Tag: penguin

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Manifesto

This is communication 1666 including the album reviews and I’ve been starting recent rants with a list of things that happened in that year in England. I’m choosing England because that’s where I live and that The Act Of The Union hadn’t happened yet, maybe one day I’ll be writing about the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, but not at the moment. In 1666 the royals returned to London as the plague subsided, the English won a victory against the Dutch in the war, the English also pillaged and destroyed loads of Dutch stuff at Terschelling. The Great Fire Of London happened. Newton split light using a prism, invents the cat flap and does more mathematics along with Leibniz.

While out running yesterday I became quite angry while thinking about what to keep writing within this site and decided I would try to list it all. I was trying to work out what things the state should provide its citizens. I’ve been trying to work with a general philosophy that the state while benefiting from its citizens should also do its best for those citizens. A bit like the biblical Golden Rule. My version of it is just to be nice. If you can’t be nice then don’t do or say anything. Also applicable is the rule “don’t be a dick”.

A lot of the following are things I think should be done. Some of them I don’t have very good arguments for I just think they are the correct thing to do. Some of these are surely controversial to some of you and I don’t care. It’s what I think.

Health

It seems rather obvious that if you want the best out of your citizens then you have health care that is free at the point of use. You also wouldn’t systematically aim to destroy that. Yes, I know that ultimately there has to be choices about where the money is spent and there needs to be a particular value placed on life, but a healthcare system is one of the main priorities for a state.

Education

If you want your state to be productive and to be good at things then you need education that is free at source. Where this free ends I think is after first degree level. People with degrees will eventually add so much back to the economy that it makes long term sense to offer this education as a right. Not everyone with a degree will use that particular degree but if you invest in the people they will return that in large quantities.

Slightly controversial I guess but I would remove all private schools. They breed class differences, they maintain the class system we live with in this country. If impossible to remove them I would remove their charitable status.

Transport

There should be much more public transport that is cheap at point of use. We must reduce reliance on fossil fuels. We need to slowly change society to undo the reliance on personal transport. The state should own and run all railways, buses and other forms of mass transport. There should be no more roads built. Goods should be moved by train, people should be moved by train, there need to be good links for all places to trains. I’m not convinced that the airline industry should be such. Given how fragile it is and the damage it does I think we need to slow this world down. And I fucking love aircraft. I just don’t think it’s a justified industry. I would provide massive investment to clean, green sea faring technologies. Things might take longer to get to places, but it would be better for all.

Utilities

If you need it to live then I think it should be state owned and run. So, water, electricity, gas [needs to be reduced], and, not controversially, broadband, should all be state run. It is insane that our power generation companies are owned by foreign governments, EDF etc. It’s amusing that EDF is known as EDF in this country but it is mostly French state owned. In the run for quick cash from the 1980s onwards we have allowed other governments and states to profit from the necessities of life in this country. Hilarious. We need massive investment into green power generation technologies so we can then sell them to the world. We need to be a leader in the world in reducing the effects of anthropogenic climate change but I fear we won’t ever be that because of the short termism of our current system.

Support

It seems clear that the state while asking of its people should also provide for those people. We should be looking after those who need support and help. We should be providing for those who can’t afford it. We should be an altruistic society. We should be willing to help those who struggle. I dare mention Universal Basic Income, but I do think that is the way forward. There is this idea that poor people are lazy and if they just got a job then they would be able to get out of poverty. Well, if you’ve ever read a book or listened to non-political experts about this you would know that is utter bollocks. Yes, some might be lazy and want to live on state handouts, but good luck to them I say. If you help people and want to do good for them they will return that. Fucking basic ain’t it?

Tax

Given the rest of this I’m probably going to surprise you all. I have come to think that removing the top tax rate in this country would be a good thing. I do not have any numbers to back this up just a feeling. Those who earn little need to pay less tax, we know that is the best thing, it makes sense. However, I’m not sure we should have a tax rate above the current 20% tax rate. I do think that many people who earn in the higher tax band are reluctant to pay that higher tax, it’s probably seen as “unfair”. I think they might have a point. I’d be tempted to remove that tax band but at the same time I would aggressively pursue people who still did their best to “minimise” their tax bill. If you want to be a part of our society then you fucking pay your dues. I do think that a flat 20% rate would go to improve tax payment by nearly everyone. I would also force through a way of paying tax in the country where your money is made. This is harder but the current system that allows companies and individuals to move money off-shore is utter bollocks. Pay your fucking taxes. There shouldn’t be billionaires. How grotesque. It’s seen as acceptable because everyone who dreams of being a billionaire would want to be in that position. It’s the “dream”. Fuck That Shit. If you think having 1,000 million is acceptable but 100 million isn’t then you are fucked.

