Nick
@nick@shore.me.uk
157 following, 244 followers
okay i have to ask this. it has been driving me mad for so long now.
why is pizza in the UK so ridiculously expensive?
"pepperoni feast" at pizza hut UK (pickup): £20.99 (~A$42.50)
"pepperoni" at dominos australia (pickup): A$8 (~£4)
what could possibly cause this?? if you bought a pizza from dominos AU and shipped it internationally it'd probably cost about the same!
somebody will, of course, reply to tell me "ah, but there's coupons, you can get it for half price if you blah blah". sure. i accept that. however. that also exists in australia!! "you could get it for only £12" but you could get the aus one for only $4! (not factorial)
what is happening??? are the italians imposing a 300% pizza tariff on the UK as punishment for putting corn on pizza? is it thatcher's fault? is this why detective halligan has a pitzer tab? help
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pizza hut UK pricing. a medium pizza is £20.99; small is £17.99; large is £22.99. they do, however, dull the pain a little by putting an adorable little loop in the base of the pound character
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dominos australia pepperoni pizza for $8
I've just received this text message. The names are correct and the sender's number matches the name, but the sender isn't somebody who would use this language/tone or even contact anybody this way at all - I don't believe this is anything other than a scam for a moment, but I'm struggling to see what the angle is here. What are the odds on me receiving another "please send money to..." or similar text shortly? Or does this scam work a different way?
![Hi all, my son and his Girlfriend had a really bad accident last week in their holiday in Portugal, [redacted] is bruised and battered and [redacted] is on life support after [redacted] pulled her from a burning car. Any help would be gratefully received as they have lost 90% of their belongings. I am with them in Portugal. If you could share this as wide as possible I would so appreciate it - thank you.](https://mastodon.me.uk/system/media_attachments/files/115/378/120/099/307/737/original/27b45f5351067c79.jpeg "Hi all, my son and his Girlfriend had a really bad accident last week in their holiday in Portugal, [redacted] is bruised and battered and [redacted] is on life support after [redacted] pulled her from a burning car. Any help would be gratefully received as they have lost 90% of their belongings. I am with them in Portugal. If you could share this as wide as possible I would so appreciate it - thank you.")
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Hi all, my son and his Girlfriend had a really bad accident last week in their holiday in Portugal, [redacted] is bruised and battered and [redacted] is on life support after [redacted] pulled her from a burning car. Any help would be gratefully received as they have lost 90% of their belongings. I am with them in Portugal. If you could share this as wide as possible I would so appreciate it - thank you.
@NAB I suspect they're waiting for you to respond in some way
@CatherineFlick @Floppy You're both probably right, but if that's the case, it does mean that the scammers must have stolen my contact's phone - which would also explain how they knew the name of their son and his girlfriend. I've sent a message to their partner to make them aware... we'll see what happens.
@NAB
My guess (no more) is that you're right - a request for cash will quickly follow. And they've got your number.
Curious about the details though.
@NAB I reckon you'll only get the link if you reply... otherwise they'd have sent it straight away. There's probably some people who would fall for this and reply that *would* be alerted by the inclusion of the link.
Confirmed as a scam **SEE BELOW** (as if we didn't already know). Interestingly, it seems that my contact still has their phone, so I wonder if it's a dodgy app or something else...
**EDIT** Not confirmed as a scam. Not confirmed as anything yet.
@NAB so weird. Sometimes they're those scams that are just fishing for any response, seeing if they can get anyone to even reply.
Oh great. Texted my contact's partner, letting them know what was happening. They told me they'd let them know. Just received another message from my contact saying "It was from me". Clearly their partner has just texted them with my message. 🙄
@NAB Maybe I’m being paranoid, but would their partner not know and be able to confirm what had happened?
Now this is just getting weirder and weirder.
Probably don't need to redact as much info as I did before, so...
Just had a reply from my contact's husband (who is also the father of the son in the original message):
"Hi Nicholas, have just spoken with XXXX and she did send this message to her contacts on her phone, she has also put a post on FB"
So, he's the father of the man in the car crash, his wife has flown out to Portugal and he never thought to mention any of this before.
Plus I sent him the text of the original message and he's not commented on that either.
I'm still thinking scam, but this has become very very weird. Maybe his phone was stolen/compromised too.
@nick None that couldn't be controlled by their phones (WhatsApp, FB etc.)
@NAB If this was me (in the position of the initial message sender) I don't know why I would be messaging my contact list asking them to spread this sort of news far and wide?
Is it actual SMS text messages, or from some kind of messaging app? I don't recognise the UI (but also I haven't had an Android phone in a long time).
@missiongiraffe I agree. Text message. I thought the same, but the number for both her and her husband match what I've contacted them on before.
@NAB I'm really invested in this now. I hope it is a scam because the real situation sounds awful, but I don't understand what they are gaining from this, unless it's going to lead to some kind of 'gofundme' type link at some point?
I wouldn't be worrying about anyone's lost belongings though when someone is on life support in a foreign country!?
@missiongiraffe And guess what.... There's a GoFundMe link.
Tried calling him. Slight pause before it rings and after a few rings, AI "Sorry can't take your call" message. Suspect calls diverted elsewhere.
@NAB It’s a lot of effort to go to this isn’t it, crikey.
A friend of mind had something similar, someone took over her phone number, they think by going into the relevant phone shop and passing off ID, who didn’t follow checks properly.
I wonder how many members of the house of commons would be able to pass an A level in English...
@quixoticgeek I’m pretty sure I couldn’t and I’ve been working in publishing for nearly 20 years. Good thing I have EUSS.
@Nicovel0 I grew up in the UK. I couldn't...
@quixoticgeek @Nicovel0 I grew up in the UK, with English as my first (and if I'm honest, only) language. I got a D at GCSE (E in English Literature). I'm pretty sure I couldn't get an English A-level. Not unless the standards have dropped a *lot* since I was at school (I'm not suggesting standards have dropped)
@quixoticgeek Disablist as heck too. We already had to backtrack on forcing everyone to pass English and Maths GCSE before they were permitted to stop trying age 18 and leave education cos it just didn't work.
This is another spiteful dogwhistle way of blocking people bringing their families to the UK with them. It's vile.
@nick @NatalyaD @quixoticgeek right?! Really not equivalent. Unless there's an English-as-a-foreign-language A Level.
And do they mean a full 2 year A level? Or A1/AS (I'm old)?
B2 is really only a small step up from B1.
@quixoticgeek just read the article and it says B2. Um.
Yeah no. It's not A Level. If B1 is considered GCSE... I mean yes B2 is a step up but not that big! And there's a chasm of a difference between English subject A level and English as a foreign language A Level (not even sure that exists?).
I mean, I don't think the Spanish language A level is equivalent to an English A Level.
I took a B1 German test to get citizenship. I could have done B2, but I really didn't fancy risking not passing.
@quixoticgeek they mean equivalent fluency to an A-level in Spanish or German, not the English A-levels that native speakers take. None of the news articles mention this, though.
You can't even get an A-level in English as a second language, it's just based on CEFR equivalence.
@neil tata consulting will no doubt claim that they already are, and that what they built for jlr coop m&s etc already was and yet…. ????????
@nick @neil it’s usually much more stupid than this
Put things on the internet
Sack (sorry… “rightsize”) any in house expertise
Award ongoing management to cheapest bidder, who either don’t get told to do a full audit or get told it’s too expensive and that the documentation is “definitely up to date”
Don’t update things facing the Internet fast enough (or at all)
Get pwned
Make shocked pikachu face and ask for government help, I guess
Heat Pump Saga update.
Octopus are coming to cap off the gas and remove the gas meter today. This will save us approx £9 per month in standing charges.
Meanwhile recognising that this isn’t a particularly scientific comparison it is nonetheless interesting to note that we have averaged about 12kWh electricity per day for heating and hot water combined this prior week. Meanwhile if we look at gas usage for the same week last year we averaged nearer 100kWh per day.
As rough gross error checks go, I think that’s enough for me to say it’s somewhat working. Now of course financially a kWh of gas is 6p whereas a kWh of electricity is 22p. But still
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Heat pump energy usage graph
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Octopus energy gas usage graph for week of 6th oct 2024
@bloor 637Kwh per week? We use less than 300Kwh combined per month for our 3 bed/3 storey semi occupied 24/7... What eats up so much power?
@rbairwell I suspect some of these factors probably play into it :
* big house
* detatched house
* windy/hilltop location
* boiler that was condemned and (water) leaking
* 15+ year old (guess) rather inefficient boiler
@bloor I'm quite impressed with the savings compared to the same month the previous year. (My heat pump was installed in June this year).
boostedThis property no longer burns stuff.
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Gas meter gone. Gas disconnected.
