Duranis

I have used http://appinventor.mit.edu/ to do a few basic bits for things I needed but honestly haven't delved into it deep enough to say if it is capable for creating a production quality piece of software. It is very easy to use though.

I had about 200 old laptop batteries at home (yes I'm an electronics hoarder....) which I removed the Li-Ion cells from (8 cells per battery). Made up a few power banks from these, 19,000mAh DIY power bank for about £4 of parts. If I wanted to I could make the cells removable so I could charge multiple packs and swap them out when needed. I could also probably run more cells for higher capacity but then the electronics becomes more tricky as they wouldn't have been balanced (as they came from different batteries). Completely off topic but it was a fun little project and gave me an excuse to say to the Mrs "I told you they would come in handy" .

I don't disagree with that, what I disagree with is that this website goes out of it's way to find problems which probably don't really exist. For example an amber mark against a University for: ‘An atmosphere of free and open discussion which is so essential to the life and work of the university is only possible if everyone involved behaves in a tolerant manner and avoids actions and language which are needlessly offensive and provocative.’ To me this reads as free and open discussion is welcome but don't be needlessly offensive about it and IMO isn't about limiting free speech but about directing it away from pointless name calling and more towards actual discussion and debate.

Pretty much gave up trying to play this over the weekend. When we could get logged in it was locking up when you actually tried to catch anything. Did try and convince the boy that we could still go for a nice walk but without the pokemon he wasn't having it I think increased spawn rate where lots of users have been is a thing. Turned it on when we went to Tesco's last night and despite being in the middle of nowhere with no stops nearby I caught about 10 pokemon in less than 15 mins in the carpark. Guessing that a lot of people sitting around waiting in the car with it going increased the spawn rate. On the seafront near where I live I have caught every type of pokemon so not sure the whole biome thing is such a big deal.

Is it just me or does she come across as bit "I'm too good for these lowly nerds to talk to, how dare they try and start a conversation". Fair enough I can understand a woman on her own getting freaked out by a bunch of strange guys approaching her but the whole tone of her article seems to be more that she is better than everyone else?

Yes, especially when its a really good one. A lot of times it seems to respawn so you can catch it again but sometimes it doesn't. Was my birthday today and had family round so couldn't go out. I missed going for a walk with my boys its been nice that last few days getting out the house with them and getting some exercise (so instead I ate lots of cake because its pretty much the same thing....).

I agree but at the same time some of these things that are "anti free speech" according to this website can be boiled down to the university having a policy of "don't be a ------, treat others with some respect" which I don't have so much of an issue with. Just because a university doesn't want people being opening racist/homophobic/complete A***hats doesn't mean they are really anti free speech. They just want an environment were people can learn without having to worry about ignorant, um, lets say people, causing them distress because of their skin colour/sexuality/pokemon go team choice. Yeah I'm sure there are Universities out there that have some odd restrictive policies in writing but even out of all of them how many are actually enforcing them? Probably not as bad a problem as this website is painting it to be honest.