Industry

We need to invest in our people and education. This will ultimately mean we improve our society and improve the “things we make”. We need to be aiming for what we can do for the world in twenty years. Some of this can come from guided research but we improve through having intellectual curiosity. It is impossible to know what area of research will provide what we need in the future. We must have a policy of academic curiosity. We must provide the environment where research can take place.

So, all of this is going to cost a lot. But it needs the investment now to provide the returns in twenty years. We need to start the cycle of investment and providing for our people so that we get the returns later. Once we start this cycle we can continue it with ease. We should be world leaders in all technologies and we should have a society where people want to live and feel safe and be supported. We should be looking after each other. We should be willing to accept smaller individual wealth at the upper end to the better of everyone. All of this seems quite clear to me. If there are other things I think about over the next while I may add them below:

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Economy what?

This is communication number 1665 and here’s a little run down of things that happened in England in that year. These snippets seem sensible given these are the years most people know about and the plague was also starting to spread. There was the start of a second war between the English and the Dutch. The monarchy moved out of London to avoid the plague. Peyps was busy writing. Newton was busy doing mathematics. Parliament moved out of London to avoid the plague because rich people have always had the means of saving themselves.

The last month has clearly shown that our economy isn’t fit for purpose. While I am happy to admit that this crisis is that, a crisis, and it is quite a rare event, the current situation is not a good one for the people. Who would have thought that the destruction of the unions and the rise of the gig economy would have had such profound effects on everybody’s well-being? [sarcasm]. For the last three hundred years there has been a constant struggle between those who want to make as much money as possible and those who are the ones who create that wealth through poor working conditions and threat to life. That seems quite extreme but let’s look at this.

The “working class” have always been treated as expendable. They are treated as though they don’t have value. The only value they have is that they can manufacture for the profit of others. This system has stemmed from the feudal system. There used to be Lords of the Land and “owners” who would have peasants who worked for them just for the right to live on that land. A single upper class person who just happened to be born out of the correct vagina had the power and owned everyone else. All the productivity was for this silver-spoon person. That person was in charge of it all and the structure of society continued. Now we have “industrialists” and also people born from the correct vaginas who still own or run everything. Our current Prime Minister went to Eton and Oxford. He’s been “bred” to rule the country. The rest of the country accepts this because “that is the way is has been”. There is a sad acceptance that these people are born to rule over us. We are still a monarchy and this “natural way of things” is forced into our collective consciousness through every system we have, including religion.

“Our Queen” still makes addresses to the “people” every Christmas, firmly linking her status with that of the god of all. Our fairy stories have princes and princesses along with Kings and Queens who rules over us. Our history forces us into this idea that the current Monarch is there for the good of the people. Every story about god and his zombie son means we subjugate ourselves to a thing which is naturally meant to rule over us. There is no meritocracy. There is only those who have and the rest of us. We like to think that they have our best interests at heart but do they? Bollocks.

Sorry, this is meant to be about the economy. I got side-tracked by those for whom the economy is really important – those in charge. If they worked for the people then they would be happy for more state control of the essentials. But they work for business and their friends. Let’s see the things that should not be:

