My Motley Meanderings

Apologies for the reduced posting frequency; I've started Twittering (under the same user name as I have on LJ), and I'm finding it easier to put any brief thoughts and snippets of news on there than to write a proper journal entry.

I recently put an embedded BeanShell interpreter in ConText so that users can easily add new filters and outputs without needing to first download and set up a development system capable of building ConText. ( Long post that probably won't be of interest to non-programmers... )

I don't seem to have written a proper public con report since DWCon 2008. I believe I have missed out Novacon in late 2008; Redemption, LX and Satellite 2 in 2009; Odyssey in 2010; Redemption and Illustrious in 2011; and Satellite 3 earlier this year. Bad Alex.

Last weekend I attended my seventh Eastercon. ( Long report follows... )

I'm putting this here where Google will index it, to hopefully save others from banging their heads against the same problem. There are some discussion threads around referring to this issue but few definite conclusions, and the Google Calendar developers appear to be remaining silent on the matter.

• Google Calendar events can include a list of attendees (though it calls them Guests).
• The iCalendar data format also supports attendees.
• When you export a Google Calendar to iCalendar data, the attendees are included.
• When you import iCalendar data into a Google Calendar, the attendees are silently ignored.

I've just spent over an hour trying to find a bug in a program I've written which generates iCalendar data. The attendees show up fine when I import the data into Apple iCal but they don't appear in Google Calendar. What eventually convinced me that it is a Google Calendar import bug/limitation rather than a problem with my code is this: ( Read more... )

1. There are many crafts on display at the craft fair.
2. The are many craft on display at the aircraft museum.

Also: "craft fair" or "arts and crafts fair"?

I'm writing this mainly so that Google will index it and hopefully it will provide the solution for anybody else who runs into the same problem.

If you have a Java application on Mac OS X that is contained in an application bundle created using Jar Bundler, it includes a native executable in your.app/Contents/MacOS/JavaApplicationStub that automatically runs the JRE in 64 bit mode when you run it on a 64 bit capable Mac. You can check if this has happened by running your application and looking at the Kind column in Activity Monitor.

My problem was that my Java application was trying to integrate with Open Office, which is currently a 32 bit only application. My program, running in 64 bit mode, tried to dynamically load the OO libraries and failed because they are only available in 32 bit format. I didn't discover this during development because I have a 2006 vintage Mac Mini that only has a 32 bit processor and a 2003 vintage iBook that has a G4 PPC processor. One of my beta testers had a newer Mac and was unable to get the program to output anything to OpenOffice. ( Read on for the solution... )

For Odyssey 2010, watervole designed the convention programme using sugoll's excellent progdb system. It's a great tool for organising a convention but it doesn't by itself create the kind of nicely-formatted outputs that you want to print in a convention's README. I was doing Publications that year and I invested a lot of time writing a piece of software to do just that.

Because its initial purpose was simply to read data from ProgDB and automatically produce output suitable for inclusion in a README, I called it progdb_to_readme. This was a rubbish name to start with and got less appropriate as I extended the program to produce other kinds of output, including an iCalendar file and various reports. It didn't matter too much for Odyssey because progdb_to_readme lived only in my computer - I ran the program when I wanted to generate the various outputs and emailed the results off to other people.

Now steverogerson is using ProgDB to design the programme for Olympus 2012[1] and cobrabay is doing Publications, so I've been asked to supply them with progdb_to_readme. I've spent the past few days dealing with a few new feature requests and designing a GUI to make it easier to use, and my next job is to work out how to go from a NetBeans Java project to a distributable application package[2].

I've been thinking though, that if I'm ever going to come up with a better name for the program, now is the time to do it. Any suggestions?

Update: in the absence of any better ideas, I've decided to call it ConText.

[1] I wonder what Illustrious 2011 did? I thought they were using ProgDB but there was a lot of last minute confusion about the programme and nobody contacted me to ask about progdb_to_readme, so I assume they designed the publications manually.
[2] OSX first because that's what I'm using, but it should be easily portable to any platform that has OpenOffice and Java.

Yesterday wibble_puppy and I went out for a drive in Emrys down through Rhayader and the Elan Valley to see Strata Florida Abbey. We saved a few quid on the entry fee because the visitor centre closes in winter and you can just wander in. On the downside, it was very cold (snowing) and the public loos were locked!

Most of the reservoirs in the Elan Valley were full to overflowing. Caban Coch was particularly impressive. Here's a video I recorded from the viewing platform at the top:


(Direct link in case the embed doesn't work)

We get military aircraft flying over us several times a day here in Wales, sometimes very low[1] (training manoeuvres I presume). This afternoon I was working outside when I was startled by what sounded like two very loud thunderclaps a fraction of a second apart. It took me a couple of moments to realise that I'd just experienced a sonic boom! I quickly looked around but couldn't see anything in the sky due to low cloud cover. No windows broken as far as I know; I don't think it passed directly over the house.

