Being an old guy with a distinct touch of arthritis, I find a thin phone hard to hold. I'm much more comfortable with a case that is thicker. I went back to my OtterBox Commuter. It's about 12mm thick, and offers very good protection. Since I'm a hiker/bicycler/geocacher, I like the additional security. I've had a previous phone fall off my bicycle while zooming down a rocky dirt trail, and it survived without a scratch (yes, I did come up with a more secure way of fastening it to my bike).

I also use a slightly matte screen protector (I hate reflections). In my previous biking incident, the screen protector had a nasty gouge in it, but the screen itself was unharmed.

The OtterBox wasn't all that expensive, I think it was $20.

Maybe it's because I'm sometimes very clumsy, but I've always put protective cases of some sort on my cell phones. I don't understand those people who walk around with naked phones.

Tonight I dropped my iPhone two feet onto a tiled floor, and it survived without a scratch. The case has a large crack in the hard shell, and is a total loss since it won't fit together any more, which is a shame because it has an auxiliary battery in it. I could get through a day of heavy use with the extra power. Now I'm back using my OtterBox, as I will probably get a new phone in the next two months and there's no point in spending money for a new battery case right now.

I recommend cases.

I'm told area I'm going to be staying in most of the time is on a high plateau, and while the days are nice, the temperature drops fast in the late afternoon, and gets cold at night. Sounds a lot like Melbourne or Adelaide, and I deliberately try not to go there any more.

15C is cold for me these days, simply because its what I'm used to now. I haven't worn 2 jumpers in years now, and the leather jacket hasn't been worn since my last trip south.

I live in Austin and the historical temps in early November are lows around 13C with highs around 24C, and in late November are around a low of 7C up to a high of 18C. November can be unpredictable, we have a feature called a "blue norther", where winds from the far north can blow through and drop the daytime temperatures 10-15C in less than an hour.

I'm not sure any place around here qualifies as a plateau. The official elevation is 150 meters above sea level, and the highest point in the city is listed as only around 90 meters higher (and you have to climb Mount Bonnell to get there). You have to go some distance to the west of Austin to get to the Edwards Plateau, where elevations can get to 900 meters.

I really liked the first season of Broadchurch. The next was maybe not quite as good, but I still enjoyed it. I'm recording season 3 but have been busy so haven't sat down to watch any.

I bailed on the third series of Broadchurch three-quarters of the way through the first episode. It was not to my taste, although I watched all of the first and second series.

My hearing aids were really, really dead.    So I've ordered a new pair, same as the ones I got before.

I'm not that worried about Amazon, I'm concerned that just anybody can get to be a developer and then have access to everyone's data. What's to keep the bad guys from doing this?


And it's not just asking Alexa what time it is, it's access to those intercom talks and conversations via the Show that are worrying. Are those included? I hope not, but we don't know.


If it happens, of course.

I'm almost always reading on an eInk device. If for some reason I don't have my Voyage with me, I'l read on the iPhone. But that is rare.

I know of only two ways to get rid of italics. One is to manually edit the CSS style sheet for each book. Not very practical.


The other is to export the book to an RTF file, pull it into a word processing program and remove all formatting. It may also work to export it to a plain text file. You have to generate a new AZW/MOBI file for either of these.


There's also a possibility you could set up a program like Calibre to automatically get rid of that entry in the CSS style sheet when importing a book into its database. You'd have to get rid of the DRM, though.

It is reported that Kobo has been hit by ransomware and their order/shipping facilities are down. No word on when they might be back.


You may be able to buy them elsewhere, though.

I've been binge-watching Hamish Macbeth on Acorn TV. It's been so long since I've seen them that I had forgotten that the series bears almost no relation to the books. It's a moderately humorous view of the life of a police constable in a very small Scottish village. There are actually murders in the 30+ books of the series. I have several of the books in ebook version, it may be time for a re-read.

  Amazon will not let the echo or the dot work on unsecured computers.

