Tuesday, February 3, 2009, 11:38 PM - Timeout
Confusing as ever, over the last couple of days, the Lincolnshire Wolds handed out another helping of its quixotic and capricious micro-climate.Whilst the rest of Britain wears a white overcoat, the skies over the Wolds looked like this...
...and the ground looked like this...
...ok, a little bit of snow, and it was slippery down the (unsalted) hill to town. Indeed, the score on the journey out on Monday morning was:
- An oil lorry stuck in the mud/slush in the grass verge
- An articulated grain lorry that had slid to a halt up the hill - being rescued by local farmer and tractor
- one lady who had parked her car up the nice new Miss-Marple style finger posts
- a couple of dainty wiggles and balletic sideways moves from the 4x4
But we made it past the place where, a couple of weeks ago, I took a 180 degree flip into the mud and bushes (rear wheel drive that time), on the ice-sheet provided kindly by Anglian Water who have never fixed the leak from the hill-top reservoir, and past the useless grit bin at the top of the hill.
Isn't there some sense of completeness in the Cosmos, in the fact that Wikipedia has an entry on grit bins (with pictures). Although this article and similar might give suggest some organisations have a rather more proprietorial attitude to their bins than Wackipedia might suggest...
The keener-eyed amongst you may be wondering about the pile of junk in the foreground - a legacy of last summer holiday. Unlike the sun-worshippers and other more conventional holidaymakers, I set myself the task of making a Pond Cam, to observe the comings and goings at the pond (and prove that I still "cut it" on a down and dirty bit of systems integration and soldering). And here it is replete with wireless infra-red camera and solar panel...
Well it works (day and night), which was a good result, but not without its challenges, like the relatively short range of the wireless transmitter, so this coming year I might just take a few days off in the summer to IP-enable the pond to close down the distance. Well, it is already mains-powered, so why not a little bit of powerline Ethernet, an IP Web-cam and some video streaming...
A bit of context here: It's a wildlife pond so is intended to look a bit scruffy, with bits of old rotting tree stumps (no suburban goldfish here), and it does the job very well!
Roll on summer (or the promised, but as yet unseen 15cm of snow).
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Life, media-style, is normally quiet in the nether regions of
Lincolnshire, but having had an earthquake last year, it seems
that the papers are thirsting for more excitements from the
Wolds. So we have started the year with an exciting story "Tentacled
Alien Destroys Wind Farm Generator", pictured below just
after the accident (a genuine photo, for sure)...
I have commented before about the impact of global warming, but I think having an ocean-going octopus visiting now is rather premature, and in fact any, extra-terrestrial cephalopods foolish enough to embrace a windmill is going to end up as sushi.
Of course, the alien story is a good way of diverting attention from the otherwise suffocating Credit Crunch
Bubbles are always predictable with 20:20 hindsight, and make a nonsense of some of the great prognostications and punditry, when all comes crashing to the ground. Arthur C. Clarke summed up the dangers of prophecy as Failure of Imagination, and Failure of Nerve. To which we could probably add Failure of Intelligence to make an unholy trinity. Intelligence comes in many forms of thinking process as well as keeping a good look-out. Previous major failures of forecasting include the dot.com bust, of the prior forecasts for commercial trends were spectacularly off:
... and which also makes me think that, in the terms of control systems theory, that the whole global commercial and financial system is large and complex enough not to observable, let alone controllable (although the jury is out as to whether it is quantum indeterminate).
Which brings me to one of the classic, but flawed frameworks that are often used in the crystal-ball gazing process: the PEST analysis which attempts to scan important trends in Political, Economic, Socio-Cultural and Technological domains. Variants posited include:
In the spirit of improvement, albeit strapping wings to a pig, I can offer my own variant: PESTO. The "O" stands for "Oh sh*t", that category of all other things that we didn't think about in the other four categories, or plain just aren't under the microscope, or even do not yet exist, be imagined or people don't think can happen, and so on.
The solutions to long term forecasting problems, is to think/work in short cycles, and react/respond quickly to keep up with the changes, and adapt to events as they arise. Be Agile!
I have commented before about the impact of global warming, but I think having an ocean-going octopus visiting now is rather premature, and in fact any, extra-terrestrial cephalopods foolish enough to embrace a windmill is going to end up as sushi.
Of course, the alien story is a good way of diverting attention from the otherwise suffocating Credit Crunch
I was going to write something clever about "interesting times" here but when looking up the origin of the phrase it turns out that the alleged curse has very little provenance - the quixotic and capricious Wikipedia suggest it might be related to the proverb "It's better to be a dog in a peaceful time than be a man in a chaotic period" (寧 為太平犬，不做亂 世人; pinyin: níng wéi tàipíng quǎn, bù zuò luànshì rén).
Bubbles are always predictable with 20:20 hindsight, and make a nonsense of some of the great prognostications and punditry, when all comes crashing to the ground. Arthur C. Clarke summed up the dangers of prophecy as Failure of Imagination, and Failure of Nerve. To which we could probably add Failure of Intelligence to make an unholy trinity. Intelligence comes in many forms of thinking process as well as keeping a good look-out. Previous major failures of forecasting include the dot.com bust, of the prior forecasts for commercial trends were spectacularly off:
... and which also makes me think that, in the terms of control systems theory, that the whole global commercial and financial system is large and complex enough not to observable, let alone controllable (although the jury is out as to whether it is quantum indeterminate).
