Where do you want your henge?

Going west now.

==

After about 9 hours of travelling, I meet Darren at Farnborough train station. We haul Dawn's gift bag across town as aircraft practice for the weekend airshow overhead. What I thought was an F-22 was later identified by Martin as an F-18.

Shortly after I get changed, Darren's mate, Martin arrives and we head across country to Dartmoor. We arrive at 8 o'clock, and start heading along the length of Meldon Reservoir (maplink).

A shower starts, making me feel at home. It doesn't have the same effect on Darren.

A 2km trek along the reservoir finds us at Vellake Corner, where the others had already arrived.

We pitch our tents and tarp-tents and put on a brew in the dreich weather. I use the Blackfly3 meths stove. It works well. My snufr1.0 fails, as the heat is too much. I quickly invent snufr2.0 and the burning wicks are extinguished. Job done. Sleep.

Thanks Dawn

Thanks for the bagfull of kit, Dawn.

Gayle heading south

Somewhere between Edinburgh and Berwick listening to Bob's interview with Gayle after Mick and Gayle's LEJOG walk. Nice to hear thoughts on walking the length of Britain.

Mick & Gayle LEJOG 2008

Download MP3 File

TITLE - Blog Templates

[TITLE TITLE TITLE - Review Writing Headlines for Regular Readers, Search Engines, and Social Media - TITLE TITLE TITLE]

Tick, that's that bit done, now onto the next.

[First Line. Hook. Ask questions. Say something intriguing. Get your potential reader hooked to make her read on.]

Ah, ask a question. Maybe I can use Wikipedia's home page to get something interesting.

So, what do you think of the coup in Spain? Oh, that was 1936, sorry.

[Answer the questions. Make your statement. Think of sub headline in the newspaper article that generally says the essence of the post. This should make the reader read on to find out "how" or details on your take]

Well, thanks for asking, but I wonder how countries like Britain can sit back and allow the fascists to rise up. Hmm, this sounds like I've got a split personality.

[insert picture from flkr. More flkr stuff - A Complete Guide to Finding and Using Incredible Flickr Images]

[do not forget to give credit on picture]

My photo from a wargame in 2003.

...oh, I give up on the rest of the template. Heck, if blogging is that much of a chore, go over to something less taxing on the grey cells, like forums or Twittering.

Source of template - Alik Levin across at the informative "Daily Blog Tips". Some good ideas to follow up and ponder. link

What's that now, Mr D?

It is a wick snuffer for my Blackfly3 stove.

You will require: duct tape, scissors and a hand.

Form fingers into a pinching shape. Take a length of duct tape tape to fit the length and double it. Cut tape. Fold tape back on itself so that non-sticky sides are outside. Trim off any excess.

Warning: flames are usually hot and may cause damage if the wrong sort of tape is used, or if the flame catches the users hand. No liability is accepted by the writer if you hurt yourself, others or damage possessions (yours or others) when using this device.

FBC: Soya and Rice

Tried out a Freezer Bag Cooking recipe from Sarah last night after coming back from the beach. I couldn't get hold of meat that was pre-packed in pouches (apart from fish), so had previously decided to use soya (aka TVP).

Mix it up, add boiling water.

Put in the cozy and set for 10 minutes.

I overdid the proportions and half of the pouch filled me. I'll try some more over the weekend.

More recipes and details across at Sarah's site.

Down to the Beach

A short walk down to the beach to get some fresh air, and to cool down as my flat is a heat trap. Good for low heating bills, not so comfortable in the summer evenings.

Nothing

of importance

transpired.

Desertion of Post

So, I leave the my workstation to go for a head-clearing walk down the beach. In the hour that I'm away, putting up with the tyre-spinning engine roaring antics of the racers down the beach. A shame, as I've no issue with the folk enjoying their cars ("gear freaks of the world unite"), but I get tired of the light-racing elements.

