Tuesday, April 01, 2025

Is this me or a double?

This morning I went to the clinic to have my blood pressure and weight measured formally (as if I don't do this on my own, but they need it for their records). One is advised to wait about ten minutes to allow the bp and pulse to settle down, and during this period, the nurse said that she watches a series on Netflix called 'Designated survivor' and that there is an actor there who looks almost exactly like me.

After having my bp measured (it was fine), I went home to look for this actor who appears on the left. In most of the pictures, the resemblance is amazing, so my wife decided to send this picture to our children, and captioned it as "Daddy when he had longer hair". Our daughter immediately wrote back that it isn't me, but when we asked her who it was, she replied "An AI version of Daddy"! I can tell that it's not me but it's hard to put my finger on what exactly is different. The nose isn't right and the hair on my forehead isn't so pointed.

Well, it's the actor Timothy Busfield, who is slightly less than a year younger than me, so our appearances match throughout the years. I remember seeing him in the series "thirtysomething", although I saw this only rarely. He had red hair then so there was less of a resemblance. He also appeared now and then in 'The West Wing' as Danny Concannon, the boyfriend of press secretary and then Chief of Staff C.J. Cregg. I liked his character but I never thought that we looked the same. 

Now that his and my hair is white, the resemblance is remarkable.



This day in history:

Blog #Date TitleTags
138401/04/2021You and your action research projectDBA

Friday, March 28, 2025

Houthi shrapnel

During the past few days, the air raid sirens have sounded, warning against ballistic missiles sent from Yemen by the Houthis. One was at 11:30 pm (I was fast asleep), one at 4 am (ditto), one at 7:50 pm and one at 8 am. Every time we hear the sirens, we go into our security room - our bedroom - and wait ten minutes. Of course, this isn't a problem during the night.

All of the missiles have been shot down outside of Israel's borders. The last missile was shot down over Jordan, and although this isn't particularly close to where I live (maybe 50 km to the border), shrapnel from either the ballistic missile or from the interceptor landed on my kibbutz, 200 metres from my house in a 'green' area. A day later, more debris was discovered also about 200 metres from my house, albeit in a different direction, but also in a green area.

So that ten minutes of waiting can be very important! Fortunately that shrapnel landed where it did no damage, but those pieces could easily have landed on a house had they fallen 20 metres westward of where they fell.

27/03/25, 13:54: Two missiles were launched today; the alarms went off at 13:09, just as I was sitting down to eat lunch. My wife was out of the house at the time, although not far away, and she saw the interceptor missiles. No damage done to the best of my knowledge.



This day in history:

Blog #Date TitleTags
101828/03/2017Priority tip: creating business rules with functionsPriority tips
130428/03/2020Thesis updateDBA
148928/03/2022Another year, another growthHealth, BCC
173728/03/2024Daniel Kahneman, RIPObituary, Psychology

Thursday, March 27, 2025

How to make only some fields editable in a DBGrid

In all of my Delphi programs - until recently - all the DBGrids have been read only: the data displayed is retrieved by a query, and if I want to edit any of the data, a separate 'edit' dialog box is opened with the row's data displayed. This is something that I have been doing ever since I was introduced to Delphi over 20 years ago and there are (at least) two reasons for doing so. The first is that almost all of the queries that are displayed are not 'live queries' (I think that's the term) as the data displayed comes from more than one table. The second reason is that many of the fields display data that come from lookup tables. 

That's probably not very clear, so I'll use the example on which I was working today: a list of contact people for a given customer. The query itself involves two tables: contacts and a junction table between the contacts and customers (a contact person can be connected to more than one customer; a customer can have more than one contact). Such a query by default is not 'live'. I could have had a field that defines the type of contact, e.g. one who deals with the financial side, one who receives reports, etc, where these values would be in another table. As it happens, one contact can have more than one role, so there is no type field; instead there are several flags indicating whether the contact is financial, receives reports, etc.

Those flag fields are now editable in situ within the grid; one doesn't have to execute the separate 'edit' dialog box in order to change their value. How did I do this?

  1. The grid now has the dgEditing flag set in its options property.
  2. On the grid, I right clicked, entered the 'columns editor' and added all the columns. These come from the query that is linked to the grid so there's no need to add them manually.
  3. All of the columns were marked as read-only = true; some of them were marked as visible = false.
  4. The fields that I wanted to be editable were marked as read-only = false.

I naively thought that I need do no more, but there was one more critical step that needed to be taken (ironically, I had done this in the blog manager program a few weeks ago, but there I didn't know about the grid's columns editor, so all the fields are editable; I trust myself only to edit one field). I added an 'update' query that updates the flags' value in the underlying table (contact2cust); this query is executed in the datasource's OnUpdateData method. Doing so turns the temporary change (stored in the clientdataset) into a permanent one (stored in the database). Funnily enough, I had a similar situation in Priority a few days ago: a change would be visible but would not be saved.

The flags are shown as checkboxes drawn on the grid, but when they are edited, their real nature is disclosed - they have one of the values 0 or 1. The user has to enter the appropriate value in order to change the state of the checkbox. Of course, this wouldn't be a problem if a normal text or integer field were involved. 

A challenge for myself: how to allow editing a field in situ when the value has to come from a lookup table. I remember seeing a long time ago code that allows one to draw a combobox in a grid, so that will be the starting point. I don't have any need for this at the moment so I'm not going to devote any time to this.



This day in history:

Blog #Date TitleTags
56427/03/2013Lost videocassettes reappearTV series
101727/03/2017Thesis updateDBA
148827/03/2022CystoscopyHealth
159627/03/2023The end of the country as we knew itIsrael

Wednesday, March 26, 2025

Clinging to the wreckage ... and legal morality

Slightly over 40 years ago, I stumbled over the book 'Clinging to the wreckage', a partial autobiography of John Mortimer, barrister and playwright. Presumably I bought this on a visit to Britain in 1982 but I have no recollection of this, and Mortimer wouldn't have been placed high on my watch list. I knew the name, as he was the defending QC in the Oz obscenity trial in 1971, but otherwise he was a blank to me. The autobiography is interesting and amusing in parts, but also glosses over some events in his early life. 

