Technogripes : So much stuff you go blind

As someone very much aware of the consumer society and having multiple reasons for railing against the world in a effort to fix it, this is my tech gripe. I notice it's some time since I posted a moan, but this is hopefully a happy resolver posting for some.

Okay so that's my GDPR rant out of the way. I'll let you know later how that one turns out, they only have a bot social account and they only do paid support, so waiting 24 hour turn around on the tech guys, so far I am almost able to log in.

BUT I promised good news.

So here it is - I was staring at my Amazon "HD" tablet, it's a 7 gen or something, but the colours amazon used when they ported the stock calendar app are clearly not useable - but I thought this was the google app, but it's not. Sooo , see the screenie below that, where I get to eat my hat. I had to simply install the real google app, and now I am no longer blind.

Job hunting on weekends again

This weekend, like so many lately I have spent a little time job hunting.
3 applications sent in SCSC, CMR and ADDER is as far I got this weekend. Would love to be able to send out loads of applications and then not suffer a mental overload when you get more than 2 emails back on one day and have to set up interviews and preparation work in a hurry.

I keep thinking there must be something I forgot to do in all this, but generally, if you are adept at it, you can get past the recruiter. Recruiters, not sure why I bother too much making links, they rarely place you, and companies are happy to deal directly. Sure, the more senior you are, the better a recruiter will work for you. That does count, an agent does grease the wheels, but not a guarantee. which is probably what I'm looking for, to have to not deal with dozens of contacts, just with one.

Are MMO's a thing at my age?

A few Neverwinter Nights links

Here're a few usefull links and informations, that'll hopefully help you in NWO:
https://www.reddit.com/r/Neverwinter/wiki/leveling
how to unlock chat, auction house and more.
http://neverwinter.gamepedia.com/Sword_Coast_Chronicles_Campaign
gives you something to follow, and a few good rewards on your way to level 70.
http://forum.arcgames.com/neverwinter/categories/guild-recruitment-pc
look for a decent guild and join one, this will also make NWO easier and more fun to play.
http://neverwinter.gamepedia.com/Astral_Diamond
read up about AD, and start doing those random daily dungeons/skirmishes to earn it.
https://neverwinter.gamepedia.com/VIP_Program
is another good source for a steady AD income from opening lockboxes with the daily key you get from it, and the ViP perks you unlock in time aren't that bad either.
https://neverwinter.gamepedia.com/Leadership
it will take time to rank up this profession, but do it on each character you have, and it will provide you with usefull items (Refinement Points), some Gold and XP in return.
https://neverwinter.gamepedia.com/Invocation
another source of useful items and bonus XP.
https://neverwinter.gamepedia.com/Events
can give you a whole boatload of free items and AD. next one in line is the Winter Festival, get one character to level 30 before it is active, and you can make millions of AD from it with a bit of loot luck.
http://www.arcgames.com/en/games/neverwinter/news/detail/10819944-arc-quests-pc-improvements-on-the-horizon
hopefully more free ZEN, when it's up and running again.
And when you want to spend ZEN, be smart and only "shop", when they've a winter/summer sale (40% discount on anything) going.
https://www.reddit.com/r/Neverwinter/wiki/currencies
last but not least, read this before buying ZEN through Steam...

Last Day

Today is my last day at Citrix.
What shall I say after 7 years, lets compose ourselves, I have a severance package, and some clauses, which pretty much says, "be nice, and we will be nice".
For me , today says, "the wheel turns".
This last year has been more about people and process than about software engineering sadly, although one positive process thing was learning a lot of agile. I tried to learn some Java and Angular this year, but that's another story, and as evidenced today, was pointless.

It's been a good ride though, in the previous 6 years, I learned a new programming language, two actually if you count my rubbish Python, which really is more ropey than snake. I learned about virtualisation, that changing tools can happen many times in a year, and that testing, is not checking!

I learned to drink beer, and that more than a pint of beer does not like me the next day. I know I will meet some ex Citrites in the future, just like I have me many ex Symbianites since those doors closed 8 years ago, so do keep the connection open your end. I am really looking forward to working with software that is a bit closer to real hardware again, and more focused on delivering one thing. I suppose I never really got the hang of working in large companies, Symbian and Citrix for me feel so large and mechanical as places to work, where the daily email barrage is a relentless un-necessary distraction that communicates no true message in the end. I hope, email is a thing we fix in future. Even Slack , fixes nothing in reality. And while in that basket, nor did Skype fix anything. The lesson there, keep your head down, probably my greatest flaw.

