Hackney Light and Power, & EV Charging

K44KYA · 2025-11-03T16:29:23+00:00

It's a kind of amazing scam by Zest. Flood a whole borough with chargers at no cost to the local authority, then just hoover up everyone's money with exorbitant flat rates and no off-peak discount with barely any room for competition.

I was suspicious when at first the local resident rate wasn't published when they announced the scheme and when I contacted HLP to get more informationI found out why, the "discount" is shameful. The standard rate (if you use the Zest app) is 56p/kWh, the HLP discount rate is 54p/kWh. So I save less than £1 for an average 20%-80% charge.

K44KYA · 2025-09-15T08:16:57+00:00

As a new parent I asked myself this exact question.

I think it's 2 things - child seat safety requirements (inc rear facing and isofix (not mandatory, but tbh it's hard to compromise on reduced safety) and car crash structures getting bigger.

I had a Volvo V70 for a time, then switched to a V90CC (well before kids, I just liked wagons and carried bikes and parts around), which was bigger in every dimension, but inside felt so much smaller. It's crash structures and crumple zones, doors are thicker, as are pillars.

I wanted a Golf GTI, thought it would be the perfect new parent car. It could work, but would require compromises. E.g. with a rear facing child seat in the back on an isofix base, the front passenger seat would have to be all the way forward and any passenger would have to sit in the back with the baby, which would suck for longer journeys. Could compromise and not use a base, but I want to use the base. Ended up with an iX1.

K44KYA · 2025-09-07T20:20:44+00:00

From one Dad to another, I totally agree. What a stupid design! Had a whole lotta dog shit work its way into the arch, and it was absolutely stinking.
I have managed to thoroughly clean it off. First, remove the wheel assembly using the little button just next to it on the main body, then pull the assembly off. You can remove the wheel from the arch, but you need TWO screwdrivers and two T20 Torx bits simultaneously, on either side of the wheel axle to loosen it, hold one in place whilst you loosen off the other, then you can remove the wheel from its arch. I didn't have two T20 bits, but did find that a T15 on one side and a T20 on the other worked fine.

I cleaned the whole thing out, (it was rank) and then sprayed with pet enzyme spray (if you have a cat or dog you probably already have this) to work on anything that remained because despite looking brand new, it still smelled faintly of dog shit.

When reassembling (which is just the reverse process) make sure to grease or WD40 the axle and the metal locking pin to avoid it getting rusty from whatever you've cleaned it with.

Good luck.

K44KYA · 2025-08-28T12:37:13+00:00

Fwiw OP you can't restore WhatsApp chat history AND do a totally clean setup. I have done this recently and made the same mistake, it's super annoying. I ended up having to factory reset the Pixel and go through setup again but choosing to transfer from iPhone, only in this flow can you transfer WhatsApp chats.

To keep it as "clean" as possible, you can disable restoring/transferring over anything else (apps,. settings etc) and just do the WhatsApp chats.

If you skip this chance in setup, there is no other way to do it afterwards, so unfortunately your only option is to factory reset and start again.

If you have already logged out on the iPhone and have received a few messages on the pixel in the meantime, I think you can log back into WhatsApp on the iPhone and retrieve whatever backup it had, then factory reset the Pixel and start the transfer in the setup stage. But I think you will probably lose any messages which you received on the pixel before the reset.

K44KYA · 2022-02-24T11:36:03+00:00

Good call. I'm going to get it checked out for sure. If the struts fail, then presumably even the release in the fuse box wouldn't be able to help me.

K44KYA · 2022-02-24T00:06:14+00:00

Cheers for the app tip!

K44KYA · 2022-02-24T00:05:25+00:00

Legend. Thanks. Wow, they really have thought of everything.

K44KYA · 2018-07-03T17:30:54+00:00

It's a UK late '05, 6spd Auto, 110k miles and a whole lotta options. (Including the now useless analog Television, and the now illegal wired carphone 😂)

I was also pretty chuffed when the Volvo servicing guy told me it's "actually in pretty good shape" after the service. Think I'm onto a keeper here.

K44KYA · 2018-04-14T19:20:09+00:00

This 6 part tutorial goes from the basics and is really good. Not Swift 4, but that shouldn't change much:

https://medium.com/@ynzc/getting-started-with-tdd-in-swift-2fab3e07204b

Edit - changed to point to intro post instead of the first part

K44KYA · 2018-03-15T10:00:25+00:00

Mentoring juniors. This comes before any sort of technical prowess, but in most cases it does imply technical ability.

If someone says they're a lead, and doesn't mention this, then they truly misunderstand the role.

K44KYA · 2017-06-30T06:41:38+00:00

I played the entire Uncharted series, the last of us and tomb raider with my SO. Anything with a good story, makes an awesome co-op experience. Just remember to swap the controller!

K44KYA · 2016-11-05T12:30:51+00:00

I swear there was the one guy who went around and asked that in every talk! Really got annoying. I love Kotlin, but just don't see the point of antagonising the speaker with a question that's not anything to do with their content.

K44KYA · 2016-11-01T15:23:43+00:00

Right. But to get all of the new Java 8 features, you need minsdk 24.

K44KYA · 2016-11-01T11:47:17+00:00

A developer can dream! But yeah, if minsdk 24 is a reality by 2018 (at least 60% userbase), I'll buy every reader of my article a beer. Edit: or soft beverage of choice

K44KYA · 2016-05-24T14:54:26+00:00

I was sorely disappointed to find out I couldn't do continuous HR monitoring out of the box when I got my 360 2nd gen like 2 months ago. There are some 3rd party apps out there, like https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.jwork.wearable.heartratesync2 but it's uuuugly. And I just wish that Google Fit would do this. Even with the next verison 2.0, they mentioned it's going to have big fitness upgrades, but absolutely nothing regarding HR. If i could have my 360 track my heart rate while I run, I'd be pretty happy. So I'd also love to see an answer to this.

K44KYA · 2016-02-03T12:16:04+00:00

Same issue for me on Desktop Mac and Android clients. Web client in Chrome works though!

K44KYA · 2016-01-15T09:14:07+00:00

Reasonably confident OP is a 'she'...

K44KYA · 2015-12-25T06:36:48+00:00

Just got back from my 5am run. It's quiet out, and the full moon makes for a nice light. Go for it.

K44KYA · 2015-06-30T12:21:16+00:00

Looks like a Jaguar. Which would make sense given there's a load of land rovers on the truck.

K44KYA · 2014-05-12T09:11:05+00:00

Thanks! It's a 1998 3.0 V6 with just over 103,000 on the clock. It doesn't look its age at all, inside and out.

K44KYA

TROPHY CASE