craiggrannell

craiggrannell, 10 months ago to random

It’s starting to really get to me in the UK how many people are furiously angry about the prospect of more solar on fields when many actual farmers are enthusing about how great mixed-use fields can be. (Solar can shade animals and plants. In many cases, it can also be combined with rainfall capture. It’s about making better use of some land, not replacing one thing with another.)

craiggrannell, 10 months ago (edited 10 months ago) to iPhone

Let’s (try to) crowdsource the names of the original #iPhone #AppStore apps and games!

I’m writing a piece on the App Store turning 15, and I couldn’t find a list of the original ~500 App Store apps and games from 11 July 2008, which I thought was strange. @jamesthomson, whose PCalc was there from the start, suggested we might be able to crowdsource this, for posterity and future research.

Here’s the spreadsheet: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1EpEm01wn18K1Nh_xDU8jZYwRfL9f6KkYUMjJvUPZpc4/edit#gid=0

If you have info to add to it, please do. Please share!

craiggrannell, 5 days ago (edited 5 days ago) to random

UK folks:

• Publisher states a payment has been made + sent remittance.
• I have not received the funds (after six weeks now) and my (UK) bank’s customer services, fraud and international teams have all stated they cannot see any payment and that I do not have a block on my account.

Any advice on what to do? I’ve never been in this situation before, and the amount of money is not insignificant. But also, the publisher appears to be very much in “we’ve paid so nothing we can do” mode now.

craiggrannell, 10 months ago to threads

New rule: anyone in the UK arguing non-ironically that access to #Threads is a #Brexit benefit is henceforth to be catapulted into the North Sea.

craiggrannell, 7 months ago to random

An editor at TechRadar realised that I’m getting on a bit and asked me to write about life before Google – services that helped us survive the early days of the internet. I mostly write it while shaking my fist at clouds, obvs.

https://www.techradar.com/computing/internet/life-before-google-7-retro-services-that-helped-us-survive-from-altavista-to-hotmail

craiggrannell, 10 months ago to random

I half mowed our front garden this weekend. I got a bit sad when I saw crickets fleeing everywhere and a ladybird that I’d nearly mowed over. (Insects are… not doing well locally.) So I just stopped. It has grown that much since June anyway.

I just went outside. It’s no hive of activity, but there are bugs flitting around and a couple of bees.

Turns out I hate convention regarding gardens and need to figure out how to deal with that for next year. Not sure entirely how.

craiggrannell, 7 months ago to AppleWatch

Apple no longer letting you swipe between watch faces appears to be a misstep. Loads of people complaining about it. No surprise when Apple for years advocated different faces for specific scenarios – some of which you might need only briefly. But Apple must have data on this. So: vocal minority or Apple being opinionated and saying it knows best?

#AppleWatch

craiggrannell, 1 year ago to random

Am I losing my mind, or did Apple Weather used to have next-hour precipitation? No matter what location I put in now, that doesn’t appear. Am I misremembering?

craiggrannell, 10 months ago to random

I’m not sure what a viral post looks like here on Mastodon. It’s hard to gauge on terms of raw numbers. But I’ve had a few recently that have been reposted a whole bunch of times. The one commonality: my mentions are full of discussion, not rage. The discourse is thoughtful. This is in stark contrast to certain other online venues.

craiggrannell, 3 months ago to random

I see quite a few people in the US returning their Vision Pros. As someone in the UK, it always boggles my mind that this is allowed. We have very good consumer rights here, for the most part, but you don’t just buy a piece of hardware and get to return it if you don’t like it. You by default only get a refund if it’s unused and the retailer agrees (or you bought it online and returned within 14 days) or if it’s damaged (and even then, the retailer has one ‘right to repair’ attempt).

craiggrannell, 11 days ago to random

Increasingly waking up with #anxiety. Went online for solutions. Breathing exercises. (Don’t do nearly enough.) Get more sleep. (Interrupted by anxiety!) Drink enough water. (I do.) Improve gut health/flora. (NHS has mucked me around for over a decade now re increasingly debilitating gut/allergy conditions. No help whatsoever.)

It’s a lovely morning outside. I just wish my physical self wasn’t blocking my mental self from seeing it. :/ ☀️

craiggrannell, 6 months ago to random

I currently have a mess of local files and an internal 1TB iMac SSD full to bursting. I need to offload ‘archive’ content (from old work to digital comics), rationalise everything from my very many backup drives, and get the useful stuff in one readily accessible place.

Does anyone here have that kind of local wireless ‘archive’? If so, what hardware are you using?

craiggrannell, 3 months ago to HomeKit

Upgraded to iOS 17.3.1. All my #HomeKit settings are gone. FFS. Weirdly, my wife can still see the shared home, but then she’s still on 17.2.1.

