Early Risers.

[BSW01]

Good morning everyone 

 

A dull start to the day here in England’s northwest, but the sky is looking a little brighter in places. So what’s on the agenda for today. Well, I will start by heading off the Trafford Centre to get the shopping that I didn’t get on Friday, as I didn’t feel up to going out. This will be a trip on my own as Sheila started feeling unwell last night, I do hope she hasn’t got what I had last week! Some of her symptoms are very similar to what I had, like needing to go to the toilet urgently, although I didn’t feel nauseous. 

 

After dinner I shall head to Sainsbury’s and complete the weekly Grand Prix, which is a day later than usual due to yesterday’s ban collar day. After that I plan to sit down a relax a little,

[polybear]

05-10 start for Bear today - number 2 thru' the door at the local Tesco (0700) for a stock up, then a session with Nurse Dracula at 0815; the blood sucking was ok, it was pulling the cotton wool pad off the fur 30 minutes later that was less fun....

Shopping away, tea drunk, now for some work on the kitchen - no news from the Tiler as yet

Then it'll be more sorting to do, with the aim of selling/donating/giving away stuff I don't need.....I need to be very ruthless, but it's not always easy.....

Bear hasn't been attending to his Homework as yet - don't tell Puppers, whatever you do....

Edited August 31, 2021 by polybear

[Dave Hunt]

Based on the weather forecast I watered quite a few of the garden plants yesterday evening. Guess what I saw when I got up earlier? Yup, it was raining.

 

I also cleaned my car yesterday so I guess it was my own fault really.

 

And today I'm due to clean Jill's car. We'll probably have a tropical storm tonight.

 

Dave

[tigerburnie]

Morning, I think the popular description for todays weather is it's a bit meh..............................need to do a covid test prior to travelling down for my brothers funeral, it has been delayed, feels like we've been living in limbo for some odd reason, not looking to the journey, with stops I reckon it could take 6 or 7 hours. Still can't decide whether to go the Edinburgh route or over to Glasgow, both same miles near enough, but more motorways make the Glasgow one a bit quicker, it will be probably my last trip down to the town of my birth, poignant day I guess.

[leopardml2341]

16 minutes ago, Dave Hunt said:

Based on the weather forecast I watered quite a few of the garden plants yesterday evening. Guess what I saw when I got up earlier? Yup, it was raining.

 

I also cleaned my car yesterday so I guess it was my own fault really.

 

Ditto, but I didn't clean my car because that would bring on a storm of biblical proportions.

 

Last of visitors will leave todayit sounded like it was a good idea at the time I invited them.......

 

Then the big clear up will begin with lots of laundering of bedding and towels. Whilst that lot is going on I'll be sorting some stuff for charity shops, the tip and ebay. I slept in the summershed, it has a sofa bed, last night and tbh gig quite a good kip. Might do the same until the end of the week - I'm on holiday but going nowhere, can pretend I'm 'glamping'.

 

Today is the day I must pay the mooring fees for mi narrow boat, that's the thick end of £4k

 

in the meantime make the most of the day. Oh yeah, no prizes for guessing the colour of the weather, but at least mi 'ed seems a bit brighter.

Edited August 31, 2021 by leopardml2341

[Sir TophamHatt]

Did some tidying up in the model railway room yesterday.

Put away some Accurascale buffers that I got for a fairly good price and then realised I'd fallen into the trap like many others of buying things for "the future".

 

I never understood why people would buy something with no real plan to use it immediately as I thought it was a complete waste of money.  But then I have found one item that I really could do with a few of, completely no where to be seen.

 

I bought a few signaling items a few months back, again for about half the price they retail at, so a fairly good deal.  But it means any (sensible sized) layout I build can be covered with automatic signaling control.  It now means if the person who makes the control boards shuts up shop, I still have quite a few I can use.

 

Having a look at a few buildings, small detailing packs...  I have quite a lot of "for the future" things - more than is actually adorning the layout at present!

Not just in the trap door but waaaayyyyyy down the rabbit hole now!

[JohnDMJ]

Good Morning Awl, for with an Engineering train passing though later, it may well be!

 

I note:

 

12 hours ago, iL Dottore said:

That’s a very good point, Dave. I certainly agree that much modern technology comes with minimal instructions - presumably because, at least according to those designing the systems, such OS are supposed to be “intuitive“. But you could argue that it’s only “intuitive” if you have been playing around with that technology for a considerable amount of time.

 

The other part of your comment, regarding the technology itself, does pose the question is the technology used in smart phones really well designed?

I think you can very strongly argue that the technology of the hardware is well designed, but the software for operating that hardware may not necessarily be so.

 

The technology, per se, is not usually the stumbling block. It is usually the end-user's perception of what it can do which is the problem!

