Notices

Notices for 25th March 2026

Wed, 25 Mar 2026 23:59:00 GMT

Star Trek afficionados will remember the TNG episode “Remember Me”, where the crew of the Enterprise slowly vanish, as though they never existed. Reality is starting to take this form.

While waiting for the last slivers of progress with the UK power industry (if indeed they are still on this side of the warp bubble), I’ve spent a bit of time adding material to the operating system design notes section. I don’t expect to be taken seriously and I don’t expect to accomplish anything, but it’s good to get more ideas documented publicly instead of having them merely crawling around inside my skull.

Notices for 13th March 2025

Thu, 13 Mar 2025 23:59:00 GMT

When I started the pylons section of the site in summer 2022, with the intention of documenting all of the UK’s electricity pylon (transmission tower) types, I genuinely believed that I would not get far before progress came to an end. Instead, I have been doubly surprised: by how much further this has progressed than expected (with help from many people) and just how many tower types this island nation has dreamt up. It feels like Jon Bruford’s “tower bible” only scratched the surface of what is out there, with many types not known even to enthusiasts. The UK electricity pylon series page is already around 50 pages long, covering (depending how you count them) 54 different tower series (suites/families), 52 of which having at least one illustration, many extensively covered.

2025 has so far proved fruitful, with suggestions of more yet to come.

A challenge to the UK power industry: let’s see how far we can get to 100% completeness before the end of the year. That includes all the 33 and 66 kV towers, of which so little is known, and of which there are so many types: estimated to be at least 30 lower-voltage tower series.

At least two major organisations in the industry did or do use this site as a visual reference, so the more comprehensive we can make it, the better for everyone.

Notices for 26th August 2023

Sat, 26 Aug 2023 23:59:00 GMT

Having gone live on Tuesday 26th August 2003, this site is now 20 years old, and I find that I have little to say. For extended periods it was as good as dead, but it’s come back to life in the last few years, first with the massive expansion of the keyboards section and more recently the power section that was introduced on the 26th of July last year. It’s still a lonely pursuit, and maybe it will die again in a while when I run out of pylon material to process.

I am not sure that human society, the climate or my own life will hold up long enough for the site to reach the 30-year mark. There are no provisions to ensure that the site will outlive me, but I am not so sure that this actually matters.

Notices for 2nd June 2023

Fri, 02 Jun 2023 23:59:00 GMT

In another act of madness, I chose to take it upon myself to document British electricity pylons (steel lattice high voltage transmission towers). The scope of this project is far more limited than that of documenting computer keyboards, not least because there is far less information available to work from, and it has reached the point of diminishing returns. However, in less than a year it has still grown to become much more than I was anticipating, especially with the help of pylon veterans Ian McAulay and Jon Bruford. To those among us who find these structures fascinating, there is bound to be something of interest to all of you. I am not an engineer, so it’s not a hugely in-depth treatment of the subject, but hopefully it will make a little piece of life a little less mysterious.

Notices for 7th December 2022

Wed, 07 Dec 2022 23:59:00 GMT

A long time ago, there was the Cy/VOS wiki, within which I wrote copious illustrated notes on operating system design. It looks like the server that hosted it died around 2007, although I thought it lasted a bit longer than that. I don’t anticipate ever writing that amount of material again, but I have decided to document a few ideas under the new OS section. No illustrations at present, and no huge amount of detail, but it is nice to have the information out in the open again. I have no pretences that it will ever be used by anyone as it’s just too late now to try to recapture the lost world of the desktop operating system, but maybe the ideas will help someone with something nonetheless.

The existing RISC OS GUI is also an important read with regards interface design.