[1] Every time it happens I hear the Top Gun theme tune in my head...

Sorry I haven't posted for a while; work on the house got frantic again, then wibble_puppy and I spent about a month on holiday in the Hebrides.

I want to share the following passage that I found in a book I was reading today.

But the first thing I want to talk about is not tools, or materials, or techniques, but attitudes. The tendency in a modern industrial society is for the division of labor to be so complete that individuals rely on specialists for almost all of their goods and services. We have come so far from the days of pioneer self-sufficiency that we speak of the "do-it-yourself" movement as if it were some sort of curiosity or fad rather than an expression of man's innate desire for independence.

The trouble is that by depending on specialists - be they plumbers, bakers, or tailors - we rob ourselves of the opportunity to probe the limits of our own abilities. A person who never handles tools cannot know what skill might lie hidden in those magnificent hands. As a result, one who has had no experience with using tools and building things may easily come to consider himself or herself incapable of using tools and building things. Such an attitude - unseen and unrecognized - can cripple a potential artisan as surely as the loss of a hand.

I fell into this trap myself, and might never have gotten out of it had I not settled in the Alaskan bush, where self-sufficiency is still a way of life. My crippling self-image was exposed before I'd been in the valley a month. One day I asked a village craftsman if it was possible to fashion a homemade adapter that would reduce a 6-inch stovepipe down to 5 inches. "Of course it's possible," he answered. "The only question is how to do it."

All of a sudden, I realized that I had been on the verge of giving in to the specialists by ordering an adapter from a faraway hardware store. My friend, by contrast, was already looking through his supply of scrap metal in order to decide which of many possible approaches might be the best. Ever since that time, I've operated on the assumption that if other human beings can do a certain thing, then I can at least give it a try.

The book is Wood Stoves: How to Make and Use Them by Ole Wik. There is an OCRed copy available to read online (probably unauthorised, though the book is over thirty years old and long out of print).

Anti-fracking protesters arrested for hanging banners on Blackpool Tower.

Lintilla failed her MOT on Saturday due to a small rust hole near one of the rear spring hangers. Here's what it looked like after I'd cleaned it up: ( Photos after the cut... )

I took wibble_puppy to Shrewsbury yesterday to see Fairport Convention at the Theatre Severn. Fairport were great as usual. They played lots of songs that were new to me. We also enjoyed the support act, Katriona Gilmore and Jamie Roberts (warning: music auto-plays). I got told off by an usher for taking photos (discreetly without flash), but I still managed to get quite a nice one of Katriona: ( Photo behind the cut... )

We were both impressed by a moving song she wrote after her grandfather suffered a stroke and developed problems with his sight and short-term memory: Travelling in Time.

(Incidentally my '365 Photo Challenge' posts are normally friends-only but I'm posting this one publicly because I think it's of more general interest.)

When you use a Dyson DC16 to suck up spilled ashes from under the stove and you accidentally pick up a glowing ember too, it dances round and round the transparent collection bowl like a demented firefly. (while emitting an acrid 'burning plastic' smell ;)

Edit: Skip down to the comments for the correct lyrics to both versions of Sarah's Song.

The short version: I'm trying to figure out what this lyric is: MP3 clip.

Have a guess before you read the clues ( behind the cut. )

As promised, here is the new Fenchurch TODO List: ( Read more... )

I'll keep editing the list as I think of new tasks, shuffle priorities around, and strike off tasks that I've done.

I bought Fenchurch, my 1963 Morris Minor Traveller, in July 2006 and carried out a partial restoration over the following year. After getting her back on the road she was my primary transport until spring 2009, when I put her to bed in my parents' garage and switched to driving Lintilla. In the (nearly) two years she was on the road, I kept her outside all year round and drove about 25,000 miles (my daily commute, the first Land's End to Orkney rally, the Around Ireland Rally, quite a few trips to London and Glasgow, numerous SF conventions and Morris Minor gatherings, etc.). The plan was that I would drive Lintilla while I spent a couple of months doing some overdue preventive maintenance on Fenchurch. Life got in the way and she spent most of a year in the garage, then when my dad wanted the space back I drove her down to Wales and she's been parked in the lovely wibble_puppy's barn ever since. This was only meant to be a temporary arrangement (plus I'd really like to be able to drive her again!), so I'm finally putting a concerted effort into getting her back on the road.