After taking some snaps, and having a text conversation, I get back and check the messages to find that kindly fb on OutdoorsMagic has noticed someone using one of my photos to help sell their tent on eBay. I'd not been asked. I recognised the photo as being one I took after bagging a couple of Munros in the Cairngorms last year.

(blog entry)

As I was already in a Judge Dredd mood, I penned the following email:

A shame really, as the chap has an Akto. I just don't want to be targeted if the product leaks like a sieve because the UV has killed the outer, or there are rips and tears in it. If I'd been asked by the chap, I'd have politely said "no" for merely that reason.

News from the North

List of online newspaper archives. I found this list by accident when trying to find out about the NY Times archive project.

Saturday, 22nd November 1862. "The New South" newspaper from Port Royal, South Carolina. Kindly hosted by the University of South Carolina. link

I thought it strange that a South Carolina paper seemed to be focused on the Northern news. A quick search finds that although the state was the first to secede from the Union in 1861, Port Royal was captured by the USA in November 1861 (link). Completing my circular search, Captain Cannon of the steamer Delaware also received a mention earlier in 1862 in the NY Times (pdflink).

The closing lines of the soldier's poem on page 1 hold true today as back then. They strike me hard when I think of our squaddies getting abuse for REMF politics. No doubt it has been true since dawn's early light. At the Roman Wall, a squaddy asked for socks to be sent. Empathy across the ages. History is important. Social networking isn't limited to the living, but to the lessons from the dead too.

I'm off to catch up with over 150-years of newspapers from around the world.

Comments v8

I've snuck in a Version 8 as the same problems of updates that was affecting earlier ones affected v7, which was supposed to be a feed that amalgamated the Atom, RSS and Google Data feeds into one.

As v7 uses an RSS feed from Yahoo!, there may be some delays being introduced.

I'm using a notepad text file to keep track on these meanderings:

8.24 posted Ctrl+F5 comment
8.43 no update 3 browsers
0859: v2 updated on IE, safari, ff ... hmm, v7 empty (IE + Safari)
0921: safari - v2 & v5 updated
      firefox - v2 & v5 updated
      IE - v2 & v5 updated

If v7 is truly working with 3 feeds, then surely it would have updated when v2 (atom) updated.

--hmm, does Pipex (my isp) cache feeds?

0938: safari - v2 & v5 updated
      firefox - v2 & v5 updated
      IE - v2 & v5 updated
-- Spoke to Darren, and he's seeing what I am. So, not being affected by caching.

The last thing I can try (before following Darren's suggestion) is to merely use the Google Data feed. Not quite the last thing, as I re-jigged the feed order in Yahoo!Pipes v7, in case that makes a difference (which it should not).

No update on Blogger Help Group.

To recap, the sidebar widgets are not picking up the comments that are being left behind by readers (the social networking side of blogging). For a couple of days last week, Blogger failed to send me the email notification to tell me that I have a new comment. So, between the two failures in the service, I missed replying to new comments.

So the long road starts. Sadly, it appeared at the weekend when Google's staffers were off resting (suggested a nominated "blog*star"). Monitoring the delay in feeds suggested a 30 minute to 3 hour delay in updates to the system that supplies the feeds (either Atom or RSS). Like trying to find the quickest road between home and destination, I tried different routes to get the data. I tried amalgamating the two feeds into one, like a smart SatNav, using the quickest route at that time of day.

I eventually found that "home" was not where I thought it was, and that the feeds were being supplied by a single source (Google Data). Bolting that in to the "satnav", it should have provided me with faster data than the other 2 feeds. But it did not.

So, version 8 is simply a direct feed from Google Data. It should be faster than the other feeds. It is better to scratch this itch than the itch on my leg that the Piriteze is easing whilst I rest it to get ready for the oscar-bravo-foxtrot weekend in the danger zone.

Oh, and Google Reader tells me that v7 was updated at 1053hrs today. I posted the comment at 0824. not quite 3 hours late, but sodding close. That's Yahoo!'s "pipe" program picking up 3 of Blogger's feeds and transferring it via RSS to Google reader. But when I run the script on the Yahoo!Pipes page, it all works fine.

