>>27539
As someone with comically small ears this is interesting for me. Do you know which version you bought? I've been looking at the TaoTronic SoundLiberty 79 model but now I'm paranoid one will fall out.

>>27542

I have the SoundLiberty 77's and the 53's. The 77's do work for me with the smallest ear bits (they come with three sizes, I think), but if I don't get them in exactly right, they don't form a proper seal in one ear which is incredibly annoying, though I doubt it'd ever fully fall out.

I reckon you should just go for it. The 77's are fancier than the 53s, the touch controls work better and they last longer, charge wise, so I assume the updated 79's are even better. If they don't work out, you can still return them - I assume you're buying from amazon, anyway.

If you don't care too much about sound quality and you're willing to buy from Aliexpress, you can get Xiaomi wireless earbuds for around a tenner.

Anyone had a problem where the bluetooth between the two headphones will go out of sync so you get an echo effect? It seems to do it both on my phone and laptop but only after a few minutes of listening.

Would be a shame if they're fucked and I have to mess about sending them back.

>>27568
Update: I emailed TaoTronic directly. They sent me a replacement pair and I didn't have to return the ones that don't work properly.

Seems a bit of a shame to chuck the old ones but I can't think of a use for them.

I use a gel wrist rest to keep my wrist from resting on the hard edge of my desk. Works like a charm.

>>27563
They keyboard ones can be very good too.

I have a combined Fellowes wrist-pad-mousemat as well as an ergonomic keyboard and a vertical "Anker"* mouse. I don't know if any of them, or the combination, are more to thank for ending my RSI than simply getting bored of Minecraft did, but the weird mouse and keyboard layout are fantastic at putting people off wanting to borrow my machine.


*Just to pre-empt any "wanker" jokes, it's extremely difficult to use it left-handed.

>>27562

My desk has drawers in it that prevent you from sitting at ideal ergonomic height. It's alllmost there, but it always feels as if you're sat just an inch or two too low unless you put up with squeezing your legs against the bottom of them. Whoever was designed it must have had an extremely long torso, or very stumpy upper arms.

>>27566

(forgot half the bloody post, mods, fix deletion already)

Because of this, I find using a wrist wrest actually increases the sensation of strain on my tendons. It's nice having a bit of padding to stop that protruding bit of your wrist getting sore, but overall increases discomfort. Which is a shame, because my fancy mechanical keyboard came with a very nice leather one.

TL;DR Sort out your desk/chair height first m8. Your elbows should form a right angle and your forearm be horizontal, and your spine should be snugly pushed in by the chair.

If you truly have to read a lot of PDFs on a portable device, get a tablet mate. While it's possible to make resizable/reflowable PDFs nobody ever does so there's always margin and paging annoyances on an e-reader. Kindle does an alright job for occasional use but I crack out the MS surface for longer periods, using reference books etc.
E-readers for standard literature which is always available in a more appropriate format.

If it's a purely textual PDF or a textual PDF with embedded images then you're probably best off converting it to mobi or epub. If it's a PDF with specific tabling / formatting then that'll probably be lost in conversion and you'll be best off reading it on a tablet like otherlad said.

>>27545
I read all mine on the Kindle - most of them are old O'Reilly books that I was able to buy in PDF form, back in the day. Never found any PDF that doesn't render; your milage will obviously vary if you're downloading a lot of PDFs from other sources.

I like the Kindle because it's so cheap, its practically disposable, and almost indestructible - I particularly like that fact its a one-task device, when reading on a phone/table/laptop, I find the temptation to switch task and start doom-scrolling websites too high.

Sageru, because most people don't like Kindle.

>>27550
I love my kindle, but...

Amazon intentionally gimp the basic models to push people to the more overpriced models up the range. The basic model now has a grainy low resolution screen, and it's only recently that they've started putting a light on it.

I'm sure the battery life on mine has plummeted over the 2 or 3 years since I bought it too, and it might just be tinfoil hat time but I wouldn't be surprised if that's intentional.