@bloor Awesome! I did that a few years back - bar a solid fuel stove. It's fantastic. One odd side-effect is that my house is quieter.
@bloor Oh the earth link between your un-gas internal piping and the external gas pipe is interesting.
I realised I didn't put actual numbers around the two weekly values.
So on the new system, heating and hot water are using 12.44kWh electricity per day average.
On the old system, this time last year, we were using 91.08kWh gas per day average.
Saying again weather could be different for sure, that is still 13.7% of the energy used.
Electricity 21.89p/kWh
Gas 5.97p/kWh
12.44*0.2189 = £2.72 a day elec
91.08*0.0579 = £5.44 a day gas
BUT on a cost basis... weirdly, exactly half.
It feels mad and slightly indefensible that you can use 13% of the energy, and still pay 50% of the money. But the good news is that at some date in the not too distant future, I'll be able to either buy overnight, charge batteries and use during the day. Or, ultimately, a good chunk of the year, generate my own entirely.
I see Octopus's electricity rates are going up in the unit cost, but down in the standing charge. I am currently on a "fixed anytime rate" because we have EVs but don't do heaps of miles, and we have a heatpump which potters along all the time. And a hot tub of sorts.
Current kWh = 21.98p
Current standing = 62.22p
New kWh = 25.27p
New standing = 43.66p
Insanely irritatingly, i looked at the new gas pricing... 5.71p/kWh so gas is actually falling whilst electricity is getting more expensive.
HAHA and - I now can't see via the Octopus app what my gas tariff WAS because at midnight Octopus now longer shows gas (because it got disconnected today!).
Ofc I could look at old invoices from them, so there is that.
@bloor this is why I need my own data system. We changed suppliers and lost ALL of our historical usage data. 😳🤬
@bloor same moving house - I lost access to my historical consumption data for the old house. Thankfully Home Assistant remembers.
@bloor Octopus's historical prices for all electricity tariffs are available via their API to anybody, whether a customer or not. Haven't checked but I think gas prices are, too.
@bloor If you can sort your LiFePO4 batteries out you could use their ultra cheap rate (not sure what it is, but a mate of mine has PV and storage plus a heat pump and EV and he's rather chuffed).
@davep Yep!
Planning to do just that with Fogstar 32kWh and a VIctron Quattro 15K.
@davep The current 4 hours nighttime rate is just 8.5p a kWh.
So I could fill up my battery for a maximum of £2.55 a day at that rate. And ofc charge cars at the same time etc.
@davep I think the Quattro 15K and pull 41A peak off the 240v mains and shove it into the 48v battery side, meaning around 200A on the DC side. So in theory it should easily be able to fully charge a 32kWh battery pack from dead in under 4 hours.
@bloor Should be pretty easy, but you'd only want that in winter really if you risk losing extra daytime insolation (unless you can sell it for more).
@davep My notional plan is to do without solar, initially. So just have a battery storage type system, with grid and V2L inputs, and an output into my house/garage.
Then once that is working nicely and reliably, then find a solar installer who'll just do the roofwork/rails/panels to isolators in my loft, and let me hook it all up myself.
My theory is, if they see a well installed and reliable setup already, they may be more willing to add solar to it, piecemeal.
@bloor @davep Octopus Go is 5 hours. Eon Next drive is I think 6 or 7. When I did our maths both cosy and next drive beat the standard tariff without batteries for our use. Back then Eon was 7 at 7p or so, which with heating tending to be night biased and water tank and some load shifting was an easy win, though we went battery anyway.
@nick need a compatible car or charger though, which I won’t have
@etchedpixels @davep my strategy is going to be to call roofers who can do solar rather than solar companies
@bloor I am on Tracker for gas, and the rates are usually pretty low - I think it would be hard to make a heat pump work for me financially. Which is a big problem - IMHO the charges that aren't directly related to electricity production/distribution should be moved onto just the gas supply to make electric heating a more clear cut choice. Some of this might improve as gas is removed from the generation mix I suppose, but that feels like an unnecessary delay.
@bloor I think it's fair; you're paying for a lot more infrastructure with the electric; for the gas it's just being pumped to you; for elec if it's gas burning it's being burnt somewhere and running through the turbine (loses a big chunk, so more gas goes in to get you that elec energy out), then also their is payment for the wind/solar infrastructure, and cablling and pylons and the supply of blue smoke.
@penguin42 hmmmmmm I guess so … intuitively though it just feels like gas infra is so much more of an ongoing infra liability. But you are right, it probably isn’t.
@bloor @penguin42 they’re putting new gas mains in on the street next to ours, right now.
Very defensible for people to stay on gas for the foreseeable future. More houses going onto gas than coming off, still in 2025 in the UK. Meanwhile, our gas heating was double the carbon of our beef consumption last year, which itself was 2.5x the carbon of our total ICEV miles. Our leccy was 1/10th the carbon of our gas heating, or zero with our Ripple.
@bloor Our only remaining gas usage is for cooking. At £9 a month it'll take 15 years or so for the cumulative standing charge to exceed the cost of a new cooker (it's an 1100mm double oven range).
Or is it the other way round, that it'll take 15 years or so for the cost of a new cooker to be amortised against the removed standing charge?
There's probably a sunk cost fallacy and some false economy in there somewhere.
Anyway, I'll probably be dead before then either way!
Ticket prices for next year’s #MikroTik Professionals Conference are reduced until October 31st. Early birds really do catch the worm as space is also limited for the VIP Dinner so please make sure you book your tickets early rather than at the last minute and find we’re sold out. See https://mtpc.world for more info. Also we’re now calling for presenters for MikroTik related tech talks. Got a great solution using their gear? Tell us about it and you could be presenting it in March! 😀 #MTPC
Was served a YouTube ad for some kind of small plug-in room heater – i.e. the heater is kind of built right onto the plug, like a wifi booster – that will apparently be in every home in the UK by next year and thought, hm, that seems unlikely, and a ten second research revealed that yes, they’re illegal and will probably burn your house down! If you don’t have a suspicious nature online, how the fuck do you survive?
This is a tad special of @jlcpcb - they altered placement for one of my parts.
What did they change? Well, they do not say, but there is a clue here - if you look closely this is not "straight", it is a few degrees off. I can assure you my placement was at 0 degrees rotation, dead straight. Looking the other side you can see the alignment pegs are not centre of holes - what I uploaded was, exactly.
So WTF did they change it to be "off" like this? I'm assuming it will end up straight.
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The image features a close-up of a circuit board with a prominent blue rectangular component overlay. Various labeled pins and markings, such as "DAT0," "DAT1," "CMD," and "CLK," are visible near the edges of the component.
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The image displays a circuit board labeled "Audio Recorder." It features various electronic components, including capacitors and connectors, with visible traces in blue and pink colors. The design emphasizes the layout for audio recording functionality.
@jlcpcb Ooh, and another clue.
They moved the component bottom right in first picture slightly (they don't say how much or why and it is tiny). They normally do that if too close to another component. Well it was not.
But having turned the SD card holder slightly, it may now be too close. That is mental!
@jlcpcb I am pretty much having to use crayons now to explain.
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Image of a circuit board labeled "Recorder" with annotations indicating specific components: "U1," "Exactly centre," and "As I ordered." Various connection points and design elements are visible in the background.
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An image of a printed circuit board (PCB) featuring a microcontroller. Annotations highlight that the component is rotated, no longer centered, and indicate reference points labeled as "on centre" and "image from DFM".
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A close-up of a circuit board showcasing labeled components. Key text highlights include "Recorder" and "No longer in centre," with additional annotations indicating "DFM image." The image includes various electronic elements and connections.
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An electronic circuit board featuring a white connector labeled "J4." There are pink dots indicating connection points, along with text stating, "The file I uploaded as shown on your order page."
I feel like randomly promoting a really amazing Free Software project:
Yes. Invidious is a self-hosted YouTube frontend. It provides a web interface for you to search/watch YouTube videos.
You can run it yourself, or use a public instance.
I installed *my own* private instance, on my network. It's working great.
Your browser won't run all the YouTube bloat. Invidious still has to run Youtube's challenge.
Really, really great project. Way better than YouTube Premium.
@libreleah YouTube Premium does have the benefit of giving each video's creator more money per view, if I remember correctly.
@krans donate $1 to the creator directly. that's more money than they'll ever get from youtube, if all their viewers did that. and not one cent goes to google.
@libreleah Serious question: have you tried doing that yourself?
@krans yes.
@krans when i like something enough, i pay.
@libreleah Okay, yes, I pay a number of people via Patreon, but I think that, “The recommender algorithm suggested this mini documentary about sinkholes in Dorset and I learned something,” level of videos also deserve financial support.
