2017-07-18 13:39:07

Hello all,

@Dark, the GST is meant to replace all those indirect taxes like excise tax, VAT, etc. and is also meant to ease the movement of goods between different states. If reports are to be believed, apple has cut down the prices of all of its products in India, but still, they are expensive, as usual.

2017-07-18 20:29:07

I'm in the Rio Grande Valley in Texas and the beach I was talking about was the one in South Padre Island   My cousins came over from Mexico and we had dinner together  yesterday

2017-07-23 15:40:44

@saiteja that makes sense. vat in England isn't something we worry about, though I confess when it gets to large amounts it can be annoying. For example the firm we're going to  to use to cart all our furniture 100 miles south are charging £1200 plus £200 vat. that is about $1800 with $300 vat.
Luckily, I do have money I've saved over the years which I was aving for just this sort of eventuality, though I'm by no means rich still it's a pain.

Actually money is going to be a bit tight for a couple of years owing to rent issues, but it should even out soon enough and luckily I don't tend to use much cash, just on the odd game or dvd.
Apart from that we've been in a holding pattern recently. We nearly had a horrible disaster two nights ago when it seemed my sister, who has miatonic dystrophy and is is extremely disabled and has a mental age of three apparently was close to choking on fluid in her lungs. she was rushed  to hospital but was okay the next morning once she'd had some oxygen and antibiotics. It turned out alright though it lead to a very sleepless night and is needless to say rather worrying.

Btw, if anyone was wondering yes miotonic dystrophy is genetic, but my sister was adopted so neither my brother and I have it.

On a more positive note though, a few weeks ago (on the third of July), it was our first wedding anniversary. It turns out, completely unknown to me, Mrs. Dark actually had ordered me a rather fantastic present, which only arrived this week.
This is a set of sterling silver cufflinks in the shape of aolian pipes with a matching set of earrings for my lady.

That probably wont' mean much to most people, however anyone who has atric Rothvus Kingkiller books will recognize them, (and anyone who hasn't read rothvus really! should do so the books are fun).

the pipes are those aworded to anyone at the aolian who is an especially awesome musician, and of course my lady and I will wear them when we sing together.
Having just introduced her to Rothfus (which she absolutely devoured), she loved the idea of the pipes herself and also new I rather wanted them.
Interestingly enough, since Aolian pipes are never described in either Name of the wind or Wise man's fear, I did wonder what they look like, the answer is pan pipes, so even for anyone who hasn't read Rothfus, they're just a beautiful set of cufflinks, especially for a musician.

In other news I'm still reading T H White's the once and future king, though I've sent off reviews  for Gaiman's stardust and Sundiver by David brin which should hopefully be up on fantasybookreview.co.uk soon enough.
My lady and I are also reading The time Traveller's wife by Audrey Niffenegger.
This is a book I've heard about but never read and as I do enjoy stories that play with time it did strike me as an interesting idea.

The plot is very clever, the writing is at least adequate, but unfortunately I'm finding that far too much is idealised (including the protagonist being a rather stereotypical rich, beautiful ever popular girl and the guy being an itinerant but artistic bad boy), also there are points that henry is just plane dislikable which is not what you want in a romance, though that being said it's got some really nice moments, especially in terms of humour (indeed I never expected it to be quite so funny).

! oddly enough this is a reread for my lady and she says that while she's enjoying the book she's spotting a few more inequities now than when she read it the first time.

It'll be an interesting one to review I think since it has some extremely good bits, but also some fairly huge holes.

I also need to finish my newbie's mud guide which is half complete at the moment, but needs lots of questions adding into it.

So while things are rather quiet for now, they probably won't stay that way, especially with all the shenanigans with moving from transferring my phone connection and internet to  the place decorated as we want (landlord permitting).

Hope everyone else is still having a good July.

With our dreaming and singing, Ceaseless and sorrowless we! The glory about us clinging Of the glorious futures we see,
Our souls with high music ringing; O men! It must ever be
That we dwell in our dreaming and singing, A little apart from ye. (Arthur O'Shaughnessy 1873.)

2017-07-26 06:52:21

Good morning everyone.
It's about 06:46 over here in germany and mates, if god or some other beeing decided to end this world, he started with germany beeing drowned. People, it's raining non stop since yesturday morning, and i don't mean a light drizzle, it's really poring down here, surely yesturday it lessend a bit, but just for 2 hours or so, even now I can hear the rain drops falling and the wind shaking the windows. Sounds a bit like those horor movies or sound scapes you offen find for relacsation.
So, what has been going on lately? I got an appointment at our job center because of a finantial takeover for my I C T training as an application developer and system intigrator is bound to start in September and everyone needs a sponsor for that, this is the responcibility of the job center. So, I have to appear there in August to go through a sort of inteligence test, nothing difficult I guess, it's just a proliminary, still, I am a bit worried if they will grand me the financial backing because this was the program I am aiming for, if everything runns well, it wil run for three years till it's completion, than i have to look for a place to work.
Greetings Moritz.

