It’s that time again where I have to certify that I promise not to watch broadcast TV.
Although they do try very hard to make me click the wrong button
Its like Amazon and their attempts at tricking us into buying Prime.
And then once the relevant form is filled in, you get this email
“If any of your circumstances change, such as you start watching live TV”. What is this, I come home one night after work and have a relapse and binge on 6 hours of Corrie?
I enrolled on the Android Beta and am typing this on my phone plugged into a USB-C dongle that provides HDMI and USB.
The idea is it’s supposed to turn your phone into a portable “real” computer.
I think it needs some work, it’s a bit unstable. The idea is there, and it works very similarly to a Chromebook, just they don’t quite know what to do with the phone’s screen. Interacting with that really confuses everything.
Also apps are completely unaware of what’s going on. Trying to use Firefox is … interesting.
I had to take this “screenshot” with my phone’s camera, because I couldn’t find any other way. Pressing Print Screen on the keyboard took a screenshot of the phone’s display.
Also sometimes the phone’s display got confused with what it was trying to show
No idea what’s going on here, but I’m fairly sure apps in windows are not supposed to appear on the phone. Pressing the “X” in the window makes the entire phone close all apps and lock itself.
Maybe it’ll turn into something good, and in a few years time I bin my Chromebook, or Google will silently kill it off by December. The concept is good, but I don’t really have random monitors, keyboards and mice lying around waiting for something to plug into them. I have computers, or a laptop.
Something’s very wrong with the power here. It went off again this afternoon for about ten seconds. Just long enough to mess up all the computers and screw the Internet.
Then it worked for an hour, before doing it again twice. So now instead of sitting in a dark room with no power, I’m in a lit fully working room just with no working network.
I’m writing all this on my Remarkable 2 with its keyboard case. It’s quite pleasant to type on, I should do this more.
Last month I switched my mobile phone from Smarty (budget Three) to Lebara (budget Vodafone) since I noticed our cheapo work phones on Lebara always seem to have signal, and my phone on Three/Smarty didn’t. They do seem better, but it feels like Lebara gets a lower priority on the network than Vodafone. Earlier my phone had a signal but no data, the little signal meter had an exclamation mark in it.
I get to go home in 20 minutes. Today hasn’t been the most productive really.
Update
So it turns out where I work has quite a severe power supply issue. The main cable connecting us to the local substation has failed and it’s causing the power company some issues finding the fault.
We have been running off generator power since the weekend, and the network failed because none of the switches in our building have any power. I’m guessing they use PoE from another part of the building that currently doesn’t have power, or has tripped offline due to the repeated power cycling that’s been going on.
So I’ve been thinking, this power cut is a bit inconvenient since I’m at work and supposed to be working. Ultimately though I don’t really care, it’s not my problem to fix. It’ll come back on and in a day or two we’ll forget it even happened.
The school is a bit like a scene from a horror movie though, all the magnetic fire doors have released and the corridors are lit by emergency lighting. Lurking in the shadows are small fast-moving shapes, but I’m told that’s just the little kids.
At home I rarely get powercuts caused by things beyond my own doing. If the power goes off at home, it’s usually followed shortly by me going “ohshit. Well the RCD works then, good”. The estate is new, the substation was upgraded about two years ago and for a weekend the entire estate was being run from a single large generator.
In my house is 10kWh of battery power and 3kW of solar panels. I have a lot of battery devices, and on my driveway is my car with its own 50kWh battery pack.
Except I can’t easily use that to run anything. It’s not wired up to power the house in a powercut. None of that energy is available outside the device containing it. The house solar doesn’t run without a grid connection either. My shed has its own batteries and solar panel and can work off-grid, but not for that long and it’s no good having power in there and nowhere else.
Is this how you start out on the path to becoming some sort of crazy prepper? One minute you’re looking at generators on Amazon, next minute shotguns and tinned ex-Russian ration packs?
It’s warm in here with no AC running, and the open windows do nothing to create air flow. Briefly I considered bringing a fan from home, but that wouldn’t be any use!
Currently there’s a powercut at work. This is a bit awkward considering I teach computer science. No power, no computers.
Except it’s not so bad, everyone has a laptop. I’m writing this on my Remarkable 2, next to me is my work Surface Pro. And in my bag is my personl Chromebook. They’re all battery powered, and fully charged.
Oh right yeah… we use MS Teams for everything, so while I can work on my own device I can’t access any of the online content because the wifi and Internet have shut down.
My Chromebook is a Chromebook, so without access to the Google hive mind that’s no use.
Never fear, I can teather to my mobile phone and use its data connection. Except everyone in the area is trying to do the same thing so while I have quite a strong 4G signal, there’s no data connection.
So we’re all just sat here waiting with nothing to do. Can’t even get water because the drinking water machines are electric.
At least the magnetic door locks fail safe and we’re not locked in. But we are sat in our separate rooms, spread across a wide area unable to find out what’s going on because everyone communicates over Teams or WhatsApp and you need a functional Internet connection for that.
Fortunately I charge my car at home. There’s staff that use work’s chargers. I wonder if they have enough power to get to the nearest public charger about 10 miles away.
Isn’t modern life wonderful. I’ll report back when the riots begin, not that you’ll be able to read this of course. I can’t get online to post it.
