I’ve had an addiction, for several years, that I have finally decided to kick. My friends have previously told me that it is no good for me; that any enjoyment I might get from it is no compensation for the way it tries to warp…
Month: August 2012
On my Kindle today, I finished The Quantum Thief by Hannu Rajaniemi and gave it 5 stars http://t.co/8gZXj0k [Added 26 August] I am actually considering reading it again, right now, as I am not sure I completely understood everything. Now that doesn’t normally sound like…
Coming back from London, on Wednesday, the train was busy, even though it was past rush hour. At King’s Cross, I walked down towards the end of the train, and came across a set of 6 seats, 3 opposite 3, occupied by two guys. Seated…
Following on from yesterday, about my shopping trip. Being the size I am, buying clothes can sometimes be a problem. As it happens, shirts – even office shirts – are not really an issue, as I have a couple of places I know that I…
… After a very successful shopping trip to London. Will write more at another time, but one thing I will mention is the hot beef sandwich I foolishly bought in Harrods at lunchtime, which while pleasant enough, was not exactly hot, and left me feeling…
One of my set-top boxes (not the YouView one) does a decent job of playing YouTube over the TV, so on odd occasions, I sit and browse for amusement or inspiration. I was doing this before heading for bed last night, and came across the…
The good news: I have a new fridge-freezer, to replace the one that flaked out on me just before my holiday. The bad news: it has to stand for 3 hours after the delivery, before I can turn it on. I’m out all day tomorrow,…
The first Youview device launched a few weeks ago, with a fanfare from the BBC and a lot of talk from Lord Sugar; who contrary to rumour, isn’t actually involved in the production of the device, but is a non-executive chairman of the Youview partnership.
Youview is an IPTV service developed and launched jointly by BBC, ITV, Channel 4 and Five; together with BT and TalkTalk. Youview have specified what a Youview box should do, to enable it to bear the name, and various set-top box manufacturers will be launching their own boxes, made to that spec. The highlights of the requirement are that it includes dual Freeview tuners, a hard disk recorder, and hosts all 4 channel’s catchup/on demand services. Furthermore, that this functionality should be fully integrated.
A year or so, I was talking about how ebooks were frequently more expensive than the equivalent paperback. It was annoying, but I could kind of understand it, due to eBooks being VATable and real books not. Things have since got better, due to Amazon’s…
I ended up not blogging anything during my time in Somerset. The cottage I was in not only wasn’t online (which I knew in advance), but I couldn’t even get a reasonable mobile data connection. Even the phone service was very hit and miss.
On reflection, this was not a bad thing. I had a relaxing time in the cottage, going out for days (and getting my email fix in Starbucks or similar) and chilling out in the evening.