Posts by The Dogs Meevonks

Cloudflare CEO threatens to make the Winter Olympics a political football after Italy slugs it with a fine

Re: Please allow me...

The old muskrat minions are out in force downvoting people again... they always crawl out when ever his naziness is mentioned in articles.

Re: the ugly american face of SaaS

Just tell the USA that Italy has the largest supply of ₒₗᵢᵥₑ Oil in the world.

Re: the ugly american face of SaaS

"Piracy is a problem, but overreaching power from private rights holders without meaningful legal oversight and also is a problem."

I disagree with that.... corporate greed is a problem, piracy is a solution. If things were available and affordable for all, piracy wouldn't be an issue. I grew up copying tapes as a little kid for my C64, floppy disks as a teen in the 90's, then CD's and DVD's. Then the internet really took off and I found I could order 3 or 4 movies from a a Canadian site called DVDsoon and have them delivered to my door for the same price as buying one DVD in the UK... until it's demise. Play.com got a lot of my business too as it was much cheaper than buying in the UK.

I was turned from a pirate into a subscriber with netflix, and then others... I purchased my first copy of windows with W7 Pro after 15yrs of using pirated copies.

Then they started with the enshitification... I started cancelling subscriptions... first getting rid of sky replacing it with a freesat box... then prime... Now the only thing I subscribe to still is netflix... and that's only because my mum came to live with me a few years ago and loves her Korean soaps... Otherwise that would be gone too.

If I want to watch something friends have recommended to me... and it's not on netflix... do I not bother watching it, or do I find an alternative?

Re: Please allow me...

If we can start by blocking twitter, facebook and so forth... I'm good with that.

Re: Please allow me...

Yeah... I was agreeing with most of the arguments in the article... until he went down the 'I'll agree with and support Nazi's if it gets me what I want' route.

Re: Please allow me...

Are you psychic and immediately know the gender of every individual poster who is allowed to use whatever display name they choose?

Or are you using gender as a cover for your overly sensitive nature when it comes to colourful language.

Microsoft Windows Media Player stops serving up CD album info

Re: MediaMonkey FTW

I used to use it... not sure why I stopped. Might have been when I rebuilt my mediaserver about 6yrs ago and I installed mp3tag

Re: Music - sorted!

This is basically how I do it.

I use mp3tag to get all of the metadata for my CD rips, because I still acquire music in physical format, same as I did bluray movies and tv shows.

Just the other day, I picked up 5 bluray movies from a charity shop for £8...

My optical drive in my server however... is getting flaky, and I need to source one with a firmware that won't block you from ripping the movies/tv shows from the discs... The old pioneer one I';ve got must be 12-13yrs old now... It's lasted me well.

Of course... if I can't rip my own media from my own physical copies... how else can I be expected to add the movies I already own to my personal mediaserver.

UK to spend £23M on AI to tell benefit claimants where to go

14 Months ago, I tried to contact the DWP to see about getting the award letter for my friends PIP, so that she could get her blue badge renewed with the council... Because the DWP had such a backlog, that they'd extended her PIP award for 12 months, but never sent her a proper award letter. So all she had was a letter that showed it had run out., and an extension letter that didn't show how much she'd been awarded. So the council wouldn't accept it as proof.

10 weeks... I tried for 10 weeks to speak to a person at the DWP, 10 weeks of sitting on the phone for 45 mins only to have them cut you off without ever actually speaking to anyone.

I got so pissed of at them, that I wrote a complaint to their local MP.... Who got the problem solved in a couple of days.

The lesson I learned from this... don't bother trying to contact the DWP, go straight to your local MP.

This same person also discovered that due to their disability that is a lifelong condition that will never improve... They have been treated appallingly for the last 15yrs. They were one of the people forced of incapacity benefits on to ESA, only to be deliberately placed in the wrong group to save the govt money... and lived in extreme poverty as a result for 5yrs with out ever getting an increase in their rate, whilst councils cut their housing benefit and increased their council tax from 15% to 25%.

The govt meanwhile lost judicial review after judicial review of their treatment of the disabled... people died as a result of this cruelty... eventually she was awarded and had that money backdated which literally saved her life as she was drowning in debt, and couldn't afford to heat her home or buy enough food.

