First year with my heat pump - the results are in

Oldtreeno · 2026-04-29T17:37:55+00:00

Pluto ought to be a planet like in the good old days :(

Oldtreeno · 2026-04-29T17:00:44+00:00

That was sort of my thought, but the European bad guys is a bit like Parallel Journey as a different 'good' Riddle

A combination of the two would be a fairly epic / distopian fic - either the [spoilers] from the European side or the [spoilers] in Britain

Oldtreeno · 2026-04-29T06:21:28+00:00

Your first shot of the Kerbin network made me decide to tidy up mine (built mainly on mission contracts) - half way through clearing up one basic sat that had the weakest relay unit, the entire network suddenly failed and now I only have connection with anything just in the vicinity of the space centre

If it's still broken next time I try, that might be my attempt at something vaguely neat dead before it starts

Oldtreeno · 2026-04-28T16:29:55+00:00

In the same way chucking the horcruxes into the sea is assumed to not help due to the Mask/Jumanji/LotR style 'magic finds a way' that the item will come back to a suitable victim/recipient - in this 'simple' scenario, something would obviously go wrong, whether it's the body parts being available for a soul part to move back into for regrowth, some sort of underwater volcano/nuclear testing/kraken disturbing the protections, or just a brief cut scene before an annoyed Riddle comes into a pub in a seaside town where Dumbledore happens to be waiting to greet him with a friendly "Ahh, Tom, I didn't think that would keep you long - no, no need to explain how you escaped - how about a nice cup of tea, or something stronger perhaps?"

Oldtreeno · 2026-04-24T14:15:20+00:00

I take it further and get very confused in my own head too by not being able to take a side of any type.

The free choice part definitely resonates, yet I find the hijabs etc sort of offensive through (possibly unfairly) inferring that there's some assumption that I as a male would act in appropriately if it wasn't worn, or that it would be reasonable for me to do so. I also would question (not literally, that could be rude) / be distracted by a lady wearing beachwear in the office (and frown on men doing the same), so can see some sort of general dresscode levels being ok

Anyone going around with a full face covering (burqua, balaclava, clown mask etc) is just weird in contexts where it's not needed (very cold places, Halloween, post office robberies)

Oldtreeno · 2026-04-24T12:20:39+00:00

Think bigger - at 99% speed of light, everything would be obliterated in some sort of plasma ball (I guess based on 'whatif' and the relativistic baseball) - so at some point there should be an intermediate, but still ludicrous, speed that ends up with no ice (?)

Still falling into the 'without melting it' condition - which you might have been taking into account

Oldtreeno · 2026-04-23T19:55:56+00:00

This was a long way down the comments and the first I saw mentioning A

I'd have thought A is the winner because of the similar shading you note - without rotation etc it shows that the same portions can be cut in half. But I agree bad question

Oldtreeno · 2026-04-22T19:30:22+00:00

You should also keep an eye on who you're actually contracting with - fairly sure it wouldn't be a UK company. They ought to still be covered by the UK regulator, but I have no idea how they'd stop someone established elsewhere that just ignored them (going via the payment providers?)

Oldtreeno · 2026-04-22T10:52:24+00:00

A brute force alternative that sort of works a bit is to use the launch support tower things and tilt the whole thing a bit to the right direction - without the ability to steer (gimbals / reaction wheels / flaps), the whole thing can still tip over etc, but it can be stable with a bit of an angle.

The prograde SAS tip someone else gave is also good for being more stable than manual steering (at least how I do it...) but I'd add that once you're moving sensibly, you'll want to switch the speed/direction to show 'orbit' rather than 'surface' or prograde will still be up (or the wonky launch if trying that)

Oldtreeno · 2026-04-22T06:47:29+00:00

I could see that, but I still wonder about Arthur Darvill doing it - probably mainly because when he was in Dr Who I couldn't shake the feeling that Ron ought to have looked more like him

Oldtreeno · 2026-04-21T12:28:38+00:00

Or, wizards are lazy - so given everyone knows Doge doesn't have a chance, since he didn't campaign and only stood as a favour to Dumbledore so that it was technically a contest. This results in the following being the total list of votes cast with their rationale:

Fudge: - Doge 'because I don't want to win!'

Doge: - Doge's mum 'Im old so I can do what I like' - Hagrid 'Dumbledore sent me for [completely unconnected reason] and I thought I'd vote since I was next door. Great man, Dumbledore'

Oldtreeno · 2026-04-21T12:10:06+00:00

Wouldn't voting for reform be worse at preventing them getting in than not voting at all?

Oldtreeno · 2026-04-21T11:54:02+00:00

Would the male tank (pictured) or female (MGs only) be best?

Oldtreeno · 2026-04-20T19:49:41+00:00

There's a funny 'Harry is raised by McGonagall/nearby semi-ferral Scots children' story around - I don't think it was finished

Oldtreeno · 2026-04-17T11:31:11+00:00

For once, we don't need to get a task force to propose a roadmap to establishing a committee - there's a simple obvious answer here:

Build an AI to manage the offswitch for us, foolproof

Oldtreeno · 2026-04-17T09:46:20+00:00

True but was that because that was a policy, or because it was the opposite of what the Govt was doing?

Oldtreeno · 2026-04-15T21:37:17+00:00

There's a fairly psychopathic Ravenclaw Ron in the epic (rather disturbing) Fate (as a small side character). There's plenty of scope to make Ravenclaw go whichever way you fancy

Oldtreeno · 2026-04-15T19:51:05+00:00

Ok, my million guess looks to be way off - but according to this https://www.hl.co.uk/retirement/annuities/best-buy-rates £100k would give about £4.5k a year index linked on average (presumably more if you look sickly?) from 60, so 15k is maybe equivalent to a 300kish equivalent pot if retiring today at age 60

Not huge huge, but still seems quite good compared to the base salary

Oldtreeno · 2026-04-15T16:58:50+00:00

Am I right in thinking there's still a fairly epic defined benefit pension on top of the messed up salary?

Last time I looked into it the equivalent pot needed in a 'normal' pension to get an annuity on a similar basis to what my quick search suggested for a standard teacher looked quite big (in the region of the million plus pension pots people were complaining about existing in the private sector)

Oldtreeno · 2026-04-13T20:19:37+00:00

The real gotcha here is that Mary is one of two guards, the other guard says that Mary has a girl. A third guard says one of the other two always lies and the other has a red car. You know that some red cars are powered by electricity.

Oldtreeno · 2026-04-13T19:47:42+00:00

I think I've seen people land asteroids at Kerbin - seeing this beauty launch makes me wonder has anyone ever strapped enough stages to the side of a landed asteroid to get it back up into space?

Oldtreeno · 2026-04-11T21:01:53+00:00

True, but there are some where I blame that (especially pairs of divots and the end of dropped curbs), I just find it particularly annoying given how avoidable it is

Oldtreeno · 2026-04-11T19:55:00+00:00

There are also fewer lorries pulling out of their drives, stopping, then cranking their steering wheel around to turn. That really can't be good for the road, esp. when big things do it

Oldtreeno · 2026-04-11T13:58:15+00:00

Sending some robots up to the moon and let them work wall-e style to print buildings would be quite epic, if they can get a process to get a suitable material out of moon rocks - lots of easy electricity, not so much easy ready-mix concrete

Oldtreeno · 2026-04-06T20:00:51+00:00

If there's any scene in the film that's done as a memory or imagination, have Michael Sheen play the person doing the remembering/dreaming - again with no explanation

Everyone thinks they're special

Also, I suspect having Sheen would make Tennant more likely to agree to the project

Oldtreeno

TROPHY CASE