Hail the unholy church of Satan, go share it's greatness.

2017-07-26 07:03:51

Whoopsy, accidentaly send out the earlier post.
On a more joyace note, everything else is running quite smoothly. I am currently trying to get some new gadgets for playing around and seeing if they are any use to me in my daily tasks.
A friend of mine who owns a private horse stable in the village just got a new horse in, he is a jet black Shire horse stallion which is a horse in the draft horse family. For a better disccribtion, imagine draft horses beeing the NFL line backers in the horse world, they are huge, powerfull and heavy. But at the same time they are really chilled and relacsed, so they are quite the good horses when you are a beginner, even though they might not be looking like that.
The one that he got stands at about 19.3 hands, which is 196 CM or 6 foot 5 inches at the shoulder, waying in at about 1300 Killos or 2600 LBS.
They are mostly used in pulling horse wagons os cariges, but you can also ride on their back. While they are not as nimble and quick as a pure bred arabian for example, you can quite literary get the ground shaking when you shoot forward in a gallop, they are actually feeling like that you are sitting on a couch when you trot or gallop, so, perfect for beginners or if you want to be talked about xD.
Also, his arabian mare is expecting a foal next year between the 7th and the 10th of april, and i am in charge of choosing a name which is gonna be quite interesting because i don't know any arabian word and I want to stick to the language. And no, before you ask, arabians are no beginner horses, when you start out in the gallop, and you were riding a draft horse before, you feel like you are sitting on an f22 raptor fighter jet  at take off speed xD.
Yeah I know, when I come to tech stuff, metal, aviation or horses or dogs I can't stop rambling about them xD.
Greetings Moritz

Hail the unholy church of Satan, go share it's greatness.

2017-07-26 23:39:41 (edited by Phil 2017-07-26 23:41:47)

Simba,
How's this
"alriah alsariaeat  means swift wind in Arabic.

2017-07-27 08:52:54

Hi.
At Phill, that|s technically a good idea, but sadly due to breeding regulations, the name of the foal needs to start with the first letter of the fathers name, in this case beeing R.
I just hope that it will go all right this time, something like the last time is not something I want to relive again.
Greetings Moritz.

Hail the unholy church of Satan, go share it's greatness.

2017-07-29 13:06:09

Simba,
How about,
Ras Alriah?   It means leader of the swift.
ras  means head of.

2017-07-29 13:32:16

Hi.
At phill hmm, seams cool, have to ask my friend if he is ok with that, but already thanks for the name suggestion?
Greetings Moritz

Hail the unholy church of Satan, go share it's greatness.

2017-07-30 17:26:21

@Simba I'm no expert on Arabic so won't suggest names, however the horse sounds lovely. My lady is a huge fan of horses and would I think love to meet this foal whatever he ends up being called.
When we got married the horses that pulled the coach were absolutely enormous black ones, a stallion and a mare who both stood higher than  my head and I am five ten.

I would not like to guess  their height but they really were very tall big_smile.

Well things have been moderately quiet, though we did go out the other day  some amazingly good fish and chips and I've completed my review of Stardust which can be found here

We also finished Time traveller's wife and I have sent off a review for that, though it proably won't be posted for a bit since the webmaster of fantasybookreview.co.uk is a busy fellow (there is also my review of sundiver).

I did not care for Time traveller's wife, though compared to some of the reviews on goodreads I have been actually rather mild. Indeed that is why I do not use Goodreads much, since the reviews either tend to be "this is a good book read it because it is good!" or "this book is the most errible thing ever in the history of the universe!"

Or still "this book is appauling because it does not have enough female black gay characters!"

One very memorable review actually started with the words "I am a lesbian feminist pagan magician and so disapprove of this book on principle!"

Now I have the utmost respect for Lesbians, pagans, feminists (at least the rational ones), and indeed magicians, but people can cary things waaaaay too far big_smile.

that is one reason I try to keep my own book reviews somewhat balanced  when I really do dislike something I try to explain why according to some sort of understandable criteria based on the actual writing, not because the book doesn't happen to cover my pet moral issues.

Okay, rant over big_smile.

