The Grumble Thread - No energy for a full on rant.

[Beardy]

That's an idea I've contemplated. We met three of them on Saturday (on a hike that included an unanticipated gin still), should have borrowed them, though they were big ones (anglo-nubian apparently) and might not have fitted in the back seat of our little car. Probably too big to overhead project too, at least not without an NG-HAP.

Can you knot encourage teh BEARS to munch the grass as a preventative measure on jungle encroachment of teh Asbestos Palace?

[Beardy]

Sony! I has a 43 of those fine imperial inches, 4K Android TV, bought in late 2016.  I've got crap hearing, and many programmes have widely varying volume levels including lots of muttering (Yes, you, BBC and Silent Witness).  Therefore I thought, Oh, I have excellent Aftershokz bluetooth headphones, the TV has bluetooth, I'll use those, so Mrs W can have normal level (she can hear an ant fart 3 miles away) and I can have direct to the bonce input.  Goes into setup menu, "pair new device", put headphones into pairing mode, put telly into pairing mode, searching for new devices.  it just sits there and finds nothing.  I Google the issue this morning, to find many Sony tellys do not have the required A2DP profile.  I spend ages finding the specs online (not in the 16 page 20mm thick 400 language manual), to discover it has the profile for pairing bluetooth 3D glasses (it is NOT a 3D TV), but not headphones... Grrr! Apparently the voice command thingy via the remote, is bluetooth, which was news to me, and that works fine, just not the obvious thing you might want to connect.

What the ****ing hell is the point of having a 3D bluetooth profile on a non 3D telly, but no audio profile?

It ranks on a par with Sony's inability to make a home cinema amplifier that could read the audio stream from an SACD played on one of their own blu-ray players.  I had to buy an Onkyo amp in the end.

A word of caution if considering a new TV. Many TVs these days allow the pairing of external devices, either through Blootuth or via a 3.5mm jack thus allowing a TP BT device. However, far too many of these sets divert the audio to the secondary device at the exclusion of the primary audio output and they do NOT allow dual feed. This is of course, of no use to people like you (and me) whom have partners with well adjusted hearing who wish to listen to the TV in the old fashioned way.

Ironically, my TV has developed an intermittent fault whereby it DOES dual feed to the external sound bar and the internal speakers, which is getting me in trouble with Dr Beardy. I’m not sure why it’s my fault, but hey, married life 

[Wombat]

My current TV does indeed have the option of speakers on or off, when headphones are connected.  I'm now assuming this means connected via the 3.5mm headphone jack, as there's evidently no other way.

So, are you telling me there are bluetooth thingies that plug into a 3.5mm headphone jack?  Never thought of that!

[rafletcher]

My current TV does indeed have the option of speakers on or off, when headphones are connected.  I'm now assuming this means connected via the 3.5mm headphone jack, as there's evidently no other way.

So, are you telling me there are bluetooth thingies that plug into a 3.5mm headphone jack?  Never thought of that!

Mr Google, he say Yes!
https://www.amazon.co.uk/bluetooth-transmitter-3-5mm/s?k=bluetooth+transmitter+3.5mm

[Wombat]

My current TV does indeed have the option of speakers on or off, when headphones are connected.  I'm now assuming this means connected via the 3.5mm headphone jack, as there's evidently no other way.

So, are you telling me there are bluetooth thingies that plug into a 3.5mm headphone jack?  Never thought of that!

Mr Google, he say Yes!
https://www.amazon.co.uk/bluetooth-transmitter-3-5mm/s?k=bluetooth+transmitter+3.5mm

Ooh, I think I'll give that a try.  Its just something I've never thought of, so never looked for.  I use a USB bluetooth dongle for the desktop PC to talk to the Aftershokz, so it shouldn't have been a surprise!  Thanks all!

[Jurek]

At some point on Sunday I lost my mobile phone.
Went to find it on Monday morning and it wasn't there.
Phoned it and it went straight to voicemail.
Bugger.
Called my provider and asked them to kill my old phone remotely.
Ordered a new shiny 3rd generation SE.
What annoys me is that the phone I lost was a 1st generation SE which, frankly, is the last phone that Apple made that was actually a sensible size which you could operate with one hand and fit it into your pocket.
Everything else since has been growing in increments of ridiculous.
This morning two things happened.
The new phone was delivered and I found my old phone.

[Kim]

Sony! I has a 43 of those fine imperial inches, 4K Android TV, bought in late 2016.  I've got crap hearing, and many programmes have widely varying volume levels including lots of muttering (Yes, you, BBC and Silent Witness).  Therefore I thought, Oh, I have excellent Aftershokz bluetooth headphones, the TV has bluetooth [...]

A word of caution if considering a new TV. Many TVs these days allow the pairing of external devices, either through Blootuth or via a 3.5mm jack thus allowing a TP BT device. However, far too many of these sets divert the audio to the secondary device at the exclusion of the primary audio output and they do NOT allow dual feed.

This was how I thought Wombat's story was going to end.  Rather than the usual Devil's Lesser Radio incompatibility woes.

Needless to say that useful features like that (and, my personal bugbear, the ability to re-balance a surround sound mix to emphasise the speech) are well below the radar of distascope molishers.  They can barely bring themselves to put the subtitles on a dedicated button, rather than burying them in some language menu...

[Pingu]

Goats, I tell you!

[Mrs Pingu]

Robogoats?

[Vernon]

Are they bingly-bing-bong robogoats, or do they they emit a fruit-co "bwang" on startup?

[Mr Larrington]

I'm sure it'd be a trivial matter to program a robogoat to bingle-bongle, although I bet they installed a really cheap and tinny speaker out of a flat-screen TV.

