Heads up... Hirbawi have a restock of Kufiyas on their online store.
You’d need to move fast if you want one, they sell out quickly because it's difficult for them to get shipments out of the country. These are the real thing, handmade straight out of the last remaining factory in Palestine. Definitely worth supporting if you're looking to back local artisans.
I'm trying to calculate my weight needs for cold water diving, having dived in the tropics with 6kg and no wetsuit.
I'm going to be doing my first cold water dive next week with a 7mm wetsuit plus also a 7mm vest with hood, aluminum backplate on my XDeep Zeos, Aqualung Storm fins (so fairly lightweight), and steel tank (12L). I have medium weight pockets on the waist of my BPW and I have trim pockets on my upper cam band.
I've got 12kg of soft weight bags:
- Four 2kg
- Four 1kg
My plan was to test my buoyancy with 10kg, but how far am I off? ChatGPT seems to want to put me in the water with 8kg. Gemini wants to put me in the water with 12kg. Looking at the calculations myself, 9-10kg seems to be in and around right.
I am 187cm tall and I weigh somewhere around 87kg.
Just wanted to ask if anyone's done the Ocean Divers four dive weekend in Killary/Leterfrak?
There's one in about two weeks time, but worrying that it's getting towards the end of September. There's going to be cold water off the hills and the air temperature may not be great. I'm sure the temperature down deep will be fine, bearing in mind that I'll be doing it in a semi-dry suit if I do it. What's people's opinion? Have you done it? Did you get good crack out of it? I'm just going to test myself for the Irish environment to see if I want to keep diving in Ireland, generally having done all my diving in warm climates.
I'm cool with letting people know what brands I use. I'm kind of proud of the stuff that I have and who I choose to wear, so I'm not really concerned with having a couple of logos on the gear.
But all the giant logos everywhere—Aqualung, Mares, Apex, everything all over my gear everywhere, on the outside of my hand, two logos on my boots, and another logo on my fins, logos down my legs leading to my boots. Everything has a logo on it these days, and they're giant. Whatever happened to subtlety?
I know we live in the age of social media and getting your brand out there is massive, but it doesn't help because people are wearing several brands all shouting at the same time. Just calm it down. Put a gray logo on a black suit. It'll look cool, and people will like it more and buy more of it. I'm sick of it.
By the way, colours everywhere. Stop making things in stupid colours. Give people just the ability to buy stuff in one set of colours. I don't need multiple colours everywhere. Just black with an accent color. If your accent colour is blue, stay with it. If it's pink, use that. But I don't need blue on my shoes, red on my wetsuit, white on my regulator, beige on my mask. Just try and simplify it, please.
I'm just after spending an hour colouring in the little blue fabric tabs on my Aqualung booties to make them black.
I'm beginning to consider doing some dives at home in Ireland, having done all my previous dives in warm water.
I have most of my gear, except for a wetsuit and whatever accompanying things I need with that. I don't have weights, and I don't have tanks. I don't want to get into drysuit diving right now... between the drysuit and the courses, it's all a bit too much for me at the moment. Wetsuit diving might be accessible. It might be about €50 a boat dive if I join a club.
So, what am I looking at gear-wise? I was considering an Apeks Thermiq 7/8mm wetsuit with hood. I found some Aqualung 5mm gloves and Aqualung 5mm booties, hoping those booties fit into my Aqualung Storm fins. Then maybe in the future, upgrade to an Apeks RK3 set of fins (more suitable for cold water diving?) and hoping those boots fit the fins. Is 5mm enough?
My current setup includes:
- An xDeep Zeos BPW with aluminum backplate
- An Apeks 4XL+ regulator set
- The Storm fins
- I have a good mask
- A Wurkkos rechargeable torch
I'm going to pick up the boots initially, so that I can make sure they work with my fins... Then after a dive or two, to pick up the wetsuit and gloves.
Is it normal to have your own weights? My BPW has pockets, but having my own weights was never a consideration.
Have you seen the new range of Mercedes watches from IWC? I really like the original blue, the turquoise is fantastic.
But these are a bit hideous and childish. They'd look great in a manga cartoon, but I'm not too sure about them. I think they'll be popular initially and then fall off the face of a cliff. I don't think this is good for the brand.
I was ready to push the button on a Karcher SC1 and a clothes nozzle this morning. I had them in my basket ready to go and signed up for the discount code through the newsletter. I haven't received the discount code, and since then I'm beginning to question myself.
Is this thing worth it? I really need it to spot clean one large rug in my living room and probably the grout and glass shower screen in the bathroom. What do you think? Is it a worthwhile purchase?
Bear in mind that you can get a coffee and a sandwich in most petrol stations around the world
The most important piece of equipment you can have when camping, besides your tent, is a chair. I can't imagine camping without having a chair. Whether it's solo camping or camping with a group, a chair is the most important thing, and I've often found people who arrive without chairs are the first to steal your chair.
