Alkaline Vs NiMH Battery Comparison...

  One of my first blog posts here, nearly 10 years ago now, questioned the veracity of Alkaline battery manufacturer's claims.  I suggested at the time that us rustics were being fed a line of baloney regarding both Alkaline battery capacities & their oft-touted performance under heavy loads.  I also hinted back then that I'd test the claims, 'when time allowed'.  Well, here it is, Testing...

  First a note about my setup.  Above are the 3 electronic-loads that I have at my disposal. The 'green' one, my first purchase, is capable of providing 60W of loading, whereas the other 2 'black' ZKE loads manage only 30W.  This disadvantage is offset by the fact that the green load's minimum voltage/current settings are 1V/200mA, whereas the ZKE loads are 0.1V/50mA - therefore much more useful for lower voltage/current testing.  Unfortunately to their detriment,  the ZKE load's firmware sucks!  While the green load, during test, will cycle the display continuously, at 1 second intervals, between instantaneous, voltage, Amp-hours and Watt-hours, the ZKE loads must be switched manually to see what's going on - a real handicap when batteries are electrically connected via neo-magnets as you see here, as one's curiosity, followed by the slightest nudge to the test apparatus, can result in an intermittent disconnection, and a ruined test.  Maddening, when you're say, 30+ hours into a battery test - as happened with me here, as well as many times in the past!  Another huge plus for the green load is that when a test completes successfully, the results will be saved to non-volatile memory, which will then survive even complete power failure, and will be restored on power-up and can be stepped through manually by the user.

  Hardware-wise, the ZKE loads are also sub-standard.  While both load-types are fan-cooled, only the green tester uses variable fan-speed cooling, dependent on the applied load - unbelievably, the ZKE load's fan will ramp up to full speed and remain there, irrespective of the load being provided, for the entirety of the test.  In fact, when I got the first ZKE load, I presumed it was faulty because of this.  What was much more worrying however, was that even during a 30W test, the fan speed would vary erratically, going from full speed to on occasion, stopping entirely!  Thinking that this was down to a firmware bug, I sent a video (link here) of this behaviour to the Seller (and manufacturer) of the electronic load, and got another one sent to me, gratis - the only reason I have 2 of them!  I was not impressed on powering up the replacement to discover that the 'full-speed always' thing was the rule, not the exception!  The final insult was delivered not more than 200 hours later (test-wise), when the fan on the replacement load also failed!  Evidentially, the manufacturer opted for the cheapest fans possible, which employ dirt-cheap 'sleeve bearings', and from what I've read, are a complete no-no for fans that need to be mounted horizontally.   What's particularly perplexing is that as I type this, the exact same ZKE load is for sale on Aliexpress for between $40-$50 - that's literally twice what I paid for my one, 4-5 years ago.  Whereas the identical green load is also available on Aliexpress right now, but for between $18-$20 - exactly what I paid for it 5-6 years ago!  Makes no sense.  But (as always) I digress...

Batteries in play.

Alkaline Aldi Activ Energy (AA, AAA) - all well-within their expiry dates.

Nickel Metal Hydride battery: Panasonic Eneloop Pro (AA)

Generic 'Tronic' NIMH Aldi Rechargable (AAA)

  First off, I did an apples-to-apples comparison between the loads in order to convince myself that the (suspect) ZKE load's test-results were accurate (see pic).  I checked both load-types using the same Aldi Tronic AAA NiMH battery, and employing the same voltage cut-off/current settings.  In practice, I did a lot more than this, comparing both Eneloop & Eneloop Pro AA batteries, but the AA/AAA results will suffice here.  The Cut-off voltage used was the 'non-standard' (for NiMH) 1.0V and Load-currents of both 200mA & 500mA gave results that didn't vary appreciably between electronic loads.  These tests were enough for me to warrant proceeding, sacrificing a few Alkalines in the interest of curiosity, if not science.

  Given the relatively huge 200mA 'lowest' current that can be set with the green load, coupled with its 'above-standard' test-complete voltage of 1V, I decided to confine all my testing to the ZKE load.