>>27559
I have to disagree on the last point. Internally Amazon track the battery life of every single Kindle (they have a graph that shows the internal battery charge of all Kindles out there right now, and the average battery life of each model). Their business model involves giving the Kindles away - if you have one and it breaks, even slightly, they'll replace it free-of-charge without too much effort on your part (just be nice to the customer service rep).

Hyperoptic symmetric 1Gbps is nice if you can get it. They do use CGNAT in a way that stops you running services but you can request a static v4 for £5/mo if that's a concern. Support was responsive and technically knowlegable the one time I've needed them. Had one outage of a couple of hours in the last year, otherwise flawless.

If you've got Hyperoptic service at your address, don't hesitate to get it - short of a leased line, they offer the absolute fastest service in the UK at a very fair price. BT are starting to offer FTTP, but availability is very limited right now. Three are offering reasonably-priced 5G home broadband, but it's only available in a few major cities and the peak-time speeds can be quite unreliable.

If you need a new load-balancing router, I'd recommend Mikrotik.

What you need is BT's guaranteed fuck-all service.
I'm actually pretty happy with my EE 4G service out here in th emiddle of nowhere. No fixed IP, though, and NATed to hell, but the actual bandwidth is tolerable at 20-30M, and 500gigs cap for £50 a month. Presents on an RJ45 as well as wifi.
It'll not do you as a main line, but as a fallback it has charm, and you can idle it when you're not using it, fire it back up in a day or two.

I really cannot abide the fact that utilities contracts are getting longer.

My current place does not have Virgin or hyperoptic service, and as a result I had to take an 18 month contract for my broadband as unless I wanted to pay absolutely extortionate amounts, I had to take an 18 or 24 month contract. I am only living here for 9 months.

Likewise, vodafone tried to renew my mobile contract and conveniently forgot to tell me it was going to be for 24 months, when all my previous contracts were 12.

Give it a few years and we'll be swearing fielty for life.

>>27537 EE are happy to sell you a month's worth of 4g data.
I'll agree, long contracts are a cunt's trick, and should be breakable for a token fee. It feels like one of the few really onerous contracts out there.
<rummage>
https://www.directsavetelecom.co.uk/no-contract-fibre.php
seem to offer a rolling one month with a not too bad installation fee.

>>27481
Funnily enough this popped up on my timeline this morning. Took 2 seconds to check and see that the page was only created yesterday.

Is it just to grab a list of active (and gullible) FB accounts to sell to a spammer?

If I had to guess, it's a great way to find accounts with lots of data to harvest - some of these people still have their mobile number and email set to public. On top of that, someone believing they can win a car by sharing a post is much, much more likely to follow through on your phishing link or whatever other scam you happen to be running.

>>27486

Also, compare and contrast to the chain posts that get people to share their mothers maiden name, their date of birth, etc etc.

https://facebook.com/story.php?story_fbid=109761897476446&id=109753614143941

>>27483

Small charity lotteries are explicitly permitted under the regulations.

https://www.gamblingcommission.gov.uk/for-gambling-businesses/Compliance/Sector-specific-compliance/Lotteries/Society-lotteries.aspx

>>27512
Showing the middle aged people at my old work that they can just use Ctrl+D to copy the cell above, I swear they were about to dip me in the paint wash tank to check if I was a witch.

>>27521

How did they react to selecting a range and then using control+enter to enter that formula in to every cell in one go?

>>27519
Good Excel/VBA people can easily get 400 quid per day contracting.

I'd just like to say that as someone who spent two years of his miserable life staring at Excel through the lens of IDA Pro it's quite amusing to see a thread full of people who know how to use things like pivot tables to do the things they're actually intended to do rather than to cause an invalid memory access. Carry on.

>>27523

I've done that before for that number, it was really more VBA work than anything, with pure excel people usually know enough to think they are using excel well, but don't know enough to know that their current models are crap, and when people do know enough to know their models are crap they usually fix it themselves, so it is harder market to work in than you would think.

>>27506

it is a live broadcast.

>>27508
>You are under no obligation to inform them that you don't need a license if your premises is currently unlicensed.
This. You can basically ignore them. They send cycles of scary letters, but after a while you'll get the pattern. They only bother doing house calls if they have enough of them in the area to justify it, and in any case you don't even have to answer the door.

