The British Prime Minister, Gordon Brown, held a Cobra committee (Cabinet Office Briefing Rooms) meeting regarding the response to the national flooding problems. Glos.’s Gold Command emergency response team was represented by Tim Brian – it’s head. He was included in the meeting (via a phone link up) as my home county (Gloucestershire) was one the hardest hit counties. There was the normal amount of slopey shoulders and buck passing, as the government has come under fire for not providing help to prevent the flooding, and assistance to clear up the mess. Some have stated the current military deployments in Afghanistan and Iraq had made their assistance difficult in areas; the response was, no that isn’t the case, anyway, sandbags are the local council’s responsibility…
hey ho.
On a more positive note, it looks like there will be more funding put in place for proper flood defence systems in the future – whilst these may not completely prevent future floods, they may help to stem the flow, and give better warnings.
Jul 23 2007
Brown Holds Emergency Meetings Re. Floods
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Jul 22 2007
Britain Suffers From Flooding
No, not a general warning to all travellers thinking of visiting the UK, but I am instead referring to the current problems afflicting many areas in England and Wales (not sure on Scotland). Although Mum in Wales is in an area that is marked as effected by some maps I’ve seen, they live quite high up, so unless there is a river close to them that bursts its banks, they should be OK. I tried calling Dad at home, as his area has problems with all the rain, but as the phone was ringing, it can’t be too local too him, as the phone lines are working, and considering his answer phone kicked in, I can safely assume that the mains electricity has not been cut off; anyway I hope his and Jan’s houses are OK. I’ve spoken to Alex today, who said parts of the Forest of Dean were cut off, and that other places more local were effected, but that she was ok, and that just leaves Nick (in Falmouth) – if you ever get round to reading this Nick, and have not yet e-mailed, leave me a comment so I know you are not needing to take a dinghy into Uni 😉
Jul 13 2007
Kazakhstan Shows Solidarity With British (Weather)
The past couple of weeks have seen temperatures around 30-35 degrees, occasionally reaching for 40. I just spoke to Dad who said Britain has had pretty miserable weather, or Evesham specifically at the very least. This appeared to trigger a big rain storm back here in Astana 🙂 .
It was actually nice to feel a breeze, though without a sewer system, the rain has nowhere to go really.
See the pictures below for a little idea of how they cope with it.
Basically a big tanker comes along and a couple of guys get out. One sweeps the water to the other, who sucks it up with a big hoover type attachment.
As I write this post another thunder storm has started, and the big puddles all over the road have returned. Sadly, not all the motorists respect the weather, and still speed along the 6 lane road as if nothing had changed. No crashes yet, luckily.
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Jun 09 2007
Tornado near the Caspian Sea 7th June 2007
Irina sent me a few photos on Friday, of a tornado on the Caspian Sea, not sure where exactly.
I would happily give credit to the photographer, but we don’t know who took them. We are assuming it was a worker for some sort of oil-related company based over there.
The tornado is quite visually impressive, click the images below to see a larger version. If anyone is particularly interested in them, I have higer-res versions for the 2nd and 3rd shots – the online versions have been resized and compressed to save my server’s bandwidth.
In this picture, you can see a second tornado, so perhaps cyclic tornadogenesis has taken place – yes OK, I went and Wiki’ed tornadoes, as I didn’t want to appear too ignorant 🙂
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Apr 24 2007
System Specifications
When describing technical issues, I’m often called upon to supply the specifications of my IT equipment.
This post has been put together so I can easily refer people to the pertinent information…
System Specifications – PC
Intel D945 PVS Motherboard with 10/01/07 BIOS
Intel P4 660 3.6 GHz CPU
2 Gb RAM (2 X 1Gb 667MHz DDR2)
Asus 7900GT – PCIe x16 256Mb Grfx card – on Forceware 97.73
BenQ FP91V 19″ , Subini S-6811T 8″ & Sony KDL 40W2000 40″
NoName 550 Watt Twin Fan PSU
APC ES 525 Uninterruptable Power Supply – battery knackered
other UPS must update details here
Innovision EIO AP1680 PCI ATA133 RAID Controller (ITE IT8211 based)
Seagate Barracuda ST3320620AS 320Gb 7200rpm 16Mb Cache SATAII
Seagate Barracuda ST3160023A 160Gb 7200 rpm 8Mb Cache PATA-100
Maxtor DiamondMax Plus8 40 Gb PATA-133
Buffalo External 80Gb PATA/USB
WD External 250Gb PATA/USB
2 x Lite-On SHW-16H5S DVD-RR
EIO USB2 & Firewire PCI card
NetGear router – UPDATE
SafeCom IC+ 56K Ext. Modem (SEMT-5600)
TDK Bluetooth v1.2 Adapter (TRBLU03)
Logitech USB Cordless Trackman Trackball
Genius Keyboard – KKB-2050HS
XFX Executioner Dual Impact USB Gamepad (PSX-like force feedback controller)
Logitech Formula Force GP Force Feedback Steering Wheel & Pedals
Sony Ericssion K700i (used as a Bluetooth Remote Control/Phone for UK SIM card)
PC Line PC-100 TV Card – TV tuner/RCA/S-Video/InfraRed input (Based on Phillips 7134 chipset)
Genius VideoCAM Look WebCam
Canon DC080W (3Mp Digital Camera)
Microsoft Fingerprint Reader (Model 1033)
HP 1513 MFD
Various USB Thumbdrives
Redundant Spares
SafeCom SWAMR-54108 ADSL Modem/Router/AP – Now with Mother-in-law
D-Link 604T ADSL Modem/Router/AP – Now with Mum
Origo ASU-8000 USB ADSL modem
D-Link DWL-G122 USB2 Wi-Fi 802.11g Dongle
D-Link DGE-528T 1GBps PCI LAN Card
SafeCom USB 11Mbps WLAN Dongle – Now with brother
Nisis DV Cam 2 (Rev.1) – Photo, Video & Webcam
Software & Services Used :
Win XP Pro SP2 – All updates applied
No-Ip (Dynamic IP pointing)
TightVNC/WinVNC
ShoutCast
WebCamXP
System Specifications – PDA/PPC
iPaq 2210
240×320 Display
Intel PXA255 CPU
64Mb RAM
OS – Windows 2003 Mobile Edition (WinCE 4.20)
1Gb SD Card
11Mbps CF Wireless Card
GPS – 16 Sat
Bluetooth
Broken D-Pad – 4 hardware buttons re-assigned to navigational duties
System Specifications – SmartPhone
Orange SPV C550 (HTC Hurricane rebadged by Orange UK)
OS – Windows Mobile 2003 for Smartphones (2nd Edition)
GSM & GPRS, triband 900/1800/1900 MHz
2.2 inch screen 240×320 pixels TFT transflective LCD, 64k colours
Camera 1.3 Mp
TI OMAP 750 Processor
64Mb ROM, 32Mb RAM
2 Gb Mini-SD Card
GPS – 16 Satellite
TomTom Mobile5, Battery Monitor, CellTrack, TCPMP, SmartVNC, GPRS Traffic Monitor, Smurf, Doom, GNUBoy, PicoDrive, NES Emulator, Worms World Party
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