For Christmas I got mum a Apple Time Capsule primarily because I wanted to ensure her computer was backed up without her having to do anything pro-actively. However, I was also hoping that I could use it to extend her wireless network range (especially considering it’s damn expensive if it’s just a NAS).
Currently her wifi is provided by a old Linksys WRT54G (hardware version 2.0). I plugged in the Time Capsule and used Airport Utilities to set it up. I couldn’t get “extend wireless network” to work. I tried all different settings, I tried with a password and without any wifi secrity, I tried updating the firmware of the Linksys WRT54G (from v2.02.7 to 4.20.8). Whatever I tried it just showed up with a horrible little red error bubble that shows “extend wireless network” failure. It could join the network fine, and it could access the internet, but it just wouldn’t extend the network. Eventually, I gave up, guessing that the Time Capsule is just plainly incompatible with the WRT54G. I Googled it and apparently you can only extend a wireless network if the network is already based on Apple products (I should have guessed!).
So I wondered if you can do it the other way round. Make the Time Capsule the primary wifi base station and use the WRT54G as the repeater. This kind of made more sense anyway because the Time Capsule is N but the WRT54G is only G, so it would probably be better if the master router is the faster, longer range option.
It worked. The WRT54G doesn’t need anything except a power outlet to do the repeating. This basically saves £79 (the cost of a “Airport Express”, the Apple wifi extender).
Park land and inner city greenery is sacred. That’s why I can’t believe it needs defending. But it does because the Council want to build on the Park behind Great Knollys Street (Victoria Park).
If you live in or near Reading, please object online before 4/Jul/12. The Planning Application Reference number is: 12/00905/REG3 and the link is http://planninghome.reading.gov.uk .
The Planning Application Plan
Most of the green in this photo would be lost to a new building
A panoramic photo of the whole park, The left part would be lost. (this photo makes the park look much much bigger than it really is)
This is a view from Google maps (that also shows where we live).
I’m pretty upset by this. If I’m honest the main reason is that it’ll really kill our house price but it’s more than that, I really feel greenery needs to be kept green. On a nice day the park is packed all day. It’d be a real shame to lose it.
Kix and I are on a health drive (because of my weight issues and because of Chloes herniated disk) so Chloe cooked prepared a recipe from a friend of ours who only eats raw food!
This is raw Satay style butternut noodles and raw brownies:
It was delightful. The “noodles” were tasty and surprisingly filling. You would think it tasted like eating a salad, but the recipe cleverly makes it taste more like a real meal. And the brownies are very rich, probably richer than the real thing. They taste like nakd bars.
I don’t think it’s easy to make – I was on a two and a half hour phone call and she was still working away at it when I had finished! It uses a weird machine that looks like torture equipment (a spiralizer).
This keyboard with integrated mouse only came out this week in the UK and I’ve no idea why it took so long because I would have thought anyone with a media center TV were crying out for this form factor.
I highly recommend it as a remote control for a MythTV box. It’s a good small size (it’s smaller than it looks in the picture), the integrated trackpad is responsive and large and has both mouse buttons. There’s zero config needed for Linux (at least in Arch Linux). The range is good. There’s no useless extra media buttons that no-one uses. In short, it’s perfect.
Because I’m lucky enough to work from home 90% of the time, I spent almost all my life here:
When it’s not work, it’s catching up with the news, checking my calendar, writing my journal, playing games, shopping, writing my todo lists, looking at photos, watching youtube, etc, etc.
The good news is that being tied to a computer is now changing – I’m finding the more casual surfing tasks which are usually leisure based rather than productivity based are now more pleasant to do on the iPad on the sofa or in bed.
Do you live to work or work to live? Luckily the question is moot for me because my work is programming and programming (or more accurately, problem solving) is my calling. From “The Happiness Hypothesis” by Jonathan Haidt (which I haven’t read):
Most people approach their work in one of three ways: as a job, a career, or a calling.
If you see your work as a job, you do it only for the money, you look at the clock frequently while dreaming about the weekend ahead, and you probably pursue hobbies, which satisfy your effectance needs more thoroughly than does your work.
If you see your work as a career, you have larger goals of advancement, promotion, and prestige.
If you see your work as a calling, however, you find your work intrinsically fulfilling you are not doing it to achieve something else. You see your work as contributing to the greater good or as playing a role in some larger enterprise the worth of which seems obvious to you. You have frequent experiences of flow during the work day, and you neither look forward to “quitting time” nor feel the desire to shout, “Thank God it’s Friday!” You would continue to work, perhaps even without pay, if you suddenly became very wealthy.
If I suddenly became very wealthy, I would definitely continue to program.
I bought a new CPU cooler (“Arctic Cooling Freezer 7 LP Low Profile CPU Cooler“) for our media center PC but unfortunately it didn’t fit on the motherboard (ASUS P5N7A-VM) even though it is the correct CPU socket type (“Intel socket 775“).
