Search found 2062 matches

by tim-b
24 Mar 2024, 8:29am
Forum: Bikes & Bits – Technical section
Topic: Is this terminal?
Replies: 50
Views: 2495

Re: Is this terminal?

I come from a generation who used to blow out our brake drums at the roadside when we serviced our motor bikes and cars
Me too. There is research to suggest that a combination of low overall exposure and changes to the fibres caused by braking reduces risk in the occasional DIY-er https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10 ... 19.1568385

Jonathan will doubtless burst my bubble on the veracity of the study methodology

It's definitely not an experiment to try at home, follow HSE advice :)
by tim-b
24 Mar 2024, 8:09am
Forum: Does anyone know … ?
Topic: GPX devices...Garmin alternative
Replies: 25
Views: 885

Re: GPX devices...Garmin alternative

Add in a memory card, and the issue is doubled
For my Etrex I put the memory card directly into the PC, it has one folder, GPX (which you must have for my Etrex), and I drop my mapped routes in there.
You get more or less instant folder access and don't have to wait for the device to communicate with the PC

The end of the day is more painful because the ridden route only appears on the device and does take a bit longer, but overall I didn't feel that it's worth changing devices. YMMV, but give that a go

If you're after bluetooth, etc, then I'm sure that you'll get some options from users
by tim-b
20 Mar 2024, 11:20am
Forum: The Tea Shop
Topic: P&O Ferries
Replies: 204
Views: 20378

Re: P&O Ferries

P&O also currently expects some crew to work seven days a week, for up to 17 weeks at a time, without a break.
Herve Berville describe this practice as “dangerous” and “not moral”
https://www.itv.com/news/2024-03-20/fra ... -not-moral
Perhaps M. Berville and his predecessors could have considered enforcing existing legislation for the last 18 years?

Maritime Labour Convention, 2006, as amended
Regulation 2.3 – Hours of work and hours of rest
Purpose: To ensure that seafarers have regulated hours of work or hours of rest

3. Each Member acknowledges that the normal working hours’ standard for seafarers, like that for other workers, shall be based on an eight-hour day with one day of rest per week and rest on public holidays. However, this shall not prevent the Member from having procedures to authorize or register a collective agreement which determines seafarers’ normal working hours on a basis no less favourable than this standard.
by tim-b
20 Mar 2024, 7:52am
Forum: Does anyone know … ?
Topic: ...a safe way to turn a bike over
Replies: 34
Views: 1601

Re: ...a safe way to turn a bike over

Usually tapping the brake lines gets the bubbles out of them. Tilt the bike fore and aft to help. I have a step through eBike and some maintenance needs it to be inverted.
Are you going to guarantee "usually"?

If you or I choose to invert our bikes and have a braking disaster then it's our problem, a local group of volunteers working on someone else's bike on the other hand...
by tim-b
20 Mar 2024, 7:43am
Forum: The Tea Shop
Topic: P&O Ferries
Replies: 204
Views: 20378

Re: P&O Ferries

It’s not clear how long the company will be given to comply
Three months according to the Grauniad, which will be "in the summer", as with the UK. This is to allow for appeals to a law at odds with international law https://www.theguardian.com/business/20 ... french-law

This law was started two years ago as a series of bilateral agreements between the UK and Denmark, France, Germany, Ireland and the Netherlands https://www.gov.uk/government/speeches/ ... me-workers
The UK's Seafarers' Wages Bill was sent for a second reading in December 2022 and was enacted in March '23 https://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/2023/8/enacted

It isn't new and France hasn't done anything unique, regardless of how it's publicised
by tim-b
20 Mar 2024, 7:09am
Forum: Does anyone know … ?
Topic: ...a safe way to turn a bike over
Replies: 34
Views: 1601

Re: ...a safe way to turn a bike over

Bikes with hydraulic brakes shouldn't be inverted because you risk putting air from the space above the fluid in the reservoir into the brake lines

A side issue is the risk of breaking expensive hydraulic levers
by tim-b
15 Mar 2024, 8:33am
Forum: The Tea Shop
Topic: Are you "Infected by a remainer mind virus"?
Replies: 920
Views: 862611

Re: Are you "Infected by a remainer mind virus"?

Would be interested to hear from supporters of Brexit if 100,000 more civil servants was what they wanted.
I don't know how the figure was determined, I haven't read the article, but UK Border Force (UKBF) are both civil servants and warranted officers.

It seems entirely logical to me that many of our pre and post-Brexit border woes, as one example, would have been far-better managed with more UKBF, rather than housing a few hundred refugees on a barge or none at all in Rwanda.

Talk about a sunk-cost fallacy!
by tim-b
15 Mar 2024, 8:22am
Forum: The Tea Shop
Topic: Are you "Infected by a remainer mind virus"?
Replies: 920
Views: 862611

Re: Are you "Infected by a remainer mind virus"?

Jdsk wrote: 14 Mar 2024, 11:12am
Jdsk wrote: 4 Jan 2024, 10:49am
tim-b wrote: 4 Jan 2024, 6:41am
This and many other agreements should have been part of Brexit negotiations. Unfortunately there was an abject failure to conclude negotiations on our side

Anyone with any common sense within both the EU and UK could see what needed to be done following the Brexit vote, but personal power and political interests got in the way here
And the next low-hanging fruit could be (re)joining Erasmus+.
"British semiconductor researchers and businesses now have enhanced access to research funding backed by the UK government and Horizon Europe, now the UK has joined the EU’s ‘Chips Joint Undertaking’":
https://www.gov.uk/government/news/35-m ... p-research

Coverage by Computer Weekly:
https://www.computerweekly.com/news/366 ... initiative

Jonathan
Thanks Jonathan
Why the flop/s this couldn't have been negotiated years ago is beyond me.
I know! We'd have been unable to start building 350 new hospitals on 31st January 2020 :x
by tim-b
14 Mar 2024, 10:20am
Forum: The Tea Shop
Topic: Are you "Infected by a remainer mind virus"?
Replies: 920
Views: 862611

Re: Are you "Infected by a remainer mind virus"?

