Villagers resigned to a weekend of no Harry Potter due to rising flood waters were cheered to receive a surprise from their local postman.
Richard Yates, of Harvington near Evesham, Worcestershire, was unable to do his normal round because of floods.
He loaded up his car [a 4x4] with pre-ordered copies of the new Harry Potter book which were in the sorting office and delivered them around the village.
A neighbour said it was a wonderful gesture in the midst of flood misery.
Firstly - the guy deserves an award - posties like that (and our local chap, Dave, I can believe would have done similar - he’s a star too!) probably don’t get enough recognition - they make a very real difference to people’s lives.
But my main point is to say that occasionally - and I may be clutching at straws here - us 4×4 drivers do manage to justify our vehicles. When circumstances get bad - flood, snow, all the other things that Mother Nature can throw at us - you’ll be wishing you knew someone with a 4×4 to get you out of trouble.
Boring post perhaps, but we’ve got a few more phones on trial - I’m trying to persuade them that Blackberries are hard work - we don’t run Exchange Server and the grief we have to go to getting emails working on those things…
We’ve had much better results with Active Sync on WindowsMobile devices. Last time I has a Vodafone v1605 (for the FoWA 2007 event - it was great as a PDA, but not a very good phone), this time I’ve borrowed a Vodafone 1210 which is more phone sized but still runs Windows Mobile.
So it’s the same width and thickness as my K750i, about half an inch longer - it’s phone sized. Quite confortable in my pocket, it looks neat, and so far battery life has been acceptable. I’ve not used it much as a phone yet - I wouldn’t call myself a power user - but the few times I have it’s performed quite well, so it qualifies as a phone, and I’d be perfectly happy to carry it around.
We got Active Sync talking to our Kerio mail server without much hassle, but we’ve got the hang of that now with WM5 devices. Yes, it handles email well - perfectly capable of reading emails, and if you can bear the restrictions of using the numeric keypad to type in (it does t9 predictive text, but what phone doesn’t?) it will send too.
The keyboard restrictions and the reduced features of the Smartphone edition of WM5 limit the things usefulness as a PDA - but it’s a phone so who cares?
The Internet browser worked as expected, quite useable given the limitations of the screen and keypad.
My main bugbear - it’s not got a camera.
Given that though, if I wanted a phone with email, it’s a definite contender. But there are still a few more to try…
I’ve been a bit lax with techy posts recently, so I thought I’d jot down some things I’ve been working on of late.
Playing with Flash Media Server and video encoding, but nothing conclusive to write about yet so watch this space.
What I have had some success with though is handling large file uploads in PHP. It’s something I’ve come across in the past that you soon hit upload_max_filesize or max_execution_time when making web apps to allow upload of files into the megabytes and the slippery slope that is increasing either or both php.ini setting in response to client requests and against better judgement.
In the past I used to set up ftp accounts and say ‘use a proper protocol to transfer files - duh!’ but that’s not exactly user friendly.
So last weekend I went on a hunt for a better solution, and particularly any client-side file upload tools - came across a few that were contenders, and finally settled on JUpload as an interim solution, saving having to code something from scratch.
It took a bit of fiddling to get the demo code working - it helps if you check out the SVN head - the release package wasn’tquite working. It also took a bit of hunting to find the JUpload PHP class in the wiki which saved me a lot of time writing my own (and reinventing the wheel). It wasn’t handed on a plate how to get it working, but it also wasn’t too hard to figure out.
So I’ve got it breaking everything down into 1MB chunks, and uploads are a whole lot more reliable than just using one big fat HTTP file upload. Whether the applet will survive as is or be modified, or if I will develop something bespoke based perhaps on its core concepts only time will tell, but for now I’ve got bigger fish to tickle.
I love my Landrover Discovery. I’ve had a Landrover of some sort for around 20 years now - from an ex-military Series III Lightweight, through a ‘79 Range Rover which is in a pile of bits waiting for time, enthusiasm and budget to ‘have some fun with’, and a ‘64 Series II.
My daily commute is almost a pleasure in my 4wd armchair, and on occasions I get to pull tree roots out, tow stranded vehicles, or pull loads of hay around.
But I’m being made to feel increasingly guilty because of my excessive carbon footprint.
Now I’m quite good the rest of the time - I very rarely go on holiday so no frequent flyer miles for me. We’re very good at recycling, and try to keep our energy use under control.
Discos on the whole aren’t as bad as they’re cracked up to be - mine has a 2.5 litre turbocharged diesel engine, and on average I get around 550 miles out of a 70 litre tank full. If I had a 4.2 litre v8 supercharged Range Rover Sport (as much as I would dream of one) or a Tuareg, or those silly Porsche things.
I’m not saying the rest of my life is perfectly eco-friendly, but I don’t think it’s too bad. Aren’t I allowed a little luxury?
I grew up on the edge of what used to be a naval airstation at Pulham St. Mary in Norfolk - chosen partly because it was a flat expanse with few trees with predictable winds. In July 1919 the British Airship R34 landed there aftermaking the first east-west crossing of the Atlantic by air - only missed being the first crossing period by two weeks.
