Tuesday Jun 30, 2009
I am not a car buff(who would be with a Volvo), but we enjoy the moments of madness on Top Gear such as turning a Robin Reliant into a space shuttle!
Though shalt not question Stephen Fry who was the star in a reasonably priced car on Top Gear which was shown in the UK on sunday night.
From Mr Fry's twitter feed........
Oh lor. So I gather from your tweets that the Top Gear people
didn't edit out the Grindr stuff ... Gracious me.
I don't have an iPhone and am not in the target demographic for Grindr, but it did get spark some lateral thinking about the utility of a iPhone Mobile App which would find the nearest person able to apply rational problem solving to your urgent issue where:-
- Cause is unknown?
- Need to know cause?
- Deviation of actual from should?
Maybe the App could be called ResolveR and if you need process help in
- Situation appraisal (working out what needs to be done)
- Solving a problem
- Making a decision
- Avoiding future problems or taking advantage of future opportunities
- Thinking beyond the fix
- Incident mapping (looking forward to the Leader training in 2 weeks time for this)
- Performance system engineering
then you bring up the IPhone ResolveR app and you find you find the location of a KT certified Program Leader or Red Belt 20 meters away who can help you.
Should this great idea be stolen and ResolveR make it to market, probably best not to get GrindR and ResolveR mixed up.
Monday Jun 29, 2009
As a trustee of the Sun UK Pension scheme I am unable, unwilling and
not qualified to offer any type of investment advice. The views are
mine alone. If you work for Sun UK, Aon can help with Pension
specific questions or consult an Financial Advisor (who may or may not
be independent) if you are unsure on any of the issues raised in this
blog posting and how they effect you.
The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy suggested that there were 3 stages of evolution
- How do we eat?
- Why do were eat?
- Where do we eat?
In Pension planning terms for those of us in our 30's and 40's, the panic striken journey goes something like
- Why do I need to invest more than the minimum?
- ****, how much can I afford to invest?
- Where shall I invest? I have no idea which fund to pick
- Who can I trust to advise me?
I have spoken to a number of people so scared that they will get bad advice in the 4th step in
pension panic evolution, that they got
no advice and do nothing for the 1st 3 steps.
Lets do some futurology. As the mist in my pension futures crystal ball clears I see
- The basic state pension will keep you alive, but little more
- Only saving at the default rate for a Defined Contribution Pension Scheme will leave us dissapointed and poorer than we think we should be
- It is going to take at least 10 years the political minerals to develop to tackle the unfunded time bomb which is Public Sector Defined Benefit (Final Salary scheme), estimated at 65% to 85% of GDP and all off balance sheet to be paid for by future taxation
- Pension tax relief for higher wage earner will be nibbled away at as the threshold is reduced.
Not a very ambitious crystal ball I grant, it was quite cheap because it is unregulated.
I was very fortunate to meet a retired R.A.F. officer while on a
diving holiday in the Maldives around 8 years ago. He managed to
explain that the easiest way to understand how big a investment pot to aim to accumulate when you
retire is to work backwards. The spirit of example he gave me goes
like this:-
Lets assume I am a member of a Defined Contribution Pension Scheme and want 20,000 pension income per year when I retire.
Assume predicted annuity rates at 5%. Could be more or less in 2040, but lets assume 5% for easy sums.
So to give us 20,000 pension income a year we would need to have squirreled away 400,000 pounds available to buy a pension at the time of retirement.
For an individual who is 35 and intends to retire at 65 (makes the sums
easy). If to date they have saved a pension pot of 100,000, they would need to
save an additional 300,000 pounds more to meet their 400,000 pounds target. That is
a need to save around 10,000 in 2009 pounds (remember inflation) each year over the next 30
years.
The default on many DC pension schemes is around 10% including
company contribution so if you earn 40k, that means you would be saving around 4k
a year into a pension which is about 40% of what might be needed to
keep you in the beer to which you wish to become accustomed post
retirement with an income of 20k a year (must remember to adjust for
inflation of course).
We really should put a margin of error in for the inherent complexity
of inflation, investment return and annuity rates when one retires.
Even a basic spreadsheet user who can use Google can factor in some element of inflation
vs investment return over 20 years. Of course, it will be wrong, but it
should scare you into the right ball park.
Apart from Alan the retired RAF officer, no one I have talked,
professional or otherwise, has suggested setting a broad goal to work
towards. If you are a project manager or product developer, you will
know the best way for a project to fail is not to know have a clear
idea of the intended outcome. Things might change on the way as the
future is unknowable, but you have a goal to work towards which can be modified as knowledge about the future unfolds.
