probably the most user-friendly way to start.
Back then, their brilliant slogan was: "Ubuntu - it just works!"
For some reason, they don't use that any more...

Compared with XP, Ubuntu in those days was a mixed blessing.
Philosophically, I am all for the 'Free & Open' aspect, especially compared with the Microsoft near-monopoly, with all that implies.
That is reason enough to try it & to stick with it if possible.
Practically, some things worked better, others not as well.
Particularly, back then, it was a real struggle to get WiFi, Scanning & Printing to work well & reliably.
Generally, you had to expect to put in quite a bit of time & effort to keep things ship-shape, which for an enthusiastic retiree was not a problem.

One continuing issue which cannot be ignored is the 6-monthly upgrade process, which usually involves a very long download, quite a lot of little improvements & possibly some real disasters, like being unable to boot at all...
Actually, you can choose to avoid or defer this trauma by opting for the 'Long Term Support' cycle, where you only need to upgrade every 3 years.
But then you need to make a 3-year jump instead of a 6-month jump.

Over time, XP on my PC got slower & slower.
I still have XP (for sentimental reasons & as a life-belt & because it can still print photos fractionally better when really necessary).
But when I switch to XP, I know I may as well go away for 20 minutes while the anti-virus etc does its stuff, during which time the PC is nearly frozen.
And that is after an upgrade to 512MB RAM (OK - I know that is laughably small today, but read on).

Over that same time, Ubuntu has got better & better.
Particularly it handles WiFi & Scanning & Printing acceptably & without too much fuss, though maybe not quite up to the standards provided by Canon & co for Microsoft.
An incidental but decisive advantage is that Linux does not need any anti-virus (don't ask me why not), which frees up a lot of my PC's little brain & muscles for real work.
So Ubuntu went from strength to strength - until the last upgrade.

There seems to have been a change in direction from 'above' (read millionaire Mark Shuttleworth, to whom all praise, at least before the latest course-correction).
Instead of "It Just Works", Ubuntu now seems to want to take on Apple & co (my interpretation, I don't know).
Their latest Desktop, called Unity, appears to be aimed at Smartphones & Tablets, rather than old desktop PC's.
Probably it looks "cool" & probably it has no end of visual effects, including transparent rotating cubes & wobbly windows or whatever.
But it is too complicated for my old PC which gets automatically downgraded to the "2D" version by some invisible hand, with no arguing.
The 2D version maybe still looks "cool"-ish (I wouldn't judge) but it is "ergonomically-challenged" in my humble opinion.

I spent a solid week beating my head against Unity, in which time I found it really locks out a lot of old habits, like click-to-open menus & user-customizable launchers.
Nearly everything you do requires several clicks plus typing in a search bar.
All the usual activities seem to need more actions & more personal memory, like "what was that application called, so I can ask for it?" instead of just picking from a list.

So, after a week, I decided to revert to the previous desktop style, now called Gnome-Classic.
That is another very good point about Ubuntu - you can keep the latest updated software, but choose the interface you use it with.
Gnome-Classic was nearly as good as my previous Gnome, but not quite.
In addition, I was noticing more & more that the PC was beginning to slow down in Ubuntu like in XP a few years back.
Open too many browser windows at once & it would grind to a near halt.
I reckoned it was time for another RAM upgrade (to 1GB) & ordered one.
It has not arrived yet.

In parallel, I started looking at other options, and found (I knew but had never investigated) that there are several "flavours" of Ubuntu, suitable for different users.
You can have it as Xubuntu, Kubuntu, Edubuntu etc.

At the opposite end of the spectrum from the all-singing, all-dancing but power-hungry & unergonomic Unity, there is a thing called Lubuntu.
Its motto could be, but isn't "Keep it simple, stupid".
It is aimed at the older PC & maybe at the older PC user, but they are too kind to say that.
It uses about half as much RAM & less processor time, so that everything works much faster on small-brained PC's.
It is more flexible for personalization, but (negative point) less user-friendly in its customizing tools.
A bit like stepping back in time in the Linux world.
After a week fiddling with Lubuntu, my PC is now as frisky as new, or better.
It should be a star by my standards, with its upcoming memory boost.
It looks & functions the way I want it to & I am a happy bunny again!

Of course, I could just fork out 500€ on a new PC & play with Windows 7 & Unity, but where is the challenge in that?

http://www.psychocats.net/ubuntu/whichbuntu
http://www.osnews.com/story/24476/
http://lubuntu.net/
http://www.ubuntu.com/ubuntu

Parting thot: "So busy cutting through the undergrowth, we do not realize we are in the wrong jungle." - Stephen R Covey (7 habits)

Retirement without Threshold Effect?

2012-01-26T14:37:00.001+01:00

With upcoming Presidential Elections in France, one of the recurring big topics is Retirement Age.

Having passed that hurdle some time ago, I don't follow the details very closely, but all the headlines talk about "Retirement Age" & "Retirement Age for Full Pension".

So there are endless battles between politicians all talking at the same time & all concentrating on whether THE retirement age should be 60 or 62 or whatever & whether you should get a FULL pension at 60 or 65 or more - or less in case of particlularly arduous jobs.

It has become, as they now say, a cleaving issue between left & right.

I don't understand why we/they don't drop the idea of "Retirement Age" & just leave everybody to decide freely how soon or late they want to retire.
In the internet age, it is obviously feasible to generate & update a smooth curve for every worker & make it available on a secure Government site.
Everybody could then see at a glance what pension they would get for any chosen retirement point, whether at age 25 or 125.
There should be no steps or preset ages, to avoid threshold effects.

Generally, threshold effects should be avoided in all taxation & benefits schemes.

This would save a lot of wasted time, energy & especially emotion.

Politicians could concentrate on other important issues.

I think there are plenty...

Parting thot: "The art of taxation consists in so plucking the goose as to get the most feathers with the least hissing." - Jean Baptist Colbert

All the 2's

2012-01-19T21:45:00.000+01:00

1999 Suzuki Wagon R+ 1.0GL.
One (mostly) careful owner.
Never raced or rallied.

222222.2 km

Offers?

Parting thot: "The trouble with our times is that the future is not what it used to be." - Paul Valery

Is that Quite Clear or only Quite Clear?

2012-01-03T13:59:00.003+01:00

In physical or mental translation, we often stumble upon English-language quirks which we have just accepted for decades without really noticing.

The latest is the very common word "Quite".

Has it ever occurred to you that it has 2 mutually-exclusive meanings?
That everybody uses it without specifying which meaning they have in mind?
And that nobody ever seems to be confused as a result?
Some kind of miracle!

Here are pairs of meanings from various dictionaries:
Cambridge
1. Completely
2. A little or a lot but not completely
WordReference
1. Absolutely; completely
2. Fairly; moderately
Wordnet
1. Rather; to a degree
2. To the greatest possible extent; completely
Macmillan
1. Fairly but not very
2. Completely
WordSmyth
1. To the greatest extent; completely; entirely
2. To a large degree

I have a lot of sympathy for foreigners struggling with English.

Parting thot: "Never interrupt your enemy when he is making a mistake." - Napoleon Bonaparte

Down the Drain?

2011-12-27T21:05:00.000+01:00

Googling anything about coffee & plumbing, in English, will throw up pages, mainly American, of dire warnings about the dangers of blocking your drains if you put coffee grounds down.
Intuitively, that is easy to accept.

In France, it is a well-known "fact" that putting coffee grounds down the drain can often help unblock it & will certainly help prevent future blocking...

Different coffee or different drains?

I never saw a reasonable explanation for either result.

We have had a chronically partially-blocked drain for over 10 years, which seems to have been miraculously cured since we decided to risk the French approach.

No garantees, and these could well be famous last words...

Parting thot: "Science means simply the aggregate of all the recipes that are always successful. All the rest is literature." - Paul Valery

Take Your Pick...

2011-12-22T21:05:00.000+01:00

Back in the UK, I/we used to think 21st December was (about) the shortest day, so things would only get better from then on.
It was like the bottom of the trough.

Here in France, 21st December is - the first day of winter.
Three months of cold struggle before the beginning of Spring...
Brrr!

Think I will stick with my old idea!

Parting thot: "A pessimist is just an optimist with experience!" - Anon

Intangible?

2011-10-13T13:03:00.003+02:00

French has a number of well-known pitfalls for English-speakers.
Words which look as though they obviously mean one thing, but actually mean something else.

Probably the most frequently encountered is "eventuellement" which looks as though it should mean "eventually" (sooner or later; in the long run) but actually means "possibly" (maybe or maybe not).

Recently, I was confused when several Government Ministers started talking about plans to reduce deficits being "intangible".
I naturally assumed this French word meant the same as its identical-looking English counterpart (immaterial, hard to grasp or define) but that didn't make sense.

A selection of dictionaries showed that whilst basically meaning "untouchable", that can be used either in the sense of "immaterial & hard to grasp" or as "sacred & must not be altered".
The Ministers were using the second sense.

How can you spend 35 years immersed in a language & still discover blind spots?

Parting thot: "Language is the source of misunderstandings." - Antoine de Saint-Exupery

Only an Idiot...

2011-09-04T12:12:00.009+02:00

...would drive into a bottomless 60cm-diameter hole in the pavement, in broad daylight, wouldn't you think?

So I don't know what my excuse is!

Actually, I blame Jean-Pierre Pernaud.
I mentioned previously that we often watch his 1-o'clock niaise program, in spite of our better judgement.
The day world war 3 breaks out, Jean-Pierre will still start with the weather, then an item about the cost of school satchels & maybe a piece about yet another village losing its last grocery shop, before mentioning that unfortunately...
But he does include good cameos on France & the French.

This week's series was on The Route des Vins in Alsace.
http://www.tf1.fr/jt-13h/magazines-semaine/la-route-des-vins-d-alsace-6662887.html
On Monday, they visited Niedermorschwihr & we realized that, although we have "done" the route des vins many, many times, we have never seen Niedermorschwihr or heard of its spiral church tower.
So on Wednesday, we set off to have a look.
We drove to Colmar & followed a sign towards Ingersheim, only to realize we were heading east instead of west.
Wanting to consult the map (remember those?) & probably make a U-turn, I drove onto a wide pavement & stopped.
The need for a U-turn confirmed, I started to drive off & was dumbfounded, like a nonchalant bear falling into a bear-trap, when the supposed-earth dematerialised under the front of the car!
With the car resting on its sill, I thought we would need hoisting out, but in fact it backed out easily.
A careful look all round the tyre showed no obvious damage, but a couple of km further on, the heavying steering warned of partial deflation & I had to change the wheel.
Not surprisingly, the tyre had in fact been cut by the sharp edge of the cast-iron tree-surround it had just visited.

Oh well - chalk it up to experience.
Not too bad as the tyre had cost 65€ 49 000km ago & was about 60% worn.
Ah - but you cannot have more than 5mm difference in tread depth between tyres on the same axle...
So - make that 2 new tyres = 130€.
Then, I run all year round on Winter tyres (long subject of future post?) & my garage could not find any Pirelli SnowControl 190's in the 165/65-R13 size needed to match the other tyres.
It was 29°C at the time & they suggested trying again nearer Winter...
Checking Pirelli's websites, I found the situation was worse than that - they no longer make Winter tyres for 13" wheels!
Goodyear? - same thing!
Continental? - nope...

As far as I can see, the only 13" winter tyres available are from Firestone (not a favorite make) or from various third-world never-heard-of's.
I suppose that is the cost of the stupid fashion for ever-bigger wheels.
Come back Issigonis - all is foregiven!

Parting thot: "Qui trop s'excuse, s'accuse." - French proverb

Cash Out?

2011-07-13T11:16:00.003+02:00

Back in March, we skied in Plagne Bellecote.
Not a very remarkable or innovative sort of place.
So I was surprised when, at a supermarket checkout, my change came showering out of a machine instead of being handed over by the cashier.
First time I have seen such an arrangement.

You also feed your coins into it, but notes still pass via the human interface.
They must have had a good salesperson pass through, as several of the (not many) shops there had the same device.

Yesterday, on a Brompton bike ride, I stopped for coffee & cake in a patisserie in Neuhof.
An even less remarkable & innovative place, to put it kindly...
And there, standing imperiously & incongruously in the middle of the counter, was the same "CashGuard" I had seen in Bellecote.

CashGuard's website http://www.cashguard.com/en/ says they are Scandinavian, have been in business for 20 years & sold over 16000 systems, so maybe I have just not been looking...
They point out advantages in hygiene, security, speed & accuracy.
Not mentioning that cashiers no longer need to be able to count...
I suppose most of what they say is broadly true.

But all of it will be rendered obsolete if Mastercard (& Visa?) get their way.

They just changed my credit card for a new one with contactless, PIN-less operation (http://www.paypass.com/) for amounts under €25.
Aimed at replacing cash for even the smallest transactions.
At participating stores only, of course, which so far is none.

Obviously, the possible success of this venture depends on them being willing & able to operate the system without charging shop-keepers too much.
Time will tell.

Although I strongly dislike the duopoly of Mastercard & Visa, I have to believe this is a more elegant solution than CashGuard's.

And hides a lot less croissants.

Parting thot: "The process by which banks create money is so simple that the mind is repelled." - J K Galbraith

15 cents a kilo...

2011-06-08T18:29:00.002+02:00

We now (temporarily) have what look like "his & hers" wheely bins.

The big scruffy one has been in service for maybe 15 years.
The demure little one next to it is the latest high-tech, low-decibel, computer-chipped miracle which is aiming to curb our profligate tendencies.

It all started with warning salvo(e)s in the letter box.
The Community of Communes (local authority for waste collection etc) had decided to introduce "incitative pricing".
Followed several leaflets giving the general reasoning & rough proposals.
- Preserve the environment
- Reduce incineration
- Reduce costs
- Be fairer
Charge per collection & per kilo...

We were then invited to a presentation & discussion at the village hall.

Never have so many inhabitants been crammed into that hall!
Not even for free beer at the Social & Sports Club AGM.

Never has audience attention been so wrapt.
Certainly not at the Social & Sports Club AGM.

Never have tempers been so near to fraying!
Never has neighbourliness looked more flimsy!

The presentation showed the current situation, with ever-increasing quantities of waste & even-faster-increasing costs for disposal.
The efforts which have already gone into closing tips; providing bottle-banks, paper-&-plastic skips in each commune; opening "déchetteries" where you can take your garden refuse, wood, metal, rubble, batteries, oil, paint etc etc to be recycled or disposed of as well as possible.

Then the new proposals:
- Smaller bins (120L for 1-2 people, 180L for 3+ people)
- Keep the weekly collection, only collecting bins put outside.
- Automatically weigh each bin & record number of collections in the year (each bin has identification chip, as well as big printed address label)
- Allow 12 collections per year free of collection charge.
- Collections over 12 charged at €1.50 each.
- All rubbish (even in free collections) charged at €0.15 per kilogramme.
- Annual fixed charge per house unchanged at €30.
- Annual fixed charge per person, reduced from €70 to €35.

They showed several "typical" cases, indicating that most people will pay less with the new system.
People who take paper, bottles etc to the containers will pay quite a bit less.
Anybody putting all their rubbish in the bin will pay quite a bit more.

The subsequent discussion was very heated.
- "You mean I am supposed to leave my shrimps & fish-heads rotting for a month till the next free collection?"
- "I want a lock so nobody else fills my bin, leaving me to pay..."
- "What happens if somebody dies part-way through the year?" (I think they were worrying about charges, not disposal).
- "We all know lots of houses who don't declare all occupants..."
etc etc.

We left before anybody got hurt.

Now the new bins are here, but we get 6 months "free" trial with dummy bills before the new charges come in - to iron out any difficulties.
The whole thing seems quite well thought out, except it penalizes old/infirm/immobile people who can't run their heavy rubbish to the bottle-banks etc.
I think the lesson is, that you really grab people's attention when you bring their money into the discussion!

Full details:
http://www.kochersberg.fr/Vivre/Dechets_menagers/La_redevance_incitative__RI

Parting thot: "Taxation with representation ain't so hot either." - Gerald Barzan

Strawberries & ... huh?

2011-04-08T21:18:00.000+02:00

It's the strawberry season again.

At least it is in Tunisia, judging by the shelves in our local Super-U.
So we are torn between our ecological conscience which only approves of zero-km fruit (last years apples?) & socio-economical pressure to support budding democracy.

Throwing our lot in with democracy, we bought a few grammes of Tunisian strawberries.
Not sure how far that will push the cursor from the political end-stop, but at least the thought was there.

The strawberries were surprisingly good.
Whereas early strawberries are nearly always disappointingly tasteless.
To the point where, every year, we say "must remember not to do that again".
But always give in too soon.

Traditionally, one always links strawberries & cream, doesn't one?
Especially when one is at Wimbledon.

But I find cream just smothers, dilutes & hides the strawberry flavour.
And we rarely have thick cream handy at the right time anyway.
So we normally prefer ours with vanilla ice-cream instead.
That has been our "norm" for decades.

For some reason which I can't remember now, I recently tried my strawberries with, of all things, coconut yoghurt.
And the combination is (for me) brilliant.
I would certainly never go back to ice-cream or mere cream, now.

This is as near as you are likely to get to a recipe in this blog, so make the most of it.

Parting thot: "Save the earth. It's the only planet with chocolate." - Anon

Need Visa for Germany

2011-03-31T15:11:00.002+02:00

Back in February I ordered a horrendously-expensive new bike.
Made in Germany.
Their only outlet in France is in Paris, so I chose to order it from a dealer in a village near Baden-Baden.

