I’ve had that, last happened when trying to pay for petrol. It may be the shop’s transaction that’s been declined, not specifically your card – some merchants are seen as a high fraud risk.

the gravity at the poles and equator is the same

You have to be very careful what you mean by gravity! The earth isn’t a sphere, it’s an oblate spheroid, so if you’re on the equator you’re further from the centre. If you’re as old as me you will have learned in school the gravitational force is G*m1*m2/(r^^2) so the gravitational force at the equator is less. Younger people probably won’t have learned this in their media studies and sports management GCSEs. :-)

do you not need a firewall for home use

If you’re using a recent version of Windows it has one built in that’s more than enough. And as others have said, chances are your router has one too. Whatever you do don’t try to run more than one software firewall on your PC – they tend to fight.

Try the search for multiple threads on this. Microsoft Security Essentials is your friend, and free.

XF, 35-40 on short journeys, 45-50 on the motorway, can get it down to low 30’s if I’m having fun. Best I’ve had on a run is 57.6.

Does anyone actually sell badminton rackets for the recommended price? I use a Head Ti10000 supposedly reduced from £80 to just over £20 from the local Sports Direct, which I’m told by better players than me is quite a good racket.

Cassette – Hope again http://www.bikeradar.com/news/article/eurobike-2010-hopes-new-cassette-with-integrated-freehub-27582
Saddle – Brooks
Frame – lots of UK niche frame makers still out there.
Fork – as above if you’re willing to go without suspension.

I get stuck after that.

Usually referred to as MEWing – mortgage equity withdrawal. If your friend did it in her 40s on a normal 25 year mortgage then she may well still be paying it off after she retires – not a good idea.

Cars are one thing and we have some solutions, but has anyone seen any electric aeroplanes yet?

There’s huge reserves of plastic buried in old landfill all around the country

And lots of other useful things, which is why the current plans to burn a lot of it are not a good idea IMHO!

*dusts off peak flow meter that hasn’t been used in a while and nurse says is now obsolete*

Mine’s on about 620, which is a bit lower than I remember but would have been a lot lower a couple of weeks ago – I think I had a duff steroid inhaler, started using a fresh one and now my lungs seem to be twice as big.

830-850 on a good day

Mine only goes up to 800. Maybe that’s why the nurse said it was obsolete – have they changed the scale or something?

regressive farming practices

Not exactly sure what a “regressive farming practice” is, but I think the point people are making is that apart from some anthropomorphic views on what constitutes a happy cow you haven’t actually been able to explain what’s wrong with intensive dairy farming. Then again, looking at the Compassion in World Farming and WSPA web sites they don’t seem to have a clue either.

Mrs R uses a Tomtom stuck onto the heated windscreen of her Mini and it works fine. An earlier Tomtom we had wasn’t so good and we had to get a separate aerial that stuck onto a side window.

the sale which ends on Sunday

We got a quote from them a few months ago for a complete bathroom suite, they pushed us to buy at the sale price but we couldn’t because we were waiting for some planning permission. Since then they seem to have had a succession of sales and the prices are if anything less, so I wouldn’t get too worried about having to buy before the sale ends – they’ll be another one along in a minute.

Edit: beaten to it – must type faster!

now, where’s her bonus?

If your boss is solely motivated by money then maybe she should try her hand at merchant banking instead of (I assume) some sort of medical career. Wouldn’t be my choice but then some people don’t care what they do as long as it pays enough.

Looking at the event viewer won’t cause any harm. Last time I got one of these calls I double-clicked on one of the events because I wanted to look at the details of what it was (a problem starting the bonjour service) and told him I’d done that and he went all into a tizzy – “no, you mustn’t click on them, you could make it worse, that’s only for experts, only do what I say”. All a load of rubbish! They’re preying on those with a lack of knowledge, really ******’s me off.

what’s the target of the scam?