 

  My first test of an Alkaline AA @ 200mA with a cut-off voltage of 0.9v resulted in a tested capacity of just over 2000mAh, which I found disappointing, and reckoned the poor result was down to what I considered the large (for Alkalines) current draw.  This test also highlighted a[nother?] firmware bug in the ZKE - notice above how the mAh and mWh readings for the Alkaline AA test are identical, though try as I might, I have been unable to reproduce the problem!  Anyway, to test my Current hypothesis, a second alkaline AA was tested, this time at a much higher 500mA current draw.  Confirmation however wasn't forthcoming, as the battery performed surprisingly well, indicative perhaps that alkalines aren't as awful under load as I had presumed.  Unsurprisingly, it delivered marginally less than battery 1's 2000mAh.  I then decided to test a third at the minimum-allowable 50mA current-draw, a decision that proved to be bone-headed, as this quadrupled the test-time to about 40 hours.  Three-quarters of the way through, I 'nudged' my test setup while checking the current values, resulting in one prematurely terminated test.  Grrrr, infuriating.

Finally, some Aldi/Lidl AAA battery testing.

 As can be seen below, the old, well-used NiMH battery outperformed the new, unused Alkaline by an appreciable margin, itself a surprise, given my past experience with 'Tronic' batteries - basically, they've never provided their claimed capacities, even when new (1000mAh in this instance), generally deteriorating rapidly over time, before failing entirely.

 So, what have I learned from this?  First off, the capacities of 'one-shot' alkaline batteries do not seem to appreciably exceed that of 'quality' NiMH batteries.  In fact, they may not even approach Premier NiMH battery capacities - my Eneloop Pro batteries, ordered through Aliexpress, to me, have always seemed 'suspect' - they have NEVER been seen to provide their stated Minimum capacities, namely 2500mAh, all 4 instead managing just marginally over 2000mAh.  Whereas my Standard Eneloop batteries, ordered through Amazon, performed to specification from the get-go, delivering (when new) the advertised minimum capacity of 1900mAh.  But I've whined on about this in an earlier post, so 'nuff said!

 Before this, I figured alkaline's 'edge' must be in their higher 'nominal' voltage - 1.5v versus NiMH's 1.2v.  Surely, I thought, this 20% higher voltage would deliver 20% higher capacities, when measured in mWh.  Not the case as far as I can see from the testing that I've done.  In fact, this higher-voltage 'advantage' would seem to me an artificial one, imposed on us by the battery & electronics manufacturers.  A good example of electronic goods that almost demand alkalines are cheap LED torches.  With LED's fixed voltage-drop, NiMH batteries manage to provide only a fraction of 'useful light' time that their alkaline compatriots provide - despite still retaining much of their initial charge 'when the lights go out!".

 Summing up.  I'm more convinced than ever that alkaline batteries are a rip-off, and in no way represent value for money.  This is particularly evident when it comes to powering heavy loads - something that manufacturers often cite as being their forte, particularly around Christmas time.  Even were we to agree that one alkaline costs perhaps a fifth that of its NiMH compatriot, itself unlikely, their 'one-shot' nature would still see NiMH outlast them by at least 100 times.  In fact, the only true advantage alkalines appear to have over NiMH batteries is 'shelf-life', ie. the ability to retain charge, unused, over extended periods of time.  But even this advantage has seen continuous erosion as 'quality' batteries like Panasonic's Eneloop continue to improve - I think the newest generation retain more than 90% of their charge after a year.  Add to that, appliances like smoke-detectors, where alkalines were always the de-facto choice, must be seeing a decline in their use.  For example, I've got a few powered by both alkaline and NiMH 9v batteries, Soshines in the latter case.  The NiMH batteries seem to last just as long as the alkalines - so why continue to waste money in what to me seems to be a defunct technology?  One thing's certain, if we continue to buy them, the manufacturers will continue to churn them out.

Anker Soundcore Life Q30 Headphones...

  I bought these 'over-ear' headphones 9-10 months ago on Aliexpress, and they weren't cheap, costing $86 back then - right now they're selling for $98.  Up until a few days ago, I was an Anker fan-boy.  They performed admirably, being comfortable to wear, had a long battery life, great sound and effective noise cancelling.  Basically, as advertised - what wasn't there to like! - and my positive review on Aliexpress reflected this.

  However, a few days ago, I discovered a design flaw that has left me feeling rather peevish.  Two plastic 'clips', used to help couple the headband to the earpieces, have cracked, with chunks after falling off & now lost (see pics).  Having treated these headphones with 'kid-gloves' ever since I got them, I'm certain that it's not down to physical abuse.  The fact that the clips on both sides have cracks & pieces missing, is all the proof I need to show that it's a design issue.  Being a  mere 6mm, they can be seen to visibly flex whenever the earpieces are separated when being placed on head.  They are in no way strong enough to endure this for long -  I guarantee that anyone buying these, will experience the same problem in short order.