This is the real problem I have with the current and proposed future FSA policy, it makes no provision for setting a intended outcome of
the project( of having a secure retirement), instead suggests a save
and hope for the best approach. No clear goal setting make it very hard to reach a goal.
If you think you have just read any advice above, you have not. Note the title as a blog posting not a guide.
I advise you to get a Scottish Wife, they don't spend much money That is an example of what financial advice looks like.
So some useful links which I am not advising you to think about looking at include
Some Pension Policy changes that I woud like to see made include
- Put all MP's into a Defined Contribution Pension scheme. This would help focus their minds on the underlying pension crisis.
- Any consumer financial advisor must give at least 1 hour of free financial goal setting (as above, hopefully better and more complete) before they can start charging.
- Empower the purchase of Corporate Bonds in demoninations of less than 50k (5k or 1k) within a SIPP Pension Plan. Some European rubbish I need to fully understand the background to, but is a real pain is trying to build a risk adjusted portfolio.
- Require financial journalists to be regulated and accountable for the advice they give in print.
Friday Jun 26, 2009
Since a very pleasant morning run up Ben Klibreck while on Holiday in May, I have had a bit of ankle pain.
It came to a fore during the last 7 miles of the Man v Horse 10 days ago. So a bit of time off running, what else can we do?
The mountain bike is obvious, we have some great local trails very close including Nant-y-Arian, one large objective hazard to be aware of is 4 stone of dog cutting across your path. I have also been out Water Running in a local lake where a wet suit is mandatory. I do get odd looks from mountain bikes passing the lake.
Seems to work in that you can get quite tired in 45 minutes. Should be back running next week, but think I will continue with the water running at least once a week.
Thursday Jun 25, 2009
Some more money for GCHQ as part of the war on Cyber crime.
Sounds like Solaris Trusted Extensions
(or just normal Solaris) should have a part to play here. It is good to be proactive, but sounds no where near as exciting as "offensive Cyber Weapons".
Maybe something along the lines adding a header to each email suggesting that the parents of the intended recipient were siblings, or do they mean something else by "offensive Cyber Weapons".
Monday Jun 22, 2009
I don't have a lot of interaction with the Police, and may it remain so. I do read a couple of blogs which are from serving Police officers and it comes across that they live in the interactions of madness between bureaucracy and the failings of society. The world is much more complex, but as a 40,000ft view, it works for me.
Most of the Police are human and try to do a good job. Some officers are "unsuited for the role" and get it very wrong, but that is true of any walk of life. On the odd occasion I have been in a UK town late on a Friday or Saturday night, they really do have some quality idiots to deal with.
It really bothers me that "The Times", a paper which I had some respect for and bought on occasions, sought to expose the identity of an anonymous Police Blogger. The side effect of the action of The Times is that a number of the better Police bloggers have stopped writing or are having such thoughts including
Stressed Out Cop and The Plastic Fuzz.
The Times has moved off my "buy" list of papers. If their editorial judgement is this bad, then can you trust what you are reading? The worst of tabloid journalism having a negative impact on freedom of expression and informing the public on what is really happening if they have to dial 999.
Saturday Jun 20, 2009
While I have quite liberal politics, I would vote for making fly tipping the only crime to carry a manadatory captial offense. Harsh, but fair.
I had reported a caravan dumped near Nant-y-Moch a few times, once via the web site linked from here. It is on a very frequently used mountain bike trail and I have heard a lot of people complain that it looks a mess.
The caravan which had been dumped about 18 months ago was now being distributed around a valley which has a Welsh name which translates into "the nose of the bellows", so your can imagine how windy it gets up there in a storm. I would have though the local council was responsible for clearing it up, but seems not. The Ceredigion highways department do not have a lorry which could get to the site, so I offered to turn up with tractor and trailer and move it to the road for the Highways Department to dispose of which was arranged by a Ceregidion Environmental Health Officer.
Some by a round about route a collective of the farmer, myself, two local police off duty and 2 council officials, also in their own time, decided it was time for "JFDI".
The before
and the after with the 2 police officers and the farmer.
The Council Officers turned up after the remains were loaded on the trailer, so missed Tea and a stove cooked bacon butty, but they should take much credit for getting all the parties together.
