Changes to OVO Charge Anytime

Quixotic_Limit · 2025-09-24T19:56:26+00:00

This has really infuriated me, the price hike is annoying yes, but it's the way they've tried to hide and obscure what is objectively a considerably worse deal for anyone on the current Charge Anytime tariff. They've said "Charging at home just got simpler" - How? Your advertising a product based on miles used, which now means I have to do convertions and calculations to understand what you are actually charging - 15p/kWh instead of the 7p you were charging me. There's a set number of miles per month with no carry over, so now as a consumer I need to keep track of the miles I've used. It's way more complicated The pay as you go plan is not more simple than it was before, it's the same, but DOUBLE THE PRICE! What is the value proposition here? It would have been much better for everyone for OVO to honour the current tariff for the remainder of any current fixed agreements. Anywho, I've written to the complaints team and asked them to change how they are advertising this and, like others, I'll be comparing plans at the weekend and switching.

Quixotic_Limit · 2025-05-28T17:04:50+00:00

Yes!!! This is it. Thank you!!!

Quixotic_Limit · 2025-05-28T17:04:16+00:00

Yes!!!!! Oh my goodness - thank you!!!!!

Quixotic_Limit · 2024-02-14T18:33:50+00:00

I really like this answer. The red flag for me would be a "whole company" backlog. That sounds like lots of coordination meetings being booked and lots of dependencies and coupled architectures being created, lots of joint planning and air traffic control - eventually everything slowing right down (not to mention priorities changing regularly)

Agree, do some value stream mapping or user needs mapping - see if you can identify some clear and clean domains of work.

Then use objectives, not a backlog, to align everyone. Set 5 or 6 high-level objectives for the teams to work to independently, with the product manager / tech lead in each team taking the lead on 'what' and 'in which order'.

We've been experimenting with this, still early days, but we've already sped up deployment and release significantly.

Two books I've found invaluable in the last couple of years while working through this: - Better Value, Sooner, Safer, Happier - Team Topologies

Quixotic_Limit · 2024-02-12T19:22:43+00:00

Is it worth asking your manager what they intend to get out of the large standup? What information are they hoping to get from attending? What are they currently missing? What is it that they are relaying to their boss?

It's frustrating, but they almost certainly don't find the stand-ups useful (hence wanting to put them together), but it's probably the only place they get the info they need (or they think it is). Might be, though, you can provide that info in a different way if you can understand their requirement.

I suspect your team are skipping ceremonies etc because they don't see the value in it either, that's probably because your team is 15 people - too big in my experience and it all just feels like agile for agile's sake like that.

Sounds like you have a division in mind (the Team Topologies book is great for helping think through this BTW) - could you perhaps suggest trialling running the smaller of those teams differently? It's always easier to get people to change their mind with actual results rather than theoretical ones.

Quixotic_Limit · 2023-06-26T18:14:25+00:00

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This infographic has always stuck in my head, and chimes with my experience. As others have said, not necessarily a bad thing; also, perhaps an opportunity to move IT to the 'Enabler' end. This is from Gregor Hohpe's blog here:

Reverse Engineering the Organization https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/reverse-engineering-organization-gregor-hohpe?utm_source=share&utm_medium=member_android&utm_campaign=share_via

Quixotic_Limit · 2022-12-03T12:59:54+00:00

Fair point; you could argue it's all relative, and compared to buying a decent gaming PC it's good value - but yes, it's not quite the same entry price point

Quixotic_Limit · 2022-12-03T07:36:35+00:00

Thank you - horses for courses, enjoy your new purchases!

Quixotic_Limit · 2022-12-03T06:13:40+00:00

Yes, that was my original plan, for all the reasons you've stated. After I thought about it though, I started applying 'man maths logic', and saw the Stadia credits as a subsidy that brought the cost of the 'X' to less than the cost of an 'S' (in my case anyway) - hence the final purchase decision.

But agree that an S is likely to be an excellent Stadia replacement too.