The ordering process seemed to go OK, in a mixture of German, French, English & gestures.
Though I was a little surprised & dubitative when they didn't ask for any deposit or ID at that stage.

So I was relieved when they eventually rang to say it was available & I was again surprised when they suggested I take it for a ride, still with no deposit.
Unfortunately, the German/French/English/gestures had failed to get over the message about the non-standard chainwheel I wanted, resulting in a couple of weeks delay while they found & fitted the right parts.

I went to collect it, finally, this week.
Naturally enough, I pulled out my Mastercard.
And was more than surprised to be told they only accepted Visa!
"In fact, Germans usually pay cash" said the assistant, adding that Visa-only was common in small towns, though I don't know how true that is.

Of course I am aware that, in Germany, low-margin supermarkets often don't accept credit cards, instead usually having convenient cash-dispensers available.
But not high-margin sports goods dealers.
That must be the first time in 30 years I have heard of anybody accepting only one of Mastercard/Visa.

The happy outcome was that I left with the bike, merely promising to transfer the money to their account!

All I need now is their IBAN number & I am still waiting for them to e-mail me that.
I can't imagine such trust in France.

The bike is fine, if depressingly black.
The brightest bits are the tyres & chain.

Parting thot: "If you owe the bank $100 that's your problem. If you owe the bank $100 million, that's the bank's problem." - Jean Paul Getty

Saucer (soh-say not sor-ser)

2011-03-30T21:51:00.003+02:00

I don't know how things are in Anglo-Saxon circles these days, but when I pulled out at age 33 I had never mopped up my gravy with a piece of bread.
At least not in polite company.

Here, happily, such behaviour is, to coin a phrase, de rigeur.
As much part of the great French cultural heritage as, say, peeing at the side of the road.
Anybody seen leaving good gravy on his plate when there is good bread in the basket, must be assumed to be ill.
Or foreign, which comes to the...

There is even a special verb for it - saucer.

I have not read the details of the recent Unesco World Cultural Heritage award to French Gastronomy.
But I am sure mopping up the last of the gravy with fresh French bread must figure prominently.

Parting thot: "You can travel fifty thousand miles in America without once tasting a piece of good bread." - Henry Miller

French Burglary 101

2011-03-23T22:16:00.007+01:00

I hesitated before posting this, as I don't approve of disseminating potentially harmful information.

But then - anybody can find it in 5 minutes Googling & burglars already know it.

Innocent householders like me though, maybe don't.

And maybe should.

We recently returned from a week's absence to find we couldn't unlock the usual door to get into the house.

Fortunately, AA had stayed home & had found the problem when inside trying to get out, rather than outside trying to get in, and had been able to use a second entrance, which is normally double-locked & chained.

So we had a problem, but not an emergency.

Had we been stuck outside, we would probably have called out a locksmith, which is notoriously expensive & (as I now know) pointless.

I knew nothing about French (or any other) door-locks, but a bit of Googling soon made things obvious.

See top picture.

The lock is in 2 parts:

1. The big rectangular latch mechanism, which can only be removed from the door when the door is open & after the barrel is removed.

2. The lock barrel, which is inserted in the keyhole of the latch mechanism & held in place by a screw which can only be removed when the door is open...

So nice guys can't remove the lock without unlocking it.

I had not previously realized that there are actually 2 separate lock barrels; one for the key from inside & one for the key from outside.

They are joined together by a very small section of metal, the rest of the keyhole section being cut away between the 2 barrels to allow rotation of the lug which operates the latch.

That very small section of metal is then drastically weakened by being drilled & tapped for the screw which holds the barrel into the latch mechanism.

So you don't need to be much of an engineer (or much of a burglar) to see where to attack this lock.

I used an adjustable spanner, clamped it snuggly on the rectangular section of the protruding barrel, and pushed sideways.

The barrel instantly broke at the ridiculously fragile center portion & the 2 halves fell out of the door.

A screwdriver was enough to slide the latch open & we were home.

Sobering to realize that any burglar with 5 minutes theory/practice could break in silently in less than 30 seconds!

I don't think our lock was unusually fragile either.

They all seem to have much the same weak link.

Even the ones with extremely fancy unreproducible keys & astronomic price tags...

Examples borrowed from http://www.hellopro.fr/

http://www.hellopro.fr/cylindre-europeen-abus-et-abloy-2000864-1471981-produit.html

http://www.hellopro.fr/cylindre-europeen-de-haute-securite-satyx-2000864-325088-produit.html

http://www.hellopro.fr/cylindre-europeen-de-securite-fenyx-2000864-325089-produit.html

http://www.hellopro.fr/cylindre-de-serrure-surete-europeen-y200-2000864-325083-produit.html

Conclusion?

These locks will only keep out people who don't really want to get in, or have only bare hands available.

I have to think seriously about getting something quite different.

Maybe you do too?

Parting thot: "Locks keep out only the honest." - Jewish proverb

Tea-for-Two Bags?

2011-03-22T21:22:00.003+01:00

I regularly drink Redbush or Rooibos tea.

At least I do when I can find it, as it is not common here.

It is cheaper to order it from UK by internet & pay 50% extra for postage, than to get it locally.

Best is when kind UK visitors bring a few boxes, free of p&p.

It is supposed to have great soothing capacity.

But as soon as I open the box, I am un-soothed by the inexplicable fact that the bags are in twos...

So, in transfering the 80 bags from the original cardboard box to an air-tight caddy, as recommended, I have to patiently tear apart 40 pairs.

They are not even decently perforated, so care is required to avoid ripping them open, especially if you try to do several at once.

OK - this is not one of life's great tragedies, but why on earth would anybody do it like that?

Don't try to tell me it is a significant cost saving.

Do they think it somehow increases customer satisfaction?

Did nobody ever tell them?

Parting thot: "Age does not diminish the extreme disappointment of having a scoop of ice cream fall from the cone." - Jim Fiebig

My 3 MWh

2011-03-10T21:26:00.002+01:00

Actually 3138kWh.

That's what our solar panels have produced in exactly a year.

Very satisfactory, compared with the 2560kWh suggested (as a conservative estimate) by the salesman.

Or the 2793kWh estimated by the very sophisticated PVSYST simulation program.

But I have to expect about 1% efficiency loss per year.

Already included in the budgeting.

All I have to do now, is to enter 3138kWh on the form kindly sent by Electricité de Strasbourg, send it back & wait for the Euros to appear in the bank...

As we signed up early, when the government was still enthusiastic, we qualify for 0.58€/kWh, so should get 1820€.

For future PhotoVoltaicists, the conditions will be much less attractive.

The tax credit has been slashed from 8000€ to 4000€ & the price per kWh (for new producers) has dropped a lot & will continue to drop.

For once, it looks as though we did something right!

Famous last words?

Parting thot: "Turn your face to the sun and the shadows fall behind you." - Maori Proverb

Watch Out for Hens' Nests!

2011-03-06T22:32:00.003+01:00

Not really a very common road sign, but I did notice one today, which triggered this short post.

The normal, and graphic, French expression for a pothole in the road is "Nid de Poule" (Hen's Nest).

Much more frequent are the warnings "Trous en formation" which always conjure images of holes (trous) in the road in some artistic regular array, like the Red Arrows or La Patrouille de France.

The reality is less glamorous - just random potholes.

The "en formation" bit doesn't mean "in formation" - just "in process of development".

Parting thot: "You and I come by road or rail, but economists travel on infrastructure." - Margaret Thatcher

Outlook: Fine, Fine, Fine...

2011-03-05T11:00:00.002+01:00

I already admitted that we often watch the 1-o'clock news on TF1.

That counts as an admission since TF1 is - well, let's say a 'popular' channel.

And Jean-Pierre Pernaud's 13:00 news show is universally mocked as being the opposite of 'biting' journalism.

Anyway, we watch just that bit of TF1, if only for the heritage/beauty-spot cameos.

With amazing frequency - it seems like several times per week - J-PP has an article about yet another poor unfortunate who has sold a car but keeps getting parking & speeding tickets.

This can last for years - tickets can run to dozens or hundreds & the accumulated fines to thousands of Euros!

People tend to contest at first, but find they are beating their heads against an administrative brick wall.

Points are lost from driving licenses & fines are stopped out of wages...

There seem to be serious consequences for a lot of ordinary, helpless people.

The problem appears to be (but I can't really vouch for this) that both the seller & the buyer are supposed to inform the authorities about a car sale, but only the buyer's input causes the computers to change names & addresses for fines!

An increasing number of buyers find it is worth taking the risk of not declaring their purchase, to get immunity from speeding & parking fines.

Presumably some of these crooks get caught & punished, but they never get into the 13:00 news, or anywhere else I know of.

Presumably some of the sellers do manage to finally convince the authorities to stop pestering them & maybe even get their points & Euros back, but you never hear of that either.

There was a government reshuffle on Monday & the new Minister has just announced he wants to get the law changed & the computer systems updated by the end of March.

http://lci.tf1.fr/france/justice/2011-03/pv-injustifies-recus-apres-la-vente-d-une-voiture-gueant-veut-6296675.html

http://lci.tf1.fr/france/societe/2011-01/en-greve-de-la-faim-pour-cause-d-indigestion-de-pv-indus-6236188.html

http://videos.tf1.fr/jt-13h/maine-et-loire-verbalise-alors-qu-il-a-vendu-sa-voiture-6291786.html

Parting thot: "The nation should have a tax system that looks like someone designed it on purpose." - William Simon

Any colour, so long as it's...

2011-02-14T18:06:00.004+01:00

I remember (maybe through rose-tinted glasses?) choosing my first new bike in about 1958.

Drooling in the bike-shop window & pouring over the catalogues.

Bikes then were brightly coloured.

The one I chose was mainly in metallic middle blue, with panels of light blue outlined by fine multicoloured lines.

The bottoms of the forks were chromed, as were all the other steel bits.

The frame joints were elaborate-shaped lugs, outlined for show.

The rest was polished alloy.

With white hand grips & brake-lever covers.

And white-wall tyres.

Jewellery for boys!

All for £17-10s.

I just ordered a new bike.

It is going to cost 60 times as much, which is way more than any inflation data would allow...

For the frame, I had the choice between drab battleship grey & black.

The just-announced 11-speed gear hub (critical factor in this purchase) is light alloy, but black.

The alloy handlebars are - black.

With black grips.

The extra-cost adjustable handlebar stem - black.

Seat pillar - black.

Brakes - black.

Brake levers - you guessed it.

Alloy cranks - yep!

Saddle too.

And rims.

And tyres...

Maybe I can find a red bell?

Of course, I should have expected this.

You only have to sample any crowd to see that 80-90% of people are wearing black, black & black.

So I suppose bike manufacturers are just responding to current taste.

What a waste!

Parting thot: "I will love the light for it shows me the way, yet I will endure the darkness because it shows me the stars." - Og Mandino

Tele(Atlas)Transported

2011-02-08T11:39:00.004+01:00

If you look up our address in Google Maps (I am not publishing it - just believe me) you will find yourself some way down a disused road, beyond a No Entry sign.

Likewise, if you are a tradesman trying to find us by GPS, there is a 50% chance that you will get to the No Entry sign & have to phone for guidance.
Actually, we are now so used to this, that we usually manage to warn potential visitors beforehand.
But not always.

It seems that all map publishers (even Michelin) get their information from one of two sources.
NAVTEQ in USA & Tele Atlas in the Netherlands (now taken over by TomTom).

NAVTEQ has us correctly positioned.
Tele Atlas has chosen, taking itself for a tornado or angry deity, to uproot our whole road & dump it half a mile away, in no-mans-land.

Now both providers have special sites where they invite the public to provide feedback to correct errors:
http://mapfeedback.teleatlas.com/mapfeedback/index.php
http://mapreporter.navteq.com/
Tele Atlas even sends you a polite e-mail with 32-digit reference number (they expect that many errors?) for your contribution, so you can follow its progress.

The only problem is that there is no progress.
I reported my problem first in April 2007, then again in January 2009 & August 2009.
Then the Mairie (town hall) had a go in October 2009.
And I tried again yesterday.

I am wondering what I need to do to grab their attention.
Immolation is out of the question.

Parting thot: "Setting goals is the first step in turning the invisible into the visible." - Tony Robbins

iDzen

2011-01-22T12:04:00.004+01:00

Having lived in France for 33 years, it is perhaps surprising that we (DS & I) have only just had our first trip on a TGV.

Part of our excuse is that the TGV didn't get anywhere near Alsace for the first 30 of those years.
Even if it had, the cost of using it with 2 adults & 4 kids would have been out of the question.
Not to mention that we hardly ever went anywhere we could have reached by TGV anyway.
And usually had a trailer or at least a car-full of something or other as baggage.

So what changed?
Since 2007 the TGV gets to Strasbourg, though the last 100km of track are not high-speed yet.
We usually get to travel without the kids these days.
The TGV website is getting easier to use & you can find reasonable-priced tickets if you look in time.
For once, we wanted to go to Paris, and without an Espace-full of luggage.
So that was decided - a couple of days in Paris by TGV.

I had heard of "iDTGV" which is some sort of sub-division of SNCF which sells TGV tickets (on-line only) at prices from as little as 19€ for Paris-Strasbourg.
Or even 15€ overnight.
So I went to their site (http://ventes.idtgv.com/) & managed to book OK.
But not at 19€.
That bargain price requires several months of advanced planning.
Later on, I realized I would have done better by using the normal TGV site (http://www.voyages-sncf.com/) which includes all the iDTGV trains & also has pages showing the best prices available each day for a month.

Part of the iDTGV offer is a choice of "ambiance".
Choose "iDNiGHT" & you sign up for "DJ, music, dancing, games, happenings".
Choose "iDzap" for "conviviality, laughter, conversation..."
Choose "iDzen" for "complete peace & quiet".
No hesitation there then!
We chose our iDzen seats & printed our own tickets.

So far, so good.
Except that meant 4 tickets, each A4 size in full colour at my expense...
Surely they could economise for their customers there?

A week or so later, I got an e-mail saying that the carriage number had changed & I would have to print all the tickets again!
The old tickets said wagon 18.
When I went to the reservation page, it said wagon 8.
But when I reprinted the tickets (just to pdf, not in expensive ink) they still said 18.
That went on for several days.
Finally, I contacted iDTGV & asked for clarification.
They e-mailed back quickly to confirm wagon 8 & suggested turning up with the old tickets & a copy of the e-mail.

On the day, we got to the right platform, early.
There was a nice picture of the train, showing wagon 8 next to mark "Y" on the platform.
But the train had not yet arrived by the time it should have left...
When it showed up, we wasted no time getting into wagon 8, only to find our seats occupied by other travellers with good-looking tickets.
By the time we found an official, we were already moving.
He said we should be in the iDTGV bit of the train, whereas we were actually in the ordinary TGV bit.
And they are actually 2 different trains, joined together, so you can't go from one to the other...
Fortunately there were enough spare seats, so no problem.
Except what I suppose is normal-TGV "ambiance" with fractious kids & mobile phones vying for prominence.

The actual trip is as smooth & quick as you would expect.
Impressive without feeling dramatic.

On the way back, we knew to check the map of the train carefully & sure enough the iDTGV bit was wagon 18 not wagon 8.
In any case, there were staff checking tickets & directing passengers, as you might expect.
Our seats were vacant.
But next to a solid bit of non-window, so we changed to window seats once the train moved off.
The iDzen ambiance was just what it said on the tin, and very welcome.
No kids, no phones, no music, pure hush.

I ventured through the iDzap zone on my way to the coffee bar.
No sign of "conviviality, laughter, conversation..."
Just overcrowding & lots of families with kids &/or hangovers.
Like the back end of a 747 after a 12-hour night trip.
I was very happy to get back to my iDzen & tried not to slurp my coffee too noisily.

We noticed that we were driving on the left in "France", but on the right in Alsace.
Didn't see the switch, but apparently one track swoops over the other just as they both cross the N4 near Sarrebourg.
Here.

Conclusions?
For cross-France trips, TGV is a lot faster than a car & makes better overall sense than flying.
Providing both ends of your trip happen to be connected to the network...
It can be very cheap if you plan far ahead, or rather expensive otherwise.
It is smooth & comfortable, but not always punctual.
There is a little learning curve for booking.
iDzen is an attractive no-cost option for old fogies.

Parting thot: "Time Flies Like an Arrow - Fruit Flies Like a Banana " - Anon

You Get What You Vote For...

2011-01-20T14:03:00.002+01:00

I suppose most people understand that lawyers make a living by unflinchingly asserting half-truths (at best).
And wholeheartedly, avidly, defending either one side, or the opposite side of a case, depending only on who pays them.
Certainly avoiding any search for balance, compromise, truth, justice or happy outcome.

Probably most people have noticed, or have no excuse for not noticing, that a very large number of the representatives they elect, not to mention an overwhelming percentage of presidents, prime-ministers & their wives & families, are lawyers.

And yet they are still surprised by the results...

Parting thot: "Mothers all want their sons to grow up to be President, but they don't want them to become politicians in the process." - John F Kennedy

EHIC - European Health Insurance Card

2010-12-30T11:48:00.003+01:00

Firstly, let me be clear that I am not complaining here - just nit-picking!

Like all Europeans, we can easily obtain an EHIC, which helps to ensure getting medical treatment at reasonable cost while travelling in Europe.
At least that is the theory.
Fortunately, we never had to test it yet.