6yrs later, they pull the same cruel stunt... this time forcing her from ESA onto Universal Credit... But the non means tested severe disability premium she gets, isn't part of UC, because that would be helping the disabled, So what they have done is top up the UC to the same level as it was inc the SDP... But they will never increase the UC for her until the UC passes what she currently gets.

Based on the pittance the UC goes up each year, it could easily take 10-12yrs before she will ever be allowed an increase in her disability....

How many more years before the govt loses judicial reviews over this... and it has to be paid back to them. How much more cruelty must the disabled be forced to endure by uncaring politicians who don't see them as human beings, but a burden on society... because they're not good little peons, salving away for their right wing billionaire paymasters.

If anyone asks me what has radicalised me... this... it's crap like this that has turned me into a raging leftie as the bigots like to call us. I care about the bottom end of society, because we are failing them and we are no longer civilised. No one needs to go hungry, unhoused or without access to healthcare anywhere on this planet... there is enough for all... The only way to do that is to burn capitalism to the ground, no more greed, no more wealth hoarding... and anyone who wants to hoard wealth should meet a fitting end.

AWS raises GPU prices 15% on a Saturday, hopes you weren't paying attention

All You Data Belong To US

The end of the road for owning your own computer... only the ultra rich will be able to afford and source the components... you'll be sold some expensive 'thin client' style device connected to their data centers, all compute, graphics, storage done by them and sent to you... No more gaming at home, no more owning your own data... you're a subscriber paying a monthly fee for the rest of your life.

With no way to opt out of data harvesting, tracking or advertising.

That's the end goal here...

Faith in the internet is fading among young Brits

We need to destroy the current internet and rebuild it from the ground up.

With blackjack and hookers

Reddit sues Australia to exempt itself from kids social media ban

Re: Freedom of communication

Never had a problem with the two providers I've used over the years... perhaps you should be looking for your service elsewhere.

It's Time To Reign In All Of Them

Every study that's been done on social media use has come to the conclusion that social media use is bad for mental health... Not just for kids, but for everyone. It shows that the psychological trickery they use to keep peoples eyes on the site to collect data and show you ads has a negative impact on the well being of individuals... and that's before we even delve into the harm done by radicalisation and the spread of hate and misinformation.

For many years, I've been saying that all of them need to be treated as 'publishers' not as conduits... Because until you make them liable for what they allow to be posted... because let's be clear... it's their platform and they have control over it... Until they are held liable for it and punished financially for what they encourage to such a degree that it is unprofitable to continue in the way they do.

Tablet market stalls because there’s not much new worth buying

Re: No Great Loss ... 100% Correct.

I buy a physical copy of the book, then download a version for my tablet, converting via calibre if required.... I will never (with the exception games from Steam/GOG) buy digital entertainment. I scour every charity shop I walk past looking at the CD/Bluray section for stuff, I'll visit car boot sales in the warmer months at least once a month.

1st tablet, Tesco Hudl2 around 2011 for about £140, given to my mum in 2016

2nd tablet in 2016, nVidia Shield K1 tablet for £199 (bought my mum one after the hudl2 failed in 2017), got put in the draw after the battery started to bloat in 2022.

3rd tablet in 2023, HMD/Nokia T21 tablet for £219

All I need is a tablet to read books on, that I can upload my own books too, that I can play a few ad free simple games on whilst out and about, waiting for appts or relaxing near a river looking towards the mountains drinking a latte... and sometimes, when I'm away from home watching some netflix in bed in a friends/families home, or some B&B/Hotel... provided there's reasonable wifi available or a decent phone signal I can hotspot from.

That's it... that's all I need a tablet for... a larger screen because trying to watch a video or read a book on a phone is harder on the eyes.

I don't need one for 'productivity' I don;t need it for 'work' and I don;t need it for 'content creation'.

When they stop trying to force feed you the 'new & shiny' every year... maybe they'll actually innovate something decent one day. For now, just make a basic tablet for basic tasks, with decent specs and update the fucking thing for 5yrs with OS & security... maybe release a newer, faster, more storage, more ram version every 3yrs or so for those that want to upgrade.

Help desk boss fell for ‘Internet Cleaning Day’ prank - then swore he got the joke

Re: Has your tech team pranked colleagues?

