in my old age, the internet is a good companion

london 7.32am 15C sunday rain 2020

just a short drizzle as i looked out of the window, enough to wet the courtyard. added 10.20am, i read this again and realised it sounds like i have taken a piss out of the window. but of course, i was talking of the rain outside my window. 

Length of Day

16 h 38 m

Tomorrow will be 0 minutes 4 seconds shorter

so looks like today is the real longest day. but does it really affect our daily life? i dont think so. at least in my case, it does not. so why do we talk about it so much? perhaps only us in the northern latitudes where we notice it. but i bet you in the tropics no one notice it. as the day is the same length more or less throughout the year. 

most of the time i am indoors, either inside my flat , which is more the case nowadays ; or inside some commercial building, like a club or pub, in my more sociable younger days, so i wont notice this extra long daylight.

if i were a early worker, or a late worker, i might notice it. (or if i were a farmer) this year they are discouraging people who normally would go to stonehenge to welcome in the solstice. but even they are not really belonging to the old druid religion where these things are significant.

now my life in retirement, days can be like nights in that i sleep whenever i feel sleepy, so i might take a nap during the day, and make my days into nights, and wake when i wake. i dont even keep regular meal times, i eat when i eat. i dont know why the experts say you must keep to strict meal times… or do they still say so? i have not noticed it, but u never know, they do keep changing their advise.

life is much simpler now. for me anyway.

i have been looking in on the life webcams of some families , and this one living in italy, i think, have people commenting on how the kids are always online, always looking at their ipads, or playing games on the screen. and criticizing the parents for that. well, i guess it is expected that if u show people your life they will find something to scold you for. haha.  but what is wrong with spending all your time online? everyone seem to say it is bad for kids to do that… but i am online and spend a lot of time online. i find it great, i dont think it is bad at all… but i do leaven it by reading a lot , even when i am online, by reading books online, and also i go offline and read real books . so that might be the difference between me and the kids.

in that family, i dont see the kids ever reading a book , they only read when they are doing their home schooling. now that is very different from my childhood where i am always reading a book. there was no internet then, tv was the bugbear then. with kids spending a lot of time on it. but for kids in malaysia during my growing up years, the tv program was no vice, as we get such awful programs, no one really watch it. for all i know now, the tv in malaysia may well be just as bad. haha. but the kids got the internet now.

today’s google doodle allows you to make your own father’s day card. and below is my idle effort. 

https://g.co/doodle/j3ma3uz

a pleasant day

london 11.26am sunny 10C saturday 2020

yesterday the pubs and restaurants in london are asked to close. and today this morning i saw the pimlico library closed and at the victoria library i saw a notice saying they are closed but the doors were open and a man came out saying they will be close 10mins from now. so i entered because i want to get the papers, and the reading room door was shut, but i can see through the glass that there were quite a lot of people inside. i asked the librarian and she said they are closing and no idea when they will open again. so bang goes my chance to read the papers from today.

though i have to admit i myself have allready decided to stop going to the library so the library closing is just another logical step to lockdown in london really. we can still read the news online, though since it is all about the virus, it can get a bit repetitive. 

we can still go out and sit in the sun, but it is a bit cold out there so i am sitting in the sun inside my flat. haha. i suppose i shall try to get out and sit in the sun outside later when it gets warmer. 

KODAK Digital Still Camera

KODAK Digital Still Camera

KODAK Digital Still Camera

and cooking food.

i went earlier to the sainsburys in pimlico and got a large pork leg joint 2.5kg, and 1kg of chicken legs.(still usual prices, pork£3/kg, chicken £1.85/kg) so that would be me ok for meat. and that is really all i need.

i froze 3 portions of the pork, and am cooking the 4th , soya sauce pork, with 5spice powder to make a stew. and sitting in the sun on my sofa whilst typing this online. its very pleasant actually.

luckily, i can get books to read using the online books to borrow that the library is providing. it is called the cloud library and i am reading a book called american royalty, in fact finished it allready. a fictional imagining that america crowned george washington and went the royal route, creating dukes and a aristocratic class…

and of course there are the free books i can get via my kindle. there is a website i can get that sends me free books that i can download in my kindle. i have loads of books that i have yet to read. that should be useful now that the library is closed and i cannot borrow books anymore. 

