234 years ago today

The first stretch of the Leeds & Liverpool Canal (from Skipton to Thackley) was opened 234 years ago today, on the 21st March 1774, when five laden boats descended the Bingley Five Rise locks watched by thousands of people. The Leeds Intelligencer described the occasion thus: "From Bingley to about 3 miles downwards the noblest works of the kind are exhibited viz: A five fold, a three fold and a single lock, making together a fall of 120 feet; a large aqueduct bridge of seven arches over the River Aire and an aqueduct and banking over the Shipley valley. This joyful and much wished for event was welcomed with the ringing of Bingley bells, a band of music, the firing of guns by the neighbouring Militia, the shouts of spectators, and all the marks of satisfaction that so important an acquisition merits". Here are some photos, mostly taken today, of the "noblest works" mentioned above.

Bingley Five Rise Locks


Bingley Three Rise Locks


Dowley Gap locks - the 'Leeds Intelligencer' got this detail wrong, this is a two rise staircase


Seven Arches Aqueduct, Dowley Gap


The embankment at Shipley near its crossing of Bradford Beck


The bicentenary commemorative plaque at Bingley Five Rise Locks


(Lots more Leeds and Liverpool Canal photos in my Picasa album)

Quotes of the Month

Yes, it's only the 14th, but how could these two be bettered?

Re: MOG: SCO to cleave in twain
Msg: 59007 of 59222     3/11/2008 5:51:02 PM    
Author:  CDBaric   
  In response to msg 58983 by _Arthur
  Recs: 37

"It looks, however, like there’s gonna be two entities once SCO’s out of
Chapter 11: one that pursues the myriad litigation (what the plan calls
the SCO Group) and the other that minds the Unix store (what the plan
calls Reorganized SCO)."

What an excellent idea!

Just think if Exxon had thought of such a thing. Exxon could have divided
itself into two entities, (1) Drunken Shipping, and (2) Everything Else.
It is of course to be expected that the Drunken Shipping division wouldn't
have much in the way of assets, just a broken boat and some oil
(unfortunately distributed all over some rugged coastline).

I think MOG has truly devined the next big thing in corporate deniability.

Amazing!

Bar

Re: Microsoft Predicts Computing Trends for late 1900's
Msg: 59182 of 59222     3/13/2008 1:08:46 PM    
Author:  karl_w_lewis   
  In response to msg 59181 by peredurabefrog
  Recs: 14

>> Microsoft have loads of applications that use all the power of modern
computers and more (if the performance of my wife's laptop is to be
believed). Their problem is in trying to do something useful with it
rather than using it to power a bloated user interface. <<

Well, that is a novel solution to the old issue... Power, you see, can be
used for Good, or for Evil, or, (as it turns out), for the User Interface,
which obviates the whole Good Vs. Evil quandary.

KWL

Lulz Redux

So, it finally happened: nearly two years after the relevant events, the news broke [SMH, BBC] about Jeff Merkey's wikipayola. The only problem is whether this notorious kook and fantasist actually paid any money, or is merely off in his separate reality pretending he did. The wikinerds, who previously banned those who warned them that Merkey's word was not to be trusted, are now to be observed wailing exactly that to a largely indifferent world - whilst maintaining, even now, that Merkey's a good guy [JzG] and the Y!SCOX crowd are trolls [JzG, SirFozzie]. And meanwhile, an anonymous IP keeps whitewashing the Merkey article and discussion: interestingly, a traceroute goes via 166.70.235.16, aka a node named jmerkey.fttp.xmission.com... Sometimes, connecting the dots is just too easy.

In other news, the heroic Patent Troll Tracker is being sued into silence: "Just this morning we were lamenting the fact that the formerly anonymous Patent Troll Tracker had shut down his blog, but now we know why. It appears that two patent attorneys in East Texas have sued him and Cisco for defamation. One of the attorneys happens to also be the son of the judge who helped make Marshall, Texas famous as a favorite for patent holders..."

And in other other news, the redaction to SCO's Motion for Judgment on the Pleadings is just in. They say, get this, that if Novell didn't approve the SCOSource swindle, then Novell isn't entitled to the swag...

Another Friday Memebog

It's back! A superb example of web publishing at its best, Lost Railways of West Yorkshire disappeared from the net for a while, but now it's back, with quite a lot of new material. Even the links page is a delight: foremost amongst which are Forgotten Relics of an Enterprising Age and Bradford Villages. These are all sites that do what I would love to do, but do it better than I ever could.

