>>22030
That is really good actually. Relate to that cycle very much indeed.

It's kind of entertaining. Also I think that's a female David Mitchell.

>>22027

Well that was fucking inane. Thanks regardless.

>>24443
Here's something with a message.

>>24444

Thanks, it's like Aesop's Fables meets The Mighty Boosh Show. I feel somewhat enlightened.

Although I can't help but feel like a poo monster would be in favour of poo being left everywhere.

I think it's fair to assume the average age of a poster here is mid 30's.

>>450849
I'm 34, and lately, there have been a suspiciously high number of posters here who are 1-5 years younger than me. That, or one poster who really likes mentioning his age, but only in very vague terms.

>>450844

>I think you just become more grateful for making it through the day unscathed. The trivialities of everyday life bother you much less when you've watched your dad die or had a cancer scare or been through a rough divorce. It might sound pessimistic, but life is fucking hard.

Very well said. I've had some absolute fucking tragedy in my life of a magnitude that would have done other people's head in. As a result, a lot of people today actually say they admire my ability to not become unsettled by all the everyday annoyances and just keep calm and carry on. Well, it is hard earned. Every shrug of my shoulders at something that is as minor as it is inevitable is the consequence of having been to hell and back in my life and having realised what really matters.

One thing where I really notice nowadays that life is about drawing enjoyment from all the little things is that I've really gotten into gardening. It's absolutely brilliant, nothing beats the feeling of spending a few hours in the back garden planting two dozen new strawberry plants like I did yesterday and then looking at the result with great satisfaction and looking forward to plenty of your own homegrown strawberries come June. I used to roll my eyes at my parents for their love of gardening, telling them that it was "such an old people's hobby", but here we are now, I'm old, and I enjoy it every bit as much as they did.

>>450841

Think the most important thing here is not to end up with the all too typical beer gut. That'll fuck up how you look no matter if you're 21 or 61. My dad's just hit 59 but he was a fireman and cycles a shit load and I dare say he'd pull just as well as me.

>>450849

27, and I've been coming here off and on for 10+ years.

Christ, get me a fucking drink.

>>450964

Nevermind, got myself one.

>>8774
What do you mean?

>>8773
>>8774
That was last week. But thanks for letting me know the bonus has gone in today.

Less than a week until the new year. What are you going to put money on?

I'm thinking of continuing on a west-focused portfolio given events over the past few months have shown the advantages, probably to opt for an Aussie fund in AUD given commodities still seem like a good bet and the Australian economy might be finding its legs again (until commodities fall). Taiwan could be interesting given how hard value has been hit in recent months but I have my doubts about it maintaining its position in the semiconductor market.

>>9217
> Less than a week until the new year. What are you going to put money on?

"Green" stuff. For my own conscience and because I think money will pour into the sector for decades to come, as the weather gets crazier.

Specifically:

- SSE: they build and operate lots of power plants, transmission lines, etc. Still some gas plants, but they are ramping up the renewables in a big way. They have a PE ratio of ~20 and a dividend yield of ~4.5%, so they are kind of a value stock I guess. I'll put £10k here.

- Agronomics: high-risk cultivated meat startup investment trust. I put £5k here about a year ago and the share price has not moved... but the net asset value is 200% higher, so this seems good value (despite Jim Mellon's extortionate fees). I'll put £5 here.

- The last £5k: maybe ishares global clean energy ETF... but this has a lot of highly valued stocks and may have further to fall, so I'm holding off for now.

>>9250
>Agronomics: high-risk cultivated meat startup investment trust. I put £5k here about a year ago and the share price has not moved... but the net asset value is 200% higher, so this seems good value (despite Jim Mellon's extortionate fees). I'll put £5 here.

If you want my top-tip, you'd invest in something that's going to make money. I've been looking hungrily at SSAB which has been making green steel, even if this will likely be a counter-cyclical bet.

You're nearly a month late anyway, I put my house money into a cheap fund looking at US Small companies and made a small profit already. I may shift that into UK nano companies as we have some smart lads in this country working on applications so long as they're able to switch the kettle on.

