John C. Kirk

01:47 am - Bike maintenance

I went along for a health assessment last Friday, and the doctor mentioned that my feet are a bit arched. I suspect that this may be because of my cycling technique: I have a tendency to press down on the pedals with the middle of my feet, rather than the balls (front).

This in turn is partly to do with the saddle position. I'm fairly tall, so I bought a telescopic seat pillar. At first I didn't use it, so I just pulled up the main seat pillar as high as it would go, then relied on the the extra pillar (even when collapsed) to give me an extra couple of centimetres. However, I've recently been pulling the telescopic pillar up a bit as well, and that does make the ride more comfortable, i.e. I can actually straighten my legs enough to get my feet into the proper position. Unfortunately, I've found that the main seat pillar has a tendency to sink down while I'm on it; it's fairly gradual (unless I hit a pothole), but I have to stop every 10-15 minutes, then get off and pull the seat up again. I'll ask the shop about that the next time I take the bike in.

Speaking of the saddle, I've also had a problem with it tilting upwards at the front, presumably because my weight has been pushing down on the back. I couldn't push it level, but last night I dug out a hex key (left over from flatpacked furniture) and adjusted the saddle. Before and after:



Riding on it today, it was a lot more comfortable, and I hope that I'm maintaining a straighter back.

While I was on a roll, I also decided to have a look at my tyres. I've had various bikes over the years, and my standard approach has always been to try squeezing the tyres with my thumb; if it feels hard, that's fine, but if it's a bit squishy then it needs more air. However, looking at the owner's manual (and the Brompton website), they're a bit more precise about tyre pressure. I have Schwalbe Marathon tyres, so that means:
Front: 60 to 80 PSI, 100 PSI max.
Rear: 70 to 90 PSI, 100 PSI max.

I've used electric air pumps at petrol stations, which include pressure gauges, but I've heard that it's a really bad idea to use them on bicycle tyres. (Apparently they pump air at too high a pressure, so bike tyres would explode.) On the other hand, none of the pumps I've used have ever included a pressure gauge, so how do you know when you've got the right pressure?

Doing some digging on the web, the idea seems to be that hand pumps are just for emergencies, i.e. getting a puncture while you're out and about. You then keep a "track pump" at home, which includes a pressure gauge, and use that for regular maintenance. I've never been very good at fixing punctures, even with the aid of a bucket of water, so I wouldn't fancy trying it by the side of a road. Looking at the Brompton in particular, it would be much easier just to fold it up and bring it home on the bus/train. This pump business is probably old news to most people, so does anyone else have any recommendations?

In the meantime, my back tyre seemed a bit squishy, so I figured that it would be worth pumping it up. Aside from anything else, it would be useful to figure out how my Brompton pump actually works. Unfortunately, this is where it all went a bit wrong.

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01:53 am - Ethics of photography

A couple of weeks ago, I took part in the World Naked Bike Ride. (More details in locked post.) One of the controversial aspects of this event is photography; I know that some of you are serious photographers, so I'd be interested to hear your thoughts on this.

The London event in particular has a photography policy. This has been tweaked a bit in the last few years, but the basic idea is that that photographers should ask for permission before taking photos. There was a debate about that in 2005 at photo.net, where some people objected to the policy quite strongly. More recently, there have been some discussions about this at the WNBR London Yahoo group. Peter Marshall (photographer) also wrote about this, and I basically agree with him.

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Edit: Speaking of paparazzi, there was a wonderful story in the news a few months ago - Woody Harrelson claims he mistook photographer for zombie. Apparently he'd been filming a zombie film for the last few months, so it was a natural mistake to make, and that's why he punched the guy in the face. Largo would be proud!

06:19 pm - Evening excursions

This week I've been into central London a couple of times, for some (relatively) highbrow entertainment. On Wednesday I went to the Prince Charles Cinema to watch Synecdoche, then on Friday I went to the Vaudeville Theatre to watch Duet for One.

( No real spoilers )

12:46 am - Local knowledge

The BBC put up a news article last week: A-levels 'too much like sat-nav'. Leaving aside the academic merits of A levels, I think that the sat-nav comment is accurate: "If you read a map to get from A to B, you remember the route and learn about other things on the way. If you use a sat-nav, you do neither of those things."

This isn't just sat-nav; I think the same thing applies to public transport, particularly in London. The tube map isn't a very accurate model of reality, and I've often been surprised to realise how close together some places are, e.g. it's easier to walk than to follow JourneyPlanner's advice of catching a bus. Now that I'm doing more cycling, that's helping me to expand my "mental map", and it's always nice when I can join two existing areas together.

