Warning - Technophile at Work

Getting into this phone stuff since I rooted the Galaxy Note 2, but still a tad worried about bricking it if I play with it too much, so I bought a 2 or 3 year old HTC Sensation on eBay yesterday to play with before trying to upgrade my Galaxy to the KitKat version of Android - and hopefully curing the Sleep of Death permanently as a bonus.

Have managed a work-around for the Sleep of Death - I'm using an app called SoftLocker to stop the phone going into deep sleep (which is when the SoD occurs) and so far I've had nearly 24 hours without an issue. The downside is increased battery drain, but that seems to be more than offset by under-clocking the CPU.

Have under-clocked to 1.2MHz this morning and will keep tabs on the results. At 1.4MHz yesterday I was still at 30% capacity after 16 hours, with a projection of around 22, which is unheard of - I'm usually lucky to get 12 hours useage from one charge on the standard 1.6GHz..

Racial Prejudice in Yorkshire for Mingling Christians

Racial prejudice is in the news.

I'm not sure racial prejudice is an accurate term - what I think people have is cultural prejudice, and logically, there's nothing wrong with that.

The colour of a person's skin is not the issue; it's the way in which they live their life, the manner in which they conduct themselves and their cultural values that cause the prejudice, and that's easily understood. The colour of their skin is just an identifier used by the lazy - no more than a pattern having a reasonably high correlation with the cultural values you take issue with, and we as humans are programmed to recognise patterns.

There are always people you dislike for some reason, but imagine an entire culture of them - like the French. Oh God, a hideous thought. The problem with the French is that they look just like we Brits, so it's not till they open their mouths and become all arrogant and, well, typically French, that you can tell they're French.

I would imagine a lot of people would have issues with Yorkshire people if they suddenly started to dress in kaftans, espouse Islamic values, take large amounts of illicit drugs (like Samuel Smith beer) or behave like the French - nothing whatsoever to do with the colour of their skin.

Talking of Yorkshire people, saw John Prescott on TV the other evening. Now there was a conviction politician - he didn't give a toss as to what middle England thought; he had a political point of view and pushed it, even if it risked him not getting into parliament. Similarly Tony Benn was a conviction politician. Nothing at all like the wishy-washy, "tell me what I must do to get your vote" lot we have now.

Very few people have an issue with Lenny Henry (except Dawn French - those damned French again) - but then he's a Brummie and some people just don't like Brummies. It's not the colour of his skin that worries them, it's his Brummieness.

Noticed an advert for a Christian dating site on TV last night - Christian Mingle. Excellent idea - keeps the buggers in one location and prevents normal people dating them accidentally. The only problem is that if a mingled Christian couple marry, they're more likely to raise their kids as Christians and perpetuate the mythology of their religion as fact.

Noticed that some pastor (aka fundamentalist) in Northern Ireland has been ranting about Islam being 'spawned by the Devil' and 'satanic'. The words pot, kettle and black come to mind when religions start having a go at each other There's a quote that says; "A heretic, my dear sir, is a fellow who disagrees with you regarding something neither of you knows anything about." Since no religion can agree on the concept of God, that's so true.

Fundamental literalism, and the intolerance it breeds, is a mostly western phenomenon (and then mainly Protestant) - the belief that God is just a bigger version of a human, with a few superpowers thrown in. It has, however, crept into Islam lately, whereas it was totally absent in early and middle Islam (and Juadaism and Christianity), where God was seen as mystical, beyond human comprehension, totally ineffable and not the rationalised, dogmatic, personal God of the Greek philosophers, continually intervening and meddling in human affairs (like an anthropomorphic, larger version of Zeus) where his attributes are open to scrutiny. The Eastern Orthodox still maintain the view that God is ineffable, and in this respect are more closely aligned with Asian views of the divine and the infinite. For the Eastern Orthodox the the muddled theology of the Trinity is a mystical symbol, and not something to be taken literally at face value.

If 'revealed religions' have revealed anything, it is that they are usually wrong and a mere projection of human values and frailties - another famous quote.

Underclocked the rooted mobile's CPU yesterday from 1600MHz to 1400MHz, which has had no appreciable detriment on performance, but has increased the battery life exponentially. Still haven't solved the Sleep of Death issue and suspect that will only be cured by flashing the thing with a new ROM, but I'm reluctant to do that till I know for certain what I have to back up in terms of data. Need an old 2nd hand phone to experiment on - something crappy, like an iPhone.

