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High Winds. Future Tech.
Thursday, January 5th, 2012 11:08 amThis morning saw a return to the high winds and cold rain that I’d hoped had stopped after Tuesday’s storm. Actually it all recommenced yesterday late afternoon and continued until this morning.
Lacking any kind of pelt on my head, the driving rain gave me quite horrible head freeze (actually, it’s mainly the forehead that gets it, so being hirsute wouldn’t make much difference) and a consequent headache. There are few things as miserable as being wet and cold. The wind makes wearing any of my fedoras completely impractical, so I decided that eschewing my distaste for the brutes, I should but a woolly beanie hat and damn what it looks like, to keep my forehead warm.
Clearly God is giving me fashion advice. No sooner had I made that decision than the wind blew itself out and the rain stopped. If anything I got too warm in my coat: once the wind has dropped, it’s not actually that cold. So now I have the quandary: do I buy the woolly beanie or not? I could dig out and wear my M42 Kriegsmarine fatigue cap instead. With just a peak, it is less susceptible than a fedora to blowing off, but wandering into work wearing that, black jeans and my reefer jacket will make me look like a U-Boat commander and I really don’t want to give some unsuspecting old gaffer a convoy flashback.
At some point yesterday it occurred to me that my nephew has an iPhone 4 like me. Indeed, he’s had one longer than I have; ah the disposable income of the young. He is, therefore, one of the few people I know that I can use Apple’s ‘FaceTime’ (ie. Mobile video conferencing) with. Consequently I texted him and once we were both at home with our respective wi-fis available (I’m damned if I’m strangling my 3G data allocation with FaceTime!), we tried it out. It took a couple of attempts to connect since the daft bugger had disabled it on his phone, or at least never enabled it, but I have to say it worked perfectly. The picture I received could have been a bit better, but I understand that is more to do with the cheerfully inept application of a screen protector by Tom, meaning that it has air bubbles all over it including the camera lens (!).
Nonetheless, the future is here, right now. We spent a few minutes nattering inconsequentially and then the clan clustered around his phone to witness this technological miracle. Bless them, but they wouldn’t stop shouting as if they needed to get the sound to me physically.
I was assured later, by text, that my youngest niece, having discovered a similar facility on her iPad2 (I can’t afford an iPad2!!!), was happily shout at her brother over it from across the room.
I doubt I shall use the facility overmuch, but it’s nice to have and I may use it when Tom’s at home so I can chat to Mum face to face.
Lacking any kind of pelt on my head, the driving rain gave me quite horrible head freeze (actually, it’s mainly the forehead that gets it, so being hirsute wouldn’t make much difference) and a consequent headache. There are few things as miserable as being wet and cold. The wind makes wearing any of my fedoras completely impractical, so I decided that eschewing my distaste for the brutes, I should but a woolly beanie hat and damn what it looks like, to keep my forehead warm.
Clearly God is giving me fashion advice. No sooner had I made that decision than the wind blew itself out and the rain stopped. If anything I got too warm in my coat: once the wind has dropped, it’s not actually that cold. So now I have the quandary: do I buy the woolly beanie or not? I could dig out and wear my M42 Kriegsmarine fatigue cap instead. With just a peak, it is less susceptible than a fedora to blowing off, but wandering into work wearing that, black jeans and my reefer jacket will make me look like a U-Boat commander and I really don’t want to give some unsuspecting old gaffer a convoy flashback.
At some point yesterday it occurred to me that my nephew has an iPhone 4 like me. Indeed, he’s had one longer than I have; ah the disposable income of the young. He is, therefore, one of the few people I know that I can use Apple’s ‘FaceTime’ (ie. Mobile video conferencing) with. Consequently I texted him and once we were both at home with our respective wi-fis available (I’m damned if I’m strangling my 3G data allocation with FaceTime!), we tried it out. It took a couple of attempts to connect since the daft bugger had disabled it on his phone, or at least never enabled it, but I have to say it worked perfectly. The picture I received could have been a bit better, but I understand that is more to do with the cheerfully inept application of a screen protector by Tom, meaning that it has air bubbles all over it including the camera lens (!).
Nonetheless, the future is here, right now. We spent a few minutes nattering inconsequentially and then the clan clustered around his phone to witness this technological miracle. Bless them, but they wouldn’t stop shouting as if they needed to get the sound to me physically.
I was assured later, by text, that my youngest niece, having discovered a similar facility on her iPad2 (I can’t afford an iPad2!!!), was happily shout at her brother over it from across the room.
I doubt I shall use the facility overmuch, but it’s nice to have and I may use it when Tom’s at home so I can chat to Mum face to face.