[The Lurker]

Greetings all from a Sidcup which is grey and gloomy to match my mood; last day off before Christmas and a feeling that summer is over before it even started.

 

but on the plus side, the bummer having suspended their strike collected some biins today

[New Haven Neil]

Morning, dull and grey inside and out.

 

Mrs H back to work so peace has descended, although I'm off the friend Jayne's again after lunch, no the TV hasn't fallen off the wall, just more curtain rails and things to hang for her.  She has had her cottage totally gutted and rebuilt internally over the last couple of months, while somehow still managing to live in it.  However she has run out of steam now the painting etc is all done, and her self confidence for the little jobs is wavering - always happy to help a friend so off I go.  The place is so different, a complete change of style and colourings, perhaps it is indicative of her moving on a little after losing Gary 7 years ago now.

[New Haven Neil]

Oh Tiggs, hope your day goes as well as can be expected.

[TheQ]

Mooring Awl Inner Temple Hare,

6 hours sleep and a little dozing after..

 

Left knee is now OK, but I seem to have slept awkwardly and have a very stiff neck, luckily it's only painful to look away from the equipment I'm working on..

 

I see they've now cancelled the Spalding show.. So that now means no shows for me to go to this year..

 

 

The other problem with the Edinburgh routes is speed cameras, there are a lot more, it's so easy to creep over the limit.. Especially if you go cross country on the A68 and or the A697, every straight bit of "A" road in Scotland seems to have a camera.  As much as I prefer driving the cross country route more, I tend to use the A66 / M6 / M74 etc.

 

DCV now done on this weeks system, just setting up for DCI..

 

Time to get on with it..

 

 

 

[Tony_S]

1 hour ago, polybear said:

5-10 start for Bear today - number 2 thru' the door at the local Tesco

I thought bears did number 2 in the woods…

[simontaylor484]

37 minutes ago, Tony_S said:

I thought bears did number 2 in the woods…

To get it through the door of the local Tesco would take some serious aim

[PupCam]

48 minutes ago, Tony_S said:

I thought bears did number 2 in the woods…

 

This bear is completely untrained and out of control!

[PhilJ W]

Morning yet again from Estuary-Land. While I was getting breakfast it was a bit noisy outside. When I looked out they were replacing the head of the street lamp opposite my bedroom window. The new head is a LED one and I noticed that it points down at a sharper angle than the old one. I'm not very often bothered by the light shining into the bedroom since I fitted thicker curtains. I'll check it tonight to see if it shines in the right places.

[PhilJ W]

2 hours ago, polybear said:

- number 2 thru' the door at the local Tesco.

 

Just because they didn't have any LDC?

[AndrewC]

Moaning all from the boring borough. 

 

A belated Happy Birthday to our Piedmont correspondent. Hope it was a good one. 

 

<warning, boring mundane everyday life stuff below. Skip over if this annoys you>

A bit of a nothing bank holiday weekend. Puttering about a bit. Shopping done, garden centre visited to the delight of SWMBO. Bit of BBQ but nothing exciting. Deep cleaning of one of the BBQs yesterday. Nemaslug deployed to try and stem the tide of a mass attack by those slimy little (and not so little) plant destroyers. We had far fewer in the spring than normal but the past couple of weeks has seen a massive population explosion. Visit to the new nearby vampire service was completed this morning in a record 17 minutes from leaving the house until walking through my front door afterwards. Beats the hell out of a minimum of 90 minutes schlepping to and from the QE hospital. 

 

What I've found with the new UX (User eXperience, as opposed to the old fashioned term user interface) is that it relies on the user having been organically "trained" by previous computer, tablet, and phone use. What we have today is really the evolution of around 15 years of Mac + Windows UX. (prior to that upgrades were move revolutionary than evolutionary)  Each new version of IOS makes the assumption that the user is already au fait with the previous versions and will adapt quickly to the changes. Someone coming in cold can have a difficult and sharp learning curve. I look at SWMBO's aunt as a prime example. Techo-illiterate all her life. Gets an Android phone when she turned 70. She spends more time in the shop where she bought the thing getting "taught" how to do something, than she does using it. Then again all she does with it is send emails and watch cat videos. I have a feeling that the time/cost of the staff in the shop that have been used for her support have now far exceeded any profit they made on the phone and the airtime-data package. 

 

Back to work time. Enjoy the day. 

 

 

[Tony_S]

12 minutes ago, AndrewC said:

Gets an Android phone when she turned 70. 

MiL was 90 when we got her a smartphone. She isn’t too bad at all really but it would help if the WhatsApp icon and the mobile call icon were not so similar. There have been a few accidentally expensive international calls. We have account limits set up so it hasn’t reoccurred. She has used voice to text to avoid typing. She has appointed Aditi as her online support, this was after Aditi instructed her Mum via landline how to send a WhatsApp video call. 

