Bielefeld to Geschner

, distance: 143.93km, time: 8h14m , tagged: scotland2020
I pitched my tent slowly on the green field in the campsite - I was a bit exhausted. I went to the toilet, had a cold shower (hot water costs 0.5€). As I entered the campsite I thought I saw a shop, and I made my way there to see if I could find a beer. As I passed a man was looking at me and nodded. The shop wasn’t a shop, then the man said Read more...

Man with Bicycle

, distance: 16.4km, time: 1h16m , tagged: scotland2020
note the above distance and time are by the cycle computer I was on the train most of today I had to decide where to get the train to from Berlin. I had already decided to get the train - to cut out a few days to maximize the month of vacation that I have. I had considered many things for this years tour - the original idea was to tour around the UK and visit various relations, at one point by going via. Read more...

Cycling to Scotland

, tagged: scotland2020
This year I’m cycling from Germany to Scotland. My plan is: Get a train from Berlin to somewhere in the West. Cycle to Amsterdam Get the ferry to Newcastle Cycle to Scotland … (do stuff in Scotland) Visit my brother I will leave today. This tour marks 10 years since I first left England and stepped foot in Europe. I left Bath on 30th birthday (give or take a day or two), my birthday is in 5 days from today, so this is something like the reverse operation 10 years later. Read more...

Phpactor 16

, tagged: phpactor
Release 16 (0.16.0). In total 32 tickets / cards have been worked on. Reference Finder ¶ Phpactor 15 introduced an indexer, which enabled a couple of new features. A major one is reference finding. In Phpactor, reference finding refers to finding: Class references Function references Class member (method,constant,property) references. The first two are straight-forward, the third requires additional static analysis and can be slower (we need to find all matching members, then perform some static analysis to see if the container type belongs to the class we are searching for). Read more...

Mailbox dot org

, tagged: email
I had been hosting my own email for several years. I started using Gmail in 2005 or so but the advertising really bugged me, so I thought I would host my own email - it also seemed like a cool project. But I learned that it’s not that easy. Later I heard about sovereign which is an Ansible playbook to setup your own cloud. All you need to do is buy a dedicated server (I used a Scaleway Dedibox) and run Ansible to install and configure the software. Read more...

Byte Order Mark Madness

, tagged: php
We had an issue today where a CSV file was being read via. SplFileInfo. The array keys were being inferred from the headers, and the values transformed based on rules per column. The issue was that the column was not found: // data read from CSV $data = [ 'SALUTATION' => '1', ]; var_dump($data['SALUTATION']); // UNDEFINED INDEX ERROR Very confusing! It turns out that the CSV file was prefixed with a byte order mark, which was being incorrectly parsed into the first header (SALUTATION). Read more...

Phpactor 15

, tagged: phpactor
It’s been two months since the last Phpactor release. Release 15 (0.15.0) was intended to be the release that integrated the Language Server. It has been a huge amount of work, and at least 63 tickets have been worked on. But there have also been numerous other improvements. New Documentation ¶ Phpactor now has new documentation hosted on readthedocs. The new docs can make use of the power of RST and should provide a better foundation for continuing documentation development. Read more...

Phpactor 14

, tagged: phpactor
TL;DR: See what’s new. It’s time to make a new release! Which generally involves lots of waiting for composer. So a good time to make a blog post. It’s been well over a year since I last blogged about 3 years of Phpactor. So what’s new since then? What happened in 2019? In January 2019 I really wanted to finish the Language Server implementation, and I spent lots of time working on a generic language server implementation, then the language server extension and quite a few other packages which added distinct capabilities to the server and finally it was working with completion, reference finding and hover. Read more...

Bulgaria PHP

, tagged: conference
I left the flat in a panic, I assumed I would be queuing at the airport and would need to be there 2 hours before take off. The planned journey would be a tram ride followed by a bus to the airport. I ran to the tram station, waited 10 minutes, got off the tram, realised I was one stop too early, ran to the next stop, looked around frantically for the bus station whilst trying to make sense of the map on my phone, when I found it the bus had just left and I paced up and down the pavement while people started to aggregate for the next bus in 10 minutes. Read more...

