oldcynic

12 ms·

61.
by oldcynic 8y ago
Or you could, you know, fill a bottle from the tap before leaving home?
62.
by oldcynic 8y ago
Reverse anecdote here. I paid into my pension and hindsight clearly shows I should have paid off the mortgage instead thanks to horrific long term pension performance. Actually I should have completely skipped any pension at all and paid i
63.
by oldcynic 8y ago
Pay off the mortgage. The sense of freedom and security from no longer being on that particular 25 year debt treadmill is quite profound. Mortgage rates could return to 1980s 10%+ and you couldn't care less. Course if you're plann
64.
by oldcynic 8y ago
A very good point. After reading the linked 99% piece linked above I'd perhaps extend that to "stigma, hubris and marketing". It's not very "modern" either is it? Hmm. I wonder if that's why we got the pos
65.
by oldcynic 8y ago
So where do you place Aethaer who are selling bottles of "fresh" air? http://www.aethaer.com/shop There are companies selling other nationalities of air. (It's bad enough just writing that out) Aethaer seem
66.
by oldcynic 8y ago
It's more shocking to realise how much we've needlessly thrown away. There's a vast selection of old architectural techniques for controlling environment that we've thrown away, preferring to bolt an AC unit to a hugely
67.
by oldcynic 8y ago
Ironic you pick on Metallica as example as they basically "won" the loudness wars[0] with the release of Death Magnetic. So ridiculously overblown and compressed that it was clipping constantly and heavily featured in mainstream m
68.
by oldcynic 8y ago
I think Canada and Mexico might take issue with this plan.
69.
by oldcynic 8y ago
Have you tried getting adequate and affordable child care? Fortunately our kids don't need it any more. It hugely restricts available options. Either from hours available, lengthy waiting lists or simply finding that after paying child
70.
by oldcynic 8y ago
Maybe they should exclude people who've seen Lucy and other such movie silliness.
71.
by oldcynic 8y ago
Well I sincerely hope this trend catches on. It's about time. Throughout my career recruiters are active about contact for two reasons only: To chase you for leads and contacts in your current place (sometimes so blatantly that the mom
72.
by oldcynic 8y ago
Is Michael Marshall Smith well known in the US? Intruders was made into a BBC America series, but his earlier works are much more interesting. Only Forward, One of Us, What You Make It, or Spares from the nineties are all well written, and
73.
by oldcynic 8y ago
Seconded. They are excellent. I must re-read them. Water Margin[0] came to UK on TV in the early 80s from Japanese TV. Gained quite a following. Journey to the West came to the UK as Monkey[1] (again a Japanese adaptation) around the same t
74.
by oldcynic 8y ago
...and? Before Japan it was Hong Kong and South Korea making the crap, before that someone else. South Korea was authoritarian and autocratic, whilst its economy grew at breakneck pace starting in the 60s, and remained so until the late 90s
75.
by oldcynic 8y ago
How many under 18s in that 325m? UBI would be for those of working age would it not? I've seen arguments UBI should include pensioners, but never for it to include minors.
76.
by oldcynic 8y ago
China produces some excellent quality, and a vast amount of awful quality as for the last couple of decades that has been their selling point. It's not so long ago that it was Japan that produced mostly crap and made lots of inferior c
77.
by oldcynic 8y ago
I guess the craftspeople making scissors don't agree. From occasional hobbies I find the sense of achievement from a manual or engineering task done well is actually far higher than from software. See Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Main
78.
by oldcynic 8y ago
Hard to be sure, but the Golf is occupying the same niche, small hatchback, that it was 40 years ago. Half a tonne of extra weight is hard to explain easily though. Wikipedia shows basic dimensions, but doesn't really explain where the
79.
by oldcynic 8y ago
That's funny, I've read the claim multiple times in the media amongst the controversy over its procurement. Not least because it took years for the US:UK dispute over technology transfer to resolve during the Bush+Blair years. Eve
80.
by oldcynic 8y ago
It would be cheaper to fully demolish and rebuild with a typical bland curtain wall box. So where's the economic case? There doesn't appear to be one. If it's a means of evading some regulation I'd have expected a regula
81.
by oldcynic 8y ago
Isn't it the case that the only nation getting an F35 comparable to the US version is the UK? It's unclear if even that version is the same. Everyone else seems to be getting some sort of F35 lite export version, including Austral
82.
by oldcynic 8y ago
When I'm buying privately I care about the price I pay - not the price a business can pay when reclaiming the VAT. It's not like VAT is going away with next change of govt, or even with Brexit. Everything gives you a receipt bre
83.
by oldcynic 8y ago
> Individual car weight has diminished enormously during the last 50 years Actually quite the reverse. Individual car weight has increased enormously. The Mk1 Volkswagen Golf (1974) weighed 790-970kg. The current Mk7 weighs 1351-1395kg
84.
by oldcynic 8y ago
Should we ignore the escalating amounts of waste, mainly from single use packaging, in the developed world meanwhile?
85.
by oldcynic 8y ago
So is the result of just about every facade preservation. Some fine examples here: https://inspiringcity.com/2016/02/14/facadism-the-laziest-an...
86.
by oldcynic 8y ago
I've never understood the point of this. Why keep the often beautiful Edwardian or Victorian facade if what you construct behind it doesn't respect anything of the original you went to such lengths to keep? Bolt a standard office
87.
by oldcynic 8y ago
I'm not sure either - and there's one of the problems. We're not given the full cost and consequence of each alternative. I did read a piece a few months back discussing glass against recycled plastic. Plastic apparently need
88.
by oldcynic 8y ago
UK ban of free plastic bags has been a resounding success if you go on the lack of bags littering streets and countryside. Surprisingly perhaps the UK media seems in favour of the straws and stirrers changes (possibly excluding the Daily Ma
89.
by oldcynic 8y ago
It's great that there's loads of tutorials out there on most topics. it's not so good that so many of them are crap, or straight up wrong. > it is your responsibility as a learner to decide if something makes sense or not
90.
by oldcynic 8y ago
As a few other comments, and the well known adage, have noted the best way to learn something is to teach it. But I do take issue with "write a tutorial about it", quite strongly. Why is teaching so helpful to learning? It forces

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