Signing out
Z

(Starting a contract position at Displaylink in January, well chuffed.)

Headshot

A quick scaled image with background blur to update my profile pics everywhere with.

Nala the dark princess

We went to Woodgreen animal shelter together to find a cat to be re-homed. Something we had delayed due to the home renovation bustle and noises which we figured would not be great for any cat regardless.

Nala arrived home, already starting to explore

https://youtu.be/MSKtLKY9Q08

A real lady, and after 2 weeks still settling in, feeling like old family. We have found that, she likes to watch TV in the evenings with us. Is still very shy and retreats to a cosy dark corner for any sudden movement or noises. So not many good well lit photos. She is a real lady, very polite; well trained and all; and although lazy to jump up on the bed is not inactive at all, she just shot past me now like a thundering bullet 3 times up and down the stairs, just randomly. Does not like sudden noises, but is perfectly fine with the vacuum cleaner. 

Finding a cat was a plan that started back in May actually, I made a sortie out to the Godmanchester shelter to see what the place was like and was totally impressed. Woodgreen is not like any other animal charity I've been to. It's very organised, astutely funded (although we found that even that is a tough job), very slick managed site, and focused on one thing. Animal well-being, and that was my big concern, after last having had an animal 10 years ago, I wondered what had changed in petcare. Not much, aside from more regimented immunization it appears.

Back home, we used to only worry about worms and fleas when that particular time of year came around, and yes, already figured out that those nasty cat collars are in fact really nasty in more than one way for a cat.

Nala really loves a good ear rubbing and will walk almost endlessly in circles until your arm is about to fall off just for nudges with her flat nose. Almost trying to scent transfer I guess, but she loves head scratching. Nala is always purring, and slowly getting more comfortable, and spends most time with the youngest boy, mostly under his bed. Oh, and we found she does like to play with all those kinds of fluffy toys and balls that can be knocked about. Quite fun to watch.

She is keen to see outside through the window, which is a good thing to be interested in, but that's still a long way off. She does appear to have lost a bit of weight, still struggling for a way to weigh her, since nobody is allowed to pick her up, that might get technical. We found she will mostly eat more consistently overnight, and also mooches around at night a good bit. Nala is really working out well for us, and she seems to be liking it too.

Hope to get better pictures as time goes by, she does not sit still. Just love this little lady.

Am I in tune?

Started trying to sing recently. As a slightly tone deaf and slightly imbalanced (that last I think happened on a shooting range) hearing person, it's not as simple as you might imagine. Being tone deaf, I have always found it hard to listen to anyone talking or singing. The former probably more out of habit. but I have never had an ipod. a spotify an itunes or a CD collection. I have just over a dozen CDs to my name, such a small collection it's not even worth throwing them out. So why sing?

Well it's a happy thing I guess.
http://www.reaper.fm/ - looks cool, might try buy this later on.

https://malfunktion.bandcamp.com/releases

Also tried out but was disappointing by JukeDeck. AI music composer, https://www.jukedeck.com/

JukeDeck is really limited and random. Makes great sounds 9/10 times though, so good for intros or outros/stings. But since no 2 sounds are ever similar, it's not possible to really do something that feels "continous" without spending a load of time generating random short tracks.

Just found an alternative to Reaper - making me wonder if computer made/composed music is the new art frontier. And whether everyone is using a common codebase to churn out all of these apps.
It's MAGIX Music Maker
http://www.magix.com/us/music-maker/
And you an get it for a limited time in the humble bundle with some free credit go buy plugins (trax too I assume.)

House

Radiator and boiler notes
Some good backgrounder notes written for installers that actually explain how the things work for non installers too.
http://www.stovefittersmanual.co.uk/articles/boiler-stoves/

Empyrion Galactic Survival Gamemaster points

Some console command pointers and game rules.

ban  
= number of h (hours) d (days) or m (months)
unban   
kick [message]
list perm[issions] lists players and permissions
list ban[ned]
kick all [message] kicks everyone and sends a message
 

Godmode
 Enables or disables Godmode for the current player. This allows you to fly, not take enemy damage and walk through walls/floors.
Map Lists and displays all of the resources and PoIs (Points of Interest) on the map.

teleport x, y, z, Teleports you to those coordinates, only on the playfield you currently are on.
teleport '' Teleports you a Playfield. For Playfields with spaces in them, you must use single quotes! Do note, you may need to change sectors first! (Case Sensitive)
sector ''  
time Sets the time of the server (with a value input) (Example: 10 is night, 10000 is day.) 