 

 

 

the internet is 30yrs old

london 10.56am 9.6C cloudy (forecast to rain heavily at about 11.30am) tuesday 2019

added. 11.12am light rain now.

i got an email from steve telling me of a freebie tonight. it is a  free truffle burger in brick lane. east london. i emailed him back to say i got this foot fracture and cant make it. much as i would like to. i am housebound till this foot gets better.

today google doodle celebrates 30yrs of the internet. i have only yesterday said how much i like the internet. though it has given rise to lots of fake news and spreading of hatred and fear. but you could argue that itself is not the reason for the spread, it is the people who uses it… and also for those who cannot keep a level head and notice fake news when they see it. perhaps it just reinforces your own prejudices, so that people find it easy to search and find anything that will confirm their prejudices. 

i would say on the whole, it is a good thing. and it is up to you to make good or bad use of it.  i thought it has been here longer than 30yrs. just goes to show  it has pervaded our lives so much that i had the impression  it has been here longer than it has. 

 

looks like my internet is back

london 9.38am 18C cloudy tuesday 2018

the BT engineer for the phone came quite early today and at first seemed to have fixed my phone, the dialing tone came on, but after he left, we found my internet connection went down again, after coming back on for a short time when he fixed it. but as soon as he left the flat, it went off. i called the talk talk helpline to ask them to call the engineer back, and they were quick to get him, and i was told he is now fixing the outside connection. it seemed the problem was outside the flat…in their connection box .

anyway now the internet is back and my chromebook is working again…but i cannot get any incoming calls on my landline. i can make calls from it , or at least when i test it by calling my mobile from it, i can get the ringing from my mobile. but whether i can hear anything if i were to answer it, i dont know, as i have not answered it. fortunately i dont care much for that, so i shall let them try to fix it and let them take however long .

i got my internet back and that is all that matters. lets hope it does not break down again. 

added. i just realised why i am not getting incalls on the landline. it is because when it went down, they diverted all incoming calls on it to my mobile. so no wonder when they tested it and called me on the landline to test it, they said there was an engaged tone. no wonder, because i was using my mobile then. well i hope they remember that and take down the divert calls. and things should get back to normal. 

how i spend my day whilst waiting for the foot to heal

london 2.12pm sunny day 14C sunday 2017

when i woke up , it was such a sunny blue sky day, i felt like going out. and so decided to go to the paddington library, even though yesterday i thought i shall skip it. so now i am at the library. what surprised me was how nice people are ,asking me if i am ok, and one man even offered to give me a helping hand when i was hobbling to the library. its very heart warming. 

5.55pm sunny 13.6C highest was 14.4C so i wonder where is that heatwave (up to 19C they promised).

i got back , in one piece, as it were. quite happy that i was able to do it, without damaging anything. simon was back just before me, and he said he got very worried when he did not see me at home, thinking i had been whisked off to the hospital by an emergency.

i showed him the foot, the swelling was still there and not seem to have got smaller. though granted i have been on my feet all this time, so it might just be blood pooling in that foot.

its only 2days and antibiotics need a full 5days to work. so i suppose i must give it time, and it might turn it round and cure it. otherwise i shall have to make another appointment. i sincerely hope there wont be any need and that come 5 days i shall see clear signs of the infection clearing up.

i have much cause to thank the bus system. it saves me from doing a lot of walking. it is a short walk to the 88 bus stop, and that takes me south over the vauxhall bridge to vauxhall, where i change to the 36, and that takes me north and goes over the vauxhall bridge again, and that takes me quite a long way to paddington and beyond to a bus stop close to the library. so i take two buses where normally it would just be the one. it was really very necessary, because i find walking is exhausting.

