Via The Register, I came across a link to a blog article (Microsoft Contributing More to OSS | Josh Holmes) enthusing about a move by Microsoft permitting its employees to contribute to the open source CMS Joomla!. [Edit: Josh Holmes is a Microsoft employee, so one might expect him to be enthusiastic about this development]. This interests me since this site (and about three others that I run) are constructed using the Joomla! CMS.  There's also an announcement on the Joomla! site (Microsoft signs the Joomla! Contributor Agreement):

Microsoft has signed the JCA (Joomla! Contributor Agreement), and we've got some of their code in the Joomla! 1.6 trunk. There, I said it. It feels like it should be so much more doesn't it? Don't worry, I won't end the blog post there.

I'm sorry. but I don't share the enthusiasm of these two articles (and nor do many of the commenters).  Microsoft is a very dangerous company to get into bed with, and its track record on open source software is not glittering. Remember Microsoft's strategy: Embrace, Extend, Extinguish.I'm not about to re-version my websites just yet.  But I'm going to start thinking how to move them to another platform that's not associated with Microsoft so I'm ready when the shit hits the fan.  Perhaps Drupal beckons.Update: Mary-Jo Foley over at ZDnet says (Microsoft signs agreement to contribute to Joomla open-source project)

In an April 27 post to the Joomla Community Portal site, the Joomla team noted that some of Microsoft’s code is in the Joomla 1.6 trunk. About half the commentors on the Joomla site were upbeat about Microsoft’s involvement in Joomla, noting that the Redmondians have been sponsoring many PHP events, as of late. But the other half were skeptical of Microsoft’s interest and involvement in open-source in general, and Joomla, in particular.Microsoft has been working on its own open-source CMS platform, codenamed “Orchard.” Microsoft recently transferred responsibility for Orchard to the CodePlex Foundation, and a handful of Microsoft employees working on Orchard have been assigned full-time to the Foundation for three years. Microsoft also has its own paid CMS platform in SharePoint Server.

Doesn't this worry the Joomla! guys?

This evening's event was scheduled to be run on the 11.4 mile Stony Stratford course.  In the end we used a backup course due to roadworks and traffic lights in Nash: a 9.4 mile circuit running from Stony Stratford through Beachampton to Nash, where we took the left turn to Whaddon and back to Stony Stratford via Calverton (see map below).  I rode a small section of this course en route to sign on, and it didn't enthuse me particularly: the road surface was gravelly, rough, potholed, and the road twisted around a lot.  One or two of the riders had ridden this course earlier in the week in the TeamMK event on Monday, and had some experience.  This was good for them, but the did keep telling alarming tales of the course - horror stories of gradients and potholes!  In the event, it wasn't too bad, but rather tough!  It was a nice warm evening, but rather breezy.  Unlike our usual Stony 11.4 mile course, there isn't a flat section to get the rider started: instead it's straight into the lumpy section of the course.  And this bit had something of a headwind!  It was rather depressing to see how the various potholes and defective road surface have still not been dealt with - the ravages of the winter haven't helped!  The course was familiar until the Nash crossroad, where it turned left to Whaddon.  In fact as far as Whaddon, the road surface wasn't too bad, it was just that the road was kind of lumpy, which a brief climb up to Whaddon for the left turn.  From Whaddon there's a long fast straight section.  Fast, that is, as long as you stayed well into the road and away from the dodgy surface!Then another short, sharp climb and we were on the really rough bit, with gravel and tight turns as we raced towards Calverton.  The finish came as something as a surprise -I'd thought it was a bit further down the road.  Nevertheless, I was quite pleased with my 24:32 - if we need to use the course on our next visit to Stony Sratford, I'd hope to go that little quicker through familiarity with the course.  Congatulations to Lindz for taking the honours (and keeping the "grudge match" going!  I'm already looking forward to next week's event on the Stoke Hammond course (which is an inter-club event with the A5 Rangers and League Round 3).Map
View 10042804 in a larger mapResults

