HbroChris

Yep - same here. The "stripping" crew came on the first day advertised, ripped the surface up and then left. They told one of my neighbours that the "surfacing" crew were running a fortnight behind schedule. So my road is fairly unusable (because of bumps, raised ironworks, height differential between the road surface and the pavement etc), and won't be surfaced for much longer than the original plan. And yes, moving the dates around impacts those who, for health reasons, need to keep their car near their house, or can't get out to move it easily.

That's interesting. I heard this twice on Monday afternoon (I was in Loxley). I saw some birds scatter from a field and assumed it was an automated scarecrow. Only happened twice though - I was trying to pinpoint the sound.

Without providing detail that would reveal where I live, I can assure you this is incorrect.

Heh - I did exactly the same thing and had to have a little chortle to myself

Hey guys! I need a brickie in to do a couple of little jobs. It's not a trade I know much about, so I wanted to see if there were any decent recommendations from the forum. I have three little-ish jobs that need doing. 1) I need an extra level of step put in to the steps between my back door and the garden - I've got a flagstone for it, I think it's just a single layer of about 10 bricks and some leveling. 2) I need the hole where my old boiler's vent (big metal square one) went through my external wall. The last boiler had a circular flue, but the last-but-one had a square one. When the previous change was done, the exterior wall was bricked up, but the internal one wasn't, and I only found out when my plumber took the old boxing off my kitchen wall. The interior wall is exposed down to the bricks and mortar and it just needs filling. Slightly tricky because the pipes are in front of it and there's a circular flue in the middle of the gap now. 3) Two external bricks (I'm sure they were there last week!) have disappeared from my wall, leaving it open to the weather. I need these bricks replacing (it's literally two bricks) and then some sort of weather-proof paint reapplied (which I know is only painting, but it's higher up than I can reach). None of these are jobs that I'd be happy doing myself (well, maybe the step, but if I'm getting someone round...) and I've never hired a brickie before. Anyone know any good ones? What sort of hourly rate I might be looking at etc? Any advice gratefully received!

It means you believe there is no God. It doesn't mean you can prove there isn't one. Call it what you like, but if you're using an evidence base, I would suggest you're an agnostic too. Possibly a selective one, if you're ruling them out one at a time! ---------- Post added 22-07-2015 at 16:39 ---------- I'm sorry, I'm not sure I quite follow. Could you try and explain your point again, please?

I posted my last before I read the last two pages of the thread, which go on to discuss a deterministic universe in some detail. I accept that the scientific consensus is that the universe is non-deterministic because of apparent randomness observed at the quantum level. I just can't help feeling that true randomness is unlikely. E.g. Brownian motion was once assumed to be random, but really it was just an inability to perceive collisions. I just can't shake the feeling that there's an underlying factor which appears as randomness. I fully appreciate the irony of this coming dangerously close to a faith-based argument. ---------- Post added 22-07-2015 at 16:19 ---------- Well, any really - it's the principle that I'm working with rather than a specific faith.

That's my point. No proponent of the Scientific Method - the best available model for explaining the universe around us - can make a logical conclusion about the existence of God, either way. This is because it cannot be demonstrated empirically. You're free to believe whichever side you so choose, but you're not doing so on an evidence-backed basis. On balance of probabilities, sure, it's unlikely in the extreme. A rational mind would therefore have to adopt a position of agnosticism, as defined by the inventor of the term and accepted by the relevant philosophical reference materials (and the Oxford English Dictionary, I have since discovered). ---------- Post added 22-07-2015 at 16:04 ---------- Interesting article, thanks. I actually find this a really rewarding debate to have - it's like application of first-principles logic to the problem. Cyclone had a post about assuming a non-deterministic universe so as to avoid existential despair - whilst I completely disagree (I would imagine the universe almost has to be deterministic, I think, from a quantum physics point of view), I find the discussion very intellectually stimulating.

Yes, I think Huxley was the root source of my definition too.

Of course they can, but only by believing it to be true, because they cannot backstop it with evidence. It's a non-rational argument, even if it is probably correct. ---------- Post added 20-07-2015 at 22:11 ---------- To Rootsbooster and others: I agree with your comments on my post, but I think there's some scope for confusion in the terms used. I refer to the Routledge Encyclopaedia of Philosophy (which I assume is the definitive work) which defines agnosticism thusly:

Well, there are two sides to this - is atheism a lack of belief, or is it a belief there is no god? I think atheism is a misappropriated word here. Bear with me. I, like many on this forum, am a proponent of the Scientific Method. Hypothesise, test, evaluate. The principle is whether there is sufficient evidence to reject the null hypothesis. There's no evidence to demonstrate the existence of a capital-G God, and by the same token you can't conclusively disprove the existence of God either - although Occam's Razor suggests that there are much more likely explanations for things that are generally ascribed to God. Therefore, an atheist who defines the term as a lack of belief simply cannot be logically correct. You can say "there is no such thing as God", but only within the constraints of a belief structure, because you can't empirically demonstrate it - it's not evidence-based. So sure, there's almost certainly no God, on balance of probabilities. But it's not proven. As such, I can't see that a scientific mind could therefore be anything other than an (extremely skeptical) agnostic - because logically, atheism is a belief structure (although it's orders of magnitude more likely that most theistic beliefs). Thoughts? ---------- Post added 20-07-2015 at 16:35 ---------- In fact, the word atheist is probably the correct one for what I'm describing, but it doesn't mean the same thing as its common usage. Perhaps "nontheist"?