Google have announced a new static Google Maps API. Similar in spirit to the Charts API that I've been using to graph my diabetes monitoring, it would have done nicely for the map of Bradford's SSSIs in my prior post. An equally interesting alternative is Ordnance Survey Openspace, announced earlier this year. Currently in 'alpha', it will be interesting to see how it develops. Currently it has 1:50000 and street-level mapping. However, the latter is bereft of any terrain or footpath features, and the 1:.25000 maps are apparently still considered too valuable. The ideal tool would combine layers for historic mapping, aerial/satellite photography, geotagged images and the OS 1:25000 data; interestingly, some of that exists already at ponies.me.uk.

Friday Memebog

Years ago, before Reddit and Digg and their ilk, there was memepool. Alas, the pool has dried up like the Aral Sea. But in an act of tribute here is the first ever Friday Memebog - notable outwash from this week's Intertube effluent. This week: a 100% Copyfight Edition.

Patry casts out the folk devils

Here is the man who Wrote The Book (seven volumes) on copyright, laying into the cretinous meme we see so often in the UK, that knockoffs support organised crime and terrorism: "There are some notable omissions from this list, like Hamas, Al Qaeda, the Shining Path, and the Tamil Tigers. It is heartening to know that some terrorists draw the line at copying Western fashions. Perhaps there is hope that they, like Anakin Skywalker, can be turned from the Dark Side. It is less clear whether our legal system can be. [...] All I want, and I think most people want, is to be able to go to Target to get reasonably priced, safe clothes for our kids without having to worry about supporting child prostitution rings and terrorists. I don't think we are, and it is a sad day when a bill to benefit the tiniest fraction of an industry will be used to destroy the rest of it."

A lovely matching pair of stories about slatternly rightsholders having their bacon saved

First, the story of the restoration of the only live performance recording of Woodie Guthrie. It has just won a Grammy award. But only Techdirt had the guts to point out the multiple layers of hypocrisy and irony: (1) this originated as a bootleg recording; (2) Woody Guthrie's attitude was "This song is Copyrighted in U.S., under Seal of Copyright # 154085, for a period of 28 years [only 28!], and anybody caught singin it without our permission, will be mighty good friends of ourn, cause we don't give a dern. Publish it. Write it. Sing it. Swing to it. Yodel it. We wrote it, that's all we wanted to do"; and (3) the Guthrie estate has 'previous' for copyright evilness in the 2004 JibJab controversy.

Second, the story of Pan Yan Pickle from a couple of weeks ago. The manufacturer lost the only copy of the secret recipe in a warehouse fire. No offsite backup! So they resort to reverse engineering. Of course, recipes are not copyrightable, so anyone could legally do that, but only Premier Foods has the shamanistic Power Of Brand Name. And then we learn: "There's no one in this company who has any idea what this pickle looks like or tastes like. I would ask for anyone who has a first-hand experience of Pan Yan Pickle to contact Premier Foods". A searing example of corporate amnesia: all the expertise that the trademark should connote has gone in just six short years. This is exactly what mergers and acquisitions, downsizing and outsourcing does to an organisation. But they don't teach reality on MBA courses.

Last but not least: SCO has found another seam of money

Out, sadly, will go Darl McBride, in whose downfall I am proud to have paid a tiny part by uncovering the pseudonymous postings of 'his wife' (yeah, whatever) on Yahoo Finance. And in will come our new chum Stephen Norris (no, not Shagger Norris - this one founded the notorious Carlyle Group) and possibly a deniable Saudi presence with a private A380 on order and a diamond studded Mercedes, or maybe it's just Microsoft as usual. But just look who these guys hang out with! Such an improvement on Darl and Ralphie!

Bingley South Bog

The Bradford district has four Sites of Special Scientific Interest (SSSIs).


