The General Chat Thread (2016-2022)

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Cinisajoy said:
@SatNavSaysStraightOn, Metal will block wireless and Bluetooth signals. I can't get any signals inside my metal storage building.
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Err, no. Not entirely that is.
Every building here is metal clad. The problem has come about because between myself and the wireless transmitter are 4 layers of thick metal, not to mention thick concrete and various other building materials followed by an enormous (but dead and hence retaining a lot of water, hard wood native tree stump that is a minimum of 1.5m in diameter).

Then you have the issues of where the wireless receiver is in a laptop. To maximise coverage and performance, the entire back of the screen is the wireless receiver (I know this because I am an IT Engineer and often took laptops apart to fix/repair them). What I had wanted to do was to set up a port replicator/docking station in the studio building with the new screen, mouse and keyboard using the laptop as a base station (we don't need a desktop for the time being). With the dust levels what they are in Australia I would have preferred to have kept the screen down on the laptop to keep the keyboard functioning better without me having to remove each key and clean under them (yet again). The screen down should have been a big enough angle for the wireless receiver in the laptop to have got enough of a signal, but with all of the above, and a ISP provided wireless router (I could not bring my old one with me which was infinitely better and when I looked at ones here prices for something semi-decent started at AUS $300 and went on into 4 figure which I am not going to pay!) which is not a very good one at the best of times, I am not getting a signal.

I have moved some of the boxes in the sitting room which is difficult and only a temporary solution. Our satellite NBN box can not be moved from where it is for a vast number of reasons not least of all it is attached to the wall, not ours and connected to the satellite dish with very little cable to spare. Moving the other 3 boxes which are need to provide our satellite telephone and wireless signal means a complicated array of cables now sits where I normally do at the dining room table, on the end of 2 extension leads which are daisy chained because the dinning room table is alongside a glass wall which has no near electricity points and absolutely no way of attaching anything to it except by suction cups which periodically fall off the window. This is the only way I actually get a mobile phone signal here - one very specific point on the window and only when the mobile phone has mains power attached to it as well, so there is already a very precarious solution in place for a mobile phone signal to get through!

Anyhow - the whole exercise of moving it to the dining room table has been successful in that I haven't yet lost wireless signal since doing so. Well I don't think I have but then I have spent most of the day with the sewing machine out in the studio instead because I have needed to get the sun blinds up and running to make the studio bearable with the door open and a fan on. Whilst there are masses of windows in here making it a fantastic room, not a single one of them actually opens and there are 2 very large windows in the roof and another very large window making up most of one of the walls facing into the afternoon sun!
 
Who remembers this:

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This evening we will be watching No Offence, it is the only drama we like, the last series was terrific and I was right about the murderer from the begining.
 
yesterday was very long. I went to see a friend of my mothers' whom I last met back in 1996 we think, so just before my OH and I got married. It was a 275km drive each way. SatNav worked superbly right up until the last 5km when the road network had been changed, but the system is thankfully exceptionally quick at rerouting and gave us an alternative which given that we drove into North west Sydney on our very first visit to Sydney was exceptionally useful. Mind you that does not mean I hadn't already looked up what route we would be taking and the best bit was that on the way home when we stopped at a 'service stop' (come back UK service stations all is forgiven) we managed to actually find a really useful scale map of our area and by useful I mean 1:300,000 rather than 1:1,400,000 which most Australian maps are. Now I have navigated off a 1:800,000 scale map when we came down through northern finland and that was absolutely fine then because there was nothing there in the way of towns or roads, or dirt tracks or anything to actually put on a map, but here in Australia especially around a city like Sydney and on the main highway between Canberra and Sydney which is dual carriageway or motorway all the way, a map that is 1:one million, four hundred thousand is quite frankly useless!

However there is a downside to having a car with built in satnav... and that is updating the map. You can't. You have to replace it and you have to replace it with the manufacturers maps and there is only 1 release here that is newer (our SUV is under 6 years old) and the cost of it is over $300 and once it has been registered to a car, you can't transfer it... ahhhhh annoying as anything...

So the journey was 4 hours each way. We left home at 7:30am arrived at 11:30am and left around 5:30pm and got home at 9:30pm. The girls had gone to roost and there was a full set of eggs off everyone waiting for collection. Both chicks had survived the day and were safely tucked away under mum. But despite being exhausted (and probably because of it), and going to bed almost as soon as we got home, I was woken an hour later by my OH coming to bed and that was it. I dozed until 1am and gave up. Got up and got cold, went back to bed, got warm and got up again. It dropped down to single figures overnight! This is meant to be summer. Mind you the coolness right now is great. We are due a heatwave over the course of the weekend and into Tuesday... hitting 37C for 2 days in a row. Then I suspect we will get thunderstorms and state wide weather warnings and flash flooding. The last 2 sets of major storms produced over 600,000 lightning strikes each in the course of them crossing the state and heading out to sea.

One picture I spotted on a FB page I came across....
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classic33 said:
The Martello Tower, Sandycove, Dublin. Annual New Years Day swim.
James Joyce’s Ulysses. “The sea, the snotgreen sea, the scrotumtightening sea”
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That is very informing. I'm a wimp because I wouldn't do any of them but I like the spirit of those that do.
 
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Bad night last night, bad day today. grumpy all day, falling asleep over breakfast, lunch... too sore to do anything but also too sore to stop. can't sit, lie or stand in any one position for long. thunder came through earlier so cooler. raining now and due to be 14C overnight which means it will be cool enough for a little sleep tonight.
I won't be doing the shopping tomorrow and sadly the diet restarts on Monday... I can feel a new years diet thread starting... need to carry on with last year's diet which went on hold when I broke my 4 ribs. more important to heal than diet, but need to continue now. mind you if we get this heatwave food will be the list thing on my mind at 37C!
 
SatNavSaysStraightOn said:
Oh, and I'm still grumpy and in pain and my really nice tree that hasn't stopped any needles had to come down tomorrow. at least some of the cards get to stay up mind you. wedding anniversary and birthday!
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You wouldn't want the tree spirits causing mischief for the rest of the year, would you!
 
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