  I tried updating my Aliexpress review, only to discover that it's no longer there!  I've raised this point already in another post, the fact that Aliexpress Sellers (apparently) can just pull & resubmit their advert, wiping all customer reviews in the process.  Not only does this render the review process from the Buyer's perspective, pointless, it also forms a 'rinse & repeat' haven for Sellers of shoddy goods - place ad & sell until such time as negative reviews effect your profits, then pull ad, resubmit and repeat!  Shouldn't be allowed.  In contrast, Amazon purchases, a decade old, can still be edited by the Buyer.

  The only upside here is that I noticed the problem before either of the clips snapped off completely, so had the opportunity to apply a fix - basically, just a couple of miniature black cable-ties, tightened and secured with B7000 adhesive (see pic).  Not too hideous in appearance, with the added advantage that they 'point the way' when matching ear-to-earpiece.

  Incidentally, the B7000 is another recent Aliexpress purchase, that is not living up to the advertising.  It's not awful - turns out it's basically just a watery Evostick/Bostick-type glue, with a rather clever applicator, so easy to apply accurately.

  By the way, the Q30's claimed 60hrs(ANC Off) / 40hrs(ANC On) usage between charges is horseshit.  True, it lasts quite a bit, but you'd never see 60 hours.  It turns out that the ANC, while effective, is not spectacular, so a bit of a gimmick as far as I'm concerned.  As a result, I almost never have ANC (Active Noise Cancelling) switched on.  Same for  'Transparent' mode, which gives a bit of a boost to the external audio, so would impact the run-time as well.  Seeing as I'm posting this, I'll probably do a run-time test on the headphones and post my results here before long.  An easy claim to test would be Anker's 4hrs from a 5min charge.  Stay tuned.

Update.

 Looks like I'll be eating crow again.  Runtime tests complete and I must admit, I'm gob-smacked.  As a preliminary, while listening to music, audio-books, etc. I ran the Anker headphones until they powered off, then waited 24hrs, and did the same again - just to make sure that its battery had no significant charge remaining.

 First test was the easy one - Determine the listening time possible from a 5min charge.  Seeing as the Ankers don't come with a charger, the one I used had dual 2.1A USB outputs, which is a far greater charging current than the Ankers require (measured Max Current was 0.61A).   Being finicky, I regulated the charge-time precisely, using an electronic switch to switch the charger on/off - resulting in a charging period that was accurate to 1sec.

5min charge: ran for 3hrs 57 minutes.

 Wow, just 3min off the claimed 4hr listening time - I was impressed!  But it got even better;

Listening timed-sessions from fully-charged.

Session 1; 5hrs.
Session 2; 5hrs.
Session 3; 3hrs 10min.
Session 4; 5hrs 30min.
Session 5; 8hrs.
Session 6; 9hrs.
Session 7; 6hrs.
Session 8; 2hrs.
Session 9; 6hrs.
Session 10; 6hrs.
Session 11; 4hrs.
Session 12; 3hrs 30min.
Session 13; 5hrs.
Session 14; 5hrs.
Session 15; 4hrs.

Total time: 77hrs 10min.

 That I certainly did not expect, that's one extraordinary amount of listening-time between charges!!!

 Edit. 

 A quick update to highlight a MAJOR problem with the Anker headphones.  As can be seen from the photos below, the padding on both ear-pieces have split along the join-seams, exposing the foam inside.  These are critical, non-replaceable items.  Although I only have pics of the latest padding failure, its companion had split in a similar manner, but thanks to 'Super Glue', I caught it early, and it is at least usable again.  This time round, the split was more extensive, and after the photo-shoot below, was compounded when I tried repairing the damage - it split a full 180 degrees!  As a result, the final 'repair' is a bit of a mess, lots of glue evident, so it will probably be uncomfortable to wear.

 As it happens, identical 'splitting' occurred with the MPow headphones, though being smaller, proved infinitely easier to glue.

 So riddle me this, what good are headphones that are comfortable to wear, with superb battery life, have excellent sound & user options - but have cheap, irreplaceable ear-pads that WILL fail in a relatively short amount of time?

 Yep, not feeling so good about this purchase now.  Thank God for Super Glue though.  Without it, repairing this type of damage would be nigh impossible.

An Post (Ireland's Postal Service) - is the pits...

 More venting I'm afraid, this time, it's regarding our much maligned postal carrier, An Post - 'The Post' in Gaelic, to the uninitiated!

 First, the backdrop.   Way back in January 2021, I ordered an Atari ST USB transfer interface from a guy in the Czech Republic, namely, the PARCP-USB adapter.  A couple of months passed, no package, but as the 'sc@mdemic' was in full swing, I figured this was the reason, so patiently waited some more.  Alas, in vain.