								Pos. on
Pos	No	Name	Club	Time	Cat	Vets Std	.+ / -	Vets Std
1	6	Lindz Barral	i-team.CC	24.25	S
2	7	Robert Saunders	NBRC	24.32	V50	26.10	.+ 1.38	1
3	15	Daniel Crawley	Crest Ilford CC	24.34	S
4	10	Chris Dunwoodie	TeamMK	24.41	S
5	16	Phil Jenkins	TeamMK	25.08	V41	24.25	.- 0.43	4
6	14	John Buchanan	TeamMK	25.29	V40	24.14	.- 1.15	6
7	3	Leigh Smith	Alpha Road club	25.41	S
8	4	Brian Primett	NBRC	25.49	V43	24.48	.-1.01	5
9	11	Matt Wootton	TeamMK	26.10	S
10	13	Rob Chaundy	TeamMK	26.30	V58	27.52	.+ 1.22	2
11	1	Alan Lawson	NBRC	29.58	V41	24.25	.- 5.33	7
12	2	Gordon Batcock	NBRC	30.13	V69	30.24	.+ 0.11	3
13	5	Tony Brunton	NBRC	30.47	V45	25.11	.- 5.36	8
14	12	Russell Phillips	TeamMK	32.38	S
	8	David Skeggs	NBRC	DNF	V41
	9	Chris Selley	NBRC	DNF	V41

Cyclingnews has more on the Alejandro Valverde case (Swiss Court Dismisses Valverde Appeal | Cyclingnews.com).  Valverde has been implicated in the Operación Puerto blood doping ring.  The Spanish investigation was suspended because Spanish law didn't specifically prohibit this activity as criminal at the time.  However, this didn't stop the Italians' enthusiasm for pursuing the case and having matched Valverde's DNA to the blood in the bags labelled 'Valv. (Piti)', CONI banned him from racing in Italy for two years.  This of course includes any races (such as last year's Tour de France) which cross into Italy.Valverde appealed to CAS - but that was rejected.  It also turns out that he appealed to the Swiss Court of Civil Rights.  It's not clear to me why he's appealed to the Swiss court (unless he has a Swiss licence, perhaps), but that appeal failed, apparently because it was lodged before the CAS verdict was issued.  Apparently Valverde's appeal was based on his claim that

[...] that one of the arbitrators on the panel, Ulrich Hess, was not neutral because he had worked for the World Anti-Doping Agency.

So, a bit of a non-story in this long-running saga.  None of the appeals seem to relate to the accuracy of the crucial claim: that the Valv. (Piti) blood has a DNA match to Valverde.

I reckon I need to look at one of these HDTVs myself...here's xkcd's take!

I had expected a nice morning for this 10 mile time trial on the F1B/10 but as it turned out, while it was quite a quick morning, the weather wasn't too great.  It rained for the whole time I was on the course, at times rather heavy.  And I spent rather too long out on the course!I travelled out with Chris Hartley (Team Salesengine), and we were conveniently close in the start sheet (he was 64, I was 67, with his team mate Dave off a minute ahead of me).  The rain had started while the early riders were on the course (e.g. the 2-up teams), and had properly set in by the time Chris and I left his van.  I just did a quick warm-up, and persuaded the GPS transmitter to behave properly.The start of the course is rather closer to the slip road onto the A1 that for the F1B/25: accordingly I was going pretty briskly as I negotiated the flyover roundabout (it has acquired some new potholes over the winter), and joined the A1 at well over 30mph.  I kept up a strong pace pretty much all the way across the Sandy roundabout, to the turn.Coming round the turn, I could see Dave ahead of me, tantalisingly close.  The realisation I was gaining gave me further impetus.  Then all of a sudden I heard the tell-tale pshh-pshh-pshh of a punctured tubular.  Hoping it was just a slow leak, I pressed on.  Unfortunately the tyre went down pretty quickly, and with a curse or two I pulled over to the side of the road and dismounted.It was still raining, as I started the long trudge back to Tempsford  - it must have been 4.5 miles to the finish.  Before I'd reached the Sandy roundabout, a passing marshal (from the turn, I guess) stopped and picked me up.  On the way back to Tempsford, we saw Chris driving south in the van trying to find me!After all was said and done, this turned out to be a pretty quick day, with both Chris (a 23) and Dave (22:37) doing PBs.  One can only speculate what I would have finished in, but it would probably have been my fastest '10' for more than three seasons.So, a bit disappointing, but an indicator that my form is returning. Next weekend, I'll be on the F1B/25 for the Icknield '25', and the following weekend the F12/10 for the Bossard Wheelers '10'.Here's a map of the F1B/10, though I turned the GPS off soon after I started walking.
View 10042501 in a larger map