create (Faction is the name)
join
delete
allow
deny
remove
entity
list
list
stats

• To keep this short and sweet, anything with is the name of the Faction. Anything with is the ID assigned to you from the game. use di to get a player id 

For all your spatula needs

For all your spatula needs is a special accomplishment in the game called idle quest for Android. Idle quest is a pretty mindless qame in a series of non-questlike questing games. As a text based game it's not too shabby and shows off how much you can do with text only if you have a good game concept. Unfortunately idle quest is good for only one thing:  Easy accomplishments and thus easy google play ranking levels.
But as an ace the game has a few almost impossible achievements. Today I reached "for all your spatula needs" which requires crafting any amulet with discount quality and any quality weapon of type spatula. All you then have to do is wait until you happen to quest through spatula city as well to get it. Which will give you the accomplishment after waiting about a minute or two at most. Just be sure not to craft any amulet nor weapon. Now I twice got one of the requirements,  first a spatula and later an amulet, but the penalty for keeping the item eventually slows your progress to a crawl, so getting both together in a short space of time is not simple. Well it's luck. Here is my screen shot of Invisible spatula and Discount gemstone.

Good luck. And thanks to Topcog.

Mission Day Proposal

I'm looking to build up a proposal for an Ingress event. It's called Mission Days which are effectively just a local city promotional/ tourist event of sorts, but based around the virtual reality game called Ingress. If you don't know what Ingress is, please click the link or just read on and consider my Event proposal.

Proposal

A Mission Day is a social event in the "virtual-reality" Ingress game which plays out in the real world. Mission Days are designed to promote tourism in the host city and get publicized in the online community calendar. The Event takes place on a pre-determined Saturday morning, and will involve quite a bit of walking.

The Ingress game is different things to many people, my personal description of it is that it primarily involves walking, and beer or tea. Ingress is a lot like geo-cacheing, and many people play solo, but when we get together it becomes slightly competitive. The game awards you points for distance walked, number of places you visit and so on, but the benefit for many is around physical and mental health. The game is played worldwide and involves visiting as many historic sites or points of interest as possible, and through a system of "tagging" to apply virtual reality spray-paint and control territory for your team by using your built-in GPS. Yes, there are two teams, and no, combat does not involve shooting or running. That does not mean that the gameplay at other times is not real at all.  Amazon gift vouchers will also go to players meeting in-game goals such as number of kilometers walked for this specific event. The big social events typically are fully outdoors and cover a Saturday morning, entire day, or in the evening as a social meal where players compare game scores or just enjoy a beer/tea. Oh, almost forgot to mention, there is cake!

Participants will need a smartphone and a small amount of mobile data contract. Must know how to safely cross a street, not obstruct sidewalks, enjoy the sights of historic Cambridge. A minimal level of fitness to keep walking (wheelchairs are allowed) for a few hours is helpful, and obviously good walking shoes. You must also be keen to explore, and to learn know how to play an online game and keep to the rules by playing nice. Ingress is a free game created by Google. As such, an email address is required to play, although you do remain anonymous.

The Cambridge city center is a busy commuter zone, but is packed with interesting things to see which many folk never notice. You might even get to find hidden routes to unique or useful places just by playing. Join us out of curiosity for just a day, or sign up permanently and play the game for free. Choose your team and join us today and find a local community near you. https://www.ingress.com/community/

Details

Typical turnouts are up to 20 people, young and old (children intentionally not included in this photo from a recent meeting.) However we expect a slightly larger turnout for the Mission Day because it is a more accessible event and has a special in-game reward.

Supported smartphones or tablets are Android or Apple/IOS and have a GPS. Play using a tablet is possible if your device has a GPS. A portable wifi hotspot will be available on the day if you do not have mobile data access. The exact walking route is unknown at this time, nor is the expected duration although expected to be 3-4 hours.

You will need to choose between joining the Green or blue team, the choice you make is not permanent, and conveys no actual meaning at all.  I am an agent of the Enlightened faction, although that matters little because Mission Day is a cross-faction event and more social than competitive - although competition definitely comes into it. I would thus advise you join the Enlightened or "Green" team.

Notes

I'm using this page to gather all the information I have about my plan to host a mission day - probably good idea to set a date to start with, and then work towards that. I'm keen to use A Saturday in summer, just before the holidays on 19 July. First step is to contact the local tourism board/ publicity association.