Simple heat pump check list:

-Can you afford it
-can you afford it after you factor in the installation cost
-can you afford it if it turns out you also need to get your main fusebox replaced at the same time
-would that money be better spent on solar water heating or solar pv if you have a suitable south-facing roof
-do you have space for it
-do you have space for it, including room to run all the extra pipework, suitably sized storage cylinder and associated gubbins.
-do you have space to replace your existing radiators with larger ones, or possibly considered underfloor heating.
-Have you already insulated your house as well as possible, including good cavity wall insulation, loft insulation, high-rated double or triple glazing, completely and utterly draught-proofing every last gap or crack.
-can you also afford and have space for fitting a heat-exchanger so you can ventilate the house without opening any windows and losing heat

Heat pumps are amazing technology but so many other things need to be in place before they make sense, using them as a magic bullet like-for-like replacement for gas is demented.

Also this video is a good watch, and is a good indication of the current state of the heat pump installation market in this country.

tldw;
Major well known heat pump sellers quote a customer for a job, they place the order, then said company takes on a local contractor to do the installation. The subby turns up looks over the plans and can see that the surveyor did a slap-dash job, hasn't measured things right and has designed a system that was impossible, forcing the subby to change the plans to fit some of the equipment in the loft which means much more materials and time is needed.
Once everything is ready the sellers technician comes to set up the system. The subby does his own research and realises that the seller is intentionally instructing all their installers to disable weather compensation so it just runs on max power all the time, this means it costs the household much more to run, but the company has this as a policy because weather compensation is very difficult to set up right and they don't want call backs from customers if its done wrong.

Also just skimming through the video should give you an idea of the massive amount of work, piping and wiring involved in a heat pump install.


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ialSHV4J8Dg

>>28088
I think shutters is a really good shout.

Personally wouldn't buy a heat pump - not convinced of the benefits. Full insulation seems a better investment.

>>28088
>Reckon there's a market for shutters with solar panels on?

There was something on the BBC website earlier about solar blinds.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-60922527

This seems interesting

https://www.london.gov.uk/what-we-do/environment/energy/solar-together-london

>>14405

I have no idea how much traffic 4chan gets, but it wouldn't surprise me in the slightest if activity there were monitored by security agencies. For one, even piddly little real life UK groups have been infiltrated by police, so the actual importance doesn't really seem to have much bearing on whether people are willing to sink time and money into surveillance. For two, 4chan has had a disproportionate cultural effect, to the extent that even my mam knows what a "meme" is in this bizarre nightmare world.

>>14405

You know how there are places in your city that the pigs know to patrol round more often because there's likely to be a lot of dodgy sorts hanging about there? 4chan is like that for the internet.

I don't think for a minute it's the hackers on steroids scum of den and villiainy it's always made out to be, but when there have been documented cases of high school shooters and chronic wanking lady-stabbers who posted on there and even hinted at their actions, the authorities are bound to keep tabs on it.

Although, if we're going to indulge our tinfoil hat gut feelings, I reckon it's more likely the spooks are the ones who egged those lads on. We know for a fact the CIA/FBI is batshit enough that it literally funds terrorists just so it can arrest them later, you think the US having their own troll farms to shit up /pol/ and influence the online alt-right zeitgeist is far fetched? Or do you think only Russia and China play that game?

I spend enough time on 4chan that I have noticed, several times, when large numbers of paid users start appearing. There are a few mentally ill posters, but there aren't enough to fully explain when lots of people suddenly support the Chinese government for no reason, or start repeating pro-Russia talking points in a tone that is just slightly insincere, somehow.

