Insomnia (by alaric)

There's something about the combination of having spent many weeks in a row without more than the odd half-hour here and there to myself (time when I get to do whatever I like, rather than merely choosing which of the list of things I need to get done urgently I will do next, or just having no choice at all), and knowing I need to get up even earlier the next morning than usual (to dive straight into a long day of scheduled activities), that makes it very, very, hard for me to sleep.

So, although I got to bed in good time for somebody who has to wake up at six o'clock, I have given up laying there staring at the ceiling, and come down to eat some more food (I get the munchies past midnight), read my book without disturbing Sarah with my bedside light, and potter on my laptop. I need to be up in five hours, so hopefully emptying my brain of whirling thoughts will enable me to sleep.

There's lots of things I want to do. Even though it's something I need to get done by a deadline, I'm actually enthusiastic about continuing the project I was working on today; making an enclosure for our chickens. This is necessary for us to be able to go away from the house for more than one night, which is something we want to do over Christmas; thus the deadline.

Three of the edges of the enclosure will be built onto existing walls or woodwork, but one of them needs to cut across some ground, so I've dug a trench across said bit of ground, laid an old concrete lintel and some concrete blocks in the trench after levelling the base with ballast, and then mixed and rammed concrete around them. When I next get to work on it, I'll mix up a large batch of concrete and use it to level the surface neatly (and then ram any left-overs into remaining gaps) to just below the level of the soil, then lay a row of engineering bricks (frog down) on a mortar bed on top of that in order to make a foundation that I can screw a wooden batten to. With that done, and some battens screwed into the tops of existing walls that don't already have woodwork on, I'll be able to build the frame of the enclosure (including a door), then attach fox-proof mesh to it, and our chickens will have a new home they can run around in safely.

Thinking about how I'm going to lay the next batch of concrete in a nice level run, working around the fact that I only have a short spirit level by placing a long piece of wood in there and levelling it with wedges and then using it as a reference to level the concrete to, has been one of the things running around in my head this evening.

Another has been the next steps from last Friday, when I had a fascinating meeting with a bunch of interesting people in the information security world. You see, I've always been interested in the foundation technologies upon which we build software, such as storage management, distributed computing, parallel computing, programming languages, operating systems, standard libraries, fault tolerance, and security. I was lucky enough to find a way into the world of database development a few years ago, which (with a move to a company that produces software to run SQL queries across a cluster) has broadened to cover storage management, distribution, parallelism, AND programming languages. So imagine my delight when said company starts to develop the security features in the product, and I can get involved in that; and even more when (through old contacts) I'm invited to the inaugural meeting of a prestigious group of peopled interested in security. That landed me an invite to the second meeting (chaired by an actual Lord, and held in the House of Lords!), the highlight of which was of course getting to talk to the participants after the presentations. I found out about the Global Identity Foundation, who are working pn standardising the kind of pseudonymous identity framework I have previous pined for; I'm going to see if I can find a way to get more involved in that. But I need to do a lot of reading-up on the organisations and people involved in this stuff, and figuring out how I can contribute to it with my time and money restrictions.

I'd really like to have some quiet time to work on my secret fiction project, too. And I want to investigate Ugarit bugs. Some bugs in the Chicken Scheme system have been found and fixed lately, so I need to re-test all these bugs to see if any of the more mysterious ones were artefacts of that. I'm in a bit of a vicious circle with that; the longer it is since I've been tinkering with the Ugarit internals, the longer it'll take me to get back into it, and the more nervous I feel about doing so. I think I might need to pick off some lighter bit of work with good rewards (adding a new feature, say) and handle that first, to get back into the swing of things. Either way, I'll need a good solid day to dig into it all again; trying to assemble that from sporadic hours just won't cut it.

I'm still mulling over issues in the design of ARGON. Right now I'm reading a book on handling updates to logical databases - adding new facts to them, and handling the conflicts when the new facts contradict older ones, in order to produce a new state of the database where the new fact is now true, but no contradictions remain. I need to work this out to settle on a final semantics for CARBON, which will be required to implement distributed storage of knowledge within TUNGSTEN. I need a semantics that can converge towards a consensus on the final state of the system, despite interruptions in internal network connectivity within the cluster causing updates to arrive in different orders in different places; doing that efficiently is, well, easier said than done.

I really want to finish rebuilding my furnace, which I hoped to get done this Summer, but I'm still assembling the structural supports for it. I've made a mould to cast shaped refractory bricks for the lining of the furnace, but I've yet to mix up the heatproof insulating material the bricks need to be made out of and start casting the bricks, as I still need to work out how I'll form the tuyere.

I want to get Ethernet cabled to my workshop, because currently I don't have a proper place for working on my laptop; I have to do it on the sofa in the lounge to be within range of the wifi, which isn't very ergonomic, doesn't give me access to my external screens, and is prone to interruption by children. I find it very motivating to be in "my space", too; the computer desk in the workshop is all set up the way I like it. And just for fun, I'd like to rig the workshop with computer-controlled sensors and gizmos (that kind of thing is a childhood dream of mine...).

