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Grumpy Owl
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Posts posted by Grumpy Owl
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On 4/30/2023 at 3:29 PM, webtrekker said:
@pete675 Here's the 180° ebook. I'm not sure how long I'll be keeping it on my hosting site so get it while you can!
https://tinyurl.com/webtrekker
[789 pages | approx 27Mb]
I'd like to have a look at this but your link doesn't work @webtrekker
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3 hours ago, lake said:
See, this is why people shouldn't put all their faith and trust in what an AI tells them.
AI is no substitute for "actual intelligence". Stupid people now think they are clever because they can just get answers from an AI chatbot.
In this case I think the ChatGPT's answer would be correct if the towels were being dried in a tumble dryer. But the question stated 'on the line', so the answer is wrong.
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And again, "it's okay when we do it!"
MPs asked to repay driving fines claimed on expenses
QuoteFour MPs are being asked to repay hundreds of pounds in driving fines which they claimed on expenses.
Government minister Amanda Solloway claimed an £80 fixed penalty notice issued by Transport for London in 2020.
Tory MPs Simon Hoare and Bim Afolami, and SNP MP Dave Doogan, also put through similar claims.
MPs are not allowed to claim for fines and some were wrongfully paid out, but at least one MP is understood to have already paid back the money.
Ms Solloway, Derby North MP and energy minister, claimed back a fixed penalty notice which was issued on 2 July 2020, according to the Independent Parliamentary Standards Authority's (IPSA) expenses register.
Mr Doogan, SNP MP for Angus, claimed for a £160 fine in January 2022.
The register also shows Mr Hoare, the MP for North Dorset who also chairs the Commons Northern Ireland Committee, claimed four times for £80 fines issued in November 2019, while Mr Afolami, MP for Hitchin and Harpenden, claimed for two £80 fines in December 2021.
from: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-65736601
You'd think with the money these people earn as MPs or ministers, they'd have no problem paying these 'trivial' amounts out of their own pockets.
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"It's okay when we do it!"
Police to take no action against Staffordshire University lecturer in anti-Semitism probe
QuoteDr Rizwan Mustafa shared content promoting the destruction of Israel and described Jews as “filth”, according to an official report on the Government's anti-terrorism strategy Prevent.
The matter was put forward for investigation by West Midlands Police and Crime Commissioner Simon Foster. He said that after a "thorough" probe that had treated the matter with the "seriousness that it required", the force had concluded that no further action would be taken.
West Bromwich East MP Nicola Richards has written to the Security Minister criticising the decision, saying the position adopted by the police was "unacceptable" and would damage relations with the Jewish community.
In a letter to , Mr Foster said: "West Midlands Police have concluded that, in their view, neither the material referenced in the independent review of Prevent, nor the manner in which it was shared, contravenes Section 58 of the Terrorism Act 2000 or the Public Order Act 1986.
"As a consequence, West Midlands Police have determined that they will not be taking further action in connection with this matter."
So, what's significant about this fella?
QuoteDr Mustafa currently holds a senior position at Staffordshire University as the police training lead. He was a police officer for 10 years and was founding chair of the West Midlands branch of the National Association of Muslim Police.
Draw your own conclusions...
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13 minutes ago, Anti Facts Sir said:
They're being very obvious, even calling it bloody Tracker!
Exactly, and it's being spun in a way that it sounds like people can save money, thus 'incentivising' people to have a smart meter installed, and the article even mentions how people are being 'encouraged' to switch from their current provider even though they will just end up on a waiting list.
This is just the 'first test', mark my words if enough people start switching to Octopus, then other energy suppliers will be racing to offer the same.
They can market this as 'fair pricing' all they want, I can see what their game is and I'm not playing it.
Energy prices are at a 'high' right now and while they are starting to fall, people would be wise not to lock themselves into a long-term 2 or 3 year 'fixed rate' tariff just yet - as I sensibly did in 2021 - I think those days are over now, and thus the 'comparison' websites will continue to be next to useless.
I coined the term "flexible pricing" but it seems that Octopus are going with 'dynamic daily pricing' which sounds kind of trendy and hip.
