Well, this latest story suggest that a contract is going out to tender for someone “to help manage and organise the Vehicle and Operator Services Agency’s (VOSA) and Driving Standards Agency’s (DSA) legacy IT infrastructure after the two organisations merge in 2014”.
It will cost £35 million.
It never ceases to amaze me how this government can say and do two completely contradictory things. The merged body is going to be more bureaucratic than the two separate entities ever were. Heaven knows what will happen to the service levels.
I’ve mentioned before how LED lighting is the way forward – I use an LED strip instead of a table lamp for my PC workstation, and I’ve recently bought both 60W and 100W equivalent LED bulbs to replace annoying low-power fluorescent bulbs (which take time to reach full brightness, amongst other things).
So I was interested in this article which explains how a British inventor has developed a lighting system for poorer countries where a weight is used to generate power for an LED array using gravity. It’s not so much the technology involved – which is straightforward – but the manner in which the inventor has gone about the task of developing a marketable product.
In the target countries for the light, kerosene and other fossil fuels are often used to provide lighting, and these are poisonous as well as dangerous in more obvious ways. With this new system, a weight of up to 12.5kg (consisting of sand, dirt, or rubble) powers a dynamo which can then provide light for up to 30 minutes on a single drop cycle. The units sell for only $10 each, and can be daisy chained to provide greater power levels.
The inventors bypassed the usual venture capitalists and went directly public, and raised $400,000 dollars through around 6,000 individual backers. If I’d have known about it, I’d have chucked a few bob in myself. It’s a brilliant idea.
The $10 price tag is still high – daily wages in some of the target countries are below $2 a day – but the savings in kerosene costs are around $100 inside two years, which means buyers would get a return on the investment very quickly.
The device can also be used to charge mobile phone batteries and other things.
This one is appearing in just about every newsfeed imaginable. A woman in California was stopped by policefor speeding… Hang on. Let me emphasise that: she was speeding. Breaking the Law by driving too fast.
Anyway, it also appears that she was also driving while wearing a pair of the Google Glass spectacles.
I’ve written about these before. They’re already set to be banned when driving in the UK, although in America the tech media is simply assuming that people will wear them when they’re driving a car and doesn’t seem to have any concerns over this obviously stupid possibility.
As I’ve mentioned before, America is that place where they can’t even agree that texting while you’re driving should be illegal – and that’s in spite of the mounting death toll among young drivers whose genes and upbringing means that they tried it, and lost. Similarly, initial American attempts to ban Google Glass have so far failed – and if they can’t see right at the outset that using them when driving is dangerous, such a law has almost no chance of making it through in future.
The woman involved here, Cecilia Abadie, is clearly a lawbreaker if she was speeding. But this fact seems to have escaped her, and all her supporters on her Google+ page, where she describes herself thus:
Geek, Google Glass Pioneer, Self-Quantifier, Transhumanist, Blogger, Speaker, currently playing with fun new ways to a better self… Passionate about Technology’s Evolution.
In her world, technology is clearly more important than other human beings. Therefore, speeding and watching a computer screen while driving is perfectly acceptable behaviour. But even more frighteningly, she is not alone. One of her supporters says:
I bet that cop was just curious about googleglass and the ticket was just an excuse to check it out. And these legislators banning the device – have they even tried it? I have used the navigation feature while driving (with no incoming calls or texts of course) and found it much safer than GPS and my smartphone
What an idiot! Another “self-quantifier” who hasn’t got a clue.
Arseing about with anything while you are driving is dangerous. That includes a GPS stuck right in the middle of your field of vision, or one stuck on your face. But her and her supporters appear to be far enough down the evolutionary ladder not to be able to realise this. One jackass is even offering to set up a charity fund to finance her taking it through court (she was stopped primarily for speeding, remember, and I can’t see how Google Glass is going to help her get away with that one).
