test please delete

[NickFitz]

In other other news they're busy loading stuff onto that ship.

I don't know a lot about ships but shouldn't you sort of load it evenly?

So it doesn't break its back or sink or something?

This thing is about 6 feet down at the stern at the moment.

Oh, since I looked last they've started loading at the bow too.

I think that's mainly a concern when they're at sea - a heavy swell can be enough to make it snap if the load isn't evenly distributed, as it ends up with varying levels of support at different points along its length.

Well, that's my theory, and my ancestors on both sides of the family worked on Liverpool docks so it's probably in the genes or something

[DoctorStrangelove]

On the now defuncti EPE magazine site, there was a south American chap who did this sort of thing for a living, as in calculating the loading of ships.

However I got the impression that the ones he worked on were slightly bigger than the one we're discussing, seeing as you needed a bike to get from one end to the other.

In other news, the eyetea dept have changed my password, thus successfully locking me out of any and all computers on campus, and out of any method of communicating this to them.

Naturally enough, they didn't inform me of the new password before doing this.

Where* do we get these people from?

*At least one of them used to be an ex-Esteemed Customer before he got wise & buggered off somewhere else in Cardiff for more money.

In other other news, SWMBO came home on the bus (a number 58) with me this afternoon, because she & another lady wished to go to the Neath Fair.

Can't see the appeal myself, but that's what makes horse races.

[BR14]

Haddock and chips for dinner
after a few beers with the lads
Very nice too.

[DoctorStrangelove]

Tea was the usual Friday fare of M&S breaded haddock followed by stewed apple and custard.

This evening's entertainment began with 1 minute and 30 seconds of "Hitch" with Will Smith,

https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0386588/

which didn't appeal much,

only to be replaced with "49th Parallel (1941)" with Eric Portman and Larry Olivier,

https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0033627/?ref_=nv_sr_1

being the story of a group of German Uboatmen who are stranded in Canada when the nasty Canadian Airforce bombs the tulipe out of their U boat & they then attempt to reach then neutral America.

By the time it was released in Septicland in 1942, they were already involved.

<hiatus>

Well I rather enjoyed that.

It was Glynis Johns' first film.

[NickFitz]

Tonight's special was oak smoked gammon steak, egg, chips, and beans; and it was most toothsome

It's been raining again. Still quite mild, though.

It turns out OSM polygons are actually polygons with, possibly, holes represented by further polygons contained within. So I'll need to use SVG paths rather than SVG polygons to render them, and find out things like which winding rule to use

[NickFitz]

A couple of good films tonight. First: Dredd (2012), in which Judge Eponymous does what he does in MegaCity One. Cracking stuff; my physics-studying girlfriend back in the 1980s was into 2000AD comics so I was somewhat familiar with the character, but I don't think one has to be to enjoy this, as long as one's OK with shedloads of explosions and brutal violence in an utter hellscape

In fact, it's quite similar in its setting (and brutal violence) to The Raid (2011),made a year before; though given the lead time on these things, and the fact that The Raid is Indonesian, I would assume that's just coincidence.

And as Avon Barksdale from The Wire (aka Wood Harris) was in Dredd, though sadly reduced to henchman status, it seemed appropriate to watch one of those subtitleless films I've been saving up that features Stringer Bell (aka Idris Elba): The Take (2016), which for some reason is called Bastille Day (2016) on IMDb. More explosions and violence, but this time in Paris and in the present day, in what is basically a cross between a heist movie and a spy movie, with a touch of Harry in Your Pocket (1973) (a very good film) thrown in for good measure. It's worth a watch if you like that kind of thing, which I do.

And to round things off I watched the first episode of Ripper Street, a BBC crime procedural from 2012, set in the East End shortly after the time of the Jack the Ripper murders. It seems a little overacted at times, as if they imagine Victorians actually spoke and behaved the way Victorian novels were written, rather than like us with slightly different slang; but maybe that's part of the conceit and I'm missing the point. Anyway, it was entertaining enough, and I daresay I'll get around to watching the rest of it as and when.

Goodnight all

[DoctorStrangelove]

Now the world has more or less stopped its unwanted and unwarranted spinning, I've managed to crawl out of bed, dress, and make my way downstairs.

Dunno what's caused what I take to be vertigo, but whatever it is I wish it would piss off.

It's 19 degrees in here & I''m freezing.

I was cold in bed with the thick duvet too.

Was going to wash the bed linen today but I suspect that, and the Saturday shop, are off the cards.

I've been detecting curiosities in my gait recently too, wonder if that's significant.

Min of 14 deg in the laundry room, currently 16.8.

Managed to walk as far as the front gate since the postman had left it open.

[NickFitz]

Afternoon denizens

Patchy cloud out, but not too bad really - about 18°C out there, holding at about 21°C in here

[NickFitz]

Now the world has more or less stopped its unwanted and unwarranted spinning, I've managed to crawl out of bed, dress, and make my way downstairs.

Dunno what's caused what I take to be vertigo, but whatever it is I wish it would piss off.

It's 19 degrees in here & I''m freezing.

I was cold in bed with the thick duvet too.

Was going to wash the bed linen today but I suspect that, and the Saturday shop, are off the cards.

I've been detecting curiosities in my gait recently too, wonder if that's significant.

Min of 14 deg in the laundry room, currently 16.8.

Managed to walk as far as the front gate since the postman had left it open.

Ugh. Could be an ear infection? <- manly

[DoctorStrangelove]

Ugh. Could be an ear infection? <- manly

Dunno.

I can hear ok, though the tinnitus is a bit louder than usual.

The late Strangelove mater also suffered from vertigo, so maybe it's familial.

I had stuff I wanted to do today but that's off the cards from the looks of things.