2015 — 14 May: Thursday
This morning's not so summerish 19.5C has failed, so far, to shame the central heating system back into life/activity.1 But, since I need to nip out for a few supplies ahead of today's entertainments and lunchtime date, I shall probably be able to keep warm simply by bumping into lots of air molecules.
My little car...
... is now once again going to have to live outside on my drive until I can get the garage door repaired. An apparently-crucial wire snapped as I was closing the door after this morning's supplies run and it suddenly started feeling very heavy. Consequence? The door will no longer resist gravity to stay open long enough for me to drive in and out. Dagnabbit. I blame the new guvmint. Neighbour Bill kindly held it open for me to drive back out. This is Garage Door Mk II (Mark I — with a different mechanism — having been comprehensively wrecked by a brother-in-law three decades ago).
"Naughty"? How quaint!
I suspect comment on this ridiculous story would be superfluous. After all, who can fathom the working of the military mind? But I shall cross Indonesia off my (ever-shrinking) "to be visited" list. (Link.)
The non-heating diagnosis...
... arrived at by Bri the plumber — who kindly swung by to take a quick look-see2 — appears to be a faulty wireless receiver that's failing to hear the thermostat calling for heat. If the receiver terminals are simply shorted, the central heating roars back into life, so a new receiver should do the trick. It's a relief to know the fault isn't deeper within the innards of the boiler itself. Of course, I've yet to do anything by way of sorting out a new garage door or any repair to its mechanism, having been kept too busy establishing what is (and what is not) permitted by way of data file transfers between the two memory cards in Gill's new Samsung tablet. (Turns out "rooting" would be necessary, and that's not something she wishes to contemplate. Yet.)
Earlier failures to automount several USB memory sticks for some temporary files transfers for Chris had also pushed me back into the arms of Dropbox, this time (of course) with a Linux client. And, when I eventually found the password I'd cooked up after an earlier one on my Windows system of unlamented memory had been compromised, all went well. I even got a nice "Welcome Back" message from a Dropbox elf. I suspect the fact that I so rarely use any of the 22GB of space I currently have available (20GB of it courtesy of my smartphone for two years) is a constant worry.
Quite enough for one afternoon. Need. More. Tea.
Brrr!
It's a not-particularly-balmy 19.6C here in the living room now that the rain has stopped and I'm back to just me here in Technology Towers. I may yet resort to switching on the 'plasma' gas fire to burn off the dust and risk a CO overdose. Meanwhile, I've received two further pieces of postal proof that the process of Probate is proceeding, and two welcome pieces of silvery entertainment for the eyes and ears:
I've been following the progress of "Patrick Jane" and deriving much entertainment thereby. The CD has on it the choral track that caught my attention last Saturday morning.
I'm unable...
... to resist another snippet from the wonderful book by Henry Marsh. Here, he's describing a meeting to assess the efficacy versus cost versus quality of life issues of a new cancer drug:
Their replies are used to calculate the quality of the extra life gained by using the new cancer drug. There are various ways of doing this — one is based on a technique from game theory called the 'standard gamble'. It was invented by the great mathematician von Neumann who — it is perhaps worth pointing out — also recommended on the basis of game theory a pre-emptive nuclear strike against the Soviet Union in the days of the Cold War. Some might conclude that the standard gamble is not necessarily the best basis for human decision-making.
Some might indeed conclude that. [Pause] The book is finished. It is quite superb.
It's just occurred to me...
... that, had the garage door's "crucial" wire snapped while I was actually driving the car into or out of the garage, I would have been a much unhappier bunny. With a battered car. Just a thought. Meanwhile Bri has identified a replacement heating control receiver and also agreed to renew the entire kitchen sink and adjacent worktop for me (something that we'd had on our "to do" list back in 2007 before Christa's health turned things so comprehensively upside down). It needed doing then. It DoublePlus needs doing now.