The real problem is that this is America. And California. And Google is involved. It’s frightening to think that she’ll probably get some judge to agree with her and get a legal precedent set.
I’ve had my HTC One for a good few months now – I got it immediately it went on sale. I called it a “superphone” then, and I really meant it. Unless HTC brings out something better, I can’t see there being any need to upgrade for a long time.
When you look at HTC’s overview, the phone really does do all those things, and it looks exactly like that. For example, I have the Theory (TT) and Hazard Perception (HPT) tests installed on it, and demonstrating to pupils how to do the HPT is extremely quick using the HTC One.
The video clips are pin-sharp, and at least one pupil has bought an HTC One after having seen it in action (many more have downloaded those apps in order to prepare for their TT appointment).
A great thing about the HTC is it’s sound. It’s hard to believe that such deep stereo sound is coming from something with such tiny speakers.
Another thing I love about it – more of an Android feature than just HTC – is that it syncs to the Bluetooth system in my car so that you can send and receive texts via the car system. The car will also read the texts to you. You can also make calls from the phonebook via voice or car radio keypad.
(Obviously, you don’t mess with any of this when you’re driving).
The HTC One is genuinely a beautiful phone, and it is just the right size – too many phones are simply too big, and look stupid.
It’s just hard to believe that HTC is in financial difficulties having produced so many superb phones.
There was an interesting segment on BBC’s Watchdog tonight. It dealt with a situation where people have been selling their mobile phones using an online site called Cash4Phones.
Apparently, when they enter their phone’s model number it gives them a price based on the phone being in reasonable condition. However, when they send it off, they receive an email telling them that the phone has excessive signs of use, and offering less than half of the original price that was given when the users initiated the process on the website.
I did a bit of scouting and found this blog entry (don’t be put off by the blog’s title – when it talks of “pert breasts” it is in the new-mummy-and-daddy sense, and apart from such dubious (and nauseating, when you have other peoples kids stuffed in your face – I say this in jest, and mean no harm to the blog in question) content, the article in question is quite interesting. It deals with the same firm, and the author’s own trials with them. Apparently, the money takes months to arrive – if it comes at all.
It’s also worth looking at the Trustpilot rating, and some of the comments on that.
The only thing I’d take issue with is the statement that Cash4Phones pays more than MazumaMobile. I did several checks and Mazuma pays more in each case. I’ve written about Mazuma on three previous occasions, and have never had even the slightest problem with them. Every transaction was completed from me clicking on “sell” to my bank account being credited (or the cheque arriving the time I clicked the wrong button) in less than one working week. And the amount paid was exactly what was originally quoted.
Watchdog submitted phones that had been checked by a phone repair company and certified as being in almost perfect condition, and an original quote of over £100 was downgraded to just over £40, with excessive signs of use being quoted. One of the victims featured even had to pay for the phone to be returned – but it wasn’t, and they upped their quote.
Based on the show (and the blog I’ve linked to, not to mention the Trustpilot figures), I think the advice is absolutely clear. In addition, I would recommend Mazuma to anyone wanting to sell their phone. People must be completely nuts (or plain greedy) to go anywhere else.
This is a very old post! It’s attracted a few hits in May 2021. It was relevant at the time I wrote it eight years ago!
I remember a story from my childhood about The Emperor’s New Clothes. It was a Hans Christian Anderson story about two weavers who are commissioned to produce a new suit of clothes for the Emperor, telling him it is so grand that those of lesser status won’t be able to see it. The Emperor displays his new suit until a child in the crowd yells out that he is naked. Only then do all the sycophants in the crowd realise they have been duped.
It has allowed beheading videos back on its site – yes, you are reading that right: videos of people having their heads cut off by savage, sub-humans who are lower than the lowest pig in the dirtiest pigsty. Facebook’s pathetic defence is that “users should be free to watch and condemn such videos.” However, they are “considering added warnings”. Isn’t that good of them?
