Did God create my watch?

Probably everyone knows about the watchmaker analogy. Having been brought up by fairly conservative evangelical parents and in a very conservative evangelical church I can remember preachers who would dig this one out in the "gospel service". I must say it didn't do much for me - the conclusion that surely God must have created the world did not seem to me to follow necessarily. And whether I or anyone else thinks it does or does not will not change whether it actually happened or not.  And those who think not will of course dis those that uphold the argument as proof of a divine creator.

José Cordeiro

And so my ears perked up when I read an interview with José Luis Cordeiro in E&T this afternoon whilst taking a bath (as one does). This man claims all manner of futuristic stuff including a prediction that 2045 will be the year of the singularity when "we will reach hardware and software immortality". You will have to read the article to have any chance of decoding the jargon.  He appears to be the David Ike of technology.

Anyway the bit that made my ears perk was regarding us humans creating brain upgrades and doing a better job (and here I quote) "Remember, our brains are the product of random evolution and we are creating things by design". Notice the complete reversal of the "watchmaker analogy". And because the preacher's analogy left me cold I regret to say that José's reversed version does likewise. But it makes interesting bath-time reading none the less.

Slow TV

Bruckner was infatuated with Wagner's operatic music although it is thought that he would neither have understood nor cared about the plot. I feel similarly with computer games: I am drawn towards the adventure type but always want to explore places that the computer reckons are out of bounds, and I care not about the point of the game which appears to usually be to kill the opponent. Or with movies like the Lord of the Rings where the scenery is so magnificent that I just want to look around and the plot gets in the way.

So I was interested to hear about Slow TV where films have actually been made about, for example, a train journey in its entirety - with no plot other than the fact that it is a train journey and, joy of joys, the camera is in the driver's cab!  Here is a preview of NRK's seven hour offering:

I love it...  Not sure about watching the whole seven hours though...

F8 bug or how I hate I2C bus

I have been revisiting assembler code I wrote maybe 10 years ago because of a software bug.  The device announces the problem by displaying a message "ERROR CODE F8" which, being translated into the vernacular, means that when my Microchip 8-bit microprocessor accesses external serial EEPROM via I2C bus the bus gets into a can't-get-out-of-it situation. That the serial memory devices should suffer such ignominy is my case against I2C.  SPI bus is simpler and is my preferred choice.

It turned out I was trying to access a memory address that did not exist and, after many days of searching, it turned out that this was because I had initialised said memory (pointers and wotnot) after my first attempt to access it. The solution - move the call to the initialise code back before the first access. Simple - once I had identified the problem.

It took me so long to identify because I had very poor debug tools.  I had very poor debug tools because I hadn't previously made any those 10 years back when my teeth were shorter, and in this recent spate of work I thought I could do it without the necessary tools. This morning I decided that was bad thinking. I made a terminal routine that would dump salient registers to a display screen and hey presto I was able to locate the bug. The most helpful part of my debug tool was the display of stack pointer and return addresses on the stack from which I was able to figure what part of the code caused the error display.

Which adds weight against the inference in the absurd proverb "a bad workman blames his tools". It should read something more like "a bad workman has bad tools".

A similar principle applies when routing cables through or driving screws or hammering nails in awkward positions. If you cannot see what you are doing, chances are you will mess up: the screw will drop into a void, you will instead hit the nail on your finger, or the cable being poked will just refuse to exit where you want. But once you can see what you are up against it is oh so much easier!  For this reason I keep a stock of small flash-lights and mirrors.

There could be a moral here somewhere...

Christmas morning

My Christmas morning walk to the lake, shod, with Meg, having figured my back would not let me run...

Frosty fields

Lake shore

Curious tree roots

View towards Kings River

That's Meg out there

Valleymount bridge

Reflections

An unusual angle on HH

Meg

The bridge again

Winter branches

Of human bondage

Somerset Maugham

I have just finished reading the book "Of human bondage" by Somerset Maugham.  It is generally agreed to be his masterpiece. The Guardian and Penguin expose some of Maugham's life story behind this partly-autobiographical work and paint a pathetic picture of a weak man without hope. And yet in so many ways I identify with his pseudonym Philip Carey in the book. I too am weak and hopelessly affected by what I think other people think. The book underlines human frailty and its dependence on fate even if, for the sake of the reader, Philip is left in a positive state as the book closes. We are left thinking that, for all his manifold failings, Philips is a good man.

