still not right on the sleeping front. Did sleep okay yesterday, but it still threw into sharp relief how much I haven’t been for a while. Going to have to be careful and make sure that where I can, I get to catch up.
Got a couple of nice little things for myself yesterday, a Moleskine notebook, which is just the right size for everything for me, and The Silver Spoon, which is a classic Italian cookbook, and just brimming with recipes. So much so I could barely carry it home.
So Sunday marked the last Grandstand on the BBC. It is an odd feeling, as the show is 48 years old, and for several years of my life I could guarentee that between 12 and 5 on a Saturday I would be watching it, yet I won’t miss it. Eurosport now holds an even dearer place in my heart now, as where Grandstand would manage 20 minutes of an obscure sport, Eurosport will give you the whole thing, often live.
That I think is the key thing that has done for Grandstand, the lack of live sport in it. I will watch far more where something is happening live, and I get to see the sport “warts n all”, see how the whole thing works.
What is odd as well though is that they are keeping sport, showing it in the same manner, but not calling it Grandstand. That I don’t see the point in at all.
Well this won’t work for everyone I’m sure, but the solution to my lack of sleep has been to stay up later. Somehow this seems to have fixed me, the last couple of days I’ve felt so much saner I cannot explain. MrsFB suffers with insomnia a lot, and of course whilst I’m supportive and sympathetic, I normally sleep so well I just can’t quite understand just how bad it is. This week I have.
Today is a good day, I’ve been paid, SisterFB has finally started up her blog after much nagging, MrsFB hit her sales target today, all in the world is very nice indeed thank you. The weekend will hopefully involve some tactical shopping, I would like to get my supplies of herbs and spices back up to date, and I think I need to venture along the Cowley Road to achieve this. There may be coffee or a glass of wine along the way too.
I was looking at my old big fat iPod last night, and was mulling over just what to do with it. Under Ubuntu, I can actually charge it, and then get to listen to the disk drive failing loudly. So it is definitely gone. I was hoping against hope I could maybe use it as a large portable drive, but it is too flaky for even that.
So what do I do with it? Should I bin it? Find a way to recycle it? Use it for a form of art? I’m lost for ideas, so any suggestions would be gratefully received.
I’m still not sleeping, well not much, but I had a long walk home in the cold (on purpose) last night, and it really shook off a lot of the headiness I’d been feeling, I felt so much better for doing that. If I can do that a couple of times a week minimum as well, it really is going to help with the weight-loss too.
Yesterday evening was important as in places it was the first time I’d felt normal since I stopped. Important for me to feel I am getting that grasp back. It will obsess me a lot less soon, but obviously at the moment it is a lot of what I think about.
This amused me, thieves stole GPS units. Guess how they were tracked down…
Three men are arrested for allegedly stealing global positioning systems mistaken for mobile phones.
Well worth a look to see if you’ve set up your firewall and security correctly for your home network.
Is your firewall doing its job? Find out with ITSecurity’s guide to making your firewall (and, ultimately, your PC) more secure.
The 10-step guide covers topics like tweaking firewall settings to match your specific needs, adding multiple layers of security (including anti-virus and malware tools) and choosing strong passwords. Sure, much of this advice is common knowledge to Lifehacker readers, but you probably know someone who could benefit from it. Share, people! The guide has a friendly tone, with plenty of real-world examples to make it easily digestible. Good stuff. If you like it, the same site offered tips on fighting spam a few weeks ago. — Rick Broida
10 Steps to Make Your Firewall More Secure [ITSecurity]
Vidmeter helps you keep track of the hottest videos out on the internet:
Web site Vidmeter keeps a running tally on the latest, most popular videos from across the spectrum of social video sites.
Vidmeter is similar to previously-mentioned Internet TV Charts, but with a much more useful interface. While watching internet video isn’t necessarily the most productive way to spend your time, you can at least be sure you’re getting a look at the most popular stuff out there. The only problem with sites like Vidmeter is that several of the most popular videos at any given time can be pretty poor. What would be really nice to see is a service like Vidmeter that tracks the most popular videos in categories, like technology/how-to videos. If someone has a good method for tracking internet video based on categories or search criteria, I’d love to hear it in the comments. — Adam Pash
Still haven’t killed anyone. Not slept very well, I seem to get imaginary loops of code stuck in my head for hours. Better last night, still not good. However 3 and a bit days without smoking isn’t a bad start, I reckons.
What isn’t quite stated here that I believe this should get rid of the need to turn your telly down massively when adverts come on. I was listening to someone talk about this the other day, and apparently the volume isn’t turned up by the tv company, the sound is recorded at a higher level of compression. Anyway, if this deals with it I want it built into my telly, and yesterday.
Dolby. That’s all I have to say and you think of “audio” and “surround sound”. What’s that company up to recently? Dolby Volume: a technology that equalizes the volume across all audio coming out of your TV. The system aims to deliver consistent volume for TV channels, programs, and commercials.
Dolby Volume models how “humans perceive audio” to eliminate variable loudness in the audio stream, automatically. Dolby claims user intervention completely is unnecessary (aside from the initial setup). The system handles up to a 30dB in reduction or amplification. Ars Technica mentions that Dolby did not address what Dolby Volume does when explosions or other sudden noises are meant to happen.
News source: Ars Technica
