daveydave

Over the years, I have used a  Netgear EVA8000  and a  Raspberry Pi Model B  running  XBMC  to get digital content to my TV, mainly from a NAS box but also from the internet. However, when Amazon sent me an offer for £30 off their new Amazon Fire TV  if I pre-ordered, I couldn't really say no: I'm already a Prime customer and it was time for a new gadget. After a wait of a few weeks, release day arrived and so did my device. It is a tiny thing and, because the remote control is not line-of-sight, you can hide it away in a cupboard should you prefer the minimalist look. It is very straightforward to use and the voice search feature works a treat. I did have a bit of a problem getting the thing to link to my Amazon account. It was listed on my account page, but the box itself didn't want to log in. A quick chat on the phone with a member of Amazon's support team sorted that out though. Really excellent service. If you have Prime membership, there...

Newcastle Arena. Friday, 24th October 2014. Ah yes, the Arena - the place where good music goes to die (it probably doesn't make much difference with bad music). Imagine if you will the crack of a snare drum. Drummer hits drum skin and from the PA comes the sound of, well... a snare drum. All good so far. However, half a second later the same sound hits your ears again, only this time reflected off and mangled by the hard surfaces inside this glorified cow shed. Lovely clear crack of the snare now sounds more like a dog farting in a wheelie bin. Now add in to the mix a selection of guitars, synths, brass and vocals. Mess. No professional musician should be forced to play in such a place. But I digress. He played a selection of tunes from his latest album, Caustic Love , which I really like. Obviously, he played songs from his earlier albums too, which I'm not so familiar with but there wasn't a duffer amongst them. We were even treated to a couple of strripped-down ac...

Yes. I read it . Thoughts in brief: It could have been significantly shorter. There is so much repetition throughout the document, it almost feels like a hopeful 'say it enough times and it shall be'. It is a curious blend of government white paper and political manifesto. I'm not convinced it works as a document. A huge amount of future policy up in the air - there is a lot of aspirational stuff devoid of any real detail. There are some very sizeable assumptions in there over which the Scottish Government has no real say. (e.g. EU membership, Sterling zone membership) The complexities of splitting things such as pensions are not really detailed. Look, I'm not a policy expert - or an anything expert for that matter - but the further through the document I got the more concerned I was about what is being offered here. There is much aspirational stuff with little or no detailed proposals how policy goals can be achieved. So many areas of policy seem to rely on the...

Great quote from Paddy Ashdown : "I think far too many politicians today come into politics in short pants straight out of school never having done anything else. Before I was elected I was a solider for 11 years, I was in the foreign service, I was a businessman, I was unemployed twice – I was actually elected to parliament from the unemployment register when I was given a temporary job as a youth worker. I’ve done a lot of things before I went into parliament. What I can say is that all of those things proved an accidental apprenticeship for the job that I then did. And I do think politics is diminished today by being far too professional, and having people telling us what to do who have never done a real job themselves." Can't argue with that. References: Original interview on ArabianBusiness.com via the Liberal Democrat Voice website.

Is anyone else having problems with their HTC One X following the OTA update to Android 4.2.2? Battery life on my phone is now awful; as is WiFi connectivity. The phone has, as a result, gone from brilliant to barely fit for purpose. This is most annoying to say the least. Ok, I am at the end of my contract. Yes, I can start hunting around for a new phone. But I want to do that in my own time, not rush it because of some software update gone bad.

I am a big fan of rail travel. If it was down to me I'd be expanding the rail network, so you would rightly expect me to be in favour of HS2. Well... yes and no. The plus points are simple enough: faster joutney times between major cities; extra seating capacity for those passengers who find themselves standing before and after work; and a freeing up of space on the current main lines for regional services and freight. There are problems, however. Firstly, journey times aren't really that bad to and from London as it is, whereas if you want to travel from Newcastle to Liverpool, be prepared to write off a big chunk of your day. Secondly, HS2 will start at Euston not St Pancras, where the high speed link to Kent and the Channel Tunnel terminates. So, any through service from say Birmingham to Paris, wouldn't stop there. Very strange concept and perhaps more to do with protecting Eurostar's market share than constructing an integrated rail system. Compare that to Berlin...