I’ve referred to a TV series called Mythbusters several times on the blog. Notably, the one about high speed collisions, and another about whether roundabouts are better than stop junctions.
One of the presenters on the original and classic version was Adam Savage. I came across the series of Tweets shown above from him dating from May this year concerning wearing masks.
Great guy.
Just a heads up on another silly attempt at scamming people over their TV licence.
I get one of these at least once a year and can spot them a mile off. This one (in May) came from postmaster@kuriya.jp, which is an automatic giveaway in the first place. The second clue is in that I know our licence is up to date. The third clue is that ‘TVLicensing’ and ‘TVLicence’ have no space, whereas the proper TV Licensing title does. Edit: I had another one in June, which I just binned, and another just now from ‘support@tvlicensing.co.uk.a’ (see the extra ‘a’ at the end?)
TVL will always use your full name in their own emails (this one had my email address), and they will always come from donotreply@tvlicensing.co.uk or donotreply@spp.tvlicensing.co.uk.
And never click on links from emails if you are unsure of them.
If I’m wrong, then I expect a visit from the Yakuza in the near future. I’m not especially worried.
Until I saw this article on the BBC, I had no idea there was a webcam shortage. But apparently, the lockdown has meant these, too, have been panic-bought into oblivion, and they are difficult to get hold of.
During the lockdown, I’ve been having a nightly Skype session with my mate who lives in Leeds. Initially, we were just doing voice, but he upgraded his laptop and we were then able to do video calls. However, although my Surface Pro laptop has a camera, I prefer to use my desktop.
Over the years I’ve had several webcams, but since I didn’t typically use them much they inevitably ended up being put in a box somewhere and forgotten about. They were always oddly-shaped things, too. All curves and funny angles – and far, far bigger than they needed to be. This time around, I started looking for a simply bullet-style camera that could sit on the top edge of one of my monitors without it wanting to break into a song and dance routine and flash pretty lights at me for no apparent reason if I was on Facebook or something. I also wanted HD.
One of my preferred brands is Logitech. However, their HD cameras have all the usual angles and curves, with the added ‘benefit’ of being the size of an iPhone thanks to whatever fancy additional features Logitech is trying to sell to nutjobs who post on Instagram and Tik Tok every five minutes. I just wanted a camera – I have a separate microphone, anyway.
After more searching I came across a camera that looked like exactly what I was after on Amazon. The AUSDOM AW615.
It’s full HD, does 16:9 widescreen, and it does have a microphone (it’s also manual focus and wide-angle). For me, the most important detail was it’s shape and size – the camera itself is a short cylinder, and it has a bendy clip and bracket so you can put it in different positions on different monitors or surfaces. At that time, the price was around £70 (at the time of writing it is on offer at £50), but what I did then was take a look on AliExpress. It was obviously (to me, anyway) a Chinese device, and it was carried by many sellers on AliExpress. if I bought direct it turned out the price was $33 (about £25). So that’s where I bought it from. Incidentally, if you check out any of the models above, they’re cheaper if you buy directly from China – but it’s up to you.
It took about three weeks to arrive, but lead times are always a little longer from China anyway.
It doesn’t need any software – you just plug it in and Windows does what it needs to do to recognise it. As with any webcam, you really need to connect it directly to a USB 2.0 port on your computer, and not through any daisy-chain of hubs. If you do that, you’re likely to get problems, especially with a HD image at 30fps, which is this camera’s spec.
It works like a charm. Nice sharp picture, and you can do all the things with it that Skype lets you – blur background, add image, and so on. My boom microphone is better for sound, but the microphone on it works perfectly well. Definitely worth considering if you’re after a webcam.