Some people will tell you about various notices you can send them. Ignore this advice. TVL have some funky powers when it comes to search warrants, to the point where "obstructing a warrant" is a separate offence. They don't have much of a budget for actually doing this, so they use these sparingly, and sending them nastygrams is a really good way to get yourself on their radar.

In short: just ignore them.

If they don't have you name to the address, there's nothing they can do. Same with bailiffs.

I haven't had a licence in over ten years. In that time I've had two or three 'I called.' notices throught the door, one of which I actually stood there and watched the guy put through the letterbox without ringing the doorbell. Clearly they couldn't give a toss so I've never even had the chance to deploy my 'nah mate it's only for Netflix' line.

>How uncommon is it to not pay for a TV license?
>TV Licencing
>You don't need a license.

Lads, stop fucking about.

>>27488
I'm pretty sure a full OS reinstall will format the drives, so any trace of porn will be deleted. If you want to give the discs a good scrub, you could use CCleaner with adjusted settings for multiple overwrites but it'd be unncessary if your parent is a layman (and it'll take a long time to overwrite unused diskspace).

I'm guessing you could use a solvent to de-tar the fan and bodywork, if required. Get a little bottle of isopropl or something from the chemist, tell them you want it for degreasing/cleaning.

Speaking of CCleaner; the company was bought out by Avast a few years ago. Apparently the company is notorious for poor secuity and the program was compromised shortly after their takeover of Piriform. The problem was rectified but it's left me wondering - is it still a trustworthy program?

>>27490

>you could use CCleaner

Don't bother - Microsoft provide a secure deletion tool that isn't horrendously suspect. Download it, run "sdelete -c" from the command line and it'll wipe your free space.

https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/sysinternals/downloads/sdelete

>>27491
>that isn't horrendously suspect

Elaborate?

>>27492

https://blog.talosintelligence.com/2017/09/avast-distributes-malware.html

Killdisk + reinstall

>>27468
It'll be to attract people who like to use challenger brands and avoid the big names. A bit like when people think they're sticking it to Amazon by ordering through AbeBooks instead.

>>27468

Catch is these sub-networks always have shit coverage, as if they don't utilise the full network or something. I've no idea but there must be a cost saving somewhere. I'm with O2, my missus is on plusnet, who supposedly us O2. She always has poor signal or limited Internet, where I'm having no trouble.

>>27469
I thought maybe that, but the Vodafone logo is displayed on the VOXI website, though granted only at the footer. Then again, I remember when they launched, they had a stand in my uni's SU, which as I recall had the "BY VODAFONE" fairly prominently displayed.

Whatever, I'll probably go with them as my vodafone coverage where I am is fairly good, and if it's shit I'm not on contract.

>>27471

Three operate a similar sub-brand called SMARTY. It allows them to compete on price with the likes of GiffGaff without directly competing with themselves. You don't get some of the perks available on the main brand, but the core service is exactly the same.

>>27470

Plusnet uses the EE network, not O2.

>>27468

Finally got round to giving Vodafone a ring to cancel, and they offered me a discount to £12 on the same plan, so not all too different to VOXI.

What they didn't say until I asked before agreeing to the new contract, was that it was for 24 months instead of the 12 I've been on for the past few years. I don't like that at all.

>>27454
HEATING

The current "shed" is actually a converted garage. The key is the gas heating which turns it into a lovable/liveable room.

>>27458

The sheer amount of real estate on a big 4k monitor is ludicrous - it's effectively four 1080p monitors in one seamless unit. There are arguments for multi-monitor setups, but a sufficiently large monitor gives you tons of flexibility. You know that window snapping thing that Windows 10 does if you drag a window to the edge or corner of a screen? That's actually useful when you've got enough size and resolution. I have quite a high scaling factor because of my terrible eyesight, but I've still got more desktop space than I know what to do with.

If you're not too bothered by the aesthetic, you might want to use a workbench for a desk. Much more durable than flimsy flat pack crap, and much more affordable than an actual solid, well-constructed desk.

>>27463
If you're going in that direction, a fire door and four legs is incredibly good value. You can build an enormous/solid desk for about 40 quid.

