So, not regularly reading the usual techweenie web blogs leaves me several months late to this particular party, but apparently Dave Winer whines about JSON including the assertion that it "proposes to solve a problem that was neatly solved by XML-RPC in 1998"

This is laughable. (I laughed, so it must be). The difference between JSON and XMLRPC - quite apart from any arguments from elegance, lightness of weight, ease of parsing in javascript, etc - is that the author of JSON wrote an actual specification that defined it, whereas the author of XMLRPC was either unable or unwilling to do so, instead providing us with some random stream-of=consciousness excuse for same. See e.g. the ASCII issue - frankly it's the same kind of imprecision and sloppy writing that got us the RSS ('Really Seven Standards' mess.

(Also, JSON can represent Null objects out of the box, which is a big help to those of us who work with languages where Null and "the empty string" are distinct concepts.)

Another long skate this weekend, this time on the Avenue verte Dieppe > Forges a railway line (meaning it's mostly straight and very nearly flat), it's a (very nicely) tarmaced path that's closed to motorised traffic, for the use of cyclists, skaters, walkers, etc etc. We started at Neufchâtel-en-Bray, skated to the north end (then onto the roads for the leg to Dieppe) then to the south end, then back to where we started - total 105km or thereabouts.

Arrived on Saturday morning about 10:30am after a very early Eurotunnel crossing. Having been caught by a couple of fairly torrential showers on the drive down, it was a relief to see that the sky was dry when we set out. On the first leg up to Arques-la-Bataille progress was hard work due to a very stiff wind and slippery patches under trees, and despite forming into a fairly tight paceline we were averaging only 20km/h or so. At Arques the path rund out, so up the hill onto the main road into Dieppe where we skated around the harbour, took some photos, and stopped to refill water bottles.

The trip back to Neufchâtel was much much faster ... The group wanted to go at about 22-23 km/h but at that speed and with the tailwind I wasn't feeling any advantage from drafting, so struck out on my own and held a steady 25-30km/h the rest of the way back. Leaving the voie verte for to pay a visit to the hotel bathroom, I then returned to try and catch the two of our number who'd decided to do the last 15km stretch to Forges-les-Eaux. The railway line ran out after about 10km and was succeeded by a reasonable (though steeper) tarmaced path, which was succeeded by a rather lumpier gravel-strewn path, then eventually by a steep uphill into Forge-les-Eaux. Where there was a bar that served us Orangina and croque-monsieur, so that was all right. Skated as a group on the way back to Neufchâtel taking it fairly easy.

Total distance 105km, moving time 5 hours - not all of it at "trying especially hard" pace. For once I actually remembered to wear my HRM strap: picture below demonstrates the headwind, I think. Raw patch on my inside left ankle and outside right ankle, but I already know my right foot is collapsing during the stride unless I pay it lots of attention. I think the left foot problem is due to having used wheels which were already t-stopped to death and distinctly asymmetrical, so will probably go away when I put new wheels on. Oh, and knees a bit sore.

:http://ww.telent.net/tmp/dieppe-hr-big.png

Photos on Flickr

It's been a busy week, albeit that little of it involved actual skating. In the order it occurs to me

• Monday: skate to work and back, just enough to wake up the raw patches on my ankles

• Tuesday: RC for the LFNS, just enough to scrape off the newly healed skin covering the raw patches on my ankles

• Wednesday/Thursday: working on the all-new Easterskate web site

• Thursday also I sent off the drawings for the new LSST skinsuits to our designer, so that process is now underway (all my old ones have been retrofitted with tarmac interface ports, so I'm quite keen that the new ones arrive soon)

• Today: as a rational human who doesn't believe in luck (just probability) I am reasonably confident that (a) it will not rain tonight and the third attempt at my LFNS route will actually happen; (b) that asserting (a) won't influence the chance it happens.

