Loss of Virginity

March 14th, 2024

Since before this blog existed, I’d been a customer of Virgin Media or its predeccesor, Telewest/Blueyonder. Back when i took it out, in around 2001, it was the only option for broadband here, with no ADSL service, and I can still remember the blistering speed of 512Kbit/sec (that’s 0.5M, kids) that, actually did seem blistering compared to the 30-something K a so-called 56k dial-up could deliver.

We had TV too, with the demise of OnDigital, but not the phone: that came later with a package upgrade courtesy of a colleague’s sister that worked for VM at some point.

So, all in all, about 23 years of custom. The speeds have risen, and the price crept up, but overall, it’s been a reliable service.

Late last year, though, it wasn’t, and I started looking around. The relatively high cost, recently announced 8.8% price rise, and the arrival of fibre on the BT Openretch poles in the street convinced me it was time.

I’d heard great things of Andrews and Arnold: a small, UK-based, techie-friendly ISP who aim to be up front, simple, and clear. so i enquired, and got a real answer from a real human refreshingly free of marketing. They could also port my landline, an anachronism I’m not ready to lose yet, over to SIP with very cheap line rental and reasonable charges. I explained what my knowledge level was and what I wanted, they told me what to order and advised me against giving notice until the phone line port completed, as that can fail if a service is due to be ceased.

At the point of writing, the new connection is to be installed, but the phone port has happened- and thanks to a borrowed ATA, a config guide on A&A’s website, and prior experience with SIP means that the phone is working over the VM connection at the first attempt, despite the fact that SIP and NAT can be problematic, having ported in the timeframe given with no fuss whatsoever. Having the line in SIP with a tech-friendly provider means flexibility and features at no extra cost now, too. The end of POTS in the UK means all phones will move to IP in time, but moving to a more conventional ISP would leave me with less control and being forced to use their router if I wanted the landline phone. This gives me flexibility, at the cost of having to handle some tech myself.

Now the port is complete, I’ve told VM that I’m off. They did, of course offer to improve my package, but I have the same approach here as with car insurance: if you can offer me better, you should have done that, not waited for me to call and say I’m off. I now have a few weeks to play about with the new connection, while the old one still works. I have an ISP-supplied router and at least one alternative to try. The new connection will give me about 3 times the speed.

As to TV, we found that a lot of our watching was either Freeview, streaming from free-to-use services like All4, or a bit of Amazon prime, so the cost of VM’s TV seems excessive: we will try Freeview and consider other services if needed.

Cut Out

March 14th, 2024

It seems that the operation was a success, and I should be free of the tumour that was confirmed as cancerous, but has a very low risk of spread or recurrence. There will be a scan later this year to confirm that, but thankfully my kidney function is normal and I appear to have no side effects. Something of a relief.

Flat Out

February 21st, 2024

Warning: DNS/Email nerdery below.

For my sins, one of the things I had to do recently was complete DNS domain authentication, DKIM, and DMARC for some email domains at work in Mailchimp. Mailchimp is the spamming engine mass email system of choice, and to be fair, they’re responsible and force compliance with good practice. They also try to increase the chances of your spam legitimate mass email being deliverable, which is where this comes in.

The big email providers such as Yahoo, Hotmail/Outlook, and Gmail now insist that if you send over a certain threshold, you:

* Send from a domain you own
* Configure DKIM, SPF, and DMARC
* Don’t send shitloads of actual spam
* include a one-click unsubscribe

This is all part of the spam arms race: electronic means to detect spam are less effective, so this is an attempt to stop the problem at source by making sure the email is coming from where it claims to: spoofing email is trivial, so this effectively adds a signature.

Well, we already had the domain, and SPF, we don’t actually spam people, and Mailchimp handles the unsubscribe, so that left DKIM and DMARC. This actually isn’t that hard, just involving publishing a few records in DNS that match up with the email servers. The DMARC is little more than a published policy of what people should do if the mail seems to be unathenticated- and “take no action” is acceptable. The actual authentication is done by DKIM, where you publish a public key in DNS, and the email is signed by your outgoing server with a corresponding private key. If the encryption key matches, the mail is deemed as being legitimate.

So, I went ahead and did all this for our own infrastructure, as it seems silly to set it all up only for the mass mailing. Pretty simple, too, in the end.