So I received my Pixel 11 yesterday, and I have to say it's working really well. It does everything I needed to do, and I'm enjoying it. Coming from a Pixel 8, I'm going to say that the quality of materials just doesn't match up. The Pixel 8 feels weightier in the hand, and the materials feel solid. This shiny chrome cheap finish on the perimeter of the Pixel 11 Pro is just cheap and tacky. It doesn't feel good in the hand, and the phone feels like a bit of a brick. It doesn't conform to your hand at all, and that's where it really lets me down. It feels much lighter, and I mean in a bad way. I feel uncomfortable putting it in my pocket because I feel it's just going to slip away and drop on the floor. It's not necessarily that the phone is slidey, it's that it's light and cheap feeling.
I left my Ranchilio Sylvia Pro X into a repair guy recently because I had done a back flush and a descale and I had something lodged... a piece of debris in the solenoid valve so the boiler tank wasn't filling. When he returned the machine he said something about the boiler having leaked previously at the base where a sensor entered. I immediately thought that he was talking shite but now that I have the machine back I am getting a leak at the bottom of the machine and I'm worried that he's done some damage when he took the machine apart, because I can't imagine what else it could be. There was never ever a previous leak in the machine. It's only 2 years old and it's been working flawlessly.
Can anyone tell me if there is a sensor entering the steam boiler from underneath and whether that can be affected by limescale? Realistically, am I looking at a new boiler or is this something that can be fixed?
... What a fantastic feckin' motorcycle!
I've taken her around Ireland and to continental Europe... The digital display doesn't work on the clock, but otherwise has been a dream.
I have my Silvia Pro X on a smart socket, and it's not heating up to temperature at the moment. When I get to the machine, it's partially heated, but on the PID it's showing a little white dot and no other information.
I recently did a descale and after had to reset the internal trip switch. I've cleaned out the solenoid valve and I've cleaned the rod/sensor in the steamer tank...
I've also opened up the machine again and checked the wire connections. I've also done a hard reset...
Any ideas where I'm going wrong?
I've been through months of troubleshooting on this. I bought the m100 hub and I've moved it to zigbee and it's still not working. It doesn't pick me up on the couch, lights turn off after a certain amount of time and I have set it to single mode and accept that it'll use batteries more but still not working. I followed every troubleshooting scenario I could possibly find. The reality is that it needs motion to wake it up in order to sense presence. Therefore, it is only a motion sensor. It's not a present sensor and having said that, I'm moving these into a couple more rooms now and they'll be great in the kitchen, they'll be great in the bathroom, but they are not great in the living room where you sit or lye on the couch and you don't move for a certain amount of time.
Very frustrating...
I have a bunch of different Google Home speakers that I run as a group. They've all updated to the new firmware, except for the newest one which is the spherical Google Home Speaker... The problem I have is that I get dropouts and poor behavior with Deezer. I've tried unplugging for a hard reset, but it's still failing to update... Any tips on how to force it?
*Update: I've also rebooted a couple of times, done a full reset and I've have tried moving it to a parallel WiFi hotspot... None of which worked
I can't for the life of me understand why these things aren't more popular...
JBL Charge 5 WiFi... It's a Bluetooth speaker with wifi and Chromecast, with a battery!!! I've got it hooked up to my speaker group in the house and I'm getting a full extension out into the garden.
I'm not getting dropped Bluetooth connections when working around the house and walking away from the speaker with my phone... Also great for entertaining, I get music in the house and in the garden.
I really don't understand why this type of speaker isn't more sought after.
I live in a relatively new A rated house, so with triple glazing, ergon filled windows and foil backed insulation, my WiFi never got beyond the walls of the house... I've had difficulty connecting to my solar battery in the shed, playing music in the garden, even connecting to the digital thermometer when cooking on the grill...
I had a massive brain fart & moved a mesh wifi module into the attic, now I have full coverage on all three sides of the gaff...
Being able to seamlessly cast music in a group including the garden is pure joy. It gets very frustrating when you're having a BBQ or working in the garden and you walk away from the Bluetooth speaker with the phone in your pocket... Likewise when entertaining, having the same music throughout is fantastic... To celebrate I've treated myself to a battery Chromecast speaker.
Thanks for attending my Ted Talk
I'm really really upset. It's been a couple of months now and my flow has just turned into utter tripe. It gives me about 10 to 15% of stuff that I like that I favorited that I've curated. Now I'm in a situation where I'm just getting random stuff. It's not even crap, it's just not interesting at all and the app is so slow that it's so difficult for me to delete all the artists out of my flow that I just can't bear to listen to. The reason I use Deezer is because the algorithm has been so good over the years. I'm really feeling frustrated. This is killing me right now. The nail in the coffin was when you gave me Harry styles on my flow. How did you even imagine that that could be something that I would listen to from the playlists that I go through?
I'm going to install a Linus L2 next week... I have a few factors that need to be met and the L2 fits...
I have a multipoint mechanism for the door with lift to lock. I'm okay with the lift to lock function.
I like the idea that Yale locks integrate with the Ajax alarm system... This is a big advantage and a key reason for the lock.
I've been reading about Aliro/UWB/universal access standards. I know that Yale are a key member, but just asking what the chances are that they'll come out with a keypad/accessory that will allow the Aliro standard to work for the L2 Linus?