Ricardo Montalbán, better known to me as Khan Noonien Singh, has died. Very sad.
He was possibly one of the best Star Trek “baddies” and made Wrath of Khan what it was – the best Trek film they made.
And no, that wasn’t a false chest – that was really him.
Another day, another online tool.
This time a quick and simple one – an MD5 hash generator. It doesn’t generate them from a file, but rather from a text string. Simply type in your text and it will return the MD5 hashed equivalent.
If you don’t know what I’m talking about, you probably don’t need it 😉
And I have no idea why I feel like this.
Last night I got home to find one the headlight bulbs in my car had blown. To make sure I got the right one, I thought I’d take the blown one out. Then I thought that maybe I should test it was the bulb (as it looked okay), so should swap it with the other one. That proved it was the bulk. All fine so far. So I now go to put the good bulb back… will it go. No.
45 minutes later and I’m still trying. The bulb is battered to death (but still working) and I’m shouting and ranting at this point. It’s dark and it’s cold and neither of my headlights are now working.
At 5:40pm I drive my car up to Kam Servicing. They’re closing but as a favour help me out and replace both bulbs and fit them in for me. They charge me just for the bulbs (although they’d cashed-up and closed the PC down, so I’ve got to nip back tonight to pay) but ask me not to come back again just for a bulb replacement. This makes me wonder what I’ll do in future if a bulb blows (apart from doing it in the light).
By this time it was 6. I hadn’t had any tea and I was due to leave an hour later for rehearsals. I decided to stay in and have a long bath instead.
But why I’m feeling so tetchy and emotional right now, I don’t know.
I need a holiday!
Nottingham City Councils insistence on bringing in a Workplace Parking Levy shows no signs of abating. Even the recent decision by Manchester to not bring in a congestion charge after huge opposition has done nothing to dent their intentions.
On the councils website they’ve said..
Nottingham City Council believes it will not suffer a similar fate to Manchester as its proposals for a workplace parking levy (WPL) are fairer and cheaper than a congestion charge.
So, they think its better because it’s fairer and cheaper. Let’s just analyse this for a moment. A congestion charge would charge anyone driving into the city whereas a parking levy only hits those in large businesses. Shoppers, school runs, etc, are exempt, as are small businesses. So WPL is blatantly unfair.
What about the price? Well it sounds that if you have to use the WPL then it will be cheaper than a proposed congestion charged would be. However, as someone who doesn’t drive into Nottingham, and hence wouldn’t have to pay a congestion charge, but would have to pay for WPL then, no, it’s not cheaper.
With a congestion charge they will charge you for entering the city itself, whereas the WPL is for anyone parking within the city boundaries. You see, the car park on my companies site is within the city boundaries. However, at no other point do I enter the city – so I drive in on public roads outside the city, then enter a private business park, still outside the city, but then drive into a private car park which is. The WPL therefore charges us. However, unless they intend to put congestion charge cameras on private roads, I assume such a charge wouldn’t apply to me.
And that comes back to the fairness again.
Of course I can always show my disapproval during the local electio…. oh no. That’s right. I don’t live in the city so have no voting rights against them.
WPLs appear to be a Labour initiative, so I could show my annoyance at general and my local elections. Except my local MP, Liz Blackman, is against the WPL in Nottingham. And she’s Labour.
I’ve been looking at potentially buying a Dell Inspiron Mini 9. It’s currently retailing at £279. As I’m sure you’re aware, the “Nettop” market is pretty crowded with everyome bringing out their own version. They generally tend to range between £200 – £300 with those with bigger screens, batteries and hard drives on the higher end. The Dell one, however, doesn’t have any of these, yet is in that upper range.
But that’s fine, Dell are well known for their ability to haggle a good price with a customer who, after all, is interested in buying. So I use their online chat and get… nowhere. Not interested in any discount.
So I ring. After putting me on hold they go away and come back with a price – but only if I buy today – of £273. Yes, £6 cheaper. And that’s all they’ll do.
Rubbish.
And their website is slow.
So I’m now looking at the cheaper alternatives elsewhere…
Update: the same laptop was £253 before Christmas
Update, 22nd January: The original “£20 off” offer finished yesterday so I was keen to see if Dell has replaced it with anything better. They’ve been banging their drum on their website about how we should buy before the 21st to ensure we get this great saving. Well, they’ve now replaced it with, erm, a “£20 off” offer for the next week.
