Category: tech

Flush

It sometimes takes the smallest of things to spark my interest. The combination of the Artemis II toilet situation1 and this Mastodon post about returning home by @sundogplanets@mastodon.social did that. Big time.

In 1992 mum and I went on our first foreign holiday, to the west coast of the USA. I had enough time to research what differences we were likely to find, but my biggest fail was not anticipating mixer taps and toilet flushes.

A tap is a faucet in the ‘States. But that’s not it.

San Diego and Phoenix had cards by the handbasins asking patrons to save water directly, and save water by cutting down towel change requests. Makes a lot of sense there due to the region’s climate.

In the United Kingdom taps were, in my experience at least, two at a time, a hot and a cold. No mixers. Toilet flushes were either a pivoting handle on the front of the cistern or a chain pull when the cistern was suspended just below ceiling level.

And, right through until 2007, that’s just how it was. Pretty much.

And then my wife, first daughter and I moved house.

The previous owners – we called them ‘The Bastards’ for various reasons throughout the period of negotiation, the legal stuff, and for the issues we found after moving in – had installed ‘luxury’ features such as single push button low-capacity-cistern flushes, mixer taps in the en-suite (did we become posh buying the place?) and bathroom (the place with a bath).

Oooo… nice.

The utility room (yeah, we’re posh) and downstairs toilet (we have 3 toilets!) had a hot and cold tap and a handle flush. Fine, we’re not in those for long, and it was familiar.

A pair of taps, left-cold, right-hot, with a box of Bold washing machine capsules behind and a pack of Fairy Big One capsules on top of that. Chances are these taps have been in the house since it was built in 1988. We have no sentimental attachment to them.
A pair of taps, left-cold, right-hot, with a box of Bold washing machine capsules behind and a pack of Fairy Big One capsules on top of that. Chances are these taps have been in the house since it was built in 1988. We have no sentimental attachment to them.

But time passed and upgrades happened. So now we have push button flushes through and mixer taps everywhere apart from the utility room.

It’s not fashion. We save money with each flush – the designs have been updated to use less water. I get it. But…

Work installed new toilets, stand-up urinals and handbasins within the last year. The toilets have a dual-button flush. The taps have proximity detectors, the urinals work off a timer. (I don’t go in the Ladies). Every time I use the flushes I must think – which button?

I need an acronym thingy, because ‘small for yellow and big for brown’ doesn’t somehow work.

  1. Great head and tag lines! ↩

Space

I watched a NASA moon launch live last night (UK time). Artemis 2. This mission sends a crewed spacecraft around the moon1 but you probably already knew that.

Cannot remember anything of Artemis 1. Still sinking in that I’m old enough to at least have been alive during the Apollo mission programme. I do not remember any of that either but I am lucky enough to know someone who does.

And as I have the Pale. Blue. Dot. feels right now I’ll go to bed thinking of great things.

A grainy low-resolution scan of a 35mm film photo of the moon, taken many years ago using a series of lenses and teleconverters.
A grainy low-resolution scan of a 35mm film photo of the moon, taken many years ago using a series of lenses and teleconverters.
  1. I wanted so badly to say “fly” but it just does not sound right somehow. Need to refresh my nerd creds. ↩

Pocket Calculator

I just acquired a Casio fx-102 (Reddit r/calculators link) calculator – a device rooted firmly in the days when the display illuminated without a backlight such that it could be read at night. So you can’t see the buttons, so what?!

Buttons.

A Casio fx-102 calculator resting on its slip case. The display reads 5318008 - something familiar to anyone who's ever turned a calculator upside-down.
A Casio fx-102 calculator resting on its slip case. The display reads 5318008 – something familiar to anyone who’s ever turned a calculator upside-down.

And it’s not exactly pocketable, it’s wi-iiide. And sadly it does not play a little melody when pressing down a special key. So much for me trying to fashion an easy link to the Kraftwerk song (from 1981).

