Category: jotter

I was watching some old episodes of STAR TREK: THE NEXT GENERATION the other day.  The whole series popped up on Netflix, and I haven’t looked at an episode since the 90s, so I was curious. Patrick Stewart was an acquaintance, way back when – Sir Patrick Stewart, now, and rarely was a knighthood for craft better deserved.  And I was reminded of this:

One night, I went into London to have dinner with Patrick.  We were working together on a project at the time.  My daughter, then very young, woke from a nap to ask where I was.  STAR TREK TNG had just come on the television. Her mother pointed out Patrick on the bridge of the Enterprise and said, he’s gone to see this man – they’re going to work together.  And my daughter got incredibly excited.  Her mother assured her that, yes, really, Daddy’s going to be working with that man.

There was then, I was later told, a painful couple of minutes when it had to be further explained to my little girl that, no, I wouldn’t actually be working on the bridge of the Enterprise with him…

I have been a disappointment to her ever since.

Originally written 12 August 2016

FAYA DAYI, 2021

I read today that having an Instagram account means that I automatically have a Threads account, which means I don’t have to worry about anyone taking my handle, which means I don’t need to ever go to Threads should Threads prove to be a thing that persists past Xmas

I don’t even want the social media accounts I’ve got

About ten years ago, I had a Fitbit Flex. Used it for years – I think it finally died circa 2019? Used it for steps and sleep tracking. Steps, I’m not good at, because my job requires me to sit on my backside all day, but the sleep tracking was very useful. Now I’m entering another stage of life, my sleep patterns are changing, my physical activity is scattered and my hydration is imperfect. So I went to look for a new tracking band. I have an Apple Watch 2, but its battery life sucks and I’m not sleeping with it on. Also: I wear a watch on my left wrist, and the Flex went on my right wrist. It looked like a black band. I do not want to look like I’m wearing two watches.

I am, broadly speaking, shit out of luck. And am disappointed to see that the technology and product development has not moved much over ten years.

The Fitbit Charge 5 would seem to be the new standard. And, because it’s 2023, you need to buy a subscription product on top of the device’s cost for the device to work properly. (There’s also a thing called the Whoop which is notionally “free” but doesn’t work at all without the purchase of a £200+/year subscription, which is a shame because it’s got the unobtrusive form factor I would want.) It is, however, basically a watch. There’s the Oura Ring, but those are bloody expensive and have to be shipped from the US.

Also curious: all the new fitness bands have dropped altimeter functions that track stairs climbed.

Also also: I have so many questions about this one:

When did the bottom fall out of this market? Are people really wearing their Apple Watches to bed?

This is one of my favourite things, that I found on eBay four or five years ago. An unusual vintage French chore jacket. Unusual because it’s black and it’s long cut, three-quarter length. It’s a little grubby right now because it’s used as a gardening jacket – the big patch pockets can hold all kinds of useful stuff, right up to large balls of twine. Chore jackets are working clothes, are very practical and tough, and you can pick them up for very little money on eBay. I think this one was twenty quid. I could keep it for occasions, but it was made for work, so I wear it for work. Some things are meant to be used, and if the use makes it fall apart, then it fell apart in the way it was always meant to.

I had to hunt around online and drop forty fucking quid on a replacement charging brick, but the old Chromebook Pixel I was gifted by Google Open Source ten years ago does in fact live. However, Google identifies it as having passed End Of Life, decertified support, and refuses to update or sync. The latter seems like bullshit to me, really. And Google Docs insists that the un-updateable Chrome instance is unsupported. But! It turns out I can write in Google Docs just fine, and it auto-saves just fine. So I have what I wanted. It does one single thing very very well – auto-saved plaintext in a pleasant writing environment on an excellent keyboard. And, now I have a phone that won’t die when I ask it to do literally anything, I can use it as a hotspot for the Pixel, as I get 5G in the back garden, and write new short fiction at the patio table under the lilac tree. All good.

I picked up a pair of the 1st generation Echo Buds when they came out, and found them a fairly low-cost, fairly impressive set of noise-cancelling, physically secure wireless earbuds that play nicely with an iPhone. Useful in the garden, as, unlike AirPods, even the AirPods Pro, they won’t fall out of my ears at the slightest excuse. I can chop wood and dig dirt with these in with no issues. They did, however, eventually start to die, and just when I was getting worried about them, one got lost. So, annoyed, I went to Amazon to price a replacement set. Turns out Amazon are readying a 3rd generation, which look like AirPods and, for some unfathomable reason, don’t have noise cancellation.

But! I wasn’t aware of a 3rd or a 2nd gen, so I hunted down the 2nd gen. Which, I guess in advance of the 3rd gen release, is being heavily discounted in the UK. Whee! And so, tomorrow morning, I can once again sit outside with the coffee in the morning, listen to ambient music and screen out the screams of the chickens demanding their breakfast.

(Which they are turning into eggs at such rapidity and volume that I am currently passing boxes of them to the neighbours.)

Anyway. I got my ears back, and on the cheap. If these are in any way comparable to the 1st gen, they will be a good solid cone-of-silence earbud that you can work in but which also works well with an iPhone.