On Thu, 17 Oct 2013 20:10:14 +0100, Orchid Win7 v1 wrote:

> On 22/09/2013 12:19 PM, Orchid Win7 v1 wrote:
>> That being the case, I am currently in the process of taking my life
>> apart so I can move it. As far as I know, the flat doesn't have any
>> Internet access. I may be offline for some considerable time...
>>
>> I guess I'll see you on the dark side of the Moon. ;-)
> 
> Holy hell, I'm back! :-D

Welcome back!  How was the move, and how's the new place?

> For reasons unknown, unplugging my PC, driving it 5 miles, and plugging
> it back in again was enough to brick it. The PC has been turned on all
> year, but once turned off, the PSU was apparently unable to restart it.
> I have literally *just* finished wiring up my shiny new modular PSU from
> Powercool.
> 
> I already had Internet installed over a week ago. Now I can actually
> *use* the service I'm paying £50/month for...
> 
> Did I miss anything?

Just the usual sorts of shouting that have gone on around here lately. ;)

Jim

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Le 17/10/2013 21:10, Orchid Win7 v1 nous fit lire :
> 
> Holy hell, I'm back! :-D
> 
> For reasons unknown, unplugging my PC, driving it 5 miles, and plugging
> it back in again was enough to brick it. The PC has been turned on all
> year, but once turned off, the PSU was apparently unable to restart it.
> I have literally *just* finished wiring up my shiny new modular PSU from
> Powercool.
> 
> I already had Internet installed over a week ago. Now I can actually
> *use* the service I'm paying £50/month for...
> 
> Did I miss anything?

Welcome back.

It happened to me at work with a PSU too (was replaced under warranty:
added symptom, would turn off at random, after a few day, and not
restart unless voodoo was performed)).

is the bandwidth worth the price ?

you missed the yummy yummy cloud animation (links in p.b.i )

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>> Holy hell, I'm back! :-D
>
> Welcome back!  How was the move, and how's the new place?

The move wasn't too bad. Dealing with my mother was a total PITA of 
course. If I could have done things slowly and carefully it would have 
been much easier than having her hurrying me along every three seconds. 
Needless to say, I now have a significant amount of shelves, due to my 
mother's shelf obsession.

For a while it's been like living in a campsite here. Only recently have 
I got everything straightened out enough that it actually feels like 
home, not a temporary hotel or something.

During daylight I really love my new flat. At night, it creeps me out 
that the entire world can see me through the paper-thin curtains, and 
everyone in the building can hear me. I really need some decent 
curtains; so I can have some privacy, and so I'm not heating the street 
every time I turn the heating on.

Other than that, my PC was pretty much the last major thing to get set 
up. I'm still waiting for a sofa to arrive, but I've got a table and 
chairs. The flat came with a working cooker, freezer and washing 
machine. The electric hob takes some getting used to; you have to turn 
it on about 20 minutes before you want to cook anything, and once it's 
hot it'll stay hot for 20 minutes after you turn it off. In short, 
there's no way of controlling the amount of heat the food gets. On the 
other hand, the fan oven should make baking a lot easier...

I especially enjoyed that the paperwork for the flat contains the manual 
for the previous boiler, and not the one presently fitted. :-D

It's really wonderful to be able to come home and just COOK something. 
No more trying to second-guess what my mother is going to do; I can just 
EAT! This is why I moved out. Well, that and the ability to actually 
have visitors.

Speaking of which, several of the people at my dance class seem to be 
under the impression that there will be a house-warming party. I kinda 
like the idea of that, but I don't know how many humans you can fit in a 
one-bed flat, and I'm also not sure exactly what I would *do* with them 
once they're here... we shall see.

My last bank statement was scary. It's alarming to see the money out 
column has MORE DIGITS in it than the money in column. :-S Welcome to 
never having any money ever again. ;-)

Oh, and my boss tells me I might want to update my CV, because the 
company *may* go under shortly. O_O

(NOW you tell me?!)

