General - Diary Of An ADI

Worst Winter on Record? Update #3

28/12/2011

You may remember that back in June, I reported that an insurance company was stirring up the panic by saying that we were due for the worst winter on record. Their source was an amateur forecasting outfit called Exacta.

I received several… well, almost-hate mail would be about the best way of describing them… messages via the blog contact form telling me I was wrong to question Exacta, who had apparently predicted the last two winters to an accuracy which successfully included the number of clouds in the sky at any given moment, and the best way to cook a Turkey!

MY prediction for the 2011/12 winter was:

It will be generally colder than summer, it might be wet, and it may or may not snow heavily at some point.

Now, it is obviously too early to gloat properly, but with the already record-breaking HIGH temperatures we have had, one thing that can be said with absolute certainty is that the insurance company and Exacta got it absolutely, completely, and totally wrong.

Even if we did get some record-breaking lows and roof-busting snowfall between now and March, that’s NOT what Exacta predicted. They did not predict record-breaking highs between October-December. This sums up the reliability of their – and any – long-range forecast.

MY forecast, on the other hand, is absolutely spot-on!

More to the point, how many people are driving around on more expensive winter tyres, where the temperature has hardly dipped below 7°C even at night since October in many places?

Talking to pupils yesterday, we noted that many deciduous trees and shrubs still have leaves on them. In many cases these leaves are distinctly green. Gorse bushes have repeatedly flowered throughout the year, and are doing so again now. And I’ve seen numerous Cherry Trees which have pink blossom ready to burst out of buds.

Lessons Over Christmas

25/12/2011

DOAADI

ADI, General

Well, I’ll believe it when it happens, but apart from Christmas Eve and Christmas Day I’ve got a full diary this coming week!

Between Monday (Boxing Day) and Sunday (New Year’s Day) I’ve got 30 hours, with maybe another four or more in the pipeline. You’ve got to make hay while the sun shines in this business, so I’m more than happy to do it – after all, how many of these pupils would have thought about going elsewhere if I didn’t?

Most of them have got tests coming up from next week through the first couple of weeks of the New Year, and are cramming the lessons, One is home from University and has a test booked before he goes back. And five are non-Christian, so it’s business as usual for them (one is a new pupil and has her first lesson booked). I doubt that many will cancel.

Apart from a bit of last-minute juggling today – one of which was me moving things around a stinking cold I’ve picked up – they’re queuing up for available slots! It’s great!

The good thing is that another handful have stopped lessons since last week because of the money-over-Christmas situation, and another had a serious infection and has moved his test back a few weeks, so the New Year is looking very healthy, too.

It’s a good thing I enjoy this job.

Worst Winter On Record: Update #2

16/12/2011

DOAADI

General

I reported a few months ago that certain “experts” were predicting the “worst winter on record” this year. Some people were even organising their lives around it.

Well, the media is doing its best to talk things up during this chilly few days (in spite of the Met Office saying it’s just a brief cold snap and it will get warmer next week).

I just saw BBC News adding fuel to the fires. They had a reporter standing in snow, wringing her hands and saying “it’s well below freezing already”. Well, yeah, it would be – standing up in the Brecon Beacons in the dark, less than a week away from midwinter!

So far, we’ve had unseasonal mild weather, and now we’ve got a bit of typical British winter weather – snow on the hills, wet or sleety everywhere else, frost at night, and bitterly cold if it’s windy and the temperature is below about 6°C.

But stand outside in the dark in the Welsh mountains anywhere close to the Winter Solstice and yes, it will be bloody cold.

People Who Rub You Up The Wrong Way

16/12/2011

DOAADI

Computers & Tech, General

Or subtitled: DO NOT USE FOLIOPRESS WYSIWYG PLUG-IN AS YOUR WORDPRESS TEXT EDITOR. EVER.

For any non-UK readers, when you “rub someone up the wrong way” what you are doing is going against the grain, aggravating them, creating unnecessary conflict, and so on. I think the phrase is derived from the old advice about rubbing a cat’s fur the wrong way (wear leather gauntlets if you do). Everyone does it to everyone else at one time or another, but every so often you encounter someone who just does it every time.

