Re: How's that Cashless-Society looking now Sir?
@CrazyOldCatMan
how very dare you have an opposing POV !
881 publicly visible posts • joined 9 Dec 2010
... my first purchase PC since 2012! Having spent the last 6 years upgrading various bits and bobs.
I know I'm in for an avalanche of down votes but I *really* haven't found win 10 to be all that bad.
I've found it to be solid and reliable (exactly how I found win 7 to be before that). I do make use of "Shut up 10" but other than that it's been fine.
I've had no crashes following updates and as someone that keeps their PC up to date anyway, I have no real problem with win 10 updating itself.
Of course, I only really use it for running Adobe Lightroom and Photoshop and it does both those with admirable reliability.
While I accept everyone's experience will be different, for me there really isn't a problem with win 10.
BTW.. I don't actually give a fuck about votes up or down so fill yer boots.
"There is no offence for taking photo or filming in a publicly accessible place."
Not so... that can be changed by local bylaws.
In theory , you can take a picture of anything you can see from a public space but try standing on a public highway taking pictures of military installations, as an example.
It's also a fact that a lot of what *looks* like public space is in fact private space and private space can also have a prohibition on taking pictures. The courts in MK are just such an example.
For which said NHS resources are paid.
I have a heart problem that's being monitored privately. The various tests are administered by NHS staff in an NHS hospital, using NHS equipment. .
The tests are done out of normal working hours ie evening or saturday mornings.
The Dr is paid for his time, the nurses are paid for their time, the hospital is paid for the use of the equipment, equipment that would otherwise be sitting around unused.
When I was admitted for an overnight stay, I stayed in a private wing that had it's own staff and equipment
This was explained to me by said NHS Dr and NHS nurse and a hospital administrator when I asked the question.
Literally everyone wins; I win , they win, the NHS wins from me having private medical. Actually my GP doesn't win because he needs to see me to refer me but he's the only one
@lars
I'm not so sure that anyone who's given it any thought objects to the idea of an ID card per se. The objections have all been to the sheer quantity of data that would be stored on said card, that the user of said card had to keep it up to date with all kinds of stuff (and at their own cost as originally proposed) and under penalty if you fail to do so. This data included things such as your current place of employment.
As you rightly point out, most of us already carry multiple forms of ID, many of which are issued by Her majesty's gov and we do so happily.
So let's not get too carried away with comparing it to other European countries because they're are not the same thing at all.
There is also the prospect of feature creep, once a biometric card is mandated you can be sure that in a short amount of time (for our protection of course) it will become impossible to enter government buildings without producing it, not long after that it'll be banks and building societies... "Of course you can come in. simply swipe your card! For your own protection of course!" and from there it's a short step to logging everywhere you go in/out
I'm not saying it would happen but you can be sure someone will have thought about it.
@Primus Secundus Tertius
There is, of course merit to what you say because in general it seems that an MP who has had experience of actual life are pretty good and trying their hardest to get the right things done but they're rarely permitted to inner sanctum of party politics, you'll never find a free thinker on the front benches, they're considered far too dangerous. They also seem to be in short supply
"Then again, we voted for them."
It doesn't matter who we vote for, they're all mendacious clueless fuckwits being led around by the nose by some faceless / unaccountable Whitehall mandarin that never changes except when they accept their knighthood and fat final salary gold plated pension and pass the baton onto the next faceless / unaccountable mandarin.
1) Always know what you want to buy and check it's in stock.
2) Always locate the item before entering the shop
3) go late in the day.... I find if I arrive at mine about 7.30/8.00 pm it's alright
4) Never go all the way round the shop, learn the shortcuts
5) never go at the weekend
6) never take anyone with you
I've got Ikea shopping down to a fine art; my PB is 65 minutes door to door
Fitbit couldn't pay me to own one of their devices now.
I had a Blaze and as a device for measuring activity it worked quite well but the required bluetooth connection was flakey as hell; the required fitbit app was useless if it couldn't connect to the servers (which in turn meant you couldn't use the device for GPS tracking) and it forgot all your settings after every single update, updates that could only be applied via flakey bluetooth. If you wanted to map your exercise routes it needs the phone but most of the time would complain it couldn't find the phone to connect to it's GPS, I discovered that it's step counter was variable to say the least and in the 20 months I owned one it was replaced 3 times because of battery related issues.
for a bit of kit that cost 150 quid it was remarkably poor.
I've replaced it with a Huawei watch 2 which is more smart watch than activity tracker and while it has it's issues is considerably better than the Blaze.
I had a Blaze and as a device for measuring activity it worked really well but the required bluetooth connection was flakey as hell.. the required fitbit app was useless if it couldn't connect to the servers and forgot all your settings after every single update, updates that could only be applied via flakey bluetooth. If you wanted to map your exercise routes it needs the phone but most of the time would complain it couldn't find the phone to connect to it's GPS, I discovered that it's step counter was variable to say the least and in the 20 months I owned one it was replaced 3 times because of battery related issues.
for a bit of kit that cost 150 quid it was remarkably poor.
I've replaced it with a Huawei watch 2 which is more smart watch than activity tracker and while it has it's issues is considerably better than the Blaze.
"This means that almost everyone who uses an e-cig is getting a massive reduction in harm to themselves and those around them."
but a massive uplift in looking stupid ... the big old boxes like the one in this article really do look utterly stupid when you see someone taking a tonk on them. A couple of my friends use e-cigs that look exactly like cigarettes, they don't look so bad.
As an aside, does anyone think there are many more people vaping than you ever saw smoking? Perhaps it's because using one of those is considered more socially acceptable when walking down the street?
if only facebook ahd recently introduced a technology that allows them to scan for faces and use it for good rather than simply adding to a cache of information.
As an aside, I admit that Martin Lewis has done lots of good as a consumer campaigner but on that TV show he does he just comes across as a huge, shouty, patronizing, knob jockey
As with all these things it's only as good as the data it slurps... I have a facebook page for a photography business so that means I also have a facebook profile except it thinks I'm a 23 year old female with a birthday in October, I even used a throwaway mobile phone number when it nagged me for one.
In reality, I'm a 54 year old man with a birthday in feb :D
Of course, my feed is full of adverts for tampax and panty pads :D
"Amazed the Stainless Steel Rat books have never made it any further than the pages of the books and 2000AD comic."
Yeah, I think the rat books would make great film, there have been a couple stories from 2000AD that have moved beyond the pages....
hardware -> http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0099740/ It wasn't acknowledged at the time but is now an accepted as a lift of a Tharg's Futureshock
And of course "Universal Soldier" was based on a story of the same name but beyond a reanimated dead man , reprogrammed at will via a chip in his head it doesn't really follow the strip story line
re ":I don't get this."
If you were my enemy and you live in a valley and I live atop the hill, I don't need fancy guns and bombs.. I'll simply roll rocks down the hill at you.
Think of the earth as you and the moon as me.
If any country had established a moon base and based on today, there'd be a Chinese one, a Russian one, an American one and a European one at least, probably an Indian one as well because once the technology is such that it's a viable place to build a base everyone will. So you can be sure it would become a target some how.
"Now the ones I buy for my nephew give you a handful of bricks to make a specific thing."
Meccano went down the same route from a box of generic plates with a very few specialized bits and bobs to a box with few generalized plates plus a large quantity of specialized plates.
The only childhood toy that is remotely like the stuff I played with as a yoof is Scalextric.. that said the digital stuff is eyewateringly expensive and even a basic car costs between 50 and 60 quid a throw and it's also remarkably fragile for something that's marketed as a "toy". I won't even let my adult friends have a go once the beer has been opened... drink driving, just don't do it!
@boltar
I have a car without power steering and stationary you're absolutely correct they are a bugger to turn but any kind of motion and they become manageable.
My more modern car suffered a power steering failure and guess what happened? That's right I successfully steered the car all the way home and then all the way to a garage. while we're on the subject I've also suffered an ABS failure do you think that ...
A) my brakes stopped working
or
B) my brakes continued to work but with more effort
There's only a single "clueless pillock" in this thread and I wasn't even one of the 8 that down voted you!
Blimey, what a Friday afternoon car that was :D