i think it helps to be active, it will encourage blood flow into the foot, and that would bring the antibiotics to the germs. i think in the old days, the advise would be to rest the foot, prop it up, and lie on the bed, or divan all day and not exert yourself. maybe they still advise it, but i am of the opinion that it is dangerous to rest it completely. once u can move it without too much pain, u should do so and increase the activity as it gets better.

times like this makes me realise our feet really do a lot of work which we take for granted. our body is really amazing. we just take it for granted until something goes wrong. than we really appreciate it  healthy.

in the meantime, i shall occupy my time by surfing the net, reading other people’s blog in the wordpress community  and peeking into their lives. and watching tv, and reading my books. it is very nice to do so.

 there is an interesting one by tom holt, about a world where magic is sold and demons can enter that world and they are hunted by a govt department , and this magic salesman has demons after him. i am at the point where he does not know why the demons are after him. 

‘Dot London’ domain name auction will boost charity – Technology – News – London Evening Standard

‘Dot London’ domain name auction will boost charity – Technology – News – London Evening Standard.

london 11.08am tuesday 2015

someone in my block of flats have put a copy of the standard in our hallway, and i picked it up this morning as i get on my way to the library. i read it in the library and saw this article  about 50 domain name (name).london. the money will go to  the standards dispossessed fund.

the rooms.london and blog.london sounds nice.

but will it make anyone money? i cannot see it myself, but then i dont have a business mind.

the technical people writing computer codes for the internet are very clever.

london sunday 2015

i have noticed something. been playing with the posting page, and found a button labelled full screen, and when enter it, found that i can type on it and it is all big size text, even though when i get out of full screen and look at the page again, it is very small font, their default size.

they are very clever these people at wordpress, i mean the technical staff, to be able to make it so that we can change the size to our preference, whilst not affecting what everyone else gets.

amazing what they can do these days.

oh just remembered something. i think this is me rediscovering the wheel, haha. i bet everyone knows this allready. ah well, but still, it is rather exciting to find out. haha that eureka moment is a very exciting moment, even if all the world knows of it allready. hehe.

the end of internet explorer

london wednesday 2015

it seems microsoft is dropping the name and cooking up a new name for its web browser when it introduces the new windows operating system (the so called windows 10, skipping windows 9 haha) later this year. i suppose those of us who use internet explorer when we first used a computer will have some nostalgia for it, but i think we also have moved on , like me, and have left it behind. in my case i defected to chrome. haha.

i think the thought of moving on to windows 8 if i buy another windows lalptop did it for me.

now i am so used to starting up and closing down so quickly, with my chrome laptop, i cannot imagine putting up with the slowness of windows ever again. 

password and username

london

I was at the library this morning, the charing cross branch, as it is the only one that opens on sunday morning. i tried to get online but find i could not. and it was not the first time this happened. i thought it was the fault of the new provider that the library has changed to. 

but a young guy came and sat next to me, and i was able to see his screen and saw he got online. so i asked him how he did it. i repeated the procedure… you are given a 4 number password and then he pointed out to me my username, which was my email address which the system had added a suffix 3 without warning me. 

i did not see that before, and in the past, I merely entered my email address without the suffix. each attempt to get a new password generates a new suffix for the email address, it seems.

well, well, well. !! i thought i was quite savvy about the internet, but this one is a new one on me, that they can change the username without warning me. 

talk talk package

london

I had a interesting chat over the phone with my talk talk broadband provider.

Recently my package has gone up to £8.50 a month.

though i got a £1.50 discount i am still disatisfied at having to pay so much.

This is on top of the line rental of  £11.66 a month.  it is supposed to cover a tv viewbox that will enable me to get hd channels and see all the freeview channels, plus some more, and gives me 7day recall of programs. but i did not think it worth the extra cost to me. so i call them today asking to change my package to a ‘only broadband’ one for £3.50 a month. so i have to pay for calls , which i am prepared to forego as i dont make much calls anyway even though i get them free.  

 well, the guy i talked to was very helpful, saying because i have been with them so long, he will give me a special rate. for £2.20 a month (which i foolishly corrected him and say £2.75 silly me) i can get a 12month contract giving me all my usual freebies i get now plus a freeview box which requires an engineer to come and install, that will give me all those tv 7day repeat viewing, and then he told me my discount payment of £140 a year which i pay in advance for the line rental will go up £30 when i next renew in oct,  but he will give me a £15 discount on that.