IME the basic ploy seems to be to get you to open the Windows error log, show you all the errors (there are nearly always some) and claim that they’re caused by your computer being compromised. Then they use this to scare you into paying for an unnecessary support arrangement. Some of them try to get you to allow their “support” people log onto your PC remotely through a web-based remote access tool as a service that “would normally cost you £xx, but we’ll do it this time for free just to show you we’re legit”, after which anything could happen.

My record so far is 3 of these calls in one day. No idea where they get the numbers from.

Depending on how bored I am I usually string them along until they try to get me to let them log on to my PC remotely and then tell them I work in IT security and I’m going to call the police. They usually get a bit upset at that point.

If I could be bothered I’d set up a VM for the next one and see if I could get him to log in to it to see what they actually do.

I used to use snow card but I’ve started using these people who are quite a bit cheaper – http://www.direct-travel.co.uk/%5B/url%5D. Never had to claim though, which is the real test of a travel insurance company.

Screwfix for cheap-and-cheerful uPVC cleaner for large areas, B&Q for the slightly abrasive stuff for those stubborn stains that other uPVC cleaners leave behind.

No, people tend not to spend when there are deflationary pressures, preferring instead to save.

But the evidence is that people are prepared to spend on products even though they know the price will go down. Food is a good example – prices dropped for years and in that period the supermarkets boomed and we all ate well.

This takes money out of circulation which further increases deflationary pressures.

Saving only takes money out of circulation if you pile it up under the mattress. In theory the money I save in the bank is the money that the banks lend to businesses and individuals to keep the economy going.

We saw a good example of how spending is affected by price anticipation with the mini spending spree caused people trying to beat the VAT rises.

People are bound to move discretionary expenditure to avoid tax rises. Inflationary increases tend to be unpredictable and therefore have less effect.

Why buy today what will be cheaper tomorrow

Because you want it or need it today. Deflation doesn’t stop people buying PCs or flat-screen TVs, or mobile phones. You can’t wait to buy food because it may be cheaper tomorrow.

deflation is a far greater evil than inflation

Never did understand this one. Some of the most successful and wealth-generating industries suffer deflation at a high rate – think IT or electronic consumer goods, for example. Deflation means my money goes further. Why is it so bad, or is it that it’s not really bad, just that government’s tax revenues go down?

inflation was low for all of labours rule

Not strictly true, CPI was low for New Labour‘s rule, and as others have pointed out this was a global phenomenon. If we look at the last Labour government things are a little different:

1978 8.30%
1977 15.80%
1976 16.50%
1975 24.20%
1974 16.00%

I remember 1975, I was a student on a fixed income. Not a happy time.

TJ – I didn’t comment on the method, I just get extremely annoyed when people can’t understand the difference between deficit and debt, after all it’s not hard. Makes me angry when people do it on TV and the radio too! :evil:

what ConDem and Osborn is doing with the with their cuts and VAT rise is beyond me

I expect they’re trying to reduce the deficit, not the debt. Easy mistake to make – many politicians don’t understand the difference either.

Labour had reduced national debt and were continuing to do so until the global financial crisis hit the fan and we had to bail out the banks

Nulab ran with a deficit from 2002. Bank problems started in 2007 and didn’t really have an impact until 2008, and as you have said selling of the government’s stakes in the banks will reduce the debt but will not address the deficit.

**** knows why he is Chancellor

Chancellors aren’t economists, they’re politicians. What’s important is who they go to for advice. I suspect one of the reason we’re not in an even bigger hole is that Alistair Darling (who people forget was the chancellor when it all hit the fan) was prepared to listen to people who appeared to know what they were talking about, unlike his predecessor who thought he knew everything. So far I suspect Osborne is listening to other people, mainly because he doesn’t strike me as the sort of person who can think for himself. Who knows how long that will last; chancellors with their own ideas are dangerous.

i’m really not, i’m an idiot.

That makes you more qualified than recent candidates. awhiles for Chancellor!

