Early Risers.

[polybear]

Oh yes....

Izzy the iPhone was at 98% charge when I climbed the little wooden hill last night (with Internet and mobile data turned off).

This morning - without being used (but switched on in standby) it's already down to 55%.

Beary Technical Diagnosis?  It's sh@gged.

Turdycurses.

[pH]

11 minutes ago, polybear said:

Reminds me of RR selling jet engines to the Ruskies for "non military use" - which were promptly reverse engineered and ended up in the MiG 15.  The U.S. "were a tad upset" at the UK as a result.

I was told something similar happened when Berlin was a divided city in the 1960s and 70s. The West did not have a lot of spare space, and it used to ‘export’ its garbage to the East. IBM in the West would happily throw defective boards in the bin, and in the East the boards would be equally happily retrieved. This was when components on board were physical things. A quick check of components on a recovered board, the faulty component(s) identified and replaced, and East technology  made a quick step forward. IBM were instructed to smash any boards before discarding them.

Edited August 23, 2023 by pH

[grandadbob]

Good morning all,

The shine is sunning and the sky is blue with some high level clouds.  A fine day with plenty of sunshine is forecast.  16°C now and could reach 26°C.

Spiders are welcomed at GDB Towers but not by The Boss so when she spots them and goes into panic shriek mode they are removed by me very gently  by hand if they're big enough or if small coaxed onto a sheet of paper so I don't crush them.  In nearly 75 years I have never been savaged by one.  Not once.  Ever.

Muddling was done yesterday and more fencing bodged and plonked.  More to do and there are some building kits to "construct."  Another part of the body has decided to come out in sympathy with The Knee, The Hip and The Back since yesterday evening and I now have a crick in The Neck.  This resulted in a disturbed night's sleep and it's still quite painful.

Time for breakfast followed by a walk (I can hear all body parts starting to grumble) and then more muddling.

Have a good one,

Bob.

 

 

Edited August 23, 2023 by grandadbob

[grandadbob]

Walk cancelled as we’ve just been invited to go for a cuppa with grandkids at their new abode.

[New Haven Neil]

Quick look in.  Guest like fish soup - gone off.

 

Yes @Winslow Boy the lady driving the Mini 'missed the road'.  This is sometimes a deliberate act on that particular road.  It is actually the old trackbed of the tramway to Port Soderick, which oddly was 'broad gauge' - ie UK standard gauge, as standard gauge here is three foot ;-) .  One car still exists, at Crich tramway museum.

 

The road goes along the cliffs, and is now a dead end as one of the bridges fell down in a landslide many years ago.  It is very scenic, but is notorious for young people driving cars badly, and, ah, um, 'walking their dogs' #cough# at night.  Used to keep me in a job prosecuting them for various offences.

Edited August 23, 2023 by New Haven Neil

[BSW01]

Good morning everyone 

 

Pah! It’s just stopped raining, so once again, I won’t be doing any work on the workshop today, double pah! So, my next challenge will be getting in ouch with the shop in Widnes to find out where and when my missing items will be arriving? 
 

Back later. 
 

Brian

[Dave Hunt]

1 hour ago, polybear said:

Oh yes....

Izzy the iPhone was at 98% charge when I climbed the little wooden hill last night (with Internet and mobile data turned off).

This morning - without being used (but switched on in standby) it's already down to 55%.

Beary Technical Diagnosis?  It's sh@gged.

Turdycurses.

Have you looked in settings to see what the battery health and maximum charge level is like? If it’s just the battery that’s shagged a phone shop can change it for notalot, as I posted before I had the one in Jill’s iPhone 6 changed satisfactorily for £25. If you do need a new phone I picked up a second hand refurbished iPhone 11 yesterday for £220 including screen protector and case and the guy transferred all the data etc. from the old phone.

 

Dave

[DaveF]

A fine bright morning after a somewhat late start - I read my book until far too late and then slept a lot.

 

Not much planned today, a few chores already done.  I need some 2nd class stamps, when I swopped mine earlier this year I got only 1st class back - though I got back slightly more than I had sent in as they seem to have rounded it up.  I may get some cash while I am there.

