Bummer

Bikes all ready.

All kit and food stored neatly.

B&B booked.

We are sat here in our cycling clothes waiting to go but it’s absolutely chucking it down. Now if it was just me I’d just go but it’s my son too and I know if we set off in the rain it’ll probably put him off, so we wait.

11am is cut off point for the big part of the loop (90 miles)  to the B&B, this passes with no let up. 1pm is the cut off point for the small part of the loop (60 miles), still no let up. At 13:15  I phone the B&B, apologise for messing them around but sorry, we’ll not be able to make it. We change out of our clothes, pack the bikes away, stand down.

At 13:30, the rain stops and the sun comes out.

Thanks god.

Timing

5:00 – Jon gets up, looks out the window. If it’s raining hard, then he’ll ditch the commute and get an extra hour in bed. It’s dry so he continues.
5:30 – Ablutions completed, Jon goes downstairs to prepare his dinner and make a cup of coffee, this is the last bug out point but it’s still dry.
5:45 – Feed cats, let dog out, get bike out of storage and pack bag.
6:00 – Throw a leg over my bike and set off riding.
6:00 (and 5 seconds) – It starts raining, properly hard.
6:03 – Stop riding, get raincoat out of bag, carry on riding.
6:10 – Stop riding again, rearrange buttie box so it’as not trying to pierce my kidney. Check buttie box hasn’t grown a knife edge like in termninator two, nope, it has smooth round edges.
6:24 – Hit offroad for the first time. Obviously it’s just a mud bath, endure a constant spray of mud in my face and up my arse.
6:57 – Roll onto the work campus, gently roll round the edge of the estate cooling down.
6:59 – Put bike into bike shed, lock up.
6:59 (and 3 seconds) – It stops raining.

Get a life!

Right, I’ll post a longer dooberry when I get time but my ride today took me through various parts of Manchester.

Competely incident free on the way there.

On the way back, around 8-9pm, I have never experienced so much abuse in one ride ever before. I have no idea what their problem was. I was just riding along as normal and I would say at least 15-20 cars pulled along side me and either the driver or the passenger would shout some tired old shit at me, typically young men in flash cars. I just ignored each and every one of them and only one braked ahead of me and then let me pass so they could hurl some more. Totally fucking bizarre.

This trend went all the way from Bramhall to Sale with the peak occurring in Northenden.

Jesus lads, are your lives so dull and crap that this is the best entertainment you can find? There’s a whole world out there waiting for you, get off your arses and do something you enjoy rather than something that just makes you angry. It really was inexplicable and put a sad edge on an absolutely fantastic day.

nmap -vv -O www.nato.com …. arrgh, I’ve been shot!!

For those of you not in the know, the awfully geeky title refers to a reconnaisance attack on the nato website. nmap is a tool used by security people to determine what vulnerabilities might exist on a networked device.

Now, read this.

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/article7144856.ece

Ok, so if it’s passed you by, what the proposal states is that people who carry out cyber attacks on NATO countries, could find themsleves to military action. Obviously we can substitute ‘China’ for people and ‘America’ for NATO countries.

So this is pretty much telling us that America intend to carry out military action against China in the very near future, all they’re doing now is getting the legislation in place prior to engaging.

I could of course be insanely paranoid about America’s stance here and I know better than most that the role that China are taking in today’s cyber crime is a severe and definate risk to a number of Western countries but I’d be loathe to suggest  actually bombing shit out of them to make them stop as an actual solution.  I presume they’ll target computer installations/data centres/ISP’s and transmission paths.

There is of course an alternative. The internet has grown into a very powerful tool, in doing so it has become a very open and entirely untrusted network through which these attacks can take place. It’s used by a great many corporations as a cheap network layer to stop them having to buy dedicated links and it’s this reliance on a public and unpoliced  network that has placed so many public, private and military organisations in danger.

It’s about time that these organisations accept that the internet is not a safe place, stop spending a fortune trying to stay one step ahead of bad guys and isolate their real inportant information from the day to day stuff. Yes, it’s going to cost more money, yes it’s going to be a right ball ache and yes it’s going to have a lot of sticking points but I’m confident it constitutes a better foreign policy than shooting anyone who tries to break in. Maybe if the Americans didn’t live in a culture where 28,000 people are killed a year by guns they might consider the alternatives with a more open mind.