Facebook is US-based. Barack Obama needs to realise what is going on here, and tear up a few of the more stupid pages in the American Constitution once and for all. Gun ownership is one, and the American interpretation of “free speech” is another. A bunch of zealots and religious nuts showing the murder of innocent people in graphic detail is not, in any shape or form, “free speech”. The only people who argue that it is are usually engaged in highly dubious activities themselves, which they are seeking to protect. Facebook, for its part, will gain many more visitors by allowing bloody mutilation to be shown, and especially by allowing it to be shown to children.
Lunatics from religious groups like those who would post such images should be hunted down and shot. Not given advertising space by Facebook.
When will people realise that they’ve been told by Facebook that they’ve effectively been given a new suit of clothes than are invisible to lesser minds? There’s no need to try and be clever about it (look at some of the Beeb site’s users’ comments – why do people who are stupid try to pretend they are not in public?) Facebook is no better than the two weavers in the Hans Christian Anderson story. And that’s all there is to it.
Facebook ought to be renamed “Facesbook” – because it appears to wear any number of them as it sees fit. My guess is that two is the preferred number.
Having allowed a video of a beheading to be shown with the pathetic excuse that people need to be allowed to make up their own minds, it has now taken the video down. According to this new article, Facebook changed its policy on showing graphic violence back in July, but:
…did not think the public would be interested to know.
It’s funny, isn’t it, how Facebook can be so dead set against censorship when it means losing visitors, but prepared to censor pretty significant policy decisions with weak excuses like this. Precisely what chimpanzee employees decided that the public “wouldn’t be interested” isn’t made clear – but I think the world and his dog will see straight through it and realise that the real reason was that Facebook knew damned well there would be a public outcry and that it would be better to conceal the decision.
Apparently, they have been tripping over each other to change the policy without exactly reversing it. And this time they’ve put it in a press release – which they should have done the first time. Even so, you can see the utter bollocks that comes from the mouths of companies like Facebook these days:
First, when we review content that is reported to us, we will take a more holistic look at the context surrounding a violent image or video, and will remove content that celebrates violence.
Second, we will consider whether the person posting the content is sharing it responsibly, such as accompanying the video or image with a warning and sharing it with an age-appropriate audience.
For anyone who doesn’t know, a “holistic look” simply means that they will have a meeting and come to a consensus opinion about any given complaint. And since the ones involved in arriving at consensus in those meetings will be the same idiots who are trying to defend the obvious moral problem with showing online murders in the first place, I wouldn’t hold your breaths. All those in the meetings will be New Age freaks who typify the staff at Facebook. Now doubt when consensus is reached they’ll all have a group hug, then go and talk to the trees and flowers.
What has the world come to when jackasses like Facebook can show videos of people being murdered – and defend it?
Microsoft will no longer support Windows XP from 8 April 2014. I can already imagine the panic that is building at my last company, as they begin – in their leviathan style – to start thinking about planning to maybe eventually move up to something else… perhaps. And when they realise the overall cost, someone will have the brilliant idea of going for Lotus Suite (again) instead of Office, because IBM is desperately trying to offload it for peanuts to increase poor sales, and the company I used to work for has such a tight arse, even buying ONE Office licence would have them calling crisis meeting after crisis meeting to “address the issue”.
Thinking back, I wouldn’t be surprised if they were now using abacuses and slide rules anyway. It would have been typical of them to see that as a step forwards.
Migrating systems is not an easy task. In most cases the hardware running XP will be so old it couldn’t run Windows 7 efficiently (or in some cases, at all). When they introduced XP, my first company had to spend a fortune on new hardware. It was funny to see them going through each workstation one-by-one to see if they met the minimum spec, and replacing the boxes as minimally as possible. Oh, and everything ran on 15” CRT monitors.
And the mind boggles at what that same company would do if they looked into moving to Windows 8 with touchscreen capability. Admittedly, my experience of the employees there suggests that touchscreens would definitely be the way to go with them, but the cost…! Oh, the cost!
