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The grumpy thread


outlaw118

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57 minutes ago, High Jetter said:

Wifey is of Irish Catholic descent. St Patrick spent, allegedly, over a month on top of a BIG hill near her homestead. Have climbed said hill. He knew you need a break.

Croagh Patrick, on the road out of Westport - Murrisk, I know it. Really dedicated people go up the thing barefoot.

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Sister has moved back to live with us due to selling her flat (long story involved which I won't go into here).  There are a lot of rants I could have about this, but tonight especially fucked me off.  

She wanted a big chest of drawers moving from her flat to our house.  I fold my seats down, go over to the flat, dismantle the chest of drawers with help from her BF, load it all into my car and put the drawers back in place for the journey, drive it back to ours, take out the drawers and lay them out in the correct order in the bedroom, haul the main unit up the stairs on my own, locate all seven large drawers back on their runners on my own, cut my arm on one of the runners, screw it all into place, and balance it so the drawers don't fall open as it's tilting slightly forward on the carpet.

Did I get a word of thanks?  Did she even look at or acknowledge what I'd done?  Did she fuck.  And the only response when I tried to talk to her later in the evening was "I'm tired, fuck off".

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4 hours ago, High Jetter said:

Not alone, a colleague going through same too. Peace be with you.

I think if there is a God, this is his reward for me saying more than once, that religion is for the deluded.  

 

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19 hours ago, Pieman said:

Sister has moved back to live with us due to selling her flat (long story involved which I won't go into here).  There are a lot of rants I could have about this, but tonight especially fucked me off.  

She wanted a big chest of drawers moving from her flat to our house.  I fold my seats down, go over to the flat, dismantle the chest of drawers with help from her BF, load it all into my car and put the drawers back in place for the journey, drive it back to ours, take out the drawers and lay them out in the correct order in the bedroom, haul the main unit up the stairs on my own, locate all seven large drawers back on their runners on my own, cut my arm on one of the runners, screw it all into place, and balance it so the drawers don't fall open as it's tilting slightly forward on the carpet.

Did I get a word of thanks?  Did she even look at or acknowledge what I'd done?  Did she fuck.  And the only response when I tried to talk to her later in the evening was "I'm tired, fuck off".

Do yourself and your sister a massive favour and take the chest of drawers back to where it was, and leave it there in bits.  She will learn not to take you for a fool. 

Or do nothing and let your relationship end really badly at some point in the future. 

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On 02/03/2021 at 12:51, Talbot said:

Bit late for my reply on this, but the very first thing that anyone can do to improve their home broadband experience is to bin the utter pile of wank router that comes free with the service and put a decent one in.  The free ones are free for a reason.  Shit software, bad packet management, years-old design (that was the cheapest of the cheap in the first place) and manufactured by the millions with sod all quality control.

My personal preference is DrayTek routers.  Very robust, very reliable and extremely versatile:  settings for just about everything.  Most of their range is likely to be far and above what most people need for a domestic router, but it's worth it.

Because they're so robust, a second-hand one is a perfectly good prospect.

https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Draytek-Vigor-2820N-Wireless-Router/303902509873?hash=item46c2004b31:g:mzYAAOSwSvlgO18p

Less than a tenner delivered and about 56.4 times better than anything that comes free.

Yo @Talbot - Even later than your reply is my question! What should I use to achieve similar gains when using the shit Virgin media send out?

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Yesterday my business insurer phoned to remind me about my upcoming renewal. I explained I was changing the way I worked and would be doing more work on site and less at my workshop. I was told that was fine and then the proposal came through with a special endorsement saying I wouldnt be covered for working away from my premises, well thats a bit pointless then!

Then today I ran out of welding gas, rang up my local welding equipment supplier who said they stopped selling gas because of their insurance. tremendous, a 2 hour round trip this afternoon  to return my empty bottle to the next nearest SGS agent and look for a new supplier.

I should better check  if my car insurance actually covers me for driving my car on a road...

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1 hour ago, mercedade said:

Yo @Talbot - Even later than your reply is my question! What should I use to achieve similar gains when using the shit Virgin media send out?

The same.

Any broadband provider in the UK is realistically just buying capacity from BT wholesale, so it almost doesn't matter if it's BT, Virgin, TalkTalk or any other damn provider.  The service is still provided by BT wholesale.  Much like Gas or Electricity:  You can be billed by one of a thousand different companies, but the actual gas or electricity comes down the same pipe/cable.  So unless you actually have a physically different connection to the outside world (as might be provided by a local CATV/Telephony company), you just need a decent quality router that wasn't made for 34p in fuck-knows-where.

