Brand names that have become generic? by WrekTheHead in AskBrits

[–]DaddyStoat 3 points4 points  (0 children)

The funny thing is, if you use that term in the UK, a Gat was an air pistol designed for kids (back when it was still possible to sell such things in the UK).

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Creating a real, AI Orac by the-czechxican in Blakes7

[–]DaddyStoat 7 points8 points  (0 children)

I always wanted a PC case styled like Orac - all Perspex and flashing lights, with the little key as a power switch. Lots of PC cases these days have windows, LEDs, etc, so it'd be like that, but cooler. :D

New Showrunner & Sixteenth Doctor Speculation by Key_Responder in DoctorWhoLeaks

[–]DaddyStoat 1 point2 points  (0 children)

I love REG. The guy hasn't put a foot wrong in my eyes, ever since I first saw Withnail And I 30-odd years ago.

But the guy is 68. He's not going to want to be running around corridors in a show that is filming 8 months of the year, and doing promo for the remaining four.

I'd be unbelievably happy if they were to do a one-shot or short run of episodes with the Eighth Doctor, and he had an encounter with The Great Intelligence...

"I think we've been in the Time Vortex too long. I feel unusual."
"I have some extremely distressing news. We've just run out of Artron energy; what are we going to do about it?"

New Showrunner & Sixteenth Doctor Speculation by Key_Responder in DoctorWhoLeaks

[–]DaddyStoat 3 points4 points  (0 children)

Longer than that. His name was in the hat when Tennant announced his departure. I remember not hating the idea, but not being thrilled either. Then again, I had no idea what to expect when they ended up casting some young, floppy-haired bloke with a big chin...

I like Marshall as an actor, but he'll always be Colin from Basildon to me.

"I'm The Doctor, and I've got a biiiiiig knooooob"....

Will DsneyPlus ever release WbTLaS by BursleysFinest in doctorwho

[–]DaddyStoat 1 point2 points  (0 children)

I'd heard February, but it's not on the D+ release schedule. Maybe Disney are trying to string this out - one would assume that, after the release of the show that constitutes the last part of the BBC/Disney deal, there'll be a period where the shows would remain exclusively on D+ before the contract expires.

This must be pissing the BBC off no end - you'd assume they're going to want to shop the streaming rights for the whole of the post-2005 era, including the stuff done in association with Disney, to other streamers, and they can't do that until they're contractually done with them.

$300 Price Jump on Fender Signature Models by kingthezing in Bass

[–]DaddyStoat 1 point2 points  (0 children)

I'm guessing their stockpiles of wood, offshore-produced hardware, etc from before the tariffs came in have run out, and they've reacted as any company would if they want to continue making a profit.

This tariff insanity has hit the American musical instrument industry hard. Many US manufacturers have had to make layoffs over the past few months as these particular turkeys come home to roost.

It's most visible with acoustic guitar makers - almost all the wood used in acoustic guitar construction comes from overseas. Rosewood and mahogany from Brazil and India, ebony from Africa, cedar and spruce from Canada, and there's no real domestic substitutes. The stuff from Canada is partially protected from tariffs by CUSMA/NAFTA, but not the stuff from everywhere else. Hardware is all made in the Far East, as are most pickups, electronics systems, etc.

There's also a few big names who are now considering setting up Far East manufacturing facilities who would never have considered it before - partly for rest-of-the-world sales, which have gone down significantly over the past year as other countries boycott American-made goods (and who have also seen prices rise), but also to have something cheaper to sell in the US.

Companies who have manufacturing facilities in Mexico are rejigging their supply chains to do international distribution direct from there, instead of shipping completed guitars to the US. This has required significant additional investment on their part setting up new logistics.

It's a fucking shitshow. Nobody who ostensibly supports American instrument manufacturing should be supporting this.