When I was little, I had a jigsaw of all the English counties. In a normal jigsaw, the pieces are all basically square, but they have bits sticking out or holes on the sides so that you can join them together. This one was a bit different, since each piece was the correct shape/size for the county, and there was a special board to assemble the map. The pieces were quite thick (at least 5mm), so there was a recess in the board to represent England, and you could only fit all the pieces in if they were in the right places. Nowadays, I have to admit that my geography can be a bit hazy, so I'd quite like to try that again; it might also be useful to have more local versions, such as the boroughs of London (e.g. Brent, Tower Hamlets) or towns in a particular area (e.g. Bromley, Carshalton).

I can't find any suitable physical objects online, but the Ordnance Survey have some jigsaw games on their website:
http://mapzone.ordnancesurvey.co.uk/mapzone/gamespages/jigsaw.html
Trying the England jigsaw on easy mode, it took me 549 seconds to put 26 counties into the appropriate positions. (I also had to cheat a bit, by using Google Maps to work out where Leicestershire is.) I found some counties a lot easier than others, e.g. I know where Cornwall is so I didn't have to rely on the shape. Anyway, I'll keep practising.

07:01 pm - Cycling maps

This morning I was out on duty at the London to Brighton bike ride. That went well, and there was an interesting variety of bikes going past. In particular, there were quite a few tandems: they were still in the minority, but I saw at least one every 10-15 minutes, and they were more common than recumbents or Bromptons. (No trandems, but there were a couple of unicycles.) I've never ridden a tandem, but I'd be interested to try one out some time. The strangest bike I saw was a "semi-recumbent tandem": the person on the back was in a normal seated position, while the person in front was in a recumbent position (both seats were at about the same height).

There were also a few people with trailer bikes. They look a bit like tandems, but the riders don't have to pedal in time with each other, since they have separate chains. I didn't notice any child trailers, but I did like the comment on that linked page: "It's annoying when a child asks why you're wet and they aren't." (It would be tempting to answer that with the aid of a water bottle, but that's probably not an approved parenting technique.)

While I was there, I spent a while studying the maps: that way, if we needed to take the ambulance somewhere, I could avoid the cycle route. This brings up another topic; a couple of months ago, I bought three Sustrans maps. They weren't quite what I was expecting, so I think it's useful to clarify what you actually get for your money.

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(By the way, I'm aware that this seems to be turning into a cycling blog; I will return to other topics soon.)

11:45 pm - Microsoft exams

Last August, I did a beta exam for Microsoft. I didn't pay for it, but I didn't get a score either; the idea was just to test out their new software for doing simulations in the exam (rather than multiple choice questions). As a "thank you", Microsoft then sent me three vouchers, each one corresponding to a free exam. These expire at the end of June, so I've finally had to stop procrastinating and start studying.

Today I did two exams: 70-236 (MCTS: Configuring Exchange Server 2007) and 70-431 (MCTS: SQL Server 2005 - Implementation and Maintenance). According to the booking website, the Exchange exam lasts 4½ hours, and the SQL exam lasts 4 hours, so this looked like quite a long day! Fortunately, I didn't need all the time that was allocated, so I ended both exams early, and I was at the test centre for about 3 hours altogether.

The Exchange exam went pretty well; I haven't read all of the study guide, but I do have a lot of hands on experience. Before the actual exam started, they asked me to rate myself in various skills, e.g. backups and performance monitoring. That's new, so presumably they'll compare that to my actual results, and see how good I am at self-assessment. One significant point about this exam is that you have to be familiar with the command line. I can't go into too much detail (due to the NDA), but I can say that about half of the questions involved cmdlets, so if you use the GUI for everything then you'll fail this exam. Arguably that's not fair, since the GUI is a valid way to perform day to day tasks, but it's certainly useful to be aware of it. Anyway, I passed this by a comfortable margin (passing score 700, my score 826), so that's good.

I found the SQL exam a lot harder, and after the first few questions I figured that I was pretty much doomed. This exam was in two stages: firstly the normal multiple choice questions, then a set of simulations. I found the simulations a lot easier, and this was reflected in my scores: 753 for non-performance based items, and 880 for performance based items. (Again, the pass mark was 700.)

So, that's good news: two extra qualifications to put on my CV. That said, both exams revealed some areas that I'm weak on, so I need to continue studying.

This leaves me with one voucher, and 10 days to use it. I haven't booked my final exam yet, because I wanted to wait until I'd done the first two; that way, if I'd failed either of them, I could use the remaining voucher to retake it. I think I'll go for 70-536 (MCTS: Microsoft .NET Framework - Application Development Foundation). It won't actually get me a qualification by itself, but it's a prerequisite for several, i.e. it has to be paired up with another exam. More importantly, it's a subject that I've got quite a lot of experience in, and I also have a book that will help me to prepare (not an official study guide, but still relevant).

