Brexit day reflections

I can't think of anything recently discussed in the UK that has raised quite as much ire as brexit. Well now we've "got it done", in that the relatively easy part of officially leaving the EU has now happened, there only remains the really difficult part of diplomacy, compromise and negotiation to sort out all those trivial matters of how we, as a nation, go about pretty much everything in this connected world.

As a stupid, lefty, remoaner, as opposed to being a wise, lefty, brexiter (like my parents) this is a sad day. I see no gain, only loss. 

It's going to take the rest of this year to understand what this really means for how we interact with EU countries, what it means for business, how the border between the UK and Ireland is going to work.... All the big uncertainties of the past few years remain just as uncertain today.

Given some of the people involved in our government I can't say I trust them to do anything well. Offered the choice between retaining alignment with the EU and throwing away decades of sensible policy for the sake of jingoistic soundbites I have my suspicion which way they'll go. We'll see.

For me it feels like the UK is like an amazing guitarist who, believing they're being held back by the rest, quits the band and goes out on their own only to realise, too late, that actually not many people want to hear 38 minute solos. Meanwhile someone else has stepped up in the band and they're actually doing quite well without us.

My prediction (I'm almost always wrong) is for us to re-join the EU some years down the line with a much smaller role. We'll probably have to be guitar tech, or coil the cables.... or something.

Toyota Yaris hybrid

These cars have their detractors but I really rather like it. Almost every criticism I've heard, suggesting the car lacks excitement, individuality and dynamism, is exactly what makes it ideal.

I am going to drive this car relatively slowly on congested roads most of the time. Even out of town it's rare for my average speed to make it over 50mph. You can take your sharp, dynamic handling of the Seat Ibiza and shove it, because it's meaningless in a straight line under 30 as you're queuing round Leeds.

Last year we bought a Skoda Fabia, and it's a great car. Surprisingly large in estate form, with the 110bhp one litre, three pot turbocharged petrol engine that's surprisingly quick when you need it to be and impressively frugal the rest of the time.

The Yaris is an interesting comparison because on paper it isn't much slower, but it certainly feels it. I suspect a lot of that is perception. The lack of gear shifts from Toyota's hybrid system seems to upset my perception of speed, but honestly I don't know who I'm trying to kid, the Yaris is slow.

Where it beats the Skoda is in refinement. The Yaris is smoother, quieter, feels more assured on bad road surfaces and feels like it's a bigger car (it isn't).

Hybrid Synergy Drive takes a little bit of getting used to. When one's entire driving experience has included selecting the appropriate gear, and engine revs being a key part of driving, it's initially unsettling to have a drive system where engine speed isn't necessarily linked to the road speed.

There are a lots of videos explaining how Toyota's system works and it's clever stuff but perhaps the best thing about it is you don't need to understand any of this, because once the transmission is in D you drive the car. However, understand how it actually works and this helps you get the most out of the car.

By most, I mean MPG because nobody buys one of these for the performance. You've bought one of these because you want cheaper motoring (which this doesn't really give you) or you're concerned about emissions and want them as low as possible, which is my motivation.

So far, with a mix of slow town traffic and longer distances, the trip computer reports an average of 59mpg which isn't too shabby. It's better than the Fabia, which is otherwise one of the most fuel efficient cars I can find. That's also in winter, where the engine will use that bit more fuel while it gets up to temperature.

So the Yaris is comfortable, easy to drive, reasonably frugal, feels well made and has the legendary Toyota reliability but there has to be a down side and I have four significant frustrations:

1. No Carplay. This may seem trivial but we have it in the Skoda and it's brilliant. My Yaris has satnav on the clunky, sluggish infotainment system. It'll do but it's already hopelessly dated and that's exactly the problem Carplay solves.
2. Battery capacity. Toyota have to strike a balance between battery cost, weight, capacity and the available charging power. I suspect they've arrived at the best compromise but I still find myself wishing they hadn't used the batteries from a 1980s camcorder and the electric only range was greater. Two or three miles would be ideal. Instead it's typically less than a mile so a congested urban drive will see the engine running to top up the battery.
3. Performance. Again this is all a massive compromise but I have had a couple of occasions when I wish this efficiency focused car could give me a bit more poke.
4. Economy. This is probably the biggest and goes with the previous two. I don't think the engine is very good. Toyota have used their Atkinson cycle engine design that's all about efficiency over power output, but the VW engine in my Skoda is smaller, more powerful and I reckon  if you coupled that with the hybrid drive would be even more frugal. I'm a slow driver and have been very gentle with the Yaris yet I don't get close to the claimed economy figures. Yes it's better than the Skoda but perhaps not quite good enough after all the compromises. Let's see what warmer summer mornings bring.

Despite the misgivings overall I think Toyota have done a good job with this hybrid and I'd certainly recommend it to anyone who spends a lot of time in traffic. For me, the bottom line is this car can never truly satisfy because it isn't the EV I want, but can't afford.

Outside the church

It's been a few years since I left the employment of a church in circumstances that were undesirable. What I perceived as dishonesty and indifference shocked me and left me questioning assumptions I had made about the approach of people I worked with, shared bread and wine with and I thought loved and respected me.

A significant side effect of this was I could no longer gloss over aspects of that church's theology and assumed belief that I realised I simply didn't believe. Truth is I hadn't been aligned with the conservative evangelical thinking that pervaded the church for a long time, if ever.

Despite initial attempts to stay part of that church family it became clear I needed some space and time to grieve the loss of a community that never really existed, but I thought did... and frankly to get over the anger over how I and others were treated.

Getting a new job, stepping away from the church and taking a few years to slowly reflect on my faith has been difficult, often painful and a huge part of me would much have preferred everything just to stay as it was, but life moves on and so must I.

I went to work for a University and the first thing I noticed, looking back, was how small the church was. When I was in there, part of the staff team, "serving God's transformation of the north" it felt like I, like we were part of something. I really did start to believe we were within a subversive movement and that one day revival would come, with supernatural force, and our society would be transformed for the better. It felt like we were part of something big.

Truth is the church is small and getting smaller. That particular church has seen people leave faster than new people have joined, and the wider evangelical movement in the UK increasingly looks like a fringe group of crackpot fundamentalists in our increasingly secular society.

I also felt less stress... eventually. I moved to a new job with a steep learning curve and brought my good protestant work ethic and desire to do well, so pushed myself, yet this was far less stressful than the role I left behind.

I've subsequently spent a lot of time reading, thinking, listening to podcasts that challenge and inspire me, all in the name of trying to understand what I actually believe.

Some people are, by nature, very black and white about things. There's right and wrong, good and bad and nice roles into which people can be slotted. I think I've long been able to see the grey inbetween, even if I didn't always understand it, though I've found age brings a greater appreciation of how rarely the nice simple categories work.

Mostly I've concerned myself with Jesus.

Christianity is supposed to be centred around Jesus but interestingly not very much of the behaviour I've seen from Christians over the years (and I include myself in that) seems to reflect much of what Jesus actually taught.

Part of the problem is many, probably most people in churches don't have the first clue what Jesus’ teaching means. They don't understand his words and actions within the context of him living as a Jew under Roman occupation. The way in which the Bible is read and understood is so devoid of colour and life as to make it almost meaningless and it's often taken as as either a set of literal instructions or a historical document... of course it's neither.

At some indeterminate point I’ll probably take a subject and try to explain what I believe about it, at the time of writing, and why I think it's important to consider alternatives to the widely received churchy approach. I am probably wrong about everything, I am no scholar or theologian and I have not extensively studied the Greek... these will be personal musings. I'd love to hear your comments.

Juin Tech R1 brakes

Back end of last year I got a new bike on the cycle to work scheme. A local bike shop had last season’s Genesis Day One 20 available for a good price. It fitted the bill with disk brakes, mud guards fitted and the hub gears I wanted so I bought it.