Ok, it has a 12-digit green LED display and it’s quite frankly awesome. The input method is straightforward for most people (it’s not RPN). It’s old-school operand-operator-operand… and there’s no computer algebra system, no brackets, no built-in constants apart from pi (and e), no persistent history or memories…

Speaking of memories…

My dad bought our family’s first pocket calculator in the 1970s – also a Casio, also with a green LED. I bought Casio calculators until the late 1980s, at which time TI and HP…

…so anyway, this, the new-to-me fx-102, is from 1976.

It’s 50 this year.

Fifty!

Happy Birthday to you… 🎵

Close

Last June I bought an electric shaver to replace the Braun foil thing I never really liked because of its general ineptitude at shaving and trimming – a thing that replaced the Phillips OneBlade, a device that excelled at trimming but didn’t even tout itself as a close shaver – that thing in turn replacing the Gillette All In One trimmer/shaver (think vibrating blades and the closest of shaves).

/me takes a moment to breathe

It’s a “Philips Shaver Series 7000 – Wet & Dry Electric Shaver in Ice Blue with 1 x Integrated Pop-up Trimmer, Beard Trimmer, Travel Case, Quick Clean Pod and Charging Stand (Model S7882/54)”.

(Copied from the Amazon listing).

I’ve not figured out the charging stand but hey, it’s the least of things.

The shaver kit mentioned in the post. Lots of bits. And some cleaning stuff.
The shaver kit mentioned in the post. Lots of bits. And some cleaning stuff.

The 3 rotating heads rid me (a scruffy old man) of the most stubborn of long hairs with only a few passes, and shave close enough that I’m no longer worried about snagging lint or stray cats on my face.

(We have 2 cats, only one of whom was once a stray).

So, the shaver with the improbably long listing title gets Baz’s seal of approval. 🦭

Authenticator

The iOS Microsoft Authenticator app lost my 2FA codes. Luckily there’s only one that mattered today, and I could temporarily disable the Wordfence security plugin to gain access to my blog.

This underscores the importance of retaining backup recovery codes. Somehow at least, I’ve not actually figured that bit out just yet.

Stella cat looking intently through the white-painted stair rail.
Stella cat looking intently through the white-painted stair rail.

Big data

I’ll start with a link to the Wikipedia page on Big data. Though the summary is pretty easy to follow, I’ll be honest in admitting to not reading the rest.

Right, @GwenfarsGarden@rage.love posted this on Friday under the content warning Palestine/NHS action: keep Palantir out of the NHS (UK) (link) and this text:

Palantir, a US spyware company that provides technology enabling Israel’s genocide in Palestine, has been awarded a lucrative contract to develop and maintain a platform to store NHS patient data – known as the Federated Data Platform. It is now in the process of being rolled-out by NHS trusts in England.

Alongside health workers and patient groups, Palestine Solidarity Campaign are calling for the contract and roll-out of the platform to be stopped.

Write to the Health Secretary Wes Streeting, and Minister of State Karin Smyth, to demand the contract is revoked and the roll-out stopped:

https://palestinecampaign.eaction.online/palantirnhs

# Palestine #NHS

Since 2020 I’ve measured the likelihood changes will be reversed by how embarrassing it’d be to decision makers.

My journey along this road started with responding by email to poorly-thought out covid strategies at the high school my daughters attended and my youngest daughter still does – and their absolute intransigence after they’d published… Zero consultation with parents, see?

So, Palantir:

How efficient will it be to use them vs the harm to individuals here? Not very. By that I mean it’s likely to be cost-effective vs most of the previous attempts at unifying health data

How efficient vs how harmful to all of us? Bad. Not bad right away, but bad when the government relies on their data to make decisions about how the little people are treated. Bad because the government will uncritically examine datasets too large to comprehend and jump into… aaah…

A diagram of the generation and common application of big data. (Wikipedia, by user Jouasse).
A diagram of the generation and common application of big data. (Wikipedia, by user Jouasse).

