Nice people thread part 3- Nice as pie

PasturesNew

I've been experiencing huge connectivity issues for the past 3-4 days. The Internet stops loading, or, like today, I can connect then each page takes about 3-4 minutes and several attempts to load without an error. So far this morning I've spent more time on reconnects and reboots than spent actually online, I've even moved the dongle to a different USB port (twice). It's not me, it's three.... which is annoying. I just wait for them to fix it as it's too painful to phone their indian call centre for an hour until they get to the point where they agree it's them and not me (including me taking the laptop for a drive one mile away to confirm to them that I have no problems connecting to the mast at the other end of town). Three were quite bad, then they upgraded their equipment and were good/ish.... this past 3-4 days though has been dire again.

I do wish I had a desk/chair/better PC/proper broadband. I could get 3x as much done if I did. I tend to 'waste' my time chatting here (instead of working) when the connection's too bad. Often, by the time google's loaded, I've forgotten what I was researching ... do that a few times and you wander off to MSE instead

michaels

I wonder if it is all the holiday makers with their dongles using your bandwidth.

I don't mind those that have earning more, it just seems rather unfortunate to be giving them a tax break.

Why isn't there a lifetime cap on net payments in to isas - yes it is beneficial to encourage savings up to a level where people have a cushion for a rainy day but beyond that isas redistribute towards the rich - again surely tax systems should be progressive or neutral not regressive?

Finally before I step off my soap box I am doing some Census interviewing as I have some spare time and thought it would be interesting, I am certainly not doing it for the money with an effective tax rate of 73% the £8 per hour works out at about £2... (and I don't even claim a lot of benefits like council tax benefit, housing benefit, free school meals etc as I have way to many assets - I suspect with all those the rate could go to over 100%) and yet top rate taxpayers are disincentivised by 52%?!

PasturesNew

michaels wrote: »

I am certainly not doing it for the money with an effective tax rate of 73% the £8 per hour works out at about £2... (and I don't even claim a lot of benefits like council tax benefit, housing benefit, free school meals etc as I have way to many assets - I suspect with all those the rate could go to over 100%) and yet top rate taxpayers are disincentivised by 53%?!

It does annoy me that the tax free amount is so low, that one pays tax/NI well before the poverty level is reached. I can earn £20.48/day, after that I'm taxed.

PasturesNew

vivatifosi wrote: »

The library is heaving with students at the moment because uni students are home revising, college students are there anyway and now we have the school students coming in too. The really dilligent ones get there about midday and then work right through to closing time (which is quite late).

There'd be no room for students in our library. Here's a photo of the whole thing: http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_ayCytGsy6YE/SawiMtgJ99I/AAAAAAAAARg/tEGdNt5Tlio/s320/reno+nq+after.jpg

There aren't the books, if they could be ordered in you'd have to wait weeks - and there are no tables/desks for revising.

Going to a library to revise is completely an alien concept for me. They're noisy/busy places too. And round here they used to open four days a week until 6pm, then on a Saturday morning for three hours. Closed Wednesdays and Sundays. The other libraries in the county are no different either.

They have just changed the opening times, so there is now one late night, until 6.30pm. Overall the hours are less though. It now closes at 5pm Mon/Tue/Fri.

neverdespairgirl

PasturesNew wrote: »

Going to a library to revise is completely an alien concept for me. They're noisy/busy places too. And round here they used to open four days a week until 6pm, then on a Saturday morning for three hours. Closed Wednesdays and Sundays. The other libraries in the county are no different either.

It depends on the library - I used to revise in the UCL and UL libraries, and they are huge and quiet.

Generali

Cool and wet today in Sydney. A fitting end to a wet summer. Still, we had it good compared to Queensland.

Took Mrs Generali and the Generalissimos to the Easter Show. It's like one of those English County Show things on steroids. It lasts 2 weeks and is based on a part of the Olympic site that is permanently set up for it. For example, it has a dairy capable of dealing with 400 cows a day as all the dairy cows being shown still need to be milked twice a day! We're all zonked after that and now the little Generalissimo has woken with a terrible fever. She's really quite unwell, poor thing.

PasturesNew

If tomterm reads this ... too lazy to PM him .... hubs new ad program.... been in a few days, it's working out at about $4/CPM, so not too shabby for free money on top of the other free money it generates. I'm getting about 30k views/month (last 30 days), so that'd be an extra $120/month projected.

lostinrates

PasturesNew wrote: »

The more money that's available to you, the more you can make/save. All these 'eco homes' that cost virtually nothing to run cost about 2-3x what a similar house would cost without the eco label. Solar panels can generate an income, if you're wealthy enough to be able to afford them.

Apples to orchards.... every time.

I like the saying.

I feel that new builds on a large scale should have requirement to be eco saving...whether its positioning for maximum south facing windows and really good insulation or proper technology for eco value/self sufficiency. In the kind of scale big housebuilders build it would be the cheapest way to do it.

Watching our council battle internally over the eco changes we must include for compliance v the impact it will have on listed buildings is nteresting. IMO, adaptation to new eco technology is much the same as an indoor loo, CH, electrics etc....its just showing the impact of time on the house.

silvercar

Why isn't there a lifetime cap on net payments in to isas - yes it is beneficial to encourage savings up to a level where people have a cushion for a rainy day but beyond that isas redistribute towards the rich - again surely tax systems should be progressive or neutral not regressive?

If your lifetime cap discouraged people from saving more, it would mean the tax system encourage people to waste their money on overseas holidays and fast cars.

I'm sure the truely rich don't bother about the £5,200 that can go in a tax free cash ISA each year.

GDB2222

Extremely unhappy to discover that Google has a database of wireless router locations. So, from the MAC address of my router they know where I am. Rather more info than I want them to have.

Try this linky http://samy.pl/androidmap/