wyliecoyoteuk

penguin42, 5 days ago to random

wth does AEG want £51 for a dryer filter that consists of ~3 pieces of plastic held together with a mesh.
(And that's cheaper than 3rd party supplier)

wyliecoyoteuk, 9 days ago to random

Spent yesterday afternoon at a garden centre choosing a new rosebush for my wife's birthday.
Not as expensive as usual, came away with the rosebush, 3 lillies, a hanging basket of petunias, a sage Bush and some lettuce seedlings.

wyliecoyoteuk, 13 days ago to random

I hate coated non stick pans. Possibly carcinogenic
I have carbon steel pans, lighter than cast iron, and properly seasoned, nothing sticks to them and food cooks perfectly. 100% recyclable and last for years
In fact we have stainless steel and carbon steel pans that are over 12 years old and still perfectly usable.

wyliecoyoteuk, 22 days ago to random

Why is it that every new power tool I buy has a different size dust extraction tube?
Even the same brand.
I have several pipe reducer adaptors for my shop vac, but the new sander has a larger pipe that none will fit.
Duct tape to the rescue, I suppose, but it's so annoying.

mkwadee, 27 days ago to wordle

#Wordle 1,037 X/6

🟨⬜⬜⬜⬜
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⬜🟩🟩🟩🟩

penguin42, 1 month ago to random

This Rolson magnifying visor thing works OK; it's got 1/1.5/2.0/2.5/3.5x interchangable lenses and a damn bright LED light. The 3.5x is enough for me able to see even really small pads (field of view is small of course, but that's neck swivelling with these); I can get a loupe to work with them as well to look at the state of a pad.

penguin42, 1 month ago to Electronics

I'm failing trying mitxela's trick of wrapping a wire around an ironbit for SMD soldering, any one got any ideas? This is a traditional 25W Antex iron it's wrapped on, but it's not getting hot enough on the wire, it boils off flux, melts low-melting point paste but doesn't do anything to existing components:

#electronics

wyliecoyoteuk, 1 month ago to random

Decisions Which goes best with burger and 🍟
Champagne or red wine 🍷?
Asking for a friend.

rysiek, 2 months ago to random

A very merry "here we go with stories on how daylight saving time is a horrible, outdated idea again" to all those who celebrate.

Can we please just stop doing DST? I honestly don't care which "time" ("summer" or "winter") becomes the standard, as long as we stop the silly ritual of moving the clocks twice a year for no benefit at all.

kravietz, 2 months ago to random

Just had probably one of the most disappointing UK #NHS GP visits, which is unfortunately also quite representative. Coming with a kid that had been through a severe bacterial infection in December, ended up in hospital on antibiotics, then for the last months suffering from a chronic abdominal pain. After listening for 15 seconds to the description of symptoms the GP already knew everything:

GP: - Oh okay, you’ve got gastritis! If you remember from chemisty, there’s this acid… [primary school level biochemistry lecture for 3 minutes] and I’m going to prescribe you Lansoprazole and it’s going to help in no time.

Me: - Ahem, but he had Lansoprazole prescribed by this very GP practice already a month ago over telephone, not sure if we talked to you or someone else…

GP: - Ah, okay then… Well, then we’ll prescribe a stronger one, Famotidine…

Me: - Thanks, but are you sure this is enough? It’s not only the abdominal pain but also he had bilirubin levels elevated, which is mentioned in this letter I filed here when we booked this visit.

A bit of context: in the NHS GP, nobody ever does even basic diagnostics like general blood test. At least I’ve never seen that done for myself or any of my relatives. I’m used to how healthcare works in Poland (and generally EU), where a blood test is the first thing to be done when you come with anything else than wounded knee. So when my son’s initial symptoms started and GP simply prescribed Lansoprazole without even seeing the patient, I just went to a private GP and paid for the blood test, which indicated a number of irregularities. And then we booked the GP visit with an indication that these irregularities should be examined further.

Back to the GP:

GP: - Ah yes, here’s the letter… So yeah, you know, elevated bilirubin could be actually beneficial [another 3 minute digression on entirely hypothetical genetic factors that could potentially cause raised bilirubin]

Me, a bit annoyed already: - Thank you, but how do we know if this is actually this genetic factor without doing any tests?

GP: - Well, okay, if you really want, we can do a blood test!

And he prescribed the blood test, exclusively for the bilirubin 🤷

Just to be clear, NHS also does regular blood test, just like every other healthcare service - but only in hospitals. You have to go to A&E and be actually severely suffering (or pretend to) to get admitted and have some actual diagnostics. I don’t even want to go into digressions about the cost of early diagnostics and treatment being orders of magnitude lower than advanced treatment in advanced stages of disease - that seems to be an obvious evidence-based medicine to every single healthcare service in EU, but not to NHS.

Want some more anecdotal evidence? Last year NHS announced a NHS Health Check program and actively encouraged people to do… well, essentially a basic blood test. So of course I subscribed, got my blood test done and I was told to call for results. I did, and the dialogue took roughly 15 seconds:

Me: - I’m calling for the results, here’s my DOB, name etc Receptionist: - Oh yes, I’ve got it here… you’re all fine! Thank you, bye.

Except I knew for sure, it’s not “all fine” because I like always had and have elevated cholesterol levels. She didn’t care to even open my results and look at them, because if she did she would immediately see the “High” marks on relevant indicators.

Talking to relatives I friends, it comes out it’s a very widespread practice - the GP receptionists literally lie about test results they lost or didn’t bother to even look for.

Another, entirely cultural factor, shared across the whole NHS and private healthcare too, is a total reluctance to share test results with the patient and red tape when you actually insist to see it, but that’s another story.

My subjective conclusion: NHS GP service is utterly dysfunctional. And it’s not only about “NHS being stripped of funding”, which is an argument often raised by Labour.

People use private GP because NHS GP is dysfunctional and it’s primarily on cultural or professional level, not only in terms of funding.

penguin42, 3 months ago to random

Need a lot of power? Buy this suspiciously cheap detached cottage backing onto a major substation (being sold by the nationalgrid at auction, linked from the MEN local news site)

https://www.allsop.co.uk/lot-overview/vacant-freehold-detached-house-with-land-in-manchester/r240215-392?searchid=Yu2o7iBDSuExqMtAi6BL24LpHiN8z4+KbGOIhV%2FtVqA%3D&idx=8#description

miss_s_b, 3 months ago to random

Why do people on TV only ever walk their dogs if there's a dead body to be found? How do they know there's a body there and its time to take the dog out? Don't their dogs whinge to go out?

wyliecoyoteuk, 5 months ago to random

Posters on Mastodon.
Before you post links to paywalled sites or YouTube, think first "Do I want to propagate this content ?"
I personally avoid any of these sites, of which YouTube is one of the worst.

mkwadee, 5 months ago to internet

The #Internet is Worse Than Ever – Now What? - YouTube

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fuFlMtZmvY0

#Kurzgesagt #SocialMedia

mkwadee, 5 months ago to DadBin

Almost a million #children in the #UK do not own a book | #Books | The Guardian

This is shameful but it’s also linked to #poverty.

https://www.theguardian.com/books/2023/nov/28/almost-a-million-children-in-the-uk-do-not-own-a-book-national-literacy-trust

#Literacy #Illiteracy #Education

penguin42, 5 months ago to random

My mum has just explained to me that flatbreads are crispier than crispbreads but flatter. Very confusing.