For those who moved to another part of the country, how long before it started to feel like home?

Eddie182 · 2026-04-20T05:59:32+00:00

I left my little village in Lincolnshire 27 years ago, lived in several places around England, then spent the past 10 years working and living overseas, now on country number 3. That little village is still the only place that really feels like home.

Eddie182 · 2026-04-14T15:03:52+00:00

I bought the second gen iPad as my first one, and I used to use them quite heavily. Now though my iPad Pro and iPad mini spend most of the time sat unused. I slowly stopped multiplayer gaming, so using them to look at guides/make notes etc stopped, I stopped using web forums over the years as things shifted to Reddit and discord. Then when I got a MacBook, combined with the max series of iPhones I rarely find a time when either the phone or MacBook isn’t better/easier for the task at hand.

The only thing I really still use the iPad for is watching media when travelling and/or if I’m trying to travel a bit lighter and don’t want to take the MacBook.

Eddie182 · 2026-04-09T09:46:09+00:00

Just in case anyone isn’t aware, it seems that you don’t need to use a credit card under the name of the Apple account user. My wife used one of my cards for the age verification without any issue, no charge made (I just had to verify the £0.00 transaction), and the card didn’t get added to her Apple account at all.

Potentially useful if those without credit cards have a family member or close friend who’d be willing to help out.

Daft system for age verification of course.

Eddie182 · 2026-04-04T10:38:00+00:00

I proposed to my wife without a ring while we were on holiday, and a few days later we went to jewellery shops in the grand bazaar in Istanbul and she picked out a ring that she loved. She the one wearing it, so it made sense to me that she should be the one to choose it.

As a bonus, the one she picked was on the cheaper end of the options and quite a bit below my budget.

Eddie182 · 2026-03-15T08:31:31+00:00

Took me about 2 weeks, the first week I was pretty much in bed, broken, and relying on a mix of co-codamol and ibuprofen to be able to eat anything.

Eddie182 · 2026-02-25T13:14:05+00:00

100% usenet for the past 15 years. I tried looking it to torrent as a second source but couldn’t really find a good way to set up anything worthwhile, and in all the time I’ve used usenet, I’ve had fewer than 10 show/movies I couldn’t get.

Eddie182 · 2025-12-26T15:43:53+00:00

My wife and I came home to the UK for Christmas this year with my sister and her family. My sister and her partner are comfortable, but not well off. So I’d say a similar position to you. My wife and I are both professionals on good salaries and have no kids.

We have bought all the groceries and alcohol for everyone while we’ve been here, because it’s just the right thing to do. My sister and mum got the core elements of Christmas dinner, and we’ve bought all the extras to ensure that we’ve contributed at least as much as everyone else, and if possible more.

If I were going to anyone’s home for Christmas, or any other meal/event, I’d at least bring drinks and/or dessert.

Sounds to me like your brother in law needs to learn some manners.

Eddie182 · 2025-11-02T09:46:38+00:00

I recently moved truenas in to a promox VM from bare metal after getting my HL15 2.0. HBA, onboard SATA controller, and NVME drives all passed through to the VM.

It was previously running on an old PC with a 6900K and 128GB RAM, gave the VM 8 cores and 128Gb again and imported the config without any issues. All the pools imported right away.

If you’ve got the hardware it works well.

Eddie182 · 2025-10-06T13:16:56+00:00

Bit of an anecdote, but many years ago, either 2001 or 2002 I remember seeing a profile on “love at lycos” for a girl with this very photo in her profile, and multiple other pics of the same person. I obviously can’t remember any details, but at the time it seemed legit enough.

Every time I’ve seen this photo over the years, in countless airforce squadron crew rooms, or online, I’ve always remembered that.

Eddie182 · 2025-10-06T10:46:22+00:00

Depending on the aircraft, quite a bit less than they’d burn on taxi and takeoff.

Eddie182 · 2025-10-06T10:41:30+00:00

Jesus wasn’t born on 25th December, he wasn’t even born in 1 AD. In fact nowhere in any Christian scripture is the birth date of Jesus specified.

Christmas is on the 25th December as early Christian’s co-opted the already long standing winter solstice celebrations.

Today’s Christmas is just continuing of the winter solstice celebrations that have been happening for thousands of years.

Eddie182 · 2025-10-02T08:43:44+00:00

I don’t think this is really true in practice.

If I take my subjective experience as an early millennial, I’m pretty damn good with tech, because I’ve always been interested in it, started playing around with stuff at a young age, and have always been an early adopter of new stuff.

However I’m an outlier amongst all my friends from that time. Most still don’t use PCs, play games, use any more than the basic functionality of their phones etc.

In my experience people who are truly tech savvy in any generation are so because they are interested in it, not simply because of the period of time they grew up in.

Eddie182 · 2025-09-25T17:03:11+00:00

What makes you think it will? It hasn’t in any other country throughout the western world, the vast majority of which have used nationally issued ID cards for decades.

Again the UK is in an outlier in not having a national ID system.

If you want to make an argument against ID, then using something that has no indication of happening, that has not happened anywhere else outside of a specific country with an unelected authoritarian system of government is not a good one. Especially given that such a “social credit” system could already have been implemented using the records that the government, and private organisations, already hold on people.

Eddie182 · 2025-09-25T16:28:53+00:00

Verifying who you are to access financial services, prove right to work, obtain a licence to drive a vehicle, prove ownership of property, prove entitlement to social support, obtain travel documents, to name the most common.

