Quicky

Got this message immediately after we lost a game. A random team mate was unimpressed with my performance on the day, which to be fair, was entirely justified, despite a late consolation goal from me.

Must have had a change of heart after I admitted my failings.

It's already hard enough without the ball being nailed to the ground.

I’m looking for some advice as to what product(s) I would need to replace an access point in my house.

My current setup is crudely drawn below. The house is ancient and weirdly shaped, so needs multiple wireless access points to get decent coverage everywhere. 

I have 300Mbps fibre to the premises which goes into the Wi-Fi router (R). I have a Cat 6 cable (red line) running from the router, outside the front of the house and back in through the back of the house where it connects to an old router (AP1) that is configured as a Wi-Fi bridge/access point.

Another Cat 6 cable (blue line) then runs from that access point to my cabin into another old router (AP2) that is configured as an access point so I can have Wi-Fi in there.

Basically I’ve chained the old routers and set them all up with the same Wi-Fi network and password so I can seamlessly connect automatically wherever I am, and all devices can see each other where relevant.

The issue is AP1 is failing every few days and giving very slow speeds. It’s fine after a reboot and goes back up to 300Mbps for a couple of days until it needs another kick.

I’d like to replace AP1 with something else. What I don’t know, is what would give the fastest/most consistent speeds.

Should I:

a) Just replace AP1 with another newer, more reliable router set to bridge/AP mode.

b) Replace AP1 with an Ethernet switch so that the red line and blue line connect to the switch, and connect a dedicated AP to the switch where AP1 is. Most inexpensive dedicated access points I’ve looked at don’t seem to have enough Ethernet ports to allow chaining, which is why I’m wondering if a switch is necessary.

c) Something else?

Assume I can’t run any new cables outside the house, i.e. I can’t be arsed to replace the red line because it would be a huge pain.

If you have specific recommendations of products, that would be great. Cost is a factor - I’m not looking to replace the whole setup with some expensive mesh product because 80% of the time I’m getting maximum speed with this current cheapo setup, it’s just that it’s annoying to have to reset AP1 regularly.

Quite impressed with ChatGPT producing this image from this photo of my dog

I'm 46.

While not a retro game itself, I was playing Atomfall just now and came across this metal head in the robotics section, which is a lovely little hidden reference to a late entry in the Bitmap Brothers catalogue, Z.

Z was a decent game back in the day, and yet another example of the Bitmaps showcasing their skills at being able to produce top quality games in whatever genre they chose.

Rebellion gained ownership of the Bitmap Brothers games a few years ago, so it's not out of place in Atomfall, but still a nice nod to one of British gaming's most beloved studios.

Almost all business applications have horizontal menus and ribbons that take up a decent percentage of a landscape monitor instead of utilising the "spare" screen space on the left or right, and a taskbar usually sits at the bottom or top of the screen eating up even more space (yes I know this can be changed but it's not the default).

Documents are traditionally printed/read in portrait which is reflected on digital documents.

Programmers often rotate their screens to be portrait in order to see more of the code.

Most web pages rarely seem to make use of horizontal real estate, and scrolling is almost universally vertical. Even phones are utilised in portrait for the vast majority of time, and many web pages are designed for mobile first.

Beyond media consumption and production, it feels like the most commonly used workplace productivity apps are less useful in landscape mode. So why aren't more office-based computer screens giant squares instead of horizontal rectangles?

Obligatory not today, but a long time ago when I was at university, I was making my way to a lecture one afternoon. The road I was walking alongside was incredibly busy, with constant traffic and hundreds of buses daily.

At a certain point, a van that was unloading was parked on the pavement, blocking pedestrians from using it. It meant that anyone heading up the street on foot had to walk in the road around it. 

I started making my way into the road around the van at the same time as a female student coming in the other direction. This happened just as a bus was barrelling towards me behind the girl, in the same direction she was walking.

I knew the bus would be extremely close to us because of all the traffic, and the girl had walked further into the road so she could walk around both me and the van. Then I noticed she was wearing headphones and wouldn't have any idea that the bus behind her was bearing down. In a split second I realised I had to do something or this girl was going to die. Just as we were passing each other, I swung my arm behind me to push her towards the van, out of the path of the bus. I thought I was saving her life.

Except I misjudged it. I must have left it a fraction of a second too late. The bus driver on the other hand had read the situation and had steered quickly enough to avoid her. My reactions had been worse. Instead of shoving her out of the way via her shoulder, my arm swung around and although I managed to make contact with her, that contact was on her arse. I literally ended up doing nothing but slapping her ass.

Mortified, I stopped in my tracks and turned around to apologise. But she didn't react. She kept on walking. Then I realised - with her headphones in, and the bus missing her, she had no idea of the danger she was in, and in her mind, all that's happened is some random man has just sexually assaulted her on the way home, and she was too shocked or scared to turn round and ask what the fuck.

This happened nearly three decades ago and I still think about this poor girl. There is a 100% chance that I am this woman's #metoo story, when in reality I was just some idiot trying to be a hero.

I feel like more consideration could have gone into the eventual positioning of the charging cable on this phone stand.