I just said you shouldn't look at /g/ because it's nothing but students and hobbyists, nobody there has an actual technology job, they're all insecure about this and that's why they actively discourage anyone from trying to learn or improve, and the only topics ever discussed are brand wars (no knowledge required), open-source obsessiveness (it's free stuff, exactly as a board of terminally unemployed students and NEETs would rely on), politics (it gets everywhere; it's the kudzu weed of discussion), and programming (a very popular hobby, especially among teenagers). Topics like domain registrars, virtualisation, VMware, Plesk vs cPanel, T568a vs T568b cabling, and database administration are all things that would only be discussed by people who have real jobs, and they are all curiously absent from /g/. I don't care if the people desperately insisting that they're really good with Python are glowies or not. It honestly doesn't matter.

>>14409
>everyone who disagrees with me on my contrarian anime forum is mentally ill or a paid shill, I can tell because of their tone
Come on, lad.

>>14410
That's not what he's saying lad.

I always like to see a 3 legged dog. They're always happy.

I keep telling you lads. Hedonic treadmill. It's a real thing and if you get your noggin round it it explains an awful lot about our collective bipolarity.

Evolutionarily speaking, we are a goal oriented social species. We are hard wired to want to always be working on something, we need to make progress to be satisfied. Because throughout our history, that has been the direct and fundamental source of our survival and success.

The work is never done- When you bring home a mammoth you just hunted with the other cave-lads, you know the meat on it isn't going to last forever. You are biologically compelled to start making mental preparation for the next big hunt, start thinking about the change of the seasons might affect your prospects, and whether Big Ug and the Boyz from the other side of the river is going to try squaring up after he saw your lads dragging home the big kill. Maybe you and the lads should arrange a pre-emptive clubbing for him just to be safe. That kind of thing.

We are at our happiest in the short term when we have a full belly and our feet up on the settee, and the missus next to us, because that means we have successfully fulfilled all of our primary goals. We have food in our belly and there's a good chance we're about to procreate. Abstracting it out, this also goes for having money in the bank, having a nice house, having a new car, whatever- Fundamentally they are all signifiers of security and comfort.

But it never lasts long. We always need to be looking for the next thing, in order to ensure the ability to put our feet up on the telly with a full belly and a missus to spaff up [i]stays[/] secure. We need goals, and a plan to get there.

TL;DR Get a hobby.

>>450758
Hobbies would delay and obstruct my progress towards the fundamental goals that everyone should achieve as a bare minimum. My misery is noble and austere and, best of all, free.

>>450762

I've gone through periods of thinking like this in my life, and the tongue-in-cheek tone of your post suggests you already know this isn't an ideal approach.

I understand that there are times you just have to gut things through and do long periods of tough work, just make sure you have a plan to ensure that it's temporary. Otherwise something will break, physically or mentally. It is not possible to live in an unbalanced way for very long. I'm just about psychologically recovering after a year of spending virtually no money and dedicating all my waking hours to work.

When you do have the space to recover, it helped me a lot to change my environment for a bit. It wasn't quite a holiday, but I just spontaneously booked a few weeks out in the country by myself. Can't put in words how much it helped.

>>450757

What I find lovely is not only that it doesn't inhibit their happiness, but that they don't even notice. Dogs are brilliant.

>>450758

>Evolutionarily speaking, we are a goal oriented social species. We are hard wired to want to always be working on something, we need to make progress to be satisfied. Because throughout our history, that has been the direct and fundamental source of our survival and success.

Every organism will at some point try to spread to new habitats. From bacteria to plants and indeed humans. Even feral cats are forced to claim new habitats all the time because in some ways they're just as territorial as us humans and will not be tolerated in another cat's territory that was there first.

That said, of course no species makes as much of a big deal of it as we do. Our instinct to explore new habitats and constantly better ourselves and find out new things about the world around us has not only helped us propagate profusely, but has also given rise to things like science and technology. And thus, social evolution has long superseded biological evolution. As a species, we've made leaps and bounds in the last 300 years that are far from explainable through genetic mutation.