“Track down the PayPal of everyone whose video you watch,” is not a thing anyone can do in practice. Therefore I can only conclude that (1) using Invidious will deprive people of income for their work and that (2) you're fine with this.
@krans i think your central thesis, that invidious takes money away from creators, is ultimately wrong, and the same kind of moral panic argument used for decades against such technologies. you also miss the point entirely, that this is about taking control away from google. google gives creators peanuts. almost all the revenue goes to google. if we take your argument to its extreme, then you're basically saying we should watch youtube.com with ads turned on, or pay for premium. no thank you.
@libreleah @krans @neil for those starting out (who have reached the payout threshold) YT creation does rather depend on the model of “each viewer earns me something”. Youtube appears to have started not counting adblocked views as well, so now there is an algorithmic penalty for the creator. For all of G/YTs many faults, if “manually send money to things you like” worked at scale as a compensation model, more FOSS projects would be fully funded. 2c
@interpipes @krans @neil all of this is yet more evidence of why google is bad. they keep piling shit on users and expecting them to tolerate it. ads (read: spyware in your browser) should be removed from the internet, in their entirety. and should upload their videos to a peertube account, preferably self-hosted. the centralisation of the web is precisely what people like myself wish to avoid.
if a few people profit from google's abusive practises, the risk is theirs. nothing to do with me.
@libreleah @krans @neil sorry, but for me this comes out to “to take some $ out of Gs pocket, I’m ok with doing the same to a person who’s video I watched but didn’t like enough to pay for and it’s their fault because they didn’t have the resources/time/tech chops to pay up front for hosting their video even though it offers no compensation, dramatically hurts their discoverability & audience size, all while I admit YT has utility in using this shim”
@libreleah @krans @neil it’s fine to be idealistic about how you want the world to be but you cannot pretend this is consequence free in the world that exists for the people for whom youtube is probably the best way to get started because that is where the audience is
@nick aiui marketing like that is mostly about saturation / familiarity, so that when you see it later during an “opportunity to purchase”, it is not alien to you
New blogpost:
# "How I interact with PDFs using Free software and Linux in 2025"
This blogpost contains some brief thoughts on how I interact with PDFs.
It is not an exhaustive list of Free software PDF tools for Linux. I know that there are other options; some I have tried and some I have not.
https://neilzone.co.uk/2025/10/how-i-interact-with-pdfs-using-free-software-and-linux-in-2025/
@neil In my experience, exchanging PDF annotations written in Evince with other PDF viewers including Adobe's just works. I have used it in a production environment.
@neil Regarding redaction, the whole image-and-OCR thing feels pretty brutal in itself (and I wouldn't want to rely on imagemagick given it's _still_ getting critical security holes found and it was notorious for that twenty years ago). I've ended up loading the page in Inkscape, actually deleting whatever it is, saving that single page as PDF and assembling a new document.
@neil
As well as liking your articles, I appreciate the usefulness of their URLs. I can drop that URL into my text file to-do list with absolutely no need to add a note about what it is. <3
@neil Firefox has a pretty decent built-in PDF editor. I still mostly use evince for viewing PDFs, but for the (far too) frequent form that I get from school or wherever, I'm already viewing it in a browser. It's easier to just edit right there, insert a signature image, save, and email it off.
@neil Nice. Libreoffice is gaining markdown reading soon - I'm not sure how well it works but you may find that an alternative. I find your use of gs interesting; it's something I've not had to do for a long time; I tend to use the set of pdf tools from poppler for most fiddling with pdfs (package poppler-utils )
@neil I always enjoy reading this kind of stuff. An overview of yr infrastructure would be interesting. Is office on house Wi-Fi or did you run a cable etc. (I used Ubiquiti wireless bridge devices to connect a friend's "cabin" a few hundred metres from home).
I dislike using signature images; sometimes got docs returned for written signatures, scanning & return. Made a Truetype font w initials, 1st name + full signature w Fontographer. Looks 👌, 0 returns. Fontforge or Birdfont for FOSS.
@neil I often use the following to concatenate multiple pdf files into one.
gs -dBATCH -dNOPAUSE -q -sDEVICE=pdfwrite -sOutputFile=output_filename.pdf 1.pdf 2.pdf 3.pdf 4.pdf
@neil yo that reminds me of a hilarious (to me) story about when i had to sign a PDF, but i couldn't be bothered to do any of this. i did have one of those e-readers with a pen though, so i just copied the PDF to there, signed it, and copied it back to the computer. good enough for a one off and everyone got what they wanted in the end
@neil awesome list, I also use most of the tools in here (although Okular is now my choice for a lightweight pdf annotator, and the builtin pdfjs view in Zotero is getting really good.
may I also suggest a section with the content: “Editing PDFs: cry.”
Nothing demonstrates more clearly the unfortunate state of science teaching, and the broader public understanding of science, like watching people who have got smartmeters suddenly panicking about what various appliances draw, all from a misunderstanding about the difference between “power” and “energy”.
Imagine owning a 3kW kettle then being shocked when your metering shows it uses….. 3kW. And almost implicitly blaming the meter.
You can’t, can you?
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A thread screenshot of someone worrying about their 3kW kettle using 3kW and blaming the meter, almost.
I almost wonder if this is a part cause of “heat pump hatred”. You do often hear of people saying “it costs a fortune to run”. Mine I have seen using over 5kW….for a few mins, whist it recharges the hot water tank. Then it backs right off. Could this be a possible explanation in some cases I wonder.
@bloor Given a large number of people fail to understand how a thermostat operates, smart meters were always going to be a challenge 😎
@ReCyclist @bloor I know I'm going to regret asking this, but.. how do people fail to understand how a thermostat operates? Not, "surely people can't misunderstand", but, what are the actual failure-modes/mistakes?
@dwm @ReCyclist @bloor I know people who will turn to max temp when cold and min temp when hot, basically using the thermometer as a manual on/off switch, totally missing the point. And no matter how many times I explain, they still do not get it.
That and, of course, people who think it will heat up quicker if you set a higher target temperature.
@revk @dwm @ReCyclist @bloor if you don't know they work, that does make sense though - from an intuitive "if I've got farther to go, I try and travel quicker" way.
boosted@SonOfSunTzu @revk @dwm @ReCyclist @bloor as an engineer who wants to make good things that people will successfully and happily use, I wonder how the thermostat UI could be improved to take account of this? Perhaps people struggle to pick a numerical temperature. Perhaps we just need buttons labelled "I'm way too cold, I'm a bit cold, I'm ok, I'm a bit hot, I'm way too hot".
@kitten_tech @SonOfSunTzu @revk @dwm @ReCyclist @bloor
That's an interesting take on it. I've always been the other way as I dislike that the thermostat is 20 ish degrees, or 20 and a bit. My #homeassistant one lets me set 20.0 or 20.1 which is far more satisfying :)
Not for my wife of course
@kitten_tech @revk @dwm @ReCyclist @bloor I like the idea, but I wonder if showing "current temp" and "desired temp" side by side, with buttons clearly on the side of the desired temp, would be enough?
And another indicator showing that the heating is on or off, like a switch, with no implication of being more "on", is the way to go?
( bearing in mind I've a very simple "set desired temp, then display flicks to show current temp" thermostat, your tech might be better )
@SonOfSunTzu @revk @dwm @ReCyclist @bloor perhaps people struggle with temperature readouts and targets because the temperature at some arbitrary point (the sensor) is only partially connected with how hot/cold you feel - because temperature varies around a home, and of you've just come in from the cold you'll want to be extra hot for a bit to warm up, etc
@kitten_tech @SonOfSunTzu @dwm @ReCyclist @bloor Now that is where Faikin comes in - allows me to pin point where I want temp setting to be measured - i.e. on my bed head, or front of my desk.
@revk @dwm @ReCyclist @bloor in some cases requesting a higher temperature may cause things to heat up quicker.
It depends if the boiler/whatever its controlling is a simple on off or can vary its output power.
If you are already near the target temp on some systems they won't run at full power output to reduce the risk of overshooting the target
@dwm @ReCyclist @bloor they think putting their heating thermostat up to 30degreesC will heat up the house quicker than putting it to the temperature they desire.
boosted@CenturyAvocado @dwm @ReCyclist @bloor That said, the split aircon in living room ramps fan up more if there's a bigger ΔT from current temp to setpoint, so it *appears* to throw more heat out if you "turn up the temperature". Yes, this is probably my fault for using auto fan speed. Or because it's got a #faikin inside :-)
@Elwell @CenturyAvocado @dwm @ReCyclist @bloor Irony is the Faikin wants to turn it on/off, and has to overcome the internal hysteresis in the A/C itself, to the Faikin does set way higher and way lower that target to turn on/off. It obviously does this to try and get to the required target though.
