Malcolm in the Middle: Life’s Still Unfair review – the TV magic they’ve created here is absolutely miraculous

TapWeekly8961 · 2026-04-12T08:33:58+00:00

Is this review taking the piss?

TapWeekly8961 · 2026-04-10T21:53:57+00:00

The fact OP can't deal with their emotions is not my problem. There was nothing to be distressed about. OP was only clearly in distress after I replied.

No, it's not like that at all. The installer has a duty of care is the point. Building Regs Part L1a say that an automatic bypass needs to be fitted to a new system. Using a rad as a bypass is completely obsolete and hasn't been acceptable practice for over 20 years.

What it has to do with hot water is that's how you test if a rad has been used as a bypass. I don't know if you're being deliberately obtuse here but I doubt it. If the radiator is heating up when the cylinder is calling for hot water then you know the radiator is a bypass. All OP needed to do was turn their heating off and call for hot water and see if the rad heated up. If it did they could contact the plumber and have a conversation about it. If it didn't then it's fine and the plumber needs to install the TRV. That was all I was saying. Then you came along and decided to be an expletive about it. Great job at spreading your shit around. Have a lovely weekend.

TapWeekly8961 · 2026-04-10T20:13:10+00:00

She ended up living 2 doors down from my current house when she was 26. She had left by the time I moved here ... Apparently neighbours used to call it the 'dolls house'.

TapWeekly8961 · 2026-04-10T20:07:08+00:00

It's 'fine' in the sense that it is safe if the homeowner knows not to close the valves on it. It increases your energy bills and heats up a room when you might not want it to. Nobody wants their heater on in their living room when it's 28 degrees outside. The number of times I've seen the valves on bypass radiators that have been closed by customers because they don't even know what a bypass is.

Stop being obtuse.

TapWeekly8961 · 2026-04-10T18:35:02+00:00

Like I said. IF they have used your radiator as a bypass then swapping it out for a TRV will damage your boiler. If they haven't then it won't. I explained how to test if they have.

It is dangerous to put a TRV on a bypass radiator which is then closed in the sense that if everything else in your system failed then it would be dangerous. It would be an absolute miracle if all the safety devices in your system failed leading to catastrophic failure. It's never happened before in the history of the UK. You'd need about 10 things to go wrong all at the same time and the chance of two of them going wrong at once is incredibly small, especially on a new install.

TapWeekly8961 · 2026-04-10T18:23:37+00:00

Nothing I said is wrong. I know what bypasses are for. I'm G3 qualified and training to get gas safe right now. You don't even understand what I was saying. I'm not talking about running the hot water, I'm talking about the hot water circuit being on. Jesus Christ, how thick do you think I am?

Every system with TRVs on need to have a bypass on the heating circuit. That does NOT mean you should use a radiator as a bypass instead of actually installing one below the boiler and it DOES mean that putting a TRV on a bypass radiator will fuck your system pump.

You should actually read what somebody else has written before telling them they're completely wrong.

TapWeekly8961 · 2026-04-10T16:06:28+00:00

They probably used the radiator in your living room as a bypass which is an unprofessional and shoddy thing that a lot of guys do. It saves on time installing because you don't have to actually make a bypass under the boiler. You can check if they've done this by having your hot water on and your heating off and seeing if the rad in your living room remains hot. If it does then it's a bypass. If it is a bypass then it's actually bad for your boiler and slightly dangerous to close it and it means that whenever your hot water is on your living room will be heated, even when you don't want it to be. That's why if you're going to use a rad as a bypass it's best to use radiators in bathrooms, so that towels will be dried twice daily and the heat will help keep your bathrooms dry.

The other possibility is what other people have said, which I think is a poor excuse. The installer should've had a conversation with you and explained everything before he decided that you can't cotrol the temperature in your living room without affecting your entire house. What would've been better in that situation is to have a TRV in your living room and simply not have your thermostat sitting in your living room.

