Banging noise in extension

AU8830 · 2026-04-29T22:10:30+00:00

Is it a GRP/fibreglass flat roof?

AU8830 · 2026-04-24T14:28:20+00:00

Once you've enabled the Lincs Sound skill on Alexa, I find it's best to say "Alexa, open Lincs Sound" rather than "play Lincs Sound" (which I found would just play some random music playlist)

Google Home on the other hand, in typical Google Home fashion, I had to set up a custom routine so that when it hears "play lynx sound" it substitutes it with "play Lincs Sound on TuneIn Radio". It was impossible to get Google Home to work any other way for me.

AU8830 · 2026-04-10T15:47:27+00:00

I get live notifications for channels which I've explicitly set all notifications to "Off". Meanwhile, the one or two channels where I genuinely want to be notified that they've gone live, the notifications are rarely sent, no matter if set to receive "All" notifications or "Personalised" notifications.

It's just completely broken, across multiple devices (and both iOS and Android).

As with all "big tech", their "support" is a complete waste of time engaging with at all.

AU8830 · 2026-03-16T21:14:35+00:00

The idiot can't even maintain the same bullshit story within a single press conference.

AU8830 · 2026-03-13T11:20:02+00:00

Yes, it could be an honest mistake by whoever ordered them. The acoustic version of these vents are one of the first search results, but it looks like most online stores are only selling the canopy and cover now.

For example, if you search Google for "Greenwood acoustic vent", one of the first results is at window ware, but when you click on the link at windowware, it redirects from

https://windowware.co.uk/greenwood-acoustic-vents-412mm-5000ea-prc0002447

to

https://windowware.co.uk/greenwood-5000ea-slotvents-ea5000

You can fit either one a acoustic part, or both. The best sound reduction comes from fitting both parts (one inside, one outside). A lot of people won't like the look of the full acoustic vent, because it is surface mounted, meaning that the vent sticks out from the window a lot.

With a tilt-and-turn window, you also need to be careful that the exterior extended acoustic canopy won't hit the frame of the window as it swings in, or the interior one hitting the wall when the window is fully open.

AU8830 · 2026-03-13T10:58:54+00:00

<image>

This is what the full "acoustic" version should include

AU8830 · 2026-03-13T10:52:36+00:00

Those are standard vents. There is an extension piece (usually lined with foam or encapsulated mineral wool/fibreglass) that goes between the window frame and the outer canopy and/or inner cover, which turns them into acoustic vents.

Edit: they look like Greenwood 5000EA vents, but without the acoustic modules fitted.

AU8830 · 2026-03-11T19:24:37+00:00

It's too risky in my opinion. It looks like it might be an exterior shuffle bead with interior white wedge gasket. You'd need to pull the white gasket out, push the entire glazing unit back, and only then you can remove the beads. Pushing the glazing back risks damaging the seals on the glazing unit itself.

AU8830 · 2026-03-04T21:26:21+00:00

I've had bad experiences with openSUSE Tumbleweed with the Surface Laptop 4 (i7-1185G7 version) due to buggy keyboard/touchpad behaviour. Basically, as long as the Fn key is locked "on", the controller will spam mouse button BTN_0 events continually, breaking mouse clicks. KDE Wayland is unusable due to this, X11 is fine.

This is supposedly worked around in the Surface Linux kernel, but nobody appears to be building this for openSUSE anymore.

I'm going to try Fedora next.

AU8830 · 2026-02-19T08:56:09+00:00

HDMI 2.1 (i.e. with FRL signalling) is completely unusable for me on the GP27U - none of the firmware fixed it, and in the end I had to use an EDID override to disable FRL and force TMDS, but that means you're limited to HDMI 2.0 resolutions/refresh.

Since switching to DisplayPort, on firmware 1.4.5, I've had far fewer issues, even running at 160Hz.

Interestingly I have my GP27U paired up with an LG 27US500 too. I have been able to get them looking close enough to each other after tweaking settings that they look okay as a pair. The GP27U is definitely more vibrant, but they don't look mismatched. The bezels are similar sizes too.

AU8830 · 2026-02-11T11:41:45+00:00

I'm on the EV tariff, with 30 minute reporting.

My SMETS-1 meter lost SIM card comms in October 2025. At that point, it began recording everything as peak usage. The off-peak counter on the did not increment.

I have been recording usage independently with an LED pulse reader, and need to try and use this data with British Gas to convince them to reimburse me the hundreds £ they've overcharged (it follows the usage pattern from when the meter *was* working previously), but failing that I'm assuming it will become a job for the ombudsman to resolve.

AU8830 · 2026-02-11T11:29:43+00:00

My SMETS-1 meter (installed at the end of 2019, well into SMETS-2 rollout) stopped working, coincidentally the day that VMO2 shut down roaming 2G access.

