Category: Travels

Those radio waves are flooding my brain!

You must protect yourself from those evil marketing rays
Back in Morris, it was pretty rare to run across another wireless network at the house. Every now and then you’d catch the edge of what was probably a base station somewhere else in the neighborhood, but usually we were the only visible network.

It’s just a wee bit different here in Colchester. Sitting here in the apartment I can see almost 15 different networks, and I wouldn’t be surprised if there are quite a few other “invisible” networks in the neighborhood.

Obviously designing tools to handle increasingly dense network environments is going to be a good career path for some time to come, as the sort of density we’re seeing here is going to more and more the norm. Coming up with innovative solutions to these challenges is also going to be the kind of thing that’s going to require some substantial computer science (and/or appropriate engineering) background (vs. web programming or a two year tech degree).

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Bikes or buses

'thinkin bike' by tripflyin
Now that things are a bit more settled, the time has come to figure out what my long-term transport plans are. This week I’ve walked with Tom to a bus stop near his school (30-40 mins), and then taking a bus to the University at a cost of £1.70. I then walk home, which takes about 45 minutes. All this works, but I spend an awful lot of my life walking, and it would be nice to have at least one faster option available without spending a ton of money.

I’ve thought pretty seriously about getting a bike, but an exploratory visit to a bike shop today suggested that even getting a cheap bike is going to be pretty pricey for 9 months in Colchester. A decent low-cost bike is around £100 (about US$200), plus £30-50 for a helmet and lights, and another £50 for a rack and a bags. So we’re talking between £150-200 (US$300-400) for a reasonable kit.

On the other hand, a monthly university bus pass (which I’m still not 100% sure I’m eligible for) would be some £30 a month for “all you can eat”. This would definitely give me more flexibility, and would be nice in the rainy weather (which we’re bound to have), but would also encourage me to use dinosaur bones to move myself around town instead my own steam, which is too bad.

So I’m torn. If I could find a decent second hand bike that might be a nice option, but there doesn’t seem to be a shop that sells such things here. There’s what looks like a nice cycling group in Colchester, but their monthly meetings are quite a hike from here, and the September meeting was the night of Sub-Evil Boy’s first day at school so I missed it. I might e-mail one of them and see if they have any suggestions.

In the meantime, there’s a whole lot of walking going on…

Thanks to tripflyin for the cool photo.

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