Azed

Looks like it's the final end of Newzbin in all its incarnations. Rather sad news... From http://www.newzbin2.es : It is with regret that we announce the closure of Newzbin2. A combination of several factors has made this the only option. For a long time we have struggled with poor indexing of Usenet, poor numbers of reports caused by the majority of our editors dropping out & no-one replacing them. Our servers have been unstable and crashing on a regular basis meaning the NZBs & NFOs are unavailable for long periods and we don't have the money to replace them. Newzbin2 was always hoped to be a viable underground commercial venture. The figures just don't stack up. Newzbin1 was said to have had 700,000 registered users. In fact that was the total number of people who ever signed up in the history of Newzbin from 2000 onwards & only a fraction were active, loads of people dropped out & went to other sites. We reckon they had about 100,000 users and of those only a few 10's of thousands paid premium topups.That still made good money for the Newzbin1 guys. We never quite got the trust and lots of people said "Newzbin2 is an MPA trap", that stung us bad and we never got the userbase back. We don't have much more than about 40000 active users and the number of premium users is in the small thousands. It costs much more to run than we bring in, It just doesn't stack up. To make things worse all our payment providers dropped out or started running scared. The MPA sued Paypal and are going at our innocent payment provider Kthxbai Ltd in the UK. Our other payment provider has understandably lost their nerve. Result? We have no more payment providers to offer & no realistic means of taking money (no, Bitcoin isn't credible as it's just too hard for 90% of people). The tragedy is this: unlike Newzbin1 we are 100% DMCA compliant. We have acted on every DMCA notice we received without stalling or playing games: if there was a DMCA complaint the report was gone. Period. That was a condition of our advertising & payment partners so we complied but we never got a single complaint from the MPA. Not one. Will we be back? not as a search service but we might run a blog from this site at some point.

Does it have to be one of those 3 companies? We had a scuff fixed by this guy recently, and he did a brilliant job.

Yeah, I know what you mean. It's all just clutching at straws and trying to make the best of what will be available for 2014. But how do we get out of this perpetual cycle of international failure? I singled Young out not because of the penalty (which was almost a good one...) but because of his ineffectiveness and errors. I've seen him play some good stuff at club level, but his performance in the Euros was outstandingly woeful.

So anyone want to risk a prediction about what'll happen for 2014? How about we get a bit of luck in the group stages, scrape through, and then get humiliated in the first knockout stage? It's all very much deja vu, and has been (with the odd exception either way) since the 1970 WC, when we had the best side we've ever had, in my opinion. We should have started changing the football culture here 30 years ago if the (sweet) FA were at all serious about us being big-time players on the international stage. Yes, we do have talent - even in the remnants of the "golden generation". But until they can get a grip on the basic essentials of ball retention and being able to pass to a team mate, there is no hope. This is not a management issue: it's been the same for 30+ years, and is an endemic attitude amongst English players. I saw someone recently describe our players as "thick", and that's something I've felt for years. OK, I'm not suggesting that we draft Stephen Hawking into the team (yet...), but they do not seem to show any "footballing intelligence" once they pull on an England shirt. Pirlo was a one-man show against us the other night, and showed the sort of intelligence that our midfield lacks. And what do we come out with? "The boys put in a lot of effort". Headless chickens can put in a lot of effort! Ideally, we would do what the Germans did when one (one!) of their teams failed to live up to expectation i.e. put some serious effort into youth development and be prepared to wait for it to bear fruit. But so long as we demand instant success, we will get instant failure. So, until we are prepared to do something radical, we're stuck with the same old same old. Since that's not going to happen overnight, all I can hope is that we ditch Terry, Cole, Gerrard, Milner, Barry and Lampard, stop making Rooney indispensable, be able to play something other than the antediluvian 4-4-2, and use these players as the core of a team for 2014: GK: Joe Hart, Jack Butland Defence: Kyle Walker, Micah Richards, Gary Cahill, Phil Jones, Chris Smalling, Leighton Baines, Kieran Gibbs Midfield: Tom Cleverley, Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain, Theo Walcott, Jack Wilshere, Jack Rodwell Forwards: Wayne Rooney, Danny Welbeck, Daniel Sturridge, Jermain Defoe (+ Andy Carroll for when things get really desperate) And, UNDER NO CIRCUMSTANCES should Ashley Young be allowed anywhere near an England shirt again. Ever.

Well, thanks for that. Any idea whether or not he was interviewed? Meanwhile, I have a side-splitting mess to clear up...

Is it true that RDM applied for the Sheffield United manager's job and was "overlooked" in favour of Danny Wilson? Please tell me whether this was true or not, as my sides are desperately trying not to split... Source: around 17:05

If you can't track the owner, try Thurlstone Owl Sanctuary

To Libbylongleg; It would be helpful if you could say what you need from your internet connection. Your best option for a move depends on what you want to use your connection for...

They'd better hurry up with the iPhone 5 - iPhone 6 is already rumoured to appear in the first half of 2012...

Just noticed this article on The Register. Seems the good ole don't-be-evil folks at Google have been compiling a publicly-accessible database of router locations by using Android... Being a bit sceptical, I put my router's MAC address into the test page and, lo and behold, it immediately brought up details pinpointing my router location with scary accuracy. I find this all a bit disturbing...

The pass is valid for local bus services in the country of the UK in which it was issued - details are on Directgov. So, yes, you could do what you were suggesting... with a bit of planning... and time... and luck!

OK, so it should have been "installation" rather than "supply"... Anyway, as I said, it has now been fixed satisfactorily.

Problem now been sorted by Brookfield Electrical. Very thorough and professional job, and a very fair price for a Sunday call-out.

I'm a bit concerned about part of our power supply and need it getting checked over ASAP. Does anyone have any recommendations for an electrician who will do emergency call-outs?

Did it last year.