What's interesting is that following the "Out of Africa" hypothesis, almost all humans outside Western sub-Saharan Africa who are alive today are descended from a line of homo sapiens sapiens who left East Africa around 70,000 years ago, probably as a result of climate change, that being the beginning of the last Ice Age which saw much drier conditions in Africa and therefore diminishing natural resources. It could be that some of those human traits were honed as a result of having to cope with adverse conditions and scarce resources. While it is assumed by some that human populations in western Africa were under no pressure to leave their surroundings and spread to other habitats because their natural environment was much more plentiful.

>>33041
I dunno, lad. The Animals of Farthing Wood was pretty brutal.

>>33042

Because of the humans. It would have all gone very differently if the humans all died in the second episode, in a crossover with Threads to make the most traumatising TV show possibly imaginable.

Fox of Farthing Wood was clearly one of history's greatest and most noble leaders. We could al learn a thing or two from him.

>>33042
Well look who's never seen Watership Down.

>>33044
I don't remember any foxes in Watership Down.

>>33043
>Fox of Farthing Wood was clearly one of history's greatest and most noble leaders. We could al learn a thing or two from him.
These bloody furries on this site, man.

That was very pleasing to watch, thank you.

>>3047
Did anyone notice how the glass merchant slides the ruler under the glass to break it?

>>4728
I'm not convinced the squealing is necessarily part of the problem, mind. Are there anti-squeal shims / clips / whatever fitted where the manual says they should be, and the right way round, and with the right amount and placement of goop?

You got photos of the calipers and installation? Just in case it rings any bells.

Finally got a laptop to be able to talk to Techstream.

Code: P0135 Oxygen sensor heater circuit, bank 1 sensor 1.

As I understand it, this should only cause a rough idle when the engine is cold, not constantly. Am I wrong here? Could this be it? It once again raises the question, if I pay a mobile mechanic £250 to come out and replace the sensor (given I can't drive it to anyone), and it doesn't fix it, then I've just pissed £250 up the wall.

>>4729
I can get some photos later.

>>4730

>As I understand it, this should only cause a rough idle when the engine is cold, not constantly.

That would be my assumption also, though there's every possibility the sensor is failing in a different way, but being picked up by the ECU as a heater circuit failure. But certainly not likely enough to justify risking that assumption, given your current situation.

Does Techstream give you the sensor output data? That would be very helpful, particularly if there's a bank 2 sensor 1 to compare it to.

>>4731
I tried looking around Techstream, and I'm sure there is a way, but I can't really find anything.

Think I'm just gonna put it up on some Facebook groups/Auto Trader tomorrow.

If that lad who wants to buy it is actually up for it, then let me know. It's a shame to get rid of it, but I think it's best for my mental health and the car.

>>4732
Well, it's gone, lads.

It was good whilst it lasted. Back into my old Celica.

>>5117
If we can mine stuff out beyond Earth then what makes you think that they'll still be monotonous delivery jobs? At worst you'll be on the dole with a diamond shitter and gadgets that can only be made in space.

>that doesn't mean anyone other than about three giant companies has any realistic way to claim the resources it provides

Be definition falling launch costs reduces the cost of entry. It's not like we're going to run out of opportunities for mining.

>>5117

>The sea is fucking massive too, relative to our planet. But that doesn't mean anyone other than about three giant companies has any realistic way to claim the resources it provides.

The whole thing hinges on incredibly cheap launch hardware. Metals are valuable, but they're also really fucking heavy. If the technology exists to mine asteroids profitably, then there will inevitably be a spaceship version of Apolloduck.

https://commercial.apolloduck.co.uk/

When I was a child, maybe 25 years ago, I had the brilliant idea to send rockets into space to collect space junk and bring it back. You could then make millions selling literal rubbish based on the fact that it had been in space, and that's so cool. If anyone fancies doing that, I'll be happy to let you in exchange for a mere 10% of the profits.

>>5118

They won't have dole on the moon, it'll be outside of the jurisdiction of Earth governments and resemble a turn of the century company town, but with only one company, and no escape.

There might be some protections at first, with Earth governments still having some degree of responsibility to their ex-pats, but we'll see the full extent of what Amazon et al thinks of human life when the first generation of natural moon citizens are born.

