the ever winding path

Do you REALLY appreciate free software?

I’ve enjoyed freedom for a long time.

Not only is Linux software generally open source, it’s also given away. So not only do we not have to pay for it, but we can also see and develop on top of other people’s previous work. Lucky old us, free software and money we can keep because these Linux developer types work for free, outstanding.

That is until….

Over this last month or so I’ve been working on a package called byobu. Now, when I say working on I mean that I’ve been essentially working on the man pages and coming up with a few ideas. The trouble is that life and work really do get in the way of helping out. After a long day at work, I’m often lacking motivation to sit at the computer and work, even though I have a head full of things that I need/want to do. But it takes commitment, and time; time that could be spent doing many many other things.

So, next time you’re using a piece of software that you love, consider finding that project’s donation button and congratulate them on their fine product.

I’m not suggesting that everyone should be paid to develop software or maintain it, and I’m certainly not suggesting I should be getting fists full of dollars for the teeny tiny amount of work I’ve done (I’d only forward it to Debian). But using that donation button might allow project leads to thank their team members for their work over the last release cycle in some way other than words.

Go on.. it’s a great way to say thanks.

Summer Solstice at Stonehenge

First off.. Happy Solstice, I hope the day finds you well and brings you the things you need.

This morning I went to Stonehenge to see the sunrise with a couple of running friends, yeah, we ran there and it was a great run. But the sights at Stonehenge were utterly utterly horrible. Seriously. These free festival types need to find somewhere else to go at this time of year, they’re not there to celebrate the solstice and see the sunrise, they turn up for a party, get pissed/wasted, throw their rubbish all over the floor, urinate pretty much everywhere. Why are English Heritage allowing this to happen? There is no justification for a free festival of this scale at any historical site, especially Stonehenge.

I’m not at all impressed, and letters will flow.

If you want to celebrate the solstice then stay at home, find a local place that you find beautiful and see the sunrise there. Don’t come to Stonehenge, please, stay away. That doesn’t just apply to the free festival types, that applies to everyone, the Druids, the Witches, the Heathens, if you live more than 10 miles away from Amesbury then don’t come, go somewhere else, find your own local spot and leave this monument alone.

Yeah I’m grumpy, you would be too.

Moving my running…

I’ve started a new blog so that I can keep all of my running focused in one place. Have a look at Plain Runner It’s a little basic at the moment, but it’s only been a few hours.

You know you’re addicted to running when….

… the physio tells you not to run for another week, and rather than thinking about all the rest you’re going to get, you just worry about how your endurance might suffer.

I’ve been getting in some good miles since I started running again (after the last injury) at the end of last year, and I ran a rather satisfying 12 miles a couple of Sundays back. But I’ve had shin splints for about a month and no matter what training I do/did they’ve not gone away.

A visit to the physio 10 days ago brought about 7 days off, which left me chomping at the bit to get out again. Unfortunately my 10 miles in 2 days wasn’t a gentle enough break back into running and the shin splints are back. The physio wasn’t particularly happy and has said I’m not to run before the 16th of this month, which will be ten days without running.

How the hell am I going to cope with that!?

Lots of route planning I guess. Oh and she’s given me a strict routine to get back into training gently rather than my typical balls out approach. Here’s hoping all will be well, I won’t be able to cope with more time off.

TUTORO chainoiler on a KTM 990 Adventure S

One of the guys at xrv.org.uk mentioned a cheap, but well engineered chain oiler from http://www.chainoiler.org.uk/index.html that he was going to fit. I’ve been looking for a solution for my KTM, as I can’t fit a Scottoiler, and this simple, manually operated, gravity fed system could work out well, and if it doesn’t, it was under £20.

The reservoir and valve are a nice compact unit.

There’s not much space to fit the reservoir, especially if, like me, you chain your bike up, over the rear sub-frame.

This seems to be the best place to locate everything, with the delivery tube over the top of the chain rebound guard.

Rather than run the delivery tube down the swing arm, I’ve elected to drop the oil on the top of the chain, just before the front sprocket, although this may not be the best place. I may change it later.