Travemunde, Rostock, Berlin

, tagged: helsinki2019
This is the last blog post of the trip. I’m on the train to Berlin and from there directly back into my normal life as I’ll go straight from the train station to the Symfony User Group meetup. I slept unbelievably well in the tent last night, I didn’t feel particularly hungry despite my inappropriate diet for the past few days, but then I hadn’t been moving or expending any energy, so what I had was likely enough to sustain me. Read more...

Tallinn to Helsinki to Travemunde

, tagged: helsinki2019
I am now in the campsite at Travemunde, which was conveniently immediately outside of the ferry port. I had originally planned to cycle directly, overnight, to Rostock (100km) and reasoned that I would arrive at 4am and be able then to get the first train to Berlin, and that the cycle ride would be good and hoped the sky would be clear, but the weather forecast was poor, and in the hours preceding the arrival it had been pouring in rain. Read more...

Tallinn

, tagged: helsinki2019
I have now stayed in Tallinn for 5 nights, stayed in two separate hostels, met lots of interesting people and have been for 4 runs of 10k or more. Time has passed quicky and I wish I could stay longer but I have to be at work in a few days. The first two nights I stayed in the Euphoria hostel, which I breifly described in the previous post - it has a drum kit, organ, piano, several guitars, microphones and amplifiers. Read more...

Võsu to Tallinn

, distance: 113km, time: 5h36m , tagged: helsinki2019
I’m sitting in the Eurphoria hostel in Tallinn, I got in around an hour and a half ago, and have briefly explored the tourist saturated center, then came back here and played guitar and piano for about an hour and a guy just came in and sat at the drums. There is all the tools required for a band in this room, which is one of the reasons I was attracted to this hostel, and I may be staying here for a week. Read more...

Tartu to Võsu

, distance: 185km, time: 8h34m , tagged: helsinki2019
I had prepared for a long day today, and after two days at the Looming hostel in Tartu I was feeling fresh and ready to go in this morning. I had had some good chats with people at the hostel, and the experience was running through my mind for the first few hours of the trip this morning. Tortu’s main square this morning The weather was fine as I left the hostel and headed down to the river, and I felt good. Read more...

Tartu

, tagged: helsinki2019
I intended to stay two nights in Tartu, but have ended up staying three. There seem to be no logical resting places for tomorrows journey within a 120km distance (other than hotels which I would consider to be beyond what I’d be happy to pay), and the next campsite is on the coast, which would be 155km - a long day. The following day I could do an even longer day and make it all the way to Talinn, which is either 100km direct, or, if following the coast (and I really should follow the coast) it’s almost 163km, 100 miles and this last act of masochism seems fitting for the last journey on this trip, although there is also an outdoor “hostel” or “retreat” in the forest outside of Tallinn which has been recommended to me twice, so that may break my journey. Read more...

Laatre to Tartu

, distance: 87km, time: 4h30m , tagged: helsinki2019
As predicted I slept terribly, falling initially to sleep but soon waking up as my head wasn’t comfortable (it was supported inappropriately on my hoody which was in turn supported by my food pannier). As usual when I realised that it was morning and I could get out of bed, falling to sleep was no longer an issue and I didn’t wake until 9am. So I slept badly and got out of bed late. Read more...

Cēsis to Laatre

, distance: 118km, time: 6h35m , tagged: helsinki2019
At the hotel I settled down with a few beers and Series 8 of of Game of Thrones, I hadn’t watched it up until this point despite being, like most other people, a big fan of the earlier seasons, but it had got progressively worse and I predicted this, the final, series would be mediocre, it wasn’t great, but none-the-less still intriguing enough that I watched 4 episodes back to back. Read more...