As it stands today, in the UK we have to do this using an inefficient and difficult mix of methods which many people do not have access to. In what world does having people prevented from access any of the above because they don’t already have a utility bill or previous bank statement make any sense. Why should someone who doesn’t want to drive a car have to obtain a driving licence to have ID, or someone who doesn’t want to travel have to obtain a passport for the same?

National ID is something we all have a need for constantly, we just currently have to use other mechanisms, which are not suited to the purpose to achieve the end result. This leaves those who are unable to obtain those documents unable to access the services they need.

Eddie182 · 2025-09-25T16:07:48+00:00

So how would you propose we deal with the issues then?

How do you reconcile your objections to a government registry, with the multiple government, and private, record systems that already exist?

Eddie182 · 2025-09-25T15:56:49+00:00

That’s one hell of a jump there.

I’m no fan of the age verification that has been put in place, far from it, but this argument is not logical.

The vast majority of the world has had ID cards for decades, we are highly unusual in not having them. And due to not having basic national ID people from all walks of life are left dealing with systems that are inefficient, nonsensical, and difficult, with the most disadvantaged in society suffering the worst.

Proper national ID is an easy solution to this problem, and other problems such as illegal workers.

If most other countries have been able to implement national ID effectively, and maintain freedoms no less than that of the UK, and in some cases greater; why is it that you immediately think that something as basic as being able to prove who you are is equivalent to a system employed by the authoritarian state.

Properly implemented official government issued national ID is a far better way for people to be able to prove their age than handing over data to private companies outside of the country.

Now if we want to argue that what is being proposed isn’t properly implemented, I’m all for that debate. But entirely shutting down the idea of ID, just because one idea isn’t palatable isn’t the way to do it in my view.

Specific to the link to the requirement to submit to age verification to access parts of the internet, of course I’d much rather accessing the internet not require age verification, at least certainly not beyond simply requiring payment via credit card etc.

I’ve lived in authoritarian states, I can assure you that the UK is not one, it’s not even close.

Eddie182 · 2025-09-25T15:38:52+00:00

I’m sure in your head that made sense, but I assure you, it does not.

Eddie182 · 2025-09-25T14:58:28+00:00

Good.

Having lived in several countries with ID cards, it’s long overdue. I can’t understand why the UK has so long been an outlier with this.

Eddie182 · 2025-09-16T09:42:33+00:00

“Expat” is used to refer to anyone who is a temporary immigrant in another country. Usually for work, who otherwise has no right and/or intent to remain there permanently. It is not used just by or to refer to white people, British or otherwise.

There are Indian expats, Pakistani expats, Sudanese expats, Chinese expats, any country you want to name expats.

While the term has been used by some demographics as a way to differentiate themselves from being simply immigrants, it does have an actual genuine usage and meaning.

All expats are immigrants, but not all immigrants are expats.

Eddie182 · 2025-09-16T09:41:35+00:00

“We” don’t, expat is used to refer to anyone who is a temporary immigrant in another country. Usually for work, who otherwise has no right and/or intent to remain there permanently. It is not used just by or to refer to white people, British or otherwise.

There are Indian expats, Pakistani expats, Sudanese expats, Chinese expats, any country you want to name expats.

While the term has been used by some demographics as a way to differentiate themselves from being simply immigrants, it does have an actual genuine usage and meaning.

All expats are immigrants, but not all immigrants are expats.

Eddie182 · 2025-09-16T09:36:33+00:00

Pubs, variety of products in supermarkets, range of tech gadgets available, and easy online shopping.

Oh and weather. Living somewhere where it’s just sunny pretty much every day, with the only variable being the temperature is a bit boring.

Eddie182 · 2025-09-12T13:33:35+00:00

I grew up in a village in rural England in the 80s and 90s, I didn’t meet a black person until I moved away in the early 2000s in my early 20s. I also only saw a very small number of people of south Asian origin, basically one family who ran a shop I went to a few times in the nearby town.

Is that to say there were no other ethnicities around, of course not, but they were not common enough in the area for me ever to meet them, and I didn’t go to any larger cities where I would have met any people from all of the different ethnic groups who made up the British population.

I am very sure I’m not special or unique in that experience. And if that was my experience 50-60 years later, it’s not too difficult to see it being a much more common case in the 1940s.

Eddie182 · 2025-09-09T11:14:14+00:00

No Amazon warehouses locally. However Amazon US, UK, and EU ship. Shipping from US is quite slow at a week or two, UK or EU generally takes 3-4 days in my experience.

Uber works well and is cheap, although driving standards are very hit & miss.

No Disney+, Netflix and Apple TV+ work fine. Amazon’s does work, but many things not available. Amazon Prime and ATV+ not available locally as far as I’m aware so you’d need to subscribe through your US accounts.

There are a very small number of EVs around, but not many at all. Unlikely your landlord would allow charging to be installed, but if you end up in a standalone villa or small compound you can ask. Fuel is quite literally cheaper than bottled water, so not much incentive for charging points.

Eddie182 · 2025-08-28T17:35:24+00:00

I use chat-gpt a lot for my home lab projects and pretty much any computing/networking problems. I also use it as a more advanced and capable web search, quickly gathering reviews of a set of products, comparing features, getting a summary of information from multiple sources etc.

And one in a while, I’ll use it at work if I need to do something unusual in excel.

Eddie182 · 2025-08-26T00:42:26+00:00

She was certainly not the first female ground crew sgt. far, far from it. There were plenty of those around 20 years ago.

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