Nice People Thread Part 9 - and so it continues

lostinrates

GDB2222 wrote: »

Thanks for your kind thoughts. Thank goodness that he wasn't hurt, at least physically. I am not so sure about the mental scars. Fortunately, he was rescued in time by the Fire Brigade.

Thank good ness. :j

Burns injuries are awful. Mental scars......sad, but probably now a part of who he is. If he's your kid he's probably pretty great.

zagubov

PasturesNew wrote: »

I read it as meaning that for many younger people their only experiences in life have been of the good years; parents/grandparents can remember their childhood when things were tough.
.

That is what I meant. Two of my dad's eight brothers died of TB. All squeezed in a three- bed council flat. My mum remembers when cockroaches were common in people's houses. Nobody talks about them now.

PasturesNew wrote: »

If there were a window film that could be fitted, people could buy plain windows and use the window film.... working towards the future date when they replaced the actual lead windows.

A small market .... but I bet it's there

DW used to live abroad and it was quite common for people to hang or stick a layer of plastic film over the inside of their windows as a makeshift double-glazing. I found a store near where Wheezy lives called Transatlantic Plastics that supplied the same stuff and I bought some for my own flat. Dunno if it's still around.

GDB2222 wrote: »

We have three telephone lines and 3 broadband connections at home. We started with a phone line for private use + a phone line for my work, as I work from home. Plus one broadband that we shared. When I found what the kids were downloading, I split the network. So, that was 2 broadband connections. Then, DW's employers wanted her to have a home office, so they supplied a separate phone line and a broadband connection.

So, we now have 3 phone line, on two different exchanges. Plus 3 broadbands with 3 different suppliers. I thought this would provide some resilience. It hasn't. The whole lot went down early on Saturday morning, and BT just acknowledge that there's a problem in the area, which they hope to resolve by lunchtime on Tuesday.

I rmember the bad old days when some people had to share a phone line, and also getting an extension handset was really difficult. The voltage on the line was so low it could barely activate the bell on multiple phones so they were really wary about letting you rent them.

silvercar

PasturesNew wrote: »

Something silvercar said the other day's given me a thought.... about lead windows. She said she had to buy lead windows to match the existing ones. There's probably a whole market of people out there that'd like to buy a different window today, but have the same problem - never getting to the point where it's worth replacing the lot.

If there were a window film that could be fitted, people could buy plain windows and use the window film.... working towards the future date when they replaced the actual lead windows.

A small market .... but I bet it's there

It exists. When we moved in we found that the cheap skates we bought from had replaced one window with plain glass. I found that someone makes a sticky back lead on a role. Very easy to apply.

silvercar

GDB2222 wrote: »

We have three telephone lines and 3 broadband connections at home. We started with a phone line for private use + a phone line for my work, as I work from home. Plus one broadband that we shared. When I found what the kids were downloading, I split the network. So, that was 2 broadband connections. Then, DW's employers wanted her to have a home office, so they supplied a separate phone line and a broadband connection.

So, we now have 3 phone line, on two different exchanges. Plus 3 broadbands with 3 different suppliers. I thought this would provide some resilience. It hasn't. The whole lot went down early on Saturday morning, and BT just acknowledge that there's a problem in the area, which they hope to resolve by lunchtime on Tuesday.

I've had to go and buy a T-Mobile dongle, so I can get on with my work, and not get left behind by the NP. About 6 pages since I was last on.

I would have thought it would be cheaper to upgrade to one superfast fibre optic broadband connection than run 2 or 3 slower connections.

To be resilient I guess you need virgin and BT (or their resellers) as suppliers.

LydiaJ

zagubov wrote: »

That is what I meant. Two of my dad's eight brothers died of TB. All squeezed in a three- bed council flat. My mum remembers when cockroaches were common in people's houses. Nobody talks about them now.


DW used to live abroad and it was quite common for people to hang or stick a layer of plastic film over the inside of their windows as a makeshift double-glazing. I found a store near where Wheezy lives called Transatlantic Plastics that supplied the same stuff and I bought some for my own flat. Dunno if it's still around.

We had cockroaches in our flat in Australia in 1975, but never in our house in England, either before or after the Australia experience. Woodlice, though....

A friend of mine had plastic film on her windows in her victorian house a few years ago. Then she moved to a 1970s house that had had double glazing already fitted by the previous owners, so obviously doesn't have any of the film in her new place.

silvercar

I'm quoting myself I know. Bad form. But we all have the habit of thanking every post and I wanted to seriously share this.

silvercar wrote: »

I have just discovered ted.com. Bite size lectures on interesting subjects by enthusiastic people.

You can thank and ignore again if you wish and I won't mention again.

I found it from getting referred to this

http://www.ted.com/talks/alain_de_botton_atheism_2_0.html

in my constant quest for anti atheism matter to use in discussion with the kids. It could be subtitled "why atheists need religion".

HAMISH_MCTAVISH

Ted.com is great.....

Some really, really interesting stuff on there.

I've had to limit my visits to the site, even more addictive than MSE, and you can get sucked in for hours.

vivatifosi

silvercar wrote: »

It exists. When we moved in we found that the cheap skates we bought from had replaced one window with plain glass. I found that someone makes a sticky back lead on a role. Very easy to apply.

Talking of cheapskates, the people before us took one screw out of most fittings that had more than two screws. This was a very strange trait imo. We had to spend loads on multiple screw sets that we otherwise didn't need, for all sorts of single screw needs... door hinges, fixing brackets, electrical fixtures. They even took one out of a ceiling fan that had proprietary screws. We had to chuck that out as the weighting was all out so it would rotate like it was about to fall off the ceiling. They also took all but two of the window keys and two door handle sets. They also took the thing in the loft that connects all the in room tv cables to the aerial. There wasn't much we could do as none of these things were on the fixture list. Weird though. Why bother? We didn't do anything to delay sale and offered asking price.

LydiaJ

michaels wrote: »

This was the science story I found interesting:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-24836917

As I definitely fell in to the camp of a little (out of date) knowledge being worse than none. It is totally unprecedented how quickly the world is changing.

I found the TEDx talk I was thinking about when I said that the facts in that article don't necessarily mean that population growth is no longer something to be worried about:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XjjLYUqnvTQ

HAMISH_MCTAVISH

LydiaJ wrote: »

I found the TEDx talk I was thinking about when I said that the facts in that article don't necessarily mean that population growth is no longer something to be worried about:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XjjLYUqnvTQ

This one is worth a view for a different opinion.....

http://www.ted.com/talks/hans_rosling_on_global_population_growth.html