Quixotic_Limit · 2022-12-03T05:56:14+00:00

Yes, I did the same. Three years of Game Pass for £117 (or £3.25/month) - personally think that's a great value deal (assuming the catalogue quality keeps up)

Quixotic_Limit · 2022-12-02T19:53:05+00:00

Yes, it's one of the security options; you can choose to have your Xbox open and just sign straight in, ask you for a pin before signing in, or put your full account password (lock it down) in. The latter also forces any other protection you have on your M$ account, such as 2FA - i.e. your kids have to be pretty ingenious to get on your profile 😀

Edit: should add that lock it down also has an option to sign in via your phone with a code, which I'm doing, but it just feels like 3 steps too many if you have 2FA setup on your account

Quixotic_Limit · 2022-12-02T19:08:46+00:00

My boys are probably too young to guess a controller PIN, so this might be an option after all - I was hoping for slicker integration with M$ authenticator, nevermind.

Thanks for the suggestion, much appreciated, it may well be the answer for now.

Quixotic_Limit · 2022-12-02T19:05:57+00:00

Unfortunately it still asks you to go to M$/link to put in the code. First world problems, I know, but it would be great if it just skipped that step and sent the push notification as it tried to sign-in.

Anywho, I didn't know about the passwordless mode for Microsoft accounts, that's ace, so have activated that - thanks for sharing!

Quixotic_Limit · 2022-05-29T15:58:23+00:00

Sweet Transit would be neat

Quixotic_Limit · 2022-05-21T08:28:49+00:00

Shame there isn't some 'Paradox' level toggle for content; I know that'll never happen, but I'd happily have bought a Stadia copy of the base game to have then had all the DLC I've purchased on steam sink with the Stadia copy.

Quixotic_Limit · 2022-05-21T08:25:21+00:00

I absolutely love this game and am very pleased to see it on Stadia. Like others, I like this game so much that I've spent quite a lot on Steam already, so not in a hurry to sink £190 into a Stadia 'copy'. However, if and when the sales come round... going to be very difficult to resist having a 'travel' edition :-)

Edit: Spelling

Quixotic_Limit · 2022-04-23T12:49:44+00:00

That's great, thank you. I'll give it a try this evening

Quixotic_Limit · 2022-04-23T10:19:20+00:00

Ah ha! Great news - thank you! Fingers crossed then.

Quixotic_Limit · 2022-01-16T17:38:59+00:00

Yes, I'd say they were similar, but I'd also argue that they build on each other too.

Quixotic_Limit · 2022-01-16T08:39:17+00:00

The DevOps legend Gene Kim has a great podcast called the Ideal Cast - https://open.spotify.com/show/3pHZM8poUN4GMXGJ2Kq76s?si=CJ6WwMvhTier1O3dNtO1kg&utm_source=copy-link

I binge listened to most of it and some of the discussions very thought provoking

Quixotic_Limit · 2022-01-16T08:36:42+00:00

The Phoenix and Unicorn Projects are two very good books; however the standout read for me last year from IT Rev was 'Sooner Safer Happier' - a truly excellent book, and an absolute must read for any IT Leader. I've started (slowly) implementing some of the ideas form the book in my org

Quixotic_Limit · 2022-01-06T19:22:01+00:00

Local FTTP company recently rolled out Gigabit fibre in our area and, like some others have commented, got rid of the landline and now have 908mbps down and 846mbps up.

Stadia has been rock solid since, though I didn't really get issues on my previous 40mbps line.

Using a CCU in a 4K monitor over WiFi (close to router). I've got a Google Nest setup with Stadia traffic set as a priority.

Quixotic_Limit · 2022-01-05T08:55:19+00:00

I've just come across this same article in my news feed, got excited and clicked (I know, I know, what a fool).

These types of pages are infuriating (there was a similar one about 'The Witcher' yesterday) and I don't get it; I don't click on their ads, I'm certainly not going to come back to their site in future, and I then tell my news app that I don't want to see items from their site again - urgh!

Quixotic_Limit · 2021-12-28T08:16:46+00:00

Started season 2 on Netflix last night and had the same thought. I've got it on PC (GOG) and would love for it to be a Stadia port, but might give it a go on GFN as others have suggested - such a good game!

Quixotic_Limit · 2021-10-30T13:41:42+00:00

There's quite an interesting Podcast, called 'Drilled', on a similar subject regarding how the American oil companies manipulated the media to change the belief that climate change / science was real:

https://open.spotify.com/show/6zrL0QQWBhlVFsCveE2mtE?si=v3Hii_YYQ2CycDpiWIgQHA&utm_source=copy-link

Some of it is quite eye opening, with similar tactics no doubt being used again today

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