ejstubbs

Out of interest, I just did a quick check and I can see that I paid £3.78 for my ZK-MG on eBay in April last year. That was shipping from China. The three listings for the same item I've found on eBay so far today are in the £12 region, all from UK stock. I can't find the ZK-MGP on eBay at all. The Amazon listing for the ZK-MGP is actually cheaper than the eBay listings for the ZK-MG! I'm tempted to try out the ZK-MGP - it looks like it should be a straight swap-in to the box I made for the ZK-MG. The choice would therefore appear to be £5.94 and wait a month from AliExpress, or £11.59 and get it next week from Amazon. Hmm... I think the typo in that instance is that "00kHz" should be "99kHz": that's the figure that appears everywhere else in both the Amazon listing and the one on AliExpress. Not that the odd 1kHz is really here or there.

There was a previous discussion about this very subject last year, sparked by a post from Barclay: Unfortunately all but one of my waveform photos in that thread succumbed to the Great Hosting Meltdown of 2022. I think I still have them somewhere so I might be able to put them back on that thread. I think one difference between the ZK-MG that I used, and the ZK-MGP that is mentioned on this thread is that the ZK-MGP has programmable slow start and slow stop times whereas on the ZK-MG the slow start is fixed and the stop is instant. It's not clear to me what the "step size" setting on the ZK-MGP is for.

Great idea. Didn't realise that there is already a plaque for Willie Rushton (I travelled through the station quite regularly when I lived in Camden Town - including during the time it was closed, from 1992 to 1998 - but can't recall any occasion when I actually boarded or alighted from a train there). Maybe need to leave a space for Graeme Garden? And consider a footnote for Jeremy Hardy (already lost to us) and the Sat Nav woman:

In motorcycle racing - where the potential consequences of a coming-together are significantly higher - the "block pass" is accepted as perfectly legitimate. From https://www.visordown.com/features/advanced-riding/master-overtaking-track: The whole of that article is worth a read for an insight into what goes on in the mind of a motorcycle racer. Oh, and don't forget that those guys don't have mirrors...

I'd say definitely yes. I actually paid to see it in the cinema and regarded it as money well spent. I'm not sure how strictly accurate it is - there's a more than comprehensive list of all the "goofs" on IMDB - but it's a drama, not a documentary.

I've just been doing some more research, and it seems that Vodafone have a 'secret' PAYG tariff that might suit me. It's called "Pay As You Go 1" and is rather well hidden in their PAYG FAQs, under "What are the standard Pay as you go rates?" It costs you £1 each day you use the phone, which gives you unlimited call minutes, unlimited texts and 50MB data for the rest of the [calendar] day. So not great for data - although you can buy more data in 50MB chunks if you exceed your allowance for the day. But good for emergency calling and texting. To keep the SIM active you have to make one "chargeable outbound activity" (i.e. make a call, send a text or use data), or make a top-up, every 180 days. Each chargeable outbound activity will cost you £1, so it basically costs £2 a year to keep the SIM active. I think this would work out cheaper than Three if I ever actually needed to make an emergency call - I expect that such a call would quite likely take more than three minutes (£1.05 at Three's rates). If nothing else, you wouldn't have to worry about running out of credit during any call on the same day, which might justify the £2 annual cost. AFAICT from Vodafone's Pay as you go 1 FAQs page, the way to get this tariff is to order a PAYG SIM without a "bundle", and then opt in to PAYG1 by calling 41146 FoC. I think you need to do this before you make your initial credit top-up - from my reading of their PAYG FAQs, if you top-up before opting in to PAYG1 then they will turn the top-up into a "bundle" rather than leaving it as credit on your account. I might be wrong about that, but I probably wouldn't want to take the risk. All the above pertains only to emergency calls to non-emergency numbers e.g. roadside recovery services, friends, family etc. 999 calls from a mobile are free anyway*, so you don't even need credit to make the call - though whether you can call 999 with a disconnected SIM in the phone I don't know. (I had an idea that you can call 999 without a SIM in the phone at all, but I can't find any authoritative information yay or nay about that - and certainly not through Ofcom's impenetrable web site ☹️) It's also worth knowing that 999 calls effectively use network "roaming" i.e. even if there's no signal from you own network provider in the location you're calling from, the phone can route the call over any network which does have signal there. So when it comes to making 999 calls you needn't be too bothered about a particular network's geographic coverage. * And thus presumably wouldn't count as a "chargeable outbound activity". Though I can't really foresee anyone calling the emergency services just in order to keep their SIM active!

The current ASDA PAYG Ts & Cs say you need to make a top-up every 180 days*, not just make a call/text/use data: You may be fortunate to have got your SIM at a time when their terms were less restrictive, like I did with my Three PAYG SIM. * Note that this isn't stated oin the MSE web page I linked in my previous post. But it is on ASDA mobile's web site.