Digital Economy Act taking Shape

I know I keep banging on about this but I really do believe this is a complete farce.

The digital economy bill has now reached it’s first draft. The proposal now states that all ISP’s with greater than 400,000 subscribers must maintain lists of percieved copyright breachers operating on a 3 strikes in a year and on you’re on the list stylee. Subscribers who have been deemed to breach copyrights on Music and Audio only seem to be the targets at the moment, possibly because taking software copyright breachers to court is a less well established process. It may well be that the music and video markets are more likely to be ‘victims’ of copyright breach but with the vast quantities of money being pushed around in all these businesses it’s hard to tell.

http://www.ofcom.org.uk/consult/condocs/copyright-infringement/summary/

The code is scheduled to be implemented early 2011 although as yet, no details of how copyright breachers will be identified have been released. I suspect this will be a sticking point, not leastly because the investment by ISP’s to carry out the checking will be vast. This is advanced traffic sniffing being carried out on severely massive bandwidths, good luck!

What’s that? You’re inspecting my traffic? That’s illegal isn’t it? It’s a vague point but I expect someone may try and push it through a European court deliberately to test the water. I hope so.

Anyway, if you want to carry on file sharing in 2011, choose a small ISP, for the time being at least.

New bike pogo

Dear Mr Wyatt,

Your bike was dispatched from Germany yesterday and it got sent to Britain.
Then in a fit of near brilliant incompetance, we decided to send it back to Germany.

Have a nice day now,

HERNE-BOERNIG, DE 05/18/2010 5:06 A.M. DEPARTURE SCAN
TAMWORTH, GB 05/18/2010 12:25 A.M. ARRIVAL SCAN
HERNE-BOERNIG, DE 05/17/2010 11:10 P.M. ARRIVAL SCAN
BENDORF, DE 05/17/2010 9:00 P.M. DEPARTURE SCAN

Update:

How can they be so efficient in some areas and so useless in others?

MANCHESTER, GB  05/19/2010 11:40 A.M. THE RECEIVER WAS UNAVAILABLE TO SIGN ON THE 1ST DELIVERY ATTEMPT. A 2ND DELIVERY ATTEMPT WILL BE MADE 
 05/19/2010 6:21 A.M. OUT FOR DELIVERY 
 05/19/2010 3:55 A.M. ARRIVAL SCAN 
TAMWORTH, GB  05/19/2010 1:57 A.M. DEPARTURE SCAN 
BARKING, GB  05/18/2010 8:36 P.M. DEPARTURE SCAN 
 05/18/2010 12:26 P.M. ARRIVAL SCAN 
HERNE-BOERNIG, DE  05/18/2010 5:06 A.M. DEPARTURE SCAN 

The guy phones me up, he’s outside our house. He’s already dragged the box from the van and is now annoyed that I’m not in.  I tell him that they had originally set the delivery date as the 20th and then changed it to the 19th with no warning, sorry pal, but that’s not my fault.
He asks which of my neighbours will take it as ‘It’s a ballache taking it back to the depot’. Only one neighbour has a key so after about ten minutes of me describing which one (It’s almost right opposite our house with three broken down cars on the drive, you can’t miss it but this guy really struggled), it turns out they’re not in. So he says our next door neighbour is in, (no fucking chance pal, he goes out and leaves his doors open), and next to him is in. Now this is a little old lady who we know well but I’m reluctant to have this slightly aggressive van driver knock on her door and push a massive bike box into her living room. I start to say no but it’s too late, he’s hung up.  Looks like she told him to do one, good.

He’s probably giving the box a good kicking on the way back to the depot now.

Still, I’ll be in all day tomorrow ‘working’, well, until the bike turns up anyway, after that it’s call in some flexi-time time.

Eye of the beholder.

Now I’ve never been what you might call a looker. I guess my best period was my late teens, early twenties when I was ultra confident and very buff from weight lifting and various martial arts and I did alright with the ladies. Not as well as some of the people I knew but not bad at all. I never wanted for more female company at least, which was just fine by me. I suppose some of this could have been down to my looks.

