Personal – Page 156 – Fooyah

February 10 2013February 10 2013

Breather

I’m slightly paranoid about electronic gear overheating. This might be down to a fear of setting my house (and street) on fire and relying on Jase to put it out but is also to do with breaking electronic kit.
Everything has an optimum operating temperature. Whether that’s me at about 36 or so Celsius or the sun running at a few million Celsius. Electronics are no different. Why do you think that stuff has fans and air circulation grates?
My amplifier has loads of grating over the top of the housing. This indicates that the contents are likely to get quite warm. The Blu-Ray player I bought has tiny feet and a solid base. Now, the only sensible arrangement for the kit is amp at the bottom, then the disc player and finally the Sky box.
All of these items have a fan or large vents. Why then do they stack so to leave very little room for air circulation? Granted, you don’t need a great deal of space to move air but you would think these things would be designed to fit with other electronic kit? No. They are designed to look good and functionality comes a close second! (See the original PS3 for cooling issues)l
So, rather than pay loads for spacers for my kit I used Duplo and Lego. It looks rubbish but adds a little colour and a certain something!

February 6 2013

I’m Back

I am back online. I have watched the NFL Super Bowl and don’t have to avoid seeing the result anymore. I managed to watch it on Monday night although I did fast forward the power outage and in the last quarter I had to skip the huddle time. I was getting very tired and knew I could manage to see it all.

It was a thoroughly good match and full of excitement. Really pleased I saw it.

The problem now is that I won’t be seeing any NFL until Septemeber! I’ll have to dust off the Madden game again and complete a championship there. I am considering getting ESPN added to my subscription just so I can see college football but I don’t know what their season is.

February 5 2013March 5 2013

A New Fallacy

I would like to introduce a new logical fallacy into the world.

The argument from “PROFESSIONALISM”.

This argument is provided by those who wish to change organisations and structures. The conversation might go something like:

“We want to make you work 20 hours more in a week. As a professional you must agree that this would increase the time you have to work.”

Essentially it seems rather a hard argument to try and battle. If you are a professional then you want to do your job to the best that you can. You also think that you are open to change and improving outcomes. So, this “you should agree with me” approach seems rather hard to argue against.

My problem with this argument backing up changes in an organisation is that pretty much anything can be justified using the “you’re a professional and so would want the best for your sector”. This is why the argument shouldn’t be used. If your argument can be extended (a bit like the slippery slope) to back up anything then it invalidates the points you are trying to put across.

“You can’t disagree with these new standards as they surely improve what it is that is expected of you as a professional.”

Again this seems hard to argue against. But there is a counter argument to be made. As a professional I should be expected to do all that I reasonalby can to ensure that I work my best. There is a limit to what can physically be done and the expectation on professionals should stop before that limit is reached.

Time for the world to use arguments that really back up what they want to do. Some evidence wouldn’t go amiss either [not just anecdote].

February 3 2013February 3 2013

Off Grid

Hello my followers and stalkers. I am going off grid for a few days. It is a tradition since I have started recording the NFL Superbowl and then watching it over the next few nights. I expect to finish the Superbowl within two evenings, but, it could take longer. It depends on too many factors.
From tonight, when I go to bed, I will not be checking Twitter, BBC News, an other news outlet and only marking all emails as read. Don’t contact me I won’t answer!

Go 49ers.

February 1 2013February 1 2013

Simulview and Dual Play

Simulview is Sony’s buzzword for displaying two player images on a 3D television so that each player sees only their screen. Essentially the shutters on the active glasses activate at the same time rather than alternately and so P1 sees only his/her image and P2 sees their image only. This is quite cool and displays (I assume) a 1080p picture to each player.
Downside: This only works on the Playstation Monitor.

DualPlay is the technology that LG have introduced to try and allow two players to see their own picture full screen. It has taken me four days to figure out how to get this to work (which is slightly embarrassing). DualPlay uses passive glasses with P1 having a left/left combination and P2 having a right/right combination. The standard two player screen (up/down or left/right split) is then stretched over the whole screen. This will work with most games with that picture split.
Downside: Aspect ratio issues.

I haven’t yet tried this on my TV but will soon. I am quite excited about it but also worried about the aspect ratio change. Nice of LG to think of gamers though.

January 29 2013March 11 2014

New Aquisitions

So, it’s been a busy time. I have bought a new TV to replace my 40″ Sony that I bought in the summer of 2006. I don’t know if six years is a good length of time for a TV. I guess so. The problem is that I am an early adopter of technology [see this post here – currently in draft form].

The old TV was HD Ready which, it turns out, is only 720 lines of beautiful picture. It looked deep and gorgeous in HD. But it was time to upgrade. There were just too many TV advances for me to ignore anymore.

I now have an LG 3D TV. I went for 3D because Gran Turismo will output 3D and I like playing that. Do I think that 3D is a good cinema format? No. But for Gran Turismo . . .

Current TV Room Set Up:

Current Equipment:

Television – LG 47LM670T
AV Amplifier – Sony STR-DN1030
BluRay player – Sony BDP-S790
Satelite Decoder – Amstrad Sky HD
Console – Sony PS3 320Gb
Front left and right and passive sub-woofer – Bose Acoustimass Cube
Active sub-woofer – Sony
Centre, SL, SR, SBR, SBL speakers – Sony

When I get the chance I also use a Logitech Driving Force Pro steering wheel.

January 22 2013

Percentage

Recent tweets have carried some information about me in terms of percentages.
The first percentage I wrote in an email and it was 50% when I was trying to be realistic.
Then I tweeted some values, 5% and 1%. I’m pretty sure that the percentage is now in exponential decay. The more time the lower the percentage.

P=100e^(-0.05t)

Soon to be looking at a 3D TV. Will post about whether I think it’s any good.

January 22 2013