Made weak by time and fate, but strong in will
To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield.
Alfred Lord Tennyson
Thinking Allowed
Recently migrated to Hostinger - so there may me a number of glitchy bits - not their fault (mine).
So why am I doing this? Why is there yet another site on the web? Well I've got a series of motivations. Firstly, it's a long time since I did any web page design and things have moved on a bit - so I want to see what's new. Secondly I'm constantly 'discovering' things (usually things other people know about but I don't) that I promptly forget - so I want a place to store these things. Thirdly I fancy creating a place where I can have a sort of diary to record thoughts and observations - I've tried steam based systems (well all right - paper) before but these just seem to get 'lost'. And finally I've discovered a really whizzy way of doing this easily, which is great for a lazy person like me, using a phenomenal piece of software called RapidWeaver - and I want to spend a bit of time learning about it.
Ok, that's my justification over (maybe I should just have said I want to do it). Don't expect great prose or deep philosophy here because you will be a tad disappointed. However I do hope to put together a fairly eclectic hodgepodge of information which I will find interesting and you just might too. Feel free to let me know if you do - there's an email link at the bottom.
If you've got this far (which is good) what can you expect on the rest of the site? For now there will be 4 major sections:
One of my hobbies is flying. I used to fly hang gliders (NOT hand gliders!) until a few years ago but got a bit tired (literally) of lugging a 6m long 30kg heavy object up a steep hill. I have to say though that the sheer rush you can get launching into the air with a couple of steps and suddenly being several hundred feet above ground is stupendous - maybe I'll go back there one day. So now I fly small GA (general aviation) aeroplanes out of Liverpool John Lennon Airport - usually a Piper PA28 - and until recently I had a share in a Vans RV7 tailwheel homebuilt flying out of Manchester City Airport - which everybody actually knows as 'Barton'. It really is a special privilege to be a pilot and I'll use this section to talk about this as well as perhaps giving some technical details for those who might want to fly into the North West of England.
Fly fishing more specifically. I've just recently taken it up again and this will be where I obsess about Rods, reels WTF#4 lines, tippets, leaders, fluorocarbon, waders nymphs, emergers, hackles, boots, dubbing - there's more jargon than in Astrophysics! Also some diary-like notes on any waters I fish and (with some luck and following wind) any fish I catch. I should add I'll be using barbless hooks and will be releasing anything I do catch back immediately.
I've been fiddling around with IT since it became a practical home based achievement - Sinclair ZX80, home built Nascom (32K RAM !), Commodore Pet... Since those heady days I've used all types of computers engineering tools (designing reinforced concrete using FORTRAN) through teaching about them in an F.E. college through to IT research both in academia and industry (Artificial Intelligence, Machine Learning and Big Data).
I'll use this section to talk about any aspect I fancy. At the moment things like LaTeX, interesting bits about Rapidweaver (the rather wonderful tool I'm using to build this) and …
There is a page dedicated to Python stuff.
I've got 2 First degrees (BSc in Civil Engineering, and Physics with Astrophysics, and MSc in Bioinformatics and a PhD in Astronomy) - in short I'm pretty interested in techie things. In this section I'll be jotting some basic stuff that I want to remember and/or linking into any interesting stuff that comes along. So a mix of basic science concepts and emerging scientific information.
Mostly Physics (Cosmology, Quantum weirdness, Historical scientists …) and Biotechnology (CRISPR at the moment)
I'll also put down some maths stuff. I'm constantly forgetting how to do sums so this will be where I jot down useful maths trickery (it's all magic really) as and when I rediscover it. I'm also quite interested in the way we humans don't seem to be very good at evaluating statistical information. Common sense just doesn't cut it - long live Bayes.
There will be something about Engineering in general. At the moment; 3D printing, Reynolds number .
Last year I started to ride my motorcycle (Triumph Sprint ST) after a couple of years off. Don't know why I ever stopped! Add to that, I've just got a drone (dji Mavic Mini), which is a bit of a hoot, and started to mess around with video editing using DaVinci Resolve (hugely capable and available for free). So this page combines all 3 things and hopefully will link to videos staring motorcycles and drones - and England (mostly).
