Category: Social

Posted on

Lightning Port

I had to get my iPhone fixed recently. The charging connector would only fit correctly into the socket at very particular angles. This was a touch annoying and it also meant that I couldn’t play music in the car as I use the cable to send information to the stereo. I could connect via the headphone cable but that’s a pain and I can’t use the car stereo to control the iPhone.

Searching online it looked as though I was going to have to post the phone it off to some company and then wait for it to be returned. I was almost looking forward to spending some time without my phone. It would certainly be a bit weird. I know I rely on it a lot for weather, news, email, twitter, remote control, in fact nearly everything tech-wise. I rarely turn on my PC now because I don’t do a great deal on it. I use the PC when I have to type because I don’t like non-tactile typing on phones [such as writing this website].

For some reason I hadn’t thought of looking for shops in town that would fix my phone. I also had found some instructions online showing how to do this by myself but given the equipment I would have to buy and the time and stress of doing this alone in my dining room it just wasn’t worth it. I would have liked to have tried doing it myself but the phone is a precious thing!

I searched Google and the little map bit in the right came up with some possible places in town where I could get the phone fixed. I gave one a call and they seemed confident they could fix my port and also change the battery at the same time. I enquired about warranties and times to fix etc. I was reasonably happy to let them have my phone.

One morning I took my phone in to town and left it with Mobile Street to be fixed. Customer service was good. They seemed like bright people and confident they could fix my phone. It would take about an hour.

Later, I went to collect the phone, pay my bill which was comparable to the online services, and feel connected again. The technicians had managed to fix my phone charging port, replace the battery and also clean some chocolate that had ended up being dropped in the speaker grill.

The charging port works brilliantly. The battery seems better than previously but I haven’t really been able to test it properly as the phone has had a lot of use. The battery dies pretty quick at work because I work in a building that is almost a Faraday cage and my phone is constantly seeking a signal. At weekends the phone has been used to play games a lot and so it is being used intensively. Maybe one day I’ll try not to do much on the phone and see how long the battery lasts.

I, once again, feel connected to the world.

Posted on

Sonos Updates

Oh dear. They’ve only gone and updated the iOS software for controlling my home sound system. It’s a full new version with a new “look and feel”.

The old version:

Old Sonos
Old Sonos (not from my phone so not my music)

The new version (my music):

20140514-063838.jpg  20140514-063847.jpg

Last night after the update it took me FIVE minutes to figure out how to control another room in my Sonos system. That’s not right! It means the app isn’t intuitive. I don’t like it. I know I’ll get used to it but I don’t think it’s an improvement.

I understand the aim is to make it easier to search for content. So the front page is now a nice clean white colour (I don’t like this) and the search icon is there, so you can easily search all content including online services to which you subscribe. The Sky TV guide also made this change recently so that searching for content is the main function of the controller. This means we are meant to watch more and download more stuff. I’m not sure it’ll work, at least for me. I guess I won’t have access to the data to find out and the companies are never going to let me know.

Look, I just don’t like change. Or rather, I don’t like change that is then less intuitive than the predecessor. Using this new software wasn’t obvious.

Posted on

Sabotage

I rated this film as 4/10 on IMDB. See my ratings guide here. There were parts of this film that were funny and others where the buddy-buddy thing was well written but the overall plot was terrible. This film lived nowhere near reality. It was a gore fest for the Call Of Duty generation. Plenty of illegal killing and two dimensional characters. At the exact point where I thought “Oh dear, please don’t let them have sex”, they had sex. The epilogue was comical.

An irritatingly poor film that had promise at times. Not worth paying for.

Posted on

Brands – A Return

It has been quite a few years since I went to watch something at Brands Hatch. The circuit isn’t far from where I live and I used to go an awful lot before getting children. I decided to take the sons and show them what racing is like. I chose to go take them to a club weekend rather than a large event. My reasoning was that it wouldn’t cost me much, there wouldn’t be that many people around and if they hated it after 30 minutes it wouldn’t bother me too much to leave.

We went to see the MG Car Club race weekend. These cars looked good and there were races from Ferraris too. For the race report from the weekend then look here. This picture is from the MGCC website.

BCV8

This picture shows my sons running up the hill to the inside of Druids corner so they could see the cars racing around the hairpin.

Druids at Brands Hatch
Druids at Brands Hatch

And here is the view from the hairpin.

MGCC Brands Hatch
MGCC Brands Hatch
Posted on

Duxford 2014

Yesterday I should have accompanied some students on a flying experience trip as part of the cadets at work. We were driven to the base and had our safety briefing before we were told that the unit had just been told to ground their aircraft because of a pre-flight check list issue. We had to leave! No flying.

