You can automate browser actions using Selenium/Python.

https://www.browserstack.com/guide/python-selenium-to-run-web-automation-test

I used in work for a bit and more importantly when booking my nan tesco delivery slots during the plague days.

>>28110

You are top lads. I'll look into this and see if I can get some help writing something to automate this appointment booking.

>>28017
Just got it. I did a speed test and while EE don't rate the indoor 5G coverage as good at my house, I can get around 400 Mbps download. Very impressed.

What's the word on the current crop of mobiles? Looking at refurbs not new.

>>28105

What's your budget? Do you have a preference in terms of size? Are any features particularly important to you (e.g. gaming, camera quality, 5G, microSD slot)?

>>28106
I think memory capacity is the priority. Currently looking at the iPhone 7 and the Galaxy A20.

>>28107

If you like iOS and want a particularly small phone, the iPhone 7 is a perfectly decent choice. The screen-to-body ratio is pretty poor by modern standards though.

If you're willing to go up to £109 and don't mind a big phone, I'd be inclined towards the Redmi 10. Excellent specs for the price (albeit with a somewhat mediocre camera) and if you buy this week you'll get a free pair of true wireless earbuds.

https://www.mi.com/uk/buy/product/redmi-10

>>28098
Some wireless headphones come with a headphone jack e.g. Sony ones.

>>28099
I've no idea, I doubt it.

>>28100
Thanks, lad. Any recommendations for wireless headphones with a jack?

>>28101

>>28101

https://www.currys.co.uk/products/sony-whch710n-wireless-bluetooth-noisecancelling-headphones-black-10206717.html

But don't get from Curry's they're shit.

>>28100
I have MPOW H10 noise cancelling, for work, which are pretty adequate and have both BT and a jack that I've never used. They don't seem to exist any more, but Amazon offered me this, which claims 2 BT connections and a jack. If you don't want to support the evil rootkit empire, then why not support our data harvesting Chinese overlords?
https://www.amazon.co.uk/Soundcore-Cancelling-Headphones-Playtime-Bluetooth-dp-B092J2RWHR/dp/B092J2RWHR/ref=dp_ob_title_ce?th=1

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

>>28076
It's a good question.

Personally I would think about buying a little M.2 drive and putting it in a USB case - that would rock.

Most decent-quality USB 3 flash drives will approach hard drive levels of performance, which may or may not be acceptable to you. Do be careful about where you buy from, because Amazon and eBay are full of counterfeits.

The better (but more expensive) option is to go with an external SSD. The Samsung T5 500GB is available for under £70 and has all the performance and durability you'd expect from a Samsung SSD.

If you've got an older laptop with limited storage, I'd recommend just installing a decent-sized SSD. It's not all that difficult, SATA SSDs are cheap as chips these days and you'll see a huge increase in responsiveness if you're still booting from a hard drive.

>>28053
What about the parts? I've been planning to build my own PC out of fancy new pieces for several years now; my current one is 11 1/2 years old but it runs just fine. If this is a time when I can be confident I'll be at home to receive a fat new case and motherboard and other bits that won't fit through the letterbox, perhaps I might finally take the plunge.

>>28055
Everything I've heard about PC parts at the moment is that crypto and chip shortages have rendered a lot of things way more expensive than they should be.

>>28055>>28056
A lot of PC parts are cheap at the moment - I bought one of my kids an i5 processor for hardly any money compared to the RRP. But graphics cards are absolutely fucking mental. You'll pay 400 quid for a card that would have cost 100 pounds a year back - I don't know what to do about that other than wait. 3090 cards are over two grand now, which is just a mental amount of money to pay.

>>28057
That's wonderful; that's exactly what I wanted to hear. Thank you very much. Now I just need to wait till Monday for those parts to drop even further in price, and soon I'll be tearing around with my brand new 64GB RAM, 12-core CPU, and 3dfx Voodoo 2 graphics card.

>>28058
>Voodoo
Those fuckers are expensive nowadays m8

>>28040

Am I misreading you or are you saying an extension like the one pictured would be preferable?

>>28043
Yes, that's far preferable.

>>28043
Not him, but they're definitely preferable. Just make sure the lead is unwound, or at the very least not forming loops. Self-inductance isn't anywhere as near as dangerous as one of those old blocks potentially blowing, but it can potentially reduce the amount you're able to usefully draw.

I wouldn't use one of those old blocks because most plugs have some kind of USB charger attached to them now and their irregular shapes mean you can only plug one thing into them at a time.

>>28045
It's not an inductance thing, it's just resistive heating. If it's all coiled up, there's nowhere for the heat to go. As I have failed to explain to my beloved when she tells me yet again that the pressure washer is broken, having been using it on the 100m extension lead still on its spool, smelling of hot pvc. Fuck's sake. /101/ worthy.

>>28025
?
I mean the air movement relies on wind alone. The fan is simply a mechanism to turn the generator.

>>28026
Perpetual motion.

>>28023
A kW PFC stage isn't terribly expensive, as it's the front end of a moderate PC power supply. I could then PWM the output of that (which is basically 450V DC) into a series pair of regular elements.
Probably have horrible flicker & harmonics, but fuck it. Hm, I could just use the whole PC PSU, and switch in and out power resistors mounted to a massive blown heatsink, fed from 12V. That would be relatively sanely priced, not too offensive to the mains supply, quiet and reliable.

You're all right (except jumper lad), I should ditch blown air and get a panel or a convector. If I can rest my feet on it, so much the better.

