Author Archives: Blender Fox

Unknown's avatar

About Blender Fox

Recreational road-runner, blender/CG rookie, linux user (LE-1, LPIC-1, SUSE CLA 11, SUSE 11 Tech Spec), programmer, avid tinkerer (I'm always breaking things), self-confessed anime & manga otaku & japanophile

Training in Quarantine – Day 198

A very short walk due to heavy rain.

In other news, I found my replacement to Revolut — Curve.

Curve seems to be different. It’s not a bank of its own, but lets you put debit/credit cards onto your account and when you use the Curve card, the transaction goes onto the default card you have set on your account. And you can move the transaction from one card to the other (only once per transaction though).

Plus Curve supports FitBit Pay, meaning I can use that instead of Google Pay which has now broken again due to my device being rooted.

Revolut: A warning to Android users

It seems like Revolut’s latest Android update (6th November) has shafted some users, including me, rendering them unable to receive the update, and making the app disappear entirely from the Play Store for those users. No notification, no warning. Just a sudden stop to updates. I had to restore from a backup I made of the app, and was then able to transfer my money out of there.

I spoke to support, and their suggestion? Use a newer device.

I guess I will be closing my Revolut account.

Training in Quarantine – Day 194

Evening walk from yesterday that I forgot to log — short walk, the weather was looking ominous and did actually end up heavily raining.

Also, I got a notification a couple of days ago that Endomondo is being retired at the end of the year.

I knew this was going to happen soon at some point after Underarmor picked it up.

I’m saddened by this as Endomondo has been my go-to for a lot of running things, including helping me train for the Half Marathon. Strava is my alternative and a lot of my colleagues are on that, but I really do not like the interface and only really use it for storing my walk/run tracks.

Training in Quarantine – Day 193

Another evening walk, and this time I went to look at the back of a house that my folks really like post-viewing.

The back has a shared parking space — which, during the day seems okay, but in the evening, when everyone else is there, it looks very tight for space, meaning unless you have backed into the parking space, it’s going to be difficult to come out of the parking unless you reverse out.

Training in Quarantine – Day 192

A busy Saturday with several house viewings. One of which got cancelled due to a resident having to self-isolate due to covid.

One of the viewings today was originally written off by my folks as a “no-hope” but once they viewed inside, their tone dramatically changed.

A literal case of not judging a book by its cover.

In other news, I saw a tweet from https://twitter.com/VictoriaBID:

Now I work on top of Victoria Station, so I walk past the memorial plaque dedicated to the Unknown Soldier every day I commute to the office. Obviously not so much this year due to covid.

The Military Wives Choir did the song for Abide With Me using the now-common feature of a virtual choir:

The virtual choir idea has been used a lot this year due to social distancing, but let’s not forget, the idea dates back way further, even as far back as 2009 with Eric Whitacre’s Virtual Choir project (https://www.youtube.com/user/EricWhitacresVrtlChr) which also made it into several TED talks

From 2010:

2011:

And 2013:

Training in Quarantine – Day 191 and other updates

My last logged walk was 23rd October. I’ve been slacking off logging runs since then, so this is my first logged run since then, even though I have been doing near-daily runs since then, so I’m skipping through to Day 191 since I’ve done 10 days of walks since then.

I’ve also got a few other updates.

My house purchase fell through a while ago so I have been actively house hunting a lot and my past few Saturdays have been spent house viewing. Viewing during the day is tricky unless I take time off to house hunt.

Dealing with different Estate Agents is a pain, with some not even bothering to give you the time of day, let alone

I also upgraded my phone to Android 10 LineageOS and I’ve been having quite a few issues with internet speed and stability. I’m seriously considering forcing a downgrade back to Android 9. In the meantime, I might switch from Adoptable Storage back to portable storage to see if that helps with stability.

Oh, and it’s frickin’ COLD.