I really don't see why it is the software developers responsibility to take the role of a parent? I also don't see exactly how the app is supposed to put any "safeguarding" features in. I'm a parent, my 11 year old has this app. He is only allowed to use it when me or his mum is out with him and the first time we went out with it we had a long discussion about why its a bad idea to wonder around with your full attention focused on your phone screen (traffic safety, stranger danger, etc, etc). On the flip side "children being brought into contact with adults they don't know" it is also teaching my kids that not every stranger is a perv/murderer/mugger and we have had some fun interactions with other people out playing the game. Some people might think that is putting my kids at risk but they know better than to get into conversations with strangers when me or mum are not about (doesn't really apply to my 19 year old anymore ) and they also know what is acceptable conversation (chatting about game, etc) and what isn't (asking where they live, personal information ,etc). IMO it is much better to teach them how to safely interact with people they don't know then it is to shield them away from the world until they are 18 and then throw them in at the deep end and expect them to know what to do. Its kind of sad that a lot of people are so intent on shielding children from potential harm and in doing so remove a lot of normal human interactions and life skills from their growing up. Most pokestops seem to be in pretty populated area's (at least locally) and if they are in a "rough" area then it is a parent s responsibility to make sure that their child is not going there anyway. I honestly think parents should take a lot more responsibility for their children. It annoys me when some parent gets upperty because little Timmy has played a game or watched something online that he shouldn't have. It's not the fault of the person or company providing the questionable content its the fault of the parent for not supervising/teaching their child properly. I don't buy into the whole "some parents don't understand technology and don't know how to set up filtering/logging". There are plenty of resources out there to learn about the risks and if a parent can afford to give a child a device with unsupervised access to whatever content they want then they can afford to consult with someone about securing it as well. Honesty a lot of it is just basic parenting anyway. You don't need to be an IT engineer to be able to explain to your kids that they shouldn't be giving out personal details, speak to strangers without supervision or take part in activities that are not appropriate. Anyway rant over Also while this is my opinion I in no way would tell another parent they are doing it wrong if they disagreed with me.

Yesterday afternoon some guys had a lures up next to our local library. It's a perfect spot as there are benches, free WiFi and and 4 pokestop's in range. Caught a ton of pokemon and got chatting to the guys that were already there. Lures definitely seem the way to go for catching a lot of stuff (there was a continuous stream of pokemon for the whole time the lure was working).

Found a couple of Jinx's last night and me and my youngest took over a gym (for about 20 minutes before someone else come and got it). Magnemite seems to be the most common one around here as i have caught 14 of them. Lots of the gyms around here already have 2 or 3 500+CP pokemon in them so hard to take them over at low level.

That might make sense. Walking along the seafront there where lots of stops but few pokemon and there are very few near where we live. However walking through town there was loads of them, sometimes as many as 3 on one screen at a time. Think that is when someone uses a lure on a stop. It increases the amount of pokemon that show up nearby for all players. I tried incense last night while at home (not walking about) which I thought would bring pokemon to me. It didn't seem to do anything at all.

Woohoo, took my youngest out on a 6k walk and we got a bunch of pokemon and hit a bunch of stops. Both level 5 now and if the batteries on both our phones hadn't died we would have stayed out longer. Normally have to bribe or threaten him to come walking with me but now he can't wait till tomorrow to go do it again. Great app for people with lazy kids We did notice that some areas had no pokemon at all and others there were 3 or 4 within a few hundred meters of each other. Anyone cracked how/where they spawn yet?

Thanks that's what I thought but as it didn't seem to do anything no matter what I pressed I didn't know if I had missed something. Got it installed on both my boy's phones now as well and they are actually looking forward to going out for a walk tonight!!! Normally I have to bribe them to come walking and even then they moan the whole way. Also funny story, the Squirtle I got at the start was caught from my other half's cleavage. I used to design GPS modules/software for mobile phones so have quite a few tools for messing with them. Using mock locations this game will still run and it puts you were you set the location to but it removes everything (gyms, stops, etc). I didn't try any other method as I didn't really want to cheat so much as just see if it worked at all (after 40 minutes of walking around staring at my phone and randomly crisscrossing roads to find pokemon ).

hmm maybe that's what was going wrong when I tried this at the weekend. Walked for about 40 minutes and never got any pokemon pop up despite it saying there were some "nearby". Also the stop's did nothing as well (click on them and the blue circle stayed blank forever). Do you have to click on the pokemon button on the bottom right and select one to search for?

Has anyone noticed a massive increase in spam after signing up for this? I used my personal address to do it which I don't normally use for anything and gets next to no spam. Since then I get 2 or 3 spam emails a day for credit cards/PPI claims.

Jamie is one of my favorite characters, the writing for his part is brilliant and the actor is one of the best in the show (imo). The character is a complete piece of trash and a terrible human being but he has such charm and does just enough "nice" things to make it so you can't help but like him.

