A random thread for small things that don't really warrant a thread of their own

[Beardy]

I miss the Sheldon on this date.

Just saying.

[Wowbagger]

I'm suspicious of any news item published today, but this one I think is probably genuine and very sad if true.

https://www.essexlive.news/news/essex-news/jetstream-ferry-sail-between-gravesend-9197556

[grams]

We were on the last-ish crossing on Saturday. Definitely true.

(Or it's an elaborate con by the staff to extract boxes of chocolates and biscuits and cards from the travelling public)

[Wowbagger]

Ewwwwwww.  He made a full recovery, but ewwwwwww.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-68566096

A bit slow to reply, but my Good Pal Sherry suffered from this about 20 years ago after volunteering in Africa.

[Mr Larrington]

I miss the Sheldon on this date.

Just saying.

Fret not, lad, George will save us all:


Sure, George… by Mr Larrington, on Flickr

[Kim]

I miss the Sheldon on this date.

Just saying.

https://www.sheldonbrown.com/backup-system.html

[Cudzoziemiec]

ONS weirdness. A few weeks before Christmas we had a letter from the ONS "to the resident" about a survey of some sort. Mrs Cudzo put it straight in the recycling, whence I fished it out, having spotted something about a £25 voucher for completing the survey. I then proceeded to do nothing with it. They sent another just after Christmas, which I still didn't get around to doing anything with. Today in the early afternoon I went out, when I came back Mrs Cudzo asked me what I would like from M&S as part of the £25 voucher. They'd actually sent a living breathing human round to get some answers. They must be quite desperate for data! But I'm glad it was an M&S voucher, I was expecting something useless WHS or Superdrug.

And again! Spookiness this time! Got home and found two items of post, one of them being another such ONS letter. Less than a minute later, while I had the envelope in my hand but before I'd even opened it, who should walk up the garden path but the ONS man! A different one from before, apparently.

[Jurek]

Some very muddy people have just boarded the train at Christ's Hospital station.

[Tim Hall]

Some very muddy people have just boarded the train at Christ's Hospital station.

You're near my manor. Or were, assuming the train has moved.

[Mr Larrington]

Finally pensioned off Bubba the tea mug, who escaped from Walmart in Coeur d'Alene ID in 2015 but had started to leave manky flakes of crud in my evening cuppa.

[Jurek]

Some very muddy people have just boarded the train at Christ's Hospital station.

You're near my manor. Or were, assuming the train has moved.

I was.
But I sat down very low in my seat as we passed.
Just in case you were up to your old tricks with passenger's heads and your telescopic sight.

They'd done a 10 mile circular walk starting in Horsham.
8 miles of which was, according to the be-splattered one, mud.
They disembarked at Horsham.
Bringing previously unheard of levels of mud to your township.

[Beardy]

Ah the joys of closing accounts of a deceased relative.  :'(

Sky will get short shrift if they try any stupidness.

[Auntie Helen]

Been through this these last two months.

Imagine the fun when you don’t live in the UK so can’t prove your identity and UK address with a UK utility bill.

I’m coming to the UK this weekend for some paperwork processes, which includes me presenting myself at the NatWest Bank so they will close Mum’s account and put the money in the executor account - also with NatWest, but only in my sister’s name as they wouldn’t allow me to be a joint account holder as I don’t live in the UK. But I still have to prove I am me.

[BrianI]

I've discovered a new favourite online radio station.

Synthetic FM.

The Radio for the Synth lovers, MinimalWave, Synthwave, Dark Wave, Cold Wave, Minimal Synth, EBM, Electro, Vocoder and New italo generation channel

https://www.syntheticfm.com/

[MattH]

Maybe it's an age thing, but there seems something wrong about calling an internet stream <something>FM and describing it as a radio station.

[fimm]

Audax mentioned in a mountaineering club slide show!

(Our club does informal slides shows throughout the winter - I joke that it is basically people's holiday photos, which isn't far wrong, as it is often people talking about their trip to go scrambling/climbing/ski touring/whatever. It's just our hobby makes for good holiday photos! This week's slide show was a bit different as it harked back to the COVID lockdowns when the person showing the slides had been living with his parents in Chelmsford and had done a series of increasingly long bicycle rides (up to about 150 miles) from there. He got a friend involved and ended his slides with a comment along the lines of "If you think I'm mad, here's what N got into - this thing called Audax...")

[Regulator]

Maybe it's an age thing, but there seems something wrong about calling an internet stream <something>FM and describing it as a radio station.

But surely it is apt here, given that frequency modulation is exactly what synthesisers do?

[Cudzoziemiec]

.FM is on the list of top level domains, so they missed an opportunity there.

[MattH]

But surely it is apt here, given that frequency modulation is exactly what synthesisers do?

It depends if the streamer is going to check on the precise instruments used on each piece they play, and refuse any that use other forms of synthesis - e.g. analogue subtractive, sample based, analogue modeling, phase distortion...

Could appeal to a niche selection of music nerds though. "Can't play that track on here mate, it was performed on the CZ-1 not a DX7".

[Cudzoziemiec]

Is it more acceptable to describe an internet stream as a radio station when it comes to your device by wireless means than, eg, ethernet? And what about interfaces that use "radio buttons"?

[Kim]

We must be a generation or two into never having encountered a radio with radio buttons...  I think the last one I saw in the wild was in a friend's banger when I was a PSO.

(Someone will be along in a minute to point out that Roberts or Pure or someone is churning out DAB radios equipped with such for Boomers to listen to The Archers in the kitchen.)

Not quite the same thing, but I believe a wireless connection is a requirement for the allocation of an 07 UK telephone number, though it's technology agnostic.

[Cudzoziemiec]

TBH I've no idea what sort of radios exist nowadays, other than those sold in John Lewis for boomers to listen to The Archers, Radio 2 and Jeremy Vine. The teenagers-clustering-round-a-portable-transistor-smuggled-into-school market has gone the way of mixtapes and CDs.

[Kim]

I believe the modern equivalent is the Bluetooth speaker.


(Not really judging the Boomers' radio programme choices, so much as the partially-arsed BRITISH implementation of DAB only being fit for kitchen listening.  It being deprived of the bandwidth needed for CD-quality sound (the Radio 3 listeners are all on FM or DVB-S) or the signal strength needed for robust car listening (where it seems FM will cling on until internet streaming pushes it aside), both of which are possible in ABROAD, where the FOREIGNS are more inclined to do things properly.)

[Cudzoziemiec]

A very good example of "what goes around, comes around". Vinyl came back about 30 years after death – just a short coma really, but Bluetooth had been dead over a thousand years!

[Feanor]

Somewhat oddly, I have a Sonos line in/out streamer connected to my 1980s era hifi system.

So not only can I stream modrun FLACS into it, I can also stream vinyl scratchings out of it, to the other Sonos systems in the house!