When I originally left school, I did a mix of college and an engineering apprenticeship. In the 2nd year of training, we were sent out into the workshops on a massive site that ran from one end of town to the other... The better part of 3/4 of a mile long and about 1/5 of a mile deep... I have no idea what the square foot/meter/acres/miles of that site it... but it was huge.

We as apprentices got pranked a lot with each dept we transferred to every 8 weeks trying their own brand of pranks. Most obvious, some successful.

There was the time I was sent to the stores to get some 'Shell No12'... and then he quickly added 'pneumatic oil'... for the uninitiated, we did actually use a 'Shell No13' oil and so off I trotted and asked for it... took me a minute to realise... ah yes, got me.

A week later, I was asked to go for a 'Long Weight'... this one was so obvious that I decided to have some fun at my supervisors expense... walked into the stores, explained they were trying it on again and wanted a 'long weight'... and then sat down with them and had a cup of tea for 10 mins... Went back to work, said they didn't have any at the moment.

I then disappeared an hour later for 20 mins, supervisor came looking for me, found me having more cups of tea in the stores... 'WTF are you doing?' he bellowed at me... "Oh, they didn't have a long weight, so I thought two short ones would do'

The guys in the stores cracked up, the supervisor thankfully had a sense of humour and realised he'd been pranked back... and they never tried again.

But the best one... was when I worked at one end of the site and was sent to collect some parts from the other end of the site... I was told it was 2 postoles for a 201 compressor... given a pull trolley and sent on my way. It wasn't a light trolley and it took me a good 20 mins to drag it 3/4 of a mile up there, load up the very heavy crate and bring it back.

When I got back... a little knackered pulling this heavy trolley and crate. The supervisor asked if I'd checked it... I said no, I had no idea what I was checking for... I didn't know what a 201 compressor was.

It was then I was handed a crowbar and a sinking feeling grew in my stomach... I just grinned at them, and said... you've got me a good one here haven't you.

Sure enough... opened the crate and there were some breeze blocks with 2 holes in them... and a sign that said 2 Post Holes.

Windows 11 update breaks localhost, prompting mass uninstall workaround

Re: "Microsoft's quality control department"

Would anyone be surprised to hear that they're using unchecked and untested AI generated code to save money?

Because I sure as fuck wouldn't... I'd actually put money on this being 100% true.

OpenAI's ChatGPT is so popular that almost no one will pay for it

Re: One day...

They seem to be desperately trying to postpone the collapse of the upside down pyramid... by simply saying

Company A will invest 100 billion in Company B

Company B will invest 100 billion in Company C

Company C will invest 100 billion in Company A

It's a giant circle jerk to pump values, a few at the top get mega rich and everyone else loses billions... But then there's a few more billionaires on the planet hoarding resources and wealth and being culpable for the deaths of tens of thousands of people because of their greed that can never be sated.

Hundreds of millions of business PCs are still on Windows 10 as D-Day nears

If by work you mean, often catch fire and explode... then yes. But at least his rockets haven't yet killed people... say, by locking astronauts inside when they catch fire, or killing people because of faulty 'self driving' systems

But then again... maybe that is 'by design'

The only possibility of any secretary of state to use specific powers to amend a primary piece of legislation... will be to ban protesters from protesting genocidal terrorist states.

Millions of Incompatible Machines

They just want you to be forced onto a platform that has even more tracking and data harvesting built in, that makes the user experience worse, that tries to force AI in your face for everything, that records your screen... and expects you to pay for the privilege and be thankful for it.

In short... FUCK OFF!!!

W10 works fine for me, I've not had a single nag to upgrade... either my X570 motherboard and 5800X3D CPU isn't compatible... or using OOSUS10 actually fucking works in shutting down their shit. I have no MS account and never will, I get no ads and hope I never do and I will burn this fucking thing to pieces before I ever allow an AI slop generator access to a single byte of information.

W10 will be my last MS OS, by the time I'll be forced of it by some dangerous flaw in the OS that it's too risky to use... I'll have moved to some variant of linux at last... I keep meaning to do it, I just need that last push and the willpower to learn something new... C'mon Proton... I still want to play my games.

Kicked from RubyGems, maintainers forge new home at Gem Cooperative

Re: The woke mob

Don't feed the trolls, tell them to get back under the bridge because some billy goats gruff are coming

Struggling to heat your home? How about 500 Raspberry Pi units?

