This & That

New musical experience

2010-03-10T18:54:00Z

I'm not sure that I expected Radio 4 to deliver me a real slap-in-the-face experience, but it happened today.

As a serious Purcell fan I listened to the current edition of 'Soul Music' and its explanation of why Dido's Lament has such strong emotional appeal.

As part of the programme, it revealed that apart from the well-known classical renditions (of which Janet Baker's must surely be the best) there were versions by Alison Moyet and Jeff Buckley.

Now Jeff Buckley's name is known to me but I had never heard any of his songs. A quick Google for his version of Dido's Lament revealed his performance at the Meltdown Festival in London in 1995. Quirky but phenomenal. The fact that he claws for the high notes is painful at first but the genuine emotion of the performance is clear.

See: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MxBKtqSha4w and plug in a decent set of speakers. Sadly I can't find an MP3 download at present but I'll keep looking.

A search for further Jeff Buckley tracks revealed his version of Leonard Cohen's 'Hallelujah'. Even better than Cohen himself. Find it at: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HKnxmkOAj88

I'm off to iTunes to get Buckley's LP 'Grace'.

It must be the pointy hat ...

2010-01-22T12:16:00Z

Asked why god allows disasters such as the Haiti earthquake, the BBC reports John Sentamu, Archbishop of York, as saying" I have nothing to say that makes sense of this horror - all I know is that the message of the death and resurrection of Jesus is that he is with us ."

Translation: "I have absolutely nothing useful to say, but if you want one, here's a platitude".

Final score: Real Life = 1, Church of England = 0

And people still spend Sunday mornings listending to this stuff?

Mac Automator - why didn't I discover this before?

2009-11-01T20:24:00Z

I only watch a moderate amount of TV, and most of that I watch on my iPod. Until recently, in order to transfer programs to the iPod I carried out the various steps manually:

download the program from the BBC via iPlayer Downloader or iDownload
convert downloaded file (.mp4) to iPod-compatible format (.m4v)
import converted file into iTunes

Whilst this was not particularly hard work, I wondered whether it might be possible to automate the various steps. I knew that Automator, a program which can automate repetitive actions, was built in to the Mac OS and decided to take a look.

It turns out that using Automator is just so damned easy! In this particular case:

I created two new folders on the desktop,called From iPlayer and Converted
in Automator I selected 'Folder Action' from the dialog which opens with the program
Automator automatically adds a first step to the process where you should select the folder you have just created
you then drag predefined actions from the lefthand side of the screen to the righthand side to build the workflow
from the selection of 'Movies' actions I chose 'Export movies', selecting 'iPod' as the output format and Converted as the destination
also from the selection of 'Movies' actions I chose 'Add any file to iTunes'
since that was all the actions required, I clicked on File/Save and called the workflow ConvertMoviesForiPod

Automator now watches the From iPlayer folder, and any new file appearing in that folder is automatically converted to iPod-compatible format and added to iTunes.

There is a screenshot of the Automator GUI here:

'Simple' (as the meerkat would say!) but it gets better: I have recently downloaded a large number of PDFs, many of which need printing, but there doesn't seem to be a simple way to open and print PDFs without doing it on an individual file-by-file basis.

create a new folder on the desktop called Print These
open Automator and choose to create a new folder action, just as we did above
select your newly-created Print These folder as the folder to be watched
from the select of 'Utilities' actions drag 'Print Finder Items' to the righthand side of the page and select the printer you want your documents printed to
save your newly-created action as PrintTheseDocuments

Any documents dragged/dropped to the Print These folder on the desktop are now automatically printed. If you drag/drop multiple files, they are all printed.

More Automator goodness follows! Let me know if the above worked for you.

It's a WIMPY!

2009-04-19T19:11:00Z

Just imagine: a world with no MacDonalds, no Burger King.

[Pause for thought]

My childhood was enlivened by the occasional visit to Norwich and to the burger palace of the times: the WIMPY!

Fried egg, beef patty, chips and that curly frankfurter. I don't remember what it was called, but otherwise the Wimpy meal of my childhood is unforgettable. Sadly, however, the UK's Wimpy bars of yore are no longer.

Why this reminiscence? Hacking along the N2 highway in South Africa we encountered - yes, a Wimpy! In fact, several of them.

