>>3588
visit, rent, buy.

>>3588
By buying rushing into a property you could end up wasting far more than six month's rent.

>>3588
>just buy a property that thereby saves thousands of pounds and doesn't lock me in a 6 month contract

You're often locked in for longer when you own a place and need to sell it - don't believe any of the hype about how long it takes to sell a house, end-to-end; 6 months is pretty good.

>>3589
I don't think its possible to accurately judge anywhere at the minute. Take Cardiff for example, in OP's list - one of its stand out 'traits' is the atmosphere, big events/weekends, clubbing etc. Right now that is nowhere to be seen. You would get an almightily shit impression of the place if you booked a city centre flat for 2 weeks at the moment. But it goes for anywhere.

>>3593
Were it not for the you-know-what, last Sunday would have been one of the best weekends of the year. The best day out I've had was when Ireland were in town in 2019. Even in defeat, their travelling fans know how to have a good time.

>Something happened to two of the carpet tiles in my current flat,

Care to elaborate?

>>2868
I don't know exactly, but my best guess is my office chair wheel got stuck and tore a chunk of the threading out. Either way, there's inch-wide black patch of missing carpet. Unfotunately that was right on the boundary of two tiles.

>>2869
Fair enough. To be honest I think I was hoping for some sort of amusing and elaborate wanking/shitting/murder incident or something. I hope you get it sorted anyways ladm8.

>>2870
My bad. I realise on second reading that my OP makes it sound quite intriguing when in reality it was just because I don't know what happened.

>>2870
I was imagining he had set them on fire.

>>31080

It was one of the flight attendants, who was one of few people who weren't buckled up in their seat at that moment.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aloha_Airlines_Flight_243

The flight was between two islands in Hawaii, where that plane was in daily operation. There was a documentary about it on TV once, and they said that because the plane was serving those short-distance routes several times a day, it did many more takeoffs and landings than other planes, and that therefore the structural wear and tear was much greater than anybody had considered.

>>31083

It was specifically corrosion in the epoxy seal on the fuselage that caused the initial failure. Stress was put into the rivets instead, which caused microcracks in the fuselage. This was missed due to hurried and lax safety checks by the airline.

The FAA concluded it was just that which caused the explosion, but I still favour the fluid hammer theory.

>>31061

How fast would that music be if this clip was played at regular speed? Crikey.

>>31091

Five million BPM.

If the whole ten minute video was played back at actual speed, it'd be over in 0.015 seconds. If you played it on a loop, you'd miss at least twenty repeats every time you blinked.

>>31093


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k0tMvxV-GC4

Music to do cake to.

Needle, thread and some old fabric of a similar colour. S'not hard to repair, just run 2 parallel backstitches about 1cm from the tear.

>>6342
Buying clothes online is an absolute ballache, however you can can 100% (man made) cotton joggers for cheap as fuck from the likes of TK Maxx and Sports Direct.

You can also buy organic cotton ones from elsewhere online. They are the comfiest at home trousers I've ever bought. Tracksuit trousers are also surprisingly warm and very comfortable.

>>6344

>>6345
I was going to post a gif but couldn't find a good enough one.

>>92234
There is a strong electoral case for this though: One recognised tendency in British politics has always been that when people are sick of the Tories, nice middle class Tory types will vote Liberal and help Labour get in that way. At every election where Labour has taken power except 1997 the Liberals have also gained votes. (Up 0.9% in 1923, 5.8% in 1929, 2.3% in 1945, 5.3% in 1964, 11.8% in 1974, and down 1% in 1997.)
1997 leaves the question: Did Labour win Liberals, or Tories? Was there a "Tories go Liberal, Liberals go Labour" effect, or did Labour win over Tories while Liberals stuck to Ashdown?

But then in 2001 and 2005 things go all weirdy wobbly with the Lib Dems running to the left of Labour on all sorts of issues and even the Conservatives having a pop at it on tuition fees (opportunism, but they still did it!). Then 2010 happened and we all know how that went.