Thursday Jun 18, 2009
So we have some prstat output for a single process like this
exdev(5.11)$ prstat -c -m -p 2312 1
PID USERNAME USR SYS TRP TFL DFL LCK SLP LAT VCX ICX SCL SIG PROCESS/NLWP
2312 clivek 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 100 0.0 0 0 1 0 gnome-netsta/2
Total: 1 processes, 2 lwps, load averages: 8.24, 8.79, 8.84
PID USERNAME USR SYS TRP TFL DFL LCK SLP LAT VCX ICX SCL SIG PROCESS/NLWP
2312 clivek 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 100 0.0 2 0 19 0 gnome-netsta/2
Total: 1 processes, 2 lwps, load averages: 8.29, 8.80, 8.84
PID USERNAME USR SYS TRP TFL DFL LCK SLP LAT VCX ICX SCL SIG PROCESS/NLWP
2312 clivek 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 100 0.0 0 0 0 0 gnome-netsta/2
Total: 1 processes, 2 lwps, load averages: 8.34, 8.80, 8.84
PID USERNAME USR SYS TRP TFL DFL LCK SLP LAT VCX ICX SCL SIG PROCESS/NLWP
2312 clivek 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 100 0.0 0 0 0 0 gnome-netsta/2
Total: 1 processes, 2 lwps, load averages: 8.38, 8.81, 8.84
PID USERNAME USR SYS TRP TFL DFL LCK SLP LAT VCX ICX SCL SIG PROCESS/NLWP
2312 clivek 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 100 0.0 0 0 0 0 gnome-netsta/2
Total: 1 processes, 2 lwps, load averages: 8.42, 8.82, 8.85
PID USERNAME USR SYS TRP TFL DFL LCK SLP LAT VCX ICX SCL SIG PROCESS/NLWP
2312 clivek 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 100 0.0 0 0 0 0 gnome-netsta/2
Total: 1 processes, 2 lwps, load averages: 8.38, 8.81, 8.84
PID USERNAME USR SYS TRP TFL DFL LCK SLP LAT VCX ICX SCL SIG PROCESS/NLWP
2312 clivek 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 100 0.0 2 0 19 0 gnome-netsta/2
Total: 1 processes, 2 lwps, load averages: 8.33, 8.80, 8.84
PID USERNAME USR SYS TRP TFL DFL LCK SLP LAT VCX ICX SCL SIG PROCESS/NLWP
2312 clivek 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 100 0.0 0 0 0 0 gnome-netsta/2
Total: 1 processes, 2 lwps, load averages: 8.29, 8.79, 8.84
PID USERNAME USR SYS TRP TFL DFL LCK SLP LAT VCX ICX SCL SIG PROCESS/NLWP
2312 clivek 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 100 0.0 0 0 0 0 gnome-netsta/2
Total: 1 processes, 2 lwps, load averages: 8.24, 8.78, 8.83
PID USERNAME USR SYS TRP TFL DFL LCK SLP LAT VCX ICX SCL SIG PROCESS/NLWP
2312 clivek 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 100 0.0 0 0 0 0 gnome-netsta/2
Total: 1 processes, 2 lwps, load averages: 8.19, 8.77, 8.83
PID USERNAME USR SYS TRP TFL DFL LCK SLP LAT VCX ICX SCL SIG PROCESS/NLWP
2312 clivek 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 100 0.0 0 0 0 0 gnome-netsta/2
Total: 1 processes, 2 lwps, load averages: 8.15, 8.75, 8.82
PID USERNAME USR SYS TRP TFL DFL LCK SLP LAT VCX ICX SCL SIG PROCESS/NLWP
2312 clivek 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 100 0.0 2 1 19 0 gnome-netsta/2
Total: 1 processes, 2 lwps, load averages: 8.10, 8.74, 8.82
exdev(5.11)$
If performance is your worry and this process is on your business problem critical path, the obvious question is where is the significant amount of SLP time coming from. SLP, the man page defines as
SLP
The percentage of time the process has spent sleeping.
is not the most helpful definition, but means that the process is waiting for events such as network or disk I/O, inside poll or some other waiting state where the cpu has been given up.
