So, yeah…

So, yeah… I said that this site would be back up and running by ‘the end of the day’. I was very wrong. However, you may be interested to know that… actually, I can’t think of anything interesting. Seriously, normal service will be resumed at some point. Maybe.

October 24, 2011    Posted in: Life, the Universe and Everything   No Comments

Hello world!

Right – I’ve reset my website as it wasn’t fully working…

At this particular moment in time, I need to go out and get something, so should you chance across this site in the meantime, that’s why nothing is here.

Hopefully by the end of the day it’ll be back up and running.

Maybe.

September 22, 2011    Posted in: Life, the Universe and Everything   No Comments

“Reacting Magnesium and Hydrochloric Acid, Richard Graham 10D”

This is brilliant.

I found some old schoolwork on a CD while clearing out some stuff, and came across this. Obviously, I knew back then how to make a PDF file from a Word document, and I do remember this. Old schoolfriends will probably remember the Science teacher whom I’ve forgotton the name of – she was the one whose classroom was downstairs opposite Mr Berry and Mr Hayes classrooms, if anybody can remind me. This was a piece of GCSE coursework (yes, proper coursework!) that I handed in when she showed us an experiment one day. Unfortunately, I was off sick this particular day so didn’t see the experiment, and the teacher was very helpful in explaining to me what happened so I could do the writeup.

So this is what I ended up with. I’ve put the text here for those who can’t be bothered to download the PDF, and to be honest there’s not much difference except a very large font size (to increase the page numbers), and a nice scientific bit of clipart on the front page.

Reacting Magnesium and Hydrochloric Acid
Richard Graham 10D

Introduction
This reaction is between Hydrochloric Acid and Magnesium

Aims
To find out what happens when Hydrochloric Acid reacts with Magnesium

Prediction
I don’t really have a prediction, as I was absent from school when the reaction took place, and therefore don’t know what happened, or what we were supposed to predict.

Method
This is where I have a bit of a confession to make. I haven’t actually got round to doing this investigation until the day before I was supposed to hand it in (even though it was handed in late too), and when it came to it, found out that I had lost my sheet with the method on it. However, I am doing this to get myself out of a detention, and when you think about it, a investigation handed in – albeit crap, is better than no investigation handed in at all. However, if you read on, you will get a decent(ish) analysis.

Analysis and Evaluation
In the reaction, the magnesium reacted with the Hydrochloric Acid, which caused a reaction. The reaction was between the Hydrochloric Acid and the magnesium, which reacted when it was put into the Hydrochloric Acid. The acid caused theMagnesium to react, which gave off Hydrogen Gas. Of the two test tubes, the one with the highest acid concentration caused the fastest reaction between the Magnesium and the Hydrochloric Acid, which reacted with the magnesium giving off Hydrogen gas. The one with the least amount of acid concentration still gave off the same amount of Hydrogen gas, as it was still reacting in the same way, with the same amount of magnesium and the same amount of acid solution and the same amount of glass in the test tubes and the same starting temperature and the same teacher doing the experiment and the same other stuff. The reaction between the Magnesium and the Hydrochloric Acid happened because when the Magnesium entered the ‘Acidic Zone’, its atoms were bombarded with hits from the Hydrochloric Acid, and therefore came away from the clump of Magnesium solid. This reaction, between the Magnesium and the Hydrochloric Acid, was an exothermic reaction, which means it gave off heat during the reaction.

Evaluation:
Was the evidence good enough? No.
Explain any wrong results? As mentioned before, I was away when the experiment took place, so I can’t explain any wrong results. Sorry.
Were there enough results? No. The more results there are, the better conclusion you can come up with.
What could you do to improve it? Everything, because I didn’t do it, so doing something would be an improvement.

The End – Or is it?
probably not, as I’ll probably have to do it again as it is a load of…… No, I’d better not say it before the 10:00 Watershed.

October 26, 2010  Tags: , , , ,  Posted in: Life, the Universe and Everything, Old Website   No Comments

Snow, January 2010

I’m actually quite irritated today.  We’ve just had two weeks off work for Christmas. I’ve got nothing against that, but I was beginning to get a little bored, as per usual during extended times off work. So, I was actually looking forward to returning to work on Monday. Monday was good. It was what is known in management terms as a ‘Staff Development Day’, free of students and on this particular Monday was free of ‘academic staff’ (lecturers) who were all up at Petroc Barnstaple for their training – sorry, staff development. There were a few things going on, but generally it was quiet and I managed to get on with stuff I needed too.