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> Welcome back.
>
> It happened to me at work with a PSU too (was replaced under warranty:
> added symptom, would turn off at random, after a few day, and not
> restart unless voodoo was performed)).

It ran for about 8 months continuously. A month ago I rebooted it, and 
the BIOS refused to proceed due to the CPU temperature. I vacuumed the 
fluff out of it, and then it worked fine for another month. Unplugged it 
all, drove it down the road, plugged it in... nothing. Absolutely dead. 
When you hit the switch, the fans twitch, and that's it. Even the power 
light seemed dimmer... damned weird.

Still, this is my first modular PSU. Usually you pay £££ for that, but 
this PSU was a mere £30, which isn't bad. Some of the cables where a 
little shorter than I'd like, and they're all sheathed so they're a bit 
stiff and don't want to unbend, but otherwise I'm really happy with it.

> is the bandwidth worth the price ?

Well, I'm not sure. To get broadband, you have to have telephone service 
as well, which is probably why it's so pricey. (The actual broadband 
component itself is only £16/month, and it's 40 MBit/sec, which is 
absurdly fast.)

> you missed the yummy yummy cloud animation (links in p.b.i )

OK...

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On Thu, 17 Oct 2013 21:57:06 +0100, Orchid Win7 v1 wrote:

>>> Holy hell, I'm back! :-D
>>
>> Welcome back!  How was the move, and how's the new place?
> 
> The move wasn't too bad. Dealing with my mother was a total PITA of
> course. If I could have done things slowly and carefully it would have
> been much easier than having her hurrying me along every three seconds.
> Needless to say, I now have a significant amount of shelves, due to my
> mother's shelf obsession.

Ah, now if I'd known that, I could've sent you some bookcases we just 
gave away. ;)

> For a while it's been like living in a campsite here. Only recently have
> I got everything straightened out enough that it actually feels like
> home, not a temporary hotel or something.

That's great! :)

> During daylight I really love my new flat. At night, it creeps me out
> that the entire world can see me through the paper-thin curtains, and
> everyone in the building can hear me. I really need some decent
> curtains; so I can have some privacy, and so I'm not heating the street
> every time I turn the heating on.

Ah, *that's* what I was seeing.  I wondered. ;)

Good curtains are a good thing - we've got some windows in the back of 
our place that don't have interior coverings (we have exterior shades on 
three of the bigger windows - they help keep the place cool in the 
summer).

> Other than that, my PC was pretty much the last major thing to get set
> up. I'm still waiting for a sofa to arrive, but I've got a table and
> chairs. The flat came with a working cooker, freezer and washing
> machine. The electric hob takes some getting used to; you have to turn
> it on about 20 minutes before you want to cook anything, and once it's
> hot it'll stay hot for 20 minutes after you turn it off. In short,
> there's no way of controlling the amount of heat the food gets. On the
> other hand, the fan oven should make baking a lot easier...

We found adjustments to cooking times were necessary when we replaced our 
electric cooker - we had a gas stove/dual oven in the basement that 
wasn't being used when we moved in (though there was a second kitchen in 
the basement - a "mother-in-law" apartment is, we think, what the 
previous owner's intention was), and we had it restored and moved 
upstairs.  It's really nice to have, and I know we'll miss it when we 
move (which may happen before the end of the year).

> I especially enjoyed that the paperwork for the flat contains the manual
> for the previous boiler, and not the one presently fitted. :-D

That sounds familiar.  When we moved in here, we found several old 
instruction manuals for all sorts of stuff that was no longer here.

> It's really wonderful to be able to come home and just COOK something.
> No more trying to second-guess what my mother is going to do; I can just
> EAT! This is why I moved out. Well, that and the ability to actually
> have visitors.