  • Removal of a social safety net – there’s this idea that the working class are inherently lazy or that if they worked harder they could remove themselves from poverty. Read a study assholes. Poverty breeds poverty. Yes, some will scam the system but nowhere near much is lost to them as the many who currently “minimise their tax bill”. As a society we should want to help people. We should want to do the best we can.
  • Gig economy – this is clearly companies removing the need for paying their employees correctly or giving them workers’ rights. Only work for us when needed? Then we don’t have to give you all those pesky things that cut our profit and reduce our payout to shareholders.
  • Zero hour contracts – these aren’t contracts are they? If you only get work when they need you then it’s a bullshit system. Pay people and employ people properly. Give them benefits. You’ll get more out of them and create a better society. But when the bottom line is profit who cares?
  • Privately owned utilities – things that are essential to all should be run and controlled by the state. These things shouldn’t be in public ownership with those few who have money and the ability to buy shares to be the ones who profit. For instance, the railways in this country are subsidised by the government to the tune of billions, and those billions go to the shareholders when those companies make profit, which they only do because of the subsidy. Railways aren’t there to make money. They are there to enable people to get to work or move around effectively.
  • Dividends – I don’t mind people being able to run companies and I don’t mind profit being made but I do mind the short termism that comes from that. I do think there needs to be a social reality towards companies and the rewards, somehow, need to be based on what good they do as a whole, not just their bottom line. Do I know how to do this? No. Let’s take a minor look at that bastion of Britishness James Dyson. He’s so rich and successful that he’s been knighted [fuck the honours system] and he’s also so patriotic that he’s pro-Brexit and seen as a wonderful person. But he’s a shit. He moved all his production to the far east because it was cheaper and you can pay people less. He moved this for short term profit reasons rather than because he loves our country. I do not know his personal tax contributions but I will point out that JK Rowling pays her taxes in full. Those who have suffered and been poor know what help can be given although isn’t.
  • Short Termism – If companies had a longer cycle of profit and working then maybe a couple of months of shutdown would have fucked them over so much. The idea that they should save, pay decent wages, have good pension schemes and not raid those pension schemes seems beyond most companies.

I get that I seem angry at the capitalist society we have at the moment. I am. Think about the squalor, the working conditions, the living conditions that could be changed if companies acted responsibly towards their employees and not like the Lord Of The Manor who gives out all things. Thin what would happen if everyone got a decent wage and there was a decent safety net to help those who struggle. Think what would happen if we could improve the living conditions of everyone in this country. It wouldn’t take much. Then we could start on the rest of the world and show them the way. If you want to know why I’m angry think about this:

THERE ARE FOOD BANKS IN OUR COUNTRY

Oh, Tesco would love it if I bought an extra packet of pasta and put it in the food bank donation trolley wouldn’t they? Why the fuck are they still making a profit when they could be putting that entire profit, even for a couple of years, into society. They could start to end this. They could say to their investors, “look, we aren’t going to pay out for three years, we are going to put all the profit into local society and see what good we can change, we are going to pay a bit more to our staff and we are going to help these areas”. What an experiment that would be. Tesco would make more money because they are doing a good thing they are being socially responsible, they would be able to pay out more in dividends over a longer period of time, but reduce the initial dividends and lower the annual payout. I don’t mean to pick on Tesco but I when I see the donation box and I think of their profit I get angry. They trick us into donating our money when they could be using theirs to better ends.

Oddly the food supply system in this country seems to work well and I have yet to convince myself it should be taken into state control. We do need the state to legislate more for profits and forcing companies to pay better. We need the state to change things for the better. But they won’t because the “state” is made from those who were “born” to be there. They wouldn’t want you to have that power because in the last forty one years we’ve had right wing governments and unfortunately for us they want to keep the power.

Everyone laughed when Labour said they’d give everyone free broadband? It was cheap and brilliant. I bet all those who stand on their doors at 8pm on a Thursday clapping still vote tory in the next election. The sound of clapping causes me so much rage, like the donation box in Tesco. This country fucks itself over every election. I’m cheery honest, just need to stream this consciousness out somehow. I don’t think I’ll be reading these through either. It’s hard to get my thoughts in order on these matters.

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Too Little

This is communication number 1664 and so it seems worthwhile to point out some of the things that happened in the year 1664 C.E. The English took control of New Amsterdam and it was renamed New York. England had been through the Commonwealth and was now back as a Monarchy with Charles II in charge. Such a shame in some ways although the rule of Cromwell was horrific. This country has such a reliance on a feudal system even to this day. It is supposed that some people are “born to lead” and those people just happen to be born to the same families who have already led.

I keep trying to collect my thoughts on this current world of ours as we undergo such restrictions to try and slow the spread of the Covid-19 virus. Today I will stick with our government’s response I think rather than go on about the lasting political and social change that needs to happen.

From observations in China and countries in Europe it is clear the our current government lacked in it’s response to the virus. It’s like they don’t understand the terms “exponential” and “growth” even though it’s part of GCSE and A Level mathematics and I suspect it’s talked about in science lessons too. This country needs to remember that our government lacked action until way too late.