I use my home server and PC's as mini heaters, as well as the conservatory.

My home server (Ryzen 5600G, 32GB DDR4, 60TB of HDD) is on 24/7, it's not a high power machine and idles at around 30ºC as it's slightly underclocked for sound/thermal reasons... and even under load transcoding/streaming media around the house... Barely ever gets above 42ºC thanks to the very large cooler that's more suited to a 200w load than the 65w max of the current CPU (probably more like 15-20w on avg).

But that's still 30ºC or so of heat that needs dissipating. So with some nice large 140 & 200mm noctua fans installed on the case to intake and exhaust the air as efficiently and quietly as possible... it's left idling away in the corner of the office and the door is normally left open during the day. It's not a huge amount of heat, but it keeps the office nice and cosy a few degrees warmer than other rooms in the house... so I let that heat spread through the upstairs to all of the bedrooms. Throw in my main work and gaming PC's that are often on for 6-12hrs a day between them pumping out a reasonable amount of heat too (work rig Ryzen 3 3300X, RX550GPU) and gaming rig (5800X3D, 64GB DDR4, RX6900XT)... it can get quite toasty in the office in the warmer weather.

Throw in the upgrades to insulation I've done to the house (upgraded loft from 100mm to 350mm, and installed 75mm acoustic/thermal insulation in upstairs stud walls, as well as mineral wool under some floors when lifting boards for pipework and repairs)... then fixing draught old double glazing in a few places and replacing tired old external draught doors with modern more efficient ones... and the house is getting quite cosy with less reliance of gas central heating. Winter gas bills are down about 15-20% over the first 2 winters (a saving of around £300 a year) with an outlay of some £800 for the insulation thanks to some special offers at B&Q last year for rolls of mineral wool insulation for an absolute bargain... 175mm rolls for £25 each... so I bought 14 of them. 4 used in the garage conversion roof and the other 10 in the main loft. With each roll long enough to do lengthways across the whole loft 1.5 times and 4 rolls doing one layer across it all, so we did 2 layers in opposing directions. and used the rest around the vaulted ceiling of the master bedroom when 350mm still wasn't enough to cover all of the exposed sides.

Downstairs, we use the tired old conservatory as a heater... when the sun comes out, no matter how cold it is outside... because it's South facing, it warms it up like an oven. Open the doors into it and let the warmth spread into the house. It can warm the downstairs 1-2ºC extra and avoid the need for the heating to come on at all.

The downside to the old conservatory with draughty sliding door and blown panes... it's too hot to use from Around May to Sept, so we're looking to replace it next year with a more modern one with warm roof. So we can actually use it as a room rather than the junk and clothes dryer we do now.

Explain digital ID or watch it fizzle out, UK PM Starmer told

I do love the 'flag shaggers' comment, that deserves an upvote alone.

What we have in this country... are Schroedingers immigrants... because they fascist farage supporting bigots think they are both stealing their jobs whilst simultaneously claiming all of the benefits and not working.

They're all classed as illegal because all legal routes were closed by the tories and labour aren't interested in opening up those legal routes because it would infuriate all of the fascist farage supporting bigots.

They're all illegal immigrants because the tories closed all of the legal routes to be able to claim asylum to appease the racist, xenophobic bigots within their own party.

Re: "Probably become cannabis farms."

As in... A... I want some of that.

Trump demands Microsoft fire its head of global affairs

Re: Trumplthinskin at it again

Whilst I might claim credit for Trumplthinskin as I've been using it for almost 10yrs now... I cannot claim credit for Mango Mussolini... I've seen that used in many places.

Re: Judge people by your own standards

Right wing extremists always assume that everyone else will do things like that because it's 'exactly' what they would do... and they're unable to think that people can have the things that they have never had... like morals, integrity, ethics, compassion and honour.

All conservatives these days (in all countries) operate on this simple premise.... the illogical and irrational belief... that some where, some one they think is inferior to them... might be treated as an equal.

Trumplthinskin at it again

Wannabe fascist DICKtators gotta fascist as hard as they can... It's only Monday though... Tomorrow could be another 'TACO' Tuesday as the mango Mussolini flip flops hard than a marathon runner wearing flip flops.

UK to roll out mandatory digital ID for right to work by 2029

Re: IDs..

