Gooood sofa.
Tuesday, 10 May 2011
Is it a Sofa? Is it a Bed?
Today heralded the arrival of my newest and definitely my favourite piece of furniture. Yes, that's right, my flat is now graced by the presence of a new sofa... or is it a bed? In either relaxational configuration it is limb-meltingly comfortable. How comfortable? Well, today I took the day off in order to be in when it was delivered. When it arrived just before mid-day I sat on it for a bit... then tried lying down on it... and fell asleep for 3 hours.
Gooood sofa.
Gooood sofa.
Sunday, 1 May 2011
Now in Magnolia
"This new flat means more to me than just home ownership" he said.
"What's that?" she asked.
"Freedom from landlords, my own space, a new start..."
"No no," she interjected, "what's that?" she pointed.
"Oh," he paused, "yeah that's a bit disgusting... I'll have to paint over that."
Yes I've spent the last week beginning the process of turning my empty flat into my home. I'm very much indebted to my parents for their help with all the painting and cleaning and helping me get established with a washing machine and fridge.
Everything's been moved out of the old place now, and the keys handed back. I am truly living in my own flat now!
"Get a plumber, get the water connected, hire a cleaner, maybe a cook - live like real middle class people."
"Get the water connected?"
"Yeah."
"So, not connected now?"
"Not so much."
"What's that?" she asked.
"Freedom from landlords, my own space, a new start..."
"No no," she interjected, "what's that?" she pointed.
"Oh," he paused, "yeah that's a bit disgusting... I'll have to paint over that."
Yes I've spent the last week beginning the process of turning my empty flat into my home. I'm very much indebted to my parents for their help with all the painting and cleaning and helping me get established with a washing machine and fridge.
Everything's been moved out of the old place now, and the keys handed back. I am truly living in my own flat now!
"Get a plumber, get the water connected, hire a cleaner, maybe a cook - live like real middle class people."
"Get the water connected?"
"Yeah."
"So, not connected now?"
"Not so much."
Sunday, 24 April 2011
Portmoak '11
I find it crazy that having just bought a flat and whilst still paying rent on a house I have spent the last week living in neither.
That said it's been a fun week away in Scotland. In terms of flying I've had better weeks up there, as we only got one day and an evening of ridgable flying weather, but it was still a fun holiday. Highlights were an hour in the club Discus, T19, on the Bishop and a bit of mutual flying with Michelle in a K-21.
Cludeo playing skills were also practiced, though not needed where damage to the Acro's trailer was concerned; it was the Reverend Bromley in the coach park with the Fox One trailer.
That said it's been a fun week away in Scotland. In terms of flying I've had better weeks up there, as we only got one day and an evening of ridgable flying weather, but it was still a fun holiday. Highlights were an hour in the club Discus, T19, on the Bishop and a bit of mutual flying with Michelle in a K-21.
Cludeo playing skills were also practiced, though not needed where damage to the Acro's trailer was concerned; it was the Reverend Bromley in the coach park with the Fox One trailer.
Friday, 15 April 2011
Completion!
Today I passed an important milestone; I have just completed on the purchase of my very own flat.
It's all happened very suddenly. Yes I kicked off the process months ago with a conversation with an independent financial advisor, really got things moving when I put in an offer for the flat I wanted, but until now it all seemed like stuff that would happen at some indeterminate time in the future.
That was until I picked the keys up this lunch time.
I will confess that I felt quite emotional when I found myself stood in my own home for the first time. That's what it's all about though; my home. For the last five years and especially for the last six months I have felt as though I haven't really had a home, just somewhere I have lived. I can stand in my bedroom, my office, my living room and feel the anticipation for all of the future scenes from my life that will unfold in this space.
Most of all I want to give my thanks to my grandparents without whose boundless generosity none of this would have been possible.
There's no plug for the bath, the paint on the walls has a nice singed effect going on above the storage heater and the previous occupant somehow managed to melt the handle for the grill in the oven. Bliss...
It's all happened very suddenly. Yes I kicked off the process months ago with a conversation with an independent financial advisor, really got things moving when I put in an offer for the flat I wanted, but until now it all seemed like stuff that would happen at some indeterminate time in the future.
That was until I picked the keys up this lunch time.
I will confess that I felt quite emotional when I found myself stood in my own home for the first time. That's what it's all about though; my home. For the last five years and especially for the last six months I have felt as though I haven't really had a home, just somewhere I have lived. I can stand in my bedroom, my office, my living room and feel the anticipation for all of the future scenes from my life that will unfold in this space.
Most of all I want to give my thanks to my grandparents without whose boundless generosity none of this would have been possible.
There's no plug for the bath, the paint on the walls has a nice singed effect going on above the storage heater and the previous occupant somehow managed to melt the handle for the grill in the oven. Bliss...