That's definitely a plus. :)

> Speaking of which, several of the people at my dance class seem to be
> under the impression that there will be a house-warming party. I kinda
> like the idea of that, but I don't know how many humans you can fit in a
> one-bed flat, and I'm also not sure exactly what I would *do* with them
> once they're here... we shall see.

I don't know about in the UK, but here in the US, it's been my experience 
that with that type of gathering, people tend to come and go.  Put some 
music on, get some light snacks (chips, dip, pizza, that sort of thing - 
and drinks, of course) and invite people to come over.  Get to know and 
invite your neighbors as well - that's a great way to reduce the chances 
of a noise complaint from them. :)

People tend to just gather and socialize, have a drink or two, and then 
may wander off.  My son did something like this when he and his SO got 
their place - with only a couch, they got a bunch of pillows/cushions so 
people could sit on the floor.  They played video games and such as well.

> My last bank statement was scary. It's alarming to see the money out
> column has MORE DIGITS in it than the money in column. :-S Welcome to
> never having any money ever again. ;-)

I know *that* story. ;)  It's been over 2 years since I was laid off and 
started working for myself.  While I could make a lot per month if I put 
in a full work week each week, I tend to work about 4 hours a day on 
average, really just enough to keep paying the bills.

> Oh, and my boss tells me I might want to update my CV, because the
> company *may* go under shortly. O_O
> 
> (NOW you tell me?!)

Eep.  Always a good thing to keep the CV current, just in case.  I wish 
I'd done that in the years leading up to my layoff - it was much harder 
to remember and provide specifics on projects I worked on (things like 
savings, revenue impacts, that sort of thing - if you work on stuff where 
you have that information available).

We're looking to probably move to Seattle by the end of the year; if we 
can get what we want for our house, that'll give us a little money in the 
bank to cover moving expenses and hopefully about a year's worth of rent 
(we've decided to rent a flat rather than buy a place, at least until we 
have decided on a place we want to invest in).  That's one of the nice 
things about owning a place and fixing it up - you can make money on it 
when you sell it. :)

Jim

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On 17/10/13 22:02, Orchid Win7 v1 wrote:
> Well, I'm not sure. To get broadband, you have to have telephone service
> as well, which is probably why it's so pricey. (The actual broadband
> component itself is only £16/month, and it's 40 MBit/sec, which is
> absurdly fast.)
> 

So, about the same speed that I get in Westminster. Mine varies between
36 and 48 Mb/s. OTOH we haven't been given optical fibre yet, which is a
bit odd considering the number of MPs etc who live here. When BT finally
gets around to doing us, I expect speeds to increase by an order of
magnitude.

Oh, BTW, welcome home.

John
-- 
Protect the Earth
It was not given to you by your parents
You hold it in trust for your children

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> So, about the same speed that I get in Westminster. Mine varies between
> 36 and 48 Mb/s. OTOH we haven't been given optical fibre yet, which is a
> bit odd considering the number of MPs etc who live here. When BT finally
> gets around to doing us, I expect speeds to increase by an order of
> magnitude.

You should be grateful with what you have :-P On a good day I can get 
just above 3 Mb/s...

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On 18/10/2013 09:35 AM, Doctor John wrote:
> So, about the same speed that I get in Westminster. Mine varies between
> 36 and 48 Mb/s. OTOH we haven't been given optical fibre yet, which is a
> bit odd considering the number of MPs etc who live here. When BT finally
> gets around to doing us, I expect speeds to increase by an order of
> magnitude.

I would suggest that digging up the roads in the most densely populated, 
most traffic-ridden place in the entire country might be problematic for 
them.

> Oh, BTW, welcome home.

Thanks.

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On 18/10/2013 10:36 AM, scott wrote:
> You should be grateful with what you have :-P On a good day I can get
> just above 3 Mb/s...

Yeah, I was under the impression most of the country uses ADSL2, which 
tops out at 8 Mb/s. I'm not actually sure how it's even *possible* to 
have 40 Mb/s...

