2016 — 18 August: Thursday
There are1 people on this planet whose joy in Life consists of finding fault in others. They are often humour-deficient, too. I shall be submitting myself to one such, later this morning: my dental hygieneist. Still, it will be compensated for by my lunch date afterwards. All part of Life's rich tapestry.
Meanwhile...
... with Skylark and the i5 NUC (really need a better name for that) now both fully up to speed with their base Mint 18 systems, it's time to think harder about what I actually wish to do with each PC. When (if) I ever manage to clarify that then I can next consider my strategy for getting the data and programs currently pootling along on BlackBeast divided up between the new pair. My goal (in so far as I have one) is for BlackBeast to go into honourable semi-retirement as a "luke-warm" standby system.
The hassles I've had with it (while I've been learning to live with Linux in my Windows-free world) have helped convince me a better approach may be to keep smaller computing eggs in different baskets (as it were). But some things I regard as essential:
- a nice, large display (check)
- a comfy keyboard whose keytops don't wear out (check)
- ditto mouse (check)
- a reliable set of networked storage devices locally2 (check)
- decent audio (check) and reasonable video (check)...
... all in essentially silent configurations (check). One of which, at least, needs to be fully capable of any heavy lifting that I wish to do (check).
For starters.
Slate...
... has an interesting summary of one busy week in recent global politics. UK-oriented snippet:
When the British people were offered the little finger of plebiscitary democracy, they decided to grab hold of the whole hand. Expected to follow the lead of their betters, they took great pleasure in shocking them with their disobedience...
In the manner of a parent who tells Little Timmy he can have anything he wants for dinner, then tries to back out of the deal when Little Timmy announces he would like a dozen grasshoppers with a side of vanilla ice cream, a lot of political
leaders were tempted to backtrack on Brexit once the results were in.
Meanwhile, if you can't...
... rely on science, where does that leave you?
The case against science is straightforward: much of the scientific literature, perhaps half, may simply be untrue. Afflicted by studies with small sample sizes, tiny effects, invalid exploratory analyses, and flagrant conflicts of interest, together with an obsession for pursuing fashionable trends of dubious importance, science has taken a turn towards darkness. As one participant put it, "poor methods get results"...
Gawd help us if Gove was right!
Slash fiction
My first encounter was in a book about the topic, and others, ("NASA / Trek") by Constance Penley — a "media theorist". I read this back in June 1997. The topic? genre? whatever, gets rediscovered by 'mainstream' media every now and again. (Good example here.)
A space helmet that permits osculation doesn't strike me as being too clever.
I borrowed...
... a useful pair of gadgets on the way over to the hygieneist. One audio-only, and one audio-video, Google Chromecast dongles. I gave my previous A/V Chromecast to Peter since his need was greater than mine at the time. Since then, I've been using the excellent Android BBC Radio App, which has a lovely control interface, and is rather more responsive (control-wise) than I have found the BBC's web-based streaming to be. So I shall give the SHIELD Tablet PC a new, semi-permanent job in life (for a trial period, at least).
Turns out you can also 'cast' from a Linux PC courtesy of some pulseaudio DLNA features. I did not know that. What fun!
- Install the Google Cast app on the Tablet PC again. (I'd uninstalled it when I gave away my earlier device.)
- Plug the dongle into a spare HDMI input on the Rotel pre-amp.
- Switch on the Kuro screen to monitor progress, and select that HDMI input on the Rotel. Admire the pretty screen pictures.
- Flail around for a bit trying to persuade the Chromecast to forget all about its former keeper's network and make friends with mine, instead. A task made far more difficult by the Tablet busily updating seven other apps just when I was trying to use its virtual keyboard to enter my Wi-Fi access credentials.
- Watch it link to the Android Tablet and proclaim itself ready for some hot streaming action.
It was then just a question of firing up the BBC Radio player app and choosing my radio station on the Tablet, opting for "Listen Live", and touching the new "Cast" icon. Count to less than five, and here's my music. I also discovered you can leave the SHIELD casting BBC Radio 3 to the hi-fi with everything else switched off while you vacate the premises for six hours or so, and find it still working perfectly when you switch things back on. Cool.
This saves me from having to dedicate a web browser session on one of the PCs, set it permanently to the BBC and its "Listen Live" pop-up facility, and make sure I connect all the necessary pieces of electric string between the PCs and the stack of hi-fi at the other end of the living room...