Best part of a century later, and it could be those same attributes have made the site a target for a proposed onshore wind farm. When I first heard about the scheme which is currently going through the process of ‘scoping opinion‘, the idea of seven turbines 125m high (that’s a 30 storey block of flats, and as wind turbines go they’re huge) seems great to me - personally I think they look beautiful, and I’m under the impression that although they’re not a perfect all year source of energy, they’re better for the environment than a coal fired power station.
But there are locals very opposed to the idea, including some people I hold in very high regard, and I’ve been presented with some very striking arguments that make me rethink whether or not I’m being ‘NGA’ - Naieve, Gullible and Apathetic. Certainly not the latter, but I have to admit I could have been fooled into the first two.
I’ve heard arguments before that wind power is not as good as it’s made out to be, turbines are only producing efficiently 10-15% of the time (not liking strong wind any more than no wind) and much better suited to being sited offshore than onshore.
I can also believe thay’re not as green as they make out - like all statistics you can make them say anything you want so I take both sides with a pinch of salt.
The enthusiasm to build all of these things I can see may be suspect - is it to solve our impending power crisis, or is it to capitalise on grants and funding before they stop in 2010?
But the new issue to me in the case against the Pulham Wind Farm is the potential risk to health of those living within 2Km caused by incessant low frequency noise.
Who do you trust? Certainly I now don’t trust my percieved opinion and need to research this further.
A nice post on Lighthouses Forever publicises that one of the lighthouse cottages is for sale - has been for some time.
It’s tricky selling property in Happisburgh right now - there are some real bargains to be had before common sense prevails and Happisburgh stops being treated as a pariah village.
When the waters rise, Happisburgh will fare a lot better than many of the surrounding villages.
I’ve always been a big fan of the Die Hard series - there are several actors who’s presence in the cast list normally mean I’ll enjoy the film. Bruce Willis is one of those. Right from Moonlighting, through a couple of my all time faves - Twelve Monkeys and the Sixth Sense (no I didn’t see it coming) - but it’s John McClean that I enjoy the most - ‘Yippe Ki-yay, Mother F***er!’
So, yes, as usual it’s as corny as anything - he gets beaten up and bloodied, picks the baddies off one by one, survives the most imppossible incidents and accidents, and yet still manages to come up with a one liner to meet all situations: “Dude - you just killed a helicopter with a car!” - “Yeh, I was out of bullets.”
I don’t know why it is that since the first appearence of computers in action films, it’s unreal what a kid with a laptop (or a PDA, or a dictating machine) can do - Matthew Broderick in Wargames, John Connor in T2: Judgement Day, Angelina Jolie in Hackers etc - but as I keep telling Mel: “It’s not real!” Suspend disbelief - isn’t that what they say? It’s what all the Die Hards have been about. No way was the winch cable on the pickup that long at the end of Die Hard with a Vengeance - but it was still a cracking plot line, and a great stunt.
The technology was nowhere as cool as, say, in Swordfish (come to think of it, wasn’t Travolta’s character called ‘Gabriel’ in that?), and many of the stunts I seem to recollect from other action films - The bit with the fighter was reminscent of True Lies for instance, and I still couldn’t tell you much about the plot. Still, brilliantly put together into a hugely enjoyable package.
No, I loved it - and four point oh is defintely going into my collection when it comes out on DVD - and I’m so glad I saw it on a big screen with the full Dolby Digital experience.
I was meant to be in Paris this weekend on a works jolly, but circumstances prevented that happening at the last minute. Never mind - it meant I managed to spend the entire weekend with my lovely wife; something I haven’t done for far too long.
Yesterday we went to the cinema in Cromer to see Die Hard 4.0 (as per separate post) followed by a nice meal.
Today, whereas I would normally be watching the boats go past as usual on a Sunday morning, we’ve been having major life laundry recently and have accumulated quite a pile of tut (quality rubbish) to get rid of at car boot sales. Boo was going to do one a week, but the daunting amount and unkown challenge of doing the first one was a big barrier - so she asked me as only a beloved can to sacrifice one of my free days to accompany her to hawk our wares.
We borrowed a Transit pickup from a neigbour, loaded it right up with everything from books, cuddly toys, pictures, pigs of all shapes and sizes, the odd flying dragon, a racing bicycle … and ventured to Stalham for ‘the late one’.
Remarkable things, car boot sales. Most of what we were selling we’d acquired for various boots over the years - mostly at Banham in South Norfolk when we lived in Diss. We’ve organised a couple to raise money for CCAG, but this was my first time being behind the table at a public event.
It never ceases to amaze the cross section of life that wanders past - casting a scornful eye over your cast offs - sometimes excitedly snatching someting you’d almost put in a skip, or rejecting an asking price of 20p for a once treasured trinket.
Six hours later, and we’re many boxes lighter, a few quid richer - and I’ve got a tingling bit of sunburn on the back of my neck. But it has been a day with my wife, meeting old friends and a few new ones, and we survived without major event.
All in all, a lovely way to spend a sunny Sunday - but I wouldn’t want to do it every week.
I don’t spend as much time reading other blogs (or writing my own) as I would like, but occasionally my attention is drawn to the odd gem.
Today I came across a post by knifepainter that really hit home with me - combined photography, thoughtful comment and Happisburgh in a few beautifully crafted paragraphs.
At times like this that you get to see something that you know so well through someone else’s eyes … it’s why I wish I spent more time reading blogs, visiting Flickr galleries, and otherwise participating in all these other wonderful online community activities.