OK, I thought, fried egg, beef patty, chips and that curly frankfurter. But, no, the Wimpy of 2009 is no different from from MacDonalds or Burger King and not the place of my childhood reminiscences. Instead of the long-remembered meal-on-a-plate, this Wimpy served the wraps and burgers that every burger palace sells these days.

But I still miss that curly frankfurter ...

Should it really be this easy?

2009-04-18T16:08:00Z

So you step on to the endless travelator that is international air travel. You queue up, check in, walk on, sit down and belt up. Food appears [ingest], you avoid watching a film intended offend no-one and you sleep fitfully.

More foods appears [ingest], and after 11 hours aloft you disembark to face the unsmiling man in immigration and eventually step, blinking, in Joburg, into the light of Africa

The girl at the Avis desk is charming and soon you are hacking along the freeway at 120kph in an air-conditioned cocoon. The hotel clerk is welcoming, the waitress attentive, the food fantastic and the bill no more than £25 for a meal for two including drinks and a tip.

After 2 weeks, simply read backwards from the word 'cocoon' above and you find yourself back at Hearthrow International Arrivals.

It's been great, relaxing, the best holiday I've had for years. I just have this nagging thought - should it all be this easy? Isn't it all a bit too stress-free? Shouldn't travel involve just a little more effort on the traveller's part?

Fantastic winter weather

2009-01-07T22:32:03Z

On Sunday evening I went for a walk on the clifftop at Jardin d'Olivet.

It was bitter in the wind, and the grass was covered in frost which had remained all day in the shade.

Two full weeks of clear, dry, cold winter weather is almost unprecedented in Jersey and this has been the best Christmas and New Year weather I can remember in the 25 years I have lived here.

The sunset was spectacular but the beautiful red sky only lasted a matter of minutes.

Converting a Polstar PGM-248 GPS for use with a Kenwood APRS radio

2009-01-01T20:40:00Z

A couple of years ago I bought a GPS for use with an ETEN M600 PDA. Shortly thereafter I left my job and had to return the M600 (bad timing!) but I kept the GPS since it was bought with my own cash. The GPS has sat unused ever since, but today I decided to convert it for use with one of my Kenwood APRS-capable 2-way radios. For more information about APRS see this link.

This tiny (41x41x18mm) Polstar PGM-248 'GPS mouse' is powered via a car cigarette lighter socket adapter. In its original configuration the adapter passes 5v DC 'upstream' to power the GPS and 5v DC 'downstream' to charge the PDA. GPS data is passed 'downstream' from the GPS receiver, through the power adapter and on down to the PDA.

Output is NMEA via TTL or RS-232, with a default baud rate of 4800 (optionally 9K6, 19K2 or 38K4).

Quite simply, if I could replace the specialised multi-pin ETEN connector (originally intended to connect to the M600) with a stereo 2.5mm jack plug (to connect to the Kenwood radio) I would have a compact GPS receiver feeding the radio with positional data. First task was to find wiring data for the Polstar GPS, which came from the PGM-248's data sheet on the Polstar website.

The following information is provided for interest only. No responsibility can be accepted for damage caused by implementing this conversion.

Between the GPS receiver and the power adapter is a PS/2 connector, the pin-out of the male (GPS) side of which is:

Cutting off the specialised ETEN connector revealed just 4 of the 6 wires; to my relief the wire colours (which were labelled inside the connector) matched the diagram above.

Black - ground
Red - 5v DC
White - serial GPS data RX
Green - serial GPS data TX

Interestingly this would seem to be the same four connections found in a standard USB plug (even down to the wire colours).

I only wanted three of the available wires: serial data RX & TX and ground.

The hardest part of the conversion was locating a stereo 2.5mm plug among my accumulated ~~rubbish~~ spare parts! The white cable was soldered to the tag leading to the tip of the plug. The green cable was soldered to the tag leading to the centre connector of the plug. The black wire was soldered to the ground/earth tag. The red (5vDC) cable was cut short and bound with insulating tape.

Don't tell me that the white cable is the worst soldering job of all time - I know! I've already mended it!

If you enjoyed this entry or if it was useful to you - please let me know via the Comment button.

Thanks! Nigel GJ7LJJ

Jersey weathercam

2008-12-22T08:52:00Z

My website weather page (www.utting.org/weather/jersey.html) will soon have the Webcam button reinstated.

