Missile Batteries In London

Posted in enquire_within / 56discussion

Apologies if this has been done before, but perhaps someone can explain to me how these are supposed to deter suicide bombers? And why is it preferable to have a shot-down airliner crashing on, say, Piccadilly rather than on the Olympic Stadium? …

A Warning

Posted in enquire_within / 81general

Earlier this afternoon I received a call from INTERNATION… claiming to be Windows Support Service. I was bored so played them along for twenty minutes or so, apparently following their instructions on my PC until they go to the point of getting …

Tow-Ball Height

Posted in cars / 41general

It seems that the towball (TowSure detachable type) on my car (RAV4, 2006 model) is too low for the kind of twin axle livestock trailer I want to use. I was rather hoping this would be fixable by buying a “taller” replacement detachable ball uni…

Microsoft And Ebook DRM

Posted in ebooks / chit_chat

There’s been some robust debate in here about DRM on ebooks, the legality and morality of removing it. I have already stated that I remove DRM from ebooks (purely for my own use), simply because I have been caught twice already by two different …

Tow-Ball Height

Posted in cars

It seems that the towball (TowSure detachable type) on my car (RAV4, 2006 model) is too low for the kind of twin axle livestock trailer I want to use. I was rather hoping this would be fixable by buying a “taller” replacement detachable ball uni…

Posted in sasha_lubetkin / 11chatterbox

Drought Is it just me, or is this the wettest drought ever?

Recommendations For Freesat Recorder

Posted in  digital_tv

Our Sky sub finished shortly, and we’ve removed the box. Have been trying out an Elgato freesat recorder, but the ancient Mac Mini in the stack doesn’t seem up to the job, and anyway it’s single tuner. Any recommendat… Ideally I’d like somethi…

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How Much Shadow Is OK ?

Posted in alt.energy / 2chatter

How much shadow is OK ? None. See my evidence here – www.comley…. (today’s post).

Posted in enquire_within / 81general

Carrying medicines on aircraft We’re planning a trip to the Isle of Man. I am on a variety of medicines including controlled drugs. Does anyone know if there are any procedures I need to follow to avoid any risk of being turned over by the airport plod? Regards, Pete

IP Camera With Wifi

Posted in vendor / 15chatter

IP camera with wifi I’m looking for an indoor IP-based camera with wifi. I know Axis are very good but expensive. Who are the best makers to look for after Axis, please? Need reasonable wifi range, 15 ft through two layers of wooden floor. David

Vitamin C

Posted in enquire_within / 81general

Vitamin C The local chemist’s Vitamin C tablets each give 1000mg – 25 times the UK adult RDA. And 10 times e.g. the max USA adult RDA. Why do manufacture… provide such a high dosage? Esp. given that overdose can be harmful.

Posted in investment / 3general

A man in the bank today was trying to sell me a stocks and shares ISA. As I see it, if I put £10,000 in one of these, I will get – typically – about a 5% dividend yield so about £500pa. This will be tax free, so I save 20% of that, …

Browser Statistics 1st Quarter 2012

Posted in html / 16general

Thought I’d share some statistics from some analysis of a website I develop which people sign up for health club memberships. Thus a broad range of users with no technical slant. 28% Chrome 17% Safari (including mobile) 15% Firefox 14% IE8 13% IE…

Time For A New Camera

Posted in photo / 11general

I’ve always had Canon 35mm SLRs, and assumed that I’d upgrade to a DSLR at some point. Since I was given a point & shoot digital jobbie though, my EOS 500 has, sadly, pretty much stayed in the cupboard along with its 35-80mm and 75-300mm le…

Learning

Posted in sasha_lubetkin / 10chatterbox

I am off to learn another thing, and as such will have to disavail myself of the interwebs. I think I can survive the disconnecti… It will be a struggle but the next time I shall be on is Friday. I trust I can leave you in peace to get on wit…

Smart cars

Posted cars / 41general

Smart cars Our current car has all sorts of whizzy things, like electric brake; automatic headlights; auto wipers; key fob you don’t need to get out of your pocket. Are these things “normal” on most cars now, and if not, why not?

Posted in android / phones

Update all? I have a nice new Samsung Nexus thing with ICS. It says it has 4 updates available. How do I tell it to go get them all? Matthew Jones

Scam phone calls

Posted in virus / 10general

Scam phone calls Although these aren’t strictly viral, they come, to me, under the same heading. There seems to be a resurgence of these at the moment.