Maugham's lack of foundation stands in stark contrast to "Jesus, knowing that the Father had given all things into his hands, and that he had come from God and was going back to God..." John 13:3-5. The author and Philip, early on, express pride in freeing themselves from religious bondage, but seem to miss the point of true religion.

I come away from book book with a mixture of identity, sadness but a kind of "new year's resolution" to be different.

Incidentally the fact that I have enjoyed this somewhat long and stodgy book supports my theory that books and films and music (indeed art generally) that appeal to me are those which I can identify with in some way. The joy of sharing the appreciation of a landscape, a face, a musical transition or melody, a character trait - of the discovery that someone else in the world thinks or has experienced just a tinsy bit like I have.

Bloatware

Wikipedia has "Software bloat is a process whereby successive versions of a computer program become perceptibly slower, use more memory or processing power, or have higher hardware requirements than the previous version whilst making only dubious user-perceptible improvements." My definition is broader in that it includes unnecessary complexity in the user interface.

We have a new microwave. A domestic microwave is essentially either 'off' or 'on' for a period of time. Granted there is also the sometimes used complexity of pulsing on and off for defrosting.  So why the bloated user interface with its need to press multiple buttons to do the most common function when one would do?

Lewis acknowledges the malady with " 'If that's all they mean, why do they wrap it up in so strange a fashion?'. 'Doubtless,' said Arnom (and I could tell that he was yawning inside the mask, being worn out with his vigil), 'doubtless to hide it from the vulgar.' "

Way longer ago Occam acknowledged it with his famous "lex parsimoniae" principle of parsimony, economy, and succinctness.

Conversely I belong to a church where a sermon is not worth much unless it is at least an hour long, never mind the content. I was asked to comment on one recently - the man had a good point, I noted, but he could just as well have said it in a sentence and then sat down.

The most common negative criticism I have heard concerning Peter Jackson's The Desolation of Smaug is that there is too much padding, too little plot - it is bloated.

Whilst the principle applies across the board it is perhaps most noticeable in software. I was watching a 4-year old playing a educational "game" - the user interface was so ridiculously convoluted doubtless intentional to prepare for later life.

The programming language 'C' claims to be as efficient, as close to the computer's native assembler language, as they come. And yet it is bristling with unnecessary paraphernalia.  And how about the 'C18' construct:

unsigned char n = 7;       //8-bit
unsigned short integer r;  //16-bit
r += n * 200;

The compiler has to translate this to assembler. In assembler the basic multiply instruction takes two 8-bit values and generates a 16-bit value, as one would expect. The 'C' statement starts with a 16-bit variable 'r' so one would expect the arithmetic to be carried out to at least 16-bit precision but, no, although the compiler has to use the 16-bit result assembler multiply instruction, because 'n' is 8-bit the compiler chooses to trash the upper 8-bits and gives the answer r = 120.  Without so much as a warning message.

'C' also promises tight code, but fails to deliver. True, it does make programming easier, faster and less prone to error - that is an essential quality of any higher level language, but it is not true that it avoids bloat. I have written similar code for embedded systems in both assembler and 'C' and the latter is far less efficient in terms of amount of code memory used.  But at least with 'C' it is easy enough to include sections of assembler for critical functions if one is fussed about speed or code efficiency.

The modern GUI (graphical user interface) lends itself to bloat with its keyboard / mouse duality. Programmers seem to think that both have to be used whatever the function. The mouse is good for graphical operations but a keyboard wins for text, so why mix the usage?  Having to use both is wasting my time.

My opening quote Wikipedia compares the amount of memory and processor speed required by successive generations of MS-Windows - OK I know that good features have been added during that time but no-one can convince me that I really need at least 2Gbyte of RAM, a 1GHz processor and untold amounts of hard disk space just to do word processing an social networking (let's face it - that's what most people use their computers for).

