Sleepypete's Pillow

(Yep – I know I’ve used that title recently, different theme this time – honest !)

Noticed a trend with technology ?

We seem to be taking as many steps backwards as we are taking steps forward with our tech.

Yes. Our toys do more than they did years ago. However … they’re also far less reliable and don’t always work the way they’re supposed to. Another issue is expectation. We expect the technology we buy to live up to its claims.

I can think of a few big examples. The biggest is software … It used to be that software driven items would arrive in a fully tested and ready for market state. As the complexity of the software increases, so does the potential for error in that software. Especially now, as instead of effectively being hand crafted, our software is built by automated compilation systems. If the compiler has an error, that error infests the final compiled software.

And that brings me to amusing example 1 of today : Bad news for any Android people looking to book in Xmas … That’s an example of one of those software errors that we didn’t see much of. But because the internet opens the possibility of fixing the errors that should never have been exposed to the public, that increases the likelihood of those errors being allowed to slip through testing.

Testing is nowhere near as comprehensive as it should be these days. It doesn’t help when the underlying operating system is just plain broken. (Vista, WinME ?) Oh – what happened at that link ? A basic software error meant that one of the people contact apps couldn’t understand the month December. That’s right folks, Google cancelled Christmas.

It’s a simple error but one that I can’t remember seeing much of before the ability to easily patch meant that proper quality control became unaffordable.

It’s not just Android though, my suspicion of Windows phones is being justified …

You know how people used to joke that if anything went wrong with Windows, the cure would be to restart it ? Well – that’s transferring to their attempt at making a smartphone too … If you have a look in that Register story, it tells of phones rebooting at random. There’s a term for that, rooted in the Sales of Goods Act – “not fit for purpose”.

Yet it’s becoming standard that we accept stuff that’s just not finished.

To keep the balance, it’s not just Windows that’s bad. One big reason I’m looking at iPhones is because my Android mobile is not the 100% stable thing that it should be. And I know I’d be inheriting a few bugs with the iPhone. Anyone remember the antenna problems with an iPhone that meant that if you held it in your left hand, you’d short out the antenna ? Apple aren’t the best either …

I dunno. It’s just annoying that defective items are becoming the accepted norm. Our toys do more but at the cost of complication and ever increasing gremlins.

In other news …

That steering wheel acquisition is getting closer. I was in Curiosity Only mode until last night. When I spotted F1 2012 on offer on Steam … Couldn’t resist. So I now have a racing game and no wheel to play it with. I have a decent joystick but that’s best on flight stuff, not so good with cars.

And it wouldn’t be a Sleepypete 2012 post without something on health … People are telling me I’m looking significantly better than I was a few weeks ago. I guess that’s true 🙂 3 weeks ago I was pretty bad. Now the skin thing is mostly cleared up.

Went away this weekend just gone to see the parents for the birthday weekend. Met someone who’s likely to effectively be the little Brother-Out-Law. Sister’s been going out with someone for a bit over a year now, a fella who has a son. I think of them both as brothers now, having met the son this weekend. Good kid and he has a brain that means I can talk to him on a fairly equal level because he’ll understand or figure out the techie or mechanical stuff. Awesome.

Decent weekend but it’s told me one thing – I am improving but not sufficiently improved yet to be healing on my own. There’s a few patches that were coming back. They responded well to a gunking last night though 🙂

Prospects are still looking good, I just have to maintain the discipline to do that gunking. Which also means pain because it involves sitting in positions which my right hip doesn’t like …

PS One last techie thing which I’m hoping won’t strike now … Virgin media still has broken Youtube ! Seems to be spreading into iPlayer too. Watching Strictly off iPlayer yesterday evening was … frustrating.

Cheers CK 🙂

HAPPY BIRTHDAY!

Birthday yesterday. Yey !

Perhaps. I’m definitely feeling older on the inside these days, although I try and hide that as much as possible.

So – what did I do ? Went to work as usual. There’s two different ways people approach work on their birthday. Some come in, some take it as time off. I prefer to come in so I can grin at people. I much prefer being around other people than being on my own.

Ok – so how does that tie in with living on my own so much ? Yawn. I get by with keeping up with what’s coming over Facebook, not so much blogging these days, by watching the amusing gaming related videos, by trying to make people laugh over online chat. (I kinda miss the WoW chat, there’s some amazing characters there)

It wasn’t all work yesterday though. I had the follow up appointment at the doctors. I have to say, the experience has improved since the first visit :

Visit 1 – waited over an hour past the appointment time. Saw bloke doctor. Meh. Sure, I’ll look at a male athlete’s body and think it’s attractive but my thoughts are mainly “How can I be like that ?”

Visit 2 – waited a while again, saw lady doctor. Impression ? Brain the size of a planet but a little disconnected from reality. As in didn’t quite perceive the universe the way the rest of us do. Cute from that certain point of view though.

(I’m sure there’s a few people who think much the same of me)

Visit 3 – shorter wait, more normal lady doctor. The sort of person who would look stunning if they made the effort. Better drugs too, they cleared out the infection although there’s still damage to repair.

