[Richard]

I wonder who cobbled it together after we all thought that HMP would not have the staff or skills. I wonder if it was a commercial job or one of the ‘trusties’ in the workshop?

[Richard]

Ed P wrote:

In the US they tend to be more brutal with their shows and pull them if they do not make target viewing numbers within a certain time.(I’d guess four shows as that seems to be a typical retention time for cable etc.). If a show is not making a target it would not surprise me to learn that advertising money is thrown at posting mock favourable reviews/endorsements on Social Media etc. That could well result in a viewing figure spike.

Since the TV station is totally dependant on the advertising revenue the approach can easily be understood, just as the effects can easily be observed. I suspect that the money thrown at audience generation is as limited as it can be to achieve a hoped for effect. The internet has given rise to the various viral campaigns which can be cheap to set up.

While hit shows can attract an audience due to their ‘cult’ following some of the dross used to fill the schedules is dire with a total absence of production standards. Production budgets that probably would not cover a Starbucks for the ‘actors’. The funniest I saw was something I think was called General Hospital. Two characters were supposed to be having a heated argument, but the camera kept missing the actors. The blue wall was shouting at the pink wall, but the show just went on with an organ, (probably a cheap keyboard), providing the mood music – until the ‘messages’ arrived to bring relief. It was more like comedy than anything else.

[Richard]

The query started off about the viewing figures. To be honest why would anyone who did not work in the advertising industry worry if the figures were right or wrong? If you like something watch it, otherwise walk on by and do something else that you enjoy. I agree that the see-saw figures do appear to throw doubt on the results presented, but there may be an explanation about which outsiders do not know, viewing on alternative devices, comes to mind along with competing options.

I am not passing any judgement on any of the shows as I have never seen any of them.

[Richard]

Thank you Steve, I have been doing some digging and it appears that a change of package from my old T-mobile account to one with some data allowance could interwork with the car system as all EE packages now allow tethering. To be honest the SatNav in the car appears better than I expected. It can always locate the car normally it is in the garage and it appears to be able to find where we when we go out, are just as well as I can, though having not yet driven more than about 10 miles from home the test has not been too challenging for either it or me. I had a course of injections into my cervical spine on Saturday and so far I am impressed at the reduction in pain and the gain in movement that I have obtained. My wife is hoping that things will continue to be good. I have been warned that the anaesthetic wears off after two to three days and that the steroids can take three weeks to work, if they work at all.  If the present improvement is maintained this will allow us to travel to outlaw territory (as in my outlaws SWIMBO relations). As it was, pulling out of some junctions was a real pain, (in the physical sense) as I had to rotate most of my body to view the situation. Perhaps that is why I have averaged less than 300 miles per month so far in the new car, (almost all of that taking others to medical appointments, – though not to my Saturday session).

I was surprised that the Bluetooth would even lock onto a very old Nokia, though I did not try to use it with the spare PAYG phone as it has almost no credit left and I could not remember its number at the time.

These days I am rarely in the car on my own for more than a few minutes, so my entertainment needs are few and far between. Getting everyone to listen to the same thing is ‘challenging’. Younger daughter cannot stand anything that might be misinterpreted by her as in anyway relating to what she feels she cannot do and SWIMBO has her own tastes that do not really match with anyone else’s. Previous journeys used to be ICE free with only TA bulletins allowed. Still it is always better to gain options that lose them. A good day is one that ends with more useful options than you had at the start.

Apparently the car navigation system can pick up TomTom traffic updates via a tethered link, which might give the passengers something to watch. It all feels a little like tying up navigating with a string of sausages.

I am certainly too old these days for overseas driving other issues mean that our last proper holiday was in 2009, since then it  has been funerals in lieu of holidays.

[Richard]

It is ‘sort of’ important to write is as 4G play and no other way!

I had a mild, passing interest in getting something new to possibly work with with the car, but I am struggling to justify such a cost for ‘just a phone’ as I know that most of the features will never get used. I now understand that one thing I would essentially require would normally come either as a pre-installed package or as a download and that is Bluetooth calling, either via the headset or the  car. While having WiFi access to the map function to pick up congestion details sounds great in theory, I am fraying at the edge of interest if it is going to be hard work and involve some expensive package to establish. Having said that, I am sure that there are better SIM only deals that could replace my current package, which has been left in place for far too long.

Why are there so few useful guides that set out clearly what to do and how to do it?

Most instruction books (it does not matter what they are for, it is not just one thing) appear to have been written by a brain dead zombie who has never seen the item in question, let alone ever tried to do something specific or useful with the thing.

[Richard]

That is a bit like the old medical trainee joke; ‘Great operation, first class work, shame the patient died’.