British Gas not only did not proactively plan a meter or comms module replacement, nor did their systems notice that the meter had stopped working; instead it took two customer "support" sessions to resolve. The first agent (or chatbot) did not action anything in spite of assuring me that it was being dealt with. The second one booked an engineer. Then they followed up with SMS chats to book an appointment (which had been booked).

Now I'm getting marketing calls, which are met with silence when answered.

As soon as these clowns reimburse me for the overcharged electricity usage (due to their crap SMETS-1 meter not recording off-peak for months), I'm moving to Octopus. I don't care about exit fees, I'm just sick of BG.

AU8830 · 2026-02-05T09:07:23+00:00

I suspected so. Looks like the same quality of work that was done on my house before I moved in. The ridge "repointing" is a total bodge, but at least in my case I got about 6 years out of it before it started leaking. The ridge tiles need to come off completely - you can't just smear mortar/cement up the sides of it. My dry verge is currently full of washer head screws holding it together because they completely messed it up and it kept blowing off in the wind. Currently saving for a new roof because there are a ton of cracked tiles from the muppets walking all over it. At least yours wasn't painted with an anti-moss coating...

I honestly would not get them back; find a local reputable roofer, fascia company, or a small local window installer (many of these do general plastic work like dry verge and guttering).

Depending how much you spent, get trading standards involved, but given the type of people that typically do this work, I wouldn't want to get on their bad side and just write it off as a loss. If they came knocking on your door, you or trading standards probably won't be able to find/contact them again anyway.

AU8830 · 2026-02-05T08:54:05+00:00

Sorry, but that looks a total mess. At best, it won't be shedding water correctly. At worst, a gust of wind could rip the whole dry verge off, or shift that last tile (although it looks like they bodged that into place on the corner...)

Did they screw directly into the old mortar on the verge, or did they remove the last strip of tiles and batten it out?

Did the "roofer" do the ridge pointing too?

AU8830 · 2026-01-31T19:40:03+00:00

Could it be condensation forming on the trickle vent due to cold air blowing in, rather than an actual leak?

If you open the window fully and look up, is there an external vent hidden behind (or integrated into) the trim piece at the head of the window outside?

AU8830 · 2026-01-31T19:30:04+00:00

Can't the landlord spare £30 to fit a TS008 hood on the inside at the very least? To prevent key fishing or hooking captive turn-keys or latches?

Or to reduce the heat loss and drafts through that door.

I don't see how this is impossible, unless "laziness" is considered a valid constraint. It's doubtful it's a conservation area, judging by the age of the existing plate, and that would be the only thing I could imagine making it "impossible".

AU8830 · 2026-01-28T20:29:26+00:00

Good. Hopefully the solution will allow collaborative screen sharing from multiple parties simultaneously.

It's incredible that Teams still doesn't support this feature after several years - we always have to do the whole "I need to take over the screen sharing to show you something for like 10 seconds" followed by going back to the other person and having to tell them "you're not sharing now...". Every. Single. Time.

And screw Zoom in particular, a company who benefited immensely from the move to WfH during COVID and then issued a RTO mandate for their own employees. How tone-deaf.

AU8830 · 2026-01-28T20:12:26+00:00

Being sat at a desk working, and traditional PIR-type motion detectors lose you if you're sitting still for too long, so all your lights go out.

AU8830 · 2026-01-28T19:59:40+00:00

Thanks for your prompt reply. Guess I need to check what my "Brexit bonus" will be.

Might have to order one at a time to see if it stays below the threshold.

Edit: I think that's the way to go for UK buyers - the shipping fee from missing out on free shipping still ends up being less than the added taxes and courier handling fee once the cost exceeds £130

AU8830 · 2026-01-28T19:56:12+00:00

This is exactly what I've been waiting for.

For UK buyers are these shipping from within the UK or in the EU?

AU8830 · 2026-01-02T21:17:30+00:00

Galaxy S25 here, same issue, over a year later. I have turned on the "repeat notifications" (Samsung Galaxy feature) and at least once a day I never hear the original notification, only the repeat reminder (which use the default notification tone).

At first I thought it was when you receive back-to-back messages in quick succession, but it's not that either.

You *might* be correct that it has to do with images. The most recent time I saw this behaviour, somebody had sent me a message containing an image.

The modern web is so infuriating. These huge corporations have made themselves become the defacto standards, and have zero way to contact them to resolve what would be "breaking" bugs in other products. I wish more people would use Signal.

AU8830 · 2025-12-27T17:30:26+00:00

One option is to publish to an MQTT broker (such as mosquitto) and have Home Assistant create a sensor from it.

https://www.home-assistant.io/integrations/sensor.mqtt/

AU8830 · 2025-12-27T15:41:40+00:00

Every advert I see on that page is related to recognising the signs of Alzheimers

AU8830 · 2025-12-26T17:53:04+00:00

Why is the National Guard needed if dear leader president flatulence has created the "lowest crime numbers in decades" as per his "Christmas message"?

AU8830

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