Bigbro's foray into the scary world of blogging
I'm pretty sure my house is not on fire, and through repeated alarm soundings I hope I have isolated the fault to the smoke detector upstairs. I've checked pretty thoroughly and cannot find any sign of fire - nor with a real fire event would I expect such a protracted silent period after reactivation of the detector before it sounds again. The upstairs smoke detector has been removed from the ceiling and had its battery removed - the two downstairs ones are back in service. I'm now waiting to see if there's another alarm event.
On the plus side, I'm happy that should a smoke / fire event occur I will be awoken by three really loud alarms throughout the house - this is good.
On the minus side, I'm fairly annoyed that engineering shortcuts and/or assumptions make it really difficult to track down what's going on in a system such as this, and consequently to trust it in the future. I have three interlinked smoke / heat alarms - so if any one detects a fire they ALL go off - great to wake the people upstairs in the case of a fire downstairs. Unfortunately, this means that it's impossible to tell WHICH ONE triggered the event. Tonight, since I was unlucky enough to start with the kitchen one while fault finding, we've had 4 protracted loud alarms. The small girls, who were eventually awoken, are not going to be in a good mood tomorrow morning.
Lack of a 'silence alarm' button meant that there is no way for me to silence the alarm except to rip the things bodily of their ceiling mounts and remove their batteries too. While I appreciate that this feature might be abused, it somewhat assumes 100% accuracy (or that the safety of continuing to sound outweighs the need for adding a silence feature - something I can see the merit of, until you have to deal with a chain of smaoke alarms that are making 110dB alarm sounds repeatedly at 2:30am - with no sign of fire or danger.) Switches cost money to add and bring their own set of failure modes though, so I'm wlling to overlook this.
Unforgivably though, it appears noone thought to provide any indication as to which unit detected a heat / smoke event, and which ones are merely acting as alarm sounders on the say-so of that other unit. LEDs are not expensive to add and would have provided me not only with a quicker target for fault-finding, but also immediately concentrated the search area for a fire / smoke event. Instead, I had to search the entire house, upstairs and down, not knowing which detector had detected something.
Moral of the story: if you can't prove something will work 100% of the time, you'd better provide a method of monitoring and debugging it. If you can prove it will work 100% of the time, your proof is probably flawed, so you'd better provide a method of monitoring and debugging it.
posted at: 03:21 | path: /observations | permanent link to this entry
Turns out that having a set of smoke alarms that are interlinked is a great idea - to make sure the alarm from one sounds throughout the house. It's a lot less useful when one alarm fails though: resulting in the alarm sounding throughout the house but without any indication of where the fault might be.
In a slightly worrying discovery, the girls remained sound asleep through some ten minutes of 3 x 110dB alarms sounding, even though I opened bedroom doors to check on them.
Anyone know where I can get a set of interlinked smoke-alarms, with an individual alarm indicator on them so I know which one set off the chain, that sound even louder?
posted at: 01:48 | path: /observations | permanent link to this entry
I'm enjoying some Pret A Manger crisps, somewhat amused by the claim on the packet that they were 'Cooked by Hand.' I strongly suspect they used some form of chemical or electrical heating appliance, given I can't really see how you'd make human hands much hotter than 37 deg C (without outside intervention.)
Perhaps they have a huge frier shaped like a hand...
posted at: 12:28 | path: /observations | permanent link to this entry
Some years ago when I was working from home, I set up my work machine in the same room as the TV - mostly due to limited space combined with my ISP being the same crowd who provided the TV, so internet and TV connections were both in the same room. This put me in the position whereby even way outside working hours I would sit at my computer and do a bit of work, since I could comfortably watch TV at the same time. I had effectively created an environment where I enabled myself to work all the time. After moving I vowed that this would not happen again and that my PC with it dual monitors and whatnot would be banished to a different room of the house - forcing me to separate work life from social life by virtue of physically disparate spaces.
Of course, then the age of laptops and 802.11a/b/g/n wireless networking arrived - so I write this, sitting in front of the TV...
posted at: 00:36 | path: /observations | permanent link to this entry
...is really hard. Particularly when it's law and unlike engineering, for every rule there's at least one exception. I am not having fun here :-( That is all. I promise to be (marginally) less grumpy once exams are over.
posted at: 18:11 | path: /observations | permanent link to this entry
Thanks to my boss for pointing out First Life, the refreshing high resolution, low latency alternative to Second Life.
Go on - try it out. Seamless reloading and rendering of backgrounds while moving from place to place, fully fledged tactile feedback interface and awesome refresh rates - compatible with all hardware ;-)
posted at: 10:17 | path: /observations | permanent link to this entry
Tonight we see the election of the first BNP (British National Party) MEP (Member of the European Parliament) - this is a big step for a party who purport outwardly to not be racist, but who only allow "indigenous Britons' to become members.
Nothing could top Nick's quotation on not being a racist party though, particularly his mention of Bradford:
"When you look at Bradford it's not immigration any more, it's colonisation." -- Nick Griffin, BNP Party leader, UK.
