Derek Peden

Tumblr, sleeping since 2014

Opted to start a Tumblr blog for the longer content, not in keeping with a micro blog.

Only when opening 1password I found the credentials for the Tumblr blog I created in 2014.

Total number of posts: 0

Clearly “Ground Coffee” been an worthwhile exercise back in the day.

When does a micro blog post become a all grown up blog post?

Call to my wife when driving home:

Me: “That’s me on the way to the vets for the dog’s medicines”

Wife: “Oh thanks. Can you get a chicken?”

Me: “Eh…” (mind racing to the Monty Python Dead Parrot sketch) “not from the vets, no…”

It’s not just Comic Sans which is comically bad.

Every time I receive a word document with Times New Roman I feel nauseous.

Times New Roman was the typeface of my college years, but now looks incredibly dated. But it’s not a form of PTST. It’s simply unpleasant to look at, far less actually read.

Finally ruled out NYC as a holiday destination only to be hit by a mail shot from a NYC hotel: a GIF of 🚕 🏙🗽🚧🎭.

But still prefer the beach.

Trialling MarsEdit with both Wordpress blog and Micro.blog…

Following my earlier post on re-visiting the Psion 5, I’ve just wasted I don’t know how long looking at compact flash adapters on Amazon and eBay. Including SD adapters with a compact flash interface, so you fit a SD card inside the CF adaptor.

However this still wouldn’t be practical as the SD card doesn’t fit fully inside the CF adaptor, so I’d be using the 8Mb (yes not 8Gb, but 8Mb) on the Psion and transferring data to the SD card… Assuming the CF adaptor works when inserted in the Psion.

It’s a shame. I’ve a lot of affection for the Psion 5, even if I haven’t used it in years I’m reluctant to sell it. But perhaps I should sell it to someone who’s prepared to jump through all these hoops to use it.

Malt

Poured a drop of Jura Origin. I’d not usually go straight to a malt, but it’s been a hard week.

The new range from Jura is out now, so it’ll be interesting to see the difference.

Looking into repurposing my Psion 5 and found this relatively recent article from 2015 on The Verge:

That monochrome screen, however, is the Psion Series 5’s big weakness — it’s really, really bad. Bad compared to a computer. Bad compared to a graphing calculator. Bad compared to the light-up alarm clock I had when I was 10. It’s both low-contrast and glossy, nearly unreadable under anything but artificial ambient light, unless you turn on a green backlight that I’m guessing eats battery fairly quickly. I’d seen this in old reviews of the Series 5, but it’s still impressively awful.

I have to agree. But at the time I can remember a discussion with colleagues about the screen vs battery life, and why would a pocketable device every need a colour screen? Seems hysterical now.

Despite the screen, the keyboard is still the best mechanical keyboard I’ve ever used in a device of this size. And the keyboard mechanism is quite simply gorgeous.

However my current conundrum isn’t just what to use if for, but how to use it? The proprietary file format (EPOC/32) was frustrating at the time, and even more so nearly 20 years later.

The best I can imagine is a single purpose device, writing in markdown EPOC/32 Word and exporting text to ASCII text, saved on compact flash which I can then import to my Mac.

Seems like a lot of work. Especially since I’ve written this entire post on the colour screen of my iPhone.

I don’t care that National Puppy Day was yesterday, I still love this photo of Minnie from 2015.

Next time I travel for work I should make more of an effort to see more than,

• Airport
• Train
• Meeting room
• Train
• Airport

I was in Paris recently and the only thing I saw of central Paris was underground stations.

Short return flight home. Flight out this morning was 16hrs ago, so it’ll be great to be home.

Almost every iOS homescreen I’ve seen has the Bear app. I’ve previously not continued with Bear as it’s not a true Markdown editor or compatible with my 1000+ plain text notes. “But if you can’t beat em…”

At 9am I was looking forward to 5 days in the office, clearing a significant backlog. By 10am it all changed, including 20hr day travelling on Wednesday.

Just chilling at the backdoor, undecided whether to come in or not.

I watched The Hunter Red October last night, and thumbing through IMDB found that Admiral Padorin was played by Peter Zinner in his one and only acting role.

The role is a significant plot point if not a long scene, Admiral Padorin opening a a letter from Ramius confirming his intention to defect.

However But Peter Zinner should instead be remembered as a film Editor, including The Deer Hunter, The Godfather, and An Officer and a Gentleman. All 3 brought him Oscar nominations and he won Best Film Editing for The Deer Hunter.

I love my AirPods, but it kills me that there’s no way to see the case battery life while both AirPods.

Suddenly our internet connection issue is fixed.

The worst engineering problem to have is one which fixes itself, without any apparent intervention. Just by magic. Of course this is a problem cause it might “unfix” itself just as easily.

There’s a line fault. The kind that takes and engineer to come to your house, and (hopefully) fix it. But that’s on Monday.

So in the meantime it’s either an ok 4G signal tethering from my iPhone or broadband at 0.1Mbps down (0.0Mbps up)

So hello. If you even read this.

My other-half is welded to Facebook, so every now and then I’m obliged to look at it.

Aside from the ads, auto play videos and dross which litters the app and the website I’ll never understand that lack of a chronological timeline. It breaks my brain to see randomised posts where I can’t just see the most recent content. What utter garbage.

Just like with the ads and video, this is UI design for benefit of the network and not for the benefit of the users.

Snow and Icicles

As a follow-up from yesterday, it’s still coming down. Think I’m living on Hoth.