 

Once that's done I'm not sure what I'll do for the rest of the day.  

 

David

[jjb1970]

My daughter asked me this week why if I am so obsessed with climate change and saving the world I seem to fly somewhere every other week. I had to compliment her for asking such a pertinent and well observed question and asked her to let me know when she has the answer. I must admit it is getting silly that I fly here there and everywhere to discuss emissions reduction.

[Joseph_Pestell]

3 hours ago, AndyID said:

A "colorful" question to consider:

 

We have all this amazing technology available to us so why can't we use it to stop people looking at their expletive phones while they are supposed to be driving their cars?

 

 

 

Having been involved in a few near misses with such idiots, I totally agree. i would add pedestrians to the list.

 

I don't think that it would be all that difficult technologically. A phone has to be constantly aware of its location, so it also knows when it is on the move. Just shut it down remotely when on the move. That would, of course, also stop passengers, including those on buses and trains, from using their phones. But some days, I would rate that a good thing.

[PhilJ W]

2 minutes ago, Joseph_Pestell said:

 

Having been involved in a few near misses with such idiots, I totally agree. i would add pedestrians to the list.

 

I don't think that it would be all that difficult technologically. A phone has to be constantly aware of its location, so it also knows when it is on the move. Just shut it down remotely when on the move. That would, of course, also stop passengers, including those on buses and trains, from using their phones. But some days, I would rate that a good thing.

The problem with that is people will sometimes need a phone in an emergency.  The best idea would be to detect a phone being used in a moving vehicle with a camera set up to picture the driver. Then using AI to check if the driver is the one using the phone.

[PhilJ W]

3 hours ago, polybear said:

Reminds me of RR selling jet engines to the Ruskies for "non military use" - which were promptly reverse engineered and ended up in the MiG 15.  The U.S. "were a tad upset" at the UK as a result.

And when a Russian delegation visited the RR factory they wore shoes with special soft rubber soles that picked up minute bits of metal.

[PhilJ W]

Morning all from Estuary-Land. I noticed this morning when walking through the hallway the gossamer threads placed by the spiders overnight, autumn is on its way. I slept well last night but the joints were very stiff this morning, it took me ten minutes to get out of bed. 

[Hroth]

7 minutes ago, PhilJ W said:

Morning all from Estuary-Land. I noticed this morning when walking through the hallway the gossamer threads placed by the spiders overnight, autumn is on its way. I slept well last night but the joints were very stiff this morning, it took me ten minutes to get out of bed. 

 

Its been "autumn" more or less all "summer"....

 

[PhilJ W]

3 hours ago, polybear said:

Many, many moons ago (over 20) the house next door to Bear Castle was let out via Managing Agency....Bear saw the state of the place after the Tenants had moved out, with the Agency subsequently claiming that "all had been fine at their last visit".  Yeah, right......

The house next door to me has been a buy-to-let for at least five years. For more than half of that time it has been empty. The first tenants were not to bad but sneaked another family in so you had two families living in a small two bed house. The letting agency had not kept a check on the tenants who were East European and had left after Brexit. The landlord then took on a tenant on behalf of social services who turned out to be an alcoholic and had done a fair bit of damage. He was evicted two years ago and the house has stood empty until recently. While it was empty apart from the repairs required after the last tenant the house has had further work done on it. The new tenants are a young couple with two little girls. Both parents are nurses at the nearby hospital. The builder is now back again paving over the back garden. The landlord must have spent thousands on the place for little or no return.

[PupCam]

Morning All!

 

16 hours ago, polybear said:

Bear has sometimes pondered about such kits - one aspect that would make me very nervy would be the possibility of the supplier going out of business part-way thru' production, leaving the buyer with an incomplete engine.  There's a real risk of being very, very £££ out of pocket.

(ISTR it may have happened in the past).

 

Easy, buy all the parts up front.   Yes, it puts the price up (considerably) upfront but they 'aint going to get any cheaper with the passage of time AND you know you've always got them.   If the project turns out to be too much then it would be much easier to "move on" as a complete set of bits and you'd stand a much better chance of recovering your original outlay (numerically even if not in terms of true value).