>>28024

It would, but the need for it to be windy to stay warm seems impractical.

>>28028

IIRC the Dyson Hot + Cool fan heater does have continuously variable output, but it's also £400.

>>27464

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

I guess this thread is as good as any. I need to fund a home office setup, ideally as cheaply as possible. I'd like to replicate the setup that I will be giving back to my old employer, which is:-

2 x Dell E2214Hb monitors.
1 x Logitech 1080p HD webcam.
1 x Dell OptiPlex 3050.

Amazon have 22" and 24" Dell monitors for £90 each and a similar webcam for £58. It's the base unit itself where I'm most likely to come unstuck; it's primarily going to be used for online meetings and typical office work, so it won't need to run anything intense, but I may need to reign myself in.

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Dell-SE2422HX-Monitor-FreeSync-Warranty/dp/B0957LFHTM/

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Logitech-Webcam-Calling-Recording-Stereo/dp/B07PL9XPYQ/

https://www.dellrefurbished.co.uk/item/dell-optiplex-3050-sff-000020/dell-optiplex-3050-sff/1.html

>>27987

You can get an identical machine on eBay for well under £200.

https://www.ebay.co.uk/sch/i.html?_nkw=optiplex+3050

Those monitors go for about £40.

>>27988
Thanks lad. There's a mini tower for £200 with a 15% off coupon so I may go for that one. I've never had a mini tower before, are they any good?

>>27989

SFF systems are fine if you avoid the slightly gutless T-series processors. You can run dual monitors, but you'll need adapters or suitable cables because you only get one Displayport and one HDMI port. You lose the option of installing a full-size graphics card, but you can still whack in a half-height card like a 1650 Super if you want to do a bit of gaming. They're meaningfully more compact than full towers, but unlike the micro systems they have proper desktop CPUs and a small but useful amount of expansion options.

Make sure to get one with an SSD, because booting from a hard drive is unacceptably slow.

>>27981
Yeah, it has 2 PSUs (700W, ffs, in a 1U server), but I idly only fed power into one, and am now too chicken to only power it from the other one. Replacement coming from ebay, for a tenner.
I hadn't seen how cheap whole machines are now - so yeah, if I have to, I'll get one and play swapsy. Dunno if the raid configuration is held on a disk or on the raid card, though, so could still be a pain. With any luck it will fire up fine with the new PSU, and I can pull it all into a VM and flog the box for a pittance.

>>27982
>and am now too chicken to only power it from the other one
Just do it. The worst that'll happen is that it will crap out in a similar way.

I have an old DL360, but given you're talking about 2.5" drives, I think you have the model or so after mine. I believe mine is a G3, which is a 1U server with 2x5.25" hard drives. It is actually brand new, only run for 2 hours, despite being almost 15 years old.

If you get stuck, and it might help, would happily send it or parts.

>>27984
Thanks, all. Cheap ebay PSU sourced, machine fired up and filth harvested and backed up then wiped, no harm done. Box shoved in a rack to be ignored for another decade. It's not even worth provisioning as a VM server or anything, so much power and noise for only moderate grunt.

>>27985
>so much power and noise for only moderate grunt

I have two DL585s and a couple of Sun Sparc's that are in exactly the same category. If I thought there was any gold in them, I would probably recycle, but it seems a shame to just scrap/throw them away.

>>27972
As you're that big, you should really try some out first. I would spend the money with these guys, have used them, and if you're lucky one of their stores is near you.

https://www.backinaction.co.uk

I've recently stopped using my Aeron and now use a Varier kneeling stool, or have the desk at standing height. I know this is heresy.

>>27972

The Size B and C Aerons are suitable for users up to 158kg. You'll probably want the Size C, which has a generous amount of extra width.

>>27973
Unfortunately all those shops are in the SARF. My arse isn't wider than any standard office chair I've sat on so far, but it's close. I intend to lose the weight again (I lost 35kg 2014-2016 and kept most of it off until 2019), but I've been saying that, well, since 2019. Anyway, that's a conversation for /emo/ and /fat/.

I'll have a hunt round ebay and the like and see if there are any local.

>>27975
Well, it went from 'starting to go' to 'gone' in short order. Since I need to work I went to the local furniture recycler and got a standard office chair dealie for £40 delivered. It's fine.

Someone's been listening to my phone calls - only today i was complaining about this standing desk.

>>27960
It gets worse. I've got no way of proving it because I don't want to allow everything, but I suspect that if you decline, you get re-prompted more often. I also notice that frequently if you open the "legitimate interest" section (which is a hilarious bit of fiction", even though it remembers that I've opted out of the consensual ones it's "forgotten" that I objected to the LI ones and I have to object again.

>>27966
>I think a lot of the warnings you see are added by JavaScript, as well, so if you block all JavaScript you can get rid of a lot of paywalls and cookie warnings. Don't do it everywhere, though, because JavaScript is a whole new monopoly unto itself and blocking it will destroy a lot of websites.
I keep telling people that JavaScript was a mistake.

>>27968
Javascript is a reasonable Scheme that is a victim of it's naming and syntax that mirrors Perl but worse in its life cycle. The proliferation of languages that offer type safety and saner syntax which compile down to JS is both proof of a lisp's adaptility and this particular implementation's failings. The post-hoc standardisation of the language based on how brosers implemented it, much like SGML and then XML parsing became a compatibilty issue. But it's here to stay, in it's multiple incarnations, and the dream of the universal VM is one step closer

>>27969
Or, in other words, JavaScript was a mistake.

>>27970
No argument there.