Lightning

Posted  in sasha_lubetkin / 5serious.chat – 3 days ago

Lightning I just saw a very bright flash of lightning…

Posted in enquire_within / 81general

Carrying medicines on aircraft We’re planning a trip to the Isle of Man. I am on a variety of medicines including controlled drugs. Does anyone know if there are any procedures I need to follow to avoid any risk of being turned over by the airport plod?

35 replies

FTTC and in house presentation

Posted in broadband / 4_adsl – 20 days ago

I am just thinking about upgrading to 40 mbps FTTC. Our master socket is in the kitchen (not very convenient). Am I right in understandi… that the presentation is ONLY via an upgraded NTE/5 type socket at the master location, and that you can

Shared Ownership Flat

Posted in enquire_within / 55discussion

Wondered if anyone here has any experience of Shared Ownership. A good friend is looking into it but can’t seem to get any practical info other than what the housing associations are put out. Personally I think its a bad idea as it seems to prey o…

Any Way You Look At It, If You’ve Got An Airframe That Doesn’t Need A

Posted in electronics / 30gen

load of fancy electronics to keep it flying reasonably straight and level, it’s likely to be a lot smoother and less cranky – even when the electronics is WAD – than one that’s naturally anything but stable. Airliners don’t need to be highly maneou…

Humax Foxsat-HDR EPG Locks Up

Posted in digital_tv / freesat - 24 days ago

Today – after it had been on Standby overnight – when I hit EPG it showed only the “All channels” genre at first, then – after 4 minutes – it showed all the genres, but still said something like “receiving programme details”, and was still doing tha…

Liam Stacey

Posted in enquire_within / 55discussion

All I’ve seen so far quoted is some obnoxious trolling by this youth who has been locked up today. Has anyone see any actual incitement to racial hatred? Or is this a case of “political correctness gone mad (TM)” on the part of the magistrate whe…

A Problem.

Posted in sasha_lubetkin / 4ask_aunty

A problem. Dear Aunty, given the granny tax, VAT on hot pies, advice on jerry cans and George Galloway winning in Bradford, how will we recognise an April Fool story today? (Shamelessly plagiarized from the letters column in yesterday’s Telegraph.) — jP –

Emails

Posted in windows_7 / general02

Having just started using W7 and finding it has no Outlook Express which is what I have been using for most emails, any recommendat… for something which is (a) free and (b) simple? Googling produces quite a few results but what are people’s t…

Learning

Posted in sasha_lubetkin / 10chatterbox

I am off to learn another thing, and as such will have to disavail myself of the interwebs. I think I can survive the disconnecti… It will be a struggle but the next time I shall be on is Friday. I trust I can leave you in peace to get on wit…

AV Amplifier Advice Please

Posted in digital_tv / 2general

Currently I have a 32″ CRT Toshiba with built in 5.1. I am planning to change to a larger LED set but I do not want to give up surround sound. What AV box do I need? I would like to retain my Humax FoxSat HDR and my Samsung HR720 DVD Scart (we w…

64 Bit Debian And VirtualBox

Posted in linux / 15general

Is anyone using this combination? I’ve been encountering serious issues with Linux locking up so comprehensi… that the only way out is to issue reboot at a terminal. The behaviour is unpredictab… sometimes occurring when I fire up a VM and s…

At 4.41 this morning, the landline rang four times, then hung up. When I got up this morning, I dialled 1471 and found that the number of the caller was not one I recognised. I typed it into the Google search box, and it seems tha…

Yeast First Or Last

I’ve just bought a Panasonic SD2500. In the recipes it says that yeast should be put in first. However, on their top-of-the-… machine there is a yeast dispenser. Hence, yeast will go in last. Furthermore, with my previous machines, the books a…

First Book Club Discussion

First book club discussion As Andy pointed out, we didn’t set a deadline for the start of discussion of our book of the month. Since the title was chosen on 22 February, we have a month, ending 21 March. I hope that gives everyone enough time? Sasha

Hooray Our New Euro Lock Arrived Today

Screwfix Euro locks have been out of stock for a while but I have now been able to get our new front door lock: http://www…. shed-brass/… New Anti “snap”, “bump” etc. Stangely …

WHY Is It Wrong?

I think most people here would agree that a phrase like ‘we’ll be back momentarily’ is just wrong but why? It’s used to mean ‘we’ll be back shortly’ whereas the phrasing suggests ‘we’ll be back briefly’ but why? Use of ‘short’ and ‘brief’ can be p…

Windows 8 – Great Or Guffaw?

