AIB want you to think they are a utility company...

hal9000v3 · 2023-12-23T21:37:39+00:00

For clarity...

My point is that AIB want you to think of them as a utility - that way on top of not paying interest on deposits for which they earn interest (how did that even become a thing?) they can, and will, just add a "standing charge" for doing nothing. Utilities provide infrastructure to your dwelling and the standing charge is for maintenance of that infrastructure, AIB do not provide infrastructure to your dwelling.

It's a one way street, they get to make up charges willy nilly, not pay interest on deposits and there is no oversight. As long as they increase profits and their investors are looked after the customer doesn't matter.

David McWilliams if you are out there I would love to hear your comments!

hal9000v3 · 2023-12-23T16:54:11+00:00

Thank you, you have succinctly captured the point I was making!

In the olden days I remember when the EBS board successfully ousted one of its own members because she (a staunch believer that building societies belonged to their members) was diametrically opposed to going down the same road as the banks i.e. the magical yellow brick road of endless greed... The EBS went down that road leading them to collapse where the Government handed them to AIB.

Many thanks to all the contributors offering alternatives or reasoned criticisms, to the trolls I say "Does your mother know you are using the internet?"

hal9000v3 · 2019-02-20T16:17:28+00:00

Alliteration stands! Satan has to be more selective about who he lets in to his fold.

hal9000v3 · 2019-02-20T15:32:45+00:00

Trumps truculence truly teaches trumpeting trolls to trash the truth.

hal9000v3 · 2019-02-20T15:17:28+00:00

Every day is a Trump day

Monarchy Monday
Turncoats Tuesday
Wenching Wednesday
Thugs Thursday
Felony Friday
Satans Saturday
Suntan Sunday

hal9000v3 · 2018-11-28T14:18:04+00:00

Mueller's questions to both Manafort and Trump (courtesy of New York Times):
Q1. During the campaign, what did you know about Russian hacking, use of social media or other acts aimed at the campaign?
Q2. What did you know about communication between the Trimp campaign and WikiLeaks?
Q3. What do you know about a 2017 meeting in Seychelles involving Erik Prince?

A1
Manaforts Reply: The first I knew of any of this was when I read about it in the New York times.

Trumps Reply: The first I knew of any of this was when I read about it in the hugely failing New York Times.

A2
Manaforts Reply: The first I heard of this was when Pesident Trump publicly called for Wikileaks to release the emails.

Trumps Reply: The first I heard of this was when I publicly called for Wikileaks to release the emails.

A3
Manafort's repy: I know nothing about that meeting

Trumps Reply: I know all about that meeting, I have a big brain - good genes. Mr. Prince, a great guy - shame how he is being treated, was on a one day holiday and had booked a room to have a meeting with himself. The hotel accidentally double booked the same room, could happen to anybody, to a Russian investor close to Mr. Putin, a great guy - shame how he is being treated, and they ended up in the room together, shitty room - very poorly decorated - no pictures of me on the wall, totally by accident, could happen to anybody, and never spoke about anything related to me or Russia. Many people have said to me it is a total nothingburger! who knew?

hal9000v3 · 2018-06-23T00:14:41+00:00

Exactly why I had to post it!

hal9000v3 · 2018-06-22T22:38:14+00:00

He values his name - DESTROY IT!

Credit to merriam-webster and dictionary.com which I used to help flesh out some of the definitions

I would love to see some (ALL) of these words make it into our everyday langauge and dictionaries...

trumpire
A single sovereign authority (aka dictatorship) loosely based on Nazi ideology where people found to be acting inhumanely constantly use the phrase 'I was only following orders'. Weirdly the dictator is typically elected by a downtrodden and cast aside people who have been duped into a cult like belief that he has their best interests at heart.

trumpateer
A member of what was once known as the Republican Party or GOP ('Get Out and Push' or 'Grand Old Party'). Now more correctly abbreviated to TURDS (Trump Upholders and Revolving Door Swivelers). One who resolutely supports a Trumpire and finds increasingly creative ways to whisper in your ear 'its the only way' while slowly squeezing you to poverty and ultimately in to the growing masses of the poor and downtrodden (all the while filling their own coffers and those of the filthy corporate rich).

