Will Knott

I have an expensive paperweight; a dead netbook. Dead is really the wrong word. The netbook itself is fine.

What happened is I plugged the netbook in to the sockets on the train on my way to the dot conf, and a little fuse somewhere in the charger blew.

An irreplaceable fuse it seems.

And a charger that Dell refuses to sell me a replacement for. Despite the fact that their current power adapter is identical, which is how it got its final recharge.

Fortunately that charge meant I could do a final complete backup.

It also means I haven’t been able to use it much since. Now this is you standard old underpowered netbook. Its hard disc is only 16gb. But I loved it. With its matching 3G dongle it had the convenience and connectivity for so much.

I didn’t realise just how much I used it until I couldn’t. There is a replacement generic charger somewhere in the post. And for the foreseeable future I can’t afford to replace it.

This is, however my first attempt to use WordPress for Android to do an update.

It sort of works. Links, while available are out of the question. My fat fingers can’t select a phrase finely enough. (If you’re listening android, can I have forward AND backward delete ).

Yes I have more to write, but I’ll need a proper keyboard, like the one on my netbook.

Hopefully later,
Will

and nearly took mum with it.

While in the queue for the car park to go to the Cork City part of the World Wide photowalk I got a phone call.

It was Mum’s neighbours.

The television at Mum’s had caught fire and she wanted me to get home as fast as I could. I did.

No one died, the damage isn’t that bad, but she’s declaring that she doesn’t want a replacement television (I expect that to last a week when soaps withdrawal kick in). After all, the electronic babysitter, the smiling entertainer in the corner had attacked.

On Saturday afternoon she plugged it in. And there was a crackle and  little puff of smoke, like a cigarette in the corner. She plugged it out. Still smoke.

She left the room to ring the neighbours and open the front door. When she returned there was a plume of black smoke rising.

Highly toxic black smoke.

I think at this point one of the neighbours rush in, fortunately wearing fireproof gloves (he has no memory of putting them on, on moment he got the phone call, the next he was coming in Mums door wearing them). He picked up the TV and tried to run out of the house with it. He would have succeeded if Mum (who I should point out is on crutches) decided to lead the way.

Slowly lead the way while a lump of toxic materials plumed and melted behind her.

At the doorway the neighbour manager to get her to turn towards the stairs, and get the TV out of the house just as it got past the smoking part and decided to head straight for the flaming finale.

A second or two later it was flaming on the front lawn.

Then he turned back. You see, melting plastic was igniting the papers Mum had around the TV. And the table it was sitting on was starting to go up. And the smoke (at least) has licking the gas boiler directly above the television.

Anyway, he put put the papers and books. There melting discs (the DVD player looks OK, but we can’t tell hat the heat did to it yet), a smoldering radio and darkened walls show how localised and high the heat was for a little while.

Scorched curtains are dumped, and the coats with melted holes at the end of the stairs are awaiting assessment.

The house still has a twinge of toxic black smoke in the air. Lumps of melted black plastic show the progress of the equipment out of the house.

Under the tree sits a partially melted TV surrounded most of the desk it once sat on.

So Mum is alive and as well as she was on Friday. Except for a little come down from the adrenaline. And she has a new lease of tidying up. Five bags of newspapers and magazines went to the recycle centre on Sunday.

One small bag of books came back. (Shouldn’t have looked, but a cookbook and a book on censorship in Ireland returned from the dump along with a USB extension cable. Well it is recycling).

I’m unplugging a lot more equipment now. And I’m spared from the soaps.

I’ll give it a week until she starts looking for a replacement. I just wonder if I can talk her in to making a wheelchair friendly kitchen for herself.

take care,
Will