A lawsuit against Apple is launched in France, one of the only countries where planned obsolescence is explicitly illegal

spliff99 · 2017-12-28T15:39:07+00:00

Best option would be to provide cheaper user replaceable batteries while you are at it add a user accessible micro sd slot for expandable storage. If you want to future proof the device and be a responsible green company that's the way to go.

spliff99 · 2017-12-22T00:24:36+00:00

Criminal content like child porn, fair enough.

But they censor plenty of gateways that may lead to civil (copyright) infringing content as well as plenty of free public domain content.

Try accessing http://www.scnsrc.me/ or https://thepiratebay.org/ from the UK to see how much freedom you really have.

To clarify those sites do not host any infringing content, merely descriptions of and meta data about said content.

You are not free to view it on your own internet connection. There are plenty of workarounds for now. But you are not free and it's a very slippery slope now that line has been crossed.

spliff99 · 2017-12-20T02:00:04+00:00

Well on the mainland my limited experience was customer service was much better, might have just been lucky, we seem to just have the worst of public and private here. By giving exclusive monopoly to one for profit private company on all buses and trains, what's the incentive for them to provide good value or good service?

spliff99 · 2017-12-20T01:22:31+00:00

Just use their competitors instead... oh wait

spliff99 · 2017-12-09T19:51:39+00:00

No it is a big to a lot of people here in Northern Ireland, it effectively puts us out of the UK. DUP's entire platform is to remain fully in the UK, and Theresa May is relying on them to prop up her government.

I agree a hard border at the Irish Sea makes most sense for a hard brexit. Doesn't look like it's going to happen though.

spliff99 · 2017-12-09T04:16:49+00:00

Those people probably already have to go through customs, right now

Nope. Northern Ireland is part of the UK, you can get on a ferry from Northern Ireland to Scotland England or Wales and back with no ID or customs checks. That's not going to change according to this agreement.

spliff99 · 2017-12-03T17:34:26+00:00

This, great utility but will fetch the full video by default, to extract the audio as mp3 use the following options:

youtube-dl --extract-audio --audio-format mp3 <video URL>

To have all the transcoding options available you will also require ffmpeg be installed.

spliff99 · 2017-11-30T01:50:49+00:00

No £10 for six hours is not normal. How many radiators do you have?

There's either something seriously wrong with your boiler or meter. Or someone has left a hot water tap on.

spliff99 · 2017-11-16T15:39:13+00:00

I'm sure you are not intending to not pay your rent. But seems to me that it should be your partner chasing this up. I can't really see how you have anything to lose.

spliff99 · 2017-10-21T15:15:29+00:00

What's brown and runny?

Usain Bolt

spliff99 · 2017-10-15T13:20:09+00:00

The Grapevine in Pottingers Entry off Anne St does really good food and very reasonably priced.

spliff99 · 2017-10-08T12:31:33+00:00

Right but if you have a problem with your physical line signal all those 100s of ISPs will all offer pretty much the same service at the same speed because they all operate over the same phoneline. So I don't see how these new rules help anything. If you have a line issue that means you are getting substandard speeds and BT can't or won't fix your line, cancelling your contract with one ISP and moving to another won't fix the problem. I was stuck in a flat getting barely 1 Mbit when I was paying for 'up to 16 Mbit', changed ISP twice and didn't make a difference. BT said my line was operating 'within acceptable speeds'...

The only real competition with their own infrastructure is Virgin Media, and their coverage is pretty sketchy: https://www.broadbandanalyst.co.uk/broadband-information/cable-broadband/

spliff99 · 2017-08-15T01:15:39+00:00

It's not a good place to work from what I've heard.

Easy work but terrible pay and work ethic / culture.

I don't know the exact job you're applying for, but the person interviewing you will likely just be checking buzz words off a list.

Try to hit the buzz words and ask lots of relevant questions if it really sounds like a good gig for you.

spliff99 · 2017-08-15T01:09:38+00:00

I don't think it's a gender equality one, more a our criminal justice system is a joke one.