An email alert from DVSA details the procedure for the actual driving test. You can read the full communication by clicking the link, but the important part is as follows:
Wearing glasses with face coverings on test
Your pupil must wear a face covering when they come for their driving test, unless they have a good reason not to. This includes if:
- they have a physical or mental illness or impairment, or a disability that means they cannot put on, wear or remove a face covering
- putting on, wearing or removing a face covering would cause them severe distress
- they need to remove it during their test to avoid harm or injury or the risk of harm or injury to others
If your pupils wear glasses
Wearing glasses does not count as a good reason not to wear a face covering.
So, anyone going out on test must wear a face mask unless they have one of the excuses outlined, and wearing glasses is not an excuse not to.
An email alert from DVSA, which you can read in full here. In a nutshell, there will be no extension to theory test certificates which expired during the COVID-19 pandemic.
The government has considered the impact of the coronavirus pandemic on the validity period of theory test certificates.
After careful consideration, the government has decided not to extend theory test certificates due to the impact on road safety.
A note for the hard of thinking out there. See the words “the government has considered” and “the government has decided”. Can you see the really, really important detail in there?
The GOVERNMENT. Not DVSA.
I’m already seeing instructors blaming DVSA or criticising them for it. It is not DVSA’s decision. In order to extend certificates, there would need to be a change in the Law – look, there’s another important detail – and that is also down to the government.
I realise it’s probably too much to hope for, but hopefully now people will just get on doing the job they’re supposed to do – teaching people to drive. However, I am now waiting for the inevitable lobby groups springing up consisting of people who, 50 years ago, would have been union leaders.
But people paid for a two-year certificate
Look. This is about safety on the roads. The idea of a two year window is so that the information people acquire when they study for their theory tests is at least partially current when they’re let loose on the roads. You know as well as I do that there are those who forget everything two seconds after they walk out of the theory test centre because all they ever wanted was to get the certificate. Some retain the information, though.
The problem is that the first type become – or cause – statistics. The second type, less so. Therefore, it makes sense that this second group does not morph into the first, and that is the basis of the decision the government (not DVSA) has made. Just remember that the lockdown is likely to have a longer term effect on road safety even as it is – there are already reports saying accidents have increased – so stop potentially making it worse by trying to behave like a Samaritan on this subject.
Do YOU agree with it?
If the government had given an extension, I would have accepted it. They haven’t, and I accept that. My job is to teach people to drive, not to argue with every single aspect of this job and the legislation which surrounds it.
Donna Smith came to the UK from Jamaica over five years ago. She met her husband – also originally from Jamaica, I believe – while he was on holiday there. She came to the UK a year after marrying Ralston Fustiye. Her two children also came with her. Ralston was a British citizen, and had worked for Nottingham City Council for 15 years.
Tragically, Ralston recently died from COVID-19 due to an underlying heart condition.
Donna Fustiye, who is employed as a registered carer, now faces ‘deportation’ (being removed) back to Jamaica. She wants to remain in the UK, which she considers her home, along with her children.
Donna has to raise £7,600 before 8 August in order to apply for residency. Her immigration advisor (also a councillor) has set up a crowdfunding page to try and help her that way. She’s been helping us all through this pandemic, and the least we can do is try to give something in return.
I’m sure this country still has some good people in it who see these situations as tragic, as opposed something to get all excited over because it means ‘deporting’ someone. If you’re one of them, consider helping out by pledging whatever you can to try and stop someone’s life being destroyed.
Edit 2023: I now understand that the appeal was successful and Donna was granted indefinite leave to remain in the UK. She also visited Jamaica to attend Ralston’s funeral there.
Yessss! The weather finally cleared up and I finally saw Comet Neowise with my own eyes.
This is just a handheld short-exposure shot, but it’s clearly there. And you can see it with the naked eye even in well-lit areas. It has a long visible tail.
If the weather looks good tomorrow, I might drive somewhere darker to try it with my tripod. And a longer exposure – trust me, with the naked eye, the tail is much more pronounced, but a snapshot doesn’t pick it up properly.
But the main thing is, I saw a comet! And a proper one with a tail.