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On 17/10/2013 11:34 PM, Jim Henderson wrote:
> Ah, now if I'd known that, I could've sent you some bookcases we just
> gave away. ;)

My mother has a shelf obsession, not me! My flat is quite full of 
furniture as it is; I don't need any more.

The walls are made of cardboard, so you can't actually attach anything 
to them. (Not if you don't want the entire wall to crack in half, 
anyway.) So everything has to be bookcases and the like.

> Good curtains are a good thing - we've got some windows in the back of
> our place that don't have interior coverings (we have exterior shades on
> three of the bigger windows - they help keep the place cool in the
> summer).

I'm hoping this place will be cool in summer - the Sun never faces it. 
But it's not very warm right now with no curtains... I'd turn the 
heating on more, but without curtains I'm just pouring money down the drain.

>> I especially enjoyed that the paperwork for the flat contains the manual
>> for the previous boiler, and not the one presently fitted. :-D
>
> That sounds familiar.  When we moved in here, we found several old
> instruction manuals for all sorts of stuff that was no longer here.

The flat comes with an owner's manual of sorts - a folder with sections 
for everything you would ever need to know. Trouble is, it was clearly 
compiled by the builders. So it contains the manual for the boiler they 
installed, not the new one it was replaced with.

But I think the thing I most enjoyed was the section entitled "meter 
locations". It is entirely empty.

> I don't know about in the UK, but here in the US, it's been my experience
> that with that type of gathering, people tend to come and go.  Put some
> music on, get some light snacks (chips, dip, pizza, that sort of thing -
> and drinks, of course) and invite people to come over.  Get to know and
> invite your neighbors as well - that's a great way to reduce the chances
> of a noise complaint from them. :)
>
> People tend to just gather and socialize, have a drink or two, and then
> may wander off.  My son did something like this when he and his SO got
> their place - with only a couch, they got a bunch of pillows/cushions so
> people could sit on the floor.  They played video games and such as well.

We'll see what I can set up. According to the terms of the lease, I'm 
not allowed to play music though. (Which is unsurprising, given the 
walls are made of cardboard. If the guy next door takes a dump, I can 
tell you if it's one lump or two!) I'm also not allowed to use a TV, 
although I'm damned sure I've heard other people doing so. Oh, and I'm 
not allowed to play a musical instrument OR SING!

>> My last bank statement was scary. It's alarming to see the money out
>> column has MORE DIGITS in it than the money in column. :-S Welcome to
>> never having any money ever again. ;-)
>
> I know *that* story. ;)  It's been over 2 years since I was laid off and
> started working for myself.  While I could make a lot per month if I put
> in a full work week each week, I tend to work about 4 hours a day on
> average, really just enough to keep paying the bills.

No matter what your woes, somebody else always has a bigger problem. 
Why, I just spoke to my ex-girlfriend, and her sister died yesterday. 
What do you even SAY to something like that??

>> Oh, and my boss tells me I might want to update my CV, because the
>> company *may* go under shortly. O_O
>>
>> (NOW you tell me?!)
>
> Eep.  Always a good thing to keep the CV current, just in case.  I wish
> I'd done that in the years leading up to my layoff - it was much harder
> to remember and provide specifics on projects I worked on (things like
> savings, revenue impacts, that sort of thing - if you work on stuff where
> you have that information available).

Fortunately, I now have a goodly list of stuff I've single-handedly done 
here. And more to the point, last time around everybody who interviewed 
me was wowed by the stuff I put on my CV, but then completely lost 
interest when I said I have no commercial experience. Now I have a year 
of solid experience, so...

> We're looking to probably move to Seattle by the end of the year

Sometimes I like to think of moving from one American state to another 
as being like moving between European countries. I gather they're 
approximately the same size...

> That's one of the nice
> things about owning a place and fixing it up - you can make money on it
> when you sell it. :)

Interesting. I assumed that you always lose a huge chunk of money when 
you sell a property - pretty much like anything else you can buy...

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