So if we really want to know what the process is doing while it is sleeping, we can use this bit of D
#pragma D option quiet
sched:::off-cpu
/curlwpsinfo->pr_state == SSLEEP && curpsinfo->pr_pid == $1/
{
self->ts = timestamp;
}
sched:::on-cpu
/self->ts/
{
@[execname,stack()] = sum(timestamp - self->ts);
self->ts = 0;
}
tick-60s
{
normalize(@, 1000000);
printa("%20s %k %@u\n", @);
exit(0);
}
which gives us output along the lines of
exdev(5.11)$ pfexec dtrace -s mstate_sleep.d 2312
gnome-netstatus-
genunix`cv_wait_sig_swap_core+0x170
genunix`cv_wait_sig_swap+0x18
fifofs`fifo_read+0xca
genunix`fop_read+0x6b
genunix`read+0x2b8
genunix`read32+0x22
unix`_sys_sysenter_post_swapgs+0x14b
2
gnome-netstatus-
genunix`cv_timedwait_sig_internal+0x1d6
genunix`cv_waituntil_sig+0xba
genunix`poll_common+0x461
genunix`pollsys+0xe4
unix`_sys_sysenter_post_swapgs+0x14b
55101
exdev(5.11)$
So now we have the evidence that the process is waiting in poll. We could have infered the same from truss, but for more complex cases where there are a more diverse set of system events generated by the application, the picture will not be so clear.
Not that in a 60 second sample time, we have only 55101ms of SLP time accounted for. This is because the application (gnome-netstaus-) wakes up from its poll loop every 5 seconds so because of the way the D is constructed, we will miss any period before the 1st off-cpu and after the last on-cpu. Most application, this will be a few ms missed, but worth being aware of.
Off at a complete tangent, I learned this evening that the UK peak power consumption is around 50 Gigawatts. A additional wind farm is proposed in our area to come on stream in 2012 after 2 years of fighting its way through planning. Its output will be 140 Megawatts, so 1/350 of the UK peak requirement. Sounds a bit optimistic in terms of contribution, so going to have to check the numbers out.
Thursday Jun 18, 2009
If I was a blogging serving police officer, I would be rather annoyed by this.
The NightJack blog has now been deleted. While not unique in terms of a blogging serving police officers, it was one of the better police blogs. Thanks to Mr Finkelstein, we are no longer able to read it. Can't he do something useful like hassle M.P's, rather than trying to identify someone who does not want to be identified, but provides a public service which gives an insight into the chain of causality as to why the police are unable to respond to crimes such as burglary in a timely manner.
Tuesday Jun 16, 2009
Patch 141414-01 which was released yesterday (Update 7 sustaining gate for SPARC) has a couple of interesting performance related fixes for larger systems. I came across a case of 6682267 at a customer last week. Lockstat -C outputs looks something like this
root@xxxxxxxx-M9000 # lockstat -C -s 50 -n 1000000000 sleep 10 | more
Adaptive mutex spin: 1097781 events in 16.337 seconds (67195 events/sec)
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Count indv cuml rcnt nsec Lock Caller
99062 9% 9% 0.00 232883 pcf+0x8 page_create_putback+0x64
nsec ------ Time Distribution ------ count Stack
512 | 62 page_alloc_pages+0x16c
1024 | 675 anon_map_getpages+0x348
2048 | 2162 segvn_fault_anonpages+0x384
4096 |@ 6125 segvn_fault+0x530
8192 |@@@ 11233 as_fault+0x4c8
16384 |@@ 9625 pagefault+0xac
32768 |@@@@ 13437 trap+0xd50
65536 |@@@@@@ 22915 utl0+0x4c
131072 |@@@@ 13585
262144 |@@ 7181
524288 |@ 3778
1048576 | 2975
2097152 | 2439
4194304 | 1898
8388608 | 891
16777216 | 78
33554432 | 2
67108864 | 1
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Count indv cuml rcnt nsec Lock Caller
90004 8% 17% 0.00 306645 pcf+0x8 page_create_wait+0xa0
nsec ------ Time Distribution ------ count Stack
512 | 74 page_alloc_pages+0x68
1024 | 804 anon_map_getpages+0x348
2048 | 1554 segvn_fault_anonpages+0x384
4096 |@ 3909 segvn_fault+0x530
8192 |@@ 8361 as_fault+0x4c8
16384 |@@@@ 12636 pagefault+0xac
32768 |@@@@@ 16311 trap+0xd50
65536 |@@@@@ 15513 utl0+0x4c
131072 |@@@ 10583
262144 |@@ 6068
524288 |@ 3897
1048576 |@ 3335
2097152 |@ 3077
4194304 | 2652
8388608 | 1108
16777216 | 112
33554432 | 7
67108864 | 3
Worth considering this patch under load if you see a similar stack or drop me a mail as I have a few bits of D and MDB which can help confirm the initial analysis.
Tuesday Jun 16, 2009
I would rather my co-worker who has 100M bit link to his home in the pipeline just shut up about it, you know who you are.
Here on the slow side of the digital divide (at least we are digital, a few of the folks who live a little distance
further from the exchange are still on dial up), this pledge from Gordon is as plausible as getting similar bandwidth on the moon(any comments on how easy 2MB to the moon would be for a laugh?).