>>5121
and then you worked out the energy requirements to deorbit stuff without it burning up, and thought 'fuck it, I'll just sell random spacey looking shit from ebay and print certificates of orthentisity'
Where's my 10%?

>>70794
Boys provide the creme.

>>70791
WTF ALL TWITTER ACCOUNTS ARE JOKE ACCOUNTS. I MEAN WHO WOULD TAKE ANYTHING WRITTEN THERE SERIOUSLY. USE YOUR FUCKING NOGGIN.

>>70795

he's clearly a gay scat fetishist. him and tony the tiger are always at it, and they're both so gay they're outright whale poacher.

wait, no, I've got it. the bunny is actually a herm. she's the creme caramel bunny, if you will.

>>70797
Where does the honey monster fit into all of this?

>>70798
He's busy with the Weetos professor.

>>14389
Be disabled, then they will hound you to see if you are still disabled instead.

It's not simple to live a life on Bennys like it used to be, when you had to write 2 things in your book and that would do for a fortnight.

Are DLA, JSA, HB etc claims managed by seperate counties? I want to explore moving around the country, settling here and there for a year or two, but my benefits were hard won and I don't really want to go through that again.

FYI I have no intention of using false ID - i realise how suspect the question sounds. Let it be said I'm simply trying to break from my sheltered life and experience more of what the UK has to offer.

>>14394
Surely you're one of the last holdouts on DLA and will be losing it soon anyway.

>>14395
Ehhh. PIP:DLA is still lingering at 27:13. Looks like the migration stalled with Covid with more people claiming disability overall.

>>9230
That sounds wrong to me, but I'm not qualified yet.

https://www.kingstonburrowes.com/news/blog/working-from-home-tax-implications/

See CGT section. You might lose CGT relief but I'm not sure of the actual impact on your tax. The bit they mention about retaining dual use seems fairly generous though so I'd imagine you'd be fine.

Curious, how many accountants do we have on here?

>>9229

You can only claim clothes if they are work-specific and couldn't reasonably be worn in other contexts. Uniforms, costumes and PPE are deductible expenses, but suits aren't even if you only wear them for work.

The joke is on HMRC, because I buy all my clothes at Screwfix.

>>9232

What about a fursuit?

I'm a programmer you see.

>>9233

No, but you can claim for your programming socks.

OP here with a follow up question. At the minute my student loan balance has c. £4,370 outstanding and I will have somewhere around £3,400 to pay for 2021/22 when it comes to doing my self assessment.

Should I take some of the money I currently have in premium bonds and just pay it off now? The plan 1 interest rate is 1.5%, so higher than I'm likely to get through my savings but we're probably only talking about being ~£30 better off overall if I clear it now.

>>4828
I was only really ever planning into Clark's to try on some shoes and get a sizing done, since I can find out my width and the fact Clark's have a relatively standard size.

I've had the same pair of shoes for work since 2017, albeit they didn't have much use between March 2020 and last summer. They're starting to look a little scuffed and the heel on one of them has worn away a fair bit.

Which brands should I consider for their replacements? I got them from Clarks, but I vaguely recall reading something about their quality declining and being taken over by the Chinese in recent years.

>>6571
What do you do? Do you want Screwfix shoes or church shoes?

>>6573
It's to go with a suit, so church shoes. I've had a quick look at the Clarks outlet and the only shoes I like aren't in my size.

>>6574
Loake are always fairly reliable, and on a similar price point to Clarkses.

I'd suggest stop going on fisherperson subreddits to deliberately wind yourself up.

Get some exercise, lose some weight, stop smoking. If your blood pressure is higher than 140/90, see your GP and ask about medication.

Avoid caffeine.
Cutting down on salt isn't as important as a lot of people want you to think as long as you're not eating tons of processed food or anything like that daily.
Do drink plenty of water, take some magnesium supplements and eat more bananas or potassium supplements.

I bought Little Duck toilet roll from Farmfoods as it worked out as <20p per roll and supplies were running low.