So, I’m considering signing the petition.

Why “considering” though?

It’s not at all complicated but if you’ve got this far I’d like to ask you to read the Wikipedia article about the company, and especially the section on Controversies.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Palantir_Technologies

The decision makers in this case must have known about the company’s history. They must have known about the ramping up of fascism in the United States. They must have known that once data is made accessible to Palantir it won’t stay there, whatever agreements and whatever language in those agreements tries to keep it safe.

So for me it’s pointless signing another petition, we’re being governed by a party with knee-jerk reactions to every decision that must be made. It’s worse than the previous shower of shite.

But in this case we’re throwing away the ÂŁmillions (ÂŁbillions?) thrown at previous attempts to bring together health data and throwing more at a company with a proven track record.

And I don’t mean a proven good one.

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/03/27/us/cambridge-analytica-palantir.html

As a start-up called Cambridge Analytica sought to harvest the Facebook data of tens of millions of Americans in summer 2014, the company received help from at least one employee at Palantir Technologies, a top Silicon Valley contractor to American spy agencies and the Pentagon.

Remember them? Consider how likely it is that it was not just restricted to Americans (US publications always show bias to American issues and limit scope to Americans, no offence intended to Americans).

Anyway, I’m pretty sure that I’ve used the following quote for a past #QuoteSunday:

“Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it”

– George Santayana.

Yeah, I know this is usually used for the bigger big stuff, but it works for me.

CD

My wife bought me a CD (Compact Disc) for Valentine’s Day, for my car, to be played when she’s not in it. Though she respects the influence the band had on the music recording industry she’s not a fan of Talking Heads. She’ll listen to other people’s cover versions though, and is especially fond of Simply Red’s ‘Heaven’. Weird.

But I have a shiny new CD.

Talking Heads 'The Best Of Talking Heads' compilation album. Pumpkin puppy wonders if she can chew the case. No Pumpkin, over my dead body.
Talking Heads ‘The Best Of Talking Heads’ compilation album. Pumpkin puppy wonders if she can chew the case. No Pumpkin, over my dead body.

It took way longer than I wanted to fight my way through the plastic wrapper, the pull tab on the strip running around it was completely hidden. Fingernails scrabbling at the wrapper overlap at the top edge of the case used to be the way I got in, and today was no exception.

Extracted it, placed it in the DVD player under the TV, closed the tray and pressed ▶️.

And this is what I see.

A useless CD track listing in a TV, indicating only Track 1, Track 2, etc., though it does show track durations.
A useless CD track listing in a TV, indicating only Track 1, Track 2, etc., though it does show track durations.

What century are we living in?

Well, right now I am living in the nineteen-seventies and eighties – matching the dates of the tracks (from 1977 to 1988). And do you know, it wasn’t a bad time to grow up after all.

Anyway, for me there’s just one track missing from this 18 track album – and it’s ‘Making Flippy Floppy’.

My favourites on this disc though?

All. They made enough to leave a tremendous legacy, but not enough to get tired of. And while I like to think after all these years I’ve heard all of their stuff I know I haven’t.

Ok, ok.

‘This Must Be The Place (Naive Melody)’. It’s on right now.

I wanted it to be played on the last App.net social network’s Monday Night Dance Party, but making the request spelled the DJ’s @ name incorrectly.

Still, here I am.

Surf.social

(After spending time ‘testing’ I’ve added a few more notes in the addenda at the bottom. I’m likely to update this post as things progress… or ignore it entirely).

Well, the itch to try Surf.social (a new social and all-internet aggregator from the people who make Flipboard) became too great and I reached out to them. @marci@flipboard.social (internet royalty!) saw my plaintive cry and set me up with an invite code. Thanks Marci!

I’ve installed the beta app within the iOS TestFlight environment and signed in using my Mastodon credentials. Easy.