Now, obviously, if someone (Mailchimp) is sending mail for you, you need to publish their key for DKIM. The logical way to do this is for them to publish it, and then for you to alias an entry in your DNS (with what is called a CNAME record). That way, if they change the key, it keeps working without changes to your DNS.
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On Video

January 30th, 2024

My recent obsession with Tristania led me to purchase some music from their last lead singer, Mariangela Demurtas, specifically Dark Ability. I really wanted a physical CD, because physical media, but the shipping was shockingly expensive, so I got a digital download.

Very good it is too: a download in WAV and MP3, and I’ve encoded the WAV to FLAC. Great music, atmospheric and powerfful but relaxing, and different to Tristania but great, nicely recorded, too.

One thing did strike me though: the recordings were 24 bit depth, 48kHz, which is a commonly used standard, but less common for releases, which usually adhere to 16-bit/44.1 kHz (Red Book CD).

This sent me down a bit of a hole: why 44.1, an oddly non-round number? Why, then, 48, a rounder number but suspiciously close to 44.1, so close that in all practical terms, it shouldn’t make any difference?

The answer is video. In the early days of digital audio- in the 70s- the only practical way to record digital audio was on to U-Matic professional video tape, because nothing else had the bandwidth for it, so Sony produced PCM encoders and modified U-Matic video tape transports for this reason. Both 44.1 and 48kHaz are chosen as being (a) above the Nyquist frequency for human hearing and (b) not be too inconvenient to encode into TV frames, and both have been engineering standards since. 48 is more commonly used for matching to video as the rates line up with both PAL and NTSC video frame rates without trickery.

Directionless

January 26th, 2024

This is a minor whinge, but I’m sat with nothing else to do and it’s something that bugs me.

Ahead of my surgery, I had a pre-op check. All very normal, so they can evaluate how fucked you are beforehand and what will be required to minimise risk before and after.

I look at the map and enter at the main entrance of Zone A- note that this isn’t the hospital main entrance (any more?) which is now way over in Zone D.

I now note that A18, what I was after, is actually missing from the map, which is point number 1, but, logically, it must be nearby. So I continue in, follow the signs, and come to a dead end at A18 with a printed bit of A4 paper, with a photo of another building and “A18 has moved to the old swab area, next to the old A&E” (forgive meif this is innacurate, this is from memory, but you get the idea).

In what way is this useful to anyone who has never visited this part of the hospital before?

I stopped a passing member of staff.

Oh, yes, it’s moved. Go out of that entrance behind you, turn right, it’s very nearby, it’s a glass box that sticks out from the building.

Those were good, clear directions.

Why couldn’t that have been on the A4? Why are some people so bad at giving directions, and why, in particular, is the NHS so good at failing to update signage, or leave big gaps in it? This is the 4th or 5th time at New Cross I’ve just thought “OK, where now?”. I’m singling out New Cross here, but Heartlands, with miles of corridors, is also challenging at times, and the less we say of Good Hope the better. Some of this is the nature of hospitals of course, huge, sprawling sites that have organically grown and changed over time.

The key start is that people assume you know the landmarks they refer to. It’s not just the NHS, to be fair; I once had problems finding an ex-colleague’s house:

But it’s easy, you just go to Edgbaston Cricket Ground and turn [direction]

That’s all well, if you actually know where that place is. I didn’t, because I have no interest in it.

I’m fairly regularly asked directions to Walsall Wood Football club- we live near to it (sadly, when they choose to play their shit music over a PA). This situation would be like me saying “Yeah it’s easy, it’s just past that house where someone drove into the wall”. I know where that is, the person asking hasn’t a clue.

For directions to be useful, they have to define an unambiguous starting point, and have a clear direction. Unlike this post.

Cut Up

January 25th, 2024

I’ve been for surgery fun again! In my continuing tour of West Midlands hospitals!

Just over a year from my almost-certainly-cancer diagnosis in January 2023 where the consultant at Walsall manor Hospital told me that

You’ll find things will start to happen quite quickly now *

I got my pre-op checks at New Cross and to my surprise got a call just a few days later, which is how I found myself being dropped back there at 06:35 on a Saturday (with thanks to Mike, my excellent neighbour).

I’d been stressed since getting the call- not overly about the actual procedure, as that is largely what it is and I have little choice but trust in the skills of NHS staff- but more about anything stopping it going ahead: over a year is a very long time to be waiting. I find hospital appointments in general stressful, partly because of the logistics: I’m one of those people that cannot stand being late, and at most West Midlands hospitals, parking is a challenge, even on the occasions that driving there isn’t excluded by the treatment. Hospitals also, to me, with the possible exception of the QE in Birmingham, always have the air of chaos barely glued together by organisation- of many small microcosms operating semi-independently- and most of them are difficult to navigate if you don’t know them- in fact, I feel a dedicated post on that coming up.