This past year, I've tried booking two weekend days a month for my projects, in our shared calendar. This worked well at the start of the year, with projects such as the workshop ladder and eaves proceeding well, but it started to falter around the Summer when we got really busy with festivals and the like. I started having to fit half-days in around other things, which meant spending too much time getting started and clearing up compared to actually getting things done, so my morale faltered; and with so much other stuff on, I've been increasingly inclined to spend my free time just relaxing rather than getting anything done. On a couple of occasions I've tried taking a week off work to pursue my projects, but I then feel guilty about it and start allocating days to spending more time with the children or tidying the house, and before I know it, five days off becomes one day of actual project work. I need to stop feeling guilty about taking time to do the things I enjoy, because if I don't, I'll be too tired and miserable to do a good job of the things I should be doing! And rather than booking my monthly project days around other stuff that's going on, next year I'm going to mark out my two days each month in advance, and then move them elsewhere in the month if Sarah needs me to do something on that particular day, to decrease the chance of ending up having to scrape together half-days around the month (or to skip project days entirely, as I ended up doing last month). I feel awful about saying I'm going to spend days doing what I feel like doing rather than the things the rest of my family need me to drive them to, but if I don't, I think I'm going to fall apart!

Now... off and on I've spent forty minutes writing this blog post. So with my whirling thoughts dumped out, I'm going to go back to bed and see if I can sleep this time around. Wish me luck!

Ada Lovelace Day 2013 (by sarah)

Ada Lovelace Day is a celebration of women in technology and science - it was started a few years ago by the lovely Suw, and me and Al have taken part in it every year so far! One day we might even make it to London for some of the talks and things that happen (this year they even had Neil Gaiman though we saw him at the weekend anyway but still!) - sadly (or happily) I have college this week so that was another year of no Ada events boo hiss.

This year we have chosen the designer of... Sugru!

Jane Ní Dhulchaointigh - she is an extra special inspiration to me, as not only has she had the idea for and then developed and sold sugru, a funky silicon rubber you can fix things or improve things with, but she shows that art and science together can drive innovation to make the world better! (I've already blogged about that here).

The story goes that she had the idea whilst doing her MA in design production in London, the first attempts were smelly and ugly and then they weren't but they didn't stick to enough things. She knew what she wanted it to do and she teamed up with scientists but didn't just hand the job over.

Alaric told me about the sugru before you could actually buy the stuff - I was sad as I was being told that I was never going to achieve anything being a scientific artist or artistic scientist, his words were something like, 'but there's this new stuff that's amazing sort of like air dry putty but is still flexible and strong and stuff and it was invented by an artist who knew wanted a substance that didn't exist for her designs so she went and learnt about the chemistry of rubber and silicon!'

The story of sugru and the company built up around it is fascinating and can be found here.

It is not just about the sugru or the science behind it - it is about determination and following your dream, of keeping going even when it looks like you are set to fail. They have run out of money and risen from the ashes. Their mottos are 'The Future Needs Fixing' and 'Hack Things Better' which goes straight back to Jane's core idea - she didn't want to keep buying new things all the time - she wanted to fix the broken things or upgrade what she already had. This is perfect for upcyclers and reusing recyclers like me and Alaric and as it turns out many many other people.

She has given the world a new way to make things, to fix things! It is technology and engineering, it is art and science and it is wonderful.

The word sugru means to play - it is a corruption of an irish word and we have taken it at its base meaning - so far we have made/fixed:

Purely arty objects:

My first sugru project of a flower and metal bracelet

Little creatures for the visually impaired and blind to touch and explore

Fixed things:

knives with manky split handles

Broken mugs that have sentimental value as our little ones have decorated them

The sink - in several ways!

Made things better:

My crutches needed a bit of handle alteration to stop my little finger going numb when I used them

Little feet on phones and lap tops to stop them over heating

Decorations for boring welly slippers (this came out of a failed project to fix shoes with the stuff)

Improved the hooks in the kitchen so things don't fall off anymore

Embedded electronics into head dresses

Embedded magnets onto things like our phones so they are easily mountable in the car

And these are just the ones I can remember off the top of my head!

It has been to the poles, to the desert, under the sea and even in space!

So thankyou Jane for being an inspiration and our Ada Lovelace Day hero of 2013 🙂

A Month of Chickens (by sarah)

I ment to do this post at the weekend but just didn't get the time! We have now had the chickens a month.

The anti peak spray seems to have worked wonders! And they will now let you stroke them though they do still spend a lot of their time running away from Mary who still excitedly cries 'Chicken!' everytime she sees or hears them.

