The Musings of Chris Samuel

This is a great shame, though probably not that surprising these days, but the UK Joint Academic Network (JANET) is going to pull its Usenet News service on the 31st July 2010. Basically I suspect the ever declining SNR has put people off, and these days everyone knows the web and the closest they get to knowing what Usenet is (or maybe was) Google Groups. JANET says:

There are now few active registered News Feed users and News Read users and the current infrastructure is nearing its end of life. JANET(UK) have therefore decided that it is no longer economically viable to run the service, especially in the current financial climate. We therefore will cease to offer the service when the existing contract expires on July 31st 2010.

Especially sad for me as I cut part of my first real sysadmin job at the University of Wales, Aberystwyth, was working on the Usenet news system that had been set up originally by Alec Muffett and I was for quite a while the maintainer of the UK.telecom newsgroup FAQ and the alt.config guidelines.

Update: I’ve been digging through some old email – here’s one from 4th August 1993 giving an idea of what we had to struggle with:

OK, I deleted all binaries under alt.binaries, all of junk and all of control. That, coupled with the AEM_TIDY got us about 27 meg back. I then ran a doexpire, whch took a long while but we’re now up to about 53 Meg free, or about 85% of the 400 Meg partition.

Yup, the entire university news spool at that time was a whopping great 400MB. We were using nntplink with CNews for the time (this was before we knew about INN).

My friend Alun Jones forwarded onto me the sad news of the death of one of my former lecturers, Tudor Jenkins (here’s the archive.org link, in case the original goes away), affectionately called “Tuba Jenkins” by his students as he played the tuba for the Aberystwyth Silver Band (Seindorf Arian Aberystwyth).

Dr TUDOR E. JENKINS, MA, DPhil (Oxon), FInstP

It is with great sadness that we report the untimely death of Dr Tudor Jenkins, Reader in Physics at the Institute of Mathematics and Physics at Aberystwyth University. Dr Jenkins died on 3rd November after a short illness aged 60.

Originally from the Rhondda Fawr, Dr Jenkins read Physics at Corpus Christi College Oxford, and obtained a D.Phill at the Clarendon Laboratory, Oxford. He subsequently studied as a post-doctoral research assistant in Cardiff University before being appointed as lecture in micro electronics at St Andrews University in 1979. He joined the Department of Physics at Aberystwyth in 1983 becoming Senior Lecturer in 1990 and Reader in 2007.

A tribute by Professor Neville Greaves, Director of the Institute of Mathematics and Physics, is published on http://www.aber.ac.uk/aberonline/en/.

I remember I did his lasers course when I did my degree in Planetary and Space Physics at Aberystwyth back in the late 1980′s and whilst I wasn’t very good at that course I do remember his enthusiasm for physics and the fact he could inspire you to want to learn more. Turns out that he was recognised for that, in 2005 he won the Universities award for Teaching Excellence. This quote from the tribute also rings true to form:

Dr Tudor Jenkins was a committed and colourful colleague, famous for his often pithy Latin quotations with which he ended his e-mails. Looking forward to rationalising teaching modules for the 2009 session, he concluded wryly with Occam’s Razor: entia non sunt multiplicanda praeter necessitatem, which approximately translates as “entities must not be multiplied beyond necessity”. Tudor was always a pragmatist.

I also seem to remember that he had an enthusiasm for real ale..

Sometimes when you ask for something to be translated to a language you don’t know it’s a good idea to get the resulting translation translated back into your own language..

English: No entry for heavy goods vehicles. Residential site only

Welsh: I am not in the office at the moment. Please send any work to be translated

(Via)

When I lived in Wales, or visited my folks after I’d left, I’d always end up hearing Bob Humphreys on the BBC talking about the rugby. He was a familiar sight and sound and so it was sad to hear that he’s died at the age of 56 of lung cancer. The WRU also has a tribute up for him.

…in fact in the Millennium Stadium to be precise. They found him hiding in the turf boxes from the pitch used in last years Grand Slam!

OK, maybe a cockatiel isn’t quite what you were expecting, but it is rather cute..

You’re getting old, my little brother..

Wales have just won the Grand Slam, beating France at the Millennium Stadium here in Cardiff.

We were watching the end of the game after coming back from scattering my dads ashes. What a finish Wales put on – a fantastic end.

Today has been a day of sadness and joy.

This morning we took my fathers ashes to Freshwater West and scattered them overlooking his favourite bay in a brief respite from the downpours across Wales today.

This is tempered by the memories of my father, both here and elsewhere in Pembrokeshire.

Hywl fawr Dad!

Mum put the following acknowledgement in the local paper to thank everyone who was involved both with my fathers last few years and for the funeral.

SAMUEL Robert – Pat and family would like to thank all the carers, past and present, especially Sue Lewis and Carole Lovell from Homecare, the Fairwater District Nurses, the Doctors and Staff of Fairwater Health Centre, especially Dr Shon Phillips, the Doctors and Nurses of Ward East 2 at Llandough Hospital for their care of Bob, and help to Pat. Thanks also to Andrew Forse from J Pidgeon & Son, for his courtesy, and the Rev Martin Colton for the lovely service.

On Monday my father passed away at the age of 82.

SAMUEL Robert Alan Peacefully on Feb 25, 2008 at Llandough Hospital, beloved husband of Pat, loving father of Christopher and Alan, father-in-law of Donna and Jan, loving brother of Jean and her husband Tony, brother-in-law of Mike and Sue, uncle to Michael, Katherine and Richard. Resting at J Pidgeon & Son, Victoria Park, Cardiff until the funeral on Monday, March 3, service at 11.15am in the Briwnant Chapel at Thornhill Crematorium. Family flowers only, donations in lieu may be sent to Cancer Research (Wales), Velindre Hospital, Whitchurch, Cardiff.

You inspired a love of nature & history that will always be with me.

Love you, Dad.