This is probably a bit off-topic, but I do like a bit of nerdy tech discussion;

The QC standard which most manufacturers now use and re-brand as something else

was a bit of proprietary Qualcomm technology that’s unlikely to have found its way into a USB wall socket. Later versions are compatible with USB-PD so I’m not sure why Qualcomm perseveres with it.

USB-A/B/C are plug/socket standards. USB 1.0, 2.0, 3.0, 3.2 Gen2x2, QC3.0 etc are all protocols.

I think USB-PD is the protocol you’re looking for, and it would be a brave manufacturer that let more than 2A 5V out of a generic USB-A port. Although some of the dodgier socket vendors probable are pretty brave.

But you can flip the breaker.

Not ideal if, for example, the faulty socket’s in the kitchen and you can’t have the fridge on until it’s replaced. Just did a bit of googling about this which didn’t do much to allay my concerns. See e.g. https://www.electricalsafetyfirst.org.uk/professional-resources/technical-e-news/investigation-into-uk-socket-outlets-incorporating-usb-charging-points/

they’re just slow (2 Amps?) vs 4-5 Amp for a plug charger

Possibly a consequence of them being USB A sockets. We have one that has a USB-C socket as well as a USB A and can supply 4A, albeit shared between the 2 so if you want 4A you can’t plug 2 things in at once.

Whilst I guess the known brands are ok (MK etc) I’ve always been a bit suspicious of sockets with built in USB as there are some pretty shonky USB power adapters around and you never know what’s built into the socket and you can’t exactly unplug it if it seems to be burning the house down.

Costco’s own brand Kirkland has some good stuff; we particularly like the dishwasher tabs, much cheaper than branded ones but just as effective. And their own-brand toilet rolls of course. And a shout out for Tesco mushy peas, even at the current inflated price of 40p a tin – much better than the branded ones.

Plenty of tomatoes in M&S yesterday, and various sizes and shapes of peppers plus every other sort of vegetable you could possibly want to eat and also kale. Clearly panic buying hasn’t reached the home counties yet.

Can’t comment on the availability of cucumbers as I can think of no sensible reason why anyone would want to buy one so I didn’t look.

I often find toasting frozen sliced bread gives a softer interior. Just need to add a bit to the timer on the Dualit; I cannot comment on how well this works with a cheap toaster.

Sound quality on my latest pair of Shokz is greatly improved over previous versions IMO.  I’m just hoping reliability is improved – the magnetic power adaptor that provides some measure of waterproofing is a hopeful sign.  Openruns are currently £90 at Costco.

the patient shouldn’t see the lab results

I get hospital blood test results in the Apple Health app on my phone. Quite handy as my GP can’t see them and the hospital doesn’t provide any feedback so it’s really up to me to decide whether I need to ask anyone about what they mean. Any blood tests done directly for the GP appear in my health record in the NHS app.

https://about.bnef.com/blog/lithium-ion-battery-pack-prices-rise-for-first-time-to-an-average-of-151-kwh/

Prices apparently now on the up after a while of flatlining. It seems to me we’re at the point where they’re dominated by commodity costs rather than manufacturing costs so extra capacity coming on line may not help with the price. I’m not sure where that red line for parity with ICE comes from; it’s obviously wishful thinking as EV battery capacities vary hugely, but at $125 per kWh a 50kWh battery is going to cost you $6,250 plus pack assembly costs etc which is a cost you can’t hide in a small car, which is the point the Kia bloke was making in the Times article.

But here’s an alternative viewpoint https://news.sky.com/story/electric-car-prices-are-about-to-plummet-heres-why-12536407

That article seems to be somewhat short on substance; the battery improvements and price drops it talks about have been imminent for the last 5 years and yet still seem to be years away and the other point it makes is that second-hand EVs should be more available soon so they’ll be cheaper, but fails to point out they still won’t be as cheap as a second-hand ICE.  The Times article  seems more substantial and reports the views of a manufacturer that you would expect to have an interest in making small cheap EVs if that were possible. It points out that the battery cost is still disproportionate to the total cost of a small EV and there’s no sign of that changing in the short term.

It used to be ok when it was a bonus service to encourage you to keep subscribing to Prime and you could search for albums and artists, but they decided to make it rubbish in the hope that it would encourage you to pay them money. A very brave business strategy when there are so many alternatives IMHO.

Worx 40V cordless mower with 2 x 4ah batteries and dual fast charger for £150. Will do nicely as a replacement for my aging LIDL one and the batteries will double up duties with the other Worx things I have.