During these periods I wore contact lenses. Now my eyesight is pretty poor to be honest. -6 and -5.5, throw in a healthy dose of astigmatism and you’re looking at some fairly thick milk bottle bottom glasses. No matter how good glass technology gets, that’s always going to be one whole load of magnetism going on which sadly will have an effect on what one’s eyes look like when viewed by another. And it’s not the best of looks. If you’re shortsighted like me, the effect is that my eyes look a lot smaller than they really are. And this seems to have had an effect on the way I am treated, especially by the ladies. Now obviously I’m married so it shouldn’t matter but it’s nice to be flirted with, even if it’s going nowhere.

Since I’ve started wearing contacts again, albeit on a rare basis, I’ve noticed a few interesting, and almost alarming differences in the way I am treated, again, particularly by the ladies, amongst other things.

For example, if I were to go into a shop to buy something and I be my normal pleasant self, say hello and goodbye in pleasant tones, joke if the opportunity arises, WITH MY GLASSES ON, I will, for the most part, get a fairly stoic response. In extreme cases I will just be ignored right up to the line of virtually acceptable customer service, but certainly no further.

Now I go to the same shop and act exactly the same way with my contacts on, the difference is dramatic. I get lots of smiles, plenty of eye contact and today when I was joking with the girl in ASDA, she started flicking her hair about and started doing coy glances at me. It could have been nothing but I still remember from my younger days that these things were a tip that I could push the conversation further than just polite to ‘fancy a date’ territory. And this is from someone who has a) previously given me nothing more than a vague courteous smile and b)was half my age. Now I could have caught on her a good day today but this is just one of many similar instances I’ve been through. I’m pretty certain that how my eyes look have initiated this change in reaction to me.

For example, my son was with me today in the ASDA, which goes to show how innocent I was treating the conversation with this girl, and even he noticed. When I mentioned that this sort of stuff only happens when I wear contacts he did point out that my eyes were looking particularly blue today.

So there you have it, girls might say that what really attracts them is a mans personality, sense of humour, reliability and wallet size but it’s all lies, what they really like is a nice pair of eyes.

edit: Oh and other things about wearing contacts.

1. My eyes feel cool all the time.
2. I can wear proper cycling glasses, it’s great!
3. Everything looks bigger.I notcied when I was buying some beers how big the bottles look. The real question is obviously, are things real size with contacts or with glasses. I hope the former because my knob looked huge!

Waiting…

I’m waiting for a lot of things. Some are secret, some aren’t.

Non-secret things are….

Bike somewhere between Germany and here, for me.

Kaffenbike to replaced the sadly broken Roly, awaiting new stock.

My son’s bike, currently on it’s way to Newcastle, I will collect in a week or so.

Some sort of justice in the world.

I should expand on a few things.

Roly snapped, I’m quite sad. He was a good bike. Very fast, very light, but quite clearly, not really up to samuri abuse standards.

A pity, but I need a touring bike for summer and I need a bike for now so I think for a bit, Ribble are doing very cheap alu frames with scratches at the moment, and then I figured a Kaffenback, a steel hardcore road frame from Planet X would do a nice job. After all, they’re supposed to be cross bike capable. Obviously they’re out of stock. Ho hum.

‘End or April, start of May’ they say. few weeks off then. I can ride my Chameleon till then but a singlespeed mountain bike isn;ty the best for racking up mileage, I could buy a cheap ribble frame and have a bike back tomorrow evening but I reckon it’d be false economy. I’ll wait for the planet X,  A few weeks of mountainbiking coming up then I guess, until my german bike arrives.

Jump to justice in the world and I really shouldn’t be saying this where I can be traced but… I helped a neighbour move house over the weekend. Now I offered a while ago so can’t complain too much but it was *really* hard sitting in the cab of the lorry as we were driving along listening to him slag off cyclists and cycle lanes and the like.

JESUS! you know I’m a very keen cyclist, and then when I’m helping you shift a shitload of furniture, something which took up my entire weekend and I’ve done completely free, you’d think you’d at least have the manners to respect a few things. But apparently not. A few pointers then.