So, the next best thing is to go and look at a load of gorgeous aircraft. Fortunately, the Imperial War Museum at Duxford was on the way home. It is seriously worth a visit. I love it. My one criticism would be that there are so many aircraft in the display hangers that a good look or photo angle is quite rare!

Here are my best shots:

Now, some of the planes here are not named, so if you know, drop me a line and I’ll change the details in the gallery above.

Posted on

Circus

A short while ago I went to the circus! According to the information I was given it was the Circus Of France and they were based for a while at the Newnham Court shopping thing on the edge of Maidstone.

The tickets seemed expensive to me, although the last time I went to the circus was around 1991. The arena tent itself was pretty big and we were guided to some bench seats. I tried to take a photo but dropped my phone under the raised seating. I had to borrow someone else’s phone to use their camera flash to see below the seating and to find my phone, I could just reach it!

Santus Circus Arena
Santus Circus Arena

The acts we saw were all human, so animal lovers don’t have to worry about the living conditions. There was a juggler who came on in different costumes for three different acts, the high-wire artistes also did the trapeze at the end of the show, there was a climbing rope act and also a foot juggler (who was dull). The clowns provided reasonable entertainment for the scene changes although I would have liked to see a clown car fall apart in the ring.

 

Ropes
Ropes

 

The first ropes act included Spider-Man, which was an interesting piece of marketing, and also the anti-Spider-Man who was dressed in black. My sons loved this. During the interval there was the chance to have your photograph taken with Spiderman. We didn’t do this, but I can understand why the circus did this.

The knife throwing act was interesting. There was the typical man throwing the knives and a woman having knives thrown at (or not) her. The lady was tied to an upright spinning disc and the disc was set in motion. Before the man could throw a knife the axle broke and the woman and disc crashed to the floor, woman first and the mechanism on top of her. I have to say the staff reacted really quickly to this and the lady came back on stage shortly afterwards and completed the act.

The best part of the show was the trapeze act:

Trapeze
Trapeze

Leaving the circus there was some lovely blossom trees.

Blossom

Posted on

Keep On Running

Along with a recent communication explaining how I am logging my life, I’ve passed a few milestones these recent weeks. I’ve passed three million steps using my posh pedometer and now Map My Run has told me that I’ve just passed 300 workouts. Pretty awesome stuff.

20140421-065941.jpg

The next goal for me is to get rid of the last two kilograms of mass that I gained last summer and also to increase my distance that I run each work out. Recently I have been trying to increase my average pace to be in the top 25%, according to Map My Run, this appears to be about 8:30 per mile, which corresponds to 7 miles per hour.

Posted on

Nonsensical

A while ago I ordered some drum sticks from Amazon. Actually I ordered two drum sticks. They came in a box the same size as the one below. I should have written about this then, but I failed to take any photographs. I was curious when the box arrived because I had hoped that the length of the drum sticks would have warranted a 3D Pythagoras problem, but no, they were just laying lengthways in the box.

A few days ago I ordered a vertical stand for my PS4. The PS4 has lived upright for quite a while and the official stand keeps being delayed from release and so I ordered an after-market version. Amazon very kindly delivered the stand the next day. The packaging was curious. I had expected [I hadn’t learn my lesson from the drumsticks] a layer of cardboard around the stand and then addressed on top, making it letterboxable.

20140413-125429.jpg

This package was couriered by someone in a van and they had to knock on the door. It was most definitely not letterbox sized.

The internal dimensions were:

30cm x 40cm x 10cm

Giving a volume of 12,000 cm^3

The PS4 stand dimensions were:

1.5cm x 8.5cm x 37cm

Giving a volume of 472cm^3 [3sf]

This gives a spare capacity of 96%.

Now, this isn’t a sensible use of cardboard. It isn’t even a sensible use of space or time. However, the increased cost of delivery is probably minimal. This package requires someone to be home to accept the package, or at least a neighbour. As long as the company can deliver on the first pass then I don’t see a great deal of waste.

Posted on

Vegetable Patch 2014

Planted the vegetables for this year. It’s a disgrace really as I don’t eat them and neither do the kids but I think it’s important for them to see stuff grow.
This year we have:
Sweetcorn
Onions
Carrots
Potatoes

The potatoes are in round pots to try and keep them contained:

20140406-154747.jpg

We have the rest planted in the ground. The silver plant container has chestnut trees we planted last autumn.

20140406-155039.jpg

Privacy Policy Proudly powered by WordPress