I went out for a curry with some friends last night, have a fairly straightforward day at work today then a pizza this evening and have a day booked off on Monday: I have some DIY lined up over the weekend....
Update. Home now. Bloody traffic around those roundabouts at Perth. It’s always a nightmare.
Stopped off at a wee pebble beach on the south east side of Loch Ness on the way home. Much quieter and less touristy than the other side. Great views, and a top espresso from a wee van. A great way to round off a week on the Highlands. But man, I need to get the AC fixed in the car. Sunny most of the way back. All sweaty.
Tip from a local. The weather is nearly always better than the forecast in Edinburgh. But the other thing no-one tells the foreigners is that August is the wettest month.
I use a Kingrinder K4 which, when I bought it 4-6 months ago was the cheapest espresso capable hand grinder I could find. It only takes about a minute to grind 18g for a shot and I normally make 2-4 shots a day. They have cheaper grinders, such as the K0 but I’m not sure if they’d be consistent enough or have a sufficient granularity of adjustment to dial in an espresso.
So. I just bought a new telly and to my surprise, not, the OS is rather bad and has very limited amount of apps. Therefore I’ll invest further in either Apple TV or the Firestick. Anyone got any recommendations, tips or hot takes on this? Which has more adds, and can it be blocked via DNS? Further read that Firestick could be...
I have a Fire TV Stick Lite and it’s awful. The UI is sluggish and using it for anything is a chore. Perhaps if I had got a higher spec one it would be different, but honestly I cannot recommend this particular device at all.
Unless anyone knows another reason for this impressive increase in comments? Seems to roughly coincide with Sync launching. If thats the case, just goes to show the importance of good third party apps....
I was skeptical when people were saying “just wait until sync launches”. I’ve been using Lemmy since the blackout and feel like there has been a noticeable jump in the quality and quantity of comments in the last few days. I’m not actually a fan of the app (Voyager and Summit are my favourites, Summit has the edge just now), but whatever the reason I’m pretty happy.
As the service grows, I have noticed more and more people and bots popping up, only posting links to a news article and that’s that. Usually there is no post, no summary and nothing from the OP but the link....
I hate it. Some communities just fill up my feed with links to news articles with zero (or zero quality) comments. I either unsubscribe from these communities, or block the poster. In some cases they are so frequent, and with images that are effectively advertising. That and the zero comments, they just remind me of Reddit ads. I don’t think you can hope to build a community by drowning out any discussion with a flood of posts from news sites. If you’re the mod of a community with so little interaction, then you should be curating content and adding comments yourself.
I’ve recently changed to a Fitbit Versa 2 after having a Huawei Android Wear for years until it literally fell apart. The Huawei never lasted more than a day, but I can get 2-3 with the Versa, which means I can use it for sleep tracking. Charging up only takes 30 minutes or so, so every few days I just pop it in for a bit. I ended up never using most of the features of the Android, so the Fitbit does me fine. The only thing I miss is the “now playing”, but I can live with that.
That’s some good news. Although with the volume of outstanding orders I suspect it will take a while to get through them. However, it will be good to get an indication of the timeframe.
It would be great to have the option of a short summary for the post content in the “Large list” view. For example the first 100 or so characters of a post text. Either that or the option to limit the length of the post content shown in the “full” view. Thanks!
I’m Scotland and I think we’re supposed to be avoiding most of it! Let’s hope so because we’re packing for a couple days of “glamping”. Because nothing is quite as glamorous as sleeping in a hut in a field.
Building a deck! Posts and frame went in last night. Today it’s joists and deck boards. So naturally I have to get down to Wickes to buy some bits and bobs I forgot.
About 20 screws short, plus at least one more deck board needed for the edge due to my wonky maths. Might add a step to that near side - the garden has more of a slope that I realised! However, the whole garden is very much a work in progress. We moved in last September and it was an overgrown nightmare of dead trees and rocks. Just the other week we had filled a skip with 5 tons of rocks, slabs and concrete from this area.
Edit - the before photo. I think this might have been from the viewing which was 6 months before we moved. When we got here it was much more overgrown
I’m off on holiday tomorrow and will have basically no internet for over a week. So naturally I’m downloading all the media I can think of, just in case of downtime....
I’m a massive Low fan, so I’d happily take any of their albums if I have to listen to one forever. They started off as the pioneers of “slowcore” but reinvented themselves over and over. Sadly Mimi Parker died in late 2022 and her husband Alan Sparhawk wound up the band, but their distortion heavy “Hey What” was a great finale.
Some great picks from the 70s in here. I see some brilliant Neil Young’s but not Rust Never Sleeps which is, depending on the day of the week, one of my favs.