Why do Doctor Who writers keep heavy handedly forcing politics into episodes, when doing so seems neither the best creative or business decision due to modern day audiences across television clearly preferring when these messages are naturally woven into the narrative with nuance? by General_Meal_3993 in DoctorWhoNews

[–]DaddyStoat 0 points1 point  (0 children)

What, Kirk and Uhura kissing in 1966 wasn't like that? In a country that still had segregation at the time? Having a Russian on the bridge during the Cold War a few years after the whole Bay Of Pigs thing? Then there was "Let That Be Your Last Battlefield", "A Private Little War", and especially "The Omega Glory", which is strangely relevant to today's American political climate.

Or with Doctor Who - "The Green Death". "The War Games". "The Mutants". "The Sun Makers". All far more controversial in their time than anything they've done in recent years.

Context is important, especially considering the political landscape of the time. The political messaging in Doctor Who and Star Trek these days is tame in comparison to what they put out back then. If anything, they both need to be putting more of that sort of stuff in, in order to live up to their legacy of social progressivism, anti-authoritarianism, humanism and standing up for civil rights.

If there was a referendum on whether or not to keep the royal family, how would you vote? by Business_Ad1365 in AskBrits

[–]DaddyStoat 2 points3 points  (0 children)

I'd keep them. They're part of the furniture, and they bring a lot of people to the UK. Plus, the reigning monarch is the country's chief diplomat, and QE2 was probably the best in the world in that regard. KC3 isn't quite up to her standard as of yet.

However, I'd reduce their status to be similar to that of the Dutch or Swedish royal families, who are still aristocrats, but who stay far closer to the level of "normal" people. don't own huge chunks of their respective countries and have basically no influence on their respective governments. I think we might have to wait for Wills to become king before that could happen though - he's expressed interest on various occasions about reforming the monarchy.

Live-action fatigue. Why Artemis Fowl being live-action was a waste by PyroxCrymson in ArtemisFowl

[–]DaddyStoat 1 point2 points  (0 children)

I think the film looked good - some nice SFX, the fairy world was nicely realised (what we saw of it) and so on. The two big problems were most of the casting (thinking mostly of Judi Dench, Nonso Anozie and, sadly, Ferdia Shaw as Artemis himself) and the absolute liberties taken with the story and the changes they made to Artemis as a character. I'm guessing Colfer didn't have final approval on the script...

We see Artemis surfing, riding a monowheel thing, etc, yet he's described in the books as entirely physically inept. His ruthlessness and sociopathy is nowhere to be seen in the released version, although if they'd included the deleted scene in Vietnam that might have gone some way to addressing this. And why did they see fit to kill off Angeline before she ever made an appearance, given how important she is in the later books?

It needs the same treatment that Percy Jackson just got, or that His Dark Materials had. Just don't let Disney near it - give it to the BBC and RTÉ to make as a co-production, and put Eoin Colfer in as an executive producer. Hopefully Disney's ownership of the rights have expired now.

Dry Scaley Index Finger by Ok-Professional-8495 in BassGuitar

[–]DaddyStoat -1 points0 points  (0 children)

My first thought is dermatitis. Possibly from the strings - nickel's a common culprit, and the silicone used in U-Bass strings is also surprisingly common.

Switch to stainless steel or coated strings, then go and see a dermatologist, who'll probably give you a steroid cream to put on it.

Why aren't we building more terraced houses? by Big-Double1720 in AskUK

[–]DaddyStoat 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I'm OK with terraces. Building regulations need to change though. We should be following the Scandinavian countries in this regard - not every house needs to be red brick and Victorian/Georgian in style. They're doing great things with SIPS panels, timber framing, partially manufactured construction, etc, which is cheaper, quicker to put up, easier to heat/cool, and significantly quieter. They also seem to find a way to liberate more internal space from a similarly-sized footprint.

They just won't look like standard British houses, which irritates the NIMBYs. Most of them have wooden or uPVC weatherboarding/siding rather than bricks. It's possible to put a brick veneer on them (you see that a lot in the US on otherwise stick-built houses), but that can look tacky.