Alexa just worked. Why can’t this?

craiggrannell, 8 months ago to random

I helped my wife study for this test. It is, frankly, total bollocks. Just a barrier put up to keep out folks who lack the time to swallow a book of dubious accuracy. Furthermore, I imagine at least 90% of existing British citizens who never had to take the test would fail the test.

Always great when someone passes. But they shouldn’t have to take this test in the first place.

From: @brianklaas
https://journa.host/@brianklaas/111041034220363826

craiggrannell, 2 months ago to random

Woke up this morning with some exciting new screeching tinnitus tones. I wish there was more medical response for this beyond “mask the sound”. I do that using the excellent White Noise+ at night, and ambient sound had mostly been enough during the day. Not now.

I’m hoping these sounds will fade. (I always have some tones but others can come and go.) If these are new permanent ones: urgh.

craiggrannell, 9 months ago to random

BBC: joins fediverse
Some people: are excited
Quite a few people: BUT ACTUALLY

And folks wonder why so many are thinking “nuts to this” and heading to Threads and Bluesky.

The BBC is far from perfect but to suggest it coming here in some capacity isn’t a big moment is quite something.

craiggrannell, 7 months ago to random

On that Guardian piece, I see the “I went to a non-uniform school and children were bullied for what they wore” mob rocked up. I went to a secondary with a uniform policy. Guess what? Bullying was rife there too. And still about garments and accessories. Your coat. The shoes you wore. The trainers you had in PE. The bag you had, how tatty it was and whether it had a brand. It’s a bullying culture problem, not a uniform/non-uniform one.

craiggrannell, 11 months ago to random

My review of the #Retroid Pocket Flip for #Stuff: decades of gaming history in your pocket. https://www.stuff.tv/review/retroid-pocket-flip-review/

#retrogaming

craiggrannell, 10 months ago to random

I get that Meta blocking access in the EU frustrates some people. But the takes from primarily US-based people are quite something. The EU prioritises guardrails and safety. Yes, that can sometimes lower agility. But it does mean eg food quality and safety tend to be higher. And it also means tech companies have less opportunity to ride roughshod over its population.

craiggrannell, 8 months ago to random

I was last offered a booster at the end of 2021. Since then, friends in the US have had boosters and Spain opened its recent round to all. The UK govt is aiming to protect the most vulnerable. But by doing literally nothing to protect anyone under 65 (bar those with serious provable illness/immune conditions) and removing free flu jabs for 50–64yos, that’s a massive gamble this winter to save a few quid.

From: @JoePajak
https://mstdn.science/@JoePajak/110997553827209191

craiggrannell, 7 months ago to random

Boys will be boys.

A rare non-tech/games post on my blog, because I’m not sure there’s another phrase that infuriates me quite so much.

https://reverttosaved.com/2023/10/03/boys-will-be-boys/

craiggrannell, 1 year ago to random

It’s really tiring having what you can eat gradually vanish to nothing. When I was a kid, it was just shellfish. I could even eat fish. About 15 years ago, I had to ditch onion and garlic, and then wheat. That was manageable.

Now, there’s so much gone that I’m starting to get genuinely concerned about what will be left if the trend continues. (Alas, the most recent specialist I got to talk to, after years of begging my GP for a consult, essentially hand-waved me away over a telephone call.)

craiggrannell, 8 months ago to random

Mrs G just got a ‘battery is basically fucked’ response from her Series 5, which no longer gets through the day if she goes for a short swim. So four years of life. Not the worst. 95 quid to get it replaced, though, by the looks of it. And that means having to go to Basingstoke as well, which no-one should be forced to have to do. Tsk.

craiggrannell, 1 year ago to random

So we don’t have a #Switch and the 8yo is excited about getting one. I suspect it will mostly be used for Mario Kart and Animal Crossing, along with whatever I get time to play on it myself.

Any recommendations for which model to buy, and controllers? (We currently mostly use 8BitDo SN30s with a Mac mini running Batocera.) Also, any games that might suit an 8yo who’s into Minecraft and exploratory adventures would be fab. (She doesn’t really do peril or competition! Except, oddly, Centipede.)

craiggrannell, 1 year ago to random

My #Stuff column this week: It’s game over for floppy disks as they wink out of existence

I never did get on with tapes, but 5.25in floppies were the first taste of freedom in media for me.

https://www.stuff.tv/features/its-game-over-for-floppy-disks-as-a-classic-computing-medium-winks-out-of-existence/

#retrogaming