I recently reread this book for the first time in many years, and stumbled upon the following passage towards the end of the book (chapter 24):

One of the difficulties of laws which tried to control books and habits of reading was that they assumed that our society was as one .... In England the moral values of a group of retired army officers and their wives frequenting a golf course in Worthing are not the same as those of a crowd of art students in a Kings Cross squat. What appears permissible in the Surrey commuter belt, among bright young advertising men and their wives, would be looked on with horror by the Puritan Pakistanis of Bradford. Of course all these groups must be subject to a basic strongly enforced criminal law; they must not be allowed to assault or pillage or rape or rob one another. But in such a society, tolerance demands that no one group may be allowed to impose its own moral views, however strongly held, upon another; still less should they be able to use the severe sanctions of the criminal law to do so. The law, it has always seemed to me, is at its best when it is enforcing practical remedies for specific crimes; it is at its worst when it tries to enforce the morality of one group in society upon another which may, for quite sincere and logical reasons, refuse to accept it.

Replace 'England' with Israel, 'Worthing' with Bnei Barak and 'criminal law' with law, and this passage shows the view of an Israeli liberal.



This day in history:

Blog #Date TitleTags
130226/03/2020Counting beats with van der Graaf (2)Van der Graaf Generator, Time signatures
130326/03/2020Days of Corona (2)Health, Covid-19
148726/03/2022"You hold me" - you've heard the song, now watch the videoHome movies, Song videos

Monday, March 24, 2025

Rotary chorus (aka Leslie) pedal

Anyone familiar with the later songs of The Beatles (especially Abbey Road, but also in the earlier "It's only love") will be familiar with the sound of a rotary chorus pedal, even if one is not aware of the name of this effect and what it imitates. Another example is in Simon and Garfunkel's "America": there's a guitar line at the beginning of the song that demonstrates the use of this sound. The rotary effect was one of the earliest modulation effects to be used in the music scene and imitates the Leslie speaker that was originally designed and developed for organs but afterwards used for guitars and vocals.

I've long wished for the ability to create such sounds, but the appropriate pedals have always been very expensive, far out of my price range. Thus I was surprised when I saw a YouTube video a few months ago by JHS pedals, where they announced that they had created three pedals that would sell at only $99 each. After thinking about this for a while, I decided to treat myself and order this pedal. Hopefully this is the last pedal that I will purchase*.

The price $99 means that I would have to pay tax should I buy it. Initially I was tempted to order the pedal direct from the manufacturers and get 10% off, but the shipping turned out to be very expensive. I ordered from Amazon for the equivalent of $119; shipping appears to be free. JHS do have a representative in Israel, but they didn't have this pedal. Also, I suspect that buying from a shop here might be more expensive. I was told that the pedal would arrive by 27 March, but it actually came a few days earlier. 

The pedal was supplied in a stout box with curly paper filling out the box. There is a small instruction booklet, but it's basically a short explanation of each of the controls in several languages. There is also what appears to be a sticker with the pedal's circuit displayed, although no values are given for any of the components, so this is somewhat mystifying. Once I disposed of the curly paper, I found at the bottom of the box a small JHS badge and a very thick plectrum (1.5mm) embossed with the JHS logo.

What does the pedal sound like? Well, to be honest, it doesn't sound very different to the sound achieved by a chorus pedal. I've set it at the moment with a relatively low intensity (equivalent to depth) and a medium speed; it sounds fine, but not special. At least it works, as opposed to the cheapo chorus pedal1 that didn't really do anything (but neither did it cost anything).

I don't have any more room on my pedal board for any other pedals, so this had better be the last pedal. Several months ago, I wondered2 why I laid the board out right to left; there's a very simple reason for this. The input socket for each pedal is on the pedal's right hand side and the output socket is on the left hand side, so obviously the input for the tuner is on the far right hand side and the output from the tuner fits into the input of the pedal to its left, etc.

* Some hope. A joke that was originally about computers but now modified: why is a guitar pedal like a woman? Because it always costs more than one expected, after a while one can't do without it, and after a longer period, one is not enough.

Internal links
[1] 1849
[2] 1798



This day in history:

Blog #Date TitleTags
56324/03/2013Pictures from a balcony (5)Personal
81824/03/2015Zooming the milleniumERP
93524/03/2016Draining the earHealth
111624/03/2018The Belstaff BouncersPersonal, Habonim, 1975
148424/03/2022My first year as a Londoner, part 4 - "The movement"Personal, Habonim, 1975, 1974
148524/03/2022My first year as a Londoner, part 5 - The girlfriendPersonal, 1972, 1974
148624/03/2022My first year as a Londoner, part 5 and a half - The girlfriend, continuedPersonal, 1975, 1974
173624/03/2024UN Happiness report 2023Israel, Computer, Kobo

Saturday, March 22, 2025

My (compulsory) army service - part five

I was rereading my short series about my compulsory army service when I noticed that I had not written very much about the final months of my service. If I'm going to add another blog entry, then I'll take this opportunity to write about a few more episodes that I neglected to write about.

In the fourth episode, I wrote1 about joining the Medical Corps Headquarters staff - this would have been in mid-July 1980. Two months later would have been the Jewish New Year, and I made great efforts to be released for this; I even asked the secretary of the kibbutz to write a note, explaining that I was essential to the celebrations. Knowing the army mind-set, these efforts probably determined that I would not be released and that I would have to stay on base. I wrote2 about this on another occasion.

As a result of this bad experience, I made a deal with the NCO who was responsible for creating the guard duty roster: I made up a monthly table of when I would guard, including weekends and requested that I would guard on those nights instead of suddenly being released (being surplus to requirements) and having to turn up the following night. I probably guarded more under this system that I might have done so without it, but at least I knew when I was going to guard and so had a bit more control over my life, something very important in the army. This guard duty system was maintained for a few months until I became sergeant.

I don't remember now when this was, but the direct result of becoming a sergeant was that I hardly ever spent any more nights on the base. I vaguely remember one night when I was duty sergeant for the entire base which was a terrible experience (although it only lasted for that night). There was another night that finished by me being carted off to hospital as noted in the fourth episode, and one final weekend when I was duty sergeant for my unit. This was a fairly relaxed affair, although there were a few points that made it interesting. Late on the Friday evening, one of the girls who was supposed to be guarding wasn't feeling well, so I had to telephone another girl soldier who had gone home for the night in order to recall her - she lived very close to the base. Later on, I had to wake up some of girl soldiers in the middle of the night for their 2 am shift; this placed me in a dilemma as I had to enter their guardroom in order to wake them, but this room was out of bounds for male soldiers! I don't remember exactly what happened: I think that I stood outside and called the girls.