The reason for my nostalgia is that I can remember the term “active transport” from when I used to do Biology both at school and at Uni (as a minor part of my Chemistry degree). It always frustrated me because it explained nothing – and I can’t recall anyone ever saying “no one knows” when I asked questions. Even the current Wikipedia entry is vague. Mind you, people still prevaricate over things today – probably more so than in the past – even when “I don’t know” is really what they should be saying.
I have edited this article significantly to make it clearer. The first card reader I purchased was an iZettle, and I was happy with it for a while. I had looked at the PayPal option when it first launched and PayPal’s support staff gave me conflicting information about money be tied up ‘in reserve’, which was totally unacceptable and I went with iZettle. iZettle performed flawlessly right up until the time they botched an app update and blamed it on my HTC phone suddenly being ‘unsupported’, and basically just told me ‘tough’. They almost killed my business overnight, so when they came back and apologised after acknowledging the fact that they had screwed up, it was too late. I had opted for the PayPal system after discovering that what they had told me over a year earlier was incorrect. I now use the PayPal system and it is perfect.
Something I’ve always wanted to be able to do is take credit and debit card payments for lessons in-car. However, the traditional way of doing this has been to open a merchant account and then purchase (or rent) a suitable credit card terminal, which is costly – particularly if your turnover is small. The terminal rental alone would have cost upwards of £10 a month (they’re about £200 to buy), and then there would be transaction fees on top of that, plus any set up fees for the merchant account itself. Plus, they were about the size of a toaster.
Yes, I could have done it. But driving instructors do not operate with high margins, and the cost would have been unacceptably high to me as a sole trader.
But all that is changing. There are a number of new solutions which combine a simple card reader with a smartphone. I’ve looked at several and have finally plumped for PayPal Here’s system.
A definite contender was iZettle’s option. The attraction here was the fact that their transaction fees operate on a sliding scale. However, what tipped the balance against this for me was the fact that payments only appear in your bank account 3-4 working days later, and I was also a little unclear on what would happen if someone’s card effectively “bounced”, since iZettle’s website at the time said that clearance didn’t happen immediately. (NOTE: THERE IS A DELAY WITH ALL SYSTEMS – NO METHOD PAYS MONEY INTO YOUR ACCOUNT IMMEDIATELY – actually, this is not true: PayPal’s system pays you pretty much straight away.).
As an example, the Friday before Late Summer Bank Holiday I received a cheque in the post. I paid it into my bank account the next day (Saturday) using the automatic paying-in machine at my branch. It didn’t actually clear until very late the following Friday – shortly before midnight, as far as I could tell. I had phoned my bank that Friday to find out what was happening, and the story was that the cheque wouldn’t have been processed until Tuesday, thereafter it would clear 3-4 working days later. I definitely do not want any credit or debit card payments taking that long to be cleared – I’d be getting paid up to a week later!
PayPal’s system clears payment immediately and pays it straight into your PayPal account.
Since it was announced in the spring, I’ve been canvassing my pupils on the subject – and all except for two have said that being able to pay by card in the car would be a huge advantage to them (i.e. it would mean not having to go to the cash point the night before). It would also be a huge advantage to me, since:
I wouldn’t have to go to the bank to put money (or cheques) in
I wouldn’t have to pay parking fees while visiting the bank
I wouldn’t have the hassle of driving pupils to cash machines if they forgot
The one minor drawback is the transaction fee – 2.75% per transaction – but this is offset by not having to deal with those problems listed above. However, 2.75% appears to be the standard fee – iZettle’s sliding charge down from 2.75% only kicks in if you take more than £2,000 per month, and it only hits 2.00% if you take around £4,500. Although on paper I would easily hit that, I haven’t started taking card payments and cannot be sure how many pupils will use it after all. So once more it comes down to payments being cleared and going into my account immediately.
