Off Topic Thread 4.0

Dave_The_Sheep

Synode wrote: »

Anyone else use wall plugs to hard wire internet connections to a computer? My wired (via wall plugs) Virgin internet drops occasionally on my desktop. Switch to Wifi, no issues. Then wired comes back within a minute or so. Happens a lot lately and I'm wondering is the issue the wall plugs or the router. It use to do it on my previous computer a lot too but that didn't have WiFi so wasn't able to switch and continue.

I used to use them. The performance degraded to where it was dropping every few minutes, so I f*cked them out and just got a really long ethernet cable through the house. I recall reading up on it at the time, and it can depend on a few things (the homeplugs themselves and the wiring in the house, apparently) and it's a fairly well known thing to happen.

[edit, I accidentally a word]

awec

Synode wrote: »

Anyone else use wall plugs to hard wire internet connections to a computer? My wired (via wall plugs) Virgin internet drops occasionally on my desktop. Switch to Wifi, no issues. Then wired comes back within a minute or so. Happens a lot lately and I'm wondering is the issue the wall plugs or the router. It use to do it on my previous computer a lot too but that didn't have WiFi so wasn't able to switch and continue.

Yes they can be dodgy yokes.

Buer

awec wrote: »

Where’d you order your home brew from?

Crowd of gringos up in Randalstown:

https://www.geterbrewed.ie/

There has been a very clear drop in the availability of brew kits and equipment though since I started looking into it. Ended up having to piece my kit together from various sections rather than buy one of the full starter kits as they were sold out.

Yeah_Right

Panda Killa wrote: »

I spent my summers working in either one cousins farm...or another's orchard....so... when I got my own house....looked at the large back garden, and knew exactly what I was going to do ....
Concrete the whole fckin thing over...8 years later and it's the best move I ever made

Thats my kind of gardening. Going to do a complete overhaul of the backyard this summer. I plan on paving it and having a few low maintenance plants around the edges. She wanted to have some lawn, until I pointed out that she would have to mow it. Then the lawn became pointless and unnecessary.

aloooof

I've always been tempted to give the home brewing a go but at the moment I'm buying directly from Irish craft beer breweries that I like.

In particular White Hag; they've a session IPA called Little Fawn that I really like. Their delivery has been pretty quick as well, all things considered. Some beer from Whiplash is next on the list, I think.

(Mods, hope this is ok? I've no affiliation, but not sure what the rules are around posting this).

molloyjh

aloooof wrote: »

I've always been tempted to give the home brewing a go but at the moment I'm buying directly from Irish craft beer breweries that I like.

In particular White Hag; they've a session IPA called Little Fawn that I really like. Their delivery has been pretty quick as well, all things considered. Some beer from Whiplash is next on the list, I think.

(Mods, hope this is ok? I've no affiliation, but not sure what the rules are around posting this).

The White Hag coffee stout (Black Sow) is an absolutely lovely drink. Big fan.

aloooof

molloyjh wrote: »

The White Hag coffee stout (Black Sow) is an absolutely lovely drink. Big fan.

They've a salted caramel pastry stout (??) at the moment. I ordered a case of their sours, got a notion when the weather was fine last Friday, but have never had them before. Wouldn't be for everyone, I'd imagine.

Panda Killa

aloooof wrote: »

They've a salted caramel pastry stout (??) at the moment. I ordered a case of their sours, got a notion when the weather was fine last Friday, but have never had them before. Wouldn't be for everyone, I'd imagine.

Nicest apple sour I've tried is Olans Tart, by Kinnegar...
White Hag have a couple of tasty lemon sours too

Yeah_Right

Coffee flavoured stout??? Salted caramel pastry stout! WTF!!! Apple and lemon flavoured beers?? Whatever happened to just having a nice cold lager or a pint of Guinness?

Squidgy Black

Synode wrote: »

Anyone else use wall plugs to hard wire internet connections to a computer? My wired (via wall plugs) Virgin internet drops occasionally on my desktop. Switch to Wifi, no issues. Then wired comes back within a minute or so. Happens a lot lately and I'm wondering is the issue the wall plugs or the router. It use to do it on my previous computer a lot too but that didn't have WiFi so wasn't able to switch and continue.