I just had a look-see myself and I agree it's not easy to find. If you use the "Shop" menu at the top of the page on the Three web site and choose "Pay As You Go phone SIMs" all you get is a load of stuff about monthly data packs. But they actually do have a standard credit-based PAYG tariff, although to find it you have to delve amongst the links in small print at the bottom of the page, under the heading "Our company". The link is called "Price Guide". I have a Three PAYG SIM in my "emergency backup" phone. The price guide that Three sent me a link to when I bought the SIM in 2018 is here - that's the 3p/min calls, 2p per text, 1p/MB tariff. However, when I look at the pre-March 2020 PAYG tariff currently posted on the Three web site as above, that says that my tariff is 35p/min, 15p per text and 10p/MB, which is the same as the current new PAYG account tariff. I've no record of ever being advised of that change 🤨 and when I called my main mobile just now a check of my credit balance after the call shows that it did indeed cost me 35p ☹️. At least the credit balance is shown as never expiring, so I still have that minor perk cf their new PAYG account tariff, which requires one "chargeable event" within 180 days or they may disconnect you. I think I'll be shopping for a new PAYG SIM pretty soon. However, I don't think it will be an ASDA one, for the reason in my post below. EDITED to say that the Three credit-based PAYG tariff hike seems to be fairly recent, as in this month, at least according to moneysavingexpert.com. It also seems from MSE that Three's is the only PAYG tariff that only requires you to make a call/text/use data every so often in order to avoid being disconnected, rather than having to make a minimum top-up on a more or less regular basis. So maybe I'll stick with Three after all for now, and just make sure that I have a decent credit balance to cover the high call charges if I ever do find myself in a situation where I need to use the phone.

AFAIK Three have no cutoff on their PAYG SIMs. Can't speak for their coverage but I imagine it's unlikely to be significantly worse than the other three i.e. Vodafone, EE or O2. If you are tempted by the tariff offered by a third party service provider like GiffGaff and you're worried about their coverage in a particular area then you need to find out which of the main networks they use and check that network provider's coverage map (or one of the independent, crowd-sourced ones). Oh, and if their network provider isn't Vodafone then make sure that your phone isn't locked to Vodafone, or get it unlocked, before switching.

I get an e-mail from TV Licensing every year to confirm that my paperless licence has been automatically renewed. That e-mail includes a confirmation of the TV licence number. It's worth hanging on to that e-mail because you need the licence number to log in to the TV Licensing web site, which you might need to do in order to, for example, notify them if you move house, or you change the bank account that they take the direct debit from (that latter should be covered automatically by the Current Account Switch Service if you're switching away from the account that the DD is currently taken from, but not if you just want to move that particular DD to a different account). If you can't find your login credentials then you contact them for assistance via one of the channels listed in their FAQs. I'm pretty sure that they don't. My BBC online account, which includes iPlayer, is registered under a different e-mail address to the one I'm registered with at TV licensing for my paperless licence, so that wouldn't work. Equally, there could easily be multiple people at the same licensed address, all with their own BBC online accounts and thus different e-mail addresses. Basically, it wouldn't be a very reliable way to check. I suppose they could try to use it to check, but failing to find a match in the TV Licensing database for the e-mail address you have registered with the BBC wouldn't by any means be a definitive indication that you don't have a valid licence. Correct. Some people seem to have rather inflated ideas about what GDPR means in terms of what can and can't be done. The BBC's Privacy Policy - which explains what they do with the personal data you provide when you register for an account, as is required under GDPR - states: The only personal data that they gather when you register is an e-mail address, date of birth*, post code and gender (which latter you can answer with "prefer not to say"). As noted above, cross-checking the e-mail address against the TV Licensing database doesn't provide any particularly useful data wrt whether or not you have a licence. Only a very small proportion of residential premises have a unique postcode**, so that's not a reliable check either (about the only way it could possibly be useful would be if TV Licensing had no record of any address with that postcode having a licence). Basically, so long as the BBC is using your personal data in the way they say, then they're compliant with GDPR. If you think they're in breach of those terms then in the first instance you can contact their Data Protection Officer via one of the channels listed in the full version of the BBC Privacy Policy. If you're not satisfied with their response then you can escalate the issue to the UK Information Commissioner's Office. That's also the route to take if you wish to exercise one of more of your statutory rights under GDPR. Bottom line is, there are several steps that a disgruntled data subject can take before needing to engage the expensive services of a legal professional. If (perhaps as part of a "war against red tape") the UK government chooses to repeal or significantly amend the Data Protection Act 2018 (which enshrined the EU regulation in UK law, so that UK organisations would still be able to share personal data with organisations in the EU, in GDPR-compliant ways, post-Brexit under what is called an "adequacy decision") then some or all of the above may no longer apply. Bottom line: Based on my professional knowledge of GDPR, I can't see that the BBC is doing anything which is not compliant with the regulations - and I think they're a lot more transparent than a lot of other organisations I can think of. But anyone is free to challenge them on it if they believe otherwise. * There is a pop-up info box on the registration form which explains: "This is so you can use the parts of the BBC that are suitable for your age. It also means we can see how people of different ages are using the BBC and check that we're making something for everyone. If you’re 18 or over, we’ll only store your year of birth, not the day and month. Find out more about why we ask for your date of birth." And you don't have to provide your *actual* date of birth anyway. ** Some large blocks of flats do have a unique postcode, but each flat within such a block is a separate residential premises for the purposes of TV licensing. The pop-up box on the registration form says: "This helps us give you relevant local information across the BBC. It also helps us see how people across the UK are using the BBC and check we’re making something for everyone." And you don't have to provide your *actual* postcode anyway (although the form does check that the postcode you provide is a real one.)