Anyway, bedtime for me now; I've got to be up at 4am for the London to Brighton bike ride (ambulance duty, not cycling it).

12:40 am - Derren Brown

Tonight I went off to watch "Derren Brown: Enigma" at the Adelphi Theatre (SJA duty). I'm not familiar with any of his previous work, although billyabbott has recommended one of his books. Anyway, it was very impressive, and I enjoyed it. He describes himself as a "fake psychic", i.e. he's not claiming to actually have any psychic powers, but he also insists that he doesn't use stooges in the audience (which would be the simplest way to pull off his tricks). I have a couple of ideas about how he might achieve some of his effects, but lots of them have me completely baffled. In Vertigo comics, Cain and Abel own the House of Mystery and the House of Secrets, and Cain's theory is that mysteries are only important as long as they stay mysteries, which I can agree with. At the end, he asked people not to give away any details of the performance, so as to preserve the surprise for other people, and I'll respect that. However, if anyone else does go off to see it, I'd be interested to compare notes with you afterwards.

11:29 pm - Once again, the tube's on strike

As other Londoners will know, London Underground are on strike again. This doesn't directly affect me, since I use the Overground trains, but there has been a knock-on effect, even at off-peak (ish) times.

When I arrived at Clapham Junction this morning, there was a huge crowd of people on the overbridge, and the British Transport Police weren't letting anyone onto the platform. When the train arrived, they waited for all those passengers to get off (using the underpass), then they let a certain number of people go down to the platform at a time. On the platform, we weren't allowed to just get onto the train: instead, they made sure that the furthest carriages were full up before they'd let anyone onto the nearer carriages. This worked out fairly well, in terms of making best use of the available space, but it was also a bit slow, so the train was about 10 minutes late by the time it left (originally due at 09:47).

In the evening, I caught the 19:20 from Kensington Olympia, heading towards Clapham Junction. This train really was packed out, even though there was another one a few minutes behind it. I remember a phrase from a book I read a while back: it mentioned passengers on a crowded train, and described them as "closer than lovers". That's a bit of an exaggeration, but it is weird to be standing back to back (or bum to bum) with a complete stranger, when I can feel the warmth of their body through the clothing. (It's also tricky to describe it without sounding like a pervert!)

Ah well, hopefully things will get back to normal soon. In the meantime, I'm gradually increasing the distance that I cycle every day, so eventually I may get to a point where I don't need to take the train at all.

06:38 pm - Exchange 2007 - firewall problems on Windows 2008

This is another of my random techie posts: it probably won't interest any of my friends, but it may be useful for people who stumble across it via a web-search.

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09:26 pm - New twist on Nigerian spam

Since my email address is public, I get a lot of spam messages (at least 150 per day). This includes Nigerian 419 emails, where people offer to transfer millions of pounds into my bank account. However, yesterday I received a new version. (It's obviously still a scam, but I think this approach is interesting.)

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12:40 am - Cycling clothing

I've been cycling to work since last October, and my views on appropriate clothing have shifted a bit during that time. Initially, I'd just wear my normal work clothes (with high-vis waistcoat and helmet), but I'm now wearing a T-shirt for cycling and carrying my work shirt in the pannier, then changing when I arrive. That's partly because I seem to be sweating a lot more now; this is probably a combination of the weather, cycling further, and pedalling faster.

I'm now wondering about the lower half. When I use machines at the gym, I wear lycra cycle shorts: they're more comfortable, and a bit more absorbant. I'd be happy to wear them if I was cycling the whole way to work; I could either carry trousers with me, or keep them in a locker at the office. However, the problem is that I go part of the way by train; it's not so much that I'd feel self-conscious, but I don't want to offend any of the other passengers. One option would be to get "baggies", but I'd prefer not to buy any extra clothing at the moment, particularly since I'm hoping to slim down a bit (i.e. they'd become too big for me). Another option would be to put an extra layer on top (e.g. tracksuit trousers), but that would probably make me sweat even more.

So, what do the rest of you think?

Poll #1406810 Cycling shorts
Open to: All, detailed results viewable to: All

What would you think if you saw someone on the train wearing lycra shorts?

04:50 pm - The road is long...