Like I noted yesterday "So long as it all works, I think that may be it for comments, and I'll get rid of the earlier feeds. Of course, that's a big assumption."

I bought a folding spoon today

Not quite the highlight of the day, but sadly close.

I've been after a spoon to use with the freezer-bag cooking. Sarah recommends not using a spork in case the tines tear the bag. As I prefer having my cooking kit all together, finding a folding spoon was fun today, as I was merely cruising through gear shops looking for this month's TGO magazine to take down to Darren at the weekend. In case you work in gear shop nr 2, TGO magazine is a popular outdoor magazine printed in Scotland. So, much kudos to Blacks today.

No, the highlight was finding that, according to Google reader, the "Live for the outdoors/News" feed has 2 subscribers. Darren has 31. Dawn 16. Chris Townsend 41.

Comments v7

So, if sometimes Atom is faster, and sometimes RSS. Why not merge them and delete the duplicates? Back to Yahoo!Pipes for a looksee. Thanks to Tim for the deletion of duplicates.

Because of truncations, I had to put the author's name back at the beginning, this time with a separator.

If Atom and RSS feeds come from Google Data, can I shortcut them and go straight to source?

Retrieving comments:

You can retrieve the comments for a particular post by sending a GET to this post's comments feed URL:
GET http://www.blogger.com/feeds/blogID/postID/comments/default
Or you can get the comments from all posts by using the blog's comments feed URL:
GET http://www.blogger.com/feeds/blogID/comments/default

I extrapolated my feed details into the 2nd line, and added that to the united Atom and RSS feeds in Yahoo!Pipes.

So, the Comments v7 feed is now coming in from three sources. As Atom and RSS feeds are come from the Google Data API, I reckon they are superfluous to the feed widget, but who knows in this mish-mash of Internet services. So long as it all works, I think that may be it for comments, and I'll get rid of the earlier feeds. Of course, that's a big assumption.

In the snow of far-off Northern lands

I was reading Tom Managan's blog, catching up on the story of the mountain lion attack. Then something strange sunk into my brain. Baychic commented that "Alas, I am not allowed in that park either, amen." (source) Scrolling up the page, I read that "Foothills’ limit to Palo Altans".

So, off to find the park's website, and here's the details:

Foothills Park is open to Palo Alto residents and their guests only. Proof of residency is required. Guests must be accompanied through the entrance by a Palo Alto resident. Limit of 15 guests in two cars per resident. Names of guests cannot be left at the gate. Groups of 25 or more must make a reservation. (source)

Wow.

I looked for a reason. They turned Kurt Russell away for not being a resident (pdflink). In the "Ask a ranger" section, the question "Are only Palo Alto residents allowed in the park?" is answered, but not "Why?" A shame, as the rest of the worksheets are very, very informative. There's even one on the WW1 training camp that was there (pdflink), and some of the troops were sent on the Russian campaign - an oft forgot sideline in The Great War. IIRC, it was the only time that the USA and communist Russians were in open land warfare.

A short search with the terms "why restrictions residents foothills park" finds a good article on the history of the park in MetroActive, and some articles in the Palo Alto online from 2006 and 2007. Informative.

It is a quarter-to-Two in the morning. And it is dark in the Palo Alto hills. Link to the rotating webcam at Fire Station 8. No sign of the mountain lion.

Title sourced from the US Marine Corp's hymn, and used by Leo Daugherty III as the title of an article about the USMC and Revolutionary Russia. Investigate this further if you like your politics with a dash of confusion. White Russians. Red Russians. Germans. British. French. USA. Conscripted troops trying to get home. Weather.

Feeder Frenzy

Merged screenshot of the different times of comment feed arriving (and, yes, I did refresh the screen first).

The time of this snap was 23:07. I switched over to the Safari browser so that I can have a non-logged in view.

Comments v 3 & 4 are based on RSS feeds. Latest post received was from Dawn (the last comment posted).

Comments v 2 & 3 are based on Atom feeds. Latest post received was from WD (posted at 21:47).