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Oh yes, I saw this one coming...
Octopus introduces major change with new tariff - but customers have to get on a waiting list
QuoteOctopus is to ask 50,000 people to go on a waiting list to switch to a new tariff. It comes as the new energy price cap has been announced by Ofgem.
Ofgem's cap, coming in from July 1, will see the average household dual-fuel bill set at £2,074 a year. Reflecting recent falls in wholesale prices, it is £426 lower than the current £2,500 Energy Price Guarantee that the Government has put in place until the end of June.
Responding to the changes in the market as prices tumble, Octopus Energy is to ask thousands to sign up for its its "one-of-a-kind" Tracker tariff. It will offer the deal, which it describes as "Britain's fairest energy tariff", to 50,000 existing customers from July 1 and is also asking people with other suppliers to switch and join the waiting list.
Offering "dynamic daily pricing" and "100 per cent renewable electricity", Octopus said: "Tracker's transparent daily prices follow wholesale energy costs: when wholesale prices are low, your energy's cheaper - and vice versa."
It explained: "Octopus Tracker is Britain's first tariff to truly follow the wholesale price of energy. Every day, we update the price of your energy based on an independently published wholesale market price - the price available to all suppliers.
"Tracker is available for electricity and gas. Over the warmer months, prices tend to be lower, and we expect them to increase – likely double – when the heating comes on and the sun starts setting earlier."
But it cautioned that Tracker's price cap protection is a lot higher than the Ofgem energy price cap, which could mean householders end up paying much more than the maximum set by the regulator if wholesale prices shoot up.
from: https://www.birminghammail.co.uk/news/cost-of-living/octopus-introduces-major-change-new-26998956
And yes, of course there's a catch:
QuoteIn order to get the Tracker tariff, people need a working smart meter.
I must admit that it's not very often that I make a prediction that comes true, but bloody hell I pretty much called this one last year:
The real reason for ‘smart meters’ is becoming ever more apparent
QuoteNow at this time, I’m not aware of any energy companies who offer ‘special’ fixed term tariffs to customers with smart meters, but I’m pretty sure this will be the next step down the line.
Because at the end of the day, regardless of whether you have a smart meter or not, your basic unit cost is still fixed at a certain amount, regardless of the time of day.
But what I think is coming, and perhaps not that far off now, will be new tariff rates, tailored for those with or without smart meters.
Consumers without smart meters will end up with higher fixed unit costs – after all if energy suppliers cannot measure your hour-by-hour usage, they’ll just go for the ‘worst-case’ option.
The incentive will be for consumers to get upgraded to ‘smart meters’ and then you’ll get access to ‘flexible pricing’; I don’t know how this will be presented for certain, but I imagine it will be spun in a way that unit rates will be charged within a ‘range’, with the marketing emphasis being placed on “from as little as…” as is the usual trick.
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In between working outside in my garden today, I was also doing a bit of work from home, which required me to stop my computer going to 'sleep' so that certain tasks could be completed.
On going into the system Power settings, I saw this which to be honest I had never seen or noticed before:
And once again, my first thought was "oh fuck off!"
Now as it happened, I bought this PC a couple of years ago to replace my ageing mini-tower unit, and it was one of these compact little ASRock 4X4 boxes:
As well as the smallest PC I have ever owned, it is probably the most energy-efficient too, which I was quite pleased about - for most day-to-day tasks it consumes very little power, but when pushed it can handle the kind of stuff I do for work.
I don't appreciate being lectured about 'carbon footprints' thank you.
Where does this end though? It's another 'behavioural change' exercise, where people are 'nudged' into following 'recommendations' in order to save the planet by reducing your carbon footprint.
If I need my PC to stay on, then tough shit, that's my decision.
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11 hours ago, peter said:
I heard her mention that 30% of all medical services in Australia were substandard. This piqued my interest so I listened and according to the head on a stick it had nothing to do with the standard of the services provided or the outcome for the patient,it had to do with the carbon footprint of said services.