Anyway, it's a shame our Labour party didn't follow the trajectory of New Zealand: Labour there did Thatcherism from 1984-90, got it all out of their system and caused untold social harm in the process, sold off the trains and the planes despite promising they wouldn't. People were sufficiently upset (about the social harm, not the vehicles) that Labour feared coming third in the 1990 election, so were overjoyed when they merely went down to the biggest defeat of a sitting government in their nation's history.
Then in they came back to power in 1999 and mixed the electorally useful parts of Blairism (mostly late-TV era campaign techniques) with policies like renationalising the trains and the planes, creating a state owned bank, abolishing workfare, creating tax credits but branding them properly so people actually know what on earth they are, calling the Iraq war illegal, and more.
In part as a result of delivering a government that most people can basically agree was alright within living memory, NZ Labour returned to govt in 2017. Unlike UK Labour, which is spiraling the plughole like a discount Lloyd George Liberal.

>>92226
>Why were Deloitte offered untendered contracts to provide services that the NHS could have easily provided?

Because the idea the NHS is set up to do any of thesr things is wrong in the first place.

>>92258

>The NHS isn't set up to do medical testing or medical surveillance on the British Public but some rando consulting firm is.

u wot 8?

>>92235
>at you fully think it is 100% okay to hate specific groups of people, as long as they're the groups you've been told deserve it because of their privilege rank according to identity politics. That is your brain on liberalism.


That sounds so completely bonkers to me, I hate to go full no true scotsman, but that violates the very core pricipals of liberalism.

I accept that the term liberal has probably been co-opted by a paticular type of arsehole, and that arsehole considers classical liberals to be closet racists and sexists but usually those people self identify as left first rather than liberal.

>>92266

Yeah, this one was all those things you usually associate with a radical twitter leftie, except socialism was the bit she objected to.

That's what was so vexing and why I found her so repulsive. I can tolerate and to some extent understand those sorts when they eanestly believe it's all part of one big package to make society fairer overall, but this one specifically and consciously wanted neo-liberal capitalism as it exists today to carry on as normal, just with more women and minorities in the 1%.

>>23496

Amidala was meant to be young teens too in the first one wasn't she?

Mind you I suppose it's tradition after the twincest in the originals.

>>23496
Amidala didn't kidnap Anakin and spend a decade grooming him to become the king of Naboo, in fairness. Indeed from what I recall the two basically seemed incompatible in every way and she was simply the first woman Anakin had seen who wasn't his mum. Why do you think C3PO was so heavily queer coded? Because that robot was literally coded queer. Think about it.

>>23500
I'm intrigued by your theory of the prequal trilogy being the story of Anakin's repressed homosexuality and his lashing out at the world. The dots all join up so well from the monastic anti-sexual repression of the Jedi to Palpatine being a bit of a noncey old man.

As for the Twilight Zone episode I just put it down to being a bad episode. There's different attitudes of the time at work but you can also see reflections of classic fairytale themes involving Prince Charming rescuing the Cinderella - and which young girls probably like (not that I would know of course). It might've been a stronger story if the original draft was in a half-hour format as I suspect what we have is two half-formed ideas stuck together.

>>23500
>kidnap
>spend a decade grooming him
Neither of which is implied in the plot summary, if you read the same one I did. Maybe you just wish there was noncery in it because that's what they were all like back then. Only a matter of time before fuckin' Rod Serling is exposed as worse than Jim'll eh.

Watching the Amazon show The Man In The High Castle, which has little to do with the original book other than setting and character names (although they don't match their book counterparts).

The most interesting thing is it was clearly edited as in Internet TV Show. Each episode is a) designed to be watched quite closely together -- there are no re-establishing shots, you get about 10 seconds of the last episode usually before it continues completely dry; and b) the intro sequence is the best part of 90 seconds long, which seems to be like it was intended to be skipped.

The intro sequence does need an award for slowest human performance of a song, though. Christ it drags. Also it's the Dad's Army intro, complete with triangle-headed lines moving across a map.

>>442033

Hamburg is fun, there's loads of things you can do, but you probably won't experience it with your (female) friend the same way you would on a lads night out like we did.

Make sure you eat a shrimp sandwich. That's sort of their local specialty. Ask your friend about it.

>>442135
Female?

>>442136

Well I assumed you've got a lass in Hamburg who wants to have a shag.

