Edinburgh Marathon 2012

I've decided to run the Edinburgh Marathon and raise money for Macmillan Cancer Care. I've been running quite a bit over the last 5 years or so but this is my first marathon. I've generally resisted doing runs for charity as I worry that I'd end up hitting the same folks for donations each time but decided that a marathon was sufficient to overcome this objection.

Macmillan is a great organisation, they looked after my mother very well at their Heywood House hospice and were also very kind to my friend Janet.

You can make a donation by hitting the button below.
Thanks
Jeremy

Solar PV

We had solar cells put on the roof in November 2011. It's 16 x 250w panels attached to a Sunny Boy inverter. We're lucky to have a large roof facing pretty much bang on south. Shading is also very good - the shadow in the picture from next door's chimney is only there for a short time in deepest winter when the sun is low. I'm experimenting with uploading data from the inverter to pvoutput.org and will update here when I've got it working properly.

Update 25/4/2012
pvoutput.org now working well, here's yesterday's graph

We're starting production at around 6:30am and running through to after 8:00pm with a peak production, as you'd expect of around midday. Yesterday was cloudy with sunny spells as can be seen from the graph and with peak production of 3.8kw which is nearly the max for our system - roll on June! We made a total of about 12 units (12 kilowatt hours).

Backup & sync files in the cloud

I've been loving Dropbox which I use to sync my files between my work computer, my laptop & my home desktop. It keeps all my files synced automatically and has the advantage of a backup up there in the cloud in case of disaster.

Pickpocketed on Spanish Steps, Rome

Very professional, the lady with the baby tugged on my arm to distract me while an accomplice did the deed. A €200 lesson learned. Take care folks.

Still, didn't let it spoil the holiday.

Bio diesel

Just put half a tank of biodiesel made from used chip fat from Apple Fuels of Glasgow in the tank of my Mercedes C220 CDI. Running fine so far, will report back here.

Update 25/5/10.
No problems so far, the weather has been pretty warm so no viscosity issues, it is still returning similar mpg (between 40 and 50mpg) etc. I'm aiming to fill up again at the weekend to a mix of around 70/30 rather than the 50/50 I've been using so far and will get the fuel filter changed once I've used that tankfull.

Update 3/6/10
Running fine on a mix of about 80% Biodiesel from waste vegetable oil (WVO) from Apple in Glasgow and 20% regular mineral - running fine after couple of hundred miles. I'm so impressed I've created a TomTom satnav POI file with all the UK biodiesel outlets listed at http://www.biodieselfillingstations.co.uk/ .

You can download the POI file here.

Update 10/8/10
Aside from 1,500 miles in France over the summer when it was mineral diesel all the way (cheaper than here 'though), I've been running biodiesel in some concentration all summer. Apple in Glasgow is consistently the cheapest at 92p / litre. One place in Liverpool was charging 110p which felt a lot till I noticed the mineral diesel was around 120p locally. I had the fuel filter replaced after a few hundred miles on bio and whilst I've wondered whether maybe I changed it before all the crap had been cleaned through I've had no running difficulties at all so far.

Quite a few of the suppliers listed at Biodiesel Filling Stations seem to have stopped selling it so I've been phoning ahead when planning long journeys.

Update 8/9/10
Was up in Aberdeen last week taking number one daughter to university open day and filled up with bio at Business Biofuels 94.9p for cash, more for payment by card. A very professional outfit, talked me through the possible pitfalls (blocked filters, warranty invalidation) and handed out a useful fact sheet, will certainly use them again when I'm in the area. I'll be filling up at Apple in Glasgow on Saturday and have bought some 20 litre containers on eBay which I'll fill also. Merc is running fine on 100% bio, no problems at all.

Update 12/3/12
Well it's been a long time since I updated on this. Still using biodiesel without any problems. The fuel filter did need changing before xmas but excellent local mechanic Chris Cockburn sorted it out in minutes. Over the winter I've been using a maximum of about 25% bio to avoid waxing, when warmer seems to run ok on 100% bio although I tend to run a half a tank of dino-diesel through every few weeks. The economy is great as shown in the photo - 64 mpg on the first hour of a recent journey from Stansted northwards.

Call it what it is

I'm increasingly concerned and irritated by the use of language in the whole Catholic church / Pope / paedophile priest scandal.

The church obsesses about 'sin' and that is what seems to blind them to the reality that the issues at stake are, first and foremost, 'crimes'.

Furthermore, I think to term it 'abuse' is to try to underplay the reality which includes child rape by trusted moral guardians.

