As long as the NAS is DLNA compliant it should be seamless if you have a SMART TV. I use a Buffalo linkstation NAS to stream to my Samsungs, works well.

Edit: Out of the box the NAS is set up as RAID0(concat) not RAID1 (mirrored) but it’s easy to change via the web gui, just be aware the mirror sync takes ~19hrs on 3TB disks so you need to allow an extra day before you can really use the NAS.

What you have seems pretty solid – Depends on how much storage you have I guess but Dropbox or similar?

The music is still ok IMO but there’s too much talking.

Wake up about 9ish
Grab a coffee
Start work

Usually have a shower at some point

Can’t recommend TPLINK WPA281s highly enough – 200mbps powerline with built in wifi AP. You can string as many together as you like and super simple to set up.

I would forget the “starter” kit and just buy at least two of these though.

Honestly I’d stay away from Nitro R/C cars. It stinks, is messy, people get offended by the noise, needs loads of maintenance and gets very expensive when you end up breaking something every time you use the car.

If I was getting back into R/C I’d look at an electric one for sure. I’d look at RTR prebuilt kits and buy some spare battery packs. Unless you enjoy building of course, but it’s not for me.

Edit oh god they’ve re-released the Tamiya Hotshot, this is going to cost me!

I don’t have a TV licence because I don’t need one. Mainly I use the TV for playing games and watching shows and movies streamed from my media centre or netflix. Occasionally might watch something on iplayer or 4od. Opting out was relatively painless, I just filled in a form on the internet.

As an aside I don’t agree with the way the BBC is funded or run. Recent events have exposed many of the executives and stars as nothing more than pigs at the ever-replenished trough, and I’m quite happy not to be contributing to their cause.

The Fruitshoots in my fridge are 10 calories per 200ml.

When I started eating healthily a while ago I spent some time actually analysing what I was eating.

Alpen for breakfast? – Turns out it’s full of sugar.
Orange juice is healthy right? – About the same sugar hit as a can of full fat coke.
“Roasted” chicken from the supermarket? – Full of sugar and all sorts of junk to give it that taste.
Ready meals? – oh god don’t get me started, most of them are junk.

I found myself becoming angry when food shopping – honestly most of the stuff we’re sold as the “healthy” option is full of crap.

It was a real eye opener. Now I mainly eat lean chicken breast that I oven cook, baked salmon, plenty of salad with some olive oil and soy sauce. Drink water and milk. Cut down on bread, if I do eat a cereal it’s now just plain oats with some raisins for flavour.

Combined with exercising (not cardio, mainly freeweights) twice a week I’ve dropped from nearly 15st to just about 11st.

It’s been really difficult not to fall off the wagon and return to eating pizza and kebabs regularly, but I think I’m slowly training myself to eat better.

Of course it’s not right to judge people for being overweight, but it happens all the time. I’m pretty nonjudgmental as a whole but I can admit to feeling a bit queasy when an overweight person gets in the jacuzzi at the gym, and miffed if I’m sat next to an overweight person on an airplane for example.

Google for “free point of sale software”

If I lived somewhere where winter was actually cold I would invest in a set of winter tires for sure, they really do make a difference. However I live in the south of the UK so for the 2 days a year it might be snowy just don’t go out in the car.

A friend of mine who is a high end kitchen fitter has installed 2 dishwashers in some houses, you never have to empty them, use the clean plates from one as you go and put them into the other one when dirty, wash and repeat. Lazy huh.

This is genius

I feel your pain regarding phones! We have a dining rule; anyone caught checking their cellphone automatically pays for the entire meal as a forfeit!

If you’re really that hung up about spending 30 seconds adding up a bill – maybe it’s you with the problem?

If the bill is £100 and there are four of you it’s £25 each. Make it £30 each to cover the staff tip. If you spend any time itemizing the bill it’s *you* with the problem.

There are obvious exceptions to this but I’ll point them out anyway, for example:

– If three of you are boozing away merrily all night and one of you is driving – driver doesn’t pay
– If one of you eats a tiny salad and the other three have fillet mignon – the woman doesn’t pay
– If any of the party are children, they aren’t included in the split – the total bill should be evenly split between the adult diners.

I think ultimately if you’re looking at a social occasion as a financial transaction then you’re missing the point. Also your friends probably secretly loathe you and are embarrassed to dine with you but haven’t got the nerve to say anything.

🙂

I had a Superb wagon for a couple of weeks out in Cyprus recently. Not sure what the model was but it had a decent enough engine in it and was fully loaded. Lots of space, good build quality, drove fine.

It wasn’t something I particularly felt any desire for, but for a sensible well priced load lugger I can’t imagine why anyone would buy anything else, let alone something like an A6.

I’m amazed at how socially retarded some people are. It’s a social norm to split the bill when eating out, if you don’t understand this then it’s *you* with the problem. If you’re going to attend a social meal and itemize everything, look just don’t bother going, everyone will have a better time.