Women - Brains Like Sieves!

Yesterday it was the 8th anniversary of me and Hay first meeting. I took her her usual cup of tea in bed, along with an anniversary card. She'd forgotten! Women, eh?

Wind Tunnel Politics

So we have UKIP ruling our roost in the European Parliament, where they can do little damage. I have reservations about this result being replicated at a general election - beyond a policy of leaving the EU and stopping immigration, no-one knows UKIP's other policies - even their website it light on anything other than issues directly impacted by immigration. A one-trick pony.

This result is a consequence of the UK's main political parties being stuffed to the gills with a political elite, whose only function is to get elected and whose only experience is politics - straight from university to party researcher and then climbing the greasy pole of the political career, where native cunning is rewarded by being parachuted into a safe seat and loyalty is eventually rewarded by a seat in the Lords and the chairmanship of some august corporation.

Policy today is not formed from deeply held conviction, but by focus groups and targeted at winning over the largest voting bloc while not rocking the boat too much - nothing too radical. No wonder the parties and their policies all start to look similar - it's the wind-tunnel car design principle where all cars start to look like they all come from the same jelly-mould. 

We no longer have a left and a right - just a messy agglomeration of middleness - and a couple of one trick ponies on the fringes.

I'm reminded of a quote by Samuel Johnson: "A man sometimes starts up a patriot, only by disseminating discontent, and propagating reports of secret influence, of dangerous counsels, of violated rights, and encroaching usurpation. This practice is no certain note of patriotism. To instigate the populace with rage beyond the provocation, is to suspend publick happiness, if not to destroy it. He is no lover of his country, that unnecessarily disturbs its peace. Few errours and few faults of government, can justify an appeal to the rabble; who ought not to judge of what they cannot understand, and whose opinions are not propagated by reason, but caught by contagion."


The Sleep of Death seems to have returned after 24 hours! Left the phone's battery out all night, but it still went into the SoD 30 minutes later.

SoD (Sleep of Death) Cured in Old Sodbury

Cured the Sleep of Death on the phone. I found one, solitary solution that actually works - remove the battery and wait for 5 minutes before replacing and booting up again. The problem is caused by allowing the battery to run down to zero power - which I did a couple of times last week.

I also managed to root it, which gives me access to all manner of tweaks, such as extending the battery life, which is invaluable, stopping certain apps from starting at power-on and all manner of secret things. The downside is you can brick the phone if you gerfingerpoke without sufficient knowledge and the fact your warranty is invalid (unless you un-root again).

Might look for a custom RoM next, or install Android 4.3 (KitKat), which Vodafone seem rather tardy in releasing.

Polishing the Sodding Kindling

Well, the warm weather has given Hay's dad the chance to give his wood burner its annual overhaul and to start planing, sanding and polishing his kindling for the next time he comes to light it in the autumn (he's a bit OCD like that).

My Samsung Galaxy Note 2 has started to misbehave in the last week. When in sleep mode it intermittently switches itself off and I'm at a loss as to what's causing the problem. Don't really want to go to the bother of a factory reset - will probably just uninstall the apps, one-by-one, till I manage to ID the offending update.

Having researched the issue, it's apparently called the Sleep of Death - or SOD.

The Power of Prayer in the 80s Music Scene

Your child has a virulent disease caused by a bacterium.

You have the option of an antibiotic or prayer not both - which would you choose?

Of course, God moves in mysterious ways and may not answer your prayer (well, not beyond chance probability). Antibiotics, however, are a tad more reliable.

Overheard while watching Culture Club's 'Church of the Poison Mind' on Vintage TV:

Chairman: "Who is the fat bird with the good voice doing the backing vocals?"

Hay: "Fattist and misogynist in the same breath!"

Chairman: "I think she's an immigrant."

The music of the 80s passed me by in the main - it was the backing track to a debauched lifestyle I was living at the time.

Voting Diplomacy

It strikes me that Vlad Putin is offended when it suits him politically to be offended. He doesn't really strike me as the kind of bloke who gives a fig for what people think about him, unless it's an opinion that can be used to boost his popularity at home. Russia's hesitancy in responding to the report demonstrates that admirably - anyone genuinely offended would have responded immediately.

