My neighbours just lit up their back garden fire pit. On a Sunday evening. Using old newspaper. And it's wafting right over to me.

Fucking savages.

>>471350
I hope for you that the thunderstorm that just rolled over me heads your, and their, way.

>>471352

They were hosting a children's birthday party this afternoon for their younger one, and it looks like two or three of the adults are now sitting around the fire pit. I've no problem at all with children playing next door and the kind of noise level that that entails. Children need their freedom to jump around and be noisy, lest they go on to turn into miserable adults. But I draw the line at lighting the fire pit with newspaper and shrouding this entire side of the street in faint but visible - and smellable - smoke.

>>471353
I appreciate that you're someone who tolerates child-noise. It can be abrasive, but I find that people who hate it are generally of a type that should be made to live in a remote SSSI, for everyone's benefit and further study.

As for the fire, yeah, that sounds profoundly stupid. I've moaned about fire smoke from homes here some time ago, and a firepit is just as obnoxious to me. Especially given that it's practically the height of summer. It's twenty degrees celsius, I don't think anyone needs to worry about pneumonia just yet.

>>471354

>I appreciate that you're someone who tolerates child-noise.

I think it's something my parents instilled in us. The idea that children should enjoy a few years time where they're getting away with things and aren't held to the same standards as adults. And think about it. You've got the whole rest of your life having to conform, having to obey rules and conventions, and make sure you're not bothering anybody in the slightest.

Why not let children enjoy a precious few years where they've got no idea what's coming. And a birthday party where they're not told to be quiet the whole time can well be part of that.


It started raining quite heavily about an hour after my neighbours lit the fire pit. So at least that has taken care of itself.

If an online task site (think Fiverr but only for quite specific design commissions) asks for a two day extension on a Friday, does that mean two working days or should they have sent me something by now?

>>471353
>>471354
>>471355
Am I still allowed to complain about the high-pitched screams that girls make? Please don't put my picture in the Daily Mail, I merely mean to say that a girls birthday party is like having a colony of bats around and I've known many a broken father that is quite happy to find an excuse to escape their own home.

>I find that people who hate it are generally of a type that should be made to live in a remote SSSI, for everyone's benefit and further study.

Okay well then I bet I'd make a good lighthouse keeper - give me a nice pot of coffee and a stable internet connection and I'll keep that light on. I might even install a sound-system to protect ships and deter whales from beaching.

To make my post more interesting: I hear that a lot of physically remote jobs like fire watchers in the US are actually quite hard to break into these days because so many people are applying just to get out of modern life. It's something that has amplified by the post-pandemic shift in work-life priorities and a growing disillusionment with urban living but conversely these kinds of jobs are doomed to die out like the classic lighthouse keeper.

>>471357

>but conversely these kinds of jobs are doomed to die out like the classic lighthouse keeper.

So... fire watchers will be replaced by AI?

>>471358

Satellite imaging, drones and remotely-operated cameras have greatly reduced the usefulness of a man up a tower with a pair of binoculars. AI is potentially a factor, but it's a small part of the overall picture.

Can an NOS (new old stock) laser unit for an old CD player still be good after 35 years?

I've got a Denon CD player from 1990 and it looks like its laser is on the way out. It skips at even the most minute dust specks on a CD that aren't visible to the eye. Cleaning it off with window cleaner and microfibre cloth usually fixes it, but I've also got CDs with very faint scratches that play fine in all my other CD drives but not this CD player.

As I understand it, it's usually the laser diode that deteriorates over the years with use. So theoretically, will swapping out my laser unit for an NOS one fix it?

>>471425

>new old stock

Yes. It's never been used m8, what more do you want.

I'm the kind of cork sniffer who buys NOS vacuum tubes from the 60s to use in guitar amps, and those actually do have a chance of deteriorating naturally through gas leakage- A very small one, but nevertheless. Never had a problem though.

>>471426

>I'm the kind of cork sniffer who buys NOS vacuum tubes from the 60s to use in guitar amps

Interesting. I found a whole bag of vacuum tubes from the same era with my dad's stuff, see related pic. I've no idea if they're still good, it all looks a bit jumbled and the tubes aren't all in the brand-correct packaging. Some have hand written replacement dates on them of between 1964 and 1967. My guess would be that they were used inside a valve radio.

It looks more like my dad somehow kept all the broken tubes after replacing them. How do you even check if a vacuum tube is still good?