[Richard]

SAP, = Software As Parasite?

That sounds about the right description.

[Richard]

PlaneMan wrote:

Got a Dickies coat from the ebay outlet last March, removable fleece lining, fully waterproof with a hood. Listed as ‘seconds’ as some of the velcro on the storm flap was loose. Couple of blobs of no more nails sorted that. Warmest jacket I’ve had since skiing gear as a kid. £30 delivered.

I bought a couple of pairs of their shorts last spring. Wore them all through summer until well into autumn and they still washed up like new each time. Other more expensive shorts ‘from other suppliers’ did not do nearly so well. I like Dickies kit. I don’t need a jacket for the moment, the ‘company’ one I got years ago lasted longer than the company, the lining is worn but it still looks OK from the outside. It must be nearly 16 years old now.

[Richard]

doctoryorkie wrote:

His last SIM was 24GB (valid for two years) for £28.40. That’s less than half the price of 3. A Yorkshireman is a Scotsman stripped of his generosity. ?

I thought that perhaps they had been using the 3 service. I guess that his 24 GB SIM for for £29.40 was a very much closed and no longer available offer. As I said the range and more especially the complexity of offers appears designed to confuse and to many of us lesser morals is an incentive not to bother to do anything. I share with your users the use of an older Nokia, I tried a more modern couple of Nokias, both were touch phones and for me totally useless, no voice calling, I gave them away to my wife and daughter.

[Richard]

The link I gave gives me different results each time I log in how odd.

I thought that maybe this was what he was using;

£30 for 12 months did not look so bad as that would give about 1 gb per month at £2.5 per month. I do not know how much a top up would cost, not whether you could get a better deal. They do appear to have an huge and mind blowing number of options for which there appears to be no reason except to confuse. The effect on me is to decide that I really do not want to bother  to fight the fog any more, it is likely to be (a) wrong, (b) expensive and (c) hard to change. Which is another reason why I continue with my old phone. With the new car it appeared that something more modern might be more useful but sorting out what, became something of a nightmare. At the moment the local roads in the village are an even worse nightmare, I just hope the damned mud pie men who keep on digging get their pensions really soon and go into retirement ASAP. Anything more distant can, for the moment go hang.

[Richard]

This page http://www.three.co.uk/Support/Top_Up

does suggest you may need to register to be able to monitor things. I did find the 3 site a bit like hard work to find anything, can they try a shops to get some assistance?

Otherwise I am sorry I cannot help.

Richard

[Richard]

JayCeeDee wrote:

Richard wrote:

Ed P wrote:

@Richard – a wiring loom problem?

With nothing else to loose I may don the vinyl gloves and go on the attack when my hand has recovered from today’s procedure.

Intermittent wiring problems are a b*tch. Is it a proper wiring loom, or a more recent style data bus system?? If the former, first try everything electrical, to see which works and which doesn’t. If there is a common point for two faults, there’s a good place to start. Back in the Seventies, the windscreen wipers and cigarette lighter socket shared a common fuse, so a dodgy cigarette lighter, or one pushed too hard back into the socket, could blow the fuse and leave you without wipers and/or horn as well. The new Data Bus ( CAN ) type wiring is something I’m unfamiliar with, but HERE seems to give a good explanation. Good luck.:):)

Too be honest I do not know which loom it is but I do know it relies on five volt levels between the ECU and the devices in question. Doubts have been raised about the ECU itself, but while I know that ‘feelings’; are dangerous, somehow an ECU fault just does not ‘feel’ right while a physical wiring deterioration somehow just fits in my mind. The problem is that it can run for 100 miles without issue with me and totally without issue when other have driven it approaching that distance. It is not speed related in that I have driven it up to the speed limit in both 5th and a lower gear that allowed such a road speed and it never skipped a beat, it is only at low speeds that it will buck and go into limp mode – and limp it is!

[Richard]

Ed P wrote:

Security cuts both ways Richard. We got some very nice new curtains in our London Offices on the strength of ‘security’. I think the company who fitted them never could quite understand either their design or function.

Pardon me for suggesting this but it does speak of poor training and awareness. I would have worried that with such a lack of understanding the installation would likely not have worked as intended and may well have used parts that did not fulfil the brief. Anyone for non fireproof fabric perhaps?

[Richard]

Ed P wrote:

@Richard – a wiring loom problem?

That is what I suspect but no one appears to have been able to reproduce the issue – except by me driving it when it is unpredictable if/when it happens. I am reaching the point of seeing a crusher in its future at the moment.

