Posts by Ol' Grumpy

Re: Don't get sheep herded by the fake news media

"Russia is what it is, and far away from Swiss democracy, but it is better than it was before."

No it isn't. Putin is far more dangerous than Gorbachev and Yeltsin ever were - at least they seemed to play by the rules. That Putin changed the Russian constitution to allow him to have more than two terms of presidential office should tell you everything you need to know.

I'm surprised at this. I was told that there was a minimum "estimated" speed that had to be achievable by Openreach before they would install FTTC type broadband to a property. In the case of my parents, it was something like 24Mbps and the conversation came about following a call into Sky Broadband's helpdesk when the service was being particularly flaky.

"I've been trying to work out what I get paying £500-600 on a top of the range phone, vs spending £100-150 on a mid range phone but I can't work it out."

For me personally, it's all about the camera.

Re: DrayTek routers are considered high end in the UK

To be fair, I remember the 2800 series being pretty poor on ADSL2 type connections which were starting to become the norm when they were released. The 2820 and beyond were (are?) much better and far more stable on ADSL2 in my experience at least. We replaced far fewer of them in the field anyway.

Re: "you chose to enter against German........"

"Yeap, your country and France declared war in 1939, but did almost nothing for the next 2 years."

Many brave people, military and civilian, died on both sides in the first two years of the war - especially those who were subjected to the blitz. I think it goes without saying that without American support, the outcome of WWII could have been different but to suggest nothing happened in those first years is unfair and frankly - disrespectful to their memory.

Re: I miss Demon Internet

"Try AAISP"

I'd love to because I understand they have great service but I can't come to terms with their usage limits in this and age of streaming media. I'd be paying silly money for top-ups.

"If the Chinese decide to play hard, there's very little that Sutherland can do"

Agreed although the diplomatic fallout would be internationally huge.

"I find it bizarre that over here you can be fired with several weeks notice, and can be expected to continue doing your job and set your house in order for a smooth transition"

Not that I'm massively experienced but I've never seen anyone fired for misconduct and been allowed to continue working. I've seen people made redundant and work their notice period as you describe above.

Re: Unfrendly Fire

I'm pretty sure the issue isn't with Presidents - Republican or otherwise. It's more to do with the specific fact that this specific President is perceived by plenty of people in and outside of the USA as being an idiot.

"Not as silly as the person who's sat in the queue behind your exhaust."

Who is now presumably a large pile of ash! ;)

Re: Why not SSD Drives?

"Or you could just get a 4TB USB3 backup drive for $100 and enjoy faster and more selective backup/restore and not have to swap fscking tapes all the time"

Mainly this although I have been the victim of backing up data to a hard drive, leaving it on the shelf and the hard drive not spinning up when I've gone back to it. So I now backup critical stuff to two hard drives :)

In terms of "stock android" - the Moto G5 Plus is also worth considering although I believe there is a new one in the works. Decent camera, dual sim and the battery easily lasts into a second day for me and there isn't much in the way of bloatware on there.

The downside is that software updates however don't appear to be a thing. I've been stuck on 7.0 since I got it. It also has a fixed battery.

Re: I've been thinking about cheap ways to kill carriers.

" QE to a big, expensive, cramped and uncomfortable cruise ship."

Isn't that how the Russians described it recently when Michael Fallon was blowing his trumpet about the whole thing?

"It's even funnier when you reallise that GiffGaff run on O2's infrastructure...."

I don't know what it is like now as I have moved away but I was rarely seeing over 0.5Mbps with a 4G signal at home, let alone abroad with Giff Gaff. My experience was similar to that described in the article, where it would start high and immediately dip to between 1.0 and 0.5Mbps as the throttling kicked in.

I moved to BT Mobile in the end. I hate myself for doing it as I liked the GiffGaff concept and ethos but I can't complain about the BT/EE 4G throughput.

Re: Bye bye Virgin

I'm not with them but I constantly hear good things about Andrews and Arnold although I think they are pricey. I guess you get what you pay for?

Re: Re-crimp?

Or shoot the pigeons! (Although one imagines the contributor doesn't have a firearms license :))