Firstly, everyone is going to get the current coronavirus. What’s important is reducing the number of people who have it at any one time. This way our [massively underfunded and ripped apart] NHS can do its be to cope with the onslaught. Once the virus started to spread from the far east, it was almost too late. That was the moment to shut down the country. Our bars/pubs and schools should have been shut TWO weeks before the government actually did it. You can’t wait for the deaths to start mounting before you shut everything down, most people will be infected by then. The way to control this thing is to know where it is and who has it. It is therefore vital that everyone is tested. That is another aspect of this disaster. If people with symptoms are tested then we will know whether they have the virus or not and we can isolate those who do. The others could return to their jobs and continue to help.

The spread of this virus will now continue at a massive rate because this government took too long to shut the country down. There are concerns with shutting the country down also, many families are awful places where violence and terror rule. People will die in their houses. There will be a cost to this isolation. This government is one ruled by money rather than believing in any form of social debt to those who make up this country. You can see that in the dedication the donors to the tory party have to the UK in refusing to pay the due taxes. They have trust funds and personal companies, they hide their money away to “reduce their tax bill” which is seen as “honorable” by some because it’s their money and they’ve earned it. Which isn’t true. They owe tax. They should pay tax. Their loyalty to this land is so shit they avoid doing what they should while maintaining a level of control which we, as a country, seem to forgive because of this feudal system that still plays on our minds.

Much like the classic Faderhead song goes “Take Your Fucking Meds”, we should have a chant across this land of “Pay Your Fucking Taxes”. I moved onto taxes as a way of symbolising the lack of respect our leaders and industry giants have for the systems of this country and the lack of caring they have for those of us in the lower echelons of society. They literally don’t care and that was why the response of the “leaders” of this country was entirely lacking in the early stages of this disease. If Johnson and the others ever let the report into this disaster public it will show their lack of action cost lives. Mind you, they haven’t released the report into Russian influence in the recent general elections have they? I wonder what they are hiding?

God, it annoys me sometimes how I come across as a complete paranoid loony left person. I think that’s what you feel when you grew up in the 80s when the left was seen as a joke and Thatcherism was at its height. It’s built into my psyche to be suspicious of those on the left, all those news articles and constant hints at communism in the 80s have messed me up and make me feel guilty for being on the left. But, I do know that I am right about it all.

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Done For Now – A Better Image

I forgot that I can output the Magic Mirror to a browser as long as I open that IP within the config file. So I can have on my TV using that built in browser, but it looks terrible. I can also run it on my PC in full screen mode and it looks pretty awesome. I wonder if someone has written a screensaver for it??

Magic Mirror HQ
Magic Mirror HQ

To see what the different modules are visit the previous communication.

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Done – For Now

I think this is it for the next while. I have done some final messing around and think I’ve got a format I like. It’s a 47″ display, so quite large and looks lovely. I’ve added a remote plug control for the Magic Mirror Pi so I can turn off an on easier than just unplugging it.

Magic Mirror - Resting Set Up
Magic Mirror – Resting Set Up

So, finally [for now], the modules are:

top_left – current date and time.

top_left – current weather followed by weather forecast.

bottom_left – state of lights in the house.

top_right – what music is playing in the house.

top_right aircraft near to the house listed in order of ascending distance with direction [assumes ADS-B transmitter and sending lat/long details].

top_center – Conway’s Game Of Life cellular automata.

center – picture of view of Earth from the sun-side. Animates over a period of a few minutes.

bottom_center – new headlines from chosen sources.

Overall, I’m pleased. The next thing would be to add a rotating module that switches between different views or maybe even a gesture controller so that you could swipe through different screens to see what you want. Whether I will get to these is another matter.

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I Like It – I Think

I have been playing around with the modules on screen in my Magic Mirror display and so far I have settled on this layout:

Nice MagicMirror Set Up
Nice MagicMirror Set Up

On the left there are “things happening now”. On the right is my list of local aircraft and the Sonos display although that’s not visible here. In the centre I have news at the bottom and a Game Of Life simulation at the top. It means the picture animates at 1 frame per second and once it reaches an alternating state it restarts.

I think I’m going to look into having the modules rotate through a sequence in each area. This will mean a more changing display and maybe some moon-phase and tide modules!