If you're shagging men you can't say it's being "lewd", there's too much testosterone involved for words like that.

>>442139

Wasn't the definition of illegal homosexual sex in the old days that you were engaging in "lewd acts" with a person of your own gender?

We are on the edge of being able to inject virus that can reprogram your DNA sequence, reusable rockets that will make space travel affordable and augmented reality adoption is only a question of marketing it right and you think we already reached the end of history? were you dropped on your head as a baby.

>>27753
>Again, this "advance" just lets us maintain the normal better.

This really depends on what the "normal" means, for you. If the normal is just "able to produce a vaccine", then yes in a very broad sense, you're right, but the speed at which the vaccine was made was dependant on plenty of technology and processes that did not exist just a few years ago; mRNA vaccines were tested in animals from the 1990s, there was a lot of excitement and companies being built around it for human use in the 2000s and 2010s, but nothing really came to fruition until 2020.

Other recent biotech breakthroughs include CRISPR. Though the acronym strictly refers to understanding a pattern in DNA, it's usually used synonymously with Cas9 or CRISPR-Cas9, a new technology allowing us to edit genes within organisms.

I would say that, based on CRISPR alone, we are going to see some pretty wild and unexpected advances.

>>27756
>if the normal is just "able to produce a vaccine", then yes in a very broad sense, you're right
I mean that the ability to produce the vaccine means we go back to "business as usual" faster. All these advances are just used to maintain the more general status quo.

>>27756 pretty wild and unexpected advances.

Some of which will be advances in inconvenient directions, but yes.

If we can get some advances in small scale, low energy water treatment so I can properly go unabomber (without the actual bombing bit), that would be a blessing.

You seem to be searching for some great shift when the reason we are where we are is because we have collectively tried to suit our desires.

>>7969
I started thinking that I could cheat the system by paying any credit card purchases off right away. Then, of course, I found out that if you pay it off too often in a given month you equally look sloppy with money. A more cynical man might think this is all an elaborate scam to get people into debt - thereby making the balance sheets look better than they are while creating social control.

I've spent my whole life ignoring pretences and thumbing my nose at authority but now look at me. And I'm only just starting to learn how mortgages do horrible things to people. The banks will probably have me in a dress by the end of the month. Then when I finally do own a home I'll become a petty neighbourhood tyrant in a myopic quest to protect my 'investment' over all else.

>>7972
>The banks will probably have me in a dress by the end of the month.

Can't say I've ever heard or thought of that, but will definitely suggest it at work tomorrow.

>>7970

As mentioned upthread, you can get a free credit rating and personalised advice on how to improve it at the link below.

https://www.moneysavingexpert.com/creditclub/

On Experian they have a new boost feature:
https://www.experian.co.uk/consumer/experian-boost.html

You give them access to your bank and they say they can boost your score by sharing the payment details. Unless they find it's bad in which case they won't. Anyone else find that a bit creepy, giving big data access to your bank history and then expecting it's scoring to be accepted when it only shows the good?

>>8422
https://www.openbanking.org.uk/customers/what-is-open-banking/

>>67978
Back2/emo/ carpet-bagger

Why do birds suddenly appear?

>>67997

when i was

>>67998
oh thanks i hadn't seen that /mu/ meme for nigh on 10 years. ffs

>>68007
I didn't want to say, but seeing it actually made me feel a bit warm. It was so long ago, a simpler time, and it's been so long because no-one uses it any more, which is perfect.

>>442071
Shipman was atypical of a multiple murderer. The vast majority of serial killers have a sexual motive to their crimes.

>>442116

Not to be That Contrarian Lad, but looking at the statistics more as I got older has really diminished my interest in the subject. War/crime related to the economy and other forms institutionally-embedded violence kills far more people than the work of individual murderers.

Even psychologically it seems like a bit of a dead-end in terms of research, as by now I think the patterns of the garden variety American spree shooter or serial killer are fairly well understood.

I think the interest you describe is more based on the human drama of it, which in my opinion is absolutely the wrong way to look at people who are largely repeating traumas.

>>442120
Women in particular are raised to feed off drama.

>>442120

>Even psychologically it seems like a bit of a dead-end in terms of research, as by now I think the patterns of the garden variety American spree shooter or serial killer are fairly well understood.