It wouldn’t sit on the CPU properly because some capacitors on the motherboard got in the way of the cooling fins. It was also very hard to to install the motherboard anchors that the fan screws into. Be sure to avoid this fan on this motherboard.
High quality, fun game.
There was a short space scene which I think they pulled off quite well, if just to show-case the incredible space-scene graphics.
I don’t like the continuing trend of sad endings .
We tried growing a few pieces of veg this year. We tried carrots, potatoes, beans, salad, mushrooms and strawberries. We failed to get anything decent except perhaps the potatoes (we got about 10kgs).
I was most excited about the carrots but we ended up with vegetarian veal:
If you use RSS and you have grouped your Facebook friends into lists, you can subscribe to all activity in a given Friend List using the following URL:
your_facebook_id – To find this, go to your facebook notifications page and copy the link called “Via RSS“. The URL will be something like http://www.facebook.com/feeds/notifications.php?id=668921524&viewer=668921524&key=1c9c72f322&format=rss20 and “668921524″ is the id you need.
your_friends_list_key – To find this, go to your facebook Friends List page and click on the list. The URL will be something like http://www.facebook.com/friends/edit/?sk=fl_447510731524 and “447510731524″ is the key you need.
This is useful if you want to make sure you don’t miss any activity of a particular group of friends – I don’t go to Facebook every day but I do go to a RSS reader every day. It is also useful if you want to filter out and ignore a particular group.
I don’t know how people manage Facebook without using this feature!
If you have a interest in art, you may enjoy this genius music video called “70 Million” by Hold Your Horses. See how many renditions you can recognise:
There’s a fantastic new UK government website called yourfreedom.hmg.gov.uk which gives us the chance to tell the government which laws and regulations we think they should get rid of. Please take a minute to vote 5 stars on repealing the digital economy act.
Why? What’s so bad about the Digital Economy Act? My objection to this law is that it gives corporations the power to ban a entire household from the internet and I feel very strongly that everyone should have the right to be online. I would go so far as to say, for me, life without the internet wouldn’t be worth living. Just because someone in the household has broken some licensing agreements shouldn’t mean they are stopped from all the useful online stuff such as paying for road tax, campaigning for freedom, conducting research, enjoying art, planning travel, etc etc.
Other reason this Act seems unfair to me:
The Act uses a guilty-until-proven-innocent system.
The Act will add extra costs on wi-fi providers – meaning less public wi-fi. I had hoped the whole country would be blanketed in wi-fi by now.
The Act is a threat to sites that permit user-generated content. This is because it has web blocking provisions that let copyright holders get a site taken down for inadvertently hosting a small amount of copyrighted content.
A great computer game history book about how the two Johns started a company and developed some of the epics games of my childhood, in particular: Commander Keen, Wolfenstein 3D, Doom and Quake.
Loved John Carmacks programming dedication and legacy – what a hero!
PeoplePerHour (my primary employers) have a new trailer. It’s fun watching webpages I have helped build woosh past a’la star wars. It’s bold and upbeat, I love not doing things by halves:
This gadget should be really good because it is nice and small, works in Linux out of the box and it is super convenient having a mini combined mouse and keyboard at hand. However, unfortunately, the mouse isn’t sensitive or responsive, the key-presses have unpredictable delays, the range isn’t good enough and it completely stopped working after a couple of months. I do not recommend buying one.
Three whole days without even a single scrap of food entering our bodies, only having water to keep us going.
I’m joining in – it started at 11am:
I ate the following a few minutes before 11am:
Massive plate of home-made lentil curry.
Massive bowl of nut based cereal.
Massive energy drink.
Some vitamins that were lying around from years ago.
I’m totally stuffed now – let’s see how I am in 72 hours, cold turkey! I’ll probably miss coffee a fair bit too.
Friday, 26th March Update.
Proof! Wii Fit can't lie!
I managed it. The first 30 hours were the hardest then it plateaued and I coped fine. I wasn’t even all that hungry by the end. I was very busy with work so I had a lot to take my mind off being hungry. After the first 24 hours, I had lost 4lbs, then 6lbs, then 4lbs – so I lost 1 stone in total – not that it means anything because I’m sure it’ll just go back on (but I’ll try not to let it).
I expected to feel drained and have trouble sleeping or getting up early, perhaps even stomach cramps but none of that happened, my energy levels were ok, physically.
Apart from feeling hungry, there were some other negative side effects:
Mild headache started on day 2 and lasted into day 3.
My brain stopped firing on all cylinders part way through day 2
Upset stomach started on day 3.
Aching carve muscles started on day 3.
Felt a bit “away with the fairys” from day 3 – not dizzy but not quite right.
For Christmas I got mum a Apple Time Capsule primarily because I wanted to ensure her computer was backed up without her having to do anything pro-actively. However, I was also hoping that I could use it to extend her wireless network range (especially considering it’s damn expensive if it’s just a NAS).
.