The best internet security is in your head – don’t click on the dodgy links and stay off the dodgy sites and you won’t get into too much trouble. Use MSE for the occasions where that doesn’t work.

I’ve tried a few, always end up coming back to Runkeeper even though the maps are useless (standard Google maps, useless off-road!). Good for biking and other activities too with the same proviso on the maps.

I want an exhaustive list

Here you go – 270 professional bodies on here, including banking and PR. But even that’s not exhaustive – I’m a member of a professional body that’s not on there.

this one

No, that paper’s been around for a while. But you’re getting closer!

This one?

No, power analysis of crypto devices is old news. I suspect they mean the man-in-the-middle attack – see Ross Anderson’s blog[/url], always worth a read if you’re into these things.

We use Danish oil – seems to be reasonably resistant to stain/hot cups etc but I wouldn’t risk a hot frying pan on anything short of stainless steel. When we had ours done they left some offcuts which we’ve tidied up and use as a sacrificial surface where we might want to put pans down etc. If I was starting again I’d probably use the Osmo stuff – we used Osmo oil on our oak staircase and it seems to be bullet proof.

How do these wooden work tops holdup?

Like any wood they can be damaged but unlike some worktops it’s easy to fix scratches and marks with some sandpaper and a new coat of oil, or just leave them and count it as “character”!

Ours has been rubbish since the snow, and even worse now that the school holidays have started. Lots of people downloading pron because they’ve got nothing else to do working from home I guess –

the 350 was pretty much 1st generation

No, the 300 was 1st generation so I bought a 350 thinking it would be ok, whereas in practice it’s so slow you could fall asleep waiting for a film to load. Big mistake – we hardly ever use it. The 370 would need to be a lot better before I’d buy one. Whatever you get, try before you buy.

Edit: 350 got rave reviews as well. Go figure.

All decent anti-virus engines use heuristics.

Well aware of that – the significance of my point was that until now MSE didn’t!

AVG: 98.3% coverage, 177 performance
Avast: 99.3% coverage, 179 performance
Kapersky: 98.3% coverage, 160 performance
MSE: 97.6% coverage, 179 performance

— http://www.av-comparatives.org/comparativesreviews/detection-test
— http://www.av-comparatives.org/comparativesreviews/performance-tests

Latest MSE includes heuristics so may perform better on coverage than the version tested here, although personally I prefer MSE because of its lack of interference and general invisibility rather than this month’s coverage or the fact that it’s free.

I hope the individual uses his moment in the media in a positive way to push his cause

He was certainly doing his best on the BBC breakfast news yesterday, telling us how the Wikileaks revelations showed that Britain is pursuing an imperialist agenda and that this was related to opression at home etc etc etc. They couldn’t shut him up – “can we just talk about the incident and not politics?” to which the answer was basically “no”. In his favour at least he didn’t seem to be playing the disability card.

RAID will push my price up by a bit too much

You’ve already got all the bits to do RAID0 or RAID1 (MB support plus 2 discs), so it shouldn’t cost anything which is why I suggested it. If you’ve got the OS discs you can always go to RAID later – it will probably require a complete re-install though.

Er…. not with RAID1. In fact, it would have a negative performance impact.

RAID1 will increase the read performance but not the write. As most operations are reads it actually makes a big difference. Your boot times in particular will be noticeably faster with RAID1, as will programme load times. If you turn on disc write caching then write times are even less important but if you lose your power it can have unpredictable results as I’ve found to my cost.

Edit:

but if disk performance is important, get 3 and RAID5

A 3 disc RAID5 has the same theoretical maximum performance increase on reads as RAID1, and may or may not be better on writes. In practice I doubt you’d notice any difference.

There’s always going to be part of the system that’s slower than the rest, hence “bottleneck”. These days it tends to be discs, unless you go for an SSD – anything mechanical is inevitably slow. The rest of your system is so blisteringly fast that it will really show up any relatively slow bits.