iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Neil Hardiman @neilhardiman.bsky.social · 30/09/2026

Have you seen the Facebook video of the stone being thrown in the river embedded in the Cumbria Crack report at cumbriacrack.com/2025/03/04/h... . . . seems the stone has not been universally popular in Carlisle.

cumbriacrack.com

WATCH: Has Carlisle’s Cursing Stone been stolen? – cumbriacrack.com

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Neil Hardiman @neilhardiman.bsky.social · 15/08/2026

To me those wavy floor joists look a bit like they may have been made by riving timber not sawing www.youtube.com/watch?v=BE2k...

youtube.com

Medieval wood riving – An attempt to recreate craftsmanship

YouTube video by Örebro läns museum

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Neil Hardiman @neilhardiman.bsky.social · 31/07/2026

I have read that the building of the dam or embankment as the Victorians referred to it, did not get off to a good start, page 154 books.google.co.uk/books?id=chG...

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Neil Hardiman @neilhardiman.bsky.social · 09/04/2026

North Yorkshire Weather Updates posted photos in the last 24hrs of another unusual cloud at www.facebook.com/ExtremeWeath... more photos at www.facebook.com/groups/34516...

facebook.com

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Neil Hardiman @neilhardiman.bsky.social · 09/04/2026

I like yellow flag iris, there is a great display of them every year up and downstream of where the B6480 crosses Crook Beck on Newby Moor, North Yorkshire.

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Neil Hardiman @neilhardiman.bsky.social · 26/03/2026

Looks to me that the earth/traction return rail bond conductor might have vapourised at the bottom of the OLE structure. Would this be expected to vaporise during a normal 25kV in-service short-circuit?

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Neil Hardiman @neilhardiman.bsky.social · 31/01/2026

When the Reference PMU is in GB as on attached image (it can be a long wait), if you are lucky you can see phase angle and frequency differences between PMU's in London, Buckingham, Manchester and Strathclyde (mouse over dots on GB map to see PMU locations).

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Neil Hardiman @neilhardiman.bsky.social · 31/01/2026

gridradar.net/en/wide-area... is the website, think I have confused it with Reactive Technologies. The PMU display changes every 10 sec, and the Reference PMU every minute (you need to click all the boxes at bottom left of map).

gridradar.net

WAMS - Visualized data from power grids worldwide | Gridradar

The Gridradar Wide Area Monitoring System uses high-resolution measuring devices for global frequency and phase angle measurements.

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Neil Hardiman @neilhardiman.bsky.social · 31/01/2026

I think it was on a German website, if it is still there, I can’t find it at the moment.

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Neil Hardiman @neilhardiman.bsky.social · 31/01/2026

of the ever-changing phase angle (and frequency if I remember correctly) from XMU units across Europe including the UK that showed this effect, although the UK and Nordic grid figures did have to be understood as not being linked to the European grid.

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Neil Hardiman @neilhardiman.bsky.social · 31/01/2026

the primary generation frequency driver at any instant, and from Reactive Technologies data, this increase of frequency takes time to spread across the country as you show (but not through HVDC links to Shetland etc.). Reactive Technologies did have a webpage providing a real time visualisation

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Neil Hardiman @neilhardiman.bsky.social · 31/01/2026

still is being sent out across the country from Teeside as your visualisation shows. I don’t know for certain, but I imagine that in a similar way, one generation source is always the primary driver of grid frequency across the country, so I suggest your visualisation has the potential to display

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Neil Hardiman @neilhardiman.bsky.social · 31/01/2026

measured by a number of XMU units (small electronic boxes) sited around the country at grid substations I think, is used to determine the amount of inertia on the grid, small frequency rise = high inertia, larger frequency rise = low inertia. So a regular power pulse has been and I presume

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Neil Hardiman @neilhardiman.bsky.social · 30/01/2026

Fantastic, fastest response to a suggestion ever! That curtailment figure is exactly what I was hoping for, thanks 👍, will check it out tomorrow, as your site not loading on my iPhone on 4g either now.

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Neil Hardiman @neilhardiman.bsky.social · 30/01/2026

Just tried loading again, and its back working 100% again 🤷‍♂️.

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Neil Hardiman @neilhardiman.bsky.social · 30/01/2026

In regard to 'what would you like to see', if it is possible, when you click on the 'Toggle Curtailment Filter' I feel it would be good to have a figure for the total curtailment in GW pop up somewhere, maybe under the 'About & FAQ' button, or maybe 'Total Curtailment' could always be shown?