My dad has decided they are velociraptors and they do have a tendency to come and stare in at you whilst you are cooking, they also tap their beaks on the door. I found this shopping list in his hand writing:

spread, olbas oil, cake, toothpaste, nappies size 5, cheese, bananas, VELOCIRAPTOR

Now cake is a bit iffy but velociraptor?

He says he just needed to check how it was spelt and the shopping list was a scrape piece of paper - I say LICKLY STORY!

But back tot he chickens - their feathers are looking really good!

We are still collecting the stats and the eggometer tells us that we are now under a £5 an egg but we are still out of pocket! However it has gotten down to that in a month and I ended up buying a run so when I do the cost benefit stuff I will do different combinations to show how economic this keeping chickens business actually is! They seem to go through about a sack of food and just over one of straw a month. When the jet washer needs replacing it will have to count as a chicken cost as we are jet washing the decking weekly at the mo but again that should reduce once we build the larger run - but of course you then have material costs for that!

The run should be sorted by the spring hopefully but I'm not too worried about it over the winter but chicken poo in summer will be a different matter!

The girls have been sitting in the autumn sun watching the birds and we do the main feeding and watering when Jean comes in from school - the corn is proving a very good tactic. Jean sprinkles that, whilst Mary sort of throws it about a bit (including on the poor things!), then Jean puts their food out and Mary does their grit. We all check for eggs and if needed I clean things up a bit and put fresh straw in the nest boxes. They mustn't have too much corn as it is a treat but I wanted something where we were properly interacting with them and weren't the scary things that just come and catch them!

They put themselves away in the hen house when it is getting dark but are also now more wary of being caught in the first place! They fluff themselves up if a cat gets two near them and spend their time trying to get into the shed (where we keep supplies) or into the bunny's run to eat his food, he on the other hand has been found eating their bedding in the nest box (though this was the day I'd run out of straw and say had put hay in instead and he loves hay!), I am forever having to remove him from the chicken run as he will eat their food!

We love the chickens! Also they have fluffy legs! (and yes the photo is upside down - I'll try and sort it later!)

Goodbye Tom Long our Long Ginger Tom :( (by sarah)

He seemed out of sorts and actually scratched Mary - the first time he's ever done that - I turffed him and he went missing for two days - my mum was concerned but then I say him apparently sunbathing on the decking. I thought it was odd he didn't come in and eat but not enough to go and investigate. The next day Alaric was cleaning out the chickens with the jet washer and spotted Tom in a little hidden away bit of the garden - not running away from the jet washer.

He knew something was wrong - this was very un Tom like behaviour and he picked him up and dumped him into the kitchen stating - I think he must be ill and went back to jet washing. Then Tom just sat there whilst I decorated cakes - I don't like the cats in the kitchen whilst I'm preparing food especially Tom as he would always jump up on the sides when I wasn't looking or fish food of the worktop etc... So I tried to usher him through to the library and that's when I saw that he couldn't use his back legs 🙁

I called Al who phoned the vet and got changed into not wet chicken poo covered cloths and I got the girls to stroke Tom and say they loved him and explained he was ill, sick, hurt. I didn't think there could be a good outcome and I wanted him to know we all loved him.

Tom was placed in the vet basket and whilst I waited for Alaric, Lithium came and started nosing the basket and Tom her - he has/had been the one that bonded with her, cleaning her and snuggling with her and teaching her to eat etc... So I lifted Lithium into the basket expecting her to hope straight out again but she didn't she snugged down and licked him until Mary came back again.

Then Al left with our ginger menace, he came back with an empty basket and we had to decide what to say to the girls - did we do it before or after the party etc... We decided to tell them before so they would have the party to look forward to rather than a party ruined by the news afterwards, I was crying anyway so I doubt I could have hidden it.

He'd had a blood clot and though they can opperate, it is painful and comes back again really quickly, and he had basically already had three days of restricted circulation to his legs. He didn't purr when we stroked him and look so fed up and forlorn - when we chose for Hydrogen to have the op she had even though there was little chance of survival it was be she was still so purry and glad to see us - she hadn't given up. Tom on the other hand had come home to die.

Alaric stroked him at the vets and it was always Al's clothing he would curl up on. He was a beautiful cat and we shall miss him very much.

Mary keeps asking if Tom's hurt and if he is at school or work, she doesn't understand but she knows we are sad. We are getting the ashes back so maybe she will understand more then.

Bloody Chickens (by sarah)

So three weeks of chickens and... Bloody Chickens!!!

No I am not regretting getting them but they are actually bloody chickens, two of them are being naughty and peeking the other two so we have bought anti peck spray and sprayed them - it is basically the stuff you put on kids nails to stop them bitting them, so I think it just makes the other chickens taste bad - the only issue I have is that they preened themselves straight afterwards so I'm not convinced it is going to work - we will have to see!

Also they have destroyed the door on the compost bin :/ But they did give me a whopping 6 eggs in one day! So I shall forgive them 🙂

Also the feathers are really starting to grow back!

The rabbit seems confused about what species he is!