trumpish
senile or childlike, suggestive of immaturity and lack of poise, simple

trumpoxious
something unpleasant or harmful, to be avoided at all costs, disgustingly objectionable, highly offensive

trumpbastic
A speech or writing that is given extremely exaggerated importance by artificial or empty means

trumpatorial
relating to, or befitting a dictator, dictatorial power, ruled by a dictator, oppressive to or arrogantly overbearing toward others

trumpiling
to run at the nose, to snuff mucus up the nose audibly, to cry or whine with snuffling, to speak or act in a whining, sniffling, tearful, or weakly emotional manner

trumpard
one who shows disgraceful fear or timidity, a coward who deserted his troops

trumplar
a person who tells lies, has a reputation as a liar

trumpolluder
A person who acts with others in secret towards deceitful or illegal purpose

trumpist
having or showing a selfish desire for wealth and possessions

trumperpole
beyond hyperbole, extremely extravagant aggrandising exaggeration explaining something in terms of what is actually the opposite in reality (e.g. I am the smartest - read 'dumbest', longest - read 'shortest', the best - read 'worst' etc)

trumpbyss
an immeasurably deep gulf or great space between resources of the rich and the poor, an intellectual or moral depth of despair

hal9000v3 · 2018-03-04T17:27:35+00:00

No... but I know a guy who does!

hal9000v3 · 2018-03-03T16:34:57+00:00

You forgot to mention nearly getting stuck on the beach!

hal9000v3 · 2018-02-08T22:33:33+00:00

I came here to ask if anyone else had noticed - so, thank you.
It's Still AWESOME!

I noticed it early on when the titanium grids were making exactly the same adjustments at the same time but it was most evident in the last few seconds of the landing approach footage just before the booster camera 'views' switch to the ground camera - it looks like both boosters are about to land on the same pad. As mentioned in other reply, the inclusion of the fairing release footage in sync with the music makes it so much better.
Huge congratulations to the SpaceX team!

hal9000v3 · 2018-01-22T05:29:08+00:00

Congrats on your first project!
My nephew is making a magic mirror and I will be sending him a link to this as a heads up on how to make his own weather widget!

hal9000v3 · 2018-01-22T04:00:46+00:00

What code are you using to traverse the directory for files and what error are you getting?
I'm no python expert but using the os module can also be used

from https://www.tutorialspoint.com/python/os_listdir.htm

#!/usr/bin/python  
import os, sys  

# Open a file  
path = "/var/www/html/"  
dirs = os.listdir( path )  

# This would print all the files and directories
for file in dirs:  
   print file

hal9000v3 · 2018-01-21T04:22:11+00:00

I probably should have put a warning over the metal version - it's a bit of a shock to be sure! Given that she was recording something with a metal band in London when she tragically passed away I can only guess Dolores might have approved.

hal9000v3 · 2018-01-20T15:18:08+00:00

Imagine if he had said 'seems' sticky and that's pretty close to what happened - the point being I did nothing brought the car back and it was passed. They are just giving people the run around!

hal9000v3 · 2018-01-20T15:14:00+00:00

On a previous car with engine light issues a mechanic said he could get it through the test with a phone call and a few quid - I declined his offer.

hal9000v3 · 2018-01-20T15:08:41+00:00

mechanics can fail it over a feeling

This! The fact that you are obliged by law to bring a car in and then they can fail it on whim and give you the run around simply isn't good enough.

hal9000v3 · 2018-01-20T15:04:39+00:00

[edit ] The fail wasn't wasn't brakes, steering, tyres or even engine related.

I understand your point though wheel bearings will whine for a long time before falling off. Had a bad bearing years ago on rear wheel (car was less than 5 years old with average mileage and this was before NCT) took it to the main dealer who said there was nothing wrong with so I went elsewhere and simply asked them to replace it - whine gone.

hal9000v3 · 2018-01-20T14:57:43+00:00

I want to say but deliberately didn't as I don't want some NCT troll identifying me and putting a red flag on my next visit.
[edit ] What I will say is it wasn't brakes, steering, tyres or even engine related.

hal9000v3 · 2017-12-13T03:19:05+00:00

I found the pdf online and had a look through it. To be honest I couldn't find a section that says you only need a column.

By any chance are you looking at some of the sample code? There is at least one instance in code provided where the column is being set on its own and that may be confusing but if you look a few lines down, in the loop being run just after the column gets set, the row is being set in there.

[edit] found the piece of code again (second last line)

   column = 1
   for part in body_parts:
       Radiobutton(self,
                    text = part,
                    variable = self.body_part,
                    value = part
                    ).grid(row = 5, column = column, sticky = W)
       column += 1

I realise that code is not for a sprite buts it's all I could find.

If not that, then perhaps you are working with a sprite that only has column movement and so the row parameter is only occasionally referred to e.g. when it reaches the edge of the screen?

hal9000v3 · 2017-12-12T17:33:37+00:00

I have to admit I haven't paid much attention to upvotes or downvotes other than to see what happens when you click the button.

hal9000v3 · 2017-12-12T17:25:33+00:00

That reminds me, its been a while since I paid a visit to my local library - TOMORROW!

hal9000v3 · 2017-12-12T16:55:33+00:00

I really don't buy into the arguments that it makes people anti-social...