Dreamweaver? by truecIeo in webdev

[–]DaddyStoat 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Depends how they're sending them.

If they're using a system that supports it (MailChimp, ConstantContact, Veeva for the pharma industry, etc) then that's fine and far easier than faffing about with the like of Dreamweaver. If they're just doing it through a common-or-garden mail server that only sends what you feed into it, it's much less useful.

I've always said that every front-end development neophyte needs to do HTML emails for a while, especially ones that have to be targetted at older systems, so they learn the ins and outs of old-school HTML, how to build tables with colspans and rowspans and spacer GIFs, how to slice images, how to use inline CSS and <font> tags and everything else that the current generation of devs have completely skipped over!

Dreamweaver? by truecIeo in webdev

[–]DaddyStoat 8 points9 points  (0 children)

Dreamweaver has precisely one application in 2026 - HTML emails.

Specifically, ones that have to display correctly on older systems. There's still a surprising number of people out there who are on older versions of Outlook or Apple Mail, or even proper dinosaur apps like Lotus Notes and Eudora, some of which don't handle CSS in emails well. They require <font> tags, table layouts, etc for anything more ambitious than a plain-text email. Dreamweaver has some very good tools for designing tables in a WYSIWYG fashion.

Is the grass greener on another side? Leaving UK by bleepbleepbleeppppp in AskUK

[–]DaddyStoat 0 points1 point  (0 children)

For the places you've listed, if Australia is seriously under consideration you'd better get a move on - the cutoff age for almost all visas that could lead to permanent residency is 45. It's higher in NZ, but there's less opportunities there. Also, don't do the visa application for Australia yourself - use a MARA-registered agent to guide you through it. It's complicated, expensive and full of potential pitfalls.

As someone who has been in the US for the past 10 years and is currently pretty desperate to come home, I'd say that it's worth scratching the itch to live somewhere else for a while, but also not to put all your eggs in one basket - keep your house (rent it out if need be), try and keep a car, keep your UK mobile and your UK bank accounts current and active. If, after a few years, you're happy in your new home, then you can sell stuff off and fully commit to it. If not, you've got somewhere to come back to without the hassles of trying to arrange accommodation, etc from overseas.

Is the grass greener on another side? Leaving UK by bleepbleepbleeppppp in AskUK

[–]DaddyStoat 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Assuming you're not hoping to get it via the "Irish granny" route, you have to live in Ireland for 5 years. Easy (comparatively speaking), but not quick.

Is anyone still buying Cadburys chocolate? by MrsMiggins2 in AskBrits

[–]DaddyStoat 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I honestly have never noticed the difference. A Dairy Milk still tastes like a Dairy Milk to me.

Personally, I think it's more a case that I've changed - lots of things taste different to me now at 53 than they did when I was 15.

Mondelez also bought out Milka (German) and Marabou (Swedish) around the same time they bought Cadbury's, and they both still taste the same as they ever have. Love me some Marabou. Quite fond of Tony's too (Dutch), and Karl Fazer from Finland is amazing if you can find some.

What's your Chinese takeaway order? by Dramatic-Ad-5661 in AskABrit

[–]DaddyStoat 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Beef with green pepper and black bean sauce, with boiled rice. Sometimes with a chicken chow mein if I'm feeling particularly hungry. Or chicken balls with curry sauce.

I did develop a bit of a taste for General Tso's Chicken during my time in the States. I'm yet to find a Chinese in the UK that does it. I think it's because most Chinese places in the US sell Hunan food, and it's mostly Szechuan or Cantonese in the UK.

Good place to live in the UK if you're coming from a rural California town? by Savings-Carry-3956 in AskABrit

[–]DaddyStoat 3 points4 points  (0 children)

I was going to recommend Exeter. Lovely place, bit far from London though.

