Loz

The Guardian makes me laugh, with its constant "mind you, there are many good, legitimate reasons to move business offshore" disclaimers. Getting the excuse in early...

Well, right up to the point the boring Green Party lady starts talking, but absolutely hilarious until that point.

Whatever you do, don't use Goldcar car hire. If you use a broker and the give you Goldcar, cancel it.

Since I'm starting to get to an age where, frankly, the old body is starting to creak a bit and need more in the way of fixing, I've been wondering about getting private health insurance. Has anyone got it? Do they recommend/unrecommend any providers? Any tips/dangers/gotchas?

ed_pete Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > My two-penneth > > To a large extent I think that laptops are priced as a commodity i.e. you get what you pay for > though there is some brand premium. > I would try before you buy as some have a more solid feel than others. > Buy as much RAM as you can afford (at least 8GB) > Get the fastest processor you can afford (ideally Intel i5 or i7) > As others have said get one with a hybrid drive or an SSD though bear in mind that in terms of > capacity you will get less compared to a normal hard drive. > > If you buy a Mac (new or second hand) then bear in mind that you if you have software packages on > your VAIO that you want to continue using (assuming that you have the original disks) then > they probably won?t be compatible. I'd write my thoughts, but they'd pretty much just reiterate everything ed_pete says here, except that I don't think you need the fastest processor (a good quality mid-range is fine), but memory is crucial and it's worth getting as much as you can.

Louisa Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > > Loz and to counteract those arguments you just stated > > 1) how did this nation survive for the previous 1000 years before the EU existed and; Well, obviously it survived and at no stage did I suggest it wouldn't survive if we left. But would it be any better off? Or would it be worse off? And also, Louisa, how many wars in Europe did we have in that 1000 years? Even you must admit the EU has helped keep the peace. > 2) surely remaining in the EU is also a complete leap in the dark what with the refugee crisis, the > Greek debt situation to name but a few things Considering there is no planned EU-wide resolution to the refugee crisis, I think I can safely say that things will be absolutely no different, whatever the result. Ditto Greece. So file both those under (a), above, if you think leaving will change anything regarding those.

I recommend Fred. He'd never failed me yet. He's probably the greatest whatever-you-are-looking-for ever. (I'm not Fred. Honest. No really. Just because this is only my third post, and all of them have over-enthusiastically recommended Fred doesn't mean anything.) Frederick's Mum Ha! That'll fool them.

minder Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > Why would bodsier make that figure up? Well, as they say, 73.6% of all statistics are made up on the spot. Besides, if bodsier didn't make it up, bodsier will be able to provide a reputable source for it, won't they?

I'm voting in. No one has yet suggested a reason to leave that isn't either a) utterly cloud cuckoo land thinking (e.g. leaving will give us more democracy AND save the steel industry!!) or b) looks like something that might be good, until you realise it has a really bad side they're not telling you about (e.g. we get to close our borders! What do you mean that everyone will do the same to us which will make travelling/working outside the UK much harder and our primary export - service industries - will probably be massively hit?) It just all seems a huge leap of (bad) faith with no real promise of anything good.

Salsaboy Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > Out. And proud. What you do on the weekend is your own business.

Of the others: Ankit Love of the One Love Party. Potential voters will fail to find their pants on polling day. "I'm sure they were here under Rita's. Or Terry's. Or Milly's..." Sophie Walker of the Women's Equality Party. Potential voters just thought it was Sandi Toksvig playing a practical joke. "Yeah, right, Sandy." Prince (John) Zylinski, Polish aristocrat and anti-UKIP campaigner. Potential voters too confused to vote. "So were voting for a Polish version of Boris? But this one is for Europe?" Paul Golding for "Britain First - Putting British people first". Potential voters all thought it was a puzzle and they had to guess which one of the candidates was the British person to put first. "Paul Golding... hmmm. Sounds American." I see someone called David Furness is standing for the BNP. Elton John is NOT going to be happy.

bodsier Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > The numbers using the library have doubled in recent times. Do you have a source for that, or did you just make that figure up? And if you do have a source, doubled from what? If it went from 10 to 20, that's terrible. If it went from 100,000 to 200,000, then that's amazing. Which is it?

Blah Blah Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > And libraries offer free internet and other services besides the loan of books. For the > unemployed and poor with children, libraries are a valuable resource. How much do we put on the cost > of every child having an equal stab at literacy for example, of which early access to books and > language plays a huge part. Small local libraries tend to be used by the young and the old. And if > you take a look at any of the large libraries offering things like study space, they are always > oversubscribed. [...] They are a public service central to both culture and learning. I'm not denying any of that. If the libraries are well used and reaching significant numbers of the people you describe, then closing them would be definitely worth fighting. My question is this: how much are each of the Lambeth libraries being used? Does anyone know if there any metrics available? > These things can not be measured in terms of financial profit. I agree, but it can be measured in terms of value for money. If Lambeth are spending ?x on libraries, how many people is that money spend reaching? That's the big question.