Does your recharge socket work?

Re: You'd be better off

This needs to be Starmers poll tax moment... you want to topple an authoritarian leader, you take to the streets in such numbers that it cannot be ignored. The poll tax protests forced Thatcher to step down.

Re: Gov: So - well drop the cards...

Nigel "Fascist" Farage will say whatever he thinks will get him some attention and like all populists, he's an authoritarian who will strip anyone who dissents and disagrees with him of their rights and abilities to take power from him.... He'll say he's against it, but he'll be loving the thought of the power and control it would give him over the populace.

Imagine masked groups of racists... sorry... border patrol roaming the country...if you don't like you should belong in this country to them (white), they'll haul you off to some camp for deportation... Don;t believe me... look what his bosom buddy trumplethinskin is doing... everything Forage does is inspired by the nazi party in the US... he just waters it down a little more to make it more palatable to the racists in the UK who think they're not.

Software CEO tells Catholic uni panel AI won't take out jobs, but it could take out brains

Re: "People could use [AI] as a substitute for human intelligence"

Well, even current AI is already more intelligent that your average Trump/Farage voter.

They only ever talk about the AI tool and the vague marketing bullshit they use to sell it to you.

They NEVER talk about the process or the results... only the tool.

Because they know that if they tried to sell it to you based on the process and the results, you'd tell them to fuck off.

Tell them to fuck off anyway... you'll be a happier, smarter person for it.

School kids are now using the phrase 'that's so AI' to describe things they don't believe and are untrue.... there's hope for the next generation after all.

Slack threatened to delete nonprofit coding club’s data if it didn’t pay $50k in a week

Re: This is what you get ...

discord is no better and you are still at the mercy of what ever corpo bollocks they decide to screw you with.

Bring back IRC as a normal way to chat with people.

Re: This is what you get ...

Currently it was $5000 and they wanted 10x that amount within a week and on top of that, pay $200000 per year.... that's an increase from 5k to 250k... that's not a 4x increase... it's a 50x increase.

After nearly half a century in deep space, every ping from Voyager 1 is a bonus

Re: I never fail to be impressed

Is that all it takes for him to make his deposit for his latest genetic abomination?

In a world of planned obsolescence....

It's refreshing to see that the technology designed and built in the 1960's and 70's has proven to be reliable and had a longevity that today's tech industry would decry as ridiculous and unprofitable.

I wasn't even born when they launched, but I remember reading about them and seeing the images on TV in the late 80's and every time they come up in an article, I pour over the whole thing absorbing every scrap of information I can... They've fascinated me for 40yrs, and the day they have both signed off for the final time... I shall probably shed a tear over the incredible job they and the engineers who designed them and kept them running for 50yrs... I don't think I'll be around for when they return as V-Ger

Techie ended vendor/client blame game by treating managers like toddlers

My Proudest Moment...

Working for a software company some 20yrs ago... An MS windows update broke a very important function of the older DOS based software still in use by venues around the country and Europe for accounting and ticketing purposes.

They found they could no longer generate the files of the finances from sales.

At the time we didn't know what the problem was... That took several days of dedicated research and time logging into all of these sites to see if we could figure out why some went down and others didn't.

After 4 days, I thought I'd narrowed it down to a specific update, so set up a clean test system in house using the data (back then they had to mail us backup tapes) from a few of these venues and discovered I was right.

There was no way to remove this update. So we went through all of those that had yet to apply it and blocked it.... then try to figure out a solution for the others that didn't involve wiping hundreds of systems and reinstalling. A colossal task for a 100 different sites, each one on a shoe string budget without their own IT depts.

There was no chance of a software fix for a such old software that had long been discontinued.

So the 'genius' idea I came up with, was a simple code alteration.

To generate the txt file for the reports of sales and accounts... I redirected the software to open 'notepad.exe'

It worked, it wasn't pretty... but I solved the problem and I had countless tiny venues such as community theatres, museums, council run spaces and cinemas thanking me for solving it.

My employers on the other hand... less than grateful for extending the life of deprecated software when the US based owners who bought them out a few years earlier were smelling blood and the loss of expensive software purchases and support packages.

I was made redundant less than 6 months later under dubious reasons when newer, far more useless, but more butt licking staff were kept on.