Today not much actually happening other than lots of reading of STeven king with my lady, we went through both The raft and the revenge of lard ass Hogan, one very scary, one extremely gross and hugely funny, and both read by king himself big_smile.

Actually that is one of the most wonderful things about being married to someone who loves reading as much as I do, since while we do films and audio dramas on occasion, we do lots! of reading together which is great.
Sadly things are going to get busy for us soon what with moving hving to redo internet provides and have shenanigans with who won't allow my lady to have an account because she has neither a driver's license nor a bank account in this country already (it is a stupid situation).
So it's nice to have a bit of a break and read about evil monsters  lots of puke (if you have a weak stomach, the revenge of Lard ass Hogan is not for you).

Anyway methinks I'll move the steven king discussion to the steven king topic, and just wish everyone else a happy end of July.

With our dreaming and singing, Ceaseless and sorrowless we! The glory about us clinging Of the glorious futures we see,
Our souls with high music ringing; O men! It must ever be
That we dwell in our dreaming and singing, A little apart from ye. (Arthur O'Shaughnessy 1873.)

2017-07-30 20:19:11

Oh that is unexpected!
for anyone who is interested my review of The time traveller's wife is actually up (that was quick).
You can Read it and see why I really! disliked the book here

With our dreaming and singing, Ceaseless and sorrowless we! The glory about us clinging Of the glorious futures we see,
Our souls with high music ringing; O men! It must ever be
That we dwell in our dreaming and singing, A little apart from ye. (Arthur O'Shaughnessy 1873.)

2017-07-31 04:01:53

Hello.
@dark, haha yeah I know what you mean, I am standing at about the same hight as you, maybe a inch taller but I actually don't know. The horse that you might had might be a shire horse too or maybe a Belgian draft, a German one would also be possible because we have over 10 different draft horses as local breeds.
The cool thing is though that they might look big and scarry, they are the best beginner horses because you also feel secure on them due to their demeanor and spirit. You feel the raw power when you get them speeding up due to the massiv body.
I will keep ya informed about the foal, but I just pray that it works out at leased this time, something like last October, well, I don't want this to happen again.
Greetings Moritz.

Hail the unholy church of Satan, go share it's greatness.

2017-07-31 15:36:47

@Simba, I've heard  about Shire horses and I did once ride on one, though I don't know if the horses that pulled our coach were shires or not (I should ask my lady), as they were tall rather than bulky and I always got the feeling that shire horses were supposed to be a bit heavier, the sort that used to carry knights in full armour for jousts big_smile.

Annoyingly this morning I ended up sreaming! at my email program because I was trying to notify my current land lords that we will be moving house and the bloody mail was refusing to go! methinks I really! need to try a better alternative than the windows 10 default, maybe thunderbird, maybe the freeware outlook express I don't know (though I do rather miss outlook express as a really convenient mail program).

I am now reading heartless by Marissa Meyer, a rather fun retelling of the history of the queen of hearts from Alice in wonderland. Seems good fun thus far, since I'm always up for a twisted fairy tale or two big_smile.

With our dreaming and singing, Ceaseless and sorrowless we! The glory about us clinging Of the glorious futures we see,
Our souls with high music ringing; O men! It must ever be
That we dwell in our dreaming and singing, A little apart from ye. (Arthur O'Shaughnessy 1873.)

2017-07-31 20:14:00

Hi.
At dark yeah, thunderbird is always a good alternative for a mail client, i think there is also a portable version available. It's also very easy to navigate and use, also multiple mail accounts if you have any are no problem.
Yeah that might be, Shires were actually bred for war horses because they were the best suited for carying knights in armor, there weapons and so on. But for cariage horses they are also used, so I am actually not shure which ones you guys had, maybe clydesdales, they are a bit smaller, but not by far.
Greetings Moritz.

Hail the unholy church of Satan, go share it's greatness.

2017-08-04 22:08:41

OK,
my life is just a mess. The only good option for now is to die, not going into ddetails

If you want to contact me, do not use the forum PM. I respond once a year or two, when I need to write a PM myself. I apologize for the inconvenience.
Telegram: Nuno69a
E-Mail: nuno69a (at) gmail (dot) com