It might be a certain popstar with a whiney voice, or carefully cultivated persona intended to appeal to anarchic youths. Or it might be someone you casually meet (ADI meetings are good places to find them) who has a fixed opinion on something and who just won’t shut up about it. The worst ones, though, are those you are stuck with. I remember one from my time in the rat race – he was a manager to whom I reported for a mercifully short time – who could start an argument in an empty room. Even when he agreed with something, he had to disagree to show how clever and thoughtful he was. But you get the idea.

A while back I mentioned that I’d found a WordPress plug-in, Foliopress WYSIWYG, which was much better than the default text editor. At the time, that was true. However, I first encountered a genuine problem with it in July this year, after I discovered that it was screwing up HTML tags when formatting text (it was nesting them incorrectly). I posted my findings on their forum and asked if it was by design, or had I found a bug. The author replied:

You shouldn’t be putting so many elements on a single piece of text in the first place…

…Not only that but using underlining on the web is extremely bad practice as underlining is assigned to hyperlinks.

We do our best to provide the best possible WYSIWYG editing environment but if you bang your head against the wall hard enough, you are sure to draw blood and/or fade into unconsciousness. No helmet will protect you.

Now, if I want to underline something for emphasis – like this – then I will. My “so many elements” amounted to just two: <span> and <ul>. The problem was that you had to use formatting buttons in a very specific order otherwise the text editor nested them incorrectly, and this made subsequent editing a major headache if you inadvertently “split” the tags, and then inserted some more. I told him that I was reporting a find, not asking for a lesson, to which he replied:

You have no idea how many people chase us around on our plugins and contribute nothing.

It will be difficult to resolve the nesting tags issues as they are part of the core FCKeditor (they might be better in CKeditor and we are preparing the move to CKedtitor now, but probably not)…

Sorry for the misunderstanding. Your contribution is much appreciated. Please report any other issues you find and we’ll do our best to resolve them. This one is out of our power.

Now, he could have told me that right away. But he didn’t. He chose to rub me up the wrong way by trying to be superior about it.

A few weeks later the plug-in was updated, and it contained a great new feature making adding links easier. I started using it a lot… only for it to stop working completely following a further update. Again, I asked if I had missed something or done something wrong on their forums, The reply:

Check the release notes please.

OK. I’m already biting my lip here. I replied:

I’m really sorry to be a pain (and a dumb***), but where ARE the release notes. They’re not in the ZIP file if I download the latest version. And the link you gave me just points to all the comments from previous months and years.

I can’t find a reference in these comments on this page to the change that occurred this week.

And when I Google “foliopress release notes”, lo! and behold I find an article on this site that tells me about the very new features which appear to have gone missing having been introduced as exciting new features!

Another author answered this time and provided the correct links to the release notes (though I should point out that it is usual practice to include them in the download package). However, the original guy comes back with:

We do NOT recommend using IE9 with Foliopress WYSIWYG at this point. There are serious enough issues that we’ve removed support for the browser until FCKeditor and CKeditor work properly in Microsoft’s browser.

Until that point, we cannot troubleshoot any issues with IE9.

I’m biting my lip really hard now. My preferred browser is Internet Explorer – through a conscious choice. But what they then did was disable Foliopress WYSIWYG so it wouldn’t run on IE at all (even though it was working to a usable degree before). Not just the new features, but the entire plug-in was disabled, and if I remember there was some nerdy comment about Microsoft if you tried to launch it from IE. This would be like buying a new car, then finding out that while you were asleep the manufacturer had come round and put wheel clamps on all four wheels, and thrown eggs at your front door. Your only option was to rush out and get another car!

I switched to the Chrome browser for editing my blog posts and all was well. Until this week.

WordPress was updated to v3.3. I did the upgrade and everything was fine – until I tried to add a link to some text. I was faced with a stream of PHP errors and warnings. I waited a couple of days, because I assumed that the problem was due to the plug-in authors not having caught up with WordPress yet. So after the expected Foliopress update a day or so later, I again tried to link some text. Same problem.

I contacted the authors and provided a copy of the errors. The reply (guess who from):

We have a very active forum these days: [link]
Please contribute your findings there.