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Neil Hardiman @neilhardiman.bsky.social · 30/01/2026

The Firefox was on my Android ASOP TV box on wifi, the Chrome is on ethernet on 1GB fibre. When the page did load, sometimes the map says failed to load in the top left of the map. I just tried it in the last minute and page fails to load and I got 'your connection is not private' message.

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Neil Hardiman @neilhardiman.bsky.social · 30/01/2026

@robhawkes.bsky.social Thought you might wish to know renewables-map.robinhawkes.com#5/55/-3.2 usually loads super reliably, but this evening I have intermittently got the message below on Firefox on Android, and Chrome on Windows.

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Neil Hardiman @neilhardiman.bsky.social · 28/12/2025

I found a description and B&W photo of Barf and Slape Crag on pdf page 8-9 at data.jncc.gov.uk/data/56c357e... where it mentions 'scree material of Loweswater Formation that has fallen, presumably by post-glacial collapse', good photo of Slape Crag and the screes at www.geograph.org.uk/photo/2074186

data.jncc.gov.uk

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Neil Hardiman @neilhardiman.bsky.social · 27/12/2025

I didn't know either until I looked at the map today, your photo gave me the impression a whole section of rock might have parted company at some point in the distant past and slipped down the steep slope to the south from the crags in the top right of your photo, but maybe not.

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Neil Hardiman @neilhardiman.bsky.social · 27/12/2025

Yes, I was thinking Slape Crag, maybe a third to half of the way down the slope from the summit of Barf to the Bishop on the OS map.

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Neil Hardiman @neilhardiman.bsky.social · 27/12/2025

Photographed from that angle, Slape Crag if I am right, looks to me like a small version of the rock slope failure on Grasmoor End, but does not seem to be listed in www.researchgate.net/publication/...

researchgate.net

(PDF) Rock slope failure in the Lake District

PDF | On May 1, 2015, Peter Wilson and others published Rock slope failure in the Lake District | Find, read and cite all the research you need on ResearchGate

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Neil Hardiman @neilhardiman.bsky.social · 11/12/2025

Am wondering if they are a new type of ‘open’ hot line stirrup clamp for earthing/grounding, with plastic covers secured with black zip ties potentially filled with hydrophobic Raychem PowerGel GelPact or similar like AMPACT Taps to prevent corrosion, see www.transnet.co.nz/Documents/Ge...

transnet.co.nz

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Neil Hardiman @neilhardiman.bsky.social · 25/11/2025

Some new mystery devices on both ends of a new short 100 metre long 11kV OHL over a river in North Yorkshire between two underground cables that look a bit like Fault Passage Indicators FPI, but I doubt they are, anybody any ideas?

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Neil Hardiman @neilhardiman.bsky.social · 03/11/2025

From the photo at i2-prod.dailyrecord.co.uk/incoming/art... the landslide looks to me to have spread surprisingly far across the track.

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Neil Hardiman @neilhardiman.bsky.social · 24/10/2025

which leaves the upland area east of the A6, that I think also has a high pressure gas pipeline running through it. Lots happening underground in that area.

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Neil Hardiman @neilhardiman.bsky.social · 24/10/2025

I think Crookdale already has a large high pressure natural gas pipeline, a large aqueduct pipe, and a pumped treated water pipeline running through it, so I imagine it may well be impractical to cut cable trenches through it,

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Neil Hardiman @neilhardiman.bsky.social · 24/10/2025

It the technical aspects of cables in tunnels matched those of overhead lines, I would prefer cables in tunnels under the national park, and to make the tunnels longer than the minimum needed to pass under the national park.

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Neil Hardiman @neilhardiman.bsky.social · 24/10/2025

In the past I preferred the option of tunnels for cables under the national park, but having taken all these things, and the technical and security of electricity supply aspects into account, I have ended up preferring overhead lines, others will prefer other options.

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Neil Hardiman @neilhardiman.bsky.social · 24/10/2025

I understand a project to remove 3km of similar overhead lines at Hale Purlieu in the New Forest, and put them underground in cables in trenches, was shelved because of concerns about the potential damage to the forest floor.

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Neil Hardiman @neilhardiman.bsky.social · 24/10/2025

I guess different people put different priorities on protecting the national park. Protecting the visual appearance of the park, protecting the soils, the land, the rock, the ecosystems, the vegetation, protection from noise and construction activity, emissions, costs etc.