Are they the Virgin ones? We ended up scrapping two sets we were using and running cat5e throughout the house in the past couple of weeks. Horrible interference lately (presumably due to the amount of devices being used in the house all the time). It's a pain in the arse running the cable (in our case we had to do it outdoors as well) and terminating them, but it's well worth it to save the hassle and headache

Buer

Kinnegar is my weapon of choice. They just make fantastic beers across the board. About 5 years ago, my wife got me a selection of beers from McHugh's on my birthday including their Rustbucket ale. My world changed that day.

Hope Brewing in Kilbarrack do some great beers too. Nice to see a local beer get some traction in the market and start to pop up in off licences around the place in recent times.

There are some great options out there in Ireland at this point but the giants introducing the likes of Hop House or Cute Hoor have to have hurt them significantly. I know a good few micro breweries went under in the last few years after the emergence of such beers. The price is also always going to prevent them from reaching a wider market. White Hag have some lovely options but, even buying directly from them, it's not exactly dirt cheap. A case of 24 x 330ml is going to cost €60. Hope sell their cans for €3.33 in McHugh's on the Kilbarrack Road despite being literally 600m from the shop.

They're never going to compete with the likes of Guinness or Heineken but obviously that's not their market either. However, it must be difficult to attract many new customers in when those guys can offer a crate of their basic beer for €20-€25 in Tesco.

Dave_The_Sheep

Dave_The_Sheep wrote: »

I used to use them. The performance degraded to where it was dropping every few minutes, so I f*cked them out and just got a really long ethernet cable through the house. I recall reading up on it at the time, and it can depend on a few things (the homeplugs themselves and the wiring in the house, apparently) and it's a fairly well known thing to happen.

[edit, I accidentally a word]

It's a known issue on powerline devices. It's an unfortunate side effect of sharing a LAN with dishwasher. I have to reboot it maybe once every 2 weeks. It's a trade off I'm willing to take being at the top of the house. I'd hate to have cat 5 cables running all over the place.

Buer

Yeah_Right wrote: »

Coffee flavoured stout??? Salted caramel pastry stout! WTF!!! Apple and lemon flavoured beers?? Whatever happened to just having a nice cold lager or a pint of Guinness?

There are some really good, tasty beers out there. Then there's weird for the sake of weird. Most of those ones are limited editions that they put out for a run and then they're rarely seen again. I don't think they'd ever gain any traction in the market and I'd say shops only buy in a case or two.

Nice to try as a novelty but you'd never sit there and have 5 or 6. In fairness, you probably wouldn't sit in and have 5 or 6 of a good few microbrewery beers unless your aim was to get p*ssed.

On a hot summer afternoon (either of the ones we get annually are suitable), it's hard to beat an ice cold lager. Put me sitting in 30C in a square in Spain or Italy and I'll be more than happy with a pint of San Miguel. Put me in a snug in Mayo in November and I'd be hard pushed to go for anything other than a pint of Guinness.

But put me at home on a Friday evening and the kids are gone to bed and I want to relax and watch Leinstertainment? Then I'm all over the microbrews and the pursuit of hoppyness.

Squidgy Black

Deleted User wrote: »

It's a known issue on powerline devices. It's an unfortunate side effect of sharing a LAN with dishwasher. I have to reboot it maybe once every 2 weeks. It's a trade off I'm willing to take being at the top of the house. I'd hate to have cat 5 cables running all over the place.

You'd be surprised how easy it is to hide/pin thin cat5e against a skirting board or up a wall without it being really noticeable. Takes a bit of effort though.

mfceiling

aloooof wrote: »

I've always been tempted to give the home brewing a go but at the moment I'm buying directly from Irish craft beer breweries that I like.

In particular White Hag; they've a session IPA called Little Fawn that I really like. Their delivery has been pretty quick as well, all things considered. Some beer from Whiplash is next on the list, I think.

(Mods, hope this is ok? I've no affiliation, but not sure what the rules are around posting this).

Whiplash are fantastic. Consistently great beer. Also like Trouble Brewing, Wicklow Wolf, Ballykilcavan, Blacks of Kinsale and Rascals.
Brewery in Sligo(?) Hopfully had a beer called Love for Sale which was lovely but I haven't seen it in ages.

I haven't drank a pint of Guinness from the London Irish sponsorship carry on with Diageo. Sticking it to them with my business of usually drinking about 4 or 5 pints of it a month...their loss.

dregin

https://craftcentral.ie are doing deliveries for a fiver. Kinnegar sours are great. Larkins IPA is class. That is all.

pickarooney

awec wrote: »

Where’d you order your home brew from?