2017-08-05 00:52:35

Hi.
Wow, another chat topic I usually don't chat in these but since everyone is doing this and its a cool new zealand morning and I just happen to be done with gym early and have nothing on till 12 pm I may as well join in here.
Life for me is fairly good, except being that I am a self employed contracter for software and hardware tests I don't have a job or am in between jobs.
Sonnar hasn't released for a while and with my grandpa dieing on the 18th of last month, and having to sort his stuff out well I have basically said fuck most of my duties till now anyway.
I need to finnish some more of this sorting today or over the next week.
As if that wasn't bad enough restructuring has claimed my aunt's entire job, she has managed to get one luckily with the farmers corp which is one of the biggest clothing companies in new zealand but even so the comute is longer 70km each way in any direction from north to somewhere in the south of auckland city.
The parents are away for the next 2 months on an europe tour of france, germany holand and italy so I have to mannage a lot of extra chores which will take away from my usual life.
I have been promised outings with various friends though.
While I havn't tackled the second book in the series I am slowly rumbling over several months the pierce broun red rising series, but its slow going as the stuff is really heavy.
On a side note, I am moving through the audio dramas on dwad.net, there is a program guide and such, the rest of the files are videos but to be honest, if you go to http://dwad.podbean.com you should be able to get the podcasts they also have the stuff in dwad.net/episodes/itunes/filename you will have to get the video filename rename the extention to mp3 and put it there.
they also put episodes in episodes/hold for a time to.
Most of this is good, there is a history page on it, it started for fun on tapes so a lot of the older epesodes from 027 to 042 may have bad quality ripps but the rest are fine.
Over that, I have applied to a couple testing projects but havn't really followed up on these.
My next plan this monday at least is to contact my research department in auckland uni for the current project briefs and if any will fit and go through the process of prepairing for some tests.
It can either be just talking, to reading of a tablet, to being slotted into a borg like cube with computers, wires and all sorts of things.
The only differences between this and the borg well major one is that when wired up, all other technology is unable to work due to shielding for the big computers.
All contact is controled by the network, and unlike the borg if it fails someone has to crack a bulkhead and look.
The job pays well, unfortunately people that work are fead well, sometimes to well.
I was in my last job where the team, bos and I ordered pizza.
We all thought slices to share of a big pizza but no we all got 7 inch pizzas, they took us all 2 hours to eat them all and my belly suffered all night, its completely put me off large pizzas for a little.
Over that, to the poster who was on about the rain, its been storming for the last 2 months or so, we have just got the first 2 or so fine days this week, the grass where I usually do my jumps and pushups is so muddy, that when a delivery driver dropped some stuff off the other day, he got completely bogged and had to get towed.
Then we needed to get someone to fix the grass at cost.
Sadly our cost, but even so its been bad.
There isn't a day where a slip or flood mars the landscape and there are sections of major roads now in the country that will never be able to be used again.
Kind of reminds me about noas arc or something.
And while its not 40 days and nights of constant rain its getting close to that.
There have been other days where we have all caught sun though.
I am still repairing and setting up computers, my uncle has given one with loads of spyware, viruses, user accounts and other corruption which I fixed, the account is lost though and the mail files are dammaged and a lot of other stuff.
THe system is a small obselete intel used for the odds and ends of his family and other business so its a really non critical tirshary box that has little value or need for full opperations.
I am however going to try to get him to switch the isp mail for the junk box to a gmail with imap and that should mean that things will continue to be a bit better handled, over that, dead wireless cards from companies that no longer exist and mail folders for office 2007 saved in system folders featured this week.
Its done as much as I can for what its worth.
I had to buy another wireless which is large and looks like a lego block saying that 60 bucks for a tp link archer 4tu 1200ac aint that bad.
I am also upgrading my usb hub which I have had for ages to a 7 port usb2-3 mbeat cross.
I origionally went for a 13 port mbeat usb2 but it never came so I canceled that as it was to big and got this one  and this is in preparation for the new upgraded gaming rig I want to buy from gigabite later this year.
That one has 3.1 2 and 3 ports but 1 of each only.
So I need a hub.
A powered hub that is.
Anyway better do other things now.

2017-08-05 09:08:34

@ @nuno69, really sorry to hear that, hope life gets better for you in the future.
If you want to discuss things a bit morefully and get some support, feel free to start a new topic, people are always willing to listen even if we can't do much else.

Moderation!

To crashmaster and anyone else, this is July's monthly chat topic.
it is now August, so please transfer comments here to August's monthly thread otherwise things could get a little confusing.

Fyi, the Monthly chat topic for the current month will always be the first sticky topic in the Offtopic room so there should be no trouble in finding it for anyone who wishes to join in.

With our dreaming and singing, Ceaseless and sorrowless we! The glory about us clinging Of the glorious futures we see,
Our souls with high music ringing; O men! It must ever be
That we dwell in our dreaming and singing, A little apart from ye. (Arthur O'Shaughnessy 1873.)