Timing wasn’t ideal, given recent events (some of which I’m not putting public here, but suffice to say that 2024 did not heed my warning and life’s trials have continued to arrive), but I wasn’t going to be turning it down. The timing wasn’t good in particular for my other half, who at one point had 3 family members in different hospitals (admittedly one as an out-patient). The start of 2024 has been, shall we say, “intense”, as was the close of 2023.

I’d thought my fears were going to become true when the anaesthetist dropped the news that my potassium levels were low (this is bad, apparently, and caused by medication for the other health conditions I’ve found myself with), but getting patched in early to some IV drips sorted it enough (but I still had to take a supplement after surgery, which I can assure you tasted not, as the registrar suggested “a bit strange” but more “absolutely fucking rank”). Happily the stress of “will it happen or not” didn’t push my blood pressure over the threshold either.

So- off to theatre (darling!). A few hours of being inflated, poked, prodded and cut. Back out, and surprisingly low pain levels- except for my shoulders (it seems this is a side effect of the inflation I referred to above- and it has now, 5 days later, is almost gone). The actual wound sites (multiple, but small) don’t really hurt a great deal.

2 nights/3 days in- longer than expected and hoped for (when I was still in my late thirties it went so much smoother), but it’s done now, and seems to have gone well. We wait and see. Back home with my better half and kittehs (return journey courtesy of my excellent brother-in-law). Feeling OK now apart from being wiped out and having to stop the cats from standing on my stomach.

A while of watching YouTube videos (On The Buses isn’t being repeated this time I’m off work) and/or listening to music while resting.

*For the record:

Spotted on a CT scan for something else: December 2022. Confirmed January 2023. Rescanned and on waiting list March 2023. It didn’t fucking feel fast, I can tell you.

Twenty

December 31st, 2023

I’m starting to draft this well before the date, just to get some initial thoughts down.

Another year gone: anniversaries of this blog coincide with the end of the year, because, twenty fucking years ago(!), i started using a little-known bit of open-source blogging software, fired up the might of an old Pentium PC running Debian, and changed some firewall rules.

Every year since then, I’ve remarked on that and tried to sum up the last 12 months. It hasn’t always been good.

So, last year was one of those, and I gave 2023 a stern warning. It didn’t listen, of course, and 2023 proceeded to be somewhat of a twat. It was worse for others, of course- but some of those others are good friends and family.

While in 2022 we avoided deaths both human and feline, 2023 saw us lose 2 humans from extended family, one close, and for a moment looked like it might give us a double-tap result with things looking shaky for another close member. It wasn’t to be, though, so the count is only one down in closer family. We have lost someone else in more extended family, but neither of us have seen him in well over 30 years (but having seen his will, it’s rather a shame I never met invisible uncle Geoff, the legend).

Those events, and others I won’t go into have made it a stressful end to the year, though we did get away to the sun, something that looked doubtful at one point- and in fact, we had two good holidays this year.

So then, a summary of 2023? Health issues continue- for us, for family, and for good friends alike. We continue to age, we lose people. Conversely, we persist. We have cats (thank fuck for cats), we have friends (similar) and family (likewise) who are there and who we are there for. We have a warm, safe home, we have a stable income, we have (albeit reduced) family and the friends continue to be the type of people you want around you and we try to reciprocate. The health issues are either accepted, or slowly being dealt with. Too slowly, of course, but this is the NHS after 13 years of Tory control, so waiting is normal.

Talking of which, the country, of course, is still fucked.

Only the dimmest (and I include in that the architects of it) now think Brexit was a good move (and forgive me while I quote Stuart Maconie again, writing about how the North East voted for it in their droves):

what becomes apparent is that the large Brexit vote was not so much anti-EU as anti-Westminster, with Mackem after Mackem repeating the charge that London politicians of every stripe were cossetted, out of touch and self-serving but barely mentioning the European Union

Now that’s a fair comment, but for fuck’s sake people, fix the right problem. We all know things aren’t right, but this made it worse.

Our economy is in tatters, our NHS is broken, our social care is struggling, our politicians are largely inept and corrupt, but we seem unable or unwilling to do anything about this, preferring to blame a few desperate people from other countries, and we still continue as a country to vote in these fuckers, and to accept a deeply flawed political system because that’s how it has always been done.