Mechanically she's still in pretty good nick - her engine is beginning to get a little bit tired, but it probably has another 20-40K to go before it will need a rebuild. The main reason I took her off the road was to do something about her woodwork, which was starting to show the effects of being stored outside and neglected - no serious rot yet, but the staining around the joints etc. had returned and some bits were starting to feel worryingly 'spongy'. I also want to sort out the numerous paint chips and rust spots. Again, nothing serious, but she was starting to look tatty and would only get worse if left untreated. She's also overdue for a fresh application of the under-body anti-corrosion wax stuff, which for the most part seems to have worked very well. A few other bits and pieces need time and/or money spending on them - eg. the speedometer is faulty (I used to make do with the rev counter), and the radiator has started weeping while in storage. The rear springs are flat as a pancake but fixing them isn't a high priority, and neither is sorting out the interior (which is still almond green and uncarpeted).

Something that has helped to motivate me in the past is to put a public TODO list up on LJ and cross stuff out when it's done. For historical interest, here is the original Fenchurch TODO list from nearly four years ago, and here is the Lintilla TODO list from when I was preparing her for the second LEO rally. Rather than tacking the new tasks onto the old Fenchurch list, I've written a new one (on paper), which I will transcribe and post on here tomorrow.

PS. I was surprised to realise that Lintilla has now been my primary transport for as long as Fenchurch was, though I have only done about 16,000 miles in Lin (largely due to not having a daily commute any more).

The weather has turned unseasonably warm (12.7C outside right now!), so of course my snow chains have just arrived! ;)

10:00 I (just) managed to get Lintilla up the lane to the top road, which has been gritted so is fairly OK to drive on. I didn't think the delivery driver would be willing to attempt driving down the lane (Royal Mail deliveries have stopped), so I called UPS to arrange to meet the driver in the local town. Light snow continued to fall on and off, and a couple of tractors drove up and down the lane.

12:30 we got a call to say the driver was in town and could we come and meet him straight away? I had been hoping to get rather more notice than that, but I optimistically promised to be there "in about ten minutes" and sped up the lane. Unfortunately that little bit of extra snow combined with the traffic compacting the fresh snow down to slippier hard stuff meant that I wasn't quite able to get Lintilla to the top of the steep bit. Worse, when I tried to reverse back down the hill so that I could go down and into town the slightly easier but much longer way, she slid sideways and jammed between the banks of the track. I couldn't get her un-jammed without assistance so I dashed back to the house to borrow G's Land Rover, which had a flat tyre that I had to pump up before we could set off.

13:15 we made it in the Landy to the rendezvous with the now rather ticked-off driver, who would already have left and taken my arctic wellies away with him, if not for wibble_puppy's amazing powers of persuasion over the phone ("he hasn't got anything to keep his poor little soggy feet warm in the snow").

13:30 we got back to the house to find that somebody (presumably the lovely local farmer) had already towed Lin down to a wider bit of the track. I'm hoping he was more amused than annoyed by the incident.

So I have my fancy wellies, they fit nicely and feel comfortable, and it's still snowing outside. I'm going to grab a bite of lunch and then go outside to play! :)

The past few days my feet have been suffering when out in the snow (one of my toes has gone red and puffy). Eventually I broke down and ordered some fancy expensive arctic survival wellies. The UPS tracking web page says they are on their way this morning. Wonder what the chances are of the delivery van getting down the steep un-gritted track in the heavy snow? :-/

The term 'bodge' these days tends to refer to a quick and dirty repair, usually of poor quality. An example would be patching up rusty car bodywork using chicken wire and filler instead of cutting out all the rot and welding new pieces in. Traditionally, however, bodging was a common occupation. Bodgers were craftsmen who worked in the woods, cutting branches and working them by hand to produce a variety of pole-shaped items (eg. legs for chairs and tables).

I've recently had cause to replace several rotten oak pegs (trenails) that should have been holding together the ancient oak frame in the back wall of wibble_puppy's house. ( Read more... )

A loud crash at 2AM signalled the departure of another wall of the room I'm sleeping in, or rather the big plywood sheet that was blocking the window opening in the front wall. Luckily it wasn't too cold, and I was able to sleep through the rattling, rustling and thumping of the plastic tarp that is (sort of) covering the missing back wall. On the positive side I got a nice view of the sunrise.

wibble_puppy and I went up on the roof yesterday to have a look at the chimney, but it was much too hot to work up there (the black slate tiles were burning any body parts in contact with them), so I just removed the redundant TV aerial and came back down. Today was cooler so I went back up and managed to clear the bricks, concrete and twigs out the top of the small bedroom chimney. The bricks and concrete were part of the remains of an old chimney cap that had fallen to bits (I carted what was left of it down in a rucksack over the course of several trips). The twigs had presumably been put there by nesting Jackdaws. ( Read more... )

