Loadshedding EP

Once again, it’s dark. Well, it’s not, because it’s light, but if it were dark, it would be dark. Yes, we’re being loadshod once again.

There was plenty of warning this time around and yet some people still seem to be confused, despite the best efforts of the City Council and Eskom to keep them informed. These individuals then react with anger. It’s proof that you simply can’t legislate for stupid people, I guess.

Me? I react with creativity. It’s been a while now since I’ve written any music and I’ve decided that I’m going to write an EP with loadshedding as my muse.
It’s early days, but already, there are song titles forming in my mind. I sense that a mixture of genres will ensure mass appeal.

The folk classic: Peggy, Don’t You Open The Fridge
The rock ballad: I Never Knew I Wanted Coffee (Until The Power Went Out)
The electronic dance piece: Generator X (Dubstop Remix)
The boy band pop hit: Solar, So Good
Some hip hop: Crap Traffic –  It’s A Four Way Stop Thing.
Oh, and obviously a death metal tune about Eternal Night, or something.

Like I say, this is just the bare bones. Now I’m going to hang some riffs and one (or more) soaring vocals on them.

You’re probably going to love it.

Crossrail

Crossrail is the new rail system which is going to cross London. No, I don’t know where they got the name from, either. But here are some details:

The Crossrail route will serve 40 stations and run more than 100km from Reading and Heathrow in the west, through new twin-bore 21 km (13 miles) tunnels below central London to Shenfield and Abbey Wood in the east.
When Crossrail opens it will increase London’s rail-based transport capacity by 10%, supporting regeneration and cutting journey times across the city.

Sounds lovely, but those are just words. In more interesting news, however, they’ve just released some new photographs of the tunneling work taking place underneath the city and they’re fairly impressive, so I thought I’d point you in that direction.

crossrail-tunnel-3_3121086k

 

While the project itself isn’t due to be completed until 2018, about 90% of the tunneling has already been completed and that makes up 23 miles (37km) of tunnels under the capital.

These tunnels will also be really useful as bomb shelters when the Russians attack London.

Ouch

Admission time: I’m an avid subscriber to Fail Army on Youtube. It’s pathetic, puerile stuff, but it’s also 10 minutes (or so) of mindless mindlessness each week. And it’s also a reminder not only that there are more stupid people than you out there, but also that they’re stupidly recording their stupidity. Double whammy.

This Tuesday’s offering was a compilation of stairs-related mishaps, and began with what remains the single most winceworthy and painful moment they’ve ever broadcast, of a BMX guy jumping down some steps and landing face first on the concrete floor at the bottom. Gravity wins again.
What quickly became evident, however, was that while this clip had previously stood out as being one that nearly made you revisit your last meal, there were plenty more where that came from. This was definitely the most painful episode they’ve ever done.
See if you can watch this all the way through without looking away or grimacing. (Pro Tip: You can’t.)

There now. Don’t you feel superior? And healthy?

That’s the power of comparing yourself with idiots. (And/or wearing a helmet.)

Fair Play: Afrihost sorted my internet problem

You may have read that I had issues connecting to my blog from home and from the lab yesterday. There was plenty of to’ing and fro’ing with Afrihost (who are both my ISP and hosting provider) on email and twitter, but nothing got sorted.
Many kind people made suggestions here and on twitter, but I had floppy beagle issues last night (Colin got snipped and chipped), so I didn’t get chance to do a lot of exploration.

Then, this morning, incoming email from ‘Critical Care’ at Afrihost. I had no idea I was in such a perilous state. And here’s what they had discovered:

As suspected from my side, the Netstat rules for your IPs on your public connection were on the temporary prohibit list which I have now removed and you will be able access the website from all devices from your home network.
I have investigated the reasoning behind the listing and the reason seems to be that the website was attempting to be accessed from these IPs during an update – when security becomes most strict – and rather to be safe than sorry they were listed.
These updates only happen once a year so the likely hood of this happening again is extremely minimal 🙂

Thanks, Michael.

I don’t really understand what went wrong, but to find some sort of analogy, it seems that my home and work network were being tjatjarag and the website felt threatened, probably remarked something along the lines of “So you think you are a king?”, pushed them to the floor and barred them from entering the metaphorical building.

All is sorted now.

Oh, and Colin is much recovered this morning too. Thanks for your concern.