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10 hours ago, Talbot said:

The same.

Any broadband provider in the UK is realistically just buying capacity from BT wholesale, so it almost doesn't matter if it's BT, Virgin, TalkTalk or any other damn provider.  The service is still provided by BT wholesale.  Much like Gas or Electricity:  You can be billed by one of a thousand different companies, but the actual gas or electricity comes down the same pipe/cable.  So unless you actually have a physically different connection to the outside world (as might be provided by a local CATV/Telephony company), you just need a decent quality router that wasn't made for 34p in fuck-knows-where.

Cheers Talbot - sorry, I should have asked my question better. Because Virgin use their own infrastructure, they don't use the Bt/Openreach network at all and so have different cable-based hardware. But because I am totally clueless, I don't know how to avoid the Virgin hub (which has a co-ax style connection for broadband, rather than phone/ASDL). I wonder if it could be made to do whatever the home broadband equivalent of 'pass through' is, so that a better Wifi router could take on the burden?

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9 minutes ago, mercedade said:

Cheers Talbot - sorry, I should have asked my question better. Because Virgin use their own infrastructure, they don't use the Bt/Openreach network at all and so have different cable-based hardware. But because I am totally clueless, I don't know how to avoid the Virgin hub (which has a co-ax style connection for broadband, rather than phone/ASDL). I wonder if it could be made to do whatever the home broadband equivalent of 'pass through' is, so that a better Wifi router could take on the burden?

Your right up until the virgin router. If it's the same as sky and my current Huawei 3 router are, you turn off its shit bollocks WiFi and jsut have an rj45 going from it to your new WiFi making machine, then configure it up. 

In my setup, my 4g box sits in the loft as it gets decent signal up there. It's WiFi is off (it moans about it on the service page) and there's a cat5 cable snaking down through my entire house using only existing holes and previously liften floors to a 10 port gigabit switch (£15 used on ebay, nice metal net gear).

20210319_100907.thumb.jpg.08c2af5010ba7e98e63066b9d017000f.jpg

From there the network either flows wired to the pc, TV and my work laptop, or goes via one cable to a smoll tplink access point. Was sold as the thing you use in hotels to make a cat5 cable into Internet and does just that, turns the dhcp connection from the cable into magical waves! 

20210319_100811.thumb.jpg.ca58a2eb5a87d6bdea4df51b8a1b37b8.jpg

If you had better WiFi kit you could do all sorts, a mate spent £100 on a massive booster for his for his long garden. My (again £12 used) tplink works fine in my tiny house, and does me fine. 

If I want to admin any the 4g box still logs right onto its ip address from WiFi or lan, same with the tplink box (although it's been so long since I've touched that I can't remember the login details and would need to paperclip it). 

Follow Mr Talbots lead and open your wallet and you can be flinging 4k files or moving 10+gb around devices without the shitty (sky) router hard crashing and needing 10 minutes to cool down... 

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I've been doing something vaguely similar.  I have a powerline adapter up into my office (have a VOIP phone) directly from the fibre modem that I've split using an ethernet switch.  Then I've used an old laptop with Ubuntu installed to share a separate wireless network to the upstairs of my house as the router downstairs is in a truly dreadful location.

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Unless you have cable Internet, I highly, highly recommend using a PC as a router if you know your stuff. We have literally burned through several routers with all the computer usage in the house, but ever since using Untangle and later using ClearOS on some hardware I've had laying around, we've had next to no problems. At the same time my brother and I ran Cat5E cables around the house and configured all of our baked routers into wireless access points, meaning we have full WiFi and Ethernet throughout the house. Winners all-round.

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13 hours ago, Remspoor said:

A very  minor grump in the real world. But why after cleaning does the greatness who evolved the world show me that I  did not do such a grate job of cleaning when sunshine flows in to the house.

iron.thumb.jpg.7566d789184797370188a987e71c4200.jpg

They call it spring cleaning for a reason.  

There's no point I cleaning in the winter as you can't see the dirt until the sun shines 

Don't think of it as dirt.  You are sharing your space with incey wincey  who will capture nasty flies.  Like an environmentally friendly can of fly spray. 

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13 hours ago, cobblers said:

I had to turn down some steady lucrative work because I'd have to use "hot tools" (a soldering iron in the back of a van!) on site. Steady maintenance of some obscure access barriers on british steel plants across the country. It added 3k to my business insurance!

I'm thinking you need a different insurance broker, or need to ask the client for more money. 

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31 minutes ago, 95 quid Peugeot said:

Fucking speed cameras.  Done 3 times in the last week ffs

On the assumption that your licence is clean at the moment at that at least one of the alledged offences was below the +10%+9mph threshold, you'll be able to keep that to 6 points and a Speed awareness course.

