2014 — 14 April: Monday
Although fully aware1 of the need to avoid coveting my neighbour's ass — and thereby also avoid (see yesterday's bit of joke physics) any long-term risk of immolation in a lake of sulphur that may or may not be cooler than Heaven — I do very much covet a more distant "asset", shown here in what the yoof of today apparently call a "selfie" by its present owner/trainer/manager:
Said owner, justifiably proud of his latest "camera in the sky" toy, adds: "The copter is very intelligent — for example the latest firmware (which was released last week and which I have not yet installed) knows the location of all major airports and other restricted locations in the world and won't let you fly into a zone around them or start up the motors if you are already inside. If you switch off the transmitter while the quad is aloft it navigates back to the spot it was launched from and lands there".
How unsulphurous is that? I wonder what other ex-IBM Hursley master inventors of my acquaintance get up to... apart from avoiding Win8.1 Pro Update 1 like the plague, of course? This morning's little lump of software malignity marked yet another tedious attempt by Adobe to sneak some scanning tool past me and onto BlackBeast in the guise of a Flash Player update that promises to improve my "gaming responsiveness even when my PC is maxed out".
My little BlackBeast simply doesn't do "maxed out" :-)
Breakfast, another cuppa, the packing of a light lunch, and it will then be time to hit the road in very promising weather for the next blast of fresh air and mild exercise. [Long pause] Everything went smoothly, largely in the vicinity of Alresford golf course, and I'm now back at Technology Towers supping a cuppa to the distant sounds of the washing machine and the closer ones of the dying embers of some pretty weird wailing (aka Janacek's Glagolitic Mass) on BBC Radio 3. And, no, I have no idea what 'Glagolitic' means. Unless it means "pretty weird wailing", of course.
If El Reg can be...
... believed, we are about to be faced with yet another attempt to pour high-resolution audio snake oil all over us, this time sprayed from an audio-only Blu-ray complete with juicy new DRM. And a hefty £17 price tag for an ancient Genesis album. Good job2 I stayed away from HDCD and SACD, I guess. (Link.)
"Put kettle on, Mother".
Attempting to claim...
... a variety of long overdue accumulated expenses from dear Mama's account for various services rendered and/or paid (while also topping it up yet again for the next lump of care-home fees) I've just found out (the hard way) that after 13 months has elapsed Barclays deletes all payee details of anyone (me!) who's not been paid for that length of time.
It's a jolly good job I've developed the patience of a saint, I guess. Life is a bit too short to waste much time dancing with an ugly online banking system.