On the face ofit, a lovely evening for a time trial.  In fact, as I rode up to Astwood from work, the temperature had begun dropping significantly.  Also, my bike computer was behaving rather aberrantly, and wasn't receiving much in the way of speed/distance, and to add insult to injury, its heart rate display was really very wobbly.  Maybe there's a battery issue.These issues notwithstanding, I arrived in good time for the event, signed on, and awaited the start.  My hope was to continue my recent run of good form and ideally finish in less than 24 minutes - an achievable gold.  I started feeling pretty damned cold, and indeed decided to ride with my long sleeved cycling jersey over my skinsuit.  I lined up as number 6, and at the allotted time, off I went.At first, all seemed well, though due to the computer problems, I had no way of know how well I was going.  I got through Chicheley still feeling OK.  A brief flurry of enthusiasm from the bike computer indicated my pace was pretty good after the turn.  Around the time I reached North Crawley, I discovered my left tri-bar extension had worked loose (this has happened repeatedly of late, and doesn't seem to respond to bolt-tightening, even with loctite).  From here on, it was a bit of a struggle, as my forearm was now resting directly on the base bar - not very comfortable!As I passed the right turn to Cranfield University, some blasted 4x4 pickup driver looked directly at me, and pulled out right in front of me, causing me to slow down nearly to a stop.  When I shouted "Oh, come on!", he stopped dead.  I thought about this for a moment, and pulled round him.  For the next few miles, the driver followed me close behind my front wheel.  I found this really quite worrying, as I was suspecting the driver might be about to do something dangerous.  In fact, he stayed there until the Bourne End turn off, when he eventually passed me.  Perhaps I'd just surprised him a bit - he certainly didn't seem aggressive.By the time I reached the descent before the finishing climb, my left forearm was a bit uncomfortable fro the base bar.  I wa still hopeful of a sub-24, in that delusional way that time triallists sometimes have.  Unfortunately, the "Grumpy Bob time compression effect" seemed to take hold - time which seemed to be passing pretty slowly through most of the ride appeared to speed up in the last few hundred yards, and ticked well past 24 minutes.  I estimated my finish time as around 24:33.  The offcial result is somewhat worse, at 24:36.To be honest, I'm a bit disappointed, and don't know if this reflects the circumstances of the ride, or just a temporary dip in form.  Hopefully the latter.  I've an open '10' on Sunday, and the next club event (Stony Stratford '11.4') on Wednesday, which should offer another opportunity to gauge my form.  In the meantime, it's getting quite urgent that I address this tri-bar problem.Results are tabulated below.

								Pos. on
Pos	No	Name	Club	Time	Cat	Vets Std	.+ / -	Vets Std
1	9	Tim Carter	Virgin Active	22.29	V44	26.18	.+ 3.49	2
2	16	Simon Canning	TeamMK	23.01	V40	25.30	.+ 2.29	8
3	17	Aaron McCaffray	AWCycles	23.04	S
4	12	Tony Parks	NBRC	23.17	V45	26.30	.+ 3.13	5
5	18	Dave Glossy	Team Corley Cycles	23.43	S
6	14	Lindz Barral	i-team CC	23.53	S
7	6	Rob Saunders	NBRC	24.36	V50	27.33	.+ 2.57	6
8	13	Geoff Perry	TeamMK	24.43	V50	27.33	.+ 2.50	7
9	8	Glenn McMenamin	NBRC	25.02	S
10	19	Phil Jenkins	TeamMK	25.03	V41	25.42	.+ 0.39	.= 10
11	2	Julian Lane	Unattached	25.27	V43	26.06	.+ 0.39	.= 10
12	15	Robert Chaundy	TeamMK	25.45	V58	29.20	.+ 3.35	4
13	7	David Carrington	TeamMK	25.50	V44	26.18	.+ 0.28	12
14	10	Ian Stokes	NBRC	26.30	V50	27.33	.+ 1.03	9
15	3	Clive Faine	TeamMK	26.55	V64	30.45	.+ 3.50	1
16	11	Gilbert Wheelwright	NBRC	27.49	V67	31.30	.+ 3.41	3
17	4	Marcus Buksh	Kettering CC	28.47	V46	26.42	.- 2.05	14
18	5	Nick Crook	NBRC	29.33	V59	29.34	.+ 0.01	13
19	1	Tony Brunton	NBRC	30.42	V45	26.30	.- 4.12	15
Time keepers :- Steph Cousins & Tony Farmborough NBRC
Pusher off :- Bryan Scarborough NBRC