 

You'll be needing a lathe Sir and possibly a mill, best get that shed enlarged (unless you're going to set up your workshop in the garage like me.  Whoops!)

 

18 hours ago, polybear said:

In the past day or so I've discovered that Bear's iPhone is suddenly seeming to go rather flat (as in dead flat) every day (TBC), despite only being switched on but with no calls/texts made or received or photos taken.

I've a sneaky suspicion that it's close to death; the phone is so old (and 3g) that battery replacement won't make sense - it's looking scarily like I might have to splash the cash 😱

 

14 hours ago, polybear said:

There's quite a few DIY video guides on Yootube, as well as new batteries on the Bay; as to just how good (or safe) those batteries might be is anybody's guess, however - I suspect that the vast majority are just fine, but S0d's Law being what it is n' all that......

 

You may recall that I successfully changed the battery in Mrs Puppers iPhone relatively recently.     With the aid of a battery and tools from iFixIt (I think they were called), a YouTube video and Junior Puppers as an extra pair of hands.     As I did it upstairs in the study I took the added precaution of having the large window open so that if the incendiary device battery started getting seriously grumpy at any instant the whole shebang could be out of the window and down the garden quicker than you can say Jack Robinson.      That precaution remained unused in the end.

 

Go on Bear you can do it!   

 

The one word of advice I would offer is that in my experience the Geniuses at the local "Apple Genius Bar" repair facility (how ridiculously pretentious, Toxxers and that's a rant!) are anything but and I wouldn't even bother dragging a barge pole there again let alone a phone.

 

8 hours ago, Ozexpatriate said:

Nonsense.

 

(Mind you I think the folding glass is pretty sketchy but it will fit in the front pocket of your jeans.)

 

Folded: 84.9 x 71.9 x 17.1 mm

 

Pricey though. 😉

 

 

The engineer in me wonders about the longevity of all those connections across the hinge.  Or maybe it's actually a two device network and it's all done by the magic of RF (surely not)?

 

In Other News

 

A most enjoyable day yesterday with 2x Junior Junior Puppers present.    But boy was I tired.    Managed 9.5 hours of sleep (unfortunately interrupted briefly 4 or 5 times as normal but there you are).

 

The central heating chap was coming today to service the boiler and repair a couple of pipe fittings that have long since seen better days.   As the pipes are very old and mostly buried in the concrete floor this could all end in tears .....   Anyway, he's had a look and has gone off to see if he can find some suitable replacements.    Watch this space.

 

Thoughts have turned to further telescope mods.     Remote focusing is a simple and worthwhile one:  small geared stepper motor (which I happen to have a slack handful of) to replace the knurled focus knob, an Arduino  (you won't be surprised to hear one of those is involved) to drive it and detect the control button operation.       Prototype already tried, now to productionise it.

 

I'm also going to add autoguiding using the autoguiding output from the new astronomy camera.   As I understand it it effectively has four "switched" lines that (suitable interfaced) can "press" the up/down/left/right buttons on the hand controller.    What I don't understand is how the camera knows the object of interest and therefore how to keep it stationary in the field of view by generating the right signals.     I feel a little test setup could be the order of the day with a scope on those 4 signal lines to see how it responds to a slowly moving image.    See, "technical stuff" just like work but none of the associated carp.  Isn't retirement great!

 

TTFNQ

[PhilJ W]

19 minutes ago, Hroth said:

 

Its been "autumn" more or less all "summer"....

 

I think it's the shortening days that triggers the actions of many creatures.

[Hroth]

21 minutes ago, PhilJ W said:

I think it's the shortening days that triggers the actions of many creatures.

 

Hence all my "quotes"...

Never mind, clocks go back in two months time!

 

[Dave Hunt]

1 hour ago, PhilJ W said:

I slept well last night but the joints were very stiff this morning, it took me ten minutes to get out of bed. 

 

These days I regard ten minutes to get up and be mobile as an impossibility unless the house were to be on fire. It's more like an hour if I'm lucky but I'm hoping that the spinal consultant I'm due to see in early October will be able to help.