It took a while before the splash screen gave way to the intro (I succumbed to the urge to force-close it), and now I’m in!

Unstructured observations:

Adding sources to one’s Home feed or a custom feed using the built-in search page is fairly intuitive and quick. Just type something and a range of source types appear. Magic?

Me first, though I’m no narcissist. I hope. My Mastodon bio page is a bit truncated but it’s probably too big anyway.

The Feeds, Posts and Discuss tabs behave differently to each other.

  • Feeds shows one’s feeds (Home and custom).
  • Posts is a Flipboard-like flip interface with a limited number of one-at-a-time posts shown.
  • Discuss has a free-scrolling list of the same posts, again a limited quantity.

Right now my Watch, Read and Look tabs don’t have any content, and because it’s a beta I can only see the top of the words “Nothing is here right now”, with no ability to scroll down. I’m using a beta of iOS 18.3 until the next public update, and on an iPhone XS.

Ah, it’s variable, I looked at another feed and can see the whole message now. A good thing I’m used to pretending I properly beta test stuff isn’t it!

Picking an individual account to follow in a feed either shows nothing for a Micro.blog user’s account (I guess it’ll take a while to populate) or, in the case of the RSS feed for xkcd.com, another Flipboard flip layout. Incidentally, I initially used Surf.social’s browser setting to open in an external app, not sure I like it so will change.

And the xkcd feed truncates the images, based as it is on their height not width; I’d prefer to see the whole thing previewed but maybe that’s just me?

I do like Surf.social’s search. It’s a world apart from Mastodon’s because it finds stuff. (I know Mastodon’s philosophy is to limit visibility and thus the likelihood of abuse; so this is not a complaint).

Whoever’s working the Surf.social account right now sent me this very useful reply:

“Here are two ideas to dive in:

  1. Start by surfing some of the great custom feeds we’re featuring in Home. Try tapping the Sources tab to get a sense of how these feeds are built.
  2. Tap “Create a New Feed” to get started making your own custom feed. Once you’ve done this, tapping the star icon will let you choose between adding a feed to home or other feeds you are making.

The email you got from us should have more suggestions!

Contact us at support@surf.social if you have any issues

Otherwise feedback@surf.social is welcome

Ride on… 🤙

And with that I’ll stop writing and just have a play for a bit.

Addenda

(Listed in the order found, feedback for some sent to the developer via the TestFlight app):

I’ve explored a bit more and thanks to Marci added a ‘Puppy training‘ feed container containing their ‘Dog Training. Help!‘ feed container. It’s a really cool concept and it just works. Feeds of feeds in feeds, oh yes.

I’d really like to be able to add RSS feeds by URL but it doesn’t look to be possible, at least not yet. For instance I have feeds for a couple of subreddits I moderate; I’m sent either new posts or new comments in those subreddits, and I get my post submissions, saved links and incoming messages from across the network. I’ve a couple of custom Google News searches running too. When RSS feeds arrive I’ll be happier.

I recently signed up to the Bluesky.social network to follow accounts that primarily exist (or until recently) existed on Twitter – and do not exist on Mastodon, not yet. Now I’ve not looked in Twitter for a while. Whilst my timelines there aren’t as ‘polluted’ as some I’ve heard about I’m just opposed to using it since elmo bought the place. I’ve been careful who I follow to maintain a degree of sanity. However, Mastodon is where I want to be, and that’s why – for me – Bluesky isn’t comfortable. Using Surf.social removes the need to check Bluesky – and so I can focus on what I’m interested in without necessarily seeing any discussion.

Mastodon polls don’t show the available options, only the supporting text.

Update: I thought at first there was no ‘proper’ method to remove a source from a custom feed – that one must select it, add and then select the feed from which it must be removed. The dialogue then shows the operation’s success. And so I said “Early days yet.” However I found what’s likely to be the intended method of removing a feed – select the ‘…’ menu at the top of the feed and choose the option to remove from there.