As I've mentioned before, I have a Brompton folding bike, which I use in my daily commute: I carry it on the train with me, then cycle between the relevant station and home/work. Today I had a somewhat longer route than usual; apparently there's a tree on the track in the Brondesbury area, so there are no trains between Willesden Junction and Kensington Olympia. I've often cycled from work to Kensington Olympia in the evening (meeting the train half-way), but I rarely do it the other way around. That's partly because there's a hill in the middle, so I'd rather go down than up. Also, I can't simply reverse the route, due to one-way systems. It turns out that the TfL JourneyPlanner is a bit like the average SatNav: fairly accurate in general, but every so often it will try to kill you ("turn right off the edge of the cliff"). So, here's a copy of the message I just sent to TfL via their website.

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Ah well, on the plus side it's a bit of extra exercise, so burning off a few extra calories should do me good.

09:24 pm - Spread your wings

Following up on yesterday's post, here's another dubious advert:



The slogan is "Wouldn't it be a shame if birds never used their wings?", and this is illustrated by birds using machines to get around, e.g. standing on an escalator or using a skateboard. I agree with the sentiment, but I don't really see how it leads to their conclusion ("Buy our car!"). My reaction is that we should make the most of our natural abilities, e.g. walking up the stairs instead of using an escalator/elevator, or going for a swim. (Cycling is a bit of a grey area, since it's human powered but still involves a machine.)

More generally, I think the problem with modern cars is that they all just blur together; vintage cars have character, but I can't tell the difference between a Renault and a Ford unless I read the name on the back. I'm guessing that there are some subtle differences, but adverts like that don't tell me what they are. Ah well, maybe I'm just not the target audience.

10:54 pm - Mixed messages

As I travel around London, I see various adverts from different branches of the government. Unfortunately, these don't always illustrate a consistent policy. Here's an example:



The first advert is from the 'Kid Again' campaign, organised by Transport for London and the London Safety Camera Partnership; this implies that if you can't (or don't) drive then you're not really an adult. The second advert is from Change4Life, an NHS campaign (I copied the photo from this blog); this campaign is encouraging people to do more exercise, e.g. by walking or cycling rather than driving. The TfL website also has information about cycling, with the slogan "You're better off by bike".

Personally, I can drive, and I think it's a useful skill. However, I know several people who can't drive, and it doesn't seem to restrict their freedom. This is particularly the case in London, since we have a pretty good public transport system. The only time I drive nowadays is for SJA or if I'm going outside London (e.g. I'll be driving to Wales and back next weekend).

I used to own a car (and later a motorbike); the trap is that once you have that option available, it becomes the default, even for short journeys. For instance, when I lived in the Docklands, some friends lived nearby: it was about a 20 minute walk, but if I went round to see them it was easy to hop in the car instead. Nowadays I cycle quite a lot, which would be handy for a journey like that: it would be quicker than walking, but I'd still get some exercise and be a bit more eco-friendly. When I do my weekly shopping, I catch the bus to the supermarket: that way I can carry several bags back with me, and it only costs me £2 (on Oyster) for the round trip.

I think the main problem nowadays is that it's normal to own a car, so people don't consider alternatives. However, this must be a relatively recent phenomenon, given that cars haven't existed for that long. I did some digging on the web, and came across a page about car ownership. Quoting from that: "There were only 8,000 cars in the whole of Britain at the start of the 20th century. By the end of the century the car population had soared to 21 million." I'm not sure whether it's feasible to reverse this trend, but I think it's worthwhile to at least mention the possibility.

11:04 pm - Dodgy first aid: Primeval

Saturday nights are quite good for "guilty pleasure" TV viewing at the moment: Robin Hood on BBC1, immediately followed by Primeval on ITV1. (The episodes used to overlap, but presumably someone figured out that they'd get more viewers this way.) They're not exactly cerebral, and they have major plot holes, but they are quite entertaining. That said, the ending of last night's episode of Primeval had me saying "Oh come on!" Basically, they had the worst attempt at first aid treatment that I've seen in years.

If you didn't see the episode, it is (theoretically) available on the ITV website. That said, ITVPlayer is having trouble at the moment, and it kept cycling through all the "sponsored by Haven" promos rather than showing me the episode. Anyway, I need to give a brief synopsis to explain the context, so you might want to watch it on your own before I spoil it.

( SPOILERS HO! )

11:42 am - Logic puzzle

Over at the Microsoft Press blog, they've been promoting Inside Microsoft SQL Server 2008: T-SQL Querying. As well as the blurb about the book itself, they have a logic puzzle:

Two trains race toward each other on a railway segment that’s 100 miles long. The trains are traveling at 100 mph. A mosquito flying at 200 mph flies from one train toward the other, and as soon as it arrives at the other train, it flips its direction and flies back toward the first train. The mosquito continues bouncing back and forth between the trains until the trains crash. What’s the total distance that the mosquito covers until the moment of the crash?