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Black Magic Mirror – Day Fourteen

I’ve spent some time in the last week getting a Raspberry Pi running on my new “spare” TV. I put a new Philips TV into the lounge last week and wrote about that in this communication. I’m coming up to personal isolation day 13. This means I’ve kinda had time to program another Raspberry Pi and get it displaying information on the spare TV. I wanted to have a map of the aircraft in the sky near me and I might eventually look into writing a script that will automatically reload a webpage with password every ten minutes and put it in full screen.

I already have a Raspberry Pi in the loft. It is receiving aircraft ADS-B signals and decoding them. It then feeds the results to 360 Radar, an aggregator website that then publishes all the positions. I wrote about that quite a bit. Just use the search function and find ADS-B.

This time I was working with a program called Magic Mirror. It should be used with silvered glass to create a display mirror but I just want it for the display. The initial program was easy to load and get working. The trickier thing was getting custom modules loaded and then get their parameters working correctly. I had to edit js files all the time and so I found that irritating but rewarding. It’s all about the syntax, which I got eventually.

Magic Mirror Display
Magic Mirror Display

Basically the elements are:

Top_Left – Current date and time.

Top_Center – Two calendars of upcoming things.

Bottom_Center – Three RSS news feeds. One from each of the BBC, Defence Blog and The Guardian. These change at different rates depending on how much there is to read.

Top_Right – Current weather. The temperature is measured in Kelvin – because why would you measure it in anything else? Also, this updates every ten minutes or so.

Top_Right – A weather forecast of the next six days of weather. Again, temperatures in Kelvin.

Center_Right – A feed displaying what is playing on the home SONOS system and in which rooms.

Bottom_Right – which lights are on in the house. I mean I could just look around my house because it’s that small but why would you when you can have the information displayed on a screen.

Bottom_Left – My proudest part of this display. A section devoted to which aircraft are closest to my house and [now] where they are. It takes a feed from the Raspberry Pi in the loft which is decoding ADS-B signals. So, not all aircraft will be shown here but most interesting ones will be. Given that there’s so little flying at the moment the top ten closest aircraft are going out to 180km. Once the world returns to normal it will interesting to see how far out this goes. About 50km I reckon.

Black Mirror Display
Black Mirror Display

The picture above has the added details of how far the aircraft are from my house and in which direction.

This project has taken about ten hours of putting together and playing with the software. I think it is mostly finished. There are a couple of small things and I’m investigating them over time. At the moment the Pi starts in the wrong resolution if the TV isn’t turned on before the Pi. I have looked at this and it seems to be all levels of wrong so I don’t know how to fix it. I have googled like an expert and pretty much figured out what it isn’t. I’d really like the Pi to turn on at a particular time and turn the TV on at the same time. I think this is possible but will take much work.

I currently have the Pi plugged into a Philips Hue smart plug that means I can turn it on and off from anywhere. This is a helpful feature. The TV is then set to turn off after a short while without receiving a signal.

I do feel quite smug at the moment. Also as the TV showed up two RAF aircraft earlier. They must have had their ADS-B signals on and so were cargo/passenger planes. All in all I’m a happy chap.

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90% Sure

90% sure that’s me.

The CCF Facebook page look as though they have a picture of me on their front page header thing. I mean, that’s cool an’ all. Feel a little glowing of pride. I’m 90% sure. It’s definitely the helo I flew in. It’s definitely RAF Shawbury. My OC was in that position taking photographs as I entered the helo. I seem to remember him showing me this afterwards. Black boots, stable belt, quite tall. That’s enough evidence for me. #proud.

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I’m Calling This One Now

[I found this draft from December 2016! So I thought it was the time to get this one published properly. There are a few other drafts on my site and maybe I’ll get them released over the next few weeks.]

Bullshit.

That’s clearly what this is. But I owe more of an explanation to you all.

Here are my thoughts:

The first 30 seconds were pretty good. I didn’t really hear anything wrong in there. All those words and meanings were correct.

“In addition, medicine often fails badly in resolving chronic conditions . . . . “, notice how they don’t say “cure”, notice how all those conditions are remarkably complex and there aren’t any single solutions to them. Also, cancer isn’t one disease, it’s thousands. These are the sorts of problems many people will live with and have to learn to manage those issues.

“Now, patients and practitioners in the UK are turning more and more to a complementary therapy . . ” firstly, numbers please. I don’t think that is the case. But they are selling things here so they will use persuasive language. “Complementary” also means DOESN’T WORK. Things that work in medicine are called MEDICINE and not any other bullshit.