[Kim]

Robogoats?

What's the point in a goat that doesn't eat anything everything?

[andrewc]

I ache, therefore I am.


Several hours digging weeds up from between the brick paving in front of the parental mansion.  I’m going to go out & buy a few litres of Agent Orange!

[Beardy]

I believe that Agent Orange is only available by the gallon, and short American gallons at that.

[Wombat]

Sony! I has a 43 of those fine imperial inches, 4K Android TV, bought in late 2016.  I've got crap hearing, and many programmes have widely varying volume levels including lots of muttering (Yes, you, BBC and Silent Witness).  Therefore I thought, Oh, I have excellent Aftershokz bluetooth headphones, the TV has bluetooth [...]

A word of caution if considering a new TV. Many TVs these days allow the pairing of external devices, either through Blootuth or via a 3.5mm jack thus allowing a TP BT device. However, far too many of these sets divert the audio to the secondary device at the exclusion of the primary audio output and they do NOT allow dual feed.

This was how I thought Wombat's story was going to end.  Rather than the usual Devil's Lesser Radio incompatibility woes.

Needless to say that useful features like that (and, my personal bugbear, the ability to re-balance a surround sound mix to emphasise the speech) are well below the radar of distascope molishers.  They can barely bring themselves to put the subtitles on a dedicated button, rather than burying them in some language menu...

My story has ended for now, with the purchase of a dongly thing, which eventually was persuaded to pair with my Aftershokz, after several unsuccessful attempts.  My telly does indeed provide a flat headphone output, which is unaffected by the volume control, so the speaker and headphone levels are unrelated.  The business referred to by Kim, of the speech channel on TV progs and films, infuriates me.  I've already adjusted the volume of the centre speaker of my home cinema setup to be louder than standard, but we usually only use that when we're watching something special, when we are sitting down properly, paying attention, and probably have food and drink to hand.  For general purpose telly watching, maybe sorting subtitles would help me, when its important to not miss words.  I've never really explored subtitles, I think I'll go and have a play.

[Kim]

Some Hearing people (who always seem to be monoglot English-speakers) have an irrational hatred of subtitles.  I pretty much always have them on, even when barakta isn't watching^[1], unless it's
word
by
word
craptions
of
the
type
you
pet
on
live
TV
programmes
and
when
Youtube
content
creators
can't
be
[_]
to
make
videos
properly, which I'll turn off for being more distracting than they are helpful.

These days, pretty much all output by the BBC et. al is subtitled, as per Ofcom rules.  Except on iPlayer where they're occasionally missing.


_{[1] We haven't had a TV for years, and she finds it easier to watch video in a small window on her computer screen to avoid double-vision.}

[ElyDave]

My daughter, good hearing, always turns them on. I personally find that they distract me from what I'm trying to watch

[Kim]

One useful side-effect of not watching on a television (and moreover, on a monitor with a sensible aspect ratio) is that there's usually enough letterboxing to shift the video up the screen a bit (using arcane mplayer-fu) and put the subtitles in the black area below, so they don't occlude anything.  This makes them about 78% less annoying.

Postman Piers deserves extra credit for working out how to put English subs at the top of the screen and Polish at the bottom.  Or vice-versa.  Never seen a telly that can do that.

[Beardy]

I can’t watch TV without them and it has become difficult to watch films at the cinema due to the crap audio mixing. I’d love to b3 able to move the subtitles around the screen, although I’d settle for being able to turn them on and off simply when the get in the way because they’re live, and thus lagging, stuttering and just, well, crap.

[Mrs Pingu]

Anything USanian generally gets subs here, plus anything else local where they mumble a lot.

[Mr Larrington]

O hai ITV!

All I want to do is watch the highlights of yesterday’s Superbike TT.  It should not take you twenty minutes of swirly thing to not start playing them.  Not over a pipe of the stoutness of that installed at Fort Larrington.  sort it out u muppets!

Kthxbai

[Jurek]

At the station at 06:00 this morning.
No Overground trains going any further north than Dalston Junction.
Called my boss, and told him I'd try again at 08:00.
Caught a train at 08:00, got as far as Dalston Junction at which point they cancelled the service on account of there being trespassers on the line.
Got directions to the nearest minicab office from the Overground staff.
Minicab office didn't have any cars available.
Ended up hailing a black cab.
One of the new electric ones with the massive panoramic sunroof.
£26.00 to get to work   

[ian]

For the first time in quite a while I'm booking a bunch of business trips. I used to do this all the time. Now I have brain freeze. Also the swirling PLEASE DON'T TOUCH ANYTHING!!! terrifies me. It spins forever. The longer it spins the more I'm tempted to reach and plink a button on the keyboard just to see what happens.

How much baggage do I need?

I DON'T KNOW!

Stop asking me questions, computer.

[ElyDave]

I'm in the same boat, or plane, possibly need to make a trip to Egypt later in the month.  I haven't done foreign for two years.

[hatler]

Bah. Back still bloody painful. Very restricted in what I can do. Back specialist booked for a fortnight's time. A whole Summer of excitement may have to take a dive. Bah, and I say again BAH !!

I managed to luck out last week with possibly the only combination of activity and weather which meant I didn't have to spend the week looking at either a wall or a ceiling - cruising aboard a very well appointed yacht out of the Clyde with wall to wall sunshine, light to moderate breezes and nothing bigger than a ripple in the way of waves. I was able to lie at the stern steering whilst all the others pulled all the ropes. 

Getting to the restaurant in Tarbert did however involve my being carted there in a marina baggage trolley. Oh the indignity.