View Larger Map

South Pennine Moors - several huge areas, "part of the Southern Pennines lying between Ilkley in the north and the Peak District National Park boundary in the south. The majority of the site is within West Yorkshire but it also covers areas of Lancashire, Greater Manchester and North Yorkshire. The largest moorland blocks are Ilkley Moor, the Haworth Moors [both Bradford], Rishworth Moor and Moss Moor. [...] Extensive areas of blanket bog occur on the upland plateaux and are punctuated by species rich acidic flushes and mires. There are also wet and dry heaths and acid grasslands. Three habitat types which occur on the site are rare enough within Europe to be listed on Annex 1 of the EC habitats and Species Directive (92/43) EEC. [...] This mosaic of habitats supports a moorland breeding bird assemblage which, because of the range of species and number of breeding birds it contains, is of regional and national importance. The large numbers of breeding merlin , golden plover and twite are of international importance." Almost all of Bradford's share is assessed as 'Unfavourable', the causes being Air pollution, Inappropriate weed control, Overgrazing, Vehicles, Forestry and woodland management, Inappropriate stock-feeding, Drainage, Moor burning, and the disastrous Ilkley Moor fire of 2006. Besides all that, the ring ouzel is apparently dying out due to climate change. However, some areas are said to be recovering.

Trench Meadows at the bottom of Shipley Glen: "The meadows are of special interest for their neutral grassland, which occurs with smaller areas of acid grassland and rush pasture. [...] Unimproved speciesrich lowland grassland of this type is now a nationally rare habitat." But the site's state at the last assessment in 2003 was "Unfavourable declining": "The grazing tenants finished in November 2002 after 30 years therefore the site has not been grazed since then. New tenants will have to be found as soon as possible or the site will continue to deteriorate. "

Yeadon Brickworks And Railway Cutting - a geological site, shared with Leeds: "The rock exposures within this site provide a most important cross-section through shales and sandstones of the Namurian Series, originally formed about 350 million years ago during the Carboniferous Period of geological history. [...] This site has been proposed as the standard for one of the major subdivisions of the Carboniferous Period, named the Yeadonian Stage." Thankfully there's not much that can be done to wreck such a site, though the most recent assessment notes of the Leeds side: "An increasing amount of fly-tipping at base of slope including a burnt out car, ideally all of which should be removed." Lovely.

Which brings us to the star of tonight's exposition:

Bingley South Bog "This small mire occupies a peat-filled hollow in undulating ground between the Leeds-Liverpool Canal and the River Aire, at Bingley, north of Bradford. Despite drainage and hydroseral succession, the surviving wetland provides a transition from fen to dam neutral grassland, maintained in a species-rich condition, probably by grazing." There are a profusion of relatively rare plants, including the marsh cinquefoil (Potentilla palustris).



A new road, the A650 Bingley Relief Road, was built right across this site. There's no denying that a new road was desperately needed. It opened at the end of 2003, and won the 2004 Prime Minister's Award for Better Public Building. A special low level elevated section was built to cross the SSSI ("Particular features of the solution included: innovative jetty-style precast integral structure over Bingley South Bog SSSI", in Arup's PHB-speak. They also boast of "effective public relations and exhibitions dealing with sensitive ecology and environment in a busy, semi urban context".) A press release gloats: "South Bog Viaduct is an excellent example of what can be achieved in a design-and-build context, using innovative thinking throughout the team. The design, which had started life as a steel concept, was radically rethought, making extensive use of precast concrete to achieve an elegant, practical, and low-cost solution. Many aspects of the design were driven by environmental issues, which were difficult to reconcile. The triumph of this structure lay behind how these were overcome to result in a simple structural form that complements its surroundings and absolutely minimised any short- or long-term effects on the natural habitat."

So what happened next?

"04 Jan 2005 Destroyed The strip of land beneath the new road bridge is now devoid of vegetation therefore the habitats that were there previously have been destroyed."

Bug: Glew and Mesa Glut

There is a macro definition clash between Glew's glew.h and Mesa Glut's glut.h on Unix. Any program using Glew fails to compile. The problem does NOT occur with other Glut implementations (freeglut, Kilgard glut).

I am using Slackware Linux 12.0, Mesa 6.5.2 and Glew 1.5.0. However, the problem is present in all recent versions of Glew, including svn, and all recent versions of Mesa Glut, including git.

Other people have had the same problem:
http://www.nabble.com/glew-header-trashes-glut-header-tc7610932.html
http://groups.google.fr/group/linux.debian.bugs.rc/browse_thread...

I first encountered this problem when trying to compile enblend, but even the following trivial test program is sufficient to demonstrate the problem (thanks Philippe Després). It doesn't compile.