I agree, its all horseshit, and 'climate change' is being used as an 'excuse' for poor standards of service.
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I know this kind of incident is always tragic, but why do the media word their headlines to make it sound like it was the train's fault?
Person hit by train in Marston Green with huge emergency response
QuoteNational Rail confirmed a person was hit by a train which triggered a massive emergency response in Solihull earlier today. Scores of responders from police, ambulance and the fire brigade rushed to Marston Green railway station just before midday.
Sadly National Rail has confirmed that emergency services had attended an incident where a person was hit by a train. BirminghamLive has approached British Transport Police for a statement.
Passengers were asked to leave the train carriages at the platform. Five major train routes are affected, with disruption expected to continue up to 3.45pm today, Saturday, May 27.
from: https://www.birminghammail.co.uk/news/midlands-news/person-hit-train-marston-green-27006204
Someone can only be hit by a train if they are standing on the line, which means they would have been trespassing - it's not like the train went out of control and was roaming the streets of Marston Green looking for someone to knock over.
Apart from confirmation that "a person was hit by a train", there's predictably no other details to this story, apart from what's been tweeted by West Mids Fire Service and West Midlands Railway.
Quote"If you’ve been affected by what happened on the network today, there is always someone to talk to. You can contact the Samaritans on 116 123 from any phone for a confidential chat."
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21 hours ago, numnuts said:
It's hard to imagine what evidence they could claim to find, other than Maddie's corpse or some of her clothing, which they could then try to link to Brueckner.
I can't be bothered to go find it now but I saw some article on the Birmingham Mail (because this is important local news) that said something about looking for a gun and a video camera, which would have contained footage of Brueckner.
It's all shrouded in anonymous 'tip-offs' and 'claims'. (See 'Nicola Bulley' etc)
Why would anyone expect such 'evidence' to have laid completely undisturbed for the last 16 years, especially after the area was supposedly searched twice previously?
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4 hours ago, Anti Facts Sir said:
One of the first people to be notified of Maddie's "disappearance" was PM Gordon Brown, and NDAs were quickly brought in to prevent any leaks of info or awkward questions. Now why would you do that for a random little girl who's gone missing on hols?
Actually, if I recall correctly, Tony Blair was still PM at the time, so Brown was only 'deputy PM'. Which was still odd, because surely if you're going to contact someone from Government if you're in trouble abroad, the Foreign Secretary might have been a more appropriate 'choice'.
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1 hour ago, Anti Facts Sir said:
Police quickly scrambled to arrest the man on suspicion of criminal damage and dangerous driving.
So, not a 'terror attack' then?
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3 hours ago, peter said:
That would mean photosynthesis must occur at night in many areas of Australia in the summer months, who would of thought
Photosynthesis only occurs during daylight.
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2 hours ago, Anti Facts Sir said:
Hmmm. Timed for a reason? Influenced by the This Morning fiasco maybe.
Some attempt at 'distraction' perhaps?
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Back in the news again...
Madeleine McCann: Police to search Portuguese reservoir
QuotePolice investigating the disappearance of Madeleine McCann are to carry out searches at a reservoir in Portugal.
A search of the Arade dam will begin on Tuesday, 50km from where the toddler went missing in Praia da Luz in 2007.
Christian Brueckner, 45, was made a formal suspect, or an "arguido", by Portuguese prosecutors in 2022.
The search was requested by German police as the area was visited by Brueckner when Madeleine, then three years old, disappeared.
Madeleine, from Rothley, Leicestershire, had been on holiday with her family in Portugal's Algarve when she went missing on 3 May 2007.
Portuguese police said in a press statement that it is co-ordinating searches in the Algarve over the next few days, also in the presence of British officers.
from: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-65673674
And no doubt after all this searching, the police officers will wind down with a few rounds of golf at the nearby NAU Morgado Golf & Country Club.
But what are they hoping to find 16 years later?
QuoteIt is not the first time the reservoir has been searched as part of the investigation.
In 2008, Portuguese lawyer Marcos Aragao Correia paid for specialist divers to check the waterway after he claimed to have been tipped off by criminal contacts that Madeleine's body was in the reservoir.