“Safe and gentle solution . . . “, because they legally aren’t allowed to say CURE. When complementary therapists say “safe” and “free from side-effects” they also mean free from “effects”. Everything that you do or take has side-effects on your body. We all love paracetamol and ibuprofen but too much and you’ll fuck yourself over. Even the boring drugs have side-effects. Everything has side-effects. Want to know what doesn’t have side-effects? Something that does nothing.

“Widely used for over 50 years in Germany . . . ” is an appeal to authority and history. It doesn’t mean it works. Do you know what, if this German invention worked don’t you think they would be exporting it all over the world?

Look at the people in white lab coats trying to add authority to the video. Ha ha.

“Bioresonance” it might be a real thing but it is sciency sounding and so can’t possibly be made up. It’s exactly why all the Star Trek technical language really means things.

“Quantum physics and biophysics”, AMAZING! I hadn’t watch this video for four years and they’ve gone full Quantum. Don’t you just love it when this happens. Can’t wait to see what they say.

All cells and pathogens radiate electromagnetic waves in particular frequencies. Wow. I’m not sure they do. Sure, we can read brain waves because there is definitely electrical activity in the brain but I don’t think that’s true for all cells. Most cells communicate on a chemical level and so they can’t radiate EM waves or if they do the power output is so small that it’s far lower than any form of background EM and so unreadable. If we did radiate EM then we’d interfere with all the electrical devices in our houses. I’m pretty sure that doesn’t happen. They’ve been clever here because they are mixing stuff they hope people won’t understand to sound plausible. But it’s bullshit.

Bioresonance can figure out which frequencies belong to pathogens and bad things and neutralise them. How? Doesn’t say. What about “good” bacteria?

“55 countries worldwide . . . ” appeal to popularity.

“report remarkable improvements in their health and well being . . . ” self-reported outcomes are the worst. What about science trials? “Well being” doesn’t mean anything legally, it’s not defined in any particular way. You can say it and not get sued because it doesn’t mean a thing.

“non invasive, drug free, no known side effects . . . ” means it’s DOESN’T work. But it sounds nice doesn’t it. If you are desperate and you think the doctors are letting you down and someone has a, not-cure, a solution then you might be willing to spend your money.

“Safe for babies and vulnerable . . ” because it doesn’t work that’s why.

“Used in China . . . .” appeal to popularity and history etc. The whole Chinese alternative medicine thing is terrible. It stems from after the second world war when the government wrote a pamphlet for doctors which had things at the front that would work – drugs – and because of shortages it also listed things that wouldn’t work but would give the impression that doctors knew what they were doing – Chinese alternative medicine. It’s all based on lies.

“Increasingly popular with vets and equine specialists . . .” because selling just to people won’t make enough money.

Ann’s testimonial isn’t worth shit. Testimonials are the worst form of evidence. The plural of anecdotes isn’t evidence it’s just anecdotes. So I actually didn’t listen to anything she had to say. It’s not worth it.

And there we have it. Bulshit. So I headed over to their website to see what is going on. There is so much there I am going to have to save it for another day. I hope it doesn’t take me four years to get around to writing about it! Let’s see what happens.

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Day Eight

I am currently starting day eight of my fourteen day self-isolation. My first day in this position, the very day after BJ announced these conditions, was my birthday. I had a new TV delivered. It didn’t seem so bad, I had time to sort out the entertainment room while also keeping in touch with my duties at work. The new TV was precisely the fault of me “popping” into Richer Sounds and seeing an advert for a Philips Ambilight television on one of their brochures. The price seemed good and I do have a Philips lighting system at home. Along with 4K [I’m skeptical] and HDR it didn’t take much for me to decide to get it delivered.

Blank Wall For TV
Blank Wall For TV

The TV was placed up and the 4K system tested. Now, it turns out the AV Amp and HDMI switch doesn’t pass through the 4K and HDR signal. This is a touch annoying. I devise a work around where HDMI cables go straight to the TV and then sound is returned to the Amp via ARC. That didn’t work, I couldn’t get the ARC signal to send. Not sure why but it was probably one of those tiny settings somewhere deep within the menu system. I must have looked through the TV menus over twenty times. It’s a terrible menu system by the way. So, next option was to use an optical cable to output 5.1 sound from the TV to the amp. I didn’t have a cable long enough so had to wait. For one evening I had to watch TV and have the sound come from the TV’s own speakers [horror].