Living within easy reach of Germany, Switzerland, Luxembourg & Belgium, and not too far from Italy, Spain, Holland etc, we find it prudent to always have EHICs in our bags.
As they are only valid for one year (I wonder why?) that means getting a new one, for each of us, every year.
That is the first tiny inefficiency in the system.

Getting one is very easy - simply request it on the "Ameli" website & they send it by post, free of charge.
The snag is, you have to lie through your teeth, as the form has compulsory fields for 'Country to visit' & 'Start of visit' & 'End of visit' (why?).
As we are wanting a card to cover all potential & as yet unplanned visits throughout the next year, I am never sure what to say there.
One year, I tried to explain to them, but it just got too complicated, so I resorted to inventing little trips at the beginning of the year.
That brought a series of e-mails, firstly confirming my request, then saying that as the cards would take a couple of weeks to arrive, they were sending us temporary paper cover-notes immediately!
Which they did.
Second tiny inefficiency.

So this year, I carefully invented my little trip to start in 3 weeks so as to leave them plenty of time.
But I still got the e-mails & the paper cover-notes.

This system is providing all we need, and we are grateful for it, but just wish we could save Ameli a little time, effort & money by getting cards with longer validity, or with (automatic?) annual renewal, or at any rate without the extra cover-notes.
And without having to tell fibs!
Presumably thousands of others are in the same situation?

Of course, there are far worse problems to solve first, so I won't get hung-up on this one.

Parting thot: "The point to remember is that what the government gives it must first take away." - John S. Coleman

Fog Lights in the Rain

2010-12-29T18:24:00.002+01:00

For Xmas, we drove across France, from Strasbourg to Chizé.
You know Chizé - near Niort?
You know Niort - in the Deux-Sèvres Département?
You know, in Poitou-Charentes Région?
OK - forget it, but it's right over the other side of France.
880km by autoroute.

In spite of the generally exceptional amounts of cold & snow everywhere this December, we didn't have either for the trip out.
Just a few patches of fog & several periods of rain.

In the foggy bits, most people used rear fog lamps, which clearly proved their worth.
In the rain, their use is illegal.
And the cause of near-homicidal pulsions from otherwise-reserved motorists.
Something I can understand in low-speed, night-time conditions, when they can be very dazzling.

But in high(ish) speed, daytime, autoroute rain, when all vehicles are followed by their own private fog bank?
Several cars were using their rear fog lamps in those conditions.
Either left over from the foggy bits or deliberately used in spray conditions.
And there is no doubt whatsoever that they:
1. Don't dazzle in daylight.
2. Vastly improve visibility & hence safety.

This is one section of the highway code which could usefully be revised.
But probably never will be, due to the emotions it seems to stir.

Parting thot: "Never do anything against conscience even if the state demands it." - Albert Einstein

Whatever Happened to Postmarks?

2010-12-22T15:09:00.002+01:00

In the "good old days" (actually, seen from the last couple of years, they really were the good old days) letters & cards had postmarks which told you where & when they had been posted.
This was always of interest & sometimes critical in case of dispute.

Well, this year we received about 40 Xmas cards, mostly from UK.

Some of them had no visible postmark at all.
Most of them had slight smudges of greyish ink.
Only one had legible time & place of posting.

And that came from Brussels!

Is the Royal Mail trying to save ink, or trying to leave no embarassing traces?
Poor show, anyway.

Parting thot: "Be like a postage stamp. Stick to one thing until you get there." - Josh Billings

Missing Sorry Sign

2010-12-17T17:48:00.002+01:00

Of course, like everybody else, I am an excellent driver.
And never make mistakes.
Well - hardly ever...

But, just occasionally, I might make a tiny slip.
Typically finding myself in the wrong lane in a strange town, for instance, at the sort of place where all the locals know that the right lane becomes a right-turn-only lane, but there is no advanced warning.

At times like that, it would be handy to be able to indicate, by body language, something like "Oops! Sorry! Excuse me!"
The nearest I can imagine is 2 palms up, but that can also be interpreted as "So what?" or "Who cares?" so is not a good choice.

Surprisingly, there does not seem to be any recognised gesture for "I'm sorry" anywhere.
Sad reflection on humanity!

Most reference articles concentrate on offensive & obscene gestures and after a bit of reading, I realize almost any gesture can get you into serious trouble somewhere or other in the world.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_gestures

So I won't improvise my own hand signals, but I really think it would be a small step forward for civilization if we could invent & publicise a sign for "Excuse me!"

Parting thot: "By such innovations are languages enriched, when the words are adopted by the multitude, and naturalized by custom." - Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra

Bramleys - Part 2

2010-12-16T18:46:00.004+01:00

Back in August, I mentioned the impossibility of finding "proper" cooking apples in France & reported finding a couple of potential sites for supplying Bramley Apple Trees, to grow my own.

In the meantime, I had long & constructive exchanges with both sites, and eventually ordered a container-grown plant from Orange Pippin (http://www.orangepippin.com/) in UK.
After several postponements, they informed me in October that their courrier service to France was having serious problems & they could no longer garantee delivery, so we agreed to cancel the order.

That only seemed to leave one possibility - getting a bare-roots plant from Mike Curtis's "English Nursery in France". (http://www.anenglishnurseryinfrance.com/)

I had hesitated about that option previously, in spite of Mike's helpful advice, because I thought the bare-roots shipping & planting process was more critical (less foolproof...) than using a container.
Still, with a choice of that or nothing, the decision was easy & the "tree" arrived, weighing next to nothing, but looking healthy, at the end of November.

That should have been ideal timing, but not this year, as we were just heading into a week or more of -8°C/-10°C nights.
This really has been the coldest & snowiest December in our 30 years here, but finally I found a warmish slot for planting & the Bramley is now bravely standing in the garden - in the snow...

How many years before our first apple pie?

Parting thot: "There's nothing better than a good friend, except a good friend with chocolate." - Linda Grayson

Park & Ride - Nancy

2010-08-20T22:43:00.006+02:00

Visiting Nancy (don't ask "Who?" - it's a "Where?" in nearby Meurthe et Moselle department)...
http://www.ot-nancy.fr/uk/centre_historique/index.php
Anyway, visiting Nancy this week, we decided to try their "Park & Ride" system.

Immediately positive first impressions include the location of the terminus right next to the A33 motorway by-pass (junction 2 - Brabois CHU).
Then the decent signposting.
And the very clean & well-lit indoor car park.
The very helpful cashier.
The 2.50€ which covers all-day covered parking & as many day-return fares as you have people in the car.
And the handy loos inside the parking area.
Unfortunately the loos were locked & the very helpful cashier spent at least 5 minutes testing every available key, without changing that.

Outside in the sun, we noticed that the trams ran every 6 minutes & were surprised to see only one rail instead of the usual 2...
As our tram arrived, we saw it was running on ordinary-looking rubber tyres on an ordinary-looking concrete road surface.
The single rail being just for guidance.

Whooshing off with electrical acceleration towards Nancy, we couldn't help noticing that the guiding rail wasn't there any more & that we were mixing it with cars, vans & buses.
On gradients surely too steep for metal-wheeled trams.
Then, a bit further into the city, there was a stop where no doors opened.
And after that we were back on the rails, well the rail, and feeling like a tram again, with a bit more sideways jiggling than before.

Intriguing!
You can imagine it being cheaper & more flexible than a normal tram.
Though you have to wonder if the driver ever forgets which bits he needs to steer in...
And wonder how they make sure (no - really sure) the guide wheel doesn't hop off if a stone blocks the groove it should be in...

But when you get home & start Googling, then the negatives start to show up.
It was not that cheap.
Soon after opening in 2000, it was closed for over a year, to sort out details like derailing, fishtailing, stability, legality, safety...
Built by Bombardier, there is another one in Caen which has similar worries.
There seems to be track laid for other lines in Nancy, but they are not (yet?) being used.
http://www.trams-in-france.net/reload.htm?nancy.htm
http://homepage.ntlworld.com/c.fuller1/Tvr.html
http://www.lightrailnow.org/features/f_ncy001.htm

Of course, we didn't really go to Nancy just for the tram.
With its 3 Michelin stars & UNESCO World Heritage Listing, we weren't disappointed by Stanislas Square or the Ducal Palace or the magnificent City Gates & Arcs-de-Triomphe.
I have seen more inspiring & elegant cathedrals though.
In addition to the ubiquitous white vans, there seemed to be an outbreak of scaffolding, so photography was a bit hindered.
Of course, that is better than letting things crumble, so no complaints.

Parting thot: "Researchers have discovered that chocolate produced some of the same reactions in the brain as marijuana. The researchers also discovered other similarities between the two, but can't remember what they are." - Anon.

Lingo - Over & Out

2010-08-09T22:19:00.011+02:00

I added a post about Numbers on the Lingo blog here.
And have made a start at organizing that blog.
So I will not mention Lingo again in Disconnected Jottings.
Or at least, not in any detail.

What has taken so long, and is till not fixed, is trying to include tables in a Blogger post.

I assumed I would just find a button somewhere, to set up any table I wanted, like in Word or any word-processor program.
But after a lot of looking - nothing.

Googling showed that many, many people are looking for a way to do this, but with no success.
The approved method is to write your own HTML...
Did you ever try that, especially for a table?
You would need to be very desperate.

Slightly simpler is to create your table in a Google Docs Spreadsheet.
Then "Share" > "Publish as a web page".
Then copy the little block of HTML which is generated.
Then paste that into the HTML bit of your blog.
That produces the strange result at the top of this post.

All the content of the table is present.
But in a window which is too wide.
And too short.
So you need to scroll to see it all. (OK - I might be able to fix that).
And there is a bold header you don't want.
And a lot of junk underneath.
Useless!

You can try to make your table in a Google Docs Document, instead of a Spreadsheet, then share/publish/HTML/copy/paste that.
Which produces this improved result:

Edit: Removed for technical reasons...

No header or trailing junk.
The width is OK.
Still too short, so still need to scroll.
And tables in Google Documents can only have 20 rows - not enough in my case.

Next, I investingated Word & noticed you can "Publish as a web page" from there too.
And it works in Internet Explorer.
But I couldn't get it into Blogger.
Even following suggestions to wade through the enormous (absolutely enormous) HTML file & copy/paste only the bits between the "table" markers.

I tried publishing from Excel, which worked, but introduced half a page of blank space & lost the table layout.

Trying to copy/paste a table directly from Word into the non-HTML bit of Blogger (where you copy/paste text) produced a lot of red warning notices about "Tag not allowed META", so I had to abandon that.
Likewise pasting from an OpenOffice Document.

Finally (I thought) I found a recommendation to:
Produce the table in Word.
Upload & convert it to a Google Docs Document (it produced more than 20 rows, as required).
Then copy/paste that to the non-HTML bit of Blogger.
And it worked perfectly!

Until I wanted to edit the post (nothing to do with the table).
Then all the text in the table disappeared.
It's still there & appears in negative if you select it with the mouse.
But you can't see it normally...
Any table pasted from a Google Docs Document (without Word) produces the same result.
Aaarrrggghhh!!!

Letter	Sound
	Like English	Not like
a	bat	art
b	bat
d	dot
e	bet	me - err
f	fit
g	got	gin
h	hit
i	hit	ire
j	job
k	kit
l	lit
m	mat
n	not
o	not	note
p	pat
r	rat
s	sat	is
t	tap
u	pull	gull
v	vat
w	wit
x	axe
y	yob	ivy
z	zap

So I am still looking for an easy method (without writing HTML) to insert a table neatly in Blogger.
I refuse to resort to a screenshot.

Parting thot: "The future will be better tomorrow." - Dan Quayle

Umweltzonen

2010-08-05T16:24:00.009+02:00

This summer, we are having trouble fitting our more-or-less-weekly day-tripping in between the showers & heatwaves.
But yesterday we popped down to Freiburg, which we have managed to miss for probably 20 years.

Opening our (1976) Michelin Guide to Germany was a salutary experience, as all the right-hand bit (except some of Berlin) was a white blank, like Antarctica.
It didn't actually say "Here be Dragons!" but nearly.
Europe has come a long way since we moved here.
The new Michelin we just bought is (naturally) twice as thick.

I was pretty sure I had seen something about Freiburg, which is remarkably ecology-conscious, introducing limited vehicle access & requiring special windscreen stickers to get in.
But I couldn't find anything about it on either the French or English versions of their Tourist sites.
http://www.freiburg.de/servlet/PB/menu/1140679_l3/index.html
http://www.freiburg.de/servlet/PB/menu/1140679_l2/index.html
nor by a lot of Googling.

So it was only half a surprise when, approaching Freiburg, we saw signs about Umwelt Zone & had to divert into & P+R car park.
Not a problem, as we usually do P+R anyway, when it's available.

Strasbourg has an excellent system, where you pay €3.10 which includes parking for all day plus return tram tickets valid for one hour out & one hour back – for everybody in the car.
Very satisfactory when we had an Espace-full.
And still good value for 2.

From Freiburg's P+R car park, we found the station & the big red ticket machine.
Surprised not to find any instructions in French or English, we struggled a bit with the German, as there were several zones & all sorts of tickets.
Expecting to select "2 cheap returns", we were again surprised that the cheap returns start at 4.
When you expect to find something, it takes you a long time to convince yourself you have not just misunderstood the foreign language…
Then surprised we could not select 2 singles – we had to go through the whole procedure for one ticket, then do it all again for the second.

Double-checking the map & the electronic arrivals board & the big label on the front of the tram, we got on the right tram & set off in the right direction.
But after only a minute or so, the tram stopped & we were surprised to see the driver leave & lock the cab and disappear!
Even more surprised when the tram set off in the other direction.
At the next stop, we got off (with a lot of puzzled-looking others), reconsulted the maps, the arrivals board, the sign on the tram, and tried again.
OK this time.

After that false start, Freiburg old town was extremely attractive & well worth a visit.
Google Freiburg – Images for a quick impression.
You get a plunging panoramic view from the Cathedral tower (over 200 steps & narrow for passing) & a broader one from the swaying tower on the Schlossberg.
Unique features include the little streams/drains/gullies along most of the streets, offering good paddling for kids of all ages.
Decorated cobble-stone pavements.
And the many hot-sausage stalls parked incongruously next to the cathedral…

Back home with the keyword "Umweltzone", I soon found plenty of information on them in Freiburg & elsewhere.
I even found there is a lot about them on Freiburg's Tourist-Office Website – but only the German-language one, as far as I can see.

The clearest English site is for Berlin:
http://www.berlin.de/sen/umwelt/luftqualitaet/de/luftreinhalteplan/download/touristeninfo_en.pdf
And they have a very good site where I managed to buy stickers for 2 French cars, in English, for only €6 each, including postage.
https://www.berlin.de/labo/kfz/dienstleistungen/feinstaubplakette.shop.en.php

So we should be better prepared next time.

Parting thot: "A vacation is having nothing to do and all day to do it in." - Robert Orben

Lingo 3 – Alphabet & Pronunciation

2010-08-04T09:18:00.001+02:00

As this subject could get out of proportion for the Disconnected Jottings Blog, I will shift it to a blog of its own. Here
But that blog is empty as I write this.

In the meantime, this post suggests an Alphabet & Pronunciation for a proposed "learn it all in half a day" universal language.

Firstly, an alphabet.
Pictograms, as used in Chinese & Japanese, have some advantages, can be recognised & read more quickly by trained users, take up less space, etc.
They have 3 overwhelming disadvantages though:
They offer no clue to pronunciation.
You need to learn several thousand.
They can't be used on popular western keyboards.
I think that rules them out for an easy-to-learn language.

Syllabic representation, such as Japanese Hiragana & Katakana deal with the pronunciation problem, but require learning over 50 symbols, unfamiliar to 95% of the world's population.
And need a special keyboard.

So a conventional western alphabet seems the simplest solution.
But selected so that each symbol represents one & only one sound. (unlike: calorie/celery, gin/gun, icicle, bet/beet…)
And each sound is represented by one & only one symbol. (unlike: cake, space, beet/beat, physics/fizz …)
And no sound is represented by a combination of letters which does not logically produce that sound. (qu, th, ch, sh, ph…)
For simplicity & keyboard-friendliness, I would avoid accents and also symbols which are only found in a limited number of languages.
Actually, that is one of the problems with Esperanto, invented before keyboards…

So, I end up with the following 24 letters (& corresponding sounds from English in brackets):
a(bat) – b(bat) – d(dot) – e(bet) – f(fit) – g(got) – h(hit) – i(hit) – j(job) – k(kit) – l(lit) – m(mat) – n(not) – o(dot) – p(pat) – r(rat) – s(sat) – t(tap) – u(pull not gull) – v(vat) – w(wit) – x(axe) – y(yob not many) – z(zap).

Eliminating (from a qwerty keyboard): c & q

I have lost these extremely common sounds:
u(cup) – e(err) – th(thin) – th(this) – ch(chat)
Which is a pity, but trying to get them back would introduce complications I don't want.

Pursuing radical simplicity, I propose to do without capital letters.
Current users of western alphabets will find that excessive.
My doubts started when I came across Japanese Hiragana & Katakana.
2 completely different sets of symbols, to represent the same set of sounds.
And you need to learn both to cope with any text including traditional & imported words.
I thought that was obviously an extravagance.
Then I looked at western capital & lower-case letters & realized that there too were 2 sets of almost-entirely different symbols representing the same sounds.
If capital letters had been just bigger copies of small-case, that would have been OK.
So, to speed up learning by non-westerners (though I admit that almost everybody recognises these letters now) I want to do without capitals.
I am encouraged by the fact that more & more kids, these days, have stopped using capitals, because they are too lazy to do the keyboard shifting which it requires.
I admit it makes blocks of text less easy to split into sentences.
I could still change my mind on this one.