A couple of years ago I was having a clear out and I was amazed at the number of magazines I’d collected over the years. They were mainly my Classic Rock mags, and part of my decision to have a clear out was that I’d been getting more and more disillusioned with that particular publication.
At the time, I was on an annual subscription, but Planet Rock had just launched its own magazine and that did exactly what it said on the tin – it covered rock music. Classic Rock acquired a new editor, and she made it clear in her introductory piece what she was planning. Subsequently, any rock music they covered had to include at least half female acts – meaning it became obscure and far from ‘classic’, at best – and they also decided that (as just one example) Depeche Mode somehow ticked both the ‘classic’ and ‘rock’ boxes at the same time (actually, they decided twice in the space of just a couple of months with that one example). Then they did their ‘best 100 female artists of all time’ issue, and necessarily had to include non-rock genres to fill it out. That was it from me, and I cancelled my sub.
Before any feminists start frothing at the mouth over this, I go to see lots of female artists and bands with female members. I actually seek them out if I hear them on Planet Rock and like the sound. Like Samantha Fish, Haim, Paramore, Evanescence, Courtney Love, Joanne Shaw Taylor, The Lounge Kittens… I just don’t need any feminist magazine editors trying to filter out the men for me. And if you don’t like the fact that I don’t like that fact, click the back button and piss off somewhere else.
Planet Rock mag suits me fine, but when the lockdown came along, it also came with a lot of extra time for reading and finding tips on how to do stuff I wouldn’t have otherwise had time for. And going out to buy magazines wasn’t an option – even if it would have been of benefit with the ‘current’ issue on sale (you usually need a series of them).
A few years ago, as a result of my quest to find some authentic German food recipes, I came across a subscription service called Readly. It carries – and this is no exaggeration – thousands of UK titles. They’re all the ones you see on the newsstands (and many you don’t), from TV Times, OK!, Hello!, through all the photography and amateur DIY magazines, through to music and musicians (including Classic Rock). They cover specialist computer and technology subjects, gaming, weddings, cycling, fishing, horse riding, pets… everything (but no X-rated adult stuff). Including back issues, too, which multiplies the content by at least ten. And as I already implied, they have similar numbers of publications from Europe, Asia, and America. They’ve also recently started including newspapers, though it’s only The Independent and Evening Standard right now.
My normal Readly subscription is less than £8 a month, but they offer a two months for free trial. Even so, at £8 a month, that’s the newsstand cost of just three magazines! If you were after foreign magazines, you’d probably pay more than that for a single issue once shipping was included.
You can get the Readly app with the offer through Amazon (it’s free), and you can read on your phone, tablet, or computer. You can also read offline by downloading the content.
This is worth getting. It’s 35 years since Back To The Future was released, and this book – We Don’t Need Roads: The Making of the Back to the Future Trilogy – is the in-depth story of how it was made, with interviews with all the writers, cast, and crew. I was interested immediately, because I always wanted to know the truth about why Eric Stoltz – the original Marty – was recast with Michael J. Fox.
I found out about the book from an MSN newsfeed item, where fans have been arguing about whether any of Stoltz remains in the films (apparently, they reckon it’s Stoltz’s fist when he punches Biff in the café). The book doesn’t answer that, but it’s a damned good read.
It’s 268 pages devoted to one of the best movie trilogies – certainly of the 80s – of all time. And best of all, as well as paperback there’s also a Kindle edition (which is the one I bought). I also note that other books about the movie are available on Kindle Unlimited for free (see the banner on the right for a free trial if you’re interested).
This one’s likely to pass most people by – I doubt many know who he is. But he represents a huge part of my childhood (and ever since, come to think of it).
Ennio Morricone has died at the age of 91. He was a film composer, but by far his best known works were the themes from The Dollars Trilogy of Spaghetti Westerns in the 1960s. His score for The Good, The Bad And The Ugly in particular is a genuine work of art.
RIP, Ennio.