The PayPal terminal costs £99 outright. You order it by downloading the PayPal Here App on your smartphone, then requesting the reader via your PayPal account within the app. With the app, you can either take straight payments of any amount, or set up a stock list of products (i.e. lesson durations) with fixed prices. The terminal connects to your smartphone via Bluetooth, so there are no wires or connectors to mess with.
Mine’s on order, so I’ll see how it goes. (NOTE: PAYPAL TURNED OUT TO BE INCOMPETENT IN THE EXTREME AT ANSWERING QUESTIONS ABOUT THEIR DEVICE. THEY VARIED BETWEEN BEING CONTRADICTORY AND BEING TOTALY INCORRECT. THEIR DEVICE APPEARED USELESS FOR THE JOB I DO. EVEN NOW, EVEN WITH HINDSIGHT AND A THAWING IN THE STUPIDITY OF PAYPAL REPRESENTATIVES, IZETTLE WAS THE BEST CHOICE TO MAKE, AND THE ONE I SHOULD HAVE MADE.
Update 6/9/2013: Hold the press on this! DO NOT GET THE PAYPAL CARD READER UNTIL I GET A REPLY FROM PAYPAL OVER THE FOLLOWING ISSUE.
The website clearly stated that money is paid into your account immediately. That was why I signed up. However, there is now the confusing matter of “reserves”. It seems that if you take more than £200 in any seven day period, every penny of the additional money goes into “reserve” which you cannot touch for 30 days, after which it is released to you.
This is ridiculous. If it is true, then the card reader will be going back without me even opening it, and I will opt for iZettle instead. There is no way I am going to wait 30 days for what could amount to anything up to £800. I have business running costs which are payable daily.
This was NOT made clear on the website before I signed up, and only now is the information showing in my PayPal account information pages. It is such a hugely significant detail that it should have been mentioned right at the top of the bloody page!
PayPal Here would be totally useless for driving instructors if I am reading things right. The service would be pointless for anyone taking less than £200 a week, and yet only those taking thousands would be able to withstand having their money held in reserve for a whole month.
Update 7/9/2013: Panic over! The reserve only applies to payments taken over the phone – where details are keyed in – and is a security feature that type of transaction requires. I am assured that chip & pin payments in the car have absolutely no reserve.
The guy I spoke with in Support said that he had had 20 others call before me with the exact same concerns. I pointed out that the online documentation is appallingly bad and needs to be made clearer. Even my online ticket attracted this response:
Thank you for contacting PayPal regarding reserves when using PayPal Here.
I have reviewed your account and it shows we will hold 100% of payments processed using PayPal here for 30days. This means that on the 31st day your payments will be released from the initial day of using PayPal Here. This is a rolling reserve so once the initial 30days have passed money will be released to you daily from your reserves.
You have 200GBP per week that will not be held in reserve anything over 200GBP taken in a week using the PayPal card reader will be held for 30days. So if you took 700GBP in a week you would have immediate access to 200GBP then 30days later the other 500GBP would be released to you.
The reserves only apply to payments taken using the PayPal Here device.
This is exactly the opposite of what the guy on the phone told me. The last sentence in particular is highly misleading.
Update 7/9/2013: Hold the press again! DO NOT GET ONE OF THESE CARDREADERS UNTIL I HAVE CLEARED THINGS UP WITH PAYPAL… AGAIN!
The online support is adamant that all monies above £200 are on a rolling reserve for 30 days. They have asked me to call them.
Update 8/9/2013: Everything is OK again. In spite of the totally incorrect information provided by PayPal’s email support – twice – telephone support has confirmed again that chip & pin card payments are not subject to the rolling reserve. Only payments where the card number is keyed in fall into that category, and in theory 100% of cards in the UK are chip & pin. So it shouldn’t be an issue at all.
Update 8/9/2013: Hold it again! DO NOT GET A PAYPAL READER UNDER ANY CIRCUMSTANCES.