#include <GL/glew.h>
#include <GL/glut.h>
int main()
{
 return 0;
}

• First, the application #includes glew.h
• glew.h #defines GLAPIENTRY -- for Unix this is line 209 of glew.h, and GLAPIENTRY is defined to be empty
• Then glew.h #includes glu.h at line 1137
• Then glu.h #includes gl.h which redefines GLAPIENTRY (consistently with glew.h)
• Then glew.h uses GLAPIENTRY (successfully), and eventually #undefs GLAPIENTRY at line 10767
• Then the application #includes glut.h
• Then glut.h #includes glu.h at line 11
• But glu.h has already been included, so glu.h does nothing (it checks __glu_h__ in the usual way)
• Then glut.h uses GLAPIENTRY at line 196
  # define GLUTAPIENTRY GLAPIENTRY
  In other words, glut.h expects to get GLAPIENTRY from glu.h, but glew.h undefined it.
  
• So GLUTAPIENTRY now contains the string "GLAPIENTRY" instead of being empty. This causes compilation errors throughout the rest of glut.h, starting on line 531
  GLUTAPI void GLUTAPIENTRY glutInit(int *argcp, char **argv);
  which produces these errors
  

  /usr/include/GL/glut.h:531: error: expected initializer before 'glutInit'
  /usr/include/GL/glut.h:539: error: expected initializer before 'glutInitDisplayMode'
  /usr/include/GL/glut.h:541: error: expected initializer before 'glutInitDisplayString'
  /usr/include/GL/glut.h:543: error: expected initializer before 'glutInitWindowPosition'
  /usr/include/GL/glut.h:544: error: expected initializer before 'glutInitWindowSize'

  
  etc etc...

The obvious solution is to delete the #undef at line 10767 of glew.h. Here's the trivial patch:

--- glew-1.5.0/include/GL/glew.h        2007-12-28 03:09:49.000000000 +0000
+++ glew-patched/include/GL/glew.h      2008-01-26 11:45:27.000000000 +0000
@@ -10764,7 +10764,6 @@
 #ifdef GLEW_APIENTRY_DEFINED
 #undef GLEW_APIENTRY_DEFINED
 #undef APIENTRY
-#undef GLAPIENTRY
 #endif
 
 #ifdef GLEW_CALLBACK_DEFINED

Musical Maxtor

Well it's been a typical Christmas and New Year. Phone line down (rainwater in cable splice), one bereavement, one separation, and four PCs worked on at friends and family rate (ie, £nil and intolerable working conditions).

One of the PCs had been reported to me as 'playing a ringtone when you turn it on'. This wasn't 'Für Elise' (which some bioses play on low voltage or failed CPU fan). It was a nine-note quick beep pattern, consisting of a rising tritone repeated three times.

On opening the case, it became apparent that the beeping was coming from the disk drive (*boggle!*), a notorious Maxtor 6Y120L0 Diamondmax 9. Uhh?! A beeping disk drive! And it was being detected, but it wasn't spinning up. So, it deserved Punishment. Power was applied and I gave it a good clonk, and Lo! It was Healed!

The next step was to get a replacement. The household I was visiting is a desolate unwired backwater in the wasteland of South Wales, so the only recourse was to pick a local PC emporium from the yellow pages. There was but one, which turned out to be a slightly seedy repair biz above a betting shop, but they did have a Hitachi 160Gb Deathstar. Took it back, booted Knoppix from CD and dd'ed the whole of the old disk to the new. Worked perfectly (fsvo, this being Win XP on NTFS).

Back home, I researched the musical Maxtor phenomenon. There's nothing on the official site about beep codes, and in particular the so-called troubleshooter admits no possibility of beeps or failure to spin up. No. Can't possibly happen. What a bunch of useless lying corporatist bastards. There are even some old forum posts out there citing an official denial that Maxtor drives ever beep, and pig headed dismissiveness at the risibly misnamed Experts Exchange (motto: pay dollars, read bollocks!) Nevertheless, there are plenty of other folk reporting exactly the same experience - that a triple-tritone beep from a Maxtor Diamondmax drive means spin-up failure. It's not a fantasy, it's real.

Woe woe and thrice woe

Some dolt has jiggered the Blogger 'Minima Stretch' template. The header image and text now align and resize inconsistently, and right column widgets now fail to 'clear' below floated images. Apologies for the scrappy workrounds. In other news, my phone line has an attack of the crackles. On a Saturday. Natch.

Urbex, piracy and school meals

This morning's copious rain has now turned to the winter's first sleet. Let's ruminate.