Tuesday, 13 July 2010
Tributes to XKCD
I've been a fan of the web comic XKCD for quite a while. Unfortunately as I did not have the required social skills to do computer science at university I often feel left out from some of the strips that hinge on computer geekery, my own specialisation being in aerospace engineering. That's why a year or two ago I found the need to translate a couple of the better known XKCD icons into engineering language.
A t-shirt I should get made
Why all engineers love running an ANSYS simulation
Thursday, 8 July 2010
iPhone 4 antenna
There has been a lot said about the iPhone 4 and its antenna recently. As someone who has recently acquired one of these phones I feel that I should write a little bit about this issue and what I have experienced in the first week of using it.
For those of you who aren’t aware of this issue, the iPhone 4 uses parts of the metal band around the phone as its antenna. The story goes that if it is held in the left hand one of the gaps is bridged de-tuning the antenna and causing the phone to lose signal and drops calls. Not good.
The first thing I should say is that I was well aware of this antenna issue when I ordered the phone, who wouldn’t be with all the words flying on the internet, and in truth I was completely prepared for it to be a major issue. Why did I go ahead and buy it anyway? Well, after being absolutely delighted with my iPhone 3G, the first Apple product I ever bought after a previous eternal scepticism about all things Apple, I was quite keen on the idea of an upgrade, especially in light of all the new features the phone offered. Above all though, I have always kept my iPhone 3G in a case and had been expecting to get one for the replacement anyway, so embarrassing for Apple as it may be, the antenna was always going to be a non-issue for me.
Anyway, I got the phone home, plugged it in, and laboriously transferred everything across from my previous phone (I think I had to click the mouse twice). With my new phone set up to be exactly like my previous phone, I unplugged and had a play.
The phone was showing 4 bars of signal so, curious, I tried clamping my hand over the infamous gap in the steel band on the lower left hand corner of the phone. It took a few seconds, but yes the reported signal strength steadily dropped from four bars down to just one. I took my hand off and sure enough, the indicator rose steadily back up to 4 bars.
Next I switched on the speed test app, a useful device for testing just how much our broadband company are overselling their pitiful broadband services, and with the wi-fi turned off sure enough I saw a dramatic difference in speeds depending on whether my hand was on the device. Videos of both of these effects are of course all over the net, so my phone clearly isn’t unusual.
Oh well, I thought, time to buy a case.
Or was it? As I didn’t feel like spending the extra £5 on postage ordering online a case that was already overpriced - sadly the true for all mobile phone cases. I decided to wait and just buy one the next time I was near an Apple store. As a result of this I have found myself using my iPhone au naturel so to speak for the last week, and this is where the plot thickens.
The odd thing is that the apparent reporting of the “bars” and speed test app doesn’t seem to reflect itself in the way the rest of the phone works. Where I’m sat right now speed test actually times out and reads big fat zeroes for both upload and download speeds when my hand is in the wrong place. However, safari still happily loads web pages, facebook works absolutely fine, texts still transmit, and I’ve had absolutely no trouble at all with the phone dropping calls.
The other weird thing is that no matter what the signal to start with, strong or weak, bridging the gap never seems to cut off the signal.
Now, it seems to me that something is definitely happening when the gap in the antenna band is bridged, there can be no doubt about that, but what? Is it really as crippling as some people would have me think? Apparently not. Apple have of course come out with their usual propaganda saying that this is just a software issue relating to how the “bars” are calculated. “Bars” do not really exist and they are just arbitrarily calculated by the phone’s software to show when signal strength is, say, between 0% and 15%; the range 15%-100% all being “5 bars”. I’m sure that there is an element of truth in this, but it doesn’t explain everything; the speed test results for example.
What this all has to boil down to is my experience of actually using an iPhone 4 for the last week, and that has been very unlike what the all the internet hype would seem to suggest. Of course, the Apple-haters have been all too happy to dance in delight that Apple finally made a real mistake for them to talk about, the media have all covered this story, and there have been anecdotes all over the internet. I, however, fail to see what all the fuss is about. I am actually holding one of these things in my hand and it is working well.
The iPhone 4 is an awesome piece of kit and I am really enjoying owning one.
To make my point, I have posted this blog entry from my iPhone 4, over the phone network, with my hand firmly clamped over the gap in the antenna.
For those of you who aren’t aware of this issue, the iPhone 4 uses parts of the metal band around the phone as its antenna. The story goes that if it is held in the left hand one of the gaps is bridged de-tuning the antenna and causing the phone to lose signal and drops calls. Not good.
