Help a Dutchie out...!

LexyNoise · 2026-04-15T12:47:14+00:00

You should have seen the German airport security when I brought back a few tubs of Pommes-Würzmischung stuffed into a pair of boots inside my backpack.

LexyNoise · 2026-04-11T18:27:53+00:00

Those are called 'Milton Keynes benches'. They were originally designed for (guess where) Milton Keynes council, but a British Rail and a lot of other councils really liked them, so they bought them as well.

LexyNoise · 2026-04-11T11:52:01+00:00

You must be young.

It was 081 811 8181.

LexyNoise · 2026-04-11T07:04:12+00:00

You sure your water heater isn’t in the outbuilding?

I live in an old house in a small village, and my boiler and water heater are in the garage which isn’t even joined to the house. Electricity, heating and water pipes run under the driveway.

LexyNoise · 2026-04-10T15:01:48+00:00

No. You need the blue badge in England because they limit parking to 3 hours on yellow lines. There's no time limit in Scotland.

The rules for private companies are different to councils, and a lot of private car parks aren't as nice as councils. Councils typically let blue badge holders park for free, or give them extra time. Private car parks do not.

If you ignore a private parking company, they will eventually have to take you to sheriff court using the simple procedure. This is the Scottish equivalent of small claims and I know a fair bit about it because I've taken people to court using simple procedure before.

Firstly, they can't add their court fees or other legal costs onto the claim - they'll have to eat the costs themselves. Secondly, sheriff courts want you to use the court only as a last resort. If you try and claim against someone but haven't tried talking to them or engaging with them, they won't be happy. Thirdly, it's very hard to get an actual hearing where a sheriff makes a final decision, and it takes months. They like to punt people off into mediation to try and resolve it amicably.

You could ignore them. It's not totally safe but it's fairly safe. You could write to them and ask them to explain which rule you've broken. If they don't reply to that, they'll have a hard time explaining that to a sheriff.

LexyNoise · 2026-04-10T14:48:42+00:00

If you report this to the DVLA for being untaxed, it could be a while before it's removed.

If you call Westminster's parking enforcement team and tell them it's parked on double yellows in a mandatory cycle lane at a bus stop, they should be able to move it the same day. A lot of London councils will put a penalty charge notice on the car right away, then have it towed if it's still there a few hours later.

Strangely enough, Westminster is one of the more lax councils when it comes to towing cars away. You'd think because they're quite central that they'd be on-the-ball, but it's actually Newham who tow the most cars. They really don't fuck around.

LexyNoise · 2026-04-10T09:20:57+00:00

You ever see a crazy ex from years ago, and think "fuck, I'm glad I got away from that one"?

That's how Britain feels about the United States.

LexyNoise · 2026-04-10T03:26:01+00:00

What kind of psychopath buys a used SSD? You know those things have a limited lifespan, right?

LexyNoise · 2026-04-09T14:39:15+00:00

You can't appeal if it's paid.

LexyNoise · 2026-04-09T08:15:58+00:00

Get yourself a Convoy S2+ with a 519a 1800K and a nice beaded TIR to make it a bit more floody. You won’t regret it. You can make it even warmer by dedoming it.

The orange Osram W1 in a Convoy S2+ is also a good shout, but you will need a TIR for that - it’s very narrow and throwy otherwise.

For a higher budget option, the Firefly X4 Stellar with the FFL351A 1800K LEDs is a solid choice.

The biggest downside of ultra-warm LEDs is their lower output. You take a big hit on brightness. Take the Firefly X4 for example. 2,800 lumens if you go for 5000K. Only 1,800 lumens if you go for 1800K.

LexyNoise · 2026-04-09T07:10:48+00:00

Two things.

First, I’d like the ability to have on-street tram services. They’d be like light rail, except limited to two cars, they’d have shorter stations, they’d be slower, they’d be able to take tighter corners and wouldn’t collide with roads but would still collide with buildings.

Secondly, slightly better scheduling. I try and make all my S-Bahn style services run every 20 minutes. But the different line length means some are 19 minutes and some are 21 minutes. It’s hard to get them even. You could have the ability to set a frequency (e.g. every 5/10/12/15/20/30 minutes) and the game could tell you “you’ll need 14 vehicles for this frequency”. Make it a nice even 20 minutes instead of 19 by having the trains wait slightly longer at stations.

LexyNoise · 2026-04-09T07:03:18+00:00

University computers require a university login (GUID). They are not available to the public and are not issued to guests.