My hands and for that matter neither is the rest of me on these cold days, looking for the aggravation of sorting through it, but when I do reproduce the failure by driving it is after the engine suffers a rocking when stuck in very slow traffic. The damned mud pie men have been hyper active with their starts of work and jam creation schemes, but hopeless at getting the h*ll on with work and clearing the h*ck out of the way when it is done.

With nothing else to loose I may don the vinyl gloves and go on the attack when my hand has recovered from today’s procedure.

Thank you for commenting.

Richard

[Richard]

Returning to the issue of procurement for a moment it is sadly not just the MOD who have a basket full of dimwit plonkers. Some time ago when LCD screens were still newish I knew a centre where large number of screens were in use. So much so that the power feed was becoming an issue. So the manager worked out that LCD replacements would cure his problems without a huge capital project to increase the feed and power bill. Sadly the IT was managed and a £120 LCD became a £2,000 option on each desk with a high ongoing cost. Petty cash limits were £150 for him. He cured his power and other issues one CRT and petty cash purchase at a time. There were dark mutterings but no further action.

One I personally encountered was when bombs started to be placed in all sorts of places so security needed to be improved. Some of my staff were technically responsibility for security of a building so I arranged for an apprentice to fit a micro switch to a door that would bring up a huge read lamp whenever the door moved. This worked spectacularly well – too well perhaps as other centres asked for a switch and a light. Cue a phone call from the biddy who had been tasked with security oversight to complain about an unauthorised security device, after a dance about the verbals to find out what she was on about I understood. No, I replied I had provided my staff with a management aid to assist them with performance of their duties. Soon the office fell silent as they all listened to our exchange of words which went on for some time. I never did admit to having a security device and my staff never lost their management aid. I cannot now remember what happened to the other sites.

[Richard]

I used to be a fan of Waxoyl but sprayed inside semi-closed section of cars. I have simply not used the rest of the last can I had. I did once apply ‘underseal’ to a car and found, like you that it was simply a way to accelerate rusting, not stop it happening. Plastic liners under the wheel arches were a different matter and to my mind a much sounder idea provided that they left a small air gap and were able to stop stone chips to a well painted underside.

If anyone knows why a modern car will keep reporting the same error code after all the items covered by the code have been replaced I would be very pleased to know. Life was so simple when a bowden cable controlled a proper throttle, if it broke you replaced the damned thing, job done.

[Richard]

The Duke wrote:

If you get wet windows, is to do with air flow rather than rad placement. A lot of older houses suffer from bad air flow.

Steve, I agree. Though sometimes other issues are also in play. Are the windows correctly set in their opening, has the pointing been checked?  Has lime mortar or plaster been reworked with modern non breathable cement mortar or plasterwork added?

However, radiators under windows are the preferred arrangements for airflow reasons and for making furniture placement easier in most rooms.

Since we had the bathrooms updated to modern standards with trickle fans through out (in a house that is only 25 years old) all signs of dampness, summer or winter have been banished from the windows.

Richard

[Richard]

Ed P wrote:

Naively I thought our MOD ‘procurers’ (as in the brothel types) could not continue to totally waste our money. However, (of course) they can. We now learn that the secure Data Comms links on our Naval HMA Wildcat helicopters, cannot work! If the situation is urgent the helicopter has to land (and I guess use a mobile) to get the info back to base. Another sorry tale revealed by El Reg!

I might be quite that bad; they can put the data on a USB drive and if someone gets a large fine mesh net drop it on board the support vessel of their choice, – until the supply of USB drives runs out.

Oh on second thoughts perhaps fine  mesh netting is a bit too advanced for the pen pushers to understand or supply to the support vessel, I assume that there will likely be only one vessel available.

It was once unkindly said that the only place they would not secure a cock up would be a house of ill repute.

[Richard]

I use Firefox but have no problems of this type, though I have seen it with other sites that did have genuine certificate issues or when the PC date/time was wrong.

[Richard]

The problems with hanging towels on a rail above a radiator is that there is rarely enough room for enough towels and that after a year or two the constant presence of wet towels starts the radiator rusting. We replaced all of the radiators with towels rails when the bathrooms/cloakroom went through refurbishment and have not looked back. Seven radiators are on internal walls including the three towel rails, but that was the way that the house was laid out. The possible issue with radiators under windows is that people then hang curtains which allow the heat to go behind the curtain and heat the window not the room. A shelf above the radiator but below he curtain can assist with this issue as it will deflect heat away from the window and out into the room, or use blinds within the window recess. Radiators rarely if ever radiate, they heat mostly down to convection of heated air so taking account of the need for correct airflow when placing furniture pays dividends. Make sure that any radiators do not make furniture layouts more complex.

[Author]

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