• I'm going to poll people with questions similar to these I'm going to steal from Sam Edwards questions from this list : https://docs.google.com/forms/d/1UyrZ07Ck-AXt3Ma-VnpTQ4nhlgsdVLZw364rrZKzeDc/viewform?usp=form_confirm

• Here are some idea of what the application to the publicity association application could look like.https://drive.google.com/folderview?id=0B-LQ90X-k2L8fkhac0RKOVJMYXBkY1BhOHQ5b0l3S1VQYkhZMXh0bzI0VGhSZXRlSEpweDg&usp=sharing#

• Ingress mission day application form: www.ingress.com/missionday

• Google plus discussion: https://plus.google.com/u/0/+Ingress/posts/91XCxH8SL6z 

Proud of my son

Rather proud of my eldest son today. I had a kind of crappy and tense day . Easter holiday been planned after 3 years. Last day of school for him last day of work for next 2weeks for me.... and he has an accident on the football pitch. Now Rhys and accidents during phys ed seems a recurring thing. So I'm not panicking when I get a call at lunchtime to rush off to the school. He broke his collarbone so I rush over and have to take him to hospital.  Now if it was serious it would be an ambulance so I'm not flipping out. But he is in such pain when I get to the school he is too sore to even say "hi dad". Bundled gingerly into the car and then drive carefully to the hospital every damn pothole the council failed to fill in gets a wince of pain from the passenger seat.

Potholes the council does not fill due to budget cuts. Which has now kept mum and dad out of work for 3 hours each as we run him up to A&E. All the traffic lights go green. The queue when we get there is 5 minutes long and the staff are so professional and efficient. Careful and slow, but efficient and it makes me wonder why the NHS is facing cuts to people who are passionate about what they do and are doing their best. Why?

So the shoulder is now in a sling. It still hurts but he will mend. I'm proud of Rhys. And also proud of Gregory.  I hope my boys do see this one day and hold me to my promise to never let go.

Sponsorship drive

Sponsor please : I'm braving the cold 2 help Syrian Refugees

So here is the backstory first.
I live in a small village in Cambridgeshire, and since many of us felt the refugee crisis touch us we decided to mobilise in a big way. The usual committees formed and some people went off to set up cake sales and other events. We planned a different fundraiser for almost every month of the year, but I pooh pooh'ed the cake and coffee things and aligned with a plan to do something more radical. Something that would show that we cared for Syrians impacted by the war. By sleeping under the stars. Well, I did not realize that by the time we got organised mid-winter would be upon us.

It does not seem to have stopped 12 of us who will sleep out (admittedly under canvas) with no facilities or support for 2 nights on the village green. It's not really sheltered and will probably be noisy. I don't count on getting much sleep nor being able to feel my toes in the morning. Most of us are not real campers, so it's going to be a cold one.

Click on this link to register your donation http://goo.gl/forms/5sHDLx7ak4
I'll be accepting preferrably cash; cheques made out to Cottenham Cares , or Paypal online payments

All moneys go to MSF and Save the Children Syria .
Please fill in this form with as much or little information as you like, which I'll keep secret. But would also make it easier to collect cash and importantly thank you for your sponsorship.

More Events

Cottenham Cares have a host of other events planned, a golf tournament, a Ceilidh (which is apparently a dance) and quizz nite are already in planning. During the summer, we plan to support other initiatives, to find out more please visit and like our Facebook page :
https://www.facebook.com/CottenhamCares/

Fundraiser progress update

I only started raising on Wednesday and I'm standing at £175 thanks to pakshivaandytomcaroline . I'm targeting £400

ISIS are not terrorists

Think about it for a second. ISIS, IS, Taliban, Daesh are not your traditional terrorist organization. I'm against the bombing of Syria for this reason. I'll explain in a second, my rationale, so let me throw some background.

A terrorist is someone who uses fear, guerilla tactics and bombs directly to accomplish a goal in a situation that often includes civil war. Activities are normally limited to one country or a region, since the terrorist accomplishes little by travelling far from home. And there is the key, the ISIS goals are not to resolve civil war, but rather - to create it. Starting with the Arab spring as the source of civil unrest, the IS militants just drop in to further destabilize. A bit like mercenaries, who pop up wherever regular forces are not making progress at the time. It's a low cost operation with lots of bang for your buck (literally) and that's the other key - funding.