The weathercam looks due east and can also be see direct from this link.

I am hoping to configure my weather station software to record a daily 'weather movie' and will update this entry when it is availble. ...

Find me (again) via the International Space Station!

2008-12-17T11:59:00Z

If you have read my earlier blog entry you will know that it is possible to link up a GPS receiver with a 2-way VHF radio and transmit positional data. This system, called APRS, is a very popular Amateur Radio activity.

Generally this data is transmitted from one fixed 'home' or (vehicular) mobile station to another. Increased coverage is achieved by receiving stations re-transmitting ('digipeating') incoming position reports. Some receiving stations also pass incoming position reports to Internet servers so that the location of a transmitting station can be queried via the Findu service.

Taking matters a step further, it is possible to use Amateur Radio satellites to receive/re-transmit signals. Part of the International Space Station's mission is to provide an 'amateur radio station in space' and it is possible to bounce APRS signals through the ISS' radio station as it passes overhead (around 6 times per day).

The screenshot below (acknowledgements to Google Maps and Findu) shows the position of my car (look for K GJ7LJJ on the map).

If you look at the line of raw data at the top of the screen shot, you can see that my radio signal was:

transmitted from my car (callsign GL7LJJ)
received by the International Space Station (callsign RS0ISS-4)
re-transmitted by ISS and received by a Begian amateur radio station (callsign ON7EQ-1)
sent to the Findu interner server by the Belgian station.

Now, is that neat or is that neat?

If you have enjoyed this entry, send me a comment via the comment facility on this page.

Showing Garmin routes on Google Earth

2008-11-23T13:54:00Z

I'm a serious fan of Google Earth, just for being nosy inquisitive and even for checking out locations before booking holidays.

It struck me last night that it would be interesting to display Garmin GPS routes on Google Earth, but since I haven't paid for the update to Google Earth Plus I can't import directly from a GPS unit.

However, after a bit of searching I found a website which converts Garmin (.gdb) route files into Google earth (.kml) files here (http://www.gpsvisualizer.com/map_input?form=googleearth).

I didn't change any of the settings (apart from tick 'Open in new window') and simply chose a .gbd file covering most of our day's outing on 26th October in the Pyrenees.

When the resulting .kml file Download file here was opened in Google Earth, the result (where the route shows up in blue) is:

If you enjoyed this entry, send me a message via the Comment facility on this page.

French war memorials

2008-11-10T20:39:00Z

French war memorials are much more examples of statuary than their British crucifix-based counterparts (which is not to say that British statue-types do not exist, but are just not the norm).

The typical war memorial is a poilu (French WWI infrantryman), sometimes rendered in excellent detail and sometimes quite naïvely.

This from Monflanquin, one of the fortified bastide towns of the Lot-et-Garonne, is a nice example.

One of my favourites is the war memorial in Argelès-Gazost in the Hautes-Pyrénées. The casting of the child is superbly executed, as he traces "ARGELES GAZOST SES HEROES MORTS POUR LA FRANCE".

The sides of the plinth bear the names of the dead from 1914-18, and even here - at the diametrically opposite corner of France from the carnage of the Western Front - the list is substantial. Many of the dead appear in groups of the same surname: brothers, cousins or more loosely related, each represents a family devastated.

10th November 2008

If you enjoyed this entry, send me a Comment. Nigel.

Planes, trains and ... squeezing through very small spaces

2008-11-01T14:56:00Z

Driving back up the motorway northwards from Bordeaux, we encountered a typical situation where truck A decides to overtake truck B but can only do so at a speed marginally greater than truck B so that his spy-in-the-cab device does not register him as speeding. As a result, the overtaking manoeuvre drags on and on, and following cars get frustrated.

You remember the scene in Planes, Trains & Automobiles where Steve Martin and John Candy's car squeezes between two trucks?

The driver of that white car above wasn't just changing lanes when I took the photo; he sat on the white line for long enough for me to find the camera and take the picture (I wasn't driving at the time) and then slowly swung left and right looking between the lorries.

I would bet good money that if the gap had been wide enough ...... he'd have been off!

If you enjoyed this entry, send me a Comment. Nigel.