I’ve had a couple over the years, they’re brilliant long-distance machines. Not sure if I’d want to run one (or any expensive-when-new car) when out of warranty though..

It is a bit rough and ready, the place has suffered the same fate as most places where there used to be a lot of heavy industry and jobs, but now most of these are gone. There is loads of riding locally – Cwmcarn, Machen – a bit further afield but all within an hour are Afan, Bike Park Wales, Forest of Dean, Brecon Beacons.

Yes it can be great. It can also be awful. On the whole I wouldn’t recommend it.

Top tip: If she comes out with the “I love you but I’m not in love with you” line, there’s very likely somebody else. Also trial separations instigated by one party are usually a symptom of them just not having the balls to end it quickly, and there’s very likely somebody else.

Maybe he just values his privacy? I think it’s a bit odd that you and your wife have stalked his ex on Facebook 🙂

Maybe he was a bit embarrassed about living at home at 25, met a girl, didn’t admit it and then it was just too late to admit the truth, so bought a motorbike and ditched her. Sounds reasonable.

sounds like a bit of a pain in the arse

You’re doing it wrong

This post is extremely sexist OP. Women are equal to men in every way, except for the rationality, accountability and reason aspects. You sexist.

Yum. On my list, but a convertible

I’ve found that anyone wearing a suit to meet me is inevitably trying to take my money.

I think it should be a PAYG type tax rolled into the cost of fuel. It’s unfair that I have to pay £1065 in the first year then £490 a year subsequently, when people who do many more miles than I do pay less but contribute to polluting the earth far more. It sucks and it’s stupid.

Shirts – every day
Socks and underwear – every day
Jeans – whenever they need it

Some of you people are animals.

Animals

Maxi Cosi “travel system” for when the baby is newborn, then a Phil & Ted’s when they are a bit older. And then one of these:

It would almost be worth being a breeder for that alone 🙂

Yes absolutely I would. Apart from the new people and all the sex, I also obtained a degree, which got me my first job with $megacorp on their graduate scheme. I travelled the world during my 20s and got paid for it.

Now I’m an old git the degree is more of a tickbox on the CV. I don’t think any potential recruiter has asked about it for 12 years. It just means I never have to explain why I don’t have a degree.

This kind of thing is just one of the many reasons you shouldn’t be FB friends with colleagues or generation-removed family 🙂

4 bags of sand a year for that seems a bit rich to me, you could rent a new Audi on finance for that 😉

Almost nobody buys cars north of 50k with cash, it doesn’t make sense. All about the finance, innit. You can get a new car every couple of years and not worry about depreciation, MOTs, unexpected bills etc as everything is (or more accurately, can be) built into the rental price. The best deal I ever had was an S65 merc, I think it ran at about £155k list, I got it for 9k down and £1500/month – at the time I was one of those dreadful City types so it was hardly a dent in my outgoings.

Over the years I’ve driven some great machinery and not had to worry about disposing of a rapidly depreciating asset – instead I’ve used my cash to invest in other things while treating my vehicles like any other monthly cost, IE phone, TV license, or any other monthly bill.

More reasonably you can pick up a decent Merc or BMW for around £300 /month and replace it with a new one every couple of years. Makes sense to a lot of people.

The absolute best thing about this approach is if you *do* get into financial strife you just hand the car back and take the associated temporary credit hit.

BTW all you lovers of the BMW M3, you can buy a Porsche Cayman for the same money, 2 vs 4 seats but a much better car

I would disagree strongly with this; my last M3 was a far better machine than my last 911 let alone a Gayman. Porsches are overrated in my opinion.

There’s a reason there are so many 5s up North, in Wales and even the Alps – they work. Of course this doesn’t sit well with the stormtroopers who think they need a carbon Ibis to trundle around the Surrey Hills, although in fairness a 5 wouldn’t look quite so nice on the Thule Aeros atop the midrange S Line diesel Audi 😉

I’ve gone off Maxxis since starting to use hans dampf super gravities. They just do everything well. Come up big though if frame clearance is an issue.

Dude if it’s not a bike or a board it’s totally gay.

Lynn, these are sex people!

I’ve worked out that I need to earn £600 a month to break even- pay rent, bills, food, council tax, NI & student loan (with £30 disposable income).

I think that’s very cheap. £7,200 a year! You could make that on a part time minimum wage job. You won’t be living a life of luxury but you’d get by just fine.

That would probably be ok if you were a student or had just left home but £30 a week doesn’t leave you with anything really when you factor in clothes, dental, medical, savings, tv licence, insurances, internet, phone, holidays etc etc

I live opposite a church and they ring the bells on a Thursday night. Not really my cup of tea but the church has been there since 1400 AD so I guess I’ll just have to suck it up.