>I think the interest you describe is more based on the human drama of it


It's the media, innit. If it bleeds, it leads, every time. Any story of a spree shooter or some sexually abnormal serial rapist or murderer is tabloid gold and gets milked for every last drop.

>>442120

I mean yeah, but you evidently had enough interest in the subject to look into it in such a level of detail. That it turned out to be a bit disappointing and mundane under the surface just is what it is, really, you know?

My fascination has always been with war, because it's so impersonal and formalised, almost. Industrialised slaughter where humans just throw themselves in the grinder. It's chilling.

>>27776

There's a claim that only 25 percent of fortune 500 CEOs are bald. There's also research to suggest that bald men are perceived as more commanding or suitable for leadership, but perception is arguably not that important if you've already proved your ability as most C suites have.

Something about high-testosterone males being more likely to lose their hair early, high-testosterone also driving men to be more competitive/ruthless so likely to rise to the top quicker.

>>27778
I read that it's a myth that high testosterone is linked to baldness. Yes testosterone is the trigger, but it's genetics that make you at risk for hair loss, no matter if your testosterone is high or average.

>>27779

That's the most recent science I've heard too.

I have never bought into the bald men having more confidence, it's more that confident men are more likely to make the decision to shave their head rather than cling on. This idea is supported by a quick google of the various baldness related forums that exist mostly so men can post pictures of their bald spots and say "WHAT SHOULD I DO?!".

I feel bad for anyone who is that stressed or depressed about such a common trait in men.

>>27780
It would make sense in that people like Trump and Musk are the other extreme, they're highly confident but they're also narcissists.

I'm not sure what I made of this. It wasn't unpleasant to read, although Vonnegut's faux-naïf writing style wore thin at times. It's largely a meandering stream of consciousness, but most of the commentary within it is rather tame by today's standards.

>>7194
I enjoyed Vonnegut a lot more when I was a sullen teenlad who thought being reductionist was insightful. His books are quirky and he's eminently a very good writer with a powerful imagination since I've always found myself becoming trapped within a few pages. But under it all, there isn't a whole lot and his style can grate in excess.

This is quite good.

It never really went anywhere. It was an interesting premise but it just sort of petered out.

Very much enjoyed this. British appeasement and German rearmament. Reccomends.

>>92205

Get on your knees and grovel, you worthless maggot.

>>92206
Fuck me this is even more disappointing than the whole Keith Starmer premiership.

I saw her kneeling in her New Rock boots and tights though. Very sexy. I'm not saying I want her to literally stand on my testicles and smash them into oblivion, but I'm in the same postcode.

>>92209
You don't want to come between Rayner and her footwear.

https://www.manchestereveningnews.co.uk/news/greater-manchester-news/mps-star-wars-r2-d2-10409810

>>92209
This picture has brought up some not entirely unpleasant teenage memories. I wonder if she listens to Bad Religion.

>>92211

She's the council estate goth lass of our collective dreams, even if she doesn't have big jugs any more.

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2017/11/22/angela-rayner-becomes-grandmother-37/

>>30932
>What also happens frequently is that they deposit the cash into some offshore account in a country with lax money laundering laws, and then wire it to your bank account in Britain.

A few years back the government decided to overhaul companies, making it cheap and easy to set up your own company, in the name of Mrs Stalin Knobhole of Turkmenistan and keep all your money laundering in the good old British Isles.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/jul/05/how-britain-can-help-you-get-away-with-stealing-millions-a-five-step-guide

>>30937

Why do you think so many Russian oligarchs or their family members have moved to Britain.

https://inews.co.uk/news/politics/russia-report-multi-millionaire-russian-oligarchs-welcomed-london-558887

>>30938
It says lots have but doesn't give any examples.

>>30938

They haven't but London property is the best investment tool around. Gives out much better rates than any other and is considered quite secure thanks to the aiding and abetting of the fucked housing situation by central government and the boomers.

>>30940

The London property market is absolutely bonkers these days. Your only way to profit from it as an average person who isn't minted is if you or your parents bought a house in Croydon in the 90s and you now sell it to move out to the country. Depending on your expectations, you could have over £250K left over in cash after you've bought your new place.