Viewing a Mastodon thread a post is linked to still sends me out of the app despite me deselecting the ‘Use External Browser’ option in Settings.

A feed’s Watch (videos), Read (articles) Listen (new to me, no content yet) and Look (somehow different to Read) tabs now have content. Too granular?

The Listen tab is probably a placeholder for me because I haven’t added any podcasts yet.

Bug, or just my ineptitude: Attempting to add Jeremy Cherfas’ excellent food series ‘Eat This Podcast’ by searching first for his name brings it up in the Podcasts section (complete with familiar icon and description) but then attempts to add a ‘November Learning’ feed. Searching by its title instead simply fails to find the podcast feed in the Podcasts section or anywhere else.

Update: I really really do like the way the feed ‘containers’ work. I’ve setup 4 so far:

  • ‘Puppy training’ (containing Marci’s feed),
  • ‘Quotes’ (quotations),
  • ‘bazbt3’s feeds’ (unoriginal I know),
  • And one called ‘All’, containing the preceding 3.

So I’ve gone 3 levels deep.

Ok, quite a lot of the feed items don’t render particularly pleasingly, and I should probably turn off auto-starting videos (if there’s an option to), and I still don’t really understand why there are so many tabs and what they’re used for. But the app has promise, and I can see why the Flipboard team decided to make it, it’s kind-of… liberating.

Themes

Update below, maybe WordPress isn’t so bad after all?

I broke my WordPress self-hosted/managed site earlier simply by installing a theme, the one named ‘Default’.

The hosts’s AI troubleshooter failed miserably to make any form of difference when I started it.

To fix it ‘manually’ I first attempted to follow the help page linked to in the error message – go into myPHP and deactivate all the plugins.

Nope.

So then I searched for help directly related to WordPress themes and found the way to fix it is to delete the offending theme folder and rename an existing folder to the offending one.

Success, and I felt lucky I knew which theme was active.

And even more luckily everything is back up again.

My hosting plan includes only weekly automatic backups so yes, I just started one now.

Painful isn’t it, how something so complex can be broken by something so apparently simple as a site theme change.

Anyway, I just looked for similar issues with it and eventually arrived at the WordPress.org forum. The only response i found to its incompatibility with a previous version of PHP was the original poster replying to their own post to make a technical change within the theme file definition.

Pointless reporting it if there’s nowhere to report it, so I’ve given up and I’m sticking with ‘Simple Grey’.

Update: While attempting to fix my site I was sent an email from WordPress, “@bazbt3 🏡 Your Site is Experiencing a Technical Issue”. I was busy so didn’t notice it. The email described the fault and contained a special link to bypass the dashboard I couldn’t access – to enter a “special recovery mode”. Maybe now I know this is a thing, the next time the site breaks I’ll be more patient?

Flush

Our toilet cistern developed a fault just before Christmas, luckily only leaking into the bowl. Not a major thing, but we have metered water so it was costing money. The cistern is a low-profile type with limited flush volume to save water, and aside from the one repair a few years ago has handled everything we threw at it, if you know what I mean.

Visit 1

Anyway, a plumber came, looked at it and wanted to break through the tiles around it instead of extracting it after lifting the button bezel. No.

Anyway, I asked if he could confer with his office to query what happened during the previous repair. He agreed, closed the isolating valve to save us money and water Âą, and left.

Incidentally, it has a special seal not carried routinely by the national network of plumbers we used.

So I had to rebook.

Visit 2

Instead of ordering the part or the seal based on prior information, during the second visit the cistern was looked at and a part ordered for delivery to our home. So I had to rebook.

Visit 3

The part arrived on Monday, I rebooked immediately, and the plumber completed the work earlier today. Success! No leak, and we have a working flush.

And here is the one the plumber removed.

What a waste.

Âą We have another toilet, we’re posh we are.