I suggest the providers (BT in my case) put some effort into addressing the exchange side bottlenecks. I share a card in the exchange with a bunch of other people most of which are much closer to the exchange and typically will get around 4M/s.
So when they come home of an evening and are downloading porn ( I am sure residents of Penrhyncoch have a wide range of interests and its just a guess anyway ) and playing interactive games at the same time, my peak download speed drops from 1.5M/s to less than 0.5 M/s.
I would like to know where Lord Cater lives, not in valley in a rural area for sure.
He said there would "certainly be 25-30 per cent of the country where there will be no economic case
for building a next generation fixed network".
Does he know people who have to make special provision for their children to get Internet access after school to do their Maths homework. I agree with the goal of 2MB to every household, but in terms of economic case his analysis looks to be focused on the economics of 1st order effects. Fixed line is the only option for many rural areas which are often rural because of the geography (mountains, valleys, etc) which does not make for easy transport of any kind (roads, phone lines, etc).
Rural areas don't need high speed fiber connections to all households today. They do need reliable, reasonable speed access with uncontended access exchange side.
Monday Jun 15, 2009
Billy Bragg got to tick off one of the places in Wales with a long name he had not played in before, on Sunday night at the Great Hall in the University in Aberystwyth. The tour was to remember (rather than commemorate) the Miners strike 30 years ago. Something I don't really remember being 12 or 13 and more interested in football at the time, though I do remember the television pictures, it did not make much sense then.
I have seen Bill play at festivals before, but I think he was on much better form last night. He is of course very political and I very much doubt that many members of the audience voted for UKIP or the BNP. I was not quite prepared for a local choir to sing the The Internationale with him, was very moving in the context.
Also interesting was his work on promoting the songs of Woody Guthrie. Usual banter and chat from Bill, but always with a passion. You get the idea he does not like the BNP or Hazel Blears.
Support was from the poet Patrick Jones. His last items was accompanied by Bill as poetry to music was about the NHS, this was also quite moving in context.
First on was the Alex Dingley Band who reminded me of The Pixies a little.
Sunday Jun 14, 2009
In sharp contrast to last weekend which was on the cool side, the man v horse race was very warm indeed for Wales in June. Much warmer than last year.
The major objective danger is being trampling, but in fairness all the riders took as much care as they could even if a few horses had other ideas.
Some days you just don't have it and I was very slow, 35 minutes slower than last year. Part down to the effects of the heat and an ankle injury that came on 15 miles in. I have also struggled to do much serious training in the 5 weeks or so since the Highland Fling at the end of April. Maybe a lesson about how much these really long races take out of you.
I did managed to finish, though it was a slog. The event is a great family day out with a unique atmosphere. Although hot, the course was very wet and muddy[nice], with the softer going and heat suiting the horses better. A horse [ I assume with rider ] came home 1st this year 11 minutes in front of the 1st individual runner.
I hope to give the race a miss next year as I have plans for something a little bit more challenging!
I am going to give water running in a local lake[wet suit mandatory] a try for the next 2 weeks while my ankle sorts its self out. Should go down well with the Retrieving dog member of the family at least.
Monday Jun 08, 2009
As a tribe we went to see if the Osprey was home yesterday at the Dyfi Osprey Project where they have a built a platform for the bird to nest. Indeed there is a pair there for the 2nd year, but is getting too late for them to hatch chicks we were told at the centre. They had some great video from the previous day of the female Osprey eating a fish it had caught.
They had water buffalo there last year which do a great job of reclaiming clear felled forest in bog again, but they have been moved somewhere else. Hope they return.
Well worth a 1/2 hour visit if you are in the area or a longer visit if an Osprey floats your boat and she is at home.
Sunday Jun 07, 2009
We all have a number of personalities, my 1st 3 are Dad, Sun techie
and mountaineer. Mountaineering for me starts with walking in hills,
and includes rock climbing, ice climbing, Alpine and greater
ranges climbing, even deserts. Fell or Mountain running is just part of the
mountaineering continuum and the bit which fits the rest of my life
best in 2009. Since 1979 in the school outdoor pursuits club run by
a physics teacher Mrs Convery(who gets a signifiant amount of credit for introducing
myself and a few of my peers to the delights of mountains) I have
walking, climbed and run in mountains in Wales, Lakes, Pennines, Scotland,
European Alps, North America, Iceland, Norway and New Zealand. Risk is
ever present, you can't ignore it as trouble is never far away. Small
decisions like taking a thicker hat, changing your route, stop to eat
or push on, deciding to continue or not have major effects on your
long term plans.
