basshedz2

Veolia are truly awful. Where we are in s8 we switched over to the new blue bin / blue box system at the start of December and haven't had a recycling collection since. I appreciate that thing were made difficult by the snow (even though our road had been completely cleared the day before), but when I contacted Veolia they said that we'd have to wait until the next collection on the 24th of December. However, no collection came. We now have a massive pile of paper, stacks of plastic and glass, and nowhere to put them! To make things worse some of our neighbours have stuffed our blue bin and box to overflowing! Does anyone know whether there are any penalty clauses in the contract SCC awarded Veolia for waste collection and recycling? It seems to me that if there is then they surely must have triggered them! A

I have been using this service on the 53 route for over 2 years now. It doesn't always work for every bus, but it works for most of them. I believe that a) some of the buses don't have the gps transponder, and b) the transponder doesn't always work all the time (I've used it when the bus time has been shown one minute and then the next time I've checked it it has the number of minutes 'til the bus arrives). In my experience they are generally pretty good. My main issue is when I'm waiting at the station stop and the time until the bus arrives stays the same for ages (I assume this is because the bus is stuck waiting at the Interchange!).

There's quite a long discussion about fly fishing on the Don and it's tributaries here (in particular, the Sheaf): http://www.flyforums.co.uk/trout-grayling-fishing/60034-urban-river-don-sheffield.html#post643972 I saw someone fishing in the Sheaf by Broadfield Road the other day and on sunny days you can often see a lot of trout in the shallows. a

It can be done - I did it on our back door! You just need a cat flap, a jigsaw and some sealant (I used bathroom sealent). The moulded panels make it a bit of a pain (if they overlap where the catflap is going to go ...), but you can just cut round them. If you want, I can send you a photo of what I did. I'm not volunteering to do it though - I hate DIY! Alex ps. a piece of advice - it is better to cut a slightly larger hole than too small a one. I cut slightly too small a hole and it was a massive pain to try and sand it out to size.

According to this, the coalition deal includes a referendum about introducing the Alternative Vote system of PR. Whilst less than I would have liked, I think it was the best the lib-dems were ever going to get out of the Tories. Unfortunately it does leave the Tories completely free to campaign against it, and so I hope we see Tories like Douglas Carswell and Nigel Evans (who have claimed to support electoral reform) actively campaigning for it in the run up to the referendum. We'll see I guess ...

Thanks for your help! When the heating and hot water are both on at the same time for a while (for instance in the evening when having a bath) the boiler throws a fit and the red fault indicator light starts flashing madly. This means the hot water and heating both stop working. The pressure on the boiler reads approximately 1.7-1.8 bar but doesn't drop significantly when the boiler stops. Having looked in the manual it looks like it may be an air flow fault - at least the symptoms are the same "If an air flow fault has occurred, the fault indicator will flash (approximately 5 times a second)". I had a look outside at the flue terminal and couldn't see anything blocking it or any damage to it. Any ideas? I'm guessing it's probably not a do it yourself job Approximately how much would it cost to have someone come and look at it? Many thanks, Alex

I agree with AtiAerials! It's only over the last couple of days that we've been using our central heating much, but the blinking boiler has developed a fault. It's a Worcester-Bosch 24Si II, and the fault indicator light keeps coming on and flashing fast (according to the user instructions this means that it has an appliance fault). The fault first occurred when we had our heating on all evening and then went to have a bath before bed. The hot water was ok at first but then went cold and when I checked the boiler the light was flashing. I switched it off over night and it worked again in the morning, but the next day we had exactly the same problem (and it's done it again today). Does anybody have any advice? I think it might be overheating or the pressure getting too high because it only happens when the heating and water are being used heavily. Help! Thanks, Alex

The fundamental problem with saying "the top 5% get 1sts", etc. is that there is therefore no consistancy between years. I'm also unsure that this happens - does it? Certainly when I did my degree there were only a few people that got firsts, more that got 2:1s, and most got 2:2s. I think you did have to fair quite badly to get a 3rd though. What are other people's experiences? Did most people in your year get 2:1s or 1sts?

In my undergraduate degree we had a group project and the group got a final mark. We then had to divvy that mark up between the 5 or 6 people in the group. Surprisingly this worked really well - what generally happened is that nobody got a "fail" mark, but the people who put the most effort in did generally receive the highest mark in the group. To be honest - you should have reported this to your tutor or the lecturer supervising the module at the earliest stage possible. I am currently a lecturer in the HE sector and that is what we're there for! Current best practice in HE (so I am reliably informed ...) is to let the group dynamics take care of the people who "coast" along in group work - as should happen in the "real-world". If you'd reported it early on then the lecturer would have been able to have a quiet word and then would keep an eye out. If the problem had persisted then thet would have been able to intervene.