That is where I have a problem with it though. You either give driving your full attention or you might as well not bother. If it takes you a second or 2 to notice there is an issue then another second or 2 to debate with yourself if the car is going to deal with it or not then it is probably already too late to do something about it. I'm 100% behind useful driving aids, for example a system that will brake for you if it detects you are about to drive into the back of something or warns you if you are starting to lane drift but anything that is labeled as "autonomous" or "self driving" just gives people an excuse to not pay enough attention and gets in the way when things go wrong and people have to take over. As mentioned what happens when cheap competing systems come in or what happens when the cars get to 10-15 years old and the sensors start failing (or sooner if they are not maintained properly). It either needs to be able to do the job 100%* or it needs to in no way be labeled as "self driving" or "autonomous". I don't see how that will ever be possible while manufacturers are trying to do it using only car mounted (relatively cheap) sensors. *While there are humans involved nothing will be 100% perfect but it needs to not get confused between a truck and the sky....

You could say that if it was road legal it should be safe and you should be able to trust it with your life. If you have to pay as much attention as when you are driving normally then what is the point in the first place? If a car is self driving then it should be able to 100% deal with any situation by itself. IMO is not possible to do this when you are basically using cameras as a guidance system on roads were people are still driving manually and acting unpredictably. Even with someone "paying attention" things happen so fast that I doubt the reaction time of most people would be quick enough. Especially when they are trusting the car to know what its doing "I don't need to break the car will stop in time...". The driver might have no indication that the car doesn't in fact see the big lorry stopped in front of it and that extra moment of hesitation when the driver is thinking the car will still do what is is supposed to is a massive problem. No system is 100% fool proof and I'm sure self driving cars are still a lot safer than a lot of drivers out there but until everyone is using them and there is a lot more technological infrastructure to support them (road embed sensors, "hive" comm's between cars, etc) it just seems like a terrible idea and this kind of thing will happen more often.

Took my 11 year old and his cousin to watch the new Ice Age film at the cinema on Sunday. Wasn't quite as bad as I was expecting it to be and felt fairly short (the Neil Degrasse Tyson bit made me laugh). I wanted to take them to watch independence day but the Mrs veto'ed it

They are supposed to be pretty good, if you remove the steam OS and chuck windows on. The form factor is nice but you are paying a premium for it. I was looking at one of these for my Mrs as she likes a lot of PC games but doesn't like sitting in front of the PC to play them. I will probably just build a cheap gaming rig in to one of the draws of the bookcase that has all the consoles on it. Much cheaper and easier to upgrade when needed.

I think he was attacking one and then grabbed the other one who was then shot with an arrow and killed at the same time. S P O I L E R S P A C E Last episode was amazing. After the battle in the previous episode I wasn't expecting too much but so far that last episode has been my favorite. My predictions for the final 2 season. Next season: Daenerys finally comes to claim the throne and there are massive navel and city battles, wildfire is used and Daenerys is probably hit by it and is unhurt just to prove how badass she is. Euron sides with Cisei after Daenerys rejects him and he destroys a good chunk of Daenerys's forces at sea. Cirsei will become more and more unstable. During the battle between her and Daenerys, Cirsei goes over the line and Jamie kills her and then kills himself. Bran, Jon, Sansa and Arya are reunited. Arya and Millisandra also run into each other again, possibly at the same time as meeting the hound and brotherhood without banners again. Daenerys and Jon join forces, Jon gets a dragon leaving one left which I hope goes to Tyrian. There will be a battle for the wall which the white walkers will destroy using the horn of whatever it was called. That will be the end of season 7. Last season: Ice Dragons??? There will be some big reveal that gives the white walkers a way to counter the threat of the dragons. Otherwise it will just be a case of the dragons flying around toasting the entire white walker army. The last season will be all about the whitewalkers destroying everyone while the humans try to regroup and hold them back. Sam will save the day with something he finds (maybe a way to construct a second wall?) he does something awesome with the sword he took from his father. At least 1 dragon and their rider will die, probably Tyrians while they are doing something brave. Very last scene Arya, Jon, Daenerys (and Tyrian if he is still alive) are all celebrating when suddenly the all get eaten by the dragons, the dragons then go berserk and glass the whole continent because this is game of thrones and nobody survives

