[blacklion1725]

Bob Williams wrote:

In 1971 (IIRC) there was a plot to manufacture and fire a home made multi barrel mortar into Downing Street. Tests by Long Range Snipers (otherwise known as the Royal Artillery) from a distance and wire-guided, proved that it was wildly inaccurate and in fact the whole thing blew to pieces during the second trial, conducted on Salisbury Plain. I was between tours of N.I. at the time, but the RA regiment next to our BAOR barracks had a serving member I knew from home. He told me all about the hare – brained scheme, which would apparently have missed the intended target but caused some damage, civilian deaths and injuries. It might also have blown up and destroyed the truck and occupants. Either way would have suited the IRA: dead Brits or martyrs to The Cause. The plot was foiled thanks to some very good intelligence work by 14 Int, the RUC and the Special Branch working together.

Bob this rang a bell but I thought “can’t have been 1971 – I was  five!”. Turns out I was remembering a 1991 mortar attack against Major.

[blacklion1725]

Spot on Dave. I said no result would surprise me but that one did. Genuinely surprised that the combined effect of Corbyn and Labour’s mushy Brexit stance would be enough to drive so many working class areas to vote Tory – some for the first time ever.

One thing I do know is that we need an effective opposition whoever is in power – and so Labour need to make themselves at least half-electable again.

Was also surprised that the Lib-Dem leader was not contesting a safer seat.

[blacklion1725]

Funny enough Ed the weather here (Essex) has been poor but not terrible and it “feels” like the turn out is high. Went to do my vote (hoping for an independent candidate) but as the choices were Tory, Labour, Libdem, Green I just stuck an unmarked ballot paper in the box, Pointless I know but couldn’t bring myself to support any of that lot.

Also did a proxy vote for an ex-pat mate in a different ward. In both cases there felt like more people voting than normal.

Results will be interesting as a few labour stalwarts mates are abstaining – won’t matter here as its nailed on tory – but wonder if that will affect elsewhere – particularly the labour areas that are “leave”.

I generally look at the bookies more than the polls – but the bookies called brexit completely wrong so I wouldn’t be overly surprised by any result.

I’ll be interested to see the turnout as my poll aint exactly scientific!

[blacklion1725]

I’ve got freeview and freesat going in to my stb – mainly because it was more aggro to remove the ex-sky dish and cables than to leave it there! Channel line-ups are similar – the biggest difference for me is the lack of HD channels on freesat, particularly Ch4 and Ch4+1 for me.

Completely agree about the iPlayer 4K streaming – it is superb.

[blacklion1725]

The aerial, connections and cabling can make a huge difference to the number of channels you can pick up. I did a thread on here a year or so ago – got a new aerial installed as I lost some of the Freeview HD channels after they did a channel reorganisation. Not only did I get the lost channels back, also got around 40 more in total.

I did a job for someone recently, they live in a “dip” in kent and only got around 40 Freeview channels. The cabling has a very suspect joint in it which I replaced with a couple of F-types, a barrel connector and sealed in self-amalgamating tape. Up to 100+ channels straight away.

I would definitely recommend a review of your aerial, cabling and connectors before spending money on anything else – if the aerial is old or the cabling/connectors not great then as posted above the problems will affect the STB as much as the TV.

I’m in an end terrace and the aerial is mounted on my chimney. The bloke who did mine charged £200 to fit and install a new “digital” aerial and new cables/connectors.  Money very well spent.

[blacklion1725]

The remaining advantages I can see of an STB (I use a Linux Enigma2 STB) are:

1. Distribution (if you need it) – you can split the output of an STB to multiple TVs (my house is like a Sports Bar when football or cricket is on)
2. Multiple tuners – record and watch different channels
3. Often a faster UI than a TV (certainly the case with my Sony Android TV)
4. For Enigma2 multiple streaming options including Kodi and others, HDD support which now has all my ripped DVDs etc on it.

I agree that STBs are dying – they would need to do more to keep an advantage over a TV. For a “normal” house a decent Smart TV – especially with Freeview Play or YouView does it all – I think the newer Samsung’s at least to Netflix/Prime/NowTV to supplement FTA stuff.

[blacklion1725]

I could be wrong but for HDMI-HDMI (so maybe for HDMI to DP) to cable specs are a reflection of the quality of the cable and in terms of their connectivity they are all the same. For higher bandwidth and refresh rates I THINK a decent quality cable should work AOK – I have several old HDMI cables (pre-4K) that are running 4K without issue.

I’d try buying one that is free to return and just trying.

Of course if the DP introduces something else then shoot me down, but I can’t imagine there’s much in these cables by way of active electronics, and that the key to what you can pump through them is the quality of construction, shielding and of course cable length.

