Oh damn, I'd missed that the PS5 Pro was mechless.
I guess once you get into £700 games consoles, the argument of "it's the same price as a decent bluray player" goes out the window.

And now everyone is locked into the PS store, unless they buy an external drive.

Like when Demon Days finally got a repress.
The market of people paying £100+ because they were the only copies dried up, leaving only the people who wanted a first pressing.

Funny how the MPs get involved when people are complaining about new utility poles, not when it's going in the ground.

It's made worse by companies not telling anyone what they're up to until the last second.

We had contractors for two altnets digging at the same time at one point.

This is a good site for reading about it too (I think I've seen you post ispreview before, but here it is anyway): https://www.ispreview.co.uk/index.php/2024/09/telecoms-minister-updates-on-effort-to-limit-uk-broadband-poles-via-infrastructure-sharing.html

I think it was more that after finding an ISP that generally didn't, I wondered why I ever used an ISP that did.

Hell, when I first signed up, they had a "fixed price for life" deal on!

Sure, I probably pay a little more than if I re-negotiated and switched providers every 18 months, to get the new customer deals.
But I'm too old for that shit, I just want reliable internet that I don't need to think about past the ONT.

My experience of virgin was a router that spiked pings, constant price rises out of contract, and a cancellation line that said "if you're unhappy with your current price rise, press 1 to reduce it by £2.50 for 6 months".

Just stupid.

So now I have a grown up ISP, that doesn't raise the price in contract, and so far hasn't changed it out of contract either.

Don't worry, we're quite good at censorship here too 😇

(Actually the policy is that genuinely awful content gets removed, other things get left so that the community can respond/vote up/vote down)

For most squishy remotes, you can disable the buttons by taking the remote apart, and putting tape on the underside of the rubber button.

While not strictly a QR code, I always liked that the Dolby Digital data between perforations on a film strip had a tiny Dolby logo at the centre.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sound-on-film#/media/File:35mm_film_audio_macro.jpg

My hope is that the reform is in the form of more early intervention at a community level (which is kinda what we had before the Great Gutting over the last decade).

Though going by the mood in this thread, I should be emigrating to Sweden...

If you travel outside of rush hours, you'll normally be fine for seats.

Normally seat reservations come free with booking a ticket ahead of time (with the trade-off that the ticket is often less flexible).

Look into how the ALR works with sleeper trains, as that could save you a packet on hotels (plus it means that you can avoid going along the same section twice while conscious)

Personally...I'd say that I could spend the £400 better on individual tickets, especially if booked ahead. But I probably wouldn't want to spend 7 days solidly on the trains, whereas you might!

Railforums are a great resource on this, this thread may be of interest: https://www.railforums.co.uk/threads/gb-rail-rover-tips-advice-all-line-rover-or-regional-rovers.236862/

They year is 2044.

The police pull you over for doing 90 on an 80 limited motorway.

The police computer malfunctions, and instead of serving up your driving license photo for comparison, they get a lovely picture of that bum rash you caught in the 2030s.

This would be great news. Imho, council run buses are a great public good.
When you have a large town/city, it's really important to have a way to get around that's not expensive.
You only have to visit somewhere with a properly run network to see the difference.

Reading for example:

As a municipally owned bus service, the council says Reading Buses can invest an additional £3m a year in the bus network, around 12-15% of its annual turnover, because it does not pay out dividends to private shareholders.

Money from commuter services also subsidises smaller less well-used routes.

Edit: Another place it helps councils: Old people bus passes.

In June 2023 the LGA said there was a £452 million gap in the funding councils receive from government compared to the actual number of ENCTS journeys made in 2022. This meant that councils were having to plug the financial gap from their “own stretched budgets”, which was “completely unsustainable

So a LA owned bus company with lower fares means the council doesn't end up making up the shortfall between what the government pays for free journeys and what the bus company decides to charge.

I think he might have watched The Emperor's New Groove.

Thank you for putting me on to where goes :)

Probability that this person is over 30?

It's worth noting that most places without a "signature" style just use espresso as the base nowadays. Because espresso is a much easier way to start (as it's a small amount of coffee syrup, without the water).
And outside of speciality (pour-over/cold-brew), it's the preferred extraction method.

Because there won't be any more after you state-own it all, right?

Right?

There is a good chance this is just a fake letter.
This guy was making them for fun a while back, and they surface from time to time.
I'm pretty sure the dashcam submission system is called Operation Snap, not Capture, too.

It's a multi-part problem.

You've got people unsure which bits they should be proud of.
And you've got wankers with no other redeeming qualities focussing on just how proud they are.

I think we're hopefully going through a bit of a reconciliation period, and will eventually come out the other side proud of some of the good and/or interesting things the country has been up to for the past few millenia.

ML summary:

Jas Athwal, the Labour Party MP for Ilford South, is a landlord with properties that tenants say have poor living conditions.
In the selection process for the Ilford South seat, Athwal won a higher percentage of votes from the party's online "Anonyvoter" system compared to in-person votes, despite his opponent Sam Tarry winning more of the in-person votes.
There are concerns about a lack of transparency and potential for fraud in the Anonyvoter system, which has also been used in other Labour candidate selection processes with similar results favoring more centrist candidates.
Former Labour MPs Sam Tarry and Beth Winter have raised legal concerns about the use of Anonyvoter, and several Labour-affiliated unions have expressed doubts about the system.