<<snip>> Ok, this is some fairly obvious trolling. Points about the moon landings: 1) The flag waving myth is credibly debunked. If you think a flag wouldn't wave on the moon, why would it wave in a movie studio - did they leave the door open perhaps? No, it'll either have been wired that way or it'll have been rotational energy from being placed. 2) The lighting/shadow myth has been credibly debunked. There will have been more than one source of light on the moon. There was a giant spaceship wrapped in foil, for one - that would have reflected s significant amount of light from the sun and possibly Earth. The lander had lights of its own. 3) Getting there - a calculator is not required. You can (laboriously) do orbital mechanics calculations by hand. As you say, it's like getting from Sheffield to Birmingham. It's approximately 100 miles away, my car does 40mpg, I will need 2.5 gallons of fuel (approx 11.25 litres), which will cost around 13.50 at 1.20 per litre. The moon is around 240,000 miles away, so 2400x further than Birmingham, so I need 6000 litres of petrol for my car to drive there. See? I did it in my head. The actual set of equations are Newtonian in origin and were well defined at the start of the twentieth century. If my car was airtight, and I travelled at 60mph then I would need 800 litres of air to get from Sheffield to Birmingham. I got the average respiration volume figure from Wikipedia, which studies have repeatably shown is more accurate on average than Encyclopaedia Britannica. 4) We left stuff there - the laser reflectors for a start. The problem with this is that you can't see them easily. You can shine a laser off them sure, but you're never going to be convinced that they were left there in the years claimed (the first was on Apollo 11, BTW). The reason satellites that can see your garden can't see the landing site is that they're pointed at Earth. Space-pointing optical devices (eg. Hubble) have insufficient minimal focal length to take pictures of the moon - try taking a picture of a dust mite with an iPhone to see what I mean. You need to consider your standard of proof here - all of the available evidence has been laid out for you, but you refuse to accept it. If literally nothing other than going back in time and taking part in the mission yourself would do the trick then you'll never be convinced. However your irrational (because it's not evidence-based) skepticism does not invalidate the decades of international science around one of mankind's greatest accomplishments to date.

I think that's a fair point. I see it from the other side of that argument. I think that bias is an important consideration. People will doubtless say that the BBC is editorially biased, which is worth debating separately, but they're not susceptible to commercial bias in the same way that a commercial (ie. advertisement-funded) broadcaster would be. So, one of the things I think makes a broadcaster "good" is lack of bias, and in this respect I think the BBC serves a different function to the other broadcasters (some of whom I think are "good" for other reasons, like quality). ---------- Post added 03-04-2015 at 10:10 ---------- That's an interesting question, isn't it? Sky clearly want to make a profit, but I wonder what the cost of a break-even subscription for the BBC would actually be? As I've said before on this thread, I think the actual CAPEX in making the BBC technologically capable of a subscription broadcast model (ie. encryption, set-top boxes, the machinery to manufacture, distribute and administrate them) is actually the prohibitive factor here - presumably the subscription would be higher for a while to offset this cost (which I reckon would be in the triple-digit millions), but the *actual* cost of providing the service that we get today? I wonder how much that is... ---------- Post added 03-04-2015 at 10:17 ---------- Dave, for reference, this is the gist of the "tu quoque" logical fallacy. It's a class of ad hominem attack whereby Party One incorrectly posits that Party Two's refusal to answer a question that seems to be related renders their substantive position unsound. An example is suggesting that someone can be opposed to consumerism when they own a computer and that their support of anti-consumerism is therefore eroded. Specifically, as has been pointed out, Cyclone's refusal to answer about homosexuals adhering to an immoral, anti-homosexual law in no way nullifies his position about people adhering to the legal requirement to possess a TV Licence (under certain circumstances) even if they think it is immoral - the two arguments are not related. More information is available with some relatively perfunctory googling.

Actually, you'll be bound by the Official Secrets Acts the same as any citizen - they're laws, not contracts. (EDIT: To be clear, I mean that "signing" them has no actual effect on their applicability). I mention it only because it came up in one of those tiresome "laws only apply to me if I agree that they do" debates, like the TV Licensing thread. Re. the other points about contracts/unions etc - did your union agree to the change in retirement age?

If he is in fact watching broadcast TV without a licence then he'd be admitting to a criminal offence, which is not the wisest thing to do on the internet. As others have pointed out, you're a criminal if you commit a crime. QED I doubt you actually can guarantee that everyone has broken a law. The criminality of others does not make it acceptable to break the law yourself - if it did then you'd notice the difference in society. So, I think we're now all clear on the licence, the law, and evasion. Does anyone want to talk about how the revenue model could change?