The first thing I should say is that I was well aware of this antenna issue when I ordered the phone, who wouldn’t be with all the words flying on the internet, and in truth I was completely prepared for it to be a major issue. Why did I go ahead and buy it anyway? Well, after being absolutely delighted with my iPhone 3G, the first Apple product I ever bought after a previous eternal scepticism about all things Apple, I was quite keen on the idea of an upgrade, especially in light of all the new features the phone offered. Above all though, I have always kept my iPhone 3G in a case and had been expecting to get one for the replacement anyway, so embarrassing for Apple as it may be, the antenna was always going to be a non-issue for me.
Anyway, I got the phone home, plugged it in, and laboriously transferred everything across from my previous phone (I think I had to click the mouse twice). With my new phone set up to be exactly like my previous phone, I unplugged and had a play.
The phone was showing 4 bars of signal so, curious, I tried clamping my hand over the infamous gap in the steel band on the lower left hand corner of the phone. It took a few seconds, but yes the reported signal strength steadily dropped from four bars down to just one. I took my hand off and sure enough, the indicator rose steadily back up to 4 bars.
Next I switched on the speed test app, a useful device for testing just how much our broadband company are overselling their pitiful broadband services, and with the wi-fi turned off sure enough I saw a dramatic difference in speeds depending on whether my hand was on the device. Videos of both of these effects are of course all over the net, so my phone clearly isn’t unusual.
Oh well, I thought, time to buy a case.
Or was it? As I didn’t feel like spending the extra £5 on postage ordering online a case that was already overpriced - sadly the true for all mobile phone cases. I decided to wait and just buy one the next time I was near an Apple store. As a result of this I have found myself using my iPhone au naturel so to speak for the last week, and this is where the plot thickens.
The odd thing is that the apparent reporting of the “bars” and speed test app doesn’t seem to reflect itself in the way the rest of the phone works. Where I’m sat right now speed test actually times out and reads big fat zeroes for both upload and download speeds when my hand is in the wrong place. However, safari still happily loads web pages, facebook works absolutely fine, texts still transmit, and I’ve had absolutely no trouble at all with the phone dropping calls.
The other weird thing is that no matter what the signal to start with, strong or weak, bridging the gap never seems to cut off the signal.
Now, it seems to me that something is definitely happening when the gap in the antenna band is bridged, there can be no doubt about that, but what? Is it really as crippling as some people would have me think? Apparently not. Apple have of course come out with their usual propaganda saying that this is just a software issue relating to how the “bars” are calculated. “Bars” do not really exist and they are just arbitrarily calculated by the phone’s software to show when signal strength is, say, between 0% and 15%; the range 15%-100% all being “5 bars”. I’m sure that there is an element of truth in this, but it doesn’t explain everything; the speed test results for example.
What this all has to boil down to is my experience of actually using an iPhone 4 for the last week, and that has been very unlike what the all the internet hype would seem to suggest. Of course, the Apple-haters have been all too happy to dance in delight that Apple finally made a real mistake for them to talk about, the media have all covered this story, and there have been anecdotes all over the internet. I, however, fail to see what all the fuss is about. I am actually holding one of these things in my hand and it is working well.
The iPhone 4 is an awesome piece of kit and I am really enjoying owning one.
To make my point, I have posted this blog entry from my iPhone 4, over the phone network, with my hand firmly clamped over the gap in the antenna.
Monday, 21 June 2010
Coast to Coast '10
Holiday time! Once again this year our summer holiday has been cycle touring. Just a week this year, so we planned a route across the spine of the UK that took in all the best of Cumbria, Northumberland and the Scottish Borders. We started at Windermere, made our way west to the coast at St Bees, then headed east and north taking in Bassenthwaite Lake, Hadrian's Wall, Kielder Water, Berwick-upon-Tweed and Lindisfarne Island on the East coast.
Over 6 days of cycling we covered over 300 road miles. We also took a day off to walk the wall from Housesteads fort all the way to The Twice Brewed Inn and then the museum at Vindolanda. All in all an excellent holiday!
Yours truly posing on the beach at St Bees
Rosie setting the pace on one of the quiet back roads we took to climb out of the Lake District
Rosie poses on Hadrian's wall
Arriving to find queuing traffic at Lindisfarne Causeway
Lindisfarne Mead!
I can definitely recommend cycle touring as the best way to truly experience the places you visit. During this holiday I lost count of the number of people who, when we showed up on our bikes, wanted to know where our car was. So many people are so dependant on their cars, and yet I find that travelling these sorts of distances without one is a very liberating experience.
Now, where we will be cycling next summer?
Over 6 days of cycling we covered over 300 road miles. We also took a day off to walk the wall from Housesteads fort all the way to The Twice Brewed Inn and then the museum at Vindolanda. All in all an excellent holiday!
I can definitely recommend cycle touring as the best way to truly experience the places you visit. During this holiday I lost count of the number of people who, when we showed up on our bikes, wanted to know where our car was. So many people are so dependant on their cars, and yet I find that travelling these sorts of distances without one is a very liberating experience.
Now, where we will be cycling next summer?
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