MicroSD
Posted: Thu 1 February, 2007 Filed under: Domestic, Geeky Leave a comment »About three weeks ago, I lost the 512Mb MicroSD card that sits in my phone. I didn’t really know where I’d lost it, just that the poxy thing wasn’t there any more.
Fortunately, there wasn’t anything overly important on it – some files that would have been useful to have back, but nothing earth-shattering, and nothing like passwords, site names/logons or anything. So I kind of shrugged my shoulders, thought something along the lines of “Ah Well”, and got on with it.
Anyway, earlier this week I suddenly realised where I had probably lost the card – I’d dropped the phone when I got out of the car at home. All the same, nothing relevant.
But this morning, while bringing the bin back in (Oh, the domesticity) I spotted a little fleck of gold on the driveway. Sure enough, it was the card, still intact – if a little bit soggy. Dried it off, figured I’d got nothing to lose, and slotted it back in the phone. And it still works.
This card has been soaked, frozen, and driven over at least twice a day for three weeks. It’s survived it all. I have to say, I’m quite impressed.
Homeless
Posted: Thu 1 February, 2007 Filed under: 1BEM, Cynicism, Thoughts 1 Comment »Most people won’t be surprised by this, but on occasion I can be very uncharitable. Not just when watching things like Relocation Relocation (and Dear GOD, Relocation2 brings out the uncharitable bastard in me) but also when faced with – in particular – Big Issue sellers.
I don’t know why – I think that the Big Issue is a fantastic idea- but I just never give money to the people selling it. I’ve done work with a charity for the homeless, and I do a fair amount of work with other charities, with more coming up over the duration of this year. But when it comes to actually giving money to people who are homeless, I just don’t.
A lot of it is that I really don’t like the idea of paying people to remain homeless – of giving money to someone because they’re homeless, and perhaps of contributing to a tax-free income. At least with the charities I deal with, I know that the people who benefit truly are homeless. When someone is just on the street, well, you don’t know. I’ve seen a couple of “homeless” people, even in Cambridge, who pack up their begging gear, stick it in a car, and (I assume) then go home. It’s a tax-free income based on peoples guilt.
So I don’t know. In some ways I feel like I’m really cynical and uncharitable (and OK, I am) but not all the time. And at least I try to balance that out by doing some good stuff with places where the money and work will go to the truly deserving people.