I did read a while back that there was a very slight loophole that could be exploited if you got two offences in close sucession, whereby the declaration you have to make to be able to take a speed awareness course states that you have not taken one in the last 3 years.  Which of course is true.  The fact that you book two courses and then take two courses (from different providers) is irrelevant.  At the point of accepting the course, you'd not done one before.*

*this is not legal, or even sensible advise.  Just because I've read about it doesn't mean it's even possible.

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I thought I’d got a speeding fine just after Xmas, first few days after being on holiday and back to work driving to a job. 40mph limit dual carriageway up a hill so I stepped on it a bit to get up the hill, didn’t notice the mobile camera van in the layby until very late and I must have been doing nearly 50mph. Obviously I did see it and slowed but it must have been too late, so I thought.

Spent the next few weeks worrying about it but nothing ever came through. No idea why as I was convinced I’d fucked up. Must have either not been in operation or my actual speed was just under the limits?? 
Ive already done one awareness course about a year and a half ago so it would have been a fine and points that time. Bloody glad I got away with it though.

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11 minutes ago, danthecapriman said:

I must have been doing nearly 50mph.

Indicated 48mph on a speedo is likely 45/46mph in the real world as most speedometers are designed to over-read by about 5kph.  The threshold to start action is recommended at +10%+2, which in a 40 limit is 46mph.  You possibly just scraped through a few thousanths of a MPH below the threshold.

Or the camera operator was on a break/playing candy crush/nipped out for a piss.  Who knows.  Either way, once 14 days have passed, if nothing has been sent to the Registered Keeper of the vehicle, you can forget about it.

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1 hour ago, Talbot said:

Indicated 48mph on a speedo is likely 45/46mph in the real world as most speedometers are designed to over-read by about 5kph.  The threshold to start action is recommended at +10%+2, which in a 40 limit is 46mph.  You possibly just scraped through a few thousanths of a MPH below the threshold.

Or the camera operator was on a break/playing candy crush/nipped out for a piss.  Who knows.  Either way, once 14 days have passed, if nothing has been sent to the Registered Keeper of the vehicle, you can forget about it.

When I had to go on the speed awareness course I was in my Volvo near home, 30mph limit and I came round a bend behind some other cars all doing the same speed. Spotted the scamera van and got busted at 36. Funny really as I tried to drive as close as possible to the back of the car in front to try and hide my number plate but it obviously didn’t work! 
It did cross my mind briefly to go home and swap the US headlights on mine back to the EU style originals and contest the ticket as ‘clearly not my car officers’! Might have just dug myself a bigger hole doing that though.

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By the time you'd spotted it and had tried to mask your number plate, they would have already got you.  Bear in mind it's a continuous recording, so they can blip the speed of the car without being able to see the plate, then get the plate afterwards once you're much closer to the van.  I had exactly that with mine a while back.

Also, bear in mind that the optical zoom on the cameras they use is astonishing.  They can pip your speed at over a KM away.  9 times out of 10, as soon as you've spotted the van, they've pinged you.  There's one location they love to park in down in saltdean/peacehaven where the line-of-sight means the camera pings you at well over a KM away, and you can't even see the SCamera van from where you are.

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I'm on the lookout for a mk1 Honda CR-V and spotted a really good looking car on Wednesday - I messaged straight away but was too late, it had sold :(

The same car reappeared for sale today from a dodgy looking location, the seller has 15 other adverts for various old bangers and cars for breaking and the cr-v now has a mysterious check engine light - I'll bet my bollocks that he's weighed in the catalyst for omg£££ and is now punting it on feigning ignorance.

So annoying, the original seller was a right nice chap and the car was just what I was looking for.

Anyone near York bored and fancy a look ?

https://www.facebook.com/marketplace/item/132707368776874/?ref=browse_tab&referral_code=marketplace_top_picks&referral_story_type=top_picks&tracking={"qid"%3A"6941515162945112777"%2C"mf_story_key"%3A"101415829878646478"%2C"commerce_rank_obj"%3A"{\"target_id\"%3A101415829878646478%2C\"target_type\"%3A6%2C\"primary_position\"%3A0%2C\"ranking_signature\"%3A5310456676132847616%2C\"commerce_channel\"%3A501%2C\"value\"%3A0%2C\"upsell_type\"%3A21%2C\"grouping_info\"%3Anull}"}

I messaged the new seller asking if he knew why the check engine light was on and if the catalyst had been removed ? the surly response was "not sure". well, thanks for that :( 

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