Finally finally, this will just be a place to jot down stuff I've found interesting about anything really. It'll take the form of a Blog but I'm not yet sure if I'll invite comments - probably not.
In summary this is an indulgence for me. If you find anything of interest here I’m pleased and if you don't - well, life’s short and you really don’t have to read it do you?
Ok, that's my justification over (maybe I should just have said I want to do it). Don't expect great prose or deep philosophy here because you will be a tad disappointed. However I do hope to put together a fairly eclectic hodgepodge of information which I will find interesting and you just might too. Feel free to let me know if you do - there's an email link at the bottom.
If you've got this far (which is good) what can you expect on the rest of the site? For now there will be 4 major sections:
Aviation
One of my hobbies is flying. I used to fly hang gliders (NOT hand gliders!) until a few years ago but got a bit tired (literally) of lugging a 6m long 30kg heavy object up a steep hill. I have to say though that the sheer rush you can get launching into the air with a couple of steps and suddenly being several hundred feet above ground is stupendous - maybe I'll go back there one day. So now I fly small GA (general aviation) aeroplanes out of Liverpool John Lennon Airport - usually a Piper PA28 - and until recently I had a share in a Vans RV7 tailwheel homebuilt flying out of Manchester City Airport - which everybody actually knows as 'Barton'. It really is a special privilege to be a pilot and I'll use this section to talk about this as well as perhaps giving some technical details for those who might want to fly into the North West of England.
Fly Fishing
Fly fishing more specifically. I've just recently taken it up again and this will be where I obsess about Rods, reels WTF#4 lines, tippets, leaders, fluorocarbon, waders nymphs, emergers, hackles, boots, dubbing - there's more jargon than in Astrophysics! Also some diary-like notes on any waters I fish and (with some luck and following wind) any fish I catch. I should add I'll be using barbless hooks and will be releasing anything I do catch back immediately.
IT Stuff
I've been fiddling around with IT since it became a practical home based achievement - Sinclair ZX80, home built Nascom (32K RAM !), Commodore Pet... Since those heady days I've used all types of computers engineering tools (designing reinforced concrete using FORTRAN) through teaching about them in an F.E. college through to IT research both in academia and industry (Artificial Intelligence, Machine Learning and Big Data).
I'll use this section to talk about any aspect I fancy. At the moment things like LaTeX, interesting bits about Rapidweaver (the rather wonderful tool I'm using to build this) and …
There is a page dedicated to Python stuff.
SciTech
I've got 2 First degrees (BSc in Civil Engineering, and Physics with Astrophysics, and MSc in Bioinformatics and a PhD in Astronomy) - in short I'm pretty interested in techie things. In this section I'll be jotting some basic stuff that I want to remember and/or linking into any interesting stuff that comes along. So a mix of basic science concepts and emerging scientific information.
Science
Mostly Physics (Cosmology, Quantum weirdness, Historical scientists …) and Biotechnology (CRISPR at the moment)
Maths and Statistics
I'll also put down some maths stuff. I'm constantly forgetting how to do sums so this will be where I jot down useful maths trickery (it's all magic really) as and when I rediscover it. I'm also quite interested in the way we humans don't seem to be very good at evaluating statistical information. Common sense just doesn't cut it - long live Bayes.
Engineering
There will be something about Engineering in general. At the moment; 3D printing, Reynolds number .
Bikes 'n Drones 'n Vids
Last year I started to ride my motorcycle (Triumph Sprint ST) after a couple of years off. Don't know why I ever stopped! Add to that, I've just got a drone (dji Mavic Mini), which is a bit of a hoot, and started to mess around with video editing using DaVinci Resolve (hugely capable and available for free). So this page combines all 3 things and hopefully will link to videos staring motorcycles and drones - and England (mostly).
Thoughts
Finally finally, this will just be a place to jot down stuff I've found interesting about anything really. It'll take the form of a Blog but I'm not yet sure if I'll invite comments - probably not.
In summary this is an indulgence for me. If you find anything of interest here I’m pleased and if you don't - well, life’s short and you really don’t have to read it do you?
Snowdonia, somewhere near Snowdon itself, on a hazy summers day at around 2000ft - taken from G-WARW
