In 2014, my Nokia smartphone was on its last legs and it was time to upgrade. As alluded to previosuly, I didn’t want an iPhone because they are locked down and expensive as fuck. I didn’t want an android phone because of the so called Google “botnet”. I was left with little option than to consider soldiering on with the Nokia. Until of course I found out about the Firefox phone. I bought a ZTE open because I believed in principles of openess and right to privacy.  Little did I know, that I’d wasted my money on this piece of crap.

There was a a myriad of things wrong with this phone. If they had try before you buy I would have never have bought it. The keyboard was very hard to type on. You had to be very precise with your fingers to select the right key. Although updates did improve things slightly, it was still shit.

There was a lack of apps and developmental enthusiasm. Fundamental software like a terminal emulator was lacking.

There were no updates. Mozilla got into bed with some dodgy chinese wankers like ZTE. They promised the phone would be updated but of course it wasn’t. They released 2 updates, one official the other one not. After that nothing. There were developmental builds but hard to install and often had their own associated problems.

I made the mistake of buying this thinking it was for consumers. It was a devlopers phone for people wanting to make their own builds and apps. The only good thing about this phone was that it was virtually unbrickable. There were many times it wouldn’t work but you could always reset it somehow.

In the end, I took advice off of XDA who said cut your losses by selling it and moving on. Some poor sod bought my phone and I got most of my money back. What on earth he bought it for, is anyone’s guess.

Last year I heard from a Mozilla employee that the project has been closed down. Why couldn’t Mozilla developers make the OS better? At least then, the phone might stand half a chance.

Here’s a list of films I’ve seen in the first half of this year:

• Point Blank – French film I saw some time ago. Can’t really remember much but I enjoyed it. 7.5/10
• Zombieland – Quite funny. Though getting duped by the girls twice was criminal 7.5/10
• Ender’s Game – Based on the eponymous book. A nice twist which I predicted. 7/10
• Aliens – A rare case where the sequel is better than the original. Loses a point for being a bit long. 9/10
• The Texas Chainsaw Massacre – Disgusting, but an enthralling horror.
• Barry Lyndon – I first tried to watch this in ~2010 but my version was italian so never watched it. Luckily it got shown on TV. Despite being 3 horus it was captivating from start to finish. Possibly kubrik’s magnum opus. Does the luck of Barry Lyndon run out? 9/10
• Vertigo – A little too long and the plot is rather convuluted. Quite slow at times too. However, some interesting developments towards the end make up for it. 8/10
• The Ring – Not the japanese version. I had the ending spoiled for me about 13 years ago. Started strong but petered out towards the middle and there was loss of suspension of disbelief. 7/10
• Room – Harrowing and heart wrenching tale of child and mother. A film of two halves where the first was better than the second. 8/10
• American Hustle –  I got the strangest feeling of de ja vu watching this and having an inkling to the ending makes me believe I have watched it before.  Bale pulls off a superb performance as fat grifter. Amy Adams is stunning but Jennifer Lawrence is annoying as fuck. Loses a point for being unremarkable enough to forget. 6/10
• Interstellar – The science in this film is certainly on shaky ground. Stunning visuals, interesting concepts, plot twists (both banal and unexpected). Overall a great film. 8.5/10
• Rogue 1 – Original plot is a big plus. Though the film is probably longer than it should be, considering the quest for Saw Gerrera is superfluous. There are accusations of bad acting, unbelivability about the blind guy and the fat guy with the powerful gun. One thing I found unsettling was Cassian killing someone he shouldn’t have. It’s still better than Episode 7 because it’s not a soft reboot. Though not as good as the orignal trilogy it is better than the horror show that was the prequels. 8/10
• The Fugitive – Another thrilling suspensful film. At times crossing the boundary into disbelief, the number of times Kimble managed to escape and surviving a fall from the top of a dam and building. 8/10
• A million ways to die in the west – Puerile but entertaining. Nothing to write home about. Saving grace of Charlize Theron being easy on the eyes. 5.5/10
• Pulp Fiction – Rewatch. First ~1hour is boring as fuck. Only picks up after Butch is on screen. 7.5/10

Stay tuned for part 2 for more rambling.

