Beijing to crack down on not good Engrish

As anybody who has ever visited China will know, public signs in Chinese and English are rarely the pinnacle of good English.  No doubt every visitor will have at least one or two holiday snaps of Chinglish at its best.

This is one of my favourites, taken at a checkpoint whilst at a section of the Great Wall called Simatai.

Specifically what "Please keep the facilities well don't open the door.  Follow the staff's arrangement please" means is anybody's guess.

But, according to the BBC, Beijing is working hard to cut down on the Chinglish for the Summer Games next year.

More amusing examples at http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/in_pictures/6054726.stm :)

Essential Windows utilities

This evening I received an email from the developer of an open source application to duplicate X11 window movement in a Windows environment.

Anybody that's been reading for a while may know that a little over a year ago, I started a similar project.  The main aim was to allow me to move a window around the screen by holding the Alt key while clicking anywhere on the application window.

I didn't get around to finishing my code off, but I'm very happy to say that the excellent Taekwindow project, http://taekwindow.sourceforge.net/, is already an excellent solution to the problem, which even includes window resizing with the right mouse button.

Another brilliant utility the same developer made me aware of was KatMouse, http://www.code-scout.net/katmouse/, which fixes some of the brokenness of the Windows scroll-wheel model:

In GNOME/KDE the component under the mouse cursor receives a scroll event.  This means that I can scroll a window or frame that does not have focus.

In Windows, the currently focused object receives the scroll event, which is incredibly annoying.  KatMouse is a brilliant fix for this 'problem', although I did have to disable 'Wheel button' functionality to restore my middle mouse click.

These two applications are already absolute essentials for Windows.  Another nice thing that can be done in Vista, is to enable sloppy focus.  I did some searching and came across http://shellrevealed.com/forums/thread/5726.aspx which is this very fix.  It involves registry editing, but the change is very simple:

Start regedit.exe, navigate to HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Control Panel\Desktop

Edit UserPreferencesMask and increment the first hex value by +1 in decimal.  e.g. my UserPreferencesMask was 9E 3E 07 08 12 00 00 00, I did 9E + 1d and changed the value to 9F 3E 07 08 12 00 00 00 (i.e. 9E + 1d = 9F).  A reboot was required but the result was a focus-follows-cursor (technically this is not true, as the last focused application does not lose focus when the pointer leaves the window).

Virginia Waters, Chertsea round-trip

After getting back from Iain and Zubin's house in Kingston at about 1PM (I ended up sleeping on the sofa bed... after getting back from a nice meal out and Bourne Ultimatum (most awesome action-packed film ever!) we spent about two hours sat watching YouTube videos on the Wii) I headed into Camberley to grab a couple of rolls of film that they'd been pestering me to collect (and pay for).

As with any trip to Jessops, the inevitable browse around HMV (opposite) took place, and I came back home not only two four rolls of developed 135, a roll of developed 120, but also five new CDs...

1. Bob Marley and the Wailers -- Natty Dread


2. Bjork -- Greatest Hits


3. Jonie Mitchell -- Ladies of the Canyon


4. New Order -- Substance


5. Asobi Seksu (which Vlad/Wikipedia reliably informs me means 'playful sex' (I like it!)) -- Citrus

I've only listened to playful sex so far, which is surprisingly good considering it was a random unheard-of off-the-shelf pull (not the girl, the CD (bah)).  That said, I've already got all of Bob Marley's stuff ever from the uber-torrent... I've now got three Marley CDs that I probably would not have owned, were it not for said torrent... and who says that torrenting hurts music sales?

Anyway, I would write about the other three once I've listened to them, but, to be honest, I can't be bothered, so I won't.

Right, back on topic.

I headed out for my 20 mile bikeride at about 4PM (a little late, really, but what can you do?)... I drove to Virginia Waters railway station and did the route I posted yesterday in reverse (I wanted to save the Great Park until last).

As before, please visit http://www.cycle-route.com/routes/Chertsey_to_Windsor_Great_Park_Loop-Cycle-Route-76.html for more info.

I paid good attention to my 'average' (from lots of looking at the speedo) cadence last time I was out... it was 73.  This seemed quite comfortable to me, but lots of reading suggests otherwise.  Apparently I'm burning the wrong matches, or something.  So the key aim for this ride was to get it up into the 80s, if at all possible.

I'm pretty glad to say I did this, and a bit more.  I spent most of the time pedalling (it still underlines this in red!) around at roughly 93rpm!  Of course, at some points it did drop lower, but it rarely went below 80, which would appear to be an improvement.  That said, I did find my legs getting tired... but much less than I'd expected (especially given this is now the fourth time out on a bike in about five or more years).

So, here are the stats... I thought that I was going to average at almost 16mph, but I guess not:

Time: 1h 20m 34s (not including breaks!)

Distance: 19.37m

Average speed: 14.4mph

Max speed: 32.3mph

Cadence: roughly 90-93rpm

Movie Music

Just been skipping through a 720p Kill Bill Vol.1 rip and I spotted that the scene where The Bride is checking out Hatori Hanzo's swords uses the same music as Lily.

Awesome.

Out for a ride

Just got back from a very quick cycle around the block.  Despite having had my bike since last Thursday (i.e. ever so slightly over a week), I've only been out riding... two and a half times.

