Seen in a shop window on Leith Walk.

Here’s a close-up.

Yesterday was enjoyable – here’s why.

I didn’t have to spend the day writing up lecture notes because the morning’s lecture was snippets of video about the effects of the web on the news and music industries.

So I spent the rest of the day installing a new SSD (fast, silent, non-mechanical storage) in my main mac, who is called Iggy because he’s full of raw power. Iggy now has 4 lumps of storage:

The device names are because they all go faster!

In the evening, I went to spinning. The instructor played a quite mixed set, including Comfortably Numb and The Chain. We were at quite high friction and cadence during the verses and then were taken into a sprint against friction during Lindsey Buckingham’s blistering guitar solo. (Mick Fleetwood’s face during this solo is priceless!) I had to stop halfway through that solo/sprint – I’ll never be a sprinter. And all this was to a film of Eddy Merckx coming back from nowhere to win ‘L’enfer du Nord’. Intense! And some spinners stay on for another hour of this masochism.

Still the spinning is doing me good, not least this and tonight I wasn’t absolutely shattered by the end of the class – I could almost accelerate up Leith Walk. So I obviously wasn’t pushing hard enough in the class! But it’s fab – and I’m conscious and not in some pain from my frozen shoulder is when I’m actively cycling.

Then a meal at Wannaburger with my hostess and texts and cards from friends and family. I’m a contented and lucky bugger.

I’ve just received my mark for the first piece of coursework for the Web-enabled business module. This is worth 30% of the overall mark for this module.

Details schmetails

I’ve passed, but not as well as I’d have liked. However, considering I feared I’d not passed because I wasn’t thinking academically enough, I’m content to have passed – and I will learn from the comments! I’m certainly not happy that my references weren’t entirely in alphabetical order.

My work is here (warning – this is a 15MB PDF) and the marker’s comments are here.

Caveat
From the email delivering the marks: I attach your provisional coursework marks, with comments against each of the requirements. Please note that the marks may be adjusted up or down as a result of moderation.

I’m not hoping for a higher mark but will be disappointed if my mark is lowered.

Marks so far
Because I’m taking this module ‘for fun’, I’m not including this mark in my trail of marks so far (which I calculate as 88·47% – see my infographic).

I’ve not done any distance cycling since last year. This morning my better half was due to return from conferences on the left coast, so we arranged to meet up with friends for lunch in Stirling. The sun was shining, the rain was elsewhere and I’d had 5 hour’s sleep last night (and about 2 the night before, not counting several hours in an alcoholic stupor* on that afternoon. So how could I resist this opportunity?

Here’s a map of the route.

And here’s a routelist:

1. Head east on Lynedoch Pl Ln toward Drumsheugh Gardens
   102 ft
2. Turn right onto Drumsheugh Gardens
   236 ft
3. Take the 1st right to stay on Drumsheugh Gardens
   0.1 mi
4. Continue onto Rothesay Pl
   0.2 mi
5. Turn right onto Douglas Gardens
   115 ft
6. Turn left onto Douglas Crescent
   0.2 mi
7. Douglas Crescent turns left and becomes Magdala Crescent
   0.2 mi
8. Turn right onto W Coates/A8
   Continue to follow A8
   Go through 1 roundabout
   7.0 mi
9. At the roundabout, take the 5th exit onto Glasgow Rd/A8
   0.3 mi
   (To be honest, doing 360° around Newbridge Roundabout didn’t appeal to me, so I walked across to the junction with Lochend Road.)
10. Turn left onto Lochend Rd
    0.9 mi
11. Turn right onto New Liston Rd/B800
    Continue to follow B800
    (I stopped here to aid some MAWILs** who had a puncture and didn’t have a pump.)
    0.5 mi
12. Turn left onto B9080
    Go through 1 roundabout
    7.8 mi
13. Turn right onto High Port/B9080
    0.1 mi
14. At the roundabout, take the 1st exit onto High St/A803
    Continue to follow A803
    Go through 11 roundabouts
    7.5 mi
15. At the roundabout, take the 3rd exit onto Bellevue St/A803
    (Thanks to Google Maps not having a cycle-route option and my wish to avoid all routes taking me onto the motorway, I lost an annoying amount of time, momentum and endorphin-high to walking through Falkirk’s town centre.)
    0.2 mi
16. Turn left onto Kerse Ln/A803
    Continue to follow A803
    0.3 mi
17. Turn right onto Vicar St/A803
    423 ft
18. At the roundabout, take the 1st exit onto Garrison Pl/A803
    Continue to follow A803
    0.3 mi
19. Slight right onto Cockburn St/A803
    Continue to follow A803
    Go through 2 roundabouts
    1.2 mi
20. At the roundabout, take the 2nd exit onto Stirling Rd/A9
    Continue to follow A9
    Go through 7 roundabouts
    8.8 mi
21. At the roundabout, take the 2nd exit onto Borestone Crescent
    0.2 mi
22. Turn left onto Weaver Row
    0.1 mi
23. At the roundabout, take the 2nd exit onto Torbrex Rd
    Go through 1 roundabout
    0.4 mi
24. Turn right onto Cedar Ave
    0.3 mi
25. Turn right onto Springwood Ave
    0.1 mi

I set off a little after 9:30 and arrived about 13:10. Assuming 45 minutes total stoppage, that’s around 3 hours in the saddle for 36 miles. I’m happy with that.
*Two pints of Peroni and I was floored with rotating-universe syndrome.
**Middle-aged woman/women in lycra. So I’m a MAMIL. So sue me!