You wouldn't have heard of it

Yeah_Right

Buer wrote: »

There are some really good, tasty beers out there. Then there's weird for the sake of weird. Most of those ones are limited editions that they put out for a run and then they're rarely seen again. I don't think they'd ever gain any traction in the market and I'd say shops only buy in a case or two.

Nice to try as a novelty but you'd never sit there and have 5 or 6. In fairness, you probably wouldn't sit in and have 5 or 6 of a good few microbrewery beers unless your aim was to get p*ssed.

On a hot summer afternoon (either of the ones we get annually are suitable), it's hard to beat an ice cold lager. Put me sitting in 30C in a square in Spain or Italy and I'll be more than happy with a pint of San Miguel. Put me in a snug in Mayo in November and I'd be hard pushed to go for anything other than a pint of Guinness.

But put me at home on a Friday evening and the kids are gone to bed and I want to relax and watch Leinstertainment? Then I'm all over the microbrews and the pursuit of hoppyness.

The bit in bold makes me think; Buer, my kind of people.
The rest of it makes me think; shut up Buer!



Maybe its something about having kids that makes people go for microbreweries and weird beer. I can only think of one of my childless friends who is into all that rubbish but he was always a slave to the latest trends.

I'm a firm believer that the only time fruit should be near a beer is the lime in a bottle of Corona while my toes are in water and my ass is on the sand.

As for other strange flavours of beer, unless its a boilermaker, a depth charge or an Irish carbomb, GTFO.

Damn I want a beer :mad:

molloyjh

I always liken the "why cant you just drink normal beer" type argument to food. Sure pork steak might be nice, but its nicer marinated in cider. Why have the simple thing when you can combine it with something else to make it even nicer.

Coffee stouts are quite common and is a flavour combination that works. Like pork steaks and cider.

thomond2006

I haven't drank for about two weeks. Not missing it at all. Drinking on video calls just didn't do it for me.

The first beer when this is over will taste mighty though.

Yeah_Right

molloyjh wrote: »

I always liken the "why cant you just drink normal beer" type argument to food. Sure pork steak might be nice, but its nicer marinated in cider. Why have the simple thing when you can combine it with something else to make it even nicer.

Coffee stouts are quite common and is a flavour combination that works. Like pork steaks and cider.

Interesting point there molloy. I very experimental and adventurous when it comes to food. I agree that pork marinated in cider and then grilled on the bbq is tasty. However I'm not the sort of moron who will then drink pork flavoured cider

mfceiling

Anyone else shave off all their hair (well what was left of it)?

Corona haircuts all round.

sydthebeat

mfceiling wrote: »

Anyone else shave off all their hair (well what was left of it)?

Corona haircuts all round.

Yep

I haven't had it this short since I used to wet shave with bic razor in college.

I'm presently surprised that I still have decent coverage and the grey bits are confined to around my ears

Zzippy

Gone the opposite. Grew a beard and it's got big grey patches, especially around the chin. Hair badly needs a trim, but the wife trimmed the baby's fringe a couple weeks ago to keep it out of her eyes, and she ended up looking like Jim Carrey in Dumb & Dumber, so it's a Tom Hanks in Castaway look for me til this is over...

mfceiling

mfceiling wrote: »

Anyone else shave off all their hair (well what was left of it)?

Corona haircuts all round.

Shaved it all off with a beard trimmer about two weeks back. I always knew I've been thinning on the top but its very obvious right now after a bit of growth. The sides are growing out way quicker. I won't be this again in a hurry.

awec

Zzippy wrote: »

Gone the opposite. Grew a beard and it's got big grey patches, especially around the chin. Hair badly needs a trim, but the wife trimmed the baby's fringe a couple weeks ago to keep it out of her eyes, and she ended up looking like Jim Carrey in Dumb & Dumber, so it's a Tom Hanks in Castaway look for me til this is over...

Same, haven’t shaved since January. Except my beard has ginger patches rather than grey.

My head hair is annoying me though. Can’t do anything with it and there’s no way I’m letting anyone who isn’t a qualified hairdresser or barber near it.

molloyjh

Yeah_Right wrote: »

Interesting point there molloy. I very experimental and adventurous when it comes to food. I agree that pork marinated in cider and then grilled on the bbq is tasty. However I'm not the sort of moron who will then drink pork flavoured cider

But....but....but.....