What about some of the bone conducting ones? I haven't tried them myself but apparently they are pretty good in terms of sound quality and they also don't sit on/in your ears so are more comfy. The ones I have looked at don't look overly large either, unlike a lot of "over ear" headphones. https://www.amazon.com/Aftershokz-AS321-Sportz-Headphones-Microphone/dp/B009G89ZDU/ref=pd_sim_107_2?ie=UTF8&dpID=31aqKOPba6L&dpSrc=sims&preST=_AC_UL160_SR160%2C160_&psc=1&refRID=DK502WSV6A88BQ8QECY9 The headphones I got with my S6 are some of the best ones I have used to far, they don't sit too far in your ear and are comfortable for long periods. Only downside is they don't sit well when doing exercise (but most earphones are the same).

Genius electronics engineer, but jeez he sucks at Tetris I love things like this, the amount of passion people can put into things for no real reason other then their own love of it.

Wow, 51% of my games are unplayed. I don't even want to go into how much money they are apparently worth (though I paid nowhere near that as they are mostly in bundles/sales). Not sure what counts as exceptional value but the ones below have caught my eye (most are over 70% off), I already own a lot of them so recommending from my own experience. Shadow of mordor is 75% off and one I will probably pick up as I never did get it first time around. Save 75% on Middle-earth: Shadow of Mordor Game of the Year Edition on Steam Civ V is £5 or £8 including all the DLC. Space Engineers is just over £5 and I would highly recommend if you like any kind of sandbox building game. Save 70% on Space Engineers on Steam Deus Ex human revolution for just over £3, another one I never got round to getting when it came out and apparently a great game. There is a whole collection of Deus ex games for about £6 Steam Search Faster than light. Brilliant game and only a couple of quid: Steam Search Dont Starve for just under £3 Save 75% on Don't Starve on Steam How to Survive 2 for £3.20. Me and the Mrs played the first one and it was a pretty fun game to co-op on. Farming simulator 15 for £10 - No I'm not joking it is a surprising fun and relaxing game and if you add in things like course play to automated stuff it becomes really satisfying to see a massive farm running with tractors going all over the place. Save 50% on Farming Simulator 15 on Steam To the Moon - the best £1.39 you will ever spend on a game. It is a story driven game (gameplay is pretty basic) and the story is honestly wonderful. Buy it and put aside a few hours to play through it. Save 80% on To the Moon on Steam Left for dead 2 - £3. If you somehow have never played this it is an incredibly fun game and is even better when you play multiplayer with some mates. Save 80% on Left 4 Dead 2 on Steam Torchlight II - £3. I have never played this but apparently a really great game. Save 80% on Torchlight II on Steam Edit: Just seen this FEAR for £1.74. I don't know how well it has aged but I played this on release and it was a very good horror/FPS game. http://store.steampowered.com/agecheck/app/21090/?utm_source=SteamDB&utm_medium=SteamDB&utm_campaign=SteamDB+App+Page Also System Shock 2 £1.74 - If some how you have never played this game you need to go and do so now. Brilliant story, great creepy atmosphere, brilliant gameplay with good RPG elements. i recently replayed it and while the graphics haven't aged well the gameplay is still top notch. http://store.steampowered.com/app/238210/?utm_source=SteamDB&utm_medium=SteamDB&utm_campaign=SteamDB%20App%20Page

Glad this thread popped up. Coming up with a better solution to this problem has been sitting on my to do list for a little while but just wasn't a priority. Setting this up here now