Double bluff

I was looking for my headphones today and for a change I thought I’d start with by checking the place where they are not supposed to be. Of course they were there. I’m not sure whether to be pleased or angry with myself about this.

Talking Pomodoro Timer in Useful Shock

I’ve found a use for my Talking Pomodoro timer. I’ve decided that I’m never going to tidy my office properly. I start the task and then, after a while, I either run out of steam or find I’ve added so many extra tasks to to the job that the whole enterprise just collapses on itself.

So, spending a day tidying up will never happen. But half an hour a day, that sounds possible. So I set the timer for half an hour and then start tidying. When the timer goes off I stop tidying and go off and do something else. That way I don’t expand the task or give up because the job is too large. It’s kind of working so far, in that there is a tiny corner of the room where I can see the floor….

Double Exercise Bonus

It turns out that the Apple watch can’t tell the difference between piano practice and exercise. Perhaps it is the way that I get cross when I make a mistake and wave my arms around, plus the nervous energy that I expend navigating some of the trickier parts of “The Entertainer”.

Anyhoo, this works rather well for me in that I get a double whammy of virtuous credit just by sitting down at the keyboard and failing to play something properly.

Video walkman sold

It’s taken a while, but I’ve finally sold my broken video walkman. I had to drop the price, what with it being broken and all but I hope that the new owner is able to do something useful with it.

End of winter

The nights are getting brighter and there are things like this out. Could we be approaching the end of winter? Rather hope so.

Happy Saturday Folks

I hope your Saturday is going as well as mine….

Ebay optimism

I’m selling some things on ebay. I’ve taken the optimistic step of boxing everything up ready for shipping before some of the items have any bids….

Thanks, KCOM

There are lots of good reasons to live around here. Hull Pie, the bridge, the university and of course our local telecoms company which rolled out superfast fibre powered broadband years before anyone else. And now, on a day when everything seems to be going up in price, KCOM have cancelled their prices rises for this year. Nice one. Thanks very much.

Whatever happened to MouseTrap?

You know how old people are supposed to get cross about change? Wellllllllll.

They’ve changed the MouseTrap board game. The new one doesn’t let you eliminate other players by catching them. Instead you collect portions of cheese or something. Most unimpressed. I see this further evidence of the continuing decline of civilisation etc etc.

My advice: seek out the original and best. Proper sudden death action.

Tax Paid

I’ve done my tax for the year. Just six days before the deadline. Go me. Now, if you’ll excuse me I’ve got some crying in the corner to catch up on…

It didn’t used to be this way. I was happy to pay may tax and watch things around me get better and better. But to think of the possibility that some of my cash is being used to fund the incompetence and maliciousness that passes for government these days is rather upsetting.

Broken hard drive

The hard drive above is broken. It contains 500G of - well, I don’t know what. I’m sure nothing on there is important because I never leave important things on portable (or indeed any) hard drives. And I don’t own any bitcoins. However, I guess you never know.

I was hoping that I would crack the drive open and find a drive and a USB interface card I could swap out for a possibly less broken one. However, that is now how things go these days. The drive and the interface are all one broken component.

What would be amazing is if a ninja reader of this blog took a look at the board and went “Oh yes, just tap this connecter and all will go well.” In the unlikely event that this actually happens it turns out that Brian has a similar vintage drive which is also broken in the same way…..

The joys of boiler servicing

We had our boiler serviced today. I’m not sure what the engineer does. I hate people watching me do my work (on those rare occasions I actually do any) so I try not to watch other people doing theirs. So I’ve no idea what was done. Anyhoo, everything seems to be OK and we’ve got the all-important updates to the service log.

Fast Driving and Fast Food

Back up the country today. And a chance to stop and grab another delicacy…

Doing some driving

Doing some proper driving today for the first time in literally years. All the way down the country. Fortunately I was able to stop for coffee and cake on the way down.

Another year of square motoring

Took the car for its MOT test today. And it passed, which is a good thing and means that we are still on the road for another year. Apparently it is the only Nissan Cube that they’ve ever seen in the garage and they rather like it. As do we.

Fun with Gödel

Today in the Guardian newspaper they have a puzzle involving Gödel’s incompleteness theorem. It’s one of those “these people always lie and these people always tell the truth” kind of puzzles. I must admit I found it quite easy, but this might be because I read Gödel Escher Bach a long time ago.

Christmas Passed

I’m not a fan of this time of year. Here’s to the next one..

New Year Schrodinger's Photographs

Happy New Year to both my readers. We had a great New Year’s Eve. Watched a Bond film, saw in the year with the fireworks and then went to bed.

Today we went out to Hornsea on the coast for a trip out. We do this most years. Pandemic permitting. The weather was very kind we took our instant cameras.

I took a bunch of pictures and dropped them into my pocket to develop as we went around. It occurred to me that they were kind of “Schrodinger’s Pictures”. They might have turned into great pictures in the pocket, or they might be rubbish. I reasoned (probably incorrectly) that the pictures existed in both states until I looked at them. I wondered briefly about embracing the uncertainty and never looking. That way I could claim to have probably taken some amazing pictures.

I’m not going to tell you how many turned out badly…

In the end curiosity got the better of me and I took a look. I’m still learning how to use the camera, but I’m pleased with what I got.

Quantum Thoughts

I’m referring to the “Schrodinger’s Cat” thought experiment in which a cat is placed in a box with a radioactive detector which will poison the cat if it detects a certain number of particles. The idea is that because you can’t predict whether or not the particles will be detected the cat must be both alive and dead right up to the point where you open the box and take a look. I don’t think this is the origin of the phrase “curiosity killed the cat” but it might be…..

This experiment doesn’t map onto my situation particularly well, in that the fate of the pictures is pretty much determined by what I did with them before they went in my pocket, but I’m enjoying pondering about quantum photographs, which is the important thing.

Keeping the customer happy

I recently bought a couple of Lomo’Instant Square cameras. One for me and one as a Christmas present. When they arrived I noticed a fault with each. The lens cover was stuck open. After a brief browse I discovered that this is not an uncommon fault. I contacted the supplier and asked what they could do about it. I wasn’t expecting to get to talk to a person, but I ended up having a conversation with Jason from their support team. He was very helpful and in the end we decided that as compensation Lomo would send me a couple of light painters. These are great fun if your camera can hold the shutter open for a good length of time. I then ordered a couple of cheap lens caps for the cameras and all was well.

I’ve always liked the free and easy tone of the Lomography site. It is nice to discover that they do seem to care about their customers and try to make them happy. It’s a pity that the camera arrived with this fault, but it doesn’t affect the quality of the pictures and I’m a happy customer, which is the important thing.

The "Year of Metal Fatigue"

Do you know what sound a fridge door makes when it falls off? I do. It’s most impressive. An initial crash followed by what I can only describe as “rolly tinkles” as bits of broken glass jar spread themselves around the kitchen. I’m not pleased that it happened. But I’m very relieved that it didn’t fail on Christmas day when there might been little people wandering around the kitchen. This seems to be the “year of metal fatigue”. I recently broke my rowing machine when a bolt failed. I’m now nervously looking at everything else around the house and planning what I’d do if it suddenly broke or fell off.

The good (and slightly amazing) thing is that we have managed to buy a replacement fridge which should be arriving tomorrow.