@ReCyclist @bloor
I had a customer repeatedly complain that the radiators weren't hot. I went round three times to find them all working before I worked out that he meant that "Once the rooms are warm the radiators go cold."
Yes, that's what the bloody thermostatic valves are meant to do.
He wanted it to be like his friend's house where the radiators were hot all the time ... because the radiators were undersized and never got the rooms up to the set temperature.
@bloor I think basic maths failure has a lot to answer for. 3kW for what, 5 mins while you make a brew vs say 45 mins for oven pre-heating and cycling while you bake a cake vs ~4h of straight 3kW resistive heating of hot tub. I know which in our house uses most energy, but one of those is timed to coincide with peak PV output and us typically not using it for anything else. Lack of understanding what a kWh unit actually means (power * time)?
@bloor the CEO of our DNO still thinks that a 12kW heat pump uses 12kW of electricity. To the point where they want to make everyone have 3-phase so that the heat pump can have its own phase. 🤯🤦♂️
@bloor i think most of the "heat pump hate" is based on what the tech was like in the 70s and 80s. and in places where the norm was boilers, it's based on "that's not what i know"
@bloor tangential, are you planning track your energy bill will heat pump this year vs energy bill with gas last year? After getting solar we are using more electricity but net electricity cost has been £48/- from Feb this year. Still I wonder what heat pump cost outlay will be like specially since we have a leaky home.
@bloor I'm guessing it's partly from a running campaign from the usual suspects, and partly from a common failure to understand the difference between instantaneous rate vs total quantity.
Like the distinction between heat and temperature, that often eludes people.
I don't mean this as "people are stupid" - they're just not immediately obvious things, and if it reflects anything systemic, it's the priorities of western education systems.
@bloor showed this to my partner and the response was that they’re going to think it’s a faulty kettle and end up buying another 😂🤣
@bloor the whole "get a smart meter to save energy" nonsense that even my (trained scientific, if somewhat technophobic) sister got to the stage of asking me "but surely it can't do that, unless you change what energy you use?"
Multiple of her friends had got one, changed nothing, and been outraged that their bills hadn't dropped
@ahnlak yeah I think the industry has been really misleading too. And for a long time I was dead against smartmeters, not because of the metrology but because of the remote contactor. Having moved to a property with them already fitted, I guess I am stuck with it, and once I have whole house UPS and solar I won’t care much about the remote contactor either.
@bloor ahh, I couldn't bring myself to pay the extra > grand to have grid independence so when the grid goes so does my battery. Not ideal but the critical stuff is on short-term UPSes at least
@bloor Hi, smart meter expert here. This isn't funny! Smart meters only do this when they're in extreme distress.
@bloor Anything with a heating element makes my smart meter show its red light, but since most of the time it's something that's only using it for a few minutes, like the kettle, or the washing machine when its heating the water, it only costs a couple of or a few pence. So if I boil the kettle one time in an hour, I use around the same amount of power that the fridge would use if it was running for an hour. I'm not exactly a scientist, but I could figure that one out!
@bloor I put it down to the same thing I always do; people fucking love attention on social media and hoover that shit up like crack.
See also: your post the other day about everyone simultaneously jumping on the bandwagon of "omg the gov installed an app on my phone". Since that day, I haven't seen one of those posts once, because maybe they've all coordinated a move onto whinging about smart meters for attention instead.
@bloor Watching from the US, wishing that I had access to utility meters alerts. Local electricity, water and natural gas meters are read remotely. Discovered a water leak when the monthly bill arrived, $500 higher than normal $80 irrigation summer use.
@bloor I've seen supposedly reputable magazines recommend smaller electric heaters in reviews because that one was cheaper to run....
Heat pumps there is a pattern IMHO. Most people who say it's expensive to run don't own one. Just like EV haters and solar haters.
@etchedpixels @bloor people who say heat pumps are expensive to run clearly have never had to run their heating on LPG :-)
Am I allowed to say… refrigerator? 🙂
A complicating factor at least here is that energy utility companies (I believe are required to) charge a power tariff, in addition to the actual energy transfer tariff. And naturally they all do it differently. Meaning it can get a lot more expensive if you have a steady let's say 1 kW usage with a single brief peak 5 kW usage; than if you have a steady 2 kW usage with a few peaks to 2.5 kW. That hurts.
@bloor my wife in her petrol car turns it up to get warmer quicker whereas I in my electric have it warm already. On old cars like Morris Minors was to shut the heater (no thermostat) down to zero , let the engine warm faster because of that then open the heater valve up
@bloor We have always been mostly stupid, but in this era, stupidity has become enfranchised. They're PROUD of it. They'll kill to maintain their "right" to be complete effing morons.
@bloor TBF, I don't think it helps having the green / orange / red zones. That makes it look like 'omg you're using so much energy!!!' when in fact it's temporary.
Yes some users are lacking in basic knowledge, but UI/UX people are also dreadful at making things that the average person can interpret. Maybe only go into red if you've been drawing more than X watts for Y time.
@pwaring @bloor
IMO some of the fault for this understanding by end users is the messaging that's been put out surrounding smart metering, in the past it has been "it saves you money/electricity" and as it's evolved over time it's become "it helps to save you money/electricity".
That "help" is mostly the worry/psychological effect the home display generates by showing a meter like that
Showing the usage is useful though as it's helped me find some efficiencys and problem hardware in the past
# Announcing decoded.legal, gopher-edition
Always keen to stay at the forefront of modern technology, you can now access much of the information on the decoded.legal website through the gopher protocol.
To do this:
* install a `gopher` client
* access the gopherhole using `gopher decoded.legal`
Why? I felt like it.
https://decoded.legal/blog/2025/10/announcing-decodedlegal-gopher-edition/
@neil likewise, my blog can be found at
gopher.hardill.me.uk
Still need to work out how to remove the initial "Main menu" page
😲
First time I have used Gopher, in order to check out your gophersite (?), in decades. I even had to install the package. All works just fine.
Do you mind sharing how did you convert HTML into whatever format Gopher uses for its pages?
boosted@neil I wonder whether you’re the only lawyer on gopher. I’m pretty sure you wouldn’t be the first, but maybe the first for sometime.
@neil The figlet looks weird in Lagrange. Looks like there are some stray code fence blocks in the source?
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A gopher page at decoded.legal, displayed in the mobile app Lagrange. There is ASCII art of text at the top. The word "decoded" is legible but the second word is malformed and hard to read.
This morning, someone launched into a technical explanation of a computer component for my benefit, without even bothering to check if I might know a thing or two. Initially, I just listened, but then I had to step in to correct a slight inaccuracy - one that could have actually caused problems.
I was promptly verbally assaulted and told that ignorant people should remain silent and listen instead of talking back. I politely retorted that, in principle, they were right, but that the specific thing they'd just said was incorrect and could mislead the others listening.
Nope. They doubled down, told me to be quiet or leave, since I was so determined to "remain in my ignorance".
In the end, I just fell silent and let it go. I now pretend to believe that SSD and NVMe drives have tiny, high-speed rotating platters inside - miniature ones, of course - that spin so fast that if the power is cut, their momentum keeps them going long enough to finish writing the data, preventing any loss. It all makes perfect sense now.
@stefano 'slight inaccuracy'??? What do they think the first S in SSD is for?
@stefano oh, wow.
another consultant, or a client?
@stefano Are you sure this was no prank? I mean -- this tops all computer jokes I ever knew
@stefano Had this happen years ago, when I recommended a change to a setting in an app that I’d been using for 25 years and consulting for nearly 20 at that point.
Asked them to explain it, and they spent 20 minutes at a whiteboard full of lines and boxes and disks and databases.
I opened up the documentation, and shared on the projector the three paragraphs that clearly explained the three options.
The team decided to implement my recommendation based on the documentation, and no apology was ever given for this individual wasting everyone’s time.
Thankfully the individual was moved to a different department shortly after that.
@stefano ooooof, that's painful. sorry you had go deal with someone like that
Well, you did learn something. 😂
You are also a lot more patient than I am. I would have left the room while laughing very loudly about arguing with idiots...
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A brightly lit, close-up photograph showcases a yellow rectangular sign placed on a dark wooden surface. The sign is the primary focus, with a slightly glossy finish. The background is blurred, revealing hints of a cluttered workspace with computer monitors and cables. The text on the sign is black and centered, in a clear, sans-serif font.
The sign reads: "I CAN EXPLAIN IT TO YOU, BUT I CAN’T UNDERSTAND IT FOR YOU". The wood surface appears to be a desk, and the overall composition suggests an office or technical environment. The lighting is focused on the sign, making it stand out against the darker surroundings.
Provided by @altbot, generated privately and locally using Gemma3:27b
Windows IT are always the best!
In principle I have nothing against a digital ID card.
