Apparently, the ein is overkill. A couple of years ago, shortly before heading off to the airport (and home), we stumbled upon a cool bar near Bismarckestrasse. I made a mental note of its approximate location, but recognised that finding the place again would be a pretty remote possibility.
However, by pure chance, on this very evening, our hotel is just around the corner to the bar.
I parted company with my (second) Ubuntu phone last year, after Canonical announced that that particular phone, or its predecessor, wouldn’t support true convergence. Yes, I could connect it to a keyboard and mouse and it would be transformed from a phone to a linux computer. Well, sort of. The desktop applications, so needed to avhieve a truly converged device, weren’t available. Phone development recently lost momentum and, while a tablet was released, the OS remained a niche product.
And now the nail in the convergence coffin. Yesterday, Canonical announced that it plans to drop its proprietry unity to return to gnome within the next two LTS releases. Since mobile devices are unity based, they clearly now have no future.
In one respect, I do miss my ubuntu phone. The OS was a joy to use, extremely intuitive, using only thumb gestures. And it was pretty too. But we parted company because a year without even the most basic of applications was too much. Yes, there were some native apps (very few), but many were crude webapps which didn’t work very well.
One good thing that came out of the experience was my discovery of meizu phones. My second ubuntu phone was a Meizu MX4 and it was great. My second in command has one, although it runs Android. I’m now using a Meizu M3, the mini variant, which isn’t mini at all.
I’ll continue to run Ubuntu on desktop PCs, I couldn’t imagine using anything else. But it’s a shame that the mobile version no longer has a future.
Still, there are a couple of other approaches aiming to establish Linux on mobile devices, so I’ll keep an eye on these. And, I guess, Android is Linux-based.
And, so, I’ve learned enough German to:
– order two beers (or one, or three, or five)
– say I’m doing ok/good
– ask for directions to the toilet/station/bar
– excuse myself if I couldn’t find the toilet
– explain that I don’t understand a lot of German
– explain that I don’t actually understand any German.
For many years I’ve been frustrated by the improper use (or lack) of the apostrophe. I’ve posted examples of serious apostrophe crimes here on occasion, but haven’t taken any other action.
However, a superhero of the apostrophe has now emerged.
While I didn’t see the article on breakfast news this morning, my second in command and, later, a couple of people at work told me about the Apostrophiser. He’s something of an apostrophe vigilante who takes direct action to add missing, or remove inappropriate, punctuation.
I find this most liberating.
While I’m some time away from completing the conversion of two bedrooms into one, the huge gap between the two ceilings is no more. After delaying for too long, I finally got around to a first full coast of plaster yesterday.
It looks a little rough, mainly because I’d grossly underestimated the time I’d need to cover the whole ceiling, but I’d always anticipated a second coat.
It’ll be another couple of weeks before I can do that (one has a life outside the spare bedroom), but I’ve decided on dividing the whole into managable chunks to make sure I’ve time to work with the plaster before it goes off (the tartar sauce tip proved to be an ineffective method of slowing down the hardening process).
many years ago, my eldest grandchild believed that I was Patrick Stewart. There’s a family thing round my mother’s most Saturdays and, years ago, there would be old episodes of Star Trek, the Next Generation on TV while people were there.
Nowadays, it tends to be 60 minute makeover, but at the time there was a lot if TNG stuff. Anyway, my eldest grandchild used to point at the TV and exclaim grandad whenever she saw Captain Picard.
A drawing appeared. I may have mentioned this previously. Me in my Captain’s uniform.
Yes, that’s me, although the picture was cropped a long time ago, so you can’t see my uniform.
The original drawing included my second in command, so for completeness I shall show her picture too. I think she’s quite beautiful both in this portrait and in real life.
Her picture’s nicer because it’s a straight copy from the original, with no attempt at editing (well, she didn’t need any airbrushed hair).
So, this evening, in town, in the Box Social, I became engaged in conversation with a gentleman while my second in command went to have her nails done.
Said gentleman mentioned that he lived in Heworth, so I told him that I live in Sheriff Hill. On hearing this, he questioned whether my name was Gary and, if so, I look like my picture on Twitter.
It turned out we’d been exchanging messages fot a while on Twitter. And he turned out to be a nice bloke. We parted company after a couple of beers, but I’m sure we’ll keep in touch.
Apparently my eldest grandchild is pleased that her drawing so accurately depicts her grandfather.
There’s a poster, at my local bus stop, which has been irritating me for some time now. It’s lodged down the back of the timetable and, I’m assuming, can’t easily be removed.
I could be critical of the name Circus Vegas, or, the globe of death (which is clearly a slight exaggeration), but what really irritates me is the BLAY DON kerning issue.
My theory is that, rather than being a typographic error, this is something of a lack of local knowledge.
As an aside, does anyone else recall the alleged wysiwyg software packages of the late 80s/early 90s which couldn’t handle kerning properly?
I’ve just tried something of a six degrees of separation experiment on Twitter. Around a couple of decades ago, I borrowed a penknife.
Said penknife was amazing for sculptural things. It was way better than shop-bought tools. The latter don’t bend or twist, but this penknife did.
It wasn’t actually my knife though. I borrowed it in 1982 (a guess, but thereabouts). It might have been 1981.
Anyway, I lost touch with the mate I’d borrowed said penknife from. A long time ago.
OK, my old mate’s name is (unless he has changed it) is Thomas (Tom) Whelan. He moved to Barry (in Wales) a very long time ago and I still have his grandad’s penknife.
Tom worked for a pretty massive audio company, but I think they went bust in the 90/00s. He was an engineer of sorts I believe.
So, if anyone knows anyone in Barry ….
A tour. It simply had to be done.
I do so love my new cork wallet.
It’s hard to believe it’s made from tree.