An absolutely clear and still morning greeted me as I loaded up the car to drive over to Tempsford for the Bedfordshire Road CC '25'.  This event, a 'slowest 90' time trial, was to be held on the F1B/25, a version (among many) of the time trial courses based on the A1 dual carriageway near the Black Cat roundabout. This course runs south from Tempsford to turn at the Baldock interchange, where the A1(M) begins (see map below). This version of the course undulates severely at the southern turn and is popularly regarded as slower than the versions of the F1 which head north to turn at Buckden.  On the whole, however, the return leg can be quite fast as the turn is higher than the start/finish.Of course, a clear night meant it was rather colder than it looked!  By the time I started at 8:54, two things had happened - firstly it had warmed up to a rather pleasant conditions for the event, but secondly, an annoying breeze had appeared.  This was oriented diagonally, but offered assistance southbound but a headwind northbound.  In my experience, this is the wrong way for a fast time on this course.I had a good start, though the two riders in front of my minute man didn't start, leaving rather a gap ahead of me.  I found the opening stretch up to the sliproad onto the A1 quite quick, and this was maintained, except for the climbs later on in the southbound leg.  There was little traffic, so I was surprised to be held to a stop at the Sandy roundabout.  I was unfortunately in a bit of a tall gear at the time, so getting the bike up to speed again was something of an effort.  I carried on, making it through the next two roundabouts with no trouble, and catching my minute man well before the turn.  At the turn, I was again held up by a driver, this time a learner, for whom the Baldock interchange seemed to be a bit daunting (and maybe not helped by having blokes in garish lycra on funny bikes turning up at roughly one minute intervals!).The second leg was pretty uneventful - other than it being surprisingly tough at times up the hills with the headwind.  Still, I made it back to the finish in 58:24, which I think was quite a respectable time.  My all time best for the F1B/25 is a 54:38, but I did that about seven or eight years ago and on a pretty good day for the course.
View 10041804 in a larger mapResults

Pos	Rider	Time
1	Tim Davies	00:55:54
2	Sam Hayes	00:56:04
3	Peter Galpin	00:56:52
4	Kevin Gill	00:56:53
5	Malcolm Woolsey	00:57:58
6	Tom Boulton	00:58:17
7	Dr Robert Saunders	00:58:24

I've been very happy with my new Dell PC (when it finally arrived after the supply problems Dell seemed to suffer over the Xmas period). Of course much of this is down to having set it up to dual boot Ubuntu 9.10 with the supplied Windows 7. (I have to say that Win7, while not exactly my cup of tea, performs considerably better than the Vista Business I tried a few years ago).Since we bought this PC largely for working from home, I've been prevailed to see what the 60 day trial of Office 2007 is like, with a view to buying it if we like it. Now, what's never been clear is whether that's 60 days from purchase of the PC, or 60 days from activation. I assumed thelatter.So I clicked the desktop icon, which set in place the process.  First I had to install some ActiveX script to install an Office 2007 update.  presumably, therefore, the system detected I had an out of date trial of Office.  This update, incidentally, seemed to relate to the USA and its dependencies - I assume in the Redmond World that the UK is now a dependency of the USA.  As far as I could see, it was a patch to remove code infringing software patents at the end of 2009 (see for example this article).So, being a dutiful user, and quite keen to have a look at office 2007, I followed the onscreen instructions.  Everything installed.  Next step, click the big green "continue" button.  Oh Dear! A typically opaque message.

&mbsp;We are sorry, but we are unable to complete your request.The following problem(s) exist:The Microsoft Office Activation Assistant was unable to detect a 2007 Microsoft Office release.

