CSS framework
Cognologs |
Miscellanea
Participate in cutting edge developments
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Patented the wheel Wheels have been around for five or six thousand years. I've invented a new sort with entirely new possibilities for the use of materials. The wheel itself springs and doesn't have anything like spokes.
Rules for religion |
| Email: slapton4 at vulpeculox dot net |
| Merlin Smallbone books and ebooks to buy and download | ||
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| Merlin Smallbone is my pen name Go to my bookshop | ||
| Cycling | ||
| Cycle training in Witham | Cycle safety quiz | Witham Cycle Campaign |
I'm qualified to teach the new National Standard. Cycling isn't dangerous if you KNOW how.
 Do the 20 second safe cycling check. Find out more about how to get these important skills.
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Very few people cycle well enough to be safe. They feel unsafe as a result - But once you know the basic rules and get a little experience there's no problem. This is a test of nine questions for experienced cyclists to check they are not unwittingly putting themselves into danger. | When the authorities have lost the plot, forgotten the cyclist, spend without looking at the basics then somebody has to tell them what's what. Started in April 2000. Look at the future in our review then join to help us make it happen. |
| AX and 12Rs | |||
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AX - Fast, simple, universal accents How do you do your French homework? Do you use characters that aren't on your keyboard? If instant, simple accents and special characters is what you want, wherever you are in Windows then AX is just the very thing you need. And it's free.
Version 4.11, released 24th February 2011. |
12Rs - Not just 3
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| Kent history | ||
| Jean Fox, my mum, was a prolific historical researcher | ||
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NOW FREE ON-LINE History of Sevenoaks to 1650 and Database of West Kent wills
The definitive reference for family and local historians. |
Otford Documents from 17th & 18th Centuries Transcripts and analysis of about a hundred land-related documents in Otford and Shoreham Newly released September 2012.
All available on-line. |
History of Seal This book, published by [The History Press] is a pretty comprehensive study of the economic and social development of a village in Kent. It spans from pre-history with a new look at the origin of the name to eye-witness stories of the 'hurricane' of 1987. Winner of the Library Services Trust Alan Ball Award for Local History 2009. |
| Papers |
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Longer papers These essays, tutotorials, designs and book cover a variety of topics. The useful Internet
Improving systems
Information technology
Teaching, coaching, support
Essential and obvious quality
These papers contain a huge amount of thought and many useful ideas discussed in detail. |
| Curiosities and archives | ||||
| I've been known as 'Prof' since the age of 11 - as in Mad professor. Part of the job description is being interested in anything esoteric. | ||||
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Try it yourself
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Physics !
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Odd and old technology
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I've been putting stuff on the web since 1996. In that era you had to think of people who didn't
have a browser that could support tables. Connection speeds were 14.4Kbs, that's roughly
one hundredth of today's broadband speed and people paid by the minute for their connection
so it was convenient to give them as much information as possible at once then allow them
to go off-line.
Here is an example. 32Kbytes! Compasses mystery Why should three pubs in Essex all called The Compasses be in a straight line 10 miles long? A 4th pub called The Compasses creates a circle and points to an ancient centre of Templar activity. Other strange coincidences. Geomancy, Masons, Templars and the Peasants revolt (1381) could all be linked.(Or not) We were inventing the Internet as we went along, in particular how to develop styles of presentation and interaction. There were no Cascading Style Sheets, mime-types or blogs. Many people, though they knew the Web was going to be magic, had no idear how they might be able to use it for their own advantage. Here are some pages which may, or may not be 'of their time'. | ||
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Guru of the marshes
Some tips on web page design. Note the clever navigation. Also a reminder that some things never change.
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Magazine
I wondered if it was possible to create a magazine besed on reader's contributions.
Here is the first and only issue including
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Railway scandal
How do you 'go public' with a technical issue? What's a good writing format and how do you
keep page size down when including lots of pictures? This horrifying disregard for safety
that extended through many layers of government incomptence needs to stay on the record
as a warning for how awful British 'management' can get.
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| Programming
I do a lot of programming during which I develop libraries that other people might find useful.
As time goes by their relevance declines but there may be people who fancy using the ideas
in a library rather than starting from scratch.
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Burnham rose I'm a serial inventor. Here is a practical technique for putting worrysome things in the past. Surely this is an ideal use for the Web? - Yet in all these years I've not had a single follow-up to this article. Strange... ...Despite the rise of blogs and wikis I think there may be some distance to go in the way we 'create, refine and promulgate knowledge'. |
Essex gravity guide At one time Gravity Beer in Essex was dying-out. Here's the picture from the turn of the century with a few updates. Essex gravity guide |
| D/a/y Dates done properly. Obvious when you think about it: The time-line model for representing dates is broken. This is how to fix it. |
Incompetent ECC Highways A new chief executive started in January 2016. Is he just as useless as his predecessors or can he fix the arrogant, incompetence of Essex County Council's Highways Department. We give him clear examples and minimum standards to apply to the broken organisation. Incompetent ECC Highways |
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| Original songs |
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There are lots of resons for writing songs: Pull a leg, capture an interesting moment in time for posterity, pay last respects,
merge old and new, give people something to think about or just fun adaptations.
Tradition begins today is a collection of my original songs with comments about their origins. |