I use (2D PCB) CAD software 'BoardMaker' that runs under MSDOS on a 486-DX2-66MHz computer with just 640Kbyte of RAM. It is lightening fast, the user-interface is ultra-slick, and it just WORKS.  OK the memory limitation does set a maximum complexity to my designs but I haven't reached the limit yet. Don't tell me I need a bloated CAD package that only runs on a super-work-station - although doubtless one day I shall be forced to buy one.

Apple preen themselves on minimalistic design, but minimalistic is not necessarily the opposite of bloat. To get one button to do everything may not be that efficient even if it looks nice.

No, the criterion is not whether it looks nice, whether it has more flashy gimmicks that the competition, whether it boasts a 64-bit processor - the criterion is: does it do the job I want done efficiency and without falling over.  What are your expectations when you buy a car - that it is easy to control, economic and reliable, and above all safe are expectations so paramount as to be hardly questioned - and yet those are the very features that get missed with bloatware.

Why have I not blogged?

It's a good question. Too busy? Lost the muse? Am I becoming boring? I like to think it is temporary - I just don't have much interesting to say at the moment. Wait...

What about car radios?  Some countries outlaw the use of cell phones whilst driving but what about car radios?  Take the following example. You want RTE1 and the last person who used the car has filled up all the presets with noisy music - and you try to keep your eyes on the road whilst groping the myriad buttons and knobs. I'd say that was as dangerous as or worse than pressing one button to take an incoming call.

Hello to Willand

Willand is my mother-in-law's new home. Having driven her there we helped clean, unpack and did various other odd jobs, and I managed two early morning runs, thus the last two of the four mentioned in my last post. Once again you have to interpolate the beginning of my route because my GPS device takes such an age to get first lock. My first run took the road from Willand to Halberton turning left towards Sampford Perverell, total distance about 12km.

Grand Western Canal, Sampford Peverell

Tiverton Parkway station

My second run started hesitantly to the church and then towards Cullompton then, as the main road was too busy, I retraced my steps to the church where my GPS device got first lock, then across the river meadows to Bradfield and Coldharbour.  Total distance about 11km.

Weir on River Culm at Coldharbour

Goodbye to Norfolk

Here is a rather belated report on four runs during recent UK trip. I attempted to GPS track all four but my smartphone took ages to get first lock and I wasn't going to hang around waiting for it, getting frozen. So you will have to interpolate a bit from the end of the track which was obviously the beginning of my run to the beginning of the track

The first two are perhaps my last runs in Norfolk (sob, sob). My first track was perhaps 15km.

First sun from Broad Lane

Coxford church

Almost home again

The second track was just over 10km - shorter because I was worn out from the previous run and all the house packing we were doing. I returned via West Rudham church. Running barefoot through a cabbage field was an interesting experience but one feels obliged to keep the English public footpaths in use!

Granpa's grave

West Rudham church

Footpath through cabbages

Showing the church, and the cabbage path below it

If I get around to repeating all this hard work my next post will be two runs in "Hello to Willand".

The most beautiful girl in the world

Did I mention this before?  Well, if I did, this is a better photograph of the original than my last attempt.  The original is a black and white photograph hand tinted with, I suppose, water colour.

The most beautiful girl in the world

I am reliably told that this is the same person
(on another occasion)

Beeston tram works

The Beeston line

On the way to Ali's mum - another shopping stop giving me time to suss out work on an extension to Nottingham's tram system. The works introduced a considerable detour in our route to the shop Ali wanted.

Norfolk

Tuesday Market place, Kings Lynn, after the deluge

The occasion: stopping for the inevitable shopping at Kings Lynn on the way to helping Ali's mum move from Norfolk to Devon.

The Great Ouse, from the ferry steps, just before the deluge

So Ali is off shopping for Goodness knows what and I have some free time. It is very liberating taking to the streets of an unknown city running barefoot in the rain. Actually I manage to shelter during the worst of it at the steps where the ferry to West Lynn stops.  The "Great Ouse" - what a wonderful name for such a sluggish river!

The West Lynn ferry arriving

Looking upstream to the steps down to the ferry
Ouse-mud feels so soft between the toes...