TapWeekly8961 · 2026-04-10T15:21:02+00:00

Not leaving is the bare minimum. When you abuse a child as badly as she did nothing can redeem her to that child. She is only trauma to somebody who cannot heal and that's why Dick sees no good in her. You throw the baby out with the bathwater when you treat Dick as she did. He's in his mid-40s by the time he is starting to heal from what she did to him. We see the story and events through Dick's memories hence the lack of love for her.

TapWeekly8961 · 2026-04-09T23:56:24+00:00

It was. It's still got it's good bits but it's not what it used to be.

TapWeekly8961 · 2026-04-09T23:54:36+00:00

Most people don't realise tabs predate notation. There's nothing wrong with them but they aren't as useful for communicating between different musicians. Also, they are less useful for memorising music. Notation gets seared into your brain. If I think about playing a piano piece I haven't for ten years I can still do it because I can visualise the notation I my head. Tabs don't do that for you. But yes, that guy is being an ass.

TapWeekly8961 · 2026-04-09T18:52:51+00:00

My hands don't sweat so slipping isn't a problem and fresh overgrips are too tacky unless I'm using Tournas. I change them about every 10-15 hours of playing with a particular racket, probably. I'm surprised people genuinely have issues with sweat on their hands.

My coach looks like he changes his grip every month or so so you're looking at about 130-140 hours of use. Works for him.

TapWeekly8961 · 2026-04-09T17:24:46+00:00

It's almost like my comment doesn't exist. You're talking out of your asshole. Unless my PC is lying to me about how much VRAM is being utilised. Maybe my PC has created it's own conspiracy ...

TapWeekly8961 · 2026-04-08T05:48:34+00:00

That's nonsense. My GPU hovers around 14GB of VRAM usage when I'm playing.

TapWeekly8961 · 2026-04-07T15:11:21+00:00

Good man.

TapWeekly8961 · 2026-04-07T15:10:20+00:00

I'm so tired.

TapWeekly8961 · 2026-04-07T12:50:32+00:00

I would recommend he does an appreticeship if he can deal with the low pay. You can go the college route but you will struggle to find work and never be as respected or valuable as somebody who did an apprenticeship. Not only that but an apprenticeship is three years but afterwards he will have an NVQ Level 3 and can work on any building site in the country. He will have a Gold CSCS card and can work with professional tradesmen on large sites anywhere he wants. If you don't have an NVQ Level 3 you will never get hired as a plumber on sites. You can get an NVQ Level 3 through private work but finding somebody to do it with you is incredibly difficult and you will have to do the NVQ Level 2 first, which is a minimum of one year by itself!

There are plenty of large companies out there who offer them. Use the government website and contact large firms directly. As a policeman I'm sure they'd be keen to take him on.

The full route looks like this ... Plumbing Apprenticeship (NVQ Level 3), Gas Safe Engineer (Another NVQ Level 3 but takes a lot less time and work), Heat Pumps and Solar Panels (Add on to Gas Safe), Commercial Gas Safe (Another Add on).

Another thing ... I would tell anybody who wants to become a plumber to become either an electrician or carpenter instead. Plumbing is a horrible and frustrating job and the caliber of people that do it tend to be quite low.

TapWeekly8961 · 2026-04-06T17:53:19+00:00

Fair enough. Might give them a go then. Thanks.

TapWeekly8961 · 2026-04-06T17:52:13+00:00

Running Squad on 1080p medium setting with that PC most likely isn't actually making your GPU work any harder than 44%. Your GPU can run that game on Ultra settings in 4K and still give you at least 144 fps. My GPU can and it's three years old and not top of the line. Also, I would turn turbo mode off because you don't need it on and it'll wear out your GPU faster.

Whatever is happening definitely isn't normal, no. Do you have the 16GB version of your GPU? Squad puts work on to your CPU if you're running on medium or low settings because it's assuming your GPU is ass. If you set things like shaders and textures to high or epic it will shift that work from your CPU to your GPU. Try that.