In practice I know it will be abused more than it is used. The lessons of history tell us this.
I have no confidence in the security of such a product. I have no confidence in the suppliers picked to deliver it.
I have no confidence that future governments will abuse the information, just look at how councils abuse RIPA (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Regulation_of_Investigatory_Powers_Act_2000#Controversy)
It's how easy it is to abuse that makes me have an issue with ID cards.
Here is a small recommendation when someone messages you on LinkedIn having done (to be charitable) RUDIMENTARY research on your firm. Whenever they use a bit of bullshit bingo buzzwordery, ask them what it means.
Today someone pushing a cloud based load of tosh I couldn't give a fuck about asked me if A&A had developed our own OSS/BSS. Context gave me a clue as to what it probably meant. And yes we have.
But I made him spell it out.
@bloor I haven't updated my LinkedIn since I worked at the ODI, where my job title was Head Of Robots. So now I get shit like this:
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> Linkedin Inbox 93 new Head openings at Wayman Recruitment Group
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LinkedIn Inbox 1 new Head openings at Republic London
@pikesley "Head Openings"
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A comic panel of a smiling boy (Bode from Locke & Key), arms outstretched, with the top of his head missing, showing a black void inside his head. There's a key protruding from a keyhole on the back of his neck, He's saying "SO awesome".
I can't keep up with reality, it's clearly beyond satire and taking the piss now: Palantir, whose UK CEO is the grandson of the notorious fascist founder of the British Union of Fascists, and whose Trump-adjacent leader has the knives out for democracy, backs away from key Starmer policy on digital ID cards, fearing *reputational damage* from being associated with something "Too Evil even for Palantir":
https://www.dailystar.co.uk/news/latest-news/starmer-hit-major-blow-tech-36013892
@cstross
Well can you really blame them? Just too risky.
https://this.weekinsecurity.com/discord-says-users-government-ids-used-for-age-checks-stolen-by-hackers
@rochelimit @AlisonW You might think that, but I promise you that's not where HMG wants to go with this digital ID proposal.
@cstross
This proposal has been in the works for several years, has been developed in house by the civil service to build on the One Login system, and storing various docs on the gov.uk wallet was due to be rolled out this Autumn. It was announced in the spring to include helpful docs such as driving licences, right to work, right to rent, veterans cards. No complaints from anyone.
Starmer rebrands a digital doc wallet as BritCard Digital ID, says it will be compulsory, and all hell breaks loose. The thing is, it can't be made universal, as the programme already explains. Those not working or renting, or those with no phones, make alternative processes essential.
Starmer is an idiot. He's blown up a perfectly good planned service, by adding expectations he can't have, now the Wallet programme is tainted by association.
https://www.gov.uk/government/organisations/office-for-digital-identities-and-attributes
@rochelimit @cstross @AlisonW The existing .gov portals are actually quite good (just to include one that most folks won’t be aware of, linking farm owners and animal controllers to the stock identity and movement tagging system).
This is sure to polarise everything and blow them up.
@BashStKid @rochelimit @cstross @AlisonW and the general premise most civil servants work to is not to mandate stuff, but to make the digital services so good that people want to use them.
It was the tagline for the Government Digital Service in the 'teens when I was working with them.
@themself @BashStKid @rochelimit @cstross
When a project has a clearly defined task to computerise it's fine. The gov.uk problem tends to be massive scope creep resulting in not meeting any desired outcome.
@AlisonW @BashStKid @rochelimit @cstross in my experience (I've built UK gov digital services) it works best when you look at the user needs and not the current paper process.
That way you build services that do what people need, and make them easy to use for the entire user base.
That's easier to do when you have an outcome based approach that gives you wiggle room, and not a tightly defined spec.
@themself I have always found .gov websites exemplary in terms of clarity and functionality on almost any device
A very rare thing now
@OliverNoble there's a lot of people that have worked hard to make it so.
@themself
They have done a great job
I always leave comments in survey if its offered
I really do appreciate how good they are especially as I find some other sites unusable without enormous frustration or help
So many thanks to everyone who works on the .gov sites
@OliverNoble @themself Earlier in the year I swapped a registration mark from one car to another via DVLA digital services - whole thing completed in one week, and other than the insurers the DVLA updated everything some days quicker than any private sector organisations (such as the vehicle warranty provider and the breakdown cover services) could.
At the same time, I'd rather not use a "Britcard" linked to my driving licence for reporting potholes or other such stuff, I'm wary of pissing off a Council worker to the extent they put my car on a shitlist and I get stung for parking too near a corner of my street (even though its not an unsafe position its not strictly allowed, but I sometimes have to do that due to the parking situation where I live)
People who have written pieces predicting how AI is magical and wonderful and how anyone who doubts the wisdom of this are losers who don’t understand tech (despite some of us having been computer-ing professionally for decades being told this by generalist business/policy journos)… and they’ve seamlessly switched without any mea culpa to “we are in a giant bubble that’s gonna pop any day now”.
Wild.
Having gigabit fibre is less useful if you're having to route half your traffic through Tor to bypass OSA blocks.
I should probably set up a Wireshark link to one of my EU boxes and route stuff through there instead.
@james very tempted to do something similar, it's becoming tiring having to try work around it all the time
App that has a map of the grocery store you are about to go into and it will show you where to go. Using the map, you can easily find your grocery list items without distractions and guessing games.
Great idea to help people with memory issues, hard time finding items with changing isles, anxiety about shopping in a new store, and could also include when the shops have the most shoppers for those who'd like to avoid crowds.
@nick
If it was kept updated and informed by the store, then it could help people even after those changes.
Our local store just decided to do full renovation overhaul and it has been weeks of confusion thanks to it... can't find anything. (=_=)
People who shit the bed about an individual using AI to generate a few images really need to get in the sea.
The reality is that energy usage due to AI is now massive, and nearly all of it is out of your control now.
Nearly every Google or Bing search now results in an AI response.
All the research that's going on.
All the training on datasets they probably shouldn't have.
I'll take living car free over avoiding ChatGPT, thanks.
https://andymasley.substack.com/p/individual-ai-use-is-not-bad-for
@cybergibbons I don't have an opinion about this but I'm happy to see you posting here!
@ryanc I've been meaning to come back for a while! Twitter really is dead eh
@cybergibbons It's Elon Musk's blog and comments section now.
@ryanc I logged in earlier to see a tweet... and yeah, it's got much worse over the last month.
@cybergibbons how is it still getting worse? 🤮
@ryanc the accounts posting amusing but fake facts seem to have given up...
@cybergibbons counter argument is that open AI are opening massive datacentres as a result of their current mindshare. It's unsustainable (https://www.wheresyoured.at/openai-onetrillion/) but also "AI hyperscaler" datacentres slated for UK which will likely one gas power station per hyperscaler DC to satisfy the 1200MW power requirements each. Also AI images are cringe.
@foobarry Yeah, I'd agree they are on a path that is not sustainable, but whatever I do is unlikely to stop that now.
@nick @cybergibbons some have been in the works for a while e.g. Blyth and Waltham abbey. Blyth will take about ten years for the full site to come online with capacity ramping over time(same power draw as sizewell B produces). But big pressure from Jensen Huang and others saying UK will need power asap to meet demand and if fossil fuels then so be it. Yes we are wrecking net zero and water supply for cloud datacentres that won't benefit us at all. Just hoping the AI bubble bursts quickly.
Heatpump saga day one thread.
Materials arrived.
People arrived.
Machine to lift heat pump onto elevated wall position arrived.
Some consternation about the width of the metal base that the lifting machine sits upon, and how that width might exceed the width of the passage way beside the house down which it needs to fit.
Seems like they have removed my garden gate, hopefully temporarily. Lots of banging and crashing. But I think the lifting machine may now be where it needs to be. Hooray.
I mean in fairness to them. They hit a more-or-less unforeseeable snag. And they overcame it fairly quickly. So, there is that.
We haz stuff though …
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Samsung heat pump
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Ladder and power flush machine
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Hot water cylinder
And since I’m dumping photos, here are the “before” photos.
I was hoping they would do all the outdoor stuff first, and it seems like they are doing that. It feels like it makes sense to actually hang the brackets, get the unit up onto them etc. Before really trying to attack the rest of it.
Machine :
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Lifting machine
Apparently they're planning to hang the unit about 2.2m above path level. As in, the bottom of it at that level. This seems OK to me. As long as it's above head height basically. Not many people are 7ft tall.
@bloor That does mean the working at heights regulations will apply whenever you get it serviced. That's one problem sticking them up walls and why people like Octopus just refuse to do so.
My brother is about 6'10 and yes - people who are that tall are really good at ducking 8)
Probably an obvious comment but jesusfuck the heatpump is massive, compared to (say) an aircon external unit. I used to have 10kW Daikin units in my old place, and this is quite a lot bigger than those.
