# Offline

I have been using a 4G router on the mobile network for the past
couple of months and apart from the odd bit of lag it has been quite
reliable. This morning however, having unusually left the router
switched on all night, my connection appeared to be down. 

Power-cycling the router seemed to revive the connection, although it
wasn't long before I started having issues again.  Once more I
rebooted the router, it was slow but again the connection returned
and I continued with checking my RSS feeds, email and a conversation
on IRC, then it went off again ...

At this point I gave up and went to get a shower, after that I got my
kindle and went down stairs. 


## Radio 

I'm not sure what prompted me to put on the radio, other than it
catching my attention from the bookshelf where it occupies a space. I
browsed around a little twisting the dial around, first on AM and
then on FM, where there seemed to be more choice of channels. 

While turning the dial I stumbled upon a talk show where a woman was
being interviewed about the UK government figures for immigration. 
She was explaining, in some detail, at how these figures were arrived
at and the effects of certain policies on those numbers both
historically and going forward. The thing that struck me about this
conversation was that this was someone knowledgeable on the situation
giving a fair account. This was not news as we are usually fed it
today, or the circus that is Westminster, where there is some agenda
behind how the information is used to slight some person or party. It
was a refreshing experience to hear an expert explain something,
seemingly without bias. Maybe I should listen to the radio more often
... 

This actually reminded me of a video I saw recently about short wave
radios, where an American was explaining how he would sit and listen
to radio broadcasts from other countries to have a more rounded view
of what was actually going on in the world, free from the biases of
his own. 

The BBC used short wave radio for propaganda during the second world
war, as they knew the signal could be received deep into Eastern
Europe and Russia. It has been reinstated since the beginning of
the Ukraine war for this very purpose.

You can't firewall radio waves or censor their broadcasts from
outside of your jurisdiction. In some countries it was a crime to
own a short wave radio for this reason.


## Microadventures

I enjoyed reading Jay Scot's phlog post a couple of days ago. It
inspired me to get out for a walk yesterday, in the very fresh but
unusually dry and sunny weather.

Post COVID I had started going out for walks occasionally and had
hoped to make a regular habit of it and even maybe expand upon it to
do some wild camping. I've spent far too much time watching video
howto's not to at least give it a try. Plus I think I already have 
everything I'd need, other than a bivvy or tarp, to do an 
overnighter. 

It felt good to be out yesterday. I definitely need to get out more
but I will probably hold off on the overnighter, until the weather
warms up a bit!


## Phlogging

It's been a while since I posted anything but sometimes I think if
you don't really have anything to say then maybe it's best to say
nothing... 

Usually I would write the post on my VPS and just copy it to the
relevant directory but that is not possible today, so it's back to
old-school offline writing which I will scp across once my internet 
connection returns.