And that's where it ends.  If I click the trial icon on the desktop, I get the same message.  I did a quick Google and found numerous pages discussing the message, but frankly can't be bothered to pursue this as I'm quite happy with OpenOffice.org for my office software suite.  And Openoffice.org was installed in full on my PC when I installed Ubuntu 9.10.  And in full when I installed the Windows package downloaded from OpenOffice.org.  As the insurance meerkat (and the ensuing interweb meme) might say: "simples".

It's reported that the British Chiropractic Association have admitted defeat in their ill-fated and stupid attempt to silence criticism (Ely Place - News).  I wonder where this leaves Simon Singh who, as I understand it, is a couple of hundred thousand pounds out of pocket for defending himself against a libel action that should never have been brought.  Can the BCA get off the hook as easily as that?UPDATE:  The original article is back on the Grauniad website.  The BCA have commented with a press release.

This was the first of the evening club events, and the start list was limited to ensure we'd all get finished before sunset.  On the face of it, we had a rather nice evening, quite sunny and dry.  In fact there was a stiff easterly that was rather chilly.  Anxious that I be able to get home safely without lights, I signed on as number 3.Lining up to start, I felt distinctly chilly, but this soon dissipated as I set off.  Fortunately, the breeze afforded me a helping hand all the way up to the Stoke Hammond bypass (beginning at the left turn on the third roundabout - see map below).  This was most welcome, and the tail wind remained as I set off along the dual carriageway section.By the time I'd reached the turn, I'd caught both riders in front of me, and I was looking forward to the return leg, unfortunately not as quickly as on the way out.  This was particularly noticeable once off the dual carriage way section (and having negotiated the appallingly damaged road surface at the roundabout), when even the downhill section was hard!As I approached the finish, I retained some hope I might pull off a long 22, but the headwind was just a bit too much, and I ended up finishing in about 23:11.  I don't at this stage have the final result, as I left pretty quickly, before the light faded too much.  This may be my quickest time on this course...Results below the map
View 10041402 in a larger map

								Pos. on
Pos	No	Name	Club	Time	Cat	Vets Std	.+ / -	Vets Std
1	21	Tony Parks	NBRC	22.45	V45	26.30	.+ 3.45	4
2	19	Aaron McCaffrey	AW Cycles	22.47	S
3	3	Robert Saunders	NBRC	23.12	V50	27.33	.+ 4.21	2
4	18	David Glossy	Team Corley Cycles	23.22	S
5	13	Lindz Barral	i-Team CC	23.37	S
6	22	Geoff Perry	TeamMK	24.11	V50	27.33	.+ 3.22	6
7	5	Darren Haydon	NBRC	24.21	S
8	6	Glenn McMenamin	NBRC	24.24	S
9	10	Kevin Stokes	TeamMK	24.38	V47	26.54	.+ 2.16	8
10	9	Ian Stokes	NBRC	25.03	V50	27.33	.+ 2.30	7
11	20	John Buchanan	TeamMK	25.38	V40	25.30	.- 0.08	10
12	14	D.Carrington	TeamMK	25.45	V44	26.18	.+ 0.33	9
13	17	Rob Chaundy	TeamMK	25.55	V58	29.20	.+ 3.25	5
14	8	Clive Faine	TeamMK	26.39	V64	30.45	.+ 4.06	3
15	12	Gilbert Wheelwright	NBRC	26.50	V67	31.30	.+ 4.40	1
16	16	Brian Primett	NBRC	27.01	V42	25.54	.- 1.07	11
17	4	David Skeggs	NBRC	27.24	V41	25.42	.- 1.42	13
18	7	Yvonne Gurney	TeamMK	27.42	Lady
19	1	Alan Lawson	NBRC	28.08	V41	25.42	.- 2.26	14
20	11	Tony Brunton	NBRC	30.25	V45	26.30	.- 3.55	15
21	2	Dave Garrard	NBRC	31.57	V62	30.16	.- 1.41	12
		Two up TTT
	15	Simon Cannings	TeamMK	21.40	V40
		Jason Gurney	TeamMK	DNF	V40
Time Keeper :- Tony Farmborough NBRC
Pusher Off :- Bryan Scarborough NBRC