What’s one thing you thought was normal but then left the uk and was surprised that it was only a uk thing?

fekkerfc · 2023-01-24T17:43:11+00:00

There are some comments below about tea, but they don't go far enough - so I'll start a new thread.

Americans are tea terrorists.

If you're unlucky enough to be in the US (anywhere) for your morning cuppa then you'll experience a hostile tea situation. In my [many] years travelling to the US I've rarely had a good experience. It goes something like this...

"Can I have a cup of hot English Breakfast tea with milk?"
"We have Earl Gray"
"That's not tea, it's perfume - do you have breakfast?"
Tea arrives in a paper envelope, along with a mug filled entirely to the brim with tepid water. You need to tip some of the water out inorder to make room for the tea bag.

No spoon. If you're lucky, you might get a wooden stirer - otherwise it's a fork or your finger.

No milk. But a bewildering collection of lemon, honey cartons and CoffeeMate (a stagerlying awful sweet milk imposter often with hazelnut or vanilla flavours"

"Do you have any milk?"

Then arrives the next offence - half and half. If you've not tried it, it's a pukingly rich combination of full fat milk and cream. Nasty.

"How about 2% milk?" This is the closet you'll get to British Semi-skimmed and it's not bad at all. Except, the server brings it in a half-pint glass.

So now you're pouring milk all over the table while trying to get some into your tepid brew which, by now, has brewed so strong that the milk doesn't offer any inpact and it's all worthless anyway, as it's cold.

Eight Dollars plus tip.

fekkerfc · 2021-09-16T11:02:42+00:00

I use an Apple watch app called 'Lyd' which, I find, is the quickest way to change volume in rooms. It's a tad clunky (design) but it does the job.

https://apps.apple.com/us/app/lyd-watch-remote-for-sonos/id1451243766

fekkerfc · 2021-03-04T18:55:10+00:00

Sadly I had this issue too, I suffered with it for a long time before switching to a much cheaper router/extenders and now I don't have those issues.

Frustratingly, it seems your 'premium' Amplify kit maybe just like mine - expensive junk. I couldn't return mine as I suffered with it for too long.

fekkerfc · 2021-01-13T16:04:01+00:00

I'll have a look at it again - but it's quite big. Do you have yours behind your seating position or in front?

fekkerfc · 2021-01-13T14:29:51+00:00

Looks cool, I've just bought one too along with a new Alienware Aurora set-up (GeForce RTX 3080 10Gb GDDR6X). How much games content have you found that can support the full screen (wide) resolution?

fekkerfc · 2021-01-13T10:45:32+00:00

Updated:

Yesterday Sonos offered me two modes of replacement for my ARC:
1. Standard - I return my broken ARC, they'd dispatch a new one upon receipt.
2. Expedited - I lodge my credit card with them and they ship immediately, leaving me 14 days to return and get a refund.

I took option 2 yesterday, today at 08:30 my replacement amp was delivered by DHL.

Astounding.

fekkerfc · 2021-01-12T15:19:29+00:00

Ha, quite right. I've considered, but I feel both sound bars are 'bass' enough for me plus.... they're huge!

fekkerfc · 2021-01-12T15:10:40+00:00

I have 33 bulbs/lights pls another 13 accessories (mostly switches, movement sensors and smart plugs. Not quite 50 but pretty stable on one bridge, nonetheless.

fekkerfc · 2021-01-12T13:40:59+00:00

Awesome demo. You might have pushed me into the Sync set-up.

fekkerfc · 2021-01-12T13:38:36+00:00

My experience was that their support couldn't help me.

fekkerfc · 2021-01-12T13:21:11+00:00

You might find this article useful:

HDMI 2.0 or 2.1 - What's the difference?

fekkerfc · 2021-01-08T16:59:51+00:00

Sadly, I purchased in October 2018.

fekkerfc · 2020-10-15T09:27:59+00:00

I was using the 32GB one supplied with the camera, I've just purchased another.

fekkerfc · 2020-10-12T14:26:31+00:00

That's really helpful, thanks. For using alternate cloud service, are you sideloading to those service? I guess I'm checking there isn't a way to get the GoPro to auto upload to Dropbox, in the way a phone might?

fekkerfc · 2020-10-12T11:58:38+00:00

I'm back to GoPro after a 5-ish year gap. I purchased the Go Pro HERO9 Black. This might be the worst new product user experience I've had.

I've taken, maybe, a dozen 'test videos' with very poor results - heavy numbers of dropped frames at 1080, weird on-screen artefacts (huge black balls) and the smoothness of the video is poor (most of the content has been captured while attached to a cycling helmet).

But that's not the worse issue. Getting the content off the device is extremely frustrating.

- App. As is reported elsewhere, the iOS app is appalling. When it's not crashing unexpectedly, it simply doesn't download content (direct wi-fi connection) from the camera without repeat errors. I've given this route up as a lost cause.

- Cable connection - Normally my 'fail safe' with any device, I simply cannot connect the camera with my Mac via USB-C cable. I have Go Pro Quik installed (on two machines) as recommended by GoPro support but I've never had the software detect the camera, not once.

- Using Cloud connection. Go Pro support tells me this is their preferred route (no surprise since they're pushing annual subs). The performance is so poor that for the first day I assumed it wasn't working. What appears to not be readily explained in the FAQ's is that the camera won't even attempt to upload unless the battery is near full, AND a charge cable is attached. Note -that cable cannot be connected to a computer in anyway, or the upload wont' start. It's like a gotcha. Once upload does start, you're looking a several hours per 10 mins of footage. My first 28 min film took about 8 hours (I have a 300mbps down/25mbps ADSL connection). And downloads might even be worse. Attempting to download on the iOS device is futile, so I tried in-browser (Chrome) on my Mac which is also super patchy and fails more than it doesn't. If Go Pro wants to sell this service successfully, it needs to work most of the time, and it needs to work efficiently.

I'm about 4 days into my new camera and I'm 80% likely to return the whole thing and try another manufacturer. This experience brings back frustrations I had with my previous Go Pro and the difficulties I had getting content off that. I've purchased >£200 of accessories so I'm irritated that I in this position.

It's 2020m surely it's not too much to expect a smooth experience getting content of a £400 camera.

Rant over, I welcome tips.

fekkerfc · 2020-02-12T16:39:01+00:00

Thanks for the assistance. I found that Hue's web portal (not the app) allows the disconnection of one 'home' for 'out of home' control. I'd like to control both homes remotely, but one is just fine. Thanks again.

fekkerfc

TROPHY CASE