Earlier today the Atom feeds seemed to be faster to update.

No reply from Blogger staffers at their forum. I did notice a post that asked "Does Blogger Tech Support staff ever look at this forum?" (source). I looked back through forum posts to find that I may be better asking them for information directly. So, I went through the Blogger Help, and ended on this page:

The best way to get help is to post your question to the Blogger Help Group. There, you can find answers, ask questions, and share expertise with other Blogger users. There are some Blogger employees who jump in as well. You'll see a blue "G" badge next to their names. Report your issue here.

Clicking on the link took me back to the Official Blogger Help Group from whence I started. So I looked through some posts and found how few had been answered by staffers. Actual, real staffers, and not the "stars" that help so many people. And then I looked at how many final posts read about getting help from staffers by email. If you find these words negative, just go and have a look at the work these people are doing. As to the "stars", I don't know if they get paid, or sent some gift socks.

Still, it is a new day tomorrow. I'll try some Piriteze to see if it works better on the leg than the Benadryl tab. It is distracting me from doing some painting, but not enough to get me to do the housework.

In the meantime, some music, it was used in the compelling documentary series "Teachers".

Bottle Bank

Went shopping to earlier, and had another look at the bottles in the supermarket. Sadly, the "Fruit Shoot" and "Lucozade Alert" bottles are too big to fit in my SnowPeak 900 cookset. My goal is to have enough fuel for the trip in the cookset that I take. Along with the fuel is the stove, windshield and folding spork.

Fitting in to SnowPeak 900 cookset is the:

• Palmolive 300ml bottle (10oz) - previously.
• Dettol 250ml bottle (8oz)
• Nalgene 125ml (4 oz)
• Tinny's blue bottle (4oz), fits in at angle.

Fitting in to Alpkit Ti Mug cookset is the:

• Next smelly bottle 100ml (3oz)
• Nalgene 60ml (2 oz)

One fluid ounce should be enough for one hot meal using the MiniBullDesign Blackfly3 (maker's video). If my leg wasn't still itching after the meds, I'd be out on the hills trying it out for real. Of course, I could just grab a gas stove and not bother with meths.

Commentator Top 40

With all this nonsense about comments, I went looking again as I try camomile ointment on my leg. Hmm, I noticed in the store that the allergy pills that someone suggested I try didn't have their ingredients on the box. Anyway, listening to today's TWiT podcast after catching some live last night. But back to comments.

I find a post at the unofficial GoogleSystems blog. The poster had played with pipes. So, I modified Ionut C's "top commentators" pipe, resisting the temptation to add it to the cluttered sidebar. So, pop-pickers, here's the top 40 posters (omitting Anonymous posters):

• 1. AktoMan (904)
• 2. Story Quine (118)
• 3. John Hee (110)
• 4. Simon (67)
• 5. Michael G Clark (59)
• 6. BG! (58)
• 7. WD (49)
• 8. Big Kev (44)
• 9. George Griffin (38)
• 10. Jerry (29)
• 11. Abcol@Altens (28)
• 12. Andy Howell (28)
• 13. Chris Townsend (22)
• 14. paulmartin42 (18)
• 15. PhilW (18)
• 16. sally in norfolk (18)
• 17. Chris Cowell (18)
• 18. Alan Sloman (16)
• 19. Weird Darren (13)
• 20. The Solitary Walker (12)
• 21. Dawn (12)
• 22. Martin Rye (12)
• 23. Martin (11)
• 24. mp (11)
• 25. Frank (10)
• 26. Baz (9)
• 27. Lighthiker (9)
• 28. Robin (7)
• 29. Londonbackpacker (7)
• 30. ptc (7)
• 31. ptc* (6)
• 32. Phreerunner (6)
• 33. Mac E (6)
• 34. Kristine (6)
• 35. George (6)
• 36. Paddy Dillon (6)
• 37. Sarah (5)
• 38. chasrle (5)
• 39. Geoff (5)
• 40. Frank and Sue (4)

Thanks, Ionut, and thanks for folk for dropping by. Ionut makes a note that:

the list is not generated instantaneously since Yahoo Pipe must fetch and process at most 10 GData feeds

I wonder if that's a clue as to delays in the RSS comments feed.