The reservoir needs to be hidden well enough to avoid damage, but accessible enough to be able to turn it on/off and top it up. I’ll cable tie it to the frame to finish off.

Final installation, for now, I’ll just have to see how well the chain actually gets oiled.

There are a couple of things I may change; I may end up feeding the oil just in front of the rear sprocket for better distribution. I may also add a long length of tube to the top of the reservoir and feed it somewhere convenient for topping up the oil.

The spring is here and the weekend bikers have arrived…

You know, I’m a biker, I ride my KTM all year round, no matter what the weather. I ride alone a lot, but occasionally I ride with friends, friends that I trust to ride safely. I have quite a few of them I’m pleased to say.

But when the weather warms up.. and we got to 13 degrees Centigrade today, unfortunately, a lot of pillocks come out to play. In the 30 miles I drove in the car today I must have seen at least 40 bikes, they were everywhere, and generally they were all being respectable bikers. But then of course someone just had to spoil it. A group of 3 bikes, one sports bike and a couple of big trailies appeared, and the guy at the front was riding like a complete idiot, throwing the bike all over the road (no doubt “warming his tyres”) doing stoppies, wheelies, very poor overtakes, getting far too close etc etc.

What pisses me off is that he’s the guy that everyone will remember and no doubt prompt comments like “bloody bikers”, tarring us all with the same brush. Unfortunately it’s this kind of poor riding that all too often ends up with a sad ending.

If you ride a bike, don’t ride like a prat, especially if you enjoy life.

end of rant… that is all.

Help me gmail, I don’t want html email

I think gmail is great, I’ve been using the service for years, and have setup mail for a number of domains for other people.

Their spam filtering is superb, I rarely see any, although my spam bucket is pretty full. Coupled with all the other services, I don’t see any need to host my own email.

However, that may change. I’m getting thoroughly fed up with people sending me html email using oversized and coloured text for some reason. Now there are certain companies I don’t mind html email from, mainly because they’re trusted, and they use the facility to bring me content in the mail. I’ve tried to tell these troublesome people that what they’re doing is wrong, and how dodgy it can be to send email in such a way.. but after a while, they go back to their old ways

Please please Google, give me an html stripping filter so that I can stop individuals sending me html mail !!!

The gym sucks

Really, I hate it.

I run, I like to run, I find it relaxing and enjoyable, even meditative when things are right. But at the moment I have shin splints in my left leg (new trainers on the way) and I really shouldn’t run on it. Luckily all the snow we have at the moment made sure I didn’t go out at lunchtime.

Instead I went into the gym, but I hate it in there, all those damned fixed machines, treadmills, cross-trainers, static bikes are soooo boring. Anyway, it really didn’t happen at all, I couldn’t find the motivation and sacked it after about 30 mins.

Fitness 0 : Sloth 1

A watch just for runners

Whenever I run, there’s always a niggle in the back of my mind that I have no way of making contact with anyone. Having had a really bad ankle sprain once (to the point where I could only hop), I dread to think what would happen if I was out in the middle of nowhere in bad weather and I couldn’t get to “safety”.

I’ve never owned a phone that’s small and light enough to carry whilst I run, althought the Motorola V330 could probably do. But LG have come to the rescue, they’re about to launch the LG-GD910 3G capable wrist phone which looks like it might just do the job. Slashphone has some pretty decent pictures of it, anyone know where I might buy one?

The trouble with a clear blue sky….

Over the past year or so I’ve been sucked into the idea of cloud computing, where all of your content is on-line. So email, calendar, documents are all on the web, not on your computer and the practice has a lot of benefits, especially if you use multiple computers.

Using the cloud has been fine, but what do you do when the sky is clear and you can’t get to the cloud? I was pretty sure during my time away that I’d have access to the net, but a flaky connection at the hotel prevented me having access to data that I really needed. I guess it means that I should carry copies of the data on my netbook or phone, but then that negates the whole point of the cloud.

Of course, there were a number of wifi hot-spots available, but only if you’re prepared to pay $25 for 24 hours of access. Interestingly there was fantastic free wifi in the airport in Orlando, which helped pass the time.

So, what to do, cloud or no cloud?