In the last 18 months, I have really enjoyed entering a number of fell
races and a few Ultra Marathons. Still mountaineering to me. The rules
for mountain based fell races state the kit you need to carry and some
races have kit checks. It is enough to keep you alive, but won't keep
you warm and won't enable you to help someone else. Most state on the
entry forms the need for navigational experience. 2 of the races I
have done have been shortened due to bad weather and they have all
been very well marshaled.
I took part in the Welsh 1000m race yesterday. Dog and I had great run
over the 1st section of the race on the Carneddau the previous Sunday
when it was very hot (lots of available water on the top to drink and
sit in if you are a dog). 6 days later the forecast mentioned
"unseasonably cold, 60mph winds", so I took an extra thermal, extra leg cover and
a replaced my summer foreign legion style sun hat with a thinsulate
hat. Indeed, I took more clothing with me than some of the races I
have done in winter. I have been on the Carneddau in some quite bad
weather in the past, they are a high and exposed range and navigation
can be difficult.
At the start on the north Wales coast at 9.30 all the fell running
class were sheltering from the rain under a huge beach tree at the
edge of the field. If we had not been bused there from Llanberis over
10 miles away, if I am honest I would have gone home at that point.
At the start we were told that if anyone was not happy with the
conditions, they should not start. I was comfortable with the
conditions, just knew it would not be a much fun.
I started slow as I try to do with long races, after about a mile
I started passing people and overtook about 30 runners on the way up
to ridge near Foel Grach. It stopped raining on the way up, so I was
running in shorts. Just before getting to the "motorway" that runs
along the top of the Carneddau, the wind really got up and it started
raining again, so I put my hat, overtrousers and waterproof on. They
are lightweight, but do a really good job of keeping the wind and rain
out. On the way up Carneddau Llewelyn, the wind really got up, and
rain turned to sleet or at least it stung when it hit your face so it
felt like sleet. Still it was June, how bad can it be. Got to the top
of Llewelyn and the checkpoint, got dibbed (Electronic device which
records which checkpoint you have been to) and gave my number to the
marshals and started the decent along a broad but rocky ridge to
Carnedd Dafydd. Slow going as it was rocky and I was starting to get a
bit cold. but was OK. Quite a few of people around, both runners and
we had caught up some groups of walkers doing the 1000's who started
over an hour earlier and also some walkers just out for the
day. Something clicked in my head that this was either no fun and/or
getting towards being too serious weather for the kit I had and trying
to complete, let alone do a competitive time was more risk than I
wanted to take on. I decided to run the next 200m along the ridge,
then drop off the south side of the ridge on a 140 bearing to the
stone wall and the extra checkpoint that had been put in this year and
retire. Being that much lower the wind would have dropped. So at this
point the race had finished for me anyway and the next 15 minutes
would be about loosing height, finding the wall and letting the
marshals know I had retired.
About 3 minutes after making the decision I came across a fellow
runner sitting down among the rocks. Lets call her J. I asked her if
she was OK. No response. I asked again, all I got back was "What time
is it?". Hypothermia was the obvious cause. Lots of people like myself
run the race on their own, so it was quite possible she was on her
own. I got her up, took her hand and we started walking along the
ridge, I managed to get her name out of here. I have been close to
Hypothermia myself once when diving in Ireland in April about 8 years
ago and been on various mountaineering and diving 1st aid courses, so
I knew how serious it was, what to do and also that if she stopped
walking (or being able to walk) without shelter she was in real
trouble. We were both dressed to run. J. had no hat which was probably
the tipping factor. Running or hard walking up hills generates a lot
more heat than walking. Walking pace on flat ground avoiding rocks
does not generate that much heat. This was an "O, ****" moment, on my
own my chances of getting her down were very small if she stopped
walking. I continued with my plan of walking along the ridge, finding
some help and then dropping off on the south side. About 5 minutes
after finding J., a friend [ lets call him R. ] of hers came back
looking for her. We managed to get her another 20 meters, then she
collapsed. At that point 2 walkers out for a nice day of wet and cold
[ Lets call them Saint D. and Saint W. ] walked past with concern on their faces. R. asked for
help. Out came their bothy bag (in the wind I heard
the words body bag and thought to myself it was not quite that serious yet),
R. and myself got either side of J. who was now on the way to
unconscious. We did get an extra jacket on her and some energy gel
into her before she became unresponsive.
