Month: April 2020

Only 5 months later and face unlock is fixed

Its one of those things which I wasn’t happy about with my Pixel4. Who on earth over looked the fact you could use the face unlock without your eyes open! It doesn’t take a lot to think about the abuses including spouses with trust issues.

Finally over the last few days Google rolled out a fix which requires your eyes open if you enable it! Only 5 moths later

It was the first thing I did when I installed the update. Till that point I’ve been enabling lockdown mode when going through sensitive areas like airport security

My last pebble smart watch… again?

Broken pebble

Today my pebble 2 smartwatch broke while playing with the diabolo in the garden. The screen came straight out the frame. Not sure why but I did put it back but found the screen was dead.

As I thought my smartphone was still connected to the watch via bluetooth and was responding to the button presses and battery charge.

However without a screen I’m forced to use my very last pebble smartwatch. The Pebble time kindly donated from Ahmed, who got a Apple watch. This is why although I did say the previous pebble was my last, I luckily had this backup. However this is the last. Lets hope the hybrid smartwatches are better than Fossil’s attempt.

Broken pebble with last one

Sharing is caring with plex server

My current plex stats over 90days
The last 90 days on my plex server

I always expected an increase in my plex server usage from my friends as the UK enter the Covid-19 lockdown. Especially when I heard all the streaming services dropping back to SD  To be fair its not been as big a demand as I expected but its noticeable compared to last few months of 2019.

Most popular clients

The most popular clients seem to be Chrome & Chromecasts (not sure if Chromecasts sometimes report themselves as Chrome). Thankfully the Xbox has dropped because that client requires everything to be transcoded unlike Tizen which will happily if theres enough bandwidth send the original file and not require any transcoding.

plex concurrent users

I have however hit 3 concurrent streams again, keeping an eye out to see if I can hit 4 or even more. No idea what it would do to my AMD based Plex server? I do have the Intel Xeon based HP Z800 which I recently bought a Nvida Quadro K620 GPU hoping to get hardware accelerated streaming finally working on the HP Z800.

Thats a task for Easter maybe…

Update 13/4/2020

4 concurrent users finally

I noticed my plex server finally reached the 4 concurrent users over the last weekend.

What to do on a birthday during a lockdown?

Me with birthday ballons

I was lucky to have my big 40th birthday last year, I still have the cards up funny enough. I know others who had their 40th birthday in doors.

But one year later under Covid19 lockdown, I’m considering my options. My partner suggested a mass video call which I could cast to my TV. I could buy one of those going cheap cakes or get a nice takeaway from somewhere special. Also been thinking about ordering a very nice steak from the northern quarter butchers and having that with some lovely eggs. Talking of the northern quarter, I would pay some serious money to sit in a coffee shop right now. I’m not the only one…

Talking of coffee, I finally caved in and started having coffee at home after a nice Airbnb left me a bag a while back. Just in the mornings before work.

And the last leap Airbnb, made me a superhost again?!

Airbnb superhost

So weird, because no one is going anywhere right now. I don’t think I could accept anyone if they did actually book my spare room anyway. Maybe I should block out my calendar but theres little point right now.

Anyway back to the point, what to do on my birthday in lockdown.

I’m open to suggestions…?

Living in the age of Covid-19?

My partner asked me how I was doing on the phone. She remarked how I was managing with the changes well and I mentioned a quote I heard recently.

I won’t/can’t take credit but it speaks volume about right now… The quote came from the head of R&D which he was reminded of via the chief scientist.

“Frodo: I wish the Ring had never come to me. I wish none of this had happened.

Gandalf: So do all who live to see such times, but that is not for them to decide. All we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given to us.”

― J.R.R. Tolkien, The Lord of the Rings

Be safe and stay connected…

Public Service Internet monthly newsletter (April 2020)

After truth

We live in incredible times with such possibilities that is clear. Although its easily dismissed by looking at the amount of infected people with Covid19 or the huge amount of scams cashing in on our Covid19 fears.

To quote Buckminster Fuller “You never change things by fighting the existing reality. To change something, build a new model that makes the existing model obsolete.”

You are seeing aspects of this happening with people rising to the challenge of 3D printing valves and open-sourcing the results.

Your living room has an agenda

Ian thinks: Christopher Wylie covers the natural progress of linked data, surveillance, iot, smart cities, data ethics and echo bubbles in a short diatribe. Taken from ANTIDOTE 2019

Doughnut Economics explained by Kate Raworth

Ian thinks: Kate made the link between human needs and the environmental demands to support life on earth, in such a engaging and simple to understand way. This is the kind of connected thinking which will drive forward much needed changes.

Hacktivists: From Anonymous to Luzsac to Occupy

Ian thinks: Great documentary about hacks, hackers, hacktivists and their political interests. Free to watch in full on youtube

Throwing out data ethics with the bath water in the age of Covid-19?

Ian thinks: Great examples of where data ethics has been squeezed or sidelined during a more immediate threat. Something we should all be aware of.

Summary of Open hardware fighting Covid-19

Ian thinks: There is so much about open hardware hackers doing incredible things to battle Covid-19. This short video sums up so many great projects in one go and gives some great advice for those wanting to help.

The local global revolution which was waiting for its moment

Ian thinks: Helena and Douglas discuss the importance of localism or decentralised, can serve and solve the problems of people. Douglas’s monologue about Covid-19 and how our current media is warping our perception is so apt.

The status-quo is over, the world after Covid-19

Ian thinks: I started to do a similar post but Vice beat me to the punch with this vast (USA focused) post highlighting the opportunities and questions we should have post Covid-19.

Stealing card details in a flash

Ian thinks: As our contact-less cards limits raise to 45 pounds per transaction. Fascinating to see with great convenience comes great opportunity for those who want to prosper quickly.

Nothing spreads faster than disinformation on the internet

Ian thinks: There is a formula for mis/disinformation (fake news if you must) and its been exploited to the max. This documentary highlights the problem stopping on news we all have heard including #pizzagate. Don’t have HBO, here is a Guardian review

Staying safe and staying humanly connected

Ian thinks: I couldn’t help but end this Covid-19 heavy newsletter with a positive video from Vox showing how we are staying safe and connected during this world wide pandemic. Very touching…