The end result is that you can pronounce any word you see printed & you can write any word you hear.

Parting thot: "Teaching should be such that what is offered is perceived as a valuable gift and not as a hard duty." – Albert Einstein

Cam Belts

2010-08-03T10:20:00.000+02:00

One of the silliest things the motor industry ever did, if you exclude customer-driven stuff like external sun visors & over-wide tyres, was to introduce belt drive for camshafts.

Previously, camshafts were driven by chains.
I don't think I have ever heard of a camshaft chain failing.

Starting slowly in the '60s, more & more manufacturers were attracted to internally-toothed rubber belts, instead of chains, to drive their camshafts.
Potential advantages included cost, weight, noise, packaging & sealing, though these advantages were not always realized.

The disadvantage is that rubber belts have a finite life.
And the finite life depends heavily on operating conditions, notably hot & cold temperatures, contamination by oil/dust/mud/stones, unscheduled overloads, long periods of non-use, etc.
And belt failure is always serious, usually very expensive & potentially fatal.
As a minimum, the car suddenly stops, which can be less than funny in the fast lane of a busy highway, or in Siberia or Death Valley.
Usually, the engine is severely damaged or destroyed, as pistons & valves crash.
See heading picture, from: http://www.robertsautorepair.com/faq.html
With older cars, that means not worth repairing.
A few engines have been designed so that cam belts can fail without pistons hitting valves, so a new belt can be fitted with no other costs, but that requires design compromises which are expensive or impossible with today's emissions legislation.

In view of the serious consequences, and after numerous court cases, manufacturers have had to recommend belt changes at intervals which should avoid any failures.
But because belt life is so heavily dependant on so many factors & hence so variable, the change interval is a sorry compromise.
Often 5 years or 60,000km, but sometimes 10 years or 240,000km.
Frequent enough to be a significant maintenance cost for most owners.
And a waste in 99% of cases.
Still allowing a (very, very small) number of motorists to suffer a failure inside that period.
And reserving nasty surprises for the forgetful or uninformed.
http://www.auto-museum.net/thread/4453-1.html
http://www.honestjohn.co.uk/forum/post/index.htm?t=7920

I think there is now a move back to chains.
There should be.

Parting thot: "The only reason for time is so that everything doesn't happen at once." – Albert Einstein

Lingo 2 – Verbs

2010-08-02T10:22:00.000+02:00

As I said here, I think there is room for a radically simple universal second language, whose main characteristic would be that you could learn all of it (except vocabulary) in half a day.

This post aims to cover verbs in such a language.

The heading picture, from http://conjd.cactus2000.de/index.en.php, shows a conjugation table for one German verb, not even a difficult one.
How long before you could use that at normal talking speed?
For a bit more detail, you could try this. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/German_verbs
I think we can do better than that – or at least do something simpler & quicker to learn & be able to use.

Say our new language has a verb 'hit'.
You can guess what it means.
This one invariable word - & I want to stress that absolutely ALL words should be invariable – will be the infinitive.

It will also be the present tense, for any & every subject.
I/he/she/we/you/they/anybody hit.

I didn't mention the invariable word order: subject-verb-object.

To make a past tense, just add the invariable word 'did' after the infinitive.
I hit did.
She hit did.
Etc.

Note that, in general, all qualifying words should come after what they qualify, unlike in English.

To make a future tense, add the invariable word 'wil' after the infinitive.
I hit wil.
You hit wil.

Conditional?
Add 'wud'.
I hit wud.

Passive?
Add 'get'.
You hit get.

Combinations of passive & others are possible & obvious.
He hit get did.
You hit get wil.

Most languages have lots of additional tenses & moods.
Subjunctives, imperfects, continuous…
See the Wikipedia German link above.
They certainly add possibilities for subtlety & refinement.
I think a basic language can & should manage without.
In the interest of simplicity, above all.

So, in summary:
To learn any verb, you just learn one word, which stays invariable.

For every verb:
Future – add 'wil'.
Past – add 'did'.
Conditional – add 'wud'.
Passive – add 'get'.

That's it.
You know everything about every verb.

Parting thot: "It is better to talk with each other than about each other." – Angela Merkel

Wot, no Bramleys?

2010-08-01T14:16:00.004+02:00

Picture from: http://www.bramleyapples.co.uk/index.html

Unlike many expats, we are not constantly yearning for stuff from 'home'.

I can easily manage without Marmite, Jelly, Horlicks or Dairy Milk.
And we can find un-French favorites like Worcester Sauce, Custard Powder or Salad Cream, in speciality shops & increasingly even in hypermarkets.

But one thing still eludes us.
Good cooking apples.

Of course, the French cook with apples.
Apple tarts are common & at least look delicious.
But the apples usually stay as firm slices & are only moderately tasty.
Nothing like a good mushy, tangy Bramley Apple Pie!

We never found a Bramley in a shop.
Nor anything remotely similar.
We have some in the freezer.
Personal imports from UK – DS has an international record for importing apples…
So we can still treat ourselves, but need to ration it.

I have occasionally wondered if I could grow my own, but vaguely assumed that if there are none, that probably means they are not well adapted.
But I found a couple of sites suggesting they can ship young trees to France & have asked their expert opinion.
http://www.orangepippinshop.com/product.aspx?productid=10014
http://infosheet.angloinfo.com/anenglishnurseryinfrance/

Now waiting for more info.

Parting thot: "Even if I knew that tomorrow the world would go to pieces, I would still plant my apple tree." – Martin Luther

Lingo 1

2010-07-31T09:24:00.000+02:00

In spite of the way I deliberately misuse language in this blog (incomplete phrases a so on - see here:) I do have a reasonable proficiency in English.

After 30 years' immersion in French, I can manage OK, but it is still instantly obvious to everybody that I am a foreigner.

At various times, I have attempted to learn a bit of Latin, German, Italian, Japanese, Esperanto and, most recently, Alsatian.
In none of those have I achieved more than about 5% competence.

Every time I study a language, I am struck by two things:
1. The way every language is weighed down by its own pointless complications & irregularities.
2. The surprising absence, from each language, of some elements which other languages seem to consider essential.

A quick example of both is plural forms.
English, like most other languages, has a plural form of most nouns.
Sometimes simple (cat/cats), sometimes less simple (potato/potatoes, lady/ladies, half/halves, oasis/oases) but often irregular (child/children, man/men, foot/feet, mouse/mice…).
It would be a lot easier if at least they were all regular.
Yet Japanese manages perfectly well without plural forms at all.
And so does English, when it wants to (sheep/sheep, fish/fish etc).
Did you ever have the slightest problem in transmitting or receiving any information about any quantity of fish or sheep, from none to millions?
Nor me!
Plural forms are a waste of everybody's time & effort.
Easily enough absorbed in early childhood, they are persistent stumbling blocks for adult learners.

Then there is Gender & Agreement.
The only way I managed to start actually talking in French at all was to deliberately ignore gender & put up with the mockery.
Otherwise I would have needed to stop & check every other word in a dictionary before using it.
And French only has 2 genders, where German & Alsatian have three...
Only by a lifetime's immersion could I possibly master the table of German genders & agreements well enough to use it faultlessly at talking speed.
You need to consider 16 possibilities every time:
Masculine/Feminine/Neutral/Plural x Nominative/Accusative/Dative/Genitive.
http://www.germanlinx.vic.edu.au/pdf/derdiedas-table.pdf
And to think it is pretty much pointless…
English manages OK without genders & agreement at all.

Another little example is pronouns which, even in English, mostly adopt accusative forms:
I/he/she/we/you/they hit me/him/her/you/them.
Having "you" as both nominative & accusative never caused anybody a problem, so why complicate all the others?

Fundamentally, languages are being used for two, often conflicting, missions.
1. Transmitting historical, cultural & regional values & information.
2. Communicating as widely as possible.

The cultural part requires that all the peculiarities, of as many local languages & dialects as possible, should be maintained & learned by local youngsters.
The communicating part would be better handled by a single, universal, language.

Seen from here & now, that seems most likely to be English.
Seen from elsewhere, it could well be Spanish or Chinese.
If any existing language becomes "universal", it will cause significant & justified jealousy & resentment among native-speakers of all the other languages, who will be at a disadvantage.
Indeed, the jealousy & resentment are more than likely to prevent any existing language ever becoming universal.

Which is where Esperanto comes in.
Designed.
Where all other languages evolved & accumulated.
Without irregularities.
It has to be hundreds of times faster to learn than any other language.
A wonderful effort.
But it has not developed any significant usage yet & seems unlikely to do so now.
Why not?
1. Came too early, before there was globalization to make it necessary & internet to make it popular?
2. Still unnecessarily complicated?
3. Just not promoted well enough?

I think there is room for a radically simpler language.
Which would aim to become a universal second language due to its utter simplicity.
One where anybody could learn absolutely all the grammar, with absolutely no irregularities, in half a day.
Leaving half a day to learn some basic vocabulary.
So in one day, we could all communicate…

Further details in part 2.

Parting thot: "Language is the means of getting an idea from my brain into yours without surgery." - Mark Amidon

Disney Rash

2010-07-30T17:19:00.000+02:00

I already mentioned that we do a lot of walking.

Apart from general touristy stuff, where we might typically wander gently for 6-7 hours in a day, we regularly indulge in organized hikes of 15-20km with a fair bit of up & down.

In the last couple of years, I have started to notice a sort of rash on my legs, after a lot of walking.
It looks like tiny blood vessels have burst under the skin.
No swelling, pain, irritation – just looks ugly.
Hardly visible immediately after walking, it peaks the next morning (I never checked during the night…) & then fades from red to brown to freckles within 3-4 days, leaving a faint brown coloration long-term.
It depends mainly on the length of time walking/standing & to some extent maybe on temperature & degree of exertion.
Not at all on clothing: trousers/shorts; boots/shoes/sandals/bare-feet; socks/no.
Nor on terrain (brushing through grass, as I first imagined) or insects (midges or sand-hoppers, as somebody suggested).

I showed it to my doctor, who did blood tests to eliminate diabetes & other nasty possibles, then said it was just one of lifes little trials I should get used to…
I prefer his approach, rather than being dosed with medicines I can do without!

Recently, we had a walking weekend in Austria with a bus-load (44) from our hiking group.
On the morning of the second day, after a hot 20km the first day, at least 10 of the 44 had my red rash – some quite a bit worse than me.
One or two said they got it regularly & for others they had never noticed it before.
Nobody had any explanation or cure.

I spent a long time Googling & eliminating lots of not-quite similar things, before concluding that it is a very common condition.
Known as "Disney Rash" or "Golfers Vasculitis".
Googling those will tell you as much as I know.
Still no real explanation or cure though.

Parting thot: "It is the chiefest point of happiness that a man is willing to be what he is." - Erasmus

Hub Gear Update

2010-07-29T16:46:00.000+02:00

I noted last year, here:
"I suppose I have to wait until, inevitably, Shimano brings out a smaller, lighter 9 or 10-speed competitor and actually gets it into bikes in shops.
Hope I am not too old to enjoy it then."

Well, things seem to be progressing further & faster than expected.
Although I only noticed it recently, there was a flurry of information on internet around 2 Feb 2010, about Shimano's future 11-speed Alfine hub.

Gears - 11
Total range - 4.09:1
Weight - 1.6kg (less than their 8-speed)
Cost – maybe £350?
Release date – September 2010?

http://road.cc/content/news/13981-shimano-alfine-11-speed-hub-car-park-test
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7wuXoD9db04
http://hubstripping.wordpress.com/2010/02/03/11-speed-alfine-hub-from-shimano/
I borrowed the heading picture from Hubstripping – Thanks!

Sounds good.
In fact, apart from the £350, it sounds almost perfect!
The proposed trigger operation may be a bit slower than a twistgrip for clicking back down from 11 to 1 for a restart?

By the way – did you see that bit of the Tour de France, where Yellow Jersey missed his derailleur gearchange & his chain came off?
Ho! Ho! Ho!
None of the commentators said anything about needing hub gears though…
They seemed to think the others should have stopped & waited while he put his chain back on.

Parting thot: "Insanity: doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results." - Albert Einstein

Never on a Tuesday

2010-07-28T13:36:00.018+02:00

Yesterday, we were in Lorraine.
Voluntarily.

While there, we visited the remarkable new Centre Pompidou in Metz.

But only from the outside, as it is closed on Tuesdays…

Apparently common (but not universal) for French museums.
Took us over 30 years to notice!

Within spitting distance (pardon the expression) of Pompidou are the splendid, extravagant, buildings of Metz's Main Station & Post Office.
Relics of a previous German period, where the obvious intention was to leave monuments as outstanding & durable as the Pyramids.

Like Alsace's Haute Koenigsbourg.

Main problem (not solved) was how to get far enough back to get the whole building on a photograph – even with a 25mm wide-angle lens.
Then there was the usual white van problem, though in the case of the station it was more buses & coaches.

One piece of advice to Metz: If some facy architect tries to blister-pack your station – have a look at Strasbourg's first.

To be honest, Metz was a pleasant surprise, with its yellow stone buildings, notably, but not only, the Cathedral.
And many excellent public gardens & open spaces (mostly being worked on yesterday…).
And attractive riverside arrangements.

Well worth a visit.
But avoid Tuesday.

Parting thot: "Not many folks spend a lot of time trying to be excellent." – Barak Obama

Open Jars

2010-07-27T20:59:00.000+02:00

Over the years, we have acquired a number of tools for opening screw-top jars.
Including the 4 shown here, which are currently in the kitchen drawer.

The complicated-looking one with white handles will always open a lid, but will always damage the lid in so doing.
The green-handled one can open lids if used with care, but will also always damage the lid & can even break the jar if set to the wrong notch.
The Zyliss job is really for smaller bottle tops & is not terribly good at that.
These days, we always go for the Baby Boa strap wrench, which works unfailingly & never damages anything.
But it is fiddly to use as the rubber strap keeps falling out of its wavy slot.

All of the above have the common disadvantage of needing a co-pilot to hold the jar while the chief pilot operates the tool.
Very frustrating on the seemingly-frequent occasions when I desperately need a shot of black cherry jam while DS is out shopping, dancing, learning Spanish etc etc etc.
This has led me to tricky escapades with my Black & Decker WorkMate or dangerous Lotus-like contortions wearing rubber-soled shoes on inadequately-prehensile feet.
So now I have a second Baby Boa (theoretically for the garage) which can be pressed into service as jar-holder in emergencies.
Of course it is even more difficult to keep 2 straps in their wavy grooves than one strap, but when the reward is a jam sandwich, I get there in the end.
Like this guy: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OYZnsO2ZgWo

There has to be a better way & of course there is.

I remember seeing, years ago, a metal wedge-shaped device with one high-friction rubber surface.
This could be fixed under, say a convenient shelf and then you only have to push the lid into the wedge & twist the jar, when the lid should be gripped in the wedge, allowing it to be unscrewed easily.
By one person, or even with one hand.

It took a lot of Googling, but I eventually found the Undo It Jar & Bottle Opener on a couple of sites for the disabled:
http://www.activemobility.co.uk/shop/undoit-jar-bottle-opener-p-328.html
http://www.yooralla.com.au/DVAWEB/AH07-0002_1.htm
I like the look of it, except:
It only handles lids up to 3 inches, which is not enough.
I think the curled-over edge on the low-friction side might be a nuisance on some jars?
It costs £16 (plus postage).

Better, I found the Westmark 6-in-1 Opener available in France for €6.90 (+€5 p&p…) or in Germany for €3.95 (+?? P&p) here:
http://www.amazon.fr/gp/product/B000FDXBMQ/ref=olp_product_details?ie=UTF8&me=&seller= http://www.kuecheundhaushalt.de/Westmark-589981-WST1077.html
Supposedly handles lids up to 85mm which could be just enough, maybe.
But not designed to be under-shelf mounted!
How could they have missed that?
If I can find one near €3.95 then I will drill & couple of holes & give it a go.

Otherwise, there is the is the Magic Twist Jar Opener here:
http://www.canopeners.biz/magictwistjaropener-p-5292.html
That looks like a nice job & should work for all our jars.
But it's $32 (+ p&p, if available from USA).
And only stuck on with sticky tape.
And seems to be all-plastic, so maybe not very robust?
And why complicate it to cope with tightening as well as unscrewing?
Who needs that?

Or the Old Fashioned Jar Opener in solid pine (looks like plywood, so much the better) here:
http://cakesbymargaret.com/WTEZ.net%20Page/allevercrafts1.html
Only $6 (+ p&p…)
Simple & robust, not to mention ecological.
Can't see what they use for the high-friction surface.
Hope the plain wood low-friction surface will not wear/bruise/compress…

Plus a number of similar devices, but with metal teeth instead of a smooth high-friction surface, so bound to damage lids.

In the meantime (while waiting to find, say, a Westmark at a good price, including p&p if not in a shop) I have tried making my own Old Fashioned Jar Opener.

This is the MkII prototype, which now functions admirably. (Don't ask about MkI…)

It is assembled from odds & ends from junk boxes (future blog subject?) which may explain/excuse the walnut veneer (old picture frame) & the mock-leather grain (old record-player box).
Less noticeable, maybe, are the stainless-steel low-friction face (old curtail rail) & the hard rubber high-friction face (old ski-stick wrist-strap). The fact that it is MkII may help to explain, but can't excuse, the poor design of the attachment of the rubber strap to its bit of picture frame.
If/when it fails or I feel like making MkIII then I will do that bit properly, wrapping the strap round well-radiused corners & shifting the screws out of the stressed area.