...that really good French Pain-au-chocolat becomes lessgood when it's two days old - however, judicious use of a microwave can convert it back into perfectly passable, delicious breakfasty goodness.
Also, I've observed that meringue tastes nicer when its pink and shaped into a little pig face.
posted at: 13:09 | path: /observations | permanent link to this entry
...if I post it (on my blog) they will come...
posted at: 10:41 | path: /observations | permanent link to this entry
I'm beginning to question the assertion that salted peanuts, chocolate spread sandwiches and tea constitute a balanced diet. Despite the fact that they cover adequate portions from the vital nut, caffeine and lard food groups, the suspicion remains that there's more to it. Perhaps if I supplement it with a bacon and creme-cheese bagel...
posted at: 23:50 | path: /observations | permanent link to this entry
...they are the way forward...
posted at: 15:00 | path: /observations | permanent link to this entry
Operation Freeflow isn't. If I were bitter and/or cynical I would laugh... bitterly.
posted at: 08:57 | path: /observations | permanent link to this entry
...was a girl stating, "I've never had to WD-40 my leatherman."
I wonder if the OED are aware the WD-40 is now a verb.
Update: I was wrong! The last comment was shortly followed up with, "I had no kettle so I had to boil penguins."
I don't feel I have the words to explain what prompted that...
posted at: 22:29 | path: /observations | permanent link to this entry
I'm a little worried - it's 11:30pm at night, I'm still working, I'm watching a documentary on 'Helvetica' - yes, the font - and I'm starting to agree with their compelling arguments that it's the best font. I might need help...
posted at: 23:32 | path: /observations | permanent link to this entry
...to go into a seething rage when Clippy appears with yet another inane and obstructive message prior to Excel crashing and losing the file you've been working on.
I did accidentally find a replica comedy clippy though, which made me slightly less irked. I'm tempted to port it to Linux, for great lol...
posted at: 12:54 | path: /observations | permanent link to this entry
< diamond> davisc: yes. the old testament was superceeded by the net testament
It's Friday evening in the capital city, so once again the trains are broken, running late, cancelled or missing in action. For once, the station announcers in Pearse seem to have decided that it's best to announce something to the rapidly angering mob - so at least we're enlightened enough to realise we should take the Maynooth train and change at Connolly to head north. My plans for hitting the cinema for an 8pm showing are rapidly receding into the distance...
Over 20 minutes behind schedule, we pull out of Pearse and into Tara, where there is a genuine angry mob being held at bay by an addled youth with a walkie-talkie. His tactic appears to be to answer all questions with a negative, thus minimising his commitment to delivering any useful information. Eventually someone asks the right question and he has to reluctantly agree that perhaps taking our train and changing at Connolly is an appropriate course of action. No, it will not take anyone to Howth.
But trains being screwed up is normal for Dublin - particularly for a Friday evening. Why do I even bother blogging about it? Because of Irish people - that's why. On reaching Connolly, the announcer, in an illuminating bout of competence notified those of us heading north that we should migrate to platform four. Ahead of me were a lovely old couple: peaceful in the throngs of people rushing to get to platform four before the train left, or possibly to try and get seats on the overcrowded carriages that pass for public transport in Ireland's capital, I don't know. I slowed my pace to watch as the man walked ahead with one hand behind his back, so the lady could walk behind him, clasping his hand firmly and follow along. I slowed my pace slightly to keep anyone from rushing behind and bumping into them. At the bottom of the ramp in Connolly, between platforms 6/7/8 and 4, the crowd naturally splits in two, around a large pillar. I laughed as the couple broke into a mini-dash, taking the far less crowded right hand side and headed up to the platform with the rest of us.
Perhaps it's that it's Friday evening... Perhaps it's that I've received some good news today... Perhaps it's that I rather spoiled myself and had both a Crunchie (it is Friday!) and a white Magnum ice-cream earlier... Perhaps it's the nice weather we're enjoying... maybe it's a combination of all these things - but mostly it's that in the face of unrelentingly incompetent, annoying, frustrating, noisy, uncomfortable, overcrowded and expensive public 'transport', Irish people can find something to make the best of the situation. I've always thought that young love was wasted on the young, but it made me laugh out loud in Connolly station to see an older generation firmly claiming it for themselves.
Oh yeah, btw, Dear politicians, please can we have some decent public transport in Dublin. Love 'n' hugs, Me.
posted at: 19:54 | path: /observations | permanent link to this entry
...while reading a letter in the Irish Indpendent, complaining about just how poor the quality the outrageously expensive 'Full Irish Breakfast' cost in Dublin Airport:
"This letter reminds me of you... it's well written but moaning about stuff."
...I'M OBZERVIN U, OBZERVIN MAH BLOG!!!
( restecp! )
posted at: 12:24 | path: /observations | permanent link to this entry
![[IPv6 Ready]](http://9-badges.ipv6ready.ie/9/94/2f/05/9942f05fd76ad162164ae4abe1b094cd49d0d070-m.png)