Riga to Cēsis

, distance: 108km, time: 6h00m , tagged: helsinki2019
Typing this in a Pizzeria as usual, but unfortunately my laptop’s power was drained s I’m typing this awkwardly on my phone. I am in Cēsis, an historical town 100km north-east of Riga. At the hostel I woke relatively late, 9:00, and was able to take advantage of the free waffles for breakfast, washing them down with a good deal of free coffee. After two days rest my arse was road worthy again. Read more...

Riga Rest Days

, tagged: helsinki2019
I don’t seem to have succeeded in integrating very well in the hostel I’ve been staying in for the past 2 days, having not really broken the ice with people in general (with some exceptions) and feeling a little depressed and drained. Most of the staff and guests are relatively young (one girl, 18, is still at high school in Italy) so maybe it’s the generation gap. I did have a good chats with a guy from Wales, and another from Helsinki. Read more...

Plavinas to Riga

, distance: 138km, time: 7h33m , tagged: helsinki2019
The road suddenly changed from a very smooth asphalt road to the worst kind of gravel road, and showed no sign of stopping. Potentially running for the remaining 50k to Riga, cars would drive past kicking dirt into the air which would sting my eyes and force me to angle my cap down to avert the dust, which consequently meant my field of vision was restricted to what was immediately in front of me. Read more...

Sudeikiai to Plavinas

, distance: 155km, time: 8h11m , tagged: helsinki2019
As normal I slept not to well on the campsite, but woke up at 06:00 and made breakfast (coffee, porridge, and some pastry things I found in a shop) and was out on the road at around 08:00 heading to the Latvian border. It looked to be another sunny day, yesterday I had worn my vest for the first time since being burnt over a week ago, and was annoyed that I had burnt again in the same place, I sprayed some sun lotion on to my back and put on my shirt instead of the vest. Read more...

Vilnius to Sudeikiai

, distance: 140km, time: 7h30m , tagged: helsinki2019
The campsite is almost empty and again it’s a big one sponsered by the EU. When I arrived at 18:00 it was empty and I thought it was closed, but I took the phone number anyway and went to the next campsite on my map 3km down the road, on arriving there I passed what seemed to be a deer enclosure and there was a huge stag sitting in the middle of it. Read more...

Rest Day

, tagged: helsinki2019
Today was the first rest day so far. I got out of bed around 8am, and had a terrible hangover. I went downstairs to the kitchen and sat down, the hostel guy was there and was preparing croissants, also there was a nice old man from South Korea. It was good chatting to both of them, the hostel guy worked in London for 2 years, and actually studied English in my hometown - Weymouth. Read more...

Aukstadvaris to Vilnius

, distance: 61.19km, time: 3h15m , tagged: helsinki2019
This was the third time camping on this trip, and the third time I had a bad night, and the third time I had blamed my sleeping mattress. On the previous tour I had a “full length” air mattress - a self inflating air mattress that stretched from my head to my feat. This was a perfect mattress, except that it had developed a micro-puncture, which seems to be undetectable (have held it underwater for 10s of minutes and no sign of air release), and after 4 hours of sleep it would deflate and I would wake and not sleep so well. Read more...

Marijampole to Aukstadvaris

, distance: 100km, time: 5h30, , tagged: helsinki2019
Me and another cyclist are the only two people on a large campsite 50km from Vilenus. Coincidentally he has cycled from Tallinn, and is also from Berlin, but is getting the plane back from Vilenus, and we’ll cycle there together tomorrow. This morning I woke and didn’t feel particularly optimistic about the route today, there was one major road heading directly to Vilenus, and I believed it was not legal to cycle on it. Read more...

Goldap to Marijampole

, distance: 110km, time: 6h01m , tagged: helsinki2019
Loud music was pounding on the street, I thought I would wait until 12, maybe it would stop, but I fell asleep before that. In the morning I made my way to the restaurant to see what wonders awaited me. It was a buffet breakfsat, the guy spoke to me in German and asked if I wanted eggs “Speigel Eier oder Rugh Eier” (and yes, I have no clue how to spell or write in German). Read more...