I wrote to PayPal asking for confirmation of what phone support had said in writing, and they have again said that every penny taken above £200 will be held in reserve, no matter how it is taken.
At this moment in time I have demanded return and refund.
Update 8/9/2013: Final confirmation – DO NOT UNDER ANY CIRCUMSTANCES SIGN UP TO PAYPAL HERE UNLESS YOU ARE HAPPY FOR YOUR MONEY TO BE HELD “IN RESERVE” FOR 30 DAYS BEFORE YOU CAN ACCESS IT.
I have arranged to send my card reader back before it’s even arrived.
In spite of the absolutely appalling confusion and lack of consistent explanations by PayPal, it is now clear that every penny taken by card payment – from whatever source – is subject to this idiotic policy.
Take my own situation. Let’s imagine that I do a 40 hour week, and let’s imagine that everyone pays by debit card. My turnover will be £920, but I will only be able to access £200 of that – the rest will be held by PayPal for 30 days until it is released to me (and released “daily”, whatever that means). My business expenses for that week could easily exceed £200, so I will be in big trouble.
But if I do a similar busy week the next week, the same thing happens. And the week after that. And the week after that. And most of the week after that. So I could do 5 weeks of 40 hour weeks, with all that that entails as far as expenses go, yet only have access to £1,000 out of a total turnover of £5,000.
The PayPal Here service is not fit for purpose. I cannot imagine what sort of lunatic would be happy with such a system controlling their business. And who, I wonder, gets the interest on all the money held in reserve?
I have now ordered my iZettle reader. A 3-4 day clearance time is peanuts by comparison – and the need for me to take card payments is too great.
PayPal has shot itself in the foot big time on this one.
Update 9/9/2013: And one final word. PayPal has written to me twice more – once to contradict itself, and again to apologise for MY misunderstanding. In doing so, I think it is worth comparing the second to last email I received.
Regarding your queries, I can assure you that the majority of payments you take through PayPal Here, will be available immediately for yourself. The only payments that will be held are payments where you manually enter your buyers card details.
With the one before that:
I have reviewed your account and it shows we will hold 100% of payments processed using PayPal here for 30days. This means that on the 31st day your payments will be released from the initial day of using PayPal Here. This is a rolling reserve so once the initial 30days have passed money will be released to you daily from your reserves.
You have 200GBP per week that will not be held in reserve anything over 200GBP taken in a week using the PayPal card reader will be held for 30days. So if you tool 700GBP in a week you would have immediate access to 200GBP then 30days later the other 500GBP would be released to you.
I apologise if you were given incorrect information previously as we have only just had this confirmed by the PayPal Here development team.
And then the last one:
These reserves were in place dependant on the characteristics of your Business account. Reserves are common industry practice used to help ensure that you are able to meet the liabilities you may incur from a chargeback, claim or bank reversal, when no other funds are available.
Ordinarily, if you have a reserve on your account and receive a chargeback or dispute, we will deduct that amount from your available balance and not from your reserve balance. However, if a seller goes out of business or stops processing payments through PayPal, we will deduct any payment reversals that subsequently come in from the reserve.
I appreciate your understanding in regards to this, and I am glad that we have had this opportunity to assist you further.
I wrote back explaining it wasn’t the bloody reserve per se – but the fact that almost every penny I was likely to earn was going to go in it according to half of PayPal’s staff. However, according to the other half chip & pin was exempt. I returned the device on the strength of the final phone conversation last night which confirmed every penny went into reserve – no matter how it was taken. That was absolutely what I was told, and I even tried to argue the point.
And then I got that email above (the first quote) this morning! Well, it’s too bloody late, now. They clearly don’t know what they’re doing.
