Blue moon

It seems the term "blue moon" is not as well defined as I thought. My understanding was the second full moon in a calendar month, but it seems more historically correct that it is the extra full moon you get every few years (where there are 13 full moons not 12 in a year). The lunar cycle (29.5 days ish) is close to the average days in a month (30.4 days ish), so every few years there is an extra full moon. "blue" is actually belewe (meaning "betrayer" moon) and relates to a full moon being a tad early to be the basis for Easter so the following full moon is used instead. All a tad complex. Based on wikipedia, so much be right!

However, today we have a blue moon in the simple meaning of a second full moon in a calendar month, and it has been widely reported in the news. Technically it depends on your time zone as some places will have had the month already end by 13:57:45 UTC today when it happened, just to add more to the confusion.

It really should not need pointing out that the blue moon is not actually blue! There are atmospheric affects that can make the moon look bluer than usual, but none that are based on a particular choice of calendar. This daft question is not helped by a blue tinted moon image shown on news and web sites reporting today's event. So what on earth is the blurry blue blob shown above?

Well, Mikey was trying to take a picture of the moon. It means manual exposure generally as the camera will not get it right. You can get a pretty good image even hand held with a 200m lens (see right), but during his efforts he happened to snap a very over exposed shot (below) which is a bit odd.

The exposure is so long and the sky so dark that the camera has picked up some sort of internal reflection in the lens. The coatings on the lens mean it is tinted blue. It is also, as you may realise, upside down.

Oddly, and not planned like this, we have been in Greece for the full moon this month, both of them!

Surprisingly easy jet!

So, we flew EasyJet to Rhodes. There are only a few airlines direct to Rhodes and they appear to all be "holiday" airlines. This is flights that don't have business class or first class even if you wanted them, and we figured they were much the same as each other. Previously flying Monarch was a nightmare - there was no room for my knees!

Don't you love the diagram of the "brace position" you are meant to adopt - it always assumes there is space to bend forward somehow between the seats. Those were the days.

Anyway, EasyJet allow a "Speedy Boarding" extra cost option, front of the queue boarding. They don't allocate seats. Seems a handful of people had this and we stood up first so were front of the queue.

OK, there appears to be a "super speedy boarding option" if you are a family of 6 with a wheelchair, which was a slight disappointment after standing front of the queue at the plane for 5 minutes, deciding amongst ourselves where we would sit (front row, which we could see) only to have just one too many seats on the front row occupied ahead of us. Oh well.

Anyway, Sandra and I on the front row block of three seats. The rest of the people come on and they board them from the back forwards telling people blocks of rows to pick a seat in. Makes sense as it stops people blocking the aisle. The result was that the last people on the plane were behind us. Even when the final people on the plane were told "any available seat" as there was only one next to us people picked other seats. Ended up with two of us on the front three seats with as much leg room as you could possibly want, and convenient for the toilet (handy, as Sandra is not feeling well).

Knowing not to expect a meal we brought crisps and drinks anyway (bought in departures) so ate and drank when we wanted and what we wanted.

Overall it was better than most business class flights I have taken, which was a bit of a shock. I am sure most of that is luck. We'll see on the way back.

Greece²

We did Greece this year, Rhodes specifically. It was a week in a villa, which had air-con and Internet (that was my main condition for going).

TBH, as a holiday, it was fun, as holidays go. Way too hot to go outside. Longest time spent standing in the sun (which was with a hat) was 10 minutes waiting for the FedEx van with my DHL delivery. Well, I did also walk around Rhodes old town a bit too I suppose, but felt a tad cooler.

DHL are arses, so getting new toys the evening before we return I was cross, and made the rash statement of "why don't we stay another week?". Now, if that was possible, it would be limited extra cost, maybe 5 more days of villa and small charge for changing flights. Sadly villa not available. Shame. BTW: DHL did send a refund, yay!

But somehow that turned in to my agreeing a second holiday? How? Why?

Thankfully it is fewer people this time, not that those the first time were bad company - I spent most of the time playing WoW on a 3 second latency Internet in the air-conditioned villa. But organisationally fewer people helps when on holiday. One car this time, for a start.

I am hoping to try and get some nice pictures this time. I am taking a longer lens (70-200) and a macro lens (100) as well as the 50mm f/1.2 (unlimited carry-on bag weight FTW). I need to practice photography I think. Finding a good shot. Composure. The whole thing. I may take a course on it. I can take pictures, I have the toys, but can I take good pictures yet?