Bartosxyce to Goldap

, distance: 135km, time: 7h5m , tagged: helsinki2019
The hotel wasn’t the best. I didn’t sleep well, and was anxious about my bicycle being in the hallway only demobilised but not locked to anything. I could hear anybody talking in reception. When I woke, I had no breakfast to get ready for, so I just packed my bags and checked out. When I asked the receptionist for water (seeing a basin in the reception) she gave me a litre of sparking water for free and refused to give me tap water. Read more...

Elbląg to Bartosxyce

, distance: 152km, time: 8h15m , tagged: helsinki2019
Slept perfectly in the airy and cheap room. I really liked the old hotel, it had very tall ceilings and there was lots of space. It was run down and old, but very clean, and the family that were running it were incredibly welcoming. My German has come in very useful so far, but in this town, Bartosxyce, it seems that it’s not as useful, so far nobody has been able to converse with me in either English or German. Read more...

Gdansk to Elbląg

, distance: 91km, time: 4h28m , tagged: helsinki2019
Woke up in the dormitory this morning with a heavy head, we had consumed a fair amount of vodka the previous night. I expected to meet people in the hostel, as you almost always do. The first guy was Xavier, originally from Peurto Rico, but who has been a digital nomad for the past 7 years (and only 29 years old), the young Australian couple, Nikki and Ash, had spent the past 3 months in Canada and visited Mexico, before dropping in to Poland to visit relatives, and then a Swede who had just purchased a boat and came over to Gdansk as he was considering sailing from Stockholm. Read more...

Bytów to Gdansk

, distance: 104km, time: 5h44m , tagged: helsinki2019
There was a buffer breakfast at the hotel, featuring feta cheese, bread, cereals, and eggs. Again this morning I was feeling less than optimal, and still half knocked out even after the breakfast coffee. I had now the required component to fix my rear break – the missing part was actually very common, and is the same screw that is used to affix the drink holders, so I could have easily cannibalised one of those. Read more...

Dabki to Bytów

, distance: 108km, time: 5h44m , tagged: helsinki2019
I’m glad that I turned inland. I decided to head to the town of Bytów which was only 100km from the town, and would be a stepping stone to Gdansk. The people I dealt with have all been unquestionably friendly and the roads have been quiet. I left the hotel without fanfare at around 08:00. I felt pretty horrible - when I got into the hotel last night I looked in the mirror and I had heavy bags under my eyes, and I felt like I had heavy bags under my eyes. Read more...

Wisełvka to Dabki

, distance: 158km, time: 8h47m , tagged: helsinki2019
Today has been a long day. I am now finally sitting in a Pizzeria in one of the many pizzerias in a town which is one of many towns with many Pizzarias. At the campsite I had a slightly better sleep, and think that I will become accustomed to the uncomforted and learn to sleep better. The campsite was very quiet, I woke up at around 5am, then tried to sleep again with some success, finally sitting up, getting out of the tent, using the toilet, then coming back and making coffee and porridge, before packing up. Read more...

Gartz to Wisełvka

, distance: 145km, time: 9h09m , tagged: helsinki2019
Didn’t sleep too well last night. I situated my tent close the the main building where there was a collection of tables and chairs, and these were appropriated by another small group of cyclists. They operated at a reasonable volume until 12, but as tents have absolutely no sound insulation, it’s as if I was there at the table with them. This drove me slightly nuts and I resorted to playing music in my headphones to drown the sound out, while sweating in the still uncomfortable heat, at midnight the small group called it a night, and the temperature dropped and I was able to crawl into my sleeping bag and sleep. Read more...

Berlin to Gartz (Meschern)

, distance: 129.15km, time: 6h30m , tagged: helsinki2019
Sitting in a campsite in the sun, in front of reception. Occuping one of 4 tables, each occupied by a single person (three of which are lone cyclists), mine is the only one in the sun, as I have been in the sun all day I guess it should make no difference that I spend the time writing this blog sweating and squinting at my laptop screen. Was woken from a dream this morning by the sound of a wasp, in the dream, and on awakening there was indeed a rather large bee flying around my room slowly clockwise, inspecting everything, and it would only be a matter of time before it made its way to my bed. Read more...

