scorch Posted February 1, 2015 Report Share Posted February 1, 2015 Watching Archer for the first time. Well funny. Link to post Share on other sites
Gunmane Posted February 1, 2015 Report Share Posted February 1, 2015 If only it wasn't the weekend with the folks home so I could watch this past week's Archer. Link to post Share on other sites
amateurstuntman Posted February 1, 2015 Author Report Share Posted February 1, 2015 I fully agree with paying tax, it's a necessity, but the whole system needs gripping by the throat, ripped to pieces and rebuilt from the ground up. In Stunt's Britain it would be much more simple. Your tax free allowance would be a living wage, call it 24K but I'd have to get someone to do some calculations for me because *fruitcage* doing it myself, I'm in charge. Once you have earned over 24K (or whatever) then half of everything you earn goes in tax. No excuses, no exceptions. All other taxes (VAT, inheritance, stamp duty, vehicle excise duty, fuel duty and the rest) would be immediately abolished. All the gigantic manpower overhead of running the current hopelessly complicated system would be re-roled into making sure everyone paid half. They'd be on commission. I could also fix the NHS, welfare state and prison systems in under a week. Put me in charge, a cold, emotionless, unsympathetic, ruthlessly logical yet benevolent dictator is what every country needs. Cherry Pepsi is win I assume by that you mean Cherry Pepsi Max? And I agree. Otherwise, ick. Watching Archer for the first time. Well funny. Welcome, good news! It gets better! So, up until yesterday I had two laptops. A Lenovo X201 that I had Win 7 on just so that I could use Peripedal (no linux support) to control my Wahoo Kickr (I heartily endorse this event or product) and a Lenovo X220 that I got "broken" on Ebay for £76 and fixed for under £30 that has Ubuntu on it. Yesterday I got a 250Gb M-SATA SSD and slipped it into the (very sexy) X220 and wiped the existing SSD. I then installed Windows 7 (*fruitcage* 8 and 8.1) on the 2.5" SSD in the drive bay. It was born with no drivers of any kind, dead, on 800x600 graphics. I had to plug my phone in and set it to USB tether (too lazy to go downstairs and plug into the switch with Cat 6) to go on Lenovo's website and get the driver for the WiFi card (FUN FACT: Although WiFi looks like it stands for something, it doesn't). Once I had the wireless card working I then tried to install the Lenovo ThinkVantage utility that automatically updates all the laptop's drivers and the pieces of specialist software that make Lenovo laptops special. It (of course) wouldn't work because it requires .Net framework and the most up-to-date service pack. Cue a gargantuan download and about 15 restarts. Now up to date I was able to install ThinkVantage. Cue a biblically epic download and another 25 restarts. Then I had to install Peripedal and my usual suite of programmes from Ninite.com (praise be to Solomon for Ninite.com) to replace the bloated insecure nonsense that Windows provides. Another Brobdingnagian download and restart. Well, that was emotional. Then I installed Ubuntu on the M-SATA drive. Nothing to report, it just all worked. Immediately. Then I went to reboot and Windows had ruined the GRUB loader so that I could not boot into Ubuntu. What the hell Windows? Anyway, because Ubuntu isn't a *bramston pickle* I just had to boot from an Ubuntu installation USB stick (yes, you can do this and it is a brilliant way to repair broken and corrupted Windows installations) and run a GRUB repair on the boot sector. That worked fine and now I can dual boot into both operating systems despite Windows doing it's best to stop me. Seriously, why does anybody bother with Windows? The only reason I do is for games on my desktop (on the way out with SteamOS) and because while Peripedal works in WINE or a virtual machine both of those work higher up than the ANT+ stick needed to connect to the heart rate monitor and speed/cadence/power sensors. Ubuntu - free, open, functional, freaking awesome. Link to post Share on other sites
shmook Posted February 1, 2015 Report Share Posted February 1, 2015 Stunt, I've said it before, I would vote for you Link to post Share on other sites
Hedganian Posted February 1, 2015 Report Share Posted February 1, 2015 Major internet points for Stunt's use of the word "Brobdingnagian" Seriously, why does anybody bother with Windows? Because of the insane effort you just described to install something else and get it working properly. Most people are lazy, they want to go to PC World, buy a computer, bring it home and start using it. Nothing more. Link to post Share on other sites