Yesterday, there was a little bit of snow around, but not too much. There was some forecast for the afternoon, but generally it looked as if it was OK. Nope. At around 10.30 Mum phoned me and told me that it was beginning to get a little heavy up in North Molton, and that I should make sure I’m careful to get home. At around the same time, a global email was sent to all staff informing us that because of the weather in Barnstaple, they were closing and sending people home. It was suggested then that I should probably go home myself, so about an hour and a half in to my second day back at work I started back home.

To be fair, the weather was quite bad and it was probably good that I went home and there were some pretty heavy spots of snow on the Link Road on the way back. I did video this – as well as my journey into work yesterday – but the video is upside down (because of the way that I attach a camera to my car windscreen) and will need a bit of work on it before I view it here.

So today, a day off. Most people would be glad I suppose, but not necessarily me. OK, an expected unexpected day off (it is unexpected, but it was expected at the same time. Confusing I know, but I assume you understand what I mean) is usually a good thing. But after two weeks being bored at home doing nothing to have a further couple of days – tomorrow will probably end up being the same – it’s not really for me.

Anyway – I did get some photographs around North Molton earlier on of the snow. It’s been quite deep really as you can see in a couple of the shots – over 6 inches; I went to measure it to tell somebody what the depth was but it was only a 15cm ruler and I lost it in the snow. It’s still in my front garden under the snow.

http://picasaweb.google.co.uk/richie.g/SnowJan2010

January 6, 2010  Tags: ,  Posted in: Photographs   No Comments

Why would anybody steal signalling?

OK, this is a bit of a rant really.

I’m currently sat on a train at Taunton station, and at the time I write this paragraph my computer tells me it’s 10.00am. I left Tiverton Parkway station at 9.04. This train was due into Paddington at around 11.30.

The reason for this delay is because ‘somebody in the Bridgwater has solen the signals’. Now, I know it’s not the signals themselves that have been stolen, more the signal cables. A while ago, again on a London trip I made, my return journey wasn’t actually late per ce, but it was the first train out of Paddington all evening – a 10.30pm train that I caught was the first to leave Paddington for the West since about 8.30 (a cancelled train which, incidentally, would have been the last train to go through Taunton, Tiverton, Exeter et al and therefore the train I would have caught had I not driven to Bristol.) Again, delays of quite a magnitude caused by somebody just outside the M25 boundary stealing signalling cable.

What possible use could they have for this cable? I guess signal cable is just a heavy-duty electrical cable as it just sends electrical pulses down it. Who would need that cable, except railways? Who would buy the cable off the people who stole it? Unless it’s some hard-strapped heritage railways probably not many uses could be found for it. Of course, I do not know; I did warn you that this was a rant.

For kicks then? Possibly. Causing disruptions to what must be a good couple thousand passengers across a railway network.

(I have just heard a whistle which means we’re probably leaving Taunton now, at 10.09. The train hasn’t started moving yet and there are still whistles going on on the platform…)

I don’t know what the capacity of an HST is. A quick search (and it was quick I’m afraid) yeilded no results. (Now we’re moving, computer time 10:11.) Actually, the update of the train departure proved a point there.

We’re on single block working at the moment, one train in, one train out between Taunton and Bridgwater. Our journey between leaving Tiverton Parkway and leaving Taunton took around 65 minutes. I will see how long it takes to get to Bridgwater to see now many trains could have travelled up the line from there onwards.

It’s quite interesting hearing what people are saying on their mobile phones to their loved ones (not ‘Aagghh I’m going to die!’ unfortunately). There is somebody who has said that they’re using stop-go boards on the line (that would be quite interesting actually). (We’ve stopped again now – 10.13 – waiting for what we have been told is the second train ahead of us to clear the section. So that’s at least two trains disrupted, not to mention the trains since it happened around 6.30 this morning.)

I’m kind of losing my train of thought here (no pun intended – seriously) so please bear with me.

Yes, I was talking about what people have been saying in their mobiles. We’ve had the stop-go boards, we have somebody on here who appears to be going to an interview at, what I assume will probably be an office of Marks & Spencer’s who was apologising that they would be late, we’ve had somebody who seems to be in the middle of a corporate merger and is unable to make the official handover (or something like that).

Believe it or not, when we were first told about what the problems were, there was a tiny ripple of laughter pass through the carriage at the thought of somebody stealing signals. Of course, that was almost an hour ago now, and I think a lot of people have realised that it’s not really a funny thing that has happened.

