Miscellany
Jul. 5th, 2025 07:26 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
mtbcIt has been some days since I made an entry here. While R. works on making some ube (purple yam) cake, I can write up and share various tidbits. R. is pleased to have found salted duck eggs at a good price earlier today in what passes as the closest area Glasgow might have to a Chinatown.
I rewatched Terminator 4, the one all set in the future, having managed to almost completely forget what happens in it. It turns out to be okay if one likes future technological dystopian stuff as I do. I've also discovered the old Masters of Science Fiction anthology series which is as variable as one might expect but it passes the time and entertains more with the surprise of who's cast in each episode (some of whom do get around the science fiction shows of the time).
I found myself in an odd mood for more mellow electronica lately, Alexa managed to play me things like Synergy's Ancestors and Jean-Michel Jarre's Computer Weekend without getting songs mixed up.
eBay irritated me. I bought two of an item, then found one to be defective in a not-obvious way, then later found the other to also be defective too. Regardless of how surprised we think the seller was, they were happy to refund me but once one's opened a case and it's been resolved, apparently it can't be reopened or edited or whatever and a new case on the same item can't be opened. So, if one reports needing one of the items refunded, one can't then further report about another. I could live with it if their support folks could at least acknowledge that there might be a user experience issue here but apparently it was all my fault for not knowing how their systems work.
At work it's interesting to see how I have a pattern of afternoon meetings at the moment, given that I work closely with US-based colleagues, though we do also have engineers in Pune. Back at Zilliqa my meetings tended to be in the mornings, as I worked with people in the Middle East and Asia.
In sorting through my wallet, I discovered quite a range of paper currency, including ten-pound notes issued from various banks around Britain, and some English five-pound notes with the late Queen and others with our new King, though R. noted that Churchill looks more prominent than Charles. I was sorting my wallet in integrating my new Edinburgh library card, perhaps they will have some sought book that I was missing from Glasgow. I'm currently reading Tchaikovsky's Shroud; it's not quite as fun as Alien Clay but it holds my interest and I do love my aliens to be properly alien. With the humans in the metal-pods-with-legs wandering the inclement alien environment, I realized it to be somewhat opposite to Christopher's The Tripods with aliens roaming the Earth in their such machines.
No train that I have tried for commuting has been too crowded. For the next phase, I shall try the cheaper CrossCountry-only arrangement, except there are few trains, nothing in the early evening, and the latest late-evening train I boarded then failed to go anywhere. Fortunately, it seems that one can usefully claim for such failures, so perhaps I can make money from them; it's worth a try. There's the question of what to do in between my workday and the late train, though:
It might be that I can just have my teeth well into some work task and I'll stay a bit late but that won't always be true and the cleaners will come in. My heart was buoyed in discovering that Edinburgh's central library is open late on the days I'm currently on-site anyway but, goodness, it's the opposite of Dundee's central library, it's as if from decades past. There aren't exactly comfortable nooks and crannies, it's more the kind of library where everybody might look at you if you drop a pin. I could hang out at Waverley station except for that they appear to have no wastebins, I expect that Haymarket's no better in that regard. I did find that one can follow the cleaning folks and slip things into their waste-bags.
I rewatched Terminator 4, the one all set in the future, having managed to almost completely forget what happens in it. It turns out to be okay if one likes future technological dystopian stuff as I do. I've also discovered the old Masters of Science Fiction anthology series which is as variable as one might expect but it passes the time and entertains more with the surprise of who's cast in each episode (some of whom do get around the science fiction shows of the time).
I found myself in an odd mood for more mellow electronica lately, Alexa managed to play me things like Synergy's Ancestors and Jean-Michel Jarre's Computer Weekend without getting songs mixed up.
eBay irritated me. I bought two of an item, then found one to be defective in a not-obvious way, then later found the other to also be defective too. Regardless of how surprised we think the seller was, they were happy to refund me but once one's opened a case and it's been resolved, apparently it can't be reopened or edited or whatever and a new case on the same item can't be opened. So, if one reports needing one of the items refunded, one can't then further report about another. I could live with it if their support folks could at least acknowledge that there might be a user experience issue here but apparently it was all my fault for not knowing how their systems work.
At work it's interesting to see how I have a pattern of afternoon meetings at the moment, given that I work closely with US-based colleagues, though we do also have engineers in Pune. Back at Zilliqa my meetings tended to be in the mornings, as I worked with people in the Middle East and Asia.
In sorting through my wallet, I discovered quite a range of paper currency, including ten-pound notes issued from various banks around Britain, and some English five-pound notes with the late Queen and others with our new King, though R. noted that Churchill looks more prominent than Charles. I was sorting my wallet in integrating my new Edinburgh library card, perhaps they will have some sought book that I was missing from Glasgow. I'm currently reading Tchaikovsky's Shroud; it's not quite as fun as Alien Clay but it holds my interest and I do love my aliens to be properly alien. With the humans in the metal-pods-with-legs wandering the inclement alien environment, I realized it to be somewhat opposite to Christopher's The Tripods with aliens roaming the Earth in their such machines.
No train that I have tried for commuting has been too crowded. For the next phase, I shall try the cheaper CrossCountry-only arrangement, except there are few trains, nothing in the early evening, and the latest late-evening train I boarded then failed to go anywhere. Fortunately, it seems that one can usefully claim for such failures, so perhaps I can make money from them; it's worth a try. There's the question of what to do in between my workday and the late train, though:
It might be that I can just have my teeth well into some work task and I'll stay a bit late but that won't always be true and the cleaners will come in. My heart was buoyed in discovering that Edinburgh's central library is open late on the days I'm currently on-site anyway but, goodness, it's the opposite of Dundee's central library, it's as if from decades past. There aren't exactly comfortable nooks and crannies, it's more the kind of library where everybody might look at you if you drop a pin. I could hang out at Waverley station except for that they appear to have no wastebins, I expect that Haymarket's no better in that regard. I did find that one can follow the cleaning folks and slip things into their waste-bags.