amateurstuntman Posted February 1, 2015 Author Report Share Posted February 1, 2015 The insane effort was because WIndows™ doesn't play well with others. If you get a computer with a blank drive and stick Ubuntu on it, it just works. If you put an Ubuntu installation CD in the drive and boot it you can "try" Ubuntu, it won't install anything but just run from the CD. You can even put a USB drive in and store changes you've made. If you have an Ubuntu computer you can use a piece of (free) software to build an installation USB drive using the (free) installation CD. With that USB drive you can boot into a totally functional operating system and anything you download will be present on the thumb drive. or You can install Ubuntu from that thumb drive. I love Ubuntu and I'm not a super-geek. I find the terminal a bit intimidating but any time I need to use it there is a super-simple guide somewhere on the web explaining how to do it with step-by-step instructions. Link to post Share on other sites
paranoiddroid Posted February 1, 2015 Report Share Posted February 1, 2015 Lenovo machines are occasionally a pain in the *albartroth* in my experience. How did you manage to get a gemerit none branded drive to work in a Lenovo machine? I tried and it wouldn't do it but booted fine with the spare think pad drive I had lying around. Of course I meant cherry Pepsi max hell I even really liked Pepsi max cino. Speaking of win drinks. I really wish I could get the full range of mountain dew in the uk I miss crystal and throwback. I used to use Linux mint on my net book which was a really nice simple interface. I just have too many programs that need windows atm and need to subit stuff and write stuff that will work with the interactive whiteboards and stuff like that. Link to post Share on other sites
amateurstuntman Posted February 1, 2015 Author Report Share Posted February 1, 2015 Yeah, people need to realise that ODF is the way forward for documents. Schools are a pain in the *albartroth*, my mate's daughter needs a 'puter for school so she can do her homework he says, he's skint. No problem I say, I have an old broken laptop in my pile of junk that just needs a new HDD, a dash of Linux and she will be good to go with Libre Office, you can have it for nothing. Nope, the school has their *suitcase* set up so that the kids must have an iPad. What madness is this? No keyboard, sub-standard productivity programmes, no expandable memory. What kind of absolute *dampsuitcase* decided that iPads for schools was a good idea? Anyway, Lenovo's BIOS whitelisting of components is usually restricted to wireless cards and (I believe) discreet graphics cards. I've never had a problem with any 2.5" hard drive in a Lenovo machine and while this is the first time I have used an M-SATA drive but it is a Samsung one and is working fine. Link to post Share on other sites
Hedganian Posted February 1, 2015 Report Share Posted February 1, 2015 School "IT people" are probably big Apple fanbois. Although it's beyond me how anyone who seriously works in IT can be.Anyway, if the school have decided that the kids "need" iPads, then the school can provide them. Link to post Share on other sites
scorch Posted February 1, 2015 Report Share Posted February 1, 2015 My sisters school required them to have an apple laptop. Apple give schools massive kickbacks and software support for making their stuff mandatory. Link to post Share on other sites
Hedganian Posted February 1, 2015 Report Share Posted February 1, 2015 Apple give schools massive kickbacks and software support for making their stuff mandatory. That sounds about right - how to get your product adopted widely by paying people to make it the only option in schools, businesses and government departments... Link to post Share on other sites
Cannonfodder80 Posted February 1, 2015 Report Share Posted February 1, 2015 Anyway, if the school have decided that the kids "need" iPads, then the school can provide them. This. I wonder how the school would react if a load of parents either refused to buy them or billed the school Link to post Share on other sites
Hedganian Posted February 1, 2015 Report Share Posted February 1, 2015 Probably "Oh, well, you're only disadvantaging your child. It's (him/her) who will suffer." - because there's always going to be some stupid/rich parents who will just nod along and pod out the money "for their little darlings' education" Link to post Share on other sites
shmook Posted February 1, 2015 Report Share Posted February 1, 2015 I've worked in a few schools, and been through classrooms with 30+ huge screen imacs in them, maybe a couple of hundred per school, and in the same school, a couple of 4 ft square wooden pallets stacked a metre or more high with ipad boxes. It's mental. Link to post Share on other sites
Desolation mkII Posted February 1, 2015 Report Share Posted February 1, 2015 It marketing. McDonalds and religion do a very similar thing, snare them young, and they are less likely to question it. Link to post Share on other sites