It's neither here nor there as to whether the comparison by HRH is historically accurate, as we all know what he meant by it. What I find disturbing is that the Daily Mail saw fit to print what its reporter overheard within a private conversation. I never really saw the DM as anti-monarchist before now, not that I care one hoot about the monarchy myself - although Good Queen Bess has done a sterling job.

Charles needs to keep his private opinions private - and by that I mean he needs to be very careful about where, when and to whom he voices his opinion (it's part of his job description to be bland and opinionless in public); however, the DM needs to be a bit more heedful of the consequences of what it reports and whether it's in the UK's interests, rather than just in the interests of the DM.

The whole affair is reminiscent of Gordon Brown's 'bigoted woman' gaffe. The point of diplomacy is to dissemble and hide one's true feelings, and Charles is a diplomat by dint of birth. Perhaps he's just a chip off the old block - on his paternal side, naturally.

It's interesting to note that foreign policy was the prerogative of the monarchy until the House of Hanover came to the throne, at which point the House of Commons started to assume greater responsibility for the role, with continual diminution of the sovereign's prerogative in this respect from that point on as royal houses across Europe fell. 

Charles' namesake, Charles II, vigorously defended the Royal Prerogative over foreign policy and made it a condition of accepting the throne when invited to do so by Parliament. He was, after all, closely related to all the royal houses in Europe (some of which - like France - were still absolute monarchies) and thus in a unique position, within England at least, to have a feel for shifts in the balance of power, the maintaining of which was the prime focus of foreign policy.

Neither Hay nor I received our usual postal ballots for yesterday's European election, but we managed to get a vote nonetheless by visiting the polling station at the village hall. The staff there told us that of a total of 500 in the ward, only 135 had so far voted, although many of them could be postal voters.

Immigrants, Steak, Elections, Cabbages and Kings

Apparently mozzies are moving into British cities - I wonder what UKIP has to say about that, almost as bad a Pikeys.

A few months ago we discovered skirt steak, also known as hanger steak or butchers' steak (and onglet by the French). It's a relatively thin cut from the underbelly and at £8 a kilo is less than half the price of your more usual rump or sirloin - but is, in my opinion, twice as tasty. It's best flash-fried rare or medium-rare and served sliced. Because it's so cheap, we have it at least once a week.

Anyhow, we had some left over in the fridge last night and I had a mouthful, cold, with salt and pepper. Now I have no idea who first thought of putting salt and pepper on meat, but the combination of cold, rare steak, salt and pepper is heavenly and an inspiration. I could never go veggie.

No idea who I'm meant to be voting for today - haven't heard from any of the candidates and haven't even received a voting slip through the post. All I have to go on is the party political propaganda broadcasts on TV and will just show up at the village polling station with some ID, hoping inspiration will hit me in time.

I'm not a fan of the EU, have no time for Ed Milliband (but admired his brother), don't trust Cameron's promises and would never vote for a single issue party like UKIP, the Greens or the Monster Raving Loony Party.

Need to find an Irascible, Country's Going to the Dogs Party. How about the Absolute Monarchy Party? Enlightened dictatorships and absolute monarchies at least have something going for them - they don't have to make false promises or pander to the lowest common denominator, however, the drawbacks are unthinkable - kings-in-waiting can start wars with Russia.

Political Football Entertainment

The political posturing by the various parties is sickening. All of them are pointing at the failings of their opposites, but not saying a word about what they would do differently on key issues. Watched the UKIP party political broadcast last night; they moaned about EU fishing quotas and green taxes. So there would be no fishing quotas to save fish stocks or green taxes to promote sustainable energy if they were in power? That would be a recipe for a green and pleasant land - not.

As for Richard Scudamore and his sexist emails. Until I heard this I was convinced that football, along with its tribalism, chest beating, hooliganism and rampant machismo, was a haven of gender neutrality in a sea of rampant misogyny within the rest of society. 

I see that Manchester United has appointed a Dutchman as its manager - bloody Dutchmen coming over here and taking all our jobs. How would you feel if a bunch of Dutchmen moved in next to you? Drug-crazed pornographers!

TV is more dire than ever and what passes for entertainment (or even a documentary) is banal in the extreme. I've thought of a new reality TV show called Sleep - just film people sleeping. Seems the majority of the masses would find that highly entertaining and mentally stimulating, in a mind numbing way.