Communications – Page 2 – Fooyah

March 13 2025March 16 2025

Celebrations

As the days roll by I approach a celebration day. CHAIR. I’ve been wondering what I should get to reward myself for this celebration day. CHAIR. I have been slowly upgrading my kit at work to make my job more comfortable/doable. I have a rising desk, second monitor, good mouse, desk fans, charging points, PlayStation, Lego ruler and pencil case, and a Darth Vader pen holder. All of these are things that please me and make the day-to-day grind more tolerable. CHAIR.

The next thing I have been thinking about, especially given recent back problems, is a suitable sitting object. CHAIR. Perhaps I could get an decent office chair that supports me well and is comfy. Something I like, something that says – ME. My current desk chair does not have wheels, squeaks and doesn’t have arms. It’s an OK chair but I’d rather have something more special.

An issue with decided what to get is that my room is used by all manner of people and even children so any CHAIR would potential need to cope with uninvited torsos. Obviously, there would be rules but people do like breaking rules, especially if they think they can get away with it.

So, buying a chair seems to me to be a very personal business. I want to know that I find it comfortable and that it is made well. I have sat on some chairs in PC World and they have been mostly shit. This could be because many people “try” them out and also, maybe, they aren’t put together with love and attention. I don’t know if the abuse they get means they feel “cheap” or they are just cheap.

I’ve also tried some chairs at Ikea and although there seem to be some promising types there we still come across the “feel cheap” side of things. So, what to do? CHAIR. I keep having intrusive thoughts. This is made worse by the fact that, at home I won a really nice, well put-together chair. It also costs that much. But. It is a nice chair. My current thoughts are to get a new chair from that company and the bring the current home chair into work. I think it will make a nice addition to my workspace.

More complications arise as the when I bought the current home gaming chair I had it delivered to work. This then required me to transport the box to my house. It almost didn’t fit in the car. It definitely doesn’t fit in the boot and so the last time I had to slide it into the back seats, which normally wouldn’t be an issue but I did have a human I needed to sit in the back as well. It was a tight squeeze and I’m not sure that human would want to be squashed like that again. So, I have to think carefully about delivery. I’m not at home during working hours, but transporting could be an issue if delivered to work!

March 12 2025

Infrastructure Upgrades

So, I have ordered some upgrades for the house that should be arriving in the next month or so. Firstly the sofa needs a change. The current sofa is rather old, has no real structure to it anymore and also there are springs pushing in certain areas of the cushioning. There’s a certain amount of stress involved in ordering a new sofa. Firstly choices about style need to be made and the sofas need to be tested. Then, there’s the size of the thing. It might not come as a surprise to you but I had imagined that sofas would fit in all houses. Now, I knew the width I needed and limited my search to those, but I wouldn’t have guessed there could be a problem fitting the sofa through the front door!

On the website for the sofa people they want it made clear that door sizes should be measured. Then sofa fitting needs to be checked. I can’t tell you that I have created a cutout version of the largest cross-section of the sofa and seen if that can be manoeuvred through the front door. I believe it can. It’s close. But I think it can. Apparently the sofa will be delivered without it’s feet fitted which means there should be a few millimetres gap when it comes through the door. If there isn’t then I can make another few centimetres gap by taking off the front door. This is a last resort but I do think it will fit. I have spent a lot of time checking.

The next piece of organising required is the removal and disposal of the current sofa and chair. They are both going to head to the great upholsterer in the sky. I have to book a bulk collection with the local council. The issue there is the website won’t tell me how far in advance this needs to be booked and I can’t see that information unless I go through the web-system and pay and book. I will probably have a go at that in the next week and see how “bookable” the collection is.

Another piece of stress caused by a new sofa is that it has motors for controlling the reclining sections and these motors need to be plugged in. I don’t have any spare sockets in that area of the lounge. There is a 4-gang extension lead which I can upgrade to have more sockets. This I will do, but extension leads seem expensive to me and I need to look through websites and measure to make sure the new one will fit and be the correct length.

On a separate but connected matter there have been broadband upgrades available in the village. A while back I saw BT engineers doing stuff on the telegraph poles in the village and, because they had blocked my car in, I chatted to them about the work they were doing. They were installing fibre to the poles so that houses could have fibre direct to properties. I was told to wait for an email or letter asking whether I wanted to upgrade.

