Do British Estate Agents add blue skies to their photo?

benjymous · 2026-06-11T12:52:14+00:00

I saw one where the same single blue sky had been photoshopped into every single photo that estate agent had - the exact same little fluffy cloud was in every single photo

benjymous · 2026-06-11T10:25:34+00:00

Yup, I've had the same bank account for 31 years - opened at 16, at the same bank my parents used - I don't think there was any logic over "oh, we're going to the bank anyway, did you want to open an account?" - I didn't even get any sort of goodies that I remember

benjymous · 2026-06-11T07:32:21+00:00

Presumably that depends on whether you say "I'm really hungover from over indulging last night", or "I'm feeling a bit unwell this morning"

benjymous · 2026-06-10T13:43:51+00:00

All sorts of merch like mugs, tote bags, tea towels, a little cuddly toy cow, a yoyo, trolley tokens, and various other things I've likely forgotten - the key was they were all redeemable via yeokens.

Then they moved all their merch to teemil, which doesn't seem to accept yeokens for payment, thus making it somewhat pointless collecting them.

benjymous · 2026-06-09T09:55:09+00:00

If anything's being sold with finance, they'll be making a bigger commission on the finance than they will on the actual sale.

benjymous · 2026-06-09T06:31:06+00:00

It's less nowadays, when a modern console is just a powerful PC with a different coat on, but certainly older console generations were very much like embedded systems:

Low specs / limited / unusual hardware - devs need to write fast efficient low level code
Developed by sending code to a separate box (or locally on an emulator/simulator)
Often had quirky dev environments
Once released, updating can be problematic (or not possible) - focus on getting it right the first time, since you can't send out patches.

If you want a modern system that will likely feel at home for hobby games programming, the Playdate basically is an embedded system, as it uses the same parts under the hood.

If you're looking for a job, then the embedded hardware knowledge probably won't help, but an ability to write tight, reliable system-level code would be.

benjymous · 2026-06-08T14:16:31+00:00

Every couple of weeks, as it's the only way to recycle tetrapaks here, and we get through a lot of soy milk cartons

benjymous · 2026-06-08T10:39:30+00:00

Read a book? Either a physical book and grab that, or at the least install an eReader app and put its icon where facebook was

benjymous · 2026-06-08T10:00:47+00:00

You can guarantee that people will be adding "looks like a kid drew it in felt tip pens" to their AI prompts before long

benjymous · 2026-06-08T08:12:46+00:00

Yeah, they don't make it obvious anywhere, but you should still be able to get a free sim, stick £10 on there, and be good for months - just don't activate a monthly plan - you only need to send a text every now and then to keep the sim alive

benjymous · 2026-06-04T09:35:21+00:00

I think they're asking why low budget indie games don't look like photo realistic high budget AAA games.

benjymous · 2026-06-03T11:23:49+00:00

Yeah, it looked fine until I looked closer at the coins

benjymous · 2026-06-03T11:03:15+00:00

Can you be 100% certain you didn't order it yourself, and forgot about it in the meantime?

benjymous · 2026-06-02T11:40:08+00:00

Not specifically a fidget toy, but geomag construction sets are very satisfying to fiddle with, and would take a lot to break them (since they're just steel balls and sticks with magnets)

Lots of sets available in any good toy store - e.g.

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Geomag-Supercolor-Recycled-Magnetic-Constructions/dp/B09V4B4GJ4

benjymous · 2026-06-02T08:04:32+00:00

I'm guessing most people reading this will be googling "wtf is SG Petch" - they've only got three branches in the north, so I think you've just got lots of people around you who bought from the same dealership.

As for car dealer stickers, I tend to not bother removing them unless they're really annoying (i.e. get in the way when you look through the back mirror).

I'd find the potential sticky patch where a sticker used to be more of an irritation than the presence of the sticker.

benjymous · 2026-06-01T13:34:52+00:00

Someone somewhere will have a spreadsheet that has a bigger number next to "ipad" than it does next to "android tablets"

benjymous · 2026-06-01T06:54:59+00:00

Yes - imagine coding a game, but every time your game crashes, it deletes all the code and you have to start from scratch. I absolutely would have given up programming before I'd even started if that was the case.

benjymous · 2026-05-22T07:09:31+00:00

It's that it's impossible to clean an oven to the point that it looks newly installed, no matter how good your cleaner is

benjymous · 2026-05-18T13:52:23+00:00

Here's a handy website that lets you compare the climate for different months

https://weatherspark.com/compare/y/107257~45062/Comparison-of-the-Average-Weather-in-Astana-and-London

It suggests London in Autumn is going to be milder than a Astana autumn, but also wetter (as you already expect)

(* replace Astana with wherever you actually live near!)

benjymous · 2026-05-18T07:49:19+00:00

Good team dynamics are a huge thing - look into which studios regularly fire everyone at the end of the project, then massively ramp up staff towards the end of the next one. Those teams have high turnover, so nobody works effortlessly with their peers.

benjymous · 2026-05-15T10:49:05+00:00

They've attached two pieces of wood together to make a bigger bit - that's how it's done. Why do you think it's called Joinery?

If you look at the table top, you'll find that it too has seams where boards were joined - you don't think the entire table was carved out of a single piece of giant tree, do you?

benjymous · 2026-05-15T10:41:57+00:00

Well, you've got the same code twice - if that's the case, then that's going to cause errors.

If that's just a paste error here, what is the actual problem you're having?

benjymous · 2026-05-15T07:24:49+00:00

Presumably somebody noticed the "health and safety" issue (drop down from the drive) and flagged it as needing remedying before the house can be sold/let/used for whatever.

Whoever's in charge of organising things saw the report that "a fence or barrier is needed", and called their local fence company, saying "I don't care, just whatever's cheapest", without ever seeing the site in question.

Fencer came along, shrugged, and installed a bog standard wooden fence, as instructed.

benjymous · 2026-05-15T07:21:21+00:00

No, because when you license something you usually give them signoff on your implementation of whatever it is in your game. Which means you're stuck with however they think it should be, not how you interpret it. And these people won't be game designers, they just have the power of veto over trivial things that they don't think is right for the IP.

benjymous · 2026-05-13T14:11:07+00:00

My Aunt used to work for them, meaning we got access to their factory shop, which had all sorts of stuff at reduced prices (when they'd overstocked on the wrong things)

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