I only heard the next bit as I was inside the shelter. 5 soldiers
competing in the Military class from the Regiment of Wales turned up, 1
commanding officer (a Captain I was later told, but might have got that confused) and 4 18-20 year olds who had little
mountain experience. 3 of the soldiers were in a state similar to that of
J. They tried to get into their survival bags, but were unable to open
them. The C.O. told them to get on with it and with 1 other troop left
to carry on with the race. At this point Saint D. and Saint W. took
over and sorted them out. One of the soldier complained of chest pains.
Saint W. to troop B. : how do you feel?
Troop B. to Saint W. : I have a pain in my chest
Saint W. to troop B. : Do you smoke?
Troop B. to Saint W. : yes
Saint W. to troop B. : Today is a good day to stop don't you think
This does raise the question of what the C.O. thought he was doing
leaving 3 of his troops in the care of random(though proved to be
far more capable) walkers and carrying on. R. it appears is a Captain
in the British Army, different regiment but has submitted a formal complaint to the British Army's accident investigation unit, accompanied by statements from those involved in the rescue. The soldiers C.O. demonstrated behavior which shows the worst of human nature putting
competitive aims before those in your charge or even random strangers.
Before the military wounded descended on us, our collective plan was to
warm J. up to the point where she could walk with help and walk her
off. J. was starting to respond, so this would have been a good
plan. Now with 3 troops in bivy bags, there was no way 5 of us could
carry/help 4 casualties off the mountain. The mountain rescue were
called(mobile phones are great things) and took them about 45 minutes
to get up to the ridge. As one of the troops had chest pains, the big
yellow taxi in the sky option was considered, but to those of us on the
ridge it was obvious that the wind and visibility meant that was out
of the question. We were joined by 2 more walkers and 2 race marshals
and then 2 members of the Ogwen Mountain Rescue team.
What the M.R.T. did that was extra to Saints D. & W. was very simple,
extra very warm clothing for the 4 casualties, a big bothy shelter for
8 or so people which we all got into and took control. Once the 4 causalities
had warmed up enough, they were walked off with support. As they
walked they warmed up and after about 20 minutes they did not need
support. Tea and soup at the mountain rescue hut and I got a lift back
to Llanberis with Saint's D and W.
So, Clive what would you have done different? It is all very well from
the warmth of Pete's eat, with a large tea, just having
consumed sausage, egg, beans and chips to suggest that staying in bed
would have been the best option. Part of the reason that you enter a
fell race is that you go fast and light and if things go wrong, there
are other runners and marshals, etc to help out as an last
resort. Yesterday was a last resort type of day.
The big thing that hit me was how helpless I was to help J. if it had
just been me. My very minor contribution was finding her 2 friends
and Saint's D. and W., and giving up some body heat, energy gel and a
few jelly babies.
The only thing I would have changed, apart from not starting myself,
would have been to carry a bothy shelter. I had enough clothes and
food to cope with the conditions myself, I knew the route and had the
navigation skills, but was not in a position to help anyone else
beyond helping/guiding/kicking them down the mountain (Hypothermia
cases often just want to sit down, so being a bit of a bastard to keep
them on their feet and going is the right thing to do).
The organizers made it clear the nature of the conditions on the
mountain tops at the start and we could just walk away. Other than the
Commanding Officer for the 3 troops who I trust will get dumped on
from a great height next week for leaving those in his charge and
taking them out underequiped in the 1st place, I don't find blame
anywhere. Mountain walking/running is sport for grown ups who choose
to take and then manage or walk away from risks. Maybe J. should have taken hat, one
of those small decisions with potential big impact. Easy to be lulled
into thinking it is only June, how cold can it get.
The mountaineering mutual insurance scheme worked well. Saints D. and
W. provided support to those who needed it. The Ogwen Mountain rescue
team funded by donation, staffed by volunteers who admit they actually
really enjoy most of the MRT training and work, are the emergency
service. The tax payer does pay for the big yellow Taxi (as the MRT
call it), but talking to a RAF Sea King pilot a few years ago, he
commented that they see mountain and cliff rescues as training and
that if they called on for their day job such as aircraft down or ship
in trouble, mountain based cases would come second.
The speed of onset of Hypothermia surprised me.
I was told J. was running like a train with her 2 friends 5 minutes before I
found her. A few minutes later they looked back and she was gone. J.
had decided to sit down without telling them. Running speed to
unconscious in less than 10 minutes.
BBC reporting looks to have been quite balanced.
Now, I must pay for the tea and soup at the Ogwen MRT hut.