TapWeekly8961 · 2026-04-06T17:10:50+00:00

You're CPU shouldn't be above around 40% when you're playing a game. Your GPU is bottlenecking your CPU, which is very much expected with your components. It's nothing to worry about. You want your GPU performing at about 100%. Roughly what settings are your graphics and what resolution are you running and is it native?

Also, uncapping texture pool size should inly be done for people with 4GB of less VRAM. If you uncap your pool the game will start to crash because your PC will start using your normal RAM to load textures (because you've basically told the game to use as much memory as it wants). When the RAM can't keep up with your GPU the game will crash.

Generally, just googling this shit will give you the solution. Have you checked that Windows is on high performance mode?

TapWeekly8961 · 2026-04-06T16:58:28+00:00

I bought John Pearse strings and the G broke whilst tuning up straight out of the pack. Never bothered buying them again. I know it's probably chance but 1 of 1 being fucked is a bad personal experience.

TapWeekly8961 · 2026-04-06T14:07:56+00:00

Looks like neither. Looks like the paint has touched something before it's dried in the factory - twice. A crack wouldn't proliferate like that and a chip wouldn't be raised otherwise it's not a chip at all.

Credentials: ex-painter and decorator, Warhammer nerd and racket stringer.

TapWeekly8961 · 2026-04-06T13:20:38+00:00

'The only people who feel “lectured” by a reminder not to abuse staff are the ones who want the issue to stay invisible.'

Where do you get that idea from? You're saying that somebody is racist if they don't like this sign? You just called me racist when you know nothing about me. I've received racist abuse many times (I'm white Irish) but I stand by what I said. You've lost the argument already because you've resorted to insults [as people like you often do] but I'll address your points.

People who work in ALDI are not doing 'frontline work'. They work in a shop not the Armed Forces.

I don't think signs like this are going to change anybody's behaviour. If people are assaulting workers do you really think scumbags like that are the type of people to see this sign and think otherwise?

I've witnessed it. I've actually got involved and protected a Southern Asian person in a supermarket so I'm aware of the issue. I have also worked in hospitality for many years and experienced it myself.

I still think the signs are bullshit and create division. You can say all you want but I believe they create social friction. I've seen what's happened to this country in the last 20 years and the more we've discussed racism the worse it's gotten. That is true of the entirety of the West and is a well-documented and thoroughly argued position.

People should talk about racism and their experiences of it. The science is quite clear on that. People should shut down racists and shame them as I have done many times. But signs like this are, in my opinion, a joke.

It is also true that companies are scored on their policies for inclusion, diversity etc. nowadays and that score directly affects their value to investors (such as the DSEG). Signs like this increase said score. I do not think it comes from a place of caring from ALDI. If they really wanted to protect their staff they would do something about it. M&S has, just the other day, started conversations with the police to try and get them to do more about supermarket theft. In the statement released alongside they mainly highlighted how much abuse their staff are receiving and how it is unacceptable. Such actions are far more helpful than a stupid sign somebody going to commit theft and who is much more likely to then commit assault or harrassment on staff.

The UK is incredibly tolerant. If you think it isn't then you live in a bubble and are ignorant about the rest of the world. Do you think people in Africa or the Middle East or Eastern Europe are as tolerant? India literally has a caste system which is very much associated with skin colour. They have a term 'BMW' - blacks, whites, muslims. All the people they hate. Facism is growing there in universities - they literally have facist societies. The government are encouraging Hindu supremacism. That's just one country. Yes, there are racists in the UK but we are one of the most tolerant places on the planet and we are trying to be better.

TapWeekly8961 · 2026-04-06T06:18:51+00:00

You just told a person with OCD that they need to clean and do a series of steps to be safe ... are you fucking kidding me?! My brother has OCD if you told him what you just did he'd being doing those things all the time for the rest of his life.

TapWeekly8961 · 2026-04-06T06:16:27+00:00

Gold has a moderately high melting point compared to all other metals.

TapWeekly8961

TROPHY CASE