02:29 am - Theatre trips

I've been out to the theatre a few times recently, so here are my thoughts on "Avenue Q", "Wicked", "Blood Brothers", and "Dirty Dancing". (I've tried to keep spoilers to a minimum.) I've been near the back each time, so I've also commented on how much this restricted my view of the stage. Interestingly, despite the recession, the theatres have been pretty much packed out every time.

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Finally, a quick word about etiquette. If you go along to the theatre, please turn your mobile phone completely off. Some people just put their phone into silent mode; I'm sure they have good intentions, since they want to be able to send/receive text messages without disturbing the people around them. However, if you're in a dark room then the light shining out from a phone's screen is very conspicuous, so it does distract attention from the stage, even for people on the far side of the room. Full marks to the staff at the Apollo Victoria (for "Wicked"): they were very good about swooping in when someone used a mobile.

02:35 am - I feel the need ... the need to knead!

About 10 years ago, while I was working at my previous job, one of my colleagues bought a breadmaker. This inspired several other people to do the same, including me, but the novelty soon wore off, so it sat unused for a long time. More recently, I've started using it again, and that's been going well: it's cheaper than buying a loaf from the supermarket, and the bread tastes nicer. When I've bought loaves, I've often wound up throwing some/all of the bread into the bin when it's gone mouldy, but when I bake bread at home and make sandwiches for work, I have to fight the urge to just eat the bread right away.

Now that I've been doing that for a while, I've decided to take it to the next stage. I bought a 2lb (900g) loaf tin from the supermarket recently, so I can make dough in the breadmaker and then transfer it to the tin to bake in the oven. This has a few advantages:

1) The breadmaker leaves a hole in the middle of the base (from the paddle), so I can avoid that by using a tin.

2) This is an interim step towards ditching the breadmaker altogether, which would free up some counter space in the kitchen.

3) The loaf tin has slightly different dimensions to the breadmaker (the loaf tin is longer whereas the breadmaker tin is taller), and this means that the slices fit into my lunchbox.

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Following on from that, I had another go at pizza making last night. My last attempt wasn't very successful, so this time I made the pizza base from scratch.

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12:21 am - Cook with Kirk: apple crumble

"A glass of milk, an apple, a pear."
(Montag, Fahrenheit 451)

Continuing my experiments in cookery, on Saturday I tried another Delia recipe: apple and almond crumble. I deviated from her instructions a bit, but I think it turned out ok.

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11:52 pm - Easter TV

So far this weekend, I've been fairly lazy, so I've spent a lot of time watching TV.

Yesterday was "Doctor Who: Planet of the Dead", which I really enjoyed. I noticed that Russell T Davies co-wrote this special, which may explain why it avoided some of his annoying habits. For instance, if I was going to create a Dr Who drinking game, it would include the 10th Doctor saying "I'm sorry ... I'm so sorry." I think that line has reached a point where it's just cliched rather than effective, so I was glad not to hear it this time. Michelle Ryan did a great job as the companion; I don't watch Eastenders, but based on this I might give "Bionic Woman" a go. Anyway, I'm looking forward to the next special.

Today I (re-)watched Lost in Space. It's not a great film, but I quite like it; some of the best bits are nicely understated. (I used to have it on video, but I got rid of all my VHS tapes a while back.) Unfortunately, Five mangled it a bit in their broadcast. For instance, it seemed to be in widescreen (filling up my whole TV screen), but there was one scene with three gravestones, where I could only see half of the right-most name. So, I'm guessing that they took the 4:3 version of the film (with the right/left chopped off), then chopped off the top and bottom to get the original proportions back! That seems rather silly. In another scene, Will Robinson sees something and swears. Dr Smith says "A boy of your intelligence should never swear", then sees what Will is looking at and echoes his exclamation. In today's TV broadcast this was all cut out, presumably because it was shown before 9pm; I think that's a shame, because Smith's line has stuck in my mind ever since I first saw the film (11 years ago), so keeping the scene intact could actually be a good influence on young children.

Incidentally, with various old sci-fi films/series being "reimagined", I'd like to see a new version of Land of the Giants; I enjoyed watching the original version when I was at school.

Finally, I've been watching "Red Dwarf: Back to Earth" over the last few days. When I heard about the new episodes, I had mixed feelings; I think that Rob Grant is a lot more talented than Doug Naylor (particularly based on the novels they've written independently), so the series went downhill after he left. However, I was still looking forward to it, and I hoped for the best. Now that I've seen it, I think that my low expectations helped: I was pleasantly surprised.

( Spoilers ho! )