rikkus

I didn’t know this was still possible. I used to fly Nottingham <-> Glasgow and it was just like getting on a train or coach. I had wondered why it needed to any different now but I see that it’s because the terminal in EMA is now both for internal and international.

Same issue for me on the questions. I could see from the Spectrum 48k manual that there was more that could be done than writing plain BASIC but didn’t know how to find out more. I didn’t have any idea what all those POKES I saw in others’ code (typed in from magazines) were doing.

Same issue when I got a BBC B. No reference beyond the simple user guide, and I couldn’t find anything out about other books that might be available by asking at the library, because they didn’t understand what I was asking about.

Getting onto the Internet in 1994 made a huge difference!

Whenever I went to YouTube I would get suggested videos that were either interesting and related to stuff I had watched, or not interesting to me, but no problem. The algorithm just didn’t quite judge what I might be interested in as well as it could.

Occasionally I would try dismissing one of the suggestions in the hope I wouldn’t see similar again, but then I’d still see it’s kind repeated and was just disappointed it wasn’t taking my request into account.

Suggestions are hard though. No problem.

One day, though, I made the mistake of following a link to YouTube which turned out to be to a video of an American political figure (not even sure if he is a politician) whose views were of the sort that court controversy - on purpose, I guessed.

What I didn’t expect was that YouTube would then offer me videos featuring the same person - or people with similar ultra-polarising messages - every time I returned to YouTube.

I hadn’t realised that not only does YT take into account what you have watched a _lot_ of, it also seems to massively favour what you have watched once - if that is something especially controversial or perhaps otherwise ‘special’.

While I don’t mind pointless suggestions I will ignore, it’s very concerning that without ‘liking’ or repeatedly watching such material, people are being suggested it time after time, even when they ask to have it taken away.

(Edit: just realised GP was probably not referring to email providers, but I’ll leave my question here with apologies)

Microsoft, Apple. I’d move my mail to one of these to get away from Google but I can’t find a way to do so. I already pay for Office 365 and iCloud but I don’t get to bring my own domain for email. Unless I’m missing something.

I don’t pay Google for my email on my own domain because I got in early enough on Google Apps for your Domain or whatever it was called.

I’m happy to pay a reasonable price - I just don’t know whether it’s possible.

It’s possible to bring your own encryption to AWS. You can put an HSM you control on your own infrastructure and keep your keys there. As a step further you can encrypt before sending any data there in the first place, though you’re then operating more critical systems yourself, of course.

You can save even more money if you buy used. I have a couple of Rega amps and pairs of speakers, for music in two rooms. Total spend less than £400. Original cost would have been ridiculous. But they're just as good as when bought new.

Sources are so good these days that unless you're very picky, you can just plug your TV / laptop / phone into an amp using a cable and you're done.

I’m assuming this meant ‘the UNIX desktop’

Yes, that's what I'm using. You don't have to be a business to use it.

I use Code42 CrashPlan[0]. This has clients for MacOS, Linux and Windows and it's been flawless since I started using it years ago for personal and business use.

Going by the names and the descriptions I've read, the overloaded term 'backup' only applies to Carbon Copy Cloner and Clonezilla in the sense that they make a copy of your storage, so don't protect against corruption (such as ransomware, or you accidentally corrupting files, or deleting files...) Please let me know if I'm wrong on this. Of course you can do real backups with a clone-only tool if you rotate the backup media yourself, but I prefer this aspect to be handled automatically.

[0] https://www.crashplan.com

If you check that you can restore from backup regularly, then whatever the system is underneath that matters much less.

Even an email saying 'things went well' doesn't tell you that you can restore your files.

I'm not sure about the TV across the room, but I certainly see the pixels on a 2k 23" monitor. I'm using two now and every second I'm itching to get back to my Macbook's Retina display. Everything else about these monitors is fine... except pixel density.

In Windows this is better (for me) because I personally like the subpixel rendering there - it's aligned to pixel boundaries more often and looks clearer to my eyes.

I’m a subscriber to Office 365 and would use their mail service (whatever it’s called these days) but... I can’t bring my email address - which is on a grandfathered free ‘Google apps for your domain’ account. It’s a bit silly, considering I’m paying for this and can’t use it, but am getting Google’s email hosting and spam filter for free.

As others have commented yes Glasses Direct are who I’ve used. They let you choose some frames to have sent to you to try on in a selection box. I did this the first time.

They require you to send your prescription (a photo is fine) before they make them, which makes me think they are being required to do that legally, or at least concerned they don’t want to get it wrong.