Sometime in or around February/March 1981, I and three other soldiers from my unit were sent to guard for a week part of the Tel Aviv coastline. I have no idea as why any of us were chosen for this duty that might seem to be easy but proved not to be; I seem to recall that our unit had to supply guards for some number of weeks and it was my turn to do this unusual service. We were taken to a room in Kikar Atarim in Tel Aviv where our duties were explained to us. There were two bunks for sleeping: each pair would guard for six hours, then be off duty for six hours, then be on again for six hours and off for six hours. During the off hours we would eat (we had minimal cooking facilities and presumably the army provided us with food), wash (public showers) and sleep. The actual guard duty was extremely boring and seemingly pointless. 

I have four specific memories of this week: the first involved watching through a telescope as a boat approached the coast and reporting this to our control; it turns out that this was a fishing boat and looked much larger in the scope than it actually was. Another time in the middle of the night, I was woken by the radio: control was calling our guards but they had fallen asleep. I had to get out of bed, answer the control and wake our guards. Another evening the lady who was shortly to become my wife came to visit; my fellow guards lit us with the searchlight as we walked along a wave breaker. The fourth memory was leaving the post and coming home to the kibbutz for a few hours, although I don't recall what I did there.

When it became clear that the lady and I were going to be married, I started making calculations as to when would be the optimum time to do. There would be a week's leave for the honeymoon, so taking this and other factors in account, the end of June would be best. This would leave only one weekend that I would have to spend on the base, as mentioned above, and my planning worked perfectly.

Eventually my release date came around; it was delayed by a week because I had taken a week of 'special leave' in November 1980 when my parents came to visit. This was considering a postponement of service and so had to be repaid. I calculated that of the eighteen months that I was in the army, I spent three months on leave, most of it for medical reasons, although I'm not sure of that calculation now. The 'demob unit' was next to my unit so I could easily go around and say goodbye to whoever I wanted to - primarily those in the laboratory. It was a very low key event; trying to recall it now, the only thing that I remember was that I had to wait until after lunch to be released.

Internal links
[1] 782
[2] 887



This day in history:

Blog #Date TitleTags
16322/03/2009Left/right hemisperes of the brainPsychology, The brain
69122/03/2014Research questionnaire / 4DBA
173422/03/2024Introducing the KoboKindle, Kobo

Friday, March 21, 2025

Disgust

Once again, the current Israeli government has taken a step that leads us only further towards the end of democracy: Ronen Bar, the head of the 'Shin Bet', equivalent to MI5, has been fired due to "lack of trust between the Prime Minister and Bar". 

This dismissal will of course be challenged in the High Court of Justice, but as the current government doesn't recognise the president of this court and barely recognises this court at all, who knows where this will lead. The government is also attempting to dismiss the Attorney General, because she too does not support the government.

As I wrote1 on 5 November: Netanyahu said, "In the midst of a war, more than ever, full trust is needed between the prime minister and minister of defense. Unfortunately, although in the first months of  the war there was such trust and there was very productive work, in recent  months that trust between the minister of defense and myself has been broken." Whilst that might well be true, many people feel that Gallant was concerted with doing his job to the best of his ability - in other words, defending Israel and defeating its enemies. He was hampered by a Prime Minister who as always seems to be more interested in continuing his rule, whatever the cost. Let us not forget whose 'conception' was shattered a year ago. National Unity party leader MK Benny Gantz said in response,"This is politics at the expense of national security." People took to the streets last night in a repeat of the previous "Night of Gallant" although it is doubtful whether these demonstrations will have any effect.  

Substitute 'Bar' for 'Gallant' and there is almost a word for word correspondence with what is happening now. I am totally disgusted by this government (as if I wasn't earlier) and it's very annoying to think that the world views Israel as Netanyahu and not as the voice of the people. I am waiting for the day when the government decides to change the basic law regarding elections and so keep itself in power for ever (I suggested this in 7/23).

As it happens, the first episode of a series about the Beehive/Kavveret group is being broadcast on television (naturally on a channel that our [sarcasm]enligntened [/sarcasm] Communications Minister wants to close; this episode is naturally about the beginning of the group, dating from 1971-3. So I too have been thinking about those days: my first visit to Israel in 1972 and my gap year in 1973-4. Would I have come to Israel had I known what was waiting us?

There was a war in 1973 and the then Prime Minister [Golda Meir] resigned, saying that ultimately she was responsible. We have an ongoing war that started in 2023; several senior army officers have resigned, the head of the Shin Bet is to be fired, but the two people who bear the most responsibility - Prime Minister Netanyahu and Justice Minister Levin, whose 'judicial reform' split the country in two and caused our enemies to believe that we are weaker than we are - don't recognise that responsibility at all. Everyone else is responsible, not them. That reeks of paranoia.

For how long is this going to continue???????

Internal links
[1] 1852



This day in history:

Blog #Date TitleTags
12121/03/2008Literary allusionsERP, Literature, Satie, 1984
69021/03/2014Research questionnaire / 3DBA
93321/03/2016Zero values in Priority tables (2)Priority tips
148221/03/2022Severe stomach crampsHealth
159421/03/2023UN Happiness reportIsrael
173321/03/2024Spring equinoxComputer, Weather

Thursday, March 20, 2025

The Hampstead murders (fiction)

I've just finished reading the first book in 'The Hampstead murders' series, written by Guy Fraser-Sampson, 'Death in profile'. I thought it would make a change to read a police procedural set 'close to home', or at least, close to where I once lived, although it turns out that most of the action is around the Royal Free hospital, an area in which I didn't spend much time.

The story is about the search for a serial killer who has murdered five women; the book opens with the fifth murder and the case being taken away from the detective who had been running it for sixteen months or so and given to a "fast track" detective who works more by logical reasoning that by a "copper's nose".

The police found a suspect who seemed a good match for the killings, even though almost all the evidence was circumstancial. The defining evidence was found in a public area within the building that contained his flat. Convicted in court, he was killed almost immediately in prison ... just as someone came forward with an alibi for the third murder. Start again.