Visit 4 (yesterday) – shorter wait again, different doctor again. Total – KNOCKOUT. Wow. She had the sort of looks that would have nightclub bouncers letting her not just bypass the queue, they’d be paying her to go in. Oh and she was chuckling at my vague attempts at humour too.

Yep. I believe I managed to remain rational and intelligent in the face of all that beauty.

Prognosis ? Recovering steadily. Doc didn’t think I needed any drugs this time (reckon the infection has been dealt with) but she was worried about the remaining bits of me that are still angry looking. So I’ll keep doing the Hide & Treatment thing until I’m all pasty white again like a proper geek should be.

Keep that Yellow Face away. It burns.

So my birthday evening was spent watching stuff on the telly while hiding in my main room trying not to get the gunk I’m treating the damage with on anything.

That sounds pretty bad doesn’t it ?

Yes. From a certain point of view. However. I look back to a fortnight ago and remember all the damage I had then. I remember how wretched existence was getting. I remember having to remove work outfits as soon as possible when getting home. I remember trying to keep the ickiness of the infection under control. I remember trying to keep it hidden while at work and to avoid it affecting my performance there.

And then I think – I’m now far more healthy than I was then. I’m getting the most important birthday present anybody can get – my health.

And that’s far more valuable than anything monetary or material. Although hugs would be awesome too.

Cakes tomorrow ! I have a visit to the contractor’s place but on the way back, cakes will be acquired for work.

PS I also have to thank everyone who’s been giving me support (or just treating me normally) when I’ve been down.
PS2 Trolling contractors is far too amusing.

Apologies in advance cos this is gonna be a scattergun post 🙂

Headed up to the Mall again tonight. Just … felt the urge to wander. Plus there’s a kinda novelty back to it now.

I’m not totally healed up yet but I’m hugely improved from where I was just 2 weeks ago. That’s best summed up as “wretched”. The thing that was consistently dominating my thoughts was “must get home, must get the self-treatment done”. I’ll spare you the icky details but heading out for a Mall run was the farthest thing from my mind. I missed a few leaving do-s in town (including the original Finance Angel’s one) because my skin condition was quite frankly, embarassing.

Most medical conditions can be hidden away. People either fight through exhaustion, mask depression, conceal illness or isolate their sneezes at home. Skin conditions are different. There’s an intense feeling of embarassment associated with it. It’s out there on the surface to be seen by all. With me, it was under my right eye and on my ears. It was also on my arms and legs. A skin thing is something that makes you want to hide away, not due to fear of infecting people but due to knowing how icky it is.

Waaaaait – Post Derailment Alarm triggered !

Things have much improved now, to the point where I can quite happily head off to the Mall on a whim for a wander.

It’s kinda dangerous though, because I haven’t bought myself much yet for my birthday. Ok, so I did pick up the Space Above And Beyond series from Play.com (ultra low price – had to). I’ve not bought anything major though.

One big thing from tonight : “Smile and the world will smile back at you”

I’ve been having pretty ladies smile at me. Not sure why. Perhaps it’s because I look like a human again and not someone you see on those disease outbreak movies. I caught one of the girls in HMV looking at me (she was on till and bored cos no-one was buying anything) and sending a smile my way. So she got the Big Grin ™ when I spotted her.

Been getting lots of opportunities tonight to use that Big Grin. Wonder if it’s down to what’s working out as a Wolf Man look. My hair’s about as long it has been right now, plus I’ve joined in with the Movember thing.

Maybe I should keep the moustache ? 🙂 🙂 🙂

Hey – spending money. I have 2 big items on my I Want List at the moment :

iPhone 5 – I’m definitely thinking about pensioning off my current phone and the iPhone 5 is very tempting. Especially as I’m already locked into iTunes. But … £269 up front and £15 more a month than my current contract … not so tempting.

Steering wheel for PC – This is being held off at the moment more from people not wanting to sell me one than it is from me procrastinating too much. With these, you have to spend a certain amount or what you buy breaks within a couple of months. But … the various techie shops at the Mall don’t appear to want to sell the next tier up. I may get one eventually, although I don’t actually have anything to race with one yet.

I feel the Need For Speed again. Forza scratched that itch for a while but the Xbox360 platform is getting very archaic now.

So – spending big cash tonight : resisted. But – it was good to escape the house for a little while tonight, although I’d kinda like to have tagged along with someone with the excuse of buying them dinner. There’s stuff I need to buy but I just don’t think of looking in the places that sell the stuff I need to buy.

Doctor’s again tomorrow – I’m not completely healed yet but things are improving. I’ll be curious to see what she says.

PS I did buy something at the Mall tonight, collection cd’s from Texas and Johnny Cash have arrived 🙂

I feel I have one of those “must buy widget” obsessions coming on again.

What is it this time ?

A steering wheel. Yes ! A steering wheel. This particular obsession started after watching a Youtube video by the Yogscast, where they were trying out Forza Horizon (racing game). There’s a bit of history to it as well :

In the BBC micro era, I was addicted to a game called Revs. It was a Formula 3 car simulator which was groundbreaking. It dates back to when computers were archaic compared to what they can do now. If I emulated a BBC on a modern PC, it would barely register on the cpu need. I believe Revs became the foundation for the first F1 games on PC.