• Trump will walk away unscathed from the Russia investigation
• The Democrats will fail to win the house in the mid term elections of 2018
• Trump will win a second term in the white house, further enriching his estate at the expense of the state
• Brexit will be an utter debacle in the short to medium term, inflicting abject poverty on the United Kingdom
• There’ll be another general election within 1-2 years, Corbyn will turn out to be a one trick pony – not gaining any substantial seats. The Tories, supported by the right wing Murdoch press, pulls off a majority. Likely with Boris Johnson at the helm.
• There is overconfidence in the market. With household borrowing on credit cards and car finance rising and the uncertainity from Brexit, there will be an especially bitter recession within 2 years.

A Life in Questions by Jeremy Paxman
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

An entertaining read. Written in a conventional linear style, Paxman’s lifestory is more surprising than you’d think. For one, he was quite a rebel in his younger days, even as a fag in public school he often disobeyed his superiors resulting in thrashings. His school years were full of amusing events like being flung into a boxing match, getting decked, then in his stupor connecting punches after the bell. All in all, he did come from humble beginnings and is an example of social mobility, to a certain extent.

Some of the most interesting sections were, when he was talking about his early years of broadcast journalism in Northern Ireland and Yugoslavia. For once, actual valid criticisms of the EU, it supported a doomed Slavic state which was tearing itself apart with civil war, along ethnic boundaries. Insights into the Northern Irish conflict without the lens of British state propaganda.

Paxman touches on a number of themes, such as the unbalanced power distribution of elderly voters who are pandered to by the political parties. He says an idea is to limit votes to tax payers only, which is a novel solution. He talks about the decline in religion and the subsequent rise in celebrity idolatry. We’ll always believe in something: be it God or someone who was the runner up to X-factor 7 years ago, it seems…

In terms of the EU referendum Paxman sums it up beautifully, paraphrasing: Cameron thought he could stamp out vociferous eurosceptics, in his own party, by putting one of the most important foreign policy decisions of our lifetimes, into the hands of the British public.

A line I found profound about journalism is thus: It’s about putting as many of the editors prejudices into the newspaper without offending the advertisers.

This review can’t do it justice, read it yourself, it’s well worth it.

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In Pursuit of the Unknown: 17 Equations That Changed the World by Ian Stewart
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

My enjoyment for this book can be described as the parabola of order two. It started off very strongly, became quite dry in the middle but finished off well towards the end. Highlights: Relativity, Pythagoras, i, Quantum mechanics and thermodynamics. Lowlights: Normal distribution, Euler’s law of polyhedra.

Each chapter is a mixture of, some problem or quaint curiosity, mathematical derivations and how the equation shaped the world. I often found myself looking forward to the latter. Even with a mathematical disposition it was tricky to follow the derivation at times.

Epiphanous moments included, rationalizing Schrödinger’s cat/Quantum Multiverse theory, the origins of the nuclear bomb, entropy’s arrow of time and AM/FM.

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You get this error when searching Youtube sometimes. I believe the reason for this error is the addon uses an API key with a limit on the number of queries for each day. When a lot of users have done queries and have reached the limit, you can no longer search for anything.

One solution is to register an API key to your account and sign into Youtube. However another better one is to use a Smartphone app like Newpipe, which once you’ve found a video you can then play it in Kodi.

Retropie is an excellent addition to the software already available to the Raspberry Pi. It comes with a handful of emulators out of the box but is capable to run many more. The way to use them is a bit convoluted. First you execute the retropie cfg script and install an emulator you want from there e.g. snes, PS1 etc.

Now even though the emulator is installed, it won’t show up in emulation station. For that you have to put a ROM with the correct extension in the emulator folder. Then you can select the emulated system from emulation station.

Follow these simple steps:

Step 1 Accrue charges on your account in a spurious fashion e.g. attempt to renew books over the Christmas holidays via phone but receive ambiguous messages
Step 2 Realize you’ve received fines
Step 3 Refuse to pay them
Step 4 Wait 5 years
Step 5 Try to take a book out but the machine won’t let you
Step 6 Librarian gets confused why there’s such old fines on your account and deletes them for you

Et voilà. True story. I kid you not.

In 2011 I thought it was time to upgrade my flip phone to a feature phone. We had a spare Nokia e71 lying around the house so I thought I’d give it a go. At first I didn’t like it but once I got used to it, it became very useful for things like web browsing, checking train times and GPS.

Continue reading Smartphone follies →

Only took 4 years for the redux. That is of course despite WordPress shitting itself during installation. It doesn’t seem to cope well with the multisite variable left undefined. Now let’s see if I can import the old database…