So, we fly tomorrow. EasyJet of all things. We'll see how that goes.

I have shit loads of work to do while away - mainly to pay for being away for an extra week. Some serious coding (which is a nice change). ETSI specs are fun (not!) and I should know as I was involved in them back in the days that GSM started (when working for Nokia). So I have a nice large ETSI TS to read on the plane on my iPad. Can't say a lot more, but some cool new products to be launched soon.

We are madly prepping for the IP EXPO in October (FireBrick). That will be fun.

So, anyone wants me next week, or maybe next 10 days, think again!, or at least think 2 hour time difference and irc. I may be around as RevK on Spinebreaker if the latency is low enough to play.

Now, what could I DHL this time?

Update: Finally got here, nice view :-

Silver lining

Well, yet another shop being a pain. One of the things I wanted to buy was a pen for Sandra - she is taking up creative writing and likes fountain pens. Yet another shop let me down today and I gave up, and took her to a shop in Regents Street instead. Just as well as I saw the pen I had picked and it looks nothing like the web sites and she hated it. So silver lining in this all as if they had shipped I would be distance selling directive returning them now.

So, a limited edition cross fountain pen, dragon engraved, with gold nib. Very nice, and very Sandra.

The one on-line shop that just worked was one I was buying some acid from, and that was waiting on the doorstep when I got home this evening.

Train tickets make no sense

So, Bracknell to Waterloo, there are several types of ticket, and lately they have started selling a first class off peak day return. This is not a lot more, and well worth it at some times of day as the trains get packets and first class has a table and power... Yay!

Except the tickets rules make no sense, and clearly are so confusing even the staff at the ticket office do not understand. They swore that the 4pm to 7pm restriction did not apply to the first class tickets.

The standard off peak day return can only be used after the morning rush hour (trains arriving after 10am at Waterloo). I rarely need to be in London for first thing, so this is good.

However, for first class off peak day return there are extra restrictions. Yes, extra restrictions on the more expensive first class ticket. These are: "In addition, First Class Off Peak tickets are not valid if you board a train at: London Waterloo or Victoria between 1600 and 1900; Vauxhall between 1604 and 1904; Clapham Junction between 1607 and 1909. All times are inclusive, Monday to Friday. No restriction applies to journeys wholly with London Zones 1-6".

So that means that I cannot use them to come back from London 4pm to 7pm, yet with the cheaper standard class ticket I can!

But hang on, these rules are a tad odd. It seems that I can use the ticket to go Waterloo to Richmond as that is Zone 1 to 4. I can also use the ticket to go Richmond to Bracknell as that is not boarding a train at Waterloo, Victoria, Vauxhall or Clapham. I am not allowed to use the ticket for one journey that goes from Waterloo to Bracknell (between 4pm and 7pm). Yet if I was challenged at any point on the journey my ticket could be valid. That must make enforcement a challenge for them surely.

So, I wonder, what if I use the ticket in standard class Waterloo to Richmond, and if they query it ask if they can downgrade my ticket to a standard class instead of first class to allow me to use it? I suspect that would confuse the hell out of them.

It makes no sense, of course!

In Stock!

Last few days I have had more than my fair share of this - web sites saying they have stock and then not having stock. Had one that says 5-7 days, last Tuesday, and now says "maybe end of this week". Arrrrg!

It is sooooooo annoying. We have so much nanny state legislation for so many things, why not this?

I did ponder though how it could be done. You could make it that you can claim a standard minimum like £50 for any such instance, but all that would happen is that (a) sites outside UK would laugh, and (b) sites would say "maybe" in stock.

I can't see how you would do it. How to make people accountable?

Maybe if it was not legal to do this then trading standards could cause people problems and fine them. Maybe that would work.

As I found with our friends(!) DHL, expectation management is key. Tell me it is in stock for next day delivery and it better damn well be in stock or I will get pissed.

I see no solutions apart from name and shame.... Wex photographic, and The Pen Shop, to name two this week. Oh, and thanks wex for tripping barclays fraud dept - numpties blocked my card - another hour of my life wasted!

I don't know how they cope

I do get involved in broadband faults at the weekend - ironically this weekend I was going to be coding (in an air conditioned office) but feeling grotty I stayed at home and so tried to help a customer on irc.