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Neil Hardiman @neilhardiman.bsky.social · 24/10/2025

There would also need to be a special termination tower and equipment in a fenced substation structure where the overhead lines cables went underground and emerged.

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Neil Hardiman @neilhardiman.bsky.social · 24/10/2025

From Google Maps, the cables in Somerset have around 16 cable joint chambers along the route, the green fenced items in photo at maps.app.goo.gl/87tTkqdBKVWR...

maps.app.goo.gl

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Neil Hardiman @neilhardiman.bsky.social · 24/10/2025

It has been done over a similar 5.3 mile distance in Somerset, but that was through a valley, not over an upland area. The cables would need to cross over Borrow Beck on a bridge or under it in a structure.

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Neil Hardiman @neilhardiman.bsky.social · 24/10/2025

It could be done by trenching. Google makes it about 5.4 miles minimum across the National Park on the existing route 👇. A possible alternative route across the National Park via Tebay and west of the Lune Gorge is about 4.7 miles.

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Neil Hardiman @neilhardiman.bsky.social · 24/10/2025

which is another reason I don’t favour trenches or tunnels at the current time, they could become redundant, but not possible to know if this will happen.

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Neil Hardiman @neilhardiman.bsky.social · 24/10/2025

much easier to fix overhead lines. But like the long-gone telegraph/telephone wires and poles that would I imagine have been in your photo a hundred years and more ago, maybe HVDC transmission technology will remove the need for any lines over or cables under the Shap Fells within a hundred years,

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Neil Hardiman @neilhardiman.bsky.social · 24/10/2025

. . . or four of these www.youtube.com/watch?v=KIET... , two north and two south of the national park for 10 years and 1000’s of CO2 generating steel reinforced concrete tunnel segments. On reflection, I prefer the in my view, less environmentally damaging, technically superior, much cheaper,

youtube.com

Minffordd Hochtief/National Grid works and Quarry

YouTube video by CaptnSpaulding

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Neil Hardiman @neilhardiman.bsky.social · 24/10/2025

The alternative, at least two trenches of this 👇 width dug across the upland soils and blasted through the rock of the national park for up to 9km, for cables needing to be dug up and replaced maybe every 40-60 years, (photo Charlotte Webb 👏/National Grid)

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Neil Hardiman @neilhardiman.bsky.social · 24/10/2025

Great photo of the I think highest located 90+ year old 132kV tower in England on the right, and highest located 66-year-old 400kV tower in England, their survival and reliable high voltage electricity transmission through many storms overarched by a rainbow.

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Neil Hardiman @neilhardiman.bsky.social · 12/10/2025

@engineerlondon.bsky.social Well-designed transformer with convenient mug shelf.

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Neil Hardiman @neilhardiman.bsky.social · 21/09/2025

The Lune Valley between Caton and Claughton were flooded right across the flood plain this morning, have not seen it like that for a while.

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Neil Hardiman @neilhardiman.bsky.social · 13/09/2025

I agree, but have been surprised to read online, that it was originally the Victorian version of the DWP office, the Whitehaven Poor Law Union, photo at www.whitehavennews.co.uk/resources/im...

whitehavennews.co.uk

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Neil Hardiman @neilhardiman.bsky.social · 04/09/2025

Low Bentham has a bridge for mill workers to cross the river to the silk mill historicengland.org.uk/images-books... that's now a housing development. The bridge still exists and has been for sale recently www.rightmove.co.uk/properties/1...

rightmove.co.uk

Check out this Land for sale on Rightmove

Land for sale in Low Mills Trout Farm, Mill Lane, Low Bentham, LA2 for £150,000. Marketed by Fenn Wright, Rural, Water and Leisure

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Neil Hardiman @neilhardiman.bsky.social · 29/08/2025

That episode reminded me of Danny Bakers's amusing 'Brushing up on British Tunnels', 2017 on the British obsession with the subterranean, clip www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p...

bbc.co.uk

BBC Four - Brushing up on..., Series 1, British Tunnels, What's Round The Bend?

Danny Baker appreciates some serious caving enthusiasts as they tunnel their way underground.

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Neil Hardiman @neilhardiman.bsky.social · 29/08/2025

Shap Pink granite glacial boulder on the beach teessidepsychogeography.wordpress.com/wp-content/u...

teessidepsychogeography.wordpress.com

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