Next day an optical cable was delivered and the sound signal was tested. Now I would have 5.1 sound output by the TV to the Amp. This seemed livable with. Except it wasn’t. My Amp is 7.2, the PS4 outputs 7.1 and two of my speakers would now be redundant. I tried. I honestly tried. The convincing factor that I wouldn’t cope with this was the sound delay needed adjusting for all inputs. This meant changing the AV-Sync settings whenever I switched TV source. There were too many little bits in between the sight and sound signals. What a disaster.

I went searching through all the instruction manuals [in PDF format on my computer] and sought a solution. I couldn’t find one. What I needed [ha, “needed”, what an interesting word] was an amplifier that would throughput 4K and HDR along with separating out the sound signals keeping my home system as it is. It didn’t take long to find what I wanted. So, I ordered the Sony STR-DN1080.

When it arrived I reckon it took two hours to unplug the entire old system and then wire up the new amplifier. I left the auto-calibration for another day when it wouldn’t be so un-neighbourly and just set up the basics. I checked the inputs worked, check the TV signal, checked the 4K throughput and HDR rendering. It worked and there was no sound delay, or if there was it was consistent between all modules to make the settings consistent.

Gran Turismo looks bloody gorgeous in HDR, can’t believe I’ve been missing this.

I Parish

The lounge is now fully equipped although no longer 3D compliant. The system works well and I have been really impressed with all aspects of it. The ambilight system is very impressive. I can even link the TV light system to existing coloured lights in the house and I did this with a LED strip I had. The strip is on the ceiling in the lounge and looks really nice. But, when connected to the ambilight on the TV it floods the whole room with changing light that is, and I can’t believe I’m saying this, too much. I disconnected that system. Maybe if my lounge was bigger than its current form it would be less overpowering. Can you believe I actually turned a TV feature off!

Entertainment Corner [asymmetric]
Entertainment Corner [asymmetric]

Above is nearly all of entertainment corner. There is a Sonos unit just hidden to the top right, it uses an optical cable to send signals to the amplifier, you can just see two wires top right, one is white [power] another is grey [optical]. So, here we have from the top; a BluRay player, PS4, Shield TV, Amplifier, PSVR unit. Yes, the cabling is a mess. No, I am not going to sort it out – I’m lucky enough that this all fits in this space. If I had rear access I might get in there and fiddle around. Yes, the USB Gran Turismo back up memory stick looks terrible. Yes, the USB hub needs sorting out, I have a plan. Yes, it is asymmetric, but I really like that so I don’t care. Yes, they are Lego bricks separating each unit for heat flow purposes and no, I won’t change that.

Entertainment Centre
Entertainment Centre

This is not a blank wall anymore. I’ve got quite a nice TV along with a decent sound system and games console. All I have to do now is avoid buying the PS Turbo or whatever it’s called. I think I can probably manage to do that.

I did have the issue of what to do with the old TV. I’m not really a TV in the bedroom kinda guy. Bedrooms are for few purposes and watching television is not one of those. I used to find it frustrating with an ex when she watched Tv in bed and all I wanted to do was sleep. The TV programmes were very poor too. I think that’s the first time I became aware of Gillian McKeith, she was presenting a TV show called “You Are What You Eat” which is true but not in the way she meant it. I remember her talking about eating raw seeds and how the whole plant’s energy entered you. It was a seed. Just a seed. Fucking dangerous bullshit.

So, the older television is now on the wall in the dining room. I’ve connected a Roku device to it so I can stream the audio-visual medium to the screen. I have plans to buy a Raspberry Pi and use that as a information screen type thing or possible to have live plane details on the screen. I’m not sure yet what to do with it. Putting this TV up did require some drilling etc but it was fun. When looking at the TV there is an issue where it doesn’t look horizontal but it is, the problem is the ceiling coving which isn’t level. If I had the uber-PS I could place the current PS4 with the dining room screen but I won’t be doing that.

Dining Room Black Mirror
Dining Room Black Mirror

My current project is to build a display onto the DR screen. My Shield TV already has Dakboard running as its screen saver and I quite like that but I don’t really want to pay for the full version so I am looking into using a Raspberry Pi and either a browser running on that in full screen with a self refresh timer or some software that will run a display board. I guess there are plenty out there. So, wait for the news on that.

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