The local farmer (who was born in wibble_puppy's house) told us he thought there used to be a small fireplace in the bedroom that I've been sleeping in. We couldn't work out how because the wall of the bedroom is about five feet in from the outer wall of the house, and there didn't look to be enough space for a second flue in the massive weirdly-shaped block of stone and brick masonry above the big inglenook fireplace in the living room. It remained a mystery until a builder went up on the roof yesterday and peered down the top of the chimney. There is a second flue (albeit filled with rubble), he said. ( Read more... )

When I was up in the Lakes recently, I bought a jar of Cartmel Sticky Toffee Sauce. Delicious stuff, particularly on hot golden syrup cake. When it ran out I looked into buying some more, but it's pretty expensive and after finding out how much it would cost to post I decided to have a go at making my own instead. After studying the list of ingredients on the jar and a bunch of recipes I found on the net, I came up with the following recipe: ( Read more... )

The recipe makes a couple of portions more than will fit into a 340g Cartmel jar. I keep it in the fridge because of the cream content. It's a slightly different shade to the Cartmel stuff but I reckon it tastes pretty much identical. Perfect! :)

For the past week wibble_puppy and I have been driving far and wide, scouring salvage yards for old reclaimed bricks that match those her house is built from. At two different places we bought a hundred and brought them back in her Honda Jazz (I worked out it was just about safe to carry that much weight, but the rear suspension was riding pretty low). At a third place we bought a palette of 150. There were already 100 bricks in the back of the car so we couldn't bring the 150 back with us that day.

Not wanting to risk breaking the Jazz by bringing them all back in one trip, we discussed a number of different options to retrieve them. Among the options were to make two trips in the Jazz (about three-four hours per round trip, including loading and unloading); bring them back in Wibble's Minor van (unsure if it would be a safe load because we think it has the rear springs from a car instead of a van); get me insured to drive G's big business van (expensive); or rent a suitably hefty trailer (very expensive). In the end I decided on the most illogical option: build a trailer and tow it with Lintilla!

Starting with the trailer tent chassis that I'm going to build my caravan on and a pile of scrap timber, we spent five and a half hours yesterday afternoon/evening (much of it in the rain) putting the brakes back together and then building a box on top of the chassis.


After grabbing a bite to eat, we headed over to the brick yard, picked up the 150 bricks, and brought them back. I had been a little concerned beforehand about how well Lintilla would cope with pulling that much weight - I estimate the gross weight of trailer and load probably came to about 500Kg. I could certainly feel her handling differently, and hill climbs were a bit slower, but she coped remarkably well overall. Overrun brakes on the trailer are certainly a good thing and I'm very glad the chassis I bought has them - they make braking with a heavy load not much harder than with a light empty trailer.


I'm pretty happy with it, particularly since it's nearly all made from stuff we already had lying around. I want to make a few small modifications (turn the back into a hinged tailgate, lower the height of the front, bolt the spare wheel on, maybe fit mudguards) and give it a lick of paint. We've discussed putting a wanted ad on the local Freegle for unwanted tins of exterior paint and using whatever colours we end up with! It's a bit of a shame that it will have to be dismantled in a few months to use the chassis for the caravan, but in the meantime we have a useful resource for moving building materials around (including caravan-building materials).

Here's a sketch I did a while ago to get across the kind of style I have in mind for my self-build caravan. ( Read more... )

Here are some photos of a 'dummy caravan' I built to check that the dimensions used in the design will be practical. ( Read more... )

Here's part two of my self-build caravan thoughts: ( Design aims... )

The subject of my next post or two will be the design I'm working on. I've managed to come up with something that fulfils nearly all of the above aims. Internal storage space is still a bit of an issue, and the heater and self-cooling fridge are probably not practical without either mains electricity or a Calor gas bottle to power them (even if I found room inside the caravan for them). It will certainly look interesting and be fun to build!

I've been doing a lot of thinking about my crazy plan to build a compact caravan. Over the next day or two I want to post some of my thoughts. Here's part 1: ( Pros and cons of owning a caravan... )

The trailer-tent chassis came with only two wheels (ie. no spare) and the tyres are in poor shape - they are both badly cracked due to age. Not much of a surprise really, but I was a little irritated that the eBay seller claimed they "look fine" considering I had to tow the thing home on them and I didn't have a spare if one of them failed. I set out yesterday to find either one wheel of exactly the same size and type to use as the spare (I knew this was unlikely) or a matching set of three that fit the hubs on the axle. ( Read more... )

( In other startling revelations... )