Thanks!

I’m biting my lip already! So, I copied the text from his reply email and made a post in the forum. His reply on the forum:

Your post above is not very nicely formatted and very difficult to read. Please make an effort not to vandalise our forums.

I’m seeing red now. His email client has added line breaks with “>” at the start of each new line, and I’d pasted this into the forum message rather than type the whole lot out again. I didn’t even give it a second thought. It’s no big deal (except to a prat). I replied:

I copied it and pasted it from the email which you replied to but didn’t answer [name].

As I had typed it all out once, I didn’t want to do it again. I’m more concerned with getting the product… working than reformatting text which gets mangled by your contact form.

Now look, if we could please stay on the very specific topic of Foliopress not working after a WP update, and not my typing or grammar, I would be VERY grateful.

His reply:

Perhaps you should be a little less hot on the trigger with WordPress updates.

We will have a fix by January.

If you would like better service, please be more polite and please do not deface our forums. Text cleaning is not difficult.

PS. Your attitude is not appropriate. The commercial price of an editor like the one we provide would be what you donated on a per site basis.

The guy simply cannot get it into his thick skull that I was reporting a bug – nothing more. But it was like trying to get a baby to eat mush from a spoon when it doesn’t want to!

But anyway, we now have confirmation – which could have been given in that first email asking me to put it on the forum instead – that Foliopress doesn’t work with WordPress 3.3. And it won’t work until January at the earliest. Or, in other words, as well as not working with that “rubbish” Microsoft browser, it now doesn’t work with any other browser either.

We also have the idiotic advice not to upgrade WordPress (even though 3.3 has been in beta since October). Upgrades often include security tweaks and features that users actually want. And it’s also worth reminding certain people that Foliopress depends on WordPress – not the other way round.

I pointed all this out to Mr Annoying. His considered response was to delete the entire topic. I’d guess this is partly in an effort to conceal the problem from those who need to know about it – the users. After all, the fact that it doesn’t work is now not known to anyone happening by the plug-ins download library.

Foliopress is now off my system, and it will never go back. My advice to anyone looking for an editor – and this is based solely on my own overall experiences – is not to go anywhere near this plug-in. It is flaky, which might not have been such a problem if it hadn’t been for the attitude of one of its authors.

The Beast of London

13/12/2011

DOAADI

Funny, General

Just in time for the Olympics, we apparently have a ravenous and mysterious “beast” lurking near one of the stadia to be used for the Games. I should say the story has re-surfaced, since it was originally reported way back in 2005.

Of course, the BBC story just says it like it is – but this isn’t enough for the Daily Mail, which as usual feels the need to glam the whole affair up into something it isn’t.

It seems that a Canada Goose got eaten by whatever it was in 2005. Then another one got eaten just last month. Clearly, this points to a man-eating creature which is going to jeopardise the entire Olympics – and possibly the whole of civilisation as we know it. If you’re a Daily Mail hack, that is.

Bearing in mind that there have only been two confirmed incidents, and that they are almost 7 years apart and may not even be connected, the Mail has linked the affair to the apparent fall in numbers of swans on the strength of this “proof”.

Better yet is a comment for the Lea Rivers Trust, whose staff reported seeing the goose pulled under in 2005, and finding “large holes… burrowed into the bank of the river”. The Mail story immediately goes on to say it could be a large pike.

I only wish I could find a picture of an air-breathing, bank-burrowing pike. But they seem to be quite rare.

British Waterways has had to make an official statement that it doesn’t “believe there is a crocodile in the river”. After the last two winters (and bearing in mind the obvious connection with 2005), that doesn’t come as much of a surprise.

So far, the list of likely culprits includes alligators, crocodiles, pike, pythons, terrapins, turtles, snapping turtles, or mink.

At the present time, the problem – if you can call it such – appears to be entirely a terrestrial one, and Nick Pope isn’t on the case.

Don’t Forget Your Clocks!

29/10/2011

DOAADI

ADI, Bad Drivers, General

Don’t forget to put your clocks back by one hour at 2am tomorrow morning.