Zooming in - some people waiting for the ferry

Barefoot Tullamore

Grand Canal east of Tullamore

Grand Canal west of Tullamore

The Grand Canal connects Dublin with the River Shannon. We were staying two nights in Tullamore on the occasion of our wedding anniversary giving me a chance to explore the canal. The pictures suffer from morning poor light but at least you can see the grass barefoot-friendly tow-path.  The canal is in excellent condition which renewed my idea to navigate it by canoe from Naas to the Shannon. 

Last lake swim this year?

Saturday, work on the new boiler is drawing to a close, so after lunch I ran along the lake shore and had a quick dip - the water is noticeably cooler so my swim was a few strokes out and back. Meg's attempt was even feebler: as soon as she sees me turn back she's out like a shot. Then biked to Joanne's to see her smoke damage, Larry came too but rather slowly and it rained so together I got rather cold. Painted a door for Joanne then cycled back and Larry's bike broke so he had to be rescued. Got back just in time for dinner (thank you Caroline) so my much longed for hot bath had to wait.

Did I tame my feet?

They call it "tempting fate". Having told the world how to care for one's bare feet, a week later and I have several bad cracks under my big and smallest toe, left foot, and what is probably a thorn in one of the toes of my right foot. Not to mention the off cracks appearing on my heels. I do not think my diet has changed, so why? Not to be deterred I am treating them the usual way and they have improved enough to do short runs barefoot this weekend.

Bike ride and seals

Today I cycled to via Annamoe to Wicklow town, then to Brittas Bay, then back via Rathdrum. Total distance 71.5 miles, maximum speed 41.9 mph. Reason? A free Sunday and reasonable weather possibly the last chance of a long bike ride this year. Destination? I hadn't been to my favourite sea location this year so I thought it was about time I did. And where is that? Possibly Wicklow's closest guarded secret! But I will show some pictures...

Wicklow's closest guarded secret

How many seals can you see?

There was a whole bunch of them just here
 but they took to the water before I could snap them

All except this old codger...

Old codger closeup, growled when I got close

And on the other side of the bay this young chap...

who, it seems, I woke up

and then he humped himself into the sea

Showing the deliciously clear water (and a seal)

More seals

So then I had a short swim. In spite of its proximity to Wicklow town one can usually get away with swimming naked here and so I did, not wanting to get my shorts full of sea water which would cause blisters when cycling. The swim was very short because I was a bit cautious of the very nosey seals.

On the way back to my parked bike

First view of Brittas Bay

Brittas Bay beach

There were too many people at Brittas Bay so I could not swim, not wanting to get my shorts wet, and anyway it had become overcast and a bit chilly. So after a short promenade I ate my lunch and started the long return journey. The climb to Wicklow Gap is long...

How to tame your bare feet

I think I mentioned before that I go running barefoot. Initially I carried trainers with me for use on on difficult surfaces. I never take trainers now and I survive. I generally run three of four times a week, usually around 5 miles though sometimes longer at the weekend. Today I ran about 10 miles. So how do my feet survive this onslaught?

Apart from the occasional thorn, or stubbing one's toe, my main enemy is splits. The thickened skin tends to crack particularly in the creases under the toes, especially the large and smallest toe. I also get cracks on the soles and around the heels of my feet. It appears that other barefoot runners suffer similarly so here I offer my own experience.

The best approach is preventative by periodically removing dead skin and frequently applying moisturising cream. The best way I have found to remove dead skin is to use abrasive paper. I use P80 grit, the high quality type used for sanding belts in which the abrasive does not come off easily. Glue a strip around a piece of wooden dowel and sand the dead skin off, especially in the places where one tends to get cracks.  If the cracks are bad (deep, even bleeding) then apply pink Germolene (it comes in a blue and yellow box, whereas the white germolene comes in a blue and pink box) and fabric elastoplast. If necessary you can use a spot of superglue at the edges to keep the elastoplast in place. I have found nothing better for healing bad cracks. Once the cracks have somewhat healed then you should cut way the upper (dead) layers of skin either side of the crack to relieve the stress (precision side-cutters are excellent), and then use the abrasive tool to reduce the dead skin more generally.

