Well, that went well, didn’t it?
Let’s try again.
Style with abundance:
There’s something about the spoken word with a funky back-beat, and this one hooked my earholes while bashing away at Excel this week:
And, while we’re here, it is the 30th anniversary of this gem from The Orb:
Four out of the last seven years actively administering EPC contracts with Chinese contractors, plus four trips to China last year for meetings with one of those contractors, all the while assisted by colleagues from our China office.
It’s been a heck of a ride.
🌚🎉🎇🐍 etc.
I was lucky enough to see Underworld live at the 1996 Reading Festival during the Born Slippy era – a tent full of madness (some of the YouTube tracks show the main stage).
Quick post tonight, and only one tune right now as it’s past bedtime.
Absolute belter video mash-up of probably my favourite band Yello and scenes from Silent Hill – YouTube rolled it out on a mix.
Suggest waiting for daylight if you are of fragile sensibilities.
Today’s random remote viewing experience starts out at Mahuda Junction railway station, Jharkhand state, India.
What caught my eye in the summary sidebar was the “Platforms: 2. Tracks: 11.” My nerdly knowledge of railways suggests these are exchange sidings, which in turn indicates industry – confirmed by the body text referring to coal washeries and nearby Bokaro Steel City.
Definitely worth exploring.
The junction itself is not too remarkable – a small settlement probably serving the railway workers of the South Eastern Railway zone. The SER headquarters building in Kolkata is a typical wild monument to colonial bureaucracy: red brick and turrets in abundance. Probably worth throwing in a reference to the three-part BBC documentary that I have tucked away on my media-server under the title “The Great Indian Railway” – unfortunately there are a lot of links to YouTube under that title, but so far I have not managed to identify one with the corresponding content.
Where are the coal washeries? Well, you have to head north-west to the Stygian pits and satanic mills.
I particularly like that the (presumably disused) wash plant to the east is being consumed by the forest, and even the new five million ton per annum plant to the west looks like it is fighting hard to stay above the shrubbery.
Last satellite image for the day takes us to the steel smelter and rolling mills of the Bokaro Steel Plant. Interesting to note that it was built a couple of decades after independence, using Soviet technology during a period when the Soviet Union was providing significant aid to the region.
Half a century later it is probably “Trigger’s Broom” with most of the equipment having been replaced with locally produced equipment. We hear a lot about Chinese industry, but I recognise the Larsen & Toubro name as one that has been involved in large powerline projects in Africa, with an office in Botswana last time I checked.
We are also working closely with a local contractor of Indian heritage on my current project in the DRC: their professionalism is impressive and I enjoy dealing with them.
This one slipped into my headphones on Sunday and saw me through another Excel session (nobody else in the office, no incoming emails, no disturbances).
And in the middle of all that, at around the 1:19 mark, a brilliant inclusion for all the spiritual pirates out there:
I just re-listened to that with a couple shots of grog*.
Yo-ho-ho! 🏴☠️🍻🏴☠️
* Jack Daniel’s Tennessee Honey, in the absence of rum.
I am an unashamed map and geography nerd who likes nothing better than to go from source to mouth, or power station to substation. Or alternatives thereof.
A regular pleasure is browsing Google Maps or Google Earth looking for interesting things.
A means of finding locations exists by using Wikipedia.
There is, in the top right dropdown link menu, a link that takes you to a random page (you can also <alt+shift+x> to a random page from any Wikipedia page if you are tired of the page you are on).
If you do it enough times you will end up on a wiki page with a location link: usually on the right hand side above the summary boxes. If you <ctrl+right-click> on the link it will open a Geohack page (seemingly broken at the time writing) in a new tab, and from there follow the Google Satellite link, or whichever flavour of map piques your interest.
Google Maps/Satellite link is normally the most useful as, if the link relates to a region or other non-point feature, it will usually show the extents of the feature on the map.
Due to the demographics of Wikipedia it is likely that there are more location-linked pages in Europe and the USA, but that shouldn’t discourage you.
When testing the links for this post I ended up on a page for the sub-prefecture of Tissi, Chad. However, that page doesn’t have a location link yet and Google Maps doesn’t recognise it as a location 😒. Normally, and according to my rules, I should have rolled again, but because I ended up off the beaten track in Central Africa I thought it was worthy of further digging.
The Wiki page refers to “Sila,” an initial search for which ends up in some dusty fields adjacent to intersecting tracks and a small rural settlement:
In the interests of delivering a result reasonably true to the spirit of the original page-roll we will settle for the Dar Sila regional page and the regional capital of Goz Beïda for our final location map:
There doesn’t seem to be much happening in Goz Beïda. It is a victim of the conflict in neighbouring Darfur, and notes that Irish Army troops were shot at in the town during 2008. Not the first time the Irish Army have been under fire in Africa, either – that’s a story closer to my current place of work and will feature in a future post.
To summarise:
Let me know where your random paging takes you in the comments.
A new domain, a new start.
It has been years since I updated my previous blog site, with various excuses/extenuating circumstances.
The general enshittification of the major social media sites has given me pause for thought, and made me think maybe it is time get away from doom-scrolling and work on long-form posts that require more thought than drive-by comments, snarks and witticisms.
Using Bluesky’s ability to have a domain as user handle might also encourage a more regular blogging habit in order to feed curious Bluesky users coming to check out the nerd with a domain name handle.
I have a few ideas for regular posts, not to mention transferring the useful content across from my old spot, plus some of the trivial nonsense and whatever else comes to mind that needs the length and flexibility of a blog post.