 No biggie, I figured, the package had a Tracking number after all.  And tracked it was, at least on the Czech side, the carrier having acknowledged receipt & dispatch of my order to the Emerald Isle.  But no further - it never found its way onto An Post's tracking system.

 I contacted the Seller, who promptly got onto the Czech postal carrier, and relayed back to me that said carrier would contact An Post, who in turn would contact me.  More months passed, but eventually I did get a letter via snail-mail from An Post requesting a signed & returned form to them, acknowledging the non-receipt of the Czech package.  This I did.

 Fast forward another 9 months to today, a full 15 months since the order had been placed.  With no further follow-up from An Post, I attempted to submit a Lost Package request via their web-site, only to discover that either their system hasn't been updated since the 80's, or that they are deliberately trying to limit the number of successful Lost Package submissions to a minimum.  The problem? - An Post doesn't appear to realise that most online ordering these days doesn't require the buyer to submit, or even have knowledge of the Sellers address & telephone number - BUT INSISTS THAT THESE BE PROVIDED IN ORDER TO PROCEED!!!  This is insanity.  Had I ordered from Ebay, Aliexpress or Amazon, would I be expected to source name & address details for any of these behemoths?!?!?  Or in my case, from a small commercial Seller.

 So, Unable to proceed any further on that front, as a last resort I turned to An Post's online-help - and what a farce that turned out to be.  After trying to explain all of the above 'live', and in as concise a manner as 'live-help' will allow, I was told flatly that there was no trace of my order "on their system", and that the Seller probably hadn't even sent it! Exasperated, despite having told (typed) to bubble-head "Paulina" that it was the Czech Carrier that had contacted An Post (not me) about the missing package, and that An Post had then sent me the letter, requiring acknowledgement of non-receipt of package!!! - indication enough I thought, that the Seller had indeed posted my order, and that the Czech carrier had indeed passed it onto An Post - but all of this was lost on poor "Paulina".  If it wasn't on "their system" I was told again, then it 'obviously' hadn't been sent in the first place!  I started to type that if it was on their system, it wouldn't have been lost and I wouldn't be here trying to explain the obvious to her - when in mid-sentence, I'd had enough, and typed "...never mind, fuck off!" and disconnected!  But not before their automated 'cuss-word detection spat back that "abuse" would not be tolerated and that the infringement had "been noted".  This at least gave me a laugh.

 An Post is clearly an institution more worried about its bottom-line, than about helping its customers.  Any company whose sole response is to deny all responsibility for a missing package, by citing "well, it's not on our system, so we can't have received it.", despite the loss having been initially brought to their attention by a fellow postal-carrier, deserves to fail.  I've ended up losing €50, but I can easily envisage An Post losing quite a bit more, and deservedly so.  I just hope it won't be at the tax-payers expense.

Edit.

 I forgot to include what triggered my potty-mouth, the straw that turned exasperation into infuriation.  'Paulina' had the gal to insist, more than once, that it was the Seller, not the Buyer (me!) that should be requesting this information from her, and that I should instead be communicating with him - which I took as short-hand for, "Just go away & stop bothering me!"  But if this is 'company policy', and not just bubble-head having a blonde-moment, then it is indeed sad.

 Final Edit.

 I took one last stab at this and filed a complaint with An Post.

To whom it may concern.

An Post lost a package (value €50) containing an item at I ordered from the Czech Republic, order placed on 23/01/2021.  This was while the COVID hysteria was in full swing, and I presumed the parcel had merely been delayed - but after 6 months, it still hadn't arrived. (Seller's name: Petr Stehlík <pstehlik@sophics.cz>)

I know An Post lost it because the Seller, on hearing that I still had not received the item, contacted the Czech Postal Service, who informed him that they had handed it off to An Post - the package's online-tracking, available to me at the time,  seemed to confirm as much.

The Czech Postal Service also told the Seller that they would contact An Post, who would in turn, contact me about this.

This An Post eventually did (after about 6 months) in the form of a letter asking me to return a 'parcel-not-received'  form to them, confirming that I had not received the package in question.  This I promptly did.

Then nothing.  An Post never followed up on this.

As a last resort, I recently tried to resolve this issue via An Post's online-chat service, which proved to be a fiasco.  I tried explaining all of the above to the person I communicated with, but they had either a limited attention-span, or more likely, were merely working from a prepared script designed to fob people off.  Nothing was achieved but the raising of my blood pressure. 