UPDATE 16/4/2010 - excellent legal discussion of the 'arrest the pope' suggestion here

My top 50 albums ever (well, today's version anyway)

Abbey Road
Abraxas
After the Gold Rush
Aja
Armed Forces
Astral Weeks
Automatic For The People
Before & After Science
Black Sea
Bridge over Troubled Water
CB200
Dark Side Of The Moon
Electric Guitarist
Fear of Music
Gaucho
Germ Free Adolescents
Grace
Graceland
Graduate (soundtrack)
Harvest
Hunky Dory
Imagine
Infected
Kind of Blue
Life's a Riot with Spy vs Spy
Lionheart
London 0, Hull 4
Marcus Garvey
Midnight Love
OK Computer
Only Ones
Pearl
Peter Gabriel (4)
Revolver
Rum Sodomy & the Lash
Rumours
Sandinista
Signing Off
Songs in the Key of Life
Stone Roses
Strangeways Here We Come
Talking To The Taxman
The Bends
The Hardest Way to Make an Easy Living
The Nightfly
Touch Me In The Morning
Transformer
Tubular Bells
Whatever People say I am, that's what I'm not
Ziggy Stardust

Why Before & After Science?

I thought I should jot down why this blog is called Before & After Science.

There are two reasons, firstly it's the title of an excellent album by Brian Eno from 1977, secondly I'm interested in the ways in which progress in science and technology change our lives and I thought "Before & After Science" gives a flavour of that.

That's it really, a blog's got to have a name, this is the one I decided on.

"Arithmetic, Population, and Energy."

Just watched a fascinating lecture on youtube, Dr. Albert A. Bartlett on "Arithmetic, Population, and Energy." The maths of exponential growth, why journalists miss the point and peak oil.

Highly recommended

RBS - Bailouts & Handouts

There seems to be quite a bit of talk in the media on the subject of government handouts / bailouts to greedy, massive bonus taking banks.

The point that the UK government actually bought a majority stake in RBS etc with the so called handout cash seems generally to be missed. Before the bailout, RBS shareholders owned 100% of the value of the bank, now they own 15% and HMG owns 85%.

Government support came at a substantial price to the previous owners of the bank; from the shareholder's perspective it ain't a gift from the taxpayer.

First Class Client for iPhone

One of the universities I teach at uses First Class for email, conferencing etc so I was chuffed when I found out yesterday that there's a free iPhone client available from the App Store. It is simplicity itself to set up, just needs server name, user ID and password - same stuff you need to set up anywhere and provides an easy to use interface.

You wouldn't want to write your life story on it but that can be said of everything with the iPhone, however for quick messages it's brilliant.

Very interesting video on UK power use

I found this very interesting - don't waste your time unplugging phone chargers

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UR8wRSp2IXs

Sync iPhone Contacts & Calendar with Outlook - Part Two - Calendar

Calendar

I went for a Google solution for my contacts because it's based on push technology so the phone & Outlook will sync every hour (user variable) without human intervention. (Google don't provide sync for contacts or I'd have sorted both data sets via Google).

1. Download & install to your PC 'Google Calendar Sync' from here
2. Tell iTunes to stop syncing Calendar
3. Sign up for a free Google (Gmail) account if you haven't got one already
   
4. Sync your info from Outlook with a One Way sync to Google
5. Set up iPhone sync by following instructions at here
6. CHECK EVERYTHING IS OK - particularly check that you haven't got a zillion duplicate entries before switching syncs to Two Way.
   

I hope these entries help, they're just the result of a load of Googling and a bit of trial and error which I thought I'd share. Good luck, if you find better free solutions please post them in the comments.

Sync iPhone Contacts & Calendar with Outlook - Part One - Contacts

I got an iPhone and had some trouble finding out how to keep both my Contacts and Calendar in sync with MS Outlook, I simply want to be able to enter or delete something in one device and have it updated elsewhere without USB / iTunes etc, not rocket science.

Here's what I've ended up with (at least so far). It has the dual virtues of a) working without problems and b) free of charge. As always do backup everything first in case you screw something up (easy to do, for example ending up with duplicates of all your contacts).

I couldn't find anything free that would do both data sets so ended up with a fully automated push solution for Calendar and a slightly less automated solution for Contacts.

Contacts

I used Funambol -

1. Download the Funambol app direct from the iPhone App Store
   
2. Download the Funambol Outlook sync client from here & install it to your PC
   
3. Sign up for a free Funambol account via here
4. Tell iTunes to stop syncing Contacts
   
5. Sync your info from where ever it is complete (e.g Outlook if you have everything you need there) with a One Way sync to Funambol
6. Do a One Way sync from Funambol to your other device (so if you used Outlook in step 4 you'd now sync your phone
7. CHECK EVERYTHING IS OK - check number of contacts in each place, particularly check that you haven't got a zillion duplicate entries
8. Once your happy with step 6 change all syncs to Two Way

Now every time you change a Contact in Outlook it will update the copy on the Funambol server, you just need to run the Funambol iPhone app periodically to keep the phone in sync. Does anyone know how to automate this so it happens, say daily?

Part 2 on Calendar to follow

A Hiking We Will Go

At some point in the future the MPC will increase interest rates, most likely by 0.25%, the smallest increment of increase / decrease generally used.

At this point I predict the media will term this a 'hike' frequently.

However a hike is a lengthy and substantial thing; a quarter percent just ain't, if anything it's a modest tweak.

And don't get me started on 'green shoots....'.