The Joy of Motorcycling

This is my first day in this week - daytime or evening. Monday and Tuesday I've been helping a client, seduced by the elegance of a PowerBook Titanium G4 1GHz, to Switch. She seems to like it so far. Tuesday was fighting recalcitrant CD writers and punting for a new client. Thursday fettling tamaranth's PC, upgrading its hard disks from 4GB+750MB to 13GB+4GB. She's now got about 75% free space which should do her for a little while. If anyone has a spare ATX motherboard + CPU going free which will accept PC100 DRAM and is pokier than an AMD K6/233, though, she'd appreciate it.

This was followed by a trip to see Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World with Tanya, ladymoonray and drplokta. A fine film which I enjoyed hugely. Perhaps I shall try reading some Patrick Russ O'Brian after all.

So, today, after making some phonecalls etc., I thought I'd go shopping.

By bike, since I've got a load of recycling to take and need a fair bit of stuff.

Oh, no.

Trike: still dead with unidentified engine problems, post trip back from Sheffield. Scratch that one.

Miniscule cycle (the H100): some little toerag has nicked the cap off the end of the HT lead. Again. That's the 2nd time. At least I only had half a dozen goes at kicking it over this time. [Sigh]

Outfit: this failed to start a few weeks back when I tried to give molesworth a lift to the Tube. I had a more concerted attempt this time. Firstly, Clarke's JumpStart supplementary battery pack attached. Turns over happily, but not even a whisper of it catching, which it at least did last time. After 5min of this, plus a breather for the carbs to clear, I try again. Nothing.

After a few more minutes, I recall a can of Holt's ColdStart in the garage. There are no handy ram-air intakes on a BMW R80/7 to spray it into, but since the battery's been recently moved into the sidecar boot¹ I can spray into the airholes on the filter housing.

And vroom! She's alive. For about a second, 'til the ether runs out. (ColdStart spray is basically diethyl ether, CH₃CH₂OCH₂CH₃, also known as ethoxyethane.) Then she dies.

I'm at a loss. There's fuel in the tank. The tap is on, but reserve makes no difference. The battery is weak but has charge. She turns over freely and runs fine on the spray. I can hear the carbs sucking away. Maybe fuel isn't getting through from tank to engine somehow? It's beyond my ken.

I really do hate all this. I just want to press a button and go. Perhaps it's time I got a car, like drpete. Need a license, though. Maybe it's time I accepted khaylock's offer of an informal residential driving course in Carmarthen.

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¹ Firstly, as batteries for R80/7s are hard to get now and expensive when you do. Secondly, with a chair on, the recommended method of replacement - up on the centre stand, undo the rear subframe, drop the back wheel down, lift out battery backwards - is impossible. So I have to detach the carbs, remove the air filter housing and filter, remove the battery out the space thus freed, charge or replace it, then reverse the procedure - conservatively, a 45min job each way that removes all the skin from all my knuckles and a year off my life expectancy due to stress every time. ++Unfun. Thirdly, as she's old and a poor starter these days and a car battery in the boot delivers a lot more oomph for about ¼ of the price.

[Geek] Another rock'n'roll evening

I'm at home, on my own, on a Friday night. Rar.

But then, I have been out every night this week. I can't offhand remember my last night in; maybe last week sometime. Was out Fri/Sat/Sun.

So I'm rebuilding my old massively-upgraded actual not-a-clone IBM PC AT, which died on me in the spring sometime and needed a casemod to recover it. Performed with trepidation and a hacksaw. Then when rebuilding it, I spilled my lunch all over the motherboard. Ooops.

Cleaned it out thoroughly, let it dry - for, er, about 9 months - and put it back together tonight, and by the ghods, it runs. It's now installing e-Smith. Hurrah!

But this is a long job, so I thought I'd have a listen to one of my birthday presents - the new album by that little ol' band from Texas. Many thanks again, camies!

And damn me, it's got a system compatibility box on the back! It's copy-protected! Noooo!

I insert it into my main PC's drive, but remembering several articles online, I hold down SHIFT to disable autorun. In fact, while I think on, I install TweakUI and turn off autorun.

Bugger. It's a filesystem. It's got PC and Mac players and nothing else.

But wait! What's this switch? iTunes opens it... queries CDDB... and says it's Mescalero and would I like to play it?

Damn, this is my kinda copy protection technology.

Next step to rip the sucker and stick it in my Zen... I'll let you know.

EDIT: Listened to it all once, now to rip... and it seems to be ripping happily too! Huzzah!

Now. Anyone know how to force e-Smith to bring eth0 up? It's not just me, but I can't find a fix...

But remember kids, if you've got a protected CD, don't let it autorun. Once that player's installed, you might well be permanently stuffed. Don't install it, though, and Bob's your mother's secondary.