Question.
How can An Post, simply shirk off any responsibility for a package that gets lost, when online-tracking at the time confirmed what the Czech Postal Service had asserted - namely, that they had successfully handed it over to An Post?  Remember, it was An Post that contacted me about this initially, not my contacting them, and after they had been contacted by the Czech Postal Service.  This in itself is a clear indication that the parcel went missing after it had been handed over to An Post.  The online-help(!) person I spoke to had the gal to state, several times, that if it wasn't 'on the system', then it COULDN'T have been received - so, An Post's omnipotent now...  She went on to state that neither was there a record of the form of non-receipt that I had returned to An Post, "on the system".  If that truly is the case, then that's two letters, not just the Czech parcel, that An Post has managed to 'lose', at least in the shirking responsibility sense.

There is no doubt in my mind that the parcel was lost by An Post.  The fact that An Post contacted me, seeking confirmation that I had not received it, is evidence of such.  But what was the point in having me return a non-receipt form, if policy is just to ignore it?

Respectfully,

xxxx

 Unlike their follow-up on my missing parcel, their almost instant response was succinct and to the point.

Good evening xxxx, 

 

Any package or item that goes missing or is failed to deliver has to be investigated by the sender of the item through the original postal service. 

 

The letter sent to you to confirm non receipt is done to be sent back to the original postal service in the Czech Republic. We would have no further dealing with yourself and would only engage with the postal service in the Czech Republic who would engage with the sender of the item. It is then the sender of the items job to engage with you for any further dealings. 

 

We cannot do anything further for you. 
 

Kind Regards

 

Aaron

Customer Services

 At least I appreciate that they responded quickly, giving me a straight answer, unlike that useless drone I communicated with via live-chat.  In a nutshell, on-line Tracking is a mere courtesy, and even if, (as here), it strongly suggests that it was An Post that lost my package, it has no value in proving culpability - basically if An Post loses a non-insured package, it's a case of...

 'TOUGH LUCK CHUMP!!!'

Wavepad And its Shortcomings...

 With a mammoth fortnight of experience using Wavepad under my belt, I thought I'd share my musings on a few things about it that rub me the wrong way, though I should preface any criticisms by saying that Wavepad is by far, the best audio-editing software I've come across to date, making one of the most tedious parts of producing small or large audio-books, now a doddle.

 As mentioned in my previous post, on my setup, (little RAM, no SSD space available), with large WAV files, Wavepad is slow.  As also mentioned, this is compounded by the fact that it has to use a hard-disk as its cache, but given that this drive is relatively fast (90-100MB/s), it seems slower than it should be.  This sluggish performance is exacerbated when you try adding other available editing options to the mix.

 For instance, Wavepad allows files to be split at 'silences' that it detects in the audio file.  I was almost salivating when I first realised that this feature existed, only to end up despondent when I saw just how slow it rendered the Split process.  Worse, this, ’splitting at silences' doesn't appear to be done intelligently.  While I appreciate that scanning for silences may be inherently slow, the split-files that Wavepad ends up producing, vary widely in length - by as much as 20 min for the 6 hour audio-book (split into 3 pieces) that I created as a test.  Given that there is an option for the user to specify the duration of silences that are sought out, as well as the split-number, what ought to happen is that Wavepad should first calculate the split-points, then search forward & backward from these points, until it finds the nearest appropriate silence.  What it actually appears to do is to scan the entire file for silences, which is idiotic, particularly given that 'synthetic voices' like that produced by the AT&T speech engine, which Natural Reader (NR) uses, introduce silences of precise duration into their WAV files, which should make end-of-sentence silences, quick & easy to detect.  Wavepad's shoddy 'split-on-silences' implementation renders the whole notion impractical, given the "rough", (Wavepad's description), split-file lengths that it produces.  At a minimum, Wavepad should place 'moveable' split-points, thereby allowing the user to shift them manually to nearby silences, prior to splitting.  Alas, this 'obvious' functionality is only noteworthy by its absence.

 Moving on, its next bug-bear involves multi-threading, or in Wavepad’s case, lack thereof.  This is one area where, on a multi-core PC, Wavepad should really shine, specifically, simultaneously encoding the core-based number of split-files into their mp3/ogg etc. equivalents.  What it actually does is encode, one part at a time, which is ridiculous.