>>438694
Seriously hoping they steal our ideas for a tap that produces custard then. We should probably have patented that one.

>>438696
The person who posted about a soup tap on rudgwicksteamshow.co.uk a week or so before that thread would have a strong counter-claim to the idea.

>>438697>>438696
Who are we kidding, like the Chinese care about patents.

>>438698
I wonder if we'll be able to buy autism fart bombs on AliExpress.

>Faecal transplants could help patients with a dangerous form of skin cancer respond to immunotherapy, research suggests.

https://www.theguardian.com/society/2021/feb/04/faecal-transplants-could-help-patients-with-form-of-skin-cancer

Poo science!

>>442034
>might as well punch yourself in the face.

Oh is this the blood thing? I'd get on Tinder lickety-split if I saw Andrew W. K. on there looking for a support bubble. I've got a big tub of Vanish Oxy Action here doing not much at all because I wear darks mostly.

Found a lass I used to work with that I fancied the pants off on bumble. Cue me spending an inordinate amount of time trying to sell myself with her in mind on my profile and realising I don't really have any pictures.

Let's hope the algorithm hides me as I'm liable to make a fool of myself.

>>442034
Numbers game lad. Numbers game. I find you will get weeks where all your matches come in and then you can be disappointed in a whole new way as all the good ones bin you before you meet.

Tinder is still completely wank though but for different reasons - it's all people trying to get you to follow them on Instagram. Disgusting app.

>>442039
>it's all people trying to get you to follow them on Instagram.

So they can get you to buy their Onlyfans or follow pay for a private snapchat account. It's some fairly impressive SEO optimisation.

>>442041

>SEO optimisation

They'll be laughing all the way to the ATM machine.

>>442042
You can blame the tosspot "consultant" my company brought in to teach about SEO. he kept on saying SEO optimisation to the point that I completed that saying in a Pavlovian response. I really should hold myself to a better standard, otherwise I'll end up using more superfluous words.

Have you considered COOP bank?

>>8366
Yes, from what I gather though,
> Nationwide and Co-op are just 'not-unethical'

I'm not averse to either of them - it's a massive improvement over HSBC for each.

The biggest drawback I've found with Tdos is that the debit cards fall apart after a year or two. Not in a catastrophic way, you can just see the plastic layers slowly coming apart.

The customer service is excellent, no long queues or endless robot voice loops: right away they put you through to a knowledgeable human being with useful decision-making powers. That alone would make them worthwhile, to me.

If I have a credit card with HSBC and switch to Triodos, I assume the credit card becomes void?

>>8379
I saw they said the card is made out of corn, but that's not a huge issue really as I tend to pay for everything on my amex and pay that off at the end of the month, so the debit doesn't get much action.

How often does she buy you flowers?

I got a kilo bag of self raising the other day because the Mrs needed it for baking.

>>442024
similar i bought her some raisins for baking and snacking

>>442024
I see what you did there.

>implying i have a lass

(A good day to you Sir!)

I don't entirely understand it. It's not especially small and while an all-in-one PC-monitor set up is quite nice, it's not that amazing. It's an ITX motherboard so it doesn't seem much different to the ITX PC I'm using to send this message right now. Indeed I have the same GPU, SSD (same brand and capacity no less) and RAM, but it cost me quite a bit less than £1,775. However, it is worth noting I bought a lot of this before the prices got shot to the Moon by COVID. Also I don't know how easy to come by ITX pre-builds are either.

If you're interested in small PCs this YouTube channel has a lot of videos, although he's a bit of an elitist and don't get tricked into thinking you need a PC the size of a postage stamp with a watercooled CPU and GPU: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCRYOj4DmyxhBVrdvbsUwmAA

>>24789

>he's a bit of an elitist

TBH I'm just jealous that he's better than me at Apex Legends and has big sexy muscles.

>>24789

It just looks like a version of the shite HP Compaq Pro 6300 All In One I use for work, only after Xzibit got his hands on it. And judging by my current gaming laptop, it probably weighs four times as much as that.

Looks like a compost bin.

Not a criticism.

>>24792
Looks to me like a tombola drum.