Post, pig tarts, clueless about technology, and PS3 1.70 Backwards Compatibility

I got stuck in a queue on Vale Road/Gilgal and arrived one minute past nine to work, driving in I passed the Post Office van, gave a wave and then thought "He's early. Ah no doubt a special delivery they've done that before" Then it hit me - we were expected a special delivery. Yep a card through the door timed at 8.57 telling us that we weren't in for a signature and we'd have to pick it up from the Post Office tomorrow. Okay first point I passed him, I know him, he knows me so why didn't he stop? Second point we have two other offices around us that open at 8.30 and people were moving about around them. We've had parcels, packages and all sorts of miscellanea signed or unsigned left with them for years.

So the one time we actually want the contents of this letter, they don't leave it with the 'neighbours' and we can't even attempt to get it until tomorrow.


As it's made the TV you may have read about the story concerning the renaming of pig tarts. To summarise a baker has to rename her Pig Tarts, Robin Tarts, and Frog Tarts as they contain neither pig, robin, nor frog respectively. As per usual the media are going into hysterics at this jobworthiness and making jokes about Rock Cakes, Shepherds' Pie, and Cottage Pie. So let's get the facts shall we. Trading Standards are not stopping her from calling them whatever she likes provided she notes their true name or ingredients next to them. So Pig Tarts would be 'Pig Tarts - tarts filled with strawberry jam topped with a novelty icing pig' Wow how nasty of them to make her tell you what's in them <sigh>

Oh and it's Shepherds' Pie as it's a pie eaten by Shepherds. Cottage Pie, Rock Cakes, Fairy Cakes Toad in the Hole, and Bubble and Squeak are all fair game though.


Being one of the technorati you tend to forget at times just how clueless some people can be about technology, this was highlighted by a question on GMTV this morning from one of the presenters regarding digital TV

"Will I still be able to watch films on my VHS?"

Um yes the switch in transmissions won't change the connection between your TV and video, a bit like asking if it'll alter your game console set-up. The reporter they were talking to answered correctly then mentioned you'd need a digital set-top box for each video recorder as they only have an analogue tuner. Correct, but feel free to mention that you can buy new ones with a digital tuner, that you can buy hard-drive recorders that have such tuners, oh and feel free to definitely mention that without said multiple tuners you'll only be able to watch and record the same program.

The roll-out is interesting too, start at the top of the country spread down into Wales then slowly push South East towards London. Now forgive me, but when things like this normally happen it generally starts in London then slowly migrates elsewhere. So why the difference, are we beta testing the system, getting the kinks out so that all those important Londoners won't loose their broadcasting, or is the more benign fact that there's a greater population in these areas and it'll take them a while to get off their asses and get a new tuner and they don't want to fielding all these questions?


So a new update for the PlayStation 3 came out pushing v1.6 into v1.7. It comes with some minor changes one not mentioned being that it's altered the PlayStation 2 backward compatibility list. Having failed to grab the 1.6 list I lucked out in finding one at techstatic
I then imported the 1.7 list and ran a comparison.

v1.6 had a total of 1,782 games, v1.7 upgrades 234 of those and adds a new set of 259 making a grand total of 1,940 playable games. No I've not got my sums wrong, what I didn't mention was the 101 games that have been removed from the list. Oh and that 103 have been downgraded.

Yep that's right update your system and you could find that the game you've been playing without a hitch no longer works. Way to go Sony.