So this doesn’t turn into an advert for one company, I did notice that lots of other companies seem to offer a very similar service and they all seem to offer various guarantees regarding your happiness with the product, presumably because people are still wary of this way to buy glasses.

Another reason I’m slightly evangelistic about using these ‘online’ glasses services is that the high street opticians are obviously overpriced and I don’t think it’s right to make so much money unnecessarily from people who just want/need to see well - some of whom really struggle to afford the costs.

In the UK it’s expensive to buy glasses from the high street, but you can order them from one of several ‘online’ shops for cheap. I’ve bought several pairs of metal, rimless glasses for 30 quid a pair and they’ve been excellent. They would have been around £250 from the high street.

There are regulations[1] in the UK too.

We've had new UPVC windows installed over the past few years and they've all got hidden 'trickle' vents.

[1] https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/ventilation-appro...

They used to be positioned like this in the UK but all the ones I’ve seen like this have been removed or moved over the years to places where they could be regarded as more for safety than easy money making.

This works really well if you have excellent eyesight or if the screen is curved but so have to physically move sideways to see different windows with this size screen. It’s a good problem to have, of course!

I installed KDE Neon on a t450s recently and the fingerprint reader was the only hardware that didn’t work out of the box. I had to install an extra package and add some lines to a pam config file.

I use it to log in, plus to auth for anything that requires root. I’m doing some coding so occasionally do something that requires sudo in a terminal. A prompt appears and asks me to swipe my finger. It’s very neat.

Opinion on factors based on introspection:

- Desire to shorten the parts of the commute where I can’t read a book (on my phone)

- Desire to shorten the commute in general to maximise time at home or work (day is more relaxed if you arrive earlier)

- Have a set of transport departure times in mind, for the optimal ‘smooth’ journey and want to be sure to arrive early enough to guarantee not missing these. Lowers stress.

- Brisk walking raises heart rate and brings endorphins

- Everyone else walks at this speed. To deviate makes it harder for the person deviating as they aren’t working with the ‘flow’.

This behaviour - and perhaps other causes with similar issues for desktop users, is what drove me away from helping to make Linux ‘ready for the desktop’. The kernel philosophy was incompatible with the needs of desktop users. Those developing for the desktop (like myself) didn’t have the required expertise to make the kernel do the Right a Thing, and couldn’t find enough people willing or able to help.

Things may have changed over the years - I’ve been running a Linux desktop recently and haven’t seen this kind of issue yet (the kind where you need to use magic keys to ask the kernel to kill all, sync and reboot) but reading your post, perhaps this is because RAM is much more plentiful these days.

I’m pretty sure that you replied to a joke referencing that joke.

Just to note I was also expecting the occasional web form to decide my address wasn’t valid, but it hasn’t happened.

I’m not sure why it’s been plain sailing but perhaps I’ve just been lucky to pick a TLD that happens to work okay for both these scenarios.

I tell people my personal email address at least once a week and I’ve never had anyone ‘shut down’. Sometimes after I finish saying it they ask, ’Is that it?’ That’s all though. I’m rik@hemsley.cc and when I registered it I was half expecting trouble but it hasn’t materialised.

Mostly you can swipe in from the left edge to go back. It’s not 100% consistent so can be frustrating when it doesn’t work, but I seem to remember similar with the back button in Android.

They are selling a platform for putting advertising in front of kids. Targeted or not, they make money from kids asking parents for stuff they saw in adverts in apps.

I'm currently using KDE Neon and if you choose Wayland when you log in, you can also select wobbly windows in the settings.

What do you mean by "won't be compatible with modern routers"? Are you referring to the 802.11g? These devices had an ethernet port, IIRC. I'm sure I remember plugging mine into my network and not using its built-in wifi.

Yep I took the defaults here then installed 1PasswordX and couldn’t open its settings. That’s a vital extension for me.

I have AirPods for meetings and music while walking, the normal Apple buds - now just backup in case I leave my AirPods behind, some Sony closed back monsters for shutting out noise while working in cafes and some nice open back Grados for music listening at home.

I hardly use the Sonys but if I do, I will just borrow the adaptor from my Apple buds in my laptop bag. For listening to my Grados I use an amp with a headphone socket.

If I wanted to plug them into my phone I would need the Apple lightning adapter and also one to the smaller headphone jack! This doesn’t bother me. If I want to do that, I’ll just do it.

I’ll even spend another £9 on an adapter to leave connected if I do it often enough.

None of this seems terrible to me and I’m not sure how unique this set of circumstances is. What are the tons of situations where this gets tricky?

No I don’t water it either. It rains in the UK often enough. It needs mowing and weeding and that’s it. The cut grass and weeds are used as compost.