Would still do it again though... I worked in the arts with community theatres and music workshops. They're important parts of communities and costing them money they can't afford because some selfish evil mega corp in the US wanted to increase shareholder profits 0.00001% for a billion dollar enterprise by screwing over and probably causing those venues to fail.

Researcher who found McDonald's free-food hack turns her attention to Chinese restaurant robots

You notify them, you give them adequate time to fix the flaw and if they refuse to even acknowledge you or that the problem exists (as many companies choose to do because they have no one in their ranks who understands the importance of security)... that's when you go public. You tried, you met a brick wall... you expose poor security practices and standards that can harm customers of ignorant businesses.

Re: food fight

Not forgetting for those younger people... the milkshake mugger (racist facists can fuck off) and the US has even got involved with their very own sandwich slinger.

xAI fires legal rocket at Apple and OpenAI claiming they're locking out Grok

Can we just.....

Strap the nazi to one of his own rockets and launch it to Mars?

Junk is the new punk: Why we're falling back in love with retro tech

It Never Went Away For Me

I still have a large vinyl collection, although I did stop buying it 30yrs ago, I still have a large CD collection, although I did stop buying it 10yrs ago... occasionally pick up an older release from before the CD loudness wars of the 2000's. I have a very large movie and tv show collection on DVD & Bluray.

I run a mediaserver in my home, I have ripped everything to that for streaming in and around the home. Whilst I do use a couple of streaming services, I only actually pay for Netflix as Disney+ was free for 12 months with my bank account. I dropped Prime almost 2yrs ago because fuck amazon.

I grew up in a time when you actually owned what you bought and I'll be fucked if I change that opinion... you can't steal what you aren't allowed to own.

I'm currently in the process of setting up a little music nook in a bay window of my home... Nice recliner armchair, unit for my vinyl... an amp, CD player, turntable and some decent headphones. Offline enjoyment of what I own and can do with as I please... fuck greedy corpo scum.... they'd charge me a subscription fee to breathe if they could.

Everybody needs good neighbors – especially ones who sell you solar energy

Re: Passivhaus insulation standards

I remember that episode, in fact that show is the whole reason I want to build my own house.

The house I bought a few years ago, is about 25yrs old, and was built on the cheap for what is classed as an 'executive' style home. So as we've been renovating and updating it, we've found that the floors between ground/first had no insulation at all, neither did any of the stud walls upstairs. So as I'm making repairs and adding extra sockets, along with reboarding the ceilings to get rid of the patterned artex... I'm filling the internal walls with acoustic insulation. Increased loft insulation by doubling it, we also did the garage roof space when we converted it and the old utility room into a bedroom & ensuite for my mum, so there's 150mm PIR in the floor, 150mm in the walls and 400mm in the loft above.

I'm also replacing windows here and there. Done a bedroom and a bathroom, as well as new doors front, back and patio... there's two massive windows in the lounge and master bedroom and we've been quoted £5000 just for those two, have to punt that down the road into next year... Got other priorities like replacing the knackered old conservatory for one with a warm roof.

Re: Had Solar + Battery installed nearly 3yrs ago

My dream (if I won the lottery of course) is to build my own home, and whilst the initial construction wouldn't be eco friendly... it would be virtually off grid. Ground source heat pump to underfloor heating throughout, plenty of solar & battery, a solar water heating system and a small wind turbine... or even a hydro one if I was lucky to have access to flowing water. Just getting rid of gas for heating and hot water would save me around £600-700 a year in use and standing charges. The heating is turned off from May to Sept normally.

Had Solar + Battery installed nearly 3yrs ago

I've got a 4kw array with 15.4kwh of battery storage, 12.4kwh usable (the rest is reserved to cover cell degradation over the 12yr warranty).

My 4 bed detached house uses in the region of 5500kwh of electric per year, we generate in the region of 4200kwh of electric per year (4256kwh in 2023, 3965kwh in 2024) and are on track for a record year this year breaking all records for generation. I'm WFH and spend a lot of spare time on computers too, we've got 3 desktops running during the day, and we cook with electric, only using gas for heating & hot water. So it's not unusual for the PC's alone to use up to 1kwh of energy for many hrs a day.

