• 3 Posts
  • 35 Comments
Joined 1 year ago
cake
Cake day: July 2nd, 2023

help-circle
  • When NIMBYism clashes with the fact that the UK abuses the world’s climate to power it’s first world lifestyle, I don’t even know what the answer could be.

    On one hand, we have destroyed the biodiversity of our own island so should try to save the little that is left and try to regain what we have lost. On the other hand, we are happy to buy and power, air conditioners, fancier larger cars and LLM tech, where the ecological costs are born in other countries.

    The solution from a societal point of view is for the UK to consume less and truly factor in the true climate cost onto all products. From an individual human point of view though, how do you sign up to a worse and more expensive lifestyle by choice with the “cost of living crises” and child poverty on the up.

    Sorry if waffling, this post is highlighting my own sense of doom and frustration here…



  • I am born and raised in England to Indian parents so always had some internal tension. Sometimes, I don’t understand my patents culture and sometimes I don’t understand English culture. However, I’ve realised I am who I am, and can take the best bits from both. There are some bits I don’t like so I’m the better for being / having that mix. I married an Irish person who moved over several years ago. Irish used to be the “other” and were screwed over, but now are sometimes considered “white”, so just shows the target moves.

    There has always been racism in British society and unfortunately I have felt it pick up since the Brexit vote and Trump’s election (I think it empowered them). However, it is from a small minority of people. In some areas it comes from ignorance, which I can kind of forgive. Others will always see us as outsiders with our foreign names (and my brown skin) no matter what we do. I just think, screw them. I mean, can they trace themselves back before the Normans, the Romans or the Vikings etc? Where do you draw the line exactly?!? England has always been a mix of people and culture so they’re the ones missing out. I’m happy driving my Korean car to a German store to buy ingredients for a Thai green curry. Oh, I’ll grab a French pastry for breakfast, Chilean wine for the weekend and well, you get the idea! Let’s make the most of this multicultural place and ideas, and who cares about bigots who you can guarantee, like a cheeky korma and Belgian beer…



  • I’m a tax professional so can say with confidence that this is the Tories/shitty papersclutching at straws at a complete non event. It is absolutely pissing me off given how much tax evasion goes on by rich people, how much room there is for reducing tax for rich people (non Dom status, offshore trusts, various tax reliefs for owner managed businesses, etc), how complex the tax laws are (especially for normal people who can’t afford a litany of advisors), and the other corruption scandals (PPE, party donations, expense scandals, etc). The tax owed might be nothing but at most orient 3/4k.

    Also, my e-bike, which is my main and only source of transport, got stolen recently and it’s in the same ballpark as this tax liability (1.5k) - how do I get 12 police officers to investigate this as reported it but they magically couldn’t find anything even though it was locked next to ATMs on a busy London High street…


  • My parents had a Post Office which I effectively grew up in. I remember them having to report things on a desktop and loading these discs. I also remember when they got the Horizon system and how much trouble they were having trying to get it to work.

    They moved to the city I was born and raised in just to buy the PO, and both worked full time in it. I feel so lucky they didn’t get caught up in it all. I have asked if they paid anything they weren’t sure about and they said there was nothing, although my mum paused before answering so think there might’ve been something.

    It would have ruined our lives completely so all this scandal stuff really hits me hard. I couldn’t even watch the Norman Bates show past 20 minutes as I just got so upset and angry. Fuck all the people involved (at every level) and hope they suffer for all time…


  • Interesting. Here, with automated cameras, the letter also goes to the registered keeper of the car. There used to be a way out where you could say I don’t remember who was driving, but you’d both have to be on the insurance for it to work. Now I think your have to name the driver and can’t not name them, or something along those lines. From memory, somebody took it to court saying you shouldn’t be compelled to incriminate yourself but think they lost.

    Most cameras now though are forward facing so take a photo of the driver too. You can’t get out of that!

    To be fair, the owner should know who’s driving at that time and they need to be on the insurance. Maybe this is different here because every driver is named on the insurance for each car. Am I right in thinking it’s different there? If you named someone who wasn’t insured on your car, you’re letting someone drive your car without insurance which is also an offence. You have to pay for each person so it’s not like you’re going to have multiple random drivers.


  • In the UK we have a points system and if you get enough points you lose your licence and have to reapply. This was introduced because the wealthy didn’t really care about getting tickets if it was just a small (relative to their wealth) fine. You can get points for any automatic fines from speeding, running red lights, illegal U-turns, etc, plus any court issued fines.