hitmanNo2 Posted February 1, 2015 Report Share Posted February 1, 2015 It's sickening to think there are some schools out there brimming with over priced, POS Apple products and then some schools that can barely provide basic books, stationary and sports equipment e.t.c. I know some of the more flush schools are academys or whatever so have greater control over funds. It's just unpleasant to think this is how some of our taxes are spent. Link to post Share on other sites
amateurstuntman Posted February 1, 2015 Author Report Share Posted February 1, 2015 I know. Teaching IT on a mac is like teaching guitar lessons on a banjo, It's almost the same right? Wouldn't kids be better served by learning Apache on Linux machines? When I went to university the uni would say to us that we were the first couple of years of people with decent life-long computer experience and to watch our backs because anyone younger than us is going to be an unholy Gates/Wozniac hybrid hacking savant. Turns out that is a load of *suitcase*. I teach and the kids these days have been brought up on touch screens with no access to advanced settings (Apple much) and as a result know jack *suitcase*. I routinely have to show 17 to 20 year old kids what I mean by "ctrl-anything", how to do literally anything in a spreadsheet and how to change any of the pre-sets on Word. Sickens me. However, happy thread. I am lying in my 1900mm bath playing Grim Fandango on my Linux powered HD 3000 graphics laptop via wireless in-home-streaming from my Win 7 gaming PC on Steam. Praise Solomon. Link to post Share on other sites
Tinkerton Posted February 1, 2015 Report Share Posted February 1, 2015 KFC for lunch (see other thread...) Job interview on Thursday. Fancy gala dinner tomorrow night as part of SEAT parts manager of the year thingo (plus i get to drive a lovely new Octavia 4x4 to MK and back...) Brilliant service at church this morning. Everything's coming up Dave Link to post Share on other sites
darkchild130 Posted February 2, 2015 Report Share Posted February 2, 2015 I want to jump in on the apple hate! I have owned one apple product in my life (Ipad, because it had the best art apps at the time) and it was the biggest POS I ever owned. Now I'm rocking a Surface pro 3 (I7 version) which, you know, ACTUALLY DOES STUFF, and has a USB port, and works as a legit laptop etc etc ad infinitum. I'd like to take the Ipad out into the garden and smash it with a *fruitcage* cricket bat, but only my sense of greed (resale for victory) has stopped me doing it. Darkchild Link to post Share on other sites
Hardcore1-6 Posted February 2, 2015 Report Share Posted February 2, 2015 I got a free iPad with something or other a few years ago. It broke (just stopped charging one day) and I refuse to replace it.I refuse to plug in my ipod to update it (I kinda like my 17 year old me playlists, I was cool back then) Apple can go funk themselves.But, this is the happy thread - free pair of nearly new Crye Precision trousers? Yes please. All praise the slightly less then honest storesman with SF ties. Link to post Share on other sites
scorch Posted February 2, 2015 Report Share Posted February 2, 2015 But, this is the happy thread - free pair of nearly new Crye Precision trousers? Yes please. All praise the slightly less then honest storesman with SF ties. We used to have a slightly less than honest army storeman play at our site. Shame he doesn't play now really, as I really want a set of MTP. Link to post Share on other sites
darkchild130 Posted February 2, 2015 Report Share Posted February 2, 2015 I would give you a complete set of MTP, but alas, I need it for the very few times I require a uniform look for marshalling/instructing. Darkchild Link to post Share on other sites
Pdubyuh Posted February 2, 2015 Report Share Posted February 2, 2015 We used to have a slightly less than honest army storeman play at our site. Shame he doesn't play now really, as I really want a set of MTP. Have a word with Joe before he leaves he may be able to "lose" you some MTP ! Link to post Share on other sites
Hardcore1-6 Posted February 2, 2015 Report Share Posted February 2, 2015 Having PM'd him, he's the same size as a training dummy.And the dummy needs some more kit. Getting tatty. Link to post Share on other sites
Desolation mkII Posted February 2, 2015 Report Share Posted February 2, 2015 We used to have a slightly less than honest army storeman play at our site. Shame he doesn't play now really, as I really want a set of MTP. What size are ya Scorch, as luck would have it, I have piles of MTP that I don't need anymore. Link to post Share on other sites
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