Running Out - Power and Signals

 Was just thinking habout how reliant we are becoming on mobile devices and how companies are pushing us to become more reliant on mobile devices. We can use them to pay for things, watch things , communicate in a number of ways but they are reliant on two things, power and a decent signal. So you may have your phone phone and think you can use it as your bus ticket, pay for your overpriced coffee or whatever but if the battery runs out then that's you stuck. Similarly of the signal drops then you may be stuck again although some apps provide on device data.

I use my Sony Xperia XA for recording my walking and yesterday went out without it. Incidentally the Pacer software since I installed it has only possibly failed to record properly one, and that may have been my fault, so I am well impressed by it's reliability.  This was one of the few times I have returned to get hold of my phone , mainly because I wasn't sure if I'd left it in the house or actually lost it. I piced it up and the power was on 12% . By the time I got to my destination it was still going on 2% power but must have switched off soon after. I didn't have a back up power pack and although I have one power cable which I could have used to recharge it on the bus, it was in another jacket.

Sometimes a pen and paper is actually better, and although I have the Kindle app on my phone and an actual Kindle Fire they are still dependent on power and signals.

I'm not sure what the answers are to these first world problems, unless someone makes distributed power a reality. Imageine how cool it would be if power was as distributable as a radio , tv or mobile signal. We would truly be a wireless society then although even more vulnerable to losing the source of keeping us up and running.

This could possibly be even extended to replacement body parts, imagine a heart running on distributed power. but I am really flying off  into the outer reaches of science fiction here and I am no Brian Aldiss, and I was introduced to the concept of distributed power by another of my favourite authors F Paul Wilson. I think it was Legacies. one of the excellent Repairman Jack series.

Anyway it's Sunday and I need to relax , so it has to be "The Power" by Snap. Have a good day everybody.

Summer Is Back

Several times this week people have said the equivalent of "so that was the summer", when in fact I lost count of the summery sunny mornings we've had this year. The sun is streaming through the window now. We are all subject to the weather and we don't want a drought situation so we need rain, and usually we get it at night which is fairly sensible. I think that the weather has only stopped me walking once, and that was in Pockley and I still got 2.5K steps in which is about half a kilometer, and it didn't affect my Million Step Challenge , it was just another sub 11K day.

It looks like I am sort of on track for the #August50 , but I still have to do two posts a day for most of August, but it is doable, but I am going to walk in today so expect to keep my steps up.

I really to appreciate the colours of nature on a day like this, often unfeasibly enhanced by the camera on my Sony Xperia XA, not always in a good way sometimes looking back it's like I'd been in the middle of Ben Wheatley's "A Field In England". If you know the film you will know why I said that, if you don't know the film film , watch it and find out. Incidentally it was released on all formats simultaneously, the TV broadbast being on Film4.

So I'm going with "Summer Means Fun" which I thought was by The Beach Boys, then remembered it was by The Fantastic Baggys, but someone said it the original was by Jan & Dean, but I found this excellent version by Bruce and Terry which I had never heard before, because, as far as I'm concerned, summer is still alive and kicking. Well that wasn't a grammatically correct sentence was it , but what the hell. Have a brilliant day and enjoy the sunshine!

The Trouble With Shooting Ghosts of American Astronauts

A ridiculously rubbish play on words, in my last post I said that Google Fit didn't seem to be tracking steps, but was it my Sony Xperia, or the operating system or the software. Today I installed something called Pacer and it seems to be recording the steps OK so it looks like it's Google Fit.

It is a small trial when something is not working and you don't know which part of the chain is the problem , and it may be one part or more than one. Remeber when a bulb went in Christmas lights and trying to track which was this problem one. Though it does feel good when you sort it out.

Tonight I went out for an extra walk to hit my 11K, and I've done nearly 12K so that's cool.

Anyway as I type this "Ghosts of American Astronauts" by The Mekons is playing, just a lovely surreal song whihc I will leave you with. My blood sugar is down to 4.4 so I need to sort out something to eat.

Enjoy your evening my friends.

Too Many Things

I'm male.. so I can only do one thing at a time. Sometimes if I am well prepared I can start things off and let them run on their own while I get on with something else, but often that means I forget that I have kicked things off and then usually I'm pleasantly suprised when that task is done.

This morning I was feeling under pressure because I needed to print a CD with my new Canon printer but the software included is atrocious and and only has pre prepared templates that you can use. I also knew the lawn needed mowing and some of the  surrounding jungle needed cutting back. But it looked like rain.

Add to that that I wanted to fly my new drone , and also needed to do my 11K steps for the Million Step Challenge , I sort of feel that everything needs to be done at once.

The thing is , it doesn't. I sorted the lawn out, had a wander out and then had some unfruitful searches to sort out the printer. I tried the old Epson CD Printing software but that only works with an Epson printer. I eventually found some free software from NCH. and it does the job perfectly, I've been trying it with these vinyl style CDs here. 

I didn't get to fly the drone, but did get my steps in for my Million Step Challenge .

The thing is you need to schedule things, which means sometimes putting things off to the next day. Also when you get something new it takes time to learn it. I'm still getting the hang of my Sony Xperia, but I know things will come good.


So another for the #ATuneaDayinMay,  sequence Imelda May and Jeff Beck's cover of the Shangri-La's "Remember, Walking in The Stand" from the Les Paul Tribute Concert. 

Sleep well my friends.