15 minutes of terror, or how the UK has changed in four years

By Robert Ellison.

Due mainly to Coronavirus I haven't been back to the UK in four years. This time I have three profound changes to report.

The first is that almost every single tourist attraction is selling tickets in 15 minute increments. I'm sure this is pandemic related and maybe it will eventually go away. I'm also used to buying in advance to save some money (sound marketing so I don't get distracted and do something else). I'm also used to everything being part of a network of that place and 100 other places you're not going to visit, so you're constantly being seduced by an English Heritage membership but the next place you go will be British Legacy and then Angligan Birthright and so on until you have no more money.

The problem with 15 minutes is that it's a hard window to hit and so you end up arriving an hour early and then being bored waiting for your slot. And then if you have the temerity to try and do two things in one day, when do you book the next one for? You're either not doing justice to the first one or you're early again and bored waiting twice in one day. And it's not like your 15 minute window isn't shared with 1,000,000 other people who are coughing and not wearing a mask. This made everything 10% less pleasant.

Second up, and maybe also a pandemic thing, all payments are now contactless. Buskers have contactless terminals. Random statues do. Ice cream vans invite you to tap and pay and hope it's configured for £2 and not £2000. Usually one of the first things I need to do in the UK is hunt down a cash machine. This trip I think I only needed cash once. I love it.

Finally, people can't drive any more. Actually my theory is that they never could but a simple change has revealed something profound about motorway (freeway) behavior. I've always had a smug sense that British people drive better than Americans because when working properly a British motorway is a ballet of people overtaking and then moving over whereas an American Freeway is usually people picking a random lane and speed and sticking with it. However, motorways are usually 3 lanes and freeways usually somewhere between 4 and 500. Something magical happens between 3 and 4. With 3 lanes you're always going to have someone overtaking a truck, and then someone else overtaking that truck overtaker and the whole system is going to break down without some consideration. With 4 lanes this no longer holds true and people stop caring about each other. The UK has now widely installed 4 lane 'smart' motorways and chaos has ensued. They should go back to 3 lanes and the US should follow suit.

In case you have never encountered a smart motorway it's a regular one with the shoulder/breakdown lane converted into a traffic lane and a series of signs that say 'slow down', 'seriously slow down something has happened', 'you're going to die a horrible death if you ignore this' and then finally 'never mind, sorry'. What you actually need is 3 lanes, some attention to other people and Google Maps to show you when and where there is an actual problem with traffic.

This is a longer than usual installment of my culture shock on occasionally visiting the UK after having lived in San Francisco for over twenty years. See sweeteners and the Marks & Spencer crisis for more.

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Control LIFX WiFi light bulbs from Google Apps Script

By Robert Ellison.

LIFX

Here is a simple apps script to control LIFX WiFi light bulbs. It turns on the bulbs in the morning until a little after sunrise and then again in the evening before sunset until a configurable time. As a bonus it will also rotate between some seasonal colors in the evening on several holidays.

To get this up and running you need a LIFX access token (from here) and a selector. If you have a group of lights called bob this would be group:bob. It could also be a single bulb ID like id:d3b2f2d97452 (more details here). There are some other settings you probably want to change: Latitude and Longitude (if you don't live in San Francisco for some reason), OnHour and OffHour for the time to switch on before sunrise and off after sunset, DaytimeOffsetMins is the minutes to wait after sunrise before switching off and before sunset for switching on, and then finally default color, brightness and fade time.

In Google Drive create a new apps script project and copy in the following code:

Configure the settings at the top in the code editor. Switch to settings (cog at the bottom of the right hand menu) and make sure the script time zone is correct for your location. Back in the code editor run the function nightSchedule() to check that everything is working as expected. This will print the calculated times and then switch the light on or off. Once you're happy with this, go to the Triggers page (clock icon) and set nightSchedule() to run as often as you like (I use every minute).

The current design of the script will update the bulb(s) every time you run it (so if you manually toggle on during the day the script will turn the light off the next time it runs). It would be possible to store the current state in script settings if you want it to behave differently. You could also add or remove holidays and colors to use to celebrate them. If you have other ideas or enhancements please leave a comment below.

Thanks to LIFX for a well documented and easy to use API. Also to sunrise-sunset.org for making a free API that provides sunrise and sunset times for any location.

For many years I had a similar setup using a Philips Hue and IFTTT. Philips pulled support for their proprietary hub and I wasn't about to buy a new one and the IFTTT triggers didn't provide a lot of control over the exact time to switch a bulb on or off. LIFX plus apps script is a much better solution. And it's at least half way towards the build-it-myself smart home philosophy I swore to a couple of years ago.

