Friday, August 26, 2011

A half-dead laptop, a half-dead TV aerial and a new half-series of DW

A few days ago I thought my laptop was properly dead. I assume it must be this well-documented problem of the Nvidia 8xxx series display chip. But perhaps I shouldn't complain too much: one, it happens a few years later than it did to some other people, and two, I actually managed to savage the computer by going into safe mode and disabling the card and thereby switches to, presumably, the on-board display. So far it seems to be holding up - I'm typing from this thing right now - although not sure for how long. I suppose I can tolerate the lower resolution and the sluggish response.

Now I'm thinking maybe I should buy a desktop PC - so far I have always been using a large-screen laptop as a desktop replacement, but it seems to make sense to split the money instead on a small netbook/tablet and an average desktop. There are plenty of cheap PCs in this country, just that the spec is a bit... meh. Looks like they are months if not years behind the newest models. And 20% VAT...

And in addition to that, the TV is not receiving properly either since this digital switchover thing. I was told that the (communal) aerial is to blame, but the management company seems pretty determined not to do anything about it until at least after the second stage of the switchover, and probably long after that. So now over a hundred people who share that aerial are sitting through this bank holiday without BBC1, 2, 3 and 80. I can get a very poor analogue BBC1/2 signal from a different transmitter, but it too will be switched off in a couple of week's time. They can take a better time; Doctor Who is coming back, you know.

Speaking of which, this remaining half-series of DW seems even more insane than ever (a shape-shifting spaceship with metallic jellyfish and miniaturized people inside who are time police?! Egyptian pyramid labeled as USA Area 52 with a train running right inside it?!) Only if the episodes are half as good as the trailers I'll be very happy. They certainly know how to make trailers. And what trailer music they used too...

1 comment:

spyfung said...

Actually, soon after I wrote that the laptop became properly dead... so the holiday was spent on getting a new computer and setting it up...