Nice People Thread No. 15, a Cyber Summer

silvercar

:wave:

Hi Percy, glad things are going well.

ivyleaf

vivatifosi wrote: »

FMP having a free week to search Irish records if anyone has any connections they would like to have a dig around (ends Friday)

I have Irish g-gparent's on both sides but I don't think i'd get very far with names like Collins and Maloney

Nice to "meet" you Percy! I remember your posts from the days when I used to read the NP threads but hadn't yet joined in.

Pyxis

I got asked to do a survey by Boots.

They were canvassing opinions about a couple of ventures that they are considering.

One was for allowing customers to pay for their goods anywhere in the store, with assistants using hand-held credit card machines.
The idea is that it would eliminate the need to queue at checkouts.

My feeling was that queuing at checkouts doesn't usually take an inordinate amount of time, and that anyway, you might end up queuing for an assistant in an aisle!
Plus the fact that paying in an aisle is going to clutter up the aisle.

I don't particularly like using a handheld machine thrust under my nose, unless I can take it and place it on a table, because I always cover the keypad with my left hand while I key in the PIN numbers with my right hand. That will be tricky to do standing in an aisle.

I thought it was an odd idea, to be honest.

The other thing they are toying with is linking your credit card to your Advantage card, so that it doesn't matter if you forget your Advantage card. Yeah, right. Nothing to do with monitoring my spending habits.Jeez.
If they're concerned about us forgetting our Advantage cards, all they have to do is what the Coop does, and issue an additional tiny card that you put on your keyring.


I wonder how long it'll be before every baby is implanted with a microchip at birth?
Mock ye not. People were saying that George Orwell's "1984" would never happen, but now you've got the CIA monitoring you through your TV and phone cameras! :eek:

chris_m

Well, that was an unexpected job.

I'm switching my energy supplier and the new one asked for my meter readings. When I went into the cupboard under the stairs to get the electricity reading I noticed that the lid on my box of seed potatoes appeared a bit "shifted".
Opened it up to find a mass of shoots. They were shooting a bit when I bought them, but I had hoped that keeping them in a cold (but frost-free) and dark place would slow them down, yeah right.
So the unexpected job was to plant them this morning, a couple of weeks earlier than I'd have liked but they're under cloches so we'll see what happens.

Pyxis

chris_m wrote: »

Well, that was an unexpected job.

I'm switching my energy supplier and the new one asked for my meter readings. When I went into the cupboard under the stairs to get the electricity reading I noticed that the lid on my box of seed potatoes appeared a bit "shifted".
Opened it up to find a mass of shoots. They were shooting a bit when I bought them, but I had hoped that keeping them in a cold (but frost-free) and dark place would slow them down, yeah right.
So the unexpected job was to plant them this morning, a couple of weeks earlier than I'd have liked but they're under cloches so we'll see what happens.

Yes, potatoes are strange. Even ones kept in brown paper bags in the fridge end up sprouting.

PasturesNew

Pyxis wrote: »

.... ....hand-held credit card machines....

That'd not suit me either - although I'm sure it's probably aimed at those "wave it around" types, not us PIN pokers.

It'll be robots you wave at soon.... when you walk in a robot basket will follow you round - you just scan/drop your items into the robot basket and pay by waving your card which releases the basket.

PasturesNew

chris_m wrote: »

.... seed potatoes .... mass of shoots... a cold (but frost-free) and dark place would slow them down, yeah right.

Pyxis wrote: »

Yes, potatoes are strange. Even ones kept in brown paper bags in the fridge end up sprouting.

Not sure about seed spuds, but eating spuds.....

Green bags, in any dark cupboard - they last ages. I've been using them since Christmas and am surprised/amazed they actually work.

Mine I got from Poundland/similar, for £1 for a selection of sizes (8 or 15 bags in there from memory). Bags are reusable, so you only need to buy one sachet of a selection of bags.

Mine say JML on them.

chris_m

Pyxis wrote: »

Yes, potatoes are strange. Even ones kept in brown paper bags in the fridge end up sprouting.

You shouldn't keep uncooked spuds in the fridge anyway - the cold turns the starch into sugar more quickly. Furthermore, when you cook them you can get an increased concentration of acrylamide which is a genotoxic carcinogen.

As to my seed ones, they are in the ground and I'll see if they still come up OK. Googling gives a myriad of contrasting views, some say they'd be fine, others not. If they don't come up I shouldn't be too late to get more.

Next year, of course, I won't buy them so darned early - only got them in January because the garden centre had 'em in then. They had even more, of different "brands", in late-Feb - and those weren't sprouting then.

chris_m

PasturesNew wrote: »

Not sure about seed spuds, but eating spuds.....
Green bags, in any dark cupboard - they last ages. I've been using them since Christmas and am surprised/amazed they actually work.

I've got hessian sacks on order, in anticipation of a reasonable harvest - not just for spuds, mind you.

Pyxis

PasturesNew wrote: »

That'd not suit me either - although I'm sure it's probably aimed at those "wave it around" types, not us PIN pokers.

It'll be robots you wave at soon.... when you walk in a robot basket will follow you round - you just scan/drop your items into the robot basket and pay by waving your card which releases the basket.

Robot baskets that followed me around I would quite like. Except I'd probably give it a name and want to take it home!

PasturesNew wrote: »

Not sure about seed spuds, but eating spuds.....

Green bags, in any dark cupboard - they last ages. I've been using them since Christmas and am surprised/amazed they actually work.

Mine I got from Poundland/similar, for £1 for a selection of sizes (8 or 15 bags in there from memory). Bags are reusable, so you only need to buy one sachet of a selection of bags.

Mine say JML on them.

Green bags? I've never heard of these. Are they green paper bags?

chris_m wrote: »

You shouldn't keep uncooked spuds in the fridge anyway - the cold turns the starch into sugar more quickly. Furthermore, when you cook them you can get an increased concentration of acrylamide which is a genotoxic carcinogen.
.

:eek: :eek:
Gosh! Never heard of that either! :eek:

Still, it explains the peculiar offspring.
I had been wondering where the tentacles had come from.