IS funding is a completely separate blog post I think, I'll continue instead. So when we rush in and bomb IS in order to stop them killing off more groups like the Yazidis, we just give them a platform. They are a lot more organised than we think and although we stop them from killing innocents through a bombing campaign, we don't really fix the problem. It's laudable to stop the killing of innicents, do not get me wrong. But terrorists are normally not lawfull. Two rights do not make a wrong in their books.

Bombings cut supply lines, sure, but they also cause people, civilians to leave the area. We call them refugees, IS cell members are able to secretly mingle with these refugees and travel more freely than normally as a result. Where do they go? Oh, I'm sure they know, and David Cameron knows where they want to go, or does he? Well there you have it, bombing just pisses people off, it might save lives, but it plays into their hands... something we keep on doing it seems.

Christmas time reminder note

In case I forget, here is a handy note . Dates to calendar.

Schedule information about services and events that are taking place in the run up to Christmas at CBC, please put these dates in your diary and take opportunities to invite friends and family to join us as we look to celebrate together.

Christmas Service

Sunday 29th November -  Advent Creative Service (A good opportunity to invite friends and family to join us for stories, songs, craft, quizzes and a time of reflection)  If you are able to bring cakes or  biscuits to share over coffee after the service please do.

Sunday 6th December -  Family Service Led by GenR8 (Another great opportunity to invite friends and family as GenR8 lead this Christmas Service for us)  We will also be decorating our church for  Christmas after this service.

Sunday 13th December -  Morning Service to include a wedding blessing for Miranda and John Bonner, please join us as we celebrate with them

Evening Carol Service (Where an offering will be taken for Cottenham Cares to help refugees in Syrian camps)  Starting at5.30pm with soup and a roll.  Please bring along  mince pies if you can, so that we have plenty to share with people, along with mulled wine, after the service

Sunday 20th December - Christmas Communion Service

Friday 25th December - Christmas Day Family Service with Music from Music Mash

Sunday 27th December - Breakfast Service. (A relaxed service with a light breakfast for those who are able to gather after Christmas)

This year at Church we are also providing a Christmas Card board where people can place a Christmas Card for everyone in the Church.  This saves on writing lots of cards and also allows us to send Christmas greeting to everyone in our church family, with one card.  The board will be up in the church from Sunday 6th December.

Missing in the list is Supernovas Party 11th (Friday) December, sometime in the afternoon, 4:30 pm. I'm helping so I'll be there from about 2:30 anyway.

Quick Shout-out

So, not everyone is actually artistic, some people write stuff like blogs as a way of recording their knowledge for later recall. But sometimes you record and share on youtube, and if you are like me you are a you-tuber not for shares,likes or fame, but to record for later recall. But mostly for me youtube is about learning how to work with video, I love the editing of sound, static images and special effects. Who never dreamed of directing a movie? Well, to make this really happen, you need to learn, the best way is the youtube creator academy. It's a google plus group, join and start browsing about, do all the lessons in the lesson plans that appeal to you. Then get depressed due to your budget being zero!

So what? Who cares, just carry on trying to get by with less. But sometimes you will grow - like this week I even got a shout-out from a lady who calls herself T- LIN.
Roll the video https://youtu.be/m8rAKbEX1A0?t=455

Recommended to try out Cyberlink Power Director http://www.cyberlink.com/products/powerdirector-ultra/features_en_GB.html
... which has a 30 day demo mode.

Romans study

As part of Livewires, we are studying Romans - I decided to find some podcasts to listen too during the preparation workings, and well anytime I can. Podcasts are not my thing at all, so I don't expect to listen to much. But it might just stick.

Brain Caffiene

Check out coffitivity , it's an app that plays you some background sound that will help you defocus. Some people have playlists, some people use white-noise generators, and others have... Well a Spotify playlist even.

https://coffitivity.com/

I can see other kinds of applications for this background noise. OK, so.... Have you ever tried to concentrate in a completely silent room, if like me the circus comes out and your mind runs riot, this app might be just the ticket.

Helping strangers unaware

Yesterday I was out cycling with my youngest when we spotted a lost gentlemen. Or rather he spotted us. He was looking for a street just one block away so I fired up my smartphone and spoke the words to get the maps app to do it all for me. I rotated the map and showed how where to go. Epic fail.

I was only a block away. I did not walk him home, but then why should I? I mean he was only a block away? I am not responsible for the world and all of it's lost old men am I, well it was not good enough. My wife helped a lady with her shopping at the same time in the city. Carried her groceries all the way down to the river to her houseboat. Then had to find her way back to the bus stop. My meager effort was null in comparison.