The Thursday I got my bike I obviously peddled around for a while, enjoying my new speedy racer.  In fact, I did the same on Friday, but before I even got two miles, my chain came off, so I pulled over to the side of the road to resolve the problem, only to get a gash in my tire.

As this was my first bike in over five years, I wasn't yet kitted out with the essentials: my only option was to pick the bike up, stick it over my shoulder and walk home.

I spent this weekend in Manchester and sorted out my tire problems at Vlad's house, only to miraculously manage to get a drawing pin lodged in the same tire later on in the day.  Again, we got this patched up, but come the following morning, my tire was flat.

This week I put a big order in with wiggle.co.uk, buying myself a set of five inner tubes (£15 for the lot), one of the awesome CO2 pumps (it's near impossible to hit 100-120PSi with a small hand-held pump), a whole pile of patches, a proper track pump (makes it a real breeze to reach 110PSi), a large saddle bag (which I might be replacing with the medium-sized one, as it doesn't quite fit), two Specialized Ribcage pro bottle cages, and two (yes, two!) Cateye Strada Cadence cycle computers.

At my Dad's recommendation I opted for a speedo that does cadence, i.e. how fast you are peddling.  Wednesday evening (about three hours of it) was spent attaching the damn thing to my bike.  I'd have bought a wireless one, but wireless speedos that do cadence cost upwards of £80!

So, I finally got all of my order in today, I replaced my dead inner tube with a brand new one, loaded the saddle bag with a spare tube, CO2 canisters and adapter, puncture repair kit, phone, keys and an emergency stash of cash.  I'd brought my trusty old Specialized water bottle from home, so I filled this up and set off...

In the end I was only out for 24 minutes... as I don't have any lights (thanks to buying two speedos by mistake!), I didn't want to stay out any longer for risk of being run down like Vlad*.

I'm counting this as the first time I've really been out... my first trip involved a fair few stops while I buggered around with my bike, and when we were cycling to/from Manchester and around Heaton Park there were too many kids and stops to really get worked up.  The first ten minutes of this ride was pretty hard work... I was doing about 10mph until I got warmed up (I guess).

I'm still in the 20th century so I can't provide a map or blow-by-blow speed readings, but my stats were:

Time: 24m

Distance: 6.37m

Average speed: 15.7mph

Max speed: 28mph

Cadence: I guess around 73rpm

So, clearly not as impressive as either Chris Gerhard or Talbot, but I'm quite happy to have an average speed of near-enough 16mph... even if my ride was a little short!

Tomorrow I plan on doing a quick trip I found on a website that goes from Windsor to Chertsey Great Park... it's only 21 miles, but I think that's quite ambitious for now.

See http://www.cycle-route.com/routes/Chertsey_to_Windsor_Great_Park_Loop-Cycle-Route-76.html for the Google Maps route.

Snake bite

There's a truly horrific set of photos of the results of a rattlesnake bite at http://funnypicturecrazy.info/2007/08/09/rattlesnake-bite/

Looking at the photos of the skin graft reminds me of when I broke my leg after a tree collapsed on me... my leg didn't look anywhere near as bad as that, but it's reminded me of how I had those funny scratchy looking stitches, some of the swelling and the crazy chicken-skin leg.

I don't really notice my scar any more... but I guess it is pretty awesome.  Sorry for the poor photo... not that easy to take, and I forgot to pick a sensible aperture, and ended up focusing on my shoe, or something.

New bike!

<FUTURAMA> Good news, everyone! </FUTURAMA>

I've been looking to sort myself out with a new push bike for ages now... about this time last year I posted a blog entry for the bike I proposed to buy through the cycle to work scheme... it was a Scott Sportster P2 hybrid bike.  Unfortunately I didn't ever go through with the deal, as Evans the cycle shop could not find the model in my size.

A year later, and I began the hunt again... I spoke to a few cycling authorities... Chris Gerhard and Chris Talbot, and was convinced by the former that I did not need front suspension (I had originally planned to buy the 2007 Sportster P2).

After much shop and soul searching, I headed into London on Sunday to check out a well-stocked Evans store in Waterloo.  Here I cycled around on a Cannondale Bad Boy for about £650... I liked the ride, but I still wanted to try out the Trek 7.6FX and possibly a Scott Sub 10.

After having a nice lunch at the former Millennium Dome with Mandy from my CS course, I prepared to head back home, only to realise I still had enough time to check out another Evans in Canary Wharf.  This time I cycled around on the Trek and was umming and arring when one of the guys in the shop asked me if I wanted to try something really different.

Enter the Ridgeback Genesis Day 03... I don't really know my bikes, but this was more or less a road racing bike... sans the bendy handlebars and (almost) obligatory SPD pedals.

With a carbon front fork, rear stay and seat post, the bike is really light and very fast... and I was surprised by just how much of a difference the carbon front fork made in terms of comfort (compared to the Cannondale).

I spent Monday attempting to figure out if this really was the bike I wanted... it won't accept full-size mudguards, I can't attach a rear rack in the standard way, and it was a little more expensive than I initially planned to spend.  Once I had these settled, I decided to take the plunge, and I've just had confirmation that the bike was shipped today and will take 24-48 hours to arrive.

I give you, the Genesis Day 03: