Posts by fridaynightsmoke

"Reports did not divulge how Lovell was caught."

With his pants down, presumably.

Cash is king.

That is all.

Police stations

I still have that sound clip burned into my brain.. the one with the siren then a garbled woman saying something like "betas copburger 128 9" or whatever. It doesn't help that it seems to be the go-to clip of police radio used on TV, films etc.

Penrith Motorway Services... IN SPACE!

Was there an episode about running out of Ginster's pasties and the diesel being ridiculously expensive, or was that an actual visit to a services?

This is what happens, Larry.

I do hope the researchers shout that at the chunk blowing 'bot.

Begin settling space,

and ship off thousands of vegetarians to Mars- what's not to like?

At first I was excited by this news...

... but then I realised that I don't bloody want Win8.

Good thing the printer was working,

otherwise a call would have gone out for PC Load Letter.

Not just Apple

I had one of the cheap (£10) Cherry keyboards here at work, which met a sticky end after I spilled about half a can of Coke on it...

I tried disassembling and cleaning, which stopped the keys sticking down, but still I had several 'dead' keys. Closer inspection revealed the sticky acidic beverge had seeped underneath the rubber membrane and corroded the tracks on the flexible circuit board.

That keyboard made its way to the Tyseley incinerator and has been replaced with another £10 keyboard, a MS model this time. If it lasts 6 years like the old one did, I'll be happy. Especially if it takes half a coke to finish it.

More rules = more loopholes, idiots.

"Them avoiding tax increases my taxes" - no it doesn't. The government taxes as much as it can from everyone and then spends accordingly.

"Why can't we ban fees for intangible goods?" - so any foreign software or internet company makes 100% profits on their UK revenues then?

"Why can't we have the government/EU make up lots of new rules.." - yes, because poiliticians are oh-so trustworthy aren't they, and would never engineer exemptions for their donors and big tax hikes for non-donors...

"Why can't we send $Globocorp packing and have indy outlets instead?" - all the UK customers of $Globocorp would disagree. Every time they use $Globocorp, they make a decision NOT to use $Competitor. There is a reason for that.

Had this in Brum for about 3 years.....

Congrats on catching up, yanks ;)

Idiots!

It's quite clearly the supports for an ancient elevated roundabout.

I used to work at McD

It was my first job... the McFlurry chocolate was roughly dosed by the dispenser (similarly to an optic in a pub).

Giving extra choc to favoured customers/employees was quite common, along with extra fudge in the sundaes, 'special' burgers with an extra patty etc. The standard response from management was to get an unofficial bollocking, unless someone was really taking the piss and noticeably doing it regularly, in which case further action would be taken.

I was once collared helping myself to a sundae consisting mostly of chocolate sauce, instead of the 1cm at the bottom of the cup a regulation single pump of the dispenser would give you. It lead only to a 'quiet word' from the shift manager.

I wonder if there's more involved in this case, eg a pattern of regular 'bad employee' behaviour (whatever that might be), each instance just below the threshold for 'doing something' and this case providing the excuse for a sacking; or whether the manager involved is just a power crazed arse. We shall never know.

Vulcanism

So an increase in vulcanism means the locals won't necessarily live long, or prosper?

Right..

Won't this lead to a big increase in fly tipping, backyard burning etc etc?

As for 'reducing packaging', that falls into the same bin as 'reducing lorry miles'; all concerned have teams of people already working on that. Believe it or not, encasing stuff in packaging (and sending lorries down the road) costs surprising amounts of money, so companies who do such things already have a substantial interest in reducing both.

Radio good for discovery

Radio is good for discovering music precisely because it's someone else's choice. If you're just searching on Youtube then 99% of what you hear is your own choice, therefore you're unlikely to hear anything new.

As for 'recommendations', a lot of the time people are reluctant/too busy etc to actually listen to something new, whereas on the radio you're almost forced to. The tradeoff is of course having to listen to several hours of godawful shite* to hear one good track (on average).

*in one's opinion, YMMV