Something has happened which has reminded me of it happening. We’ve had a few announcements – recorded ones mind – saying ‘Would the train manager please contact the driver?’ which I’ve never heard before, even when I have been on delayed services. (Last year, there was flooding on the line between Exeter and Tiverton, which meant that I couldn’t get down to Exeter to get my ‘megatrain’ service to Waterloo, so had to get a single to Paddington which again was late running. A Cross Country service came down and obviously couldn’t continue, so turned around and took us all, initially to Bristol to change, but it turned out it was only as far as Taunton when we were told that the HST in the opposite platform would be going direct to Paddington and we should get that one. OK, it did go direct to Paddington, but there was a looooonnnnnggggg wait at Taunton, and although we were a fast service, we were stuck behind a slow service as far as Westbury. anyway – I think I’ve digressed from my point slightly!) (10.22 and still waiting the other side of Taunton.)

I wonder what other pre-recorded announcements the driver has to play with, or whether he has the ability to do live ones. I remember a while ago being on a train where the train manager seemed to have been a failed radio presenter (no snickering at the back there please). “I’ve been John, your train manager for this journey. Your driver was Mike, and your canteen staff were Janet and George. This has been a First Great Western service to London Paddington, thank you and see you soon.” (then added the “all change please, all change” which I think is something they have to say when a train terminates)

Have you had one of those days when things start to go right, but very soon go wrong but you carry on regardless?

This is one of those days I think. Just like the story I told earlier about last October when there was flooding. I could have just turned around and gone home again, but no, I will continue!

I’m kind of running out of things to say here. This started out as a rant, but has kind of petered off a bit. I sent an email at work like that once. It started off as a proper rant at people who were having a go at me for no real reason, or where there was a reason but the reason meant it was ultimately their fault. (I should have taken that sandwich mum made me…) The email started with good intentions of being rant like, but kind of ended up as a ramble by the time I finished. And given that most people seem to read the first sentence of what I write and the last sentence, all the meaty stuff in the middle was pointless.

In that vein, I guess I should finish now as the people who have read the first sentence will be coming back to join the service now.

It’s 10.30. I left Tiverton Parkway station roughly on time at 9.04. I need a coffee so will go up to the buffet in a bit. We are currently waiting outside Taunton. I don’t think we’ve even gone under the Obridge yet. Oh well. I will update you.

It’s times like this (well this is the only time really) that I think I should have a Twitter account, then people would actually be in a better place to read my random rants like this. You know, I was introduced to Twitter before it became ‘famous’ with Stephen Fry being the unofficial spokesperson for it. Now everybody has an account and it’s kind of lost its geekiness.

We’ve just been told that I can’t have a coffee because the buffet car boiler has broken down…

* sigh *

December 19, 2009  Tags: , , ,  Posted in: Life, the Universe and Everything, Public Transport Geekery, Railways   No Comments

Radio stuff

For reasons that I’m not going to go into at this time (and I would rather those people who do know don’t spill the beans at the moment too!) I’m going to start to put a load of my radio stuff online here. I’m going to put them onto a page on their own as well as create an individual blog post for each one.

[wpaudio url="http://www.stupidstupidity.co.uk/R15w.mp3" text="Random 15 Report, October 2009" dl="0"]

The first one is a sample radio report done at the October 2009 Tube Challenge Random 15. OK, the first song I used on it is a little predictable, and while editing it I realised that I use the same phrases a lot (“… but we shall see” being one of them) but given that it’s kind of the first time I’ve done something proper like this I don’t think I did too bad a job really!

Duration 17m26s. Created 20 October 2009.

December 12, 2009  Tags: , , ,  Posted in: Public Transport Geekery, Radio, Railways   No Comments

Is this the most autumnal autumn ever?

Just a quick post…

There seems to be more leaves on the roads (and probably railways too), the colours seem to be a bit of a richer browns, oranges and yellows than they have been in the past.

Ah well, the weather isn’t great so that’s a bonus.

October 24, 2009    Posted in: Life, the Universe and Everything   No Comments

2+2=5

… and this is how.

2.4+2.4 = 4.8

If you round to the nearest whole number, that gives you
2+2 = 5.

QED.

October 10, 2009  Tags: ,  Posted in: Life, the Universe and Everything   No Comments

Dreaming

(CC-BY-NC)

So, last night I was asleep. Nothing unusual there (well actually given my sleep patterns recently, but that’s another post for another time!) except that I found myself dreaming – which actually isn’t that unusual either.

I have heard that you only know you’re dreaming when you’re not in a deep sleep, or that you can only remember that you dreamed if you weren’t in a deep sleep when you were dreaming. Anyway, I’ve digressed slightly.

Last night in my dream, I realised that I had come across an idea that I needed to remember. Of course, in that subconscious way you do sometimes, I knew that I was in a dream and that this idea needed to become reality so had to think of a way of doing this. The cartoon from XKCD as shown above came to mind, so I found a keyboard and started typing.