It's also interesting that my dad apparently sourced them from all over Europe. From what I have been able to find online, Tungsram is Hungarian, Voges sounds like it must be French, and Valvo and Lorenz are German. There was no eBay in the 60s. Either shops back them had all kinds of foreign brands, or my dad got around a lot.

>>471427

Power amp tubes will, in theory, gradually wear out and start giving you occasional pops and an uneven frequency response, but it's one of those things like with solid state hard drives where the actual real world lifespan of a given specimen is long enough that your average user will never encounter it.

More likely is they either fail completely, and in that case you know they are gone because like a lightbulb, it doesn't light up, and you'll either get no sound or a dramatically different sound depending where it was in the circuit. Or you can have them start failing in other weird ways like "redplating" where one of the contacts arcs and you can see the cathode plate start glowing red hot, or becoming microphonic. The standard test is to tep on them with a biro or pencil while they are in use- If a tube is good, you shouldn't hear anything, but if it's on the way out you'll hear the tapping.

I have had to replace a few over the years, but the funny thing is, the reason for that is probably because I've use NOS ones. The modern ones are nearly all made in one factory in Russia, I believe- Any brand you get, JJ, EHX, Ruby... They all come from there. But modern manufacturing is much better than it was in the 50s and 60s, so the failure rate after all these years perfecting the process is a rounding error. So if I was using modern ones I would likely never have had to replace any at all.

But of course, the modern ones just wouldn't give me that authentic vintage snake oil tone I need, would they.

>>471428

It looks like NOS tubes sell for a fair bit of money on eBay. I was able to find identical examples of mine here that were advertised for 50 quid and more a piece, NOS. With about two dozen tubes in my dad's bag, it would be a tidy sum. But it's more likely that they've gone bad, judging by the circumstances, and I don't want to be the cunt that sells his broken stuff as NOS to people who really need these old tubes in working condition.

There's a gang of 3 e-bike riders which appear to be scouting my town, tonight. Kids off school on a friday night maybe, except they're quite obviously exploring and one took a conviniently close turn around me able to look at my belongings.
There have been unusual local thefts recently.

Police 101? Neighbourhood watch? I don't want to waste anyones time but perhaps early intervention is a good thing?

>>471430

>Police 101? Neighbourhood watch? I don't want to waste anyones time but perhaps early intervention is a good thing?


Do you own a cricket bat?

>>471431
Negative.
Reporting on 101 requires a fucking email and personal data. Makes sense to avoid trolls but still sucks. Phoneline forwards you to online, lest risk a significant queue.

Guess I'll just lock my windows at night.

>>471432

>Guess I'll just lock my windows at night

And buy that cricket bat first thing tomorrow morning.







Fine. I'll see myself out.

>>471425
Lol strange tick of posts just lately, huh.

>>471430
I report things online and then save the reference number. You have to hand over your details and fill out an online form but If nothing is done then you have reference numbers to give to the council to raise hell on the local force, this was the only thing that worked when I had people smoking crack outside my old flat.

My crime of the night was seeing two scantily dressed girls who looked 14 at a bus stop and some asian shop worker shouting vulgar abuse at them from his doorway. The cunt eventually pulled one of those covid masks up as he shouted about wiping their filth off the street. I walked into his door as he was doing this and shoulder barged him as I came in but he kept at it and I had to work out if I felt like risking getting stabbed while looking at the drinks fridge, the girls got on a bus and he turned to me trying to start some shit about water bottles but I didn't take the bait and he stomped away to the back room. I didn't want to scrap with someone's entire family in their corner shop and the area apparently has gangs so I just reported it online where nothing will happen as usual.

So it seems that tonight I'm living in The Daily Express.

Seeing all the kids out of School for the Summer, hanging around the streets and parks just being daft together, makes me feel old as fuck. I'm almost 40, haven got any friends left from those days, and what I'd give for just another summer with my old group just doing nothing together.

When do vasectomies stop hurting?

>>471440
Within a few days, if it's still an issue after a week then talk to somebody.

>>471441

Shame about the doctors being on strike eh? Right as otherlad's bollocks are about to fall off.

>>471436
Interesting you had a shoulder-barging confrontation. About a week ago I was getting off the bus and found I couldn't because this guy was blocking the exit, this absolutely massive bloke in a tank top, and was taking photos of the driver, who was looking very uncomfortable, He stood there just doing that for a while without moving and a queue of people, including elderly people with mobility issues, was building up and starting to complain. I managed to finally slip past him and when I did so, I don't even know why, I don't remember feeling a sudden surge of anger or anything, I gave him a shove on the shoulder.