This sounds really bogus to me. What do they mean by "unsecured computer"? Who is your internet provider? How are you connected to the internet?

It's not the Tour de France.


This week I've been watching internet coverage of the 2017 Tour Divide, a bicycle race that goes from Banff, Alberta to Antelope Wells (on the border of New Mexico/Mexico). It's 2745 miles of unmarked trails/footpaths/fire-roads/gravel roads, fording streams, pushing bikes through two feet of snow, etc., that follows the Continental Divide as closely as possible. It's self supported, which means that you have to take everything you'll need (no meeting up with people for re-supplies) and you have to pay for everything and are responsible for getting to the start line. And then getting home from the finish.

No prize money. But occasionally you get confronted by grizzly bears. Really. Take bear spray. You are only monitored by GPS, there are no officials to oversee things. You may go days without seeing another rider, and there are places where you are 200 miles from the nearest services. If you have a flat or mechanical difficulties, you may be in a spot of trouble. It's not against what few rules there are for another rider to come along and help you, but some riders stick to the spirit of the race and won't accept help. Bike shops lay on extra help and work extended hours at the small towns along the way. And you should be prepared to sleep beside the trail if need be. Total vertical distance climbed is 190,000 feet.

If you really need help, there's an SOS button on the GSP SPOT tracker labeled "SOS". As one rider put it: "See that button? It gets you a $25,000 medevac helicopter ride.". Once in a while you do get cell phone coverage, though.

This year there are 190 people entered, 170 men and 20 women. A significant number between 40 and 60 years of age. I believe that the oldest person to have entered was 73. This year, an ex-governor of New Mexico is entered. He's 64. The top riders get along with 4-6 hours of sleep a day.

Last year's winner made the trip in 13 days and 23 hours. That's about 196 miles a day, with an average of almost 14,000 vertical feet involved daily. Highest peak is 12,000 feet.

There is a real-time internet map where I am following the positions and stats of all the riders, as well as a forum where pictures are posted by a number of residents along the way. The event is very popular along the route.

It started at 9AM last Friday, which means that the front-runners should show up at Antelope Wells around the 24th/25th. Although the winner could show up at the start line about then, as it's permissible to run the race from south to north, but most prefer the north to south route.

My hat is off to those riders. It's a brutal race.

As rumored, Apple unveiled an Echo competitor at their World Wide Developer's Conference (WWDC). I watched it live via streaming on Monday.


It's called the HomePod, and looks similar to a small barrel cactus. The big feature that all their attention was on the high-quality sound the device will produce. I'll concede that the sound may be order of magnitude better than the Echo or Google Home units, as those aren't anything to get excited about sound-wise. Very little time was given to the Siri aspect of the HomePod, almost as if it were an after-thought.


Possibly they were not emphasizing it because up until now, Siri has been trailing the pack when it comes to voice interaction. I would think that if they had made big strides toward improving Siri, they would make it a big deal, instead of virtually ignoring it.


It does have some nice features, such as adjusting sound output to the room configuration, just as my Yamaha AV receiver does (which cost about as much as the HomePod will). It has multiple microphones just as the Echo and Google Home do. It seems to have the CPU of a two-year old iPhone controlling it (this is actually very powerful). If you have two of them in the same room, they will sync together. Presumably for stereo sound.


And only $350. What a deal.


They also announce a number of other hardware products: Updated laptops, updated desktops, major improvements to the iPad Pro hardware/software, and a killer iMac Pro that starts at $5,000 and can be ordered with an 18-core Xenon processor, and 128 Gb of RAM (with a really crappy keyboard).


No mention of the Mac Mini (which I was considering upgrading), or the iPad Mini. Or the Airport Extreme WiFi router. Or the iPod Touch.


Phones get announced in September, as always.


The iWatch software has been improved a lot, but I confess to not having paid attention to that part.


Also announced was that anything earlier than the iPhone 6 will not be able to run iOS 11. I pretty much expected this. I have an iPhone 6, and I plan on upgrading to a 7 Plus in October or so, when the prices drop.