All the victims had chloroform burns, suggesting that the victims were overcome by this method then killed, but this doesn't seem to be significant until towards the end. I, however, picked up on this immediately, and asked where the chloroform came from. It's hardly something that one can easily obtain, and in fact, it's also not a very good method of making someone unconscious as it takes a few minutes to work. The detectives only started investigating the chloroform about 80% of the way through the book, and this led them to another suspect who seemed also a good match for the killings.

This book differs from most of the procedurals that I have read in that there is discussion with a representative of the DPP and a barrister, discussing the evidence and considering whether it's sufficient; after all, it's all circumstancial.

There was one nice portion in the book that nothing to do with police procedurals that I want to quote here.

“You have to be very careful with words like ‘mad’,” Collison chided him gently. “What is ‘mad’? People like Laing and Foucault said that we live in constant states of ‘fantasy’ as you put it ....
“Foucault?” Leach echoed, staring blankly at Collison. “Didn’t he invent the pendulum or something?”
Collison sighed. “You don’t read much, do you, Andrew?”
“You mean books? No, not really. Who does these days?”
“So how many books do you think you read every year? I’m asking just out of interest, you understand.”
“Well, I take one on holiday with me, and say two or three others.”
“I see,” Collison said thoughtfully as he paid the bill. “So how do you learn things, then?”
“Isn’t that what the internet’s for, sir? Anytime you want to know something, you just look it up.”
“But doesn’t that presuppose,” Collison replied as they started strolling back down the hill towards the police station, “that you know what it is that you’re looking for in the first place?”
“How do you mean, sir?”
“Well, clearly the internet is a fantastic information source but reading is different. With books you learn things, random things, whatever the author might be talking to you about, and you sort of soak them up like a sponge over the years. They are stored away in some dim recess of the unconscious mind until one day some equally random stimulus sparks a connection, and you find that you’ve combined different items of memory and perception into a completely new insight.”

I'm going to add a new tag to the blogs - police procedurals. I think that's betten that having such books tagged as 'literature'.



This day in history:

Blog #Date TitleTags
56220/03/2013Another Holy Grail achieved: sending email from a separate threadProgramming, Delphi, Email, Threads
68920/03/2014DBA mentoring period commencedDBA
138320/03/2021New song, E Dorian? B minor?Song writing, Music theory, Home recording

Wednesday, March 19, 2025

On the wrong foot (song)

A month and a half ago, I wrote1 that I had started work on a song in 68 time and that the SG7 MIDI guitar was helping me create parts for the song. I've been working on this song ever since, constantly changing bits and pieces, such as redoing the bass part several times and improving the drumming. I wrote words for a first verse in the middle of February, but had problems continuing; my health contributed in no small amount to this slow down. Eventually I finished off the words about a week and a half ago, probably causing the theme of the second half of the song to bear only a slight resemblance to that of the first verse.

For various reasons, I didn't have a chance, nor a singing voice, to record vocals until a few days ago. After making several attempts, I realised that I had set the song in too high a key (Em) for me to sing comfortably so I lowered the track by a tone to Dm. Singing in this new key was much easier and the results sounded good. The final vocal track is a composite of about five different takes, most of them continuing from a spot where the previous take had collapsed, although in one case it was to punch it a word or two in the middle of a verse, and in another case, it was to replace the final line as I had decided to change the words.

I was still making the occasional change to the music track; at one spot, I realised that the notes that I had written were too high for the given instrument (and that's after lowering the pitch) so I had to change that part. Elsewhere, I discovered that I was playing a major third over a minor chord, so one note had to be lowered.

After a successful mix, it occurred to me in bed last night that I could create a harmony vocal for the bridge section, so I did so this morning. I also tried for a harmony for the second verse, but this didn't work out too well, both because I had difficulty in finding suitable notes, but also because it was too much for the track itself. Anyway, the recording "(Starting off) On the wrong foot", working title "Bad day blues", is now complete.

Internal links
[1] 1896



This day in history:

Blog #Date TitleTags
56119/03/2013Motorbikes (2)Motorbikes
93219/03/2016Purchasing sound equipmentMusical instruments
111419/03/2018Nothing much to write aboutVenice, Commissario Brunetti
130019/03/20201300 blogs and still countingMeta-blogging
148119/03/2022My first year as a Londoner, part 2 - "The Bayit"Personal, Habonim, 1975, 1974

Tuesday, March 11, 2025

Slow cooking - after the talk

My talk1 went very well. I probably forgot a few things that I meant to mention, and I'm fairly sure that all my talk about Maillard reactions and protein denaturation at the beginning went in one ear and out the other. Despite all that, everyone seemed very interested, and serving the chicken dish at the end served to prove the idea of slow cooking.

It became clear to me, if not necessarily to anyone else, that I prefer to cook as simply as possible, without intermediate stages (such as frying onions before adding them) and without spices. People kept on shouting out that they do such and such, to which I would reply that I tried their suggestion that simply adds overheads (and dirty pans) without contibuting to the taste.

It seems that I've converted a few people to the joys of slow cooking, or at least opened their eyes to the possibility (as JK Rowling writes in the seventh Strike book, 'The running grave': admit the possibility) of this technique.slo

Maybe the shops in the local mall will see increased sales of slow cookers!

Internal links
[1] 1907



This day in history:

Blog #Date TitleTags
6911/03/2007Weekend migraines (part 2)Programming, Migraine
158911/03/2023Further down the slippery slope to dictatorshipIsrael, Yuval No'ach Harari

Sunday, March 09, 2025

Fender Champion 40 amp

As I was getting organised at last night's band practice (my first in a few weeks), the bassist told me that we had been gifted a new guitar amplifier, a Fender Champion 40. It's intended for me although it's not mine. The enclosure is sized 17.25" X 17.25" X 9", so it's quite a bit bigger than my Roland cube. Of course, the rated wattage is higher (presumably 40W) and there is a 12" speaker (as opposed to the Roland's 5"), so it's going to be much louder - finally I'll be able to hear myself play!