Nope, I've got nothing.

Panda Killa

Yeah_Right wrote: »

Interesting point there molloy. I very experimental and adventurous when it comes to food. I agree that pork marinated in cider and then grilled on the bbq is tasty. However I'm not the sort of moron who will then drink pork flavoured cider

Ooooh !!

Synode

Squidgy Black wrote: »

Are they the Virgin ones? We ended up scrapping two sets we were using and running cat5e throughout the house in the past couple of weeks. Horrible interference lately (presumably due to the amount of devices being used in the house all the time). It's a pain in the arse running the cable (in our case we had to do it outdoors as well) and terminating them, but it's well worth it to save the hassle and headache

No they're decent TP-Link ones. Not too bothered as we're in a rented place at the minute. We've just got planning to build a house so will be running Ethernet cables everywhere.



Counting our blessings on the timing of us selling our last place (closed last July). We got shafted last recession stuck in an apartment raising a family. Soon as we got a sniff of the possibility of building a house we threw it up for sale to make sure we'd cash in the bank. Sold it for a minuscule amount less than we'd bought it for in 2004. Can only imagine what they'll be going for in the next few months.

swiwi_

Looking at the CV figures, I’m not convinced Ireland is really doing any better than the UK TBH. Just saying.

swiwi_

swiwi_ wrote: »

Looking at the CV figures, I’m not convinced Ireland is really doing any better than the UK TBH. Just saying.

It's possible but I think what we're seeing is a reflection of how each jurisdiction is testing and reporting more than anything else at this point.

Dave_The_Sheep

And a question of what deaths are being included in which figures.

Squidgy Black

They're expecting our backlog to be cleared by the end of this week. That'll be a huge turning point in getting more accurate numbers alongside the drive to test as much as needed rather than hitting targets etc.

As of yesterday it was 7.4 deaths per 100k in Ireland, and 17 per 100k in the UK. We've been testing at twice the rate of the UK also, we're at around 56 tests per 100k whereas the UK have reached a high of 28 per 100k today.

Buer

swiwi_ wrote: »

Looking at the CV figures, I’m not convinced Ireland is really doing any better than the UK TBH. Just saying.

The figures need context. We are testing greater numbers per head of population which will always lead to a higher infection rate. The more indicative figure is the death rate to date. The UK is running at around 13% currently compared to about 3.9% here. Their population is about 13.5 times ours but they've seen 30 times the number of deaths.

Synode

Their deaths per 1m is 190. Ours is 90.

Neil3030

Good news!

People showing no symptoms whatsoever are probably the biggest threat!

https://www.nature.com/articles/s41591-020-0869-5

Bazzo

swiwi_ wrote: »

Looking at the CV figures, I’m not convinced Ireland is really doing any better than the UK TBH. Just saying.

Which figures?

Zzippy

swiwi_ wrote: »

Looking at the CV figures, I’m not convinced Ireland is really doing any better than the UK TBH. Just saying.

Context is important. UK is only reporting deaths in hospital where the patient has a confirmed positive test. Deaths where test results Not back prior to death Not included. Not reporting deaths in care homes or the community as CV. Also testing far fewer so the positive cases is a huge under-representation of actual spread.

Neil3030

Neil3030 wrote: »

Good news!

People showing no symptoms whatsoever are probably the biggest threat!

https://www.nature.com/articles/s41591-020-0869-5

I did not understand that abstract. Could you elaborate a bit more?

Former Former

[Deleted User] wrote: »

I did not understand that abstract. Could you elaborate a bit more?

You are most infectious before you start to show symptoms.

Neil3030

Deleted User wrote: »

I did not understand that abstract. Could you elaborate a bit more?

They did two analyses. In the first, they took 94 patients who presented with Covid at a hospital in China, and swabbed their throats 3 to 4 times per person over the next month. The highest "viral load" (concentration of the virus in a tested sample) was at symptom onset. So you have the most bullets in the chamber, so to speak, when you start noticing symptoms.

The other analysis were mathematical models of publicly available data from around the world. The data specifically related to transmission pairs; these are pairs of people where they know person B got it from person A. (Carefully controlled, for time, so like a cab driver and passenger, so you can be sure what day the infection was passed on).

For each pair, you note when did person A come into contact with person B, and when did they both start showing symptoms. You do this for all the pairs, the mathematical model can figure out when people are most infective. And in this case, they estimate that actually people peak just before they show symptoms. So in other words, in the most cases of pairs, person B came into contact with person A just before person A started showing symptoms.