The most recent search in Portugal in relation to Madeleine's disappearance was in 2014, when British police were given permission to examine scrubland near where she vanished.
Interesting comparison there with the recent Nicola Bulley case. I suppose a "lesson learned" by the police there is that 'specialist divers' are next to useless and they should bring along a 'psychic' instead.
Either they'll find nothing and its another fruitless pointless waste of police resources, or someone will 'miraculously' find a very badly decomposed child's body, and then the police finally have their 'smoking gun' to point at this Brueckner fella.
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Remember last year when Liz Truss became Conservative party leader and Prime Minister as voted for by a majority of Conservative party members?
Then when the Tory party elite decided that her plans were too 'radical', they bullied her into resigning. And then the next leader was decided by the Tory party 'elite' MPs without giving the membership a vote? That's how we ended up with Rishi Sunak as PM.
Ironically at the time, Labour party leader "Sir" Keir Starmer 'demanded' there should be a General Election, so the electorate could have their say - he was presuming that Labour would win such an election of course, that was the only way he could worm his way into becoming Prime Minister.
Meanwhile this week in Birmingham, apart from the local media here, no-one has bat an eyelid at this (apart from me!)
Democracy dies in Birmingham – the technocracy is here
QuoteA report citing allegations of misogyny, toxic division and infighting at the heart of Birmingham Labour has caused disarray – after the party’s national leadership ruled it was so damning they would now step in and decide the city’s next leader.
It means the party’s national executive has effectively seized control of the city council after deciding the ‘status quo’ is not an option. In a move that has caused shockwaves, they have said they will appoint the next leader and deputy leader of Birmingham City Council, with local members not getting a say.
from: https://thegrumpyowl.co.uk/2023/05/21/democracy-dies-in-birmingham-the-technocracy-is-here/
So lets make this clear, the national Labour party's NEC is deciding for itself which one of the city's Labour councillors will be the group's leader, without the Labour party councillors themselves getting any say.
How democratic!
Mark my words, expect to see far more of this over the next couple of years, as the Labour hierarchy overrules its members in order to put its "placemen" into position.
You ain't seen nothing yet!
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2 hours ago, sock muppet said:
We already have a national voter ID card, it is called the Electoral Register, i use the card that is sent in the post, i think it to be fair and reasonable to have one as long as the Electoral Register is secured from government interference and corporate voter manipulation, and any use other than for voting purposes of the individual that it is assigned to, or any offense committed in its misuse should be punishable by life imprisonment.
I agree, I have posted here before that while every eligible voter receives a polling card through the post, it is not required to be presented at the polling station before you receive a ballot paper.
Well I think it should be. No polling card, no ballot paper. No need to present ID, that should be sufficient.
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On 5/14/2023 at 9:38 AM, EnigmaticWorld said:
It's a damned if you do and damned if you don't situation. Without voter ID the system will continue to get abused, and with it many won't bother.
I don't think voter ID is necessary for voting in person, after all I believe most vote fraud is done through the postal votes.
Turnouts are just as low as they were last year, so the requirement to show valid ID hasn't actually put people off. This is just another attempt to further push the idea of a 'national ID card' - whether that be a 'physical' card or a digital one.
Don't fall into their trap!
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59 minutes ago, rebornsteve said:
Well yeah there's that, but what was Holly's problem with Phil?
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On 5/14/2023 at 2:45 PM, Observations said:
Divide as usual
That's basically it in a nutshell.
It's just more identity politics, with different generations labelling each other and being set up to clash with each other.
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1 hour ago, Nemuri Kyoshiro said:
Taking my daily painful walk through the online Sun today, I spotted two headline stories about why Phil and Holly need to repair their relationship. Living overseas, I don't get to watch their show, but did Phil's brother molest one of Holly's kids or something? If it isn't Katie Price it's this pair front and centre. Anyone would think the entire UK is obsessed with what's on the telly in the morning...