There's only one input socket on the amp (far left); the input socket next to this is for a foot-switch (not supplied). The front panel shows that there are two channels - this had me somewhat confused as to why there are two channels if there is only one input? I chose channel one and discovered that the gain and model knobs seemed to have no effect. I discovered the reason why this is so this morning: channel 1 is clean and bypasses the gain and model circuits, whereas these circuits can be set for channel 2. The next section of controls has treble, bass, effect choice (reverb/chorus/tremolo, etc) and effect depth. I chose a modest amount of chorus, and the sound that I achieved (along with my tremolo pedal) seemed very good for me - a warm and Leslie-like tone, not overdriven or fuzzy. 

The amplifier costs about 650 NIS, a very reasonable price for its performance. A review can be found here.

I have noticed that some of the songs that we are preparing for our next performance (in about four weeks) can be simplified by setting the octave pedal at +3 semitones: instead of playing in Bb or Fm, I can play in G or Dm. This may seem like dumming down, but my style seems to vary according to the key (or more accurately, chord shapes): in Bb, I'm playing chopped barre chords whereas in G, I can fingerpick. I was very pleased with the sound and style that I achieved for 'Karma Chameleon' (we're playing in Bb but I'm fingering G).



This day in history:

Blog #Date TitleTags
6809/03/2007Weekend migrainesMaccabi Tel Aviv, Migraine
55509/03/2013I'll never get those wasted hours backProgramming, Email, Problem solving, Nick Hornby
93009/03/2016Sir George Martin, RIPObituary, Beatles
120409/03/2019The Tel Aviv saxophone quartetAmbient music
137909/03/2021Sometimes it takes a long time for the light to go on in my headMIDI
158809/03/2023That's all, say amen, close the doorDBA
172809/03/2024Looking for his tribe (recording)Guitars, Home recording

Thursday, March 06, 2025

The wonders of slow cooking

A few weeks ago, I suggested to the person who organises activities for the 'third age', i.e. pensioners, on the kibbutz that I give a talk about the wonders of slow cooking. Fortunately the date was set sufficiently far ahead that I would be able to restore my health after the viral/bacterial infection that I suffered (the date was set two weeks before I fell ill). I thought it best that I prepare my speech in advance, so I'm writing the first version here: obviously this is in English and I'll be talking in Hebrew, but that won't be a problem. Over we go ....


I would like to start by saying that I think that everybody should be able to cook. By 'cook', I mean something more advanced than an omelette, but not necessarily a three course meal for ten people. I also think that cooking should be easy - I don't like recipes that require more than fifteen minutes preparation time. I can cook complete meals in fifteen minutes! Over the years, I've seen that adding fancy steps to preparation makes no difference to the final result, and so it seems that simpler is better. One final belief: cooking should be successful; I don't like recipes that can fail and that have a series of conditions that have to be met in order to produce a successful dish. That's actually the reason why I don't like to bake: everything has to be just so and the conditions have to be right in order to have a good outcome.

I should add that my stomach doesn't tolerate spicy food and that the plain but tasty results from the slow cooker are ideal for me.

Using a slow cooker is easy and it's almost impossible to ruin a dish, which is why I want to talk about this cooking technique today. But first, I want to say a few words about what is not possible to cook with a slow cooker. There are many different cooking techniques and each has its own characteristics, although sometimes the same characteristic is shared by a few techniques. Cooking in an oven is generally carried out at a temperature of around 170°C and there is a scientific reason for doing so: this is the temperature at which the Maillard reaction takes place. Does anyone know what this is? Chemically, it's a reaction between sugars and the amino acids in protein that produces the characteristic brown colour and smell of baked goods. We like this smell, so that's why we cook at this temperature. Slow cooking occurs at a much lower temperature so there's no browning of foods and cooked food doesn't look cooked.

I want to change the subject slightly and talk a little about boiling eggs. The 'white' of an egg, a protein called albumin, is a very viscous liquid in an uncooked egg. But when we place an egg in water and heat the water to boiling, the structure of the protein undergoes a transformation and the albumin becomes solid. I apologise that I don't know the scientific word for this in Hebrew. What happens physically is that the heat causes the protein molecules to change shape. When something is cooked in the oven, this change in shape happens very fast and is irreversible. 

Slow cooking works at a temperature of about 65°C; this is hot enough that we don't have to worry about bacteria but is also significant for another reason. This is approximately the temperature at which the protein collagen - found in skin and connective tissue that surrounds muscle fibres - turns into a different protein called gelatin that is the basis of jelly and more importantly, improves the taste of food. So food cooked in a slow cooker will have plenty of gelatin and will taste good. This transformation doesn't occur in oven cooking.

OK, enough science! I know of two sizes of slow cookers: one is about 6.5 litres volume and the other is 8 litres. The smaller cooker is suitable for two to four portions, whereas the larger cooker is suitable for upto ten portions. Of course, it very much depends what we're cooking as to how much room the uncooked food will take in the cooker. One thing that is very important: always leave plenty of room between the top of the food and the lid of the cooker. The cooker should be at most 2/3 full. I'll explain later why that space has to be there. One can buy a slow cooker from between 150 - 200 NIS in several shops at the local mall.

A slow cooker is basically a heavy ceramic pot with a lid; the pot sits in a metallic envelope that has a heating element powered by electricity. I would show you the insides of my slow cooker, but I'm currently cooking something in there for afterwards. First the uncooked food is placed in the pot, then the cooker is turned on. There are normally three settings: high, low and warm. I recommend only using the 'high' setting. Generally speaking, there is no need to place any liquid in the pot; the heat causes water to evaporate from the uncooked food and it's this steam that actually cooks the food. That's the reason why space is needed above the food and between the lid - the steam can collect there. Also, one never takes the lid of the cooker before the food is cooked; doing so causes the steam to escape. If one does open the lid, one has to add half an hour to the cooking time to make up for the lost steam. Incidentally, it is possible to cook frozen food in the slow cooker without defrosting, but one should add at least half an hour to the cooking time in this case.