 Last on the chopping block is its Audio-tags implementation.  After producing a few audio-books with Wavepad, I noticed that when some of them were opened with the VLC media-player, instead of displaying the file by its (renamed) filename, it uses the WAV-file name that NR generated, basically a string of numbers.  These I discovered were being saved by NR as audio-tags, and Wavepad was happily writing these non-descripts to the split-files, which VLC then (bizarrely) used as labels during playback, rather than the actual filenames.  Thankfully, Wavepad allows Audio-tags to be cleared, so after saving/reloading the WAV-file, things work as they should.  But it's just one more unnecessary step that needs doing.

 Nevertheless, Wavepad is an excellent piece of software.  Another huge plus for me is that it runs almost flawlessly on Linux Wine as well.

 As an aside, I've just come across another Windoze app that has left me rather impressed - Atlantis Word Processor.  This tiny 5Meg word-processor is fast & feature-rich while also seeming to run flawlessly on Wine.  I had been using the snazzy-looking Chinese WPS as my word-processor of choice on Linux for years, but only realised a few days ago that accented letters such as 'é', are unceremoniously deleted from the text-body when the file is loaded... - WTF?!?!?  Bewildered by this butchery, I promptly removed it and installed Libre Office 5 instead - only to discover that this had so many (unrelated) problems, that I'd do better to look elsewhere - and that's where Atlantis W.P. came in!  Were I to nit-pick, the only thing missing from it is the ability to import ePub texts - particularly since Atlantis already allows exportation in this format.  In truth Atlantis W.P. supports relatively few W.P. standards, DOC, DOCX & RTF, being the main ones, but the latter is the only one I'm interested in, the result of my e-book to audio-book conversion preoccupation.

 

 

Wayne Green's blog...

 This is one of those unplanned posts that presented itself as I looked for solutions while converting yet-another e-book to an audio book.  The book, The Urantia Book, the problem, it's HUGE, over 3000 pages, and coming in at a fraction under 80 hours of audio!  Up until then, the largest e-book I'd converted, came in at around 35 hours - and that was a mammoth task to do 'manually'.

 Normally, after making the text-body from the e-book 'presentable' (add punctuation, remove Super/Subscripts etc.), I use NaturalReader, running on my Win7 box, to convert it to WAV files, then use the Linux app. Wavbreaker, to first merge these files into one, then split the resultant into same-sized chunks that make for easy listening, each approximately between 1.5 to 2 hours of audio.  I used to convert with NaturalReader running a VirtualBox'ed WinXP on Linux, producing 100's of audio books in this way with the setup, until I saw reason - it was way too slow.

 Anyway, the problem I was experiencing with Wavbreaker was, unsurprisingly, file-size, and was compounded by the fact that my OS of choice, is of the 32-bit variety.  An easy fix, or so I thought, was to use Wavbreaker on my 64-bit Deepin setup to do the deed, only to be disgusted to discover that Wavbreaker was never upgraded to avail of the advantages of 64-bit addresses.  Undaunted, I then decided I'd go 'old-school' and merge & split my WAV-files from Deepin's Bash terminal.

 And that really pissed me off - the discovery that both 'sox' or 'ffmpeg', run on a modern 64-bit Linux OS, fail miserably to split Wav files that are over 4Gig in size - completely unacceptable in 2022.  The TUB text produces a Wav-file that's almost 13Gig.

 That's when I went looking for a Windoze alternative and discovered Wavepad - and which is most excellent!  It allows me to merge or split huge files in one go, something that was impossible with the crippled Wavbreaker app.  The only downside is that in operation, with huge Wav-files, it is rather slow.  Since I've only got 8Gig of computer RAM (7.2Gig available for use) and don't have any SSD space left, Wavepad is forced to use my external 6TB USB disk-drive as its cache - so it's no surprise that it's slow.

 But onto the point of this post.  While getting familiar with Wavepad's capabilities, I came across a large Wav-file that I'd generated years ago, of Wayne Green's blog posts.  Who's Wayne Green I hear you ask? - click here for info.  I personally came across him around 2008-09, probably as a result of him having been a guest on C2C radio on several occasions.  I somehow happened upon his frequently-updated blog, and since I found it quite entertaining, decided to make an audio book of it.  This spanned from 2004 up until 2013, when Wayne Green croaked, so it's fairly lengthy, coming in at about 53 hours of audio.  I actually emailed Wayne Green back in the day to see if he was interested in using my converted audio-files on his site.  I really didn't expect a response, but respond he did, promptly as well, which surprised me, but in the negative, no, he didn't want my audio-files - which surprised me not!