@bloor what have you got?
@bloor my first reaction on seeing our external unit was along the lines of "holy fuck that's huge" ;-)
@bloor can confirm (Fox cub for scale)
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A fox cub around 3 or 4 months old staring into the camera. A house and garden are behind it and in the distance there's a Daikin heat pump, which is actually pretty big.
Progress:
The heat pump is on the cantilever arms. Seems a bit lower than they said (though it felt rude to measure) but still high enough.
And at the end of day one…
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Heat pump above path
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Closer up
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Different angle
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From further back
I think it is more like six foot six off the ground but I think I’m happy enough. Also I think it would be pain to move up a few inches.
This room contains basically everything TBD.
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Room full of stuff…
Ok I measured- it’s 197cm off the ground. It also might start to be getting a bit near the upstairs window if it was raised. We can always adjust this later; I just want something that works now asap.
Heatpump Saga :
Day Two... The Tankening.
Electrician arrived whilst I was in the shower, bc the company had not told me when he would arrive; in fact they told me they'd be on site from 9-9:30. Suboptimal. OTOH, the sparks took a look at the job at hand and seemed to think there was no difficulty with doing it; SWA from the utility room consumer unit, behind some floor cupboards, under the back door, and up to the heat pump.
All good. I will take his card as he seemed, er, switched on.
Meta has been nagging me to try their AI, so I finally clicked ok.... And immediately asked it to make a cartoon of a heat pump install going wrong. Enjoy.
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AI generated cartoon of a heatpump install going badly wrong
@bloor I see your problem. Apparently MC Escher did your heatpump design 🧐
Not a good idea to have Escher doing your piping work, unless he has access to additional dimensions to work in 😁
My Windows Upgrade continues. Upstairs was mostly finished yesterday in terms of actual frames and panels. Work remains to make it pretty.
Hopefully they will start on downstairs today, with four morewindows and two external doors to install. They did manage one large windows downstairs yesterday.
Should be finished long before October 14th deadline imposed by Microsoft 😉
Ok so some wiring is done. Apparently this consumer unit (installed at the time some building work was being done on this house about a decade before we bought it) “isn’t the worst he’s seen”.
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Cupboard with consumer unit incident and trunking going down the wall
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Some pipes and clipped along the skirting, a steel wire armoured cable.
Meanwhile they are collecting my radiators (which had been in my garage being painted "Overtly Olive") and reinstalling them in my living room. I have not had heating in there since the redecoration started, so that will be nice. An actual upgrade, sort of.
Taking photos intermediately is tricky as I don't want them to think I'm being critical; just documenting progress.
It's quite a weirdly disturbing, disquieting, almost stressful process, this. Mainly because our home is generally a very peaceful place just with us and Frank the parrot. But just now there are a bunch of people I don't know, making noise and doing building stuff. Kemi is away on business, and I think this is probably a good thing, for her.
@bloor now mine is in operation there's a thing about it I've noticed that's worth mentioning. The heat pump itself is nearly silent - quieter than my desktop PC fans, probably because it's huge and low speed - but the water pump makes a bit of a high pitched whine when running the central heating. In my setup it's in a location where I can probably enclose it behind a false wall/door and mitigate that noise, but you might want to be aware of that and consider what's right for you.
@http_error_418 I think my plan is to let them install it and try not to preempt problems. Obviously the pumped shower saga, aside.
@bloor yeah fair, it's not a terrible noise, just a mild irritation, and depending on where they place the pump it might not be an issue for you at all.
@http_error_418 I can be quite adept at building small diy projects too. So if a pump does whine a bit, I can probably make something up to quieten it down, maybe. We will see. I want to get it in, I think, then separately deal with any snags.
Meanwhile I now have a picture of the inside of my house walls! Anyone fancy a crunchy bar?
Yey for post-WWII poured concrete construction. 1949 was a good year for house building apparently.
These houses are remarkably robust, solid and generally warm and weather resistant 🙂🤷♂️
Cool so I really am quite pleased with the rads in the same colour as the feature wall. Glad I bothered with that. Couple of little dings in the fairly soft paint to address but this was inevitable and unavoidable.
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Overtly Olive radiator.
FWIW I did use paint that said it was for radiators; an "egg shell" finish. But nonetheless it is still somewhat soft and easy to scrape off. So a little touching in will be necessary and I always expected that. I am very happy with the colour though.
Sparks just cut the power off without warning me. Which isn’t optimal. Apparently it won’t be very long, though. Also to the unique way my office (I now learn) is wired, my network stayed up. But my Mac died.
@bloor so your network uses a power feed from next door?
@damien haha if only. When we replace the consumer unit, we will unite both original house circuits AND extension circuits into one panel. But kinda bodgy extension of a decade ago installed a decent consumer unit for extension circuits. My office is part old house and part extension.
@nick @damien That's a good idea. But in the medium term (next year) I'm going to do something a big bigger I think. My plan currently involves 25mm2 SWA from my utility head/henley blocks (via an isolator) to my garage, where it will feed the grid input of a Victron Quattro 15K. Then the inverter output of the Quattro will come back to the consumer unit in the house via another 25mm SWA. Garage CU fed direct from the Quattro too. The Quattro will have a Fogstar 32kWh 48V LifePo pack on it.
@nick @damien == 15kW "whole house UPS", ability to buy power and charge up on cheap rates. And use from the battery. And then finally, I think I can squeeze 16-20kWp of solar on my roof, to hopefully make it so I pretty much hardly have to buy power off the grid. At least, I think this will be doable about 3/4 of the year, ish.
No export. No hassle with G99/G98 etc.
The Quattro has a 2nd power input, and I'll attach that to the V2L of my car, for extra offgrid capacity.
I am feeling somewhat smug about this, even against a normal white wall. This is the other lounge rad.
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Radiator on wall
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Close up of rad
Oh so you're the chap with bits of a jet engine as a coffee table.
I know I'd come across you eventually 🤣👍
@bloor Is this what happens when you don't have power and internet? You just go around taking pictures of radiators?
@bloor oh man, how big are the oranges you're juicing 😯
@runningrobderby @bloor Ah, THE coffee table <3 .
Ok I think now shit gets serious.
Current sit rep: No hot water and no heating.
Plan is by close of play today is to have hot water back, via immersion only. Then by end of tomorrow, heating and hot water delivered by heat pump.
@bloor My sit rep since November 2024 has been: Some hot water and no heating.
I do not recommend it.
@jonty To be fair, they did say this would be the way it would be. So I'm kind of OK with it.
I will be significantly less OK if mine turns into yours.
I just want to make clear, this is what they told me would happen exactly. So I mean, I can't really complain.
Given it’s an old CU, I kinda expected it not to be all properly glanded onto the SWA, but in fact it is. Also: wiring into heat pump started and isolator on wall.
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SWA gland into consumer unit
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Heat pump without side panel. Isolator switch on wall
Old tank out.
Unexpected expense. You see the volvo parked behind all the workmen's cars? Well what you cannot see is my car, which is blocked in by the volvo. The bread I was planning to eat for lunch turned out to be mouldy. I am, nonetheless, hungry.
I have ordered a "footlong breakwich" subway via Deliveroo. It cost sixteen pounds, including delivery.
UNFORESEEN EXPENSES AS A RESULT OF HEAT PUMP INSTALLATION.
@bloor SIXTEEN QUID. FOR A SANDWICH?!?!
Old knackered leaky gas boiler gone.
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Broken boiler on ground
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Place boiler used to be
Power flush starting.
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Power flush machine
New cylinder ready to go in. However I’ve now been told that unfortunately the power flush didn’t happen until too late in the day to have time to reconnect the new cylinder, and as a result overnight and tomorrow morning no heating and actually no hot water after all.
No point getting cross because what can they do?
Ok I get the feeling they are just tackling tidying up jobs. They have rehung my garden gate, which had to be removed to get the lifting machine down the path. So that's something. But, yeah, no hot water tonight. I think the power flush is done now.
@bloor Is that Bender, with no arms and legs yet?
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A cartoon robot character holding a cigar in one hand and a bottle labeled "Old For..." in the other. The robot has a silver body, a large grin, and is standing upright.
Heat Pump Saga Day Three
Interestingly, although they gave the impression last night that they'd simply run out of time to do the cylinder after the powerflush was finished, pre 0830 this morning a delivery from Wolseley containing copper fittings. Presumably they needed these to do some bits? IDK. Maybe not, they're quite wide, so may be for the main flow/return.
The house is slightly cold. And it sucked not having a shower. I did have A/C in the bedroom and a oil radiator by my desk though.
Hmm didn't turn up until 10 past 10.