I am glad he is honest enough to tell me of the planned increase in the discount annual fee. i did not know that , in fact there has been no advance notice of that at all, ( i wonder why surely they must give me notice of any increase?) and it would be a shock if they spring it on me later when i renew my present year which expires in oct. that would really miff me a lot and make me seriously think of changing but by doing this they have warned me ahead of time. top marks for their good customer relationship i would say. 

well, it was a shock to hear the annual fee is going up and by so much too; but glad i got the £15 rebate. this is especially welcomed as i cannot threaten to leave them to a rival as there is no rival to shift to. haha.

 in the end i calculate the whole thing will cost me about £15 a month, including line rental and package.it sounds like a lot, and does not seem like much of a saving for me, even though on the face of it, i pay ‘only’ £2.75 for the broadband package reduced from the usual £8.50. this is because of the big hike in line rental fees.  

ah well, i guess it could have been worse. but from all these money, i can see why it is to their advantage to keep me with them, rather than to lose me as a customer.

I have noticed that by increasing the cost without notice, they can skew the whole cost effectiveness of any package. i remember i got a package of half price for 6months, from the old price of £7.50 before they just raise it by £1 and negated all the advantage i got from that deal. but this one is £2.75 for the whole 12 month contract so maybe i wont be too disadvantaged if they were to raise that £8.50 again. ah well, life… fortunately it is not for a lot of money, as £15 a month is quite bearable. 

I noticed the cost for broadband  have been slowly creeping up for those of us who like to have broadband at our home.

i have a feeling that once we can get free fast broadband there will be a lot of us leaving this landline service and giving up our landline phones. long gone those days when we use a landline just to make phone calls. now those calls are charged higher than mobile calls. a fixed charge of 15p for each call and then the call rate per minute.  whilst mobile calls are just 12p a minute. so that might explain why they want to  hook us up to  providing tv services that is vastly superior to what we can get now. that might save them by making us stay on just for the better tv service. 

they are seamlessly connecting up our laptop usage with the tv programs now, and the guy i was talking to on talk talk was hinting that in future we might be talking face to face, seeing each other on the tv screen. i can well imagine it is  easily possible and that would make us stick with subscribing to them. i bet in future we  will even get to vote online and via the tv. vote on any tv program, or even on a referendum or any issue whether it is about the govt  or not. we might even vote in an election. who knows. 

i do like to have home broadband, as there is nothing like getting online at whatever time and day and not restricted to the websites i can get to. So at the moment, it will cost me £15 a month. if it goes up some more, as it is bound to in future, i shall have to rethink. maybe band together with the other flat owners in my block and ask them to pay me a monthly fee to use my broadband… how about that? will there be any takers?

though i bet they can monitor my usage and guess that is happening and stop me. i am fully aware that they can monitor my usage and even where i go online or see what tv … it is how they sell the information to third parties for advertising and make money that way. 

i have been told that to set up the free view box the engineer must come to the flat…and he says it might take the engineer 2hrs to fix it.  i wonder why? it should be easy to just connect the box to my router and to my tv.

i wonder if it is to make sure they can find out i dont run a commercial business , or maybe if i am paranoid about it , they can put in bugs to spy on me. haha. i dont care if they want to put spyware to monitor my usage and likes and dislikes. this is because if they use it to send me stuff to buy, i know i can resist whatever they send to me. ah well, one can get quite paranoid about these things if one is not careful. but i think they just want to make sure i dont use this as a business.

my library broadband , even though free, blocks me from the gay websites that i subscribe to. in fact it blocks all x rated sites not only gay websites. so that is a strong reason to keep my own broadband. unless the free public broadbands allow access to anywhere.