Lindybeige

Predictions for 2024

Added 2024-01-07 19:23:23 +0000 UTC

This was intended to come out on New Year's Day, but I did not predict having quite so much trouble getting a tablet to work. I made an autocue (teleprompter) out of the glass from a clip-frame, and cardboard. That was the easy bit. I then spent some frustrating days wrestling with an Android tablet, trying to get it to run the software for scrolling the texts in mirror-image at the correct speed. My guess is that a committee of designers had kept asking itself "How can we make this device more difficult to use?"

Eventually, after much shouting, I got it to scroll the text upwards at a fixed speed. The speed went from 0-100. I found that 33 was far too fast, and 30 far too slow. 31.5 might have been best, but it didn't do half-increments. Another challenge was that the words were not very bright on the glass, hence some reading mistakes, and a semi-permanent squint on my face. If I ever try to use the autocue again, I might greatly increase the side-blinkers to shield off more light.

I try to be politically neutral. When a political figure gets a mention, I try to give both supporters and detractors reasons to feel both annoyed and smug. Try to imagine yourself in the mind of someone from the other side of the fence - would they be pleased by what I said?