Preparation

, tagged: helsinki2019
In two weeks time I’m going to cycle from Berlin to Tallinn. As with my tour to Norway last year, this is a limited 1 month trip, the plan is to set off on July 1st, and cycle through Poland, maybe Belarus , Lithuania, Latvia, the destination Tallinn, then get the ferry to Helsinki, Finland in order to get the Ferry back to Rostock, then the train back to Germany and Berlin. Read more...

Make Timesheet Parser with Hoa Compiler

, tagged: php
I have been keeping my timelogs in a plain-text timesheet format as follows: 2019-02-11 09:00 [JIRA-1234] Adding some functionality 10:00 [standup] 10:15 [JIRA-1234] Fixing that annoying bug 11:00 [JIRA-2134] Review 12:00 [lunch] 13:00 [JIRA-1234] @pairing 14:00 [confused] 18:00 [finish] 2019-02-12 09:00 ... Bascially, it’s much quick to log my time realistically. I don’t need to continually break my concentration and assign time to tickets as I work on them, or strain to remember (or make up) what I did at the end of the day, or even at the end of the week. Read more...

Phpactor Extensions

, tagged: phpactor
Over the past month or so I have been gradually migrating Phpactor to use Extensions. This started because I wanted to add Language Server capabilities to Phpactor, but having two RPC mechanisms in the same application seemed overkill, so I decided to extract everything into extensions in order that all of the components could be easily reused and recombined (so that a phpactor-language-server standalone application could be created). In addition I wanted the ability to add framework and tool specific functionality, which doesn’t belong in the main distribution. Read more...

Rephpactor

, tagged: phpactor
TL;DR ¶ Phpactor 1.0 will have no features at all, but it will provide a way to install extensions. All current Phpactor functionality will be extracted to extensions. Background ¶ One problem with Phpactor has always been that it has not been extensible - it is not possible to, for example, install a Behat extension, or a Phpspec or Symfony extension. It is not that the infrastructure isn’t there internally - it is and was based on the precedent set by Phpbench (which was in turn influenced by other things, notaby Behat, Symfony, Pimple, etc). Read more...

Three Years of Phpactor

, tagged: phpactor
The first commit in Phpactor (pronounced “factor”) dates from almost three years ago: commit 3677c5cb58a5b203fb658c8e2498e512cdef555a Author: dantleech <[email protected]> Date: Thu Sep 24 14:08:35 2015 +0200 Initial I had no idea about how to create such an ambitious project in a domain in which I knew nothing. But I had been using VIM for around 7 years (?), VIM is a great text editor, but the tooling around refactoring and auto-completion for PHP was sub-optimal, and instead of waiting more years, I decided to write my own tool. Read more...

Trelleborg to Berlin

, distance: 22.85km, time: 1h16m , tagged: norway2018
I am now sitting on my cheap Ikea office chair typing this blog post on my desk in my apartment in Berlin. This morning I woke first naturally at 4:30am, and then was woken again by the alarm clock on my phone at 5am. I raised myself in my sleeping bag and unzipped the panel which opens onto the “porch” of my tent. I had no muesli today, but had good bread, and I pasted it with jam and had my coffee and read the one day old news on my phone (there was no Wifi at the campsite). Read more...

Kungalv to Trelleborg

, distance: 63.9km, time: 3h25m , tagged: norway2018
I’m in a campsite in Trelleborg, the town on the southern coast of Sweden and the ferry port. I just showered and hand-washed my underwear and shirt which are now hanging out to dry. I got out of bed a later today, both because I had relatively late night and because I was in no hurry, I only had 15km to Gothenburg and then it was a train and another short ride to Trelleborg. Read more...