Or maybe what recreational pharmaceuticals he had taken: "He admitted that he was the driver at the time of the offences, but said he could not remember speeding."

You don't have to use your real personal details, though. Here's a handy free online service for generating and using one-off e-mail addresses for just such a purpose (it definitely works for iPlayer, I've just tried it). There are probably others out there that work in a similar way. If you don't want to give them your normal e-mail address as the destination for the forwarded e-mails then create and use a separate permanent e-mail address purely for that purpose. For example, most ISPs allow you to have a number of different e-mail addresses which resolve to the same e-mail account. If you find such a single-purpose address being abused, just delete it. (Note to the mods: my RMWeb account is set up using my genuine e-mail address! Well, one of them...)

And Lewis took exception to the cheering by the Dutch fans when he crashed out of Q3: https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/formula1/62110154 on the not unreasonable grounds that it's not very nice to celebrate something which could have had potentially serious consequences. Some might see it as payback for the booing that Max got at Silverstone: but it seems to me that there is difference between expressing one's dislike of someone in ordinary circumstances*, and actively celebrating a potentially injury-inducing (or worse) misfortune befalling someone whom you dislike. One might even suggest that this is a predictable outcome of Liberty Media's efforts to widen the appeal of the sport, resulting in an unpleasantly partisan and boorish minority starting to emerge. * whether or not you feel that booing is actually acceptable or not.

The term carriageway still has a legal meaning today, though unfortunately IMO many road users appear from their observable behaviour to be ignorant of it. Section 329(a) of the Highways Act 1980 defines it as that part of the highway "over which the public have a right of way for the passage of vehicles" - as opposed to the footway which is "a way comprised in a highway which also comprises a carriageway, being a way over which the public have a right of way on foot only*". From the above definition it should also be pretty clear what the meaning of "dual carriageway" is i.e. a highway which has two parts for the passage of vehicles instead of just one (the two parts being physically separate bits of road surface, rather than just delineated with paint). I suppose it might tickle someone of a pedantic bent to suggest that a highway with a footway down each side of a single carriageway is a "dual footway", but IMO such a suggestion should be treated with derision and distain. * As originally set down in the 1835 Highways Act. These days there are various derogations permitted in law for vehicles such as wheelchairs & mobility scooters, and in (IMO unhelpful) ministerial 'guidelines' for bicycles.

There used (within my own lifetime) to be a very short section of one lane each way dual carriageway on the B4327 in Pembrokeshire, until they widened one of the carriageways and closed off the other one: https://www.google.co.uk/maps/@51.7310398,-5.1696323,225m/data=!3m1!1e3 I think the longer history is that there used to be a single lane bridge over the river & marshy ground at that point, which unsurprisingly started to become a bit of a bottleneck. But rather than replace it with a two-lane bridge, they simply build another single lane one a few yards downstream. Apparently the older (18th or 19th century) closed off bridge is now Grade II listed.

And there there's this: Llanelli woman jailed for taking 150 driving tests for others

Sounds like some of the HGV drivers thought it already was a "duel" carriageway... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Duel_(1971_film) As to motorway services, I don't think many of them have ever been any good. I remember stopping at one on the M6 somewhere north of Birmingham once where I found the atmosphere genuinely threatening. The core functions of a service area - loos, food and a general shop - were present, but not exactly welcoming or with an enticing range of products. However, there was a large video games arcade, and I got the distinct impression that people actually travelled to the service area to play them. We used to go up and down the M6 fairly regularly and the standout services were always the ones at Tebay southbound and northbound. They're still better than pretty much anything else along that road, but sadly not quite as pleasant and relaxing to visit as they used to be. They seem to be permanently very busy these days, which might be a combination of them being better than the rest, plus the fact that they now feature in their own TV series (shades of the overcrowding at places like the Fairy Pools on Skye since they were used as a location in Outlander). Annadale services on the A74(M) are tolerable. Further south, we used to stop at Forton and buy a picnic in the M&S food shop there, rather than attempt to consume anything prepared on the premises.