 While playing with Wavepad as mentioned above, I was pleased to find that it supported conversion of audio files to the Opus format.  It annoys me that most of the Windows apps that I've tried, don't support it, which really is a shame as technically, it's wonderful - royalty-free, with minuscule latency and intelligible audio-encodes at a miserly 6kB/s.  I just wish I could find a cheap, dedicated mp3 player that supports it as well. I've used Wavepad to split Wayne Green's blog-audio into 40 Opus pieces, each 1.5 hours in duration & have uploaded them here to my Google Drive, on the off-chance there may be somebody interested in listening to some of them.

 I'll finish up with a few comments on Wayne Green himself.  First, he was a 'know-it-all', to which he would no doubt have responded, "I know!".  With an IQ purported as being over 200, maybe he was, and although his Art Bell C2C spots were entertaining, they get monotonous after a while - he basically used to read a LOT (1-2 books a week) then regurgitate what he'd read on Art's show.  Art Bell apparently found it tiring eventually as it stopped being a regular gig, and Wayne moaned continuously about it in his blog, cajoling readers to contact C2C and ask for his return.  Never happened.  Also, he continuously harped on about 'cold-fusion' being a 'done-deal', both on C2C and in his blog, yet he never once mentioned trying it out for himself, despite being a bit of an electronics-wiz.  I got the impression that whatever he'd read, became Gospel, the 'real-deal' - at least until he read another book that contradicted that belief...  

 His other 'obsessions', referred to ad-nauseam throughout his blog, concerned vaccines, schooling, diet and the medical system.  He repeatedly relayed how he went out of his way to communicate with a sick Steve Jobs so that he could provide him with a cancer-cure, but failed to break through the wall of 'minders' that surrounded him.  To say he was critical of current-day healthcare is an understatement.  Yet, despite this vitriolic opinion, when push came to shove towards the end of his life, he ignored all the advice he had offered to others, and instead went with doctor-recommended treatments - then bitched & moaned at their incompetence when things didn't go according to plan (well, he died...).  He seemed to have been a 'do as I say, not as I do' type individual.

 Lastly, a memory.  When Wayne died, there was the expected influx of gushing emails from friends posted on his site.  One 'friend' stated his intention to maintain Wayne site as a memorial of sorts, 'for the foreseeable future' - which I thought admirable.  What actually happened was that just a few months later, the site was gone!  I remember thinking at the time, "With friends like that, who needs enemies."

 Anyway, as the above link shows, Wayne Green's site IS still available online, but on the Wayback Machine.

Wayne Green blog (audio-files)

'cartakeback.ie': legit or a scam - the jury's out...

 A quick 'IMHO' on these imbeciles.  I have an old Corolla, though well past its 'sell-by-date', runs and is in good nick generally - though sitting idle for over a year now, so surplus to requirements.

Similarly, I had a Peugeot 306 a couple of years ago, also sitting idle, and generally, in good condition, but being too lazy to search out Buyers, ended up just selling it to a local scrap-merchant for a €40 - this may be of interest later!

Anyway, a few weeks ago, I came across 'cartakeback.ie' on the internet, opted for their 'Instant Quote' for the Corolla, and was pleasantly surprised to be offered €309 for my 00 reg. Corolla, which included the collection-fee.  Were I to deliver it to their premises, relatively close-by, the Quote increased by just €5-€7.  I also asked for a Peugeot-Quote - a car long since sold and broken for parts - fully expecting to be told that the car had already been scrapped.  Didn't happen, they actually Quoted me even more for it - €320 & change - which made no sense!  So I emailed them about it,  only to be told that I'd need to get onto the Department Of Transport for further information.

Never mind, the Corolla I still owned, and I presumed the offer was legit, so I thought, bye-bye Corolla.  As its battery was flat and a rear brake-caliper was sticking, I felt it didn't qualify as being "accessible" (cartakeback.ie's term) enough for ease of collection.  It took a week or so to rectify the situation and in the interim, the "Guaranteed" quote had expired - the Quotes given are valid for just 7 days.

No problem, I just applied for another Quote, same car details etc.  This time however, the amount offered had nose-dived to €200 for the same car,  collection included.  Miffed, I emailed 'cartakeback' about the huge price variation, only to be told that their current offer was a reflection of market prices, plus Christmas was almost upon us etc...

Jaded but undaunted, one week later & mostly for a laugh, I requested another Quote for both cars, opting to have the Quote emailed to me.  This time the offer for both cars was the same, €300.  However, below the emails "Guaranteed" money offer, was a "Retrieve Quote" button, which when clicked, saw both quoted prices plummet to €200.