I have upgraded my broadband service to fibre. It will be installed in April. There will be a person coming to the house to install a junction box and a modem/router. This is stressful because currently my landline modem/router is in a really good position in the middle of the house with good wifi coverage. The video of “what happens on the day” suggests that I am able to choose where I want my new router. This will be useful as I clearly want it in the same place as the current modem/router. The entire house revolves around this positioning of the router. There are three network switches that feed from the router and a few other devices because the heating system needs its own bridge!

I suspect that the person who is going to install my new connections will refuse to put the router that far from the front of the house. I have options that they can use to do the work but it does require extra effort from that person. I am expecting a bit of an argument. If the whole day ends up with the modem/router being placed in the front room then I have a solution but it will require more networking cable and an extra switch. I *think* there is a mostly simple solution.

The modem/router needs TWO plug sockets. This is a mild irritant and also requires upgrades to other extension leads dependent on where the modem/router is going to do. It’s frustrating that some of these purchases are relying on decisions that can’t be made at the moment. Hopefully in about six week all of this should be sorted and the house will be working all normally and nicely.

March 11 2025

The Baby Bus

This communication is an explanation of an uncomfortable discovery. There have been a few times where something happens and you have a realisation that rocks your own world. Sometimes these are slow burns. I remember slowly learning that Placido Domingo wasn’t a former NFL player. A friend had told me this as a teenager and I had no reason to think it was not true. Slowly over time I gathered information and eventually, in the times of the internet, I found out it wasn’t true. I do remember that I was slightly suspicious and so I don’t think I ever mentioned this belief out loud.

A faster wake-up was when I was told that the value of a constant in a particular part of mathematics could be greater than one. My head of department heard me and another teacher talking [we were both mechanics specialists] and the hod interrupted and explained that yes, it could be greater than one. This flabbered the ghast of both me and the other teacher. One short moment to change a deeply held belief. It was uncomfortable but the realisation was enlightening.

For most of my life I have been fascinated with aircraft. In secondary school every art piece I drew had an aircraft in it. I sent some aircraft designs off to British Aerospace Systems when I was around 16. I studied for a degree in Aeronautical Engineering and I was an air cadet for many years. Maybe that I grew up in the flight path of a major airport helped? I don’t know I just like them.

Now it is painfully clear that military aircraft are gorgeous. I am not a fan of the reasons we have them but I do like the look of them. My formative years were during the cold war and so many lovely looking planes were developed. Unfortunately these days, because of convergent evolution, all modern fighters look the same. Every government wants them to do the same job and so they bore me. I’m not even sure I think they look that nice. The F22, F35, TF-X Kaan, KF-21EX etc. It’s a bit like all cars look the same really when you think about it.

For most of my life, civilian planes for taking people on holiday were boring. They existed but there wasn’t any glamour there in the vast majority of cases. Concorde, the 747 and the A380 are exceptions to that, being gorgeous examples of engineering. Otherwise, most human transport planes have 2 or four engines and big wings and look like tubes of aluminium which is what they are. The internal design is pretty much like a McDonald’s, welcoming at first but grating soon and glad to leave after any particular length of time.

Over the last year or so I have found myself drawn to some civilian aircraft and have been thinking about them in a positive light. It turns out my tastes have matured and I now look at some human transport planes with a fondness! Goodness, what has come of me? Teenage me would find this new me rather puzzling. It turns out I am a fan of the smaller human transport planes. My utter favourite is the A318. It’s nickname is the BabyBus. Here’s a stolen picture of it:

There’s something about the tiny length of the plane with it’s massive engines and huge tail that makes me happy and smile. The above version is one that British Airways flew entirely set up in business class and it crossed the pond to the USA. Sadly that plane is no more but I do own a part of her and I use it as a coaster, because that’s what it is. My coaster is number 180/318.

March 8 2025

Still Looking Lovely

Managed a flight this morning, I flew from Oban to Cardiff. These are some pictures I took, my it looks lovely.