Most devices do it automatically these days, but the more you rely on them to do so, the greater the chance that they won’t!

Also, watch out for poor driving as it starts to get dark earlier for the first week or two. Every year, a lot of people seem to have to re-learn how to drive in the dark. Be prepared for worse traffic queues during evening rush hour – a usual outcome of this poor driving.

Be aware of the extra glare from other cars’ headlights (especially in the rain), and allow for the huge number of cars out there which have got at least one headlight not working and which could be mistaken for a motorcyclist further over the road.

At least we aren’t under a glacier just yet – so those forecasts of snow in October were wrong (even the ones which said there might be some over the mountains).

Typical Audi (and Merc) Drivers

10/10/2011

DOAADI

ADI, Bad Drivers, General

This is an OLD article, from way before I got my dashcam. Nowadays, I am able to record these behaviours and send them to the police.

I was on my way to a lesson yesterday afternoon. I’d stopped at traffic lights in Ruddington with a blue-grey Audi behind me (one of the “look how big a tosser I am” Audis, reg. no. RV07 WVK),. The lights went green and I moved away.

However, as I moved off an ambulance appeared from one of the side roads. I gestured to him that I’d seen him, then indicated left and pulled over on the other side of the crossing. He turned my way and went past – but as I moved off, the dickhead driving the Audi also used the opportunity to overtake where there was no space to do so, and tailgate the ambulance along the A60. They just have to do it, don’t they? And I’m sorry, but nine times out of ten its just has to be someone in an Audi.

Anyway, Mr Dickhead in the Audi followed the A60 towards West Bridgford, and this meant negotiating the Nottingham Knight roundabout. Now, a black Mercedes (reg no. KR07 UAO) had pulled out in front of me and was between me and Mr Dickhead. It was going rather slowly, and considerably below the 60mph speed limit on that stretch. At the roundabout it went into the middle lane – that’s a left-only lane (the right-hand one of two). I went into the lane to the extreme right – they only one marked for straight-ahead. As I pulled on to the roundabout – which is busy at the best of times as it cuts the A52 – the moron in the Mercedes just indicated and cut across to go ahead!

A few years ago – when that roundabout was on the West Bridgford test centre test routes – it was the scene of many a fail for those who couldn’t handle it. What’s really frightening, though, is the sheer number of people who allegedly have licences and yet who cannot deal with this, or any other roundabout properly.

As if to illustrate the point further, I was on my way to a lesson this morning along the Ring Road. On the approach to the Crown Island (or Raleigh roundabout, as it is sometimes still known), one of those dirty white roll-up light goods vans (reg. no. VA04 NOH) was in the left-hand lane. Right at the last minute – literally, within about 30 metres of the traffic lights – he indicated right, forced everyone to slow down, and cut across three lanes of traffic to get into the right-hand lane (which goes right, towards the City). However, he then used the inside lanes of the roundabout to get ahead of a few cars, because once we got back on to the Ring Road, there he was in the right-hand lane. And he still pulled back over to the left, causing everyone to slow down again.

The traffic on the roundabout at that time was fairly light. so I can only assume his lane weaving was down to absolute incompetence rather than arrogance, because he’d have got over quicker by staying where he was (and inconvenienced dozens fewer people).

And finally, after having completed that lesson I was going to, I was heading along the A60 again towards Ruddington and there was Brown Suzuki Swift (reg. no. FN61 ZKD) in front of me. As we approached the Nottingham Knight roundabout, she just drove straight on to it and then stopped in the middle to wait for a space before carrying on! As I said earlier, this roundabout cuts the A52, and people come flying on to it at close to 70mph sometimes. She was playing Russian roulette – almost certainly without being aware of the fact.

Part of me wonders how the hell they get away with it. They obviously can’t driver properly, and yet there they are, driving like idiots amongst those of us who can. But then another part of me remembers that it is those of us who can who usually prevent accidents from happening. And the final part of me knows that they often don’t get away with it – albeit often with innocent drivers suffering as a result.

The driving test needs to be much harder. And as a Pass Plus pupil was asking me yesterday, why aren’t they re-tested every 10 years?

