Virgin Media cable user in the UK here.

I had their Tivo box until a couple of years ago when the forced an "upgrade". The new box has uch better hardware but the software was a leap backwards.

Regarding ads, on recorded programmes I can fast forward through them. It's not a direct skip but can jump +30 seconds at a time.

When viewing through any of the channel apps most of them used to allow skipping, but over the past few months it's now blocked on all of them I think. They do tell you how many adverts there are in each block and how long the one is, such as "2/10 29 seconds to go". Unfortunately they don't tell you the total length of the break, some sections are just a few seconds.

I use a similar system. I have paper console tape on each drive and write the date last used on it and also keep a text file log of which drive and when. The backup batch file also writes a timestamp.txt to the root of the drive.

I also have a set I curate and put in with the family & household papers. That doesn't have any of my personal crap, just documents, photos, and family history etc.

Common word in the UK. Basically a tanker is for transporting, a bowser also dispenses. It's usually fuel but can be any liquid, such as water.

> Apparently it could intercept at 65000ft

Reportedly it intercepted a USAF RB-57F[1] at 80,000ft and also did a zoom climb to just under 88,000ft.

https://theaviationgeekclub.com/raf-lightning-pilot-recalls-...

[1] A reconnaissance aircraft based on the English Electric Canberra. NASA still flies a couple of them for high altitude research.

My experience over the years.

Had a Miele about 30 years ago and it was very good. It died when someone tried to hoover up a spilt glass of water and the motor was going to cost as much as a new cleaner.

We've had a couple of Dysons. They are great; they clean very well, the variety of tools is great, and the connectors for the tubes & tools is easy and very secure. Mine were all mains powered.

Downsides to the Dyson is it needed emptying very often and that could also be quite messy. Possibly a combination being good at sucking up, and a comparatively small hopper/"bag". I stripped it down once as it seemed to be struggling to clean as well, the cyclone/jet engine was full of "dust" and some of it was caked on but after a good clean was as good as new.

Now got a Henry. The bag hardly ever needs changing, the cable is very long, and the tube is long. I don't think it picks up as well as the Dyson and the tools are fiddlier to use as they are all just push fit and also don't feel as good quality.

Yes Henry is very robust, can be easily repaired/maintained, and they just work; that is probably why they are used commercially and so well loved. I don't think it cleans anything like as well as the Dyson though.

I'm in the UK and I use it a few times a month.

Generally I would use it on smaller / unfamiliar websites; I may be more hesitant about entering my credit card numbers but also it's quicker and easier as I can do it without getting my card out of my bag.

I also use it exclusively for eBay purchases.

Agreed but only if I can't use Apple/Google card. So my usage is way down.

I only get cashback on my Amex, nothing with Visa or Mastercard; perhaps I could shop around but over 90% goes on my Amex so haven't bothered to.

> That's why many EU banks still offer corporate credit cards with huge cashback et

We're a business in the UK and the charges for accepting Business credit cards is much higher.

I don't have current charges to hand, but in 2023 Personal Credit Cards were 1.97% whilst for Business Credit Cards we were charged 3.43%. That's probably how they afford such high cashback/loyalty schemes.

I think we're paying about half those rates now. I know Amex is somewhere between Personal and Business charges.

Never heard about this before but it sounds crazy. Are you able to control this somehow, like reject business cards?

I don't think we can selectively reject them, it's not anything I've looked into though so not certain about that.

Although we are a B2B business, most of our card transactions are from business owners personal cards so it's not really an issue. We occasionally monitor the split and if it became significant we'd need to look at addressing it, probably by increasing prices for those customers.

In Denmark many retailers pass on the charge for business cards. For example it's often printed on the bottom of a restaurant menu.

I wrote a few games on the Spectrum and as with most of its hardware limitations we managed to squeeze quite a lot out of it.

My memory is very hazy, it was well over 40 years ago, but I think keeping the timing under control was was one a big hurdle. Because it was single threaded and there was effectively only one interrupt, screen refresh/flyback, so you had to intersperse the music code into the main code and juggle it to even out the note timing.

I remember one game I wrote for the 16K Spectrum, and thanks to an incredibly clever & musical friend we got something like 30 seconds of a tune that had a passable resemblance to Bach's Toccata in about 20 -30 bytes of code.[1]. Every last byte mattered on that machine.

[1] Not 100% on the details but it was about that. We used a combination of base notes and mathematical progression rather than just playing a score as we could get that smaller. I think I've a dot-matrix printout of the games source code somewhere, assuming the ink hasn't faded.

I understand there is an common fault where something, perhaps a capacitor, has failed over the years and if you plug it in something major gets fried.

If you do get one, investigate that before attempting to power it up.