We spend around 6 months of the year off grid (less than 1kwh of import per day, as there's always some as load fluctuates) and we get 15p/kwh for export. We try to use as much as possible directly and only earn about £150 a year from export. But that's an extra £150 of the bills.

Last year we imported around 1800kwh of electric for the whole year and I consider last year a pretty poor year.

80% of our electric import happens between Nov-Feb.

We currently pay £100 a month to Octopus, and have a £962 credit with them. We typically get £200 a month gas/electric bills from Nov-Feb with the highest being £269 during extra cold weather. But last winter I beefed up the insulation in the loft and that seems to have helped a great deal too as part of the vaulted ceiling over the master bedroom had no insulation at all, and now has 400mm, whilst the rest was increased from 150mm to 300mm. I also insulated internal walls upstairs with acoustic insulation, and under the floor whilst doing some refurb work to master bedroom and ensuite... eliminating more cold spots above the front door. As I refurb more rooms, adding acoustic insulation to the last 2 internal bedroom walls.

Our yearly bills would be in the £2500 range for gas & electric and about £200 a month, as it stands, we pay £100 and build up a lot of credit over the last couple of years... and since my mum came to live with us, she throws her winter fuel payment (that she's just got back) on the bill too. The credit is so good, I'm going to see what it is in Feb 2026 and reduce the monthly payments probably to around £75. We are saving in the region of £1100-1200 a year inc any payments from export, and from Apr-Jul this year our combined energy bills have totalled £98 and August is looking like it will be around £25 (£13.50 as of the 17th)

If you can afford them without a loan, I cannot recommend them enough... I was lucky, We had money left over from the sale of 2 houses when we combined into 1 and it's paid for all of the DIY and refurb work we've done (Kitchen, utility, garage conversion, doors, windows, bedrooms & 2 bathrooms + the solar system). If you need a loan to do it, you won't actually be seeing those same savings, as the loan eats up as much as the lower bills provide.

Best thing I ever did... Now if only I can train my mum to understand that daylight does not equal 'entirely free electric' to turn of lights and TV's when she's not using them... but she's 79 and I don;t think that's ever going to happen. :)

Hyundai: Want cyber-secure car locks? That'll be £49, please

Re: I'm more determined than ever to keep my old Honda going

More rural location in North Wales... near to the sea and mountains. It's far more peaceful and better for your soul and sanity than living in rotting cities... and it's not just London, can't drive into most major cities any more without charges... and I'm ok with that.

I'm more determined than ever to keep my old Honda going

I'm driving a 7th gen Accord EX from 2008, it's a CDTi and still gets me in the region of 42-44mpg with the limited amount of driving I do these days (WFH since 2017).

At just over 17yrs old, it's got it's flaws... the cruise control no longer works, the centre LCD is flaky and goes off/on at random with bumps in the road (likely a dry joint on the PCB pins to the screen) and the bluetooth module failed a couple of years ago. I'd already replaced it with one I repaired (old trick of backing the PCB in the oven to reflow the solder can fix it some times).

But it drives well, passes it's MOT without issues and for a 17yr old car, on has 123k on the clock.

Everytime I read about 'newer' cars... I become more determined to keep it... it's reliable, I can get parts for it.. and there's no way for me to get f*cked in the arse by Honda... road tax is £18 a month, I put about £55 in diesel in it a month and fully comp insurance with all the bells and whistles is under £400 a year. I've only done 23k miles in that 6+yrs.

It also only cost me £1800 just over 6yrs ago.

Nearly maintenance free, wear and tear & servicing is all it's required... had a wheel bearing, rear brakes, discs and a full set of tyres in my ownership, and will be doing another new set of tyres and front discs/pads before winter.

All in... cost of ownership per year inc fuel, insurance, road tax and maintenance... less than £1500 a year.

Friends... buying new cars on leases and spending £300 a month on lease alone before fuel and insurance... at least 3x what I do.

I have been looking at a potential replacement... won't be diesel... no point now, don't do the longer runs that would benefit fuel use... won't be new... cash only purchase... used car prices are stupid expensive now. I saw an identical one to mine, same year, 20k fewer miles on it... £3200 6yrs after I paid £1800 for one with fewer miles on it at the time.

Was considering a hybrid of some kind... but I think, I'll switch to a petrol from mid 2010's... as long as it's Japanese built and has heated seats... I'm ok.