My answer to that was that no one would ever have the guts to do it, because unless you had very low standards (making the whole exercise pointless) you’d be taking licences away from a huge percentage of the population, most of whom would have weasely excuses about “needing to get around” or “driving for a living” – and the human rights activists would have a field day.

Worst Winter on Record Coming (Update)

02/10/2011

DOAADI

General

I’ve written about the scaremongering going on forecasting the “worst winter on record” for 2011/12. But a pupil made me laugh today.

She got in the car and I said “is it hot enough for you?” She responded by saying how uncomfortable she’d been all week. But she added:

My dad has booked the week off in [mid] October because it’s his birthday and he reckons it’s going to be snowing.

I can’t figure out if he’s been paying too much attention to the seaweed, or maybe the bottle! Or maybe just believing too much of what he reads.

Woo-hoo! A Milestone Reached

24/09/2011

DOAADI

General

Well, it was actually reached a couple of days ago, but the blog has now exceeded 100,000 views!

Growth has been steady since I decided to start it back in November 2008 (only 7 views that month), but it was already exceeding 1,000 views a month by May 2009.

Monitoring your stats can be interesting… and perplexing. For example, no matter what your current average level of views, there are fairly regular blips where the number of visitors goes through the roof. Once was when a Chinese forum got hold of a particular story, and hundreds of people came from there. Others often seem to be associated with the “Man Has Pine Tree Growing in Lung” story – which experiences a renaissance every few months.

Young Males Priced off the Road

02/08/2011

DOAADI

ADI, General

This is coincidental. On a forum frequented by young, new or learner drivers, someone is shooting his mouth off about older drivers and suggesting there is nothing wrong with younger ones.

And then, this article comes along.

Young male drivers are being all but banished from the roads with news that the average insurance policy for guys aged 17-20 years now exceeds £4,000.

The article explains that by getting married and putting his wife on the policy as a named driver he’ll likely get a £1,000 reduction!

However, what the article doesn’t explain is why the average young male has to pay this kind of money in the first place. You need to look elsewhere for that…

A look at road accident figures helps explain why insurance premiums are so high for young drivers.

Five facts about accidents involving young drivers

1 in 5 drivers are involved in a crash during their first year on the road

male drivers aged under 21 are 10 times more likely to have a car accident than male drivers aged 35 or over

young drivers have a higher proportion of crashes at night than older drivers

1 in 8 British drivers are under 25, but a quarter of drivers who die in traffic collisions are in this age group

In 2007, 40% of passengers killed or seriously injured – meaning lost limbs, paralysis, brain injury and other life-changing injuries – were in a car driven by a young driver*

Being aware of the risks that come with being an inexperienced driver can help you to think about how you can improve your driving.

* Young driver accident statistics

Road Casualties Great Britain 2006, Department for Transport

DSA, The Schools Programme, Driving Standards Agency, 2000

Association of British Insurers, 2007

Night-time Accidents, H. Ward, Centre for Transport Studies, University College London, 2005

Road Casualties Great Britain 2007, Department for Transport

Is any more proof needed? These are not just made up figures – they’re real ones recorded by major players in the field.

On the forum in question, young drivers are revealing exactly why these statistics exist. They talk of “having to overtake” people who aren’t driving at 60mph in a 60mph zone. They talk of getting angry at a slower, older driver in front of them, and at having to get past them.

Which of thse has the greater benefit?

getting angry and overtaking
getting angry and just staying behind for the short time involved

For young people, it’s that first option.

And that’s why they have to pay huge sums for their insurance.

Update: On the forum I mentioned, someone has started a thread asking why insurance for young drivers has gone up so much over the last few years. Honestly, it’s like banging your head against a brick wall!

One more time:

young drivers have more – and more serious - accidents than older ones

It’s that simple. It’s got little to do with fraud (as someone is claiming on the forum – they’ve got their stories mixed up there). Just saying “but I’m a safe driver” doesn’t alter the fact that you’re also 17 and the ink is still wet on your licence. You cannot prove that you are different to any other 17-year old, therefore you have to accept being treated like any other 17-year old.

If you want to be seen as different, then prove it. Then your no claims discounts will bring your insurance down.

Category - General