Comments v5

Like being overcharged for an O'Brien's sandwich (just don't ask for chicken and bacon together as the doubled the price of the sarnie yesterday), there's some things I just can't forget. So I did some more searching for solutions to the comments problems. This time I wanted to increase the number of comments summarised in the sidebar from 5 to 10. Blogger doesn't allow this. The new Blogger-in-Draft feeds have added tabs or sliders. Then I found David Havelin's work with Yahoo!Pipes. Bish, bash, bosh, I ended up with an RSS feed that showed a summary of the last 10 comments posted on my blog.

Annoyingly, when adding in the feed to the Blogger widget, it still has a max of 5 posts, overwriting the 10 set in the Pipes feed. I couldn't get rid of the brackets around the author's name. Why do computers make life sooo difficult for people? Oh, yes, life is the important stuff that doesn't involve computers.

Comments v3 and v4

Blogger gives very limited control over feeds. I found that my default feed was using Atom, and so switched the code in Comments v3 to RSS. Everything else was the same as before.

http://aktoman.blogspot.com/feeds/comments/default?alt=rss

instead of

http://aktoman.blogspot.com/feeds/comments/default

The maximum number of comments is set to 5 (the largest). So far, Atom feed (Comment v2) has picked up one of the latest comments, whilst the RSS feed looked more promising at the start, but has failed to receive the new comment from Paul.

This came up as I was trying FeedBurner, and it detected the two feeds (Atom and RSS) for the main articles, so I just transposed their code. Their burn of the RSS feed show the latest comment as:

I think the space makes Comments v3 look so much m...  - paulmartin42

But the gadget's showing the RSS feed in the sidebar hasn't picked that up at all, though it does show in the Atom fed gadget. So, sticking with the plan, I'll add in version 4 of the comment feed, which will be the FeedBurner feed based on the RSS comment feed.

http://feeds.feedburner.com/blogspot/AktoManComments

Both RSS (v3) and FeedBurner (v4) are now showing the same comments as Atom (v2).

Obviously I won't be keeping all 3 and will be monitoring the feeds for accuracy.

If this is giving you a headache, just don't say so to HR!

The Road goes ever on and on

I put on "The Fellowship of the Ring" dvd last night after getting back from Edinburgh. I'd seen it many times, and saw some of the extended scenes on YouTube. Unlike the current feeling of the US Courts, it does make me want to buy the extended versions of the movies. I got the extended final film in sale, and wonder at buying the other two now.

But it really makes me want to go back and read the books (again) from the beginning. For me, the start is the Silmarillion. I never bothered with the later books that the Son brought together from his Father's notes.

Obviously, I went looking for news of the Hobbit movie, and find that some of the linking stories between the Hobbit and LOTR may be made into another movie (once the legal battles end). I just hope that the scriptwights don't make the usual mess of appending their own agendas and own works to the stories that Tolkien crafted.

No, I'm not talking about the omission of Tom Bombadil (and his tasty wife), or the re-jigging of the early chapters. Film-making would still be in progress if every scene from the books was being shot. Nor tweaks to make up for those cuts. Anyway, film news from IMDB.com

1DR Trailer on YouTube

Strong sweary word warning - turn down volume if you wish, but see Mike getting dragged along the road.

Click for Trailer (I would have embedded it, but I want to maintain my non adult-content rating)

Oh, and the channel has a BBC Radio interview with Mark Stirton and Patrick Wight. Good photos from the shoot too.

And no sweary-words in that interview. Even when Mark talks about the Glasgow-centric BBC. More information about the film can be seen at the One Day Removals site. Adult content warning still applies. And whilst on same theme, some earlier work is on YouTube still - "Doctor Who and the Cybermen from space" is a classic parody.

Instant time travel.