Blah Blah Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > I also think that what is behind this is a money raising exercise. I think it's partially a money raising exercise, but it's also a not-spending-money exercise. It can't be cheap to keep libraries up and running. The person in the blog referenced a couple of posts ago wrote, "I live a five minute walk along the same street from the Carnegie Library, which has just been closed by Lambeth Council ? as has the Minet Library, another ten minutes away.". Honestly - was two libraries with 10-15 minutes walk of each other a good use of funds in a time where there is not a lot of money to go around? It might be the cynic in me, but I suspect this is far and away the most people Carnegie Library has had in it for a while. But it would be interesting to see stats on usage, to see exactly what the demand is. Most people, understandably, like the idea of libraries, but how many actually use them in the age of the internet? I have a library card, but have only used it twice in about four years. But whatever people think of the plans, the councillors tweeting cat pictures and generally not engaging is pretty damn poor. I'd like to think people will remember come the next elections, but I bet most of them get re-elected as the people blindly think, "ooh, Labour - tick".

My parents had a blue badge for my Dad, who could barely walk and was mostly pushed around in a wheelchair. Once, when out shopping, we'd gone from one side of the shopping centre to the other. So, to save pushing Dad all the way back around again, I nipped out and moved the car around to the other side to pick him up. So, I pulled into the disabled bay just outside the entrance, jumped out the car and jogged in to pick M&D up. Halfway through the door, I suddenly considered that anyone who just watched able-bodied me run in through the door probably hated my guts at that very moment. Incorrectly, as it happens, but I understood what it must have looked like.

Agreed, the WICB is holding the Windies back, but I live in hope.

Holy crap. 19 to get and Samuels stranded at the non-strikers end. Braithwait just closed his eyes and swung. U19, womens and mens trophies. Maybe, just maybe, there is hope for a Windies resurgence at test level.

Bic Basher Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > Lambeth Labour is apparently being run by a > right-wing faction of the party called 'Progress' Lambeth Labour has a 'right wing faction'? Don't you mean a 'not as lefty as Corbyn faction'?

pipsky2008 Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > Thank you for mentioning MSE, I hadn't previously heard of it but will look into it. MSE is Microsoft Security Essentials, their version of antivirus. Normally I shy away from MS stuff like this, but MSE is pretty damn good and ties in quite nicely with the Windows Firewall. And it's free. > > Not sure what you mean by for 'online banking / purchasing'. An AV (should) protect you at all > > times > > By online banking I mean giving passwords, answering security questions, where there are > bogus websites that say they are rated as 'official' when amending standing orders or > setting up direct debits or merely sighning in to check an account balence Ah. Whilst some AV's can help, that's not really what they do. The usual advice is NEVER go somewhere like that via clicking on an email or similar. Keep the links in your bookmarks. Personally, I use KeePass, which allows me to store and use a known URL/link to my banking/ebay/paypal/etc. Malware can, however, redirect even a real URL to a bad site. That's where AV usually should help. If in doubt, check the security certificate. When you are on the banking site, the URL should start with 'https://' If it doesn't, get out of there. If it does, you should be able to click on the padlock to the left of there and the security certificate details should come up. The Common Name on the certificate should be the expected URL. Although I don't use it myself, I understand the Trusteer Rapport software that most banks offer to you helps weed out such things. > I never let a browser store my password even for an email address password, however for some > sites, even my bank, my browser doesn't automatically ask me, as does yahoo for example when signing into email. That sounds like something's wrong. I have never encountered that. You can go into the browser's password area and delete them.

UK history suggest you need to get the population problem first, then they'll think about the infrastructure. Which, when you think about it, isn't entirely stupid.

AVG is not the worst AV out there - I just find it a bit naggy, as it keeps pestering you to buy the non-free version. That was the big reason I switched to MSE. Not sure what you mean by for 'online banking / purchasing'. An AV (should) protect you at all times. Ditto with browsers - I don't think any of them is better/worse in terms of security. I use Firefox as a rule, but often switch to Chrome simply because I don't have any add-ons there, which can seriously reduce your security. The big one is not to let your browser store any login/passwords for anything you want to keep secure. It's a trivial job to see them.

LondonMix Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > The new high end developments both in prime central London and on > the South Bank are flooding the market just as demand from buy to let investors (both abroad and > domestic is cooling). This is exactly why people who complain about high-end stuff being built are wrong. Just build, build and build and prices in London will normalise. The problem is simple - more people than properties.

georgia Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > Well I said 'thanks' but no I don't know who you > are and that is exactly what you want Think harder, georgia. You may have the opportunity to out Grok here!

Ha! Funny, Jeremy. Interesting that the astroturfers are getting a little smarter and posting something, anything somewhere else before putting up the 'ad'.

Why not ED-London Bridge, LB-Moorgate and Moorgate-Liverpool St?