Cracks on areas not subject to stress (e.g. the heels) can be glued together with superglue. I cannot vouch for the medical safety of this method so you use it at your own risk, but see here.  Superglue will actually make a crack under the toe worse as it sets hard and does not allow the skin to stretch as it must here.

The purpose of the above methods is to give the skin a chance to heal. Only sometimes have I been forced to skip a run on account of cracks. Normally I take the attitude that the body was made for running barefoot so it should be able to cope: obviously this is true only up to a point and common sense must prevail.

Moisturising cream should be applied every night whilst there are any signs of cracks, and especially after a run as some surfaces (e.g. dusty clay) have a drying effect. The best cream, as I have observed before in this blog, is Silcocks Base and it is not expensive. Apply liberally.

Over the several years that I have been running barefoot the soles of my feet have, of course, hardened. But I have found that this hardening process has plateaued. I was hoping to get to the stage that others claim of being able to walk easily on any surface. So I decided to extend my barefoot experience to most of the time and have found that this has definitely had a positive effect on my feet.

For example this morning I was climbing our young apple trees barefoot to pick apples. It worked well - much less damage to the tree and the ability to "feel" how strong a branch was (apples trees are not strong).

Whilst I have considerable freedom to go barefoot, working as I do from home, there are the opinions of family and friends to consider. For example, is it acceptable to go barefoot to church barefoot, or for a meal with one's wife? Whilst there is good scriptural basis for worshipping barefoot this should possibly not be taken literally and it appears that most people are offended by the practice! Or is it OK to go shopping barefoot - I have tried it but it embarrases my wife. I prefer to drive barefoot and is not illegal provided one can operate the controls effectively - for me I find I have greater control barefoot.

So, in summary, if you would enjoy the barefoot experience you should be prepared to go barefoot as much as possible, to endure some discomfort (nothing ventured, nothing gained), and to look after your feet as explained above.

An electrician's lot is not a happy one

Armed with a miscellany of test equipment I have been doing a periodic inspection of the wiring in a large house for insurance purposes. There are eight lighting circuits and umpteen power circuits. It is a woeful task removing light fittings consecutively only to find yet-another with no earth, or moving furniture to gain access to socket outlet to perform earth-fault-loop and polarity tests, whilst knowing that there must be many hidden junction boxes that cannot be accessed without taking the house totally apart. At least, although they are fairly old, the cables themselves seem to be in good shape. I can understand the insurance company wanting assurance that the electrics are safe and won't cause a fire, but those inaccessible junction boxes (if they exist at all) are probably the most insidious.

King James

We have prophecy in our church. Prophecy is when someone speaks out in public what they believe God has given them to say. It is usually for exhortation. Typically a thought is implanted and the way the thought is expressed is up to the person giving the prophecy.

Many folk in our church use the King James version of the Bible for its accuracy.

So what if the prophet speaks in King James English with thee's and thou's? Do I conclude that God speaks in archaic English? I trow not! I regret that when this happens I find it hard to take the person seriously. At least we are encouraged to test the prophets. Perhaps I should be less judgmental. 

Donadea

Bike ride 44 miles, max 30.5 mph, avg 12.4 mph, destination Donadea forest park via Naas, Clane and Prosperous.  In Naas I followed the Grand Canal and found the Leinster aqueduct.

Grand canal showing Naas branch and Leinster aqueduct

Water reeds in Naas branch

Near the old Odlums Mill

Crossing the Leinster Aqueduct

By the aqueduct, this water is pumped up from the Liffey to feed the canal

The Liffey, looking southwards from the aqueduct

I had my cleated bike shoes on so could not easily explore - I thought of shedding all and fording the canal to check out the pump works, but thought better of it (lots of people about, and people think this sort of activity suspicious or at least foolish). So my next picture is not my own.

The aqueduct itself pasted from here

When I finally got to Donadea I duly ate my crisps and raisin turn-over, and drank my Club orange and then turned back not finding the 'forest park' too interesting... Possibly there might be some interesting parts but I did not have time to explore.

Donadea forest park, a less interesting part

On the way back I took the bog road to Prosperous and stopped by a peat-works with an interesting railway and a pile of waggons in the distance.

Peat-works railway near Prosperous