I could feel my real fingers moving as if I was typing, and I assumed that I was using my laptop keyboard to do so – my laptop being still switched on on the floor beside my bed (no officer, I wasn’t downloading anything…) so I assumed that I had managed to pick it up, open it, and start typing.

You can therefore imagine my surprise this morning when I woke up to find that absoutely nothing had happened.  I hadn’t typed a message to myself in my sleep, nor had I remembered this idea that I needed to remember.  Knowing my dreams though, it was probably either a very extraordinarily good idea or a pathetically bad one. I also found that my laptop had turned off as the night went on as the power went in the house at some point during the night and the battery ran out. This is also the reason why I was late for work, because I woke up and looked at my phone and realised that it was half past 8.

The moral of the story? Well, there isn’t one to be fair. There usually isn’t.

September 29, 2009  Tags: , , ,  Posted in: Life, the Universe and Everything   No Comments

Photographs, London, May 2009

I know these are photographs from the beginning of May and it’s now nearly the end of September, but I’ve finally got round to editing and uploading some of the photos from around that sort of time.

:thumb137628756: The Life of a Leaflet. This person was distributing leaflets outside of Oxford Circus station on the Underground.  Many people – myself included I’m afraid – ignored her as we walked past as she thrust the leaflets into our paths.  Some people took them, immediately dropped them on the pavement (if you look under the distributors foot there’s one there too) where they were trampeled over by the hounds of people trying to get into the station.  Others ended up squashed with their fallen comrades with the discarded drinks cans and cigarette butts on the steps into the station, to be (unphotographed) washed away and made soggy on the next rainfall (which happened that night).

:thumb137629793: Non Drying Paint. There are loads of these signs on walls around where my friend lives in London, and they always make me giggle inside when I see them.  Apparantly, the ‘non-drying paint’ is supposed to deter either people who are intending to climb the walls, or people who are intending to graffiti the walls.  I’m not entirely certain what non-drying paint is, so bear with me for a few moments while I Google it for you. A few moments later: Yes, indeed the non-drying paint is an anti-climb measure, and is supplied by this Australian company. Seems quite interesting really. Still got no idea how it works. Perhaps that’s the idea.

:thumb137630763: Don’t you forget about me. Don’t You Forget About Me / Don’t Don’t Don’t Don’t / Don’t You Forget About Me / Will you stand above me? / Look my way, never love me / Rain keeps falling, rain keeps falling / Down, down, down / Will you recognise me? / Call my name or walk on by / Rain keeps falling, rain keeps falling / Down, down, down, down (Extract from Don’t You (Forget about Me) by Simple Minds). So how many times do we see somebody sitting at the side of the road, in a shop doorway, or wherever and just walk past them? Do we forget about them within five minutes? Do we not even notice them any more? I also liked the symmetry that the bloke sitting in the middle of the bridge approach gave :)

:thumb137631464: Photographs of Photographers 6. OK, no photo set would be complete without at least one photo of somebody else taking a photo!  Actually, there were a lot more in this set that I haven’t got round to sorting out yet.  I believe that the backdrop for this photo would have been St Paul’s Cathedral.  I do have an intro to the Photos of Photographers (‘p-o-p’) series somewhere; might post that here sometime.

:thumb137632172: Bikes. A simple photograph taken outside the Cyber Candy shop near Covent Garden in London.  While waiting for my friend (who had gone into said shop for the third time that day), I just saw these bikes all lined up and took a photograph of them.  Actually, I took a few but this was the best one.  Unlike other pictures, this is exactly as its come out of the camera with no editing done at all except resizing.  Others usually have some post-production done on them in the GIMP.

That’s it for now.  All of the photographs here link to larger-size versions on my deviantART page where you will also find other photographs and some other stuff too.

(Later that same day…) And here’s more!

:thumb137645346: Art on the Underground. To celebrate 100 years of the ‘Roundel’ (London Underground’s iconic logo), TfL asked 100 artists to create 100 pieces of work (one each, not 100 each!) based on the Roundel. These are two of those pieces of work on posters in situ at Tottenham Court Road Underground Station. If you’re interested, you can see my ‘version’ of the Roundel which I’m using for my Tube Challenge for Tearfund charity thingy on the ‘Tube Challenging’ page.

:thumb137646635: Pipes. Also at Tottenham Court Road Underground Station, these are the steps down to the station with a maze of pipes and cables and other stuff in between them. Somewhere, somebody out there knows what each of these pipes and cables does, and where they’ve come from, and where they’re going…

September 20, 2009  Tags: , ,  Posted in: Photographs   No Comments