Having lived with this bike for a while here are my musings. It’s pleasant to ride. Comfortable, stable at speed and generally mostly what I’d hoped for from a fast commuter bike.

There are downsides though, the paint finish isn’t good enough; it’s very easily scratched and seems really thin. A gentle altercation with a colleagues machine in the bike shed has left me with a surprising amount of bare metal showing, which will rust quickly left alone as the bike frame is steel. Of greater concern are suspect pin holes visible near some of the welds. I suspect this bike will rust badly, which makes me sad and more than a little disappointed.

Probably the biggest issue I have with the Genesis is the choice of components. Some are just not good enough. This isn’t a very expensive bike, but it isn’t cheap either and I’d expect things to work properly. The gear shifter is apparently known to cause problems, though mine has been fine so far. But the brakes are really the big issue.

The fitted promax dsk-717 is a cable operated mechanical disc brake and imho it’s terrible. In fact the brakes setup on my bike has been so bad I’d say it was dangerous. This is the first bike I’ve owned with disc brakes and I expected good things. I’ve previously had rim brakes and I have a beaten old carrera subway 8 with Shimano roller brakes. These should be out performed by the more modern disc brakes, but they weren’t,

The comparison with roller brakes was particularly interesting because these are not well regarded for their stopping power. I actually quite like them because whilst they may not be the most powerful brakes, they are consistent in all weathers, which is worth a lot on a commuter bike.

Anyway, I set off with my shiny new bike and was immediately disappointed by the brakes. I expected improvement with bedding in but it never came. Eventually I realised the rear was particularly bad and I wasn’t safe indicating right with traffic around. Something had to be done.

Adjustments checked I couldn’t find a way to lock up the rear wheel at any speed other than a crawl. Not good. So new pads, following a clean of the rotors with isopropyl alcohol in case of oil contamination. It was better but not good.

Because mechanical calipers only have one piston, the arrangement requires one pad to be as close as possible to the rotor, which means there’s always a small element of flexing the disc to squeeze it between the pads. Get this out of adjustment due to poor installation or worn pads and it dramatically affects the braking effort.

Despite clean rotors, new pads and numerous attempts at setting things up I couldn’t get satisfactory performance so I opted to replace them with the Juin Tech R1.

The R1 isn’t cheap at £151 delivered (they come as a pair), that’s a hefty price tag for some bike bits... for me at least, but brakes are something I don’t like to skimp on. There are Shimano hydraulics available for sensible money unless you have drop bars when they suddenly get very expensive. I also quite liked the idea of just replacing the calipers, rather than having to re-tape the bars of my not very old bike.

The Juin Tech R1 is a hybrid hydraulic brake. It’s cable operated, so works with my existing levers, but is internally hydraulic. The most obvious advantage is both pads move against the disc which means you avoid the regular fine adjustment of having a pad almost dragging all the time. There’s no wasted effort of flexing the rotor, just two brake pads neatly clamping the disc.

Because I’m fabulously lazy, and for a couple of other reasons I opted not to change the rotors, just giving them a clean once more. The mountings from the promax lined up nicely so actually installing the R1s was just a matter of swapping them over and took me no more than 15 minutes.

The difference is like night and day. Suddenly I get the disc brake experience I was expecting. The Juin Tech R1 has a nice feel with good modulation and significant stopping power when required. I’ve yet to test them thoroughly but I immediately felt far more confident for my 8 mile ride home.

I suspect I could probably have got decent performance from a different mechanical brake (surely they’re not all useless), but I like a gadget and had heard good things about these and similar hybrid designs. As a very simple swap out I’m delighted with the performance. My only frustration is Genesis fitted such terrible brakes to begin with.

Which reminds me, there’s one other disappointment with the Genesis, the CST tyres.... terrible. Got a puncture at both ends of the bike. So they were replaced with Schwalbe Marathon Plus for a drama free commute. Perhaps what this says is, as I suspected a while ago, I should have spent more money on the bike in the first plce. Still, making these gradual improvements is actually quite fun.