It's surprisingly durable, no risk whatsoever that my finger will poke through it, but it isn't the most comfortable. I've now used it all up and gone back to Cushelle, which feels so soft in comparison it's like having a cherub caressing my arse.

Cadbury hot chocolate is shit compared with Lidl's own brand version.

I decided to try Morrisons own brand cornflakes, what with the cost of living rising and everything, but it turns out they're shit.

>>445513

Anything Cadbury is shit now mate, they couldn't even get something basic like white chocolate right* even before getting bought by the Seppos and being forced to make eveything else taste like brown, slightly gritty peanut-butter-textured grease.

* "Dream" chocolate was a huge mistake, the raw materials were best used to give Marble Bars purpose

I used to work at Thorntons.
Most of the Moser Roth stuff at Aldi is Thorntons.
Same for an awful lot of M&S chocolate.
However on the turnaround, Thorntons Ice Cream is actually from Nestle'.

Fuck me, what happened to it?!

Honestly the insurance job might be the best option, depends how attached you are to the machine in general. I know round mine I could get that head skimmed and bored for a few hundred, but with no real guarantee on longevity for obvious reasons.

Is it a mower? It sounds fun whatever it is.

They just do that - it's a 20 year old Daihatsu 900cc diesel engine.The heads fail, water gets where it shouldn't, and they keep getting driven, since you don't really need much power and it was rattly from new. It was a punt at auction.
I'm quite attached to it, it's perfect for a lot of stuff I need to do, and a more modern one is out of budget.
The head would need a hell of a skim, it's pitted around the gasket, and there are cracks near the injector pockets and weird voids in the roof. Add the cylinder wall and I think this engine is toast. Chassis is pristine though.
Not a mower, it's a little 4x4 tipper / tow truck with enough cab that the dog can ride along.

>>4711

660cc petrols used to be ten a penny on ebay and the like, and you can still buy 'new' blocks and such from aliexpress for them, so that might have been a good route for longevity, but the prices have shot up, presumably because people bought a load of kei cars as projects in the last couple of years.

Looking at the platform, electric might make the most sense, especially if the drivetrain is shite anyway. It's the most straightforward and practical approach (in the context of keeping the thing, I mean), though I'm sure it's a time consuming project still, but it feels like the 'right' way to do it for an actual working vehicle.

Though I know if it was me, I'd probably end up reconditioning the existing engine, purely because I'm a saddo who likes engines and keeping machines the way they were built, regardless of cost, even if they were built completely shite. For context I'm looking into buying a Lada Niva.

>>450274
I have a feeling by then she will require a complex system of ropes & pulleys to make a public appearance.

https://deathlist.net/

12th place on the current 2022 death list. Not really a hot contender, going by that, but far from safe. She did move up 13 places from last year.

>>450520
They'll be pulling out all the stops to keep her alive until at least June, so we can celebrate the Platinum Jubilee Bank Holiday.

Though quite frankly I think the government is selling us out cheaply if we're only getting one extra day for it.

>>450521
We're getting two, aren't we?

>>450527
We're getting two consecutive days but one of them is just the usual Spring Bank Holiday pushed back a few days.

Recently I've been wondering about that shared house I lived in where the landlords mysteriously knew where I'd left my drugs, coming over for a surprise inspection on a day I happened to be out. Housemates let them in, not knowing their rights and they were very angry to find I'd happened to lock my bedroom door so they couldn't get in there. They stopped trying to find excuses to kick us out after I started regularly bringing attractive women back for athletic, drug-fuelled sex. This could be paranoia but I suspect there's some grainy footage floating about somewhere of my exploits.

>>450430

Yeah wanklad and BDSMlad both shared their stories in threads over 4 years ago.

>>450426
I remember this story. Your dad became a hero to us.

>>450426
That story is part of .gs lore, like Moaty & ARE SI.

>>450511
>>450512
Thanks, lads, I'll buy the auld man a beer when I see him again but I probably won't bring up the story.