Does anyone know of a Lisp library that understands Textile markup? I think it's time to write new blog/wiki software

One of the reasons there's been nothing posted here lately is that I've been away from the net this last week, in Sardinia for the (Experts in Speed ?) training camp. (The other is that every time lately I start thinking about writing stuff, it turns out to be the blogging software rewrite instead of the actual data it operates on. But more on that some other time)

A full report on Sardinia will follow after I've got some sleep, but in the meantime here's the summary by comparison with (last year ?):

• Better: didn't stack, didn't break anything, didn't visit the hospital.
• Worse: the weather. Two of three technique sessions on the go-kart track were visited by rain (one of them by hail, even), and one of the proposed all-day tours was rained off. That said, adroit scheduling meant that we skated somewhere pretty much every day
• The same: great fun
• The same: basic programme content, hotel, food, etc
• The same but better anyway: group 2, although this time it seemed to be a bit faster than last year's was
• Better: all that time spent on drills practice during the intervening twelve months seems to have paid off. Last year anything involving a left-foot-forward scissor or a left-foot outside edge was basically impossible, this year not. So, evidence of some improvement there.
• The same: ruined myself for several days after the dryland workout, but it was mostly calves this time not quads, and I blame this on either the low walking I followed with or the run (in tennis shoes) that followed that. Stupid stupid idea. If God had meant us to run he'd obviously not have given us wheels.
• Better: as a result of not having lost any tooth parts this year (see bullet point 1) I got my 15 seconds (nominal) of fame behind the mirror bus. The summary is that I am skating like an utter gumbie and need only the knee and elbow pads to make the picture complete. Oh, OK, my setdown is good, but then that's what they said last year as well.
• Different but similar in spirit: last year's Sardinian evening on top of the hill was replaced by a local wine tasting in the hotel which segued into a local wine getting-hammered evening. See picture, right.
• Steeper: the road I lost a tooth on last year is much more inclined than I remembered it, and given that I was pushing all the way down it on that memorable occasion I can well believe I was moving much faster than 30k.
• Better although no direct basis for comparison: we had a short relay race in which nobody pushed me over. I say no direct basis because we didn't do this in Sardinia last year, but it's been a recurring theme of relays since then.
• Better: almost forgot to mention it just because it's so long ago I'd forgotten what it was like skating in Simmons boots, but no pain from my Junkers at all

Techniquey round-up

• Video evidence says that my heel carve is entirely absent. Sebby says this is because I'm not getting power from the fall, which is unfortunate as that F word continues to mean nothing to me. I think it's because I'm leaning forward too much (we were going uphill at the time) and certainly it does seem better when I sit back a bit.
• also, though Sebby was kind enough not to remark on it, the gorilla arms have returned
• not from the video review, but pointed out by one of the coaches - my recovery tends to disappear when skating at speed, right leg especially. This may have been because at the time I was concentrating too hard on getting a heel carve from it ...
• although I now have the habit of using armswing on sprints (it may be thoroughly yuck armswing, I don't know as I wasn't sprinting in the review), I haven't yet acquired it for uphills.
• a little more relaxed on downhills than I used to be. I've thought about this a bit: I don't mind downhills as long as the following conditions obtain
  • my feet aren't wobbling
  • I have some idea of where I'm going
  • nobody behind me is clinging on or pushing me in any manner other than gently and in the direction I want to go. (This would exclude pushing sideways, pushing when I'm slowing for a bend, pushing while I'm shifting my weight around to make the speed wobble go away or I forget exactly what else - how fussy am I?)
  • the turn at the bottom is to the right not to the left. Um, something funny still going on there.
• some of the crossover drills led me to new thoughts on the entry to a turn, but unfortunately I can't remember it now I'm not actually wearing skates. Will probably come back to me when I try next.
• overall: worried. Honestly thought I was doing better than this (the thought also crosses my mind that this year's group 2 may in fact be the same standard as last year's and it's me that's slower). On the other hand, fixing poor technique is a whole lot less tedious and painful than building muscle, so looked at in that light I may have access to a certain amount of easy winnage here.

Other stuff

• started sneezing yesterday, sore throat today, so tomorrow I expect to be cold-ridden. Probably getting rat-arsed last night and only sleeping for an hour or so (plus another three on the plane) hasn't helped any to bolster my body's immune system
• first race this Sunday: Berlin half marathon. So, between that and the cold this will probably be a light week.

And now I am going to bed, in the hope that I will wake up less grumpy