Tanemshede to Kungalv

, distance: 143.59km, time: 8h33m , tagged: norway2018
Another troublesome day with the bike. As I settled down in my tent last night there was a group of four or five teenagers in the tent next to mine who were talking and laughing until midnight, and somehow, although they were not being overly loud, managed to annoy me as I was trying to read. At 4:30am there was a crash of thunder (but no rain) which woke me up, and I guess most other people on the campsite including my neighbors, but they were the only ones who decided to chat about it for half-an-hour. Read more...

Skjeberg to Tanemshede

, distance: 86km, time: 5h56 , tagged: norway2018
My bike wheel and derailleur completely destroyed today. I woke up in the campsite and had 3 helpings of museli and jam and one helping of coffee, then went to fill my water bottles and wash my pots. I cycled away in the wrong direction but quickly realised my error and doubled back. Again, the cycle route was not direct and I just stuck as closely to the motorway (which goes directly to Gothenburg) as possible. Read more...

Oslo to Skjeberg

, distance: 130km, time: 8h , tagged: norway2018
The middle aged man on the bunk oppsite to me got out of bed at around 5am, I woke up and dozed intermitently before getting out of bed at around 7am and packing my stuff up. I hoped that the hostel had a kitchen where I could make my breakfast. I went down with my bags and asked at reception “Do you have a kitchen?” “Only the ones in the rooms”. Read more...

Trondheim to Oslo (train)

, tagged: norway2018
The hostel provided free coffee in the morning and, as hostels often do, free food. Free food is food left by other guests, and there was a bag of coffee in the free food cupboard, which I took advantage of when the morning coffee wasn’t available, I also purchased a bag of coffee for the following days, for it was now the plan to do at least three more days of cycling. Read more...

Orkanger to Trondheim

, distance: 65km, time: 4h ? , tagged: norway2018
When the girl came around to collect the money for camping, it was actually very cheap, only 60kr (about €6) - cheapest so far, almost by half. It was quiet enough and I was initially camping on the tent pitch on my own, but later joined by two other tents, but they were at a good distance from each-other and not noisy in any case. There was a small party happening in one of the caravans on the other side of the site making noise until around 12, inducing me to put my ear-plugs in as I read three chapters of “Memoirs of a Geisha”. Read more...

Foldfjorden to Orkanger

, distance: 109.11km, time: 8h09m ?? , tagged: norway2018
It appears to be Friday the 13th. Today was a hard slog, most of the route was hilly and there were no “natural” rests along the way - no ferries or tunnels or places of note. I stopped for lunch at the top of a long climb. Valhalla It was cold again last night and hard to get to sleep, I woke up multiple times and ended up putting my trousers on in the sleeping bag and pulling my arms inside of my t-shirt to achieve a level of comfort. Read more...

Marmefjorden to Foldfjorden

, distance: 113km, time: 7h23m , tagged: norway2018
This morning I woke with a stomach ache and there was lots of groaning as I packed up my damp tent and filled my water bottles and tenderly made my way back to the road. The sky was and is overcast and has been so all day, but it hasn’t been raining. The cycle route went indirectly around the coast, but there was another road cutting straight across the land which saved around 15k. Read more...

Ålesund to Marmefjorden

, distance: 121km, time: 7h32m , tagged: norway2018
Now sitting on the step of the sanitary block of a campsite by a Fjord surrounded by high-rise mountains. The campsite cost 170kr (almost €18) for the night, but the shower and cooker both cost 10kr each. I paid for the shower, but used more of my increasingly precious camping gas to cook dinner. The Wifi is at least free and so far I haven’t encountered a campsite that requires you to pay to use the toilet. Read more...

Måløy Ålesund

, distance: 115km, time: 8h2m , tagged: norway2018
I think it was the coldest night so far - relative to my sleeping bag and comfort level. I didn’t sleep great and had a hard time motivating myself to get out of bed, but eventually I got out and had breakfast, did my business and left the campsite. I looked for the old man I had spoken to the previous evening who said, that if he was on reception he would show me the route to Trondheim. Read more...
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