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More Google Apps Script Projects

(All Etc Posts)

(Published to the Fediverse as: Control LIFX WiFi light bulbs from Google Apps Script #software #appsscript #drive #philips How to use Google Apps Script to control LIFX WiFi light bulbs and switch lighting on in the morning and evening around sunrise and sunset (plus special color programs for holidays). )

software, apps script, drive, philips

Windows 11 Bluetooth Usability Crime Report

By Robert Ellison.

The new settings interface is beautiful but untouched by any thought for how you might use it.

Like many people I have some bluetooth headphones that have an affinity for the last device they were connected to. Sometimes my laptop and sometimes my phone. I have a sneaking suspicion that I'm not unique in needing to switch the connection when needed.

On Android this involves a swipe, a long press and a short press. Not my favorite chore but not the end of the word.

With Windows 11 it's an adventure. I need to click the little up arrow to expand my collection of notification icons (yes, I could change that, but even that has got more tedious) and then double click the bluetooth icon. And then there is my device, with a pretty little icon and the last known (almost certainly wrong) battery level. Other than a random historical battery level there doesn't seem to be much to do. It turns out that you can click the tiny three dots at the far right of the device card and then finally there is a context menu that allows you to connect. The context menu has two items. This panel could have been 5% less attractive and 500% more usable with a couple of buttons. Also, would it be possible maybe to have this on the context menu for the taskbar icon?

Random googling suggests this might get better...

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HBR on the Wrong Patent Reform

By Robert Ellison.

Patent Reform

The Harvard Business Review has a curious article this week by Paul R. Michel: Big Tech Has a Patent Violation Problem. The thrust of it is that we should not reform patent law to make it easier to invalidate patents because:

"If they succeed in weakening America’s intellectual property system, it could be devastating for thousands of small, innovative startups — with disastrous consequences for the economy as a whole."

Sounds bad, and attacking big tech is a great way to make you look like a populist. But as a small, innovative startup founder and worker I know that this is exactly the wrong way round. Google etc can easily afford to fend off patent litigation and deal with the consequences when a lawsuit occasionally breaks the wrong way. A fine after all is just a price. It's the startups that can't afford to fight off an infringement lawsuit, or pay to file a patent for every other line of code on the off chance that it could become a weapon one day.

So who is Paul R. Michel? HBR says:

"Paul R. Michel (Ret.) served on the United States Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit from 1988 to his retirement in 2010, and as its chief judge from 2004 to 2010."

But fails to disclose that he's currently listed as a member of the Intellectual Property Owners Education Foundation and:

"Judge Michel also consults for law firms and their clients in intellectual property litigations, conducting moot courts, mock trials, case evaluations, editing briefs, advising on strategy and providing mediation and arbitration services."

Which doesn't mean that he shouldn't express his opinion in HBR but does color that opinion a little in my view. If nothing else the current system is an all you can eat buffet for IP lawyers.

HBR: please feel free to run this as a counter-argument, the best way to fix the patent system is to stop examining them altogether as I proposed nearly twelve years ago.

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Book reviews for July 2022

By Robert Ellison.

Eyes of the Void (The Final Architecture #2) by Adrian Tchaikovsky

2/5

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Links for July 2022

By Robert Ellison. Updated on Friday, July 29, 2022.

Don’t Let Layoffs Undermine Your DEI Efforts

I find it very hard to take a tweet that contains 'Cameo Fameo' seriously as the only example of approaching layoffs with empathy.

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The Guardian profiles the "Tyre Extinguishers" – an international group that deflates tires of SUVs parked on streets

Move to West Virginia and evict Joe Manchin maybe?

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One O'clock Gun

By Robert Ellison.

Super slow motion video of the One O'clock Gun firing at Edinburgh Castle. This is a 105mm field gun fired startlingly over Edinburgh every day except Sundays, Good Friday and Christmas Day.

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Sunset #10

By Robert Ellison.

Sunset from Harlech Beach in Wales, UK. A time lapse video.

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Snowdonia Milky Way Time Lapse

By Robert Ellison.

Completing a Llanbedr trilogy, a 4k timelapse of the Milky Way near Snowdonia National Park in Wales.

Snowdonia has a great reputation for dark skies. Unfortunately I'm only here around a full (super!) moon and in July when it's only dark for about 2 minutes. Given all that, some pretty impressive views after the moon sets. Shot over three nights on an A7C with the 20mm 1.8 G. Post processed in LRTimelapse and Lightroom.

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