Remote Burglar Alarm Debugging

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Following on from the scary burglar alarm of yesterday I spent twenty minutes or so this morning on the phone to Chris, one of the support folk for Ring alarms. Interesting to see how support works these days. I used the app to authenticate the phone call so that by the time I was talking to Chris he already knew who I was and presumably what my system looked like. i was then able to send him a picture of the broken device (not sure what that told him) so that he could send out a replacement. I reckon that the true measure of a system is how well it works in failure mode, and by that yardstick I think that Ring did pretty well.

Scary Alarms

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So we were watching the BBC show “The Girl Before”. At the centre of the story is a spooky house which is totally controlled by a computer which is totally not going to turn out to be malevolent. And one of our burglar alarm sensors in our house started repeatedly muttering about being tampered with. Coincidence is a wonderful thing. The show is worth watching. We are half way in and pondering just where the evil lies. The alarm was much less fun. I’ve disconnected the offending sensor and popped its batteries out. If we get any tamper messages tonight I will be properly scared…

Console Nostalgia

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My PlayStation 3 ended up in my garage, not my loft. This is probably why it still works. Things I put in the loft tend to break. We got it out today and fired it up and were immediately transported back fifteen years or so. Mine is the first version of the machine, which means that it has memory card sockets, four usb connections and will run PlayStation 1 games. I think that PS3 was my favourite PlayStation iteration. It has a lovely glossy finish with just the right amount of black and shiny bits. The PlayStation 3 was the first thing we got with an HDMI connector, so it works just fine on our TV. Not sure what I’ll do with it, but it is nice to know that it still works. And Super Stardust is as awesome as ever.

To round off our nostalgia-fest we popped an XBOX 360 disk into number one son’s Xbox Series X. This just worked too. I think the game disk is just used to authenticate the download of a specially tweaked version of the software, but the experience was just splendid. Within a few minutes we had Dead Or Alive 3 running in what looked like very high resolution and even HDR. It was still extremely playable and a hoot. It’s interesting that the cut scenes now look much more dodgy than the in game action. I guess they can’t do much with the video, but with the game they can improve the textures and dynamic range.

Great fun.

Snoopy Calendar

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These people are selling Snoopy Calendars. This takes me back. When I was a student we all had ones which we printed on the university mainframe line printer. The best time to print them was at night, otherwise you might get told off for wasting resources. Unfortunately they seem to have sold out. The good news is that I have written a program to create calendars (any year you like). The bad news is that I seem to have lost the punched cards I wrote it on…..

Chain Reaction

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  1. If I’d not held my hand half an inch too low as I reached over to the toaster I’d not have knocked my coffee cup over.

  2. If I’d not knocked the coffee cup over I’d not have had to grab a cloth to stop the coffee from going everywhere.

  3. If I’d not had to grab a cloth I wouldn’t have moved the milk jug I was holding in the other hand.

  4. If I’d not moved the jug I wouldn’t have sprayed hot milk up the front of the coffee machine.

  5. If I’d not sprayed hot milk up the front of the coffee machine I’d not have had to give it a good clean.

  6. If I’d not cleaned the coffee machine I’d not have jogged a dial that sets the machine to expect ground coffee.

  7. If the machine expects ground coffee it refuses to work until you give it some.

  8. If you try to use the machine and it refuses to work you think it is broken and set about mending it.

  9. If all attempts to mend the machine fail you eventually get around to reading the manual (last resort of the barely competent).

  10. If you read the manual you find that the error display is telling exactly what happens and what you need to do to fix it. Hurrah.

Oh well, at least the coffee machine is cleaner now than it has been for a very long time.

Super strength Rob

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There’s a scene in most superhero movies where the would-be hero does something while unaware of the incredible strength they now have. The results are things like baseballs going into orbit, cars flying in the air and really unpleasant handshakes.

I’ve just had that experience myself. I was taking my morning row when there was an almighty bang and the rowing machine fell into two pieces. Obviously my super-strength was the problem. I tracked it down to the above bolt which I have managed to snap after only 9 years of regular use. It seems that every rowing stroke bent the bolt slightly and eventually it failed. I wasn’t too worried about this. I’ve repaired the machine several times. I looked up the availability of bolts and found a suitable replacement. Then I took a look at the fitting it goes into on the machine. The head of the bolt had been welded into place. I’ve no idea why. It makes it impossible to for me to replace and increases the chances of the bolt failing in the first place.

So, it was onto the internet and a search for a replacement machine (I don’t want to stop rowing). I took the old one down to the tip and bid it a fond farewell. The new machine arrived this afternoon (thanks Argos). I hope it lasts as long as its predecessor.

Masked Fun at Comicon

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They had a unicorn there.

We went to Comicon today. It was great fun. Although the Covid protection measures were laughable. Our carefully printed COVID passes were checked by someone who could apparently read QR codes by just glancing at them. Social distancing was non-existent, the place was more packed than I've ever seen it and we were pretty much the only people wearing facemasks that weren't part of a costume. It seems that "mask friendly" means that they won't throw you out if you are wearing one. Oh well. To be honest, I wasn’t expecting much more. And we still went and had a good time.

The halls at the NEC are pretty big with high ceilings. And we didn't stay in one place for very long. With a bit of luck we’ll be OK. Although I'm not convinced that hope really counts as a pandemic management solution.

Google is still broken for me

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Google search is still broken for me. And a few other people too. Apparently the search team is looking into it. I just hope they can get access to their pages.

This really brings home to me the benefit of paying for services. If I was paying for a search service I’d have proper leverage with the supplier. It would be directly in their interest not to upset their customers. And I would know exactly how my service was being paid for. As it is, they seem to have made the call that giving the problem a proper level of priority isn’t worth it.

Google is ghosting me

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I don’t use Google search that much. The search built into Edge does most of what I want. And for really hard stuff I use duckduckgo. But recently I don’t use Google at all. When I go to google.com I get the above error. I’ve tried it on different machines and I get the same error. I think it might be something to do with my Google account, although mail works fine, as to other Google services.

When I was at Tech Week on Tuesday I made the mistake of trying to read my Gmail on a machine I hadn’t used for a while and when I tried to sign in it offered me the chance to complete the process on a device that I didn’t have with me. Which was tricky. The process failed, I got an email telling me that someone was trying to access my account (yes! it was me!) and ever since I’ve had this problem accessing the site. I think it is having a form of digital sulk.

Amplifiers for sale

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Amplifier.png

I found this camera that I really wanted. But I really shouldn’t buy it as buying cameras is a waste of money. Really.

So I decided to raise the cash by selling some stuff that I don’t need any more, which includes a couple of home entertainment receivers I seem to have accumulated. So today I spent a happy afternoon plugging them in, making sure that they work and then wondering why I replaced them in the first place……

They will be on eBay next week…. As for the camera, I’ve already bought it - so I really hope these things sell……

Simply Piano has made me into a Disney Princess

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performing princess.jpg

Much to my surprise, I’m still doing my piano practice every day. I’m using the Simply Piano app which works very well for me. Up until recently I was able to coast a bit, what with being made to play the piano when I was much younger. But now I’m learning stuff that is properly new to me and making a tiny bit of progress every day.

Anyhoo, Simply Piano has got hold of the rights to a bunch of Disney tunes for me to practice which has been great fun. The way they arrange the exercises it sounds like you’re part of a performance with singers and full accompaniment (although I’m always a bit sorry for the person who has to sing along with my playing). Good playing gets you stars for each piece. Eighteen stars and you’re a performing princess. Twenty four stars (a perfect performance in everything) and you get to be a prince. Not sure if I’m going to make it, but I’m enjoying trying.