One of the things distracting me at uni as Need For Speed Hot Pursuit 3, which could get some quite hilarious crashes going. It offered a decent challenge. I didn’t think so much of the Porsche game though or the first Colin McRae rally game.

Games a far more complex these days though, with the simulation going as far as modelling how the wheels go up and down with the suspension. And all sorts of other crazy stuff like that.

When I bought an Xbox a couple of years ago, the game that caught my attention most was Forza 3 (the Xbox’s signature racing game). Dead Space and Halo 2 were boring next to PC shooters and Final Fantasy XIII was a tad meh. But I definitely enjoyed Forza. The controller works well with it, using two analogue triggers for brake and throttle and a joystick for steering.

But – it’s missing something …

The building obsession is with finding a cost effective steering wheel. And I think it’s going to be a PC steering wheel because it’ll be easier to attach it to my desk than to have it on my lap in front of the telly. Plus the PC is far more powerful than the Xbox 360.

There’s a few things to think about though :

Robustness. It’s pointless and frustrating to spend money on something for it to break in a few months. And most of the affordable wheels seem really bad for robustness.
Price. Think I may have to go as high as £70 to get on the bottom rung of acceptable robustness.
Fit. Not sure if this is relevant now, as wheels have been around long enough that they’ve evolved into the ideal.

So there you have it – Value For Money and Robustness > features.

Will I indulge this obsession ? Maybe. It’ll depend on availability as well. I’d likely have to special order a wheel in order to get to a minimum acceptable level. And it’ll depend on being able to get a suitable game to play it on too. I’ve not actually used my new joystick that much, mainly because I haven’t got a good enough game to take advantage of it. (Need to check out Planetside 2 still).

Need to get healthy as well though. The health has improved, people think I look early 30s again plus most of the patches have recovered. There’s still quite a few bad patches though and my ears have definitely not recovered yet. I need to figure out how I can leave them alone more to recover. And I’m back at the doctor’s place on Tuesday too.

I have a feeling that the hangfire might have been due to two rockets being set off at the same time – I think one fuse went quick but the rocket didn't go because it was tethered to a rocket with a much slower fuse …

I do like the odd dramatic moment during a firework 'display' but that rocket (or lack thereof) certainly took the biscuit this year!

I’ve been writing a lot lately about the infection that had hold of my legs and various bits of the rest of me …

Hopefully that little segment of my life is coming to a close 🙂

Since the doctor trip on Wednesday there’s been some quite dramatic improvement. I’m not clear of signs of inflammation yet but it’s getting so close that I’ll soon have difficulty picking places to put the medicine cream. It’s improved that much and that’s coming from it affecting maybe 20-30% of me.

I hadn’t said exactly how much it had affected me had I ? Well, as well as the big patches on my legs being joined by patches around my elbows, the infection had spread to my hip, ribs area, bum, ears, a patch under my eye. Probably about 20-30% of me, some bits worse than others.

But it’s now considerably better. I’m hoping that when I next see the doctor in 9 days, I can walk into her office with a big grin and show completely healed legs and arms. But I’m not counting my chickens just yet, it’s improved before and then come right back. Hopefully I’ve identified why with thinking that I’m allergic to a few things :

Orange Juice – think I have a citrus allergy which was setting off bad breathing and the excema.
White bread – I can mostly avoid this because brown bread seems fine. Pizza’s a problem but as long as I keep that in moderation I’ll be fine 🙂
Office – dry air is promoting the excema I think. Can’t do much about that except try and get moisture in to me.

So yeah – I’m hoping this little chapter is coming to a close so I can concentrate on getting things done and moving forward again 🙂 I’ve let a lot of things drift lately because I’ve had my whole essence focused on trying to get healthy again.

BOOM !

We had our annual Crazie Fireworks combined with birthdays last night, hosted by the BionicDwarf. I’ll hopefully get this house in order for a bit of hosting soon, that’s another thing put on hold by the infection.

I have to say, Sainsburys rockets are much better than Tescos rockets although we did get one “interesting” rocket which hangfired. And we had one of the mortar boxes decide to start shooting sideways.

Great little display though, CK, BD and I chipped in with £270 worth of fireworks which gave us just over half an hour of :

Cracking fireworks too.

We followed that with pizza (yey!) and a couple of movies after handing out of a decent selection of birthday presents. Tis birthday season at the moment, with BD, CQ and mine coming in quick succession. Mine’s not until the 13th (born on a Wednesday). Oh – movies, I’m watching one of my new ones at the moment : Beastmaster. Old classic.

After that – Strictly results. Yep. I watch Strictly Come Dancing. First year watching it as a regular and I’m quite enjoying it.

And with that admission (coinciding with the dinner gong from the kitchen), time to sign off with the shreds of leftover dignity 🙂

Yeah – new episodes for a tenth season. It's better than the 3 part thing we had a little while ago but it's still a fairly tired series now.