As I said, it works perfectly, so far.
At least with the designer operating it.
How many subsequent disasters have passed that point only too well?
Before crowing too loudly, of course, it would be necessary to get it tested by a panel of adolescents & old grannies.
The grannies, to see if it works; the ado's, to see if it breaks.
I tell myself the appearance does not matter as it is screwed under a shelf in the pantry.

Parting thot:"The main thing is to keep the main thing the main thing." – Steven Covey

West Coast Trip

2010-07-26T10:29:00.008+02:00

Well, we really enjoyed our trip to California (& Nevada & Arizona).

Strongest impression was how friendly & helpful all the Americans seemed to be.
Of course I had worked with Americans for 40 years & visited (Michigan) dozens of times, so it was a surprise to find them so nice this time.
Everybody we bumped into seemed chatty & cheerful & looking for ways to help.
Even – big surprise – the Customs & Immigration People!
Thanks Guys!
First impressions are important & you gave us a great first impression.
Even after your nice little dog found the apples in DS's bag…
Whenever we got a map out, somebody would ask if we needed directions.
In any shop or restaurant, people bent over backwards to help.
Back in Europe, everybody seems glum & uncommunicative now.

Then I was reminded how sensible U.S. driving habits are - cruise control, stick in any lane, overtake either side, turn right on red lights, respect speed limits (mostly) - it all just works easily & smoothly.
Not quite as convinced about the 4-way-stops; they work safely, but waste a lot of time & energy.
Never saw anybody zip through one though.
And better than Priorité à Droite!

Worst surprise was the weather.
I had read that San Francisco could still be cool & foggy in April, but I was not expecting to spend 2 weeks at 10-15°C with a lot of wind & cloud & a little rain.
We did see some surfers, but all in wet-suits.
Nobody sunbathing or bathing.

Another niggle was prices.
Everything was cheap for us at then Euro rates, but you had to remember that the prices did not include taxes, so the actual bill was always more than expected.
Then, in restaurants, service is not included.
Paying by credit card, you get presented with a chitty showing the fixed total, but with space for you to add a tip & the new total.
Often, they pre-calculate the tip corresponding with 12% 15% 18% & maybe 20% for your guidance.
No escape!
I do have to admit that this system is probably responsible for the conspicuously good service we found in every restaurant...

Of course the Grand Canyon was magnificent, as we knew it would be, but knowing & seeing are 2 different things.
We were lucky there with the weather in terms of sunlight & visibility, where it mattered most.
There was still snow in the shady bits & the north side was not open to the public yet after the winter.
We did not go down inside, just seeing it from the rim (plenty good enough) & from flying over it (bonus).
We did finally get our flight in a little Cessna ("everybody gets a window seat") instead of in the bigger plane they are using mostly now - a long story with 31 e-mails & several hard discussions!

More surprising was Death Valley.
I expected it to be hot & non-descript.
Certainly it was hot (only 37°C though) but far from non-descript.
The view from Zabriskie Point was amazing - hard to believe it was natural & not some Disney or Las Vegas artifact.
The sharply-folded surfaces with brightly-coloured stripes was unlike anything I have ever seen.
Then there was the dry salt beds & the surrounding snow-capped mountains.
And even some vegetation.

We really liked San Francisco.
We planned to spend 2 nights there, ended up spending 4 nights & could happily spend a couple of weeks.
One good thing is the complete & varied public transport network.
We got a 3-day pass for $20 each & certainly had our money's worth, using the famous cable cars, trams, trolley-buses, ordinary buses & even a subway train which popped out to become a sort of surface tram.
The cable-cars were the most fun, especially hanging on the outside.
I suppose they will have an accident some time, either scraping people off the outside or a car careering off down the very steep hills, and will have to stop the whole thing, but amazingly it has all been working for a century now without too much bother.
The drivers seem to have to do a lot of he-man stuff with the big brass levers & pedals - I would hate to see a DFMA of it all.
Especially where cables cross!
We did not need to drive much in San Francisco, but were glad to have an automatic with all the stops & starts on the very steep hills.
We started off with a tour on an open-top bus (not included in the $20) which gave us a quick, if very draughty, over-view & included crossing the Golden Gate bridge.
That was a hop-on/hop-off service, so we could stop where we wanted, then catch the next bus 15min later.
We decided to hop off at the visitor area at the Golden Gate, mainly to grab a coffee & a cake, but were surprised to find that there were absolutely no refreshments available.
That was something we found again & again, not just in SF, that there were no refreshments to be found in places which were just obvious refreshment spots!
On the other hand, there were always lots of free loos, nearly always with working hot & cold water, soap & towels, and never any sign of vandalism.
And almost no litter - for a society which generates huge quantities of packaging waste, that is impressive.
Maybe the frequent warning signs about $1000 fines for littering help?

The real reason, or excuse, for our trip, was a nephew's wedding.
To be held on the beach in Santa Barbara!
They did manage to have the wedding on the beach, in a very strong cold wind, just before a torrential downpour which lasted for 6 hours.
Felt quite sorry for the bride & even more so for the bridesmaid, in skimpy dresses & with hair-do's undone.
Not to mention the groom in kilt...

Santa Barbara was a very pleasant place too.
Not at all the stereotype US town.
Lots of pedestrians & cyclists & joggers & dog-walkers (all picking up after their pets).
The palm trees & luxurious vegetation help too.
And the pelicans & seals (Didn't see any whales though).
And the beaches (not much used in April).
Very successful & attractive low-rise spanish-inspired architecture.
Lots of beautiful houses, many with wonderful situations on cliff-tops with ocean views.
Though the ocean views here include lots of off-shore oil rigs...maybe not for much longer?

We had 2 overnight stops in Las Vegas (on our way to & from Grand Canyon - no real alternative route).
OK - it's worth seeing once, but not my sort of place.
You have to be impressed by the sheer scale of some of the casino developments, particularly the Venetian & Paris ones.
And they were a bit less plasticky than I expected, but still ridiculous!
The best bit about LV was the cheapest motel prices we found anywhere - around $38 for rooms for 4.
That wouldn't be enough to lure me back though.

After Death Valley, we would have liked to cross through Yosemite National Park, but were warned the passes would probably be closed until well into May and so it turned out to be.
So we headed north via Mono Lake (wierd fossil stalagmites) & Lake Tahoe (big winter sports area & all-year tourist resort) but did not stay long & decided to spend more time in S-F.

After S-F, we drove all down the coast road (US 1) to L-A, expecting this to be a high spot of the trip.
Judged against those expectations, it turned out to be a slight disappointment, if only because the weather was cold, damp & windy, where you automatically assume warm & sunny.
Also, there are surprisingly few "places" there, where you might imagine a string of mediteranean-style ports & villages.
The first "place" after S-F is Santa Cruz, which turned out to be a sort of tawdry Blackpool/Southend & not worth a visit (or maybe we just missed the worthwhile bits?).
Then Monterey/Carmel, which was actually the only spot on that coast which matched our preconceptions.
Monterey is a busy, touristy port & Carmel is a very pretty, if too-exclusive, village, with no lamp-posts or big signs.
Carmel even charges you ($10?) to be able to drive through their exclusive residential/scenic district ("17 mile drive")!
Then follows hundreds of miles of (attractive enough) coastal road, between hills, cliffs, rocky & sandy beaches and cold, rough Pacific.
Must try it again in better weather...
Went through the fabled Big Sur without really noticing it.

Deliberately skipped Santa Barbara on the way back, with the intention of spending our last night in exotic Malibu.
I had pre-booked the critical motels (Santa Barbara & Grand Canyon) from France, but intended to book the rest by internet (phone wifi) only the day ahead, for best flexibility (& price).
That worked OK for L-V but by then we saw that there were plenty of motels everywhere & we prefered to choose at the last minute - paying a bit more, but being able see what we were getting.
That had proved a bit stressful when we got to S-F & drove around for a long time before finding a motel, but luckily we found a good one in an excellent position.
It all went wrong in Monterey.
We drove all along the sea shore road without seeing a single motel or hotel or even a MacDonalds where we could have used wifi internet.
Now I am back home with easy internet, I can see that in fact there are no motels on the coast road.
They are all on US101 which is 10 miles inland!
Wierd!
Anyway, we ploughed on into Santa Monica & again drove all along the (long) sea front, then back along the next road back, then up & down several main-looking perpendicular roads, again without finding a single motel (or MacDonalds or Starbucks for wifi).
After a long time, we found a dingy-looking motel, but the room was even dingier than the office, so I rejected that.
Fairly soon after, we saw another one & that seemed comparatively acceptable, so we spent our last night there - not at all the glamorous beach-side last night I had imagined.
Bah!

We did not actually do anything in Los Angeles, either on arrival or on departure.
On arrival (very tired) we were surprised how extensive & overcrowded it all seemed.
We were stuck in 6-lane traffic jams for ages & for over 50 miles.
On departure day, we initially thought we had lots of time to see Hollywood, Sunset Boulevard etc, but found navigation difficult without a good map.
Then we had a hard job finding a shop for a map (& gave up).
Then we started to find ourselves in traffic jams & began to wonder if we might have trouble getting back to the airport in time, so just gave up on L-A.
With no great regrets - it is really too big & too crowded to love.

What did I forget?
Close encounters with Elk(s?) at Grand Canyon - right outside the motel room.
And with very-tame Squirrels & not-so-tame Chipmunks.
And prairie dogs, only seen from the car.
And pelicans - not at all the ungainly things seen in photos, but graceful formation-flyers.
Seals/Sea-lions/Sea-elephants squatting whole beaches all down the coast & their own pier (39) at S-F.
All sorts of beautiful trees, including the Lone Cypress at Carmel & Redwoods in Muir Woods Park.
Palm trees & cactus & Joshua trees & masses of wild flowers.
The long, long climbing road out of Death Valley, starting 282ft below sea level, with reminder signs at 2000ft above, then 3000, 4000, 5000, 6000, 7000, 8000ft, by which time you are surrounded by snow.
With signs warning you to turn off air-conditioning for the next 20 miles, to avoid overheating the engine.
A lot of down-&-outs, even in posh areas.
Positive beggars, laying out towels with target cups for people to toss coins into from Santa Barbara pier.
Good fish & chips!
Chips with the skin left on.
More different sorts of bread & coffee than we could understand.
But hardly any decent coffee...

Reading through this, it sounds as though there were maybe more negatives than positives, which is not at all the case.
We came back with a much better impression of America & the Americans than we had before the trip.
April is maybe just not the best time for seaside holidays!

Oh, yes – we were there at the time of the icelandic volcano erruption.
What probably seemed a matter of idle curiosity to casual TV watchers, took on a completely different aspect for people marooned the wrong side of an ocean, with talk of it lasting for months or years…

Parting thot: "If you come home as happy as you leave, you have had a good vacation." – anon.

Direct Debit – French Style

2010-07-25T10:02:00.003+02:00

Here in France, we have a very common method for paying recurrent bills, called "Prélèvement Automatique".

It is similar to other Direct Debit arrangements, in that you sign a couple of forms which then allow supposedly reputable organisations to dig freely into your bank account for whatever amounts they like.
I have used it for years to pay all our bills for Income Tax, Property Tax, Land Tax, Dust-bin Tax, Electricity, Water, Car Insurance, Health Insurance & even, against my better judgement, Internet/Telephone Services.
It has always worked perfectly – the correct amounts being debited at the right moment in every case.

But I have been aware, from forums & consumer magazines & newspaper correspondents, that a very large number of people have considerable difficulties, especially with Internet & Telephone Service Providers.
The problem is that once you have signed papers for a Prélèvement Automatique, you can't switch it off!

I will repeat that, in case it is not clear: You sign a paper to allow somebody to dig unlimited amounts out of your bank account, then you cannot stop it.

If you find yourself in conflict with (typically) an I.S.P. then the proper way of stopping them helping themselves to your cash, is to send them a registered letter asking them to please stop!
Imagine their reaction…

When I switched Health Insurance recently, I noticed the old company made a debit after the end of their time (I later found it was legitimate) so I asked the bank how to turn that P.A. off.
I have Internet Banking & can do almost anything on-line, including keeping track of P.A's, so I expected to be able to control my P.A's from that site too.
The bank replied that it was impossible for them to turn off a P.A.
The only possibility was a temporary opposition at €20.
I know this is true, but still find it hard to believe!

Looking at how things work elsewhere, I found encouraging information on UK & Australian Ombudsman sites:
http://www.financial-ombudsman.org.uk/publications/ombudsman-news/27/27-directdebit-guarantee.htm
"Customers can cancel a direct debit at any time by writing to their bank or building society."

I particularly like the clear commitment in the Australian Code of Banking Practice:
http://fos.org.au/centric/home_page/resolving_disputes/more_information_for_consumers/cancelling_direct_debit_authorities.jsp
http://www.bankers.asn.au/ArticleDocuments/20040603_FINAL_CODE_MODIFIED_PDF.pdf
"19 Direct debits
19.1 We will take and promptly process your:
(a) instruction to cancel a direct debit request relevant to a banking service we provide to you; and
(b) complaint that a direct debit was unauthorised or otherwise irregular,
and will not direct or suggest that you should first raise any such request or complaint directly with the debit user (but we may suggest that you also contact the debit user)."
So I was beginning to think I could start to agitate with French & European banking/political authorities to drag France into line with "civilized" countries.

Then I discovered SEPA.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Single_Euro_Payments_Area
Cutting a long story short, SEPA is introducing common payment systems to 32 countries, including Euro Zone & UK & Switzerland.
Sounds good.
A lot of it is working well already.
Just the new Direct Debit part is running late.

And as far as I can see, that part is based on the French system, not the UK system.

In all my digging, I see no mention of the paying customer being able to just tell his bank to switch off the payments.
http://ec.europa.eu/internal_market/payments/docs/sepa/conf-westerhaus_en.pdf
https://www.ebaportal.eu/_Download/2006-00397_Debit_Transfers.pdf
Supposedly, you can always get a "no questions asked" refund from your bank, at least for a couple of months after any suspect payment.

If I designed a potentially damaging machine without an on/off switch, I would expect to be severely reprimanded & prevented from doing it again.
Do financial organisations not work like that?
I hope I have simply misunderstood the information I read, but I don't think so.

Parting thot: "Bank failures are caused by depositors who don't deposit enough money to cover losses due to mismanagement." – Dan Quayle

Mystery Photo

2010-07-24T11:14:00.004+02:00

In fact, this is the answer to the question posed here.

How, when cycling, to wear a small rucksack in front rather than behind you.

The advantages include: better balance, less sweating, protection from cold wind, instant access to pockets without removing bag & even without stopping, visual check of fastenings, etc.
The only problem was that the straps tended to slip off my shoulders, mainly on bumpy going (frequent) & especially if wearing a nylon top (rare).

The answer is a packet of self-adhesive silcone rubber pads, very cheap from a local hardware store.
Fixed to a handy adjustable handle on the shoulder straps, they comfortably provide so much friction that the straps never slip.

The only remaining (& insoluble) problem is the strange looks from those who don't understand the logic (everybody…).
Compounded when riding the Brompton Flying Black Banana.
Definitely not for the image-conscious!

Parting thot: "Believe nothing, no matter where you read it, or who said it, no matter if I have said it, unless it agrees with your own reason and your own common sense." - Budha

Everybody Did Get a Window Seat

2010-05-09T18:01:00.008+02:00

In a previous post I described the tribulations of trying to pin down Air Grand Canyon, particularly on which aircraft it planned to use after we had booked specifically for a Grand Canyon flight in a single-engined Cessna where "everybody gets a window seat".

Sure enough, on arrival at Tusayan airport for confirmation, the day before the planned flight, we found ourselves at the counter of Grand Canyon Airlines (check that…) who announced that our flight would be in one of their Twin Otters, which have a fair number of non-window seats.
The charming receptionist did say she would guarantee us all window seats, but said the Cessnas were not available.

Arriving early the next morning, the story was the same, but I noticed a guy behind the desk with a name badge I recognised from my e-mail marathon, so asked him for an explanation.
No real explanation, except that AGC had been taken over by GCA & they hadn't yet sorted out the website & phones…
But he did manage to organise a Cessna & 2 pilots, and we did have an excellent ride with super views of the Canyon.

A fully satisfactory outcome after a totally unsatisfactory lead-in.

At his request, I sent him copies of the 31 e-mails charting my attempts to contact AGC & he promised to tidy things up rapidly.
For other customers' sakes, I hope he does.

Parting thot: "Losers quit when they're tired. Winners quit when they've won." - Anon

Glass Tunnel

2010-03-26T21:03:00.002+01:00

Another novelty spotted during our recent ski holiday.

Several very long shiny transparent tubes crossing the snow just below Val Thorens.

Turned out to be Travelators.
I had seen shorter, exposed versions in several resorts, where they are particularly useful for getting absolute beginners, mainly kids, back up the nursery slopes.
But these are the longest I have seen, and the only covered ones.

Parting thot: "Where a new invention promises to be useful, it ought to be tried." - Thomas Jefferson

Hot Seat?

2010-03-23T19:03:00.004+01:00

Puzzle picture from last week's skiing holiday…

When I saw these devices on ski-lifts for the first time this year, I first thought they might be loudspeakers (perish the thought, there was already "musical" noise pollution from several mountain restaurants).
Next I guessed "heaters?" – but no.
Finally I saw the explanatory signs – they are powerful electro-magnets to stop kids falling off!