I went through a bit of a revaluation of some classic albums recently that I never invested the time in before, in part because of the Apple TV music doc about 1971. Of those I am especially addicted to
Bill Withers - Just As I Am Aretha Live at Filmore West Janis Joplin - Pearl Led Zeppelin IV
And not from that year but absolute classics and still hold up
Elvis Costello - This Years Model Bruce Springsteen - Darkness on the Edge of Town
An also on that list Talking Heads - Remain in the Light is still incredible
Our boys are 6 and 11, so there is little time for these things called “movies” that we used to watch in our younger days. So, in the last week we have squeezed in the following TV shows:
Star Trek: Strange New Worlds. The most recent two episodes. Lower Decks crossover was fun fan service. Loved it. The Klingon War episode was also good but a hard watch. One of the few “space war” episodes that gets over the horror of war. Like an unfunny space MAS*H. Not sure I liked the ending though. M’Benga, Chapel and Pike don’t come out of it well IMHO.
Also been watching the Quantum Leap reboot. It’s cheesy AF, but fun, with a good diverse ensemble cast - there is a lot more stuff at the QL base, not just the equivalent of the Sam and Al characters. Which I think is for the best. The chemistry between Bakula and Stockwell was lightning in a bottle which they could never hope to recreate. The voice over at the start is terribly written though. The original series had that great vo. How could they screw it up so bad?
I watch TV while eating, because TV takes my mind off the textures of the food and helps me dissociate from eating. I also have a very active imagination and ability to immerse myself in a show...
My issue with ENT is the treatment of female characters. It’s not just T’Pol, but she definitely comes off worse. It’s all pretty cringy watching it with 2023 eyes. That crap with the Doctor guilting T’Pol into sexy time Vulcan therapy with Tripp, for example. Urgh. Very much of the “FHM” era. That, and most (all?) the characters are unlikable. I’ve tried many times to watch it since the time but struggle with more than 1 or 2 episodes.
You’re not wrong, although I’m never sure which of Tripp or Merryweather was the most insufferable asshole.
Hoshi wasn’t immune from anime treatment either. The time she dropped down from a ceiling vent, leaving her clothing snagged behind her was particularly egregious.
Friday: Friendly? Freatening? Freaky? How's it going?
I went out for a curry with some friends last night, have a fairly straightforward day at work today then a pizza this evening and have a day booked off on Monday: I have some DIY lined up over the weekend....
Spin machines: the curious history of video games on vinyl (www.theguardian.com)
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Apple TV vs Firestick.
So. I just bought a new telly and to my surprise, not, the OS is rather bad and has very limited amount of apps. Therefore I’ll invest further in either Apple TV or the Firestick. Anyone got any recommendations, tips or hot takes on this? Which has more adds, and can it be blocked via DNS? Further read that Firestick could be...
Lemmy is popular nowadays, yet is losing its active users (lemm.ee)
Similar to Mastodon’s spikes last year, it seems. Anyways, there is data to think about. Source
Daily Lemmy comments up from ~7m to ~11m following the launch of Sync? (lemmy.world)
Unless anyone knows another reason for this impressive increase in comments? Seems to roughly coincide with Sync launching. If thats the case, just goes to show the importance of good third party apps....
What are your thoughts on bots and people posting only news articles on lemmy?
As the service grows, I have noticed more and more people and bots popping up, only posting links to a news article and that’s that. Usually there is no post, no summary and nothing from the OP but the link....
Exclusive: Google Pixel Watch 2 to feature UWB, new chipset, and more - android authority (www.androidauthority.com)
Use the snapdragon w5 gen 1, no more tensor on the wearables for now.
Analogue Pocket Preorders shipping update (www.analogue.co)
Looks like people who ordered a Pocket before July 20th should be getting shipping information very very soon, if they haven’t already....
Feature Request: Post content summary in Large List view
It would be great to have the option of a short summary for the post content in the “Large list” view. For example the first 100 or so characters of a post text. Either that or the option to limit the length of the post content shown in the “full” view. Thanks!
Saturday Chatterday!
What are you up to? Out and about or avoiding Storm Antoni?
Friday fread
Kickin’ in the front seat or sittin’ in the back seat: which is it today folks?...
UK folks, if you could only listen to one album forever which album would it be?
I’m off on holiday tomorrow and will have basically no internet for over a week. So naturally I’m downloading all the media I can think of, just in case of downtime....
EXO-6 Unveils Museum-Grade Collectible Figures from Star Trek: Strange New Worlds (startrek.com)
has there been a telly thread this week? there is now.
Happy Wednesday folks!...
Enterprise is too gross
I watch TV while eating, because TV takes my mind off the textures of the food and helps me dissociate from eating. I also have a very active imagination and ability to immerse myself in a show...
Saturday Chat Thread!
It’s Saturday! For many of us, probably the best day of the week. Even if it turns out to be crap then we still have Sunday waiting in reserve....