SEE THIS ARTICLE ON THE IZETTLE READER. I USE THIS DEVICE AND IT IS PERFECT FOR WHAT I DO. IT WAS PERFECT FROM THE FIRST TIME I USED IT – UNLIKE THE PAYPAL SYSTEM, WHICH NO ONE AT PAYPAL UNDERSTOOD.
Anyone who is interested in technology will be aware that Google Glass is a wearable computer that doesn’t make you look like a complete prat (unlike those street headphones which are popular at the moment). It comes close, but not quite. They cost around £1,000 and all the tech reviews are going to great lengths to prove that they aren’t a gimmick.
Since they were announced, it has been almost assumed (mainly in the American press) that people would wear them when driving cars – and that this would somehow be perfectly OK. Even the link above glibly talks of the GPS capabilities of the phone they tether to and navigation using Google Maps, without any reference to the fact that 99% of people who need that will be driving. Of course, you have to remember that America is also the place where they still can’t agree in all states that texting while you are driving is dangerous as a result of someone spelling a word wrong in the bill proposing a ban.
Where the Republicans of West Virginia tread lightly, the Brits may stomp heartily.
The U.K.’s Department for Transport has announced that it is not in favor of tolerating drivers who wear Google’s new glasses.
The Americans (in West Virginia) have tried to get a ban and failed. It is now up for “future” debate – which means it hasn’t a hope in hell of being banned if it isn’t obvious to those people that it should be banned right now. In the UK, though, we’re a little more enlightened and can happily proceed to a ban based on common sense instead of initiating a stupid “debate” on the subject:
A Department of Transport spokesman told the Telegraph: “It is important that drivers give their full attention to the road when they are behind the wheel and do not behave in a way that stops them from observing what is happening on the road.”
He added: “We are aware of the impending rollout of Google Glass and are in discussion with the police to ensure that individuals do not use this technology while driving.”
This is good news – you can read The Telegraph article here. It’s already bad enough the number of people texting whilst driving, wearing headphones in the car (and yes, they DO have to fart about with their iPod when they do this), and fixing their satnav right in the middle of their field of view. The last thing we need is a bunch of wet-nosed new drivers reading and tweeting by voice command with a pair of these wrapped round their heads.
That American article still comes across as slightly mocking of the British stance. It cites users who say it makes them “reach for the phone less” – so would playing the bongos, but that doesn’t mean you should do it when you’re driving. Google doesn’t think wearing them behind the wheel is dangerous (obviously, that would impact sales):
Indeed, at the time of West Virginia’s move, a company spokesman told me: “We actually believe there is tremendous potential (with Glass) to improve safety on our roads and reduce accidents. As always, feedback is welcome.”
This is total bollocks. They are incredibly dangerous and cannot possibly improve safety in any way if they are worn and used while driving. And it comes as another US story tells how a bus driver on his phone drove on to a pavement and killed an 8-month old baby.
60W and 100W equivalent LED bulbs to replace annoying low-power fluorescent bulbs (which take time to reach full brightness, amongst other things).
that: she was speeding. Breaking the Law by driving too fast.
I did a bit of scouting and found this blog entry (don’t be put off by the blog’s title – when it talks of “pert breasts” it is in the new-mummy-and-daddy sense, and apart from such dubious (and nauseating, when you have other peoples kids stuffed in your face – I say this in jest, and mean no harm to the blog in question) content, the article in question is quite interesting. It deals with the same firm, and the author’s own trials with them. Apparently, the money takes months to arrive – if it comes at all.
leviathan style – to start thinking about planning to maybe eventually move up to something else… perhaps. And when they realise the overall cost, someone will have the brilliant idea of going for Lotus Suite (again) instead of Office, because IBM is desperately trying to offload it for peanuts to increase poor sales, and the company I used to work for has such a tight arse, even buying ONE Office licence would have them calling crisis meeting after crisis meeting to “address the issue”.
about £200 to buy), and then there would be transaction fees on top of that, plus any set up fees for the merchant account itself. Plus, they were about the size of a toaster.