>>27464

I went a similar route with scaffold planks. So very easy to do.

I bought a few USB clip-on fans last year, and they were surprisingly good.
Like https://www.amazon.co.uk/IREENUO-Rechargeable-Operated-Portable-Personal/dp/B07CWPYS5M - I just searched if USB battery fan.
They go for quite a while on battery, and if you just want to blow the sweat off, they're great. Obviously no use for doing a whole room.
Wondering about a ceiling fan for the bedroom this year, the Mrs likes her pedestal fan, but it's annoying.

>>27423
The main downside is that they only work in dry heat. On a humid day they're useless to worse than nothing.
Otherwise, the small cheap ones you can get from china for £20-30, I really don't know how good they'll be, just for the fact that they probably can't physically move enough air through them to be useful. There's some bigger units around £100 that may be a better but then it's ending up being quite expensive for something that's only going to be needed a few days or weeks a year.

I wonder how hard it would be to turn a car A/C compressor into a room-sized air conditioner. You'd need some sort of motor to drive it, but I suppose a 500W electric motor should do the job.

It'd be more the supporting pipework, and putting the radiator mounts in appropriate places, and I'm no plumber.

>>27430
How humid are we talking? We don't get real humidity here, do we?

Anyway, I am effectively non-functional for ~2 months of the year when the heat arrives. If there's something out there for shy of £100 that can help, it's getting fucking bought.

>>27431
I've often pondered this. I'm happy to get stuck in with DIY but mounting radiators on a wall two storeys up is a bit beyond me.

>>27432
Not him but I reckon this comes down to where abouts you live. Near any rivers or lakes you will already be aware of the humidity difference, fucked if you get hot-rain like we had last year.

I just copied >>27425 and ordered a Meaco 650. Seems to have rave reviews and will hopefully be enough for one person.

>>27411
I don't think much of that outro music.

Christ, that's a women.

I wonder what became of the Greens. The fact that the computer was owned in a cooperative must've been a fucking nightmare.

Why did so many men in the '80s look like Stephen King? Alternatively, why does Stephen King still look like he's from the '80s?

>>27404
If you shift as much data as Netflix does, you'd be a muppet to pay for transit bandwidth instead of peering. Netflix has some of the most resilient and scalable systems around. To get there, they've built and deployed Chaos Monkey, which randomly switches things off. They happily run it in production, so somewhere in the world right now something of theirs is down and nobody cares.

>>27406
I've heard of that rogue process daemon, "Chaos Monkey" is it.

The web is littered with articles about how Netflix are grudgingly paying ISPs, though, so clearly they pay the piper somehow.

>>27407
It's mainly in the US with domestic ISPs, who held them to ransom by deliberately throttling their traffic until they paid up.

>>27406

Netflix go well beyond peering - they provide free caching servers to ISPs, deployable down to the PoP level. If you're in a city, it's likely that your Netflix stream isn't travelling any further than your local telephone exchange.

Of course, none of that helps if ISPs have ridiculously high contention ratios. The problem is particularly acute for Virgin Media because of the architecture of DOCSIS - they can offer massive "up to" bandwidth, but they can't cope with peak demand.

>>27409

https://openconnect.netflix.com/en_gb/

>>27392
Is this about Li-Fi? I haven't watched this video but I read an article about it the other day so I presume that's what this is.

It said it was more secure than Wi-Fi because the latter broadcasts outside your walls. Li-Fi is secure just by shutting your curtains. Or you can isolate it to your desk lamp, etc.

>>27396
AIUI, they're not transferable. If you buy a Tesla with a paid premium feature, sell that car and buy another Tesla, neither vehicle will have the feature. In order for both cars in that situation to have the feature, it will need to have been paid for three times.

>>27397

Technically yes but not really. It's about silently transmitting voice commands to devices via laser.

>>27400
My answer would have been no. I can only presume you're never going to have a Li-Fi device that uses a microphone to receive light. I realise you understand this.

>>27398
> In order for both cars in that situation to have the feature, it will need to have been paid for three times.

Fuck spaceX, that musk's got the gig sorted right there.