Which brings me to one of the classic, but flawed frameworks that are often used in the crystal-ball gazing process: the PEST analysis which attempts to scan important trends in Political, Economic, Socio-Cultural and Technological domains. Variants posited include:
-
PESTLE/PESTEL - Political, Economic, Sociological, Technological, Legal, Environmental;
-
PESTLIED - Political, Economic, Social, Technological, Legal, International, Environmental, Demographic;
-
STEEPLE - Sociodemographic, Technological, Economic, Environmental, Political, Legal, Ethical;
-
SLEPT- Social, Legal, Economic, Political, Technological
- FARM: Feudal, Agricultural, Religious, Magical (for medieval lords, thanes and serfs, etc..)
In the spirit of improvement, albeit strapping wings to a pig, I can offer my own variant: PESTO. The "O" stands for "Oh sh*t", that category of all other things that we didn't think about in the other four categories, or plain just aren't under the microscope, or even do not yet exist, be imagined or people don't think can happen, and so on.
The Red Queen trumps Karl Marx - change is constant and things always move on, become different. Change is, not dialectical, sorry Karl, you backed the wrong horse.
The solutions to long term forecasting problems, is to think/work in short cycles, and react/respond quickly to keep up with the changes, and adapt to events as they arise. Be Agile!
Postscript: I cannot finish without acknowledging the death of my Uncle Edward in December, the last Gueritz of his generation, and remarkable with it. You can read his story here
I recently had to to go to Kent at short notice, and
since
I was heading into relatively unknown territory on a long journey, I
zero'd
my satnav trip details, a rare event.
When I got home, I flipped to the trip detail screen and was tickled to see this trip record shown below...
The distance looks right, but behold, my Max Speed was apparently 242 mph - was I driving a Bugatti Veyron (top speed 258 mph)? - I think not!
This makes you think about how useful is GPS data as the foundation of a national road pricing system - the answer is probably in chocolate teapot territory!
Many people think that a satellite based road pricing system would work roughly like this...
...with the satellites somehow detecting the position of your car and then transmitting the data to the Big Computer that adds up the price of the the roads you have been sitting on, and then issuing a bill.
But of course the satellites don't detect the position of the car at all, it is the Black Box in the car that does all the work, and so a GPS-satellite based road pricing system would really work something like this....
...with the car working out where it thinks it is, and then (somehow, by mobile phone, maybe) sending the data to the Big Computer that...well, you get the picture, don't you...
If such a system were built, then once people twig the way things work, the little Black Boxes will be wearing tin-foil hats - to block the incoming satellite signal, and then to stop the mobile phone signal going out; result: No road travel data = no payment.
So the Power-That-Be would have design some sort of method of enforcement. What better way than using the Automatic Number Plate Recognition (ANPR) cameras that are sprouting all over the place.
All you need to do is cross-relate the journey data received from the in-car black boxes with the location of sightings according to the cameras. The system would look something like this...
Thinking a bit harder than maybe my satnav did, then you can imagine many points of error:
Multiplying up the error probabilities in this ordure-filled pipeline, and you will get a success probability in the mid-seventies percent. Not good...
My trip would have earned me about 18-points on my licence, a big fine, a 5-year ban, and probably 6 months in chokey for apparently travelling at 182 mph faster than the National Speed limit.
So if/when we end up with a GPS-powered road pricing system, expect the worst!
When I got home, I flipped to the trip detail screen and was tickled to see this trip record shown below...
The distance looks right, but behold, my Max Speed was apparently 242 mph - was I driving a Bugatti Veyron (top speed 258 mph)? - I think not!
This makes you think about how useful is GPS data as the foundation of a national road pricing system - the answer is probably in chocolate teapot territory!
Many people think that a satellite based road pricing system would work roughly like this...
...with the satellites somehow detecting the position of your car and then transmitting the data to the Big Computer that adds up the price of the the roads you have been sitting on, and then issuing a bill.
But of course the satellites don't detect the position of the car at all, it is the Black Box in the car that does all the work, and so a GPS-satellite based road pricing system would really work something like this....
...with the car working out where it thinks it is, and then (somehow, by mobile phone, maybe) sending the data to the Big Computer that...well, you get the picture, don't you...
If such a system were built, then once people twig the way things work, the little Black Boxes will be wearing tin-foil hats - to block the incoming satellite signal, and then to stop the mobile phone signal going out; result: No road travel data = no payment.
So the Power-That-Be would have design some sort of method of enforcement. What better way than using the Automatic Number Plate Recognition (ANPR) cameras that are sprouting all over the place.
All you need to do is cross-relate the journey data received from the in-car black boxes with the location of sightings according to the cameras. The system would look something like this...