This is demonstrably incorrect. Not in your proposed scenario. You're saying that being a criminal is fine as long as you get away with it. I said that was the thin end of the wedge. You surely aren't suggesting that all laws except the TV licensing laws must be followed, are you? So, where does it stop? Parking in a council bay without a ticket? Obeying railway by-laws? Having car insurance when required to? Human trafficking? Come on, where's the line? Or do you want to accept that evading the licence fee is both legally and morally wrong; that wilfully doing so is criminal, and that you are in fact (as I am) advocating for some sort of change in the revenue model?

That's not good advice, Dave. Firstly because it promotes criminality - having a licence is not optional for watching broadcast TV. Secondly, shutting the door on someone with a search warrant accompanied by a police officer is an extremely bad plan. Finally, because it's morally wrong to watch something paid for by others when you evade that payment yourself. Had a read of your source. It has a very specific anti-TVL bias, but I haven't bothered looking for other evidence to refute your claim because the demographic is simply irrelevant. I very much doubt that enforcement is targeted at women, or at people who can't pay (in the latter case, what would be the point?). The point of the thread is alternate payment models for the BBC. Let's try and return to it. ---------- Post added 09-03-2015 at 09:55 ---------- You beat me to it. I simply cannot understand this mentally that is accepting of crime that you get away with. Seems like the thin end of the wedge - I mean at what level of criminality does that stop being mitigation? Assault? Arson? Breaking & Entering?

I'm not sure what point you're trying to make. The actual offence itself is defined in law. If your point is that some people are not, by law, required to have a licence then you're quite correct - if they don't watch broadcast TV then that's fine. If your point is that a licence isn't required to watch broadcast TV then that is not correct - people that consume the service in this way are criminals, and they do get prosecuted at the rate of about 200,000 per year. I quite agree that it's difficult to enforce in some circumstances, and there are diminishing returns in investing money in doing so. In this sense, some sort of authorised user or subscription model would be useful - I just don't see how the transition would be cost-effective in anything like a reasonable amount of time.

We've been through all this before. A TV Licence is required to watch broadcast TV, per the Communications Act 2003. Not having one and watching broadcast TV is a criminal offence - people won't directly answer the question because they fear incriminating themselves - they'd effectively be an easy prosecution. There's some disagreement around the margins about exactly what sort of viewing you do (it only counts if you're watching at the time of broadcast - there are odd corner cases about portable devices and power), and whether or not you think that acts of parliament apply to you (hint - they do). Basically, everyone is clear about whether or not they need a licence and whether or not they have one, or are committing a crime. The complexity with making the service subscription only would be about how you differentiate authorised viewers from others. You'd need to encode the transmission. But the only way you decode it is with a subscriber module of some sort, like a card or a set top box. I think that changing the broadcast like this and building a logistics network to get boxes/cards to people and manage that hardware on an ongoing basis would be prohibitive. The only other option is to go completely digital, authenticate with user credentials, and thus alienate the majority who don't watch via some sort of connected device. To sum up, I think one of the main things stopping the BBC moving to a different subscription model is that it simply couldn't, for the reasons above.

To avoid confusion, there's actually an ISO standard about time. It even has a section about midnight (both 0000 and 2400 are correct). It's ISO 8601:2004 and you can view it here

The point of the case was that within the meaning of the Equality Act, disabled people are a "protected group" whereas pushchair users are not, and that the company (First, I think) were guilty of "direct discrimination" by preventing the wheelchair user from accessing their service. The judge's remarks were that this probably wouldn't have been the case if there had been another bus along shortly, but in this instance the next bus was an hour away. I understand that First are appealing on those exact grounds mentioned above - they want legal clarification on whether a driver is required by law to make a pushchair user give way (presumably by folding the chair up or getting off the bus) to the wheelchair user. I don't think the issue of making the driver assess disability is relevant in this case. There are some particular circumstances in this case that don't make it such an easy issue. That said, I think I'm generally on the side of the wheelchair user here.

They're important in cryptography. The reason is complex and I don't understand it in any great detail, but the bigger the number, the longer it takes to mathematically compute the content from an encrypted message. More info here. The greatest prime is clearly Optimus.

I wouldn't want to try and guess what the problem is, but when I needed an auto electrician, my mechanic recommended a chap called Paul on 07808 728889. He came (in a blizzard!) and did some diagnostics, and eventually changed the battery and (I seem to recall) did something with the alternator cabling.

Yes, look here

Yeah, I used it once last year to report what I thought was a distraction burglary team working up my road in Hboro. Guys knocks on door, says "I'm a Polish student trying to raise money, please buy one of my paintings", keeps the person at the door talking. I was having none of it, but there are lots of old people on that road, so I rang it in, especially as he didn't have any paintings in his hand when he came to my door. I rang 101 while I watched him work up to the top of my road and thenhe start down the other side. Ten mins later there were 3 cars and 5 Officers come to see this guy, which I thought was a cracking response (might have been slightly lower numbers if it was a match day or something I imagine!). Turns out that the guy was actually a Polish student and was actually trying to sell his paintings (he had them in an envelope under his coat). D'Oh. In fairness, it could easily have been something else entirely and given the professionalism of the call-taker (rang me back three times to update me) and the speed of the response then I don't begrudge the cost of the call one bit.