[Two_sugars]

Wet day here on the Durham coast . . .and STILL no Freeview . .21 days up to now.

 

Still . . .get a bit more guitar practice in, Eh?

 

Have a good day all . . 

 

John

 

[Tony_S]

32 minutes ago, AndrewC said:

Each new version of IOS makes the assumption that the user is already au fait with the previous versions and will adapt quickly to the changes.

That’s is true of quite a few MacOS versions too but suddenly being required to use Terminal to do something still makes me smile. It would have been convenient recently for me to use a Mac I had for model railway use. It was such a pain trying to get it all to work together. I gave up and resurrected a Windows laptop. That just worked. Now I know the electronics stuff is working  I’ll retry perhaps with the Mac just for educational (of self) reasons or perhaps I won’t bother. I’ll use the pc to run as a server and use an iPad to drive the trains. That seems a good compromise and it works.

Edited August 31, 2021 by Tony_S

[AndrewC]

9 minutes ago, Tony_S said:

That’s is true of quite a few MacOS versions too but suddenly being required to use Terminal to do something still makes me smile. It would have been convenient recently for me to use a Mac I had for model railway use. It was such a pain trying to get it all to work together. I gave up and resurrected a Windows laptop. That just worked. Now I know the electronics stuff is working  I’ll retry perhaps with the Mac just for educational (of self) reasons or perhaps I won’t bother. I’ll use the pc to run as a server and use an iPad to drive the trains. That seems a good compromise and it works.

We are starting to stray into awl enforcement territory. I use similar. Old rescued windows laptop running JMRI + wiServer plugged into an equally old router. I can then use either a phone or a just as ancient iPad to drive the trains / operate the turnouts via a touch mimic diagram. No steeenking control panels for me. At the same time the command station is a Digikeijs DR5000. That has its own router and Z21 protocol. That means I can run the Z21 app on a.n.other phone as well as use a Roco WiMaus. Personal preference is to use the WiThrottle app with JMRI as I find the Z21 app is a pain in the arse to use in comparison. 

[Tony_S]

10 minutes ago, AndrewC said:

We are starting to stray into awl enforcement territory

We can pretend we are discussing controlling our IoT devices (but we secretly know the T is for “trains” not “things”). 
 

[Tony_S]

13 minutes ago, AndrewC said:

plugged into an equally old router.

I did use an old router years ago, probably about the time you and I used to meet out in darkest Frating but at the moment I am using the household router. The WiFi from our BT router works well in the garage as. The BT smart hub in the entrance hall is right next to the garage wall. I have just run an Ethernet cable through the wall but haven’t used it for the garage PCs yet. Changing to a dedicated router may happen but as I am never likely to take my layout anywhere it doesn’t matter too much.

[AndrewC]

3 minutes ago, Tony_S said:

I did use an old router years ago, probably about the time you and I used to meet out in darkest Frating but at the moment I am using the household router. The WiFi from our BT router works well in the garage as. The BT smart hub in the entrance hall is right next to the garage wall. I have just run an Ethernet cable through the wall but haven’t used it for the garage PCs yet. Changing to a dedicated router may happen but as I am never likely to take my layout anywhere it doesn’t matter too much.

My setup is a bit overkill but needs to be for work. There is the "home" internet connected network which are 3 AI mesh routers plus a dedicated Sonos Boost which is technically its own router/sub-network. The home router in the shed is cabled to the one in the kitchen. That network reaches about half the alleyway and as far as the bus stop over the road. Then there is the router in the Digikeijs unit just for Z21 or Roco Maus devices. I also have a dedicated JMRI router for "trains" in the shed. Plus I have a spare for doing Freemo meets, and finally one that is dedicated to just running the mimic panel on Millarville when it is on the road. The latter means I can provide the DCC and wireless control at the meet but keep the minions from playing with the points on my module apart from the mounted iPad soft "control panel". 

[Gwiwer]

15 hours ago, simontaylor484 said:

I wish all the Churches would agree on a set date for Easter

But it is set.  

 

Easter (other than in the Orthodox tradition) falls on the Sunday following the first full moon after the Spring (Southern Hemisphere Autumn) Equinox.  So all one needs is a solar almanac and the rest falls into place   

 

Afternoon all.  Greetings from Eeyore's Gloomy Place.  The sky is grey when it can be seen through the drizzle.  The breeze is cool.  The last day of August bears much more resemblance to a typical late October day.  And the computer doesn't wish to work.  It has taken several re-starts and still it is occasionally chucking wobblies or hanging in a manner only sloths normally do.  

 

But hey - I'm upright, breathing and getting paid so it's not all bad.  And there are only twelve more hours of paid employment until the weekend   

 

What's next?  Muggertee, surely.