Farcebook

Author: james

  • Roku Express 4K

    Back in the mists of time I used to watch video on my TV using an XBox that I’d modded with a mod chip, running XBMC. It played videos off a Linux file server. While everyone else was playing DVDs on their telly, I was the oddball streaming video.

    Things have progressed, and after a few failed attempts at streaming my own video to various media PCs I finally discovered Jellyfin and the app for the Roku streaming media device. Also by this time I was watching quite a lot of YouTube and the Roku was a better way to watch YouTube instead of using a Chromecast. They worked fine, but needed a phone, and could only do YouTube.

    The Roku device I owned worked fine until a few years ago when it started buffering, stalling and just plain acting weird. I did a bit of investigation, found some oddities with my WiFi, fixed those but the Roku still wouldn’t play video properly and it was super irritating.

    I came to the conclusion video that we watched five years ago was probably at a lower bit rate than what we watch now. And either the 2.4ghz WiFi my Roku used couldn’t cope, or the device itself was a bit underpowered.

    Either way I finally gave in and bought the 4K version, and so far it seems to work great. No buffering, no weird black screens instead of video. I did have to force it to 1080p video only though, otherwise Netflix decided to try 4K and my TV doesn’t do 4K so all I saw was a black screen.

  • DofE 2024

    DofE 2024

    Where I probably walked more miles than the children, and everyone got very very muddy.

    Last weekend was the annual Duke of Edinburgh silver expedition, and once again I was herding children around the Yorkshire Dales. There wasn’t any snow this year, but it was raining and there was plenty of boot-sucking mud.

    Normally I spend the weekend bored, sat in a car watching kids roam the countryside using a Spot tracker in each groups’ bags.

    This year, they decided they wanted to go off-piste and discover the wilderness by themselves. And I got to do my steps stomping about trying to find them.

    Some of these miles were earned simply walking around the campsites, or trekking off from a convenient carpark to find a path junction where I’d planned to meet the kids. You can do a lot of steps if your toilet is a five minute walk away. It kind of shows how sitting still at your desk really isn’t a healthy lifestyle. You don’t need to stride off across the countryside to get some exercise, just put things out of arms reach so you have to get up and move a bit more.

    You also see some quite amusing things on your wanderings. I wonder what the story behind this road sign is…

    These lot probably know… They know everything. They’re probably reading this blog post right now.

  • Tech bubbles are so annoying

    To a man with a hammer, every problem is a nail. I remember when next door’s kid was learning to talk and form his own opinions, everything coming out of his mouth started with “daddy”.

    The tech world is just as bad. AI is the new hotness, we’re actively encouraged to use it at work, and it’s creeping into everything from summaries of Amazon reviews to spam comments on my blogs. Can we get over it, figure out it’s crap for writing thoughtful content, but very good for writing summaries of existing text and move on?

    I was looking for a plugin for WordPress and everything now seems to have AI shoved into it, even if it’s not a sensible idea.

    I’m not saying AI is bad, going to murder us in our sleep or turn into Skynet, but I wish the tech world would stop latching onto the new shiny thing and jamming it in every orifice regardless of whether it fits or not.

  • Planting more than food

    Planting more than food

    After getting sent a letter about the state of my plot, I went and read the rules for what I can and cannot do on the land. It turns out I can grow more than food. Flowers are acceptable too.

    Poundland were selling packets of wild flower seeds bound into a layer of paper. I’ve got a raised bed that used to be at home and I literally plopped it onto a bit of weedy ground with some weed fabric under it to keep the bindweed and dock plants at bay. Inside I filled it with some half decomposed compost made from food waste.

    It’s all been covered with some old compost I found in a bag in the back of the shed. I tried growing wild flowers last year but could never tell them apart from weeds. Hopefully now that they’re contained in a box I’ll know what’s growing.

    I also bought another box of seeds, these ones are mixed with sawdust and some fertiliser. The area next to the pond is a bit weed strewn so after a quick go over with the rotavator just to remove the surface weeds I’ve sprinkled the seeds all over that.

    The last thing to go down was a liberal sprinkling of mustard seed green manure in the front plot where the car goes. I’m going to put down more green manure to smother out the weeds on the unused parts of the plot.

    I’ve got some fodder radish that supposedly grows over winter which might save me a lot of effort next year.

  • General Plot Tidying

    General Plot Tidying

    Now the shed is in a better place I’ve been going around the plot unearthing all sorts of rubbish, items I’d forgotten about and random pieces of broken glass. I’m now piling things up in different parts of the plot ready for a run to the tip at some point.

    Something I’ve discovered while tidying and organising is that there’s often a “correct” place to put things. The plot works so much better with the shed behind the greenhouse, and the bin store thing next to the side of the greenhouse. There’s enough space to get into the shed and I’m trampling all over a big patch of brambles which might help get rid of them.

    It’s quite important doing this now, before things start properly growing. I always make the mistake of leaving things too late and end up visiting the plot one day with the intention of doing something useful, and instead spend all morning clearing weeds, only for them to grow back the next week.

    I have no idea what to do about the old shed or the bathtub full of crap. I have even less idea what to do with the pile of carpet behind the shed. I think I’ll ignore it and pretend it’s not there.

    While digging around to get rid of the greenhouse I remembered there’s a section of weed fabric I laid with gravel. Since there’s no greenhouse there any more the weed fabric needed to come up.

    I think weed fabric should be banned on allotments just like carpet is. Sure, it smothers weeds, but after a while a new layer of soil builds up on top of it and the grass just grows on top instead. And then its roots get into the fibres.

    While moving some plastic sheeting around I found a rather large toad, and under the weed fabric (that’s been down for about 7 years) I found one of our spoons from the kitchen. I have no idea how it got there.