One email to 'cartakeback' later, I learned two things, first, the "Guaranteed" €300 should in fact be read as "up to €300", and second, the €300 offer applied only to cars that were being dropped off at their facility by the Seller.  This ad-hoc policy shift is clearly horseshit, as the first quote I got from them, had a price differential of just a few Euro for cars collected versus being dropped off by the seller.

It would appear that cartakeback's Quoted offers are meaningless.  They just quote a figure that they feel potential punters will find attractive - despite stating that their Quotes are "Guaranteed" prices - then low-ball them, by any & all means necessary.  I raised this in my email to them but it was just ignored.  

 

 

Edit.

 Six months on, I requested yet another quote for the same old Corolla car a week or two ago and was 'Guaranteed' €250 this time round.  Seeing as I had to get rid of it as there's a move in the offing, I accepted.

 The First agreed Collection-date came & went.  The Collection-time had been vague - between 11:00am and 4:00pm - and I had spent 6 hours waiting, before losing patience & phoning them.  "No, it won't be collected today, sorry!"  Exasperated, I arranged another date, set for a few days later.  That date also came & went without them making an appearance.  I did however get a phone-call this time, at around 3:00pm, apologising for the inconvenience.  A third date for collection was offered & agreed upon - and third-time proved the charm!

 Their Collection-Driver was an amiable individual and had the car hooked up & spirited off in a few minutes - quite professional.  He paid in cash as well, so no complaints there either.  For a car that I had paid €6,000 for back in 2006, that had only 120,000 genuine miles on it, and never had broken down & was still running perfectly, €250 seemed way too little.  That said, I had tried selling it on DoneDeal a couple of years ago, for a measly €400 and failed, so maybe I should be thankful it's gone.

 While it never broke down, it suffered from Toyota's infamous oil-ring problem from the get-go, requiring that the engine-oil level be monitored & topped-up frequently - doing that for 14 years proved a real bummer!  After two years of driving my current car, it's still a novelty to find, come an oil/filter change, the oil-level, reading 'Max' on the dip-stick.

Raspberry Pi - Raspbian OS.

  Just a quick comment on the Raspberry Pi, or its OS rather.  Although I had promised myself that I'd upgrade my long-in-the-tooth Pi 3B+ to a Pi 4, complacency and general laziness intervened.  On the one hand, since its main use is as a media-server, the added 'Ooomph' of a Pi 4 is probably not needed - the only media-streaming situation where the 3B+ really struggles is with 1080+ HEVC video - though its lack of memory (1Gig) and abysmal Bluetooth support has always been a major bug-bear.

  I had waited for years for the BT issue to be resolved, or at least its problems mitigated, alas in vain.  When I realised that the OS itself was no longer being supported, and worse, the repositories themselves had been taken down, I felt saddened at its abandonment by Raspbian - and that I was going to have to shell out for a Pi 4.

Then I discovered that the brand-spanking new OS release available for free from Raspbian's site is backward-compatible with pretty much every piece of hardware that they've released, and all was right with the world again!!!

 Even better, they finally have a BT implementation that is pretty close to perfect - at least in operation - I'm not a fan of its UI-accessibility one bit - right-clicking the speaker-icon, left-click output selection, then another left-click to finally select the BT device - way, way too convoluted!  Clicking the BT icon itself reveals a non-working means of doing the same thing - so it's obviously a work-in-progress.  But once a BT device is selected, it works almost perfectly!  One annoyance I've found is that on start-up, although it will automatically connect to the last BT device used (if present), I invariably have to manually select the BT output device for the app in question (VLC, for instance)  via the Pulseaudio Control application.

The other huge deal (for me) with the new OS is that VLC now has graphics hardware support by default - no more manually building VLC or searching online for working links to builds.

All in all, I'm very happy with the OS upgrade.  The only thing I'd criticise is Raspbian's continuing insistence that users be tied to that awful TrueVNC.  I don't care if its developer originated 'VNC' - this is Linux we're talking about, 'freedom of choice' and all that.  Currently, rather than having the sane option of using Remmina to access my Pi media-server via my laptop, I either have to 'ssh' onto it if terminal-access will do, or fire up the wide-screen that's connected to it and use a tiny (read, 'uber-cheap') BT keypad.  I can control all of my other computers & OS's using Remmina, why not the Pi??!?

Remmina's site FAQ even acknowledges the problem with Pi's, yet doesn't offer a solution (read, link to working s/w) just a 'solution' that's non-working and/or outdated:

 FOR THE LOVE OF SANITY, UPDATE THIS PAGE!!!