Sure enough, ski school classes of smaller kids could be seen wearing the special vests, presumably with metallic inserts, which go with the system.

I didn't actually see how it worked in practice.
Are the kids snatched into place from wherever they sit?
Can they get locked solid in grotesque contorsions?
Are they gently realeased or flung off at the end?
Is there an emergency release button?
Who knows.

At the other end of the spectrum, there are warning signs about not using those seats if you have a pacemaker…

Parting thot: "Be kind whenever possible. It is always possible." - Dalai Lama

Vignettes – 2

2010-02-24T20:46:00.003+01:00

The things we do, in the name of science…

Last year, I mentioned the Swiss autoroute vignette & the difficulty in removing it after use.
Not to mention the impossibility of removing it in one piece to use on another car or another windscreen (which is illegal anyway).
http://2cv67blog.blogspot.com/2009/08/vignettes.html

Yet the windscreen professionals managed to transfer my old one to my new screen, apparently intact.
I meant to ask them how, but never did.
Googling furiously, I found suggestions about illicit use of hair-driers…

Having bought my 2010 vignette, the time had come to test my new, if fragmentary, knowledge.
After checking carefully that there were no Swiss observation drones hovering nearby (and also that DS was not looking) I smuggled the hair drier from the bathroom & a thin, flexible table-knife from the kitchen, out to the car-port.
Using only the merest of heat & fan settings (& wondering vaguely if there was any risk of cracking the screen) I warmed the 2009 vignette up & easily slid the knife blade behind it.
Removing it in one piece (& apparently fit for hypothetical further service) was a proverbial piece of cake.
Certainly quicker & easier than the usual cold scraping, even if you don't want to re-use it.

C.Q.F.D.

Parting thot: "Taxes, after all, are dues that we pay for the privileges of membership in an organized society." - Franklin D. Roosevelt

R.T.F.M. ?

2010-02-18T22:30:00.004+01:00

I just bought a pair of gardening gloves.
Purchases don't get much simpler than that, do they?

When I got them home, the first task was to remove the 2 stout staples holding them together – strong enough to need pliers.
Then I put my hand in, as you would, only to spike it on what turned out to be an electromagnetic anti-theft tag in the form of a strip of wire.
Next attempt came up against a wad of paper.
Not a ball of tissue paper like you find at the end of new shoes, but a many-folded sheet of A4 paper.
Covered both sides in very small print…
The instructions!
For gloves?

Actually, there were less instructions than I at first imagined, as they were repeated in F, GB, D, NL, I, E, P, DK, SF, S & N with only about 13 closely-packed lines for each.
Curious, I did actually read them, just in case I had been missing out, all my life, on how to wear gloves properly.
Well, no.
I think common sense would tell me to avoid putting gloves on very dirty hands.
To throw them away if they have holes.
Not to expect leather gloves to keep me warm if wet.
To keep them somewhere dry & at a reasonable temperature.
But thanks anyway.

There was some valuable information on their rating for abrasion, slicing, tearing, perforation, cold-convection, cold-contact & waterproofing.
But that would have been more useful on the label, than stapled inside the gloves & inaccessible until you get them home, wouldn't it?
I looked & it wasn't.

OK, this whole post, so far, has been just a cheap poke at somebody giving me a bit too much information, and of course I would rather have too much than not enough & I can't really complain about one sheet of paper, so I won't.

Really, the multi-lingual gloves instructions merely kicked me into starting a piece I have had in mind for some time, about the waste of paper in multi-lingual instruction books in general.

I have in front of me, the instructions for my Bosch electric drill.
104 pages.
The English section is 6 ½ pages total…
The rest is the same thing (presumably) in German, French, Spanish, Portuguese, Italian, Dutch, Danish, Swedish, Norwegian, Finnish, Greek & Turkish.

Of course, I do understand the logistical reasons for this.
I can also see that the Bosch book is printed on recycled paper & I am certain they have done their sums & that this is the cheapest solution.
But it is still a waste.
Multiplied by all the stuff being sold everywhere.

And if we all learned Esperanto?

Parting thot: "Let thy speech be short, comprehending much in a few words." - Apocrypha

Certified

2010-02-11T11:10:00.006+01:00

Do you, in other countries, need doctor's certificates before you can take part in any remotely-physical activity?

I seem to remember flying gliders in UK (some decades back…) on the strength of a simple declaration that I didn't suffer from epilepsy or anything else likely to put me or anybody else in danger.
Maybe things are not so simple now.
Certainly in France, you need a specific doctor's certificate before you can join in any kind of activity.
These are the medical certificate conditions for paragliding (I won't translate them, but you get the idea):

CONDITIONS MEDICALES ET CONTRE-INDICATIONS RELATIVES ET DEFINITIVES
Système Nerveux :
- Intégrité des fonctions anatomiques, motrices, sensibilités superficielle, profonde, et proprioceptivité respectées.
- Emotivité compatible avec le Vol Libre et la traction.
Contre indications : Toute affection entraînant un défaut de maîtrise. Certaines sont définitives. A l’exception du Cerf Volant y compris de traction (Kite),
- les séquelles d’affections cérébrales ou méningées, traumatiques ou non, du fait du risque majoré d’oedème cérébral hypoxique d’altitude.
De même toute altération ou perte de conscience d’origine connue (épilepsie) est une contre indication absolue jusqu’à leur disparition clinique et/ou électrique, sans traitement depuis deux ans.
- Toute altération ou perte de conscience d’origine inconnue mais habituelle (malaise vagal, spasmophilie) est une contre indication absolue jusqu’à disparition clinique depuis deux ans.
- Tout syndrome psychiatrique connu et traité, ou dépisté lors de l’examen est incompatible avec ce sport aérien (aucun handicap psychique invalidant).
Il en est de même pour toute intoxication : alcoolique, toxique ou médicamenteuse. NB : Il faut recommander aux pilotes de s’interdire l’emploi non contrôlé des médicaments sédatifs ou excitants. Y compris quand ils ne sont par perçus comme tels : les antalgiques codéinés, les antitussifs, les antiallergiques, certains anti-inflammatoires ou décontracturants musculaires. Le praticien devra prendre en compte cet item lors de la prescription et informer le pilote de leur longue durée d’élimination et de leur potentialisation entre eux, par l’hypoxie, la déshydratation, la fatigue et par l’alcool.
Appareil Locomoteur : Intégrité anatomique ou fonctionnelle des 4 membres. Contre indications :
- Instabilité de l’épaule post traumatique non opérée et non stabilisée, A l’exception Cerf Volant y compris de traction (Kite), ou la CI est à apprécier individuellement en fonction de l’intensité de la pratique :
- Altération de la proprioceptivité des membres inférieurs (non rétablie en post traumatique, en particulier)
- Hernies, éventrations, jusqu’à consolidation post-chirurgicale, instabilité rachidienne, matériel d’ostéosynthèse rachidien en place.
NB : Evaluer la nécessité d’ôter certains matériels d’ostéosynthèse pouvant entraîner une aggravation en cas de nouvel accident, lors de l’ablation tenir compte du délai de consolidation.
Appareil Cardio-Vasculaire :
- Etat compatible avec effort prolongé (test de Ruffier), d’intensité moyenne (isométrique) et des sollicitations brèves mais submaximales.
ECG : recommandé dès 35 ans, obligatoire après 50 ans et en cas de facteurs de risques familiaux ou personnels (obésité, cholestérol, tabagisme) ainsi qu’anomalie clinique connue ou suspectée.
- TEST D’EFFORT : recommandé dès 40 ans, obligatoire pour toute anomalie clinique, électrique, tensionnelle ou lors du test de Ruffier.
Contre indications à l’exception du Cerf Volant (pour le kite, à apprécier en fonction de l’intensité de la pratique) :
- Troubles de l’hémostase (inné, acquis ou médicamenteux) (pour le kite, à apprécier en fonction de l’intensité de la pratique), Contre indications à l’exception du Cerf Volant y compris de traction (Kite),:
- HTA et cardiopathies non stabilisées, arythmogènes ou non,
- Atteintes vasculaires périphériques susceptibles d’être aggravées par la compression de sangles des harnais et des sellettes
Appareil Respiratoire : Capacité d’effort (idem cardio-vasculaire) et tolérance à l’hypoxie d’altitude (sauf pour le kite)
Contre indications à l’exception du Cerf Volant y compris de traction (Kite),: insuffisance respiratoire symptomatique, emphysème, antécédents de pneumothorax non opéré, affections pleuropulmonaires évolutives.
Affections Endocriniennes et Métaboliques : Admissibilité des problèmes endocriniens n’entraînant pas de malaise ou perte de connaissance (diabète équilibré, hypothyroïdie compensée).
Contre indications à l’exception du Cerf Volant :
- Diabète instable susceptible de malaises
Contre indications à l’exception du Cerf Volant y compris de traction (Kite):
- corticothérapie au long cours et insuffisance surrénalienne.
ORL : Entendre la voix chuchotée à 1 mètre.
Contre indications : - Vertiges vrais et troubles de l’équilibre (test de Romberg) non stabilisés,
Contre indications à l’exception du Cerf Volant y compris de traction (Kite):
- Catarrhe tubaire, otites moyennes aiguës et otites chroniques non aérées.
Par analogie, les inflammations dentaires sous amalgames (pulpite barotraumatique).
Aptitude Visuelle : Champ visuel normal - une vision corrigée à 09/10e en binoculaire et une acuité des deux yeux non corrigée à 2/10e minimum.
L’astigmatisme horizontal doit être normal ou bien corrigé (lignes électriques).
La vergence et la vision du relief doivent être normales.
Les dyschromatopsies sont admises.
Contre indications à l’exception du cerf volant : Décollement rétinien non stabilisé (surveillance trimestrielle puis annuelle).
NB : Système anti-perte des lunettes recommandé ainsi que verres neutres protecteurs pour les porteurs de lentilles ou verres cornéens.
Divers : Vaccination antitétanique obligatoire, anti-hépatite B recommandée.
A l’exception du Cerf Volant y compris de traction (Kite) : Groupage sanguin (2 déterminations) à jour.

When I see that lot, I am surprised to find hundreds of quite ordinary-looking specimens actually flying every weekend!

DS needs a certificate before she can join in the village gym class.
We both need another one to go walking (!!!) with the local rambling group.

I have to think this is overkill.

Parting thot: "I think my favorite sport in the Olympics is the one in which you make your way through the snow, you stop, you shoot a gun, and then you continue on. In most of the world, it is known as the biathlon, except in New York City, where it is known as winter." - Michael Ventre

French Hens' Teeth

2010-02-10T11:04:00.002+01:00

Saying you expect something to happen "Quand les poules auront les dents", literally "when hens have teeth" is a pretty common French way of saying "never".

Nearer to the idea of "if pigs could fly" than to "rare as hens teeth".

Parting thot: "If you can't explain it simply, you don't understand it well enough." – Albert Einstein

Everyone Gets a Window Seat?

2010-02-09T11:05:00.004+01:00

One of the minor adventures in planning our future California trip has been the projected flight over The Grand Canyon.

Yes, I know, The Grand Canyon is not quite in California, but if you have a small enough map it doesn't seem that much of a detour & a pity to miss while you are so near.
Anyway, many people, including unknowns on travel forums & even actual friends, have unanimously (& that's rare) recommended seeing The GC from a helicopter.

Digging around, I found that:
There are several organisations running various helicopter flights (see below).
25 minute flights are expensive & longer flights are very expensive.
There are several organisations (including some of the above) running light aircraft flights.
You seem to get about 50 minutes, starting from the same airport, travel further (good) but a bit higher (bad?).
They are cheaper than helicopter flights (reasonable as helicopters are notoriously expensive to run).
They mainly seem to use twin-engined planes with 3-abreast or 4-abreast seating, so visibility (the whole point!!) may not be very good for some in the middle or for anybody looking/photographing through the propellers.
Air Grand Canyon offers 50-60 minute flights in single-engined planes where "Everyone Gets a Window Seat!" & they are cheaper than anybody else.
http://www.airgrandcanyon.com/
Too good to be true?
Probably…

After some hesitation, partly because, with all the power of Google, I could not find a single forum report of anybody actually using Air Grand Canyon, & partly because their site seems to describe 3 different flight paths but then the booking form doesn't use any of those 3 flight path names, I eventually decided to go for it, & booked for the time & date we wanted – no problem.
Our credit-card account was soon debited with the right amount, but I did not receive the expected & promised Reservation Confirmation.
I e-mailed them on one of the 3 addresses on their site, but the mail was bounced back with:
"I'm sorry to have to inform you that your message could not be delivered to one or more recipients. The mail system : host mx.papillon.com[209.136.187.9] said: 550 Requested action was not taken because this server doesn't handle mail for that user"
The other 2 addresses gave the same result.
They all still do.

I tried the phone number on the site, but it rang for 3 minutes with no answer.
Ten times in succession over a couple of days…
I cannot find any other phone number (except a 1-800 one) or any postal address (except a PO box) for AGC.
I did find a related news article about embezzlement:
http://media.www.eraunews.com/media/storage/paper917/news/2008/10/01/News/Skyschool.Closes.Doors-3458077.shtml
Eventually, I contacted the Arizona Department of Transportation - Airport authority, who were extremely helpful & confirmed that AGC is really a bona-fide company & is really operating from the expected airport.
Phew!

They suggested my connection problems might be due to 3ft of snow at the airport, but I respectfully doubt that.
Surprisingly for me, but apparently not for them, they said that reservations are being handled by Grand Canyon Airlines, one of the above competitors.
I contacted GCA about my lack of confirmation from AGC & got a rapid reply with confirmation!
The rapid & friendly reply was under the header "Papillon Airways Inc." – another of the above "competitors" and included the line "Thank you for choosing Grand Canyon Scenic Airlines" – yet another "competitor"…
Encouraged by that success, I asked which airline I would be flying with & for confirmation that the flight would be in a single-engined plane where "Everyone gets a window seat".
That seemed to be taking things too far & replies ceased…

So I am anything but confident in what I have booked & paid for!
The confirmation mail does say "Most tours can be changed or cancelled without penalty" & I am quite tempted, but on the other hand, having struggled so far, I really want to see what's at the end.
Watch this space…

http://www.airgrandcanyon.com/
http://www.grandcanyonairlines.com/
http://www.scenic.com/
http://www.papillon.com/
http://www.maverickhelicopter.com/

Parting thot: "If you keep thinking about what you want to do or what you hope will happen, you don't do it, and it won't happen." - Erasmus

Give Me Sunshine!

2010-02-08T13:26:00.008+01:00

As previously reported, we got 'hooked' on solar panels last year.
http://2cv67blog.blogspot.com/2009/08/photovoltaic-1.html
http://2cv67blog.blogspot.com/2009/11/loft-story.html

Having decided to go for a 3kW installation (the sweet spot under current taxation rules) we found (hopefully) a good, small, local, specialist to do the installing.
There followed an anxious time while we waited for the mini-planning-permission you need for solar panels here.
Basically it is just a declaration of what you intend to do, with illustrations, which you submit to the Mairie.
If nobody says "no" in a month – you are OK.
Except we are within 500 metres of an ancient monument, so our declaration also has to not get a "no" from the ABF (Architecte des Batiments de France) which is more problematic.
As expected, part-way through the month, the ABF sent a standard letter saying they were giving themselves an extra month to think about it…
But after 2 months, taking us just into 2010, no news = good news & we were off!

Next hurdle was getting a quote from ES-R (Electricité de Strasbourg – Réseau) for the actual grid connection.
It was only about then that I realized we were not actually connected to the famous EDF but to a local offshoot.
That turned out to be significant, as ES-R have stricter safety rules than EDF.
Our electricity comes in (& will go out) via a cable through the roof, across the road & from pole to pole until it meets the underground bit at the end of the road.
But ES-R insists on being able to cut any power I generate, without needing to come onto my property…
This is understandable, in that they need to be able to neutralize the grid to work on it, but EDF will accept fuses on the pole or maybe switches outside the house.
ES-R makes me run all my 3kW out to the front gate & back again, so they can switch it off from the road.

After that, the installation started on 25th January & finished (except for the grid connection) on 2nd Feb with light snow & temperatures down to -8°C.
Installation included:
Taking off a spare chimney which would have shaded the panels
Removing 345 tiles
Covering that space with special ribbed high-density-polyethylene sheet which is now our only waterproofing…
http://www.ubbinksolaire.com/IMG/pdf/systeme-integre-ubbink.pdf
Fixing aluminium rails to the rafters, through the waterproof plastic sheeting (er…).
Fitting the 15 solar panels to the rails
Running the DC cables across the loft, down part of the roof, through 2 concrete floors, down a wall in the pantry, along the ceiling in the basement & to the new inverter.
Installing an inverter, a main junction box, DC circuit breaker & surge protection, AC circuit breaker & surge protection, and a board for 2 of our 3 future new meters.
Running AC cables all round the basement & garage, through the wall, under the mint bed, under the driveway paving stones and up to ES-R's circuit breaker at the gate, and back.
A short test run showing 40 Watts near dusk.

So what's left?
Mainly waiting for ES-R to come & install their meters & throw their switch.
That could take who-knows-how-long but best estimate is a month.
Also, disposing of 4 probably-asbestos-cement panels from around the fallen chimney…

Parting thot: "I'm not a doctor and I don't know the technical terminology, but I do know that sunshine activates our happiness glands." - Jessi Lane Adams

Long Time No…

2010-02-07T15:14:00.007+01:00

I mentioned last year that I was getting a garden shredder, planning to install a photovoltaic system on the roof and preparing a trip to California.
All those little jobs expanded to fill my available time & left none for messing with blogs.
Hopefully things have calmed down a bit now so I can blog anew.