I'm now going to give you some recipes and let's start with a very simple one: believe it or not, one can cook a whole chicken in the slow cooker! As I mentioned earlier, because the cooking occurs at a much lower temperature than that of an oven, the results are somewhat different, and one can argue that they are even better in the slow cooker. One places the chicken in the pot, adds to it a diced onion, some parsley and finally sliced carrot and courgette. It's important to slice the vegetables to enlarge their surface area: this will release more water that helps the cooking. It's also possible to add potato cubes or even frozen beans; I find it best to put such additions into the little plastic punnets in which are sold mushrooms (one can also add mushrooms!): the punnet has holes in it, so the steam can cook the vegetables but the punnet keeps them separate so that they can be served separately. Place the punnet on top off the vegetables. Turn the heat onto high and cook the chicken for about five hours. One can probably cook for a little less without any problem, and cooking more only improves the flavour. There's no such thing as overcooking in a slow cooker! The result will be a very tender chicken that falls apart, along with tasty vegetables and some amount of chicken soup. 

One can also use chicken portions instead of a whole chicken; this allows more meat to be cooked at the same time although there will be less gelatin. Put the chicken at the bottom of the pot and the vegetables on top; this way, the chicken will always be moist. Having the vegetables on the bottom and the chicken on top runs the risk of drying the meat slightly. As the pieces of chicken are not as thick, three to four hours cooking is enough.

I was in Milano last year, and their signature dish is 'Osso buco' - big slabs of beef cooked with vegetables. I cooked this a few times in the slow cooker, but I think that the cut of meat used is too expensive. It's strange, but the cuts of beef that are good in the slow cooker are generally considered to be lower quality cuts and so cheaper, whereas the expensive cuts of beef - steak especially - are not suited to slow cooking. This is because of the amount of connective tissue - this isn't good in a steak as it makes the meat chewy, but turns into tasty gelatin when cooked in the slow cooker.

From experience, about 1.5 kg of cut #8 cut into cubes fits into the slow cooker in one layer. Any more  than this will mean a second layer of meat and this is liable to cause the extra cubes to dry out. On top of the cubes, I place this mat that was intended for something else that I cut to the correct size. See how I've attached strings at either end - this is to help pull the mat out at the end. In a frying pan, I cook diced onion, carrot and celery in a little olive oil, then when the vegetables are soft, I add some white wine. This mixture then gets poured onto the mat, and the slow cooker is turned on. After five hours cooking, I turn the cooker off then gently pull the mat up by the strings; the sides of the cooker are very hot! I serve the vegetables in one dish and the meat in another. Often I will save the liquid that's left in the pot for cooking another time.

The final dish that I'll talk about today is deboned chicken thighs with sauce. Normally I trim excess fat from the thighs but this isn't essential. As usual, one places the thighs at the bottom of the pot. One tray of nine thighs is about two layers deep in the pot; this is less of a problem that with the beef cubes as those are much thicker. In a bowl, one mixes two spoonfuls of mayonnaise with two spoonfuls of apricot jam and a teaspoon full of mustard, until a creamy texture is achieved. This is poured onto the meat - I normally use a kitchen brush to distribute the sauce evenly, although I'm not sure that this is actually necessary. On top of the sauce I sprinkle chopped onions. One then cooks for three hours. As they always say in cooking programmes, "here's something that I prepared in advance" - I've been cooking this dish in the slow cooker here and have been stretching my talk out to give the food enough time to cook.

It is possible to cook fish in a slow cooker, but it's not a good idea as the loss of connective tissue will cause the fish to fall apart. There used to be sold thick circular cuts of salmon with a little spine in the middle; I used to cook this in the slow cooker with some water and herbs but there's really no point in doing so. Fish should be cooked as little as possible - fifteen minutes in the oven and we're done.

Before I answe any questions, I would like to make one final observation. It is possible to cook rice in the slow cooker along with meat, as long as one doesn't mind having everything mixed up together. In my opinion, cooking rice with chicken together improves the taste of the rice. But: normally I cook one cup of rice with two cups of water. Don't be tempted and say that the steam in the slow cooker will cook the rice; instead add two cups of hot water (or maybe a little less) to the pot as the rice will absorb this water and not leave it available to be turned into steam.



This day in history:

Blog #Date TitleTags
34006/03/2011If you believe ...Maccabi Tel Aviv, MBA, Song writing, Robin Sharma
68406/03/2014A comparison between King Crimson and Van der Graaf GeneratorKing Crimson, Van der Graaf Generator
101506/03/2017Priority technique for 'choose screens'Priority tips
129506/03/2020Sorting out the hardwareComputer, DVD

Friday, February 28, 2025

Emergency room blues

A week and a half ago (Tuesday), I started developing a sore throat. Unfortunately this was a day when I travelled to Tel Aviv in order to train a new worker, so this was quite awkward. By lunchtime, I was feeling very worn-out; I asked someone if they had any paracetamol. She answered that she has in the same container paracetamol, Advil (ibuprofen) and optalgin; I told her that as a retired pharmacist, all three come from different families of drugs and shouldn't be mixed up that way. I took two paracetamol. As it happens (partially by design), a few senior managers were in the same room, so they could see and hear that I wasn't feeling well.

I worked at home for the next two days; it was very painful to swallow but otherwise I was feeling almost normal. By Thursday lunchtime, though, I started feeling very weak and took to my bed. The weekend passed without any change, for better or worse. I had started coughing, a very 'dry' and unproductive cough; I joked that it was like someone who has smoked for thirty years. On Sunday I managed to see a doctor in the kibbutz clinic; she said that it was almost certainly a viral infection of the upper respiratory tract and that there was very little that could be done. Apparently this year there are some nasty variations of the normal virus that is causing the infection. She prescribed a medicine that dissolves solidified phlegm and makes it easier to express (via the coughing).

On Tuesday I felt a bit better and managed to work for a few hours, if only to clear the backlog of about 300 letters that had been sent - most of these automatic letters that didn't require too much attention. But there were also at least three letters from fellow workers that really annoyed me: instead of thinking a little and trying to solve their own problems in Priority, they felt no compunction in transferring them to me. I know that I lose patience when I am unwell, but I do think that these people could try a little harder. It must be very tempting not to bother when they know that there is someone (i.e. me) who can solve their problems, be them trivial or complex. 

When I was in Tel Aviv,  my manager wanted to discuss the possibility of my retiring; for some reason she thought that I was only 63 years old when in fact I am 68½. She told me that she wanted that I should give two years notice! I said that until now we had talked on the basis of one year's notice. The following day I prepared a list of all the activities that I execute, divided into sections such as development, high level Priority maintanence, inventory management and solving problems for other people that they could solve had they wanted to. So this list was very much in my mind when I connected to work.