New friends

2008-10-26T20:24:00Z

Today's weather in the Pyrenees has been fantastic, bright sunshine with virtually no wind. Given that we have only limited time on this trip we decided to stick to places that we know and like, so we headed off through Luz St. Sauveur to Barèges.

October is a quiet time in the Pyrenees, when local people take holidays between the summer rush and the winter snow season, and we should have learned from previous experience that otherwise busy towns can be very, very quiet in the autumn. Our hopes for a cup of coffee in Barèges were dashed by finding not one bar open anywhere in the town! Oh well, on over Col du Tourmalet (2115 m/6939 ft) to the ski town of La Mongie with fingers crossed for better luck.

The temperature varied around 10-12°C with remains of the winter's first snow flurries in evidence wherever there was shade, and even a couple of ice patches where a stream had leaked on to the road; overhead, however, pure Pyrenean sunshine.

After lunch in La Mongie - by the time we arrived we felt we deserved more than just coffee! - we drove back up towards the top of Col du Tourmalet before parking off the road and digging out the walking gear. Livestock in the Pyrenees are moved up from the valleys to higher pastures (French 'estives') in late May/early June and back down again in early October, so we were surprised to hear either cow or sheep bells from the hillside at the very end (26th) of October. Rounding a corner we came across a large flock of sheep (a small surprise) then a further flock of goats (large surprise).

That goats exist in the Pyrenees was not the surprise (after all, virtually every restaurant offers goats', cows' or sheeps' (or mixed) cheese); it's just that we have never seen goats loose on the mountainside before.

I was brought up with goats (not literally - we're not talking Jungle Book here) and I know that they are very friendly animals; however, as we walked past them to look at the view, they all wandered over to investigate.

Being approached by around two dozen animals of unknown temper was slightly unnerving, but they turned out to be as friendly as I had remembered.

We had walked as far as we had intended by that point and turned to go back to the car. And quite a procession it turned out to be: Anne and I in the lead ...... followed by an entire herd of goats. No word of dissuasion had any effect, and they solemnly followed us down the hillside, stopping whenever we stopped.

We joked that we would be accosted by an enraged French farmer and accused of goat rustling. No sooner had we said this than a little white van appeared, containing two French farmers out to view their stock.

We have come to realise that little white Renault vans are the trademark of the Pyrenean farmer; not tractors, not 4x4s, not something designed to drive up mountains, but little white vans. We suspect that Renault garages run advertising campaigns along the lines of "Farmers' Special!! Little white vans!! Prices slashed!!".

As we neared the car we saw a large flock of ravens quartering the hillside and diving down on food. Every time I see large black birds I have to resist hiding under a boulder and muttering 'Hide! Crebain!' (but you have to be an LOTR fan to appreciate that one!).

If you enjoyed this entry, send me a Comment. Nigel.

Find me!

2008-10-26T19:56:00Z

We are currently in France and, as per normal, I have brought the odd electronic gadget or 10 with me (now that will surprise people who know me well!).

One of the fun things to do with gadgets is to link them up to do something different, and one of my favourites is APRS. This consists of connecting a GPS receiver (Garmin GPSmap 60CS) to a VHF transceiver (Kenwood TH-D7E) and transmitting positional data (which requires an amateur radio transmitting licence). This setup is referred to as APRS (Automatic Position Reporting System).

Garmn GPSmap60CS GPS receiver Kenwood TH-D7E APRS-capable radio

In Europe this positional data is transmitted on 144.800MHz in the VHF band. Other radio amateurs with an APRS-capable radio will see my callsign, lat/long location, speed & direction of travel blip up on their radio's display (as text).

Any user with their receiving radio connected to a PC can run an APRS program like UI-View which displays my callsign (GJ7LJJ) and location on-screen on a map.

Some computer-connected users also send the APRS data they receive to Internet APRS servers, which allows users all around the world to access this information.

One such server runs the Findu service. If you click on the following link it will show my last known location.

If you receive a message saying "Sorry, no position known for GJ7LJJ" it's because the server hasn't received an updated position for me during the last 10 days (I'm not perfectly positioned here in Jersey to have my signals picked up by a an Internet-connected APRS station.) So here's a map I saved earlier (acknowledgements & thanks to the Findu website and Google Maps).

This link shows a UI-View screen (in the United States) with a large number of APRS stations. Those callsigns with a car icon are mobile stations, those with a house icon are home stations, and those with a 'WX' icon are stations also transmitting weather data.