Sunshine Cruising - T7A — Sunshine Cruising – T7A

March 2 2025

Hosting and Website

For the last couple of years I have hosted this website on my own device in my house. I reached a point where I was trying to install a security certificate and facing a web of settings that I just didn’t understand. I decided to look for a new host for this site. It’s not easy moving a website and I had to build up to the process. I’ve done it a few times and there are always things that go wrong.

I founda company with which I could host and created an account. Then I backed up my current site. I used a plugin to save the backup data or at least the database and plugin settings. Following this I reinstated the website using that plugin. I will admit that the whole process went smoothly. The only thing that took most time was uploading the images that I don’t save as a backup but regularly download and copy using FTP.

This site is now much faster than when hosted within my actual home. The interface with the hosting company is pretty good and I have no complaints so far. Welcome.

February 26 2025

Recent Racing

I am currently trying to complete a few games, or at least play them more. I got Astrobot recently and it is exactly my kind of game. It’s a 3D platformer with some easy and some difficult levels. I really enjoy it, it’s like Ratchet and Clank but without the guns. I’ve also been messing around in Gran Turismo a little more recently. They have added weekly challenges to the game and so it’s a good sense of achievement to log in and complete those. I am also working my way through the licence tests and challenges bit by bit. I want to complete the Cafe Menus and that means getting credits to buy some serious cars.

I have found a useful method for gaining credits to be the time challenges they now have in the game that change every few weeks. I spend about twenty minutes driving and I can normally get a Silver time but definitely a Bronze time within the game. I recently completed some laps of the Nurburgring GP circuit in some electric car and got a pretty good result for a worldwide competition.

Another method for gaining credits which is remarkably innefficient is to complete the daily driving distance – one marathon – and then hope fo rthe best in the lucky dip reward. As much as this feels like a loot box it isn’t a loot box because you aren’t paying real money for the rewards. It’s cheeky but it’s not as immoral as some loot boxes in other games. Every now and then you do get 1,000,000 credits in the circle of doom.

This amount of credits might seem useful but when some cars are valued at 20,000,000 you know there’s a long way to go.

February 21 2025February 20 2025

Gran Turismo HUD

As much as I really enjoy Gran Turismo and play the game quite a lot there hasn’t been much on here about it from me. I’m still heading through the game and aiming to complete it, if that is possible. I’m currently stuck on one of the license tests where I have completed the course within 0.05 seconds of the gold target time but haven’t quite made it through that barrier.

I have upgraded to the G390 wheel which supposedly has “true feel” or something like that. All I know is that there is more feedback through the wheel and you can “feel” the limits of the grip a little more and also notice when you might be burning through the tires with late braking and excessive cornering.

Somehow I stumbled across a telemetry display that fits to all types of steering wheel. I thought about it and then ordered one along with a new spring for the brake on the G390 pedals and the current spring is waaaay too tough. The new spring has a progressive feel to it and “feels” better.

The telemetry unit was easy to set up and instantly did a firmware update. You use the browser on your phone to enter your wifi settings and the little box does all the rest. It connects to the PS5 output over wifi via UDP. It would be nice if the PS5 output more details that can be read by the little box, but I’m very happy with the results. The rev LEDs are really useful and give good feedback to my peripharal vision.

In this image you can see the current gear (3), tyre temperatures, revs (8552), fastest lap time (2:10:496), lap counter and speed. The digits on the right don’t currently change with the game.

February 20 2025February 20 2025

My First Mesh

My house is too small to require a mesh wifi system. The router works pretty well when there are four rooms and they are two up, two down. There are a couple of areas of weak signal, especially when using 5G because there are brick walls in the way. A quick swap to 2.4G and it’s sorted though. The 5G signal has a higher bandwidth but the higher frequency doesn’t penentrate solid substances as well as the 2.4G signal.

I have installed a mesh at another house. It was a mostly harmless process. The TP-Link Deco system connects to the internet modem with an ethernet cable and then it all works! I did have to log in to the modem/router and tell it to turn off the wifi that it produces. Then everything is connected via the Deco unit. There are two mesh wifi transmitters and also a LAN going to a simple switch that connects the entertainment stuff up to the internet.

There is a gaming console connected to part of the extension of the mesh and even thgough there is a double wifi lan connection to the internet there haven’t been any complaints about latency. I am impressed.