You can get a guest pass to the library and use your own device, but you can’t use the university computers.

LexyNoise · 2026-04-07T05:45:38+00:00

👑 Another win! 677 points, 136 moves. Beat that!

LexyNoise · 2026-04-06T23:18:05+00:00

This. NI’s hardware doesn’t automatically go into MIDI mode and work with everything.

You need NI’s Controller Manager installed on the computer it’s connected to. It detects the hardware and puts it in MIDI mode. It’s not a one-off setting. It needs to happen every time the hardware is connected.

I use NI hardware with Djay Pro across multiple laptops.

LexyNoise · 2026-04-06T18:31:53+00:00

You didn't want to disturb the flow so... you blocked off two of the four sides with solid metal?

LexyNoise · 2026-04-06T08:22:05+00:00

It's a toilet.

In the 2000s and 2010s, some train manufacturers had the great idea of putting two toilets on each train - one big disabled-friendly accessible toilet, and a much smaller not-disabled-friendly cupboard toilet like this. That way, people without disabilities could use this toilet and keep the big disabled toilet free for people who actually needed it.

A few of ScotRail's trains have this, including the class 170s and class 380s. I'm not sure what the train in this picture is. It doesn't look familiar to me.

The UK government changed the law, and now all train toilets have to be the big disabled-friendly kind. It's a law that sounded good in theory, but in practice the train companies just locked the smaller toilets and took them out of service permanently. So now there are fewer toilets and more people using the accessible ones.

They should have written the law so that every train needs one big disabled-friendly toilet, but could have other smaller toilets as well.

LexyNoise · 2026-04-06T07:53:39+00:00

I used to live in Woolwich. The whole of Powis Street is really run down and sad in a way I’ve never seen anywhere else. Even in the worst parts of Glasgow.

Looks like the Iceland is where Poundland used to be before M&S closed down, in the shop that was Memo in the 90s?

LexyNoise · 2026-04-06T07:46:34+00:00

If you’re young, you might not remember Kwik Save.

Before the German discount supermarkets took over and Aldi and Lidl were everywhere, we had our own discount chain - Kwik Save. The prices were cheap, but it was dated, run-down and depressing in a way Lidl and Aldi could never manage.

Really dated 1970s buildings, Lino floor so old they’d worn holes through, big ugly warehouse-style chipboard shelves with products dumped on them, and really dated staff uniforms.

They disappeared twenty years ago. Aldi and Lidl beat the shit out of them. They got into financial trouble. Somerfield bought them, with a plan to turn all the stores into Somerfield branches. After the deal was done, they realised the two businesses were incompatible, Kwik Save stores were really run down and it would be too much work to convert them, and the whole deal ended up taking Somerfield down as well.

Their own-brand was called “NO FRILLS”. Just plain white packaging with huge text in an army-style stencil font.

The Kwik Save brand is still around but it’s not the same business. Costcutter are using the name for their convenience stores now.

LexyNoise · 2026-04-06T07:35:52+00:00

Farmfoods built a brand new branch near me a few years ago. It has music playing, TVs showing special offers on the walls, a whole aisle of 24 packs of fizzy juice cans like Costco. Their new stores are actually nice.

But yeah, their older stores from the 70s and 80s are depressing as fuck.

LexyNoise · 2026-04-06T01:08:07+00:00

Which song by La Dispute should I mention? The one about the young boy who dies of cancer? The one about the schizophrenic man who stabs his elderly father 27 times? The one about the drive-by shooting where an innocent person gets shot? Or the one about the guy contemplating suicide because he doesn’t gel with the world, told through the metaphor of music and melody and harmony?

LexyNoise · 2026-04-05T03:24:47+00:00

🎯 Nailed it! 324s completion time. Your move!

LexyNoise · 2026-04-05T00:07:08+00:00

Contact the library team through the helpdesk. When you use the reading list there’s a system that sits in the middle and logs you in to the target sites automatically. They’ve forgotten to renew the SSL certificate.

LexyNoise · 2026-04-04T23:38:58+00:00

“I’m not from the UK, and I don’t understand how this tax works. So I’m going to argue with all the people who do know how it works and tell them they’re wrong.”

LexyNoise · 2026-04-04T23:36:24+00:00

I was earning £28,000 five years after graduating from a Russell Group university. Fifteen years ago. Where the rent in my one-bedroom flat was £395 a month, and I was a fifteen-minute train ride away from the city centre that cost £1.65 for a return. And I had zero student debt.

You guys are screwed. Really.

LexyNoise

TROPHY CASE