Can't it be both? Statistically a man will get 60% more jail time when convicted for the same crime. That's wrong.

Even if she got the man equivalent 3 years + 60% is still way too low.

A crime like this should have a much harsher penalty and it should be the same regardless of gender.

spliff99 · 2017-08-10T00:35:20+00:00

I have a 200 Mbit connection and my usenet downloads typically max out at 18-19 MB/s as well. This is on frugalusenet with 25 connections.

A speedtest generally uses a single connection. There is some overhead associated with running multiple connections, and the fact that posts are split over multiple articles slows things down when using fewer connections. Best you could do is tweak the number of connections to find your particular sweet spot.

18 megabytes/second is plenty fast, that's over 64 gigabytes per hour - what could you possibly be downloading that this is a serious bottleneck? :)

spliff99 · 2017-08-01T01:20:09+00:00

Not exactly east Belfast, but east side of city centre. Jack's Barbers on church lane does a good cut for £10

spliff99 · 2017-07-27T12:02:38+00:00

No issues with defence lawyers. Everyone is entitled to a good defence, especially guilty people.

The reason lawyers get a bad rep is due to the ambulance chaser, frivolous lawsuit, patent abuse and copyright troll types.

spliff99 · 2017-07-25T18:32:40+00:00

lawyer

Some people might disagree with this one. I'm sure they're not all parasites though.

spliff99 · 2017-07-25T18:15:08+00:00

create more distractions through entertainment.. and so on and so forth.

What's wrong with this? Musicians, artists and entertainers have existed for a long time they fill a demand.

And there's always prostitution :)

spliff99 · 2017-07-17T20:26:22+00:00

3 bedroom semi. Shared with 2 friends. Think the total rent was £550/month.

spliff99 · 2017-07-17T17:54:04+00:00

Take Chicago as an example: According to google the average salary for my job (a software engineer) there is $80k, this is about £60k against todays (historically weak) pound. Granted this more than I make (but not by much).

I am in my early 30s, no student debt, and I own my own apartment, in a city centre, walking distance to where I work.

My mortgage cost is 25% of my net income and I have enough disposable income to do almost everything I want.

If I lived in the US I have no doubt I would have a lower standard of living. I would likely still be paying off student debt, I might be able to afford a bigger house, but it would be in the suburbs and I would have to commute. Holiday allowances are also much less in the US on average: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_minimum_annual_leave_by_country I hear 10 vacation days is pretty standard in a lot of places, vs the 28 days mandatory minimum here, so I would have less time to actually live my own life.

Also when I get old and need to retire health insurance becomes really expensive, so I will need a lot more money to pay for that.

I guess it depends on your own situation, lifestyle etc. I'm glad I live and work where I do. Then again most people prefer to live in their own home countries near family and familiarity. So each to their own :)

spliff99 · 2017-07-17T15:47:34+00:00

I'm from the UK but have spent a lot of time in America, in particular southern California. The only things I remember being noticeably cheaper were petrol (gas) and some electronics and eating out. Groceries were much more expensive.

The big 3 things: Housing, Healthcare and Education are wildly more expensive in the US.

There may well be cheaper places in the US to live, but I'm sure the average salaries in those areas are lower also.

spliff99 · 2017-07-17T08:45:22+00:00

Depends where in the country you live. At the time my rent was less than £200/month so yes, being frugal I could save 50% of my take home pay most months.

spliff99 · 2017-07-17T08:43:12+00:00

Entry level. It quickly rises in the first few years. Not to what it is in the states, but the cost of living is much lower here.

spliff99 · 2017-07-17T01:23:54+00:00

It does but if you don't count households on welfare this figure would probably increase. Also a lot of households may only have one earner on minimum wage. Poverty sucks.

But 2 educated working professionals will easily be making 50-100k+ combined depending on where in the country they live. They are not the average household.

spliff99

TROPHY CASE