But really, I don't know how my tech staff cope. I dread to think what tablets I'd be on after a week of this.

Got a simple fault case. New fibre to the cab line, which is normally simple as BT provide everything up to and including the modem. So faults tend to get sorted quickly. Line has been in a month.

With normal ADSL the line speed estimate is a range as speed depends on so many factors which are not all within BT control (splitter, internal wiring, router model, etc). However, for FTTC BT come up with a simple estimate of speed, and in this case the customer had, and still has, a speed estimate of 31.4Mb/s. Yes, that is an estimate to that precision. It is not a hard target, it is an estimate, and quite often lines exceed the estimate. It is not an "up to" figure.

Now, the line did not get 31.4Mb/s, or even close. Which is odd. It was pretty stable at 21Mb/s to 24Mb/s for the first 20 days. Now BT do have a notion of the first 10 days being for the line to settle, i.e. basically for the characteristics for the modem to be established to get a stable speed. But the line was over 21Mb/s after 20 days. Then, suddenly, it dropped to 16Mb/s and was unstable, and finally now it is 14Mb/s.

So, we get an engineer out to fix it. This was not too much hassle as we ran a few tests until the BT test system said there is a fault and to contact BT to book an engineer. This should be plane sailing at that point. Engineer for today.

Engineer goes out, checks the line, says it will never get more than 16Mb/s and leaves. No attempt to fix it. The line was in fact synced at 14.3Mb/s, a far cry from the 31.4Mb/s estimate or previous 21Mb/s speeds.

So, simple, I get on echat to BT, as you do. This is where is gets silly. It took me over an hour of arguing to get anywhere. BT saying the engineer has fixed the fault? BT saying that the engineer tested the line and it will never get more than 16Mb/s. BT even saying it never has. They started with comments about why I feel it should be faster and I had to explain that BT are the ones that feel it should go faster as even now, today, the speed estimate is 31.4Mb/s. Eventually, after 70 minutes, and quoting sync speed and date/time for the history of the line to demonstrate that this line had more than 21Mb/s for 20 days, suddenly they changed their tune.

That was actually quite a shock. After loads of no can do attitude, and won't ever get faster, and basically tough! the attitude suddenly changed. I am not quote sure what I said, but suddenly it was I'll book and engineer to fix it and will today PM do? Gobsmacked! Today? I hear from my customer that the engineer had just turned up even. I am pretty sure I did not say Shibboleet but I may have to read through the transcript for the magic words...

So, the long and short of it was that first engineer did not fix it, so second engineer same day, and he is supposedly fixing it. That should have been it. That should have taken 5 minutes of echat at most. But they had to drag it out and make it 75 minutes of patronising hell. Why?

I remember when we started with broadband 12 years ago, and we would call BT, tell them a line was faulty, and they went and fixed it. None of this crap. No arguing the toss. I don't think I could work in support fully time with this hassle these days. Well done guys!

Update: Poor customer not much better off, 16M and packet loss. So BT not meeting their 40 hour SLA. So we escalate it, which is the process for when a fault is not meeting the SLA. Only the escalation department won't look at it until Monday. So what? They have a team to handle delayed fault fixed that themselves don't work the hours necessary to get faults fixed within the SLA. Arrrrg.

On top of that it seems, according to the person on echat, that BT plc have no threshold at which they consider the estimate to be wrong or the installation failed. Even estimating 31.4M and getting half that is, as far as they are concerned, acceptable! We are trying to get a straight answer, and if they don't come up with them we'll tell them what we consider "acceptable" on future orders (which will piss them off - they hate when we do that sort of thing).

Update: We have been reading the handbook in more detail - mainly to make sure I am up to speed if I do faults at the weekend. Seems lines getting below 2M are considered faulty. Lines getting below 15M if they initially got over 15M are faulty. And lines starting over 15M and losing 25% in under 14 days are considered faulty. Complicated set of rules none of which seem to relate to their forecasts (so their forecasts can be as wrong as they like). Even though echat said there was no fault threshold and argued about the speed being acceptable, we now know that under BT plc's own rules that this line is faulty so needs fixing. Arrrg!

Update: Got BT to change to new pair and customer is happily on 25M now. This meant a lot more time arguing yesterday and today to get it sorted. Why they have to spend so much of our staff time, and their staff time arguing rather than doing, I do not know. It would be cheaper for all concerned if they did this right from the start!