 

Dave

[tigerburnie]

48 minutes ago, Hroth said:

 

Hence all my "quotes"...

Never mind, clocks go back in two months time!

 

I had an email yesterday informing I can book a priority breakfast with Santa at my local Dobbies garden centre, it's still August for goodness sake!!.

[Hroth]

4 minutes ago, tigerburnie said:

I had an email yesterday informing I can book a priority breakfast with Santa at my local Dobbies garden centre, it's still August for goodness sake!!.

 

I dread to think of what qualifying purchases you must have made to get included on THAT mailshot!

 

[polybear]

3 hours ago, Dave Hunt said:

Have you looked in settings to see what the battery health and maximum charge level is like? If it’s just the battery that’s shagged a phone shop can change it for notalot, as I posted before I had the one in Jill’s iPhone 6 changed satisfactorily for £25. If you do need a new phone I picked up a second hand refurbished iPhone 11 yesterday for £220 including screen protector and case and the guy transferred all the data etc. from the old phone.

 

Dave

 

After a bit of investigation I've discovered that Izzy is in fact a 4s, not a 6s - so dating from around 2011;  it seems that I can source a new battery from The Big River for a tenner, and video instructions show it should be an easy swap, even for a Bear.

However, (a) 3g shutdown is rapidly approaching, (b) the chances of uploading any of those Appy Thingies onto Izzy are pretty much nil (ask me how I know....) - which may well be needed before long (if only to park Mickey 🤬), (c) Security updates have long been discontinued (though I don't use it for banking/shopping etc), and (d) the favoured replacement (an iPhone SE 2022 - wanted for it's small physical size at nottoosillymoney) appears to be only available new from a few suppliers now, suggesting it may not be available new for too much longer.

 

So the scary thought is that Bear is talking himself into splashing the cash (2.5 Deltics.....).

The other ponderations are:

(a) It's also available from JL (with a "free" case) but at thirty quid extra - but with an extra year of warranty thrown in.  Now is a free case + a year worth that thirty quid?  Hmmm.....

(b) I could save something like 2/3rds of a Deltic by sourcing the same (seemingly new/sealed) from the 'Bay - but what if it goes T.U. in 6 months time?  Will Apple still play ball with a warranty claim?

 

Ponder Ponder.........

 

1 hour ago, PupCam said:

Go on Bear you can do it!   

 

See above........

 

1 hour ago, PupCam said:

The engineer in me wonders about the longevity of all those connections across the hinge.  Or maybe it's actually a two device network and it's all done by the magic of RF (surely not)?

 

Bear had exactly the same thoughts (but not the RF bit)

 

 

[polybear]

Bear here.....

 

Wallpaper painted - Tick.

I discovered that the 4" left in the tin of (2008) paint was decidedly sludgy (and some....); however after stirring small amounts of water into it I eventually recovered it to a usable condition, so another Tick awarded; it won't need a second coat either, which is handy.

 

Postie actually turned up to collect Bear's parcel (a sale on the 'Bay) - I did have reservations about trusting the P.O. to collect it after two previous no-shows, but all went well.  Another Tick.

 

In other news.....

The BBC News Website is covering the Indian Moon Landing; it's obviously a real result for India but having visited the country I can't help but feel that with so much poverty in the country then perhaps the £B's it must've cost then maybe that money could've been better spent elsewhere?  (Mind you, there are plenty in other countries such as the USA that could do with help as well).

 

BG

[monkeysarefun]

3 hours ago, PhilJ W said:

The problem with that is people will sometimes need a phone in an emergency.  The best idea would be to detect a phone being used in a moving vehicle with a camera set up to picture the driver. Then using AI to check if the driver is the one using the phone.

Mobile phone detection cameras have been used  here for a couple of years, they  also detect  seat belt offences. However privacy concerns have been raised due to some of the images the system has captured.

 

 

 

Edited August 23, 2023 by monkeysarefun

[monkeysarefun]

22 hours ago, southern42 said:

 

Toilet roll tube and sheet of scrap paper/card/other in our house.

 

 

6 inch drain pipe here!