Popping back into the blogosphere to report a couple of conversations (via the whole-class online forum) with my web-enabled business lecturer:

Fascinating stuff, this capitalism!

The results of last term’s modules were released today – a day into the first teaching week of this term. They are graphed here.

The grade bands are defined in % as follows:

In Computer Systems (half-module) and Software Development 1 (full module) I scored D4, while in Database Systems (half module) I scored D3. The maximum possible marks for these scores are shown on the graph in mid-grey while the minimum marks are shown in dark grey. However, since you either pass or fail a module, I have 40 of the 180 credits needed to gain my MSc. I’m fairly pleased.

I’m now tackling the fun and games of object-oriented programming and delving into things such as this (ugh!)

I like sprouts. I like curry. So what could be better than combining the two?

I adapted this recipe slightly. If you make it, don’t believe ‘serves 4-6’ – it makes enough for two people at the most. So I served it with brown rice and baked beans for that extra ‘clearacil’ effect – highly enjoyable on a blustery cold evening.

My version
150g Brussel sprouts, cut into quarters or mini sprouts cut in half
55g red lentils, these will be yellow in colour as they are shelled
1/2 tsp whole cumin seeds
1 clove garlic, crushed
2cm/1in ginger, crushed
1 green chilli, finely chopped
1/4 tsp turmeric
1 tsp olive oil
1/4 tsp salt, adjust to taste
1 small tomato, finely diced

1. Part-cook the lentils in about their own volume of boiling water until they begin to soften.
2. Heat the oil in a medium pan, add the cumin seeds and cook for 30 seconds.
3. Remove the pan from the heat and add garlic, ginger and chillies. Stir this very quickly, as you don’t want it to burn, add lentils, turmeric, salt and 150ml of warm water.
4. Bring to the boil, cover and cook for 10 minutes on a gentle simmer. Do not let the water reduce by more than a third of the original quantity. (If it does add more warm water.)
5. Check that the lentils are cooked to a tasty mush. Then add the sprouts and 50ml of warm water.
6. Stir and check seasoning, cover and cook for 5 minutes on a medium heat, stirring occasionally.
7. The sprouts should still have a little crunch to them when the dish is cooked. Serve and sprinkle with chopped tomatoes

I plan to cook this version tomorrow.

You may recall a post in which I reported some issues with an exam. I saw the lecturer in charge of this module yesterday. He agreed that the exam had the issues I described, apologised for them and even thanked me for bringing the issues to his attention. I have no doubt he’ll take whatever action is needed to minimise the chances of these issues recurring.

End of problem, as far as I’m concerned.

Reading BBC news while reinstalling Hexie as a triple-boot machine (MacOS, WinXP and Ubuntu Linux)…

Scotland the brave!

Recently a former colleague mentioned going to a ‘spin’ class. I asked for an explanation and was told ‘Spin is a gym class designed by the devil. It involves cycling uphill for an hour to hard-core dance music’.

How could I resist this? Cycling to music but without headphones, no traffic, no weather and above all without the potholes and cobbles that make cycling in Edinburgh such a pain in the rims* and ringpiece**.

I couldn’t join the class my colleague goes to – it’s only for alumni of Ediburgh’s other university. However, Google found Lifescycle. I went to my first session this evening – it was all I’d hoped for and more: very friendly and welcoming, obviously knowledgable and committed instructors, yet with a slightly hippie/ just be/listen to your body ethos. I’d guess that the mean age of the class was around 25, while the instructor was probably about 40. I couldn’t keep up with all of the standing cycling (adjusting to and from standing on a fixed-wheel bike requires a knack which I’ll take a while to acquire anyway) and I imagine my ‘velocity’ was only about half of that managed by the experienced spinners around me but I’m pleased that I kept going, cranking up the resistance as we came to ‘hills’ and pushed hard against ‘headwinds’.

I think the musical/emotional highlight was pushing hard, and then harder, and then harder still along to Comfortably Numb. Along with millions of others, this song almost always gets me, takes me to a much darker and unhappier place – and yet somehow it’s cleansing. Maybe the cleansing effect is a byproduct of nostalgia, coupled with the knowledge that I am much happier (or possibly just more complacent) than I was in previous years. Whatever, allied with intense physical effort, I could just lose myself in the experience – an entirely sober inebriation!

The comedown was realising that that the session was only half-done! However, I kept going and I’m pleased I did so. I’m told I cycled about 30 km in the hour-long session.

Oh, and then I had this fun cycle back in the dark. I had thought that Leith Walk would defeat me or that Picardy Place roundabout would be impossible. (It used to be too much for me when we lived in Brunswick Road.) However, I managed this largely uphill 2·3 mile cycle in about 18 minutes.)

My legs are going to hate me tomorrow but I’m so looking forward to the next session.

* Not rude – see here
** OK, that one was rude.