He didn't seem to notice but when I had walked about five metres off he came at me and started screaming asking what the fuck was a scrawny prick like me doing shoving him and didn't I know the fuck who he was. I sort of snapped back into reality and realised I had been extremely foolish since if he wanted he could have splattered me all over the pavement, but I told him he shouldn't have been blocking the doorway.

He then said he'd report me to the police for assault, and I thought yeah, why wouldn't he actually, I might have gotten myself into deep shit. But thn we just sort of peeled off and that was that. I've been subject to lots of unprovoked aggression and come out of it well, so I feel pretty daft for being the one who made the provocation in that situation, I was thinking I was past making such foolish moves. I don't know why he was taking photos of the driver in the first place, maybe he was doing a photography project and very politely asked the driver if he could take his photo, I don't know.
But if he was just being a dickhead trying to intimidate people then fuck it, he deserves a shove.

>>471447
My advice is if he was going to splat you then he wouldn't stop and talk to you. Just give him a 'yeah whatever m8' and walk on rather than even bother to engage, he sounds like one of those mental bullies you get who just try to throw their weight around wherever they think they can get away with it but won't do anything.

The police won't do a thing, you were walking passed him and happened to nudge him as you went. That's quite literally man on the Clapham omnibus getting to his seat.

I wish we got crime under control in this country

>>471447
He definitely sounds nutty. Saying "don't you know who I am?" like he's mobbed up, before also threatening to ring the coppers, doesn't exactly make a lot of sense. I mean, who was he? A man who knows how to phone the police? Glad you weren't killed by a bus ogre anyway.

>>471447
He might have been oblivious to holding people up. His threat to call for police assault indicates he wasn't confident or willing to deal with you himself.
Image goes a long way in public, though it might get you in trouble when you can't back it, as this person probably felt jolting him into defence.

I find these interactions very interesting - whether it's that crackhead I met last summer or the ebike lads from last night (who havn't returned since). Would probably be worth visiting pubs to get a greater tuning.

It reminds me of a teenage experience when I avoided a headbutt by closely monitoring an agressive mans behaviour. He was trying to taunt me, side by side at a bar, close enough for a surprise headbutt attack (hahaha). I kept my chin low and ready to duck my forhead into incoming movement but was otherwise non-commital and pliant. I thanked him for calling me an ugly bastard, which seemed to stun him momentarily.

The moment was defused until he started on a harmless local drunkard
and attempted to follow him into the toilets. I Held my fingertips firmly across a beam to block his path, never touched him but for when he pressed against me trying to get through. I remember how significant I felt the turn of my hands were and that if my palms or fingertips touched him he'd blow. He backed off after some convincing from my friend.

Toward the end of the event the guy started on my friend who was trying to escort them out of the pub. I stepped in at a moment of peak energy, which I realised enflamed him more, and immidiately stepped back.
My friend still thinks I'm a coward, having stepped back from them between us, but it reduced the tension for all instantly and the guy left quickly after, without physically hurting anyone.

Almost sounds like a homoerotic ecounter.

>>471449
He was a huge fellow, that's who he was, looked pretty clean cut compared to the average bus-driver botherer in this city. He had a beard without a moustache of the kind that eskimos and some eastern European men have, but he was an English guy from London and was going BRUV, BRUV, BRUV, BRUV at me, which Londoners seem to think is intimidating or something.

Having thought at the time it was foolish of me to have prokoved him, you lads' comments have made me slightly wish I wound him up more, I hope at least his ego was deeply wounded by the fact that the scrawniest man in this town felt free to shove him.

I've given my flat a good clean today, after letting the mess build up for a week or two. I bet even after that it was still a lot cleaner than the hovels you lot probably live in, because I've been told I am excessively clean for a straight single man. But I had been a bit down and letting things fester.

I think I have earned a pizza for that. I'm going to have a shower and then drive out to the village my mum and dad live in to get one specifically from the takeaway there. It's always dead nice. Greasiest you've ever had, but so good.

I got a semi talking to a nice girl today. Felt a bit bad as she showed me the photo of the present she'd bought for her mate's birthday we'd discussed a couple of weeks ago. Nothing flirtatious had happened, she was dressed in a manner even the strictest of priests wouldn't find fault with, and I wasn't even thinking anyting untoward. It's simply that I'm desperately in need of girlfriend and my body's getting tired of my brain's inaction on the matter. I think it won't be long before I start blacking out and waking up with dating apps installed on my phone, and bills from bars and restaurants I have no recollection of visiting.