A closed question on StackOverfl… made me think that it would be sensible to have a discussion about Windows 8. From what I hear, the general principle is that if you have a desktop app, it will carry on working on Intel kit. But to get into the…

More On The Mistreatment Of Women (And Girls) In Afghanistan

More on the mistreatment of women (and girls) in Afghanistan This is an article from The New York Times which outlines the system of ‘baad’ whereby girls are abducted and punished for the perceived misdeeds of male members of their families. Not pleasant Sunday morning reading:

Extradition. Anyone Care To Comment On The Logic, Morality And Ethics Of E…

Extradition. Anyone care to comment on the logic, morality and ethics of extraditing someone to a country when the alleged crime did not occur within the (internatio… accepted) jurisdiction of that country, and especially when it occurred w…

Converting Primary To Logical Partition

I’ve finished up with too many primary partitions on my disk and need to convert at least one to logical. I know that Acronis Disk Director will do it, but it costs money. There’s also EaseUS partition Manager which is free. But I’m a bit uneasy …

UI Frameworks/Packages

I’m looking for a nice frontend framework for a Grails application (web based, Java/Groovy on the server). Just something to give a neat appearance and to save me from having to reinvent code or include bits from many separate places – so form ha…

A Harmless Tweet?

“I have loved things about you and I have hated things about you and there is a lot I don’t understand about you… I will not pray for you.” That message, posted on Twitter by Saudi Arabian Hamza Kasgari, sparked over 30,000 responses, several d…

New PVR

New PVR I think my Toppy 5810 is a bit ill – if I turn it off or put it into standby, when I restart it the HDD often won’t wake up, and I have to keep trying again and again until finally it works. So, what’s a good replacement?

Award Winning Marmalade!

As some of you may know, for the last year, my wife Melanie has been making handmade preserves here in Wetwang and this weekend we were up in Cumbria for the “World’s Original Marmalade Awards”. Well, I’m proud to say that she won a Gold award fo…

Where Were We Talking About Feminism? This Brings It All Back:

Where were we talking about feminism? This brings it all back: http://www….

Engelbert Humperdinck

Engelbert Humperdinck The wife just told me about this. I thought she was joking, but then I saw her face! SteveR.

Barclays New Website

Anyone tried Barclays new Banking Website? Pile of sh*t. Riddled with Javascript errors. Attempts to send feedback result in endless loop of login, go to feedback page, sent to login page… At last found a response “form”. Filled in complaint. …

More On The Mistreatment Of Women (And Girls) In Afghanistan

More on the mistreatment of women (and girls) in Afghanistan This is an article from The New York Times which outlines the system of ‘baad’ whereby girls are abducted and punished for the perceived misdeeds of male members of their families. Not pleasant Sunday morning reading: http://is.g…

Looking For Computer Games

Shortly I shall be enjoying a course of medication that makes life a little difficult and one of the things that will provide a good distraction is computer games. I’m looking for recommendat… for PC computer games. The sort of games I like …

Language Changes

In cix:/3media… Malcolm said: > This is however CaRP and therefore modern changes to the > language are depreciated. If we allow them, we will probably soon > be granting the acceptabili… of “ought of” and “different to”. I think t…

History Of CIX

History of CIX I seem to remember seeing a posting somewhere on CIX that gave a potted corporate history of CIX – including the various outfits that have owned it over the years. Can anyone remember where it is? Alan W

Just Bought A LR Disco II TD5 GS, So May Be In Here More From Now On!

Just bought a LR Disco II TD5 GS, so may be in here more from now on!

The Secular Society

I notice that it is now illegal to have formal prayers before Council meetings – part of the Secular Society campaign. Personally, those pre-meeting prayers give me the `onk and always have, but that is not the point. To tell people who want to …

Sad Job

Yesterday morning there was a knock at the door and it was my first boss from when I started in the bike trade Well I ended up spending the morning with him He still owned the building his business Lexport Ltd had been in it was then rented by P…

BT Infinity

Has anyone had much experience with this? I usually disregard BT’s broadband offers which come with the bills, but I followed up the last one I received as I knew that FTTC was being installed around here. Apparently it will become available fr…

No Mention Of The New Nikon D4?

No mention of the new Nikon D4? Anyone getting one?

And Another Tiny One…

Sorry to those who heard this, but one of the panelists on the News Quiz was commiserati… with American voters, having to take seriously candidates with names such as “Barack”, “Mitt” and “Newt”: > I have seen Ikea striage untis with names m…

Scattiness Disaster

Last night, I decided to cook a great favourite of ours: risotto with aubergine and lemon. It was only after I’d started to add the stock and stir the mixture that I realised I’d used basmati rice instead or arborio. It will come as no surpri…