I had an exam today, for a professional certification. For this sort of event I like to overcompensate for my tendency to be late. Which is why I ended up in the bland waiting area of an office in Leeds, listening to some calming music.

An Ending (Ascent) by Brian Eno is a favourite of mine. It's a seemingly simple repetitive piece that's actually got more going on than first appears. It's been used as the soundtrack to many things, Jeremy Clarkson driving a v12 Aston Martin for one... but it's a wonderfully evocative piece of music. There's a sadness to it, but it also makes me think about moving forwards.... Maybe that's just the title.

As I listened an instagram notification popped up and after a few moments I was checking out the feed of someone who had liked one of my pictures; someone I didn't know who had one or two children and had posted some beautiful pictures of their child with their partner.

My childlessness hits me sometimes, but rarely with so much force. The combination of mild pre-exam stress, a less than brilliant night's sleep, the soundtrack, the beautiful pictures of a happy child with happy parents...

I tend to avoid spending time on Facebook, filled as it is with curated pictures of perfect family life. When something you want, others have, it's easy to project. I know full well social media is pretty much everyone's best side. I understand it isn't reality.

We all want to appear as if we have everything together, but we so rarely do and it was all I could manage not to be the middle aged weeping man in the corner of a room. Very awkward for those folk wandering through to get a drink from the water machine.

It's a sadness, an ache.... a grief for the life you thought you might have. It's unresolved and not something you talk about.

So my social media of choice is being snarky at idiots about politics on twitter. My wife complains it makes me grumpy, and she's right. Really though it's all a great distraction.

If you, reading this, have children and know people who don't... and you've never chatted to them about why not, a favour: please avoid moaning about family life. Please don't tell them how lucky they are not to be tied down by the commitment of children. Please don't assume they don't have children by choice.

The exam went well. I bet if we had kids revising would have been much harder.

Fitbit and their terrible customer service

I own a Fitbit Charge HR. I've had it for about two years. It's nearing the end of it's life, as the strap will soon fail, and I need to think about replacing it. The most obvious choice would be the newer model, or the slightly flashier smartwatch style offering. But at the moment I think I'll move on. Here's why.

If you make gadgets, as fitbit do, you have essentially two ways to create customer loyalty. You can either make the best damn thing you can and roll out improvements to it as software development allows. Or, you can wall it off, keep make it incompatible with everything else and try to lock the customer in.

You also have two ways to sell more gadgets to your existing customers. You can make the best damn thing you can and keep it updated, rolling out improvements as software development allows. Or, you can only add new features to the new trackers, even though they're software features based in the app and nothing to do with the tracker.

It's this last point that has really annoyed me.

To make sure your tracked distance is as accurate as possible it's necessary to calibrate your stride length in the fitbit. In the Charge HR this is a manual process. With the Charge HR2 there is a feature that uses the smartphone GPS to measure how far you've walked/run, work out your stride length and update the fitbit. This is purely an app feature and there's no reason not add this functionality to the earlier fitbit devices, yet fitbit have chosen not to do that.

Even more annoying is the Charge HR doesn't have the facility to track a workout using GPS. The newer model does but, again, this is purely a smartphone app feature and nothing to do with the fitbit itself.

As far as I'm concerned fitbit is withholding features from earlier customers in the hope we will upgrade.

That stinks. So no, I probably won't upgrade. I'll look elsewhere.

Pipo X10 touchscreen

If you had a Pipo X10 and wanted to reinstall windows, you'd find some of the drivers are not part of the standard Microsoft offering. You'd do a google search and find links to a driver bundle that pretty much makes everything work. Then begins tearing your hair out at the fact the touchscreen isn't working as well as it used to, and no amount of recalibrating in windows will get it quite right.

What you need is the correct touchsettings.gt file. This goes in c:\windows\inf

I had great difficulty finding this file for the Pipo X10, but finally managed to download the entire original software build from Pipo and so present you with a link to the one file that otherwise I couldn't find.

Pipo X10 touchsetting.gt

Link updated 17/10/2021