Now 'breaking' across all news sites, and strangely 'top news' on the BBC site:
Phillip Schofield leaves ITV’s This Morning
QuotePhillip Schofield says he has agreed to step down from ITV’s This Morning “with immediate effect” after more than 20 years.
In a statement, he said: "I understand ITV has decided the current situation can't go on."
His departure comes after reports claimed relations between him and co-host Holly Willoughby had come under strain in recent weeks.
from: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-65658609
Not that I really care, I don't watch "This Morning" and to be honest I am sick of seeing 'news stories' about what happens on this show.
I might be interested to know more about the reason why 'relations had become strained' as there clearly is more going on behind the scenes than is being let on.
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5 hours ago, allymisfit said:
Absolutely baltic this morning.
Staying in today. My face is numb from being outside for 30 mins!
So much for everything warming up
It's turned out nice here in Birmingham!
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1 hour ago, Ethel said:
I'm glad someone has highlighted this. I was a smoker for a long time and gave up, interestingly enough, over the course of 2020-21. I briefly tried vaping in it's early days, but that was back when it was marketed as a way to come off cigarettes, rather than as a permanent feature in one's life. I stopped after a week or so because, believe it or not, I ended up with severe chest pains - even though after a decade of smoking cigarettes I'd rarely experienced chest pains, although I'd had plenty of sore throats.
I'm not saying one is definitively worse than the other, although I have long suspected that many people who vape have convinced themselves it is harmless because a) they enjoy it, b) they want it to be harmless and c) they want to believe there is such a thing as a harmless addiction. It's possible vaping is harmless. Then again, it's possible it isn't.
I think it was earlier this year, I briefly quit smoking while I was suffering with a bad chest infection (no, not Covid
, the kind I usually get after I have a bad cold).
I went a couple of weeks without having a 'proper smoke', unfortunately I soon gave in and started again.
During the first part of my 'abstinence' I tried using this vape device I'd bought a while back but had hardly used - just some cheap thing by Logic that used interchangeable 'e-liquid pods' you can pop in and out - I found it irritated my throat and chest far more than puffing on cigarettes did.
I don't think they are any "better for you" than cigarettes are, certainly I think it was okay when vaping took off as a "quit smoking aid", but it concerns me now that the way these are being marketed, they are becoming 'appealing' to people - especially kids - who probably wouldn't ordinarily consider taking up smoking as a habit, its become almost fashionable or trendy to be seen vaping these days.
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Following on from my previous reply...
On 5/12/2023 at 12:49 AM, Graham Jessop said:I have suggestions that i think would work, would put an end to the madness etc but it needs someone like David involved.
What i've noticed is that David has no real answers to the problems, i have got those.
What I have also noticed is that despite having a publicly viewable forum that anyone can sign up to and start or join in discussions, there's a considerable number of people that only want to communicate with David himself, and are completely unwilling to engage with other people who share David's ideas.
I have read David's books and watched his videos, but it is clear he doesn't want to be any kind of 'leader' or to be 'followed', what we choose to do should be up to us.
If you truly have 'suggestions' or 'real answers' then please find an appropriate topic in this forum or start a new one, and let the members here engage with and discuss your ideas.
There are a good number of members here who are up for a good discussion, but sadly there are also those who just treat this place like a 'dumping ground', the "one-post wonders" etc who just post stuff and never follow up.
On 5/12/2023 at 12:49 AM, Graham Jessop said:I am hard of hearing though, so just being able to email or text him would be good for me.
And I lose count of the number of people who join this forum just to try and get a contact number or email for David. (And no, despite being a former moderator, I have neither of them)
To be honest, I have always suspected that some people may wish for 'direct contact' with David in order to feed him misinfo/disinfo, "I have new information to share" etc.
I don't know really, I just don't get why some people don't want to engage with others, that is of course what David wants us all to do.
In summary, there is no need for a "new forum" not while there is this one, which just needs more like-minded people to join and start discussions.
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Alt website list for everyone to add to...
in Recommended Reading, Viewing and Audio
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Got it now thanks both, was Virgin Media WebSafe that was blocking it, thinks your website has viruses on it!