In November I explained I wanted a Bosch AXT 25TC garden shredder & that it was over 500€ here, but under £300 (330€ then) in UK.
http://2cv67blog.blogspot.com/2009/11/garden-shred.html
Weighing up the pro's (cost) & con's (internet jiggery-pokery, possible shipping damage, difficulty if needing guarantee work) I decided that it was worth getting it in UK.

I had established that the vendor (Lawson-HIS) really existed & rapidly answered e-mails.
I have, or at least had, a positive impression of Bosch's ability to design & make tools needing little guarantee attention.
A robust-looking garden shredder was not exactly a delicate thing as far as shipping was concerned.

I was seriously wrong on the last item or two.

The shredder was dispatched via City Link & arrived by UPS, which sounded good to me.
The big cardboard box had a slight nick in one side but was otherwise OK so I signed for it with little hesitation.
In assembling it, I noticed a plastic adjusting knob (where the box was nicked) was broken, but thought that could be fixed somehow.
Then another plastic knob seemed damaged, but still worked.
I was relieved to find that the shredder did shred & very well & very quietly too – just as intended.
But it was a bit rough to move around – one of the wheels rubbing intermittently on the frame.
Closer inspection showed the wheel was broken & the axle bent!
By that time, it was dawning on me that the box, though nearly intact, must have been dropped to have caused so much damage on one side.

So I carefully checked the shredder over – and under.
Oh disaster! – One of the main castings was broken in 2 places!

Hasty e-mail to Lawson-HIS with explanatory photos.
Rapid & encouraging reply.
I volunteered to repair the shredder if they could supply the parts (saving double shipping & maybe same-again damage…).
They quickly supplied an illustrated parts list & I picked out the parts I needed – not easy as there were several errors in the Bosch document.
It then took nearly 2 months for Bosch to supply the parts.
Stripping & rebuilding was nothing like as simple as I would have expected for a piece of garden equipment, but finally it is back together & working again.

Lessons?
I appreciated the helpful attitude of Lawson-HIS, though of course I would rather have just received a perfect shredder.
Even reputable delivery services like City Link & UPS don't treat your stuff as you would treat it yourself.
You can't estimate the condition of the contents by looking at the outside of the package.
Even Bosch fails to design equipment which will withstand predictable handling damage in shipping.
If Bosch wants to contest this, I will happily watch as they drop a dozen shredders in boxes onto concrete floors from standard test heights in random orientations!
Very happily!
I shall have to readjust my decision-point for internet purchases as I underestimated the probability & severity of shipping damage.
The considerable combined economic mass of internet sales corporations needs to put some money & effort into developing a reliable & economical delivery network.
That is a necessary extension of the internet.

Parting thot: "Prevention is better than cure." - Erasmus

Google So Far

2010-01-13T13:30:00.005+01:00

I have mixed feelings about Google.

On the one hand, they provide some amazing services - free.
On the other hand, they have so much information & so much analytical power, that if/when it gets into the wrong hands it could mean serious trouble for individuals, populations or even nations.
Imagine Hitler or Stalin with Google power…

I love their Search facility – it seems too good & too fast to be true.
We have just got used to it now & take it for granted, but if you can remember what searching was like before…
Well, it was like it still is in my Microsoft XP computer's internal searcher – you put in the search term & watch while it checks through all your quarter-million files before throwing up results in no ranked order.
Or more likely fails to find anything if you made the slightest error in input.
Before Google, we used to say "Junk in – junk out" but now you stand a good chance of finding what you want even if you can't spell it.
So I no longer use MS internal search, but prefer Google Desktop Search, which is instant & brilliant, including e-mails & web-pages as well as the boring MS stuff.
On the other hand, I don't doubt that everything on my computer could now be read & analyzed (& maybe changed or deleted) by Google if they or their successors wanted.
Back on the 'good' side – I can easily live with their unobtrusive & relevant advertising, which I even sometimes follow up, whereas twinkling banners & pop-ups on other sites invariably cause me to leave as soon as possible.

Having tried lots of free photo-handling applications, I keep coming back to (Google) Picasa as being just right for me.
Others do some things better (& I do use others for those some things) but for run-of-the-mill straightening, cropping, tuning, arranging, viewing & exporting, it meets my requirements well.
I particularly like the fact that it never modifies the original photos (unless you ask it to) but saves all the modifications in little supplementary files.
Very comforting & uses less space than competitors which, if you want to preserve an original, need to create another full-sized variant to modify.
But if you ever need help, be prepared for a long & frustrating struggle & lots of forum time.

For on-line maps, I remember starting happily with Mappy, then Mapquest, Michelin, Map24 & MultiMap, but now I nearly always find myself using Google Maps.
The others have irritating inadequacies or cover the page with adverts.

When I heard about Google's Street View project, aiming to let anyone look at any street in the world, I thought it sounded impossibly vast & rather pointless.
Now, it covers enormous & increasing areas (even our off-the-beaten-path village) and I am surprised to find I use it frequently.
For instance to get a preview of turning points when planning a route.
In urban situations, I can easily memorise the appearance of critical junctions, where trying to memorise & then read street names would never work.
I could always get a GPS navigation system, but am too mean to pay the map-updating costs.

When I started thinking about a blog, I looked into the various possibilities and (Google) Blogger came out as the obvious simplest to set up & go.
Others may offer more flexibility, but Blogger is more user-friendly for Dummies.

So, it sounds like I am a Google fan?
Well, yes; I am both a satisfied user of many of their free services, and an admirer of their imagination, determination & sheer firepower in tackling pharaonic projects like Street View & Google Books.
I think they have accelerated technological development wherever they have chosen to go.
And no; although I am naïve enough to believe that Google's current management is well-meaning, I see great potential danger when their capabilities fall into less-well-meaning hands, as seems inevitable.

French Russian Roulette

2009-12-17T18:19:00.006+01:00

I come from a land of bayonet-fitting light bulbs.
Never gave it a thought.

In France, some light fittings are bayonet (called B22) but most are screw-in (small-diameter E14 or large-diameter E27).

With the B22, the 240 volt Live & Neutral connections go via the 2 little solder blobs on the end of the bulb, while the metal casing may be earthed, with luck, or more likely just "floating".
Fine!

With the screw-ins, the 240v Live is connected to the single solder blob & the Neutral to the metal threaded case.
Er…

That means that as you insert the bulb & screw it in, your fingers are almost certainly touching the metal thread, which is in electrical contact with what should be the Neutral line of your home electrical circuit.
At that point, you want to be VERY sure that every previous owner, electrician, non-electrician & handyman has been careful to make all the wiring connections in your house in the right order.
Otherwise you are holding 240 volts.

If, as is more than likely, your light bulb is in some kind of mobile fitting (table lamp etc) then it will almost certainly have a 2-pin plug.
That means that whether the bulb case is Live or Neutral depends on which way you happen to have put the symmetrical plug in the socket.
50:50…
That's French Russian Roulette!

Of course, you would never try to change a light bulb without unplugging the appliance, or cutting the power at the fuse-box, would you?
With screw fittings, I certainly wouldn't!

Don't forget that simply switching off is not enough.
Who knows which wire the switch is in?

Parting thot: "Mistakes are the usual bridge between inexperience and wisdom." - Phyllis Theroux

E.S.T.A.

2009-12-02T21:10:00.004+01:00

The long march to California is still in the early-planning phase, or at least in the early-learning & early-setting-up phases.

Another hurdle behind us today - I got our ESTA (Electronic System for Travel Authorisation) clearance from the US Department of Homeland Security.
This is something you still need before you can get near the USA, even if you qualify for the Visa-Waiver Program.
Can't really complain, as it is free & only takes a few minutes.
The application procedure, on-line, didn't seem terribly in-depth somehow.
• Name?
• Birthday?
• Sex?
• e-mail?
• Country where you live?
• Passport number & dates?
• Arriving flight number?
OK – there was a trick question at the end where you had to give the passport number a second time…
I suppose that filters out a few undesirables.

Then there were some really searching questions.
But I didn't have to think very hard before answering, for instance:
• between 1933 and 1945 were you involved, in any way, in persecutions associated with Nazi Germany or its allies?
• are you seeking entry to engage in criminal or immoral activities?
• are you now involved in espionage or sabotage; or in terrorist activities; or genocide?
If you have recently kicked the genocide habit, then presumably you are OK…

They must feel a whole lot more secure in The Homeland now they are protected by cunning questions like those!
Wonder how much they paid somebody to come up with that lot?
And do they pay somebody to read the answers?
Imagine the joy when he gets a "Yes"!

Parting thot: "Successful people ask better questions, and as a result, they get better answers." - Tony Robbins

Oh, by the way; in case any Homeland Security personnel are reading this – it is meant to be taken tongue-in-cheek (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tongue-in-cheek). Thanks, guys!

Westward Ho!

2009-11-30T23:01:00.006+01:00

We are planning a short trip to the west coast.
Of California, that is…

It is obviously going to be a rich source of inspiration for this blog.

An early item on the agenda was booking flights.
Scottish-based relatives who are heading to the same place at the same time, but got organized first, told us their best buy had been with Air France (surprise!) via Paris (!) booking through KLM, so it looked as though we were well placed to start.
Try as I would, I could find no good-value flights that way.
Or anywhere via Paris or any French airport.
After a lot of searching, my best shot was with British Airways, from Frankfurt via Heathrow!
This is crazy.

I can only think they must get some kind of subsidy from the Mafia for adding helpful baggage-snatching stops.
Or they are building-in some slack for future CO2 reduction...

Having found my best buy on Opodo UK site, I got through all the purchasing procedure, only to find they would not accept my UK-bank Visa debit card without a UK address.
Same result with my French-bank International MasterCard.
I phoned Opodo who told me that with non-UK addresses, they only accept American Express or International Visa.
Unbelievable.

I then tried the French Opodo site, but surprisingly it did not offer the same flights or anything very appealing.

In desperation, I found the German Opodo site did offer the same attractive flights, but 10% more expensive than UK.
That was still the best I could do, so we are now booked (unless my somewhat-sketchy German has betrayed me, that is).

European transparency still has a way to go…

Parting thot: "Logic will get you from A to B. Imagination will take you everywhere." – Albert Einstein

Loft Story

2009-11-06T13:26:00.004+01:00

It all started with stains on the ceiling & it finished with…
…well, ask me again in 20 years.

The damp stains on the landing ceiling, just after an exceptional downpour, obviously implied a leaking roof, so I climbed up into the loft space above & saw the leak where a chimney goes through the tiles, but couldn't work out why there was a leak.
Even a little roof leak makes you feel terribly weak & vulnerable these days, so I called out the nearest roof specialist, who quickly diagnosed & fixed some badly-fitting cut-away tiles round the chimney & some zinc flashing which needed re-shaping.
Seems to be OK so far, but it had seemed OK for 20 years before the big downpour too…

While they were looking, they also persuaded me I should have all the moss & lichen removed, which had just looked picturesque before, but apparently was a grave danger for my tiles and a potential cause of leaks.
Who knows?

Good salesmen anyway…
They even noticed I had a decent bit of roof just crying out for photovoltaic panels.
Which they also install.

Dubious at first, I dug a lot deeper into that one, found that current tax rules are very favourable & eventually did decide to go for a 3 kW installation.
But after consulting 20 specialists, I gave the job to somebody else, not the ones who first suggested it.
Officially kicked off last week, there are still a lot of hurdles to clear, or hoops to jump through, before the project is accepted.
Particularly the Historic Monuments Authority.
If all goes well, it could be installed early next year & in production late spring.
And paying back the initial outlay after 8 years.
And continuing to feed the grid & provide income for 20 years total.
I will cover this in separate posts.

While I was up in the loft looking at the initial leaks, I was reminded of something I already knew, but didn't want to think about.
The roof insulation was a disaster.
The original owner had insulated all the roof space with rolls of fibreglass on tarred-paper backing sheets, stapled up under the 45° rafters.
In the part of the loft above the landing & bedrooms, quite a lot of that insulation was either torn, or hanging uselessly, or already fallen onto the joists & plasterboard ceilings below.
Moving about up there was very hazardous, with fibreglass hanging down and with no floor to walk on – just hidden joists with plasterboard ceiling between, waiting for unwary feet to pass through.
We also have 3 huge walk-in storage areas, beside the first-floor bedrooms, under the lower half of the rafters, and these areas were also insulated with the same fibreglass stapled to the rafters.
Although that insulation had not fallen off, it was extremely delicate & meant that any activity in the storage spaces had to avoid tearing the paper.
So we got several quotes for removing the old insulation & putting in something more effective & less fragile.
To cut a long story short, we now have thick insulation above the bedrooms & landing ceilings, under walkable boarding on the joists.
And robust boarding supporting & protecting the insulation under the rafters in the walk-in storage areas.
It is probably more effective & certainly a lot more convenient than before.

It did involve emptying all the storage areas though.
20 years of accumulated junk…
A perfect illustration of a variant of Parkinson's law: "Stuff expands to fill the space available".
As we pulled all that stuff out & stacked it to the ceiling in nearby fortunately-now-little-used bedrooms, we resolved to not, under any circumstances, put it all back afterwards!
So we have spent the last several weeks sifting through a mountain of old stuff and separating it into 3 fairly equal lots – keep, give, scrap.

"Keep" was supposed to be only what we thought we really were likely to want to use some time, but we soon realized there were useless things of sentimental value we definitely did want to keep.
But not too many…
"Give" included everything which could be of any value to anybody.
After our previous disappointing experience with Emmaus Strasbourg, we found another Emmaus at Mundolsheim, who took our Espace-full of bric-a-brac quite happily, without ostensibly throwing any of it away, not while we were there anyway.
"Scrap" was not as simple as that.
It involved dismantling as much as possible, to separate all the various categories of recyclable material, then a couple of runs with Espace & trailer to the dechetterie.

The results of that tidying-up are so satisfactory, that we are now attacking all the other, numerous, stacks of "might come in useful one day" stuff we have everywhere.
This will take some time.
And partly explains the paucity of recent posts here.

Parting thot: "Junk is something you throw away three weeks before you need it." - Anon

Bilan

2009-11-04T12:01:00.001+01:00

Another little gem in French which makes you wonder how other languages can manage without an equivalent.

Literally, bilan translates as "balance" or "balance sheet" or "end of year statement" or just "result".
It derives from the Latin for balance or scales.

But it is in very common use, and invaluable, as meaning "the end result, having weighed up all the positives & negatives".
Such a fundamental & frequent concept…

English needs a single word for that.

Parting thot: "Language shapes the way we think, and determines what we can think about." - Benjamin Lee Whorf

Garden Shred

2009-11-03T16:44:00.008+01:00

I have been thinking about getting a garden shredder.

Not to shred DS's floral borders or ravage next-door's gnomes, but to deal with all our loppings & prunings.
With a big collection of trees & bushes, this is not a negligible item.
At the moment, everything above compostable size has to be trailered to the dechetterie, where I am a frequent flyer.

Shredder fanciers reckon that not only do shredders make your piles (of branches) disappear, but that the result can then be used to make good compost, especially mixed with grass cuttings which should not otherwise be added over-enthusiastically to the compost heap (particularly not when DS is looking).
Beyond that, the shreddies can be spread on flower beds, where they look tidy, keep down weeds & retain moisture, reducing the need for watering.
Sounds too good to be true.
Which it is.

They forget to mention the noise, the painful slowness, the need to wear all sorts of protection, the doubtful ecological "bilan" (no good translation for that), the frequent jammings, the need for resharpening, the fact that stringy stuff stops the cutter by wrapping round it & hard wood stops the cutter dead, or that the output can be anywhere between mush & chunks.
I learned all that several years ago when I first got interested & borrowed one.
I learned it again last year when my neighbour bought one, then a second, and now passes his loppings through both in succession...
So logically, I should just forget the whole thing & keep on trucking, or trailering.
But logic is boring.
I have let myself be persuaded that the latest & greatest new Bosch AXT 25TC shredder has reached an acceptable level of performance.
It even won a Glee prize (Look it up), for what that is worth.
Unfortunately, there is the price.
Bosch mention 499.99€ & our local DIY store has it for just over 500€.
No way.

Surprisingly, I couldn't find it significantly cheaper on Internet in France, Germany or Belgium.

Then I looked in UK & it is all over the place at less than £300, which is not much more than 330€ at today's rate.
Plus post & packing, of course, for a 30 kg packet.

And that is the point of this post, following on from the previous one about the growing significance of shipping costs for Internet shopping.

I sorted out the half-dozen sites with the lowest take-away prices, around £280, then started digging for shipping costs.
Even within UK, shipping varied between free & impossible (to outlying places).
Not surprisingly, several UK sites do not ship to France.
For the others, the charge varied between £46 & £17.
£17 has to sound reasonable for 30 kg from UK to France, especially compared with 17€ for 48 gm from Germany to France (see previous post).
So I ordered a shredder from Garden Centre On Line, for £279.99 + £17.99 = £297.98

Actually, I ordered it on a Saturday by internet & paid by debit card from a UK account.
I have their confirmation of the amounts.
But the transaction failed because (& that took a long time to trace) our UK bank has been slightly mis-spelling our address for the last 20 years.
Just doubling an "L" which, coming from Lloyds, might have been a natural mistake or an in-joke.
In all that time, nobody had ever noticed & it had never mattered, but for on-line transactions, it matters.
So, after straightening out Lloyds, I had to order it again by phone, still at the same price, and the £297.98 was debited on Monday.
Imagine my surprise, as they say, to get an e-mail on Friday, saying: "Hi, Thank you for your order unfortunately the shipping cost for this item to France is 117.99GBP leaving a balance of £100GBP to pay please advise if you wish to ahead with this purchase and pay the additional shipping. Regards, Customer Service"
Having imagined my surprise, you can now easily imagine my reply, which certainly did not include paying another £100.
I would be interested to find out just what happened there, but I never will.