    In the first two years of getting your licence, you have a lower threshold.

    Speed cameras are generally signposted or painted in yellow, although there are some speed traps or police patrols which might catch you too. Often, you are not sure if the cameras work but people will slow down just in case. There’s also average speed cameras on some roads which completely stop speeding.

    You could argue that some people will still drive without a licence but I there’s not many who would do that.

    I have noticed in my driving lifetime (20 years) that drivers have slowed down, especially in urban areas. Roads in urban areas have been designed to decrease speeds though which probably had more of an effect - more curves, tighter roads, prioritising buses/pedestrians/cyclists, etc. Plus we’ve always had more roundabouts which have been proven to lower speeds.

    Of course, we have a centralised driving licence authority and not the state differences you guys have.



  • I’d much rather see this than any of the commercial adverts.

    It is useful information too. Most people won’t interrupt or help, and partly because they are not sure how. I saw this recently and it did make me think, if I did see something happening I have a better idea of how I can help.

    It also creates an environment where you cannot justify not acting because you don’t think you can help, and that we as a society are saying it is not acceptable. If one person challenges harassment that would not have done so before seeing that, I’d count it as a success.


  • I only use docker images supplied by the devs themselves or community maintained (e.g. Linux server.io) so they essentially tell docker what needs to be installed in the container, not me. It takes the hassle out of trying to figure out what I need to do to get the service running. If they update their app, they’ll probably know best what else needs to be updated and will do that in the image. I guess you are relying on them to keep everything updated but they are way more knowledgeable than me and if there is a vulnerability, it is only in that container and not your other services.





  • Lots of little things really. Obviously I couldn’t say for certain but they seemed to on top of it without causing us too much difficulty in doing our jobs.

    Sometimes things were blocked like if a new email, or questioned after to check it was expected and followed policy. Policies were clear, and there were helpful prompts or warnings.

    We were involved in something where we had to copy a sh*t load of files from a shared folder to a hard disk. There were like three automatic blocks that kicked in at different times, which was a pain at first to figure out but because we had a good reason, someone in IT just kept at it to get it done and looking back, that should have raised flags given the size of it all.

    They changed from passwords changing every 6 months to no changes but had to be longer and mandatory 2FA. We were told to use keepass for all passwords for things that weren’t SSO for various reasons.



  • Don’t provide services to others, including your own family, actually especially your own family, until you are quite comfortable with what is going on and what might be causing issues. Focus on helping yourself or keeping whatever other services you were using before just in case.

    Trying to fix something at night, with a fuming partner who’s already put up with a difficult to use service, because of your want for privacy even though they don’t care care, whilst saying “it should work, I don’t know what’s wrong”, is not a great place to be 😁.

    Overall though, I found it so interesting that I am doing a part time degree in computer science in my 30s, purely to learn more (whilst being forced to do it to timelines and having paid for it).

    I have a very comfortable and ‘forget about it’ setup my family are now using. Every now and then I add new services for myself, and if it works out, will give access to others to use, keep it just for me or just delete it and move on.


  • I have a reason I don’t think is covered. A few programs I have come across that I want to try recommend docker and some only provide instructions for docker. They can spend less time trying to help you with dependencies and installations knowing they’ve included everything you need in the docker file. I don’t have a background in Linux or programming so unless they tell you exactly how to install something, I can struggle. Their installation page is then just the docker compose file with a note on the environment variables you can change.



  • It’s really targeted at people who want to stay “off the books” or not pay any taxes, so is what it is. If you’re getting paid cash up front then there’s not too much issue for you.

    Technically, you have an employee - employer contact by law automatically, and they legally need to provide you with a letter stating certain terms within x days of the start date. I can’t remember exact details.

    They should also be putting you through payroll, deducting taxes (if needed), and paying employers NI. Someone else mentioned the need to pay you minimum wage by law

    These are all additional costs to them so if you raise it as an issue with them, I’d say they will cut you out and block you. You’re unlikely to get any authority to really care, especially if they keep a low profile for this purpose.

    It might be a good idea to personally tell the tax authority about your earnings (ignoring the employer) and keep track of it. If in a tax year (April to March) you earn less then £5k you won’t pay any NI and less than £12.5k you won’t pay any income tax. It’s quite straightforward to do and if you’re not paying tax then no real cost. However, you could also easily get away with doing nothing, especially if they pay you cash and there’s no real record. Feel free to message me to ask any more questions about tax.