The following day passed without much change, but on Thursday (yesterday), I began to feel worse again. There were many discharges from my eyes and my wife said that my left eye was somewhat red. The hearing in my right ear seemed compromised. So I went again to the clinic; a power cut and no doctor available that day sent me to the regional clinic in Bet Shemesh (near the train station). I repeated everything to a nurse there and waited a while before seeing a doctor.

This one noticed that the oxygen saturation level of my blood was on the low side - around 90% - and that when taking into account my slightly reduced kidney function (and age), he thought it best that I be checked out in a hospital emergency room where they can do blood tests, X-rays and consultations all in one place. So this doctor ordered for me there and then an ambulance that turned up after about 20 minutes. They put me on a mobile chair that turns into a bed then took me to the ambulance. We sped towards Jerusalem. 

Although I've accompanied people (mainly my father) in this situation, it's the first time that it's ever happened to me. As it was the clinic that was sending me to the hospital, I wouldn't have to pay for the ambulance, although getting home would almost certainly involve a taxi ride at some stage. The ambulance driver also handled some of the red tape in the hospital.

I then sat around for a while before a triage nurse heard my story yet again and probably took some measurements (I don't recall this but they are mentioned in my discharge sheet). Another short wait and then bloods were taken. And ... a ... very ... long ... wait before I actually saw a doctor. Once again I explained my symptoms; she said that the saturation had improved slightly when measured in the hospital so she was less worried that there might be pneumonia or similar. She sent me for an X-ray, and then shortly after saw me again, prescribing antibiotics and more rest.

So that was an exciting Thursday! It wasn't exactly what I had intended to do that day but it's not as if I had anything better to do. So far I've taken the antibiotics twice: I can't say that there's much of an improvement yet. I'm still coughing away merrily but at least I don't feel as weak as I have felt.



This day in history:

Blog #Date TitleTags
23528/02/2010Still working even when feeling lousyProgramming, Organisation behaviour, Blood pressure
45728/02/2012Sequencing "Lost"MIDI, Van der Graaf Generator, Peter Hammill, Reason
55228/02/2013Sansa clip+ mp3 playerMP3
172628/02/2024The Dublin Murder Squad, continuedLiterature, Song writing

Monday, February 17, 2025

The trials and tribulations of the new phone

As Jean-Luc Picard would say, "Captain's log, supplemental".

As I wrote yesterday1, my major problem with the new phone was transferring all the messages from WhatsApp. Theoretically it is possible to do this via WhatsApp, but as I wrote, when I tried this, the old phone got to 100%, the transfer crashed and the new phone was bereft of data. Copying the whatsapp directory from the old phone to the computer and thence to the new phone did not solve anything.

Eventually ... the information on this page helped. First, I verified that I did have a backup in Google Drive, the backup that I made yesterday morning. Then I uninstalled WhatsApp after which I  reinstalled it; after skipping the screens that would have allowed me to transfer data from my old phone, I eventually reached a screen that asked whether I wanted to restore a backup. Naturally I said yes, and this time the restore succeeded. There were something like 51,000 messages stored, but retrieving them was fast.

One thing that I have learnt: I frequently send mp3 files to my wife via WhatsApp; after sending them, I delete the message on my phone. What I did not know is that the file is still stored in the phone's memory, in a directory called media\whatsapp documents\sent. There were plenty of files in this directory that I deleted, fortunately before having created the backup.

Copying the ringtones via the computer worked properly, so this morning I woke to my normal morning tune instead of the one that the phone chose. I also went through contact groups and assigned them their distinctive ringtones. At least something worked easily.

The fact that the last picture in the DCIM directory was from 26 January ... is because the last picture that I took with the phone was from that date. Now the gallery has refilled with pictures that were sent by WhatsApp, but because of my manipulations, I have two if not three copies of some pictures. I suppose that I'll have to clear that up at some stage.

Internal links
[1] 1904



This day in history:

Blog #Date TitleTags
33417/02/2011More Blodwyn PigBlodwyn Pig
55017/02/2013Pictures from a balcony (2)Personal
67517/02/2014DBA: On to the next stageDBA
100917/02/2017My research is effectively deadDBA

Sunday, February 16, 2025

New mobile phone - Galaxy S25+

My current mobile phone is a Galaxy A9 that I received1 on 30 May 2019; that's nearly six years ago. I was satisfied with my phone, primarily because I don't do much with it apart from using it as a telephone and as a camera. At work, we are about to embark upon the use of Priority Mobile, initially for something small but I have no doubt that once word gets out that we have this capability, there will be requests for more uses. The minimum configuration requires Android 11 - and of course, the version of Android on my phone is 10, and the A9 cannot support more modern versions.

So I had to ask for a new phone, and to my surprise, there were no problems in its authorisation, or in receiving it. Once I had the phone turned on, an application started that offered to copy all the data from my old phone to the new one. Of course, I accepted, and after about ten minutes all the photos, songs and apps had been copied over. The only problematic app is WhatsApp: I backed up all the data to my Google cloud account, and I'll restore it onto the new phone when I get the SIM transferred.

Gripe: the phone comes with a type C to type C cable; obviously one plug fits into the phone, but I don't have (at the moment) a charger with a type C socket. Fortunately I was able to use the power cable of the Kobo that will have to suffice until Temu deliver a new charger, along with a type C headset and some replacement cases.

Since having written the above, I made a quick journey to Bet Shemesh, to one of the mobile phone shops. They transferred the SIM from the old to the new phone and sold me a case - a snip at only 80 NIS 😏. As noted in the previous paragraph, I ordered two replacement cases, each costing about 18 NIS - quite a difference.

It transpires that one doesn't need to back up WhatsApp data to the cloud: the app can do a phone to phone transfer; well, that's the theory. In practice, it didn't seem to work. The transfer started ok, but at some stage the connection was dropped, and since then I haven't managed to get any data transferred. The old phone can't find the new phone. It then occurred to me that maybe a reset would help. So I turned both phones off and then on again. The transfer started and even got to 100% on the old phone and about 98% on the new phone, but then the new phone said that there had been a problem and the transfer would have to be restarted. The old phone thinks (excuse the anthropomophism) that the transfer succeeded and cannot be persuaded to restart. No chats have been transferred and only pictures until 26 January are on the new phone (the pictures are not the fault of WhatsApp).