One hugely important point against the evil of copyright maximalism is the habitual negligence of self-described 'rights holders'. So much 'long tail' material wrongly considered worthless gets lost forever, with only a fraction preserved through the enthusiasm of so-called pirates. One need only cite what happened at the BBC in the sixties and seventies to prove this point, or the recent reconstruction of a Colossus.



But this point also holds good for other forms of heritage. Consider the case of Wapping Road School in Bradford, an astonishingly well appointed 'Board School' built in 1877 under Bradford's own W.E. Forster's Education Act of 1870. It was here in 1887 that a headmaster used his own money to feed children fainting from starvation. This led to Bradford instituting the first school meals service in 1902 - which like all great reforms was of course promptly outlawed [1]. The above picture of kids at Wapping Road dates from around this time [2]. This school marks a significant step on man's long ascent from the mud to the stars.

What has become of this place? Well, it's now a Grade II Listed empty vandalised wreck, as is the adjoining house. It'll most probably be vandalised even more until there's nothing left to turn into yet more bloody flats (which is the bubble economy's current form of shoe shop).

And that's where the urbex enthusiasts come in. Throughout the nation these unsung heroes are risking life, limb and the wrath of the authorities to document our built heritage before it gets destroyed (though they probably aren't thinking in those terms).

With that in mind, please have a look at Converse1's report on 28dayslater.



In a hundred years' time these photos will be treasured - if they survive. But that puts us right back at square one. Who will preserve the contents of such websites? Most probably the so-called 'pirates'.

Contrast Converse1's photographs with the official write-up [3]:

Board School. 1877, with additions and alterations 1882, 1897 and C20. rock-faced stone, with ashlar dressings and Welsh slate roofs. Renaissance Revival style. 2 major blocks on steeply sloping site. Left block, single storey plus basement, 7x3 bays, has chamfered plinth, sill band, string course and eaves detail. Hipped and gabled roofs with coped gables and 2 coped ridge stacks. Windows are mainly cross-mullioned, with stone mullions and transoms, some reglazed late C20. Basement has central double door and glazing bar overlight in plain chamfered surround. Above, central 5-light window with sidelights. On each side, a projecting bay with blank basement and shouldered coped gable with finial. Round arched recess with hood mould, flanked by pilasters, containing a cross-mullioned window. Beyond, single similar windows. At each end, a projecting bay with hipped roof and a 4-light window. Left return has to right 2 pairs of cross casements with stepped heads. To left, a single light, then 2 cross casements. At the rear, 5 gabled ranges, single storey, each with cross-mullioned windows. At the left end, a similar range, 1x3 windows, with gabled and hipped ends and cross casements. Attached at the rear, a play-shed and entrance bay, in 2 units, 1 and 2 bays. Right block, single storey plus basement, 6x3 bays, has similar detailing. Gabled and hipped roofs with 3 ridge stacks, 2 with paired flues. In the centre, 4 round-arched basement openings, glazed-in. Above, 4 cross-casements. Projecting end bays have coped gables with finials. Left wing has single round arched window and C20 lean-to porch; right wing has 2 round arched windows. Above, each has a round arched recess with hood mould, containing a 3-light window. To right, gabled wing, set back, with cross-casement to left and 4-light window to right. Rear has gabled wings at each end, that to left larger and with a hipped projection in the return angle. INTERIOR: Left block has hall divided by folding panelled screen, with arch braced roof, ceiled C20, and matched dado. Smaller hall has similar details plus round-arched stone fireplace with keystone. Classrooms plain, with glazing bar windows to the hall. Right block has large classrooms, formerly separated by glazed screens, and 2 large roll-moulded stone fireplaces. Swimming pool has original tile lining and glazed brick wall panels. OUTSIDE: Between the main blocks, a stone staircase with intermediate landing, and balustrade walls with chamfered coping. To right, a similar curving staircase. Rock-faced stone boundary wall encloses the site, with chamfered coping and renewed railing between piers to the front. Gabled stone coping to sides and rear.

Sources:
[1] http://www.yorkshirepost.co.uk/letters-to-the-editor/Health-and-Safety-call-for.3463875.jp?articlepage=2
[2] http://www2.newsquest.co.uk/bradford__district/bradford/news/jim69.html - yes, I snarfed their precious photo. It's clearly well out of copyright.
[3] http://www.bradford.gov.uk/NR/blah blah yadda yadda GradeIIListedBuildingsinBradford_UPDATED060607.pdf (pdf, 960k)