Thinking a bit harder than maybe my satnav did, then you can imagine many points of error:
- confused satnav systems
- lost distances travelled in tunnels, city canyons, and inside little tin foil hats
- black box failures, including maybe "failures" induced by sharp, stabbling screwdrivers
- failed/partial uploads of trip records
- misrecognised number plates
- cars and drivers missing from the database
- and more...
Multiplying up the error probabilities in this ordure-filled pipeline, and you will get a success probability in the mid-seventies percent. Not good...
I have previously mentioned the risk profile of Government IT projects so I won't bang that particular drum again here, but you can always look here to remind yourself...
My trip would have earned me about 18-points on my licence, a big fine, a 5-year ban, and probably 6 months in chokey for apparently travelling at 182 mph faster than the National Speed limit.
So if/when we end up with a GPS-powered road pricing system, expect the worst!
Footnote: the charming and naively executed diagrams in this post where brought to you courtesy of a DigiScribble pen. It calls itself " The Mobile Digital Note-Taker", but using it underlined for me the fatal flaw of all write-only devices...you can't see what it thinks you wrote until you upload - too late, way too late
The world of Information Technology overflows with its arcane jargon and acronyms, but it is by no means, the sole offender of creating inpenetrable and mysterious language.
I was recently driving along and saw this displayed on the dot-matrix on the back of a bus...
...and whilst admiring the rendition of the letters on the display and pondering dot densities and the like, I then spent precious minutes attempting to work out what it was actually trying to say, and where was the bus going?
There is a lot of talk about reducing street clutter at one moment, and then, again, increasing confusion within the driver's mind to make them slow down
but this new FLA certainly did the latter, and none of the former for me!
As I overtook and looked in my mirror, Eureka, the bus was heading for the depot, and proudly displaying "Sorry, Not In Service" on the long display at the front.
Yes, the transport types have invented a new word-thing and foisted on us unsuspecting general public who really didn't need it and shouldn't be spending our time working out what it means. This particular word-thing should really only be used amongst consenting transport types and anoraks, and I don't really mind if the bus people use it as a verb,
just as long as they don't do it in front of the children.
In my humble opinion, this display below would have worked better, and would probably have meant more to a large part of the world that uses the Roman alphabet...
I was recently driving along and saw this displayed on the dot-matrix on the back of a bus...
...and whilst admiring the rendition of the letters on the display and pondering dot densities and the like, I then spent precious minutes attempting to work out what it was actually trying to say, and where was the bus going?
There is a lot of talk about reducing street clutter at one moment, and then, again, increasing confusion within the driver's mind to make them slow down
coincidentally, Hans Monderman , the proponent of "Shared Space", died earlier this year, but that is another tangent
but this new FLA certainly did the latter, and none of the former for me!
As I overtook and looked in my mirror, Eureka, the bus was heading for the depot, and proudly displaying "Sorry, Not In Service" on the long display at the front.
Yes, the transport types have invented a new word-thing and foisted on us unsuspecting general public who really didn't need it and shouldn't be spending our time working out what it means. This particular word-thing should really only be used amongst consenting transport types and anoraks, and I don't really mind if the bus people use it as a verb,
"OK, guys, we'll SNIS this bus and bring on the relief"
just as long as they don't do it in front of the children.
In my humble opinion, this display below would have worked better, and would probably have meant more to a large part of the world that uses the Roman alphabet...
I stayed in an bizarre hotel in Kensington last week and was rather struck by the immense length of the central corridor, and odd green-ness of the lights, creating an institutional, Soviet/Stalinist feel to the place, and the sense that you could walk and walk and never find your room...
...which brings me, of course, to carpets of which this place had many, many hectares.
Carpet stores have always seemed to me to be one of the last hangouts of stone-age man, well, stone-age marketing anyway.
Apart of the never-ending sales, and boring adverts, they seem to harbour troglodytes who have not worked out that it might just be better to treat their customers with a little bit of intelligence. The most insulting manifestation of this is the latest wheeze, the "cut, and then cut some more" sale pricing.
Carpetright have a great deal advertised at the moment at the local store...
50% and then 20% more is, of course, supposed to make us think they are cutting prices by 70%, but, no, by a clever trick of arithmetic it is only 60% (the 20% only applies to something already cut in half).
"Carpet Stupidity" more like...
...which brings me, of course, to carpets of which this place had many, many hectares.
Carpet stores have always seemed to me to be one of the last hangouts of stone-age man, well, stone-age marketing anyway.
Apart of the never-ending sales, and boring adverts, they seem to harbour troglodytes who have not worked out that it might just be better to treat their customers with a little bit of intelligence. The most insulting manifestation of this is the latest wheeze, the "cut, and then cut some more" sale pricing.
Carpetright have a great deal advertised at the moment at the local store...
An interesting aside is that if you go to the Carpetright website and right-click your mouse, instead of the normal menu, you get a big Copyright notice, not obvious what they have to protect so assidiously
50% and then 20% more is, of course, supposed to make us think they are cutting prices by 70%, but, no, by a clever trick of arithmetic it is only 60% (the 20% only applies to something already cut in half).
"Carpet Stupidity" more like...
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