ieatpenguin

Apparently, I can swim

Russell — Mon, 16 Aug 2010 11:14:49 +0000

Not really sure how but I managed to swim the 1500m leg of my triathlon this weekend in 23 minutes. Given that this was my first sea swim, and I was expecting nearer 40..

Starcraft II

Russell — Tue, 10 Aug 2010 09:13:27 +0000

Blizzard are master story tellers, and despite their controversial, money based decision to release SCII in chapters, they have scored another hit.

A truly compelling and moving storyline, the single player campaign is beautifully told against the usual complex background. A moving finish, and the usual open door ending to entice players in for the other chapters.

Personally, I can’t wait.

Endurance

Russell — Mon, 26 Jul 2010 14:57:11 +0000

‘Somewhere during the night you will hear a voice say, “Why am I doing this? I am never doing this again!” Look forward to this voice. Welcome it. Laugh at it. Embrace it. Look forward to hearing it again next year. Just know that it will come and that you will ride past it and be stronger when it fades into the shadows.’

Cambridge Town Bumps

Russell — Wed, 21 Jul 2010 08:19:06 +0000

It’s that time of year again, CRA town bumps are upon us. Once again I’m rowing in the beer boat.

Tuesday – 1st Night
City VIII overbumped Champs VII.

Wednesday – 2nd Night
City VIII row over.

Thursday – 3rd Night.
City VIII bumped Champs VI.

Friday – 4th Night
City VIII bumped X-press IV.

Overall a good week, we didn’t get blades but we went up 5 which is pretty good.

The Forestman Triathlon

Russell — Thu, 15 Jul 2010 14:16:55 +0000

It has been decided. A few friends and I are going to race the New Forest.

The Forestman is an iron distance triathlon, comprising of a 3.8km swim, a 180km bike, and a 42.2km run. For those of us that prefer good of fashioned distances: 2.4 miles in the lake, 112.5 miles in the saddle, finished off with a marathon.

Entries aren’t open yet, but we’re resolved to look out for opening day and getting our names on quickly. Should be an interesting year.

MSSQL – How To Output To A File

Russell — Thu, 08 Jul 2010 08:15:07 +0000

There is a very, very simple one liner within MySQL to dump the results of a query into a text file. Nothing so simple exists within MSSQL, but there are fairly easy workarounds. Using BCP, one can use the xp_cmdshell to pass the results into the desired file.

use DatabaseName
go

declare @FileName varchar(50)
declare @bcpCommand varchar(2000)

set @FileName = REPLACE(‘c:\temp\bcp\postcodes_’+CONVERT(char(8),GETDATE(),1)+’.csv’,'/’,'-’)

set @bcpCommand = ‘bcp “select left(postcode,4), count(*) from DatabaseName..TableName where customersequence = 0 group by left(postcode,4) order by count(*) desc” queryout “‘
set @bcpCommand = @bcpCommand + @FileName + ‘” -U username -P password -c’

EXEC master..xp_cmdshell @bcpCommand

This dumps a load of postcode information, based on usage, into a csv file in c:\temp\bcp. What the query is doesn’t really matter, just the bcp commands to provide us with the results in a file of our choosing (.csv in this case).

The @FileName command simply appends the current date to the file in order to keep track of queries.

Into outfile

Russell — Wed, 07 Jul 2010 14:29:03 +0000

Why oh why oh why is there nothing this simple within MSSQL? Sigh.

Todmorden Tri

Russell — Mon, 05 Jul 2010 10:59:32 +0000

Well I had a whale of a time. My provisional time is 1hr14, that is from starting the stop watch 5 seconds before the swim and stopping it as I crossed the run finish line. The transitions went perfectly, I genuinely don’t think I could have done any better/faster.

The cycle was incredible – a four mile climb to start with which hurt a lot (I don’t have any hills to practice on), and then a steep down hill on which, according to my cycle computer, I clocked a top speed of 44.5mph!

I then ran a ~22 min 5k which ordinarily would be terrible, but again it was hilly (where do they get those from up north anyway?) but I’m happy with it on a recovering leg and for a first Tri.

What a great experience, thoroughly enjoyed it – I will definitely be doing more.

Google’s Nexus One: Successful

Russell — Fri, 02 Jul 2010 10:30:51 +0000

“[The Nexus One] was so successful, we didn’t have to do a second one. We would view that as positive but people criticised us heavily for that. I called up the board and said: ‘Ok, it worked. Congratulations — we’re stopping.’”

Eric Schmidt is an utter ~~wanker~~ fool.

Triathlon List

Russell — Mon, 21 Jun 2010 15:24:42 +0000

Despite something in my brain screaming restraint, I’m signed up for four Triathlons now. Though the Ely place isn’t confirmed as they have a small field, I’m registered for the other three.

Todmorden Sprint Tri – 4th July
Box End Sprint Tri – 11th July
South Coast Classic Olympic Distance – 14th August
Ely Sprint Tri – 5th September