Maybe the EU could do with an increase in bureaucrats as well, it would lessen opportunities for this kind of EU-funded nonsense... I give you Hungary's Treetop Walk... https://telex.hu/english/2023/05/08/the ... m-eu-funds
by tim-b
14 Mar 2024, 10:16am
Forum: The Tea Shop
Topic: Take These (Supply) Chains from My Heart
Replies: 809
Views: 43988

Re: Take These (Supply) Chains from My Heart

There have been concerns since 2020 about the EUs supply of the Pfizer COVID vaccine and a huge increase in the number of doses and the reported 25% increase in price per dose.
"The public continues to be denied information about the terms of one of the biggest procurement contracts in the history of the EU”
The outcome of a lawsuit against the European Commission to obtain text messages should be known soon

https://www.politico.eu/article/5-thing ... urt-cases/
by tim-b
11 Mar 2024, 6:58am
Forum: The Tea Shop
Topic: Take These (Supply) Chains from My Heart
Replies: 809
Views: 43988

Re: Take These (Supply) Chains from My Heart

It's not going to get any better (see Budget!) even into the medium term.
Brexit was voted for and none of us can change that. I don't see a UK government changing that in the near future.

I do see an opportunity for food suppliers, farmers, etc in the UK, but they'll need a government with vision and we haven't had one of those for decades.

I think that it's time to accept that and "don’t believe them when they tell you it’s not going to hurt."
by tim-b
10 Mar 2024, 1:50pm
Forum: The Tea Shop
Topic: Take These (Supply) Chains from My Heart
Replies: 809
Views: 43988

Re: Take These (Supply) Chains from My Heart

Many people managing the supply chains and depending on them to work are saying the opposite: that we're not ready for 30 April. The Cold Chain Federation are a typical example, as cited upthread
I don't think that what I said is the opposite.
The Government isn't grasping their role in addressing concerns and making necessary decisions
To compound that they aren't putting the right people in place at the right time
by tim-b
10 Mar 2024, 12:10pm
Forum: The Tea Shop
Topic: Take These (Supply) Chains from My Heart
Replies: 809
Views: 43988

Re: Take These (Supply) Chains from My Heart

Is there an effect both nationally and in this forum that by continually taking it back to decisions made in the past and whether they were right or wrong we don't get on with managing the future?
I can only say that this system has been worked out and that its respective industry is as happy as it can be with that system

The system is in place to manage the future, what we don't have is a generation of politicians that are capable of grasping their role in this and resourcing that system. I don't expect the next government to be any better
by tim-b
10 Mar 2024, 12:02pm
Forum: The Tea Shop
Topic: Take These (Supply) Chains from My Heart
Replies: 809
Views: 43988

Re: Take These (Supply) Chains from My Heart

Why is it 'good people' can’t see that high risk foods will now be hidden within low risk consignments? :D
Has that changed?
01/04/11-31/03/12: Products Of Animal Origin were seized on entering the UK on 10,537 occasions, a total of 79,277kg, but only 5.5% were found in freight. 94.5% were personal imports. Tighter controls since Brexit = more seizures

"Inspectors discovered raw animal products stashed in carrier bags and tissue without temperature control, refrigeration or labels.
The items were not separated from products such as cheese, crisps and cake."
https://www.standard.co.uk/news/crime/p ... 33827.html
by tim-b
10 Mar 2024, 8:20am
Forum: The Tea Shop
Topic: Take These (Supply) Chains from My Heart
Replies: 809
Views: 43988

Re: Take These (Supply) Chains from My Heart

Shane Brennan, (2023) Chief Executive of the Cold Chain Federation looked at this twelve months ago and his opinion then was that smaller suppliers would be put off by "millions of pounds in friction costs", but that larger suppliers would continue business with the UK.
These changes will affect a minority of overall imports from the EU

There's no doubt that costs will increase for certain goods, but "The new food import control model is not all bad. Good people have been working very hard, for many years to try and find innovations. The explicit commitment to a risk-based categorisation of foods means that vast amounts of foods will be classified as low risk, mainly fruits and vegetables, and shelf stable products. By volume, this will be most imports. Importers of low-risk goods will have to do less certification and face low to zero inspections at the UK border."

"There is always opportunity in adversity. This may be the point at which post-Brexit realignments in how we source our food will fully play out. For some the hope will be greater reliance on domestic production, others will see a rebalancing of our import trade away from the EU suppliers to other places in the world. Whether the result is good or bad for the UK economy, our climate goals, or UK consumers, remains to be seen.
This is perhaps the last Brexit-transition sticking plaster that we have to rip off, but don’t believe them when they tell you it’s not going to hurt."
https://ukandeu.ac.uk/what-do-the-new-b ... od-supply/

What we have needed since the 1980s is a Government that would revitalise farming, agriculture, etc to levels where the UK could produce most of the food that we need. That isn't a problem of Brexit and has been worsening for decades