While I don't necessarily disagree with your fundamental point, unfortunately I don't think you've chosen the best analogy. Although TV features (HD, Full HD, 4K, varying degrees of smartness etc) and screen size have expanded over time, prices haven't really gone up that much, if at all. A couple of examples: When I left uni I the first TV I bought myself was a 12" B&W CRT job which IIRC cost ~£100. These days roughly same money will by you a 19" colour flat screen LCD HD Freeview TV (another £20 or so and you get a DVD player built in); We bought our first flat screen TV in 2010: a 42" Full HD not-very-smart-at-all job for £700. Checking the same retailer just now, the lowest spec TV from the same manufacturer that they offer at around that size is a 43" 4K screen with Google TV "smarts" built in, which costs £200 less than what we paid for our TV 12 years ago. It's the same basic story with a lot of modern "high tech" products: the standard levels of specifications and capabilities have increased, but prices are much the same or lower - even more so if you take inflation into account (and very substantially so in the case of my 1980s B&W CRT TV). The main differences cf model trains are: (a) TVs are definitely a mass market product based on rapidly evolving technology, rather than comparatively short run products for a significantly more limited market and based to a large degree on old and not particularly quickly evolving technology, and (b) the rapid evolution of modern technology means that manufacturers can't make a cheaper, no-frills product and make a profit on it, because the no-frills components either aren't available at all, or aren't available at a price that would make the product cheaper than the one built using the current industry 'standard' componentry that's churned out for pennies in the tens of thousands or more, and comes with the latest baseline level bells and whistles effectively included for free. TLDR: model trains don't follow Moore's Law, whereas products like TVs whose functionality is largely delivered by electronics still more or less do.

Unless the box is vacuum sealed (which they aren't) the model is going to be "exposed to the air" inside its box anyway.

My wife says I stopped making sense a long time ago.

Sounds similar to the auto box in my car, which is a DSG (in simple* terms: an automated, computer controlled manual gearbox & clutch) rather than a "slushmatic", so there's no torque converter involved. * I'm aware that this is a bit of an over-simplification. There's a more detailed explanation here for those that wish it..

I read something along these lines somewhere a while back and, just to make sure I hadn't missed anything, I checked in the manual for my car (and yes, it does have cruise control!) That confirmed my recollection that there is no mention of not using the CC in low-traction conditions. However, I also know from experience that the CC will disengage itself if the car detects anything approaching a loss of grip - I suspect based on whether the electronic stability control system is about to intervene. Even just driving over an usually bumpy bit of road can cause the CC to disengage. So maybe they decided that the warning wasn't necessary.

Was also "live" (with a bit too much unnecessary chatter IMO, but there you go) on ITV over Saturday and Sunday. I've just been watching it on catch-up. The electric fan car that broke the hillclimb record is a bl00dy missile: According to the chat on the ITV coverage, they had the fans set on maximum downforce - all two tonnes of it! What that YouTube clip doesn't show very well is the car sat at the start line with the fans spooling up before it set off like a scalded cat.

Reminds me a bit of this one not far from me a little over a year ago: although I believe they did manage to extract the car in more or less one piece. There were certainly acrow props all over the place the next day when I passed it by. Making good the property took a wee bit longer - IIRC the owners were only able to move back in at the start of this year, and the remedial work was finally completed almost exactly a year after the incident. Ignore what that tweet says about the location, by the way - it was actually here. The car was travelling SE along Oxgangs Road, which is uphill at that point, and had gone straight on, completely missing the gentle bend to the left that can be seen in that Google satellite image (where the road passes the pub) which took it on to the wrong side of the road, and it then continued on the same trajectory over the mini roundabout without stopping - fairly obviously so, since it then demolished a garden wall and ploughed on into the front hall of a house. Note that I say "the car" in this case, rather than suggesting that the driver did anything that contributed to the crash, because it's pretty clear from the path the vehicle took and the force of the impact that the person behind the wheel was exerting next to no control whatsoever over its speed or direction. (I believe it was reported at the time that said driver was being charged with dangerous driving but I've not seen anything since as to how that eventually panned out.)

I sent a package to Austria in January 2020 using Royal Mail. It got to Vienna pretty quickly, then sat there in customs for several weeks with no communication to the recipient by Austrian Post, before slowly wending its way back to me. That was just a few days after Br finally exited and you'd hope that the companies providing international carriage would have sorted their systems out by now - especially since there already were and still are over 150 countries around the world which don't have customs-free arrangements for moving goods in and out of the EU. But it seems that may not always be the case.