Neil3030

And just to add, this is what makes Covid 19 such an absolute ****er. Other diseases like SARS, the infectiousness is strongest 7-10 days after you see symptoms, so you can safely quarantine patients and avoid spread. With Covid-19, people probably did most of their spreading before they knew they were patients.

swiwi_

At times like this, the off-topic thread is great value.

I for one will drink a toast to Ugo Monye Spacecraft Experience.

jacothelad

Squidgy Black wrote: »

Anyone see the absolute shíte McGregor's been tweeting? He had a go at Stenaline as if it was their fault the borders weren't closed, and that we should only be allowing deliveries of medical supplies and nothing else, that we can survive off Irish grown produce and other supplies.

It's mad how some people's coke fuelled rants have such a reach and gain support of so many.

He sounds like someone who has had too many blows to a completely empty head.

jacothelad

Podge_irl wrote: »

I think, to be more precise, we produce enough food, its just not the food we are necessarily used to subsisting on.

Mind you, I may have to survive on gruyere cheese for the foreseeable.

Grilled Gruyere and turnip toast.......:D:D:D ...or garden snails in a Gruyere sauce.

b.gud

Synode wrote: »

Anyone else use wall plugs to hard wire internet connections to a computer? My wired (via wall plugs) Virgin internet drops occasionally on my desktop. Switch to Wifi, no issues. Then wired comes back within a minute or so. Happens a lot lately and I'm wondering is the issue the wall plugs or the router. It use to do it on my previous computer a lot too but that didn't have WiFi so wasn't able to switch and continue.

I got rid of home plugs a while ago and while I try to figure out the best way to get cat6 cabling running to the top story of the house I'm using a wi-fi repeater system with a couple of routers running OpebWRT and it is far more reliable, and provides better speed, than home plugs

jacothelad

Yeah_Right wrote: »

Thats my kind of gardening. Going to do a complete overhaul of the backyard this summer. I plan on paving it and having a few low maintenance plants around the edges. She wanted to have some lawn, until I pointed out that she would have to mow it. Then the lawn became pointless and unnecessary.

When we were downsizing in 2016 we made a list of things we didn't want. We lived in a 5,000 sq ft 3 story Victorian villa with big grounds. We wanted a modern single story house with a small garden. WE bought a 3,000 sq ft two story house with two huge gardens with lawns thw size of football fields. I woulds happily concrete the lot. I really don't want to spend my declining years digging, weeding, cutting, dumping stuff, trailing the bride around garden centres and buying f'kin pergolas and bedding plants etc.



There was a large fruit tree garden and a huge vegetable patch. Now happily covered in 608 flagstones...:D:D:D Mrs Jacko wasn't happy...:p

Buer

I think gardening/vegetable growing is something people get into when they're looking to involve their spare time in something productive and active after their hell raising years are over. Everyone tends to have a void. We all know some who continue to focus on socialising, downing pints etc. It's rarely the best path although each to their own.

Some don ludicrous amounts of lycra, purchase a bike worth more than my car and go out for 50km bike rides irritating every driver for miles. Some hit the golf course.

Jaco, you've had a rather interesting life probably much more so than many between your work, rugby and music. I imagine that void has been filled for you quite comfortably over the years hence gardening can take a running jump for you. You can relax knowing you've done a lot already and have plenty more to occupy your time. I hear that Mike Gibson is often asked on rugby forums about the time he played with jacothelad.

Many blokes will end up turning to the garden or the shed as their point of comfort. I've already hit that point, sad b*stard that I am. The kids take up a huge amount of my time and I'm very happy with that but that will stop in the next decade as they grow up, alas. I'm already eyeing up the shed as a project over the next few years for a proper man cave. Of course the wife has not heard of these plans yet....gotta play the long game on that one.

Squidgy Black

My aul lad decided about 5 years ago to do something similar with our small back garden, pave over the whole lot of it to save himself the hassle.

Except he decided to consult my ma, which lead to Indian sand stone being put down. Which turns out needs about as much maintenance as grass, because it stains and goes green if not thoroughly powerwashed weekly, and has to be resealed and grouted fairly regularly.

I'm going to plug my brain directly into online gaming in my twilight years. The nurses will have to clean me up while I'll be elsewhere arguing with 12 year olds.