On the other hand they do seem to have implied they will stay late if needed. So, I guess that is something.
@bloor ours was scheduled for a week, although it was basically functional by Thursday. They weren't super long days though (and we did have it plumbed in parallel with our existing boiler so it didn't make much difference to us...)
@bloor Remember, they're working to hit the completion date they gave you up front, not to get it done as quick as possible.
If they can hit that date working from 10am-3pm each day, then they'll work from 10am-3pm...
Otherwise they'd be there from 8am-8pm every day.
@psfshr @bloor ours usually aimed too finish at the customer by 2 or 3 on the Friday. Was scheduled for the week, though the under floor in the kitchen was done on the Tuesday before so that we could tile under where the hot water tank is, which worked well. Something that we should have planned further ahead to have a longer time between the underfloor and rest of it.
Ok there is progress. Not really sure why we have an expansion vessel given it is gravity fed from the loft tank still. But, ok. I guess it’s future proof for when we replace all the showers with unpumped mixers and get rid of the loft tank.
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New hot water tank not quite finished being piped
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Different angle
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Closer up on top of tank
@bloor that is mandated by the hotwater tank I think. Funny they are keeping the gravity fed system after installing the hot water tank…
@piofthings they had to. Going mains fed would have probably destroyed all my showers.
@piofthings their original plan, before I pointed out the shower problem, was to go mains fed
@bloor missed that bit… what’s wrong with mains fed showers? You have some fancy ones already with built in pumps?
@piofthings all of my showers are either Mira event or event xl or Aqualisa. All pumped power showers.
@bloor I see…
@piofthings longer term we will look at the true feasibility of going to mains pressure/scrap the loft tank. This cylinder can cope.
@bloor funny thing is after going mains fed, via the softener I feel like pressure is adequate but could be better… before that we had 8kWh instant heating showers, damn those were some costly baths we took back then 🤣🤣🤣
@piofthings I mean, we will see. I’m happy with the pumped showers mostly
@bloor no no, pumped shower are great! Keep them as long as you can and once done switch to ones that can handle mains pressure… (if there are such things)!
Ok so we will have (immersion) hot water tonight. But not heating. I’m not wildly impressed honestly given they rocked up at gone 10 this morning. Again no point losing my shit with the guys installing it. But am somewhat dismayed.
Also the one radiator they were replacing has not been replaced and the lock shields haven’t been replaced on my lounge radiators as was intended.
This will easily be covered by cupboard. This is on the inside end of the pipes that go out to the heat pump outside.
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Some pipes.
@bloor just a quick thank you for sharing this. It's been really useful as it's something I'm considering having....
@cryptomoose I will continue until the project is done. They will be back again tomorrow.
@bloor @cryptomoose ok this seems to be going less well than mine on the plumbing side. My plumbers were done by about 5:30 on Friday having started 9:30 on Monday. In fairness your ASHP is wall mounted and I don't know how inconvenient the tank placing is (mine was super easy for them to run pipes to) but on the other hand I had 9 out of 10 radiators swapped out.
@http_error_418 @cryptomoose well that’s another thing. I’m expecting one rad replaced. It has not been.
@bloor @cryptomoose what have they been *doing* all week? Doing the rads at mine accounted for half of the entire job
Sigh. Just spotted a leak. From that cover below the lower lever valve. Probably not tightened. They were still on site but I don’t think they would have noticed had I not said as they were on the upstairs stuff.
Also I’ve noticed that the washing machine then pulled out to run a cable behind it, which necessitated disconnecting it from cold and drain, has been shoved back without reconnecting. Hopefully the pipes aren’t kinked. But again, I feel they would have left site tonight, feeling they’d put it back, but actually leaving me without a functional washing machine as well as without function heating.
My working theory is their subcontractor sparks moved the machine and they put it back, so might not have known. But still. Check.
@bloor grr… death by 1000 cuts and all that! One question though. Is the external unit just outside where the old boiler was (on the inside?) is the proximity to the old connection important?
@piofthings literally opposite sides of the wall. Balanced flue hole used for one of the flow/return pipes
@bloor hmm… assuming least amount of piping to old joints help. I can’t do that… wracking my head on where a good position would be in/outside my house with reasonable WAF!
And now I’m a bit annoyed and dismayed I’m obviously looking around for things to be miffed about. And I didn’t have to look very hard.
Appears they drilled a cable. And never mentioned it. Now I think it won’t be needed after this. But I cannot see how that can be safely isolated.
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Drilled cable cover
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Showing cable drills through.
They may intend to tidy this up. But they haven’t said they intend to. Either way I don’t think it is acceptable to leave it like this, even overnight.
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Wires hanging out of the wall in wago connectors
Maybe they are holding off filing this huge gap around the pipe through what was the flue hole, but again. It’d be nice to be told.
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Big gap around a pipe through a wall
And again, maybe they intend to address this but you can see the brass fittings for flow and return here. I don’t think these should be totally un insulated.
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Brass connectors
And finally I don’t regard this as having cleaned up.
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Crap all over the floor
@bloor Jesus. That's all a bit shonky. I can well understand you not being too impressed.
We could have eaten dinner off the floor when ours was done.
There was one moment during our install where I flushed a toilet and the water was hot. The plumber was very embarrassed and rather annoyed at himself; the rest of the crew (and us) thought it was hilarious. And he stayed behind for an hour and a half to fix it, too.
@bloor Thing I hate most about UK is complete inability to find trades. For a few years there we could get Polish workers-did our house in Harrow-who were normal but of course Britain had to be horrible to them and chase them off so now we are back to the local indolent incompetent jackoffs. We have a lot of work done, a continuous cycle living in a very old house, with friends in similar circumstances with whom we fight over the decent ones. There is always some bloody problem with the work.
Spoke to my heat pump point of contact. Very understanding and apologetic. Acknowledged the issues. Committed to fix. Asked for photos, sent. Took responsibility for another minor issue (a radiator that was meant to be upgraded but hadn’t been). I feel that my polite critique is being taken seriously and actioned immediately.
ALSO: THE HOT TAP HAD HOT WATER COMING OUT OF IT WHEN I TRIED IT.
Heat pump saga, day four.
They were meant to arrive at ten or ten thirty. Why not 8am given I have no fucking heating?
Then around the time they were supposed to be arriving a text from the point of contact saying the engineer is ill and can’t come this morning but maybe later or tomorrow.
We have hot water and can warm individual rooms so we will be ok, but I am still super dismayed frankly. I haven’t been rude or aggressive but I have made them aware I am deeply unhappy.
@bloor I've taken a look at mine, and the nut is partially showing in a similar way. I think the pipe comes pre-lagged for outdoor use. Not sure that makes much difference as the water will be moving at that point and uninsulated inside unit anyway.
The pipe that the hot water comes out the top of the tank had the nut uninsulated, and it was causing thermal siphoning. I've insulated it, which has slowed the cooling curve of the hot water. Internal insulation was last bit done.
@bloor I suspect it depends on who is in the house. Smart adult with no kids, that's probably reasonable. Kids about, is it out of reach etc. Helps to keep the total install time down.
@bloor worst one I had for leaving stuff was the plasterers in the eldest's room. They didn't notice a blob of plaster had fallen and landed on the popped out double plug fascia.
Fortunately I'm nosy and always inspect work at the end of day and noticed the sparking from it. I also happened to have a spare fascia in the garage, so could turn off the power and replace the socket.
@bloor If, as it seems, that cable linked the controls downstairs with the motorised valve, pump and cylinder stat upstairs then it is already isolated. The fused spur that's hanging off the wall in your other photo was the main feed for the boiler and controls. That's the isolation point.
The only cable you'd still need would be for a room thermostat but I'm guessing they're fitting a more modern temperature monitoring device.
@bloor with mine they bricked and fully filled the old flue hole, with 3 new appropriately sized holes for the pipes and electrics to the outside unit.
@bloor I'd need a minified tank which I think some installers might be able to do but octopus certainly wouldn't when I had them so a survey a while back
Either that or lose my wardrobe and part of my bedroom (current tank is in the bedroom bit it sits above the stairs so not fill height cupboard)
@Dragon @bloor
You can get tall skinny cylinders, the same brand as in bloor's photo but others too. If you get the tank upgraded first to something the right volume that's suitable then they should have no trouble fitting a heat pump.
You can even fit a horizontal cylinder in the loft if you have one.
@bloor The heating circuit is pressurised. That's why there's a filling loop on the side of the hot water cylinder.
@bloor Expansion vessel
for unvented primary loop that’s heating the water (otherwise it’d require a header tank).
@bloor when we had our tank replaced it came with a pressure vessel kit, despite the fact we were staying gravity fed. We just stored it for possible future use (though we have no mains water so have essentially no plans to pressurise!)