If you enjoyed this entry, send me a Comment. Nigel.

Beach weather

2008-10-12T21:05:00Z

For a range of reasons - mostly because we spent so much of the summer in France - we have spent very little time at the beach this year. Today's weather was probably one of the last times we would be able to sit in the sun and read without a fleece and gloves (it is the middle of October!).

Given the weather it wasn't surprising how many surfers were in the water.

Running around at the water's edge were a group of large and friendly Rhodesian ridgebacks (complete with attendant adult human, before anyone asks) who were obviously waiting for the return of their owner who was surfing. As individual surfers left the water they were inspected by the dogs to see if this was The Boss. I have always liked ridgebacks; proper big dogs, not yappy little furballs.

(Anyone remember Rhodesia? It's what Zimbabwe used to be before the population was starving.)

And so ends another beautiful day.

Lac de Gaube

2008-07-27T17:28:00Z

Paid the second of 2008's biannual visits to Lac de Gaube in the Pyrenees. Took the easy route up via the telesiege with Anne and Ben and walked the final 15 minutes.

Lac de Gaube really is chocolate box beautiful, in a perfect mountain setting. The lake is a wonderful blue and the snow on the mountains is a classic touch.

I walked up here on snowshoes in January a couple of years back, and it was just as beautiful, just different. The restaurant wasn't open but our guide fished in her rucksack and brought out a huge flask of tea and a gateau basque. Now that's what I call service!

It's a ghost town ...

2008-07-27T17:09:00Z

It's official - there's no-one left in Holland. Doors bang gently in the breeze, cats sun themselves on otherwise busy Dutch pavements, and the only sound is silence.

Judging by the number of Dutch-registered cars on the motorway down to Bordeaux and the fact that about every fourth car in the Pyrenees sports an NL sticker, it must - as Elmer Fudd would say - be 'vewy, vewy qwiet' in the flatlands.

But, hey, the Dutch are a nice crowd and they drive better than the Belgians (but that's another story ...).

Donjon des Aigles

2008-07-25T15:38:00Z

Paid a return trip to the Donjon des Aigles at Beaucens yesterday in the company of my nephew, Ben, to watch the display of free-flying birds of prey; absolutely fantastic.

The setting is a ruined castle, built around the year 1000, and home to the Viscounts of Lavedan. Seriously fire-damaged in 1792 and further damaged by an earth tremor in 1854, the site is perfect in its new rôle as home to a wonderful daily display of raptors and definitely worth a visit (adults €10, children €6).

Although I took a lot of photos, just a few are worth keeping, but it's shots like this one that remind me why I stick to Canon L series lenses:

All the shots in this series were taken with a Canon L 70-200, handheld on a Canon 20D body.

Not all the shots were this good, but the following gives some idea of the closeness of the audience to the action:

Glorious inconsistency

2008-06-24T15:07:00Z

For the last few years I have been learning Spanish, one of the great joys of which is pronunciation. More specifically, completely consistent pronunciation. Unlike English.

Consider the following:

Rough ('uff')
Plough ('ow!')
Cough ('off')

'Walk', 'talk' and 'chalk', all of which are pronounced as though the 'l' were an 'r'. Then we have 'balk' where the 'l' is pronounced as an 'l'.

'Walk' and 'talk' sound as though they are spelled 'work' and 'tork' - only, of course, 'tork' would be prononced 'tork' and 'work' is pronounced 'wurk'.

'Post' and 'most' - so far, so good; but what about 'lost'?

'Cow' and 'now' - so far so good; but what about 'low' and 'bow' (as in archery) unless it's 'bow' (as in bend from the waist).

And then there's almond (where 'al' is pronounced 'arl'), almost (where 'al' is pronounced 'all') and almanac (where 'al' is pronounced as in the man's name 'Al').

Maybe all this glorious inconsistency is why I love the English language so much.

Grey mullet

2008-06-18T20:21:00Z

Walking along the side of the harbour yesterday I noticed that under each pontoon in the marina were one or more grey mullet, apparently resting in the shade. Each fish was large, about 18-20 inches.

I have seen grey mullet many times before, but never so inactive. Usually they are swimming along slowly in line-astern (I once counted a line of 94).