Reorte

Maybe roll back to an earlier restore point and see if you can move forward from that?

Have you tweaked Firefox at all? Plus the usual stuff such as clearing out the cache and cookies.

That's odd too, I've not had any trouble with Firefox on here (I know posts saying "well it works for me" are annoying and unhelpful, but it does point at there not being some completely unavoidable issue). Agree with you on Cortana, Edge, etc., Heaven knows why the place I work at has decided nope, can't use Firefox any longer, must be Edge. Seems to be getting things 100% backwards.

Are you running anything like Open Shell on it? That might hide some of it.

Which reminds me of a very old joke... Why don't polar bears eat penguins? Because they can't get the wrappers off!

That's not the point I was making. What I was getting at is attempting to dismiss downsides in the new system simply because the old one wasn't perfect either. That's got nothing to do with arguments about the validity of keeping two going, or choice. I've certainly got opinions on those too, but they're different issues.

Indeed. There are a couple of factors that should be taken in to account - that's one of them, and it's the type of situation that's often mistakenkly handwaved away with "well the previous one wasn't perfect anyway" (nothing ever is). The other one, somewhat in the other direction, is that even if the risk is higher is it high enough for it to make sense worrying about? It's easy to get hung up on "but what if...?" but it can be rather unhelpful.

It's then likely to sit at the back of a drawer for a couple of years, forgotten. Rechargeable batteries tend to self-discharge in that time IME. Aside from a few brief flickers the power's been down for a few hours once in the eight years I've been here. I'll take my chances if I have to, the odds of an emergency happening just at the wrong time are low enough that it doesn't make any sense to worry about it, or do anything much to mitigate against it.

And even for people with mobiles how long do their batteries last anyway?

That's why I keep a corded phone in a cupboard. Looks like when VOIP's forced on me (which currently looks like involving losing either my current phone number or my email address, neither of which appeal, just to add to the fun) I'll just have to make do with no phone at all if the power goes down.

Length's an interesting issue, and I think there are both significant time and place differences. The longest trains now are much longer, but there are also locations where you're unlikely to see much more than a 4 car DMU, which might've had much longer trains in the past. Freights are almost certainly going to be longer now, but somehow it seems (to me at least) easier to get away with a shorter-than-it-should-be freight.

Then that's just something you happen to like - as you say, the aesthetic and feel, not nostalgia. The idea of being nostalgic for something that was never part of your life is contradictory. And as my BR Blue example was intended to illustrate I don't even particular like the aesthetic (don't hate it, but can't say I think it's great), but I am nostalgic about it. Nostalgia isn't simply "like something that was in the past," it's about revisiting (either in the mind, or physically what of them still exists) past memories and experience. Another example - I like classical music, entirely on its own merit. There's no nostalgia for Beethoven there. But there may be some nostalgia alone for music from when I was young (can't think of any examples off the top of my head mind you).

Does nostalgia make sense when the thing in question stopped before you were born? The whole point of it is that it's based on past memories. And thus I'd say my interest in steam is not based on nostalgia (I was born after mainline steam ended), but purely on it having a look and feel that fits with what I like. Where I am a bit nostalgic is where I see a loco in BR blue, particularly with a set of appropriately-livered carriages. That is purely nostalgia (it's not even a livery I'm particularly fond of, but I'm definitely nostalgic about it).

I raised the question about liveries and logos because I know that some Train Simulator trains were only available for a limited time due to licencing. Virgin was certainly one of those, with the North Wales coast route originally having a Virgin-liveried Voyager included in it, which was eventually withdrawn (and has since been re-released with whoever runs that now). It's a bit sad but as said some companies aren't keen on the perceived idea of someone else (even non-competitors) making any money off their brand, and / or worry about it being mis-used and loss of control with it if they don't cling to it as tightly as possible. Wouldn't be surprised if some would even worry about someone exhibiting a model of their train arriving late. You could always get your own back by saying the train's supposed to be there on your layout but it's been cancelled!

Not read the whole thread yet but are there also possible licensing issues / costs with the liveries and logos of current trains?

Not keen in the slightest of any system that won't accept cash (and being dragged to an ATM doesn't count, nor does having to pay in cash to a ticket inspector, if there's no way of being honest and paying).

There was a dog race in a forest near my parents several years ago. Only one problem - it snowed.

I'd also say that there's a great deal of difference between asking searching questions and simply trying to get people to look bad and catch them out. It's not really a surprise politicians have a reputation for evading questions, when the questions are frequently no more honest than the evasion.

Pity it's not a coal tit.

Easy to fall in to the temptation of using the most popular villain I suppose. Back when Dr Who was first brought back with Christopher Ecclestone I was rather sceptical how they'd be able to bring them back without being laughed at, and did a pretty impressive job of making them scary again.

Look, it's a saddle tank, not a beer belly OK?!

Can't check out the video right now, how decent an electric car does that make? I wouldn't mind an electric car but there's no way in hell I want a modern car (my 2017 car is too modern for me, and they seem to have changed a lot just since then). A conversion of something older is, in theory, my ideal option, but I was under the impression that they're still significantly less useful than a purpose-built EV (which probably shouldn't come as much of a surprise).

The way to do it IMO is to normalise from the off, rather than draw attention. The latter is preaching to the converted and likely to draw a backlash (mind you of course some people will backlash against the mere presence). One thing to definitely avoid is trying to make those you disagree with look bad, if you hope to change their minds. I do worry that a lot of it feels like "this group" or "that group", which I believe is counterproductive, emphasising differences, separating people, all feeling rather like "us and them," rather than the fact that we're all humans albeit with our own variations and quirks.

Don't think we can tell yet just what the future's going to be. Drones are very much on the ascendency, ahead of countermeasures to them right now (even if it's by being cheap enough to have loads and some get through), no way of telling whether they'll be able to maintain that lead. But then again I suppose that's military development since the dawn of time.

The safety question then becomes which results in fewer fatalities. There's always the chance that reducing one risk will create a new one, yet the overall result is lower risk (zero never being achievable in practice). Personally neither risk puts me off using trains because they're low enough that I'm not worried in the slightest about my life in either situation (I'd rather travel on the unlocked train, but not due to perceiving it to be safer).