It’s funny to look back on 20 years of blogging. When I started, I was soon to change job, and I’m still in it, the new organisation seemingly suiting me. Blog posts have got longer, as social media takes the short stuff- even if Twitter is now practically dead. I was in my thirties back then, and the world is a different place now. How the actual fuck did I get so old? Mid-fifties? Fuck. Better than the alternative though.

There’s fewer people blogging now: I was a relatively early adopter, before the peak in 2008 or so, and I’ve no plans to go anywhere, as long as I can keep annoying the right people. Some have left us, sadly, some have decided it has run its course. The good thing is that WordPress, the little-known bit of software I thought was cool back then is now powering a lot of the web, so that would be one of my good choices.

2024? I’m fucking well watching you, you fucker. I’ll switch my gloomy music choice to Gift, specifically Giving Ground for this year.

Now I know you will not see
The madness we have seen

Vodka and slimline tonic, please, for health reasons (because obviously switching to spirits is the healthy choice) but light on the tonic, please, we’ll still be needing a drink. I’ll stay up to make sure 2023 has gone. Black clothing is still de rigeur, obviously.

Merry Christmas

December 25th, 2023

Merry Christmas everyone. A new variation on Christmas for us. Work was finished some time ago, Christmas Eve saw us drop in on family nearby, then our tradition of Indian food and a few drinks, but with my lovely sister-in-law joining us.

Christmas day was lunch cooked here, but served in Pelsall, which actually worked superbly; something I’m unbearably smug about, then a drop by at my niece’s place to say hello, and then back with our kittehs and a drink by mid-afternoon.

We’ve had nice gifts from good friends (we agreed as a family to wind back Christmas gift-giving) and each other, some decent food, and a low-stress day: I’ll take that.

Bogus Dago Blues Band

December 21st, 2023

I had thought that there were zero meaningful hits for this on the Intertubes, and thought to remedy it, but then another search revealed Martin Dale, the man previously known as Klink, as a solitary web hit.

Bogus Dago was a blues band that Mark was part of in the early-mid 90s. We, as family members, saw them play several times, and at one point in the nineties, I’d regularly wear a t-shirt promoting them because I kind of liked the design.

It was nice then, when my dear sister-in-law found (a) a unused band t-shirt in time for Mark’s funeral and (b) a cassette.

A cassette J-card for Bogus Dago.

A scan of the original cassette J-card for “Go Mango”

As I’d sold our only cassette deck over a year ago, I had to call upon a (young) colleague who has discovered the cassette revival, and with a bit of fiddling I captured the over 30 year old tape to .wav, broke out mhWaveEdit, split the tracks out, encoded them to FLAC and tagged them, then burnt a CD with functional CD-Text, as well as MP3s and the aforementioned FLAC files with embedded album art by cropping and stretching the scan of the cassette J-card.

The surprising thing is that the 30-plus year old cassette, on nothing more exotic than a TDK D60, played back from a mid-range 1980s Sony Walkman sounds OK-ish- there’s a bit of wobble as the treble drops out once in a while, and there’s hiss- but it’s by no means awful. The concept of producing your own CDs at the time was not within easy reach- now it’s actually a dying technology, its time having passed, but at least Bogus Dago Blues Band now have a CD release (and potentially a digital download, too)! Does this make me a mastering engineer? (no, it doesn’t. I’ve done no post-processing, so the audio is pretty much as-is off the cassette)

Sample track (track 2) here, a song credited to the band:

Another One Knocking – Bogus Dago – Live at The Frog July 1st, 1994

I can’t currently find where The Frog was and if it still exists, so if anyone knows, let me know. It’s reasonably likely to have been in the Dudley/Brierley Hill/Stourbridge area, as the band played there a lot.

Martin sings a version of the song on his Youtube channel:

Dark Swansong

December 20th, 2023

Continuing the occasional series of music reviews, I decided to look back through my Amazon wishlist (where I save stuff that is interesting but I may or may not buy), and saw that an album in there was reduced by some margin, and even better was now £6.66: the price of the beast.

How could I resist? Well, I couldn’t. It’s the style my learned colleague refers to as “those wailing women”, more kindly referred to symphonic metal/gothic metal. The best known example is probably either Within Temptation (though, like the Sisters of Mercy, they eschew the goth tag) or Nightwish, but what I’d chosen was Tristania‘s Darkest White.

This should have come off my wishlist into a basket years ago: it’s a cracker: beautiful, dynamic, clear recording, the crashing guitars and drums, the “wailing women” along with 2 types of male vocals.

Sad they’re no more, really, this being their last album back in 2012 🙁