Next on my shredder-shop list was Lawson-HIS, so I checked their site again & it really did say £281.75 + £17 shipping (up to 30 kg, whereas Bosch says it weighs 30.5 kg).
I e-mailed for confirmation & they confirmed £281.75 + £17.08 = £298.83
Dubious, I asked them to please recheck the weight & shipping charges, which they did, so I ordered it from them.

My conclusions are that shipping charges can vary wildly.
That some sellers (the ones who ship free & publicise that clearly on every page) have understood the significance.
That others still have a lot of catching-up to do.
That there is a big potential for a very efficient distribution system, which has not been invented yet.

Parting thot: "The meeting of preparation with opportunity generates the offspring we call luck." - Tony Robbins

Fan Mail

2009-11-02T17:07:00.003+01:00

One of several reasons for not updating this blog much recently, is that my PC has a temperature.

In the beginning, I thought I was hearing the fan more often, then I was sure I was hearing it more often & faster, then it seemed to be running fast most of the time, then I started to get spontaneous shut-downs.
Hard to ignore it any longer.

I opened the PC & hoovered all the fluff out, especially round the CPU, but it didn't make much difference.
I downloaded a free thing called SpeedFan which lets me monitor various fan speeds & associated temperatures.
It soon became obvious that the CPU fan was not starting up correctly, but I found that I could trick it into starting by rebooting after getting to a certain critical temperature.
That kept me happy for a while.
Running with the PC case open, I could see what the fan was doing & also found I could kick-start it by poking it with a sharp stick after again getting to the critical temperature.
That's how I am running today, with the case open, one eye on the temperature gauge & a sharp stick close at hand…

All of which is just a lead-in.

Without being able to diagnose things further, I felt the best move might be to replace the CPU fan.
Surcouf in Strasbourg, who supplied the PC originally, failed to answer several requests about it.
I managed to find the reference (thanks to a helpful forum) and even located an exact replacement on internet, at GNLA in Germany.
Amazingly, once you can find one, a new fan costs only 6.99€ but when I tried to buy one, the shipping charge was an additional 17€.
For a 46gm item.

Digging deeper, I found another one (new) on eBay France, sold from Germany again, at only 3.90€ plus 10€ shipping.
Hopefully that may fix my problem, if & when it ever arrives, that is…

The point of this post is to highlight the disproportionate influence of shipping in "modern" internet shopping.

When is hardware delivery going to catch up with the rest of the "free & immediate" search & buy process which is suddenly available to us & already seems so natural?
In speed & especially in cost?
I suppose it is a bit of a "chicken & egg" problem, in that there is potentially a huge market volume, waiting for a radically more efficient delivery system, waiting for a volume market to be really there.
Surely letter delivery must be shrivelling up these days, just as hardware delivery is pent up to explode?

Sounds like the sort of challenge Google might take on…
Heaven help the post offices & parcel carriers if they ever do!

Parting thot: "Nowadays the rage for possession has got to such a pitch that there is nothing in the realm of nature, whether sacred or profane, out of which profit cannot be squeezed." - Erasmus

Bike, Locks

2009-11-01T11:44:00.014+01:00

The Brompton (folding bike) has come into its own this week.
We had a bit of anticyclonic Indian Summer, with no wind, lots of sun, blue skies, colourful trees & pleasant (12°C) temperatures.

Actually, I find even 12°C too cold for "normal" cycling as I sweat going uphill then freeze going back down again.
No doubt there are high-tech clothes which can deal with that, but I don't have them.
On the other hand, I find it simple to wear enough to keep warm on the flat.
Especially wearing my rucksack on the front as a wind-break.
Of course, wearing a rucksack backwards while riding a black banana with tiny wheels does cause some mirth among the natives, notably adolescent ones…

Anyway, that's why I look for flattish places to ride, especially when it's cold.
Which rules out starting & finishing at home, but leaves lots of possible trips along canals & disused railways, cheating by taking the bike there & back by car.

A good ride on Thursday started in Saverne, leaving the car in the free car park opposite the (now out of season, but still picturesque) marina.
When walking, we usually have to leave the car in isolated lay-bys or clearings, which always seems like asking for trouble, but with the bike it is easier to find a near-enough busy car-park.

From there, you can hardly fail to follow the Marne-Rhine canal up to the surprisingly-deep & usually-busy lock in the town centre & westwards to Lutzelbourg (if you come to Strasbourg, you went the wrong way).

There are good views if you climb to Lutzelbourg Castle, which is in ruins but is being extensively tidied up.
I gave them a miss this time on my flat ride.
There were plenty of good views at ground level.
Particularly brightly-coloured boats & trees reflected in calm canal water.

Next stop after Lutzelbourg, on our usual car-tourist-visitor trip, is the famous "Inclined Plane" boat lift at Arzviller.
This is the short-&-sharp method for boats to deal with the Col de Saverne.

But on a bike, you get the option of following the previous (now derelict) canal as it winds gently up through 17 now-gateless locks with 17 mostly-deserted lock-keeper's cottages.
Only 45 metres climb on 4 km of well-surfaced track (important with little Brompton wheels) brings you up to the level of the top of the inclined plane.
Apparently, before the inclined plane was opened in 1969, that used to take all day in a barge.

If you ride along the top canal to the inclined plane, you can look down it, but not walk or ride down beside it, unless you ignore the very large notice telling you not to use the nice little road there…
At the bottom, you are on the canal-side cycle-track back to Saverne again.

And home for tea.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saint-Louis-Arzviller_inclined_plane

http://pistes-cyclables-alsace.chez-alice.fr/marne/marne.html

Parting thot: "It may be true that the law cannot make a man love me, but it can keep him from lynching me, and I think that's pretty important." – Martin Luther King

Brompton Bits

2009-10-01T11:51:00.002+02:00

I managed a 25 km ride on my new Brompton, without scalping my ankles.

But the concentration required, to keep my ankles out all the time & to pre-select then execute all those compound gear-shifts, meant I didn't really see much of the scenery.
OK – I was watching for gravel, pebbles, pot-holes & gullies too.
Honestly, it went much better than you could reasonably expect for a little folder on 16" wheels.

Soon noticed the saddle position was not quite high enough or far enough back, but there was sufficient adjustment available to fix that by inverting the saddle-clamp & sliding the saddle back.
Should be OK now.
While I was under there, I noticed the saddle has real old-fashioned saddle-bag fixing holes.

I think I will try filling-in or padding the little wheels so they are more ankle-friendly.
If that is not enough, then it may be a hacksaw job…

Reading the handbook a bit more, I notice they recommend new handlebars every 5000 miles because of potential metal fatigue in the aluminium.
Hope they are just protecting their *** (U.S.) / **** (U.K.).

Bought & fitted a "Zefal Spin" mirror.
I have a Zefal Cyclop on my normal bike & it has been very satisfactory where lots of other mirrors vibrate too much due to flimsy stems or fittings.
The Spin uses the same solid pivot system but with a smaller head.
That suits the smaller everything else of a Brompton (see illustration) but may prove too small in use.
Time will tell.
The Brompton will be a severe test for anti-vibration qualities!

One curiosity I have noticed is that if I back-pedal even slightly, then I can wheel the bike backwards without the pedals rotating any more…
Is this a cunning piece of design or a pending freewheel disaster?
Certainly it is very convenient to be able to manoeuvre the bike without the pedals moving.
If it had been a deliberate feature, I would have expected it to be mentioned somewhere.
Googling draws a blank.
I would like to know how this works (it sounds impossible) & why they do it without mentioning it.

Parting thot: "When it comes to sports I am not particularly interested. Generally speaking, I look upon them as dangerous and tiring activities performed by people with whom I share nothing except the right to trial by jury." - Fran Lebowitz

Brompton Spoke

2009-09-29T10:30:00.004+02:00

Lots of my posts have concerned old or very old cars, and I now consider their maintenance requirements to be laughably symptomatic of gone-forever "good-old-days".
Who can imagine having to crawl under the car every Saturday morning to attend to 15 grease nipples, or removing the cylinder head for a "de-coke" every six months?
When new cars now only get to see a mechanic every 2 years (surely that's too far in the other direction?).

So it has come as a bit of a shock to read the owner's manual for my new Brompton bike.
Nearly everything needs checking & readjusting "at least once, if not two or three times, during the first few hundred miles of use, when parts are bedding in…"
Especially (heavily underlined) Hub-gear adjustment, pedals & spokes.
Spokes?
Yes, on this new bike, you need to "run in" the spokes & recheck/reset the tension after the first few hours of use, and continue checking, less often, thereafter!
They must be joking!

I actually do have spoke spanners & in my dim & distant past have managed to re-tension several wheels (of old British bikes, naturally) and even sometimes got them running straight again & remembered to file off the now-protruding ends to avoid punctures.
But I can't imagine having to do all that to an expensive new commuter bike.
Two or three times in the first few hundred miles.

I feel like I have gone to sleep & woken up in 1950.
I shall be finding pools of oil on the garage floor soon!

Parting thot: "Life expectancy would grow by leaps and bounds if green vegetables smelled as good as bacon." - Doug Larson

Brompton Ankles

2009-09-28T22:02:00.007+02:00

Way back in June (18th) I mentioned I had ordered a Brompton folding bike.
It was in Brussels by the end of August, but I only managed to get it to Strasbourg last week.

First impressions are positive, as you might have hoped, considering the price!
It folds very neatly & that should be a good party piece after a bit more practice.
The way it parks itself with the back wheel tucked underneath is handy, if not exactly elegant, but who can walk away from a casually-parked 760€ bike these days?
I have not investigated, but I suppose one collateral benefit is that you can lock up the frame & both wheels with one small lock, if you fold everything completely first.

It doesn't feel as wobbly as other folders I have tried, though the stability is not enough to encourage any "no-hands" stuff yet.
A good surprise is the easy, efficient way it rolls on smooth surfaces – no doubt a direct result of the 90psi in the tyres.
Wobbliness & inefficiency were my main fears, so it's off to a good start.

The down side of the tyre pressures, and of the small wheels, is the "high-fidelity" ride quality – no detail of the road surface is lost in transmission!
Already, I am paying a lot more attention to even smallish pebbles & absolute attention to transverse gullies, the consequences of which are only too easy to imagine.
Obviously, mud, sand & gravel are out of the question.

The strange gears (very wide ratio Sturmey-Archer 3-speed hub & close-ratio 2-speed derailleur) have an adequate range of 3.0:1 & acceptable (for me) spacing, but I would certainly prefer a decent 7/8/9-speed hub gear.
Or even a cheaper 5 or 6-speed hub with 3.0:1 range if such a thing existed (hint!).
I am getting the hang of compound changes – simultaneously up on the hub & down on the derailleur - but it all requires constant attention & detracts from the idle pleasure of just riding.

What I notice most often, is how vulnerable I feel with no mirror.
That's not a criticism of the bike, but a reminder to myself to get a vibration-free mirror (which won't interfere with folding…) asap.

What I notice most acutely, is the severe pain & bleeding in both ankles!
Caused by inevitable & predictable collisions with the stupid little parking wheels, cunningly positioned to be exactly where your ankles pass on every turn of the cranks.
I find this absolutely incredible.
How can you produce, for over 20 years, an expensive device which unfailingly, painfully, injures its owner?
It's not just me – try Googling "brompton ankles"…

Parting thot: "A fanatic is one who can't change his mind and won't change the subject." – Winston Churchill

Battery Strategy

2009-09-22T22:34:00.004+02:00

I am old enough to remember when "rechargeable batteries" meant big square things full of lead & acid that you could just pick up with 2 hands.
Imagine what mobile phones would have been like…

So I was initially impressed with the first Ni-Cad rechargeable cells which were the same size & weight as ordinary torch batteries, but cost a lot less to recharge than the ordinary cells cost to re-buy.
With 4 daughters in the early days of cassette-tape Walkmen (Walkmans?) the economics were striking.
But it gradually became obvious that the Ni-Cads did not age well.
We started to hear about "memory effect" & realized we couldn't recharge then until they were run down.
But if you run them down too much they never recover…
And the number of recharge cycles is limited, so you don't want to recharge if you don't need to.
Then the "leak-down" effect which meant the emergency torch was always useless when you needed it, even though it hadn't been used since recharging.
With further ageing, some of them developed very short lives & of course having one flat battery in a Walkman is like having all flat batteries in a Walkman.
So we got good at sorting & marking the weaker ones, which were OK at home but no good on the bus.
But oh, the arguments when certain daughters cornered all the best batteries!

After that the arrival of the more expensive, but less troublesome, Ni-MH cells came as a great relief.
Of course that meant new chargers as well as new batteries, and being careful not to mix them up.
But, in general, they are pretty satisfactory.
Little or no memory effect, so you can recharge without needing to run them down.
Still some "leak-down" though.
And supposedly a limited number of recharge cycles (but I haven't worn any out yet).
So they would be OK in Walkmen, but that need has long since fizzled out.

My main usage of small rechargeables these days is for my camera, which is old enough to need 4 x L6s.
A freshly-charged set of 2300mAh Ni-MHs (if you see what I mean) will take about 200 shots.
I have a little pouch with 4 spare unused batteries to take over, which I carry on day-trips, and a small charger, which I carry on longer trips.
So that should be OK, right?
Well, no, it isn't.
As often as not, when the set in the camera runs out, I put in the set from the pouch, and – leak-down effect – they are flat too.
So I suppose I need to develop some special strategy for topping up the pouch batteries more often (how often?).
Or make a point of swapping the batteries over more frequently?

Apart from the camera, my other battery bugbear has been cordless drills.
My first one was a Black & Decker.
A puny device, but it worked OK for several years.
Except that when the battery ran down you had to stop work until it was recharged.
It was still in as-new condition when the Ni-Cad battery gave up the ghost.
At that point I discovered that the battery was non-removable & non-replaceable, so the as-new drill was junk!

I replaced it by a bigger Wagner drill with 2 removable Ni-Cads.
So I could recharge one while using the other.
And replace either when it expired.
Except, of course, for the "leak-down" effect, so that the spare battery was usually flat when you needed it.
And that one replacement battery cost more than a new drill with 2 new batteries.

So when both batteries were too far gone for reasonable use, I decided I did not want to go down that path again.
I spent a lot of money on a new Bosch drill with 2 Li-Ion batteries, which are very small & light for their capacity.
And supposedly have little or no memory effect.
And little or no leak-down effect.
So far, the absence of leak-down is astonishing & I am delighted with these batteries.
The spare is always ready & willing when the worker expires, even after several months.

Of course, they might explode, but then, nothing is perfect!

Parting thot: "In the beginning there was nothing. God said, "Let there be light!" And there was light. There was still nothing, but you could see it a whole lot better." - Ellen DeGeneres

Fiat 500

2009-09-17T11:34:00.005+02:00

In 1970, after a year & a half with the Sunbeam Tiger, I knew I really wanted a Lotus Elan.

But I also knew that finding an Elan I could afford was not going to be easy, or quick.
Also, I couldn't afford to buy an Elan before selling the Tiger.
And Tiger buyers were not too thick on the ground.
And I couldn't manage without a car in the meantime.
So I decided to get a little, cheap, car as a bridging strategy, to cover the period of selling the Tiger & finding an Elan.

It would have been most sensible to go for some "commodity" like a Morris Minor, but, even then, sensible was not at the top of my priority list for cars.
So I bought a 1967 Fiat 500.
Only 3 metres long, with a tiny 2-cylinder air-cooled engine at the back, scooter wheels & swing-axle suspension, it is hard to get much smaller or simpler than this.
But Fiat managed to make it look very attractive. (They are now enjoying enormous success with the similar-looking new 500 as a Mini rival.)
Of course, it didn't need power steering or a brake servo.
And the performance was better than you would expect from looking at it.
And it came with a throw-open roof.

Generally & in retrospect, I found it a likable car & an admirable design exercise.
I remember it as doing most things better than expected, which is not saying too much, of course.
Certainly, I had to re-adjust my driving style & overtaking manoeuvres drastically when switching between the Tiger & the Fiat.
The worst thing was the low top of the windscreen, so that even I (not particularly tall) had the choice between crouching to look through the screen, or stretching to look through the roof!

http://www.fiat500america.com/fiat500-history/

The Tata Nano is a very logical development of all the basic ideas & layout of the Fiat 500 & it looks set for well-deserved international success, thanks to that simplicity.

Parting thot: "Weeds are flowers too, once you get to know them." - Eeyore from Winnie the Pooh

Putting ze Rabbit

2009-09-16T22:31:00.004+02:00

The less-than-obvious French expression "poser un lapin", literally "to put a rabbit", actually means to fail to turn up for an appointment, without any notice.

Usually employed in an ex-romantic context, when it translates as "to stand somebody up".

Parting thot: "Communication is Talking Listening Acting. Your actions will back you up or undermine everything you say." – DuPont Management