@bloor adding sensors later?
@an0key as in... openheatpumpmonitor? I think i'm going to just let them install it as is. Then if we feel we need to tinker with it; replace rads, change pipework, to increase efficiency mainly, before i do anything of this, i'll get an OHPM setup fitted.
@an0key This installer was not really familiar with OEM/OHPM. So I thought - just leave it to be a standard install .
@bloor ah
@an0key I think you really want the one that goes in line with the actual heating flow... rather than the kind you wrap around the pipe.
@bloor @an0key You might be able to get some useful data from the Samsung controller over Modbus. https://community.openenergymonitor.org/t/monitoring-your-samsung-ashp-controller/27638
@bloor When we had our heat pump fitted I was horrified by the crud the power flush removed from our system. Perhaps, it's why we're so pleased with the heat pump, house is warmer for less money. Hope you have the same experience.
@epistatacadam I've glanced at the tank under the powerflush machine, it's discoloured but not cruddy.
One thing that may be relevant is that this house has had a water softener for years and years, so at least I think that would help avoid calcium/scale crud buildup.
@bloor the spark who did our install (Octopus) did some of the finest quality work I've ever seen by an electrician. The spacing on the clips holding the SWA cabling to the wall is so even it's almost a work of art.
@bloor that seems fairly well managed. When my heating pipes seized and I had to replace them all, it was a three week wait to get started and another four days of downtime after work started. This was mid december to early January 🫣! Electricity bill that year was interesting 🤣🤣🤣
@bloor one of the ways we justified our log burner to ourselves is that it allows coasting through these sort of situations a bit more comfortably. When we had to have boiler replaced at the beginning of December a couple of years ago it was definitely worth it :)
@bloor Ha. I have a small UPS on the broadband link + router + APs (mainly because the previous model of CPE used to REALLY get grumpy if there was a < 20s blip and refuse to reconnect for hours), so laptop is fine but dock + monitors + switch under desk go off. There's a long delay before I realise I've disabled wifi on laptop as it's usually docked...
@bloor Due to maintenance works on roadside distribution our power was out, here, two weeks ago. I’d forgotten the works were planned, we were warned. Daughter was WFH, ‘catastrophe’ averted by my USB PD gear. Mac + connectivity via paired iPhone maintained all day.
I’ve seen similar on eBay for Milwalkee & Parkside 20V batteries.
This is a DeWalt DCB094 Type C battery charger & PD source.
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DeWalt DCB094 adapter.
TYPE A PORT OUTPUT: 5V, 2.4A DC
TYPE C PORT INPUT/OUTPUT: 5-15V=, 3A DC; 20V, 5A DC
BATTERY PORT OUTPUT: 18V DC , 6A: DC
BATTERY PORT INPUT: 18V DC, 6A DC
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DCB094, 2Ah battery, & 100W Type C/USB2.0 cable.
@bloor Most radiator paint needs curing by heating.
Not sure how high, but a warning, when curing, it stinks!
It may be that it needs a higher temp to cure than an ASHP system will normally reach, or maybe it will take longer.
@bloor that looks annoyingly good! Like you've become some sort of grown-up or something :)
@srtcd424 And wait for it. Hopefully by the end of tomorrow, it will even... get slightly warm.
@bloor A few years ago I stayed in cottage with "central heating", but only fed off a back boiler on a wood burning stove. I was honestly quite surprised how much heat did transfer from rads that only felt lukewarm. We've just all been brainwashed by a hundred years of burning gas ..
@srtcd424 Yeah I think also "a little and always on" counteracts heat loss better than "BUST OF HOT HOT HEAT" ... cool cool cool fuck it's a bit cold now "ANOTHER BURST OF HOT HOT HEAT"
@bloor I did this in my old bedroom at my mum’s house in 2002 and I still love the effect, even though I moved out about 6 months after decorating
@bloor Oooh, I hadn't thought of doing that. A couple of rooms are getting redone next year and I'm suddenly very tempted to do this.
I'm surprised you managed to get radiator paint in the same colour as the feature wall.
@bloor I spy an Orbital Fasteners sticker. Dealt with them for years, decent company 👍 Hopefully, a good sign that your fitters are using quality stuff!
@bloor curious how much vibration it translates into the house. We have two (slightly smaller!!) A/C units and having had them at about that height before they definitely transferred more noise into the house than they do in their new position at ground level.
Good having it raised up though, especially if you want to get bins or lawnmowers etc down that passageway.
@ret Yes that's the thought. We didn't really have anywhere optimal behind the house (just due to the widths of doors out the back, not a long enough bit of wall to accomodate it). And of course that also would have needed a massively long pipe run. A really nice way to do it would have been to put it the other side of the walkway, on some kind of foundation, with pipework trenched under. But, massive cost, hassle, and tree roots to contend with.
@ret The fan on this unit is huge and therefore, hopefully, slow. I think the manufacturer "officially supports" wall mounting, so I am hopeful we are okay.
@bloor hey - anything's better than this (now infamous in the YouTube installer scene)... exhibition.
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An Octopus "public bin" style heatpump installed all the way around the corner from a property. Black trunking tracks all the way around a wall to the property.
@ret yeah I saw that. I’m seriously not sure it’s right or sensible to have that essentially “out in public” …
@ret@furry.engineer @bloor@bloor.tw Ah, glad I'm not the only one who thinks those look like a bin...
@bloor yes they’re big. Our Daikin unit is wall hung, not high up like yours, and this serves to make it seem even bigger. We do have an issue with vibration of the compressor being coupled to the building which can hopefully be resolved with vibration isolating pads
@Wifiwits ah interesting. We will watch out for that. Kemi's office is right on the other side of the wall, so I do hope it doesn't suffer the same issue.
@bloor our wall is single skin brick with timber framed internally and I think we’re hitting a resonant frequency of the building.
@Wifiwits ah well this is double skin/brick - gap - breeze... and i think the gap may have some insulation filler stuff in it. maybe. We will see. I think my ploy now is just let them crack on unless I see something totally unpalatable and then do a phase of debugging/tweaking.
@bloor you have a unit small enough to mount on brackets?!
@ahnlak It's 12kW samsung I think. They are massive brackets.
@ahnlak I believe it has a mass of 140kg. Doesn't seem insane to mount that on some unistrut and big webbed cantilever brackets?
@bloor We're blessed with a lot of ground to sit that kind of gear on. The thought of our walls supporting that weight fills me with mild dread ;-)
@ahnlak @bloor It's more the vibrations through the struts into the house which worries me (one of the things putting me off getting aircon: the fact the noise of the kitchen fan can keep me awake 2 floors up due to autistic sensitivity - the thought of having a heat pump of any kind on a wall near the bedroom...)
@jfparis @ahnlak My sort of eventual "hopeful aim" is to have about eight Daikin aircon units in bedrooms and living/working rooms (which do heating too) and then also have the Samsung heatpump all collaboratively managed by HA. This is a 2-5 year aim.
Luckily even if the Samsung heatpump doesn't play nicely with HA directly, I know a man who makes non OEM aftermarket wifi interfaces for similar units, who might be persuaded to have a crack at a Shamsung to go alongside Faikin. /cc: @revk
@bloor @jfparis @ahnlak @revk The Samsung #SmartThings #homeassistant integration works well for white goods so am interested in seeing if you get #heatpump data:
https://www.home-assistant.io/integrations/smartthings
It is cloud and not local, which is a bit crap but Samsung worked with the dev to fix authentication. The device class may be missing though.
PS My white goods are black. Modern life is odd (the colour was cheaper...)!
@bloor They did us the other way around. They did the internal bits first so we had the tank up and running on immersion for hot water before they did the outdoor unit.
But then we had a system boiler with the boiler and tank in one unit so 🤷🏻
@bloor with my heat pump install in June, day one was take the old combi boiler out and prepare a bunch of stuff including new electric board & HP base. Day 2 remove radiators that were changing start installing new pipework in boiler cupboard. Day 3 hang most of the radiators and complete hot water tank install so had water from hot tap again but cold. Heat pump on place and wired up. Day 4 start running the system. Day 5 tidy up and hand over. Had left heat pump running over night 4 flush.
@bloor Classic builders pipework, sprayed silver to hide the mess they made with the solder. They've plumbed in a manual bypass valve that constantly returns hot water back to the boiler, it should be automatic and only open when the motorised valves both close. If fact that boiler doesn't even need a bypass and pump overrun. They probably didn't read the instructions.
@geoffl @bloor I was literally just about to comment on those silver pipes. I've got the same in my airing cupboard (1994 build) and always wondered why they bothered paint them.
We also have the bypass valve, it's also not automatic.
Actually, Bloor, is your place a Barratt build? Your airing cupboard looks virtually identical to mine.
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