Whilst registering this for the extra warranty I noticed Worx have 25% off everything on their web site. Some things are still cheaper on their Ebay store though.

We have 2 of the Ebac ones mentioned above; they’ve been faultless for several years, the only problem being that when you use the optional wheels it’s very hard to find a bit of floor flat enough to stop it from vibrating. One of ours mostly lives in the airing cupboard for drying clothes which it does so well we’ve ditched the tumble dryer.

We’ve used the thicker Wallrock stuff in a couple of rooms that have some single skinned walls. It does nothing (or at least very little) to reduce overall heat loss but has done wonders in reducing condensation and consequent mould. Not the easiest stuff to work with though, and I wouldn’t use it in areas prone to impacts or high wear as it’s easily dented.

The UK* process for donors has definitely gone downhill.

They do like to make it hard. I’m O- CMV- and have been donating since I was 18, which is a long time ago. I’m having treatment for an eye problem that has no effect on my blood or suitability to donate. But Computer Says No and I’ve lost the will to fight with the system.

Tea and biscuits? Back in the day when I worked close to a donor centre they offered you a Guiness after you donated.

Suppose you were selling apples at £100 a ton but then a shortage arose so someone was now willing to pay you £200 a ton to make sure they got theirs. Do you a) keep selling them for £100 a ton or b) sell them to the person who’ll pay £200 a ton? Answers on a postcard…

They were told by HMG not to charge for DIY construction waste

Didn’t realise this; round here (Bucks) there was a definite increase of fly-tipping of DIY waste when they introduced charges. Small quantities of tiles, bricks, rubble, that sort of thing. To be fair they’re pretty good at clearing it up when I report things on FixMyStreet, but I can’t help thinking it’s cost them money to employ the bored chap at the entrance to the tip plus the teams going round the countryside picking things up from laybys. It’s also illogical – tiles and rubble will go into the vast disused clay pits that form most of the landfill round here which is not really environmentally damaging in the grand scheme of things. Similarly for wood – that goes into the EfW plant which they’re desperate to keep at capacity so why is that charged for? I think the answer is “because they can”. On the other hand furniture is free to dispose of even if its partly dismantled. I recently broke up a sofa to get it into the car to take down the recycling centre. Had to be careful not to completely break it up though, as then some of it would be wood and I’d get charged.

Strangely I always assumed speed limits did apply to cyclists.

The Times quotes Shapps as saying “I’m not attracted to the bureaucracy of registration plates. That would go too far.” The Guardian references a Mail article in order to wind up its readers. Some interesting media dynamics there…

<em class=”bbcode-em”>Dunno, maybe urban legend.

The beer and diapers story – explained here and yes, largely a myth; interesting that it’s become Tesco rather than Walmart over the many retellings.

Waitrose’s loyalty card has introduced an incentive scheme so complicated and difficult to use that we shop there less as a result. When we tried to explain that to them they weren’t interested as their loyalty scheme seems to be run by kids who think customer digital engagement with their web presence is more important than selling things. I suspect that will not go well.

Edit: what on earth has gone wrong with this forum software – where did that em class=… stuff come from?

Wahl seem to span a huge range from cheapo throwaway Chinese things to proper professional hairdressing tools. We bought a Wahl professional cordless thing at the beginning of lockdown and it’s been great. A Braun detail trimmer has proved less durable and will be replaced by a Wahl tomorrow, which should be better but most importantly you can get new blades for it when it becomes a hair tugger rather than a trimmer.

a Worx Impact Driver as I already have a couple of batteries for my Hydroshot.

The trouble with that sort of thinking is that it’s a slippery slope – for not much more you could have a drill, and impact driver and 2 more batteries and charger for your Hydroshot.

I have that Worx impact driver (2 in fact, because one broke and was unexpectedly replaced under their 3 year warranty after I’d already bought a replacement in an Amazon deal) and it could destroy an Ikea bookcase in the wrong hands (mine). Worx drill driver is about £50. and if you haven’t already got a cordless drill you need one more than an impact driver.

Scan are certainly good, or if you’re anywhere near a Costco they usually have some good value pre-built systems. Your £1K will get something with an i7 + GTX 3060 which should be ok for gaming as long as you’re not aiming for 4K Cyberpunk 2077.

Struggled with that. Thought of the answer after 3 goes but decided it wasn’t an allowed word so didn’t play it. Got it on the last one only because nothing else could possible fit.