Well chuffed with my blackberries. They're not fully ripe yet. I find the best time to pick them is when they come off at the slightest tug.

The hedge may not look like much, but altogether it's about eight feet wide now and growing, and bears about ten bunches of fruit like the one in the picture this year. Considering that it all started just a few years ago with one small plant that was randomly growing elsewhere in a flower bed, I think it's doing well.

>>471454
I'd say mild tug, having picked numerous rotting ones as a kid. Would love to have a turning barrel of blackberries.
Been keeping my eye on a public plum the past week only to find yesterday that some sod had picked it.

>>471455

It's hard to find fruit in the wild where you're not competing with other foragers. I used to go blackberry picking all the time along a particular section of river bank, but ever since a lot of eastern Europeans moved into the tower blocks close by, it was slim pickings. They have a much bigger culture of foraging, probably since the days of communism when shops didn't have a lot of things.

I also know a section of woods where sloe grows in abundance. One time I collected over ten pounds and made them into jam.

>>471456
If you're near Wakey I can tell you where I used to get shitloads of brambles, although I haven't done it in years now my kids are a bit older.

Tom Lehrer died.

He relinquished all rights to his work a few years ago if you want to download or make use of it, from his website.
http://www.tomlehrer.org/

>>471457

No, I'm more in That South. But there are a good few areas here with loads of blackberries.

>>471458
Oh that's really sad. He lasted ages!

>>471458

kind of sad in that I had assumed he had died decades ago. If I had known he was alive I would have written him a fan letter.

>>471458
I'm in a Facebook group where several friends and I try to predict celebrity deaths for the coming year, and I stopped putting Tom Lehrer on there because I thought he was going to live past 100 like Bob Hope did, and our game has an age limit of 100.

>>471474
A couple of decades ago I worked for a music "sentiment" tracking company, monitoring all manner of file sharing. We had a top board, the currently most shared. But what is music? We didn't need to read the news, without fail the death board would tell us what person recently died.

>>471503

>without fail the death board would tell us what person recently died


https://www.officialcharts.com/chart-news/ozzy-osbourne-black-sabbath-chart-uplift/

>Ozzy Osbourne and Black Sabbath catalogues surge following rock legend’s death

>>471519

His funeral procession is about to start, for those interested.

https://www.youtube.com/live/bOxZdgbt35Y

>>471520
Couldn't they have held it somewhere less depressing?

>>471521
I’m sure if Ozzy Osbourne was from the Seychelles instead of Birmingham, then they would have done. But them’s the breaks.

>>471520

The brass band is a nice touch. I am disappointed at whoever's taking the solos though, it would have just been such a cherry on top hearing somebody kill Crazy Train on the trumpet. Surely they could have found some old black jazz cat from Brooklyn who can shred a trumpet like that.

>>471523
I'm surpised they're wearing whicje jackets over their marching garb. Looks and sounds a bit lackluster with only 6 members. 35 meters from the camera can't even hear them.
Must have been a comparitvely small budget - barely even a police precense, though that's a good sign of public sentiment.

Still, county funeral for a public member. Good for him :)

I need to stop watching ITV Quiz. I keep putting it on when I want something in the background.

>>471556

I've taken to listening to Heart or Capital FM when I'm doing stuff around the house.

I'm currently working out the tides for next week to plan activities around low-tide when the Thames will be out. Obviously I'd always known the Moon was an important factor driving the tides but it's quite interesting to calculate, the lunar day being roughly 24 hours and 50 minutes (two cycles of 12 hours and 25 minutes) with the secondary influence of the Sun's 24 (solar tide being 12 hours) at 46% strength to the lunar tide.

But obviously the Sun-Earth-Moon orbits vary too and the land physically moves too along with the Earth's rotating. Then if you're feeling ambitious you need to work out bathymetry which isn't easy when the tide in this country is driven by the North Atlantic that has to bounce around the North Sea, twisting up-river and around krakens. It feels predictable when we've got centuries of observations and the rough science down but this would have been a nightmare in the olden days I bet, and then you have to try to imagine what the tides would be like with a different orbital resonance with the moon or if Jupiter had much more mass while still being on it's own wacky orbit.

Minor piss off because I'm having to do this because the UK Hydrographic Office does a 7-day forecast but that includes today so it runs until Friday next week.