So I decided to take a computer-centric option: at the moment, I'm copying the entire android\media\com.whatsapp\whatsapp directory to my computer's hard drive and then I'll copy that directory to the new phone. I'll probably do the same with the DCIM directory, at least from 26 January. My private ringtones also have not been copied.

Enough moaning.

Internal links
[1] 1228



This day in history:

Blog #Date TitleTags
6416/02/2007Working hard (but seeing the light at the end of the tunnel)Programming, ERP, Cooking, Soundclick
45416/02/2012Solving the unflushed inventory problemERP
100816/02/2017Reviewing someone else's academic workERP
120116/02/2019I can't sleep without CPAPCPAP
158516/02/2023Transferring another interviewDBA, Mobile phone
172116/02/2024The multifunctional guitar effects pedalGuitars

Thursday, February 13, 2025

Bug in PrioXRef

I haven't had the need to touch the source files of this program1 since 12/21, although I have to admit that I haven't been using it very much lately. Actually, that's not true: I used it to find bugs in a very convoluted procedure that someone else had written years ago: it turns out that the value of RETVAL was never checked after opening about ten cursors. The bugs disappeared once the value of RETVAL was checked.

The other day I wanted to run the program on a procedure that was causing me problems; was the variable that I needed called :$.M0, :$.N0 or even :$.P0? PrioXRef got stuck in an infinite loop when checking the procedure, so even this tool couldn't help. Eventually I realised what the problem was: those three variables come from three different CHOOSE stages, but only one of them will actually be chosen. In the end, I added a line in three different stages to save the value of whichever variable was current into a fourth global variable. But that's not the point.

The procedure was about 190 lines long, but the error seemed to occur in one of the final lines. Eventually I saw what construct was causing the infinite loop: a line that had two comments on it. Why two? Because I had commented out the first part, but the original comment was still extant. 

/* EXECUTE SENDMAIL :$.MBX, :XMSG; */ /* send the letter! */

Finding the offending construct was half of the problem, but I also had to discover why PrioXRef was entering an infinite loop. First, I created a simple three line text file, where the second line had the double comment. Then I single stepped through the program code a few times until the penny dropped and I saw where the bug in my code was.

if (token = '/') and (ch = '*') then begin // comment repeat n:= pos ('*/', buffer); if n = 0 then begin bufptr:= buflen + 1; getchar; end until n > 0;

The problem is with the call to the function pos; this always starts at the beginning of the string (named buffer) and so the procedure kept on finding the closure of the first comment. The simplest way to handle this was to delete everything from the beginning of buffer until the closing backslash; I also had to reset the variable that contains the length of buffer (so that the program will know that it has reached the end of a line and has to start operating on a new line). The reason for the repeat/until loop is that the comment may continue on a second line and so the terminator won't be found; setting bufptr (the index into the buffer) to the length of the buffer plus one will ensure that the getchar procedure will read a new line.

Once I had this fixed, I could now run PrioXRef on the procedure that I wanted to check.

Internal links
[1] 1338



This day in history:

Blog #Date TitleTags
45213/02/2012GatewayGateway
67313/02/2014A flaw with spreadsheetsERP, DBA, Excel
92613/02/2016ERP thoughtsDBA
158313/02/2023Putting words into actionIsrael

Wednesday, February 12, 2025

Mike Ratledge, RIP

Mike Ratledge, the original organist in Soft Machine, has died aged 81. I can't write very much about him because I was never able to find out very much about his life.

He played on the only SM album that I own, 'Fourth', and had one composition on it, the opening 'Teeth'. I bought this in 1971 when I saw SM twice. Looking back, I don't know how I latched onto this album, as I didn't like any other work of theirs enough to purchase. I probably heard 'Teeth' on the radio and was suitably impressed; I very much like the second side of the album (composed by Hugh Hopper) and often have tried in vain to find something similar to this.

I remember seeing Ratledge on a television programme - possibly 'The South Bank Show' if it was running in 1971/2 - where Ratledge explained that there weren't many effects available for the organ, or at least, for his organ. He displayed the use of the fuzz box along with some other device that could lower all the notes played by one semitone.



This day in history:

Blog #Date TitleTags
80912/02/2015FrankieTV series, William and Mary
147012/02/2022You hold me (yet another new song)TV series, Song writing, Home recording
158212/02/2023MemoriesPsychology, Non-fiction books
172012/02/2024Red bell pepperNutrition

Tuesday, February 11, 2025

Weary Cutters

At the moment my computer is playing 'Steeleye Span - The Crysalis years' - a triple cd set that I bought many years ago and ripped several years ago. I'm very familar with the first two albums, "Below the salt" and 'A parcel of rogues'1 as these were compulsory listening in the years 1971-3. I'm also familiar with their third album with Bob Johnson2, 'Now we are six' (see the Tim Hart obituary linked previously) but the final two albums in this set, 'Commoners Crown' and 'All around my hat' are not familiar at all.

I have to admit that listening to the set all the way through leads to auditory fatigue, so I don't/can't normally listen closely to those last two. But this morning, by the time I came to sit at the computer, it was playing 'Commons Crown' and I was able to listen properly to this.

The first thing that my ears picked up was the following lyric

O the weary cutters and O the weary sea O the weary cutters have taken my laddie from me They've pressed him far away foreign With Nelson beyond the salt sea O the lousy cutters and O the weary sea O the lousy cutters have stolen my laddie from me They always come in the night They never come in the day They come at night and steal the laddies away

Those words seem very familiar to me, but the melody was hard to catch, with Maddy Prior singing harmony with herself. Then it struck me: this song, 'Weary Cutters', is sung at the beginning of 'Blue's Gaen Oot O' the Fashion' by Rachel Unthank and the Winterset (as it was then) on 'The Bairns3'!

Three cheers for the folk tradition that allows modern musicians to take old songs and bend them to their will.

Internal links
[1] 220
[2] 1695
[3] 353



This day in history:

Blog #Date TitleTags
2411/02/2006One small stepProgramming, Psychology, Kaizen, The brain
45111/02/2012A change is gonna comeFilms
158011/02/2023This week's rantIsrael
158111/02/2023Hot filling soupCooking, Weather
171911/02/2024The good, the bad and the self-delusionGuitars, Pedal board