Wordle 320 6/6

⬜⬜⬜⬜🟨
⬜🟨🟨⬜⬜
⬜⬜⬜🟩🟩
⬜🟨⬜🟩🟩
🟨🟩⬜🟩🟩
🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩

I’ve had them forever; they come and go and the optometrist says they’re nothing to worry about. But during lockdown I had one suddenly appear that didn’t go and turned out to be rather more serious (albeit “eminently treatable” as the opthamologist put it, by injections into the eye), so if it came suddenly I’d get it checked asap.

Chilterns bluebells are just about ready, didn’t have time to go to the best location on my ride today but these will do:

free one, does the job

The job of the free one is to get you to pay for the paid one. Not sure what the job of the paid one is.

My god, I just fired up STW on Microsoft Edge on win11 not logged in, for reasons, and it uses 6-20% of my CPU (Ryzen 9) and 6GB memory. That’s extraordinary, most games don’t even manage that. Compare with unmeasurable % CPU and 158MB for my bank’s web site (no ads) on the same browser. What are these ads doing, mining crypto?

Wordle 248 2/6

⬜🟨🟩⬜⬜
🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩

Don’t you just love it when your Wordle makes a phrase?

We were advised against triple glazing for noise reduction and to go for the different thickness glass in the inner and outer panes as described above. I think ours are laminated glass on the outside and toughened on the inside. It works very well; for example, when there was a fire across the road and several fire engines turned up we didn’t hear anything and only knew about it when the neighbours rang us. But as slackman99 says they don’t help in the summer when you need the windows open.

I once did the Lillehammer taxibob in the summer. When the ice isn’t there it’s basically a long concrete channel, on which they ran a crude bob on wheels that looked like something I could have knocked up in my garage. Like alwillis I was in the brake position but I don’t recall it actually having any brakes, or suspension; they put 4 of you in behind the professional driver, push it off at the top and you got shaken to bits while enduring ridiculous G-forces on the way down. Main thing I remember about it is getting to the bottom and realising I’d been holding on so tightly that I didn’t realise I’d worn off chunks of skin from my hands where they’d been against the inside of the bob. Highly recommended.

Edit- looks like they now have an improved version that actually looks a bit like a bobsleigh – https://en.lillehammer.com/things-to-do/wheelbob-in-lillehammer-olympic-sliding-center-p4228863

We have the Sureflap Pet Door, which is a sort of oversized cat flap for the larger animal. It’s worked flawlessly for several years and batteries last about a year. It replaced an original Sureflap that had problems with the latches being a bit weak and tending to sieze up if a bit of debris got anywhere near them; the Pet Door being a newer design seems to have been much improved in that area. It’s not exactly draught-proof though, so probably not something for those with passivhaus aspirations.

Wordle 245 5/6

🟩⬜⬜⬜🟩
⬜⬜⬜⬜⬜
🟩⬜🟩🟩🟩
🟩⬜🟩🟩🟩
🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩

After 2 guesses there were 3 possible answers. Guess who chose the wrong ones first.

Easy clean for gates –

https://www.ironmongerydirect.co.uk/product/monkey-tail-16mm-bolt-socket-easy-clean-cast-iron-363829

An essential device for those of us with gravel drives. Also allows for the expansion and contraction of our wooden 5 bar gates.

Wordle 239 3/6

⬜⬜⬜⬜⬜
⬜🟩⬜⬜⬜
🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩

A good recovery from what looked like a dire position, I thought.

Wordle 235 4/6

⬜⬜⬜⬜⬜
⬜⬜🟨🟨⬜
🟨🟨🟨⬜🟨
🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩

Forgot about US spelling…

was surprising to hear this from people with a vested interest and commission to sell new cars

I’ve had the same – was chatting to the new car sales person about buying an EV when I collected my car after its MoT and they basically said that now was not a good time to buy a new car unless you absolutely have to. Not what I expected, but then given that they’re struggling to make enough cars to meet demand at the moment perhaps not surprising.

Wordle 231 2/6

🟨⬜🟨⬜🟩
🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩

Wordle 230 3/6

🟨⬜⬜⬜🟨
⬜🟩🟩🟩⬜
🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩

Two possibilities for the second guess and I go for the wrong one.

Our council has implemented the “free” month by debiting us the usual amount and then refunding it, with no explanation as to why. The ways of local councils are indeed mysterious. I expect they’d put it down as one of the “efficiencies” of moving to a unitary council but it must have been interesting for anyone without a few hundred spare pounds in their account.