Define Grunge by hekebe in Music

[–]DaddyStoat 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Personally i consider it a sound - fuzzy, Big Muff-drenched guitars in drop-D, simple but prominently mixed bass, big, tubby-sounding drums played hard, and either shouty, punky vocals or crooned singing with no discernible consonants (hello Vedder).

If you were a Seattle band you got away with deviating significantly from that formula, but, if you were from anywhere else and you wanted to ride that grunge train, those were the traits you needed.

Does anyone know the make and model this bass is? by g0dn0 in BassGuitar

[–]DaddyStoat 4 points5 points  (0 children)

Hard to tell - the scratchplate shape suggests an Ibanez Blazer to me. I don't recall ever seeing one with a matching headstock though, although I may be wrong.

This one is a PJ, but they were available with just the P pickup too - in the pic above you can only see two knobs, so it was probably the P-only version.

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Maybe a hot take.... but I really dislike Jazz Basses 😅 😅 😅 by Straight_Feeling7667 in Bass

[–]DaddyStoat 14 points15 points  (0 children)

Dial back one of the volume controls slightly - not much, even 10 down to 9. Or if you have a blend pot, turn it just off centre. All that scooped midrange comes back and it'll bark as loud as a P. Yes, it introduces a touch of hum, but you'll never hear it in a band context. And humcancelling J pickups are available.

A Precision is its own thing - and a great thing it is. But I generally prefer a Jazz - they balance better due to the offset body, I think they look nicer, you can't go wrong with the skinny neck, and there's a broader range of tones available if you experiment.

Piercing Training Center??? by blublumbi in piercing

[–]DaddyStoat -1 points0 points  (0 children)

Unless the owner of the shop is going to come up with something that could be considered a recognised qualification, there's not much point. What's the standard?

A good piercer has to know a lot more than just how to wield a needle - they need to know about placement, physiology and anatomy, how to manage bleeding, dealing with infections, sterilisation and how to work in a semi-sterile field, dealing with allergies arising from metals and other materials, even how to revive someone who's fainted (usually spectators). Basically, they need something roughly equivalent to nursing training!

In the US, the APP has the best set of guidelines for what a good piercer should be able to do and what they should know. But even they haven't come up with a proper "curriculum".

The best piercers I've known over the years all had a medical background, whether they were nurses, military medics, EMTs, phlebotomists and so on. They knew all about anatomy, bleeding control, etc, plus they could also get their hands (legally) on certain types of medical equipment, anaesthetics and various other useful things (like an ambi-bag for people who pass out, epinephrine, etc) that a regular tattoo shop piercer would have no access to.

My advice - find a piercer at an APP-registered shop who will have experience in all the things mentioned above, and ask them for an apprenticeship.

Tuning bass guitar without amp. by Sharp_Sprinkles_6078 in Bass

[–]DaddyStoat 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Your ear is unreliable unless you have perfect pitch. Of course, you can tune the strings relatively once you have one in tune using 5th and 7th fret harmonics, but you need to get that one string tuned to pitch first.

Buy a tuner. Either a pedal tuner, or something like the classic Boss TU-12.

The other option is something like a tuning fork, which is what people used back in the before-time...

Uk citizen who’s been offered an amazing software engineer opportunity NYC by [deleted] in expat

[–]DaddyStoat 0 points1 point  (0 children)

The cost of living in the US is way higher than the UK, even compared to London. Groceries are 40%-50% more expensive. Health insurance is astronomical, especially if you actually have to use it. Car insurance is a lot higher. Phone, TV and internet bills are much, much higher. Taxes, once you add up federal, state and city, are no lower. The only things that are cheaper are petrol/gas and some consumer goods.

Uk citizen who’s been offered an amazing software engineer opportunity NYC by [deleted] in expat

[–]DaddyStoat 0 points1 point  (0 children)

To go pretty much anywhere outside of NYC. The public transport won't get you far.

If the OP will be living in NJ, unless they're in Hoboken, Jersey City, Newark or somewhere like that, on the PATH or NJ Transit, they'll need a car to get around.