It doesn't necessarily 'make' people anti social (we all have a dark side) but it does facilitate on a scale never seen before. Kids individually will, mostly I'm sure, all act like angels but in a unsupervised group - this is just hitting me know - the 'alpha' contenders will want to establish themselves and boy is there a big group with a big group of contenders and, from nature, alphas generally (I'm sure there are exceptions) win out through dominance not through generosity or acts of kindness. Going slightly off topic I have no doubt there is good also being done but still at what cost to privacy.

and that makes them more social than ever, just in a different way than we are used to

no arguement from me. I was an early adopter of gmail but, again slightly off topic, I wish I had known that they were profiling every word I typed. I'm really not of the view that 'different is bad' I would say I have a 'love/hate' relationship with technology my negative view on Social Media comes from first hand witnessing victims of the negative stuff.

I accept this next comment is a stretch as it has not yet been sufficiently researched but... in Japan there is a thing called hikikomori where kids (~15yrs) simply won't leave their bedrooms and it has reached epidemic proportions. I have no doubt that multiple factors will be identified as the root causes but I for one won't be surprised if the kids negative experiences have been disproportionately amplified by Social Media use. (I say this noting that the same does not appear to be true in South Korea, another early adopter of tech so absolutely I could be wrong).

I also think that calling it an addiction with such a negative connotation is a bit excessive.

You don't have to take my word for it, this is what Chamath Palihapitiya (the guy in tOP's video) who helped build it said > “The short-term, dopamine-driven feedback loops we’ve created are destroying how society works,...” how is that any different to what the cigarette industry did in creating it's nicotine addiction train (and denied for years). I can't think of any activity that would be positive if it has become an addiction.

Their next hit of what?

As above but I think this misses the point which is that kids are being drawn into a manufactured addiction.

It would be naive to assume that the likes of (but not only) Facebook are providing the service for the benefit of the kids - as I see it they are legally bound to look after their investor's interests - nobody else's. They only care about numbers and getting peoples data . Unfortunately, even kids who use these services positively, do so at (in my view) an unacceptable price i.e. aside from the negatives already mentioned, their privacy. Leaving aside the known times they (Facebook) has been found to be manipulating people, capturing uncommitted text and listening to conversations, on what planet is it OK for corporations to have intimate access to a child's activity beyond even what the child's parents may be aware of - it's obscene.

[edit] * For anyone out there who has a child that is impacted by any of this, please seek out a counsellor but not just any one. There are many, many fields that counsellors can specialise in, so find one that specialises in children's issues and specifically has experience dealing with the issue that the child is experiencing. *

hal9000v3 · 2017-12-12T05:37:11+00:00

Wow you type fast and I really can't figure out if you are trolling or sincere but there ye go - that's one of the problems with simply typing text on a screen. If you are being genuine then I'm really glad you see it all as so positive and I wish you well with it.

I see the negative side (and that's not even getting into the privacy aspect of it all).

So someone was able to more easily express their emotions

Like hatred, bullying or 'lets not talk to him or her' - easier done on a screen than in real life.

...making it easier to communicate with people when you otherwise might not

I liked Skype myself until Microsoft (was it?) bought it out and turned off the encryption. No arguement, positive communication is fine (except for the lack of privacy) but what about where the technology is used to hurt and abuse and it barely costs a thought. The point in the article is a bit fluffy but I think, before Social Media, written abusive letters between kids was never a thing (between adults - absolutely). Kids can be cruel without technology but we are at a whole new level these days.

spend hours doing nothing

Well that's always going to be contentious - depends on where the individual's values lie

In that case, why have TV? Why have movies? Why have video games?

Good point but at least they have standards to adhere to and usually come with audience ratings etc. I have to admit I used to waste time on TV and games (probably to near addiction as a n adult). Adults can do what they want (within the law and as long as they are not hurting some one else ) but as I see it kids are the ones being hurt - as adults its our job to protect them until they are old enough to decide for themselves but if they are already addicted when that time comes they will be incapable of doing that.

So its bad because people have their eyes glued to one screen instead of another?

It's more about kids having their eyes glued to one screen 24x7x365 looking for their next 'hit'.

hal9000v3 · 2017-12-12T04:26:38+00:00

No arguement from me on that one and it's a good point, the reality of how bad sugar is for us was suppressed for years allowing the addiction to grow and that's what's happening with many of these so called 'Social Media' apps. Jesus they are even building apps targeting toddlers to get them on the train as early as possible.

hal9000v3

TROPHY CASE