No - not strictly true ... http://www.reghardware.co.uk/2008/09/12/rh_bg_netbooks/ As Cyclone said - you can get them with up to 160GB hard drives (Advent 4212 and 4213), most have 1GB RAM (not all, but most), most come with a 1.6GHz processor, and most also come with the option to run Windows XP. The one in your link is the eee pc 701 - and that is a glorified web browser. Although it does have a 4GB hard disk (SSD). I have an asus eee pc 901 (1GB RAM, 1.6GHz processor, 9 inch screen, running linux) for working on the train and it's a fantastic machine. I'd recommend it to anyone looking for a portable computer - unless they wanted something to run the latest games! My primary reason for getting one was the size and weight - I had a full-fat laptop but it weighed 3.5 - 4kg and gave me back ache ... One of my friend's has the acer aspire one running XP and can run MATLAB quite satisfactorily on it, so it would probably manage a lot of older games.

However 0845 numbers still attract a higher charge on most mobile tarrifs and are also not included in free minutes ... Fortunately that saynoto0870 site also lists alternatives to 0845 numbers!

The private gyms all seem to be really expensive. Try either of the universities or the council gyms for cheaper membership: http://www.shu.ac.uk/sporthallam/prices.html http://www.shef.ac.uk/usport/s10/membership/prices.html http://www.fitnessunlimited.co.uk/ It's also worth noting that if you're unsure how much you're going to use it then you can pay for the gym induction and just go to the council gyms on a pay per visit basis.

On Debian based systems it's 'apt-get' (or synaptic for the pretty gui based version). 'emerge' is used on Gentoo based systems. Anti-virus software isn't really needed on a linux based system - though of course a basic understanding of security 'best practice' will help. Keep everything updated (Ubuntu's update manager will help with this), and don't run stuff as root. If you do need to use the root account (sudo <command> in Ubuntu), make sure you have a thorough understanding of what you're doing (i.e. don't blindly follow what people have posted to forums ...). The main security risks to a linux system are: 1) weak passwords (especially for the root account) 2) privilege escalation exploits* Choosing a strong password (i.e. mix of numbers, letters, special characters, and capitals), and properly configuring your firewall will minimise the risk. Hope this helps, b * note: the reason that linux is much more secure than windows is that, in linux, there is proper seperation of user permissions. To do anything that will effect the core of your system you need to change to the root user account. This article explains the lack of need for antivirus software under linux.

Well if the purchasing power is the same, then obviously £50K. But there is no way purchasing power would be because prices would adjust.

From the article: Here's an article on Risk Compensation (again, from Wikipedia). Studies have shown that car drivers tend to drive more recklessly when wearing a seatbelt than when not wearing one. And another interesting article about the link between cyclists wearing helmets and car driver's attitudes: http://www.sciam.com/article.cfm?id=strange-but-true-helmets-attract-cars-to-cyclists

The "Shared Space" concept has been trialled in this country though - with what seems to be considerable sucess: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shared_space#United_Kingdom (And yes I know - i've just quoted from Wikipedia... ) The Tories also think that the "Shared Space" concept is safer: http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/article1295120.ece

Apparently Elle Macpherson was this week pilloried by the tabloids for bicycling in a London street without a helmet and with her (helmeted) son on her handlebars. I was reading this Guardian leader on my commute to work this morning: http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2008/sep/19/transport.transport and was surprised by and I've always worn a helmet while cycling although I don't particularly like wearing it - in summer it gets too hot, it's not exactly comfortable (although better than having your brains dashed all over the road), and I don't really want to carry it around when I'm off my bike. So, cyclists - do you wear a helmet? Also, motorists - do you give cyclists more care if they're not wearing one?

This lowering of rental prices that you're banging on about, is this the same lowering of rental prices that has seen the average rent of a 3 bedroom terrace in my area rise 20-30% in the last year?

It is 100% full screen in FF3 (I don't use IE, so I couldn't tell you about that): http://s166.photobucket.com/albums/u118/alex_shenfield/?action=view&current=untrue.jpg initially there is a menu bar, but it goes in less than a second.

Recycle: http://www.recyclebikes.co.uk/ If you do buy a second hand bike privately it's probably worth getting them to take a look at it - they'll give it a clean up and make sure it's road worthy.

Except: as Cyclone posted earlier in the thread.

It looks a nice site: http://www.walkedit.com/ I like the simplicity of the word press layout - I'd be reluctant to make it more complicated. As long as you keep up with accurate tagging of posts I think that it'll be easy to navigate. Also you've got some really nice photos there! I've got a couple of routes from the train stations (Hope and Grindleford) that I'll try and layout for you when I've got some time. They're really useful for those that don't have a car and want to get out into the peaks!

Not according to Snopes ... http://www.snopes.com/autos/techno/lockcode.asp Although theoretically it is possible and the encryptiuon system used has been cracked by a group of Belgium and Israeli researchers: http://redtape.msnbc.com/2007/08/researchers-say.html There is no reports of it being used "in the wild" due to the time-consuming nature of the attack, and the fact that a crowbar is much more efficient!

According to this link: http://www.planningportal.gov.uk/england/genpub/en/1115315235285.html You don't need planning permission if all you're going to do is to knock out the eaves and put a velux window in. If you get some quotes - i would be interested to see how much they are for as it's something I'd really like to do in our house. Like you, we already have the attic converted, but the eaves are blocked up and I know that knocking them out would make the room feel significantly bigger. I don't want to waste people's time if it's going to be really expensive though!

I'm sorry to hear that - we were really worried about the insurance company being awkward about the length of time it would have to be missing for. I hope they find your car/pay out soon. b