[blacklion1725]

I’m not an expert – but it seems very expensive – especially given the freeview-play or youview features that are built in to a lot of TVs. I get the need for a recording option – I know it is less important given the ease of catchup, but not everything is on catchup and old-skool recording still lets you wizz through adverts. The high price may be a reflection on the dwindling market for this type of device.

I would want – certainly at that price point – something that had support for Netflix, Prime, NowTV etc……a quick nose though and there doesn’t to be a huge choice for Freeview STBs.

[blacklion1725]

I think if you “up arrow” till you go past the top row of the on-screen keyboard and in to the text-entry row on the screen, then the left/right cursor arrows should behave as you want. From memory it is not obvious but seem to recall it works.

[blacklion1725]

thanks Ed it was more that I was under the impression the Fire was fussy what you could pair with it – be it remotes, keyboards or whatever. A mate has had mine for a while so been a while since I had a play.

[blacklion1725]

Wheels-Of-Fire wrote:

Well I haven’t got a fire stick because I have a smart TV but my link says it has built in bluetooth, why would it need an extra dongle ?

sorry didn’t realise they were bluetooth – not seen a fire-compatible bluetooth keyboard before – all the ones I’ve seen on Amazon are RF.  If there are then happy days.

[blacklion1725]

Only issue with wireless keyboards is they need to use a usb dongle via OTG, and since the usb on the fire is also the power input this means another device is needed like a usb hub. It is a common niggle on all the sticks (Roku, NowTV too).

[blacklion1725]

You can get the Fire App on your phone John – makes typing/input a lot easier.

[blacklion1725]

Thanks Ed

[blacklion1725]

Interesting – I used to use VNC a lot, but for Windows now the Remote desktop is my weapon of choice. I only have Linux on a Pi at the moment and for its limited purposes (it runs headless) Putty is enough. Is there a Linux alternative to VNC that is more secure?

[blacklion1725]

PM – welcome mate – hadn’t considered Chromebook but makes absolute sense

Drez – I don’t think get_iplayer will work in this environment – youtube-dl will. It works as quick as it does on my laptop – I don’t think there is much of an overhead. ffmpeg has to do more work for sure (for converting and editing ) – but it works. I wouldn’t use it (outside an emergency) for anything on Android except downloading BBC, ITV, Youtube etc.

[blacklion1725]

Bob we are all the product of our circumstances.  As I posted when I was young you left school and went to work – and I’m sure your circumstances were harsher than mine and at an earlier age. We are also restricted in practical experience to what has happened in our lifetime which again makes us all different in outlook. For me education has been used by successive governments as a statistical tool to brag about educational advances and to keep the dole numbers down. Young people should know what a hard days work is and a very great number don’t these days. I would have a lot more sympathy for how hard done to many of them feel if they had a few miles of graft on the clock at 21 rather than years of often (not always) pointless study. The world doesn’t owe them a living – and if their parents had it better their grandparents and great grandparents had it a lot worse. They need to get over themselves. They think they are hard done to they should look around the world and see how good they have it by comparison.

[blacklion1725]

Wheels-Of-Fire wrote:

Same as BL. I am 52 and just one person in my year went on to university, his parents were both teachers. At NO TIME have I come close to being able to buy my own home, 3 times my salary has alway equalled one third of a shoe box even though it has been above the NATIONAL average since I was 24.

That surprises me mate – I got my first mortgage at 20 – in greater London – and was a telephone engineer. They lent me WAY more than my 3x my wages at the time (John Charcoal Mortgage Brokers) on the strength of overtime. I was even encouraged to borrow 105% (I did 95%) so that I could get on with “making the place my own”.

Universities are almost exclusively left-wing (not just in the UK) – what the NUS have done (I’m actually a member having done a number of correspondence courses) is mobilise a much bigger percentage of students, which is in turn now a much bigger percentage of the population.  To be fair to the NUS they are all about “voting” and not “who to vote for” in the (very many) emails they send me.  Most students wont vote Tory – and in fact most people I know didn’t until it felt like they themselves would be materially better off. I might be but haven’t and won”t do it (Rosindell is my MP – makes the decision easier).

[blacklion1725]

As a counter Dave, in my opinion there are too many students – way too many – all funnelled in to University by default, may leaving with (as you say) debts and not (my opinion) much useful by way of a qualification. For me that has stifled the work ethic in a lot of them. I’m 53 and on leaving school was under no illusions that I had to work and pay my way.  A very small minority of school-leavers went to university – and there was also a lot less universities. Not picking a fight – just I think we need less people studying and more people grafting. I would say rather than “we had it all” we had the opportunity to work for it all – and had to.

[blacklion1725]

Good stuff – you should also be able to set is as the dafault app – if you go to the place you saved the file on the tablet (e.g. “download” or wherever) in your file manager, click on the file and then it will ask you what app to use. Tick the “always” box and select Quickedit and you are set. Its just another way of opening the file.

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