Cycle lanes are designed by the council, not cyclists. Councils get grants to create cycle lanes, so they create loads, they don’t do it to keep cyclists safe, they do it to keep the money coming in.
Every single cyclist in front of you, is one less car in front of you. That’s an important one.
Yes, each road user group has shit users in it, cyclists included, try not to tar the entire group with the same brush. As far as I can tell, all the people you hate are shit road users and woiuld be shit in a car, a van or a lorry, just because they’re on a bike does not make representative of all cyclists.

Oh, and the generally accepted term for ‘paki’s’ is actually asians, or as in the case in question, ‘Britons’.

HTH.

Digital Economy Bill

This is very interesting stuff.

If you’re not aware, the government are using the ‘wash up’ period prior to dissolvement to rush a digital econmy bill through which has significant impact in many areas, but the one that affects normal people the most is the online copyright infringement section. Namely, they’re trying to stop people downloading illegal media. It’s all here if you want to read it.

http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm200910/cmbills/089/2010089.pdf

But the gist of it, that affects us, is that if we have an internet connection, we have to

a) avoid copyright infringement by not downloading illegal stuff
and
b) protect the connection from others.

The first is fair enough, you’re breaking a law of sorts so it’s your call. The bill states you could get a letter from your ISP telling you to desist followed by technical controls to stop you doing it if you carry on such as slow connection and disconnection. Finally they’re permitted to take you to court.

The second is reasonably vague but is as follows:-
(6) The code must provide that, where a ground mentioned in subsection (3) is relied on, the appeal must be determined in favour of the subscriber if the subscriber shows that—
(a) the act constituting the apparent infringement to which the report relates was not done by the subscriber, and
(b) the subscriber took reasonable steps to prevent other persons infringing copyright by means of the internet access service.

That last clause says you must take reasonable steps to protect your network. What the fuck does that mean?
I reckon it means, you’re responsible and if your network connection is used to infringe copyrights then no more bleating about someone else hijacking your network (which has been the case many times in the past). If it comes from your connection then it’s your fault.
What does this mean for normal users? Protect your network, in particular your wireless connection. Use encryption as good as you can support and use a strong password.
Yeah? Well, not really. That’s all a load of bollocks. The vast majority of users aren’t ever going to have someone use their network to download stuff. The bill is there to effectively close that loophole and provides the government the leverage to make the ISP’s take action against persistant bittorrenters. Of course, they have to prove copyright infringement has taken place.
Bittorrenting in itself is not a crime and neither is hosting a site that host the torrent files. (The phrase used is ‘file sharing’ but typically the technology is torrents – where an initial information and tracking file is held on a central site and then the files are downloaded from users machines who have an association with that torrent file). I foresee an explosion in encrypted torrent sites. If ISP’s can’t determine which files you’re downloading, they’re on shaky ground giving you a bollocking and taking action subsequently.
And then where do they go? Make file sharing illegal? That would be illegal. Start carrying out warrants to search and seize? Seems a bit dramatic to stop some guy watching Lost or 24 before they’re screened in the UK.
The whole thing is an appalling piece of badly thought out and badly implemented legislation and stands on seriously loose ground before it even gets through parliment. In short it’s a big old bucket of cock, but lets not let that stop them. You can’t even vote for the right lizard either as all parties with the exception of the wonderful pirate party, seem to be for it. Join them now.

http://www.pirateparty.org.uk/

More snappage

This pretty much sums up my entire week.

That’s my litespeed roadbike snapped. Just got it out to get it built up and found that. Maybe I should buy a brand new road bike for once. Bit skint at the moment though. Not sure what to do right now. I am seriously pissed off though. No riding since Sunday.

Got home on Thursday after not doing any exercise whatsoever up North, no time to ride a bike then. So I figured I would work till about 2 on Friday, recover some hours out of the mountain I’ve built up and go for a ride Friday afternoon. IT WAS CANING IT DOWN! All day, it never stopped. So I figured I’d use the time to build up my roadbike and sort out the chain on my chameleon. After finding that crack I was so disallusioned I just gave up, had a nap, played on the xbox for a bit.

Off to the velodrome today not to ride but to watch Sir Chris and Miss Victoria. I’ll be taking my camera but don’t expect any decent shots. And then back home by about 4-5. No riding time then either. And the forcast for tomorrow is more heavy rain. PISS OFF!