Thursday Jun 04, 2009
The case of the Presbyterian Mutual Society in northern Ireland is s sad one demonstrating the difference between an investment having FSA backing and not. What I don't get is the tangible difference between an investor and a saver, but the minister involved seem to as discussed here.
From Shaun Woodward, Secretary of State, Northern Ireland Office.
We have to recognise again that these are not savers; they were investors.
As such, they made an investment as risk capital in the form of withdrawable
shares and loans. There is an issue about whether or not this should have been
regulated; it was registered; it should have been regulated. There is an issue
that I continue to want the FSA to look at, but I am not trying to evade our
responsibility. If we can find a way to help these people, we should do so.
I am prepared to break the bureaucracy to do it, if it is at all possible.
Issues of regulation aside, I would have thought that savers were just investors with a low risk outlook. I expect those who stand to loose here thought they were taking out low or no risk investment with a low risk of capital loss. A lack of the word "risk" in the discussion is worrying.
Next race is the Welsh 1000m on Saturday. A few years ago a well known running magazine put it in its running calendar as a 1000m track event. Not quite.
Wednesday Jun 03, 2009
I read this in book in 2 parts. When I am at home, it is rare I get a chance to sit down and focus on reading a book.
So I did some travel about 6 weeks ago where I read the 1st half and finished the 2nd part in Scotland last week.
This is my bullet point summary of the book
- Journalists are bias towards reporting what sells papers rather than balanced, accurate and useful science reporting (no big news there then).
- Many Journalists are humanities graduates who don't want to understand the scientific method.
- Peer review via journal publication is the best way to avoid misinterpretation of scientific results. Publishing in the popular media 1st is the best way to cause problems like the MRSA and MMR reporting mess.
- The alternative medicine lobby don't find the scientific method suits their desired outcome.
- The type of trial and how the sample is selected is very important to the validity of the outcome.
- Cochrane Reviews are very important in moving medicine forward.
- Research is probably not valid if the authors bought their degree, masters or PhD from a US university.
There is of course far more to the book and I would give it 9 out of 10 which means it is required reading if care about
how science effects out lives and how it really matters when bad science is reported in the media as credible work or good science is reported out of context. The extra 1 out of 10 would come from a clear statement of policy change, but the UK political system has other things on its mind at this time.
So either bad science or bad science journalism causes a significant proportion of the worlds ills. Much like the world of support services where a lack of rational troubleshooting such as SGRT causes confusion and delay.
Monday Jun 01, 2009
Family holiday in Rogert which was very nice indeed, even more so with some good weather.
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I have spent quite a lot of time in Scotland in the last 15 years or so. These are some things that last week caught my eye, made me think or I found enchanting in some way.
- You are a rich man at Kildonan Burn, no matter how much gold you do or don't find. On a sunny day 2x so.
- Serious number sizable wind farms are being built in the Highlands. Good or bad, we judge not, go lag the loft instead.
- Falls of Shin is a place of contrast. Salmon leaping was quite special, the Harrods gift shop and coach tours are not. Adventure playground is quite fun to let the kids run around on. After 4pm there is the entertainment of people turning up to a closed cafe. They seem to close as the traveling public want a cuppa.
- If you want to be alone, start running up Ben Klibreck at 6am on a Monday morning in May. I assure you of solitude. View are, however, weather dependent and change by the minute.
- We did not stay here (bit much with 2 small children for a week), but looks great. Great idea.
- This independent hostel is one of the best places in the UK I have stayed, bar none, Marthrown of Mabie. Only regret is that were were using it as a travel lodge on the drive from Northern scotland to Wales to break up the journey, so did not have exploring time. Great for children who can sleep through a chip fat powered generator. Don't worry, it does not go all night.
- We were very fortunate that the most aggressive members of the Scottish population had not really got going yet.
Monday Jun 01, 2009
I visited the Faculty of Technology at Southampton Solent University as the Industrialist on the British Computer Society Accreditation Panel.
I am not going to comment on the outcome of the CITP and C.ENG accreditation of the degree schemes as that has a number of internal BCS steps to go through. I will say that I was impressed by the overall student experience.
My conclusion from the experience, my 1st BCS panel visit, is that this is an area which the BCS do add real value to the content and delivery of degree schemes.
One of the students we meet had a Megadeth T-shirt and apologized for his choice of clothing, no need. I was surprised(maybe because I had not thought about it) that a band I saw 20 years ago are still current for at least a subset of current students. In 1989, I was more into the energy of Slayer, even if their lyrics were trash. I guess you can't sing about flowers and butterflies and get quite the same vibe.
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I am always surprised at how long people will...